Where We Are
Being the devout wimps that we are, we shy away from the extremes of hot or cold. In the Winter time, you will find us soaking up the sun (hopefully) in the sunny climes of Arizona and vicinity. In the Summer time, you are likely to find us "chilling out" along the Pacific coast of Oregon and Washington.
Since we are only "Extended Timers"—always returning home after a few months on the road—our journeys do not always encompass new territory. Over the past few years we have become creatures of habit (not always to our liking), and tend to spend the Winter months in the same places.
We usually try to get on the road for shorter periods of time in early Summer and late Fall, but we always take several "weekly" trips to a close-by TTN park in Yuba Gap (along I-80 on the way to Reno). This park is only 42 miles from home, but gives us the feeling of being hundreds of miles away in the boonies. We have learned to take our short trips during the week (arriving on Monday and always leaving before Friday afternoon)—to avoid the hordes of week-enders that descend on the park and change the peace and tranquility into noise and bedlam.
Where are we now?
Back at Home
Excuse the delay in updating the web site after we returned home! Our computer somehow "gave up the ghost" on the way home, and it took us almost three weeks to finally buy a new one and then get it loaded with all of the software—not an easy task in this day and age!
We are once again back home after a shorter than usual Winter trip to southern California and Arizona.
As is tyical on most of our Winter trips down South, we stopped for a few days at Soledad Canyon TTN park in Acton (near Palmdale, CA) to visit three of our four kidlettes and to rest up a wee bit from our long travels from home. The weather in Acton was a very unpleasant surprise—with the outside temps the first two days being only in the high 20's!
It seems as if the Acton weather set a pattern that was only slightly better as we continued our Winter trip. The weather for most of our two-month trip was either very cold, extremely, windy, or heavily overcast and only patches of sun. What a bummer!
Our trip started on December 29th and ended on March 10th—and during that entire time, there was only four or five days that were suitable for sitting outside relaxing—playing games or cards, and enjoying a libation or two.
Our Winter trip this year had a different itinerary, since we were delinquent in getting some required reservations at an early enough time to assure a space for us when we needed it—just one of the many hiccups we experienced this year.
We stopped in Bakersfield, but not at our favorite spot for gathering a sack of fresh, juicy oranges right off the tree. Then ventured onward to Acton to visit family members. Then we ventured to Bullhead City, Arizona (a new location for us) and ventured across the river to visit one of the local casinos in Laughlin, Nevada.
From Bullhead City, we ventured down to Quartsite, Arizona, for our usual stop—seeing mututal RV friends an seemed as though almsot every RV park in the area had space available—even at Rice Ranch RV park!
After Quartzsite, we spent a week at Emerald Cove RV park in Earp, CA—right across the river from Parker, Arizona. We were very disappointed to discover that the RV friends we had hoped to see had suddenly departed the park on the same day that we later arrived. We have been unable to contact them since their departure, but we hope that they are OK.
From Earp, we meadered down to the Tucson area, but were almost skunked for finding an RV spot, since we had no idea that a major gem and mineral show was in town!
After Tucson, we headed West to our favorite RV park in the Yuma, AZ area—Yuma Lakes RV Resort (part of the Colorado
River Adventures group). While there we did our usual shopping at the New Arizona Market Place, and Mike enjoyed the Old
swapmeet at the former Dog Racing Park. But a steady wind and unseasonably cold temperatures sapped a lot of our usual
enjoyment from our shopping experience. We were only able to sit outside and relax for
And once agan our lack of forethought bit us in the butt! We had somehow left home without being sure that our passports were snugly aboard our motorhome, so we were unable to make our yearly trek across the border into Mexico. Mike had planned on getting some new glasses and browsing a couple of the stained glass shops. Bummer.
After Yuma, we headed toward Palm Desert, in the Coachella valley near Palm Springs. The drive from Yuma was more than a bit stressful for Mike, since there were strong cross winds almost all the way there—and trying to keep the motorhome in the proper lane of traffic left Mike's arms and shoulders wishing for some rest and recuperation.
Our two weeks in Palm Desert at the Palm Springs TTN park was an interesting exercise in spacial management. For the first week of our stay, Linda had her best friend stay with us for a week. Needless to say, the ladies were constantly giggling and laughing, and talking up a blue streak. Yes, they even managed to visit some interesting Thrift Shops and take in a movie.
The second week of our stay in Palm Desert saw a change of personnel, with one of Linda's local friends from home deciding that she would fly into Palm Springs, spend a week with us in the motorhome and then ride with us as we headed for home!
We are both hoping that Mike's health is better this year, so that we can take a few short trips during the Spring and Summer months, and hopefully a leisurely few weeks along the Oregon coast in the early Fall.
