Just in case anyone in the US is unaware, the weather this winter is terrible pretty much anywhere. That is a sarcastic comment BTW, but it is certainly appropriate for our home in Iowa and pretty much everywhere we have been this winter. In Arizona it was a good 10-15 degrees colder than usual, and very wet. We took off Monday from White Tank Mountain Park by Phoenix, heading to Alabama. We spent last night at a lovely campground in the small town of Van Horn, TX, just down I-10 from ElPaso. The Van Horn Campground used to be a KOA, but it is immensely better than the KOA we stayed at in Benson. Plus it was a lot less expensive, a bonus. However it was cold there too with a low of 24. That is awfully low for a town 30 miles from the Mexican border. We took a look at the weather this morning, and left early to run in front of the sleet and snow that was heading our way. We chose a totally different route than we had planned. We decided to take I-10 to US 67 to Abilene and back to I-20. I admit I was not fond of the 150 or more miles of 2 land roads through oil country, and I am exhausted after 420 miles driving. We are spending the night at a Walmart in Eastland, 40 miles east of Abilene. Tomorrow we go through the DFW area to end up on I-30. We have reservations at Lake Catherine State Park for 2 nights.
Bisbee Arizona
We arrived Friday afternoon in Benson Arizona. We are staying at the KOA which is small, crowded, but wonderfully quiet. We immediately started laundry! We had lots and lots because it had been almost 2 weeks since we last did it. Saturday however we had a lovely day in Bisbee, about an hour away. We first took a golf cart tour of the town. Bisbee is a mining town set into the side of a mountain, so there was no way we could have walked through it. Since the older roads were laid out before cars, many of them are barely wide enough for small car (or golf carts!). In addition our guide grew up in the town and knew all kinds of interesting stories. It was cold and windy, so I didn’t get many pictures, but these will give you an idea.
After a lost 3 hours on the tour we had a nice beer at a local bar followed by a so-so dinner at another spot. Then we took another tour, this one about Bisbee ghosts! I don’t believe in ghosts, but it was a fun historical tour.
We got back at 10:00 at night, which is late for this girl! It was so worth it.
Today we had a lovely lunch at a local restaurant and did more laundry! Tomorrow we leave for Alabama. The plan is to take I-10 to I-20 to US 277 at Abilene to Wichita Falls to Oklahoma City where we catch I-40 the rest of the way. We’ll see how the plans work! We will basically just be driving until we get to Little Rock. We then plan to take an extra day at Hot Springs National Park to take one of the hot baths. Then back on the road.
Last day in Phoenix area
We are sitting inside on a last, rainy day at White Tank Mountain Park. Outside stuff is mostly packed up since we knew the rain was on its way. Tomorrow we will just pack up power cord, water softener, water hose, and bikes, hopefully after the rain ends. It is always surprising how much “stuff” accumulates inside and out when we are in one place for a while.
We have had some good things happen while we are here. First, the scenery still is spectacular everywhere we look.
Take a look at some of my favorite saguaros.
You can also see lots of cholla varieties in the backgrounds.
There are lots of flowers around too, even though the main bloom isn’t for another couple of months. Yellow seems the dominant color.
There are are a few in the blue/purple family
We took a trip to a supposed dirt road west of Wickenburg only to find out it had been paved! The guide book to 4×4 trails is obviously a bit out of date. On that trip (last Saturday) we had a real mess in Wickenburg. They were having a big rodeo and history festival in town – Gold Rush Days. They even close their schools for the entire week, which is amazing to me. Carnival, parade, rodeos, UTVs, trucks, and thousands of people were between where we wanted to be and where we were! It took 30+ minutes to make a detour through town, and we completely gave up on our initial plan of having lunch there. It looked like a nice town though, so Tuesday we went back. We visited the Desert Caballeros Western Museum, and all I can say is WOW! It had some very good historic exhibits, but the art exhibits were astonishing. Caitlin, Remington, and many other famous western artists have originals paintings and bronzes displayed here. It is truly a gem, and worth much more than the $12 admission. They also had a special exhibit of Native American art pieces from a private collector. The items were mostly Navajo and Hopi, with some sprinkles of other groups. Baskets, pottery, and rugs were only a few of the items, and they were amazing.
Tomorrow we head to Benson for three nights at the KOA. It will let us get our tanks flushed well and do laundry. We are also planning on a trip to Bisbee. We visited there 20-25 years ago, and we have always wanted to go back. Then off through NEw Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Tennessee to Alabama and one last trip to the Tiffin factory for some small maintenance items.
White Tank Mountain Park and Phoenix
This is a beautiful place! We arrived Monday, and I was amazed at the scenery. Everything is quite green (for the desert) due to the rains. In fact, it rained quite a bit on Wednesday. There was quite a bit of water along the road and in low spots. 
The second one is taken through the windshield, but it shows the view I get to see.
Thursday we went to the Desert Botanic Garden on the far side of Phoenix. It was totally worth the drive and the money! Take a look:
We also had lunch at the upscale restaurant inside. They also had a wonderful plant store where I forced myself to not buy a thing! It was very hard since the succulents were incredible. I love desert landscaping and succulents, but there is no room in the coach and the cacti won’t be happy at the house with the cold weather.
One of the nice things about being in civilization again is that we can eat regular food. I have breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and they are mostly balanced. It is lovely to have fresh veggies, fruits, fish, and meats. Those were hard to come by in the boondocks. I have enjoyed cooking, and I will definitely keep it up until we leave. We are planning on just heading to Alabama from here, and I want to have some food in the freezer before we leave.
Missing in action
It has been a long time since my last post. I have been trying to find the time and energy to post about our time at KOFA and then Quartzsite, but it seems overwhelming. Instead I am just going to provide a brief summary of the last four weeks, then my next post will be more recent.
We spent a week at KOFA in an great boondock site with friends. I started getting sick there – standard sinus problems I get on a far too frequent basis. On Monday, 14 January, we moved to Quartzsite with some different friends. I kept getting more sick, but treated myself with stam and keeping up with my allergy meds. Finally I acknowledged I felt like crap and was coughing so badly that I needed a doctor. We went to an urgent care facility in Lake Havasu, a bit of a drive, but I wanted a place with good patient reviews. Steroids and antibiotics to get rid of the bronchitis were the Rx. Within 24 hours I was sooooo much better! Steroids do that.
We did do a few things in Quartzsite. Funnel cakes and Indian tacos were a hit (different days). We also bought a couple of new camping chairs plus a little folding table. We had a lovely time with our friends, and ended up staying until Saturday, 2 February. We stayed in the town of Quartzsite at a full hookup site at Quail Run RV Park. Took a bit to get used to being 5’ from my neighbor instead of 100’, but it was nice to have unlimited power and water. I got to do all our laundry in our own unit, a big improvement over laundromats in Quartzsite!
On Monday, 4 February we checked in to White Tank Mountain Regional Park just west of Phoenix. Absolutely gorgeous, but I will pick that up in the next post.
A summary of some RV related information. We were having trouble keeping the batteries up even though we weren’t using that much power. Kevin found a hygrometer to measure their “goodness” only to discover they were not in good shape. Sigh. We drove to Phoenix to buy 6 new ones. Expensive, but needed. The solar worked better than we thought, even on cloudy winter days. We needed up needed the generator only about an hour a day most of the time. Everything else worked really well. We used the satellite when we needed, the refrigerator kept things cold or frozen as needed, and the weather wasn’t too terrible though significantly cooler than normal.
Happily in the desert again
We left Needles on Monday, 7 January, and we are now in a boondock site in the Kofa area off King Road, about half way between Quartzsite and Yuma. This area sits between the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge and the Yuma Proving Range which makes it interesting. We can see transport and bombers go overhead, hear bombs being dropped a long way off, and still be hopeful of seeing mountain sheep. It is classic Sonora desert country. The name is an acronym for King of Arizona, a mine in the area. It stamped its gold with “K of A,” and the name stuck to both the mountain range and the wildlife refuge.
Of course the mountains are lovely too.
We are here with 7 other RVs, both trailers and motorhomes. We are all members of the RVForum spending time here before we camp at Quartzsite for a couple of weeks. No services, but we are all self sufficient with solar and generators. We figure we will leave when we need to dump the tanks, maybe Saturday or Sunday.
We haven’t been doing much, just relaxing and hanging around. I hope drive some of the backroads in the area before we leave. There seem to be some interesting looking places to go.
We are RVing again!
We spent Sunday night in a La Quinta on the north side of Tucson, and it wasn’t very nice. It was more expensive than the others, and we got upgraded when they didn’t have our room cleaned at 5:30 (really?), but it just wasn’t very good. We had a wonderful lunch of green chili chicken enchiladas at Adele’s in Las Cruces on the way in. Definitely will be remembering that spot!
We got into Needles just after noon Pacific time on Monday, New Year’s Eve. I was slightly nervous about the power in the RV, but everything was fine. We had left a penny on top of a frozen container of water to make sure the freezer didn’t get warm, and it was fine. The coach’s batteries were fully charged on the solar, and we happily pulled it out of storage into Desert View RV Park that was only a few blocks away. It is so nice to be in our own space again. The park is nice with mostly long term residents. Our site isn’t very big, but the long term sites are bigger. The park was having a karaoke night for NYE, and Kevin and I joined them. Well, I did some singing, and Kevin was a great audience. Nice folks here, and we have a good rate because we are staying a week at a significant discount.
Tuesday we just relaxed. I had enough driving! We did some organizing, cleaning, and shopping, but mostly we just relaxed. We weren’t too interested in doing much since there was a dreadfully cold wind on both Tuesday and Wednesday. We had planned on going to Oatman, AZ on Wednesday, but we chose to just visit Davis Dam.
There wasn’t a lot of power being generated which matched the low levels of the river. We also drove through the Davis Camp Campground, a public campground just below the dam on the Arizona side of the river. The dry camping sites were gorgeous – right next to the river. The full hookup sites were very crowded though, and I doubt we would want to stay there in the future.
Today we took the belated trip into Oatman. I love the views on the way there.
The drive past Oatman is spectacular too.
And of course, if you go to Oatman you have to take pictures of the “wild” burrows.
Kevin has been doing some organizing in the motorhome. He put together a shoe rack I bought, and luckily it fits perfectly on the closet floor. I was tired of a confused pile of shoes on the floor, and now we can see them all. Even better is the cabinets he has modified for a spice rack. The doors were hinged, but had no pulls. Kevin rearranged the pile of wires and flexible hoses behind the door and added the pull.
He had ordered this spice shelf and bottles while we were home. They fit very well. There are actually two cabinets, so he is going to order another spice cabinet when we get home this spring. It will be awfully handy.
That is enough pictures. I am recovering from a sinus cold, and I am now going to bed!
Christmas done and we are out of Iowa
Christmas was fun, being with family and having a relaxing holiday. I got to be in a fun Christmas church choir concert, went to a grand daughter’s piano recital. Nick, my son in law, and I made Christmas dinner for my daughter’s co-workers at the hospital. It went well – ham, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green beans with mushrooms and bacon, sage cornbread dressing. The day after Christmas I found I came down with shingles. What a letdown!
After Christmas we had to do such really important tasks like get haircuts and a massage before heading off to California. We left on Friday, 28 December. Cedar Falls was having some snow, so we left at 10:15, later than we planned originally to let the snow plows get the roads salted. I-80, I-70, and I-40 were all having problems so we decided to head straight south through Missouri. It was a good idea. We ended up staying in Emporia, KS at a La Quinta that was ok. We like La Quintas because they accept pets without an extra charge. The trip was uneventful, always a good thing.
Today we drove a very long way, from Emporia, KS to Odessa, TX. We left by 7:00 in the dark. Luckily there was a Starbucks next door to the La Quinta! With the weather still being iffy on I-40 and north, we decided to take the longer but safer trip on I-20 to I-10. Let me say I am definitely not a fan of the Texas plains. I normally don’t mind remote, isolated land, but this just didn’t warm me up at all. However I was astonished at the activity in the Permian Basin around Midland. There were dozens and dozens of “RV Parks” being used for worker housing. The amount of activity was amazing. I have never seen so many active drilling rigs, and I have been through North Dakota and the Uinta Basin drilling areas.
Tomorrow we will spend the night west of Tucson, and then we are spending a week in Needles in the motorhome! Normally I would just plan on spending time dry camping somewhere, but with the Government shutdown going on indefinitely, I am worried about the closure of public land and increased demand for private campground so we just booked a full hookup site for the week. We can visit Mohave and Joshua Tree areas from there, plus the Lake Havasu/Bullhead area.
So in summary, lovely month at home, but we are ready to travel again.
Back in Iowa
We left the motorhome in storage in Needles, CA on Tuesday, 13 November with both the solar and the refrigerator running. I am nervous that something will go wrong and I will have a disaster in the refrigerator when we get back, but logic says it will be fine. I hope so!
We spent the first night in Santa Rosa, NM at the Super 8. Not bad, and we would go back if it was convenient. They did charge an extra $10 for Lily, but is was clean. The second night we stayed at the Days Inn in El Dorado, KS. We intended to stay in Wichita, but it was challenging to find a place close to the road so we drove a bit farther. We did eat at a totally fantastic restaurant in Wichita called Mediterranean Grill. Absolutely wonderful, and I will drive out of my way to eat there again.
As for a route, we chose to just drive I-40 to I-35. It was a bit longer than taking some state highways, but it was just so much easier we did it anyway. Since we bought an Oklahoma PikePass on our way to Death Valley even the Oklahoma and Kansas turnpikes were easy. We got home on Thursday, 15 November in the late afternoon. The house feels huge! What doesn’t feel huge were the televisions, especially in the bedroom which is much smaller than the ones in the motorhome. Of course that gave Kevin the perfect excuse to shop for a new living room TV so we could move the old one to the bedroom. Haven’t figured out where to move the bedroom one yet, but we will figure something out!
My daughter in law had ordered me a wonderful turkey from a local specialty house, so I picked up a 20 pound bird on Friday. It went straight to the refrigerator. We will be having my daughter’s family and my unmarried son for dinner, so five adults and a toddler. The turkey is definitely overkill, but that’s what they had. Kevin also smoked a glorious 14 pound turkey, but it pretty much all went to leftovers for the kids (my married son and his family showed up in the evening). Two pecan pies, one pumpkin pie, turkey, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, and mashed potatoes made up the menu, and it was wonderful. I brined the turkey for the first time, and it was a brilliant idea.
The other particularly nice thing about being back in the house is that I get to be back in choir. We are practicing for a cantata by Mark Hayes that is filled with Christmas carols. Lovely, and I so enjoy singing with a group again. Our performance is on 9 December.
I admit the cold here is pretty intense for someone just coming back from the Southwest, but we will survive. I just had to pull out all the big winter coats!
Almost done with RVing this year
We left Death Valley today just before 10:00, and we are spending the next two nights at the KOA in Needles, CA. Another big windstorm came in last night, and we were worried it was going to be too windy to leave, but the wind died down a bit around 9:00 so we decided to go for it! It is just less than 250 miles, so it wasn’t a long day thankfully. Most of the roads were quite narrow 2 lanes without much traffic. The KOA is very nice though with sandy sites and not much noise.
Yesterday, on the way back from Pahrump, we actually made reservations for January at Stovepipe Wells full hookup campground! We had planned on going to the regional FMCA rally in Indio, CA, but we decided we wanted more Death Valley instead. Well, I wanted more Death Valley, but with cell phone data! Kevin survives much better without internet than I do.
Also on the way back from Pahrump we took the 20 Mule Team scenic drive. It winds through a deeply eroded lake bed made mostly of yellow silt.
The silt contrasts nicely with the colors and layers of the distant mountains.
The contrast would have been more intense without the smoke pall from the fires to the west. The haze is the reason we didn’t visit the big overlooks in the park or went star gazing.
Tonight and tomorrow are for laundry and throughly cleaning the coach. Tuesday morning it goes into storage here in Needles until we come back after Christmas. Sigh.