The every changing AZ desert

 

We love the blue skies, the mountains that surround the area and are sometimes hidden in mist, sometimes crystal clear.  Giant cactus every where you look; see how they tower over Bill!

  

 

The storm clouds that ride in on the jet stream and bring crashing rain storms, very gusty winds desert washes full of water and some nervous moments for RV’ers. 

 

And the always beautiful sunsets; AZ has some of the most beautiful sunsets in the country.

 

We attended and co-hosted the Boomerville rally in Quartzsite AZ area for most of Jan, over 130 rigs joined us at one time or another during the 3 weeks we were there.  Boomer Bear welcomed friends to our rig!  Shhh don’t tell Bear about the lampshade, he partied too much last night.

There were discussion groups daily on an amazing variety of topics – some geared to the guys (see the Geraldine contestants below) and some discussion groups for the gals. 

Happy hours at the fire pit almost daily, potlucks & pancake breakfasts – all provided lots of time to make new friends and renew old friendships. 

We also raised over $2400.00 for the Escapees Care facility at an auction we held while there.

This little community of Quartzsite AZ hosts one of the largest RV shows in the country, every Jan followed by hobby/craft shows and an antique car show, the normal population of about 2000 grows to over 250,000 for the month.  There is a mass of tents in many areas on both sides of I10, the vendors sold a vast variety of items, this is always a beaders heaven and we all stock up during the events.  Of course there is all kinds of stuff for the RV’s most of which you didn’t even know you needed!  The big tent holds the “specialty shows” but that’s only a drop in the bucket as to the number of vendors there.

Most of us park/camp out in the desert on BLM land, which means no electric, water or sewer - for out friends who are not RV’ers.  The  “honey wagon” comes by weekly for those who need it and the water truck also comes out, yes they are separate trucks!  We usually went to town a few times a week and filled our own water jugs, but did utilize the honey wagon.

 

My birthday was spent with friends at the Desert Bar – a remote bar several miles up a mountain dirt road,

  open only on weekends with a live band, bar and hamburgers (don’t ask for cheese) or hot dogs on the menu. 

The band rocks out with 50-70’s music to the delight of all us baby boomers, dancers were on the dance floor at all times.  

We stopped at a casino in Parker AZ on the way back for a little slot machine action and an OK buffet.  All in all a nice birthday – and best of all I can now officially start collecting early social security – YEAH.

We met with a group who is going to Mexico to Kino Bay in Feb and to my surprise Bill actually approached them for information.  I have wanted to go south of the border in our rig for a couple of years; Mexico offers cheap living, beautiful beaches and some very active US/Canadian communities.  So I was thrilled when Bill said “do you want to go?”  We meet up in Tucson Feb 14th for 3 nights then head south through Hermosillo then west to Kino Bay.  There will be about 70 RV’s attending, so we travel in groups of 8.  More on this later.

All in all January was a fun month!

 

Happy New Year

We are now toasty warm in south AZ!

Christmas at Shawna & Mark's

We departed Colorado Dec 27th after a very nice holiday with the family and headed south. First stop was the San Felipe Casino between Santa Fe and Albuquerque the next day off to Deming NM to stay at the Escapees park "Dreamcatcher".


Mountain view from Deming RV Park

We caught up with Bobbie and Jim here and spent a pleasant few days resting, eating, and just unwinding. New Years eve day we went to the St Clair winery tasting room and enjoyed some libations, one of their specialities is to combine their house wines to your taste. We ended up with a red wine that was 20% sweet and 80% dry - very smooth and no preservatives, this also means that you are supposed to drink it within 2 weeks - I'm happy to say we followed their instructions well. The park held the New Years party at the club house and about 50 people attended, we left fairly early as the plan was to travel on News Years day.


Tasting Room


Wine shopping completed!


Jan 1st the four of us travelled from NM to AZ to a nice park in Huachuca City, this is south of I10 between Tuscon and Bisbee. The office was closed so one of the volunteers led us to a nice site near some of our Escapees friends - Bobb & Kathy from NM. Apparently the RV park is having management changes, and they will be changing the name etc, but it's fairly seamless to us campers in the park.


Six Escapees sharing Happy Hour



Jan 2nd we toured Bisbee a bit, this interesting town will require further exploration at a later date, there is a mine tour of the copper mine I would like to take and wonderful museum we haven't visited yet. We enjoyed lunch at the Bisbee breakfast club - a restaurant that the locals frequent and we can see why - very tasty food. Walked around old town and visited some of the shops, drove through this unique RV park and in general had a lovely day.




Turquoise Pit Copper Mine


Bobbie enjoys her latte


Shady Dell RV park and Dots Diner

Bobbie & Jim headed to Tuscon to camp with some friends on Sunday and we just kicked back with the Sunday newspaper and the laundry. I got a call from Carol P a great friend from South FL and she really started my year off right. We caught up on each others lives and I vowed to call some of my other girlfriends from FL. Next I reached Judy F - my 1st boss at Renaissance Cruises - again it was wonderful to catch up with each other. Thanks to both ladies for starting my year out with old friends we had all worked together at Renaissance Cruises prior to 9-11 and the family we had there is still strong today.

Monday Bill and I visited Fort Huachuca, an Army base established in 1877 to fight the Apache and other local tribes; it is also the home to the Buffalo Soldiers, these are the black soldiers of fighting fame with units home based here from the late 1800 until after WWII. The museum was well done with excellent historical information on the area and the base.


Historic Sign at the Fort



Bill at the museum

Tuesday started off with a nice long call from my friend Betsy - it was soo good to hear from her. Later we took off for Tuscon to meet with Bobbie and Jim for a shopping trip to Trader Joe's - for our friends in the east this is a grocery store that carries their own brand of foods, they have great Greek yogurt, prepared meals, home of the $2 buck Chuck wine (which actually now costs $2.99), and yummy snack items we will need for the rally in Quartzsite starting next week.

Weds we will probably take a trip to Nogales Mexico and who knows what trouble we will get into there with all their shopping!

Happy New Year!

It's a white Christmas in Colorado

We worked up to our lunch break at 10:30PM on Dec 20th and went home to get some sleep - why you ask, well as usual a big storm was heading in and we needed to be parked and set up by Tues afternoon in Colorado.

It was an uneventful drive with our friends Bobbie and Jim caravaning with us from Coffeyville KS to La Junta CO. We spent one night in Garden City KS, surrounded by Hugh feed lots - and the smell was really something. I can't even imagine how bad it would be in the summer with the high heat and humidity! At La Junta we headed N to the Air Force Academy FAM Camp and the Chapmans headed to Alamosa to visit their family. We made it in by 1:15 and were set up by 2PM the snow started a few hours later. The Chapmans caught some snow and icy roads but also made it home for the Holidays safely.

It is COLD - day time temps below 20 and nights below 10, we had light snow for 2 days so we will have a White Christmas!



We head to Denver this afternoon for the traditional Oyster Stew my Aunt Jeanne prepares every year and will enjoy getting together with part of the family at their house. Christmas Day will be at ny niece Shawna's house - she will graciously host the get together so my parents only have to drive from Denver and my Sister will come up from Trinidad (she and Bob are already in Denver for the oyster stew). Shawna & Mark's house is the 1/2 way point. We look forward to Christmas with them her kids and my other niece and nephew.

Working for Amazon.com during their peak season is hard work physically, but well worth the income - our bank account is much happier and we plan to relax a bit for the next few months in the AZ and NM areas.

Happy Holidays to all our friends and family!