This afternoon I finished the installation of the television in the truck camper, designing, fabricating, and installing a nylon strap restraint system to securely hold the TV and its swing arm mount during travel. Joanne did laundry.
We attended the fifth of seven weekly agility sessions at the Humane Society of Yuma. Bo did great ! At the end of today's class each of the eight dogs completed an entire agility course circuit. Bo is the shortest leg dog in the class, and the oldest, and ... it was a very warm, sunny afternoon, so ... he didn't complete it quickly ! But I'm proud of him. Well done, Bo, good dog !
This evening we attended the regular Sunday ice cream social, then watched the season premiere of Amazing Race.
Monday ; Mostly sunny and very warm. Joanne cooked chicken chile verde in the Sun Oven today.
This morning she took our recycling to a local recycling center while I got a slow start to my day. I slept poorly because of knee pain, an ongoing problem. After she returned we went to the storage area in our RV park and mounted the truck camper onto the truck.
I originally typed that as "mounted Elsie onto Lanoire" but it sounded ... dirty ! HA HA HA !
This afternoon Joanne packed clothes and food into Elsie. I fabricated a TV cover from some surplus sun screen material that was left in our shed by the previous owner. Now the new flat screen TV I installed in Elsie has a cover to keep out dust and protect the screen from getting scratched.
When I went for my daily bicycle ride at dusk I met old friends of ours from the Escapees B.C. Okanagan Chapter 33. They arrived yesterday and are in this park's unserviced boondock area because all the serviced sites are occupied. I invited them over to visit with us in our Arizona room after supper.
Tuesday ; Yuma to Gila Bend, Arizona
Cloudy, humid, very warm.
We were up early this morning to leave the RV park at 9 AM for a group tour of a local goat farm. It was a very interesting tour. I bought some goat cheese. Joanne bought some goat milk soap.
This afternoon we finished our departure preparations and left home about 1:45 PM heading for the Humane Society for our regular Tuesday afternoon dog walking / cat cuddling shift starting at 2 PM. We were finished at the Humane Society at 4:30, headed over to The Foothills to run some errands, buy some groceries, refill with diesel, and were on Interstate 8 heading east by 5:30 PM.
MMMMM ! ! ! Date shakes at Dateland. We bought two large date shakes and put them in Elsie's freezer to be dessert following tonight's supper. We drove as far as Gila Bend, arriving there about 7:30 PM. As before, we stopped for the night at Holt's Shell in Gila Bend. We had supper ( MMMMM ... fresh sushi from Fry's in The Foothills for me ) and then date shakes for dessert. Warm evening, everybody was happy, life is good !
Onward to the next adventure !
Wednesday ; Gila Bend to Phoenix to Oak Flat Campground in Tonto National Forest, Arizona
Sunny and very warm, even at the 4000 foot elevation of Tonto National Forest. Why are our animals getting so sick on these short camping trips we're taking ? Last time it was Sully. This time it's Bo who was very ill, vomiting about half a dozen times this evening, moaning and whining and shivering. Poor Bo. Hope he's better by tomorrow morning !
We slept in late this morning, getting a late start to the day. Before leaving Holt's Shell in Gila Bend we dumped Elsie's shower waste holding tank and refilled the freshwater tank. From Gila Bend we headed east on Hwy. 238 through the Sonoran Desert National Monument ( National Park ). Very scenic ! At Maricopa we turned north on Hwy. 347 into the metropolitan Phoenix area.
We spent the day shopping in Phoenix and surrounding urban area. First stop was Camping World in Mesa to buy a few RV items. HEY ! There's a couple of discontinued model folding chairs, marked down from $16 to ... < BLINK BLINK > ... four bucks ! Only two left. Just what Elsie needs, for sitting around campfires in state parks. Bought 'em !
Next we headed for Trader Joe's. HEY ! There's a Cici's Pizza. We haven't been to a Cici's Pizza in ... < thinking > ... five years ! Since Texas ! We like Cici's Pizza, a buffet restaurant. We decided to stop for a late lunch. The hostess advised us that the senior's lunch buffet price was six bucks apiece. Great ! However ... on Wednesdays ... the Early Bird senior's dinner price ... starting in one hour ... is ... wait for it ... three bucks ! WOW ! See ya in an hour, sweetie !
We went to Trader Joe's ! Where we spent a lot of money, as we always do at Trader Joe's, buying exotic, gourmet, and specialty food items, snack foods, junk foods, and twenty-five cans of Sully's beloved Trader Joe's Tuna Cat Food. Hope he lives that long ! HA HA HA !
We returned to Cici's Pizza for a very late lunch / very early supper. MMMMM ! ! ! As good as we remembered. That was a lot of pizza ( and soup and salad and pasta with sauce and garlic bread and brownies and cinnamon buns and apple pie pizza ... ) we ate for three bucks ! HA HA HA ! We headed to an outlet store mall to shop for Birkenstock sandals for me at a Famous Footwear store, the same chain of footwear stores where I bought my last pair of Birkenstock sandals, in Laughlin, Nevada. HMPH ! Famous Footwear no longer carries Birkenstock sandals in "wide" width. Maybe I'll have to order a pair online ?
As we headed out of the Phoenix area we stopped at Fry's. While Joanne ran into the store for one grocery item, I refilled Lanoire with diesel. We headed east on Hwy. 60 into the Superstition Mountains. A few miles after the city of Superior we turned off the highway to find Oak Flat Campground, a National Forest Service unserviced campground in Tonto National Forest. No services ... and no charge ! Nice campground, nice scenery, high dessert, in boulder mountains.
I'm very eager to get online to verify that Joanne's very first Canada Pension Plan payment was deposited to our bank account today. YIPPPEEE ... if everything worked as it was supposed to !
Thursday ; Oak Flat Campground to Cholla Campground, Tonto National Forest
Sunny and warm. Most of the day was wasted, lost to vicious bickering and the baggage that goes along with it ! ! ! Bo has never been sicker than he was last night and overnight. Twelve hours of hourly vomiting. What a rough night for him and us !
This morning we left Oak Flat Campground and drove to Wal-Mart in Globe where we bought some anti-nausea medication for Bo. By the time we administered it he had already stopped vomiting a puddle of bile on an hourly basis, bit was still very ill. He slowly improved throughout the day, so that by nightfall he didn't seem ill anymore, just extremely weak. I scrambled some eggs to feed him for the next day or two, and he was eager to eat a bit of scrambled egg. Poor Bo, hang in there, you'll be better soon.
We headed north on Hwy. 188 into Tonto National Forest. We stopped to get some information at the Visitor's Information Center, and had lunch in the parking lot. We continued north, stopping at Cholla Campground on Roosevelt Lake. Cholla Campground is a large campground with 206 sites, all unserviced, but the campground has solar powered shower buildings.
Friday ; exploring Tonto National Forest
Well ... we drove over 260 km. / 160 miles today exploring Tonto National Forest. Some of the day was sunny. Some of it was cloudy. We even had a few droplets of rain. When we left Cholla Campground at an elevation around 2100 feet, the temperature was 74 degrees. Mid-afternoon, along the Mogollon Rim, at an elevation over 7600 feet, the temperature was 41 degrees. Upon arrival at Windy Hill Campground at 6:45 PM, again at an elevation around 2100 feet, the temperature was once again 74 degrees.
When we pulled out of Cholla Campground late this morning we stopped at the trailer dump station. It's open ... four hours per day ... twice per week ! HUH ? And ... there is a dump ... < sputter > ... but no freshwater refill ! HUH ? ! ? Sometimes ya gotta wonder ... what was some bureaucrat in Washington thinking ? ! ?
We headed north on Hwy. 188, along the western shore of Roosevelt Lake stopping to explore each picnic site and campground we came to. We stopped at a church and refilled our freshwater tank from a water spigot on the side of the building. When we stopped to have lunch along the Roosevelt Lake shoreline Bo was even feeling chipper enough to briefly play beach doughnut fetch. HA HA HA ... well done, Bo, good dog. First time you've ever played beach doughnut fetch in the desert, isn't it, Bo ? HA HA HA !
We drove north on Hwy. 188 through Punkin Center, and north on Hwy. 87 to Payson. We turned east on Hwy. 260 and stopped at three National Forest campgrounds, all closed for the winter season. At Forest Road 512, also known as the Young - Heber Road, we turned south on the "From the Desert to the Tall Pines Scenic Byway", travelling its 67 mile length in reverse. Most of the 67 miles were rough gravel road, providing a good test of the truck camper's ability to get us "off the beaten path", one of the main reasons why we bought it. Forest Road 512 became Hwy. 288 at the lovely, "old west" town of Young in Pleasant Valley. When we reached the end ( actually, the beginning ) of the From the Desert to the Tall Pines Scenic Byway when Hwy. 288 ended ( began ) at Hwy. 188 we turned north and once again followed along the shoreline of Roosevelt Lake until reaching Windy Hill Campground, arriving just at dark.
Saturday ; Windy Hills Campground, Tonto National Forest to Gila Bend, Arizona
It began to rain heavily overnight, and it's still raining heavily as I type this in the laundromat of Holt's Shell in Gila Bend, at 9:30 PM.
It's too bad that the "flamers" who send me nasty messages because they take exception to something I've said in my blog years ago don't have the courage to send their nasty comments with their name attached . They always hide behind "anonymous".
This morning we departed Windy Hill Campground and headed south on Hwy. 188 back to Globe, then headed west on Hwy. 60 through Superior to Florence Junction. South to Florence on Hwy. 79, west on Hwy. 287 to Coolidge, we stopped to refill with diesel at the Safeway fuel bar, then had lunch in Safeway's parking lot. South on Hwy. 87 and west on Hwy. 287 to Casa Grande where we spotted ... WOO-HOO ... a Whataburger ! Didn't know there were any Whataburgers this far west, thought they were only in Texas and New Mexico ! We bought some burgers to put in the fridge and have for supper later tonight. Very disturbing to both of us to see a drug addled hooker who looked to be about 15 years old in the Whataburger, mooching.
Made brief stops at PetsMart and Dollar General before heading out of Casa Grande, west on Hwy. 84 through Stanfield, until reaching Interstate 8, then west on I-8 to Gila Bend where we once again hunkered down for the night at Holt's Shell. My computer battery was almost out of power, so after supper I decided to kill two birds with one stone by going into the laundromat to work on the computer, plugged into a wall outlet, recharging the battery, and using the free Wi-Fi to retrieve e-mail. Had to share the space with the two wet, homeless guys and one dog sleeping in the laundromat to get out of the rain.
DSK
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