Year 3 Week 35

February 11 to 17, 2007

Casa Grande, Arizona to Hondo, Texas

Year 3 week 35

 

Sunday ; Casa Grande to Benson, Arizona

Today was partially cloudy and warm.

We left RoVers Roost this morning continuing east on Interstate 8. A bit east of Casa Grande, Interstate 8 merges with Interstate 10, and I-8 ends. It began in San Diego. We have now driven I-8 literally from one end to the other. We continued on I-10 into Tucson ( Too sawn ) where we stopped at Camping World to see if they carried a product for the trailer called Slide Out Slickers. They didn't.

We continued east on I-10 to Benson, to the SKP park called Saguaro Co-op. Once again, the park was full, and we ended up in the boondock area. After supper we went to the park's regular Sunday evening ice cream social. We chatted with 2 couples from Florida. And we reacquainted with a couple from Idaho that we have met twice before. We first met them about 2 years ago at a restaurant in Phoenix, Arizona, and we spent a very enjoyable New Year's Eve 2005 sharing a table with them in this park.

 

Monday ; Today was sunny and warm.

Today was a day with a lot of wasted time, due to inefficiencies / personal inconsiderateness here at Saguaro Co-op. When we checked in yesterday, we were no. 5 on the list waiting for a serviced site, with 6 rigs expected to leave today, so getting a serviced site today was probable. This morning I went to the office to check on our site availability status at 10:15 A.M.. Check out time is 11:00 A.M.. We were no. 2 at 10:15 A.M., with 3 more rigs expected to depart. Looking good ! We prepared for departure / to move to another site. Then, mostly to kill off time, we drove to the dump station to refill the fresh water tank, and drain the waste holding tanks. We returned to the office at 11:00 A.M., to either get a serviced site, or depart. Well ... a site was not yet available for us, but was going to be soon, due to a late check out. Okay ! A little miffed, we drove to "downtown" Benson, towing the trailer, to go to the Post Office. We did our business at the Post Office, bought some groceries at Safeway, and refilled some water jugs. I phoned the park office. Our site was expected to be available to us at 1:00 P.M.. Getting a bit more pissed off, we drove over to Benson's new Wal-Mart Supercentre, and did some Wal-Mart'n. How does a town of 5000 people justify a 24 hr. a day Wal-Mart Supercentre ? !

We drove back to the park about 1:00 P.M.. Our site wasn't vacant yet < fume >. We went back to boondock, and had lunch. Our site wasn't vacant yet. I took a short nap. Finally, we were able to move onto our serviced site at 2:30 P.M.. The chores that I wanted to accomplish today were not yet started. And we were still here in Benson. The plan was ... either get some chores done, or travel a couple of hundred miles down the road towards meeting our friends at Port Aransas on the Gulf Of Mexico in Texas. We accomplished neither !

We got set up in our site, then went to the regular weekday afternoon social hour. This park is the most sociable of all the SKP parks. Everybody brings snacks and hors d'oeuvres to each day's social hour, and everybody actually sits around and socializes for a couple of hours. And, we know from 2 previous visits to this park, for a bunch of old folks, they sure know how to party here !

I guess the chores will have to wait until tomorrow.

 

Tuesday ; Today was mostly sunny, a few clouds, windy and cool. It rained a little bit overnight.

This morning I unhitched Lanoire from Harvey, and drove into town to run errands. I mailed the malfunctioned fluorescent light fixture back to the manufacturer for warranty repairs. I refilled Lanoire with diesel, then refilled an empty propane tank.

This afternoon I worked on a project that has been on my to do list for a long time. When we had the trailer carpet removed and replaced with vinyl sheet flooring a year and a half ago, I cosmetically finished the job by installing two six foot pieces of moulding along the lower front edge of the living room / dinette slide. Almost since then, I've wanted to replace the 2 sections of moulding with one, to eliminate the seam. Just before we left Palm Springs I bought a 12 foot section of the same moulding. This 12 foot section of moulding has been in our way for the past 2 weeks, every time we retract the slides to travel. I finally installed it today. We were too busy in San Diego sightseeing, too busy in Yuma buying Joanne's glasses in Mexico, and then had a few nights on the road without being hooked up to power, to recharge my drill battery.

Joanne worked on sanding and refinishing the sofa table made for us by my brother-in-law Bud. It fell over recently while we were driving, and got a bit of a scratch and dent on it. Joanne sanded off the damage, then re-varnished it. She went into town to do some shopping. I went to the afternoon social hour. I'm amused by the irony exhibited by wealthy old folks. Earlier today, this park had a fundraising auction of home baked goods and home cooked meals. The topic of discussion around the social hour table was the prices paid for some of the items. Sixty dollars for a home baked lemon pie, which was then brought to social hour by the purchaser, to be shared with everyone. And $350 for a home cooked meal of barbecued ribs with all the fixings, plus a bottle of wine. Then ... the topic of discussion turned to today's grocery store flyers in the newspaper. People were all a-twitter over the sale price of 10 lemons for a dollar. HA HA HA ... these people pay $60 for a lemon pie, then get all excited about lemons on sale, ten for a dollar ! Remember, these are the same people that will pay a quarter of a million dollars for huge motorhomes, then "dry camp" in the desert to avoid paying campground fees of $20 a night. HA HA HA HA HA !

After social hour there was enough daylight left for me to do a couple more maintenance jobs. I lubricated the bedroom slide weatherstripping, then mixed up a small batch of fiberglass epoxy and hardener, to repair a small crack on Harvey's fiberglass gel coat. I've become quite proficient at fiberglass repairs over the last couple of years.

 

Wednesday ; Benson, Arizona to Deming, New Mexico

Happy Valentine's Day

Today was mostly sunny, with a few minutes of rain. Benson was cool. Deming was cold and windy.

We departed a bit late this morning, because I decided to do one more project before leaving. Saguaro Co-op has a well equipped workshop available for use by the park's residents, and I used the opportunity of having tools and equipment at my disposal to fabricate a spare roof ladder stand off stanchion. I bought the parts and hardware needed while we were in Palm Springs, but I didn't have the right tools to do the job until now. We were delayed a bit more when I checked the tire air pressures and realized that all the tire pressures were low because we were now 5000 feet higher than when I last adjusted tire pressures a week or so ago at sea level. Saguaro Co-op has an air compressor station right beside the trailer dump station. Some parks are so well equipped.

We continued heading east on I-10, slowly ascending most of the day, it seemed. New Mexico is generally at a higher elevation than Arizona. We stopped for lunch at the Arizona / New Mexico border. Driving an Interstate across the desert is easy, so Joanne drove after lunch while Bo and I snoozed. We woke up when Joanne started singing some obscure old cowboy song about tumbleweeds tumbling along, because that's exactly what she was seeing out the windshield. At Deming we stopped for the night at Dream Catcher SKP Park. We just had time to get set up in our site before the special Valentine's Day social hour. Over home baked cookies and fruit punch we chatted with a single man from Denver, Colorado who had just arrived today, leaving Benson, Arizona this morning 2 hours before us. He encountered snow while driving. We didn't. Just a bit of rain. After social hour, as we were returning to our rig, we recognized the man that had just pulled into the site beside us. It was Terry Ellis, a member of Escapees Ontario Chapter 18 that we've met a few times before at Chapter 18 events. We chatted briefly. Jim, our new friend from Denver, Colorado, invited us to join him for dinner. We drove with him in his car into town, and drove up and down the main street of Deming looking for a restaurant to choose. We chose Si Señor, a Mexican restaurant. We had an enjoyable evening of dining and chatting with Jim, who is relatively new to the world of full time RV'ing, having started about 6 months ago.

 

Thursday ; Deming, New Mexico to I-10 mile marker 233, west of Fort Stockton, Texas

Today was sunny and cold. Our outside water supply hose froze overnight. I already miss the warm temperatures of California and Arizona. I hope The Valley will be warmer then New Mexico and West Texas.

We chatted briefly with our new friend Jim from Denver, Colorado, before departing Dream Catcher SKP Park in Deming. We continued east on Interstate 10. As we crossed the border into Texas, we stopped at the El Paso suburb of Anthony to buy an item at Camping World and refill with diesel at Flying J. I-10 passes through El Paso for about 35 miles. Tough driving in urban traffic. And we were delayed by a fatal accident. It didn't appear to be a traffic accident. It appeared to be an industrial accident in a construction zone. It's unnerving to pass a body laid out on the road covered with a sheet.

We passed a bill board for a medical clinic advertising vasectomies ... with a money back guarantee ! HA HA HA ! Welcome to Texas, Pilgrim ! HA HA HA HA HA < SNORT > ! Just a minute ... I'm laughing too hard to be able to type.

We stopped for lunch after passing through El Paso. Joanne drove for a couple of hours after lunch. We drove a long distance today. West Texas is mile after mile of endless scruffy desert. We saw a herd of 8 deer, and then a large group ( don't know what else to call them ) of javelinas ( "j" sounds like "h" ) grazing on the side of the road at dusk. We were going to push through all the way to Fort Stockton, and spend the night in a Wal-Mart parking lot. But about half an hour before Fort Stockton there was a road side rest area with free Wi-Fi. Thank you very much, Texas. We spent the night at the rest area, enabling me to retrieve my mid-month investment updates. At the rest area, I chatted with the occupants of a large motorhome with the name THORNBIRD emblazoned all over it, and the equipment trailer it was towing. They were a rock band from Los Angeles, heading to San Antonio for a gig. < whispering > Never heard of them !

 

Friday ; I-10 mm 233 to Hondo, Texas

Today was sunny and cool.

We had another long hard day of driving. About 350 miles / 550 kilometres each of the last 2 days. We continued east on I-10 this morning. We stopped in Fort Stockton to buy diesel. Two years ago we ran out of fuel ( twice, Joanne reminded me ) just outside of Fort Stockton. Once about 25 miles out of town, and again about 3 miles out of town when my 2 gallons of emergency fuel ran out. We stopped for lunch near Sonora. We saw lots of deer today, both dead and alive. The deer population in Texas seems high this year. The topography slowly changed from the Sonoran Desert to "Texas Hill Country", rolling hills with trees and ranches. We stopped in Kerrville to refill with diesel again. We don't often have to fill up twice in one day. At Kerrville we headed south through town on Hwy. 16, then south on Hwy. 173 to Hwy. 90 at Hondo. We turned west on Hwy. 90, through town, then found our way to Lone Star Corral SKP Park about 8 miles west of Hondo, almost at the town of D'Hanis.

We arrived at the park at 5:15 P.M., fifteen minutes after their scheduled closing time, and we expected to spend the night in their boondock area. But the office was open a bit late tonight, they accommodated our arrival, and we got a serviced site. How nice.

I spent the evening updating my investment files. WOO-HOO !

 

Saturday ; Today was sunny and mild, but windy.

This morning our friend from Ottawa, Erbon Dickinson, phoned from Port Aransas to find out when we would be arriving in Port Aransas. The cell phone signal was so poor we were unable to communicate. I unhitched the truck from the trailer and we headed into town.

Once in Hondo, with a stronger cell phone signal, I returned the call to Erbon, and we made some preliminary plans for our visit with him and Lorraine in Port Aransas next week. We had lunch at Whataburger. The verdict is divided. Joanne thinks that the Texas chain Whataburger is better than the California chain In N Out. I disagree, preferring In N Out's hamburgers, but conceding that the Whataburger chicken strips burger is outstanding. We went to Wal-Mart after lunch. We have once again entered the area of the United States where the Wal-Marts have gas bars, with the cheapest prices in the area. I will definitely refill with diesel as we depart Hondo on Monday. We did our Wal-Mart'n, then went to McBee's Bar B Que to buy take-out barbecued brisket and barbecued fajita ( pronounced "faheeta" ) beef for supper tonight. We had take-out barbecue ( a noun in the Southern U.S ) from McBee's 2 years ago. It's GREAT ! McBee's reinforced my long held conviction that it's universally hard to find good help. The lady serving us screwed up our credit card transaction ... twice before getting it right the third time. Neither she nor her boss knew how to reverse a credit card transaction on their credit card terminal. I refused to accept a cheque for the correcting refund. I'm a "foreigner" in the United States and cannot readily cash a cheque. They had to fork over $125.65 cash for the errors on the credit card.

Back at Lone Star Corral I installed the spare tire valve extender I bought at Camping World in El Paso a couple of days ago. Now I can check and adjust the spare tire's air pressure without having to crawl underneath the back of the truck. I bolted the extended valve on the back bumper beside the license plate. We went to social hour. We learned that there has been a recall of peanut butter made by Peter Pan, also sold by Wal-Mart under their private label, Great Value. There have many instances, all over the United States, of severe flu like illness caused by a bacterial infection in the peanut butter. We have a fairly new jar of Great Value peanut butter. Could that have been the cause of my severe "flu" while in San Diego ? ! ?

After social hour we sat in the clubhouse and chatted with a single woman from Virginia for about 3 hours. She made a very interesting comment. She said that in her experience, Canadian "couples" are much more sociable to "singles" than American "couples". I wonder if that partially explains our friendship with Julie Hazlett whom we met on a WorkCamping job over 2 years ago in Missouri, our friendship with our paraplegic RV'er friend, Jim Shelton, whom we met here in Hondo 2 years ago, and our new friendship the other day at Deming, New Mexico with Jim from Colorado ?

When we finally returned to the trailer there was a huge stain of bile vomit on the love seat, with a Live Oak acorn in the middle of it. BO ! ! ! Why would you swallow an acorn ? ! ? What a stupid ****ing dog ! ! !

MMMMM ... we have just finished our barbecued brisket and barbecued fajita supper, accompanied by baked beans and potato salad, which are the traditional barbecue side dishes in Texas.

 

DSK