Mesa Spirit RV Resort

Welcome to Mesa Spirit RV Resort. Our oldest son has requested pictures of the park, so after a little bicycle ride, we now have pictures.

The sign out on Main street.


Of course everything is gated, and surrounded with a concrete block wall. You need a car pass to get in, and we forgot ours one night. Had to prove what spot we were on and they took our license plate to verify before we could enter. We made sure not to leave without our pass again.


The main entry drive. These are the newest park models. Many are still for sale, the economy is down.


This is the main office and the large activity center. Has the pools and the auditorium at this location.


Way back in the back, we have our unit in the pet section. Thou shalt not walk thy pet in a non pet section, least the heaven open up and smite thee.


This is one of the main pools behind the office.


The auditorium from about the middle of the dance floor. there is as much room behind me as you can see from the picture.


Pool room


This is a second pool and hot tub area behind the first pool. In the month of February, I am told that both pools will be full of folks.


The computer room has more machines behind me as well.


The library has a librarian and another wall of books behind me.


I took more photos, but it took almost an hour to up load these. Tengo Internet is not too fast and there is no one here yet. I can only imagine how bad it will get in February. Perhaps I will need to break down and get a Verizon card. Remember I am tight and that will cost a bunch of money.

We again hung around the rig today, and washed the outside area. Mostly the driveway and the little car. I set up a ham radio antenna on the satellite dish tripod in the morning and had to spend some time playing with that radio, since I hadn't used it in a while.

We aired the bike tires, and then had to go ride it for a while to see if they were up hard enough.

Then I went and bought a gate card, for the back University Avenue gate. I say bought, but it is a deposit of $25. The card is one with embedded electronic chip in it like an ID card. They then have a record of each time you come and go. Since there are 1500 sites in here, and it is a half mile to the front gate, the card to get out the back will come in handy.

Lets see, we grilled steaks on the gas grill for supper, and then went to Wal Mart for our seemingly daily visit.

We are now discussing if we really want to go back for thanksgiving, since it will be in the 80's tomorrow. Oh and for the rest of the week as well. We might stay a while longer, but will be back for Christmas for sure.

All plans are cast in Jello, of course.

Retired Rod

Veterans Day in Mesa, Az

It seems quiet here in the park, as there are so many vacancies in all the spots. When I inquired about the number of spots available for the winter, there were not too many, but folks will not arrive until later in the season. There were two pet spots left as of yesterday, and we took one. Today the second spot was filled as well.

We otherwise would not be accepted here with our dog. So we lucked out arriving here in November, when there was a spot available in the pet section. Now the pet section is only about 20 percent of this park. And the literature they hand out says that you should keep in mind that not everyone loves your pet. Not when it barks, and poos on the neighbors space, for sure.

I can't wait to see the rest of the rules here, but the books for this year have not been printed yet. So we only hope that we will not be in trouble with things not being as they should be, to match our lifestyle. You know, with the drunken beer parties and all! Lol.

I can't remember the last time I had a beer. Oh well.

Since we came off the road and set up the trailer on a permanent site, Loyce declared that today was cleaning day. Everything has been scrubbed from top to bottom. Floors, walls, cupboards, all emptied and washed out. She is relentless.

I mostly did a few lifting jobs and tried to stay out of the way. Mid afternoon we went to the Wal Mart two miles North of the Park, and suddenly realized how close we are to the Park that my parents had a park model in years ago.

Our park's East wall is the West wall of Orange Wood Shadows. We are no more than a 1,000 yards from their old trailer. We enter this park from the South on Main street, and the entry for Orangewood is on the North from University, and that had me thinking we were much farther away.

We drove thru the Orangewood park and found it to have many much older park models, and be tighter crammed together. My folks old rig, we guessed is about a 1982, and is still there. Actively owned by a snow bird, who isn't here yet.

Mesa Spirit is just as old as Orangewood, but has built new common facilities, and remodled the old buildings along the way. So we seem newer and nicer here. Also the sites here are at least ten feet wider, which doesn't seem like much, but gives the whole place a more wide open feeling as you drive thru. To be sure, we have many park models as well, but they are not as dense, and do not overpower the RV's and Motorhomes.

Once all the RV pads get rigs parked on them, I'm sure this will become very crowded as well. But then we didn't buy the place or a park model or anything long term, we only rented a site thru February.

We did drive over in the original part of this park, and it is just like the old Orangewood park. Just as tight together as well. So we are in the newest part and lucky to be here.

With that said, this is a city camping experience, and it does not have the outdoors "it factor" that comes with a state park or a Core of Engineers park. After we spend the two months of Jan and Feb here I'm sure we will be itching to get the "Heck Outa Here. "

On Veteran's Day. As a Veteran from the Viet Nam war myself, I hold our men and women in uniform in the highest honor. The sacrifice they make in their family life and personal aspirations can never be replaced by any honors that they may receive. It is because of their dedication, that you and I are able to live in this country, and not have our thoughts and these blogs censured, or worse.

Please help these folks repatriate, as they come back from their duties in foreign lands. As a veteran from Viet Nam, I know the feeling of not being acceptable, because you fought in an unpopular war. May that never happen again.

Retired Rod

Mesa Spirit RV Resort Mesa, AZ

We are in Mesa, Az. How we got here is a long story. But not so long as to not be reportable.

When I last blogged we were in Tucson and the Diamond J RV park out in the desert West of Tucson. It is a quaint little park and has some nice areas in the back of the park, that back up to the open desert. Those spots are reserved for special folks that have been there before, and for folks that want to stay the winter, on the monthly rate plan.

But for us folks that are only there for several days, we got to stay out next to the highway on the large bolder rocked area. We didn't understand why you would make your customers miserable when they were clearly checking the place out for winter possibilities. We paid for three nights, but only stayed for two nights. The $25 that we lost was not worth suffering without Wifi, or any public bathing facilities. The laundry only had minimal washers, and we didn't try it.

I would have blogged last night, but try as long as I might, I could not connect to the park Wifi. Even thought it was there and strong, the lady that runs the park, had no idea what a computer would be used for, and didn't know how to fix the system.

I did have a new and positive experience at the park though, I got to meet some folks whose blog I read most every day. JoAnn and Doug spent the summer with Howard and Linda of RV dreams, at a ranch in Southern Colorado. She spotted that we were in Benson when we were there, and invited us to meet them. Subsequently, we both moved to Diamond J.

You couldn't find two nicer folks. And they have Filmore the standard poodle. He is a hoot. He thought I was there, just to meet him and play with him. So yes I did play with him. He kept bringing me his ball and wanted it tossed or hidden or however we could think of to change up the game. JoAnn and Doug have many things in common with us, and I really enjoyed the opportunity to actually meet some folks whose blog I read most all the time. Thank you for the invitation JoAnn and Doug!

Yesterday, we went to Casa Grande, Az., with the little car. We checked out the Palm Creek RV resort. It is built around a 18 hole par three golf course. The place is neat neat. But oh my heavens the price. The Month of February was $1,080 plus taxes. And then that was for the small lots, and there are not too many of these small lots, so a lot that you could get was $53 higher. You could store your rig there for $60 a month, but it was better if you rented a lot and paid for the site even when you were not there.

The kicker was that the town is small with only a few big box like stores and the old part of town was all but closed up and swept away. Since we are not able to play golf anymore, why would we pay for the course with our lot rent? So in the middle of the night, I had an epiphany. We'd go nuts couped up in that little town. So we came here to Mesa today.

I helped a couple find a site to dump their motorhome at Diamond J this morning, and the conversation changed to Casa Grande verses Mesa. I showed them the prices at Palm Creek, and they said that since we didn't play golf, wouldn't we be more entertained in Mesa. And suggested Mesa Spirit.

So we did check out seveal choices here in Mesa when we arrived this afternoon. And just like they said, we liked Mesa Spirit the best. So much so that we rented a lot for the next three months. We will leave the trailer on this lot and also the truck here, when we come back to KC for Thanksgiving thru Christmas. Looks like it will be winter in Phoenix this year. Should be fun!

Tucson, Az

Today we went from Benson to Tucson. It is only 50 miles, so the trip took about an hour.

We are out in the country to the West of Tucson, at a place called Justin's Diamond J. This is a large campground, that is somewhat of an improved desert experience. We have water and electric and sewer, but the sites are not much to look at. At least ours isn't.

Since we are only here for a day or so, they gave us a site out near the front road, where the Highway is driving us crazy with passing cars. Hope that slows down some before we go to bed.

The big thing that has Loyce concerned is the lack of a public bathroom. We have to use our camper bathroom for all services, and she likes to use a campground bath house. So we may not stay here for more than one night.

We do have our eye on Casa Grande as a destination, and perhaps we will go check that out in the morning.

We spent the day setting up, and then trying to get hooked up to the internet. The wifi at the camp here will allow you to connect, but then says that it has limited or no connectivity. You cannot see the internet at all when you are connected. They also have a little linksys router that sits on the office desk, for the staff to use to connect.

I found out from one of the motorhome campers over closer to the office, that the little wifi is the only thing that works here. I am connected tonight by using my repeater router sitting on the roof of the trailer outside. It can barely see that desktop router, but I am connected to it, at a sloooow speed. So no pictures tonight.

The actual grounds have been improved with rock that is about 3 inches in diameter. The site is hard to walk on and is almost impossible for our 14 year old dog to negotiate. She is blind, and thinks she is on a cliff when she feels the rocks under her feet.

So while others have said, and have had positive experiences with this location, at least for us, it isn't working too well.

I did set out the satellite dish and have the direct TV running on all of our subscribed channels, since there is no cable TV here either. I was surprised that we could not pick up digital TV with our roof top antenna. We are far enough from town, that even the analog TV was mostly snowy with exception of two or three channels.

On a positive note, it is much warmer here in Tucson. At Benson, we were at 4,000 feet and the mountain air is cold. But Tucson is at 2,500 feet and it was above 80 this afternoon. It will require some heat before morning, but both the electric and the propane heaters will not run all night, like they did last night.

Camping is supposed to be and experience, and this is one of them.

Retired Rod