Desert Hot Springs, CA

Ya haven't heard from me as we've been pretty laid back. LOTS of R&R with some local trips for food and supplies. Judy has been hitting the pool (water aerobics) and hot tubes often and Wednesday we played water volleyball in the pool with about 30 others from 5 to 7pm and enjoyed it so much we're going again tonight. They play several times a week. Judy took PO-KE-NO lessons and lost most all her pennies yesterday while I cleaned bugs off the front of the truck and trailer, vacuumed and a few other items.

One thing we did was join Western Horizons membership parks. After determining we have averaged $19 a night for CG's the last year and examining their programs we believe we will be saving money in 2 years as we need a site every night full timing. We won't be staying in their parks every night but will whenever we can. With a wandering philosophy we can easily use them as a target and with diesel over $4 here in CA we'll be staying put at least a week or two. We'll be leaving here next Wednesday after deciding to stay a little longer at $0 per night.

Desert Hot Springs, CA

St Patrick's Day we didn't do much, in the morning we drove into town to check it out and there are hundreds of windmills (windmill machine farms as they are called) in the pass through the mountains. LA is about 100 miles west and LOTS of their smog comes through with the winds. We went to the CG dinning room and had a real good corned beef, cabbage, taters, and carrot supper. Today we left about 9am and drive through Joshua Tree National Park. You can check out the pictures, click on them to enlarge, and if you look real close can spot some rock climbers. At one location we counted 11. On one picture you can see a long vertical crack with a climber going up. In another you can see the silhouette of two climbers on the top. We also stopped for a picnic in the park. After a 120+ mile drive to and through the park we exited within 5 miles of the General George Patton Museum at Chiriaco Summit. We spent two hours checking it out. The General open a huge desert training camp there in 1942 to prepare his troops for the WWII African campaign. The camp was in S. CA, AZ & NV and was huge. It was closed before the end of the war.

Desert Hot Springs, CA

We wanted to stay another day or two in Quartzsite and explore but the A/C voltage was too high (above 132 volts) causing our trailer's Electrical Management System to power us down to protect the electronics from excessive voltage. We topped off the main tank (diesel was $3.80), stopped to say hi to Hi Jolly, had breakfast at Micky D's, hooked up and left at 10am. We crossed the Colorado River in to CA and are at a Western Horizon Resort for four nights free. We get the sales pitch Wednesday. In checking the weather we see snow on a pass we have to go through so we decided to let it warm up first. We are now in the land of big mountains with snow reaching above the clouds. No hurry to go up there yet, we are retired! When we leave Thursday the Ford will get the first big mountain test. Who's Hi Jolly? If you click on the pics to enlarge them, the brown marker will tell you all about the camel jockey. Right now he's in a typical AZ desert cemetery. Judy is off to the mineral water hot tubs for a soak.

Quartzsite, AZ

We finally escaped from Casa Grande! On the road at 9:30 planning to spend the night by Joshua Tree National Park in CA. Didn't make it. We had a hint when we passed the FedEx truck laying on it's side but when a pickup bed liner blew across I10 we figured that was a BIG hint. I knew the truck would miss it but thought it hit the back of the trailer. The vehicles behind me were all over the road taking evasive action. We stopped in Quartzsite AZ a few miles further down the road. I checked the trailer but saw no damage or scuff marks, good news. In the pics Judy shows how much she likes palm trees by giving one at our site a hug. You can see in the other pic that real estate here in AZ is also depressed.

Casa Grande AZ

OK, the pictures will tell you what we did this morning. Judy's first crown. Also did a few errands getting ready to depart Saturday. Good bye ground squirrels and Arizona sunsets.

Casa Grande AZ

Milwaukee Brewers 4, San Francisco Giants 8. Today we drove up to Todd's home and checked it out. He's got a real nice home with lots of palm trees and cactus, enough grass to make his two dogs happy, and a nice pool to keep cool in. Thanks for the tour and lunch Todd! In the afternoon the three of us went to the Brewers and Giants game. Beautiful day in the low 80s with lots of sunshine. We enjoyed the game with 4100 other baseball fans.

Casa Grande AZ

We spent 10 hours in the truck today traveling the 140 mile Apache Trail, 22 miles were dirt roads. The trail is in the Superstition mountains, a very rugged and isolated country. Our cell phones didn't even work! Many places the road was very narrow allowing one vehicle to pass at a time so you had to coordinate with oncoming traffic, fortunately it was wasn't heavy. The dirt road started at Tortilla Flats, population 6, where we had lunch. The road was built to carry construction materials for the Roosevelt Dam many decades ago. At one scenic overview, Fish Creek Hill, we met Shirley & Frank Ecker from Ohio and had a very nice chat with them.

We also stooped at the Tonto National Monument, a 600 year old Indian cliff dwelling. I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story!