A Week at Sunscape RV Resort Casa Grande, AZ

Here is our home while at Sunscape RV Resort.  This is the biggest RV park we have stayed at.  There are over 500 spaces here.

However, one thing we did notice that there seems to be a lot of signs like this all over the park.

Perhaps the reason is that recently the park became a 55+ park, that is at least one half of a couple must be 55 to stay there.  They even want to put your birth date on your application, and sign it, so if a couple owned a lot here, and both were under 50, I would guess they would have to sell.

When we arrive at a park, or where ever we stay, one of the first things we do is check out the Verizon signal, and this park, like the one we left in Apache Junction, had a very poor Verizon signal, however, this park has it's own wifi, and it was very good, so Ann signed us up for a week at a cost of $15.00.  Money well spent for a strong internet connection.

The first  project Monday morning was to get a new end for the water hose.  A search for "hardware stores" on my cell phone located an Ace Hardware in Coolidge, AZ.

It was about a 15 minute drive up to Coolidge, and find the store was no problem, Gotta love the style of architecture in this part of the country.

Although I wanted a metal connector, all they had in the size I wanted was plastic.  I guess it will have to do.  Here is the finished product.  No more leaks!

After getting the water hose fixed, my next project was to set up the Directv dish.  Over the summer we had upgraded our receiver to a dvr, and it will not work with our crank up dish on the roof of the rv, so I made a base for the Slimline-5 dish that we use while we are staying at Cutty's Campground near Des Moines, IA.  I had used this setup once this summer while weekend camping with friends, and it worked fine, but try as a might, I was not able to get my dish aimed properly.  Hopefully, at our next stop, I will get it to work.

While trying to get the dish aimed, a neighbor came over to chat.  One topic we discussed was the nearby airport, and the sky diving that goes on there.  On nice days there is almost a constant drone of airplanes as they take the sky divers up to about 11,000 feet so they can jump.  I had heard of this world renowned sky diving airport, and it made the news recently when two sky divers died after colliding during a dive.

While chatting with the neighbor, the Welcome Wagon lady for the park stopped by to welcome us to the park, and give us a nice cookbook put together by park members, and a packet of information about local attractions.  This is a very friendly park!

After Ann finished her work for the day, we headed into Casa Grande for some grocery shopping.  We just drove west on Hwy 287 until we saw a Fry's grocery store.  They are great stores, and we have shopped at their stores many times when in this part of the country.



After returning to the RV, we put the groceries away, then watched some TV.  With the limited number of channels we can get over the air here, and no Directv, we dont watch as much tv as we used to, so we called it a night.

On Tuesday we decided to have our mail sent here, so I went to the office to see what it would take, and to verify the address of the park.  They have a setup quite similar to a post office, and required a $10.00 deposit for a key.  Hopefully, it will be here in a couple of days.

Today was the nicest day we have seen so far.  Expected high of 78!  First time wearing shorts, and looking forward to many more warm days.  I worked on trying to get the Directv dish setup again today, with the same amount of success, and since we cant get NBC over the air, we wont be able to watch the finals of  The Voice", so after Ann made a delicious dinner of chicken parmesian and green salad, we ended up finishing the evening by watching "Baby the Rain Must Fall" on one of the few channels we get here.

 Wednesday was a pretty slow day.  Ann and I went for a walk around the park, and noticed even more lots for sale than we had noticed before.  This is a nice place, but I dont think I could live in a place like this,  the lots are too small, and it seems so crowded.

Later in the afternoon, one of the residents stopped by to say hi and to tell us he is from Linden, IA, a small town only a few miles from where our house is, and of course, we knew several people that he knew.  Truly, a small world!  That fact was again proven Wednesday night when we went to play darts in the Activity Center.  There were 8 other dart players, and one of the couples was from Newell, IA, another small Iowa town about 80 miles from our house, and about 25 miles from the town in Iowa, that I grew up in, so again, we knew several of the same people.

The dart games lasted longer that we thought they might, mostly because none of us are very good dart players, and it was after 9:00 when we finished.  As Ann operates on Iowa time, it was time to call it a night.

Thursday was even slower that Wednesday.  It was a windy day, and you could tell the weather was changing.  During the day I went to the mailbox to see if our mail was here, as it usually takes only two days for our mail to get here from Iowa by Priority Mail, and I was surprised it wasnt there.  Just so it is here by Saturday, so we can have it before we leave on Sunday.

In the afternoon, I took back the recycling we had accumulated.  As was the case in Apache Junction, they  recycle cardboard and paper products,  However, here in the park, they have a place to recycle aluminum cans as well.

Friday brought us thunder showers in the morning, and over cast and cool the rest of the day.  Of course, "cool" being a relative term, compared to the temps in Iowa.

We decided to head into Casa Grande for lunch, and on our way out of the park, we checked our mail, and again, no mail.  Once in Casa Grande, we found a Cracker Barrel on the east side of town, and had a delicious lunch with plenty of left overs. On the way out, I saw this mirror, and decided it was worth a pic.

One of things we want to do this winter, is to replace our kitchen chairs, as our current ones are worn out.  We had seen an Ashley's Furniture Store while at Fry's grocery, so we went over there to see what they had.  They did have a style of chair we liked, but not in stock, and as we will be leaving Sunday, they wouldnt have time to get them before we left, however, we did buy a new area rug, so it wasnt a total shopping failure.

On returning to the park, we again checked the mail, and again no mail. This could get serious, if we dont get the mail while here, and have to drive back up here from Tucson!

For dinner, we had left overs, and finished the evening by watching an old Western movie starring Glen Ford, Barbara Stanwyck, and Edgar G. Robinson.

On Saturday, the first thing I did was to check on our mail  by having the tracking number checked.  It showed our mail had been delivered the day before.  Evidently, those that sort the mail here in the park had a very long day, at is must have been pretty late in the afternoon when they got it all sorted.  I went up and got the mail, and then there is the process of separating the good stuff from the rest.  We received some very nice Christmas cards, and of course the usual bills.

About noon I decided I had better go into town to the post office and mail some cards that I wanted delivered before Christmas.  Sometimes the days go too fast, so I ended up mailing then Priority Mail.  They should be delivered by the 24th.  They have a beautiful new post office in Casa Grande, and the employees were very courteous and helpful.

On the way back to the RV, I took some pics of a cotton ginning operation.  Not a very nice building, but evidently still did the job.

And here is the ginned cotton.  Not sure why there are three different piles.

I also took some pics of where you turn off the hiway to the RV park.

Here is where you stop and park when you check in.

Once I got back home, Ann did laundry in preparation for tomorrows departure.  The park in Tucson does not have laundry facilities.

For our last evening at Sunscape we planned on going to the Community Center for karaoke, but upon entering the Center, we realized this was not our kind of karaoke.  There were about a dozen people singing Christmas carols along with the karaoke DJ.  We only stayed a few minutes, and then headed to Casa Grande to find some real karaoke.  A couple of places that advertised karaoke on Saturday nights were not.

So it was back to the RV for another quiet evening.

Once back to the RV, I decided to try and find out why we couldnt receive very many tv stations.  In  my search I came across a website called TV Fool .  A very interesting website as it showed mountains between the broadcast tower of the NBC station in Phoenix and our location.

Another day of snowbirding, and we will be on the road again on Sunday heading toward Tucson.

Sunday morning was mostly preparing to head out.  Check out time is 11:00, but check in time at Catalina State Park was not until 2:00, so we were in no hurry to get going, as we knew we would have time to kill.  A little after 10:00 I pulled the motorhome out in the street to load the car on the dolly.  We use a safety chain with a padlock on it, in addition to the straps that go over the wheels to hold the car on the dolly.  I unlocked the padlock on the safety chain and placed them in the tool compartment in the RV before I pulled out on the street, however, when I got the chain and padlock out of the compartment to attach to the car, part of the padlock was no where to be found.  After several minutes of looking, we gave up and went to plan B.  We pulled out of the park about 10:45 after turning in our post office key, and getting out $10.00 deposit.  Just a reminder as we were leaving.

Our route took us mostly south to the town of Eloy, and across Interstate to the Flying J.

After filling up with gas, we parked the motorhome, and at the the Denny's.  The food was average; the eggs were undercooked, and the hashbrowns were overcooked.

While resting after lunch in the motorhome, as we were well ahead of schedule, the driver of this nice looking Rose Air by Rexall asked us if we would move ahead a few feet so he could get by.  Ann pulled the motorhome ahead out of his way.  The first time she had driven the motorhome with the car behind.

Shortly after that we got back on the road, heading toward Tucson.  Here is our route.

We arrived shortly before 2:00, checked in and got set up.  Here is where we will be for the next couple of weeks.

We were welcomed by a member of the  RV Forum who had arrived a few minutes earlier.  Looks like there will be about 20 of us RV Forum members here for New Years Eve.

I missed the sun going down, but I did get some pics of the mountains to the East with the sun still shining on them.

This is one of the most beautiful parks we have ever stayed at! 

One more thing that needed to be done was to get the Christmas tree out.  This is a small tree that I have had since 1986.  When I got it out of the storage compartment, I noticed one of the legs on the base was broken, fortunately, we had some epoxy with us, and repaired the leg.  Hopefully, it will hold.  I will take a pic of it when we get it set up, and the lights on.

After a dinner of left overs, we watched some TV, and I started working on this blog update.  It has taken me way longer that I expected, but I hope it enjoyable for those that read it.

Until next time,

Paul