When we set up at a new location, I try to avoid dropping the trailer if I can. Dropping the trailer adds extra steps to the process. I have to put the trailer into position, disconnect the trailer, stabilize it, then pull out and pull in again to park the coach. When we leave, I have to line the coach back up with the trailer and connect it again.

In Sunday’s post I mentioned that our site was nominally 50′ in length, but we managed to get our 56′ overall length in without dropping the trailer. You might wonder how we did that.

We parked our rig diagonally in the site parking area. The right front of the coach is on the right side of the parking space. The left front of the coach is near the edge of the roadway.

Front of coach hugs the right side of the site

The left rear of the trailer is all the way to the left of the parking area. This opens space for our grill and a sitting area.

Trailer is positioned on the left rear of the site

The rear of the trailer extends past the parking space. That’s how we shoehorned a 56′ rig into a 50′ long parking space.

Rear of trailer overhangs the end of the site parking space

Yesterday, Donna worked on editing the latest iteration of her book. This should be the final edit and then she’ll review the page layout. While she was working, I took Mike Hall’s Jeep out for a tour of the area. McDowell Mountain Regional Park is quite large.

Our site, at 2,060 feet above sea level, is at the high point of the developed areas of the park. All roads from here descend into arroyos or valleys.

I drove out to the end of the main road and back. There’s a lot of wide open space here. Desert and mountains are all you can see to the north and east. On the west are more mountains. To the south we can see the town of Fountain Hills.

Wide open vista to the north east

Later I drove into town. The town of Fountain Hills is located east of Scottsdale. It’s bordered by the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation and the Salt River Pima – Maricopa Indian Community.

Fountain Hills was conceived by Robert McCulloch. In 1970, he built a pond with a large fountain, a year before he famously reconstructed the London Bridge in Lake Havasu City. The fountain sprays from a large, concrete water lily sculpture in the pond. The water is driven by three 600-horsepower turbine pumps. The water is pumped at a rate of up to 7,000 gallons per minute.

The plume of water can reach a height of 560 feet under ideal conditions. When it was built, it was the highest fountain in the world. Today, it ranks fourth highest. The city operates the fountain at the top of the hour, from 9am to 9pm for about 15 minutes. Most of the time, only two of the three turbines are utilized and the spray reaches a height of about 330 feet.

The center piece of Fountain Hills

When it was built, many people wondered why McCulloch would build a pond and fountain out in the desert. He purchased the land, which was previously a cattle ranch, in the late 1960s. The man had a plan. He began construction of a master planned community. In 1989, the city of Fountain Hills was incorporated. Today, the population of Fountain Hills is around 23,000 people.

This morning there’s a low overcast and the temperature is relatively cool. Yesterday the thermometer hit 80 degrees. Today’s forecast calls for upper 70s with a cooling trend dropping the daily high to the upper 60s by the weekend. This should be good weather for Donna’s duathlon on Sunday.