A Bear!

        And we thought a mouse was a problem.  This morning we went out for our three-mile run (really a fairly slow jog).  About 1 ¼ mile into it, I looked down the road and said, "What is that on the road?"  At first I thought it might be a cow—inside the state park?  We both looked, and then I said, "It's a black bear."

 

        We both looked, took a deep breath, turned around and started running away from the bear.  I thought there was a restroom just a little ways back, but it seemed like we would never reach it.  I knew there was a trash dumpster near the road and I found myself wondering if we could stand behind it and circle around it fast enough to be safe.

 

        John kept looking over his shoulder to see if the bear was following us.  John kept thing, "When we run way, are we bating the bear like we would be if it were a dog?"  Then I thought I had read that bears didn't have good eyesight, so maybe it didn't even know we were on the road. 

 

        Every restroom in the park has signs pointing out that black bears live here.  We didn't have any doubt about what we had seen.

 

        For about a half mile, we kept running away from the bear and not talking.  We needed to save our air to run faster if the bear came after us.  Finally, we realized there was no threat.  We could talk about what happened and finish our shortened run.

 

        In the end, the bear sighting was probably the highlight of the past six months.  We haven't seen a black bear since Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, in 2006.  This was a big deal for us.  What do we do?  Change where we run?  Buy pepper spray to protect ourselves?  Obviously, we didn't get a picture of the bear.  We didn't have a camera and we wouldn't have taken the time to click the shutter if we did.  Somehow this experience today put the issue of a mouse in the trailer in perspective.

 

        By the way, something set off the mouse trap overnight into Monday, but we haven't seen any evidence of a mouse since then.  Yea?   

 

A Mouse!

Saturday morning I walked over to the kitchen counter for my first cup of coffee and Horrors, what did I see? Mouse droppings. Now, this is nothing new to RVers who are parked in open country or near fields, or who have put their rig in storage somewhere. But the familiarity doesn't make it any more welcome. I told John, cleaned up the droppings, and then decided to have my coffee before we searched any further.

When I did search, I found nothing under the sink, nothing in drawers. Droppings were only on the counter and in the stove. A couple of hours later, we started work on removing the stove. Not an easy task. How do they put those screws in so tight? But eventually we prevailed and found three large holes around wiring and the gas line.

We were off the the lumber yard in town for expanding foam. John filled the holes and we crossed our fingers.

At bedtime, I baited two mouse traps with cheese, covered the stove and counter with newspaper and placed the traps there. We were relieved to find neither trap had been set off this morning. We will keep trying. If we find any more, you'll hear about it in the days to come.

Settling In

We are settling in at our new home, Lathrop State Park in Walsenburg, Colorado. We will be here till mid July. Lathrop is a park where we have camped many times over the years, mainly when we wanted to get out from Denver either early or late season or on our way to or from Colorado from the south.

We arrived Monday. We had planned to spend three nights at Trinidad Lake State Park, 35 miles to the south. We pulled in to look for a site, only to find the campground there is being upgraded and is closed. So we drove to Walsenburg and spent three nights in a campground host site with a great view of the Spanish Peaks. Then Wednesday we moved into the volunteer site where we will spend the summer. It is in a large open area near a ranger's house. We will enjoy our privacy here.

Part of our responsibility at Lathrop will be operation of a park store. But beyond that, we won't know much until Sunday when we begin our orientation. The park has two lakes for fishing, one that also allows swimming and water skiing, the other that allows wind surfing. There are several duck ponds with bird watching opportunities. Since our arrival, we have picked up our running, doing three runs at 6459 feet above sea level, an altitude we haven't seen since February 3. In the process we have discovered areas of the park we hadn't seen before and will spend more time exploring soon.

While getting settled here, there were other issues on my mind. We have a lease on our house in Centennial. When I contacted our current insurer, I learned, to my dismay, that they will only insure rental property if they also ensure our primary home—which we no long have. I made an internet search for insurers, and then visited an insurance agency in Walsenburg. Thank God for internet and cell phones. It has been stressful, with lots of phone calls and emails. Today we settled on a policy through the local agency here.

I am also looking for new insurance for our truck. When we sold our second car, our auto insurance didn't go down, it went up. The two-car discount was greater than the cost of insuring the old Buick. So we will try to find a more cost-effective policy.

I really don't mind taking care of these details, but it is something I would rather not have to worry about. Life goes on, even when you are retired and on the road, I guess.

The Great and the Ugly

Earlier this week, we boarded our two cats in Albuquerque and flew to Jacksonville, North Carolina, to attend the retirement ceremony for our older son, Doug, at Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base. Doug joined the Marines about one month after graduating from high school. In 23 years he rose to the rank of Master Sergeant, serving in Somalia, Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Since we last saw Doug and his wife, Sherry, and two daughters, Rachal and Samantha, a little over two years ago, Doug spent a year in Iraq.

We were so proud to hear his career praised during the retirement ceremony. He has served his country with honor through these years. It was very moving. One portion of the event included a poem in praise of “Old Glory,” our United States flag, and concluded with the passing of a folded flag in a ceremony called “Keeping the Watch.” It brought tears to our entire family as it ended by saying, “you are relieved of the watch.”

In addition to the retirement, our trip gave us some precious time with our two granddaughters. They have grown and matured so over two years. We were able to attend an award ceremony at Hunter Creek Elementary where Rachal received a writing award. Sami showed us how she bowls with their Wii.

Three other family members also attended the retirement. Doug’s aunt and uncle, John and Cindy, and our younger son, Eric, had all been present in San Diego in 1986 when Doug graduated from boot camp. We all gathered again for his retirement. We had great family time with them, as well.

This picture shows Eric, me and John, Doug, Cindy and John.

The ugly part of our trip was the Wednesday flight from Albuquerque to Jacksonville. We arrived at the Albuquerque Sunport at 7 am for our 8:40 am flight. Departure time was postponed several times as repair of a leak was attempted. About 11 am gate agents suggested everyone come to the desk to make other flight arrangements, since they expected the flight would be cancelled—the third Delta flight of the morning to be aborted. At 11:55 am we sprinted from that gate down the concourse to an American Airlines gate where the flight was to depart at 12:10 pm for Dallas.

In Dallas we sprinted to another gate to catch a Delta flight to Atlanta. In Atlanta we hurried from one concourse to another to catch an 8:40 pm flight to Jacksonville. We had originally anticipated arriving in North Carolina at 5:12 pm. It was a long, grueling day, but worth every bit of the hassle for the great time we had in North Carolina.

The Rally is Over

        The Rally is over.  After doing our weight training, we hooked up and left about 9 am.  A good number of people left yesterday afternoon.  Some were driving out at 6 this morning. 

 

        Sunday we didn't go into the exhibits at the Expo Center.  Instead, after a leisurely morning of worship and a good lunch, we drove to the Rio Grande Nature Preserve State Park along the Rio Grande River.  We were able to walk over two miles on the trails there.  We saw a Coopers Hawk and watched the muddy Rio Grande flowing by.  Friday's rain probably caused the mud.

 

        Monday we returned to The Rally with a vengeance.  At 8:30 in the morning we attended a seminar on electrical basics.  At 10:30, I went to a seminar on managing digital photos with Picasa; John went to one showing the many ways Velcro (hook and loop tape) can be used in an RV. In between the two seminar sessions, we bought extended service plans for both our RV and tow vehicle from the Good Sam Club.  We shopped some more, buying Velcro, a water pressure gauge and some picture frames that stay on the walls as we travel.

 

        We are glad we came to The Rally.  It was good to have so many vendors in the same area and the seminars we attended were helpful.  But we probably won't do another rally this way.  A big focus of the rally is socializing, being with people.  That really isn't our thing.  We rarely attend anything in the evening, so the nighttime entertainment was wasted on us. 

 

        If we attend another rally, we will stay in a nearby RV park and come in for a couple of days to shop and attend seminars.  We had to come here to learn what is valuable to us and what is not.

 

The Rally Begins

We're about done with day 2 of The Rally, an annual gathering of RVers from around the country, sponsored by Affinity, a holding company that owns Trailer Life, Good Sam Club, Camping World and other associated businesses.

We arrived about 10 on Friday and found signs and volunteers along the streets, directing us to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta Park, where all RVs are parked and the evening entertainment tent is located. Arrival times are staggered and we were part of the group that was to pull in between 8 am and noon on Friday.

The line ahead of us was short, but it didn't move too fast because we were being assigned spaces one after the other and all sites were back-in. That takes skill and time in the best of conditions, and because some of the rigs on the opposite row still hadn't pulled out their tow vehicles, the driveway was narrow. But we only were really delayed by one driver who couldn't seem to get his rig in the right place.

I don't know how many RVs have come to the show, but there are acres and acres of while metal boxes (plus a few in shades of brown). Many sites have electricity. A smaller number are for those who chose to dry camp and use their own generator. By the way, they also saved $150 for the four nights of the rally. We thought electricity and the quiet of no generators was worth the expense.

After set up and a quick lunch, we walked over to the shuttle stop. Small trailers with seats and a canopy are picking up people all over the grounds and taking them to the "bus station" where buses would take us the 10 miles or so to the Albuquerque Expo Grounds. That is where all the exhibitors are located and seminars held. The weather was cold and there were intermittent showers. Everyone accepted the cold with good humor. When the wait for a bus lasted over 45 minutes, there were some grumbles. On our return the wait was over an hour and many (including us) were saying we'd drive our own vehicle on Saturday.

We walked through all of the indoor exhibit space Friday afternoon. It was busy and there is too much to absorb. But we bought a grill shield so it will be easier to cook outside in the wind. We also picked up a new patio mat for outside the rig.

Overnight it rained until at least 2 am. But this morning we awoke to sunshine and puddles. First thing, we acted like real RVers. We drove to a nearby Cracker Barrel Restaurant for breakfast. I think most RVers eat out most of the time. We rarely go to a restaurant. But this seemed like the time to do it.

We drove to Expo Center, along with many others. As we left the Balloon grounds I saw eight buses waiting to pick up riders and a bus would leave whenever it had loaded whoever was there for a ride, not waiting till it was full. We probably should have driven ourselves yesterday and ridden the bus today.

I attended a seminar on extended service or warranty insurance that was very helpful. John picked up literature on RV generators and looked at other booths. After checking out a model trail exhibit and some vintage vehicles and RVs, we headed back about 1:30 pm.

The rally lasts through Monday evening. How many more things can we buy?

It's Rented!

        Since 2003 we have been spending several months a year in our 5^th wheel trailer.  That year we were out almost five months.  Since then, it has been six, seven or eight months.  We spent five months traveling to Alaska.  We toured the Maritime Provinces.  Last year we spent five months in Oregon. 

 

        For at least the last two years, our stick house in Centennial has felt like an albatross—we had to return to clean leaves out of the gutter, do interior maintenance, make sure everything was OK.  We worried about it when we were gone.  Then, we returned to the house and wondered what on earth we needed all that space and all that "stuff" for. 

 

        On top of all that, it seemed like very bad stewardship of the wonderful resources God had given us to leave that investment empty most of the year.  Each year it made more sense to put that investment to work for us.

 

        Last fall we decided we would rent our house in Centennial and live on the road full-time.  We returned there in November and put all our energy into paring down, putting what we wanted to keep into storage and preparing the house for rent.  Our son Eric, who lives nearby and is experienced at managing rental property, was to be our manager.

 

        In January we started advertising the place for rent.  Finally, today, we have a lease agreement for two years!  They will move in May 1.  We can now really say we are full-timers because we don't have a house to return to or worry about.  The rent will cover the expenses of home ownership—taxes, insurance, home owner association dues, storage fees—and give us some extra income.  We are delighted and feel really free.

 

        And now Eric just has to collect the rent and deal with any repair issues.  He doesn't have to schedule appointments to show the house—which often results in a no show—or deal with people whose credit is so bad they couldn't pay the rent for a year, no matter how much they wanted to.

 

        Hooray! 

 

Wind, Wind, Go Away!

Otherwise, its here we stay.

And stay we did. We had planned to leave Holbrook today and go to Grants, NM. But there was a high wind warning posted for the area and so we decided to wait it out here. We are really glad we did. There were sustained winds of 40 to 45 mph and gusts of 55 to 65 mph. It isn't much fun to sit here in the RV while the wind blows that way. It even blew one of the boards out from under a rear stabilizer. But it would be even less fun to try driving east on I-40. We wonder how many RVs are pulled off along the road because of the wind. As we looked out our windows, the sky was brown with blowing dust. The power is going on and off and the trailer is shaking side to side. It was scary at times. We are doing our best not to even go outside today. And this evening we have had some light snow showers.

Yesterday we visited Petrified Forest National Park. It includes the Painted Desert. I don't know what I expected. In places there are hills and valleys of many-hued sand. Often, these areas have a lot of petrified wood. What surprised me were the large expanses of regular desert—no sand, no petrified wood, no color. We drove through and/or stopped at almost every overlook and it took us 3 to 3½ hours to see everything.

The two most interesting areas were the Painted Desert near the Painted Desert Inn and the Crystal Forest. A close third was Blue Mesa.

A lonely Indian Paintbrush struggles in the Painted Desert.

These rocks make me think of Tiddly Winks. Remember them?

The Painted Desert Inn was built to serve the needs of Route 66 travelers. In the 1930s, the CCC rebuilt it in Southwestern style. The interior murals were painted by a noted Hopi artist.

One of the CCC workers painted the panels of the skylight.

Leaving the Desert

Today we left the desert and drove through the White Mountains to Holbrook, AZ. After two and one-half months in the desert, we felt at home as we drove through juniper and pine and on curving, steep roads. The Salt River Canyon is really impressive—both the scenery and the road grades. We are so grateful for our heavy duty Chevy diesel truck and for the fact our trailer is not overloaded. We were able to use cruise control the whole way and had no problem with overheating. So often we read about other RVers having those problems.

As we prepared to leave this morning, we had to check out the inside of our trailer kingpin—we had seen finches flying in and out recently. Sure enough, I pulled out a small nest with maybe four or five tiny baby birds. We couldn't leave them in the hitch—they would starve since the parents wouldn't stay there as we drove. I placed the nest in a tree. I sure hope the mom and dad find their babies. This made us very sad. Next time we park for a long time, we will cover the kingpin opening.

Yesterday the community of Coolidge held a sunrise worship service in the picnic ground at Casa Grande Ruins. We attended and enjoyed watching the sun come up after a day and half of rain (we received ¼ inch, the first in nearly two months). The music was provided by local country and western artists. Pastors from the Methodist and Presbyterian churches led the worship. Youth from the Church of the Nazarene did a liturgical dance.

As we drove through Globe, the streets were lined with brightly blooming orange poppies. They are so beautiful. Since this picture was taken from a moving car, it is blurred, but at least you can see the color of the flowers.

We are spending two nights in Holbrook and will visit Petrified Forest National Park tomorrow. We aren't the only people on our way to the RV rally in Albuquerque. When we checked in—we had made reservations—the manager said the park was almost totally reserved for the night. People are heading to the rally. For over an hour this afternoon, we watched a continuous line of four or more RVs waiting to register. Since there are still lots of empty spaces, we should see more lines a little later.

Last Week at Casa Grande Ruins

This was our last week at Casa Grande Ruins the year. One of our projects the last two weeks was assembling thank-you plaques to be given to people who were involved with the American Indian Music Fest that was held here in February. It took place before we came. Last week, we glued the print of the festival poster on the plaques. This week, we drilled holes to install hooks to attach the small flutes to the plaques.

It was a fun project and we felt good about what we accomplished. And we look forward to attending the Festival next year, when we return to volunteer January to April.

April is when we celebrate Earth Day, so we thought picking up trash on the edge of the Ruins grounds would be a good activity this week. There is a small shopping center across the street from the monument entrance. It includes two fast-food restaurants. That leads to lots of napkins, food wrappers and Styrofoam cups to blow around in the frequent Arizona wind storms. We filled four bags with trash in two mornings.

We will stay here till Monday morning, and then head to Albuquerque, where we will attend "The Rally," an annual gathering bringing together RVers from all over the country. We have never attended one before, so we don't know what to expect. I'll tell you about it next week.

Arizona Grapefruit

I don't often buy grapefruit or oranges. I do drink orange juice. But since we arrived in Arizona in early February, I have wondered what one of those fruits would taste like it I picked it off the tree.

I still don't know. But we have been eating local grapefruit. For the last three weeks we have attended the coffee hour after the 10 am service at St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Coolidge. Each week, there on the table was a large crate of grapefruit. So we took a couple of the ruby reds home and enjoyed them. What a treat! Today, when I took two, the man who grew them said, "Please take more." I didn't, but before next week I will ask those we work with here if they would like us to pick up some for them, as well. I want to be sure they will find a home. I don't want to be responsible for the fruit being wasted.

Fresh ruby red grapefruit is great!

St. Anthony's Monastery

Today we made a delightful visit to Saint Anthony's Greek Orthodox Monastery, http://www.stanthonysmonastery.org/index.php, located about 20 miles from Casa Grande Ruins, about 8 miles south of the town of Florence.

In July 1995, five fathers came to the barren Sonora Arizona desert from Mount Athos, Greece, and began working to build St. Anthony's. Within five years, the brotherhood had increased to 30 fathers.

The monks welcome pilgrims and visitors to visit, offering the traditional kerasma (water and something sweet) and answer questions. The monastery buildings and grounds are stunning. The gardens are a mixture of desert plants and imported ones. The buildings are elaborate, each a different style. All of the icons, many of the furnishings have been imported from Greece.

Rather than have this post run forever, I have put a few (only 16 of the nearly 200 we took today) photos in a slide show. I hope you enjoy the gardens, the holy places, the beauty and the whimsy in what you see.

Thank-yous and Flames

Last week we led two groups of 4^th graders from the St. Peter's Indian Mission School on a tour of the Ruins. When we arrived at work on Monday this week we found a stack of thank-you notes from the boys and girls. It really warmed our hearts to read comments such as:

"I hope I see you some time next time."

"Thank you for being nice to me."

"I had lots of fun."

"God bless you."

"I hope you have a good day."

"I really loved it."

Their notes had either colored pictures of Casa Grande Ruins or their own drawings on the front.

One day last week we hiked on Picacho Peak. The small mountain is an old volcanic deposit and is located in an Arizona State Park. It was a nice hike. There are lots of Saguaro cacti on the hillside. Here and there we saw what looked like bright red bursts of flame. But it wasn't a wildfire starting on the peak, it was the flowers on the Ocotillo. They are so pretty.

This is a photo of the lower part of Picacho Peak.

These are the flames we spotted.

Don't drink the water

I always drink the tap water, wherever we are parked. I haven't been worried about its safety and it usually tastes just fine, or at least OK. I hate to pay to drink a glass of water. I usually fill a bottle to take with us, wherever we go in the truck. All of this was true until now.

My first clue should have been the prevalence of water-filling stations. Since we have come to southern Arizona, we have seen small kiosks selling water—not in bottles, but from a spigot so people can fill their own bottles. And we always see people using these kiosks. One RV park, the one we stayed in at Yuma, even had these kiosks located around the park.

Our next clue should have been the stacks of salt at the entrance to each grocery store we entered—salt for water softeners. That usually means people don't like the way the water tastes.

Still, we were drinking the tap water until we came here. The monument gets is water from the City of Coolidge. Not only does it taste awful, it even smells bad. After one week, we bought some water at the store—at 89 cents a gallon. When we discovered we could refill those bottles at 15 cents a gallon at the far end of town or 25 cents a gallon closer to our RV, we bought a total of four gallon bottles and we use the purchased water for drinking, coffee, to mix our orange juice and to make ice cubes. We are aware of the bad taste even in ice cubes in a glass with bourbon. That tells you how awful the water is.

Here John is filling our bottles.

This week at Casa Grande

Tuesday evening most of the volunteer couples here at Casa Grande Ruins National Monument gathered for a pot luck meal and brats on the grill. Almost everyone in the group has done a lot of RVing, so we had a great time sharing stories.

We spent a lot of time this week working on our tour presentations for next winter. While we have all the materials available, we want to get the basics of our talks together. We can refine them over the rest of the year. Dave, the ranger in charge of interpretation, has to approve what we will present, so we will email our drafts to him as we complete them.

Wednesday morning John and I worked with a group of Native American 4^th grade students from the St. Peter's Mission School on a tour of the monument. The 15 students arrived with two adult chaperones. One is a snowbird from Wisconsin who volunteers one day a week at the reservation school. "I've had a great life and I want to give back," he told me. We're not sure who the other chaperone was. Since neither of those adults was prepared to lead the tour and educational program, John and I got our first taste of being interpreters here. On the whole it was a positive experience. John felt it was a real honor to help these Indian children learn more about their heritage. As he showed them through the museum, they saw items that they have seen their grandparents use in their homes. I came away saying it was a good experience, but it made leading tours for adults look like a piece of cake.

The students had been equipped with cameras to use for the class project; in addition, several brought their own cameras. Of course, they took lots of pictures. When I asked to take their picture, they took mine, as well. In the museum, their favorite photo subject was this cash donation bowl.

After the children and their leaders left, John showed me a dove's nest in the crook of a tree in the outdoor classroom. I had spent over 30 minutes there with my group of young people, but had not seen the dove and her babies. She was so protective of her babies, she let me get quite close to take pictures. When I returned later, she had flown away, probably to get food. Here are the babies waiting for mama to return.

Arizona Sunsets

I love sunsets (and sunrises) and Arizona is certainly the place to see them. Here is a slideshow of some we have seen the past two months.

Our first one week+ at Casa Grande Ruins National Monument has been busy and very good. We can hear white tailed doves cooing from before dawn till dark. What a soothing sound! There are round-tailed ground squirrels everywhere, but I haven’t been able to get any photos of them. We also have seen several roadrunners (or one roadrunner several times.) But I didn’t have the camera out then.

The roof over the ruins has a resident pair of great horned owls. I don’t think I have seen these owls before, but now I go check on them every day. They have a nest and we wait to see if any of the babies survive. This is the best photo I have been able to get so far of one of the owls.

We have a great RV site here on the grounds.

In addition to a full-hookup site, they have provided two clothes washers and two dryers. This is a real perk for volunteers and only the third time it has been available to us while volunteering. It saves us at least $10 a week in laundromat expense, as well as the time to drive somewhere to do our wash. We are maybe 50 steps away from the washers.

Looking the other direction from the same spot, this is our view of the Casa Grand Ruins.

National Monuments are smaller than National Parks. The staff here is small and almost like a family. Already we have met almost everyone that works here. Today, as I did our wash, I talked with two members of the maintenance staff and the monument superintendent. Everyone has welcomed us here and treats us like we belong. It is the friendliest place we have ever volunteered.

A major way that volunteers help at Casa Grande is by leading guided tours of the ruins. We have a lot of research to do before we can give these tours. They don’t give a script of what they want us to say. They want each volunteer to develop their own theme and do their own research so they know that the information they are discussing is correct. That will take a lot of work, so we won’t be giving any tours this month. We will work on our tours over the summer and fall, before we (hopefully) return next winter. We do answer questions from visitors and rove around the ruins to keep an eye on things and be available to visitors. Also, we have both been trained to help in the bookstore.

The cacti are beginning to bloom here. This is a beautiful prickly pear cactus.

First Day at Casa Grande

Today we drove 11 miles from the RV park in Florence to Casa Grande Ruins National Monument, where we will spend the next month. It was an easy move, except for the cats. I won't go into detail, but if you are interested in what it can be like to travel with our cats, check out this blog from August 2006.

http://5thwheelwanderings.blogspot.com/2006/08/prince-edward-island-prince-edward.html

After setting up our trailer, we checked in and spent several hours meeting other volunteers and the staff and going on several tours so we can learn about the ruins and the Hohokam, the prehistoric people who built the "Great House" Casa Grande.

This is Casa Grande and the roof that protects it.

We are going to enjoy our time here, I think. Everyone is friendly and we are beginning to learn enough to be impressed with the people who constructed the buildings preserved in this monument. In addition, we saw our first Great Horned Owls, which live in the roof over Casa Grande, as well as a roadrunner, a lizard and lots of doves.

It's been a long day and we are tired. We know we have a lot to learn. But it is good to be here.

A Busy Week

        It's been quite a week.  Our time at Organ Pipe included spending some good times getting to know Bert and Audrey Epp from Manitoba.  They had been our neighbors at Gilbert Ray and then arrived at Organ Pipe two days after we did.  We had a good time visiting with them.  Then Saturday we spent time talking about volunteering at Organ Pipe with David and Jo-Anna Kikel.  We met them last year while staying at the Kamper Corral in Klamath, CA.  They have been volunteering at Organ Pipe since December.

 

On Monday we left Organ Pipe for Yuma.  We had planned to check out the weather there and see what we thought of the Escapees co-op park.  Last fall we fell in love with the Escapees park in Benson, except that the winter nights there are often near or below freezing.  We would like to winter somewhere warmer than that.  Yuma seems to be the warmest place in Arizona. 

 

When we began calling about a place to stay in Yuma, we found many places were full.  The Escapees park doesn't take reservations and they even had folks in dry camping, waiting for a hookup site.  We finally called the Cocopah Golf and RV Resort and found a place—at $43 a night—whoa!  After spending eight nights at Organ Pipe for a total of $48, that was really high.

 

After two days in Yuma, we decided it really wasn't a place we were interested in spending a lot of time.  After a good visit with Bruce and Nancy Butler, full-time RVers we met several times while visiting eastern Canada and the Maritime Provinces two years ago, we turned around and came east to Desert Gardens RV Oasis in Florence.  We stayed here a year ago and really enjoy the park.  The sites are very large and the park isn't crowded.  It is surrounded by a cactus forest and they have a great trail, about 2 ½ miles long around the perimeter, where we enjoy running.

 

Saturday we visited the Coolidge Cotton Days nearby, as I described in yesterday's post.  After lunch we went to Casa Grande National Monument to apply for a volunteer position next winter.  We learned they are short staffed and could use some help for a month.  Today we worked out arrangements to volunteer there till early April.  That will give us and them a chance to see if that will be a good place for us to spend next winter.  This flexibility and uncommitted time come from living on the road and not being controlled by a vacation itinerary that tells us what we have to do each day and week.

 

Learning about the Hohokam Indians and the ruins at Casa Grande will be a great challenge.  We learn so much as volunteers.  It helps keep us sharp and expands our minds.  It also helps financially—a month in RV parks and state and national parks costs somewhere between $450 and $600 or more, so we really save money by donating our time.

 

Cotton Days

We discovered that this weekend the nearby town of Coolidge, AZ, is celebrating Cotton Days. There was a parade at 10 am, followed by a cotton bale race, a beer garden and a motorcycle ride to the nearby Casa Grande National Monument. We really enjoy attending local festivals, so we made it a point to be in Coolide about 10. The parade consisted mainly of units from local businesses, from the Liberty Tax Service and Quizno's to a towing service, as well as elected officials and large tractors. After the parade we walked down to the city center where the festival was being held. The carnival included these dragons that twirl around like the old Tilt-a-Whirl did in our childhood.

We are in southern Arizona and there is a stong influence from Mexico. This booth sold little girl's dresses and little boy's serapes, as well as items for adults.

We ate lunch at Ofelia's. Here is John about to eat one of the Indian taco's on fry bread that we purchased. The bread looked much like a sopapilla before they topped it with fried hamburger, lettuce and cheese. We added a red hot sauce that was full of the seeds from hot chillis. We could really feel the heat and enjoyed the meal.
The cotton bale race paired two teams of two persons each, rolling these rectacular cotton bales down the street. The winner of each heat then took on another team, until the winner was declared.

We had a good morning. After lunch we drove to the Casa Grande National Monument to apply for a volunteer position for next winter. We discovered they where two couples short for the rest of this winter and are discussing with them the possibility we could work there for a month and discussing between ourselves whether that is what we want to do. Stay turned for further developments.

We had never seen this before

At most campgrounds we see 5th wheels and motor homes, with a few travel trailers thrown in. At places like Organ Pipe, we also see pickup campers and small vans. But we also encountered two unique units. As we were running, we passed what looked like a gypsy wagon, then in the next row we saw a sheepherder’s wagon. We ran by our trailer to get the camera, then back to take pictures.

The gypsy wagon was made by a father who was camping with his son. He designed and built it to hold his family and also to carry his motorcycle as they travel. His wife is attending college and asked the father and son to leave for a while so she could get more work done. They spent a week at Organ Pipe. We enjoyed talking to them.

The sheepherder’s wagon also was handmade. It’s somewhat like a folding tent trailer. The owner is making plans to build another one that is easier to set up.