From Countrified to Citified

Today we packed up and hit the road about 9:55 a.m. heading for Phoenix. We had reservations at the SilverRidge RV Resort in Mesa which is a very large suburb of Phoenix and I’m told is the third largest city in Arizona. We arrived after getting through Saturday Phoenix traffic at about 12:30 p.m. and were set up by about 2:00 p.m. There was some hassle with our check in. We were guided to two sites by the little man at the front booth and both were taken (by seasonal dwellers) so don’t know where he’s getting his information but we finally ended up on site 630 which is very close to the doggie walk area.

The doggie walk area is through a gate and into a back street near where the city keeps their vehicles so it’s not a place where you can let the dog run. Our site is nice, quite large but not as large as Black Rock, also no picnic table again but we do have two concrete slabs, one for our patio and one to park the truck. The nice thing about this park is that the streets are paved so hopefully I’ll get out and get some exercise.

When we left Brenda it was mostly cloudy although the sun was bright when it first came up this morning. As we continued east it became more sunny and here in Mesa it is very sunny with a slight breeze. I tried sitting outside for a while but only got one chapter read. I need to go and check out the facilities. I always like to see if the showers and washrooms are clean so I know if I’m going to use their showers or ours. I’d rather use theirs, Gordon would rather use ours.

As the office isn’t open till Monday, we haven’t checked in yet so don’t have a map of the park so will have to wing it. We do have better cable here than we had in Brenda, I should say we have more stations.

It's quite a difference going from Brenda, in the country where you're surrounded by BLM land to Mesa, in the city where you're surrounded by freeways and shopping malls but we're here for two weeks!

Looks like 72F today for a high.

The photo today is Gordon sitting outside our RV at our new location.

We’re Headin’ On Out

Today I was up earlier than usual so got some photos of the sunrise from the farthest east part of the park. Bib and I walked in the wash that goes under the Hwy 60 bridge just east of here. Also discovered a 9 hole mini put golf course in the desert on the Black Rock RV Village property that I didn’t know about. It doesn’t appear to be advertised the way the 18 hole golf course is.

After getting my act together I decided since we are leaving the area tomorrow, I would get the laundry done as I’ll have to get groceries when we get to our next stop and didn’t want to have to do two things. That took most of the morning as there were only three washers and one was being used and three dryers and one was out of order and one was being used. With that out of the way, I got back just in time for lunch.

It was a nice sunshiny day so Bib and I took another short walk, then I dropped him off and went for a longer walk by myself with my camera. Didn’t see anything worth photographing. Came back and sat in my chair outside for a while with my fleece jacket on but even that didn’t keep me warm enough. The sun was warm but there was quite a cool breeze. Must be coming from Canada! I came back into the RV with cold hands so decided to read and of course, had another nap.

All in all, not a stressful day!

Now it’s time to find something for dinner and another usual TV and internet night.

Tomorrow we’re headed for SilverRidge RV Resort in Mesa, AZ where we’ve booked two weeks, buy one get one free! I like those kind of deals. Just hope the park is decent. I usually don’t like booking that much time sight unseen!

Today’s photo is of the morning sunrise.

Thursday's here again!

Today, as usual I walked the dog first thing. I don’t usually mention it because it occurs daily usually between 7:15 a.m. and 7:45 a.m. After feeding him and me, I usually do some internet surfing. Gordon is usually either out taking sunrise shots or sitting in his chair already on the internet since he got up usually somewhere between 2:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m.

Today we decided to head west toward Blythe, CA as we hadn’t gone far in that direction. We saw the Colorado River again and that’s about all. Not much of note going west. On the way back I took some photos of the sea RVs on BLM land and this is my photo for today. I wanted to take one from a distance so you could see the expanse but my camera isn’t equipped for wide angle or distance.

After we got back and had lunch, it seemed cool outside so I lay down on the couch to read and of course, fell asleep for a while. I then got up and headed for the campground shower and realized it had gotten nice and warm so when I got back from my shower I sat outside and read and let my hair dry naturally.

Then Bib and I went for another short walk around the park. I will miss this park in some ways. It’s the first park we’ve had in a long time where the sites are so huge! You actually feel like you have some space to yourself rather than being so close to your neighbor you’re sitting on his septic system. It’s also fairly quiet here and a short walk to the BLM area making you feel like you’re in the country, which you are. The price is pretty good - $125/wk less Good Sam Discount. The minuses for this location are lack of good grocery stores, all the roads in the park are gravel and dusty.

Since we’re leaving on Saturday for points east, we have to make some arrangements for a new park……..

Now I’m thinking about what to have for dinner and am leaning toward sandwich steaks and rice so I’d better get to it, then another night of TV and internet. The exciting life of the retired!

An Uneventful Wednesday

A slow start this morning. Gordon went out before sunrise and got the truck filled with diesel before the rush in Quartzsite. There are no gas stations in Brenda. Then he went south on SR95 to see if there were any photos to take. Most of the scenery there is the same as on the BLM land that is right next to us.

I decided that I needed to try out our new beater brush before the RV Show ends in case there is a problem with it. All in all, I’m pretty happy with it. It seemed to do a pretty good job on the rug, not as good as the vacuum cleaner I had when I had the stick house but it’s better than the brush we had for the rug.

After that we went for a walk on the BLM land and I took some photos of the 18 hole desert golf course. Pictured here is the first hole. There is no putting green as there is no green so you chip up onto the area around the flag. Must be difficult playing with all the scrub around. I think you’d be forever looking for balls but every morning the guys are out there early playing. We also saw some guys with model airplanes but they weren’t flying when we were out there. I also walked over to the rec hall area where the lady was selling oranges and grapefruit on Saturday. She was to be here again today and indeed she was so I bought four more oranges and she threw in an extra orange for $1.00. She says she'll be back on Saturday so I'll probably buy some more oranges and possibly some grapefruit before we head out to wherever our next location might be.

After lunch I tried sitting outside but there was a bit of cloud cover so it wasn’t all that warm even with a sweater on so I came in and started to read and fell asleep on the couch. Bib woke me up at 4:00 p.m. for his dinner.

After more interneting, I’m trying to get caught up with fulltimers Howard & Linda’s website: http://www.mytripjournal.com/rv-dreams. I’m starting January 2006 so I’m almost caught up. This will be a daily site visit for me along with Susan & Rick who are from Ontario : http://www.coulsoncastle.ca/index.php. Susan & Rick were the ones that invited us to stay at Catalina Spa at Desert Hot Springs in December for the 5 days for $25.00.

Bib and I went for another walk this afternoon to the east end of the park. I had never been there before and found the Laundry Room #3 has lots of washers & dryers. I may do another laundry before we leave here on Saturday.

At home in Ontario and most other places other than in the desert when you cross a bridge on a highway, you usually see a river or lake. In the desert when you cross a bridge, you see a wash. It’s a gravel ditch which takes the flash flood waters away when they have heavy rains. There are all kinds of them and you see them often when traveling on the roadways. They do have some irrigation canals but other than that you don’t see much in the way of water. Also pictured is the wash behind Laundry Room #3 which goes under Hwy 60 which is the highway where the campground is located.

The exception around here to this is the Colorado River which divides California from Arizona. It is a well used river for irrigation and hydroelectric purposes.

Also pictured are my duck boots. Note how dusty they are. Walking in the BLM and even on the crushed gravel streets of the campground is very dusty! Just wanted to mention the names of the streets here. We are on Los Coyote. Other street names are Which Way and Easy Street among others. Cute names!

Tonight again is TV and internet, our usual fare!

Happy Birthday Garth!

Just wanted to acknowledge our brother-in-law’s birthday today, while he’s in the ice and snow, we’re in the sun!

Today we headed back into Quartzsite. I decided I wanted to get a hummingbird feeder as in the last few places we’ve been there have been lots of these little creatures flying around. I purchased one, now just have to figure out how to get it to work with a suction cup on the window and also find some nectar or make my own. I’m also looking for beads for my niece. When I talked to her this weekend, she said she didn’t have any green beads. The ones I looked at today didn’t do anything for me and most of them need to be restrung and a catch put on them. I don’t want to do that as I’ve gotten rid of all my beading supplies so I’ll have to keep looking.

On our way back, we stopped at a little place in Brenda called Kathy’s Kitchen. It’s little more than an aluminum shed with patio tables and chairs. The front of the shed/garage is open so some tables are outside and the kitchen is just to the side of it in a small trailer structure. The breakfast was excellent and has agreed with my husband. For those of you that don’t know him, he has Celiac disease and can’t tolerate anything with gluten so if there is any cross contamination it will cause a reaction like cooking pancakes on the same grille with bacon and eggs.

Today’s photo is of Gordon and I having breakfast at Kathy’s Kitchen.

This afternoon I sat in my chair and read and napped for about 1 ½ hours. It was a beautiful day in the sun and got up to about 75F. The breeze came up this afternoon and although it’s not bad, the sand is masking most of the mountains around. I took a walk with Bib and Gordon to see what sunset might be like with the blowing sand and didn’t look like it would be much so Bib and I came back to the RV. I also updated our expenses, hadn’t done that since the end of December. December was a wash but January seems to be doing okay. We’re still under $2000.00 for this month.

I don’t have much to comment on yesterday's Canadian Federal Election. The Conservatives got in with a minority government. Maybe it’s time to give them a chance, the Liberals have been in power for a long time!

Another quiet night of TV and probably spending some time on the internet.

London Bridge Isn't Falling Down!

But it is under construction. Looks like they are about to repave it.

We left the campground this morning at about 9:15 a.m. and made one stop at the Parker Dam on our way to Lake Havasu City. Lake Havasu City is home to the real London Bridge which was purchased from England in 1968, disassembled in London and reassembled in Lake Havasu. The bridge was reassembled on dry land and the Bridgewater Channel was dug out from beneath the bridge causing the peninsula to become an island. There is a lot more to the history of the move of the bridge but I won’t bore you with further details.

Other than London Bridge, there’s not much more to Lake Havasu however I did go grocery shopping as Quartzsite is very busy and I’m told expensive for groceries. We also went to Home Depot and got a very tiny shop vac. We need something to be able to keep the truck clean and thought a shop vac might come in handy. It’s very cute but has lots of suction!

On our way home we stopped at all the scenic lookouts to take photos and arrived home around 6:00 p.m. in time to get dinner ready.

So now we are settled down to a night of interneting and TV watching.

The photo today is of me at London Bridge. I have on a T-shirt, a cardigan, my jean jacket as well as my fleece jacket. It’s not that it was that cold, but very windy. It was about 59F at the time the photo was taken.

We Attend the RV Show

Today we got up thinking that we might go to Lake Havasu City but decided to put it off for another day. Instead we thought we’d go to the RV Show in Quartzsite. The traffic in Quartzsite has been horrendous and with the RV Show starting yesterday we expected it would be much worse.

When we were in the office signing up for another week I noticed that they had a sign up sheet for a shuttle to the RV Show for free. We hadn’t signed up for today so at about 9:45 a.m. we headed up to the office to see if we could get on the 10:00 a.m. shuttle. We were in luck and we left for Quartzsite in the shuttle at about 10:15 a.m. Indeed the traffic was not something we wanted to drive in let alone trying to find parking so we were very happy to have the shuttle take us there and drop us off.

We spent about 2 ½ hours there. There is a huge tent with all kinds of exhibitors from Passport America to clothing. Of note was Armand from 3i Communications was not there. His booth was empty but the company name was on the booth. We bought our internet satellite system from him when we were in Lindsay in June 2005. Guess he was too busy wiring up the buses for the Canadian Federal Election tomorrow.

Some purchases were made. Our Passport America expires at the end of February so I signed us up for another year and got my temporary card. We saved $5.00 US signing up at the show. For those of you that don't know about Passport America, it saves us 50% on campgrounds that are listed with PA. We also got some shorter bars that we use to keep things on shelves and found a beater brush for our vacuum at the Dirt Devil exhibit. I’ve been talking about going to a vacuum cleaner store to see if I could get one as the rug brush that came with the vacuum just doesn’t ‘cut it’. Ever heard of cutting the rug or are most people that read this to young for that phrase? Anyway it means dancing which is entirely different from vacuuming (to me).

The shuttle picked us up at about 1:15 p.m. and we returned to the park where Bib was anxiously awaiting us. After doing some interneting and having a nap, Bib and I went for a walk on the BLM land next to the park where he got some sort of burr like stuff in his fur so he got a brushing tonight.

Oh, and by the way, I did get the freezer defrosted last night. It doesn't take long once you get started, it's just getting at it.

I’m starting to get comments on my blog. Cool!

That’s all for today – photo of the day is of the RV show.