Movin' Out, Movin On, Passin' Through

Today started with movin' out of good old Site #45 at Desert Valley RV Resort in Eloy Arizona. We got everything wrapped up and on the road about 10 a.m.
Saying goodby to our friends is the hardest part of the day when we leave. I will miss everybody and look forward to seeing them all next year.
We stopped to fill up the tank with diesel and found that we had used 72 gal. for heating and hot water in 3 months. Pretty good average. Heading east on I 8 towards Yuma, the traffic was a piece of cake. No wind and plenty of sunshine, we passed through the desert with its blooming yellow Brittlebush and stately Saguaro. The coach hummed right down the road, and right up through the hills. We passed through the city of Yuma, by the Imperial Sand Dunes once more, and after just one
rest stop and a couple of checkpoints, we arrived at Rio Bend Golf and RV Resort 8 miles west of El Centro California about 3:30 this afternoon. They have quite a bit of Earthquake damage here and I will follow up with some pictures of that when I get out and take them. Some park models are down on the ground, quite a bit of damage on the golf course, the activities center and cafe had lots of shelved items and books get thrown around. Drew Road, the access to this place, in both directions has damage and is closed beyond here.
They said they had an aftershock this morning that registered a 5.0.so that is pretty stiff. I haven't felt anymore. We went into El Centro...7 miles to the east and they have hundreds of millions of dollars of damage. The Farmer Boys Restaurant where we ate supper, a brand new building had cracks all the way across the ceiling and a sewer pipe had broken somewhere close as there was water running down the street and smell was pretty bad. For the most part things look pretty normal from the street though. They have a nice new WalMart Super Center and it was open. We will be here for a while now, getting acquainted to the area and getting the Mr. ready for his big adventure into Mexico.

Ready to Get the Show on the Road!

I finished up a bunch more laundry and errands. The sunshades and tire covers are off and put away. The air in the tires is good and the car is cleaned out. We had the last gathering in the clubhouse tonight with all that are left.
These three fabulous Weimeriners and their pet parents left this morning. I have really enjoyed getting to know them the last couple of years.
KayCee is sad because her boyfriend left. Strider is an awesome dog, in spite of his mom thinkin' he's thick headed! She is a dog trainer/dog show judge. They are going home to Arkansas, but on the way will stop over in Tulsa Oklahoma for a big dog show.
She spends countless hours with all three of these lucky dogs, working on obedience and agility. KayCee sat in their car patiently thinking she could just go with them! Wrong answer!
I don't know what I'd do without the traveling nut case. She sits real quiet until you actually start the vehicle and then gets crazy. We'll miss seeing those dogs until next year. DH going to Gilbert to shoot sporting clays early in the morning, and I will start packing things up. We need to go into town one more time. I decided to take quite a bit of bottled water besides my full tank, in case there's issues with the water from the earthquake. I searched the RV Resorts north of El Centro today and up by Palm Springs in case we decide to move farther away from the border.

Earthquakes, Aftershocks and Wind!

We felt the 7.2 earthquake centered in northern Mexico yesterday afternoon. Coincidentally the RV Resort that we are headed to this week is only a very few miles from Calexico and Mexicali Mexico.
The big Baja Race that DH is going to be a part of, starts at Mexicali. It isn't until the end of April, so hopefully things will be back to normal and we won't have any more. I didn't know what I was feeling at the time of the earthquake,the palm trees were doin a dance and I bet the pool was sloshing about. Shortly afterwards we got a phone call from our friends in Newport Beach and they informed that's what was going on. Meanwhile, I haven't felt any of the aftershocks today and I am continuing on getting ready to depart the desert valley after being here for the past 3 months. The next couple of days will be packed with cleaning up and packing up. The wind is blowing a gale this afternoon, but it's 83 degrees. The rest of the week looks to be sun filled, and that's a good thing. DH plays has his final tee time in the morning and goes shooting with the guy from Phoenix Wednesday. We are going out for Supper tonight with Bunky, whos been busy getting ready for the big Country Music Stampede that he's playing in Florence next week. This morning he said the tickets to get into the VIP Lounge are $600.00. I said "I love ya, but not that much!"lol I hope they at least get a meal for that price! I just get to hear what happened after the fact! I'm looking forward to exploring the Southeastern part of California in the next month, and starting to plan our time at the Grand Canyon after that.

Happy Easter!

Greetings and Happy Easter to all from Eloy, Arizona! The sky diving capital of the world. True. The planes are busy dropping jumpers again today and the Hot Air Balloons were busy this morning. It's hard to believe we're into April already. Spring is most definitely here in the valley, and almost 3 months have passed since we arrived here. We will be working to button things up around here and get ready to head out on Thursday the 8th. We are heading west from here down I8, through Yuma and across into California. Next weekend the prep begins for the great Baja Rally, down through the Baja penninsula of Mexico. DH and a friend are taking a 1966 Volkswagon for a 1000 mile ride.

Yesterday was another interesting day in the city. We started out on Hwy 60, checking out a couple of RV Golf Resorts in the Gold Canyon area on the east side of Phoenix. I'm still not very impressed although I like the area and what it has to offer. Very pretty surroundings, and I like the rich feel of the ammenities, but there's no room and the rigs are squished in like sardines amongst the park models. We went to our friend's place in Gilbert. DH has had lots of fun getting to know this Nebraska native better. They went golfing yesterday while KayCee and I hung out at his place by the pool. The dog wasn't convinced she wanted to stay however,and I had a rather difficult afternoon with her! She spent about an hour by the pool watching birds and golfers on the nearby golf course, and then she tired of that game. We had to made numerous trips around the house looking over all of animal and bird mounts. He has a new "Musk Ox" in the formal living/dining room and moved the brown bear to the corner of the family room by the patio door!
She walked cautiously around inspecting all of the mounts and then that was it, she headed for the foyer and was ready to go to the car! Nothing I did would convince her that we were o.k. and needed to stay there. I stubbornly sat down to watch a movie and she tried to bury her head underneath me. I think something about those big, still animals was very unsettling to her.
When the sun went down and it cooled off a bit, I put her in her kennel in the car and she was happy then. The guys showed back up after dark and we headed to a very good Italian Restaurant for supper. We finally made it back home after 10. I got up early, made devilled eggs and green bean casserole for our Easter dinner this afternoon at the clubhouse. It will be our last gathering I suppose. Most all are gone now until next year. It is a sunny warm day and if all goes well, I may make one last outing to the pool this afternoon. Time will tell.

Apache Trail and Superstition Mountains

We are in a full blown Dust Storm, with 50ph wind gusts.
Not fun, can't even see the hills. So glad I took the mid week forcast to heart and went for our sightseeing trip up the Apache Trail and into the Superstition Mountains on Monday.
The desert is in bloom now and it's nice to see all the wild flowers, lush greenery and full fat Saguaro Cacti.
We drove Hwy 79 Northeast to Hwy 60 and then back North West to the Apache Trail. Lots of Indian lore and history in this day trip and many things to see and do.
Our first stop was at the Goldfield Ghost Town, where we took a narrow guage train ride around the town to learn about the area Mines and early inhabitants.
It's the only operating Narrow Gauge Railroad in Arizona, and the town once had three saloons, a Bordello and a hotel. Most of the residents earned a living mining in the 1890s. Now days pretty much tourist shops, where I had to sample their prickly pear cactus fudge, buy some authentic hand made Navajo Jewelry,DH munched popcorn as we strolled the streets and explored the town.
We observed an interesting reptile display and DH tried on hats in a shop, looking for headwear suitable for his trip to Mexico, where he wants to "fit in."
We continued on up the trail, very narrow,winding paved road up to Canyon Lake where we stopped to observe a couple of boats out fishing and looked at the available campground. Not an option for our big rig, but comfortable for weekend campers and fishermen. We made our way on up the trail, over two one lane bridges.
We arrived at Tortilla Flat, once a thriving stagecoach stop, and now a modern day postal stop, saloon and restaurant. Once this town had a population of over 125 with the construction workers for the dam, now a population of 6.
We had heard of the wildly advertised burgers and fun atmosphere, having the walls papered with dollar bills and old mining memorabilia.
The burgers were good, DH sampled once of the adult beverages offered and we sampled prickly pear ice cream for desert. A very busy place, we only had about a 10 minute wait, not bad for lunch. Since the road narrows even more and 5 miles past the stop it turns to gravel, we decided to turn around and head back. We topped off the day at the Camping World in Mesa and the wonderful new Walmart at Apache Junction.
We made it back to home sweet home about 8:30 p.m. The next venture will be on Saturday to Gilbert to visit friends and DH will play golf. It's hard to believe that things are winding down, the traffic is lighter and lots of folks are gone. We will pull out next Thursday and head west to El Centro California. That is if we make it through this dust storm!lol

Friends, Fridays and Memories of John Wayne

We had a wonderful day yesterday visiting with old friends from Phoenix that took the hour + drive down here mid day. We had fun showing them our "Home on Wheels" and catching up having not seen them for a year. It was worth all that rubbing and scrubbings after all to get the desert winter dirt off of Betsy! She looked good and they were pretty impressed. Last year we traveled to their place. Around noon we went into Casa and took them to lunch at "Mimi's", a french cafe and restaurant. After really good turkey baguette sammies and sides, we said goodbye and let them head back through Crazy-ville (Phoenix freeways) before the friday traffic got heavy. I went up through there last year early on a Friday afternoon to go shop at Cabela's and I'll NEVER do that again! Bumper to bumper Friday crabby afternoon drivers...no thanks. I just got an email from her and they made it home fine. We just got back here and some of our park friends were going out for dinner at the Francisco Grande Golf Resort.
DH has been wanting to go back out there as he plays golf there once in a while, so we went. I didn't realize that the place was so full of history! As an old Hotelier, I am fascinated about lodging properties, especially old ones that have been renovated and are doing well. This property debuted in 1961, with much much more than just a hotel! It was the era of the Rat Pack, Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle. Together with a hotel, it was a state of the art baseball training facility with 4 fields. The architect that designed the golf course gave it the longest layout in Arizona and one of the longest in the U.S.
He wanted to accomodate the big homerun hitters like Willie Mays and Willie McCovey, who enjoyed playing golf there. The San Francisco Giants trained there from 1962 to 1981 and the CA Angels used the facility from 1982 to 1984. It was the training headquarters for the USFL Arizona Wrangler's and the Denver Gold. The hotel is 9 stories and the north face resembles a baseball helmet, the swimming pool resembles a bat! From the balconies, you can observe the 4 fields, a small stadium and an observation tower.
Today, the "Legends" lounge is decorated with memorabilia from the days that John Wayne spent time there, and celebrities like George Clooney enjoy the resort while shooting feature films or just relaxing.
We didn't see him last night, but since I was with the activities director from our resort, after our dinner we took a tour and went up to the eighth floor where John Wayne and Pat Boone used to entertain at the suites, and the Eagle's Nest room atop the hotel. We were gazing out into the desert night sky, looking over Casa Grande.
I will go back out there before we leave in the daylight and get some daytime pictures. It was awesome. The whole property was completely restored and renovated into a luxury, upscale boutique hotel with a world class, European Style service level. It fully reopened in 2003. We had reservations for 8 at 6 p.m. and since we arrived a little early, we started out in the Legends lounge.
Promptly at 6 p.m. we were taken to our "Private" dining room, over looking the courtyard with swaying palm trees and pristinely groomed grounds. The wait staff was superb, and the food was delicious.
We all had a variety of entrees, I had chicken, DH and several others had the fish special, and several others tried the steaks. We topped it off with desert and coffee. I had creme brulee and DH stuck to the old standby of Choc. fudge cake. They were excellent. We had a great time at dinner, followed by the tour of the hotel and once again, I wish it was still daylight. I love it when I learn about something by accident! Today it was back to the gym and tonight it's to the Arizona Country Club to listen to Bunky. We support our Nebraska friend. He's getting ready to play at the Arizona's equivelent to Country Stampede. The week of the 14th he'll be up there rubbing elbows with Willie Nelson, Miranda Lambert, Keith Urban and Kid Rock. We're all really excited for him. I'm kinda bummed because I would like to go see it! We will be in California by then, so will have to wait for the blow by blow from him later.

Getting Ready for Company

Some friends from Phoenix are coming by tomorrow for a visit. They have never seen the coach, so I took this opportunity to start the spring cleaning process. We spent the last couple of days doing the rub down with "Dri Wash n Guard" It looks 99.9% better. Had to get up at the butt crack of dawn to get the south side done before the sun got too high. I definitely don't want to see it rain now! DH even got into the picture and cleaned awnings and the roof. I'm still cleaning inside, doing laundry and baking a loaf of Banana Bread. There's still odds and ends to finish up before they get here. We will go out for lunch at Olive Garden in Casa Grande before they go home. The weather is gorgeous today,80 feels great! Forcasts look good through the weekend and the first of the week. We will try again on Monday to make the trip north to the Apache Trail.