2013 Mar 22 - Amado, AZ

Friday - De Anza RV Resort
We arrived here at 1440 hrs in the middle of a heat wave which isn't so surprising since it's Arizona, but it's only March. It has been in the 90's here instead of the normal 70's it usually is at this time of year.

De Anza RV Resort

Being from the computer field, I am very familiar with "Murphy's Law" and I have found it carries over into the RV world. It figures, our air conditioner stopped working in our time of need. I tried to evaluate all the RV service possibilities available. One explained that their were no accessible service areas from outside and the unit would have to be removed to be evaluated and repaired or replaced. And sometimes the cabling is wrapped around the framing which adds to the removal time. The Horizon has a residential central heating/air conditioning unit in a rear side compartment.

Fortunately I found Lance's RV Mobile RV Service in Tuscon. Lance Davis came out to our site and traced the problem to a bad circuit board. He didn't have to pull out the the unit but opened a large inspection plate on the front side. He was able to order a replacement and have it overnighted. The next day he came back with the new board. He was able to read the circuit diagram to make some necessary changed and after installing, it is working great. The valuation of Service Performed: Excellent
Value of Service:   Excellent
Quality of Service:  Excellent

Elephant Rock on Left and Observatory on Right

A view out the back of the camp ground. Below is a closer look at Elephant Rock.

Elephant Rock

He's looking past us to the right. His head is the top of the rock and you can see his black eye and ear while his trunk lays down the right side. You can also see his rf leg and his hind quarters. He appears to be smiling at me for taking so long in recognizing him.

As the sun is setting, you can already see the difference in light and color between the two images. After staying here many times in the past, while pulling out these images I finally saw the elephant.

 Color moves to the sky from the mountains as the sun begins to sets.

Debbie's mother had been in the hospital and returned home just before we arrived.  We'll be here for a month visiting and helping out a little.

One day a RV/Boat spent a couple of nights in the campground in a site across from us. Cruising on the highway or waterway.

Debbie has been putting out a humming bird feeder and she finally has attracted a bird, although it's not a humming bird.

Ty didn't seem to care what kind of bird it was, he studied it for some time before he tried to touch it.

The bird didn't like the sound of claws scraping on the window and moved over.

The month past by way too fast. We have spent most of the time just hanging out with Debbie's folks, visiting, eating and relaxing.

We'll be leaving for home tomorrow Sunday, April the 21st.

Bowie, AZ Feb 17, 2013

Mountain View RV,  a Passport America park $14.00.  Power, water and sewer but we didn’t need anything but water since we were only stopping for the night.  We’re in the middle of nowhere, in a valley,  with a mountain view, somewhere  in Arizona.

An old airplane is in one of the sites. The mountains in the background.

An abandon building in the distance.

I decided to walk over and have a look but I forgot, every plant in the desert has stickers!  I got this close before I noticed by socks were covered with stickers. (wearing shorts)

This is the innocuous looking bush responsible.  I hadn’t noticed until it was too late and the stickers were working their way through my sock and becoming very uncomfortable.  The building was probably empty anyway.

We are very good at stopping at parks which have railroad tracks in close proximity.

Friendliest cat I have run into in a long time.  Followed me all around the campground.

Our last blog was from Kingman AZ

5/1/12
The last blog was from Kingman AZ and it was snowing.

We actually have moved from there and are now parked next to our house in California. I’ll try to catch up to the present as quickly as possible.
And here’s the reason for the lack of blog posting, Claire Norman in Debbie’s lap less than a day old.

We left Kingman on the 20th of March, the day after the snow hit, and headed up to the Nevada Treasure RV Resort in Pahrump.  Because of the long drive, we were up early. I fired up the Cummins and raised the jacks. The idiot light on the dash indicated “check transmission” and the transmission refused to go into gear.  Still fresh in my mind was the vision of one of our neighbor’s motorhome being towed away the day before yesterday.  Checked the fluid level, ok. Tried starting and re-starting, no luck. Finally had to get out the transmission manual.  Learned how to display the trouble code and looked it up. It said to reset the EMC. No info on how to do that. The next time I started the light went out and the transmission went into gear and away we went on our way to the “Winnebago Itasca Travelers Southwest Regional Rally” in Pahrump, NV.  

Oatman, AZ

Oatman is about an hours drive from Kingman along the old ‘Route 66’.  I have a lot of memories associated with route 66. When I was younger I traveled this road every summer, with my parents and two sisters, from Oakland, California to Oklahoma. This was in the late 40’s, early 50’s before air conditioning. My dad always left right after work on Friday and drove through the night. Noon the next day we were traveling across the Mojave Desert and dyeing from the heat. We were on our summer vacation and going to visit grandparents and other relatives in Oklahoma City and Ada. Route 66 was a two lane road with dirt shoulders and as a ten-year-old remembers, light traffic except close to cities.  Our trip on the old 66 was very much like I remembered. You can see, very light traffic.

On the way up we passed by an old service station.

Here’s a view looking back toward Kingman and the valley we climbed out of.

Carole Lombard and Clark Gable stopped in Oatman on their honeymoon and stayed at the Oatman Hotel.

Oatman is also famous for the wild burros the roam around town, coming and going as they please.  Here mama is giving  junior a little nip for an indiscretion.

Looking toward the south end of town a car is stopped for burros and tourists in the street. ‘66’ turns right while the view continues into the mountains.

Kingman, AZ

We made it here to Blake Ranch RV Park. We’re in the wide open spaces, about fifteen miles east of Kingman, AZ.  Yesterday we had planned to head up to Williams and had reservations at the Grand Canyon RV Park. Because of the weather forecast which called for around three feet of snow there, we cancelled our reservation and headed here to a lower altitude and a forecast for rain not snow. 

It’s late afternoon about 60 degrees and windy. Tonight’s low is forecast to be 32 degrees.  I took the bikes off the car and had a short ride of about five miles around the area.  There are some scary abandoned buildings in the area I rode past and then down a dirt road that led up to a closed rock quarry.

Tomorrow we are going to take a ride up to the Ghost Town of Oatman on the old route 66 highway. 

Phoenix, AZ

Today we caught up with Lee and Ann who are staying a few blocks away at a real RV park. They are down from Concord for spring training. We had a nice visit.

We then went up to Old Town Scottsdale and walked around.  A cowboy made up like a bronze statue posed for pictures. Here he has his lasso around the boys next for a picture.

             

Later we drove up the Martha house. After catching up we went out for pizza and afterward Martha took us on a sightseeing tour. We met her son and then her daughter and family as we were driving and passed them. We also drove by Senator McCain's’ old house.

We’ll be leaving here in the morning so we all need our rest.

We’re heading up through Flagstaff and over to Williams to the Grand Canyon RV Park. Debbie and I haven’t been to the Grand Canyon for thirty year or so and we don’t expect it to have changed much, but we still have to check.

Aztec RV, Mesa

We arrive here late afternoon and checked-in at the office. When I made the reservation, they assigned me space F51 but told me I could change sites if I didn’t like the site.  As they anticipated, I didn’t like the site. In fact, the site was so narrow I don’t think I could get into it.  As I got out to take a look, two residents came over and they also thought the site was too small. I called the office and they couldn’t tell me where another site was available.  Finally they said find an empty site and just park in it. One of the residents had ridden his bike around and found a site which we ended up in.  

The Aztec turned out to be designed as a mobile home residence park and was full of park model homes. They rent out the vacant sites to RVs. We barely were able to back into our site due to the narrow street, palm trees, and utilities.  The lots are short and backed in as far as possible, we still stuck out over the sidewalk.

                 

You can see the tree on one side and the four inches of clearance at the utility post.

The worst part was the water facet, which was under the frame with a few inches of clearance.  The Horizon has an airbag suspension system which raises it up about five inches. When we park we dump the air and the Horizon lower about five inches.  Did what I though was a smart thing. I lowered the jacks down so when the air was dumped, the Horizon only lowered to just above the facet without hit it. When it was time to leave I realized I should have left the bags inflated. To re-inflate the bags you have to store the jacks and they raise right away and then the airbags slowly fill.  If I just did that, then the Horizon would drop down and hit. Just above the facet are some electrical junctions and what I believe is a large emissions canister.  If I hadn’t dumped the airbags, they would just started re-inflating and then I could have stored the jacks. I finally decided to try blocking the frame. I lowered the rear jacks until the frame was on the blocks while Debbie watched to make sure the blocks stopped the Horizon before hitting. It did. Now I was able to ‘store’ the jacks and the airbags inflated and raised the Horizon so we could drive off.

Enroute Phoenix (Mesa), AZ

We left this morning for Aztec RV Resort. At Eloy we stopped at the Flying J for fuel. Debbie noticed we were only about thirty miles away from the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument.  We parked the Horizon in the back of the Flying J lot and jumped into the Jeep and headed over. 
We planned to find somewhere to stop for lunch on the way and as we drove through Coolidge, we spotted a Sonic Drive In.
Yes the carhops were on roller blades. The food was pretty good and of course the service was fast.
The main ruin has been protected by a covering structure.  It was three stories tall and thought to be used for astrometry as windows align the sun on important dates.

Other structures around the area, that are not protected from the weather, are slowly disappearing.
Debbie reading about the ruins.

Home and Fair

The entrance to Deb’s folks home is through the flowered covered arch.

Front yards in Arizona use drought resistant plants.

The side of the house is setup for entertaining.

Down the side and around the back is a view of the Canoa Golf’ Course’s 13th fairway and green.

Saturday we went down to Green Valley’s street fair.

We leave tomorrow for Phoenix. We have several friends to touch base with who live and another couple down in their MH from Concord for spring training. We’ll probable say a few days before heading on.

Sonoran Desert National Monument (Amado, AZ)

Friday, March 26th, we drove up to the Sonoran Desert National Monument where an extensive saguaro cactus forest is located.  Here is a view out from the visitor’s center.

The “forest” is visible behind Debbie.

A closer look at the saguaros.

Some flowers.  Actually these flowers are very small, about a quarter of an inch wide. Tried out the macro focus feature of the camera.

The monument is located a few miles east of Tucson and reached by two roads, one is north and the other is south.  The north road goes through some mountains and the view is spectacular.  The south road goes around and flat, straight and faster.

 

Our 2010 Spring Travel Route