Category Archives: Tours

Queen Creek, Olives and Pork

Donna and I have fallen into fairly repetitive and predictable routines lately. After starting the day with pickleball yesterday, we changed things up a bit. We hopped in Midget-San and took a drive. It was a beautiful day – blue skies, not much wind and the temperature was a comfortable 80 degrees. Perfect for top-down driving.

We headed east to Ironwood Drive and followed it south through the desert to Queen Creek. It was a little over a 20-mile drive. Queen Creek is a town straddling the Maricopa and Pinal County line. It was mainly an agricultural town with cotton farms, cattle ranches and so on, but in the last ten years, its population has doubled as housing developments exploded. It was originally a small community at a train stop called Rittenhouse in 1919.

Our destination was the Queen Creek Olive Mill. The Queen Creek Olive Mill is a family-run olive farm encompassing 100 acres. They grow olives and press high-quality olive oil. They are the only virgin olive oil producer in Arizona. We signed up for their 11:30am Olive Oil 101 Tour.

This wasn’t really a tour, it was more of a presentation. We toured the Lucero olive oil facility in Corning, California and had seen how they operate first-hand. I posted about it here. The Queen Creek Olive Mill has an interesting story though.

Back in 1997, Perry and Brenda Rea visited Scottsdale, Arizona and were surprised to see olive trees growing in the valley. They got an idea – what if we could produce olive oil here in the Valley of the Sun? They found that olive trees flourish in this arid environment. They traveled to Italy to learn more about growing olives and pressing olive oil. Within a year, they left Detroit, Michigan and the auto industry to establish their farm on 100 acres of land in Queen Creek.

They started with 1,000 trees in 16 varieties. Now they have around 12,000 trees in those 16 varieties. Olive trees are native to the Mediterranean coast but are cultivated in many places. They are well-suited to the Arizona climate as they like heat and the dry climate prevents bacterial and fungal infections found in more humid climates. The heat in Arizona also precludes olive fruit flies – they can’t take the heat.

The older trees on the farm are grown in traditional spacing – 20 feet between trees with 20 feet between the rows allowing about 100 trees per acre. The trunks of these trees split into three to five different trunks and a canopy grows overhead after several years. Traditional trees must be harvested by hand.

  • Traditional spacing near the eatery

The newer groves are higher density. These trees are pruned so that only one vertical trunk grows. They are spaced about nine feet apart and the rows are about 12 feet apart. These trees can be harvested with machinery.

Medium density spacing

They irrigate the trees for one week, then allow the soil to dry for three weeks before irrigating again. The trees bloom in April and produce huge numbers of flowers. Most of the flowers are blown away over time by the wind and they pollenate the remainders. Only about 4% of the flowers become fruit.

They start harvesting usually in October – a little later this year as they waited for cooler weather. The youngest olives picked become robust extra-virgin olive oil. It has the strongest flavor profile with a pungent, peppery aftertaste. Next they harvest olives for their balanced extra-virgin olive oil – this is the oil that Donna favors. Lastly, they pick the more mature olives to press their delicate extra-virgin olive oil.

There are six types of vegetable oil made from olives. The purest are extra-virgin and virgin oils. To be classified as extra-virgin, the flavor profile must display three positive sensory attributes – bitter, pungent and fruity. There are nine sensory defects that can show up and if the oil has any of these defects, it can’t be labeled as extra-virgin. Extra-virgin has 0.8% free acidity. Virgin olive oil may have up to three defects and no more than 1.5% free acidity.

The other types of olive oil are refined lampante olive oil and refined pomace olive oil. Refined olive oil is made from stocks that are unfit – they contain too many defects and require a physical refining process (lampante) or they are chemically refined (pomace). The last two types are misleading and I think many consumers are ripped off buying them. The fifth type is labeled olive oil and it’s made by blending at least 5% virgin olive oil with refined lampante oil. The sixth is the same thing but based on refined pomace oil.

Olive oil is best when it’s bottled in a dark glass container. It should be stored away from direct sunlight and heat sources. It’s best when used within 12 to 15 months of bottling and most quality olive oils have the bottling or pressing date on the label or bottle.

We had lunch at the Olive Mill – we ordered from the Italian-inspired eatery and took our lunch at an outdoor table set among olive trees. While we waited for our food order to come up, we shopped around in their market. Donna noticed something interesting – they had extra-virgin olive oil in three-liter bags like you can find in a box wine. Three liter bags sold for $60 – a good buy if you can used that much oil in 12-15 months.

Three-liter olive oil bags

After lunch, we hopped back in the Midget and drove east on Combs Road a couple of miles to another well-known Queen Creek establishment – The Pork Shop. They are a butcher shop that specializes in pork – they’ve been at this location since 1979.

The Pork Shop started when the owner, Greg Combs wanted to find a way to market the pork from his swine farm. He was a third-generation pig farmer at the Combs farm established by his grandfather in the 1940s. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Combs Road led to the old Combs farmstead. He started doing his own butchering and added a smokehouse and sausage making to his operation. It quickly grew and now he no longer raises pigs – all of his pork comes from corn-fed pigs raised in the Midwest.

We shopped a bit in this interesting little market. Donna selected a few sausages and a smoked pork shank for pea soup. I snagged a pound of pork belly to slice for uncured bacon.

Pork belly

That pretty much sums up a day out and about. The forecast for the coming week looks very fine – mid 70s to 80-degree highs and nighttime lows in the 50s. The forecast for Thanksgiving day is sunny with a high of 75 degrees.

*Just so you know, if you use this link to shop on Amazon and decide to purchase anything, you pay the same price as usual and I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!

Bryce Canyon

We had a quiet weekend here at Paradise RV Park in Panguitch, Utah. The temperature swings from the daily highs to the overnight lows was a whopping 40 degrees or so – highs in the 80s with lows in the 40s.

Yesterday we made a day trip to Bryce Canyon National Park. The park entrance is aboout 25 miles from Panguitch. We entered the park with my America the Beautiful Lifetime Senior pass – without the pass the entrance fee is $35/car. Our first stop was at the Visitor Center, one mile into the park. From there we went to the General Store – I was desperately in need of benadryl allergy tablets. My eyes were itchy and watering. I found benadryl there and got some relief.

We drove up the main park road – it’s an 18-mile road that dead ends at Rainbow Point. We found a picnic area there and had our lunch. We’d stopped at Subway in Panguitch on the way here and I bought a 6-inch sub and Donna got a salad. We brought along a cooler with drinks and watermelon slices. The watermelon we bought at the vegetable stand on Saturday is supreme. The guy that grew it really bragged about it – he told me it was a county fair gold award winner and the sugar content measured at 13 to 15 brix. For comparison, he said most watermelon at the grocery store measures around 6 or 7 brix. Donna and I agreed, he was right. The seedless watermelon is one of the sweetest we’ve ever had.

Our plan was to scope out the viewpoints on the way up the road without stopping, have lunch then make our way slowly back down, stopping at points of interest. The park is a narrow strip of land along a ridge. The northernmost area is crossed by a highway – UT12 and the park there is only accessible by foot. The main park road runs from the entrance north to south and the elevation varies from about 7,200 feet above sea level to 9,115 feet above sea level at Rainbow Point. At Paradise RV Park, we’re at an elevation of a little over 6,600 feet above sea level.

At the viewpoints in the national park, you can see for miles and miles. I have a lot of pictures to add to this post. If the photos start to get redundant, that’s the nature of the park. The views are spectacular, but like at Cedar Breaks National Monument, you can start to get numbed by it all. If you make the effort to really look at the different viewpoints, you can see there are differences even if they are subtle at times.

Rainbow Point
Sunlight on a ridge far away to the east
Black Birch Canyon
Agua Canyon

At the Agua Canyon viewpoint, a raven perched on a fence rail and posed for photos. He was totally unafraid as people walked up within a few feet to take a picture.

The next stop was at Natural Bridge viewpoint. Natural Bridge is a misnomer – it’s more correctly called an arch. These are formed when hard cap rock layers are over softer substrate. Over time, water erodes the softer substrate and creates a hole under the cap rock. Wind then enlarges the hole over centuries or even thousands of years.

You can see how water runoff courses through the arch

At Inspiration Point, you can see where water that comes down from the ridge from three directions join together. The resulting stream bed, when dry, looks like a road along the bottom of the canyon.

Looks like a road through the trees at the bottom of the canyon
Another angle from Inspiration Point

On the way to and from Bryce Canyon on UT12 near Red Canyon, the highway goes through two arches.

Highway UT12 near Red Canyon

While we were in the park, we had a few clouds overhead. As we came down from Rainbow Point we had a few raindrops, but it wasn’t anything to worry about. Lightning strikes can be worrisome in the park as over the last 25 years four people have been killed and six injured by lightning.

I need to mention Sunday night’s dinner. Donna made a new recipe – shrimp poached in coconut milk. It was awesome.

Shrimp poached in coconut milk over rice with broccoli

After we returned home, I took a nap – the benadryl made me drowsy. The wind really kicked up in the late afternoon and we had a few raindrops here. We can expect rain later today. Donna went out for bike ride this morning while I was writing this. She wanted to get a ride in before it rains – the forecast calls for rain again tomorrow and possibly on Thursday morning with high temperatures in the upper 60s and low 70s.

Unexpected Tour

We stayed busy over the weekend in Cortez, Colorado, then things heated up! On Friday night, we went to the fairgrounds a few miles east of town for the Ute Mountain Roundup – the rodeo! Donna ordered five tickets and had reserved seats for us all – front and center! We’ve enjoyed a number of rodeos since we hit the road eight years ago and this rodeo ranks right up there with the best. By the way, you can read about my first rodeo experience back in 1976 here.

Saturday morning Donna and I played in the pickleball Shootout – it’s a local tournament with a round-robin format. Unfortunately for me, I was scheduled in a group that was totally mismatched. We had two players that could play at the 3.5 level – me and another guy – and two players that weren’t up to par. This led to uneven play and lopsided scores. Donna had a better matchup and held her own in some tough competition.

Mike and Jodi Hall came out with their granddaughter, Swayzie, to watch and enjoy Centennial Park. For such a small town, Cortez has a large number of beautiful, well-maintained public parks. After the tournament, we went to the farmers’ market and got there about 20 minutes before it closed.

We took a break and had some down time before we met up at WildEdge Brewing Collective for a couple of cold ones. Mike picked up the tab – thanks for the brews, Mike! We said our goodbyes until fall as Mike and Jodi were heading out of Cortez Sunday morning.

We had a lazy day on Sunday. We decided to forego the pickleball social at Montezuma’s in Dolores – we had just eaten there on Friday. Meanwhile the thermometer steadily climbed each day. We had upper 90s Saturday and Sunday. Monday was near 100 degrees and Donna was called off from going to the Ower’s farm to weed. She ended up going on Tuesday, after pickleball in the morning although the temperature reached 101 degrees.

I had an interesting afternoon on Tuesday. My Facebook feed showed a video ad for Curt Mangan guitar strings. I clicked on the video and watched how they make round core nickel wound strings. What really got my attention was their small factory – it’s right here in Cortez, Colorado! I looked at their website and found the strings were available at a music store in town. I drove to the store to get a set of these strings to try out, but it was only open Wednesday through Saturday.

I looked up the factory location and drove there thinking they may have a retail outlet. I found an unassuming metal building set back about a quarter of a mile off Mildred Road with no signage. I parked and checked out the building – it wasn’t open to the public. As I stood there by a screened, large loading door, a voice called out, “Can I help you?” I peered inside and saw it was Curt Mangan. I told him what I was looking for and he said he didn’t sell retail onsite, but invited me to come in. He asked what strings I wanted – I told him I was after a standard 10-46 set. He said, “Follow me.”

We went into a room that was obviously a packing and shipping area and he checked a shelf and found an empty box. He said, “Wouldn’t you know it – no 10-46 sets. Come with me.” We walked into another area – I would say the metal building covered nearly 5,000 square feet – and he started pulling individual strings packaged in white paper. When he had a complete set, he put them in a colored package and then inserted the whole thing into a plastic sleeve which he sealed with a machine. Then he handed me the set of strings!

Curt Mangan guitar strings

Then we started talking about guitars. I told him my first “good” guitar was a Fender Stratocaster that I factory ordered from a music store in Longmont, Colorado in 1976. I said I never really bonded with Fender guitars and now I play Gibsons. He laughed and told me everyone needs a Strat or a Telecaster – they’re the foundation of electric guitars. Then he told me he had the Fender franchise in Longmont in 1978!

I told him a story about finding the receipt from Longmont Music for the 1976 Stratocaster and showing it to my guitar teacher about 10 years ago. I paid $425 for the guitar. Jeff, my teacher, asked me if $425 was for a made-in-America Strat. I laughed and told him that all Fenders back then were made in Fullerton, California. Today, you can buy a Fender made in Corona, California for big bucks or a cheaper version made in Mexico or Squier-branded one made in Asia. I checked an inflation calculator online and found $425 in 1976 is equivalent to $2,000 today – about the low end of a made-in-America Stratocaster, so they haven’t changed all that much unless you get into the Custom Shop variants that can cost upwards of $5,000 or more.

We had a nice talk, then Curt asked me if I had time for a tour! I could hardly believe it. He took me through the manufacturing process and showed me the machinery they use and how they make strings. He has a small workforce. I’m not sure how many employees he has – most of the workers were gone for the day. He told me at this time of year, they start early and knock off around 3pm due to the heat.

Curt told me he got out of the retail music business after a few years – he said it’s super competitive and hard to stay profitable. He went to work for the Ernie Ball Corporation in their Music Man guitar division. Ernie Ball is another guy with a great rags-to-riches story, but that’ll have to wait for some other time. He stayed with Ernie Ball for about 15 years and while he was there, he learned that musical instrument sales were cyclical – they went up and down. But strings seemed to be in steady demand. He studied guitar and bass string technology and, in 2004, he started producing strings.

I changed my strings a couple of weeks ago, so I won’t try out the Curt Mangan strings for a while, but I’m looking forward to trying them. If I like them, I can order direct from them online.

Curt’s notion of every guitarist needing a Stratocaster or Telecaster guitar stuck with me. I’ve been kicking around the idea of putting together a Strat-type guitar and doing research on the project. I bit the bullet and ordered a custom body and neck from BYO in New Hampshire. They’ll build the body and neck to my specifications – I went for a swamp ash body and maple neck with Indian rosewood on the fingerboard. With their lead time, it should work out for me to have the parts when we return to Mesa in September.

We left Cortez around 10:30am on Wednesday. The ongoing road work had moved past the La Mesa RV Park entrance and we had no trouble getting out. I made a quick turn into the Maverick station to top up our tank with diesel fuel. Diesel was $3.39/gallon – at this time last year we paid $2.21. Thanks, Joe – I see inflation rearing its ugly head.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the temperature in Cortez reached 101 degrees. We had the generator running to power the roof air conditioner as we drove. Our route took us through Dove Creek and into Utah where we hit US191 in Monticello. From there we went north through Moab. Seeing what happened to Moab is a bit heartbreaking for me. It used to be a funky, cool little town that was a gateway to great hiking, biking and off-roading. Now they’ve over-developed it to the point of making it into a Disney-like tourist trap.

We arrived in Thompson Creek off of I-70 around 2pm and checked in for the night. We needed a 50 amp hook-up, it’s much too hot for dry camping. Today we’ll move on to Vernal, Utah and spend the night at a state park with electric hook-up. Friday we’ll go to Rock Springs, Wyoming. We didn’t plan to go there originally as we’ve been there twice before. But when searching for festivals, Donna discovered that this weekend is the Brews and Blues Festival there and we want to attend. We did it once before and it was a hoot with surprisingly good bands.

It should be a little cooler there, but we can still expect daily highs around 90 degrees.

*Just so you know, if you use this link to shop on Amazon and decide to purchase anything, you pay the same price as usual and  I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!

Farm to Table

Last Thursday was Donna’s birthday. It was my youngest daughter, Shauna’s, birthday as well. We celebrated Donna’s birthday by going out to dinner at Olio Restaurant in Mancos, about 17 miles east of Cortez. This restaurant is open Thursday, Friday and Saturday and tables must be reserved in advance. It’s an intimate setting with only seven tables – only four tables were occupied while we were there.

They have a menu that frequently changes, depending on fresh ingredients in season and they have a large wine selection. We started with a three-cheese board with rosemary-fig jam, grill toasted bread and an assortment of nuts and dried fruits. We chose Delice de Bourgogne (creamy French cheese made from cow’s milk), Caciotta Dei Boschi Al Tartufo (firm Italian cheese made from sheep’s milk) and Bucheron (soft French cheese made from goat’s milk) for our three cheeses. I ordered a bottle of 2014 Pugnitello by Corte alla Flora – a bold Tuscan red wine to go with the meal.

The cheese board and wine were extraodinary. For entrees, Donna hard a hard time deciding between the Tomato Braised Heluka Pork Cheeks on ‘Cacio e Pepe’ Bucatini Pie  or the Confit of Poussin on Mushroom Farro with Marsala Sauce, Shaved Leek & Fennel Slaw. She went for the poussin which is a small chicken – about the size of a cornish hen – that’s been partially deboned before roasting. Only the leg and wing bones remain while the bird still appears to be intact.

Birthday girl

I was excited by the Grilled Nebraska Wagyu New York Strip with Olio Signature Steak Sauce on the menu. I’ve never had wagyu beef before, but I knew about it – at least that’s what I thought. True wagyu beef only comes from Japanese cattle – it can be one of four breeds. The most well-known is probably Kobe beef. All Kobe beef is wagyu, but not all wagyu is Kobe. There are four breeds of wagyu in Japan. Wagyu (Wah-gyoo) can be translated as wa (Japanese) gyu (cow). Wagyu cattle are genetically disposed to having a high percentage of intramuscular fat – meaing a well-marbled meat that makes the tastiest and juiciest steaks.

Japanese wagyu strip steak

Fifty years ago, some Japanese wagyu cattle were exported to America for breeding, but Japan soon outlawed any export of live wagyu or any genetic material capable of reproducing wagyu cattle – they declared it a National Treasure. But the cat was out of the bag and some ranchers bred the few available cows. But the gene pool was diluted and cross-breeding occurred. Nowadays, most American wagyu is a far cry from Japanese wagyu – it’s mostly angus DNA with a small amount of wagyu genetics. Some people look down on it and call it wagus.

Back to my dish. The Nebraska Wagyu is not the Japanese wagyu I was expecting. It was definitely more of a wagus beef, a lean one as well. I was sorely disappointed and in the future, I will choose USDA Prime over American Wagyu. The real deal Japanese wagyu goes for more than $100/pound and I’ve seen cuts as high as $300/pound. Although export of live cattle and genetic material is banned, you can still get butchered Japanese wagyu beef.

American wagyu – see the difference?

I should mention that Donna volunteered to help Carolyn Ower in her garden a few days a week while we’re here. She spent Wednesday afternoon and Friday morning last week weeding alongside Carolyn who is very happy for the help. Between gardening and caring for her chickens, Carolyn has been very busy getting ready for the farmers’ market here in Cortez that will open next weekend.

In my last post, I called the Ower’s place a ranch and linked to last year’s post where I called it a farm. So, which is it? Here’s the thing: I’ve found several definitions describing a ranch versus a farm. Most agree that a farm generally focuses on raising crops while a ranch will be mainly utilizing the land to raise large animals – cattle, sheep, horses, etc. A ranch will also be a farm when you consider that they usually grow feed crops and may have vegetable gardens. So a ranch can be a farm, but a farm isn’t a ranch. Does that make sense? By the way, the Owers call their place Ower’s Farm. Dairy farms seem to contradict the convention – they have cattle and usually grow feed but they aren’t called ranches.

On Saturday, we played in a pickleball shootout at the Centennial Park in town. The local pickleball club organized the event and we signed up online through Track It Hub. It was a round-robin type affair and in the first round, everyone played three games with different partners and opposition. Then we had a break that stretched to over 45 minutes as one court got a late start due to a no-show and they had to wait for a replacement player. The long break had an adverse effect on my game. I started by scoring 31 out of a possible 33 points in the first round and moved up a bracket. When we resumed, I felt stiff and lethargic and didn’t play well in the second round. Donna felt like she played okay. She had stiff competition in the first round, but had the second highest score. And in the second round, she scored 30 out of 33. We’ll probably sign up to play again in the next shootout tentatively scheduled for June 12.

Last week, Donna made a Dijon sauce to serve over sweet-spicy grilled chicken breast. It was tasty, but I was surprised to see the brand of Dijon she found.

Koops Dijon mustard

Friday she grilled chicken and also a medley of peppers, fresh zuchini, onions and really young bok choy. The zucchini and bok choy were gifts from Carolyn Ower’s garden.

Yesterday, Donna tried a new-to-us salmon recipe. She grilled a wild-caught Alaskan sockeye salmon with a glaze of honey, olive oil, lemon juice, soy sauce, Worchestershire sauce, finely diced ginger and shallots. It was winner and we’ll definitely go with this again, especially since cooking it in foil made for super-easy cleanup.

Foiled salmon hot off the grill

She plated it with buttered basmati brown rice and Tuscan spiced broccoli. Excellent!

Salmon, basmati brown rice and Tuscan spiced broccoli

The weather has been very agreeable with a few clouds and daily highs reaching about 80 degrees. I’ve been alternating the afternoon hours between playing around with ham radio or practicing guitar. After not playing much over the last couple of years, I’m finding my guitar playing is going well – I feel like I’m playing better than ever, but there are some songs I used to play that I don’t remember.

The weather forecast calls for a cooler day tomorrow with a 40% chance of afternoon thunderstorms – of course I just washed the truck. It’s supposed to heat up after that with daily highs in the upper 80s. We’ll be here for two more weeks.

*Just so you know, if you use this link to shop on Amazon and decide to purchase anything, you pay the same price as usual and  I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!

Our Transportation Evolution

When I closed my last post on Thursday, I mentioned our plan to go to the Power Food Park and meet up with friends. That’s what we did. We arrived around 5:30pm to find a much smaller crowd and fewer food trucks than were present on the Saturday before. Donna had reserved a fire pit and s’mores packets from 6pm to 8pm. We found Mike and Jodi Hall right away and staked out a picnic table.

We decided to go ahead and order food and eat at the picnic table before going to our reserved fire pit (number 6) where we had six Adirondack chairs around the fire pit. Frank and Kelly Burk joined us. We had a lot of laughs around the fire – the temperature drops fairly quickly after sundown and the fire pit made it very comfortable. Here are a couple of underexposed photos.

Kelly, Frank and Jodie at the fire pit
Mike Hall and Donna

It was a fun time and two hours was about right for yukking it up around the fire.

Friday morning I started the Traeger around 8am and put on a pork shoulder (Boston Butt). I didn’t play pickleball Friday, I was saving my legs for the Valentine’s Day tournament on Saturday. The plan was to make pulled pork and take it across the street to Chuck and Sue Lines’ place at 5pm. Roxy and Dick Zarowny would join us there. Sue made potato salad and Roxie made cole slaw and a cucumber salad and lime pie. I brought nearly five pounds of pulled pork and it made a great dinner. Again we had a great time talking into the night and Chuck had a propane fired fire pit!

Donna and I played in the Valentine’s tournament Saturday morning. It wasn’t really a tournament – it was a round-robin type scheduled play with players teamed up with their sweetheart and rotating play against other teams. We won 50% of our matches, but I don’t think we were playing at our best. It was fun nonetheless.

We drove to Frank and Kelly’s place in the afternoon – it’s only a couple of miles from where we used to live in east Mesa, about five miles from Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort. It was breezy out and felt chilly although the thermometer registered 69 degrees. We enjoyed cocktails and laughs, then Frank got serious on the grill. He had some super thick USDA Prime New York steaks and grilled them to perfection. Donna brought spinach and bacon stuffed mushrooms for an appetizer – they were delicious. Kelly made roasted asparagus and yellow squash and potato kisses for sides. It was a great meal and laughs continued at the dinner table.

We drove our new-to-us Nissan truck to the Burk’s place and I was glad we did. It started raining when we left around 9pm. I don’t like to drive the MG Midget at night, especially when it’s raining. It was no bother in the Nissan Frontier though.

Our modes of transportation have evolved over the years we’ve spent on the road. When we first left our sticks-and-bricks home for the full-time RV lifestyle, I thought having a scooter to get around would be sufficient. I figured we just needed something to go to the store occasionally and if we really needed a car we could rent one from time to time. We learned to pack away a surprising amount of groceries on our Kymco Downtown 300i scooter. It’s pictured on the header of the blog page.

It had limitations though. It was capable of carrying us on the freeway, but whipping along at 70mph with cars all around us wasn’t exactly comfortable. Also, with its small wheels, it wasn’t the best on dirt or gravel surfaces which we often found in and around RV parks.

After a couple of years, we traded it in for a Can-Am Spyder three-wheeled motorcycle. This was much more versatile, but again it wasn’t the most comfortable vehicle for longer trips and extended freeway driving. We tried to avoid rainy weather or didn’t drive much at night.

The MG Midget was the next step in the evolution of transportation for us. Midget-San with its Nissan A15 engine and five-speed transmission made freeway travel easy, but you have to be on your toes as the sports car is very low and small. Like riding a motorcycle, you always have the assume the other drivers don’t see you. For Donna, all of these choices compromised her hair style. She either had helmet head or wind blown hair from driving top-down in Midget-San.

Now we can take the Frontier without any of our previous limitations. Midget -San will be relegated to local jaunts when we feel like it. The Frontier will be more of a daily driver.

We took a drive on Sunday morning. I felt like getting out and Donna wanted to see how the Salt River and Saguaro Lake looked for kayaking. The Frontier will be great for transporting the Sea Eagle kayak to almost any drop-off point. We loaded the Sea Eagle in the Midget many times, but we tried to stay off of dirt roads or difficult launch areas.

To get to Saguaro Lake from east Mesa is an easy drive. We took Ellsworth Road over Usery Pass to Bush Highway. It’s only a few miles, but it’s night and day compared to town. Crossing Usery Pass dropped us into the Tonto National Forest – a forest of desert scrub and cactus. Saguaro Lake is a popular boating, kayaking and fishing spot. It has a marina with a restaurant and also the Desert Belle tour boat.

Saguaro Lake marina
View of the lake toward Butcher Jones Recreation Area

The Desert Belle cruise is a narrated tour of the lake and various sites and recreation areas. It has food and drink onboard, but currently only upper deck outdoor seating is open.

Desert Belle cruise boats

We back-tracked on Bush Highway and took a look at the Goldfield Salt River access point, but it didn’t look too good to get a kayak down to the river there. Next, we stopped at Phon D Sutton which has access and the water level is just enough to put a kayak in there. We stayed at Phon D Sutton several years ago when dry camping was allowed there – it’s the header photo – but you can’t stay overnight anymore.

Our last stop was at the Granite Reef Recreation Center. It was busy and we saw several kayakers there. With the low water levels, it seems like the stretch of water between Phon D Sutton and Granite Reef is the place to go.

It was a fun-filled weekend with good food, good friends and lots of laughs. We don’t have any real plans for the week ahead. The weather forecast calls for cooler weather with daily highs in the mid 60s until next weekend when it will warm up again.

*Just so you know, if you use this link to shop on Amazon and decide to purchase anything, you pay the same price as usual and  I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!

Donna’s Deals

I wrote about my decision-making process when I bought the Nissan Frontier truck. I’d decided on a simple work truck that was inexpensive and didn’t have a lot of bells and whistles to repair. I didn’t always have vehicles like this. In fact, for about 35 years, I always drove a current model-year car and rarely put over 6,000 miles on it before getting a new one.

This started about 40 years ago when I was the service manager at Herman Cook VW in Encinitas, California. My compensation package included a company car which was a new VW out of the dealership inventory they called a demonstrator (demo) vehicle. I usually drove a Volkswagen GTI back then. In 1984, I went to work for Volkswagen of America and again, as a manager, my compensation package included a company car.

In fact, it came with a car, gasoline and car washes at the company’s expense! I always drove a new car and turned them in every 6,000 miles or so. These cars would be sent to wholesale auction listed as “executive demo.” My position also included company lease car privileges. I could lease up to four vehicles at very favorable rates. The rate would be 1% to 1.5% of the MSRP. So, a $30,000 car would cost me three or four hundred per month and it included full coverage insurance. Unlike retail leases, there were no upfront fees, just the monthly rate.

This was such a deal that I leased a car for my wife and when my daughters got their drivers licenses, I leased cars for them. It was cheaper to put them in a new car every year than it would be to buy a used car when you factor in the cost of insurance and repairs. The lease program was a 12-month term, so they were always in a current model-year car with warranty coverage. While they were in school, I paid the lease for them. They’re adults now, but they still get a new lease car every year – I don’t think they’ve ever had to buy a car for themselves.

Volkswagen offers these programs to management level employees for the benefit of the employee, but it also helps them. When they send a 12-month old car or a 6,000-mile demo to the wholesale auction, they get a good price for it. This helps keep the wholesale residual value of the cars high – which, in turn, is used to set retail lease rates. Higher residual values mean lower retail lease rates. But I don’t drive new cars anymore – just my daughters do.

Donna’s been watching for deals on stuff for our new-to-us park model home. She found a deal on a stereo system for the Arizona room. It’s old school – a Kenwood KR4400 receiver that’s circa 1974, a Pioneer CD player and a set of Celestion D4 bookshelf speakers. There was a guy here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort selling the system. He was the original owner and bought this stuff when he was in high school. I was a senior in 1974, but I didn’t have the money for a stereo like this. It’s good stuff.

I’ve always been a fan of Celestion speakers. They don’t make consumer speaker cabinets anymore. The company, based in Britain, makes speakers for use in PA systems or for guitar amplifier cabinets. Building vacuum tube guitar amplifiers was once a hobby of mine. I always used Celestion speakers in my cabinets that I special ordered from an outfit in Idaho called Avatar speakers.

I built several guitar amplifiers – one was a clone of a Marshall 18-watt that was a blues monster. It had that fat Marshall sound and could be pushed into a creamy distortion without blowing out your eardrums.

Marshall 18-watt clone head and Avatar 2×12 cabinet

The amplifier was built with point-to-point wiring of all of the components. I enjoyed this work. You had to be meticulous, the wire lengths and pathways were important.

Marshall 18-watt clone board
Marshall 18-watt chassis and tube set

Another amp I built was based on the British Hiwatt design. This amp was loud and produced a very clean tone. It also powered an Avatar 2×12 cabinet with Celestion speakers.

Chassis and tube set

There was a fairly obscure amp designer and builder back in the day named Ken Fischer. He designed a line of amps called Trainwreck and custom-made them for star entertainers. Ken passed away in 2006, but his amps are still highly sought after. I read recently that Brad Paisley acquired one. His amp circuits are complex and everything has to be precisely placed to make it do the Trainwreck thing. The thing about them is, once you have this rig set up, you can change the sound of the guitar from a clean, almost sparkly tone to a growling distortion with small adjustments of the guitar volume knob. The amplifier is very sensitive to the input voltage from the guitar pickup.

I corresponded with a few guys that were trying to copy the Trainwreck design. I found a guy in Australia, an electrical engineer that was also a musician. He experimented with building a printed circuit board (PCB) that followed Ken Fischer’s original point-to-point design. I bought a board from him and built one. It’s fantastic and also plays very loud.

Trainwreck patterned printed circuit board
Trainwreck custom cabinet
Trainwreck chassis and tube set

I’ve been hauling the Marshall 18-watt and the Trainwreck amps in the basement of our Alpine Coach for nearly eight years. The Avatar 2×12 cabinet was lost when our trailer was stolen by those dirty, rotten thieves. I’ll have to get them out and clean them up after we move into the park model.

I was talking about deals Donna found before I got sidetracked. Donna found a small, 4.4 cubic-foot refrigerator for $75 – it cost $275 new and we bought it from the same couple that sold us the stereo. On Tuesday, Donna made a fantastic find. She was talking to our neighbor, Dean, when he mentioned another neighbor on the row behind us was selling a tow bar. I’d been looking at tow bars online – we’ll need one for the Nissan Frontier to tow it behind the coach. I was looking at the Roadmaster line, made in Vancouver, Washington. I toured their plant in 2014 and I think they have the best tow bars available.

We walked over to Jim and Gerry Jarvis’ site and what do you know – he had a Roadmaster Nighthawk tow bar with the Defender shield for sale. The Nighthawk is their top-of-the-line unit. It’s the Cadillac of tow bars. He bought it new in late 2018, used it to tow his Jeep to Oregon and back before he sold his motorhome and bought a fifth-wheel trailer.

A new Nighthawk is listed online for a price of $1140 and the Defender shield is $460. Jim sold me this $1600 set-up for just $500. Deal! Next month I’ll have a Roadmaster base plate installed on the truck and we’ll be good to go. That’ll cost about $1200, so I’ll be about $1700 into what’s about a $3,000 set-up!

The weather here in Mesa, Arizona continues to be pleasant with daily highs in the 70s and overnight lows in the 50s. We plan to go back to the Power Food Park tonight and meet up with our friends, Mike and Jodi Hall and Frank and Kelly Burk. We reserved a firepit from 6-8pm. Donna is playing in the 3.0 pickleball round robin tomorrow morning. And we’re signed up as a team for the Valentine’s pickleball tournament on Saturday.

*Just so you know, if you use this link to shop on Amazon and decide to purchase anything, you pay the same price as usual and  I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!

Kayak, Wind and Fire

Most afternoons, I set up my ham radio in the shade on a small table and see who’s talking. On Thursday afternoon, I was doing just that when I picked up a mobile transmission from a guy traveling west on AZ74 (Carefree Highway) and heard him talking about a fire near Crown King. I got in on his conversation to ask for more detail as Crown King isn’t too far from Lake Pleasant – it’s about 40 miles north.

I walked to the front of our site and sure enough, the sky to the northwest was full of smoke. Where I was sitting in the shade by the trailer, I couldn’t see it. I thanked the guy for the info and shot a couple of photos

Smoke over the lake coming from the northwest

The smoke was heavy and continued to the southeast toward Glendale and Phoenix.

Smoke to the southeast

Currently, the fire encompasses about 10,000 acres and is burning six miles northwest of Crown King – about 18 miles south of Prescott. The area is sparsely populated and about 100 people had to evacuate Friday morning. The Forest Service says there’s a lot of valuable equipment at the top of Crown King – I’m guessing communication and television transmission gear. They’re calling it the Horse Fire. This has certainly been the summer of fire in west.

High winds kicked up unexpectedly Thursday night and into Friday morning. I’m sure this hampered firefighting efforts. Donna had signed up for a guided kayak tour from the Lake Pleasant Regional Park. It was a ranger-led event called Pleasant Paddlers. Donna wasn’t about to let the wind deter her. I had loaded the Sea Eagle kayak in the Midget the night before and drove Donna to the regional park. The north park entrance is about seven miles from Pleasant Harbor RV Resort.

We set up the kayak in the lot above the Castle Creek boat ramp and lugged it down to the water. There were eight participants including two rangers. They set off a few minutes before 9am.

Heading out from the bottom of the boat ramp

The water near the ramp is in a protected cove and was calm. That wasn’t the case once they hit open water on the lake though.

Choppy water on the lake – smoke from the Horse Fire to the north

They came across a herd of 26 wild burros in a cove.

Desert donkeys

At another cove, they stopped for lunch and saw more burros.

Lunch break – wild burros on the hill in the background

After lunch, the winds died down and they had a nice paddle back. The tour lasted nearly four hours and they covered 5.9 miles! Donna’s feeling it today.

Today I tackled a project on my “to do” list. Our Dometic 320 RV toilet has had an intermittent leak. A few drops of water come out by the foot-operated flush valve from time to time. Earlier, I checked the manual for the toilet to see what parts are involved with the flush valve and found an interesting note in the manual. The note addressed two common complaints.

The first note regarded the toilet bowl not holding water. It said the first thing to do was to shut off the water supply, then hold the toilet bowl drain valve open with your foot. With a gloved hand they recommended using your finger to push the seal and seat it.

We had this problem a few weeks ago, so I did the recommended procedure and found a build up of minerals deposited under the seal. With my finger I was able to push the deposits away from the seal and it worked – the toilet held water again.

The second part of the note addressed water dripping from the water supply valve at the foot-operated lever. It showed how the water valve is a cartridge-type set-up with a piston that opens the valve to allow water to flow into the toilet when you step on the foot lever.

I found a replacement cartridge at Dyersonline.com. Dyers carries many lines of genuine Dometic replacement parts. I’d ordered awning parts from them in the past. They have a warehouse in Anthem – only a few miles away from Pleasant Harbor. I called them and was told no in-person sales at the warehouse were permitted due to covid-19 restrictions. I had to pay for FedEx delivery. Oh well, at least I got the part.

At first I thought I would have to remove the entire toilet to access the cartridge, but after looking it over and seeing how it was fastened, I went for it with the toilet in place.

The cartridge has two plastic springs that catch in slots on the housing. This loosely holds the cartridge in place, then two screws anchor it to the housing. The cartridge kit included new screws and a hose clamp for the hose running from the valve into the toilet.

The first thing I had to do was to release the water supply line from the elbow at the cartridge water inlet. I used pex tubing when I installed the toilet and used Shark Bite fittings. These are clever arrangements. The Shark Bite uses a horseshoe-shaped device that fits over the tubing for disassembly. Pushing the device against the fitting while pulling on the tube releases it. Ingenious! To reassemble, you simply push the pex tubing back into the Shark Bite fitting and it locks in place with a water-tight seal.

While I was removing the old cartridge, I think I uncovered the root of the problem. The toilet had been assembled at the factory with only one screw holding the cartridge in place. With only one corner of the cartridge firmly screwed down, it was relying on the spring clips to hold it. I think this may have allowed the cartridge to cock slightly when pressure was applied to the foot lever as it contacted the piston. This, in turn, put a side thrust force on the piston which may have cocked it in its bore and broke the seal at times.

Dometic toilet valve cartridge

I reassembled it with two screws – one on the upper left and one on the lower right as designed. Job done! It seems Dometic knows the failure modes of their toilets!

Yesterday, Donna whipped up her mojo marinade before we set off for her kayaking adventure. When I returned from dropping her off, I put the now cooled marinade into a sealed bag with a pork tenderloin. Last night, Donna grilled it and served it with sweet potato French fries and asparagus. Another nutritious, delicious meal and we’ll be enjoying leftover mojo pork tacos for lunch!

Mojo marinade pork tenderloin with asparagus and sweet potato fries

The hot weather continues with daily highs in the upper 90s. The forecast calls for another week of the same before we cool off to a more normal high in the low to mid 80s.

Wild Burros

Donna registered for a guided kayak tour from Lake Pleasant Regional Park – she’ll take her kayak out on the lake next Friday with a park ranger leading a group of up to 10 people. Lake Pleasant Regional Park is operated by Maricopa County Parks and Recreation. The park is an area of about 23,000 acres – 7,500 to 10,000 acres are covered by the lake. Lake Pleasant is a pleasing name, but it may not be what you think. It’s named after the Carl Pleasant dam which was completed in 1927 and formed the lake from inflow of the Agua Fria River.

There are fees associated with entry to the park. Donna decided to purchase an annual Regional Park Pass – she’ll use it here and also when we are in Mesa to enter Usery Regional Park. So we drove the Midget west on Carefree Highway to North Castle Hot Springs Road and the entrance to the park. Once Donna paid for the pass, we drove in and took a look around.

Our first stop was at the Scorpion Bay Marina parking area. From the parking lot, you get a great view of the lake and marina. It’s a bit of a hike to get down to the marina, but they also have two inclined lifts that can hold about four people or a couple of people and gear to get down and up from the marina.

Scorpion Bay Marina – stairs between two inclined lift tracks

I was surprised at the number of large boats in the marina. The building at the end of the dock is Scorpion Bay Grill – Donna and I plan to eat there in the near future.

As we were leaving the parking area, we saw wild burros.

Yep – they’re out there

I pulled off of the pavement and Donna shot a couple of photos.

Wild burros
They didn’t want to hang around while Donna photographed them

Donna wanted to check out some of the hiking trails, so we took a car tour of the park. Between Sunset Ridge and the Bobcat Day Use area, we found a huge boat ramp. The sign says 10-lane boat ramp, but it looks larger than 10 lanes to me. It’s also a long, fairly steep run from the parking area to the water.

Huge boat ramp

We’ve had nocturnal visits from wild burros at least three times this week. Yesterday, I saw one of the park maintenance guys scooping donkey droppings and I figured out why they are coming into the RV park. We have a grassy park with a pavilion between the RV sites and the clubhouse/pool area. The burros are feeding on the green grass at night when no one is around.

Last night, Donna prepared a new dish – it was called melted broccoli pasta and she served it with shrimp grilled on the Weber Q.

Melted broccoli pasta with shrimp

I had a really interesting contact on ham radio Wednesday evening. I could hear a conversation between two people with a strong signals on both ends. I was operating on the 40-meter band, which is useful for long-range contacts of 300 miles up to 5,000+ miles. After listening for a few minutes, I found that one end of the conversation was coming from Henderson, Nevada. The other guy was in Peoria, Arizona – less than 10 miles away from me! This doesn’t usually work on 40 meters – the signal skips over near locations as it reflects off of the ionosphere.

I was able to join the conversation, then the Henderson contact had to break away and we were joined by a guy in Del Mar, California. It was a fun contact and I enjoyed the conversation. Today I’m expecting a delivery – I’m going to replace my MFJ 2289 high frequency antenna with something new. When I bought my radio gear, I really tried to learn about which radio would be the right choice for me and I think I did well. But, I should have paid more attention to antenna theory and design. A lot of the old-timers have advised to spend money on the antenna – that’s where the performance is. Well, live and learn – I should have spent the antenna money once – instead I keep replacing them with the next best thing as I learn.

Today should be the first day we have a high temperature in double digits. It’s been 100+ degrees every afternoon since we arrived. Today’s forecast calls for a high of 91 degrees and we should see low to mid-90s for the next couple of weeks. We joke about dry heat, but really at 10 to 20% humidity, 90 degrees doesn’t feel too bad.

Dry and Dusty

As I mentioned in my last post, we drove up to Kanab, Utah on Thursday and met Jeff and Deb Spencer at Escobar’s Mexican restaurant for lunch. After a short wait, we were seated at an outdoor table on the front patio. We enjoyed the food, company and conversation for the next two hours. Kanab is only about eight miles from Fredonia where we were staying.

On the way back, we made a side trip to look at the Kane County arena where a rodeo was scheduled on Friday evening. It looked dry and dusty – the parking area was a dust bowl. I decided to pass on the rodeo.

Donna went out for a bike ride on Friday and in her travels, she ran into Deb Spencer. Jeff and Deb are mooch-docking at a friend’s place in Fredonia. Donna stopped and talked to Deb and her friend, Marge.

Dry and dusty has been a theme at Wheel Inn RV Park in Fredonia. On Saturday while Donna took a bike ride, the wind kicked up. I ended up taking down my ham radio antenna and it turned out to be a good precaution as the wind became gustier all afternoon. At times, the amount of dust in the air was astounding. It was a good thing Donna went out early for her ride. She followed a route suggested by Marge and went across the state line to the Jackson Flat Reservoir. Here are some photos from her ride.

Paved path at the reservoir
Jackson Flat Reservoir
Free range goats at the reservoir

I was feeling a little off all weekend – some kind of intestinal bug. So I wasn’t very active.

On Sunday, Donna had an appointment at the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab. She drove Midget-San up there before noon. They have a number of tours for a variety of animals – dogs, cats, pigs, goats, birds and rabbits. Donna toured Cat World where rescued cats are housed.

Best Friends Animal Sanctuary Welcome Center
One of many cat enclosures

I hung out and watched the Moto GP race from Spain and the Formula One race from Russia. When Donna returned, I loaded the Midget in the trailer and I was glad I did. Once again the wind kicked up and we had several dust storms – so much dust I couldn’t see across the street.

Monday morning we hit the road. We took US89A south and began climbing. In Fredonia we were about 4,800 feet above sea level. Our route on US89A took us past Jacob Lake where we topped out at 7,920 feet above sea level! The highway is twisty and very narrow. I clenched a few times when oncoming tractor-trailer rigs threatened to knock mirrors with us. There is no shoulder at all and dropping a wheel off the pavement probably would not end well.

We quickly lost elevation as we drove past Vermillion Cliffs National Monument. We crossed the Colorado River at Marble Canyon at an elevation of a little over 3,500 feet above sea level and began climbing again. We soon left US89A and hit US89 south. This is a wider road with ample shoulder space and is a divided highway at times. But, it’s a very bumpy road with whoop-de-do sections. After traversing several miles of rough pavement, I groaned when I saw a sign warning of rough pavement for the next 24 miles. If the next 24 miles warranted a sign, things could only be getting worse.

US89 took us up the Mogollon Rim south of Cameron and the road to the east entrance of the Grand Canyon. We entered the Coconino National Forest and were back up to an elevation over 7,000 feet above sea level. Most people think of Arizona as flat desert land. Not so in northern Arizona. We went from arid canyons to thick pine forests with a multitude of landscapes in between.

From Flagstaff, you can see Humphreys Peak – the highest natural point in Arizona at 12,637 feet above sea level. We drove past Flagstaff and made a detour east on I-40 to Winona where we found the Twin Arrows Casino. The casino is closed due to the pandemic, but it has large lots and RVers are welcome to dry camp. We spent last night here and are off to Camp Verde today where we’ll spend the next couple of nights at the Distant Drums RV Resort. We’ve been there before and it’s a nice RV park with amenities.

The temperature is much cooler here, but it’ll be warmer in Camp Verde and warmer still in Lake Pleasant where we’ll check in at the marina on Thursday.

*Just so you know, if you use this link to shop on Amazon and decide to purchase anything, you pay the same price as usual and  I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!

Cedar Breaks

We took another sightseeing excursion from Iron Springs RV Park on Tuesday. We drove into Cedar City on highway 56 and went south on Main Street to UT14. This highway began climbing almost immediately and was mostly uphill for 21 miles. We entered the largest National Forest in Utah – the Dixie National Forest.

As we drove through the forest, Donna commented on the aroma of the evergreens. There were Englemann spruce trees, pines and firs. There were also quaking aspen stands – many of their leaves were starting to turn yellow. The deciduous trees along the creek bottoms were showing vivid fall colors already. We hit the summit of UT14 at 9,910 feet above sea level. The air temperature was much cooler at that elevation.

We turned north on highway 148 and continued to climb another 400-500 feet as we entered the Cedar Breaks National Monument. It occurred to me then – I hadn’t seen a single cedar tree around Cedar City, nor did I see any in the Dixie National Forest and the Cedar Breaks National Monument. What was up with that?

At one of the information kiosks at a scenic overlook, I learned that early settlers in the area mis-identified the ubiquitous juniper trees found here as cedars. So, Cedar City and Cedar Breaks National Monument are named based on mis-identification.

Cedar Breaks is called a natural amphitheater, but it looked like a rugged canyon to me. The drive through Cedar Breaks National Monument is 7.5 miles long and has four scenic overlooks. We entered and my America the Beautiful Senior Pass got us in for free. We drove to the north end of the monument, then turned around and made stops at each of the overlooks. The overlooks have a parking area and a short paved path to the viewing area. I shot a lot of photos – here are some of the sights.

Donna at an overlook – check out the elevation

The colors of the rock are due to layers of shale, sandstone and limestone exposed by erosion. Cedar Breaks is on the west side of the Markagunt Plateau – the same plateau as Zion to the south.

On the way out, we needed a comfort break before making the drive back. We parked at the information center near the entrance and walked to the gift shop thinking we would find restrooms there. We didn’t – they told us we had to go to the other end of the lot and we would find a building with restrooms there. We did. Then we decided to walk back past the gift shop to the Point Supreme Overlook. The time it took us to detour to the restrooms and back to the overlook cost us.

As we got back to Midget-San, a few rain drops fell. There wasn’t any rain in the forecast, but in the mountains, weather can change in an instant. As we drove out of the park, it started to rain harder. I could see blue sky just ahead and figured we should just push on – stopping to put the top up would take just as long as driving out of the rain. I soon regretted this decision as hail started falling. The hail stones mostly bounced off the windshield or flew overhead as we drove, but a few got us. I was hit on the nose and ear and it stung! Donna took a few to her cheek. We were out of it after a few minutes and the car quickly dried. Before we got out of the showers, we saw a few motorcyclists on the side of the road donning rain gear. Little did they know they would be out if it just a few curves down the road.

The rest of the trip back was uneventful. In the afternoon, I secured everything in the trailer and loaded the Midget. We hit the road again Wednesday morning but we weren’t in a hurry. We were only going about 100 miles to Fredonia, Arizona. I made a stop at the Sinclair station to top up the fuel tank before we hit I-15 south. We took about 60 gallons of diesel fuel at $2.31/gallon.

Our route left I-15 and headed southeast on UT17 through Toquerville, La Verkin and Hurricane. Out of Hurricane, we made a steep climb on UT59. We followed this road to the state line where we made a stop at Subway for lunch. I hadn’t given any thought to the time change, but since we crossed into Arizona, we gained an hour.

Arizona time is equivalent to Mountain Standard Time year-round – they don’t observe Daylight Saving Time. So, in the summer months, Arizona time is the same as Pacific Daylight Time and in the winter it is Mountain Standard Time. This can be confusing at times.

We took our time eating lunch. There was no sense in arriving at Wheel Inn RV Park in Fredonia before noon. We ended up driving into the park around 12:15pm. The office was closed, so I phoned the number on the door. The park owner told me to pick an open pull-through site and text the site number to him once we were in.

The pull-through sites are long with lots of space to enter and exit – the park is basically a dirt lot. It’s level, but the sites are narrow. It’s laid out in such a way to allow an island between adjoining sites to have a shared water spigot and hook-ups. The sites alternate facing east or west. The downside to this is neighboring doors face each other and the picnic table areas are shared space. We set up and will spend five nights here before moving down around Flagstaff.

Before we left Cedar City, Donna found fresh tilapia from Ecuador at the Smith’s grocery there. She made an old favorite that we haven’t had in a while – tortilla-crusted tilapia.

Tortilla-crusted tilapia

We’re in for more hot, dry weather. The forecast calls for daily highs around 90 degrees. We’re still at an elevation of about 4,800 feet above sea level, but the elevation isn’t making it any cooler here.

Today we plan to drive up to Kanab, Utah and meet our friends, Jeff and Deb Spencer (Rolling Recess) for lunch. We haven’t seen them since spring. Our paths have crossed several times over the years and it’s always fun to meet up with them.

*Just so you know, if you use this link to shop on Amazon and decide to purchase anything, you pay the same price as usual and  I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!