Building Community

 Over the summer, I decided to try something new on my winter season in Quartzsite.

The ground here is a thin hard top layer covering a deep layer of sand. My wheels sink and I am stuck almost immediately upon leaving my van.

Even though I’ve come here for a few months each of the last two winters, I almost never left my van. 

I decided this year I wanted to be able to be outside.

It’s frequently windy, which means dusty here most of the time. I knew I wanted an indoor enclosed space so I started searching for tents. I finally decided on a Springbar Highline eight. Springbar tents are built for windy desert conditions. Last year I saw one survive 55 mile an hour winds with no problem. It was one of the few tents still standing after that storm. 

I also hope to have an outdoor space that was wide open. But the locals here dissuaded me from that. So I’m looking at other options. But that will be another post.

This post is about getting the tent set up.

There are three big challenges: getting across the desert sand to the door of the tent; having a ramp up to the entrance; and raising the interior floor, 5 inches because the tent floor wraps up that high.

Each of these is individually doable, but takes a lot of effort and help and it’s impossible for me to do by myself or even with one other person.

Previous years, I camped with small groups of women, usually in camps of 5 to 10 women. But those numbers were impossible for the kind of winter I want to have this year. So I decide to join the Original Meet in Q group where are there will be hundreds of people camping together.

Last year when I was looking for some help with my solar system, I found Ed Willis. He was also connected to the Q group. So during the summer I made a point to join their Facebook group and check it out.

All the folks that helped me with this project came from the Q group. Here’s what it took to get the tent up in Q.

Xxx
Tent Build Team: Ed (Project Manager), Skinny Mike, son Johnny, Dad Chris (builder), son Daren, & Kym (Master Carpenter)


1. Get a mailbox in town at a private mailing service so I could get the 60 pound tent delivered to someplace.

2. Ed goes to town and picks ups up the tent and brings it to my campsite.

3.  Ed & I have a long discussion about what I want built on my campsite this year and which options are the best.

4. Ed goes the most experienced DIY guys in the Q group, Chris & Kym, and asks them to volunteer.

5. The guys come to my campsite and spend a day planning out the project.

6.  Ed & Kym drive to Yuma, a 200 mile round-trip, to get materials while Chris and his son Daren go into town after working at the campground office to get some local supplies.

7.  The Q group donates the wooden pallets needed for the job.

8. All the materials are brought to my campsite. Most of them are put next to my van. I feel like a mama bird nesting on my materials checks.


9. The Build team arrives at 9 AM for field day.

10. An artificial grass mat goes down first. Then a tarp on top of that. That gets staked down.



11. The tent goes up next.


12. Inside the tent, they first put down a tarp. Then a layer of hard rubber interlocking pads. On top of that they lay the pallets which have to be nailed together. Then a top layer of OSB plywood which resists deterioration in the harsh desert environment.



13. Then they built a wide landing pad outside the door of the tent.

14  Next we evaluated the access   


15. Attach a ramp.

16. Lay down OSB plywood around one side of the tent so I can get from my van into the tent. 



Popular posts from this blog

Sunset Joy

Image
 The life lesson of this week is “Hurry Up - uh no - Wait.” I really want to move into the tent but I need some adaptations. Specifically I need some grab rails around the bed. But one essential part got lost by UPS which meant Kym, the retired master carpenter who agreed to do this project for me, had to find a new day to finish the bed project. The nights are sometimes cold here. So having a working heater is essential. After getting all the parts and testing them out, we discovered holes in the hose and a cracked gasket handle - all were purchased new. So I thought instead of a build update, I would give you some of the joys of my nomad life. I am in the middle (east/west) of the La Paz Valley near Quartzsite, Arizona. The sun rises over the Plomosa Mountains and sets over the Dome Rock Mountains. The valley goes beyond my horizons north and south.  The sun travels across the 20 mile desert valley and often creates spectacular sunsets. These are how the sky changed during l...
Read more

Seeing Frida Kahlo Through Disabled Peoples Perspectives

Image
  Seeing Frida Kahlo Through Disabled Peoples Perspectives   By Corbett Joan OToole   Presentation at the DeYoung Museum, San Francisco, CA February 2020     LAND ACKNOWLEDGMENT     I want to acknowledge that we are gathered on the ancestral and unceded land of the Muwekma [Mah-wek-mah] Ohlone peoples. I ask you to join me in acknowledging these communities, their elders both past and present, as well as future generations. I say this to note that I am a settler on this land. I offer my gratitude to these elders who protected and preserved this land so that we may be here today.   I want to thank the de Young Museum particularly Karen Berniker and the Docent Council for inviting me to speak about Frida Kahlo from a disability-positive perspective.   DISABLED PEOPLE AND MUSEUMS   MUSEUM WEBSITES ON ACCESS   I will start where most disabled people start when consi...
Read more