Week Twelve February 23

Week Twelve - February 15

Sunday February 15^th, road trip day leaving Florence, AZ, heading to Yuma, AZ, actually Pilot Knob RV Park in Winterhaven, CA., right next door to Yuma. Uneventful trip until our lunch stop when we noticed a “bulge” in one of the 5^th wheel tires the size of a “softball”. Wow, glad it didn’t blow. Pulled to a vacant lot to change, a first on this rig in five years, so a learning curve. An hour later back on the road. Arrived at Pilot Knob around 4:30pm., late arrival so not getting the best spot desired.

Monday / Tuesday, did some local sight seeing. Checked out a brand new casino just opening. Had open WI-FI internet, so got caught up on e-mails. Did some hiking along the Colorado downtown Yuma. Back on the road looking for a place to kayak. Got directions from the Yuma park & rec. Directed us to Mittry Lake about 10 miles from here. Lots of waters converging in this area off the Colorado River. Paved road turned to a dirt road as approaching the lake. Lots of RV’s camping along the lake and rivers, mostly free or minimum fees. Need to be self contained in most cases, so lots of solar power or generator usage. Found a nice spot to drop kayaks and met some RV’ers staying there, so visited with them and gathered some info. Decided we would come back on Thurs. when a little warmer.

Continued up the lake dirt road to “Senators Wash” and Imperial Dam. More RV’ers parked all along the beautiful waterways. Stopped and talked to a lady out with her dog. Greeted to strike a conversation on how they survived out here, ie; water, electric, dumping, etc. She was delightful! Probably 80 yrs old. Been doing this for 15 yrs. Stays all winter, 5 mo’s. Good social gatherings, campfires, cook outs, etc. Goes to town for laundry, pulls to dumpsite for dumps and water. Pays a whopping $125 for the whole 5 months on a beautiful water / mountain view site. Was quite educational.

Continued on towards home driving through the US Army Proving / Testing Grounds. Stopped at a historical memorial site documenting use in the 1940’s under Gen’l Patton.

Displays of tanks, rocket launchers, etc. Site still used for testing and training.

Wednesday the 18^th, shopping day. Stopped at a couple of RV dealers for a look see.

Then a very nice lunch stop at MiMis. Sears / Wal-Mart, then back to RV. Thursday Bob did a six mile walk in the desert towards the sand dunes. Lots of dry campers along the way. Beautiful day. Friday the 20^th we took the kayaks to Mittry Lake. Launched and paddled for about an hour. Pretty windy, but lots of protection in the “reeds”, full of wild life. Some fishermen, but didn’t seem to be having any luck. On the way home, found diesel at $1.81/gal actually $.10 under gas, WOW that’s a first in five years.

Saturday / Sunday, preparing our departure from Pilot Knob. Underway Sunday to Indio, CA, Indian Waters RV Resort, our home park. Saturday did a flea market in Yuma, Az,. Huge, picked up a few things. Leaving Pilot Knob west on Hwy 8, observed the awesome sand dunes. Weekend RV’ers doing their thing. Arrived at Indian Waters around 12:30pm, got assigned a very nice RV site. Settled in meeting neighbors. Beautiful surrounding mountains covered with a fair amount of snow.

Monday 2/23 caught up with our mail, a months worth. Spent the day doing bills, etc. Relief that this is behind us.

End of week Twelve

Week Ten & Eleven 2/1 – 2/14

Stayed overnight with Dick & Pat Sunday night in Sun City West, then headed back to Casa Grande Monday morning. Phoenix traffic light, stopping at a Costco for shopping. Outside of Phoenix stopped at Beaudry RV, one of Arizona’s largest RV dealers. Looked like a “bone” yard. Like many RV mfg’s & dealers, either closed or under reorganization from the suffering economy. This one under Chapter 11.

Rest of the week held pretty close to the park, reading, walking, and biking. Fighting out a warranty issue with our failed TV. Also some credit card issues from Mexico, ie; “fraud”, Chase Visa handling well. Dined out at a very nice Mexican restaurant with Wisconsin RV friends Bill & Jody. Got e-mail from son Jeff. He will be in the Phoenix area on business 2/9-12^th, so making arrangements to connect. We have cancelled a week in Yuma and will head to Florence so we can get together. Looking forward to seeing him as it has been more than a year.

Saturday 2/7, went with Bill & Jody to the area fairgrounds for the annual “Gourd Festival”. You know, the plant that grows like a squash or pumpkin but in all kinds of funny and unusual shapes. Well, there are people out here that make a profession of carving, decorating, and showing for contest ribbons and sale. It was rather unusual to see all the various “creativities”, workshops, tools, etc.

Left the gourd fest and went to the Casa Grande Ruins a National Monument Park. Hohokam Indian culture dating from 400BC to the 1400 era. Incredible engineering for that period and a very difficult life style. They vanished from the area sometime in the 1400’s with only hypothesis of what happened. Back to the RV park and grilled steaks at Bill & Jody’s beautiful coach.

Sunday the 8^th, left Casa Grande Desert Shadows RV park heading for Florence, AZ Desert Gardens. Nice park, settled in by early afternoon. Cold front and rained moved in to the area. Went into town for a late lunch. Approaching Florence, a state and federal prison area containing some 13 prisons, noticed lots of police activity, spectators, closed streets, etc. Wondered what was going on. Learned we were in the midst of a “Hells Angel Prison Run Rally”, 26^th annual. WOW! Well, we were passed by about 30-40 bikes coming into town. Police present to control any problems. Apparently they do a bike run from prison to prison with entry fees used to support Hells Angels prisoners families. We stopped at a local bar / grille for a burger. Learned a little history from the bartender. Some bikers came in while we were there, talked to a couple. Seemed “civil” to us, just out for a ride from Casa Grande. One was the owner of the Galloping Goose Restaurant there. Not all were members of Hells Angels. New experience for us.

Monday the 9^th, drove to Mesa, AZ to meet son Jeff, here on business. Connected mid afternoon at his hotel after a long day of travel for him from Virginia. Visited in the lounge area, then went to dinner. Really nice to see him and get caught up on things. Back to Desert Gardens, 60 miles approx., in rain and wind. Got to gate realizing we did not have the code to get gate to open. Ouch! Bob scaled the fence to get code from RV, no sooner over, a car came up, so Shari approached for code, opened and in. Thanks!

Tuesday the 10^th, lots of rain, cold & wind last night. Rocked and rolled all night. Moved temps from mid seventies to now high fifties and low sixties. Stayed close to park hoping to here from Jeff. Wednesday the 11^th, took a road trip north towards Phoenix in case Jeff’s afternoon freed up. Heard from him early afternoon and he said he is tied up and has an early fight in the am, so thanked him for squeezing us in on Monday and great to see him. So we decided to continue road trip up the Apache Trail. Beautiful scenic area starting at Apache Junction first stop Canyon Lake. Very beautiful wished we could kayak, but was pretty cool . Continued trail to Tortilla Flats, historic trail stop. Live entertainment outside, three guys doing pretty much country western stuff. Fun stop! Shari bought their CD. With the recent rains, water flooding the road at Tortilla Flats. Thursday Bob down with a cold. Stayed close to home. Friday the 13^th, drove to Mesa and spent the day at the swap meet. Bought a couple of lawn recliner chairs found at a good price. Saturday, Valentines Day, drove to Tucson touring RV dealers looking at motor homes. Half the industry is in bankruptcy, so thought we would look see what’s out there. Well, there are some really good deals, but nothing set off alarms with us, and we keep coming back to our little winter home quite satisfied.

End of week Eleven

End Week Nine 2/1/09

Week Nine – 1/25/09

Sunday the 25^th, an uneventful drive to Casa Grande, AZ. Arrived around 1:00pm at the Western Horizon Park, Desert Shadows. Checked in with no problem, a whopping $2 per day with our membership. After settling in, looked up our fellow RV friends from Wisconsin, Bill & Jody Reese. Shared a pizza supper with Bill, as Jody was back in Wisconsin but on her way back here tomorrow. Monday the 26^th, caught up on a month of mail. PM did a self guided tour of the nearby area, finding the municipal golf course requiring a “5 day” tee time reservation, popular! Lots of leagues. Also some neat channels for kayaking around a very nice housing development. Tues / Wed, just getting acquainted with the RV park, hanging loose. Owner of Western Horizon Resorts here to give us an update of their business plan, not isolated from the economy clear. But he also was clear that we really have the “best of all worlds” in terms of resort amenities for the $ invested. We agree! It has been great to us. But times are changing, so who knows. Looks like the industry is changing to “lot ownership” as opposed to the travel and stay like we are in, so we will watch. Thursday the 29^th, an incredible day! A group of 21 from the park went to Sabino Canyon, a National Park just outside Tucson, for a six mile hike, pretty aggressive 3 miles up the canyon crossing the river bed “seven times” to our destination of a beautiful falls. Stopped for a sunshine filled lunch, lots of pictures, and then back down. Tired by the time we got back, leaving at 8:00am back to RV around 6:00pm. Maybe we are a little out of shape, but we are tired. We did enjoy! Pizza in.

Friday / Saturday the 31rst, called Dick and Pat Galloway (friends and associates from Galloway Company), in Sun City West regarding a possible visit. They were excited to hear from us, so arranged to visit them Saturday and Sunday and share the Super Bowl event with them. Saturday we drove to the Phoenix / Sun City West area, arriving at Dick & Pats around noon. They had arranged a golf tee time for 3:30PM, so after playing desert golf, it was really great to play a really nice course. Was fun, an executive course, but challenging and in great shape. Pat had “three pars” out of the nine holes. Neat! Saturday night, dinner out at great Rib place. Back to their place, a couple games of cribbage, girls against boys, tied.

Sunday the 1rst of February, Super Bowl Day! Went to church with Dick & Pat. Bob & Shari went for 1-1/2hr walk after church, kind of got lost. Community weaves into lots of cul-de-sacs, but finally found our way back. Cleaned and prepared some of our Mexico Shrimp for Super Bowl appetizer. They were good and Dick & Pat really enjoyed. Dick made burgers for half time super. We brought the “3D” glasses for the halftime show. Got a kick out of them, picture with all four of us glued to the set. Fun day between Super Bowl, tennis tournament, and golf tournament. Back to Casa Grande tomorrow.

End of week Nine