Arizona 2012 Sunday (Jan 22)

Sunday January 22, 2012

We went to the Daybreak Cafe this morning for breakfast along with 500 of our closest friends! This cafe is just a block or two down Frontage Road from our resort and seems to be the most popular place in town. There were people standing inside and out, waiting for a table. Surprisingly, we only waited for about 20 minutes to be seated. The service was fast and the food was good so it was understandable why so many people were there. The cafe is open 24 hours and we have passed it many times and there is always a crowd waiting. Guess we will have to try dinner there sometime later.

 Mountains driving to Quartsite

We headed into Yuma thinking we would find the third flea market today. I put the address into the navigator but ended up at the Yuma Marketplace where we were yesterday, as I had picked the wrong address off Internet. We decided to forget the flea market and drive to a little town of Quartsite that we read about in one of the local papers. There was to be a large RV Show there today, which is just what we do NOT need to be looking at, but wanted to check out the town anyway. As with any Arizona trip, we drove through a million miles of NOTHING to get there. There were several proving grounds we passed along this route. We saw entrances for GM and another for a military proving grounds. This landscape would be the perfect choice for a proving ground as it is nothing but desert. There were several small mountain ranges around.  It made me think of the mountain scenes we had painted in our painting class in Mesa. Any type of mountain you choose to paint on your canvas would be fitting as these mountains were very diverse in their formations.

(RV's parked in desert-multiply this picture by 1,000)


As we neared Quartsite, there were hundreds of RV's parked out in the open dessert area. We could not figure out what could bring so many RV's to a place like this. I logged onto the Internet and saw where there are 750,000 to a million people who converge on this area in January and February as rock hounds!! They are all 'dry camped' in the middle of this dust pit on government land known as La Posa. Quartsite is known as the Rock and Mineral Capitol of the world. Looking at the hundred and hundreds of RV's I have to believe there is SOMETHING else besides looking for ROCKS?? Oh well, I guess I need to find a hobby that I would be passionate enough about to live like this for weeks!

Flea Market in Quartsite

We drove into Quartsite and it was packed with flea market vendors. Rows and rows of tents with hundreds of items. People were walking everywhere within about a 5 or 6 block area with vendors several rows deep on both sides of the street. The traffic was bumper to bumper and there were many quad runners and dessert buggy's driving along the sides of the street. Looking at the number of people here, I wondered if there was anyone left in the US that were NOT here.

Quartsite is very small with a normal population of about 3,400 and from what I read has a restaurant, two grocery stores, a bar called the Quartsite Yacht Club--in the middle of this dust pit--, a McDonald's and a hardware store. There are a couple of post office spots in town for 'general delivery' mail that, at times, has a line of people waiting up to an hour to claim their delivery. Wow what a culture shock this must be for the locals when this magnitude of people arrive!

There was also a huge RV Show going on near the flea market area but we didn't even walk over to this area as we spent so much time walking through the flea market. The vendor's here at least had worth wile merchandise, much different than the poverty stricken flea market we visited yesterday in Yuma. I bought my grand dog, Ava, a cute little ball hat at one of the shops today. They had some very cute pink fuzzy cowboy hats but none to fit her, so I settled for the not so unique, ball hat. We also found a vender selling sun shades for motor homes. There were several options but the ones we were interested in were one that fit the front window that is used to filter the sun when parked and also one that mounted inside to filter the sun while driving. We priced each, which were not cheap--nothing for a motor home ever is!! It seems we are always driving into the sun and even though the windshield is tinted part way down, we need the inside screen badly.  We took the guys card as he said we could measure and order later.

As we got near Yuma we saw a sign saying Frontage Road. We turned on this road and ended up within about 5 miles of our RV Resort. On our trip to Quartsite, we drove all the way to Yuma and then headed north out of town, so this defiantly was a shortcut and cut 20 miles off our trip back. We are still finding our way around this area and have found alternate routes to several areas.

When we drove back into the Foothills, we decided to go to Appleby's again for dinner. We sat in the bar and watched the rest of the football game while we had dinner, which was a plus for Larry. We had a nice meal and was surprised that the restaurant was not that crowded.

Arizona 2012 Saturday(Jan 21 2012)

Saturday January 21 2012

The weather was very mild early this morning, warmer than normal. The clouds moved in overnight and looks like we could have rain. We were suppose to have the motor home washed and waxed today but Larry called and cancelled and rescheduled for Monday. Looking at the forecast, Monday looks like rain as well.

I texted Taylor this morning and she sent back a message that she woke up sick early this morning. I hope that clears up soon as well. She has such a struggle with her Thyroid issues that she does not need something that will throw that off balance again!

Talked to Leslie about whether she had started receiving our mail and as of yesterday nothing has been forwarded to them. Larry had to order his prescription drugs and we have been waiting for them to be delivered to Pete and Leslie. We called the post office on Glen Ave in Peoria to find out if there was a problem with the forwarding. They checked and said it was finally in the system and delivery should start today or Monday. Normally we pay to have our mail bundled and mailed to Arizona but since we are planning to move a couple of times this year, decided to ask Leslie to send the important items to us.

We went to the Yuma Marketplace, which is an indoor flea market. It was not as large as the one in Mesa but had a lot of the same items. We looked around for about two hours and I bought myself a Pandora Bracelet. I looked at these when we were in Florida but did not buy it there. I told Larry he is off the hook for a birthday gift, which pleased him!

We left the marketplace and grabbed lunch. In the Yuma Mall parking lot there was a small farmer's market going on. We walked through the vendor booths and bought some radish's and a small watermelon.

After leaving the mall we headed to another flea market that one of the vender's told us about. When we found it I was amazed that the vender's were actually paying for a spot to sell such junk. I think most of the vender's were from Mexico and the items they were trying to sell were just horrible. Even in Los Algodnes, the items for sale at the street markets are very up class compared to this place. The market was just huge and the items offered were so old and nasty they would have had to pay me to take them home. A lot of the vender's were selling silk flowers that were so faded and dirty I can't imagine anyone even looking at them. This was defiantly NOT the flea market items that are offered at Mesa.

The weather actually cleared up after we left the RV park this morning but by the time we got home, the wind was horrible. It was gusting against the motor home and the dust in the air was pretty bad. Another thing I dislike about Arizona is the dust storms. I wouldn't call today a dust storm but the dust was pretty heavy. I think this is what sets off my allergies. Last year while in Mesa, I made five trips to the doctor for allergy issues. I'm hoping to avoid the problems I had before. I talked to Dr. Adams before leaving home about how to avoid this year and he gave me some instructions of what to take if I started having issues.

We came home and cooked in again tonight.

Arizona 2012 Friday (Jan 20 2012)

Friday January 20, 2012

There was not a lot going on today but this afternoon we drove up to Yuma to find our way around the area a little. We went to the Wetlands Park area which is located along the Colorado River. The park was large with lots of area for hiking and biking paths. It also had lot of Cactus and other Arizona vegetation which is probably quite scenic in the spring when everything is in bloom.

Most every place around this area is typical dessert landscape. So far, I am not as fond of Yuma as I am of the Mesa area. Mesa is a much larger area but for some reason seems much more scenic and just cleaner looking in general. The dessert feels depressing to me many times as I am so fond of the green of the Midwest. If not for the fact that I need dental work completed, I don't have much desire to return to Yuma. In years past, we have driven many trips from Mesa for our dental appointments. It is about a 3 hour plus drive from Mesa to Yuma and a horribly boring trip so will be much better being this close.

Yuma is big into vegetable growing. Everywhere you look you see field upon field of lettuce and multiple other vegetables. When looking at all the fields, it hard to know what is growing as they all look the same. There are semi loads of boxes containing vegetables, which are being trucked to other markets. Along with the agriculture comes the migrant workers. We pass big buses filled with workers and attached to the back of the bus is a trailer hauling none other than their porta potties, which are taken to the fields during their work hours. There are probably as many migrant workers as snowbirds in this town. I feel sorry for these migrants as they work so hard for so little pay.

We drove on both sides of the Colorado River and went by many RV Parks located on the river. Most of the parks were jammed so tight with RV's it's hard to believe they could even back into the sites. One of the RV Parks that caught our interest on our trips from Mesa is called 'River's Edge'. It looks so beautiful from the road with huge palms located along each street, but when we drove back to look at the park, it too, was very overcrowded.

We were lucky to find such a nice park here in Yuma. We basically choose the RV Resort from the Internet, which is how we originally found Silveridge in Mesa. Our park here in Yuma is Las Quintas Oasis and it is located in the Foothill's. We are located about 10 miles east of the city limits of Yuma. The foothill's area is a somewhat newer area and has most of the conveniences that are needed on a daily basis, such as grocery stores and restaurants. It is loaded with RV Resorts which are all filled to capacity by the snowbirds. Our park is very neat and clean and each site has a palm tree on the lot. We have very friendly neighbors and many have offered their help in several of Larry's 'fix it' jobs around the motor home.

On our drive today we drove to Winterhaven, CA which is the exit we take when going to Los Algodnes, Mexico. I assumed Winterhaven was a pretty nice town but when we drove into the town, it was so poverty ridden it was depressing. It appears to be home to mostly migrant workers and vegetable processing plants.

I talked to Taylor this morning to check on our Addison. When they came home from their Colorado ski trip, Addison was sick with diarrhea. It was so bad she had a minor accident at pre-school on Monday. Kyle also was sick on Sunday but he was feeling much better by Monday. Monday they took Addison to the doctor and she has some type of strep that the doctor gave her antibiotics to take. Taylor said by Tuesday, Addison was acting better and the diarrhea had cleared up. The doctor said the antibiotic she gave them would not help the diarrhea so hopefully that has passed on it's own. Morgan has not been sick and neither has Taylor so hopefully it has run it's coarse.

We rounded our way back toward our home on wheels but not before funding the welfare of the Walton Family! We MUST stay out of Walmart. It seems we spend an average of $80 each time we darken the doors. Seems we are always out of something which is amazing since we really haven't cooked much. We did come home and cook dinner tonight, however. 

Arizona 2012 Thurday(Jan 19)

Thursday January 19, 2012

The temperature was in the low 40's this morning when we got up but felt cooler. It is suppose to get to about 73 degrees today. The forecast calls for each day to get a few degrees warmer through the weekend.

I stripped the bed and washed sheets today and also washed up a few rugs. Basically bummed all day and mostly read while I sat here doing the laundry.

About 1:00 it got pretty warm so I sat outside for awhile. I let Ravin and Tucker out on leashes but Tucker is not really into being outside for some reason. He has always been the one that we cannot get to go in once you let him out. I think because it's unfamiliar to him here is part of his issues. Also we are in the pet area of the park which means we have several dogs around us. When they are being walked and come by our site he kinda freaks when he sees one. Raven doesn't seem to mind. Charlie can't get off the bed long enough to come outside very often but when he does, he seems to like being outside.

Our electrician showed up around 2:00 and worked on the wiring. He got everything working again but was a pretty easy job for him as Larry had already identified where the broken wire was. He was really a nice guy but was paid well for showing up. I think he charged $160 for his services. Oh well--just a bit more thrown into the deep dark money pit!!

We needed several items again from store but ended up going into Sam's and then stopped at Walmart for some other items. We have been buying gallon jugs of bottled water for coffee but I'm pretty sure there is a water station up at the Resort Club House so need to start refilling our jugs. It's $.25 to refill verses $1.00 to buy a new jug. We always refilled when we were at resort in Mesa. Just need to find our way around here in Yuma.

Gene called while we were at Sam's and said he got home from Florida. He and his daughter Debbie(my niece) flew down to visit Jason(my nephew)for a week. Debbie had posted this morning on Facebook that they were having some issues with their flight this morning, something to do with security. Gene said they never did find out what the problems were but a TSA guy boarded their flight and rode it back to Kentucky, where they flew into.

While at Sam's, which is at the Yuma mall area, we decided to have an In-and-Out Burger for dinner. They are absolutely one of the best hamburgers I have ever had--much better than Five Guys for half the price. They had an In-and-Out in Mesa where we ate last year alot . As far as I know they are only on the west coast as we haven't seen any very far toward the Midwest.

Came home and stashed our groceries, had my coffee and went to bed to read.

Arizona 2012 Wednesday(Jan 18)

Wednesday January 18, 2012

I worked around RV for awhile this morning and suddenly realized today is our anniversary. We have been married 37 years and like Larry, last year, I didn't even buy a card. After this long, does it really make any sense to buy cards as they are quickly read and thrown in a stack of papers that will eventually get pitched in the trash. How romantic married life becomes after this number of years huh!??!

Larry has been busy all day trying to locate the short in the wiring and finally found where a wire was cut outside in the storage area of the RV. He and one of the neighbors tried to remove a group of screws holding the wires but could not get them loose to free up the wire to repair. He just left to go over to the RV Supply to schedule an appointment for someone to come out and fix it. He called to say they will be here SOMETIME tomorrow, which means we'll set her waiting most of day. It will be good to get it fixed as it is all the lights over kitchen table and love seat area. Hard to see to eat and defiantly can't set on that side if you want to read at night.

The weather is about the same today with the bright sunshine. It is suppose to warm to 70 degrees today but so far not too warm. Since we have been here it has been in between 60 and 70 degrees but with a bit of wind it doesn't feel that warm. About 2:00pm it gets very nice and by 4:00pm it is cooling enough for a jacket. Guess for January those temperatures aren't bad.

Monday night when we went to Appleby's for dinner, we saw pictures that were part of the decor, that Yuma High School's mascot is a criminal.We both laughed about the fact they were called The Yuma Criminals. I was reading in the local paper this morning that they adopted this name in 1914 when the high school classes were held at the abandoned Yuma Territorial Prison. They later built the new school but retained the mascot. In the article it also said CBS found it intriguing enough that Julie Chen came to Yuma in 2006 to do a story as part of the show's 'Tour My Town' series. The mascot is decked out in blue and white prison stripes. Just thought this is rather interesting as I'm sure it's the only school with such an unusual mascot.

Mario, Pete's brother called Larry today to say he got the deer salami and wanted to know for sure how much Larry wanted of it. Larry told him whatever Leslie and Pete wanted plus some for sister Carol. Mario was going to cut it into smaller rolls and wrap it for freezing. Pete is in Seattle this week and Leslie was planning on going out to Mario's house after work to help him wrap the salami. I sent her a text message and told her to stop by our house and take the food sealer with her to use for salami. She called later and said her and Ava(the dog) went to our house and Ava got so excited when they went in and was running around looking for the cats. She saw my two wooden cats in the living room and kept trying to play with them. She's all into the cats but the cats are not that fond of her unfortunately!!! Leslie also said it was very cold at home and the wind chill was down close to zero. So as I said--not big complaints on our weather.

We scheduled a propane delivery for today so are waiting for the truck to show up. Again anything you need done is on someone else's schedule and they can never tell you a time so you can set all day waiting. The propane guy showed about 2:30. We thought we were getting really low on propane but when he filled our tank it only took 9 gallon. I think we have a 20 gallon tank so didn't use as much as we thought on our trip out. The going rate for propane is $3.99 a gallon, so like everything in the gas market not cheap!!

After the propane guy left we drove into Yuma to the mall. I looked around for awhile and then we went to Red Lobster for dinner. We had a very good meal. Larry got crab legs and I got two servings of shrimp scampi and we shared the two. Had a nice salad and vegetables. We saw they have a Sam's at the mall but when I looked online didn't see but two Costco's in Arizona--one in Tucson and one in Phoenix. Taylor and Kyle paid for a Costco membership for us for Christmas but we haven't been anyplace that has a Costco to activate. When we get to Mesa we have a Costco just down the street from the RV Resort so will use it then.

Arizona 2012 Tuesday(Jan 17)

Tuesday January 17, 2012

Decided it was time to do my laundry, so today was mostly devoted to catching up. I pretty much had a laid back afternoon and read most of the day while taking periodic breaks to change the laundry from washer to dryer. Larry worked on some items on RV to get whatever was not working--which is always numerous-- taken care of.

The weather has been a little on the cool side. Most mornings the temperature is in the mid 30's when we get up but by early afternoon recovers to around 65. I couldn't decide what I should be wearing today. I started out in long pants with a sweatshirt and changed early afternoon to capri's. At this time of the year it doesn't take long in shorts or capri's until it's cool enough to switch back to long pants. I actually changed back to pants and sweatshirt around 4:00. It was still a little warm with the sweatshirt but an hour later felt right. The sun was shinning brightly most of the day. The forecast shows about a 5 degree increase in temperature for the remaining part of week.

Around 4:00 we went over to an RV Supply and bought light bulbs, a new handle for the TV Antenna and a power tester. The lights on the inside of drivers side are not working for some reason so Larry is going to try finding the problem tomorrow. We made a trip to buy a few groceries and came home to cook dinner. This is the first home meal for us in awhile. I made several items and froze before Christmas so we had meatloaf from our freezer stash tonight. Wasn't bad but I am just very tired of my cooking as of late.

Arizona 2012 Monday(Jan 16)

Monday January 16, 2012

We left the Las Cruces KOA at 8:00am. We had the random 'quirky' issues with the RV -- this morning the stabilizing jacks would not totally retract which means the air bags also would not totally inflate. When leaving here last year we were unaware of this problem until we pulled out onto the road and hit a dip in the road. It felt like the bottom of the RV fell out as we hit so hard. This problem either occurs when it's been setting for awhile in the cold or possibly the jacks have a little rust from setting without use for months. Regardless, we had to stop and power down the jacks again and shut off engine for everything to reset before trying to retract again. After working with it for awhile everything reset and we left the RV Park and took RT 10 west toward Tucson.

We drove in rain and wind for about two hours but the farther south we drove the weather started clearing. I started looking for an RV Park somewhere between Tucson and Yuma so we would not have to drive as far a Yuma, which was about 515 miles from Las Cruces. Basically there is not much human life between Tucson and Yuma, just miles and miles of open land. The only places I found were about 30 miles east of Yuma so decided we were not saving much in mileage to stop at any of these RV Parks. We talked about where we wanted to call in Yuma for an RV site for tonight and decided to call Las Quintas, the place we have reservations for February. When we called they said they had a site we could have and we could decide if we wanted to start our time from tonight or just stay for a day or two. We talked about driving on to San Diego and staying somewhere there for a week before returning to Yuma. We told them at Las Quintas that we would tell them our plans tomorrow and they gave us our site number since the office will be closed when we arrive.

The weather cleared up and the sun came out. It got too warm driving so Larry opened the window on drivers side for some fresh air. We arrived in Yuma about 5:00pm and found Las Quintes RV Resort easily. We pulled into the park and found our site, stopped and unloaded the car and unhitched the car dolly from RV. Larry went back to RV and when he started to open the door it was locked. We had a set of keys in the car so I retrieved but found the key for door only unlocked one of the door locks. Well---this is interesting---who in their right mind would build a motor home requiring two different keys to unlock the locks on the SAME door!@!@??? We kept trying the key on both locks but nothing was working. The window on the drivers side was still open and we were able to slide it open farther to where we could get inside but we left home and forgot to load our latter. The distance from the ground made it impossible to get through the window. I told Larry to knock on someones door and borrow a latter but he kept trying to think of a way to get to window. He remembered the removable latter on back of RV used to access roof. He unhooked it and was able to lean it against window to climb up far enough to remove the keys from the ignition. These keys had an extra key that was for nothing other than that extra lock on the door!@! HOW STRANGE! We scored a lucky break but of course not before we saw 3 or 4 of the park residence standing outside watching the big event!! The 55 plus RV Parks are like living in a very small city as nothing happens that the entire park does not know within 15 minutes!!!

We pushed the car dolly onto the RV site. A lady that was setting outside with a group walked over and said she worked for the resort and could help guide Larry backing the RV into site. She showed us where to locate motor home on lot and Larry backed in. Her name is Cynthia and her husband is David. They are parked next to us and they were having 'happy hour' at the RV behind them so she invited us to come over when we got settled. I walked over later and she introduced me to Bruce, who is from BC Canada. I also met Joe and Cari from Canada as well. Doris, who owned the RV where everyone was gathered, is from Boise, ID. They were all very nice people. Cynthia and David are from Indiana and are permanent residence here at Las Quintas. I talked for awhile and gave my regrets about joining them as I told them we had not had dinner yet.

Larry hooked everything up and when water was hot he took a shower. We drove across the highway to Appleby's for dinner. It was packed, which is typical for a 'snowbird' city. Doesn't matter the day or hour of day every place is packed. We went into the bar and had a beer and waited for our table. They finally called us and took us to our table and we sat for 25 minutes waiting for a server to appear. We ordered our meal and another beer and sat another 25-30 minutes for our order. We asked for a couple of needed items when they brought our food but the server never appeared with them. We finished our dinner and waited forever for our server to bring check. What a ZOO--I'm not so sure our poor service was strictly because the place was busy or just that we had a poor server! Anyway our tip reflected our service!

We came back to RV and when I finished a cup of coffee, I was ready for bed. Tomorrow we need to decide if we are staying here or leaving again. I would like to call dentist and find out if she can see me before my scheduled appointment of Feb 2. If I can get an appointment soon, I'd rather stay and take a day trip to San Diego or even an overnight trip. It is only about 140 miles over to San Diego so we could make a few trips if we want but I would like to stay here since we are settled. I hate moving and reorganizing all the time---guess I'm just not a REAL RV'er as I like the secure feeling of a home base!