Serene Wandering

We were glad to have mom and dad join us for the week and go to three Mariner Spring Training Games.  Their record was 1-1-1.   The  Mariners won over the Oakland A’s, lost to the LA Dodgers and  tied the Chicago White Sox.  (Sox tied it in the bottom of the 9th and the game just ended…?)

There were quite a few scouts in the stands!

Two of the days were quite warm (90+) and we worried about Elko left back in the trailer. He had  both air conditioners going,  two 12 volt fans as back up, and we had confirmed that the park power was very stable – but it was still a relief to get back and see that he was fine.  Randy is researching monitoring systems so that we can be alerted if temperatures rise in the trailer while we are gone.

The heat did have an effect on our refrigerator.  It was not cooling well so I took out  fruits and  veggies to allow for better air flow and Randy and my dad worked on adjusting external fans.   All was well after modifications.  While they worked, mom and I enjoyed a canoe ride on Lake Pleasant.

Lake Pleasant Regional Park is about 20 miles north of Phoenix and has a nice desert landscape with the bonus of a dam inspired lake.  Our campsite was right on the lake and Elko enjoyed getting his legs and tummy wet several times each day.

Yet, it will not go down as one of our favorite parks.  There are swarms of some kind of gnat like insect every morning and evening.  It was impossible to keep them out of the trailer.  It became a nightly ritual to attract them to one or two lights and then vacuum them up.

Also the clientele was a little rougher than the snowbirds we have become use to.  Those playing loud music into the night and gun shooting campers aren’t our preferred mates.  We did, however,  meet a few nice people, including neighbors on one side who had come to AZ for Texas Rangers Spring Training and  the neighbors on the other side spending their very first night in their new motorhome.  They needed some help and Randy was glad to comply.

On our last afternoon we were treated to an air show!  We couldn’t figure out whether it was part of an actual show, or just practice, but it was still fun to watch the formations and the pretend dog fights.

We have spent the last week at the Escapees Escapade in Tucson. Although, we enjoyed our experience at the Good Sam Rally a couple weeks ago, we prefer this one in so many ways.

Escapees is an RV Club that supports the RV lifestyle. In addition to the national Escapade, it has a mail service, monthly magazine, and RV parks. The club monitors and impacts legislation effecting full time RVers and sponsors CARE, an RV community where people needing assistance can live in their RV while recovering, or aging.

We were able to meet one of the founders, Kay Peterson, now 88.

The week started with Boot Camp, which is RV101 and so much more. Even though we have owned an RV for 11 years, we still learned a lot. There were 3 days of classroom instruction and demonstrations. One day I assisted Mac the Fire Guy with a demonstration – although it was a set up because my fire extinguisher didn’t work.

We have already made several modifications based on things we learned in the classes.  We also learned about  the importance of weight and distribution on the axles. We had our truck and trailer “Smart Weighed” and found that we are in good shape regarding axles and right up at the limit for both truck weight and truck pulling weight.  We’ll be shedding a few more things just to be safe.

We learned that there are 1.5 million people out here living full time in their RVs including quite a few solo women. They were well represented here at the Boot Camp and Escapade.

Escapees is trying to branch out and give support to a growing population of younger full timers who are working and supporting themselves on the road.  Escapees is calling them Xcapers.   We met Cheri and Chris, one of the couples  leading that effort. Randy has utilized information from their mobile internet business, Technomadia, so he enjoyed meeting them.

Once the regular Escapade began, the place really filled up, and we had seminars, entertainment and activities – including daily line dancing 🙂 There was a vendor tent and an area to get information about some of the varied regional and interest groups under the Escapees umbrella.

Escapees are also friendly and social.  We enjoyed making new friends and having happy hours and meals with others.  We spent time with  couples from Oregon, New York, Pennsylvania (not pictured) and a solo from Atlanta. We also had two dogs in our group, Bear and Elko.

Elko enjoyed being able to go to Happy Hour!

Even Elko was more social this week!  He doesn’t usually care about going into dog parks and hanging out with the other dogs.  For some reason he loved this dog park and led us there whether it was our intention to take him or not.

We are tentatively planning to go to the 2016 Escapade in Vermont.  We see the next Escapade as a good prompt to go east and explore another part of the country.

Today we headed north of Phoenix to Lake Pleasant Regional Park.  We have a desert and lake view!  My parents are on their way to Arizona to meet us and take in a few Mariner’s Spring Training games.  More on that next time!

We recently stayed at Voyager RV Park, voted several times as the best in the nation for mega parks  – think huge!  There are multiple levels of camping and living accommodations, a hotel, a country club/golf course,  a full restaurant and bar and a Wednesday night concert series.  There are studios for wood working, stained glass, and ceramics  and services for dog grooming, massage and hairstyling.  There are classes for everything in the world including the two that most interested me, ukulele and line dancing.  And, this is a very incomplete list.  The place was amazing – and we did exactly none of it!!

Although we would like to return to Voyager and experience some of what they had to offer, we chose to spend our time with family.

We were able to spend an entire day with Rosa, Randy’s dad’s wife in his later years.  We have been happy to stay in contact with Rosa since Carl’s death in 2010, and were looking forward to getting together with her.  We were so glad our brief stay, corresponded with one of her days off!

We went on an in-depth tour of the main station of the Tucson Police Department.  Our nephew, Tim, is a veteran patrol, under-cover and detective police officer.  He works nights so we were able to see a lot.  It was a really interesting tour, made more special that our guide was our “little Tim.”

We were also able to spend a nice evening with Randy’s brother Mike and our sister-in-law, Sylvia.   We went to Pinnacle Peak Steak House, an event restaurant that Randy’s family has frequented since the mid 1970’s.  

We are so glad it worked out that we were able to spend time with our Tucson family!

We also saw a couple area attractions, including Saguaro National Park.

We have seen a LOT of saguaro cactus over the last month, but this one was the biggest mess we’ve seen!

We also saw some saguaro skeletons.

And of course, just some pretty desert landscapes.

We also visited the Titan II Missile Museum.

There were 54  Titan II Missiles designed as retaliatory, or deterrent weapons during the Cold War.  There were 18 each near Little Rock Arkansas, Wichita Kansas and Tucson Arizona.  All sites were eventually dismantled except this one near Tucson.  This one was left as a museum and is operated by volunteers, some of whom were stationed here as missile crew while they were in the Air Force.

Of course, this warhead has been removed, but while active this 9 megaton missile could have been deployed in 58 seconds, travel 6000 miles at 16,000 mph, in 30-35 minutes, and destroy 900 square miles.  There was no recall or self destruct mechanism.

The one hour tour was quite interesting, especially the control room where the launch sequence would be executed.

Some things we learned were that military operations always operate on Greenwich Mean Time so there is no confusion with time zones.

Also, those who would launch the missiles would be told Target 1, 2 or 3.  They did not, and by report still don’t, know the specific targets.

For you engineer types, there is a 5 hour tour where you actually get to visit each level of the missile silo.   You may also enjoy these more detailed placards – everyone else is excused until the next post!

We are at the Good Sam Rally (sponsored by Camping World) being held at Phoenix International Raceway. One of the activities was to try and break the world record (currently 1087 couples) for people getting “re-hitched.”  The counting and cross checking marriage license copies has not yet been completed so we don’t know, yet, if we are world record holders.

They had prizes for the best costumes (Elizabethan), newest married (6 days) and longest married (65 years!). There were several couples that had been married 60+ years! We are young’uns in this crowd at 55 and 56 and 34 years married!

Another activity here is Match-N-Win. In our registration packets we were assigned a 4 digit number. Four people in the rally (about 6000 people) have the same number. I connected with one of my other three people in the first 15 minutes – and then never found another.

People go all out to try to connect with one of their match people and that part has been pretty amusing. If you match up, you get a T-Shirt and then are entered for the grand prize drawings. There were about 2000 of us in the winners tent and they gave out over $20,000 worth of prizes – but not to me.

My “prize” of the trip was our new Splendide Washer Dryer combo. Randy had it set up to be installed the day we came onto the grounds.

Randy is smiling while the technician drills a hole in our trailer, but I’m not sure he really felt like smiling. Maybe he was just glad he wasn’t doing it. We haven’t been able to try it out since we don’t have water or sewer hookups here at the race track. They have brought in some monster generators to supply power and that has worked well.

Other activities at the rally include the vendor tent and viewing lots of trailers and motor homes for sale. If you were interested in buying you got to test drive around the track – with restrictions.

Although we didn’t spend a lot of time looking, we are glad to say we didn’t find a fifth wheel we liked better than the one we own.  Regarding motorhomes, I told Randy I liked the one for $279,000 much better than the one for $449,000 – on sale!  Many motorhomes are really over the top!

Most activities were held in the infield pit area but we did get  to walk three times around the NASCAR track itself while completing the 5K “Steps for Vets” fundraiser.

Other than getting up at 5:30 on Sunday morning, it was a blast. We walked with Cliff (a full-timer from New York that we met at our last campground and reconnected with here) and a couple from the Mississippi Gulf Coast. They lost 2 houses in Katrina which was an interesting conversation and then we found out he worked for the division of NASA that investigates accidents. We talked about the Columbia and Challenger accidents, something we still remember well.

After the 5K, Randy went to a seminar on Facebook and I went to a church service in one of the big tents. The pastor spoke on The Good Samaritan parable, as that is the backbone philosophy of the Good Sam Club – travelers helping others. During the singing I heard a beautiful descant and wonderful harmonies behind me. When I complimented the singer after the service, I found that they are also from Boise.  What a coincidence!

The grounds near the race track are huge! There are about 2800 RVs here this weekend and we barely make a dent in the stands or the parking areas.  Randy and I were guessing that the rigs here are 85% motorhomes, representing hundreds of millions of dollars. The NASCAR race in Phoenix is in 2 weeks and people are already starting to show up in the outer parking areas. There is even a huge Safeway Tent that revs up as a regular grocery store during the race weeks.

There has been entertainment. One night we enjoyed a Beatles tribute band and they were quite good. The Beatles were really most popular the decade before Randy and I got big into music, but of course, over the years, most Beatles’ songs have become familiar. The grandstands were rocking with the 60 – 80’s set really enjoying the music. It was fun to see all the cell phones waving with the music instead of the lighters. Cliff, mentioned above, had a great APP from Zippo on his phone and quite a few people downloaded it right away to be a little more authentic.

Another night the entertainment was a Neil Diamond based act – thinking of you Cindy Berg!

There have also been seminars – some very good and some just okay. One of our favorites was by a Rand McNally developer about GPS devices. If you have been reading for a while, you know that our GPS devices have sent us astray numerous times and have been quite aggravating. I was hoping to learn a few things to help (I did)  but it was really the history of GPS navigation that was the most interesting to me:

In 1985, a device (costing $2500 at Macy’s) would track your location, in San Francisco only, on a black screen with green lights
1990 – The first in-vehicle system was installed.
1997 – Datus system was developed, Cost was $2500 and $199 per city card.
2000 – GPS became more available for non-military uses.
2003 – Magellan Roadmate sold for $1300, the first full US navigation system.
2004 – Four companies were involved with mapping and GPS devices.
2007 – 247 companies were involved with mapping and GPS devices.
2014 – Back down to the core companies.

The  suggestion I will try to incorporate is to use “points of interest” already defined in the system whenever possible. Those have latitudes and longitudes already specified. If you enter an address (which is what we did most of the time) the location is extrapolated and accuracy is reduced for a variety of reasons.

Hopefully we won’t be led astray this afternoon. We are headed to one of Randy’s favorite places – Tucson!  We are looking forward to seeing some family and enjoying familiar places.

We have been staying at a 55+ snowbird park in Casa Grande, Arizona – Foothills West.  We first heard about this park from Darrell and Dona, camp hosts at Lake Cascade, an Idaho state park.   They told us we should come visit this park when we came south and they were right.  We have had a fun week meeting lots of people – most are here escaping Minnesota and Wisconsin winters – who come back year after year.  Darrell and Dona split their time between Cascade and Casa Grande.

Snowbirds seem to have a great time!  We could see that my cousin, Audrey, really enjoys her time at a snowbird park in Yuma.    Her park is much larger and has tons of activities.  This one is much smaller, about 180 sites, and has some activities, but it seems like the relationships are primary.   And, kindly, they have also been welcoming to us – and we are noticeable – as there are only 4 “transient” sites in the park.

One of the people we met, Ron,  invited us to go to Cowboy Church.  We almost always enjoy going to church, but this was a uniquely outstanding experience.  The band had two guitars, a bass guitar, a fiddle, a keyboard, drums and an accordion.  When they started singing “Ghost Riders in the Sky” we thought it was interesting, but that was just to make sure the melody was familiar.  Soon we were singing Amazing Grace to the tune of Ghost Riders In the Sky.

The pastor had a very good message that he delivered from behind this unique pulpit!

We also saw the Cowboy interpretation of the 10 commandments!

We visited the signature landmark in the area, The Casa Grande Ruins.

This site was discovered in 1694 by Spanish missionaries who named it Casa Grande, the Great House.   It was four stories tall and 60 feet long.

Openings corresponded with the summer solstice and other moon positions.  Wooden supports for the ceilings and floors came from 60 miles away.

Centuries of weather and neglect have taken a toll on the Great House. In 1892 it became our country’s first archeological reserve. The current roof has been in place since 1932. Additional steps are also being taken to preserve as much of the remaining building as possible.

A resident owl keeps watch!

The ancient peoples in this area (1100-1450) established hundreds of miles of irrigation ditches from the Gila and Salt Rivers and were able to live here year round. They had secure enough lives that they were able to spend time and effort beyond subsistence. They made pottery and jewelry for trading.  They also had a ball court (scooped oval area) similar to those used by the Aztecs.

We also visited the Caywood Cotton Farm, again entering a world we knew nothing about!   Prices have been down for cotton in recent years, (they blame a glut of Chinese cotton) and with reduced water due to the drought, it is definitely a balancing act to decide what to grow.   This small family farm is staying afloat by growing more alfalfa and less cotton (and dad is also a fireman).

We learned some interesting things about growing cotton.   It is state law that they use genetically enhanced seed to reduce the risk of insect infestation.   We have been in so many areas that are resisting GMOs that this was interesting to us.  They are also required to turn under their plants after harvest, again to reduce the risk of infestation.

Inside the cotton boll, the fibers grow and eventually split open and the cotton bursts out.

This immature boll was broken open to show the developing cotton.

There are two types of cotton grown in Arizona, upland and pima.   Pima is generally stronger, but most grow upland.  It was unclear why the area has moved more toward growing upland cotton.  They require separate gins, which seem to be run as cooperatives.

The term “fair to middling” has its roots in growing cotton.   Fair cotton is the best quality, middling is good, and low is ordinary.   How interesting that the term “fair to middling” generally means “not good, not bad”  when that isn’t what the cotton equivalent means at all.

Once processed, a bale of cotton weighs about 480 pounds.  A typical bale will make 325 pairs of jeans or 3000 diapers.

Beyond the cotton itself, the seed is also important.  It produces an oil that was the primary oil used for cooking until the 1940s.  Crisco (crystallized cottonseed oil) was one of the first products made using cotton seed oil.

The current uses for cotton seeds are very broad.   Just to name a very few…  kernels are used for fertilizer, feed, refined oils, soaps, cosmetics and insecticides.  The hulls are used in bran, rubbers and plastics.  The linters are used in food casings, dynamite, rocket propellant and currency.

Again, a world we knew nothing about!  We are delighted to be able to learn something new almost every day.

This may be the first time I’ve written a second blog post from the same campground – but two weeks is the longest we’ve stayed anywhere in the trailer (other than Boise).  We are still in northern Arizona and have spent some time on the landmark road, Route 66.

We enjoyed trying to make our way around Northern Arizona University. It has changed so much since we were a lumberjack and lumberjill from 1977 – 1981. We were able to find our old classroom buildings and our old dorms, but our first apartment in married housing didn’t look familiar. They have either remodeled or re-numbered the building since we lived there.

We visited the Riordan Mansion State Historical Park which surprised us by being right off campus.  We never knew it was there! When we were students at NAU some family members still lived there and it was not yet a historical park.

Two Riordan brothers married sisters and were part of the Flagstaff upper crust.  The families lived in a mansion that was two mirror image houses connected by an entertainment cabin in the middle.  It was designed by the same architect that designed the El Tovar Lodge on the south rim of the Grand Canyon.

We enjoyed spending time with college friends Connie and Nick.  Connie and I were dorm resident advisors together.  They are two of the few people from NAU that we are still in contact with 34 years later.

We enjoyed lunch at a Route 66 landmark restaurant, Miz Zip’s.  Arizona Highways magazine said it was famous for pies, and the pie was certainly good, but it was the bleu cheese dressing that was outstanding! They make it in-house and the owner shared the ingredients she uses – I just have to figure out how to modify it down as I don’t need a gallon at a time.

The Blazin’ M Ranch in Cottonwood was a great place for a cowboy show and dinner.

Yes, it is touristy, and cheesy – but also a real good time!

Another day we explored the Tuzigoot National Monument.  This is yet another site of dwellings occupied between 1100 and 1300. These ruins were unearthed in 1934 and are very exposed on the top of a hill. Unlike other ruins in the area, the park service is very actively trying to fortify the walls to maintain them.

We traveled a short distance to Jerome, Arizona. It is an old mining town, with a colorful past, that once boasted 15,000 people.  It is now an occupied “ghost town” with hotels, bed and breakfasts, restaurants etc.  Notice the J for Jerome on the mountain above and then on the picture below to orient yourself.

This 3D exhibit shows the town above ground and the very extensive mining underneath. The town was actually sliding down the mountain  bit by bit due to blasting.  Extensive mining stopped in 1954 and the town has been more stable since. I hope it isn’t on a fault line for earthquakes.  It seems like the mountain  would collapse like a house of cards.

There was so much copper pulled out of this area that, for 2 years, Arizona actually issued copper license plates.

While in Jerome we ate lunch in the building that held the oldest restaurant in Arizona – established in 1898.  The English Kitchen operated continuously from 1898 to 2007.  It also had an opium den in the basement, but no worries – the last remnants of the opium den were removed in the 1980s!  In 2011,  a BBQ restaurant moved into the historic space.

In Camp Verde, we went to Fort Verde Historical Park. It was built to protect area settlers during the Indian Wars. On the day we were there,  groups were doing reenactments. A physicians “assistant” showed us period medical tools and told us that during the civil war 87% of injured soldiers died from their wounds. In World War II that number was reduced to 4%. During Vietnam, 1% of injured soldiers died from their wounds.  Quite an improvement!

There were also Buffalo Soldier re-enactors. The name Buffalo Soldiers was coined by the Indians who saw men with dark skin and curly hair that fought as fiercely as a wounded buffalo. The Buffalo Soldiers were generally former slaves, who fought for the north, and remained in the army. By all accounts, the Buffalo Soldiers performed very well.   They surveyed and built a lot of the roads during western expansion. Buffalo soldiers also had responsibility for trying to guard and protect the early national parks. That was a difficult task because those who always had access to the lands objected to negro soldiers telling them they couldn’t hunt and graze on the lands as before.  That was years before the park service was established.

Other quick hits from our stay –

For the first time on the road, I ordered a Bountiful Baskets share. I did this frequently in Boise but had gotten out of the habit. I find that produce in these small towns is often very limited, marginal quality, and expensive so I was delighted with a produce haul.

Also for the first time, we ran into a couple at this park that we had camped next to in a previous campground.  Remember the “creepy place”?   They were the best thing about that campground!  People say that happens all the time in this lifestyle, but this was our first, very cool, experience.

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Randy had another engineering project – adding a component to our new truck radio so that the steering wheel controls would work again. I came out, took the picture, and went back in – too many wires and possibilities for it to never work again.  When he put it back together, the controls and the radio worked!

We sold the troublesome washer/dryer combo that just didn’t dry well enough anymore to keep me happy. We gave full disclosure about its shortcomings to the buyers but they thought it would be better than not having one at all. We have an appointment next week to get the Italian vented model installed and good riddance to the ventless one made in China.

We are experiencing another mail snafu – aargh! The mail was suppose to be sent on Saturday so we would get it on Tuesday or Wednesday – before we would leave on  Thursday.  When it didn’t come on Tuesday we called and they hadn’t sent it until that day.   Supposedly it should be here Thursday morning – the day we are scheduled to leave.   The UPS Store probably does a very good job at what its primary business is, but isn’t doing a good job at mail forwarding!  We’ll be looking for alternatives.

Next stop – Casa Grande – hopefully tomorrow…

Update:  No mail so  staying another night….Randy had a heart to heart with the UPS store manager.   Hopefully things will improve.

We rode the Verde Canyon Railroad today and their motto is, “It’s the Journey, Not the Destination.” A leisurely train ride is certainly convincing.  We enjoyed being able to be in our rail car or outside as we preferred.

The tracks followed the Verde River – going through barren lands and a red rock canyon.

An interesting site was mistletoe (think Christmas) growing in otherwise dormant trees. Mistletoe is a parasite – I may never think of it quite the same way again.

We heard narration about our journey interspersed with all the songs ever written that have anything to do with trains.  We heard  “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” to “Midnight Train to Georgia” to “Love Train” and everything in between. It was quite enjoyable.

On the Destination side of the equation, we went to one of the best – the Grand Canyon!

Even though we’ve seen it several times before,  it is always impressive.  Our first outing in 1977, before we were a couple, was to the Grand Canyon.

We also explored the areas around Montezuma’s Castle and Montezuma’s Well.  The naming of these monuments seems unfortunate as the ancient peoples, the Sinagua,  were here and gone (700 – 1400 AD) long before the Spanish came.   Early settlers thought the dwellings had Aztec origins, but that is not so. This  “castle” was a five story dwelling with 20 rooms and was occupied between 1100 and 1300 AD.

The “well” is an oasis and is formed by continuously flowing springs.  It does not have any fish, but this little pond does have five species that are found no where else in the world. These include a tiny shrimp, a snail, a water scorpion, a leech and a one cell plant called a diatom. Leeches are the primary predators in the water.

More dwellings and remnants of  limestone irrigation ditches are viewable in the well area.

We don’t have an answer to journey or destination – we are blessed to be enjoying both!

We love our current location,  Usery Mountain Regional Park, just east of Mesa, Arizona.  We loved it from the moment we drove in the park entrance.  The question is, will we be back for more than just a casual visit?  We have thought a lot about the pros and the cons…

The pros –

1. Randy’s brother Tim and our sister-in-law Yvette live about a half hour away in Chandler.  We have been able to see them a couple of times this week including when they came out to our camp with our nephew, Sean and his significant others Lisa and Leilani.

2. The desert is beautiful.  It has rained quite a bit recently so we are seeing it at its best – wildflowers may be blooming soon!   The sunsets are great.

3.  There is so much to learn about the desert.  Randy grew up in Tucson so he knew quite a bit already but I know very little about the desert.  I  have enjoyed the nature trails and host talks and have loved learning about desert plants and animals.

For example:  Palo verde trees have little tiny leaves so as not to give off precious moisture, thus the branches are green to continue photosynthesis.

Saguaros weigh 150-200 pounds per foot and have a wooden skeleton.  When an entry point is made in a cactus, the gila woodpecker carves out a hole.  The cactus forms a hard internal scab which becomes a nest for any variety of birds.

Generally, the arms don’t seem to grow other arms but it occasionally happens. If the arms turn down,  it is because there is cell damage because of an extended frost.

The cactus on the left is a saguaro, the one on the back right is a Verizon cell tower :).

4.  There are miles of “wash” trails that we have enjoyed wandering.

There are also 30 miles of established trails.  We hiked the 1.5 miles (mostly up)  to Wind Cave.  It is in the dark area, on the right side of the yellow band of rock, on Pass Mountain.

The “cave” itself probably wasn’t worth the trip….

but,  the bee hive attached to the top wall was quite interesting.

Randy went up another half mile but I was content to wait.  The 1.5 miles going down from Wind Cave was so much nicer!

Descending, we had a good view of the Phoenix sign.  It was made during the 1950s to direct airplanes – before radar.  If it were standing on end, it is the size of the empire state building.

5.  The camp hosts here seem to return year after year and the park  has a great sense of community – something we have found we miss in this lifestyle.  We have enjoyed spending time with camp hosts Georgia and Randy, full timers from Iowa.

6.  Usery Mountain Regional Park seems to be perfectly located.  It is 3-4 miles out in the desert, but Mesa is close and everything is available.  Of course, Phoenix is just beyond that so more than everything is available.

The cons:

1.  Packrats!  We noticed, on our first evening walk, that many people had rope lights around the base of their trailers and either rope lights or trouble lights in their vehicle engine compartments.  The next morning Randy talked with two neighbors who had packrat damage in their truck engines – so off he went to Home Depot!  $150 later, we had packrat lights.   If you know Randy well, you know he hated putting up Christmas lights.  Now we have ground lights for our trailer – supposedly they work for deterring mice as well.  Six nights into our seven night stay – no damage…

This is a packrat nest.  Several are visible in our walk range.  The packrats pile pieces of cholo cactus on their nest for protection.  If you see cholo in your engine – that is bad!  Although packrats are disgusting, they really aren’t that much of a deterrent to returning.

2.  Our real concern is commitment, or rather over-commitment.  We are already scheduled for other park hosting situations this summer (that we are excited about) and don’t want to plan ourselves so far out that we lose all flexibility.  Plus, most of the hosts here stay a full 5-6 months and we aren’t ready to commit to that length of stay.

So, will we be back?   We don’t know yet.  We met with the park manager today so that he had faces to go with our possible application.  His needs and our willingness may or may not ever match, but it is something we’ll think about.

Some other Usery Mountain highlights…

Randy got to learn how to fix our ice-maker that stopped working abruptly!  It seems as though there is always something for him to fix so his engineering skills won’t get too rusty.

My mom noticed that Elko hasn’t gotten much press lately so here he is being his adorable self – showing off how smart he is to use a rock to prop up his fetch toy, to turn it into a chew toy.

We found a hummingbird feeder that we can attach to our window – just one more example of the multitude of life in the desert!

This isn’t an Arizona weather report.  This is a shout out for the US Postal Service.  Rain or shine, snow or sleet, we deliver your mail!   When you go out to pick up your reliably delivered mail today, be sure to appreciate that service! (Full disclosure – our daughter, Natasha, is a postal carrier, but that isn’t why we are cheering the USPS.)

Before leaving Boise, we obtained a mail box at a local UPS store and began transferring our mailing address to that box.  When we are in a place that will accept camper mail, we call the UPS store and ask them to forward our mail.   The process has worked very well – until a couple weeks ago.

Two stops ago, we requested our mail.  It came and we opened the large envelope with great anticipation – that happens when you only get mail every 2-3 weeks.   We were very disappointed when every piece of mail belonged to another box holder.  We called the UPS store to report the mistake and they assumed they had been doing two at a time and our mail had mistakenly gone to someone who was having mail forwarded to Yuma.   They called the other people involved, and we waited, and waited and waited…    Eventually they heard from the other people that they had not received any mail.  Our UPS store then decided that our mail had stayed in our box in Boise all along.   We were skeptical, but returned the mail that didn’t belong to us and asked that our mail be sent to Ehrenburg, AZ.

Monday, there was no mail.  The same on Tuesday and Wednesday.  On Thursday, still no mail, which was a problem since we were preparing to leave on Friday morning.  We called the UPS store and asked them to do a trace.  The manager read the letter over the phone confirming that mail was delivered to Randy and Serene Williams on Monday.

Sure enough our mail, disguised as mail for the Williams, had been in the camper box designated “last name beginning with W” since Monday.  To be fair, or charitable, I have been renamed Serena Williams before.  Certainly not because of appearance or athletic ability, but several times over the years, Serene Matthews has become Serena Williams.    We did enjoy our mail, when we finally got it.  (Yes, that is an orange tree out the window – we enjoyed those too!)

The other enjoyable event on this stop was a drive down to Yuma to see cousin Audrey.

Audrey spends six months a year at an RV community in Yuma and has a great time.  Her park has many activities, a golf course, a restaurant and is very appealing.   Audrey drives around in her golf cart and has many friends there.  We think we might come and hang out for a month if we are in the southwest next winter.

Going to  Yuma, we drove by the entrance to Yuma Proving Ground.  This is a military facility where my father was stationed beginning in the summer of 1977.  (From there, I attended Northern Arizona University, met Randy etc. etc.)   When living there we would occasionally see a few wild horses in the desert and I told Randy about them on the drive south.  On the way north,  we were fortunate to see a small group near the road.

We also went to Quartzite, Arizona – a little town that is infamous in the RV community.  Hundreds of thousands of RVs and RVers amass on Quartzite each January for a loose gathering.  We came into the area after the event was officially concluded but still saw thousands of RVs parked out in the desert.   It is one of those things that people say you should do at least once.  Randy thinks so, but I’m not so sure.  He may be out of luck since I do most of the planning!

While in Quartzite we went to the one (and only) attraction listed on Trip Advisor.  It is a memorial to Hi Jolly  and the military’s experiment with a camel corps in Arizona during the mid 1800s.

There was one particular camel named the Red Ghost.  As soon as I read the board, I recalled a podcast that I had listened to about the Red Ghost and had to call Natasha right away.   We both listen to the podcast What You Missed in History Class, and she too remembered the Red Ghost episode.  Randy and I listened to the podcast again on our drive back to the trailer.   If you would like to access the story of the Red Ghost it can be found at:

http://www.missedinhistory.com/podcasts/the-red-ghost-of-arizona-and-the-u-s-camel-corps/

We plan to spend the next two months in Arizona.   It was nice to be able to add another sticker to our map!

Given that we will be close to Phoenix on Sunday, I suggested to Randy that we might want to get tickets for the Super Bowl – especially since the team I like, the Seahawks are playing a team he likes, the Patriots.  He agreed that we should look and see.  Tickets on the secondary market were $8500 a piece!  No Superbowl tickets  for us!    Go Seahawks!

One potato, two potato, three potato, four…five Montana, six Montana, seven Montana, more.

Here in our Palm Desert RV park, we have seen lots of  “Famous Potatoes”  license plates – the most we’ve seen in one place since… Idaho!  We have met people from Pocatello and Orofino and seen designations from familiar and unfamiliar counties.  This is where Idahoans come for the winter!

We have also seen more Montana Fifth Wheels than ever before.  We knew, when we bought ours, that Montana had been the highest selling Fifth Wheel for 11 years, and now we’ve seen them!  Dozens, just like us.

Randy spent quite a bit of time on a project for our Montana.  He was trying to get our sewer hoses out of the “basement” area and stored in this mounted vinyl fence post.  What should have been a fairly easy task, was complicated by compact space and limited tools.  It took some design engineering, 1 trip to Lowes and 3 trips to the hardware store, but mission accomplished!

We have enjoyed our stay here at the Palm Springs Resort, in Palm Desert.  The resort itself is set amongst date trees and citrus trees.     Most of the citrus trees were grapefruit, which we do not like, but Randy did pick some oranges.  Fruit is available and free for personal use.

Although our site was a little more open, sometimes it is quite a task to fit trailers into the spaces between the date palms.

We enjoyed playing pickle ball again.  The resort even held a training session for beginners.  Our teacher was quite the task master, but we learned quite a bit.  We also enjoyed the hot tub and wonderful weather.  Randy did not golf any of the famous courses in the area –  he is just not into golfing lately.

We visited Joshua Tree National Park.  Joshua Trees are a species of yucca and were named by Mormon pioneers.  The trees gave them a visual reminder of Joshua 8:18.  Then the Lord said to Joshua “Hold out toward Ai the javelin that is in your hand for into your hand I will deliver the city.”  The trees appeared to be standing, arms raised with pointed ends like a javelin.

The park is the transition zone between the Colorado (Sonoran) and Mohave Deserts, each with their own ecosystem.  In addition to the Joshua Trees, we enjoyed the Chollo Garden and Skull Rock.

The Salton Sea, formed by a flooding and runaway Colorado River in 1905-6 is in the background.  The river flooded into a desert basin about 275 feet below sea level (the Salton Sink) and the Salton Sea, a shallow lake 35 miles across, was created.

We also enjoyed the Palm Spring Arial Tramway, the largest rotating tram in the world.  One of three rotating trams, the others in Switzerland and South Africa, the car does two slow complete rotations on its  ascent and descent allowing you to see a 360 degree view.

It begins at 2643 feet in a desert environment and transitions to an artic/alpine zone at 8516 feet. We went from 80 degrees to 36 degrees in ten minutes.

At the top you are in San Jacinto State Park which has wilderness area, hiking, rock climbing and primitive camping.  We came dressed for cold weather but didn’t come with the appropriate shoes to hike on icey trails.  That was tricky!

As always, we only scratched the surface of all there is to do in the area, and in California as a whole.  We have very much enjoyed our travels in California, but now, it is on to Arizona!