Day 39 Friday February 20, 2009

We had played with the idea of staying longer here in Mesa, but Cathey had called the Doctor’s office in Appleton and made an appointment for March 3rd. At the rate we travel we only have a few days cushion to meet that commitment and we may need the time for storms or rest days.
We left Mesa about 11am and made it as far as Lordsburg, NM. At first I had thought we would head north to I-40 and then east, but I finally decided that the southern route would be better because it wouldn’t be quite as cold and we wouldn’t have to climb 7000 feet to Flagstaff and we didn’t have to drive through Phoenix.

Day 38 Thursday February 19, 2009

Cathey was feeling a little better today so we did a little driving around to see some of Apache Junction, Gilbert, and Chandler. Also did some shopping for some items that we have been needing for some days. Then did a couple of fix-it projects on the trailer.

Day 37 Wednesday February 18, 2009

Cathey was having a tough day today, so while she was resting I did some errands to the post office and grocery store. It happened that the nearest Post Office was in Apache Junction which was only about 5 miles away to the east. Unfortunately when I walked in there were about 40 people in line and it took about 45 minutes to get my business done there. I heard one of the service people say that it’s this crowded most of the winter because of the large influx of retirees during the winter months.

Day 36 Tuesday February 17, 2009

We pulled up stakes and drug our house to Mesa, AZ today. We stopped for lunch at the Cracker Barrel in Casa Grande and then went on to Mesa. We picked a small RV Park that was close to both the San Tan Freeway and the Superstition Freeway. This RV Park was mostly people that stayed for weeks or months. When we got setup our large slideout was inches away from the canopy supports of the trailer next door. There had been rain early in the day so we saw lots of puddles in the drain ways that handle storm water.

Day 35 Monday February 16, 2009

I had called Larry Wehrli yesterday to arrange to meet them for lunch today. We headed for their house and got there around10:30. We said hello to all the animals, Henry the donkey greeted us with some hee-haws, and Shelby the horse nuzzled Cathey. We visited with Larry for awhile before we went to the local golf clubhouse to meet Liz for lunch. After Lunch Larry took us to see the old town of Pearce, which was a mining town back in the late 1800’s. Later Larry took us for a ride to the Cochise Stronghold campground, which is either associated with the National Forest Service or a National Monument. Cathey just loved the scenery and the campground because it was like a real campground – not an RV Park.

Day 34 Sunday February 15, 2009

We had a nice lazy Sunday morning watching the political talking heads on TV drinking coffee. We had planned to go to Ty’s about 2pm, he said he was watching the Daytona race on TV, so we didn’t rush. It took much longer to get there than we had anticipated; we are on the east side of Tucson and he is on the far north side (Oracle) and I think it was over fifty miles.
We met at a place that had recently re-opened after having been closed for years, called the Oracle Inn. We were happy to meet Ty’s friend, Megan, who works at a medical facility in Tucson. We had a very nice time visiting with Ty and Megan and enjoyed the meal. Ty and Megan plan to visit Wisconsin next July and we look forward to seeing them then!

Day 33 Saturday February 14,2009

I felt much better today but still ate soft foods in very moderate quantities. By early afternoon I declared myself well and ready to do almost anything but sit around the trailer. Cathey called Brian Tegan to warn him that we were on our way and off we went. Brian is Claire Tegan’s son; Cathey and Claire were next door neighbors when their children were very young.
We had visited Brian last spring when we were here, and Cathey had taken a picture of Brian standing next to a large leaning saguaro cactus that was part of his front yard. Sometime last summer the saguaro had toppled over and now it is reposing in the front yard. Brian explained that he was waiting for the fleshy parts to rot away and then he would salvage the stiff wooden rods that make up the structural core of the plant, and use them for landscaping elements.
We also met Pam, Brian’s partner and Boomer the dog; we had seen Boomer when he was just a small puppy last spring but now he is quite grown up. Pam is originally from Salt Lake City and loves the Tucson area without reservation. We had a very pleasant afternoon visiting with Brian, Pam and Boomer!

Day 32 Friday February 13, 2009

Woke early and got up and did my back exercises and worked on the computer for a little while but it seemed like I wasn’t done sleeping yet so I went back to bed. When I awoke the next time I had a churning stomach and soon diarrhea. At first I thought it was the garlic laden soup of yesterday, but the symptoms included muscle and joint aches, more like flu than upset stomach.
I ate and drank very little during the day and used all the Pepto-Bismal, that we had with us. Late in the day Cathey went to the Post Office and then picked up some chicken broth and I had chicken broth and crackers for supper. We had had plans to have dinner with Ty Zemke tonight but Cathey called and cancelled and rescheduled for Sunday afternoon.
It was a long, long day.

Day 31 Thursday February 12, 2009

It was laundry catch-up day and that meant that we would be in the laundry building, where there was supposedly wifi to be had. We took the computer along but Cathey was not able to get connected and took the computer up to the recreation building and tried connecting there (with limited success.) Meanwhile between attending to the laundry I vacuumed the floor in the trailer (all 50 square feet of it) and swept and washed the vinyl flooring.
After our chores were done we visited a local restaurant called Cilantro’s; it’s a Columbian restaurant and features Latin American food that’s a little different than Mexican. We had the daily special which was grilled liver, with fried plantains, soup and a small salad. The soup was lentil (or maybe some kind of bean) with a few other finely chopped vegetables and lots and lots of garlic – over powered by garlic in my opinion.
Later we visited the local library branch to use the wifi there. We were able to use the wifi without having a library card but in order to use computers in the library you had to have a card, so we both joined, in anticipation of our next library visit.

Day 30 Wednesday February 11, 2009

Cathey was feeling much better today! We were both tired of huddling near the trailer so we decided to go to the Sonoran Desert Museum on the west side of Tucson. Unfortunately, before we got there we passed Old Tucson and turned in there instead. Old Tucson is kind of a village of movie sets that have been used for western movies over the past 70 years. Some of the buildings are real, with interiors, but many are just fronts, as you would expect for a movie set. Some entrepreneur has turned the place into a mini-theme park with various shows going on at different times through out the day. There are also rides – small train that goes around the park, antique replica cars that go around a track on a guide rail, a big carousel and of course saddle horses for rides out into the desert. We walked around the park and looked at everything and saw the Can-Can dance show.
By the time we left there, Cathey was done walking/standing for the day and we abandoned going to the Desert Museum and headed south just for a ride to look over Green Valley, AZ. Green Valley is about 20 miles south of Tucson and has been the site of a lot of new growth in the last few years. We enjoyed driving around and looking at the housing; it’s a very nice looking community.
We enjoyed a nice dinner at a local restaurant and then plotted a course toward our current home. I found a road on the map that cuts across the desert due east and connects with the road that the RV Park is on. It worked fine and we probably cut our return trip by 10 miles or more.

Day 29 Tuesday February 10, 2009

Cathey had a miserable night with her pain and got very little sleep. We talked about what we should do. I called Liz Wehrli and asked for her Doctor’s name; he is at the Tucson Medical Center. Meanwhile Cathey called Dr. Ullrich’s assistant in Appleton and told her what was going on; she will talk to the Doctor and call back tomorrow because he is in surgery all day today. So before we do anything else we will wait until we hear back from Appleton.
We talked about whether Cathey would want to have surgery here and have to recover while living in the trailer. The answer to that was a definitive “NO,” so we will see what the word from Appleton is and how she feels tomorrow. I think part of the problem was the weather front that went through here over the past couple of days.

Day 28 Monday February 9, 2009

There was a little snow on the ground today; and two to three inches on the Suburban and other vehicles around the park. Lots of snow on the mountains, we saw on TV that they opened the ski hill on Mt. Lemmon. The sun was out much of the day but it stayed pretty cool all day. We did a few errands and other than that a very quiet day.

Day 27 Sunday February 8, 2009

It was mostly cloudy this morning with intermittent sunshine. There was rain forecast for today and snow in the higher elevations; it had rained last night but held off until afternoon. It was also kind of cool and breezy so we stayed inside until 1pm or later when we decided to go to Saddlebrook (retirement community) for their open house. On the way we went by AJ’s deli and stopped in for a late lunch. We sat outside despite the weather; they have gas heaters in the outdoor seating area but it was still chilly. While we were there the rain resumed, and we decided not to go to Saddlebrook.
We did a little shopping on the way home and before we got back to the trailer, we saw snow along the road.

Day 26 February 7, 2009

I had called Liz and Larry Wehrli a couple of days ago to let them know that we were in the area. We made arrangements to meet them at a winery on the east side of Willcox for lunch today. It was about 60 miles east on I-10; the place was easy to find and I was lucky I remembered Larry’s directions because I forgot the slip of paper that I wrote them on. The lunch was great accompanied by a house red. Liz’s mom was visiting from Minnesota, so there were five of us and we topped off the lunch with some chocolate dipped strawberries in the tasting room. It was lots of fun talking to Larry about guys that we knew from years ago; always fun to review those fun years. They invited us over to their house but Cathey was having leg spasms from the sciatica so we headed back to the trailer.

Day 25 Friday February 6, 2009

Moving day again! We were packed up, hooked up and checked out by 11am and on our way to Cactus Country. It was only about 20 miles so by 1pm we were already setup in our new place. Unfortunately we found out right away that even though there is wifi here, it is only available in the laundry building or near the recreation building. They are not far but it’s still a hassle to pack up the computer and go somewhere else to use it! (I guess we wouldn’t make very good pioneers!) Funny how before last year we never had a laptop to travel with, and now we can hardly stand to be without an internet connection!
For lunch we went to a nearby Pizza Hut and discovered a small shopping center with a Fry’s Supermarket only about a mile from the RV Park. I thought we were at the far edge of Tucson but I guess it just goes on forever.

Day 24 Thursday February 5, 2009

So today we looked at RV Parks on the east side of Tucson. Cathey had eliminated several on the basis of either their TV or wifi availability. So we only looked at three and settled on the Cactus Country RV Park on the far-east side of Tucson; it’s a relatively small place and kind of out in the country with a lot of desert landscaping that attracted Cathey.
With that decision made we stopped at a Safeway, had some lunch in their deli and bought some groceries. Then back to Beaudry’s and kind of kicked back the rest of the day.

Day 23 Wednesday February 4, 2009

The RV Park that we ended up at was called Beaudry’s; it is attached to a large RV dealership and service center on the near east side of Tucson just off of I-10 near the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. It’s a rather large RV Park (364 sites) but not as large as some that we would see later in the day.
We decided that the first order of business was to locate the Diamond J RV Park that we had failed to find yesterday. We headed for a book store first to get a better street map of Tucson. Then we decided to head west on one of the major thoroughfares and get on I-10 near downtown. That was a bad decision since it was much farther to downtown than we had expected and when we got there we could not get on I-10 because of construction. We ended up in stop-and-go traffic for several miles and by the time we got on I-10, we were almost to our exit to go west on SH 86. We did locate the Diamond J RV Park many miles from where we had our Lucy and Desi moment yesterday. We also looked at three other RV Parks but did not find the one that said “This is the place.” Later in the day we drove to Catalina State Park to look at the camping facilities there. It’s a beautiful park in the foothills of the Catalina Mountains and of course Cathey said “This is the place.” I would have agreed with her but the sites at state parks have only water and electricity – no sewer hookups. We could do it by using the trailer plumbing minimally but cold is forecast for the next three or four days and I knew that wasn’t going to happen. So I said “No, this isn’t the place.”
On the way back to Beaudry’s we came across AJ’s Supermarket and Deli, which was a place that we visited last spring when we were here. They have a nice outdoor seating area so we stopped and got some food from the deli and had a nice supper there.

Day 22 Tuesday February 3, 2009

Moving day again; we called a couple of campgrounds and one turned us away because they were full, the other just had a recorded message and said they had plenty of room – come on over! I punched the address into the Garmin and off we went. I had noticed that the AAA campground book said this campground (Diamond J RV Park) was too new to be rated, but what I didn’t notice was that the address given was the owner’s address and was meant as a mail-in address for advance reservations. We were west-bound on Hwy 86 when the Garmin told us to make a U-turn; I couldn’t figure that out because I had not seen any indication of an RV Park. So eventually we turned around and went to the spot that the GPS indicated was our destination. The address matched the address that I had put into the GPS but I couldn’t believe the driveway was meant for RVs. It was narrow, had a gate (open) and made a turn of about 170 degrees before going up a steep hill and out of sight. I had pulled onto the shoulder of the road to check the address and then tried to turn into the driveway but before I got very far the side of the trailer was about to wipe out the mailbox at the edge of the driveway. At this point I suddenly recognized that this was the making of a scene from the Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball Movie “The Long, Long Trailer.” I was backing the trailer out into a four lane highway with moderate traffic and we were located just over the crest of a hill that prevented us from seeing traffic coming at us and they couldn’t see the crazy Polack that was backing onto the highway. After several tries, I was able to get the trailer backed onto the shoulder of the road and headed east again.

I wasn’t finished being stupid yet! I knew I could make that corner if turned from the driving lane rather than the shoulder so after getting turned around we approached the driveway for the second time. This time the mailbox wasn’t a problem but before I got through the gate the side of the trailer was hitting the gate. This time
the gate was not open as far as it could be, but it was stuck in the ground because the gate opened in the direction of the hill. I considered getting out a shovel and digging out enough dirt to get the gate all the way open, but the gate was flexible enough to be pulled out of the way by a willing navigator. While Cathey pulled on the gate I pulled the trailer ahead; I tried to do it slowly but I was moving uphill and I had to give it more gas than I wanted too. The gate missed the most expensive protrusions but did scrape the wheel well edging and an outdoor electrical outlet. When we got to the top of the hill, all there was, was a house with a rather large parking area! So we got turned around and got he heck out of there and headed for an RV Park on the other side of town.


Cathey comments below:

I said nothing, the air in our vehicle was almost devoid of oxygen after I gasped and held my breath, and maintained my silence at great effort, maintaining my restraint. This was no time to joke, or to chastise my very upset husband. I resolved to never bring this up in conversation, not even in an email. It had been a fruitless effort, and a wasted search for the desired campground.. Seven days later, Tony decided to label the whole experience as our “Lucy and Desi” day.

Day 21 Monday February 2, 2009

It was a beautiful sunny day, again, but breezy and not as warm as we had hoped. The temperature was low enough during the night to freeze the water hose but when that happens we just turn on the pump for our on-board water supply and draw from it until the hose thaws out. One night in Las Cruces, I brought the hose in doors to keep it from freezing, but that was too much of a mess to do every night.
I made some muffins for breakfast; I thought running the oven for awhile would be just what we needed and it worked fine. Unfortunately the oven is on the hot side and some of the muffins burned on the bottom – but still highly edible! About 11am we headed for Tombstone, it was only supposed to be 25 miles but the way we went it turned out to be about 35 miles; we managed to do that without the GPS, although my opinion of the GPS is that its route is usually 10% farther. We parked near the OK Corral and walked around till we found the place where the OK Corral Gunfight Reenactment takes place. They have a museum there as well as a 25 minute documentary film about Tombstone and its history. The reenactment was well done and gave both sides of the story; the Earps didn’t come off looking like heroes in my opinion.
By the time we got out of there we were ready for lunch, but it seemed that the only open lunch places were on the historic street which is all pedestrian and Cathey was done walking for the day. We waited until we got back to Benson and had lunch at a Mexican fast food place and it was not a memorable meal.

Day 20 Sunday February 1, 2009

Our time in Las Cruces was up today, so after an early breakfast, we packed up and got on the road. Cathey was unhappy with the cold nights we had experienced in Las Cruces so we are hoping for better weather in Arizona. Cathey usually goes to bed early because the probability of pain rises as the day goes on and it wears her out. Consequently she is ready to get up at 4am and watches TV or reads; the furnace does not give us enough heat to be sitting for that length of time when the temp outside is in the 20s.
We didn’t have reservations anywhere in Tucson, so Cathey called the KOA in Benson, AZ and they said they had room for us there. I think the mileage from Las Cruces to Tucson was about 275 miles and to Benson, about 50 miles less. The trip was uneventful, just the way we like it, and we arrived at the Benson KOA at about 4pm. Setup takes less and less time since I have had so much practice at it, but this time they threw me a curve ball, in that the water supply was so close to the ground that I had to change the location of my water filter and put it on the trailer end of the hose – no biggy.
Cathey picked up some literature at the KOA office about Tombstone, AZ sights and the reenactment of the Gunfight at the OK Corral – she is looking forward to seeing that.

Day 19 Saturday January 31, 2009

Pretty quiet day today; caught up on laundry and got things ready for moving-on tomorrow. I did try to get one of the LP tanks filled but the LP gas place was closed. I think there are fewer businesses open on weekends here than around home.
Dinner was a pizza at an Italian place in Mesilla.

Day 18 Friday January 30, 2009

Our only sojourn today was to Hatch, NM, which is the center of the pepper growing area of New Mexico. We had stopped at a restaurant named the Pepper Pot, last spring on our trip to New Mexico, so we wanted to visit again. Hatch is about 35 miles north on I-25 from Las Cruces. We got there a little after 2pm and found that they closed at 3pm. But we had time for another great Mexican meal, mine was "a bowl of green" chile stew.
Coming back we drove on a state highway that followed the Rio Grande River - nothing spectacular but interesting just the same; lots of pecan trees, lots of onions just coming up (a big crop around here) and lots of fields worked up and waiting for (???) - peppers I would guess!

Day 17 Thursday January 29, 2009

We have been threatening to go see White Sands National Monument all week and today was the day. We headed NE on USH 70 through the Organ Mountains and before long we saw a sign that invited us to come to the White Sands Missile Range Museum. So we took a detour to the base; their museum is right by the gate to the base, so you just had to show some ID to get to the museum. They had a building there with a German V2 Rocket from WWII. It was one that had been seized by Allied troops at the end of the war; the parts were shipped to New Mexico and assembled here. The displays included variations of all the famous rocket names, Redstone, Titan, Hercules, Nike, etc.. (http://www.wsmr-history.org/MissilePark.htm). I was surprised by all the little missles that were on display some as small as 4 inches in diameter and maybe only 3 or 4 feet long.
We spent a couple hours there and then headed another 40 miles toward Alamagordo to the White Sands National Monument. The white sands are natural gypsum that washes down
from the nearby mountains and collects in the basin between the mountains since there is no exterior drainage from this area. The wind distributes the sand from the basins (playas) and now cover about 275 square miles. Life appears pretty sparse in the drifting sands areas but there are birds and insects and a few rodents but not a whole lot of plants. I was surprised by the number of picnic sites that were at the park; didn't look like much of a picnic spot to me!
Since this was a National Park, Cathey was able to get her Senior Citizen discount card which gives us a discount at all National Parks and National Forest facilities. Then we drove on into Alamagordo to celebrate at a Chili's restaurant!

Day 16, Wednesday January 28, 2009

Up early to take the Suburban to the Chevy dealer for an oil change and 4WD diagnostic to determine what the problem is when the yellow light comes on and says "Service 4WD." Fortunately the light problem is a documented problem with the 4WD selector switch and has nothing to do with the condition of actual mechanical components. Unfortunately (for my wallet) the service technician noticed that the front brakes were not engaging fully because of the amount of salt corrosion on the brake pads. The rotors were in poor shape too so I had them replace the whole works in the front. I had noticed that braking with the trailer seemed kind of mushy and with an extra 5 tons pushing yo, good brakes are important.
Otherwise, a relaxing day - no trailer maintenace demands. We had lunch in Mesilla and then drove down Highway 28, which is referred to as "The Old El Paso Road." I guess that was the highway to El Paso before I-10. Once past Mesilla there are the vast pecan orchards of the Stahman Nut Company. They are supposedly the largest grower of pecans in the world; they have 3200 acres of pecans here and a similar number of acres in Australia. We stopped at their store and bought a few treats and looked at everything.
Later we did some driving around Las Cruces and drove on the foothills of the Organ mountains where there are several very impressive housing developments with exclusively adobe style houses, although they all looked to be in the $250,000+ range.

Day 15 Tuesday January 27, 2009

Cathey had contacted a carpet cleaning service to clean and deodorize the carpeting that had gotten wet in the flood. They were supposed to come this morning between 8am and 10am so we had to take turns to get our free breakfast at the clubhouse, so that someone was at the trailer waiting for them. They finally showed up about 10:30 and were done in a short time - there is not many square feet in a trailer. And the Progressive Insurance adjuster showed up to take pictures, but the policy is a $500 deductible, so the carpet cleaning and replacing 6 or 8 pieces of moulding is not likely to reach the deductible.
Had a great BBQ lunch at a local BBQ place. I think the food around here is really good. Yesterday and today we ate at local places with no pretensions and the food was great and a good value.

Day 14 Monday January 26, 2009

Well, the first order of business was to contact the insurance company, since we invested in a special policy to cover the components of the trailer. Of course in our hurried departure we grabbed, what we thought were the trailer papers, but actually we had nothing. So the first call actually went to the RV dealer in Sturgeon Bay to get the policy number, then the insurance company. Their instructions were to get a repairman, certified by RVIA, and get an estimate for the repair to the plumbing. We also found out that any damage to carpeting or anything else would have to be covered by the collision/liability insurance which is a different company. More phone calls and got hold of a repairman about noon. While I was waiting for him, I decided to take the panel off of the space below the stove and there it was! There is a T in the main water line that connects the main water line to the water line that comes from the on-board water source - and this waterline came off the T fitting, so it was a 90 second fix with a screwdriver to slide the line back on the T and tighten the hose clamp. Then I called the repairman and cancelled; he recommended that I invest in a pressure regulator, since in his opinion the high water pressure at this RV Park, is what caused the problem.
We found a great place for lunch a few blocks away and then shopped for trailer accessories and groceries and called it a day.