Our three-month stay at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort in Mesa, Arizona went by much too quickly. I can hardly believe we’re a quarter of the way through 2019 already. My final days at VIewpoint were filled with thoughts of the road. I needed to get things together and made mental checklists. There were a few things I had put off and needed to get cracking on. One item was a “D” ring in the trailer that had pulled out – I use it to secure the Traeger so it needed to be re-installed.

The weather over our last couple of weeks in Mesa was much more in line with what we expect there. Most days had clear skies and temperatures reached 80 degrees – we even ran the air conditioners a few afternoons. We had one cloudy day last Wednesday but it didn’t rain and the temperature was a comfortable 70 degrees. The clouds made a spectacular sunset – the fiery reflection off the clouds made it a double sunset.

They had an open house event at Falcon Field on Saturday and we wanted to meet Jeff Spencer there, but I knew if I went, I wouldn’t get everything packed and ready to go. So, we missed the event while I cleaned and organized the trailer. I had almost everything put away by the end of the day, leaving only a few items for Sunday morning.

I started Sunday off with the Formula One race in Bahrain. It was good one but the outcome wasn’t so good. Young Charles LeClerc had the race well in hand with a big lead in his second race for Ferrari. Then, with about 10 laps to go, his powertrain let him down as it lost power and he lost about five seconds per lap. He finished third – it should have been his first win in Formula One at the age of 20.

After the race, I finished packing and also dumped and flushed our holding tanks. While I did that, I had the Moto GP race from Argentina recording on the DVR. To get the whole race, I had to cheat a bit. Check out is supposed to be 11am, but I dawdled until noon. It didn’t matter much to anyone – the park is emptying out as the snowbirds head back north. No one was checking in. Another rig on our row pulled out at the same time as us.

I had a little trouble maneuvering the trailer out of our site. I usually pull out of this site to the east, but with open sites across from us to the west I thought this would be a better option. It was, except for the orange tree in our site. It’s more of a bush really. After some jockeying back and forth, I was nearly clear but it looked like I might scrape a few of the sharp branches on the side of the trailer. Our neighbor lent a hand by coming over with a small rug which he and Donna used to hold the branches back, clear of the trailer and we were on our way.

We made the familiar drive on the loop 202 (San Tan Freeway) to I-10 then we crossed through Maricopa on AZ347. This is my shortcut – it’s shorter and faster than following I-10 to I-8. Once we hit I-8, it was straight shot west. We made a stop at exit 67 – Dateland. We bought date milkshakes for a snack and got back on the Interstate. Our next stop was exit 12 in Yuma, Fortuna Road. I filled our fuel tank at the Pilot/Flying J there at $2.89/gallon and also topped up our propane tank with 27 gallons at $2.39/gallon. The last time I filled the propane tank was September of 2017. We don’t use much propane in the coach – it’s mostly used to run the refrigerator when we boondock or occasionally for the water heater.

We made our usual overnight stop in the California desert west of Yuma near the Imperial Sand Dunes. We saw a couple of other rigs boondocking on the BLM public land, but we were more than a quarter of a mile away from anyone. It was very quiet and peaceful

We were rolling down the road again a little past 9am on Monday morning – April Fool’s Day. We had about 170 miles between our boondocking spot and Mission Bay RV Resort in San Diego. We only made one stop. I stopped at the Golden Acorn Casino to top up the tank with some of the cheapest fuel we’ll find in the area – California fuel prices are high. I only needed 20 gallons to fill up at $3.69/gallon. I like to have the tank full or nearly so when we are parked by the bay. This takes up space in the fuel tank and doesn’t leave as much air space for condensation to form.

I had completed the Fast Track pre-check in online so we were able to cruise straight to the overflow lot and drop the trailer. Then we backed into site 142 and were set up in no time. We’ll have eight days to get ready for our trip to Belize – we leave on Tuesday, April 9th. Donna is making arrangements for someone to take care of Ozark the cat. I plan to leave our coach hooked up with the water supply shut off while we’re gone for a week.

The weather here is agreeable – it was warm on Monday and hit a high of 80 degrees. Yesterday was cooler at about 70 degrees. We had a rain shower this morning, but we can expect daily highs of 70 degrees for the rest of the month here. Belize is sure to be much warmer.

I’ll close this post with a dinner plate featuring Donna’s Jamaican jerk chicken with mango salsa. She served it with bok choy and black rice.