Searching around town.

Happy Veterans Day!  or as my Grandmother called it Armistice Day.  She was born in 1880 and WWI was vivid in her mind.  She remembered November 11, 1918 at 11:00 AM when the Armistice was signed.  After WWII, Eisenhower signed a bill that changed the holiday to Veterans Day, but not for her. LOL.

Oh boy, the highway noise!  I 8 never slows down, it lasts all night, and the A/C doesn't cover much of it.  Seems like you don't notice it much during the day as you are busy with other things, but once you go to bed..........

We were out in the morning, installing the vent cover on the utility trailer.  This was really quite simple, as it slides right into the track on the permanent part in the roof.  You take a pair of pliers and bend the tabs at the ends of the slides and its on.  Hooking up the crank arm is a bit more work, as you have to remove the trim ring and the screen in order to take out the screws holding the crank mechanism.  Once loose, it simply slides into the new track.  Then everything is put back in the reverse order.

I had most of the stuff out of the trailer, including the portable power washer, so I hooked it up and power washed the front of the motorhome.  We had 1,600 miles of smashed bugs on the rig.  We had removed some of them back in Amarillo, but you couldn't tell.

By now it was afternoon, but we decided to go up town and get a burger.  When this far West, we like Tioga George, find an In and Out Burger.  That's not on any of our diets but it was good.  They cut the french fries right in the window as you drive by.  The potatoes were smashed thru the cutter with a long press lever and dropped into the hot oil.  My arteries and blood sugars are crying, but it is good.  We shared one order.

For the afternoon we headed out finding the quilt shops in the area, with limited success.  One in the old Downtown area was permanently closed, with a for rent sign in the window.  But we did find one in the older outskirts of town to the South.  Quilt shop hunting with the GPS causes us to drive around most of the area we are new to.  This familiarizes us quickly with our surroundings.

In the process, Loyce discussed another attraction with some of the shop clerks.  There is a swap meet here, like there is in Apache Junction.  So with some feeble directions, we set out to find it.  We ended up South of town near the military ground with big caution signs about unexploded ordinance.  We never found the swap meet.

Later I found an entry in the GPS for a completely different address, but driving to that location netted an empty farm field.  George the GeoSat was emphatic that I should turn into the dirt field.  More research will be needed on this one.

The internet stated that Yuma had 330 days of sunshine, which would leave 35 days of overcast, so as you guessed, today was overcast.  It still made a high temp of 88, so this is a warm place for sure.

It is to be cooler, here for the next several days, but we will have to see what that means.  Perhaps we will go to Mexico tomorrow.  We'll  decide that in the morning.

As the trucks roar by........   Retired Rod

Off to Yuma!

Oops we goofed that one up!  I was just looking over the comments on prior days blogs and realized I missed the comment of Jerry and Suzy, that they are in unit 299 at Benson SKP Saguaro RV park.

Often I go back and see if there are any new comments on prior posts, but I didn't see that one until it was too late.  Sorry folks, I hope to meet you when we pass thru again!

We were up by 7 ish this AM and sorted out all the stuff that needs put away on a travel day.  We had parked for three days, and that meant we had three times as much stuff to put away.  I had drained all the nasty tanks the night before, so all we needed was a cursory rinse and the hoses were rolled.  But we did have to back up and connect the utility trailer.

Husbands and wives should never try to connect a trailer together, as it will surely cause marital strife.  Loyce was doing her best to get me to back up just right, but I was not following her hand signals correctly.  So I knocked the trailer off of its blocks and had to re jack the front above the ball.

But eventually we were connected without drawing too much of an audience.  We paid our electric bill ($10.75)  for three days? and hit the road.

We stopped in Tucson, at the RV repair place and purchased the vent cover for the utility trailer, which slowed us by a good half hour.  Its still sitting here in the chair beside me.

We made the turn onto I 8 after purchasing diesel at the Flying J just South of that intersection.  It was $2.61 with the RV card, and was the cheapest since we were in Oky City.  We made about 10 mpg.  That was at almost 70 mph most of the time, which is not too bad.

We arrived here in Yuma, Az at 4:30, having traveled 280 miles.  It was hot out on the desert this afternoon, as we registered above 90 degrees most of the trip.  That would be cool in the summer time but it is November, and still 90.

As we arrived, we had no plans of where to stay.  None.  I had looked at a few blogs of folks that stayed here, but not a one of them had bothered to say the name of the park they were at.  Oh well.  So I called up RV park reviews, in the truck parking lot of the local Love's truck stop.

The reviews of almost all the parks were made by people that were upset with their stay.  So, the park with the least nasty comments was the one we settled on.  We are at the Shangri La RV resort on the Interstate about mile marker 12.  This is mostly a 'park model' park, but has nice long pull thru's in the front of the park for transients.  We are along the frontage road of the interstate, so highway noise is very high.  We may have to run the air conditioner fan to help cover the racket.

We are able to get the motorhome, trailer, and the car inline on the site.  That must make the length over 70 feet.  The width, however, is quite narrow.  It can't be more than 20 feet, but there is no one next to us on the door side, so if it stays that way we will be fine.

We are slated to be in Mesa on Sunday, so we rented 5 days here.  I'm not sure what we will do for the 5 days, but one of them will include going to Mexico.

Neither of us has ever been here before so everything is going to be a new experience.  We will report on that as it goes along.

Retired Rod

Shopping and Fixing the Vent

We went to Tucson today to quilt shop hop.  Tucson is 40 miles West of Benson and it takes almost an hour to get into the shopping areas from here. 

We paid our $15 this morning about 11 AM as that was check out time.  So we were crossed off the needs to leave list.

By mid afternoon, we had 89 degrees registered on the dash thermometer.  It was almost hot when I was sitting in the car waiting for the shopaholic!  But you know, only a week ago, I was freezing in KC as it was raining day after day, so it was gorgeous.


As we were leaving, I stopped at an RV parts house to purchase a new vent cover for the utility trailer.  Seems that they are all the same size, 14” square, but they have three different hinges that are popular.  And of course I had no idea which one I had.

So as we came home, I had to unload the trailer and remove the vent to find out the type I had.  The worse of it was I had guessed right which one I had, but chickened out purchasing it since if wrong, I would have to bring it back.

So as we drive back to Tucson tomorrow, we will be stopping back at the RV parts store to purchase the right vent cover.  At least I will have it fixed, and the part is under $20.  The streets around the store are narrow and tight, so driving there will be somewhat of a challenge.

We will head away from Tucson to the North, but will not go to Phoenix.  Since we will be staying there for most of the winter, we hope to go somewhere else first.

Retired Rod

Touring South of Benson

After driving to Arizona from Kansas in six days, with the 26,000 pound motorhome, today was a day of relaxation.  Well sort of anyway.

In the middle of the night, my repaired sleep number bed mattress went flat at three AM, right on cue.  So I slept on the hard plywood board under the mattress.  There is a small pad in the mattress top, so I had some cushion but not much.  The sides of the mattress are made out of hard foam rubber, so you are kind of sleeping in a box of foam, with nothing underneath.

I couldn’t stand that too long, but managed to get the hose plugged back into the air mattress about 7.  That allowed for some sleep in the morning.

I went up town, and found a hardware store where I purchased some extra strength contact cement and attempted to re glue the hose into the mattress.  So tonight will be another test of glue strength.

We headed out in the afternoon for places South of Benson, and that meant Tombstone and Bisbee.  We’ve been all over Tombstone before, so we stopped at the one place we haven’t been before.


Boot Hill.


 
It’s just an old fashioned grave yard, with gift shops around it.  It does keep down any vandalism as the gift shop employees are right there.





The Clantons and McLaurys killed at the OK Corral shooting.





From there we went down to Bisbee.  We didn’t have any place in mind, but wandered around the downtown looking for some lunch. 

We happened on a sandwich shop and had a Turkey and Cheese and Avocado on Sour Dough.  It had lettuce, tomato, mayo and Dijon on it.  It hit the spot, but was tourist trap pricey.



We wandered a few stores, but came away empty handed.  The place is real artsy and has many jewelry and antique shops.  Its hard to use most of that stuff in the RV life. LOL



We run out of paid for nights here tomorrow, so we will have to make a decision about leaving or staying.  But perhaps tomorrow in the light of day the answer will come to us.

Retired Rod