Sit, Stay, Good Boy
January 15, 2005
January 5th 2005: So far this traveling has been a trip with some sort of schedule imposed by something. First we had to get to Rochester to get the U-Haul trailer turned into U-Haul. Then it seemed that we constantly needed to get to some appointment for the Vectra or some other appointment. Then it was get back to Denver to get the Jeep before we got caught by bad weather or the closure of shops for the New Years weekend. Then it was get further south to miss the cold weather that seemed to be chasing us. This is the first time we have truly been in a location that is not putting some kind of pressure on our time schedule. THEREFORE, we are going to SIT here for a while, STAY more than a few days in one place and relax like a GOOD BOY.
I told you about being holed up in Zanesville over Christmas. I will try to something new in this e-mail. I will put in some pictures that I have taken into this “chapter.” The first two pictures were taken from our Vectra in the campground where we stayed on Christmas day.
DEER IN FRONT OF THE VECTRA IN THE CAMPGROUND IN ZANESVILLE
Except for the cold it was rather nice here on top the hill in Zanesville. It has been fun to watch the setting sun over the river and see the deer and the birds that flit through the trees. We have seen a cardinal several times and that is always a bonus. The deer that come around the campground seem to be very content with the campers close. Christmas day was one of the quietest Christmas Day that I can ever remember.
CARDINAL IN THE WOODS AT OUR CAMPGROUND
ICE COVERED PLANTS ALONG SIDE OF THE HIGHWAY
The next picture is the way everything looked about 15 miles from the top of our hilltop home in Zanesville. We did not have any snow or ice on the hill but it was not very far from us.
OUR JEEP GETTING THE TOW PLATE AT NOLAN’S RV
The last picture is our stripped Jeep having the tow plate installed. I did not ever dream that they would have to remove so much of the front end to install the plate. They seemed to know what they were doing and the end result was a very nice looking job.
I would really like to hear from many of you about this e-mail. Were you able to get the pictures? Do I need to send them differently? I have had to convert some text and pictures to a word document for people to be able to open them. I will do that with these so I would like to know if it works for my friends on the “Peace On The Road” list. Please let me know how it works for you. Even a short reply of, “yes, no, got it, or what pictures,” will tell me a lot.
We are in a membership campground in Casa Grande, Arizona. We have an opportunity to purchase a membership from some people, one whom I have actually known since the 1950’s. It was rather strange that they were arriving here the same day we did. They were just coming here for a vacation and neither of us knew when the other was going to be here. As a matter of truth we did not know when we would be here. We figured that we would check out the park as opportunity arose. That just happened to be last evening. At the moment we have to move to another location in three days, but it can be to another park that may be only a few miles away, or more if we want. The big advantage of staying here is that there is NO charge for members.
Mountains surround Casa Grande, several miles away on all sides. We drove a small circuit out in the country. There are many big farms around here. It is hard to figure out what they grow. About the only thing I can recognize is cotton. Cotton is rather easy to identify. There were several cotton gin mills that we saw. There were stacks of what I presume to be cotton waiting to be processed. The stacks were probably 12 feet wide, 8 feet high, and 60 feet long, and perhaps more. It was hard to judge from a distance. Just one of the places might have had a hundred of these stacks. That is a lot of cotton; it would make a lot of T-shirts. The fields now are mostly plowed and waiting for spring for planting. Spring may come here in February. It for sure comes earlier here than it does in Colorado or Kansas.
We drove to the northeast of Casa Grande, out of the farming area and through a hilly area. The slopes were covered with saguaro cactus. I was going to stop and take a few pictures to send with this. I realized that I am so used to being tied to the Vectra that I expect it to be handy at all times to get whatever I want out of it. So I have to go back out somewhere and take pictures. That will be fun to do.
AN ARIZONA SUNSET
January 13, 2005: I guess that it has been too long since I have brought out an update on our activities. I have gotten several e-mails asking, “Where are you? Is it warm?” and so forth. We missed most of the rain getting here to Casa Grande, and the weather has not been too cold. It has dropped down to the upper thirties and lower forties at night. The days are mostly in the vicinity of sixty degrees. Not what I would call warm, but I sure like it a lot more than the well below freezing temperatures I was in a couple of weeks ago. There has been a lot of rain in California and in Phoenix but we have also missed that. We have gone out to seek sunsets several evenings, without much success. This is the best picture I have gotten so far. The rainbow was taken another evening shortly before the rain clouds gathered and obscured any possibility of a sunset. We have had evenings that were so devoid of clouds that there was also not much chance of anything worth seeing. We have eaten supper here in the campground several evenings and I suppose the most beautiful sunsets were happening while we were eating. Sundown is simply too close to suppertime. Keep watching for sunset pictures, I hope to get some that are worthwhile eventually.
A RAINBOW OVER THE DESERT IN ARIZONA
We purchased a membership in this campground. It was as expensive as you might imagine. The value of it will be small unless we utilize the system as much as reasonable. As full timers we should be able to do that easily. There are well over 500 campgrounds that we can choose. They are not all free, some are $6.00 a night, and some are $10.00 a night. But outside the system there are a lot of campgrounds that cost $30.00 a night. I have not seen, but I have heard about campgrounds that cost in excess of $100.00 a night. I will NEVER stay in one of those. Of course at any campground there are monthly rates. Even the monthly rate can be $900 a month at the nicer campgrounds. I am going to set up an excel spreadsheet to track how long it takes us to break even.
At this campground there are venders that come in to sell fruit, sell propane, do repairs or upgrades to motorhomes. There is a company that will come in and wash your motorhome. The last two days there has even been a RV show here at the campground. Almost every night there is entertainment of some sort in the clubhouse. We have gone to see a cowboy poet, singer, and rope trickster. Another evening we went to listen to some gospel singers and another night a musical couple with an extremely talented nine-year-old daughter. We have seen travel presentations on Alaska and Mexico. They have all been enjoyable. During the day there are a lot of activities like pool tournaments, poker tournaments and the list goes on. One thing that I do not understand is the fact that some people come here and then simply sit in their motorhomes and do not get out of it. Perhaps this is something that I will understand later in my life, but not now. Several things have prevented me from doing as much as I would like, but I guess I have time later. At least that is the plan.
As I have told you the microwave/convection oven failed two days before Thanksgiving and it took us until the twentieth of December to get it repaired and back into the Vectra. While cooking breakfast on the twelfth of January it failed again. This is a big pain. There is no dealership here is Casa Grande to make the repairs. We will have to take the motorhome to either Tucson or Phoenix to get it worked on, or, perhaps somewhere in Texas. We plan to go further south and east when we leave here. I really did not realize how much of our food is based on either the microwave oven or a conventional oven. We are not geared to cooking on an open campfire. All we have to do is do more cooking on the stovetop and I guess that is not such a difficult job to do.
Some time today, or perhaps even yesterday, something went wrong with the telephone satellite here in the Casa Grande area. There has been no telephone service today, and that means no Internet connection. I will send this as soon as I can, but of course I have not a clue as to when that will be.
Till Later This Is Doug Of
PEACE ON THE ROAD
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