Here we are, on the road: We’re in Peoria, AZ

Sunday March 10, 2013 Lorraine’s Report

Hello once more from Phoenix, AZ-Casa Del Sol RV Park. We moved on Wednesday from Casa Grande. AZ to here. I have to say that last resort was one Really Nice Park!! I think I would like to stay there a bit more, if the prices weren’t so high. It seems you must own your rig, but then you pay the park for all the amenities you find there; like the sewer, water, garbage, the site you park your rig on, all the different things that happen within the park, just about everything. They charge for everything; Barb wanted to go Country dancing and she would have to pay $6.00 an hour, $3.00 for half an hour per person. All the little things would add up, but they had lots of stuff going on. This past week they had a choral review that was sold out, but the people in the hot tub were already talking about it.

It was nice to be able to go swimming with Barb & Norma, and one day, the guys, Rob, Dennis and Chuck even joined us. The pool was pure heaven, so nice and warm. We did some shopping with Barb & Norma, we tried on different outfits and we all found some stuff,a good time was had by all.

So now were are here, and the park isn’t as nice as what we just left, but it is okay. We have 50 amp, water and sewer, so no worries.

Many thanks to Dave & Sandy for their great hospitality and showing us around yesterday. The park you are in is so nice. It was fun to come visit you and see different areas.

I was looking on line to see some of the different things to do in this area and it looks like there is lots to do. I guess that is it for me. See you down the road.

Lorraine

3/10/13 Chuck’s report

Yes, we are in the Phoenix area for the first time since we’ve been on the road. We were here for three weeks about 20 years ago, but I was in class all week and the weather was hot as it was the last two weeks in August and first week of September. Weather is certainly different this time around, don’t think we will be seeing 118F this month.

On Monday the gals went shopping for awhile and the guys all found stuff to do on or around our rigs. Still have maintenance and repairs just like in a stick and brick home. Maybe even more on some things as most homes don’t go down the road at 60 MPH and get shaken up on our highways and byways. After the gals got back, we all sort of chilled out for the rest of evening.

Tuesday was to be our last day in Casa Grande, Steve/Sandy were heading to their usual place in Phoenix and will be seeing their daughter and grandkids in the area. Rob/Norma and Dennis/Barb will be staying in Casa Grande for a couple more weeks before they head out. So Barb wanted everyone to have a pot luck at their rig on our last night. The invited some other friends of theirs, Drew/Mel and Morris/Jean who are staying in the same park. We all had a good time visiting and stayed until the sun went down and it started cooling off before we called it a night. Thanks for all who were there and for Barb to set this up.

Wednesday was moving day, Steve/Sandy were ready first so it was time for everyone to give their byes before they left. A short while later, it was our time and we also said our so longs to everyone. We re only about 70 miles away and may make a short trip back to see them before they leave the area but haven’t set that up yet.

We found our new campground, Casa Del Sol East, and got checked in. This is a gated community and we didn’t have the gate code so we had to call and wait until someone came up to open the gates for us. The three folks behind us had to wait too, not a good way to meet our neighbors for the first time. But soon we got checked in and sent to our site.

Most of the sites here have either park models or mobile homes on them, just a few open spaces for RVs spread out around the park. It’s a nice place but doesn’t compare with the place we were staying in Casa Grande but then few places would. There are over 400 sites here, two swimming pools, meeting rooms and activities centers. Some of the places are well established with desert landscaping while others appear to be newer.

After getting set up, we decided to tour the area a bit before dinner. We are located on a busy road, lots of stores and restaurants in the area. We have been wanting to go to a Chick-Fill-A, a fast food place, so we entered it in our GPS and headed out. Of course, the place has been closed and some other restaurant was there so we ended up stopping at Applebee's, an old standby that also has good food.

Wednesday we got a call from our credit union informing us that the FBI had contacted them about our credit card. They were told that our credit card had been compromised, didn’t know how or what but they were cancelling it. I was worried about this call being a scam so I hung up and called them back and sure enough, it was true. The gal told us that ours was the only card they had received this info about and the first time she had received a call from the FBI. They will be sending us a replacement on Monday via Fed Ex.

We checked and there were two auto pay that needed to be changed, our other card has lots more so it would have been more of a hassle. This is the second time we’ve had trouble with our credit card and both times they cancelled it and sent a new one post haste. Lorraine checks our account daily and she hasn’t seen any suspicious charges so whatever it was didn’t cause any money problems. I still don’t have any idea why the FBI, maybe they found a big operation and our card number was one in their possession, who knows.

Thursday was hair day, Lorraine wanted to get her hair done and I needed a hair cut too. Afterwards, we did some shopping at Wal-Mart and a bit more touring of the area.

Friday we set out to check out Sun City, one of the large areas developed for snowbirds and retirees down here. Like I’ve said before, we like to check out each new area we are in to see if it’s some place we might want to settle when we get off the road and Sun City was on our list of places to check. We just drove around, checked out a couple of the neighborhoods and one RV/Mobile home park and will need to return later for further investigating, it has potential.

We had been having trouble with our GPS lately, the voice has been quitting and the only way I could get it back was to unplug it and let it run down completely then it would work for awhile. On Friday while we were in Sun City, it quit working again so we stopped by Costco and returned it and bought a new one. Only problem with that is we couldn’t transfer all the saved places we had on the old one to the new one. Oh well, guess we’ll have to save some new places now. I was able to upload all the points of interest from our computer, thanks for setting that up for us Mark.

Saturday we called Dave/Sandy who have been in Cave Creek County Park, about 20 miles from us, since the beginning of the month. They didn’t have plans for the day so we drove up to and spent the day with them. They met us outside the gate to the County Park where they are staying and we toured the park a bit before stopping at their rig for a visit.

We hung around their rig for awhile, long enough for me to loose a couple of games of dice. Then they gave us a driving tour of the area, including the towns of Cave Creek and Carefree. These are old “Cowboy” towns that now are tourist areas with lots of artsy fartsy shops. The drive took us through areas where there were lots of cactus, almost like going through the Saguaro National Parks we visited near Tucson.

We did stop at the city park in Carefree where they have a large sundial and a very nice cactus garden with cactus types I haven’t seen before. Lorraine took pictures so I’m sure I’ll be adding more pictures of cactus to this blog. If you click on the pictures, you can get a larger picture and maybe see these cacti better.

After our tour, we stopped back to get our car then went to dinner with Dave and Sandy before we returned to our rig. Thanks for a good day and we’ll do it again before we leave the area.

The weather had been really nice the first part of the week, shorts and sandals were the uniform of the day. Temperatures were in the mid to high 70s and the lows only into the 40s, really nice. However, the weather folks were saying we were in for a cold spell and they were right. Friday we had rain and a little bit of sleet, the skies would show a bit of blue then cloud up and start raining again. The temperature didn’t get above the high 40s so it was long pants and coat required for a couple of days. Saturday was more of the same but it didn’t rain as much.

Last night it cleared up and we got up this morning and were welcomed by clear, blue skies once again. The temperature did dip down to the 30s again last night but the forecast is for warmer days and nights. In fact, they are predicting it to get into the low 90s on Thursday. I’m looking forward to the warmer weather, it’s been much cooler than normal since we’ve been in Arizona and we came here for the warm weather. Bring it on.

Our future travel plans haven’t firmed up yet, we know we will be here for at least another week, maybe two. This place is an Encore Park which means we get a membership price for a month’s stay through our 1000 Trails membership. So we signed up for a month but might only stay three weeks, that’s what we need to work on.

After leaving here, we aren’t sure of our route back to the Bay area. We have a couple of options, both have good points so we’ll see. Oh the hard decisions we have to make, where to go and how long to stay, does anyone feel sorry for us?.

Ok, enough of that, I’ll go through and pick out some pictures to add here and get this posted.

Party at Dennis/Barb’s place our last night in Casa Grande.