Quiet Day

John and his friend went for a 13 miles bike ride passing numerous horse ranches and urban homes. I found it to be a nice morning to read, write a few notes and plan dinner. Later in the day I took a two mile hike into the mountain past an abandoned gold/clay mine. I probably wrote about this last year but you get to read it again. Some men started the mine searching for gold. When the couldn't find any, a local lady purchased the mine and turned the clay into an elixir that made her a very rich lady. She claimed the elixir cured many illnesses but it was best known for curing dysentery.

We met our friends for dinner at a pretty nice restaurant called The Station. The special attraction was the happy hour drink prices but we had to act like old people and get there at 5PM to get the deal.

Legends Trail Golf

Since our tee time for golf wasn't until after lunch, we had a nice morning at the RV. I got in a good mile walk around the campground while John did some work on the computer.

The golf course was really pretty and had some hard holes along with some nice challenges. At one point I got three pars in a row and then a triple bogie! Then I was attacked by a Cholla cacti! I was looking for my ball when I realized that a ball of the Jumping Cholla had attached itself to the heal of my shoe and then to my ankle! I had to use a divot repair tool to pry the ball off of my leg and then use my leather glove to pick individual spines out my flesh where they were very firmly entrenched! John started off well but hurt his arm trying to hit the ball too hard so his game suffered, again. The picture is not the actual cacti that attacked me, but just like it.

We had supper with friends and called it an early night.

Climbing Black Mountain

Cave Creek and Carefree are towns situated around a mountain named Black Mountain. It has 1160 foot elevation with a commanding view of the valley's all around it. In the middle of Cave Creek starts a path that will take you to the top, so guess who wanted to climb! We met our friends and did the 2-1/2 mile round trip hike in a little over two hours. It was a very rigorous climb for us, but it was good preparation for the Grand Canyon hike we will undertake in the fall.

After a big lunch at Harold's Steeler Bar, we both took a nice nap. I'm not sure what we will do this afternoon but I do plan to build a nice campfire this evening!

Cave Creek, AZ

We knew we had a short drive today, so we took the time to wash the RV and Jeep before driving over to Cave Creek which was only a one hour trip. We are staying in the same campground as last year, Cave Creek Regional Park, because it is such a nice place and conveniently located.

Since we have better bikes this year, we decided to try a little off-road bike riding. The lady at the ranger station told us about a new trail in the park that would be a fairly easy bike ride and had some beautiful scenery along the way. And the ride did start out nice and easy, relatively level with a wide track, but then it turned up hill and was steep enough that I couldn't pedal with all the loose gravel. I ended up walking my bike for about a half mile before I had had enough of pushing the bike and turned around. John on the other hand was enjoying the challenge and rode an additional mile up the hill before turning around. It was pretty with lots of cacti like saguaro and cholla, scrub and some green grass scattered in among these large quartz stones and boulders.

Our friends from Sedalia have rented a house near here for a couple of months so we joined them for dinner, wine and a hot tub dip. By then we had had a little too much wine to be driving so we spent the night with them.

Friday morning,after a quick trip back to the RV to change, we drove together with them to We-Ko-Pa Golf Club for a round of very difficult golf. We played this course last year and even though we did much better this time, it is a very hard course with lots of hazards like rocky washes, islands of trees in the middle of the fairway, hills and sand.

We had reservations for dinner at our favorite place in Cave Creek, Cartright's. Very good food!

RV Details

Several people have expressed an interest in the new RV we have purchased. It is made by Newmar a well respected RV manufacturer that has been in business over 40 years. It is a little less than 4 feet longer than our current RV but 2.5 feet taller and almost a foot wider. It is one very big box compared to our trusty Born Free. It will be a big change for us but we think it will serve our style of RVing. It is still short enough to fit in the out of the way places we like to go but has a number of advantages. First being almost 3 times more water, about 3 times the living space, and a huge amount of storage space. We will actually be able to empty our Jeep and quit using it as a storage barn. We will even be able to put the rear seat back in the Jeep since we should have no need to carry anything in the trunk. We will in April have an RV with plenty of room to take a grandson or two with us if we want. This is a picture of what it will look like, but 3 feet shorter:

Here is the floorplan:

If you want more information go Here.

Vulture Peak

Just a few miles outside of Wickenburg is a group of rises called the Vulture Mountains. We chose to hike up Vulture Peak this morning before settling down to doing laundry and other chores. The hike was about 4 miles round trip. From the trailhead to the bottom of the mountain was about 1.3 miles thru desert. One spot had so many cholla cacti that it looked like a forest and there were many cocotilla, saguaro, barrel and fish hook cacti. Once we reached the base we climbed .7 miles up 700 feet of elevation to a saddle between Vulture Peak and its shoulder called Sawtooth. We could have climbed another 240 feet but it would have been literally climbing, hand-over-foot and we chose NOT to do that.

We lunched at the Hog Trough where we had some really awesome BBQ and homemade cole slaw. Yummy!

The afternoon was spent doing laundry, working on the computer, napping and supper (not necessarily in that order.)

Wickenburg, AZ

This is the most Western Town of western Arizona with the Most Western Museum in Arizona. If you like cowboys and horses, dude ranches and guest ranches, BBQ and beer then this is the place to be. The park we are staying in is called "Horsepitality RV Park" and there must be 50 horses boarded here. As we walked thru the town, we must have passed 8 saloons and that was in a 4 block area! The river that runs thru the area is called Hassayampa but here in town it is only a dry riverbed. They claim it is underground here and in the mountains it runs above ground. The name means "river that runs upside down". And legend has it that if you drink the water you will never tell the truth again! I think this has something to do with gold miners exaggerating the truth of their discoveries.

We played golf at the Wickenburg Country Club today. I played great. John on the other hand is considering running over his clubs with the Jeep. The course was pretty with some very, very narrow fairways and fast rolling greens. It rained last night so today was on the cool side (60's) even though the sun was shinning.

RV Decision Made

Two major decisions were made today. First decision is we are not going to buy the Monaco Monarch RV from the California dealer. We are going to give our business to the dealer in Carthage, MO and buy a new, built to order Newmar Bay Star. We won't be able to take possession until we get home in April, but that is okay with us. We'll have plenty of time then to test it out, move in and get comfortable in it before we take off on our summer adventure.

The second decision was that we need to move on down the road. Remember all the cop cars we keep seeing? I was asking the local dumpster-divers, who are nice people cleaning the recyclables out of the dumpsters, about this situation and they said that there have been several instances of the rangers catching Meth cookers out in the desert this winter and that was probably what they were doing the last few nights. Then later in the day, as we were riding our bikes on the desert road for some exercise and exploration we saw two rangers monitoring (spying on and/or trying to intimidate maybe) our neighbors in the the Buffalo Tribe hippie bus. That was when we decided to move on down the road. Not to mention the fact that we only had a few gallons of water left and we could only have stayed another day before needing to dump.

So tonight, as we sat around the campfire, we pulled out the tour and camping books and found a golf course in Wickenburg that sounded interesting. We'll camp there for three nights before going up to Cave Creek. There is supposed to be some hiking opportunities there as well.

Decisions, Decisions

We woke this morning to clouds and wind and DUST! We rode our bikes around one of the other BLM camping areas before going back to work on getting an RV.

We went back, again, to the RV dealer to look at and talk with them about the Monaco Monarch 30'11" coach that we keep looking at. We have been dickering with them over the price for three days now! Maybe we have their bottom line at last.

The RV Week Big Tent is now open and was it ever full of people. Lines and lines of cars were creeping along the streets and seeking parking places. That meant that hoards of people were in the big tent. I rather enjoy this aspect of the show but John hates it. If he only has to go thru it once, he will. Later we split up and I shopped for what I wanted and he shopped where he wanted.

The wind keeps getting worse. We spent most of the afternoon inside the RV trying to avoid getting any more dust on us or inside the coach. At about 6 pm the wind and dust was so bad that we could not see any of the mountains surrounding us. John put the grill on the lee side of the RV and was able to grill without too much trouble.

The excitement happened again tonight -- cop cars with flashing lights zooming by and coming back two hours later. Sure wish I knew what was going on. We have our door locked!

Quartzite, Day 3

My friend and I really enjoy our walks in the desert. We put in 2.5 miles today. We then rode bikes back into town, looked at RVs, shopped the junk stores then came back to the RV for lunch. Our friends pulled out around 2 pm to go to Lake Havasu and we got back on the bikes and visited ALL the RV dealers in Quartzite. We found nothing new or different but did enjoy the ride.

About mid afternoon we, again, were sitting in front of the RV, basking in the sun when three cop cars zoomed by with lights flashing. We have no idea what was going on and didn't see them return until after eight this evening. We also got a new neighbor driving a converted school bus with the words "Buffalo Tribe" written on its side. It was driven by a girl with a bone in her ear and followed by an old car and a hippy on a motorcycle. Unfortunately they did not park close enough for us to spy on them! Ha!Ha!

John grilled tuna steaks for supper and they were wonderful! The fire roared and the stars twinkled. A beautiful evening.

The Search for an RV Continues

My friend and I took a 2 mile walk thru the desert before rousting out our husbands and getting on our bikes to ride into town. We stopped at the RV dealer to show the Monaco to our friends but it was locked so we looked at other ones they were interested in. After a bit we went shopping at Tyson Wells which is a very large gathering of venders under individual tents and tarps selling junk, antiques, tools, clothes and all sorts of other 'stuff'.   

After lunch we rode bikes thru the town and out their very nice bike path. We got back to the RVs mid afternoon and pulled out our chairs to bask in the sun, nap and talk. We grilled steaks for supper and enjoyed a warm campfire under a glorious starlit sky.

Camping in the Desert

Yesterday we started preparing for desert camping by getting the laundry done and grocery shopping. We then filled every water container we have available so that we can stay as long as we want without having to fill the water tank after 3 or 4 day.

It is only a 2 hour drive from Palm Springs to Quartzite, AZ but we lose an hour at the border changing time zones. The traffic is starting to build up around Quartzite as RV Week starts on Saturday. We pulled into an RV lot in the Born Free to look at a Monaco RV that John had learned was here. We wanted them to see our rig and we wanted to look at theirs. We talked with a couple of salesmen and asked them for a price. They want to play games!

The gas stations all have lines and there are lines getting into the BLM land where we will camp. We were able to claim the same spot we had last year because it's off the main road, only a mile from town and has a feeling of being by ourselves. But we're not really alone as we can see hundreds of other RV's all around us.

By the time we got settled in, it was 3 pm and we hadn't eaten lunch! Our friends from CO joined us at our site about that time as well. We renewed our friendship as we basked in the setting sun, built a big fire and had a wonderful evening.

Biking, Golfing and Hiking

We spent the day Sunday riding our bikes into La Quinta. It's about a 9 mile ride one way along the flat boulevards of the valley. At least they appear to be flat but in reality there is a slight grade to them. Going into town we could only get about 9.5 to 11 mph at a pretty steady pace, but coming back we were able to get about 14 mph. When we got into town, we found we had just missed the weekly farmers' market. It looked like we could have picked up some really nice vegetable and fruit if we had known about it. We had a nice lunch before heading back to Lake Cahuilla.

Monday was a golfing day but neither one of us played well. Even at that, it was a lovely day. The weather forecast called for high winds but the course we played on was well protected so we only got a breeze. We stopped at a place near the course afterward that must have had 150 different beers on the menu. It was fun trying something new.

Today we hiked AND biked. The hike took us up a canyon on mostly flat, sandy ground. Again, what appeared to be flat was really a slight rise that got us puffing. We think we walked about 5 miles total. After lunch and naps in the sun, we rode the bikes along another nearby trail that was packed sand. Not easy going when you are sliding and going up hill. We didn't get very high, but enough so that we could see parts of the nearby valley.

It was a beautiful day to be outdoors enjoying the sunshine, blue skies and each other's company!

Pines to Palms Highway

Today we went back to the FMCA rally to pick up our serviced tow bar and found out that it had been bent. At some point John tried to back up the towed car and must have put too much stress on one arm of the bar and it cracked. They fixed it but could not guarantee it so we decided it might be better if we just bought a new one. This has been an really expensive rally to attend!

Once that was taken care of, we picked up our friend and went for a drive thru the San Jacinto Mountains along the Pines to Palms Highway up to Idyllwild and then back down on the Banning-Idyllwild Panoramic Highway. The mountains start out high desert with just scrub brush, low trees and sand but as we climb, the trees get taller and there seems to be less sand and more grass. When we reached Idyllwild, we were in the tall pines. I half expected to see a mountain lion or bear, but I guess there are too many people and homes in this area for that to happen. We had a nice lunch and then explored several shops in Idyllwild. Our favorite was the leather shop located at the back of a parking lot. It was interesting to visit with the shop's owner as he stripped leather ties from a soft piece of black hide.

We had to go up higher before we came down the back side of the mountain range. Our highest point was about 8,000 feet. The view from up that high was pretty and would have been better if the clouds had moved out.

Busy, Busy!

More RV hunting. We drove a Holiday Rambler Vacationer, 30'11" class A gas powered coach on Monday, then drove to Tucson on Tuesday and drove a 29'11" Newmar Bay Star, gas powered. They are built on the same chassis with the same engine so they drove the same, but we had to try them.

We spent Tuesday night in Gila Bend and drove on into the Palm Springs area on Wednesday. We are camped at the Lake Cahuilla County Park. After a quick walk thru the FMCA rally and an extensive search of the RV's on the fairgrounds in Indio, we had dinner with our friends who are wintering in Palm Springs.

Early on Thursday we met our friends and went back to the FMCA Rally. We found the Blue Ox dealer and made arrangements to get our tow bar fro the car serviced and bought a new braking system for the towed vehicle. We then bought a tour package with Fantasy Tours to attend the Hot Air Balloon Festival in Albuquerque, NM in October. We again met with our friends and had dinner at one of our favorite restaurants - Zin, an American Bistro. After dinner we walked the Palm Springs street fair.

Friday found us playing golf at Shadow Mountain. I had a really good game considering I haven't played for 3 months (and I think my girlfriend is really generous with my scores!). John wanted to go home after 9 holes, if that tells you anything.

RV Hunting

We spent almost all day Saturday looking at RV's. We must have gone to 6-8 places, some of them consignment, some used sales and some new. There just are not very many RVs that meet our criteria. We want a 30' or shorter diesel with 60 gallon water capacity and luxury accommodations. We ended up looking at 31' -33' rigs. They seem so big! We may have narrowed our choices down to two units and will test drive one on Monday.

Today John is upgrading his Mother's computer and email program and I am baking pies as my Christmas gift to John's Mom. Boy, does this house smell good and our stomach are growling for that fresh pecan pie. I'm making everyone drool over the apple pie but it will go into the freezer for Marje to share with her friends at a later time.

Lunch time now and pool time in an hour or so!!

Lake Nobles State Park, AZ

We left Las Cruces and headed toward AZ. Near Deming, NM we stopped at the St. Clair Winery and tasted a few of their New Mexico wines. The red zinfandel and fruity shiraz we good enough that we bought one of each.

We had a hard time deciding where to stop on our way to Mesa as we weren't supposed to arrive until Friday, Jan. 6. We finally settled on Lake Nobles near Safford AZ and we are glad we did. It was a beautiful campground on a small lake that is sorely lacking for water. But there was still enough to satisfy the ducks and canoes. We rode our bikes for about an hour before basking in the sun and napping. I then built a fire, John grilled lamb for supper and we then rekindled the fire. It was a lovely clear night with a little too much moon shine but we still got the spotting scope out and did some star gazing.

We arrived in Mesa on Friday in time for lunch with John's Mom. The sun enticed us to lounge by the pool for awhile before we restocked the larder. Of course dinner was at Midwestern Meat Market where we had some really good prime rib!

Officially Leaving the Cold

Well, we woke up at 5 am Tuesday morning and the furnace was just barely blowing air. Our house batteries were nearly dead! So we started up the generator, slept a little longer, ate breakfast and headed to the nearest Sears Auto Store to get two new batteries. As you might recall, last August on our way home from Alaska, we had an electrical problem. We think that it probably damaged these batteries too.

We arrived in Roswell, NM around 6PM, so called some friends who used to live in Sedalia and had supper with them. We spent the night in a Sam's Club parking lot and were on the road fairly early this morning. Instead of stopping at the UFO museum again, we strolled thru the Roswell Museum and Art Center. I was especially impressed with the art work of Peter Rogers.

We then drove up to Lincoln, NM where Billy the Kid made a name for himself during the Lincoln County Wars. This little village is pretty much the same as it was in 1878, when a dispute turned into a war between two owners of competing stores. Billy the Kid was the leader of one faction calling themselves 'The Regulators" The other side called themselves "The Boys" or Murphy's Gang. The dispute waged for over 2 years, until the army was brought in to settle things down. Billy the Kid was the only one who was ever tried and convicted of any of the murders, thefts and destruction that occurred but on the eve of his hanging he killed two deputies and escaped. It was much later that he was caught again and killed. Many of the buildings from 1878 are still standing and a few were open for viewing. Very interesting era of the history of New Mexico.

We made a brief stop in Capitan where Smokey the Bear cub, the living symbol of fire prevention, was rescued from a fire and he is now buried there. Of course there is a museum and garden commemorating him.

We are spending the night in Las Cruces after eating a great meal at the Double Eagle Restaurant.

Happy New Year!

Yeah! We are off on another adventure -- away from the cold and into the warm. We left Sedalia this morning around 9 AM and drove to Norman, OK to have dinner with our daughter, son-in-law and grandsons. The best greeting in the world is from Luca and Vincent who are so excited to see us that they can't stop wiggling and laughing!

Even here it is 10 degrees warmer than home!