Happy New Year!

You probably won't be reading this until tomorrow so both Chris and I would like to wish you a very Happy New Year and a prosperous and safe 2019.
I expect things will be pretty quiet around the LTVA here tonight but from what I have heard, there may be a bit of revelry happening in town later on. I am not sure how late we will hang in but I will be surprised if we make it to midnight.
As I mentioned in my last entry it has been unseasonably cold here the last few days. Today, despite a beautiful sunrise, was cloudy all day and the temperature barely made it into the double digits. In fact the forecast for the next few days are even colder yet with 'hard freeze' watches for most of this area. Overnight lows could go down as low as -4C or so for the next couple of nights with daytime highs up to 10. It doesn't look like things will really start warming up until the weekend. Our trailer is fairly well winterized so I am not worried about anything freezing but we are going through propane quite a bit faster.
I hear winter has arrived back home with cold and snow so I guess I probably shouldn't complain.

A couple of shots of this mornings sunrise. This was about the last we saw of the sun today.

For a while now, I have been looking for an alternate way to carry potable water in the truck. While we do carry 80 gallons of fresh water in the trailer, when we park for an extended period, we need to occasionally refill that tank. Rather than move the trailer to go fill with water, we have been hauling around 2 15 gallon barrels that we use to bring water to the trailer. This works OK, but those barrels do take up a fair bit of room in the truck. I have looked at several types of bladder tanks such as this one, which, when empty, can be rolled up and stored in a space about 1 cu ft. The problem is that they also us a fair bit of space in the back of the truck when full and our hitch would be in the way. Last year when we were at Imperial Dam, I was talking with a fellow who had a 40 gallon round one that is contained inside another tough container. We couldn't find a source for the manufacturer last year and their web site left a lot to be desired but I did find them this trip. Turns out he is right here in Quartzsite for the winter. We stopped off to take a look and had a chat with the guy. It looks like the original owner of the company passed away recently and his wife has another fellow (the guy in Quartzsite) selling what stock they have left. Anyway, we wound up buying one of their 60 gallon tanks for a decent price. It comes with a pump and a special fitting to attach the hose to the bladder. Right off the bat, I was having an issue with securing the fitting to the bladder as it seemed the fitting was not the right size. The rep wasn't much help so I had to come up with an alternate method to secure it. I think my method, while not quite as aesthetic as theirs is more secure. Other than this, the bladder looks to be very well constructed and the outer enclosure very tough as well. Time will tell I suppose.