Camping – Page 18 – TooBusyForWork

Home is always nice

We left Paducah on Tuesday morning. The KOA really needs to do some trimming on the trees in the campground. We did let them know, and they said they would. The poor owners are trying hard to get the place upgraded. We spent Tuesday night at Spindler Marina Campground in Peoria, IL. It was a nice quiet campground in late winter during the middle of the week, but I bet it would be crazy in the summer or on weekends. I was pleasantly surprised by the interstate in Illinois. It was much better than the last time I went through many years ago.

While we were really anxious to get home, we did stop at the World’s Biggest Truckstop on I-80. I was looking for a much better lumbar support for the motorhome’s driver seat, and they had a good collection. I ended up with a mesh one that feels wonderful! Between the tire alignment, the Safe-T-Plus, and the lumbar support, I am much less tired while driving. We ended up just taking the motorhome to the house to unload most of our stuff. Thank goodness most of the house construction is done on our street! Once we got the motorhome to the storage unit and us back home, we just kind of collapsed. It has been three months, and the mail pile was huge!

We still have some things to put up, but we are going to have all the kids and grandkids over on Sunday for dinner which wil be fun. I also spent some time with my vinyl cutter. I experimented with labels, and I got all my spice containers labeled nicely. I also decorated two little onesies for my new granddaughter, scheduled to arrive some time in May.

My daughter really wants girly things, so this was the pinkest pink I had! I think they are cute. It was a good thing I had her spell the baby’s name since I would have done it wrong! I also bought some other baby things, just since it is so much fun buying baby clothes.

We are gradually getting back in the groove. Tomorrow morning will be church, then I get to start cooking. Grilled pork chops, roasted carrots, smashed red potatoes, and flan for desert – yum! Kevin has already checked the grill works, and all it needed was a propane refill. We also made a nice big Amazon order to get a bunch of things we need before our next trip. We have also bought tickets for a show in Cedar Rapids, and I made reservations at a local campground for Mother’s Day weekend so we don’t have to drive back after the show. We have also made reservations for right after the FMCA rally this summer. We figured there would be 1000 rigs all trying to go somewhere, so it was best to make reservations. That will be the start of the next big trip to the Pacific Northwest. Oh, and Kevin is ordering a Sanicon system for the motorhome. It is similar to a macerator, but has a bigger hose. He will be installing that himself too. I figured there was no way he could last an entire summer without ordering and installing something <grin>.

Land Between the Lakes and Paducah

We got on the road about 10:00 on Friday and headed north. We were only going to somewhere just south of Birmingham, so we weren’t in any rush. We tried a number of campgrounds, but they were full. Between Spring Break, nice weather, and a weekend, we shouldn’t have been surprised. We ended up in a Walmart in Pasqua, AL. It was very nice! They had pull through sites marked and ready for semi overnight parking. We left that to the truckers and found a spot off to the side where we could put out our slides easily. We did do some trash pickup and bought some things. The passenger seat of the coach had a couple of loose bolts and a broken cotter pin, so Kevin bought the pin to replace it. Good thing he found it!

We spent the next three nights at a KOA in Calvert, KY not far from Paducah and the Land Between the Lakes (LBL). It was a nice little campground in need of some modernization. The new owners just bought the place in January and have a lot of plans. It was very, very quiet.

The view from our site. Sorry for the electric box.

We spent Sunday wandering through the LBL. Those lakes are BIG! They even had shipping on the lakes.

This barge was headed from Kentucky Lake (Tennessee River) to Lake Barkley (Cumberland River)

We wandered around the LBL looking primarily at the historic sites. Turns out they mined iron in the area. There were a few ruins in the old town of Hematite (named after the iron ore). Here is the central furnace where the ore was smelted. The white rock was where the heat was applied and the bricks were insulation.

Our favorite spot by far was the Homeplace Historic Site. It is an interpretive site with an 1850s farm with docents working on the farm using historic tools, seeds, and animals. Here is a bunch of pictures of great spots.

A “Two Pen” house (two main rooms each with a fireplace)

The Two Pen had an addition at the back too

The first house would have been a “One Pen”. You can see one of the costumed interpreters

I picked up a great book that included history and recipes of the area: “The Homeplace History and Receipt Book” by Geraldine Ann Marshall. I loved reading about the history from a woman-centric view. It is organized by the activities that occurred seasonally.

Monday we went to the National Quilt Museum in Paducah. I was underimpressed. The quilting was absolutely stunning, but the vast majority of the pieces were appliqué. I expected a more historically-oriented display, but it was mostly drop dead gorgeous modern quilts. I actually preferred looking at the murals on the river wall. They had numerous historic scenes that were quite interesting. I also went to Hancocks of Paducah, a big fabric store. I picked up a bunch of fabrics for my granddaughters nursery, with the approval of her mom. I will show those as I finish them.

Today we left about 9:00 and arrived at Peoria, IL a little after 4:00. We are staying at Spender Marina Campground, a municipal campground right in town. I am sure it would be impossible to find a site during the summer, but it is on,y about half full tonight. $27 for full hookups is a good deal. Kevin is going to clean all the tanks really well, and I am going to finish the deep clean inside that I started yesterday. Tomorrow we get back to the “sticks and bricks” house.

Last days at the Gulf

On Wednesday the weather was again surprisingly good, so we took a trip to Johnson Beach, part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore. The beach was really, really lovely though. Since there is an entrance fee to the National Seashore, there were very few people around, a nice change from the spring break crowds at Gulf Shores. While here was some blue sky occasionally, the wind was fierce. I am still amazed at how super fine and white the sand is. “Sugar sand” is a very appropriate name.

Thursday would be our last day at the Gulf, so we decided to visit the Naval Air Museum at Pensacola NAS. Like every other military museum I have ever been to, it was fantastic. I always prefer looking at the older planes because I have less experience with them, and they had a tremendous collection.

One of the last “Flyting Boats”. It even has a keel line and rudder.

Fantastic replica of the Apollo moon landing

While at the NAS, we also visited the headquarters of the Gulf Islands National Seashore so Kevin could get a pin. He tries to pick one up at each park we visit, and his collection is pretty impressive. We took the long way back across the beaches, then went to dinner at Acme Oyster Bar. Luckily they had more than oysters since neither of us like them. I had a great lightly fried fish with a gorgeous butter/shrimp topping, and Kevin ate a good roast beef open face sandwich. I hadn’t had seafood the entire trip, and I just had to get some. We also finished catching up on laundry and other exciting housekeeping chores.

We left today, and we are spending the night in a Walmart on the south edge of Birmingham. We tried to get a campground, but all the good ones were already full (oh the joys of spring break in the south). Lily is really getting into the groove of travel.

She just loves this one particular lap quilt, and I am sure she thought Kevin left it on his lap just for her. She probably sat there a total of 2 hours in a couple of different shifts.

Tomorrow we arrive in Paducah, the quilting Mecca. We will stay 3 days so we can see the National Quilt Museum, do some shopping for my granddaughter due in May, and probably drive some in the land Between The Lakes area.

In and out of Red Bay (again)

We drove into the Tiffin Service Center campground in Red Bay, AL on Sunday, 3 March. We got seen by the evaluator on Monday, and we were told it would be the middle of the next week before we could get into a service bay. That gave us some time to wander around, but it was so cold we didn’t enjoy it much. We did get to a small shop in downtown Red Bay and ordered a custom hand towel in the basic colors of the coach.

However we got a call early on Friday morning to head to a bay! We got everything we needed done by Tiffin early, a nice change. However we still had some woodworking to be finished by an outside vendor, and we had an appointment for diesel service and installation of a SafeTPlus steering system on Wednesday. The woodworking was done on Monday, and we got the diesel work done as planned by Bay Diesel. Since the service center work was complete, we moved to a private campground nearby, 1st Class Campground. It is another gravel parking lot, but at least the owner turned the water on a few hours a day. Pretty much all the other campgrounds had water shut off completely due to the freezing temperatures.

The diesel service went well, and I already LOVE the SafeTPlus. It makes driving much, much easier and less tiring.

Today we had the coach detailed, the first time it has been washed in months! We were scheduled for the 4 hour job to begin at 9:30, but just after we left it the water faucet they used broke due to the cold! The detail guy had to spend the first few hours replumbing the water line, so instead of being on the road by 2:00, we didn’t leave until after 4:30.

We had thought about gradually heading back to Iowa, staying at some Corps of Engineers sites for a couple of weeks, but I was so tired of the cold! Even Red Bay was getting down to lows of 20 or so, almost unheard of for March. Kevin found a campground in Gulf Shores, AL near the coast. We will be spending a week there, hopefully warming up. The forecast is for lots of rain though, so it is not an unmixed blessing. We are spending tonight in a Walmart parking lot in Cullman, AL.

Gave up running – just staying put

I made it through DFW, though it was a long tiring day. We arrived at Lale Catherine State Park on Wednesday. The sites are all long, but the one we reserved (number 46] was too unlevel to work for us. Since the campground was pretty empty, we just moved to another site (number 45). We also took a look at the forecast for Hot Springs and for Red Bay, and we decided o just give up on running before the storm! We are staying out until they go away, so we aren’t leaving until tomorrow (Sunday). I was absolutely exhausted on Thursday. All the driving, especially through DFW, added to not sleeping well because I decided to try a Claritin D instead of my normal Claritin, took a huge toll on me. I was tired and sore and DONE with doing 400+ miles a day, three days in a row, in a motorhome.

We had to change sites at the campground because where we were was reserved for the next couple of days. We ended up farther uphill in the trees instead of right at the lake, but the site is roomy, level, and quiet (site 8). It has rained and rained, so we just hung around the motorhome the first day. Yesterday I took a spa day, appropriate since We were in Hot Springs. I had a short Swedish massage, a facial, and a foot scrub at Quapaw Spa on Bathhouse Row at the National Park, and it was lovely. We had a nice dinner at a German restaurant, and I feel rejuenated. Right now it is pouring down rain, but it is supposed to stop by noon or so. It is also warming up to almost 70, so we intend on doing some sightseeing before we leave. Rest does amazing things.

Change in plans – running from the storm

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.

Mountain towns mean retaining walls. Many have been decorated by artists.

Lots of small houses brightly colored are a fixture in Bisbee

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.

Many of them have branches clustered along along a horizontal plane.

In this one the side branches are just getting started

Baby saguaros look a lot like basic barrel cactus when they are little.

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.

These have just started blooming. They also have seed heads on them that almost look like tiny dandelion seeds

Kevin took these two pictures along a trail near the campground.

There are are a few in the blue/purple family

Kevin found this on a cholla, almost blooming

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.

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.

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