Category Archives: Arizona

Falcon Field

Here at Apache Wells RV Resort, we’re located about a mile away from Falcon Field Municipal Airport. Falcon Field is owned by the City of Mesa. In 2011, it was ranked the fifth busiest general aviation airport in the USA. Falcon Field is located on roughly a square mile of land. It’s bordered on the east by Higley Road and on the west by Greenfield Road. The northern boundary is McDowell Road and McKellips Road is to the south.

Falcon Field is mostly utilized by private, propeller-driven airplanes. Sitting here in the RV park, we hear them taking off and landing or just flying around the area. I don’t mind – I like small aircraft. It’s not like hearing large commercial jets overhead. Occasionally, a private business jet will take off or land, but it’s not a daily occurrence. Sometimes I see old warbirds fly by.

Yesterday I scootered over to the southwest side of Falcon Field to visit the Commemorative Air Force (CAF) museum. This is a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of historical aircraft. Admission to the museum costs $12. They also offer flights (for a hefty fee) in old warbirds.

CAF Museum entrance

I took a self-guided tour, starting with a hanger displaying aircraft. There were two P-51s in the hanger along with several other planes. The P-51 Mustang is one of my favorite old warbirds.

P-51 Mustang

In the maintenance hanger, they were putting the finishing touches on an overhaul of their first airplane. It’s a B-17 that was donated to the Arizona chapter of CAF in 1978. The plane is called “Sentimental Journey.”

B-17 in maintenance hangar

Back in 2008, when we were living here in Mesa, Donna gave me a birthday present. It was flight in a B-25 Mitchell bomber at Falcon Field. I sat in a gunner’s enclosure as we flew up to Canyon Lake and back.

B-25 Mitchell bomber

Yesterday, a guy was going up in an old navy trainer called an SNJ. The army used these planes as well. The army version was called an AT-6. About 15 years ago, my friend, Tom Stapleton gifted me with a flight in an AT-6 at Chehalis, Washington. After take-off, the pilot turned control of the plane over to me. I did a few maneuvers, loops and barrel rolls. That was a mistake. I started feeling sick to my stomach. It took a full day to recover.

SNJ preparing for flight

SNJ belches smoke upon start-up

SNJ flying by

There must have been residual oil in the lower cylinders of the SNJ’s radial engine. It put out a large smoke screen upon start-up.

Stearman military trainer – circa 1938

Donna sent me a message asking me to pick up a few groceries on the way home. I also picked up a cleanser called Barkeepers Friend. This cleanser was recommended for use on our Health Craft cookware. I washed our pans with it last night. It works really well.

Donna made chicken cordon bleu for dinner with with herb chicken tortellini. She’s loving the induction cooktop and new cookware. I’m loving the results!

Chicken cordon bleau with cherb chicken tortellini

Chicken cordon bleu with herb chicken tortellini

Today, I have another project. I noticed cracks in the serpentine belt on our Cummins ISL diesel engine. If this belt breaks, we would be dead in the water. It drives the coolant pump, the alternator and other accessories. I’ll see if i can pick up a new one locally and install it today.

All Trendy

Yesterday I posted about replacing the door check assembly. I couldn’t get the door to release from the locked open position unless the door latch was locked. It didn’t seem right. I was concerned about locking the door latch to activate the release mechanism, then closing the door and locking myself out. I posted a question about this on the Alpine Coach Owners Forum. Before long I had a reply with a link to instructions for properly setting the cable and door stop adjustments.

RV forums can be an excellent way to learn all about RVs. Of course, there’s the usual mix of people posting. Sometimes you have the know-it-all that doesn’t really know all and only posts his opinions. Then there are certain topics that aren’t so black or white and you find many diverging thoughts on the topic. That’s okay – there’s more than one way to do things. But I find a couple of forums to be really helpful. My favorite is IRV2.com. There are many sub-forums there, including owner groups for most of the major RV manufacturers. The Alpine Owner’s forum has been super helpful for me.

Another RV forum I frequently visit is RV.net. Again, there are many sub-forums there and lots of good information. I’ve also learned a ton of information by following a few blogs. Some of my favorites are Roadslesstraveled, Technomadia, Wheelingit, Our Odyssey and Whatsnewell. There are others I read, but these are the ones I find most helpful and read frequently.

Back to the Alpine Coach owners forum. The link that was provided to me there had great instructions and illustrations for adjustment from the manufacturer of the Pos-A-Loc door check assembly (PTL Engineering, Rochester, MI).

Our entry door opens 90 degrees. The door check locks open in this position. The photo looks like the door is open less than 90 degrees, but it’s an illusion. The door is fully opened.

Entry door locked in open position

I took off the door panel to access the operating cable and adjust the free play.

Door panel removed exposing latch assembly and cable

Making the adjustment was easy once I knew how much free play was correct. Then I got my ladder out and adjusted the stop set screw on top of the door. The stop set screw adjusts the amount of play in the door when it’s locked open. If there’s too much free play there, the door can wiggle back and forth if there’s wind or any other force on it. If there’s not enough free play, it won’t lock into position.

Door check

Once I made the adjustments, the door check operated perfectly. There was no need to put the latch into the locked position, the door check released as it should. Job done with a little help from the forum.

Donna went out for a 5-mile run while I was working on the door. She has about three more weeks to train before she competes in the duathlon at McDowell Mountain Regional Park.

Later, Donna prepared a spinach dip made with jalapeno, Monterrey jack cheese, green chiles and tomatoes. This dip is served hot. We were expecting guests later and wanted to have hors d’oeuvres.

Our guests were our friends, Howard and Sara Graff. We haven’t seen them since we moved away from Arizona in 2009. They arrived around 5pm. We sat inside and chatted for about an hour while enjoying a nice bottle of Argentine malbec they brought with them. They drove us to downtown Gilbert, stopping to give us a tour of their new house along the way.

We went to Liberty Market for dinner. They have an interesting service concept there. You take a menu and get in line, somewhat like a cafeteria line. The line moves fairly slowly. As you are in line, a server will take drink orders. Before you reach the register, where you order and pay, a hostess hands you a number and tells you the area where she will place a matching number on your table. After you order and pay, you find your table – we chose outdoor seating. We ordered another drink and shortly after, our food arrived. It’s an interesting way to handle the wait for tables in a busy restaurant. Traditional restaurants would have probably told us the wait was 15 – 20 minutes. Instead we whiled away the time in line looking over the menu.

Donna ordered the special, braised short ribs with cauliflower sauce. Sara ordered salmon cakes with curry sauce – they smelled heavenly. Howard had green chile pork and I ordered sweet and savory baby back ribs. Our meals were excellent.

Donna, Sara and Howard at Liberty Cafe

As we made a pit stop on the way out, a guy said something to Howard and me that really struck me funny. He said, “I remember when this place was a real market. Now it’s all trendy and sh!t.”

We walked across the street to another place that was all trendy and sh!t – Postino. We shared a bottle of excellent French malbec and talked for another hour. It was so much fun catching up with Sara and Howard. They’re headed off to a Hawaiian cruise next week. We made plans to get together again in a few weeks.

The weather improved yesterday. We had a high temperature just over 70 degrees. Today will be in the 70s again and in the coming week we’ll see a warming trend.

Is It Camping?

Yesterday I set to work on the door check assembly. Our coach has a mid-entry door. When the door is opened, the door check should lock the door in position once the door reaches 90 degrees. When we took delivery, ours was broken and wouldn’t hold the door open. The dealer had a replacement assembly on order. The part was back ordered and just arrived on Thursday.

I set up my Werner* multi-ladder as a tall step ladder by the door. Removing the old assembly was easy. Five screws attached it to the upper door frame and six screws attached it to the top of the door. Removing the cable bracket was little tricky, but it didn’t take too long. I installed the new assembly in reverse order of removal. I wish I had taken time to shoot a few pictures along the way. Most of the time, when I start rolling on a project like this, I’m on a mission to get it done. I was focused on the task at hand and didn’t think about photos for the blog.

Once I had everything put back together, the door locked open as it should. When I pulled the door handle to unlock it, it didn’t unlock. I thought something might be wrong with the cable that releases the latching mechanism.

I removed the inner door handle cover, dead bolt cover and door panel. When I pulled the handle, the cable didn’t move. I pushed the locking lever to the locked position. Now the cable would move when I pulled the handle and the latch on the door check released.

I put everything back together. It seemed strange to me that you would have to engage the door lock before the door could be closed. This seemed like a recipe for an inadvertent lock-out.

I posted a question about the door check operation on the Alpine Coach owner’s forum. A short time later, I had a reply with links to instructions on how to adjust the cable. I still don’t understand how locking the door affects the cable. I’m going to take the door panel off again and figure it out today.

Later, I rode the scooter over to our former neighbor’s house and picked up two NetFlix discs. More Breaking Bad. Some people have asked why we order Blu-Ray discs instead of just streaming the NetFlix. The answer is data usage. This month we’ve used 12 GB of data and the costs add up. I can only imagine what our usage would be if we streamed hours of video.

On the way back, I stopped at Lucky Lou’s and sat with Mike Hall, his wife Jodie, John Huff and a few others. We had a couple of beers and swapped stories. The subject of this alternate lifestyle being an endless camping trip came up. This is a misconception.

We’re not on an endless vacation or camping trip. We may boondock at times or stay at a place with limited facilities, like Usery Mountain Regional Park, which is more or less camping. But we also stay in RV parks where we lead a more “normal” lifestyle. I like mixing it up. Changing scenery and accommodations every few weeks suits me.

When we boondock, we have to conserve water. We take Navy showers, which means we turn on the shower and get wet. Then we turn the shower off and soap up. Then we turn the shower back on and rinse.

One of the first things I bought for our coach was an Oxygenics* shower head. I put one in our old coach as well after reading so many testimonials on RV forums and blogs. It’s a great upgrade. It uses less water while providing an accelerated spray. We really like it. The only thing I didn’t like was the shut-off button. This button stops the flow so you don’t have to constantly re-adjust the water temperature. Our last one leaked when shut off and I hear that’s a common complaint. When I installed this one, I added a separate shut-off valve on the shower head. No leaks.

Navy showers aren’t all that satisfying. After a few weeks of boondocking, it’s nice to pull into an RV park with full hook-ups and amenities. Full hook-ups mean unlimited water and sewer capacity. Long, hot showers are no problem. We can use our clothes washer/dryer. In most parks, we can have UPS or FedEx deliveries right to our site. We can also receive our mail.

Site 56, Apache Wells RV Resort

That’s why we enjoy moving and changing things up every few weeks. We alternate between awesome scenery with wide-open spaces and RV parks with tight spaces. We are still evolving in this lifestyle, but for now, that’s how we roll.

Chicken and peppers on the grill

Last night I grilled boneless chicken breasts and mini sweet peppers. Donna prepared salsa verde to serve over the chicken. Another delicious recipe.

Served with salsa verde

Time for me to get started on the door project. These things always end up taking longer than they should.

*Just so you know, if you decide to purchase one of these through the Amazon link in this post, I’ll earn a small commission. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!

A Walk in the Desert

I started the day yesterday with a trip to my favorite Laundromat in Mesa, the Fluff N Clean. We haven’t used our washing machine for about three weeks now. We only use our combination washer/dryer when we have full hook-ups. I did two loads of laundry, one with whites and one with colors. Then I combined the loads in a large dryer and put six quarters in the machine. This would give me 42 minutes of drying time. I walked next door to have a sandwich at Arby’s. I came back to the Laundromat half an hour later to check on the clothes dryer. It wasn’t running! Doh! I didn’t push the start button after I set the temperature. It was a minor setback. I got it done.

Meanwhile, our friend from our old neighborhood, Lana, picked Donna up to go shopping. Donna wanted to buy new trail running shoes. Then they went out to lunch at a Dim-Sum restaurant and actually tried chicken feet. After lunch, they shopped at Lei Lei, an Asian food market and picked up a few items, and then did some more food shopping at Sprouts and made a final stop at Staples to purchase a 2TB external hard drive. Lana’s friend, Joel, has offered to hook it up to our Dish satellite system so we can record programs to it.

I went for a walk on the half-mile nature trail at the south end of the Buckhorn Campground. I took photos with my Samsung Galaxy S4 of the various cacti in the area. Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

First up was the campground namesake, a buckhorn cholla (pronounced choy-ah).

Buckhorn cholla

Typically, buckhorns are three to seven feet tall, but sometimes taller specimens are found. They grow in the Sonoran and Mojave deserts and can live for up to 30 years.

The next photo is a jumping cholla. These are found in the Sonoran desert in Arizona and northern Mexico. They grow up to 15 feet tall. If you brush against one, you’ll understand why they’re called jumping cholla. They’re covered with spines on pads that easily separate from the main stem and seem to jump and attach themselves to skin or clothing. The spines are hollow and are very difficult to remove. I keep my distance when I’m around cholla.

Jumping cholla

I found a large ocotillo next to a majestic saguaro. Ocotillo cactus can grow up to 20 feet tall and live 60 to 100 years. They’re found in well-drained desert soil from west Texas to southern California and have red tubular flowers that bloom March through June.

The saguaro next to the ocotillo is the cactus that defines the Sonoran desert. This is the only place in the world where it can be found. It’s such an iconic symbol of the southwest that movie sets often show saguaros when the location is supposed to be Texas or Utah where there are no native saguaros. The saguaro cactus grows very slowly. A 10-year-old saguaro may only be 1.5 inches tall. They can grow up to 40 feet tall and weigh more than three tons.

At the Saguaro National Park, records indicate that saguaros start flowering when they’re about 35 years old. They grow branches, commonly referred to as arms, when they’re 50 to 75 years old. The average lifespan is somewhere around 175 years. Saguaros have a pleated skin. When it rains and they fill with water, the pleats unfold. In dry spells, the pleats pull in, resulting in deeper pleats and a smaller diameter stem.

Saguaros have one tap root that may extend two feet deep, the rest of the root system radiates out from the cactus only four to six inches underneath the surface. The diameter of this root system is roughly equal to the height of the plant. The saguaro flower is Arizona’s state flower.

Ocotillo next to a giant saguaro

In the photo above, you can see holes in the saguaro. Flickers and Gila woodpeckers hollow out openings in saguaro cactus. They use the opening as a nest. The cactus forms scar tissue, lining the opening. Later, other bird species will take over the nesting place.

Varieties of barrel cactus are found throughout the hot deserts of north America. Native Americans would pick the flowers from the tops of barrel cactus and cook them like cabbage for food.

Barrel cactus

Another cactus that was utilized as food is the prickly pear cactus. There are 15 different types of prickly pear cactus found in the deserts of the southwest. The prickly pear is the official plant symbol of Texas.

Prickly pear

The Sonoran desert is green at this time of year. We tend to think of the desert as desolate and barren, but it’s full of interesting plants and animals. On my half-mile hike, I found many interesting plants. I flushed two coveys of quail, dozens of doves and saw finches, woodpeckers and other birds. At one point, a lizard crossed the trail in front of me.

Green desert – Superstition Mountains in the background

We’re loving our location, but we have to move tomorrow. We now know that if we want to spend any length of time in Usery Mountain Regional Park at this time of year, we need to reserve space early. This place is booked up until April. I don’t know where we’ll go next. We’ll come up with a plan today.

Thin clouds and a fiery sunset

Exit Strategy

Yesterday we had a wintry blast (by desert standards). The thermometer never reached 60 degrees! It was cloudy and cool all day. Donna went out to run and I took a hike around the campground.

When I returned, there was a silver Dodge Ram 3500 pickup truck parked next to our coach. It was Mark and Emily Fagan’s rig, but they weren’t here. Donna had returned from her run and told me she didn’t know where they were. A few minutes later, Emily appeared at our site. They had read my blog and decided to come over and use the showers. They’re dry camping at Phon D Sutton and their gray water tank is getting full.

Mark walked up a few minutes later. He said he had hot water for his shower! That’s not what I experienced the day before. Emily said her shower water was tepid. I guess it’s hit or miss on the hot water here at Usery Mountain Regional Park.

Mark offered to take me to the grocery store in his truck. Mark, Emily and I went to Basha’s on Brown Road while Donna stayed home to get some work done. I was able to shop freely without regard to how much stuff I would have to haul home since I wasn’t on the scooter. I stocked up on drinking water and a list of items Donna gave me.

While we were there, I showed Mark the dump station at the Chevron station on the corner of Ellsworth and Brown Road. This station is spacious and easily accessed. It only costs five bucks to use. Mark was thinking about coming to Usery Mountain Regional Park to dump, but he would have to pay $10. And accessing the dump station here isn’t easy unless you drive all the way around the park to access it as you exit. I mentioned this before. I didn’t stop to dump our holding tanks on the way in because of the difficult access. The last time we dumped was 9 days before we entered the park, but I’m not worried about it. We have large capacity holding tanks in the Alpine Coach, 100 gallons of gray water and 89 gallons of black. I’ll hit the dump station on the way out on Thursday.

I took some photos of the Usery Mountain Regional Park (UMRP) dump station to illustrate my concerns. As you drive into the Buckhorn Family Campground, the dump station is on the right side of the road. RVs generally have the waste water drains and valves on the driver’s side. This means you want to have the dump station on the driver’s side. The UMRP dump station is situated on an island with two hook-ups. Coming into the park, you need to position your RV on the right side of the island.

Sharp, tight right turn to position the RV on the right side of the dump station

Once you make the sharp right to enter, you need to follow the curved pavement to the left.

Not much room for an overall length of 56 feet

I would have to start the turn to the left to exit before I could align my coach with the dump station.

The sewer access is at the concrete pad

The exit is tight. It would require a hard left turn. I would have to drive the coach to the edge of the pavement before I started the left turn to avoid hitting the curbing with my left rear wheel or trailer wheel. Then I would have to turn full lock to the left. The distance from my rear axle to the rear cap of the coach is 11 feet. When turning, the coach pivots around the inside rear wheel. This makes the rear end of the coach swing out in the opposite direction of the turn. Our coach will swing out almost three feet at the rear on a sharp turn. The tree on the right side of the pavement is a concern – the rear of the coach might swing into the tree.

Tight exit

When we leave the UMRP, the dump station will be on our left. All I need to do is cross over to the left and pull up parallel to the island. No drama at all.

Easy access from this direction

I can leave adequate space from the pole on the island so I don’t have any worries about swing out.

After I shot these photos, I took a stroll around the park. I saw a nicely restored GMC motorhome. These coaches were built by General Motors from 1973 to 1978. They were a radical departure from motorhomes of the day (or even today). They were low profile, aerodynamic designs and featured front-wheel drive. They were built in lengths of 23′ and 26′ and used 455 cubic inch Oldsmobile gasoline engines. There are several owner groups and clubs for GMC owners and enthusiasts. Maybe I can chat with the owner of this one sometime.

Beautifully restored GMC motorhome from the 70s

Later, I rode over to the Red, White and Brew to have a cold one and drop off our NetFlix discs in the mailbox next to the Brew. When I rode back home, I was cold. I was happy to see that Donna had the heat pumps running. She’s still learning the systems on this coach. I wasn’t sure if she knew how to fire up the heat pumps.

Today, I need to make another run to the Fluff N Clean Laundromat. I also want to take a hike on the nature trail here in the park and photograph some of the native flora. Donna is going out to lunch and to shop with her friend, Lana.

“X” Marks the Spot

On Saturday morning, I woke up to a strange sound. I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming. Then I heard it again. A car was racing through the parking lot. I heard it turn around, then accelerate until the engine revved to the limiter. The driver let it bump against the rev limiter – wah-wah-wah, then finally selected second gear and sped away. I tried to go back to sleep, but it wasn’t going to happen

After I had my cup of coffee, I checked the state of charge of the 12-volt chassis batteries. I was still trying to understand why they weren’t fully charged. The batteries are in a compartment towards the rear of the coach, under the passenger side bedroom slide. After I took a voltage reading, I straightened up and hit my head on the edge of the slide-out. Ouch!

I read more about the Xantrex Echo Charger that should be charging my chassis battery. I learned that the charger built into the Xantrex Freedom 458 inverter/charger sends current to the Echo unit, which puts priority on the house batteries. Once they are adequately charged, the excess capacity is switched to the chassis batteries. However, the charge sent to the chassis batteries is limited to 15 amps. This helped me understand why my chassis batteries weren’t being fully charged. Running the generator for a couple of hours at a time didn’t allow enough excess current to be switched to the chassis batteries. I figured that the drive on Sunday to Usery Mountain Regional Park and the fact that we would have shore power there would fully charge the chassis batteries.

After lunch, I was standing outside talking to Mark Fagan. Mark told me about a car crash down the access road. It seems the driver of the car I heard in the morning lost control on a curve and fishtailed, then rolled over. The park host called 911 at 7:15am to report the accident. The driver walked away. The Sheriff’s office didn’t respond until 10am. They found a loaded shotgun and a crossbow in the car. The car belongs to a 29-year-old man from Colorado. Weird stuff.

Later, a Honda S2000 pulled into the lot. It was Peter Swingle. The last time I saw Peter was in San Diego, around 1976 or 1977. I think he was eight or nine years old and I was 20 or so. Peter is the son of my old friends, John and Bonnie Swingle.

Peter and I sat outside and talked about old times, cars, motorcycles, racing and just about everything under the sun. Peter brought an assortment of fine beers along. We sampled a Dogfish Head Stout (I don’t recall the proper name of the brew). Later, we tried a bourbon barrel stout from Odell’s, a Colorado microbrewery. Both beers were excellent. About then, a park ranger came by. He told Peter that he needed a Tonto National Forest Recreation Pass to be parked in this lot. He said if Peter would go buy one, he wouldn’t ticket his car. Peter drove to Walgreen’s to buy a pass.

When he returned, we walked around the coach and I showed Peter the battery banks. I did it again. When I straightened up, I whacked my head against the lower edge of the slide-out. I showed Peter the service bay where you access the dipsticks, air filter and fuel filter. Peter is a gear head like me and likes to know about this stuff. Donna was with us, she went into the coach and came back out with a paper towel and hydrogen peroxide. I wondered what she was up to. She put peroxide on the paper towel and compressed it against the back of my head. She told me my head was bleeding. I didn’t realize it, but both times when I hit my head, I broke the skin on my scalp.

X marks the spot

I didn’t get around to packing the trailer. Saturday night, Donna and I watched two episodes of Breaking Bad, season four.

On Sunday morning, I packed the trailer. Mark and Emily stopped over to say “see ya later.” It’s not good bye – we’ll meet up again soon. I finished packing the trailer while Donna secured the interior. By 10:40am, it was time to pull the slides in and light the fires. We pulled out around 11am.

It was a short drive of five or six miles to Usery Mountain Regional Park. We reserved a site in the Buckhorn Family Campground there. The campground has paved roads with gravel sites. The sites have fresh water and 50-amp electric service, but no waste water hook-ups. There is a dump station, but it’s not big-rig friendly when you’re entering the park. I should be able to access it when we leave. I’ll take a couple of pictures and try to explain it better in another post.

Queued up to enter Usery Mountain Regional Park

We thought we had reserved site 56, but it turned out we were in Site 11. Both sites are similar – pullthrough gravel sites on the side of the road. The sites slope here. I couldn’t level the coach without raising the rear wheels off of the ground, so we’ll live with a slight tilt. The parking brake acts on the rear wheels – raising them off of the ground would mean no parking brakes!

After setting everything up, Donna went for a bike ride. I took a shower at the park facility. I don’t think I’ll do that again. The water pressure was low and it took about five minutes for the water to warm up. It wasn’t hot water, just lukewarm.

Donna was out for about three hours. She rode 19 miles with a friend and another 16 on her own and was pretty whipped when she returned.

I put our TV antenna up and found more than 30 digital stations. The over-the-air HDTV reception here is excellent. I tuned in the pregame Superbowl show and settled in. The Seattle Seahawks stunned the Denver Broncos. It seemed like Denver never recovered from their mis-cue on the first play of the game, which resulted in a safety.

Today, I’ll explore around the park. I’ll have to go grocery shopping too. Other than that, no plans.

Iconic arrow on the south east side of Usery mountain pointing to Phoenix – we see this from our site

One More Day

February 1st! Wow, where does the time go? We’ve been here at the Phon D Sutton Recreation Area for 10 days already. It’s hard to believe. I’ve been busy most days with various projects. I’ve only taken time out to hike around the area on a couple of occasions. Donna has been busy working on her book and either running, biking or hiking.

One more day here and then we’ll move a few miles away to Usery Mountain Regional Park. I rode the scooter there on Thursday to look it over. It’s always nice to see what I’m getting into before I pull in with a 40′ motorhome and trailer. Many state, county and regional parks were laid out decades ago. Large motorhomes weren’t common back then. The layout of these parks can be tight by today’s standards.

Usery Mountain Regional Park has a good, paved road system. But there are issues. Positioning our rig at their dump station will be tricky. If I go through the dump station when we enter the park, I’ll have to pull through a narrow, curved area of pavement. There are trees on the right and curbs on the left. I might wait until we leave to dump the tanks as that will allow me to enter the station from the opposite direction, which looks to be easier. Our site, which is described as a pullthrough is really just a clearing on the side of the road.

Most RVs have the water and power connections on the driver’s side. If I pull into this site with the water and power facing the hookups, our door and awning will be on the street side. I think I’ll loop through the park and pull into the site from the opposite direction. This means I’ll have to run our fresh water hose and 50amp electrical cord under the coach to hook up. But, we’ll have our door and awning facing the picnic table with a view of Pass Mountain.

After I previewed Usery Mountain Regional Park, I went for a hike down the river. I saw waterfowl and found a nice fishing hole. I could see the trout in the water. Many were coming to the surface to feed on insects. Rails were tip-toeing along the shallow water, dipping their beaks in the mud to feed. I took a few photos with my Samsung Galaxy S4. One of these days, I should get serious and take a real camera with me.

Salt River – Four Peaks in the background

I found the confluence of the Salt River and the Verde River. The Verde flows much faster than the Salt at this point. Once they join forces, the Lower Salt River widens and flows quickly.

Verde River empties into the Salt River

A cold front came into the area yesterday. It was cloudy with the high temperature for the day in the mid 60s. The forecast calls for the cool weather to continue into next week, but we should remain dry.

Today, I’m expecting a visitor. Peter Swingle, the son of John and Bonnie Swingle, is planning to stop by around 1pm. I haven’t seen Peter since 1975 or 1976. It will be fun to chat over a cold beer with him. Then, I’ll start organizing the trailer in preparation for our move. I would like to be set up tomorrow by noon so I can relax and enjoy the Superbowl.

Red Mountain at sunrise this morning

Shameless Plugs

I thought I wouldn’t post today. Really nothing new to report and I’m not feeling too creative this morning. Then I thought I should share a couple of things.

First, I want to tell you about the book Donna published this week. She’s wants to get as many copies out as soon as possible and is promoting the book through a free offer. You can download the book for free today through Sunday only.

I also want to share a few of Mark Fagan’s photos. You can view more of his work at this site or read about Emily and Mark’s adventures here. Click on Mark’s photos below to enlarge.

You can see the cloud cover that moved in yesterday in the photo above. It was still warm though and the clouds held the warmth overnight. It’s cloudy this morning and I’m hearing rumors of rain in the forecast for tomorrow! This might dampen my plan to pack the trailer tomorrow in advance of our move to Usery Regional Park on Sunday. I want to get into the park and be set up before the Superbowl starts.

Red Sky at Night

Yesterday, Donna biked the loop over Usery Pass, across McDowell and back to the Lower Salt River on Power Road with Emily and Mark Fagan. Emily and Mark are former bicycle racers and just as she expected, they pulled away from her on the 3-mile climb up Usery Pass. After four years of cycling on the flats in Michigan, she’s hoping to improve her climbing abilities.

While they were out bicycling, I loaded up our bed sheets and towels and scootered to the Fluff N Clean Laundromat. While I was out, I filled the gas tank on the scooter. I mentioned getting 67 miles per gallon the last time I filled our Kymco Downtown 300i gas tank. This time I got 74 miles per gallon! I don’t know if it’s a matter of the scooter breaking in or the fact that around here, I ride about 50 miles per hour and don’t sit at many stop lights, but I’m liking the mileage. In San Diego we averaged 60 miles per gallon.

Last evening, Emily and Mark joined us outside our rig to talk and view the sunset. Lana Jansen and her boyfriend, Joel, joined us. Lana was our neighbor when we lived in Mesa. She delivered our mail which had been forwarded to her house. She also allowed us to have some packages sent to her place. We’re waiting to receive the induction cookware we ordered in Quartzsite (the order is delayed), a water filter I ordered for the water purifier in our kitchen and a runner rug that Donna ordered for our living area.

We all sat together outside and enjoyed hors d’oeuvres and adult beverages. It was a good time. I took a photo of the group with my Samsung S4, but unfortunately it came out too grainy to post. I also shot a picture of the sunset.

Another sunset over Red Mountain

Mark brought a gag that he picked up at a bike show. It kept my bald pate warm! Looks great too!

Who knew hair really keeps the head warm?

Today, I need to figure out what is drawing our chassis batteries down. Our motorhome is equipped with two 12-volt batteries to supply the starter motor and engine functions with electricity. With the vehicle parked, there should only be a small parasitic load on these batteries. However, I’m finding that these batteries draw down below 12.3 volts daily. This isn’t right. There’s a separate bank of four 6-volt golf cart batteries that power the interior functions of the coach. This bank is wired to supply twelve volts to some of the lights, the water pump and a few other things that operate on 12-volt DC power. It also supplies the inverter which inverts the 12-volt DC into 120 volt AC current. This supplies various outlets, the microwave oven and our TV.

I also want to hike down the Lower Salt River today. Below is a photo Mark Fagan took of last evening’s sunset.

Sunset last evening by Mark Fagan. His exposure shows our little gathering outside our coach.

Sharing the View

When you don’t have much to say, there’s always the weather to talk about. The overnight low temperatures have led to chilly mornings the past few days. Yesterday, the coach cooled down below 50 degrees overnight. This morning I recorded 49 degrees. It’s not bad in bed, under a down quilt. We sleep better when it’s cold and we’re covered up.

Yesterday, Donna was up before me (which is unusual). She fired up the furnace. I got out of bed a short time later and started the generator. With the generator running, I shut off the propane furnace and ran the heat pumps. If I’m burning fuel in the generator to charge the batteries, I might as well stop burning propane and use electricity to run the heat pumps. Donna told me about wild animal sounds in the night. I didn’t hear a thing, but apparently there were javelinas or something in the area. Our neighbor heard them too.

The mornings warm quickly once the sun rises over the ridge. With the window shades open, solar heat takes over and I can shut off the heat pumps. We’ve had afternoon temperatures of 80 degrees. By late morning I have the door open and the roof vents open. I deploy the awning to shade the door and windows.

Yesterday, our neighbor from Kansas, Kevin, drove Donna up to Usery Regional Park. He was going that way and offered Donna a ride, saving her the scooter trip in the morning chill. Donna met our friend, Mona from San Diego, there. They hiked up Pass Mountain to Wind Cave. It’s about a 90-minute hike with beautiful views of the valley. You can see all the way to downtown Phoenix from there. After their hike, Mona drove Donna back home.

Mona at Wind Cave

Kevin returned to the park before Donna. He came over and asked me where the nearest place to dump waste water and take on fresh water was. I told him of a couple of options. A little while later, he and Barbara pulled their fifth-wheel trailer out of here. I expected them to return after a couple of hours, but we haven’t seen them since then. I don’t think they reached the 14- day limit here, so we may yet see them again.

View from Wind Cave trail – you can see Phoenix spelled out on the mountainside

Meanwhile, new neighbors pulled in. Emily and Mark Fagan set up their fifth-wheel near us. They have a choice spot with a view of Four Peaks right out their door (we see Four Peaks out our windshield). They joined us for dinner last night. Donna made a meatloaf that she served with smashed red potatoes and green peas with mushrooms.

We had an enjoyable meal and much conversation. Mark and Emily are excited about all of the hiking trails and opportunities for photography in the area. They’re both avid photographers. You can see some of their work on this site. Mark shot a beautiful photo of our rig with Red Mountain in the background.

Our Alpine Coach at Phon D Sutton – courtesy of Mark Fagan

Donna and I watched Shark Tank and another show with Marcus Lemonis (CEO of Camping World and Good Sam Club) helping a business grow (Green Tea Ice Cream). The name of that show escapes me. We went to bed at 11pm.

Today, I think I’ll go back to the Fluff N Clean Laundromat to wash bedding and towels. Donna is planning to take a bike ride with Emily and Mark. I haven’t ridden much since we left San Diego and don’t feel up to the challenge of Usery Pass right now.

PS – I just learned that Mark has more photos at this site.

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

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Red Sky at Night

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