Blog

Home – Trip Wrap Up – Thursday November 17, 2016

Today is the last day of our fall trip.
First we had to move to a site by the road to dump the holding tanks.
Then we were on the road.
The pass was a little if’y so we drove around.
This pictures shows how the InReach track looks better once I upload the data inside the unit.

This is our track for the fall trip.

78 Nights – we will be at the big house 80 to 90 nights before heading to Mariner’s Spring training in February.

679.9 gallons of gas
Price range $1.90 to $2.59
$1.90 Albuquerque, Texas/NM border, Tucson
$2.59 Enumclaw
4811 miles on motor home
1300 on the car
Averaged $14.73 a night (not counting the balloon festival)

Had a great trip and looking forward to our spring trips to Goodyear for spring training and a month in Montana/Wyoming fly fishing.

 

Buckskin Mountain SP, AZ – Tuesday November 17, 2015

Visited Lake Havasu with the primary goal to visit The London Bridge.
We made it to town in time for the Walking London Bridge tour.  It was 90 walking tour around the bridge with a lot of interesting stories.
The bridge was purchased for 2.4 million.  Only the outside skin of this bridge is actually  from the London Bridge.
Here is a picture of the outer shell to show the thickness.  All the stones were numbered and shipped.
They left some of the numbers.
Part of the drawing to track the stones.
What looks like stone under the bridge is actually concrete colored to match the original stone on the sides.
The goal was to give the town a tourist draw and help raise property prices in hopes the town would continue to grow.  The bridge was purchased for 2.4 million and the granite which was not sent to Lake Havasu was sold in Europe for 2.4 million to people who wanted a piece of the bridge.
This is the original color of the bridge after several hundred years of London’s pollution, the bridge was cleaned and sun bleached.
We stopped at Parker Dam, this is the sun lighting up the power transmission lines,

Buckskin Mountain SP, AZ – Monday November 16, 2015

We have started our first leg home, this stop will last until Friday.  We are going to venture out to Lake Havasu and look around the area.
We are site 60.

Here are the campsite pictures.

These pictures are from the site looking out both ways toward the Colorado River.
These are cabanas on the river which can be reserved.
I’m guessing this is Buckskin Mountain.  There is an American flag flying from the top.
This is our travels for today.
This shows where we are between Parker and the Parker Dam and the large open area of Lake Havasu.
Here is the camp ground area.
Good bye sandal feet, the temps are dropping and it is snowing at home.  You get to come out again at Mariner’s Spring Training, you’ll get a new tan.

Lost Dutchman SP – Sunday November 15, 2015

We have been at this park for two weeks and tomorrow morning we will moving down the road heading towards home.   Our GPS says we are 1583 miles from Enumclaw.
Our next stop is Buckskin Mountain SP, AZ 10 miles south of Parker, AZ.
The current plan is to be at Buckskin Mountain until Friday when we will start driving everyday on the trip home.
We want to leave enough time in case we get hung up getting through the Siskiyous. 

Lost Dutchman SP – Sunday November 8, 2015

We have had this motorhome since November 2004 and it wasn’t until we retired that we started pulling a car.  One of the irritating challenges of hooking up the car’s tow bar is getting the correct distance from the hitch on the motorhome.
From the driver’s seat I can not see where the tow bars hook onto the car.
The hitch on the motorhome has sliding arms which give me about six inches of margin.  Just before we left home this fall I made this stand and put a piece of doweling in it which I can see from the driver’s seat.
Since I took this picture I have added a string to measure the distance between the dowel and the hitch locking ring so I have the correct distance every time.   This system has made hooking up the car a lot easier.
I added these pieces of parachute line to the safety lock rings last year.   We were at Fort Flagler and I moved the motorhome about a 100 yards before I hooked up the car.   When I got the car in place one of these safety rings was missing.  Somewhere along that 100 yard road it fell off and bounced into the grass where I could not find it.  Live and learn.

Lost Dutchman SP – Olive Oil – Friday November 6, 2015

We went to an olive grove today; Queen Creek Olive Mill.
It was interesting and we purchase some tasty olive oils.  They have a “Bacon” flavored olive oil.
The grove is currently 7000 trees and 16 different types of olives.
The olives are mixed to produce the flavor they are looking for:
washed
moved up to the grinder

than the centrifuge, which is the round stainless steel head in the middle of the machine.  The oil comes out the bottom spout just above the “H” in Harry.   This is their small machine, they also have one which will do 2.5 tons an hour.

It was a nice day.

 

Lost Dutchman SP – Peoria – Thursday November 5, 2015

We drove over to Peoria looking for a RV park for March 2016 and spring training.   Since we don’t know anyone who has taken their RV to Spring Training it has been a challenge to find a park.  One of my goals in coming to Phoenix was to find a place for Spring Training.  The Peoria visitor’s center was not all that much help.   Their did have a list of more parks then I could find online however it was just a list of names, addresses, and phone numbers, nothing about any of the parks.

The park we have reservations for is in Goodyear 25 miles from the ball park.  They have 438 sites and as of this morning had 12 open sites in March.  I guess this is why it is hard to find any information about  the parks.  They are all sold out every year so there is no point on spending any time or money letting people know you exist.

We are set and I’ll get game tickets when they go on sale in November.   Retirement is good.