Houston RV Storage

Apache Junction, AZ  High 86  Low 58

Does anyone out there know of any place where Danny and Shula could store their RV from November 2014 to June of 2015 in the Houston area?

Danny and Shula are from Israel and RV in the USA during the summer. Check out their blog at Danny and Shula.

Thank you. I appreciate any help you can give them.

We went with Aunt Happy to her doctor’s appointment yesterday and she is doing great. Her new pacemaker battery will last 6 to 9 years and I won’t be surprised if she lives that long. She doesn’t want to but she is so healthy.

Last Sunday she went to a concert over at Leisure World and had a great time. Sunday she got tired of waiting for someone to be with her in the bathroom while she takes her shower and just did it by herself. That means she has to climb in and out of the bathtub by herself. She is determined.

Went to lunch with Ginny and Mickey today at Golden Corral so I could enjoy the chocolate fountain. Only one small problem, my allergies are going crazy and I took two allergy pills this morning. Big mistake. For one thing anything with a decongestant in it really sets off my Restless Legs and I know better. But the other issue was I could hardly stay awake. Won’t do that again.

Jim and John (our 91 year old neighbor) are fishing this afternoon. Hopefully John will catch something.

Rock-n-Roll

Tempe, AZ  High 84  Low 56

We really needed to do something different today. Talk about being in a rut.

So we headed off to Tempe to the Fifth Annual Guitar Show.

I was surprised at the number of people who showed up as well as all the vendors.

There were some beautiful guitars – several hand made.

Jim has an acoustic guitar and is trying to relearn how to play. Most of these were electric guitars and if we had lots of money I would have found one to buy for him.

They had several bands playing rock and blues as well as a couple of food vendors. We shared a steak sandwich and fries from this place. 

There was a wonderful collection of “older” rockers as well as the younger set.

Some came dressed for a hot spring day.

Others enjoyed rockin’ to the blues.

Isn’t this a beautiful bass?

We did make one other purchase besides lunch. We bought a guitar hanger. If you look closely, you can see how these guitars are hung.

Saw this beautiful Model A as we were leaving. I think there was a classic car show somewhere in the area.

I also took a picture of this gorgeous tree that is in bloom.

Close up of the tree.

We had a great time and it was wonderful to get out and do something really different.

Skies

Apache Junction, AZ  High 85  Low 54

Wednesday night we had a blogger get together at Superstition Skies so we could listen to Brant and Kerry. Both Jim and Rod did wonderful write ups on our fun time so I’m going to refer you to their pages.

It was wonderful to see everybody again but the place was packed and so loud it was hard to carry on any kind of a conversation. I “borrowed” this picture from Jim’s blog.

Starting on the left: Rod, Phil, Max, Diana, Me and Jim.

Jimbo was taking the picture because the waitress was way too busy to take one for us. Some of these folks we won’t see again until next year. Have a great summer everyone.

In the back room they were having a birthday party. Look at this great present. The birthday girl has five long dogs living at her house. Love it.

Diana and Phil stopped by today to check out Jim’s backup camera. I think Diana is going to get one for her truck and Phil is going to install it for her.

That’s all from AJ.

Livin’ in the Sunshine

Apache Junction, AZ  High 83  Low 52

Not sure why, but I just haven’t been in the blogging mood lately. I was going to take some more pictures of the Bungalow but then I decided to wait until Jim gets all done with his remodeling. He is having so much fun fixing things he hasn’t even been fishing. But he is going today. Also, last week was Spring Break and the lake is no place to be when the college kids are out of school.

Before we left Casa Grande we went to dinner at the Creative Café with Jan and Bill. Toni and Doug had recommended the restaurant and we were looking for something different. I had a Philly Cheese Steak without the cheese and Jim had a gyro. We really liked our choices. But Jan and Bill both had the fish and chips and were very disappointed.

We stopped at an historic landmark on our way home from dinner. The Mormon Battalion camped here on their march from Tucson to Casa Grande. It took them 51 hours to cover the 67 miles without food or water.

The Mormon Battalion was the only religiously based unit in United States military history. The battalion served from July 1846 to July 1847 during the Mexican-American War. Their march of nearly 2,000 miles from Council Bluffs, Iowa to California is one of the longest military marches in history.

I also took a couple of pictures of Casa Grande RV Resort. We liked this park but it does have one big drawback. The sites are really close together. The people were extremely friendly including the staff. And it is definitely a pet friendly park. I’ve never seen so many dogs in an RV park. We paid $18 a night under the Passport America rate and we will stay there again.

Has one of the largest libraries I’ve ever seen. However, it’s not where you can bring in books and take books out. You have to sign out the books you want and then check them back in before you leave. That probably works well for a longer stay but not for a couple of night’s stay.

This was just one wall.

Pool tables.

They have a couple of swimming pools, a pickle ball court that was busy every night, a card room, and I don’t know what else.

Our park here in AJ had a going away party last Saturday. I just can’t believe the number of people heading out the end of this month. Had a great time with really good food – pork loin, scalloped potatoes, green beans, cabbage and strawberry shortcake.

Last night we went to a church friend’s house for an Empty Nester Family Home Evening. We have a lesson and then good treats for dessert.

We’ve also been to see Aunt Happen a couple of times. We are staying busy and enjoying the wonderful sunshine.

Our Bungalow

Casa Grande, AZ  High 80   Low 47

Jim and I have been talking about a change in how we travel for a couple of years now. Mickey and Ginny leave their fifth wheel in our park in AJ and have a 22 foot toy hauler that they pull during the summer months. I thought that was a great idea and Jim agreed. We have looked at many many travel trailers over the last couple of years and found a floor plan that we really liked.

This is Jim checking out the roof of an RV we looked at.

Well, last week we found a used trailer that was within our budget. The day we found it we had driven to northwestern Scottsdale to look at a trailer that was such a disaster I can’t believe they were asking more than $100 for it. We got home and I got on line. Found and interesting looking 23 foot trailer only to find out when we called about it that it was at a dealership in Tucson. It was 2:00 and Jim said, do you want to go look at it. I said yes and off we went. That was the day we drove over 350 miles.

We ended up buying the travel trailer while we were there. It had the major requirements we wanted – a walk around queen bed, a slide with a couch and a double axle.

Our new to us Bungalow is a 2008 Salem by Forest River. Dawn, I think our floor plans are very similar. Check out Dawn’s beautiful new rig over on her blog at Taking The Slow Road.

We picked up the rig yesterday. Safety is always a number one priority for us, and we invested in a Hensley Hitch. Travel trailers have a tendency to sway more than fifth wheels and the Hensley provides the most sway free ride of any hitch made. Jim had to install it himself (very few RV dealers are familiar with this type of hitch and Jim wanted to make sure it was done correctly.) He went to Tucson on Saturday and started the job of installing the hitch.

The rig was sitting under a blue canopy so the color is a little strange. I’ll get a better picture with the rig hooked up in the sunlight. When you see these pictures, remember that we have everything piled everywhere. Just like we had to adjust to living in a much smaller space when we moved from a house to the fifth wheel, we once again have to get used to living in a small space in the travel trailer.

Monday was an extremely long day for us. We were awake at 4:30 and headed for Tucson by 6:30. Saturday and Sunday we had been loading up the truck with all the things we bought last week. After getting the hitch installed (nothing ever turns out easy to do), finally having the walk through on the rig and getting the paperwork taken care of we got out of Tucson.

We decided to spend a couple of nights in Casa Grande for a shake down of our Bungalow. But before we could get to the RV park we had to pick up our new mattress. We bought the mattress in AJ and they trucked it down to their Casa Grande store for us. We wrestled the mattress into the rig and finally got to Casa Grande RV Resort about 5:00.

Jan snapped this picture of us. She also asked me if she could blog about us and I told her sure. I knew it was going to be awhile before I found the energy to get this blog put together. So check out her blog at Jan.

I called Jan and she and Bill came over to see our new Bungalow. They helped us haul everything in from the truck and Jan helped me put the bed together. Then they gave us a house warming gift.

Wow – how neat is that. And then to top it all off, they had dinner ready for us. We headed for their house which is only about 1/2 mile down the road and had the best chili and these fantastic biscuits.

Dinner was wonderful but we were both so tired we almost fell asleep with our faces in our food. We said our goodbyes and headed home. Thought we’d watch some TV but we were in bed and out cold before 9:00.

The girls’ are adjusting quite well.

So to sum up – we are not selling the fifth wheel. It will stay in Arizona all year and be our home when we are in AJ. The rest of the time we will be traveling in the Bungalow. Ginny named our rig the Bungalow and I love it. We’re hoping we might be taking more short trips around AZ in the winter time.

More to come but right now it’s definitely time for bed once again.

It’s not all THAT exciting

Apache Junction, AZ  High 69  Low 48

Honest. Well, it is for me because it’s something I’ve wanted for quite a while now.

The sun is shining and Jim is off to the races.

Quick Update

Apache Junction, AZ  High 68  Low 52  Rain

We have rain. Welcome, wonderful rain. But we also have wind and that’s not as welcome. We didn’t get near as much rain as they had predicted we would but we got about 1/2 inch.

The storm is moving out and the race out at PIR (Phoenix International Raceway) should be good to go. Jim and my brother-in-law, Don, are going to the race and we’ve had our fingers crossed that the weather would cooperate. Jim is making sure that all of the radios work and Skittlez is helping out.

Aunt Happy is home. We’re going to try and stop by and see her on Monday.

We have been busy and I’ll tell you all about it after March 10. I will give you a hint – we drove over 350 miles on Thursday.

That’s about it from here.

Sunset picture from a couple of nights ago.