Thanksgiving & Beyond

Last Summer, I was pretty lazy about blogging, but I plan to do much better this winter.  My last post was only six days ago and we were getting ready for Thanksgiving.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, we hope you all had as great a Thanksgiving as we did. On Thanksgiving Day, we had a very nice dinner here in the park’s main activity hall. There were seven tables set up with 12 people signed up per table.

Each table was treated as a separate dinner/meal, and each person at the table brought an item to share. Of course we had to have a taste of everything that was brought at our table, and even though we thought we were just taking a small amount, we were stuffed.  The picture below is just a small amount of what was brought for our table.

The photo below is my dinner.  Notice that gorgeous bottle of red wine!  That's from my brother-in-law's vineyard "Terra Nativa" in Boise, Idaho.  Oh so good!!!

We ate at 1 pm and thankfully had the rest of the afternoon to wear it off. We missed being with our kids, but were very happy to have had a quality phone call with each of them before we headed off to eat. We couldn't have asked for a better day!  It was sunny and topped off at 81 degrees.

On Friday, we took the Wrangler out Jeeping with the same group we were out with last week. This time, we drove close to an old mine called "The Golden Bell," but the road ended before we got there. We did get within .17 mile of it and could see the mine tailings, but since the road was blocked and washed out, we couldn’t get closer.  You can see some of the mine tailings in the photo below.  Ken took this picture with his iPhone and I zoomed in on it, so the quality is not the best.

These next two photos show some of us heading back out to the main road.

What was I saying in my last post about Arizona having no rain?  Well Arizona is still way behind in its annual rainfall, but some parts of the state got rain this weekend (they had snow in Flagstaff). Queen Valley got a bunch of rain on Sunday, and we even had thunder and lightning. Ken & I were south of Queen Valley picking up some Cholla stalks earlier in the day and noticed some heavy clouds over the mountains. It was nice and sunny where we were at, so really didn’t pay much attention to it.  See, it looks like some rain, but nothing to really worry about....

After getting the Cholla stalks, we decided to drive back into Apache Junction to put fuel in the Wrangler and give it a good wash. Big mistake!  We really should have know better.....everytime we wash one of the Jeeps, it rains.  Sunday was no different!!  On our way back to Queen Valley, this is what we saw.  Those previous dull gray clouds had turned much darker!!  See the darkest part?  That is where we were heading (yikes).

As we got closer we started feeling the wind (lots of it) then we saw the lightning and heard the thunder. By the time we were at the coach, it was raining hard.  It was very dark out, but it was only 2 pm.  Thankfully, the heaviest wind and rain didn’t last long.  But it did drizzle on for a while.

At 4:15 we headed out to dinner with friends and drove 18 miles east to the town of Superior for pizza.  When we got back home. the only sign of the rain was a few puddles in the road.

Arizona Fun

The last couple weeks have been marvelous! Record low temperatures before we got here, then record highs after we arrived. Finally, around the 12th, our temperatures actually dropped into the high 80s, then leveled off to the high 70s. Our evenings are cool (mid 40s), but sooooo very nice. We did have one day and night of some rain (if you can call it that). The rain we got was just enough to get the coach and car dirty (spotty). Sadly, none of the storms hitting the Pacific Northwest have brought the badly needed water that Arizona needs. So the drought continues with no end in sight.

Shortly after we arrived, we had an off road geocaching function, so took the Wrangler out for some fun and a little caching. During that outing, Ken noticed some wires (one continually hot) hanging loose under the dash. Also, the compressor, lockers, and air shocks weren’t working. Last year, we knew there was a problem with one of our rear lights and blinkers, so after Ken decided he couldn’t fix it, he took the Jeep to the shop. It took four days and lots of bucks, but they got it fixed and now it’s supposedly right. Seems they had to rewire the whole thing because the diodes were literally crumbling and very close to an electrical fire. The wiring was done completely wrong when all the extras were added ages ago and things were getting very hot. The guys at the shop were amazed we didn’t have a fire, but we never had the Wrangler out long enough to overheat the wires. Ken now has the wiring diagram in case something should ever go wrong again (hope that never happens).

Tuesday, Nov 17, Ken & I picked our friend Connie up in Gold Canyon and drove two hours west to Buckeye for some intensive geocaching. There is a road there called “Sun Valley Parkway” which is loaded with many caches. We call it a “Power Trail” because a cache is located every half mile. We hit the trail at 7:30 am and finished at 4 pm and had a total find of 111 caches. In all that time, we only had three no finds. We even took time for lunch. It was an incredible time, but we all were very tired and sore. After the long drive back to Apache Junction, we stopped and had some marvelous ice cream. Connie figured we were in and out of the Jeep (Grand Cherokee) 115 times. Wow, no wonder we all were sore.

I guess we hadn’t been punished enough physically because on Thursday the 19th, Ken & I took the Wrangler off road and found another 23 geocaches. Also, found some new roads we didn’t know existed. Fun day!!

Another opportunity we had to play with the Wrangler was on the 20th when we went out with “The Axle Twisters” to see the Coke Ovens.

I found this blurb regarding the ovens on the Internet:
     "The ovens were used to reduce mesquite wood to coke, a hotter burning fuel, for use in smelting gold and silver ore taken from surrounding mines. The beehive-shaped stone coke ovens are each about 25 feet in diameter and 30 feet in height. Each has a ground level entry and a few upper level vents. The mesquite wood, burned slowly in the ovens for days, yielded the coke. The new fuel was then transported directly across the Gila River to the community of Cochran (now a ghost town) and the smelters."

There are several ways to the ovens and all are difficult, but do-able. The easiest (or so we thought) was by crossing the Gila River near the extinct town of Cochran. Since AZ is having a drought, the Gila River is running very low and we figured that was our best chance of getting there. We took off around 9 am and got to the ovens after 2.  Of course, we stopped for lunch on a gravel bar in the middle of the Gila River (LOL).  You can see the road we crossed from on the right side of this picture.

We had a few obstacles along the way, but mostly the drive was easy and lots of fun!
Our first obstacle was having to cross some rail road tracks. The high clearance Jeeps had no problems, but a small Tracker needed a bit of help.  This is some of the guys adding extra rail road ties to the tracks.

A big obstacle was on way back out having to crawl back up and through a washed out area.  The first is where Norm took went too high and had two tires just spinning.  The guys pushed him back out and he took a lower path and easily made it through.

This is Ken coming through!

Here are two others coming through.

After we all got back to town safe and sound, we stopped at a favorite Mexican restaurant for some great food. A fun time was had by all.

I must say the Wrangler performed great and we never had any trouble at all. We are so looking forward to our next trip out with this group Friday after Thanksgiving.

Here's wishing you all a very HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Arizona

We are now in Queen Valley Arizona!  We got here on Monday, November 2 around 2 pm.

Happily, our trip began on Friday, October 30th.  Up until the time we left, we weren't too sure which way we were going to travel because a few days earlier, all the passes were covered in snow.  I was keeping up with the weather reports and watching the road cams on the passes, so felt comfortable about going when we did, but I just wasn't sure of our exact route.

We left the house in Salem at 9:15 am and stopped in Coburg to top off our fuel. We took on 41 gallons at $2.68 a gallon. The morning was cloudy, but thankfully, no rain.  I again checked the road cam on highway 58 (Willamette Pass) from my iPhone and saw the bare pavement with no new snow.  Hooray, that meant we could cross there and not have to go all the way down I-5 through California.  We continued to have clouds all the way to the summit, but once we crossed the pass we had sun and 52 degrees. There were some more clouds north of Klamath Falls, but the temps were warming up and when the clouds finally gave way it was wonderful.  Later in the day, it got up to 67 degrees.

Our goal for the first night's stop was to get across the California border and down highway 395 to a neat little place called "Likely" before the sun went down.  When and if we get to go this way, we like to stop at the fire department's large gravel lot and spend the night.  Likely, CA is a very small town located south of Altures and only has a couple stores, cafe, bar, and of course the "volunteer" fire department.  It's a nice quiet spot to stay and not have to deal with a lot of semi truck noise.  Ken was very happy to get to Likely at a decent hour and have a bit of a rest before dinner.

Saturday, we were up early and on the road by 7:30. It was 38 degrees when we got up, but it got much colder as we drove down the mountain to lower elevations and into fog. The lowest temp we saw was 27 degrees (brrrr).  As we were making our way through the fog, we came up on a herd of deer that were quickly getting off the highway and watching us go by.  No, we weren’t going that fast!!  We even had a truck towing a trailer in front of us, so we were never in danger of hitting any of them. There were quite a few Doe in the herd and only 2 bucks. Thankfully, the fog was gone by the time we got to Standish (near Susanville) and the rest of our drive to Reno (and beyond) was nice and sunny. In Reno we took I-80 east for several miles and stopped at a Love’s station near Fernley to fuel up. We took on 37 gallons at $2.86 a gallon.  At exit 48 we took hwy 50 through Fallon and hwy 95 south to Tonapah where we stayed the night at Miller’s Rest Area.

We love that rest area because semi trucks are not allowed and a lot of RVers like to spend the night there.  It was sunny and 65 degrees when we got there at 3 pm.  Ken was tickled to get the windshield washed and still have time to sit in the sun and enjoy a snack and drink before dinner.  I wish I had taken a picture of that, but just didn't think of it.

The next morning (Sun, Nov 1) when we got up, it was a 28 degrees.  As we grabbed a bite for breakfast, we let the engine idle to warm it and us up.  Even though we were still in the Pacific Time Zone, we didn’t set our clocks back, but stayed on Arizona time.  We took off at 8 am and drove through Las Vegas to Laughlin, Nevada.  We still had lots of fuel but decided to stop in Searchlight to add a few gallons to insure our making it to Phoenix without running out.  We have a 130 gallon tank, but they say only 80 percent is useable, so we didn't want to get too low.  Fuel cost in Nevada was $2.81, but we knew Phoenix was much cheaper, so we just put on 25 gallons. The drive from Tonapah to the AVI RV Resort and Casino just south of Laughlin was short and we were checked in and parked by 2 pm.  It was 85 degrees there....sooooo nice!!

While in Laughlin, we unhooked the Jeep and drove over to Bull Head City for dinner and stopped at a store to buy some dry ice.  While in Salem, we bought a small freezer to take to Queen Valley and place in our shed there.  We were carrying it in the coach.  Ken also had a cooler of frozen meat in the Jeep and was keeping it frozen with dry ice.  To make sure we made it all the way to Queen Valley with it still frozen, he needed more dry ice just to be safe.  Once we were back at the coach, we re-hooked up the Jeep and had it ready for towing the next morning.

Monday, Nov. 2, we left AVI at 8 am.  We drove south through Needles, CA and took hwy 95 to Vidal Junction, then crossed into Parker, Arizona at 9:30 am. From Parker, we took hwy 72 to Vicksburg and on to I-10.  By this time the temperature was quickly rising to 73 degrees.  At 10:30 am we stopped at the Flying J Truck Stop in Phoenix and took on 81 gallons of fuel at $2.69 a gallon (actually $2.79).  In Arizona, RVs get a 10 cent break on fuel cost, which is very nice.

After leaving Flying J, we drove to Apache Junction and filled up our propane tank, then headed on to Queen Valley.  I was watching the temperature rise all along and when we got to QV, it was 84 degrees ending at a high of 89 for the day.

We got to QV at 2 pm and were set up shortly after. There was a lot of stuff to do to be completely settled, but we had enough done by evening to be comfortable.  Yes, we got the little freezer set up and now we have more capacity to keep frozen food on hand.  Our trip miles from Salem to Queen Valley was just over 1,300 miles.

We've now been in QV for 4 days and have the little Jeep (Wrangler) out of the big shed (yes, we have two sheds) and even taken it out geocaching.  Ken has trimmed our tree next to the small shed and coach, so our site looks much better. I still can’t get the satellite working, so will be contacting a tech next week to see what is wrong. The TV does get nice digital HD reception, so the satellite isn’t that big of a deal.  I should just turn it off and upgrade to a new system, but need to find out what that will cost before doing so.

Tonight, we are going out for dinner with close friends in the park and celebrate each of our anniversaries.  Theirs was the 5th and ours is the 8th.  There is a whole bunch activities in store for this season, so hope to have a lot more to talk about soon.

You can also keep up with a lot of my daily ramblings by following me on Twitter; see the link to Cachinbird on the side of this page.  I am also on Face Book, so you can always send me a friend notice to view more of my pictures and daily doings.