Leaving Phoenix

Candy finding the cache

Friday the 13th!
We had a leisurely breakfast and decided to go geocaching. Candy found one that was particularly hard in a cattle grating. We went on to locate several others around Lake Pleasant except for one that the log stated something about sailing right up to it. We figured the water level was probably still too high. Around noon we headed back to the resort and drove our rigs (Candy and Rick decided on calling theirs Goldie and we’re deciding among Cassie, Elsie/LC for La Casita or perhaps Sunny—to go along with Sunseekers). Judy did laundry while the others read around the pool. Candy and Rick took catnaps while Harris enjoyed the pool and hotub. Five PM found us going to a restaurant that Harris found a coupon for. Unfortunately, it was closed for a couple of weeks. On to Scottsdale to find a restaurant before seeing the play I do, I do. We stopped a possible restaurant, but when the appetizers were in the $40 range we moved on (Harris was very happy about that decision). We passed a restaurant called the Quilted Bear that Judy decided was fate calling and we stopped there. Much better prices (soup and salad for 8 bucks). The clam chowder was deemed excellent by Harris. Candy and Rick had salads and soups as well as wine to go along with dinner. Judy had prime rib sliders that Harris helped demolish. The waitress could have been Central Casting with her white hair and diner attitude. She was highly tipped for her services. The play was a let down. The woman lead had fantastic facial expressions and the only weakness was warbling voice. The male lead had major problems. The biggest was that fact that he perspired buckets and had to continually mop his face. The theater seated 25 or so and we were literally 5 feet from him. It was very distracting. The play is about a marriage over a lifetime and there were many poignant moments that each of us could relate to. Afterwards it was time to drive to camp and say good bye to Candy and Rick since they were to leave early the next morning.


Rick looking hard



Saturday, March 14, 2009
We left the campground almost 4 hours after Rick and Candy left. We followed their footsteps to Flagstaff before turning East to visit the Petrified Forest National Park. We stopped at Rainbow forest which is at the southern edge of the park. The weather was constantly getting colder. We left Lake Pleasant in the 70’s and by the time we were in Flagstaff, it was Seattle-like 50’s. The wind was biting and we had to wear our jackets, but we refused to change out of our shorts. We took a short stroll among the “trees” that had all their wood products replaced with silica that gave them a much heavier presence. A 3 foot high 24inch tree section can weigh 800 pounds! The weirdest sight during the park walks was seeing a 20 something woman walk her bobcat on the trail (other than having it snow on us). That is something you don’t expect to see even in the natural park setting. We stopped several more times to snap some pictures of the rocks and Grand Canyon like scenery before we left the park. Since there was no place to camp at the park, we made reservations just outside of Albuquerque in a RV park that was a couple of hundred miles away. Off we went and as we went farther East, the temperature dropped…48-43-40 and then 39-37-31 and then braking lights and ICE/SNOW. We slowed to a crawl and heard over the CB radio about a truck sliding into another just ahead. Judy was not feeling happy and secure with darkness and ice. Harris just wanted to get past it so that the speed would pick up. Fortunately the truckers were saying that things were improving Eastbound (our direction of travel) as we saw blue/red lights streaking westward on the other side of the freeway. We liked the phrase “salt shakers” that the truckers used as in “I saw a couple of salt shakers headed westward.” It was reassuring to see the temperature rise up to 34 and then 36 so Harris could pick up the speed and get us to the RV park faster. We pulled in about 8:30 but with the hour change it was 9:30 PM. The variety of scenery in just one day’s travels was remarkable. We went from miles of desert with saguro cacti everywhere, to scrub brush, to pine forests, over the continental divide and into high desert country again. New Mexico greeted us with beautiful red bluffs highlighted in the setting sun…something straight out of a western movie set. We pulled up to Enchanted Trails RV Park another of the “Happy Camper 50% off club”. This one should be about $15 for the night.

Petrified Forest National Park

At Lake Pleasant

Harris and Rick at first of two games that day

Wednesday, March 11
We decided to split up today. Harris and Rick decided to do a double-header with an afternoon Mariner/Kansas City and an evening game watching the San Diego Padres take on the S. Korean National team. Having Keith in S. Korea made this a must see event. Rick surprised Harris with top notch seats just off first base (and in the shade). It was interesting to take sides in the game because Gil Mesh started for the Royals and Bloomquist was playing second (both former Mariners) while the Mariners fielded none of the familiar names this game. Griffey did not play! Darn!! The M’s were demolished 9 to 2. They went looking for a library to print a coupon driving a few miles down the road and finding a small branch location. Rick scampered in and discovered it was open. Harris followed with laptop in hand to discover it was open for two more minutes. The nice librarian directed them to a larger branch with wifi that was open until 9PM. Lo and behold, when we pulled up to the library it was 400 feet from the stadium that they had just left! How they could drive by it and not see it is a question better left for another day. That night they watched the exhibition game between the Padres and Korea. It started out with much promise but Koreans were very much overmatched. They left at the end of 6 innings with the score 9-0 and wondering if there was a mercy rule in exhibition games.
Judy and Candy went to the Pioneer Museum that was closed earlier and were very underwhelmed. There were few exhibits which were roped off to prevent close inspection and some that were closed. Candy wanted to see some other towns, and someone suggested Wickenburg. We drove about 50 miles west and found a bustling town, with a “wild west” feeling in the middle of the town. There was a good museum there, and we enjoyed it very much. We came back “home” and had leftovers for dinner, and Candy beat Judy at cards. Again.

Looking across Lake Pleasant at our campsites with 2 rigs


Judy and Candy relaxing by pool after a hard day

Thursday, March 12, 2009
A bit cloudy this morning. Quick walks because the showers close at 9 for cleaning. Leisurely breakfasts, clean up, then heading to town for some shopping and the game. Candy wanted to find a good sunhat. We were going to sit on the lawn again, but a man offered us a good price on some seats in the shade and we bought them. Good seats, shade, blue sky, great all around except the Mariners couldn’t seem to get it together. They played the Texas Rangers and lost, 8-1. We made a couple of stops on the way home for food. Harris found out this compound has barbeque grills, so we drove over to them. They were by the pool. After a delicious dinner of steak, potatoes and asparagus, we sat in the hot tub and enjoyed the stars. Then we drove back to our “spot” and played cards until almost midnight. Funny thing. Candy has been keeping score every night, and she or Rick always win. So, by the final game tonight, Judy decided to take over….guess what? Judy won! Harris came in second! How does this happen? Has Candy been adding correctly all these nights???? We wonder.
The wind has really picked up, and we’re going to be rocked to sleep again tonight.

Parking our rigs to utilize the resort's bbq and water facilities

Spring Training

Griffey is Back!

Sunday March 8th
Woke up and it was sunny! We took a walk, had breakfast and made our way to the gas station where we found our cheapest diesel of the trip so far of $1.87 per gallon! We started the trip in Seattle paying $2.18 and filled up 3 times each time finding a cheaper price. Last year when we bought the van it was almost $5 per gallon—wow! It was a 2.5 hour trip to Phoenix and we should have made the Mariner game but the last half mile took 40 mins. Because of the traffic by the ball park! It turns out we were playing the Arizona Diamondbacks on a sunny Sunday and everyone decided to go to the game. We missed the first couple of innings where the M’s scored 7 runs to the D’s 2. We got lawn tickets and walked around to the M’s dugout side by 3rd base. We saw the familiar Griffey smile as he looked out at the game from the dugout rail. It was heart-warming to see his bat go through its gyrations while he stood at the plate anticipating the pitch as we anticipated his swing. Just prior to his plate appearance there were 2 outs with runners on first and second with Betancourt and the crowd chanting “ walk him” to load the bases for Griffey. Ball one, ball two, swung on ball three and missed, strike, ball, and … fly out to center field for the third out. We waited for him to lead off the fourth and watched him stroke a single up the middle—wow maybe the M’s can do something this year. Then Griffey was pulled from the game and sauntered off to the club house. We found our spot on the left field lawn and watched a 7-2 score go to a 7-7 by the 8th inning where the M’s added 4 more runs to take it 11-7. Another typical spring training game! But the weather was in the 70’s (barely) and Seattle was in the 30’s so all was right with the universe.

Candy and Rick enjoying the game with us

Monday March 9th
It rained some during the night. It was an overcast day but much better than Seattle. Candy and Judy wanted to move from our RV campground to one more scenic (and therefore much farther away). Harris and Rick followed their lead and we moved to Lake Pleasant RV Resort. The Pioneer Museum was closed so we had lunch and went to the Desert Botanical Garden where we saw not only the desert plant life but also a glass blowing showing by Chuhuily (sp). Wonderful day in the low 70’s. Candy and Rick wanted to check out Cabela’s so we were forced to eat out at a wonderful Mexican restaurant called Las Glorias. We made it home to late to use the resort facilities.

Some of Chuhuily's work


Tuesday March 10, 2009
Late start but we were able to do a couple of geocaches on the way to the Mariners baseball game. Today the M’s sucked big time with Griffey 0 for 3. Stadium was about 7000 fans full as we played the Chicago Cubs. It was great to see “Sweet Lou” even though we went down 8-1. It was warm enough we had to look for shade toward the end of the game. Rick and Harris decided that Wed. would be a double header while Candy and Judy take the day for themselves.

Sweet Lou

Crossing into Arizona

Harris and Judy at 1000 palms oasis

Thursday March 5
A beautiful morning…sun at last! The wind, however, keeps the temperature down. We did put on our shorts for the first time, just to say we did it. We took a morning walk, came back and soaked in the hot tubs, then did some geocaching around the area. We ran into a couple from BC who had only done 5 geocaches, so we hung around the one we just found to help them out a bit.
We went into Palm Springs for the first time this evening to view the ‘street fair’. Several downtown blocks were closed down and people had booths full of food and wares. We weren’t impressed enough to buy anything but a delicious pastry. We ran into Marilyn and Gene wandering the streets, and wandered with them for about an hour. We tried out a small Chinese restaurant on our way back to the rig, came back to the park, and vegged out. The wind rocked us to sleep again.

Harris amidst the 1000 palms oasis


Friday, March 06, 2009
Up and out this morning. We decided to do a few geocaches close by, and one took us about a mile into the desert up a small hill. It was a good walk and the view of the valley with the wind-turbines to the right and the jagged snow-topped mountains pressing against Palm Springs from behind made a beautiful reward for our walk. We were disappointed to find a hill of rocks at the top, and no geocache; either it was moved, or we were unlucky. Then we moved our rig about a mile down the road to a new park, called Catalina Spa. Desert Hot Springs itself has a town with a few stores, some houses, and miles of RV and trailer parks. A lot of the parks, including this one, have their own hot springs. They’ve found over 40 scattered around the valley-- lovely…hot, smooth, and no sulfur smell. We headed into Palm Springs this afternoon via the Dillon Scenic route to meet Marilyn and Gene for dinner. We stopped at the 1000 Palms Oasis Preserve. This preserve was formed because two earth plates with a water layer sandwiched between 2 rock layers collided and created an escape path for the water to the surface. And as it’s said where there’s water there is plant life, in this case the only native California palm tree called (are you ready for this) Washingtonia Filifera. We could understand how this could truly be an oasis in the desert summer heat. The shade would be priceless!

Afterwards, we stopped at Target to buy a clock to tell us what time it is in the van and a few other necessities. We then met Marilyn and Gene for an Italian dinner in downtown Palm Springs. They bought and it was great! The wind is still howling as we write this up snuggled up in the van. Tomorrow we escape the wind by going East!

The mountains behind Palm Springs


Saturday March 7, 2009
An easy short day today. Wouldn’t you know it, as soon as we decided to leave Palm Springs, the wind died down! We even did our morning walk in t shirts and shorts. Halfway through the walk, we stopped to play miniature golf. Judy won the game last night, Harris won the game this morning. One to one tie….stay tuned for further developments.
We took off around 10 and meandered out of town via La Quinta. We saw a notation on the map called “Old Town” and decided to check it out. Well, instead of seeing old historical buildings or ruins, we drove up to a brand new upscale (very upscale) shopping center. Ten minutes later we were on the road again. We stopped at the border town of Ehrenberg and took it easy for the rest of the afternoon and evening. Notice the chairs out for the first time this trip and our new table! In the background of one of the pics you’ll see the water heater cover screen that the wind blew away and we plan on replacing soon. Tomorrow should find us at our first Mariner game this season and waiting for our friends Candy and Rick from Montana.

Looking back toward California from Colorado River RV park


Judy enjoying our first non-windy day of the trip

Palm Springs Arrival

Wednesday, March 04, 2009
We awoke with the sun shining and high hopes of finally escaping the gray of the Northwest. Judy had a Kodak moment while sitting in the van’s doorway basking under the sun’s rays casually mentioning to Harris how at this very moment all is great with the universe. To be precise, she said that “At this very moment, I’m glad that we bought the rig… In six weeks I may not feel this way!”

A glorious morning at Kit Fox RV

Unfortunately, the storms caught up and overtook us 40 miles south of our departure. Another long day of driving, driving, driving, through the rain and wind and even a little snow. Who thought March would be a good time to vacation????? Sunny California, this ain’t. We drove south to LA and then headed east to Palm Springs. As we came into the valley where Palm Springs is located, we saw row upon row upon row upon row of wind turbines, all spinning merrily away. Harris thought they reminded him of seagulls on an ocean beach where everywhere you looked you saw white objects in motion. This should have been a clue. We arrived at Desert Pools Resort RV park, outside Desert Hot Springs. It seems to be a great place, although it’s set up more for long term visitors, with club activities, etc. We soaked in the hottest tub tonight, after a truly mediocre meal at the Morongo Casino. We’re nice and toasty warm in our rig, but the wind is rocking us from side to side…should be a great lullaby tonight!

A flock of turbines

On the road again to Mariners Spring Training!

March 2, 2009
The countdown has finished and we left the grey skies of Seattle for the grey skies of Oregon! Our first stop was Camping World to buy a membership pass to Camping Club USA which entitles us to pay half price at RV campgrounds that accept the pass. We found one called Hi-way Haven in Sutherland which is about 20 miles North of Roseburg. What was cool about this RV camp was that it’s a converted drive-in.

Converted Drive In theater
Neither rain, nor sleet, nor dark of night…how does that quote go? None of that would stop us from starting out again…..nor bad head colds. I suggested staying home for a few days, to get well, but Harris was eager to go! Besides, he reasoned, the weather would surely improve as we went south. Ha! We started out in the pouring rain. It cleared up, off and on, throughout the day as we headed south. It rained hard during the night, and even harder on Tuesday. We even hit snow as we went over the pass between Oregon and California. California has been in a huge drought, so the rain was welcome..to them….snow, rain, gusty wind….and we hear Seattle is sunny today!
We’ve basically been bombing through so far, getting up, eating quickly, and driving, driving, driving….no stops for much of anything, but in this weather, who cares? (although we did do a couple of geocaches in Oregon.) We’ve stopped tonight, (the 3rd) outside of Patterson, CA, which is south of Sacramento. Our next stop should be Palm Springs.

Driving over Siskiyou Pass during inclimate weather

Oregon Bound for a few days

November 14th -18th
We were a little antsy to get back into the rig before winter set in and we jumped on a family reunion invite instigated by Christine and hosted by Harris’s brother Rick who was primed to show off his and Teresa’s hard work bringing their bonus room to near completion. We headed off at our usual early start time of 10 AM. Our first stop was a quilt show in Puyallup where Judy rushed through in 1 hour and Harris did a couple of geocaches (1of 2). For some weird reason the van refused to start after it had been turned off for a few minutes. No click, no cough, no engine churning, nothing. It would finally start after repeated tries of turning the key, taking out the key, reinserting the key. We were a little unsure and anxious of being stuck in the middle of nowhere so we looked for a Dodge Sprinter dealer to ask for some advice. The advice was “You need to pay a $100 diagnostic fee for us to tell you what we think. We can maybe get to it before we close but maybe not.” Since there were no engine codes and we would have to wait several hours without a guarantee that it would even be looked at, we decided to push our luck.

Next stop was Judy’s college friend Jean Gregory. She showed us their gorgeous newly remodeled kitchen while catching up on kids. Meanwhile Rick called to tell us that the Thomas female siblings were backing out of the family reunion and that Al would not make it until the following day. The anticipated family reunion was now down to 2 siblings from the original 5. The silver lining was that the weather broke; it was warm and sunny where the past many days and nights were downpours interspersed with gray cloudy drizzles. Dinner was at a nearby Mexican restaurant with more catch up talk which continued through apple pie back at Jean’s house. We rolled up to Rick’s house around 10 PM (only a few hours late but early by traditional Thomas time).

We stayed up late talking to Rick and Teresa, then went to bed in our little home away from home parked in the driveway. Even though the weather was gorgeous, the night was cold! Harris had bought a small electric heater, and it was put to good use. It warmed our “bedroom” quite nicely. The next day, Saturday, we took a short walk to a waterfall, and introduced nephews Michael and Adam to geocaching. It was fun to see them race, not walk, through the trees, barely looking at the gps…just race to get there first! Al arrived Saturday night, and we played hearts with a double deck because there were so many players. Judy was the high scorer! Which in this case meant, she lost.

We got a slow start on Sunday, due to an excellent breakfast, and good company, but we were anxious to get going to the Oregon coast. It was beautiful weather all around Portland, but got very foggy and gray around Salem. We cut over at Newport, then headed north for just a few miles to Beverly Beach. Helen and Joe Donahue had just arrived and luckily found two spots next to each other near the beach.
Beverly Beach is on the coast, of course, but Highway 101 is in between the campground and the beach. A bridge was being repaired right at the entrance to the campground, so we only had access to half the beach.

We’ve been blessed with many friends, and camping with them brings out the best. Helen and Joe brought more than enough food and snacks, and desserts, and coffee, and …well, you get the idea. Harris and Joe cooked steaks over the fire Sunday night. We played Boggle and Yahtze….Judy won!

Monday the weather was just…incredible. It was incredible for any time at the beach. But for the middle of November, it was a minor miracle...warm, clear, blue, sunny…wow! We geocached most of the day, from muddy trails to city sidewalks. The most interesting find was outside a little shop. The clue said something about an old horror movie that had been remade. Joe spotted a rock in the garden that looked a bit odd. Judy told him to pick it up and see if it was hollow..nope…but it did have a large plastic fly sitting on it. Aha! He picked up the fly, and sure enough, there was a little geocache tube attached to it. We ate a picnic lunch by Yaquina lighthouse. There was a lo-o-o-ng ramp (handicap accessible) down to the beach and some tide pools. We weren’t interested in walking down there (or more to the point, back up), but then we spotted something in the water. So we had to go look! Seals! Lots of seals, swimming in the tidepool bay, sunning themselves on the rocks, completely ignoring us. It was worth the steep walk back up to the car.
Harris and Joe cooked chicken over the fire that night. A little bit too well…done…but still tasty. We taught them the card game “quarters” that Candy and Rick taught us. Guess what! Judy won again! (If only the highest score was the winner…sigh. Who ever heard of a score of 315?????) Seriously, Helen won, and thought the game was marvelous. We enjoyed seeing our good friends, visiting with them, and playing games in their 24 (?) foot trailer with a slide out. Lots of room!

Helen and Joe had to leave Tuesday, but we thought if the weather held we’d stay another night somewhere on the coast. Alas, when we awoke on Tuesday morning, it was raining. We ventured up the coast anyway, and checked out a park at Pacific City the Donahues had told us about. As we drove through the deserted county park, Harris said, “Oh look! See the bunny?” cute little black and white guy, didn’t even twitch as we drove by him. Then we looked again, and there were seriously, bunnies all over the park. There must have been at least 50 or more. And bunny droppings all over the park. We decided that even if we were to stay another night, it wouldn’t be there! There was an interesting and huge rock in the water that we took a picture of.
One goal on all our trips is to take side roads instead of just the interstate. So, we took the scenic route along the coast, and stopped at the Tillamook Cheese factory. It was a fun and interesting stop, with a good view of the factory, and tasty samples. We continued up Highway 6, then 47, then another highway to Apiary and Rainier, then crossed the Columbia at 432 at Longview. Whew. Would have been a lot shorter just to get to I-5 and shoot straight up that corridor, but we’ve done that a lot. Somewhere along highway 6, Harris remarked, “hey, at least there’s no traffic”…Just then, we rounded a corner and joined a huge line of backed up vehicles. We waited about 30 minutes before moving, then saw there had been a very bad accident, and cars were being routed around it one lane at a time. We were sobered by the scene.

We stopped in Seattle to say a quick hi to Tasha, and check that she was all right. She had called us when we were outside of Olympia to say she had been rear-ended getting off the freeway at 45th. She was ok, and the car had a dented back fender. But we were glad to see for ourselves that she was in one piece. We stayed for a short time, then headed home and arrived about 11.

Lessons learned: The heater was wonderful! We need to pack for any and all weathers. We could have used shorts at the beach, even if it was November! So, next time, shorts and coats! Harris had been busy before the trip installing a new HD radio and a CB radio. The radio was nice, but for some reason didn’t work on AM. Something to fix. The CB came in handy because it picks up a weather channel.
Don’t know when the next trip will be, so we might have to winterize the little house. We do have a big trip planned in the spring. (more later)