Our Third Annual Snowbird Adventure; The First Twelve Days

Day One:  November 23, 2011 Panora, Ia to Lexington, Ne



Despite having months to prepare for our Third Annual Snowbird Adventure, there always seems to be so many last minute details to attend to.  So it was about 4:30 PM before we pulled out of Panora and headed west.  Our plan was to drive as far as we felt like it, and drive the rest of the way to Milliken, Co Thanksgiving Day to my oldest sisters house for dinner with the Colorado contingent on my side of the family.

We drove to York, NE where we stopped to get something to eat at a place called "The Kitchen".  Pretty good food.  Then the decision needed to be made to stay here for the night, or continue on for a while.  Since it wasnt that late, we decided  to drive on, but by the time we got to Lexington, Ne, it was time to stop for the night, so after filling up with gas at Cenex, we noticed they had a large parking lot out behind, and it proved to be a very good place to spend our first night on the road.

Day  Two: November 24, 2011 Thanksgiving Day

After a good nights sleep, we got on the road in time to put us at my sister's house by 11:30 AM, which would give us plenty of time to visit with family before Thanksgiving Dinner.

Here I am carving the turkey, with the assistance of two of my brothers.

After too much food and lots of conversation, some of us went out to our motorhome to show it to some of the relatives who had not seen it.  My sister Terri, and her husband Walt have a pull type camper, and are enthusiastic RVers, enjoyed talking RVing and traveling.  They hope to be able to join us Quartzsite this winter.  We are looking forward to that!

After a long day of driving, eating, and visiting, it was time for bed.  We pulled our motorhome around the block to a level spot on an adjacent street to make our night camp.( a term I borrowed from Tioga George)

Day 3: November 25, 2011



Today was a short driving day.  After having coffee with my sister, and adding water to our motothome from an outside spigot ather house, and then de-winterizing.

 We made the short drive to Johnsons Corner  to fill up with gas, and plan our day.  We unloaded the car, left the motorhome in the RV parking area at Johnsons Corner, and drove to my brother's place in Loveland to watch Iowa get beat up on by Nebraska.  The game wasnt so good, but the conversation was excellent.  Been quite a while since I have sat down and watched foot ball with any of my brothers.  At half time we went to a local restaurant to get a bite to eat and watch the second half of the game on their big projection tv.  It didnt help the Hawkeyes at all.

Then it was back to the motorhome where the decision was made to stay at the nearby RV Retreat  for the night.  The lady at the check in was less than friendly and failed to give us the password for the park's free wi-fi, but we managed to live without it, as we tethered our Android phones to our computers to access the 'net.

It was a windy and stormy night, but no snow.  We didnt sleep all that well, but the signs were there; time to head south in the morning!

Day 4: November 26, 2011

This was to be a long driving day in an attempt to get to some warm weather before Sunday night, so we could be somewhere where Ann would be set up to work on Monday morning. The weather was great for traveling; about a 40 mph tail wind!  That doesnt happen often in the RVing world!



We finally decided to stop in Vaughn, NM for the night, and were able to find an RV park with full hook ups for the Passport America rate if $16.00.  The place seemed abandoned, but they had a self pay drop-box.

 

The place only had a few spots, but served the purpose for a quiet place to spend a few hours sleeping.

Days 5 -10: November 27, 2011-December 2, 2011

The original plan today was to drive to The Ranch SKP Park near Lakewood, NM, but after looking at the weather forecast for the area, we decided to drive on south to Pecos, TX, and stay at TraPark in Pecos, TX.



On the way, we passed through Roswell, NM, and stopped for some Dairy Queen.  It is nice to be able to practice getting myself into, and out of tight spots with the RV.

 We, meaning Ann, didnt take too many pics today but here are a few from TraPark in Pecos, TX.

Since the place was pretty full, we got to park by one of the entrance/exits.

The place is not bad, but one thing we noticed is that many of the people staying here are not retired RVers, but are working people who are living in RVs.  The oil field business is going pretty strong in the area, and I assume that is where most of the workers who stay here, are working.

We had to rely on our Directv for our tv watching, as we were not able to pic up any over the air channels, but we survived.

The week went by pretty quickly; Ann mostly worked, but we did get outside most days to take  walk around the park. I have an app for my phone that measures how far go, and it showed that our route was .6 miles.

One of the evenings, there was a tree lighting ceremony in the nearby park.  It had the usual singing, but that was followed by a huge and lengthy fire works display.  It was awesome, and we were so close that some the fireworks dropped down close to our RV.  Nothing says Merry Christmas like a fireworks display!

We didnt interact much with the town, other than eating at a Chinese buffet place, followed by a shopping trip to the local Wal*Mart, and another night we ate at the restaurant in a nearby motel.

 Day 11:  Traveling to Del Rio, TX



 
On Saturday morning we were headed to American Campground  in Del Rio, TX, a place we stayed in for most of the month of December last year, but planned on fill up at the local Flying J, and eating breakfast at the Denny's attached to the Flying J, but it wasnt to be.  Neither of the two RV pumps I pulled up to would accept credit cards, and after waiting in line inside for about 10 minutes, all the clerk would say is that if I wanted to get gas there, I would have to prepay.  That was not acceptable to me, so we left and drove to Stockton, TX to fill up and eat.

One more thing about Pecos, TX.  They have some weird roads in Texas, but the one by the Flying J takes the cake.  They have the usual exit where Interstate 20 meets Highway 285, but just to the west of the 285 exit, their is an additional exit that ends up on a two-way frontage road.  The people traveling on the frontage road are supposed to yield to the cars exiting the freeway!  I cant imagine a better set up for an accident!  I never even looked for the yield signs, and just happened to notice them when we were leaving town!

Our trip to Stockton was uneventful where we filled up with gas at a Stripes station, and then a little ways farther, we had breakfast at an IHOP that had a nice place to park for RVs, and trucks.

We then continued on to Del Rio, a route that we traveled last year when we left Del Rio, and traveled to Tucson.  I got a couple of pics on the way.

Coming into Sanderson, TX.

Down town Sanderson, TX.

A small restaurant that we ate at when we went through Sanderson last year.  Unfortunately, the restaurant is now closed.  

We arrived at American Camprgound neat Del Rio, TX about 3:30PM, got checked in and set up while we enjoyed the 77 degree weather.  This what we had been looking for since we left home, but it will be short lived, as the cold weather coming from the North West will catch up with us tomorrow.  Highs in the 50s, not the 70s, but better than the weather in Iowa.

After resting for a bit, we headed into town to do some grocery shopping at the HEB, then to Chili's for some dinner, then stopping at Lorena's Cantina for some karaoke.

It was a great evening, lots of excellent singers, and they appreciated Ann's singing ability, however, I dont think anyone remembered  us being there last year. After staying a little later than we normally do, we headed home for some well deserved sleep.

Day 12: December, 2011

Today is just a lazy day.  It is overcast and a general dreary day. We didnt accomplish much.  Ann did laundry, and I tested our Virgin Mobile usb modem that Ann will use while working while we are in this area, as there is no Verizon data service in this part of Texas.  The park has good wi-fi so, connecting to the 'net wont be a problem for our personal computers.  I spent most of the day contemplating the blog, and finally about 7:00PM I started writing.  It is now about midnight, and I am calling it a day.  I hope those that read the blog get something out of it.

Comments are always appreciated!

Paul

The Last Two Weeks in Quartzsite

The Monday after our Rally ended the weather changed dramatically.  The wind went around to the north at anywhere from 20 to 50 mph for about three days.  On Monday night about 10:00 PM the wind was howling so bad all I could think of was was some of the lyrics of Gordon Lightfoot's  "The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald".  "...When the winds of November come early..."  We had the solar panels tilted and the wind was coming directly behind them. Although, I was pretty sure they werent going anywhere, I was concerned enough about them and the just general rocking of the motorhome, which was facing west, so we were getting broadsided, that we brought in the slides, loaded up the things we had outside, and turned the rig into the wind.  This made things a lot better, and we were finally able to get some sleep.The next couple of days the wind was still strong, but not enough to cause us to move the motorhome again.

The reason we moved the motorhome facing west in the first place was to tilt the solar panels, and have them face south to get maximum performance from them.  It worked real well.  For the week we were parked that way, the only time we ran the generator was to run the microwave or the printer.  I love it when a plan comes together!

With almost everyone else from our group having left, we got to really enjoy the peace and quiet of the desert.  We didn't do too much during the week, save for couple of trips into Quartzsite in the evening to get something to eat, a beverage or two, and for Ann to sing some karaoke.  There are several places in town that do karaoke, and a few of them have it early enough in the evening that you can have some fun and still be home by 8:00PM.  That seems to work well for a lot of the older people out here.


On Saturday we decided to go up to Parker Arizona, which is about 35 miles north of Quartzsite to see a movie and get some groceries.  As we got north of Quartzsite about 20 miles we could see a huge dust cloud to the north and west, as the wind was pretty near calm, we wondered what was the reason for the dust cloud. It is not easy to see in this pic, but it is to the left of the tower.

When we got to the north side of Parker, near the Blue Water Resort and Casino (they have a movie theater as well), we saw lots of off road racing vehicles, and when we pulled into the parking lot there was Robby Gordon's souvenir truck.

I thought wow, this must be a big time off road race!  It turns out it was a big time off road race; it was the Parker 425.  Even though I had never heard of it, it is a well known race.  The race consists of 2 or 3 laps, each about 125 miles through the desert.  The run several classes, and one guy we talked to said there was about 200 entrants.

We wandered around a bit, then walked a few hundred yards to a decent viewing area, even though we were a couple hundred yards from the track, we could still see then racers come down along the river, head up hill, then go out of site in a cloud of dust.

While we were there we visited with a couple from Utah.  The husband used to race midgets against Dick Simon, who later became an Indy car racer then an owner.

On the walk back I got a pic of Ann in front of the Lucas Oil sign.

And she got a couple of me under the General Tire finish line.

As it was going to be a while before the race would be over we decided to catch the movie Ann wanted to see (The Rite), then go watch more of the racing action.  The movie was just a movie to me, but Ann liked it despite having been scared enough a few times to make her scream, but I think she likes that in movies.  :)

After the movie was over we went to the finish line, where the announcer was interviewing the racers as they finished.

Since every one does not start at the same time, each racer is timed separately, so it is some time after the event is over, before the finishing order is established, but it was till fun to listen to the guys talk about their race.  By this time a large crowd had gathered, and it looked there was going to be a huge party once the race was over, not wanting to get stuck in traffic, we decided to head out to Safeway, get some groceries, then had back to Quartzsite.

After Safeway we did make a stop at the Wal*Mart to look for a 8 inch frying pan.  We were both surprised to see how limited the options were for housewares, and they didn't have what we wanted.

Then it was back "home" for a light dinner as we were not all that hungry after eating a large container of popcorn and a huge soda at the theater.

Sunday is "dump and refill day".  Even though we could probably go for 10  days or so with dumping our tanks and refilling with fresh water, we did it every Sunday just so we wouldn't have to interrupt Ann's work schedule during the week to do so, and this way we didn't have to worry too much about conserving.  Depending on the line at the dump station it usually took us an hour or so to stow things inside, bring in the slides, raise the jacks, drive the couple miles to the dump station, wait in line, dump refill with water and return to our spot and set up again.  Waiting in line is not so bad when you have nothing else that you have to do, or should be doing.  One guy in line was real slow in dumping, so the ranger who monitors the area had to remind him that this was a dump station, and not a campsite.  The guy was offended, but it did get him going.

When I hooked up the water hose to refill the fresh water tank, I then went up on the roof and reversed the tilt of the solar panels as we wanted to park with our door to the south this week.  After getting back down off the roof, I realized that I had forgotten to turn the valve that let water into the tank on, so I had to wait another 10 minutes or so for it to fill before returning to our campsite.  Glad I wasnt in a hurry.

When we got back to our campsite this time we faced the motorhome east, so that the door and awning would be facing south.  Again this week the solar panels did their job!

I am going to post this now, and bring you all up to date on our travel adventures tomorrow.

It is 10:30Pm here and time for bed.

Paul

First Two Weeks at Quartzsite

Once again time has flown by.  We have already been here two weeks, and our winter sojourn is already half over!  One of the few things that is not as good as could be out here is the Virgin Mobile broadband service, it is just too slow to do many things other than check email, and read a few blogs.  I have been trying to use it exclusively to save bandwidth usage on the Verizon Mi-Fi, as it is limited to 5G with our current plan.  Today Ann decided that since she would probably go over the 5 G limit, she may as well up the plan to the 10 G one, so I am now using the Mi-Fi connection, and hopefully can post some pics.  The blog is just not the same without pics.

Here is a pic I tried posting before.  This is the first three couples to arrive at Quartzsite having dinner at Silly Al's Pizza.  From the left it is me(Paul), then Marilyn whose husband Dave is next to Ann, then Bob, and his wife Laura.

Here is the line up of the first rigs at the rally.  The rig in the foreground belongs to a couple who dropped off their coach and went to their home in Goodyear, Arizona for a couple of days.  Then is the coach of Bob and Laura, then ours, and the camper of Dave and Marilyn.

Here is a pic of the first sunset in Quartzsite.

Then a couple of days later pic of the full moon rising, a pic similar to the one I took when we were in Del Rio, Texas.  The pic is at the bottom of the blog.

And then a pic of our dinner for the evening; steak with tinfoil potatoes, with onions and green peppers.

Over the next few days, the place really started to fill up.  Most of the day was spent greeting, and visiting with the new arrivals, and posting the list of new arrivals on RVForum.net.

Here is the group assembling for Happy Hour on January 21.  The group is growing!

 And here is the full moon going down with the sun shining on the mountains to the west, as it is about to break over the mountains in the east.

 

As the days went by the area filled in nicely, with a total of 37 rigs being here at one time or another.  

While people were arriving I decided I had better get to work on my solar project that I had been planning, and acquiring parts for since last summer.   So with a trip into Quartzsite to pick up some brackets to attach to the solar panels, and then brackets to attach to the motorhome, and some  tilt bars to raise the panels with, I began in earnest.  First job was to locate the panels on the roof so they wouldnt be shaded if I didnt tilt them, but still be close enough together to maintain a short of run of wire as possible  Once this was done, I cleaned the spots on the roof where the brackets would go, then carefully set them in the 3M 5200 adhesive to let them cure.  One thing we(Ann) didnt want to do was to put holes in the roof, that is why I chose the 3M adhesive, but because there is a slight arch to the roof, the panel brackets wanted to slide downhill.  I am glad I didnt just leave them to cure on their own, as I would not have been happy to go up on the roof the next morning to see the brackets up against the rain gutter on the edge of the roof! So we decided that I should put one screw in each bracket to hold it in place till the adhesive set up. Once I did this the installation of the panels looked good.

To back up a bit, one of the obstacles to overcome was to be able to get the panels themselves up on the roof.  As the panels are about 37" x 65" and weigh 40 lbs, this was no easy challenge.  My solution was to take the strap part of the tire tie downs, attach one end to the panel, and use the straps as a rope.  Dave came over with a ladder and with his help, getting the panels on the roof was quite simple.  Thanks Dave!

That was enough work for that day.

The next day I worked on where to mount the charge controller, and where to run the wires from the roof to the controller.  The easiest was is to go down the refrigerator vent, behind the refrigerator, and on down to the compartment below.  It was no problem at all, and was easily accomplished in a day.  :)

The last issue to be solved was to go from the controller to the battery.  So it was off to Quartzsite again to a solar dealer to get two five foot pieces of #4 wire with ends on, plus a 60 amp fuse and fuse holder to be put downstream of the controller.  Once back home these were fairly easy to install.  Then it was the moment of truth!  I connected the two panels together on the roof, then determined which wire coming from the panels was the "hot" wire as both wires were black, and I hadnt marked them.  Once this was determined, and I got them hooked up with no spark or fires, I went into the motorhome to check my amp meter, and it was showing an input of about four amp hours, despite being relatively late in the day!  WooooHooooo!  Success!

I dont have a lot of pics of the installation process, as once I got going I didnt want to stop and take pics.  Here is one of the panels installed and operating.

One of the high lights of the week was during Happy Hour one night was Betty, who put herself in charge of entertainment, came up with the idea of the "Twelve Days of Quartzsite", a take off on the "Twelve Days of Christmas".  Each day of Quartzsite was represented by something you might buy while here.  Ann got to be the Fourth Day of Quartzsite I bought four funnel cakes, even though she only bought two, and intended to cut them into, but decided she then wouldnt be able to hold them all.

It was a fun event, and was filmed for posterity, and is on RVfoum.net, though I am not sure where.  If you would like to see more of the activities, and comments about our fun here, then checkout RVForum.net, and look through all the threads about Quartzsite.  You may have to sign up and login to see all the pics and videos that are posted. 

On Thursday four of us went to a golf course in Blythe, California, which is about 30 minute from here.  As we had a 7:00AM tee time it was decided to leave here about 6:00AM  to be sure and be on time.  When we arrived about 6:30, there was no one to be seen.  It didnt take us long to realize that California is on Pacific time, and Arizona is on Mountain time!  So we got there an hour early, but it was a beautiful morning.  The round of golf was interesting; the other three guys play pretty regular, and it showed, I havent played in a few years, and it showed as well.  But all in all is was a great being outside in such beautiful weather.

During Happy Hour on Thursday Betty organized a take off the Kentucky Derby, women decorated hats, and there were four teems of "horses" and "riders".  Ann teamed up with another guy and called themselves Bling, Bling.  The idea was that the "horse" was blindfoled, and the "rider" had to guide the "horse around the course that was marked with beer cans filled with sand.  I had the "duty" to provide the empty beer cans.  Everyone needed to contribute, and I gladly did my part!

It was pretty silly, but still fun, as Ann and her partner Rolf won the race!  I didnt get any pics of the "Derby", but I am sure there are some on the forum.

Here is a link to the  horserace on youtube.

On Friday I went into town to get our mail that has been forwarded from Iowa.  The line at the Post Office was short, relatively speaking, as last year it wound around the inside of the office and out the door. 

I cant imagine what it must be like working there, going from a small town to a town of over a half million people for a few weeks a year.  Then it was off to get a haircut before returning "home".  The price of a haircut was only $11.00, one of the few bargains you can get this time of year here.

Saturday was the grand finale with a buffet meal at 3:00PM, preceded with a group picture at 2:00.  Ann made a wonderful dish of orange chicken, and fried rice.  As usual at a buffet there was more food than we could eat, but Ann's chicken was one of the best dishes!  She has to quit cooking like that, or I will expect her to cook more often.  :)

After everyone had eaten more than they should have, Ann and three of the guys who are musicians, gave an impromptu concert after only practicing only 30 minutes and never even had met each other before the rally.  The sound quality is not good, but the singing and playing was.

On Sunday morning many of the group left, and headed for Death Valley, others went there own way, and a few of us are still here.  We plan on staying till the thirteenth, and then head toward Phoenix, as Ann has to go to Baltimore either the week of the fourteenth or the next week, and we are planning on meeting up with a friend from home who will be visiting in the Casa Grande area for a few days.

The first two weeks here have been fun, relaxing, and satisfying, and I expect the next two weeks here will be the same!

I will keep you posted, hopefully, more often than I have in the last two weeks.

Paul

The Mundane, The Miraculous, and Q

Monday January  10 was just another great day on the road; nothing really exciting, or out of the ordinary.

On Tuesday Ann decided that is was time to do some of the maintenance that her car owner’s manual called for at 100,000 miles.   I could see that the front brake pads were getting pretty thin, so that was the first thing on the list.  She called the local Big O Tires in Maricopa and scheduled an afternoon appointment.  I took the car in and got the whole nine yards of what checks they would perform before doing the front brakes.  The service manager came back in a few minutes with a laundry list of repairs the car needed.  Listening to him I wondered how a car in this a shape would even run, but I knew his job was to up sell.  They went ahead and replaced the front brakes, and I took the laundry list of other repairs they felt the car needed back to Ann for her perusal.  I did see that the back brakes were about gone, and the rear tires were about worn out, so it would be back to Big O on Thursday for the rear brakes and rear tires.

On Wednesday there was a pot luck, with Italian food, at the community center.  Ann made some awesome three cheese rigatoni.  There were many Italian dishes, and the Italian mainstay, pizza.  It was nice to meet some of the other people in the park, as well as the park owners.  They are a young couple with two children.  They recently bought the park, and are working hard to improve the place, and they seem to be doing a great job.  We would definitely stay there again.

On Thursday it was back to Big O with Ann’s car.  Because it was going to take some time to do the work, we opted to have one of the employees take us back to the RV park while they worked on the car.  The young guy that took us back was from Delaware, and had only lived in Maricopa two months.  He was obviously a high school wrestler at one time, as when we mentioned we were from Iowa, he commented on how great a wrestling program, both The University of Iowa, and Iowa State University have.  He also warned us about the wild animals in the area and advised Ann that when she goes on a bike ride outside the park, to be sure and take a gun with her.  Mmmmmmmmmmmm.

About 5:30 the young guy from the repair place called and said he was on the way to get us, and take us to get Ann’s car.  We were not sure where he was when he called, but it took him about 45 minutes to cover the 15 miles from Maricopa to the John Wayne RV Ranch.  After picking up the car it was time for dinner.  We had seen this Mexican place on our many trips to town, so it was Mexican for us tonight!  The place was busy, so we sat at a table in the bar with another couple who invited us to sit with them.  The server then asked us if we just wanted to eat in the bar.   Good enough for us!  We had a delicious dinner.  Ann had the trio, an enchilada, a flauta, and a taco.  I had pork chimichanga.  Waaaay to much to eat. 

Friday for Ann was just another day of work, except because of the Martin Luther King Holiday on Monday; she would have a three day weekend.  Most of my time was spent trying to figure out what we should do on the long weekend.  I spent some time on mapquest seeing how far things were, and what would be fun to do, but not have to drive too far, but still be able to get to Quartzsite in a decent time on Monday, so Ann would be ready  to work on Tuesday morning.  After much contemplation, we decided that would go to North Ranch Escapees Park near Congress, Arizona, a place we stayed for a while last year.  Then on Sunday, drive up to the Grand Canyon.

Saturday morning we didn’t get around too early, as the drive up to Congress was only about two hours.  Ann put in the address for the park in Congress in the Microsoft Streets and Trips GPS program.  It had us going up to Phoenix, then going on northwest to Congress.  The idea of driving through Phoenix didn’t appeal to us, so we decided to west to State Highway 85, then north to Interstate 10, back east about ten miles, then on through Wickenburg to the Escapees Park.  The route was about 20 miles longer, but worth it.  We arrived about 1:00PM, filled both our portable propane tank, as well as our onboard tank, and then got settled in our spot, next to a couple who had some yappy barking dogs, my favorite!  The rest of the day was spent planning our day trip to the Grand Canyon, and then our trip to Quartzsite.  We called it a night pretty early, as we wanted to get a relatively early start on Sunday.

I typed this post in a Word document, and not sure why the font changed when I posted it.  Also, there are no pics, as here in Quartzsite our virgin Mobile usb modem is connecting so slow, down to about 9 kps, sometimes, that I doubt I could post pics, but I will do that when the speed picks up.

The trip to the Grand Canyon, and our first couple of days in Quartzsite will follow shortly.

 On Sunday January  16, was the day for our trip to the Grand Canyon.  We left North Ranch about 8:00 AM for the three hour drive.  Our first stop was to fill up with gas in Congress. 

After winding our way through the mountains, we arrived in Prescott, Az, a town we visited last year.  We stopped at the Visitor Center to get some brochures about the Canyon, and a more specific road map to supplement our GPS program. 

Then it was around the square to the Lone Spur Café for breakfast of eggs Benedict, hash browns and coffee.

With starvation avoided once again, it was on north on State Highway 89, to Ash Fork, where we then headed east on Interstate 40. 

There are some views on the way including some very tall mountains by Flagstaff. 

After the short drive to Williams, it was north again on State Highway 64, where we saw more snow.  Glad we don’t live here!  On our way north, this mountain loomed larger and larger in the distance before the road made a gradual turn to the left before getting to the Grand Canyon.

Our first stop was at the National Geographic Visitor Center.  After discussing options and talking to people who worked there, we decided to take the helicopter tour of the canyon.  We didn’t have to be at the airport for about 40 minutes, and as it was close by, we stopped at a coffee shop for a few minutes, and had some very good coffee.  Then it was off to the airport and a view of the two types of helicopters they use for the tours, and EC-21, that I am not sure who makes, and a Bell 206, otherwise known as a Bell Long Ranger.  

Our tour was to be in the Long Ranger, which I preferred, as in the EC-21 you sat three wide, so the person in the middle would not have that great a view.  Before our tour began I got a pic of one of the Long Rangers landing.

Then it was our turn to go, an older couple from India was with us, and they seemed as excited to go as we did, however, I not sure that this pic shows Ann’s excitement. 

Then here I am getting my glasses on so I can see the pictures I will be taking.

Then it was off the ground, across the Kaibab National Forest to the edge of the canyon.

Then the canyon opened up underneath us in spectacular fashion, not to be described in words alone!

This is as calm as Ann was the whole trip.

After more indescribable views than I have ever seen in a day; including in the canyon, the plateau of the Painted Desert, the Little Colorado River, and the confluence of the Little Colorado, and Colorado, then it was up and over the rim one last time, and again over the Kaibab National Forest again, then past the coffee house we had visited, before landing back at the airport.

 Here is a pic of Ann taking a pic of the couple from India, while standing next to the helicopter.

Then it was off to the Visitors Center in the park.  We were fortunate that this was a “free weekend” otherwise the cost is $25.00 per car to get in the park. 

 We found the Visitor Center, and then the bookstore where we met and visited a bit with a couple form the RVForum.net website, who are workamping at the bookstore for the winter.

 We did notice some really nice solar arrays around the park, and thought it would be nice to have setup like that on the motorhome! 

 Next we walked to several lookouts over the canyon and got more awesome pictures!  Some of the sidewalks were still covered with ice and snow from the last storm, and even though they were covered with crushed rock, and were not slippery at all, we observed one couple and their children walking very gingerly, and holding on to the handrail.  Evidently, they didn’t have much experience walking on ice and snow.  I say good for them! 

We then drove Hermit’s Road as far as you could go to Hermits Rest, where we turned around and headed back out of the park, and south toward Prescott. 

On the way Ann got a couple of shots of the setting sun. 

It was dark when we got to Prescott, and we were hungry again, so we stopped at “The Palace” for dinner, a place with an interesting history, and where we had stopped when we were in Prescott last year.

They still have their Christmas decorations up, and lighted, so we couldn’t pass up a chance at a nice picture.

The rest of the ride was just a time consuming driving down the mountain.  The first twenty some miles out of Prescott are mostly 25 to 35 mph curves, then a pretty flat stretch, then more mountain driving before the terrain flattens out again a few miles south of Yarnell.

We arrived home about 9:30, and were pretty tired after such a long day seeing the miracle that is the Grand Canyon!

On Sunday morning we didn’t get up too early as we were still tired from our long day on Saturday with our trip to the Grand Canyon.  We got moving about 9:30.  I needed to empty the gray and black tanks, and fill up the fresh water tank, so we wouldn’t have to do that when we got to Quartzsite where the lines can be long.  While filling with fresh water, I noticed one of the rear tires looked low, and the tire gauge confirmed my suspicions as it only showed 50 lbs, when it should have been 90lbs.  so I got out my Sears compressor and brought it up to spec, but when putting the valve cap back on I noticed a slow leak in the valve.  Since there was an extender on the valve stem, I simply removed the extender; problem solved, for now, anyway.

The rest of the preparation went smoothly, and we were on the road about 10:00 or so.  Our route took us a couple miles north of the RV Park, then south west on State Highway 71, to US Highway 60, then on south west to Interstate 10, which takes us to Quartzsite.

When we arrived in Quartzsite, we needed to fill up with gas before going out to the desert.  Even though the official RV Show doest start till the twenty second, the town was still pretty busy, and it took up about a half an hour to get filled up with gas.  Then it was out to the desert to find the rally location.  The Ranger station was closed, so we didn’t pay, but went right to the rally site.  When we arrived another couple had just parked and was getting set up.  The guy asked if this was the RVForum Rally site, and when we confirmed, he seemed relieved, as he had said that he had been driving around the area for quite some time, before deciding this must be the place.  This place is not necessarily easy to find the first time, as the roads are not clearly marked, and they do not run straight, and do not follow the cardinal points of a compass. 

Shortly after we got set up, another motorhome rolled in and parked beside us. They are a couple from California, and like the other couple who had just arrived before us, who are from Canada, it was their first time here.  It was a beautiful afternoon, with the high of about 76.  Absolutely gorgeous weather! Here is a pic of the thermometer in the motorhome.  We had the door and windows at the time. J

After relaxing for a couple of hours, the other two couples asked us if we wanted to go into town for dinner.  Sounded good to us!  Because neither of them had been here before, they wanted us to pick a place and lead the way.  We decided Silly Al’s Pizza was a good choice, so off we went.  The place wasn’t too crowded when we arrived, but filled up quickly while we were there.  The food was great, and making new friends is always fun.  Before we left we the the server to take our picture.  To the left of me is Marilyn who is married to Dave who is next to Ann.  The other couple in the back is Bob and Laura.

I will posts a few pics for this blog later, when my internet connection is faster.

 By time we finished eating, and got back to the rig, it was time for bed.  Another great day on the road!

Paul