Tag: Flagstaff

Iowa – home again first time in 2025

It was time to get home. Always something to look forward to, and something we regret since we love the Southwest so much. I did some serious medication and lots of heating pad use, and I was able to drive semi-comfortably.

We left Monument Valley and went to Page, AZ, staying at the Elks Lodge 4 April.  It was a gravel parking lot, and they charged $15 for dry camping. I thought that was fairly high, but, then again, Page is a big vacation spot. Very friendly people though. The next night we went to the Twin Arrows Casino outside Flagstaff, AZ. It is always an easy spot to stay, free, and not too noisy. On 6 April we spent the night at Santa Rosa State Park, NM. Lovely place. It is a bit of a pain to get to, but worth it for a beautiful and quiet spot. We thought about staying two nights, but there was weather coming in, so we kept going.

Monday saw us all the way through Texas and into Elk City, OK where we spent the night at the Elks Lodge. Again it had no hookups, but we were able to find a nice spot. We got to Oklahoma City fairly early on Tuesday. We stayed at the Edmond Elks Lodge. Not very nice due to crowding. We could hear a lot of conversations from surrounding coaches! We stayed two days because a group of elementary and high school friends were getting together. I keep forgetting how little I have in common with the people I went to high school with! I think this will be the last time I try to get together with them. Life definitely does go on.

We spent 10 April on the trip at the Kansas Star Casino south of Wichita. Great place to spend a quiet night for free. The lot we stayed in was gravel, but it was pretty flat and relatively unoccupied. There is an alternative spot closer to the casino that was asphalt, but it was slightly more occupied. Our last night was spent at the Walmart in Osceola, IA. Lots of reefers running all night, but it was handy. A bad wind was coming, so we left early and headed straight home.

We got here this morning and put the motorhome at Big Woods Lake County Park. We are about half unpacked, and we will finish tomorrow. The cats are enjoying the space. Each of them is rubbing their faces over pretty much every surface, marking the place as theirs after so long.

With the new RZR and tariffs being on and off, Kevin has ordered all kinds of things for it. We had them delivered to my oldest son’s place. A lot of things are big (front and rear windshields, bumper, etc.), and our son has joked that he will give us the bill for the storage unit the items required! He also said we owe the poor UPS guy who has to walk up 20 steps or so to their front door! Kevin will be fully employed getting everything put on. I have a list of things to quilt, and I need to get them done before we leave again around Memorial Day, so most posts going forward will probably be quilt-related.

Lake Havasu then dispersed camping near Flagstaff then back to Lake Havasu

Odd title I know. We went to DJ’s RV Resort in Lake Havasu to get the RZR set up to carry in the F-150 bed. Kevin had some additions to make to it too like adding a winch, a cargo rack, and some new mirrors. Knowing it might get complicated, a friend in town let him work in his air conditioned garage and use a few big tools he owned that Kevin didn’t bring with us. It took 5-6 days of 3 hours or so a day since they are both retired and worked slowly. He got it all done though! The picture makes the truck seem bigger than it is, but that is just the perspective.
Ready to roll!

While Kevin and Bill were working on the truck and RZR, I went to the local quilt guild “Staycation,” a 3 day retreat in a local community building, 8-4. I didn’t stay that long, but I did get a lot done. I finished the piecing for the scrappy tumbler the night before, and I got it quilted. Still need the binding though.

I got 6 blocks completed of the 9 needed for my Hunter’s Star top at the retreat. Here is the completed top with borders I finished yesterday. I give the credit to Accuquilt for those almost perfect corners and joins! Aren’t they lovely? I felt I was a walking advertisement for Accuquilt since I had so many people come over to see it.

While we were here, we took a drive to Quartzsite where we always stay some in the winter. Lots of changes, but I won’t detail them here. However I saw this adorable line up of little “people”. They really stood out because there were so very few real people in the huge area. It was almost spooky to see it so empty.

We left LHC on Thursday, 15 June, to find a dispersed site in the Coconino National Forest west of  Flagstaff. We wanted to do some riding! We found a great place off Forest Road 171, and enjoyed gorgeous weather and some nice riding. I experimented with my new Go Pro, and I got some great videos. This post was later than I intended because I can’t figure out how to post them to Facebook or YouTube! I keep getting errors. But I decided I wouldn’t wait any longer, so you will get no videos until I can figure out how to get them on YouTube. Loading them here is just too resource intensive, and the uploads over a few seconds long always fail. The forest was lovely. It reminds me a lot of the Black Hills with open forests alternating with prairie meadows. We were at 7200’, so it was in the 30s each morning, warming up to the 70s. We took one long day or 60+ miles, and a couple of days of shorter trips.

We would have stayed longer on the forest, but Kevin had another dental issue from his recent tooth implant. He saw an emergency dentist in Lake Havasu the first time we came through, and it happened again when we were in the forest. He couldn’t find a dentist or oral surgeon within 100 miles that could get him in quickly except back in LHC with the same emergency dental clinic he used the first time. This time the oral surgeon back in Iowa coordinated the care with the dentist here, and we are crossing our fingers it worked. We decided to stay around here for 4 nights and do some more sightseeing plus cleaning and laundry. The dirt from UTV riding is no joke! Plus I need some more fabric!