10/6/2023 Time For a Little More Utah Scenery

Our next goal was to head up to the area of The Goosenecks State Park in southern Utah. We found our new home site at said park for a mere $10 per night fee for boondocking only. The very tiny park only offers a few covered picnic table sites, some scattered garbage cans, and a couple of pit toilets. Other than that, there is a considerable amount of open space along a pretty rough dirt road to pick your poison from. The big plus is it is all along the bluff top looking down into the canyons of the meandering (in “gooseneck” formation – get it, “Gooseneck State Park”?!) San Juan River. The “park” tended to nearly empty out early each morning, but by dinnertime was increasing in population quickly. The scenery here was spectacular, as is usual in Utah.

We loaded up Woodrow Wilson and day tripped out of the park to check out Natural Bridges National Monument, about 45 miles away. Hwy. 261 took us up over the steep bluffs with only about a 3 mile gravel road section with hellacious switchback turns against sheer granite cliffs. No, Rosie will never make that trip, Jeep only… Natural Bridges Nat’l Monument has a small visitor center and then about a 9 mile one-way loop drive to access the 3 big natural bridges. Each had a parking area/trailhead with short (less than a mile) trails to their scenic overlooks and down to the bridges themselves. Horse Collar Ruin is the remains of an indian dwelling area of sorts and is also visible from the trailhead viewpoint. If one had no dog to have to deal with and was feeling a little frisky, there is an unimproved trail through the canyon floors to access all 3 bridges, at least 8 miles worth anyway. Unfortunately, we were limited to the short versions – Woody rules.

A quick trip (5 whole miles!) outside Goosenecks S.P. found us staring up at Mexican Hat Rock in the “town” of, you guessed it, Mexican Hat. There is actually a boondocking campground surrounding the rock, they want you to register/pay on-line, I haven’t a clue as to the fees they ask. 

Our grand finale for the area found Woody, Jeanne, and I on another day trip back into Arizona to Monument Valley and the Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park. The stretch of Hwy. 163 leading into the area was famous for a scene in the movie “Forest Gump” with Tom Hanks jogging down the middle of the deserted highway with some of the monuments in the background. Go ahead and try to recreate that one if you ever visit…there were all sorts of us tourist/sightseers parked along that stretch getting our own pix on the highway whilst dodging cars. The entire valley is vast and scenically rugged, but you can get a little more up close and personal if you pay the $8 per person fee to enter the Navajo Tribal Park. There is a hotel, visitor center, numerous offers of tour guides, and the 15 mile loop dirt/gravel nearly 4WD road that wanders through numerous “monuments” with cheeky names such as the Mitten Buttes, Elephant Butte, Camel Butte, Three Sisters, Merrick Butte, etc. It was pretty spectacular. I would say the area is a good pre-cursor to some of Utah’s other N.P.’s just a bit north of here. I’ll try my best not to screw up too many names on these pix.

That’s all for now, until next post…

9/29/2023 Southwest Shuffling

We were able to wrangle another appointment with a Cummins shop for Rosie’s yearly service, this time at the Odessa, TX shop. We buttoned up the casita and headed out on the road looking for, among other things, a little cooler temps. Our first stop was Odessa for said service. My buddy, Murphy, made his presence known once again. We got in bright and early at Cummins, hoping to be on the road to Lubbock after lunch. Those hopes got dashed quickly. Rosie’s service went swimmingly well. The generator’s service, not so. We had issues with the generator starting and immediately shutting down, I was thinking maybe a clogged fuel filter and the service should have resolved that. Oh, no, not according to Murphy. The culprit was a failed fuel pump on the generator but, hey, let not your heart be troubled, they had the part in stock. Yippee! But the tech found out to be able to access the fuel pump, the generator would have to be dropped from the chassis. It being the end of the day already, they were going to have to keep Rosie overnight and since she was partially dismantled, we would not be able to stay in her. #*&@%$!!! We loaded up Woody and headed out to look for a dog-friendly motel. We found a strip of motels nearby which I would later describe as “tweeker’s row”. We were overly maxed out tired/stressed from the long day and not real motivated to find a suitable motel, but on our third stop, we decided to stay at a Baymont/Wyndham motel. Reader’s Digest version, this was a dump like all the others, what I would classify as a “no-tell motel”. Our next door neighbor wasted no time stepping out on the balcony in front of our room and firing up his crank pipe. Cranksters racing in and out of the parking lot all night long made for a long night’s non-sleep. Like I mentioned before, #*&@%$!!!

We got out early next morning and returned to Cummins. We found they had stayed for a little OT last night and had already swapped out our generator fuel pump. The generator was pumping away and had been for several hours prior to our arrival. Service being completed, we were ecstatic to hit the road. I would not refer to Odessa, TX as any kind of vacation destination.

Lubbock Elk’s Lodge was next on our stop list. We got there just in time for a few days of forecast rain & thunderstorms (non-triple digit temps, hooray!). We took the opportunity to avail ourselves of the cornucopia of shopping options such as Costco, Sam’s Club, Cabela’s, etc., as well as Jeanne being able to get her hair done at a real hair salon. As a little bonus she also got in some range time at a local indoor shooting range to celebrate her successful trips around the sun. In between shopping trips and torrential thundering downpours we got to check out the Buddy Holly Center museum. It was a little disappointing that they did not allow photography inside the main exhibit hall, hence, like the Soup Nazi in a Seinfeld episode (sorta) said, “No (pix) for you!” But I got a few from the areas that they did allow photos.

One day we wandered into a local sports bar/taproom called Little Woodrow’s. It was a non-game day so there were few patrons. This is a pretty impressive sports bar, TV’s EVERYWHERE, including a monster screen out in the “play” yard (outdoor seating area with numerous areas of entertainment/bar games.) Little Woodrow’s has (50) beers on tap (well, a few were ciders, seltzers and meads), but as I find common in Texas, if there is not a nearby craft brewery of even a smidgeon of notoriety, the majority of offerings are from my least favorite brewers (you know, the corporate boys like Coors, Miller, Bud.) We were curious about the atmosphere on a game day and it just so happened the hometown team Texas Tech had a home game on the next Saturday. Soooooo, guess where we were at kick-off on Saturday? The crowd was pretty loud/raucous every score. We stuck it out for a quarter and called it a game.

In our everlasting search for possible landing sites, we did a little surrounding area road trip, checking out some properties for sale. Real estate prices are fairly reasonable here in the Lubbock area, you can pick up a nice sized single family residence in the 300K-400K range, and there definitely is not a big shortage of 10-20 acre tract lots for sale. The drawbacks at this point in time are the crappy economy (high rates particularly), the isolated nature of Lubbock in the flatland area of Texas, and the Texas high property tax rates. But hey, it never hurts to look…

We left Lubbock for the cooler climes of Ruidoso, NM. Casino Apache provided a parking lot for a couple of night’s dry camping while we checked out the area. We even road tripped up to the megalopolis of Capitan, NM. The Ruidoso area is a ski area in the mountains and was utterly unimpressive, so much so I found nothing worthy of breaking out the camera. It evoked thoughts of a run down very tiny Truckee or Lake Tahoe area, complete with no less than 8-9 dispensaries (hint: 420). 

One of our rare short travel days found our next temporary home back at the Las Cruces Elk’s Lodge. We were kinda burning time since we had ordered up our mail to be sent to Deming, NM. While stalled for a couple of days here we made our way down to the big “Farmer’s” Market which we found was very little “farmers” and more  local arts and crafts.

A return one-nighter at good ol’ Dream Catcher SKP RV Park in “scenic” Deming, NM for mail pickup bright and early Monday morning then onward and upward. North of Deming right on Hwy. 180 in the Glenwood area we found our next temporary home. Big Horn Campground on National Forest Service land had (6) boondocking campsites with fire rings and one pit toilet. It took several tries in different sites to find a suitable site where we were not squished by the thick trees and were able to achieve level status, but we finally found one in site #1. 

Glenwood is not much of a “town”, more like an area along the highway. Our site was, however, 5 miles from a local attraction known as The Catwalk. The trail is a tad over 2 miles round trip and includes a large stretch of steel catwalk constructed over Whitewater Creek and winding through some slot canyon areas. It was not heavily used when we were there but we did get to see a couple of fishermen catching what looked like brown trout.

Not real far away from camp we found the mining ghost town of Mogollon. It was a pretty steep narrow paved road up the mountain to get to it and we found that Mogollon was what they call a “living” ghost town in that a few folks actually live there among what old buildings still exist there. I was underwhelmed with this “ghost town” as far as ghosties go, but it was still neat wander/drive around.

We’ve always wanted to go see the town of Show Low in AZ, so being in that area it was our next destination point. We said good-bye to Glenwood then drove the short 130 miles into Show Low and a few days stay at the Elk’s Lodge there. $20 per night was hard to say no to, and we found the Elk’s campground unique, comparatively speaking, to most other Elk’s RV lots in that it was actually within a thick stand of pine trees and resembled any other wooded campground, actually geared toward “real” outdoor camping.

In our exploration of the Show Low town and area we happened upon a quaint little hub of entertainment called “The House Yard Bar & Eatery” and “Red Barn Creamery”. We were looking for the ice cream shop (the Creamery) and discovered they share the play yard with The House. What better way to chase down some of that sickly sweet & gooey ice cream than with an ice cold hops beverage? The yard had a small stage for their occasional music entertainment as well as various game areas and the whole shebang is family friendly. 

We noticed an extremist right winger mega MAGA swag shop, appropriately named The Trumped Store. Sadly, being the epitome of the aforementioned extremist right winger mega MAGA deplorables that we are, we made the illegal U-turn, cut off half a dozen cars and trucks on the extremely busy main thoroughfare, jumped the curb and slid into the parking lot of said store. Yes, we stocked up on some new MAGA swag and I even got my picture with 45/47 (OK, it was a hokey statue set up inside the store). It seems we are easily amused…

Time for jacks-up, off with the wind. Where to…?

2/18/2023 “Taking the Slow Boat” to C-C-C-C-California

Our last pit stop in Texas was an overnighter return trip to the Wild West RV Park in lovely Van Horn. The last time we stayed there we got hit with about 3” of snow, but this time we survived without extreme weather. Continuing, apprehensively, it was westward ho’ on I-10 through the belly of the beast, aka: El Paso. We were pleasantly surprised, despite all the current issues at the border, we made it through without a hitch. We took it all the way to Deming, NM for another overnighter return stay at the Escapee’s RV Club, Dream Catcher RV Park. Then it was on to a few days at the Apache Junction Elk’s Lodge in Apache Junction, AZ. They have a couple of areas around the lodge for RV’s, one containing designated camp sites, the other just an open field area, both strictly dry camping, with a minimal  fee of $10/night for the designated sites.

We hit a couple of the Indian casinos in the area, but the highlight of that stop was a hike we took into the Superstition Mountains. Jeanne found the Siphon Draw trail in the Lost Dutchman State Park and we hit it on a crisp but clear morning. The trail is about 5 miles, round trip, with a 1,000’ elevation gain (according to the ranger) in the last half mile to the top. I would classify the trail as moderate; there is some minor rock scrambling, some surface areas similar to slick rock surfaces, and definitely a good elevation gain at the peak. The trail was busy, almost “crowded”, and well defined with little signage. The views were very nice as evidenced in the following pix.

Moving on, next stop was, again, a return stay at the Escapee’s RV Club, North Ranch RV Park in Congress, AZ. We made good use of the stop to get thawed out (hook-ups, Yippee!), laundry chores (hook-ups, Yippee!), and a general respite from all the one-night stay traveling (hook-ups, Yippee!). While at North Ranch, one of the locals mentioned he knew of a few crested saguaro cacti along the dirt road to Stanton just a few miles from Congress. Always on the lookout to find those anomalies of nature, we took a drive out to Stanton. I don’t know about “several”, but we found (1) crestie about midway on the road to Stanton. The area of Stanton is definitely nothing to write home about, no real vestiges of civilization other than a “rustic” looking RV park and several scattered homes/trailers. The (6) mile dirt road to get to Stanton is a little rough as far as several “washboard” stretches, I personally would not want to drive Rosie down it.

Being sufficiently thawed out, we backtracked to Sun City for a few days of dry camping at the Sun City Elk’s Lodge. The lodge has a few RV parking spaces out in the back of their paved parking lot for which they garner a $10/night fee for the no-hookup enjoyment. The extra added benefit for our stay here was frequent fighter jet fly-overs, day AND night, courtesy of our friendly neighborhood military installation, Luke AFB. We found out quickly that this is one very busy Elk’s Lodge, evidenced by the packed parking lot every day we were there and the near standing room only condition of the lounge. 

In between shopping chores at the plethora of opportunities we had while here in the big city we found the New River Trail which winds its way through the heart of the beast alongside a “river” that was a typical desert river…dry as a bone. Nevertheless, out came the bicycles for about a 20 mile excursion along the well maintained, paved, well used trail. Not one of the more scenic trails we have been on, I have to say…

Laughlin, NV was next on our westward itinerary. We did a couple of nights at the KOA just outside of the “downtown” area, across the street from the Avi Casino/Resort. Laughlin does not offer much other than several large casinos, or you can cross the river back into Bullhead City, AZ for any shopping needs (they DO have a Walmart, for Pete’s sake!)

Home at the Laughlin/Avi KOA

From Laughlin it was on to Pahrump, NV and another return stay at the Pair-a-Dice Escapee RV Park. We wanted to get some business done (aka: stay put to receive some Amazon deliveries, send for our mail, etc.), so we decided to stay for at least a couple or three weeks. Pahrump is about 45 minutes from Vegas, so we also wanted the access to civilization (aka: Costco & Trader Joe’s).

Red Rock Canyon National Conservation area sits just outside on the west side of Las Vegas. We took Woodrow Wilson on a sightseeing drive through the canyon, along the approximate 10 miles long scenic drive. It was mildly scenic at best, comparatively speaking, since we happen to be here amidst REAL scenery like Death Valley to the west and Grand Canyon to the east (just to name a couple), those are pretty hard to beat. But, Red Rock Canyon is still a very busy park, numerous hiking and horse trails everywhere.

As is my custom, we got treated to the usual weather events in Pahrump. After checking the weather forecast (by the “expert”, well educated meteorologists at “WeatherBug”, who, as it so happens all must have failed the courses on “Accuracy 101”), seeing no rain in the future, I gave Rosie a bath and got her all shined up. That back-breaking endeavor got me a whole day of enjoying the shine before, not only did we get rained on, but we earned the simultaneous added bonus of extreme winds with a massive dust storm (dust storm during a rain storm?) I can’t help but feel like Charlie Brown after Lucy pulled the football… 

After fighting the goofy weather swings and having water hoses freeze (again, the genius meteorologists did not forecast sub-freezing temps), we were happy to raise jacks and hit the road from Pahrump.  Our destination? Stay tuned, until next post…

Max’s Big Road Trip Begins

Just before we made our exit from Prescott, AZ, Jeanne & I ventured back out for a hike on the Constellation Trails. On our previous hike of the trails we kept to the interior trails. This time we chose to do the outer loop which is a little more than 2 miles and includes the Ranch Road Shortcut, the Rock Wall Trail, the Lost Wall Trail, and the North 40 Trail. The hike was moderate, only about a 200’ elevation change, minimal rock scrambling (you can add all the scrambling you want, in and amongst all the granite rock piles and formations), and very scenic but the only critters we encountered were the lizards.

Once we went jacks-up, it was “westward ho!” We did a couple of one-nighters at the Needles Elk’s Lodge and the Pilot truck stop in Tehachapi, then a two-nighter at the Merced Elk’s Lodge, and hit our destination of the Petaluma Elk’s Lodge as our base for doing our medical chores. Several days later, those chores done, we snagged Max for his summer adventure. We had him for a couple of days in Petaluma, then raced on out of Kalifornia, eastbound & down, to the Boomtown KOA on the NV-CA border. We did a 3-night stay for the weekend, Max & I making good use of the pool & hot tub. That hot tub turned out to be a real perk at the end of one particular day. Jeanne found a waterfall hike for Max to take us on, after a pre-requisite visit to the Cabela’s store for some hiking gear, of course. The Hunter Creek Trail leads to Hunter Creek Falls and is a very popular hiking trail for the locals. It turned out to be a 7 mile, round trip hike (out and back, not circular), with a 1,300’ elevation gain, no rock scrambling for the most part, with just a couple of short sections of very loose shale. To get to the best viewing area you must navigate some downed trees/limbs in the creek, and that could be problematic for those with balance issues or limited tread shoes. But if all else fails, the creek is only about knee deep at the deepest, there are plenty of spots where it looks ankle high. The views along the hike, as well as the waterfall, made it well worth the effort. While at the KOA we just HAD to walk on over to the Boomtown Casino where they have an arcade room for the kids. Max got his fill of arcade fun and we topped it off with his favorite meal (“cheeseburger, plain”) at the Mel’s diner.

Boomtown in our rear-view, it was southbound toward Pahrump, NV. We wanted to show Max the “boondocking life”, so we did a one-nighter along Walker Lake at the Sportsman’s Beach Campground. We have stayed here a couple of times before and it is a popular stop over for many in the full-time RV lifestyle but we have never found it crowded (OK, usually there is nobody anywhere in our line of sight). We spent the day walking down to the water’s edge, chasing lizards. And too bad for Max that he does not wake up for Woody’s 2:30 a.m. toilet run, at that time I got a pretty spectacular night sky view including the Milky Way! After all, we were in an area of Dark Sky Parks (getting awful close to Death Valley).

Moving along it was off to a couple nights stay at the Pair-a-Dice SKP RV park in the happening hamlet of Pahrump, NV. This was basically a rest stop along our route, with time enough to get laundry chores done and enjoy the triple digit heat. That is a wrap for now, consider yourself up-to-date. Until next post…

Summertime 2022 Approaches 

So, the sarcastically “great” state of Kalifornia always seems to sink its claws into any plans we would like to make and violently rip them from our grasp. Jeanne, being named Trustee for her mother’s living trust, was charged with the administration of the trust. This would have been a task that could be handled while still allowing us to be mobile. But, alas, Kalifornia DMV strikes once again. Jeanne’s mother’s car being registered in mom’s name and not the trust, the DMV requires a 40 day wait period from the date of death before one can submit all the forms necessary to change the title for purposes of selling the car, and all being done in person at the DMV. So then, we get the (dis)pleasure of hanging around even LONGER in that miserable state. “%&@*$#!&@^#%$!!!!!” We bounced around between the Redding RV Park, the Redding Elk’s Lodge, and Win-River Casino, trying to keep our long term costs down while burning time.

For what little downtime activities we could squeeze in-between taking care of trust business, we managed to get our bicycles fired up and ride parts of the Sacramento River Trail which runs from downtown Redding to the Shasta Dam (20 +/- miles one way). We also did some walking back at the Sundial Bridge over the Sacramento River. It was certainly a huge improvement over the past 4-5 years being in the area with all the past smoky skies due to wildfires (I don’t know why they continue to call the constantly occurring events “wildfires”; I personally think most if not all of them are being intentionally set, should be called arson fires instead). Never having experienced the great Redding Farmer’s Market, we wandered over to find it to be a pitifully small event at the civic center. More entertaining were the various pieces of artwork scattered about the grounds of the civic center. At some point during this stay Jeanne caught “the bug”. No, not that one. The “pickleball bug”. She decided she wanted to try it out and we found some fairly new courts had been erected at Enterprise Park in Redding. After a short outfitting run, rackets in hand, it was off to the park. After a few scattered days of chasing that wiffleball around the court, Jeanne decided she was hooked. Me, I’m easy, having played my share of racquetball (although the two sports are not even comparable), I was happy we found a mutually satisfying physical sport.

The whole area of Redding has a yearly car show event called “Kool April Nites”, a local take on the Reno “Hot August Nights”, and various areas hold their own mini-events. One such event is the “Show & Shine” held at the Win-River Casino. We grabbed up Jeanne’s brother Dave and took a stroll through the restored, mostly classic cars from days of yore. One regret I have is that I never learned much about auto mechanics, I think it would be fun working on a restoration project now and then. I’m sure it’s a kinda expensive hobby…

Upon freeing ourselves from the grip of the DMV, we FINALLY got the go signal, went jacks-up with warp speed, and resumed a run towards Prescott Valley, AZ which we had originally planned back in December. Heading toward Hwy. 58 and the Tehachapi Pass (our regular route of choice for ingress and egress to/from Kalifornia), we made a very short detour/stopoff in Atascadero, CA, to say “Happy Birthday” to granddaughter Hailey (and belated “Happy Birthday” to granddaughter Ellie). 

Back on the road, it was onward to Prescott Valley. We did a one-nighter at the Needles Elk’s Lodge, then completed the route at the Prescott Valley Elk’s RV Park. Our point to the return stay was to further evaluate it as a possible landing zone for when we retire from the full-time life style and not necessarily to re-experience any major sightseeing as we had already done. That being said, we did take another stroll around Fain Lake since it is directly behind the Elk’s Lodge. In fact, Jeanne got the “good samaritan” idea to pick up garbage along our walk to the lake. It was not like trying that anywhere in Kalifornia, there you would need a truckload of garbage bags. Here we barely filled one bag. They also put on a weekend “farmer’s market” next door to the Elk’s Lodge, which we attended. This was a sad “farmer’s market” since there were absolutely NO produce stands (we were told it was too early for planting in the area, still subject to frost). It turned out to simply be a swap meet style of marketplace.

With our stay in Prescott coming to an end, we are preparing for a somewhat dreaded return to Kalifornia. We have some medical stuff we want to take care of with our PCP back in Santa Rosa. We are also planning a summer vacation trip for our 10 year old grandson Max. We are going to snatch him up after our medical chores and hit the road for a whirlwind summer tour of the midwest United States, the crowned jewel being a few days run through Yellowstone Nat’l Park. Max has not ventured into this part of the country, so we put together about a 5-week plan.  So, now you are caught up. “Say ‘good night’, Irene!” And check out these moon pics. Until next post… 

Hiatus Blogofus Is Given A Temporary Boot…

OK, OK, OK, so I know there has been a lengthy lull in the action. I’ll do my best to fill in the blanks coherently. So you last read about us in early December when we were in Lake Havasu City, AZ. Part of that stay we took the ferry boat over to the California side and the Havasu Landing Casino, the boat ride affording us some cool scenic views. Some of the sunset views over the lake were pretty amazing as well. While enjoying the lead up to Christmas, we happened to learn our friends (and my former workmates) Jim and Stacy Camara were also in the area avoiding their colder Idaho weather for a few months. We hooked up with them to take in some of the sights, like the London Bridge Swap Meet and a downtown Thursday night car show. We also were able to give them the tour back at Sara’s Crack as well as the Bunker Bar. 

But alas, and the reason for our little blog hiatus, we got that frantic, crocodile tears call from Jeanne’s brother Dwayne, telling Jeanne that he thought their mom was near death. We hoisted jacks and abruptly terminated our stay at Lake Havasu, heading W/B and down back to Cottonwood, CA (Redding area). Their mom was pretty frail, weak, and basically bedridden when Jeanne got there, so she contacted the local hospice care outfit and got hospice started.

During this stay in the Redding area, Jeanne and I managed to run into a fairly clear day to make a return hike up to Chamise Peak for a blue sky viewing of the 3 Shastas (dam, lake, and Mt.). 

Our nephew Alex (David’s young’un) had a basketball game that we were able to take in. It was certainly nice to see the Junior High kids playing a sport without having to wear face diapers.

There was a Boat/RV/Motorsports show put on at the Shasta District Fair that we took in with Dave and Alex. And dummy me, do you think I would have taken a lot of overall photos of the event? Of course not, I photo’d critter heads hanging on a wall, (1) watersports vehicle (a SeaBreacher), and one hokey stuffed Big Foot. Sometimes I just kill myself…

Well, 12 weeks into hospice care and Jeanne’s mom Yvonne is not even close to exhibiting signs of the end of her journey. Family tensions have been stretched to their maximum limit pretty much this whole stay, so we have decided to head back out on the road (not a whole long distance but absolutely escape out of Kalifornia once again). In the lead up to our escape, Jeanne planned out a “special adventure” for our (3) grandkids, Max (Santa Rosa, CA), Hailey & Ellie (Atascadero, CA), and as it turned out, Hailey & Ellie’s dad (Chad). Kind of a combined birthdays/Christmas celebration, destination: The Great Wolf Lodge in Manteca, CA. The Great Wolf Lodge is a franchise of lodges scattered nationwide which cater to family/kid entertainment. The main attraction at this one in Manteca is the large indoor water park consisting of several pools with water slides, a wave pool, water activities and fountains. The lodge contains an elevated ropes course, pee wee golf, a kids variation on a bowling alley, a mining attraction for those budding gold panners, an arcade, various shops and eateries. The lodge does a great job of putting on activities for all ages. There are characters for photo ops, kid’s dances, baby yoga, bingo, arts & crafts, a Build-a-Bear shop, and the main attraction, MagiQuest. The kids obtain a magic wand (with pass purchase or straight purchase) and there are numerous “stations” scattered all over the lodge where they wave the wand, watch an animated video or activate a “feature” and are given directions to follow (kinda like a treasure hunt). The theme is like that of a nature conservationist, the goal is to save the 5 trees of the empire. It is pretty intensive, took Max & I (3) hours of hoofing it back and forth across the entire lodge searching out all the features needed to complete the task and be certified a “Master Magi”. The grandkids had ample daily pool time and the goofiest big highlight of their stay was getting to push the elevator buttons to get to our 6th floor room. Ellie got to be the big winner at bingo with (5) total wins, Hailey got (3), and Max got (2). Hailey was poised to be the big winner at bowling, however Oma rocketed from behind to finish big. Max got to show off his prowess on the ropes course, completing both the lower level as well as the nose-bleed upper level. All in all it was (5) days of fun, I know because I’m still feeling it (getting old sucks)! However, I would recommend (3) days as the optimum stay length. The kids can cover all the activities in that time, any longer and it gets repetitive.

Fun time over, “good-byes” said, Jeanne and I headed back to Anderson, CA. That is where we left Rosie (the MH) and Woody (the wonder dog), at Dave’s house. A few days of road prep (laundry, food shopping, etc.) and it was jacks up, off to… Time out, put the jacks back. Jeanne’s mom took a turn for the worse after we returned to town. As it was, she passed to a better life on, of all days, at 2330 hours on St. Patrick’s Day. God bless her soul and thank you Lord for putting her suffering behind her. Until next post…

Chores & Visits Over…(for now)

So we motorvated back to Kalifornia for family visits and medical/dental duties. We checked in and helped out with Jeanne’s mother’s health care, then looped around from Atascadero to Santa Rosa for grandkids’ literal face time. We ended up spending about two months in that God forsaken state, but the day we completed our last appointment (me getting a tooth crowned, had to wait 2 extra weeks for the dang thing to get molded/created/installed) we went jacks up and sped away toward Hwy. 58 and the Tehachapi pass, our preferred path of escape from Kalifornia. (***Spoiler alert – if you want to avoid my politically incorrect rants, skip now to the next paragraph***) Each and every time we go back there the amount of garbage, homeless encampments, graffiti, dirty air, and the quality of the roads seems to get progressively worse. The politicians (who KEEP getting re-elected) have run what once was the most beautiful of the lower 48 states right into the toilet. What’s worse, the people still living there keep putting up with the socialist and totalitarian crap spewed by the likes of Gav & Nan & Maxie & all the rest. The facemask Nazis are everywhere, screaming at unsuspecting customers who may errantly wander into stores without the suffocating face diapers being worn in “the appropriate” manner. Even worse, some businesses actually require proof of vax (“Your papers, please!”) if you want to enter their buildings. This whole farce of a “pandemic” got out of hand long ago. I got news for everyone – it’s the flu, people! Covid, the flu. Delta, the flu. Omicron, the flu. Guess what? All of the future 347 variants over the foreseeable future, the flu. And anyone with a brain can see how effective the big pharma vaccines have been. But hey, if you’re fearing for your lives feel free to keep wearing those ineffective face diapers, getting multiple (failing) experimental chemical injections, maintaining that social distancing, self-imposing your very own quarantines, and continue being blindly obedient sheeple to your ruling class. I’m changing the name of the state from Kalifornia to Psycholovakia. Right now, if you are asking yourself, “What gives this moron the ability to make such broad, sweeping condemnations of the state of Psycholovakia,” I spent 53 years of my life as a resident of said state. And with 9+ years of full-time RV-ing throughout all of the lower 48 for use as a comparison, I think I’m qualified to render the opinion. ‘Nuff said.

With very little time for tourista activities during the last two months, I will leave it at that with a montage of grandkid photos… 

Our new adventure started at Lake Havasu City, AZ. Our home for that stay was the Lake Havasu Elk’s Lodge. (For any of you Elks reading this post, this Elk’s Lodge is an extremely happening place. One of the members we spoke to claimed it to be the second largest lodge in the country…). The RV lot for the lodge is a gravel lot with 25 FHU spaces that are fairly spaced apart. The lodge has an active calendar with all types of events and meals of which we made good use of during our stay.

First outing was a return visit to the area of the London Bridge. As is our custom of unwittingly arriving in areas during special events, we discovered that the annual Lake Havasu City Christmas Boat Parade was scheduled for that evening. After a quick recon of the area during daylight, we left only to return later for the parade which was slated from 1900-2100 hrs. Sometimes, no, oftentimes, “The best laid plans…”! The master plan was to head back a couple hours early, have a nice meal at one of the many restaurants in the area, then scope out our viewing site. We returned at 1700 hrs. to discover the parade is kinda popular in these here parts. Parking anywhere near was nigh on impossible, but we found curbside parking still within long walking distance. The area up and down from the bridge was jam packed with humans! Not only that, ALL of the restaurants were full with SEVERAL hours wait time. Oh boy,  like the famous quote from a memorable Seinfeld episode, “No soup for you!” We soldiered on and found our viewing site for the parade and proceeded to hurry up and wait. The parade was pretty cool, after the boats did their thing some aquatic acrobats did their thing on lit up jet skis, flips & dips etc. We decided to cut out a little early due to impending traffic jams and boy howdy I’m glad we did. It still took a while to get away, thousands of other folks also had the same idea. But we survived…

When we were here a few years ago, we found a cool bar located out in the desert between Parker & Parker Dam, dirt road accessible, aptly called “Nellie E Saloon – The Desert Bar”. At the boat parade we spoke with a couple who mentioned a second desert bar located north of Lake Havasu City (about 6 miles from the Walmart). That one is only open on weekends, so on a bright and cheery Sunday we ventured north and found “The Bunker Bar”. This was a short dirt road drive (a couple of miles off the highway) to arrive at the military bunker themed outdoor bar. It is a big-time pro-military, pro-first responder, pro-America venue. They had a small converted freight container for a stage with a band called “Roadwork” playing at the time. Food bunkers are on site (pub fare) as well as a swag store. Family friendly, there are all manner of things for children to play/climb on and cornhole for all. The band was pretty good (rock-n-roll, baby!), the gee-tar man making his rounds through the audience while he played licks from the likes of Ted Nugent, Eddie Van Halen, etc. Jeanne even got to mug for the camera with him to the tune of “Stranglehold”…

The area of Lake Havasu has a cornucopia of outdoor desert activies for those of you so inclined. The whole area between Quartzsite and Lake Havasu City (70 some miles or so) contains non-stop boondocking opportunities, a lot of it very popular and on BLM land. Their are miles and miles of OHV areas, Jeep trails, hiking/biking trails, not to mention all the lake activity available at Lake Havasu/Colorado River. Jeanne found a popular hike at Sara Park, on the south end of town, called “Sara’s Crack”. We loaded ourselves up, sans Woody, and headed out to explore Sara’s Crack (pun, well, heck yeah, but no, we are not budding proctologists!) This was about a 3+ mile round trip trek containing a large slot canyon. There are several trails that take off from the parking area, mostly criss-crossing through the bed of the gully/draw heading toward the slot canyon, some branching up onto the mountainside, you can pick your poison. We chose the “yellow” trail and once we got through the slot we branched uphill onto what I think was the “blue” trail which headed up for overall views of the area. I would classify the difficulty level for our journey at moderate. There was some rock scrambling and rope assisted climbing.

So that about catches us up to the minute. Until next post…

4/20/2020 Family Medical Issues Put the Stall On Our Travels

With Big Bend Nat’l Park in our rearview mirror it was “California here we come.” First stop was for a few days at the Las Cruces Elk’s Lodge for some big city shopping for supplies and stuff. This Elk’s Lodge just finished putting in several nice FHU RV sites. 

From there it was on to the Bernalillo (Albuquerque) KOA for another couple of days. Now, I thought I have learned from my mistakes over the years. After many instances of being misled by locals, I STILL tend to give them the benefit of the doubt when they give me information. Many times we ask “locals” about the area, how to get anywhere, etc., we either get incorrect directions or the ever popular “I don’t know…” I have learned over the past 8 years to ask the clerks at the RV parks if the interior roads were easily navigable for my 40’ bus with Jeep in tow or do I need to disconnect prior to driving to our site. More than I care to admit I have been told “No problem, no need to disconnect…” only to find out the hard way and having to try to disconnect the toad at a difficult angle. Well, the Bernalillo KOA female clerk just laughed at me when I asked if I should disconnect at the office, and told me I would see her humor as I navigated the spacious interior roads of their park. Well, I did not see her humor as I promptly got stuck on a very tight turn in the half-lane wide road and needed a sledge hammer to get the toad disconnected. Shame on me…We did get a chance to sample some of the local fare by way of a couple of breweries, Basque Brewing Co. and Kaktus Brewing Co., neither of which were real memorable.

Moving on we overnighted at the Holbrook (AZ) KOA, then a couple more days at the Prescott Valley Elk’s Lodge. From there we returned to the Jawbone Canyon OHV area outside of Mojave, CA for an overnight boondock, then into Atascadero for a pre-birthday visit with our granddaughters Hailey & Ellie, both soon to be 4 & 2, respectively. A couple of days entertaining the girls at  a couple of local play areas, then we needed to head over to Madera and assist Jeanne’s mom (Yvonne). Her health issues became a priority and required the family to team up and relocate her to brother David’s home in Anderson, CA so she could be closer to medical assistance. Her previous residence in Coarsegold, CA was just too far away from her frequent doctor’s appointments in Fresno and Madera. So we got her moved out, with Jeanne’s brothers Dwayne’s and David’s help. With Yvonne loaded up in Rosie with us, we set up short camp at the Madera District Fairgrounds for a couple of last minute doctor appointments in Madera. Unfortunately, Yvonne began a bout with A-Fib and a racing heart and we got her into the ER. Less than a week later, heart settled down and stable, Yvonne was released and we made our way to Anderson and her new digs at David’s house. The task was then to get her settled in with all new medical personnel.

Well, with everything else in life, it seems timing is everything. We mooch-docked at Dwayne’s house for our time there which we surely appreciated. But soon all hell broke loose. With all the headaches involved in trying to establish medical care (for Jeanne’s mom) after a move, we got hit with off-and-on sloppy weather, rain, hail, wind, etc. And since that is not enough to contend with, China decided to let loose on the rest of the planet with the China virus (China virus China virus China virus China virus China virus China virus China virus, there, I said it!) and with it came the ensuing stock market crash. We stayed very busy tending to Yvonne’s medical needs, appointments, etc. and the issues related to the China virus China virus China virus were not conducive to much heading out on the town, visiting friends, or in other words having much FUN! But hey, you know the saying about life, lemons, & lemonade. Dave & I found a fairly clear day to hit Lake Shasta in his fishin’ boat for some good quality self-quarantine time. He caught the lone, scrawny little trout of the day, but you know the saying, “Your worst day fishin’ is better than your best day workin’!” On another day we decided to commit an act of civil disobedience, Jeanne & I hiked the Flanagan Rd. Trail to Chemise Peak overlooking Lake Shasta Dam. It was a fairly easy 5+ mile hike and as it was, we discovered a whole lotta other folks committing the same act of civil disobedience. Go figger…Time for society to re-engage I guess…

Well, this was not much of a blog post. We are kinda in limbo still because of China and our governmental response. We will continue lollygagging indefinitely in the Redding area until Yvonne’s health care regimen gets established & stabilized. Until next post…

(Editor’s note: Don’t ask. I am in the process of recovering my previous posts from my Blogpost days and backdating them into this blog. If this all works, I will have amazed myself.)

02/02/2020 Southwest Follies in 2020

Jeanne found us a spot to do a little boondocking just outside the Valley of Fire S.P. near Vegas, at lat/long 36.444454 – 114.675583. It was on a nice & wide/level gravel road on BLM land with ample numbers of “sites” for rigs of all sizes. In fact, I was able to make a U-turn on the dirt road with our 40’ MH (with toad). We had all of (4) “neighbors” that were in visual sight but scattered pretty well. After set-up, we ventured out to let Jeanne do a little Jeepin’ in the area while exploring our new back yard. The weather here was cool but clear, 50’s-60’s for highs, and the lovely cholla’s were just starting to “glow” (you know, where the little prickly pods are starting to morph into the appearance of cute, but lethal, fluffy cotton balls…ouch!). A negative here was that our closest neighbor (100 +/- yards away) ran their generator all night long. Some folks just seem to think boondocking negates RV-etiquette of maintaining some semblance of “quiet time”. Thankfully, they left the next day. I discovered an additional RV-etiquette violation by this former neighbor – they had (3) very large K-9’s which were allowed to fertilize the edge of the desert (in a very prolific manner I might add). I don’t care if you do need a backhoe, CLEAN UP AFTER YOUR %$#&*@! DOG!!!!!!

We got up the next morning, gave Woodrow Wilson a walkabout in the desert, left him to guard Rosie the Bus, then we ventured over the mountain into Valley of Fire S.P. When we boondocked out at Government Wash along Lake Mead several years ago, we managed to sight-see most of the area except for Valley of Fire S.P. This day we drove the whole park, west entrance to east entrance, then Visitor’s Center up White Domes Rd. to the White Domes Trail. Because of time (Woody back at the bus), we were not able to hit all the features of the park, but did get a couple of hikes in (White Domes & Fire Wave), then got to see Arch Rock, Atlatl Rock, Beehives, Seven Sisters, the Cabins at Lone Rock, the Clark Memorial, Elephant Rock, and a drive around the Scenic Loop Rd. I do have to say despite this Park being a very scenic experience, as far as the level on my “spectacular meter”, it is not as high as was the “Bowl of Fire” that we experienced during our first stay in the area at Government Wash. It is still worth a visit. And for all you tent campers and smaller RV types, there are a couple of campgrounds with at least some sites for smaller RV’s with W/E hookups, those campgrounds/sites wedged in between some of the beautiful red rock formations.

Our next stop was a scheduled service for the MH & the generator at the No. Las Vegas Cummins shop. We were very satisfied with their customer service and work that they had done for us when we had the malfunction with the Bakersfield Cummins shop last year, so we decided to get our yearly service done here now. And they have several sites for RV’s out front, with E hookups. After a frustrating delay waiting all day for an air filter to be delivered, we finally were able to hit the road.

Waiting on an air filter at the No. Las Vegas Cummins

We were still in the mood for more boondocking and decided on the area around the big megalopolis of Congress, AZ. We needed some hookups to prep tanks and do laundry, so we returned to the North Ranch SKP park to do just that. We also did some recon scouting up on Vulture Mine Rd., an area we had previously boondocked at. There was also a boondocking area out next to the old Congress Cemetery we checked out. That one was a little bit rough as far as the dirt roads went. After all was said and done, we decided against a repeat boondock in this area. But before we lifted jacks, we spent a day on an 8-mile hike at the Granite Mountain Hotshots State Park. The park is a memorial tribute to the local Hotshots crew who lost 19 of 20 members in what was called the Yarnell Hill Fire back in 2013. The hike traverses through the Granite Mountains with a 1,200’ elevation gain and up to 8% grades, with sweeping views of Congress, Wickenburg, and Yarnell. Along the trail they placed memorial plaques for each of the Hotshots that perished during the fire. The hike was moderate+, I wouldn’t call it strenuous but it had this 60 year old and his lovely wife “a-huffin’-and-a-puffin’”! The plus was that it was mostly uphill from the start, then once we got to the observation platform it was only about 3/4 mile down to the valley floor and the fatality site. That meant the return hike was downhill from the platform…The fatality site has a memorial built around it, a very somber, melancholic atmosphere. I can only imagine the level of grief for the families of the firefighters, now knowing and seeing just how near the crew had been to their designated “safe zone”. That would be the ranch that appeared less than 400 yards from the fatality site. The park ranger we spoke with said “the ranch” had that designation due to the wide clearing of brush from the structures, as well as the stucco construction with metal & tile roofs. Such a sad note to end our stay in Congress, AZ…

So now we were eastbound and down. Our “goal”, if you want to call it that, was to get back to the great state of Texas where I need to renew my driver’s license (in-person due to the Class B endorsement) and get our Jeep & bus safety inspected (a requirement for Texas vehicle registrations that we have been able to waive in the years we were not present in state). We hooked up to I-10 outside of Phoenix and settled in for our stop-n-go eastward journey. In Tucson we found the Desert Diamond Casino & Hotel that welcomes RVers to stay in their back parking lot (free, dry camping). I never asked the security folks I talked to about stay limits, but the casino only asks RVers to check in with them if they will be staying longer than one week. We used our time at the casino to get some shopping done, then relieved the casino of a few bucks, only to feed it back to them a little later. We also checked out one of the many local microbreweries, the Sentinel Peak Brewing Co. It was created by a trio of firefighters “moonlighting” as beer aficionados. The beers I tasted were OK, just did not give me the “WOW” factor. Jeanne found a little Mexican restaurant touted as the nation’s longest running family-owned & operated Mexican restaurant (since 1922) called El Charro Cafe. We hit them for lunch and had an excellent meal, definitely one of the best Mexican restaurants I have eaten at.

From Tucson we continued East for a return stop at the Dream Catcher SKP park in lovely Deming, NM. With not a lot for us to see that we already haven’t, we got chores and shopping caught up, got to send for supplies at amazon.com , and even squeezed in a road trip to beautiful downtown Columbus, NM, which is a bordertown neighbor to Palomas, MX. You can all pass on making Columbus, NM your top vacation destination.

The boondocking lifestyle was still calling to us. Jeanne found Sierra Vista Campground (BLM) just outside of Dripping Springs Natural Area at the base of Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks Nat’l Monument, in Las Cruces, NM. We found it to be a very small (limited spaces) improved area in the desert just 7 miles from town. There are no services/amenities, it is free, and carries a 14-day stay limit. We lucked into a site that could accomodate a 40’ beast. It is fairly popular by the way it stayed filled up while we spent 8 days there. This area had some hiking trails running off into the desert, as well as some easy Jeep trails where Jeanne got to test her skills at avoiding brush scratch on the Jeep.

We ventured up to the Dripping Springs Nature Area (sans Woodrow Wilson), where Jeanne & I took about a 7 mile walkabout to check out the springs, Van Patten Mountain Camp (ruins from days gone by), Boyd’s Sanitorium (also ruins from the past), Fillmore Falls (alas, dry as a bone at this point in time), and La Cueva.

Old Town La Mesilla boasts La Posta de Mesilla as T-H-E place to eat for Mexican fare, so we motored on over one day to partake as well as walk the tiny town area made famous by the Billy The Kid imprisonment, trial, and where he was sentenced to hang. The food was real good at La Posta, as were the margaritas.

When we were last in this area, we never happened to venture much North, so this time we wanted to check out the infamous town of Truth Or Consequences (TOC to locals). We grabbed Woody and drove the hour and a half North to find the quirky town. We walked the main drag, checked out a funky used book store called Xochi’s Book Store, found the Truth or Consequences Brewing Co. for a flight of tasters, then ate lunch at Latitude 33, a little hole in the wall Asian Fusion style eatery with very awesome food. The beers at TOC Brewing were pretty good, they brewed a Belgian Tripel that was out of this world. The townfolk we spoke with mentioned they currently have a campaign on-going regarding re-naming the town…again. We learned the town was previously named something similar to Hot Springs, but back in the day the game show host for the TV show Truth or Consequences dared the town to change its name to that of the TV show. Lo’ & behold, the townfolk up and did it! Sounds like maybe they regret the name change…

While in Las Cruces, we managed to drive into El Paso where I found one of their Departments of Public Safety (DL bureaus). Boy was I surprised that my in-n-out time was just one hour and I had my DL renewed and ready to rock! We also found an inspection station & got the Jeep safety inspected (registration requirement). Now we just gotta get Rosie inspected (the bus).

Finished with Las Cruces, it was eastbound and down into El Paso, TX for a few days of lolly-gagging. We had a bit of a hard time trying to find an RV park with hook-ups (coming off an 8-day boondock) that was not full. But we lucked into the Mission RV Park on the east side of town. More chores (massive laundry), shopping for another upcoming boondock, and a tiny bit of sight seeing at the Scenic Drive Park were in order. El Paso closes Scenic Drive on Sundays and only pedestrian/bicycle traffic is allowed. The views from the road open up to a very large panoramic viewing of the towns of El Paso TX/Juarez MX, both towns only divided by the Rio Grande River.

Before leaving El Paso, we have to stop by the local Freightliner shop to get a couple of minor issues addressed. From there, we will be heading for more boondocking, hopefully at the Guadalupe Mountains Nat’l Park area. If not, then wherever the wind blows us, we’ll let you know next blog post. Stay tuned…

1/5/2020 Headed Back To Prescott AZ

Since Jeanne and I were not going to be here for the end of the holidays, we had a nice family get-together for Thanksgiving/XMAS/Max’s birthday in Atascadero. Jenn, Gus, & Max drove down for the T-Giving weekend to spend the time with family at Chad’s house. It was great to spend the time with the grand-chitlin’s all at the same time. So here are a few (OK, more than a few!) parting shots of our time spent together.

After being on the road as full-time RVers for over (7) years now, hitting all of the lower 48, Jeanne & I are starting to think about settling down again, just not decided on a location. The Prescott, AZ area is on our short list, so we decided to head over there and spend a little more time exploring the area for that purpose. A couple of mishaps (OK, brain-farts on my part) happened along the way. The first was our stop at the Palmdale Elk’s Lodge for an two-night stay. On the morning that we pulled out, as I neared the driveway, I could see the dip was pretty intense with evidence of previous RVers failures to clear the pavement (where they bottomed out/scraped the asphalt). But hey, I am the most intelligent person on the planet (a legend in my own mind) and I KNOW how to navigate such hazards. I crept along at a speed where you could clock me with a calendar, achieved an extreme angle to avoid bottoming out, and nevertheless scraped the $hit out of that asphalt anyway, only with one corner of my rear cap. “%&$*#@!” That was enough to wreck one’s day, but travel on we must. (The second mishap soon to follow.) We next two-nighted at the Needles Elk’s Lodge, this time without incident. We completed our escape from The Evil Empire and landed in the Prescott/Prescott Valley area. There we split our time between the Prescott Elk’s Lodge, the Prescott fairgrounds, and Point of Rocks RV Park. My second brain-fart happened when we were moving from the fairgrounds to Point of Rocks. Due to the park’s prohibition from early check-in, we had to kill a couple of hours. On the way in we found the Constellation Trails, a small park, where we took Woodrow Wilson out for a short walk. This park is off of one of Prescott’s INNUMERABLE traffic “roundy-rounds” (complete with skinny lanes) and as I pulled out to head for our new destination, somebody put one of those $%&@*^# low guardrails alongside the road. I promptly scraped against said guardrail and caused yet more minor body damage. “%&$*#@!” (We’ll be hunting down an RV body shop in our travels soon). Jeanne’s brother Dave wanted to take his son Alex on a vacation, so he booked a flight to Vegas where he rented a small Class-C motorhome and drove out to meet up with us. Dave & Alex joined us at Point of Rocks RV Park. The weather was a little harsh, most nights the temps were teens to twenties and we had to disconnect water hoses. But the days warmed up into the blazing 30’s to 40’s…

Playing tourguides for Dave & Alex, we first ventured out on a small hike around Watson Lake (OK, small is a relative term. This “small” was about 8 miles, plus or minus). Alex got a kick out of the weird ice formations we ran into.

On a fairly clear day we drove up to the old mining town of Jerome and walked the streets taking in the views and reading some of the history of what is now considered a ghost town.

Jeanne wanted to shake off the dust bunnies from her 4-wheelin’ skills, so what better way than to try to jar Alex’s eye teeth on the dirt road to Crown King, AZ. S. Senator Hwy leaves downtown Prescott and 7 miles out loses the asphalt. The road/trail is not particularly difficult as far as 4-wheelin’ goes, but there were a couple of fairly deep water crossings. We came upon Palace Station, touted to be one of the oldest structures in Arizona. What was once a stage station on the Senator Trail from Phoenix to Prescott is now used residentially by the U.S. Forest Service. Crown King is but a “wide spot in the road” where a couple of folks have set up businesses and call it a town. We stopped in to the local saloon and had a beer before we headed on back to civilization.

The “big kahuna”, the “piece de resistance”, the “BMOC”, has to be Grand Canyon N.P. We dragged Dave & Alex up to the South Rim where they were awed by the spectacular views of the canyon, even on a semi-overcast day like it was. There was just a touch of snow added to the scenery and the short couple mile walk along the rim was envigorating.

What visit to the Prescott area would be complete without a trek into Sedona? First stop on the way was the Nat’l Park site called Montezuma’s Castle. We got to give Alex exposure to some early Indian cliff dwellings that, even though named after Montezuma, Montezuma never actually had anything to do with and never visited. Then it was on to Sedona and the Chapel of the Holy Cross. Views were extraordinary from the small hill this church was built into. It also overlooks “The House”, a good sized mansion built by the inventor of Lasik eye surgery. From there we ventured into downtown Sedona for a stroll and lunch at Oaxaca Restaurant.

Dave & Alex stayed with us through XMAS and up to the end of December. We had a nice XMAS dinner, fun times touring the area, and many cold nights of UNO, Phase 10, and Wits & Wagers. I hate it when Alex gloats over his victories…But, alas, all good things must end and it was time for Dave & Alex to return to the real world. We said our good-byes and headed out to our respective destinations. Ours just happened to be about a week’s stay in the Mesquite, NV area, another prospective choice for settlement.

In Mesquite, our home of choice was the Casa Blanca Resort & Casino RV Park. Scouting the area, including another run into St. George, UT, we looked at some properties, shopped locally and actually got pretty good exposure to the area in just the short week we stayed. Enough to decide a very small “retirement community” such as Mesquite was not for us, at least for now.

That about catches us up for now. Next destination…? Until next post…