Around mid-day on Monday, we said our goodbyes to my mom, stepdad Jim, brother Steve & Cheryl and headed south on I-10 towards Tucson after hooking up the Silverado.  For those of you wondering about our little dog “Coach”… well, we also said goodbye to him since mom stole (er, I mean adopted) him.  He’s quite happy in the air  conditioning at the “dirt farm” and really likes all his chicken “friends” 🙂

After traveling about 120 miles, we decided to stay overnight at the Escapees Park in Benson, AZ.  We paid $22.31 for one night with full hookups.  Electricity is metered and ended up costing us an additional $4.21 at checkout.  We’ve stayed at the SKP Saguaro Co-op before back in April 2015. Click HERE for that posting.  This is a nice jumping off spot for anyone wanting to visit Kartchner Caverns, Tombstone, or Bisbee AZ.  Click on the active links to check out my previous posts on those local attractions.

Not a whole lot has changed here since our week-long stay last year.  Although, we did notice a new covered pavilion had been built inside the cactus garden on the west side of the park and also a pretty cool looking water fountain outside the community building (below).

We had a nice evening stroll around the park under slightly overcast skies.  It’s definitely much cooler here than back at Casa Grande where we’ve had a week of scorching hot temperatures.  As a matter of fact we even drove through a brief micro-burst rain storm just after Tucson… the first rain we’ve seen in months.  Just enough rain to get the Urban Escape Vehicle all dirty 🙁

We made plans to visit an old Army buddy in Las Cruces, NM tomorrow.  So check back for a new travel update coming soon…

 

I know, I know… this is a long overdue blog post, but there just hasn’t been much to write about since we’re parked in one spot for so long.  Let me bring you up to date on a few of our activities this past month:

After we got our daughter and grandson settled in their new RV park in Tempe, we moved down to my Mom, Stepdad, brother Steve & Cheryl’s place in Casa Grande.  You can’t beat the monthly “moochdocking” rate here, especially with 50 amp hookups.  Thanks Ma, Jimmy, Steve & Cheryl!  We’ve been here since the beginning of June and have just been hanging out.  I took care of a couple medical appointments with the VA here and we watched our grandson for a while during his summer break from school.  Otherwise, we just stayed out of the heat as much as possible and helped out around the house a little.

We might have to rethink our nickname “dirt farm” for the homestead here since my mom has gotten even more chickens; over two dozen now.  I’m thinking “chicken farm” would be more appropriate… what do you think?

Just before we moved from our RV park in Glendale to the Casa Grande “dirt farm”, we enjoyed the hospitality of my mom’s sister who lives north of Phoenix in Sun City Grand.

Aunt Kathy showed us her latest upgrade to the house.  She had the entire wall remodeled with shelves and brickwork where there used to be a wooden wall unit/entertainment center.  Looks nice Auntie!

Aunt Kathy often watches dogs (dog-sitting) for friends and neighbors.  She had three that we took out for a walk once the sun started going down and it cooled off a bit.

Around the 11th of June, we went out to Macayo’s for my stepdad’s 70th birthday.  Happy birthday Jimmy!

Jim got a rather appropriate gift (below) that alludes to mom’s chicken farm  venture.

I also used the time parked in Casa Grande to take care of a few more little projects.  One was to beef up the drawer slide supports under the rear closet.

The metal drawer slides have plastic mounts that screw to the back wall boards.  Over time these plastic pieces start cracking and break from the large amount of weight we pile into the drawers.  I’ve replaced a couple of these supports before but this time I decided to ‘beef’ them up to keep this from happening in the future.

It was nice to have access to all the power tools and wood scraps here at the “dirt farm”.  I cut some wood strips to just the right size to support the mounting bracket(s).  I cut one to support the plastic piece that screws to the back wall and another to support the plastic channel that the metal slide rides in.  These are rock solid now and will probably outlast the coach.

Another project was to do something about the middle clothes rod support in our closet.  The original middle support was kind of wimpy and was only attached to the ceiling.  It was coming loose from all the weight of our full-timing clothes and my temporary fix was to put a ratcheting cargo bar in place between the floor and the bar.  I decided to replace my temporary ‘fix’ with a 4′ board and use the floor for support since my cargo bar was kind of tacky 🙂  I can safely assume this is a common issue in Alpine coaches with the rear closet because I saw a similar fix in another Alpine or maybe it was a factory fix that was done on coaches after my model year.  So I just copied what I remembered seeing and found an appropriate wood plank at Home Depot™ that I cut, stained, and drilled to fit.

I forgot to take a picture of the original support, but it was just a 6″ piece of wood with a hole drilled in it for the bar and it was sandwiched between the small strips of wood (at the top of the picture below) that were screwed into the ceiling.

This clothes bar will hold some serious weight now.  Time to go buy more clothes 🙂

Before we left Casa Grande we took a trip back up to Tempe and replaced the tires on Jenny’s travel trailer so it’s safe to move should the need arise while we’re gone.  I cleaned and stored the Harley because we decided to take the ATV (quad) with us in the back of the pickup for the next phase of our travels.  See ya later Harley.

Anyway, it’s been great hanging out with family but it’s time to hit the road again.  Our youngest daughter Joleen recently moved from Colorado Springs, CO to Bowling Green, KY with her fiancé.  They just got a house and have been talking about needing some help renovating.  Hopefully she’ll have 50 amp hookups installed by the time we arrive… but we’re not in too much of a hurry.  We’ll take the leisurely route to get there and hopefully get to see some old friends and new sites.

Stay tuned…

As promised, here’s part 2 to finish off my last post that details some of the day trips we’ve taken while parked here in Glendale, AZ at the Triple “T” RV & Mobile Home Park.

So, to continue where I left off… Yet another day-trip we recently took (just Stilla & I) – was over to Carefree, and Cave Creek, AZ.  These two towns are situated right next to each other northeast of Phoenix in the foothills of Black Mountain, Skull Mesa and Elephant Butte.  We heard that the town of Carefree was having a sand and stone exhibit at the Carefree Desert Gardens.

We expected a dedicated desert garden with its own parking lot and entrance fees like we’ve seen in Tucson and other places, but found that the Carefree Desert Gardens are really just part of the town-center.  There’s no entrance fee and it is surrounded by numerous businesses, cafe’s, and restaurants… even a post office.

The Carefree Desert Gardens sign serves double-duty as a water feature and fountain:

In the Desert Garden Center pavilion, we found one of the sand sculptures currently under construction.  Read up on the artist Ray Villafane by clicking HERE.

The artist had a completed sand sculpture located in a different section of the Carefree Desert Gardens (below).

We were amazed at the patience and perseverance that Ray must have to get these rocks to balance (below).

No wires, glue or anything other than gravity… amazing!

We wandered around the gardens and took a few photos.  Follow along:

I read that only 1 out of 20,000 Saguaros have this fanlike or lumpy top, called a crested saguaro. (above & below).

After we had our fill of the desert gardens, we walked through several of the adjacent shops at the Carefree town center and browsed around.  Then we took the short drive over to the town of Cave Creek and had a nice lunch at the Horny Toad restaurant.  Their website says this about the place: “The Horny Toad restaurant is the oldest, original restaurant in Cave Creek, Arizona and has been the location for many “Old West” movies and photo shoots. Enjoy the beauty of the Sonoran desert as you dine from the expanded patio or experience the multiple interior dining rooms and Saloon.”  Our fellow Alpine friends Noel & Carol Peck and Jack & Linda Giddens told us about this interesting and unique place.  The fried chicken & rib lunch special was awesome 🙂

Cave Creek reminded me of Sturgis SD with several biker saloons and motorcycle related venues throughout town.  It’s a popular riding destination for locals and even not-so-locals.  We even stopped to check out the local Harley dealership, Buddy Stubbs Harley-Davidson®.

While driving around Cave Creek we stopped at the Town Dump “one of the world’s most unusual stores” as their sign above the entrance claims.  Anyone who has driven through Cave Creek, probably noticed the large assortment of garden ornaments, sculptures, pottery, rustic antiques, etc., situated in the large open-air shop and courtyards alongside main street.

Regarding the town of Cave Creek:  I pulled the following description from the Cave Creek Visitors Guide website:  “The numerous saloons in Cave Creek thrive on activity as establishments such as Harold’s and the Buffalo Chip, and offer almost nightly events from live bands, poker tournaments, trivia, and charity casino events – all with a wild western flair and small town hospitality. The crowds are diverse with visitors and residents alike enjoying all that is unique in Cave Creek. Other notable eateries in Cave Creek include Rancho Manana’s Tonto Bar and Grill which is part of the well known Rancho Manana Golf Club and Resort. Tonto is located in an original building from the 1940’s Rancho Manana Dude Ranch. During much of the year, the large, partially covered patio is nearly always full during lunch and dinner as the views are as good as the food. The owner’s of Tonto also operate the highly rated Cartwrights on Saguaro Hill located just a mile or so down Cave Creek Road. The Horny Toad Restaurant has some of the country’s best fried Chicken while the nearby Indian Village boasts some of the worlds best tacos although El Encanto Mexican Restaurant are mighty delicious as well and offer a unique patio surrounding a small pond with lots of ducks and turtles. The Cave Creek Smokehouse is popular as well located in Frontier Town as well as nearby Big Earls Greasy Eats.

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On the way back home to our RV & Mobile Home Park in Glendale, I just had to stop at Desert Valley Auto Parts (DVAP) located in Deer Valley north of Phoenix.  Some of my readers may recognize the name from the reality TV show “Desert Car Kings” which aired on the Discovery Channel® in 2011.  I think it only ran for one season but reruns are currently shown on the Velocity Channel®.

Per my bloggers’ friend Wikipedia.com® and the DVAP website: “Desert Valley Auto Parts is the legendary treasure trove of classic cars (and parts) from the 1940′s, 50′s, 60′s, 70′s and a few 80′s thrown in the mix for good measure.  Over 10,000 classic cars located on 100 acres of dry Arizona land.”  Don’t forget to check out the YouTube® video on the DVAP homepage.

We walked into the DVAP office and talked to one of the friendly guys behind the counter.  They normally charge $2 to tour the yard.  He told us that people come to visit from all over the world due to the publicity from the TV reality show.  He just asked us to sign-in and let us roam the yard at our leisure with no charge.  Pretty cool!  Although, I don’t think Stilla was as impressed as I was 🙂

Here’s a ’57 Chevy waiting for someone to restore.  It needs just a little work 🙂 (below).

It was almost painful (to me) to see a ’57 Chevy in this condition.

Some of you readers may remember our ’57 Chevy 2dr Bel-Air that we sold before we started full-timing (below).  I just couldn’t resist the opportunity to add an old picture here.  I kind of miss her 🙁

Rows and rows of classic cars… my idea of a fun time 🙂

There was some activity going on in the yard (see crane in action below) and what I think was a hollywood movie-set trailer.  The nice guy we talked to at the office shared with us that DVAP was going to be the location of some scenes for a popular movie sequel (to remain unnamed at this time) in case of liability.

Back at the Triple “T” RV & Mobile Home Park we finally got to enjoy the pool which has been closed for repairs since we got here.

And finally, one last day-trip update:  Just the other day we stopped by Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza while we were out driving around.  We’ve been doing a little geocaching with our grandson Kaan lately and ended up driving around downtown Phoenix.

Much like the National Mall on which it is loosely based, the Legislative Governmental Mall aka Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza is intended as an open-air public space featuring monuments, memorials and gardens. Some of these monuments were erected prior to the inception of the Plaza, such as the monument to the USS Arizona which was dedicated over a year earlier on December 7, 1976. The Plaza, when dedicated, included these existing memorials and all subsequent memorials have been located within the boundaries of the plaza. Ref. Wikipedia®

Again, I referenced wikipedia® for a good description:  The plaza is home to 30 memorials dedicated to topics including important individuals, organizations, and events.  Among the more prominent are the mast and anchor of the USS Arizona, memorials to major wars such as WWI, WWII, the Vietnam War, the Korean War and Desert Storm, and America’s first monument of the Bill of Rights.

Here’s more photos we took of some of the fine memorials in this awesome and thought-provoking memorial plaza:  A must-see if you’re in downtown Phoenix!

And that’s all for now folks!  We reserved a site for Jenny’s trailer at an RV park in Tempe beginning on the 27th of May.  She’ll be closer to her job there.  I’ll move her over there at that time and we’ll probably relocate the Urban Escape Vehicle back down to the “dirt farm” in Casa Grande for a quick visit.  We can’t beat the moochdocking rates there 🙂  We’re thinking of taking Kaan along with us again for some of his summer break… check back soon to see what we get into and/or where we end up 🙂

 

 

I’m finding it hard to keep the travel journal (blog) updated when we’re sitting in one spot for so long.  There’s just not much going on here at the Triple “T” RV & Mobile Home Park where we’ve been parked since returning from Newport Dunes, CA.  We paid the pretty reasonable monthly rate of $417 (+ electric fees TBD) and have been basically just sitting here helping out our daughter Jennifer and grandson Kaan while they slowly get settled here in Phoenix.  Jenny goes to work pretty much every day while Kaan attends school (3rd grade) at a public charter.

One highlight of our stay here was moving sites.  We moved from our original site, that was slightly behind Jenny & Kaan’s travel trailer, to a newly-vacated spot right next to them.  The Urban Escape Vehicle was facing southwest, and now we’re facing northeast which is a little easier on the electronics in the front cap due to the intense Arizona sun.  At least, I think it’s easier on the electronics e.g., DVR Receiver, Blu-Ray® player surround-sound system, Satellite Dish controller, etc., because now we only have the morning sun shining on the front of the coach as opposed to the intense mid-day and all afternoon/evening sun.  The front windshield sure generates a lot of heat from the sun in a “green-house effect” kind of way and the air conditioners have been getting quite a workout while the recent daytime-high temps here reach 100°.  We did purchase a roll of the silver reflective insulating material from a local RV store that we put on the inside of the windshield along with our existing sunscreen material… it certainly seems to help.  I’ve been thinking of getting the sunscreen material that goes on the outside of the windshield, but to do that – I have to  have it professionally fitted and fasteners have to be installed.  Maybe I’ll check into that at the next large rally we attend where there’s lots of vendors.  The see-thru sunshade material we currently have is two-piece and uses suction cups to hold to the inside of the windshield.

 

On one or two of the rare “not-so-sunny” days, I’ve been able to get a few general maintenance items accomplished;  I’ve washed the vehicles, gotten the propane tanks filled, replaced the plastic motion-sensor windows on our outside “scare” lights and even installed new LED marker lights in the rear spoiler that finally arrived from etrailer.com.

 

Of course, no job is ever easy (at least for me)… the LED lights required some work to get installed into the rear spoiler.  I had to enlarge the center hole for each marker light on the spoiler because the new lights had a larger diameter center section where the bulb sits and the wires come out the back.  I used a small grinder bit attached to a drill to make each hole large enough to mount the new lights.  The new lights look good and nicely complement the recently re-fastened spoiler that I wrote about HERE.

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We have also done a few day-trips while parked here in Glendale.   We can’t always sit around the RV park, right?   One day, we drove down to the “dirt farm” in Casa Grande to visit my mom, stepdad, brother Steve & Cheryl.  Our little dog “Coach” is doing just fine since mom stole, (I mean adopted), him 🙂

 

His fur is growing back after the buzz cut mom gave him a while ago.

 

Mom showed off her new brood of chicks.  If she keeps this up, we’ll have to rename the place to “chicken farm” 🙂  Right Ma?

 

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On another weekday outing, we drove over to nearby Westgate Entertainment District for the weekly Bike Night held every Thursday.  You may recall that we attended a car show here a little while back that I think I posted on Facebook.  The Westgate Entertainment District is a pretty cool place to hang out with lots of good restaurants.  And who doesn’t like a car or motorcycle show…

 

There were lots of nice rides to check out.

Of course, we had to check out the Indian® Motorcycle stand to see the latest.  Stilla’s brother Ludwig in Germany is now an official Indian® dealer (←link here) since the beginning of this year and although I’m a Harley guy, It’s fun to keep track of the competition.

 

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On yet another day-trip, Stilla & I drove the Silverado over to White Tank Mountain Regional Park.  I heard they had a campground here that I wanted to check out for future reference.

The freestanding, deeply serrated, 4000-foot-high White Tank Mountains separate the Phoenix Basin of the Salt River Valley from the Hassayampa Plain.  Floodwaters have scoured out a series of depressions, or “tanks,” in the white granite rock, thus the name of the mountains.

 

We stopped at the Visitor Center located just outside the entrance gate.  The Nature Center seemed to double as a library and also had several desert creatures; snakes, tarantulas, scorpions, etc., on display in terrariums.  There was also an alleged desert turtle in an outside enclosure, but it must have been out on a hike because we couldn’t find it.  After paying our $6 entrance fee, we drove into the park and found the campground.

There were only a few rigs parked at the campground.  I think everyone with any good sense has already headed north to cooler weather.

 

According to a flyer I picked up at the Visitors Center, the campground boasts 40 campsites with tables, grills, fire ring, water, and 30 and 50 amp hookups.  Restrooms and showers are onsite with a Dump station located nearby. Click HERE for campsite rates and information.

 

We did a quick drive-thru of the campground loop and took some pics (above).  Then we exited the campground and drove around the regional park to check out the scenery.  Many of the Saguaro cacti are about to bloom…

The park has a huge number of picnic areas and parking areas at the various trailheads.  Click HERE for loop drive and trail map.  We stopped briefly at a few of them to check things out but decided it was too hot for hiking.

 

We finished our drive and passed the Nature Center/Library again on our way back out of the park (below).

 

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One weekend outing found us heading over to Saguaro Lake located 41 miles northeast of downtown Phoenix.  The reservoir was created by the construction of Stewart Mountain Dam.  Saguaro del Norte Recreation site is near the dam and includes the Saguaro Lake Marina (which includes a restaurant and boat concession), a Maricopa County Sheriff’s aid station, picnic tables, restrooms and boat ramps.  Butcher Jones Beach, which can be reached by a road a few miles north of Saguaro del Norte, features swimming, picnic and restroom facilities.

The drive across Phoenix from the west to east was (as usual) laden with heavy traffic, but once you get on the N Usery Pass Rd and then N Bush Hwy the scenery is awesome.

 

Saguaro Lake is within Tonto National Forest and as such had a day-use fee.  However, while we were checking out the signs at the entrance guard shack that was unmanned, a park ranger drove up next to us.  He told us I could display my lifetime disabled veteran national park pass on the dash.  We checked out the marina area after finally finding a parking spot at this (clearly) popular weekend destination.

 

Since there was only limited beach access near the marina, we drove a few miles north on N Bush Hwy to E Butcher Jones Beach Rd.  We saw the signs for a swimming/recreation area on the northeast corner of the lake.

As you can see from the pictures (below), the beach was certainly crowded on this weekend.

 

In addition to lots of people, there were also a lot of wild horses in-and-around the beach and parking lot area.

I found a local news article on the wild horses.  Environmentalists say the Salt RIver horses are destroying habitat, (link HERE).   We thought it was pretty cool to see so many wild horses up close and took a few pictures (below).

 

After hanging at the beach most of the day, we headed back towards Phoenix while stopping at some the other recreation area pullouts that we had passed earlier along the way to the lake.  Most of these areas provide access to the Salt River.  One of the areas had a big business booming by renting inner tubes to float down the Salt River.  (link HERE).  At Phon D Sutton we checked out the meager camping opportunities – basically dry camping in a parking lot.  Don’t think we’ll come back here with the Urban Escape Vehicle.  At one of the parking areas, we caught this picture of a roadrunner (below).

 

And at another parking area that provided beach access to the Salt River… I was walking along the pathway when I heard a rattlesnake rattle.  Startled, I jumped to the side away from the noise and then saw the source (below).  Good thing this thing rattled to warn me, I was about to walk right next to him!

 

And we had to photograph another cool cactus (below).

 

And now – since I see this post is getting rather large… I’ll close for now and post a “Phoenix Day-Trips [part 2]” to bring you up to date on a few of the other outings that we’ve done recently.  Check back…

 

BTW –  We passed our 2nd year Anniversary of Full-timing in the Urban Escape Vehicle on May 2nd… Happy Anniversary to us!