Hot Springs

We had a nice couple days at Ft Huachuca, I got to reminisce about when I was stationed there back in the 70's, (not degrees), and we saw some amazing sunsets. Our first day there we saw two javelinas near the Apache Flats RV Park.

The park is a first rate park, the sites have concrete pads plenty wide enough for any rig, and a smaller concrete pad where the picnic table sits, and it is large enough to set out a few chairs with the picnic table. There is an office that shares the laundry room, and game room, with restrooms and showers on the other end. They also have an open air type building with a pool table and plenty tables and chairs for pot lucks or parties. The staff and really friendly, and they keep the park very well maintained.

Jon's company is going through a change of command so he was kept pretty busy while we were there, but we did get to spend some time with him during the evenings. We enjoyed the hospitality of the mess hall one evening, and for $4.25 each we saw it as a real bargain. although most G I's think the mess hall food isn't as good as it should be, we thought diner that night was very good. (the $4.25 each made it that much better) We had Italian sausage, potato wedges, broccoli casserole, YELLOW cake with CHOCOLATE icing, pudding and pie, while Jon had a dried out hamburger.

Here is a picture of our G I Jon.




Here is a picture of our G I Jon and me an ex-G I Joe.



We left Ft Huachuca heading to Tucson, but when we came to I-10 we decided to turn south so we could spend a night at Saguaro Co-Op. It is an Escapee Co-op park. It is nice, but I have never been too impressed with it. Once we got set up we took off in search of a hot spring.

the lady that checked us in didn't know where there were and had never visited one around Benson, so I did a little checking on the net and found three close to Stafford AZ, about 75 miles away. We jumped into the tracker and took off searching for Roper Lake State Park, which has a hot spring in the park.

We got side tracked before we arrived at the state park by a sign pointing the way across the desert to Hot Springs Dunes. HSD is on BLM land and allows camping near the hot springs. We drove about 15 miles across the desert on a dirt road, and then another 5-10 miles on a semi blacktop road before we arrived at Hot Spring Dunes.

HSD is a popular place for off road riding in sand buggies, quads, and what ever else you want to ride on/in out in the desert. We were lucky to only see one tag a long trailer camped near the hot spring. We took full advantage of to hot spring and soaked for about half an hour. The water we PERFECT !!!!! really warm.

Here is Marcia standing in the "natural hot spring".



Thursday AM we left Benson and drove up to the Desert Diamond Casino near Tucson where Marcia will be getting another BINGO fix.....

PS:

About the picture on the blog home front, It is of the night sky while we were visiting Ft Huachuca. The sunset was so beautiful that night, and it had us in awe. Then we looked the other way and saw the amazing sight, Marcia took several pictures of the sunset, and one of the moon with the light reflecting off the clouds. The sunsets didn't turn out but this one did.....

The slow down

Yes it is a slow down, not of our traveling, or our activities, it is me writing my blog. I will not be doing a daily blog where I just tell everyone what we did that day however exciting or boring it was. I will try to do the blog at least once a week, I'm sure everyone isn't bored to the point that they want to know every detail of our full timing adventure, so I am going to write "my journal" but not post it in the blog.
I will attempt to give a weekly synopsis of our travels, and I will try to add enough pictures of whatever to the blog.

Tuesday we left Ray and Elen and drove to Tucson where we visited with Pam, Jon, Bill Andrew, Brian, and a couple class mates David and Kathy. We stayed a few nights at Tra-Tel RV Park just off of I-10. It was a decent P A Park, and the were plenty empty sites so we had plenty room around us. The new managers were terrific, although they didn't know Nick and Terry Russell.

Friday we took the rig down on the south side of town to get estimates on getting the roof FIXED. One place wanted to keep the rig a few days to give us an estimate, (we settled on an appointment 2 weeks away). The second place said the roof was so screwed up they wouldn't touch it, and the third place would only give an estimate on replacing the rubber, and the roof rack, and repairing the cut satellite cable. They said they couldn't give an estimate on repairing the roof until they had the rubber off.

After the discouraging news all day we just stayed on the south side and parked the rig at Agave Gulch FamCamp on Davis Monthan Air Force Base. Shortly after we got set up our friends and class mates David and Kathy rolled in. We spent several hours catching up and exchanging horror stories.

Saturday we pulled out early and drove the rig to Arleen's house where we borrowed her driveway. She is visiting back east so I'm sure she didn't mind too much. Later that evening we had a cookout at Jon and Pam's. The "Margarator" was in action and some were doing shots. The steaks were good, and the rest of the food was great. The company was great, and we got to meet Andrew's soon to be new bride. (CRS has set in and I can't remember her name).

Sunday morning we drove the rig down to Ft Huachuca where we parked it at Apache Flats. (The campground on Ft Huachuca.) Our son Jon came to visit us soon after we arrived. It was really good to see him again, he looks like the Army is taking really good care of him. Now we are waiting on Jon to finish some chores before we all head out to find a nice place to eat tonight.

More to come in the following days...

The 7 Year Wait is Over

Today Marcia and I started out by driving to Davis Montham Air Force Base to get I D cards. We got about 5 miles from the rig when Marcia ask if she would need her DL, so we drove back to the rig to get it.

We then got to Swan Gate leading onto the base when we were directed to go to the main gate. So we turned around and drove to the main gate and went into the visitors center. We didn't have to wait long until a gentleman ask us to step up to his window, and we explained what we needed. He started filling out papers and then he ask for the tracker registration. Well I had taken it out a few days ago when I was cleaning it out and didn't put it back so we had to drive back to the rig across town. The man did give us a phone number to call to find out exactly what papers we needed to bring with us, and he did warn us that it would be a long time before they answered the phone.

Marcia started calling the number while I was driving us back to the rig, and shortly aster we dot back they answered the phone. It only took about 30 min for them to answer the phone, but when they did the lady said she would call me back after she talked to the VA and got all the information they needed to issue the ID Cards. It wasn't long before she called back and said they had all the information they needed for me, and that I would only need my DL, but Marcia needed several things. We quickly gathered the needed papers and were ready to try it again.

Just before we left my phone rang again and it we the insurance adjuster calling about the roof. He got the owner of Shoreline on three way calling and we discussed the piss pore job they did on the roof. The outcome is that I take it to a shop here in Tucson and Shoreline will pay for it. He will either pay it out of his pocket or he will turn it in on his insurance. So now I need to get estimated and fax them to the adjuster and to the owner of Shoreline.

Now that we had everything we thought we would need we drove back across town to the Air Base. The gentleman we saw the first time at the visitors center called us right up, he finished the paper work and gace us directions to where we needed to be to get our I D Cards made.

Once we got to that building we signed in and went into the waiting room where we watched the last part of "Night at the Museum", and the first part of Indiana Jones before our names were called. The process took about 20 min after we were called, and then we had military I D Cards. (retired)

We spent some time checking out the BX, Commissary, Campground, and the class VI store. We left the base and checked out a couple motorhomes we had seen listed in the RV Trader. Later we met Cousin Bill for dinner, we tried a new mom and pop Mexican joint close to his house. The food was decent, but the service was lacking, mainly due to the waitress not speaking English.

All in all it turned out to be a pretty good day, one that I have been waiting on for seven years now....

Tucson

Sometime last month I had ask Marcia where she wanted to be on her birthday and she said Tucson AZ, well we made to Tucson but we are 9 days late for her birthday. Sorry Marcia!

Tuesday we got up early and left Lake Pleasant. We had a terrific time with Ray and Elen, and hope to see them on the road many more times in the near future. We drove the 150 miles to Tucson AZ where we checked into one of Nick Russell's landing spots where he and Terry are in Tucson.

This is a Pass Port America park and in the book it lists it as $11 for the first night and $15 for additional nights. The $11 turned out to be $12.50 and by the time you added in electric and taxes it turns out to be $18.75 a night, and they will honor the PA discount for as long as we want to stay. $18.75 isn't too bad, but when you expect $11 it makes it sound a lot worse than it is. WHY don't they advertise the price you will have to pay?

When we arrived I was telling the lady checking us in about our friend Nick telling us about the place. I was describing Nick as a little fat guy with a good looking wife that he really doesn't deserve. I really had them going in the office until they said they had never met him. Apparently they have new managers here and the new managers have never had the pleasure of meeting Nick or Terry.

We got the rig set up and then we went to see Pam, we caught her on her lunch break. She had a couple packages for us that we had ask to send our mail to her house, and had ask Corey to send my med to her house. We didn't stay long because we didn't want to distract her from her work, but we will be spending some time there this weekend for sure.

Cousin Bill was next to visit. He is looking good, and being retired is suiting him quite well. We spent a couple hours talking before we left to return to the rig. Tomorrow I will be doing the VA "STUFF" so my patience will be tried over and over I'm sure....

Wheeling in the Bradshaw Mtns

Today Ray, Elen, Marcia and myself went wheeling in the tracker. We too I-17 up to Bumble Bee where we picked up a dirt road that took us through the Bradshaw Mtns. We stopped off in Crown King, a mining town up in the pines. The is a bar/eatery, a souvenir shop, a fire department, and a few houses in this little town. From the stories we heard about the town it really comes alive on weekend nights, with the bar being the main attraction.

We left Crown King following the dirt roads to a place where Ray and Elen spent a couple weeks boondocking. The road he pulled their 5er through wasn't much more than a goat path. Although I didn't have to put the tracker in 4 wheel drive during the trip I did have to be careful and some of the switchbacks were tight in the tracker let alone Rays big dually and a 5er behind it. He really took away all doubt about me thinking he was missing a marbles when he described pulling the 5er across that road.

At one point we stopped to stretch and snap a few pictures and all we could see in any direction was high desert mtns and and area of pine trees called Pine Flats. As you can see in the pictures below there was a lot of nothing all around us.







It was a really fun day and Ray shared some gold mining secrets with us, enough for me to decide that I will leave the gold mining to someone else.

Tomorrow we leave Ray and Elen and will be headed to Tucson to visit family....

Another Day at The LAKE

Today Marcia and I spent the day wheeling around the lake. Ray and Elen had prior commitments so we took off in the tracker looking to find a secluded spot on the lake. Well that isn't going to happen on a Sunday on this lake. There were more boats here, and jet skis than you can shake a stick at.

We drove way back into the desert looking for a place to get to the lake on the back side where most people wouldn't go. I knew boats would be looking for the secluded spots too, so I wasn't surprised when we didn't find the spot, but we did wind up on one of the bluffs over looking the lake and it was beautiful.



A perfect Saguaro Cactus is hard to find except in the movies or in books, but we did spot this one down near the lake from our advantage point on the cliffs.



This is a shot using my 10X zoom from where we had to park the tracker. We ran out of road, or path, as it was, and wound up right at the edge of the cliffs overlooking the lake.



It was an awesome day to say the least....

Lake Pleasant AZ

We are spending time with Ray and Elen here at Lake Pleasant near Phoenix AZ. It is a beautiful lake that you wouldn't expect to see in the middle of the desert, but it is here and there are plenty users and uses of the lake. It provides water for the farmers in the area, and it provides an abundant area for recreation.

This week the temperatures are well above the 100 degree mark and we see so many boats on this lake. Some of the boat I might expect to see in Lake Erie or maybe the ocean, but not on a small lake like Lake Pleasant, but people take advantage of whatever they can.

Here is a picture of our site next to Ray and Elen.



The Lake







Here is a picture of our SPECIAL FRIENDS.



Last night another camp host couple (Dave and Pat) came and joined us at Ray and Elan's for awhile. Pat was telling us about a tag a long trailer that had pontoons built on it so it would float like a houseboat. After hearing about this unique camper we had to go see it since it was hear on Lake Pleasant.



Look close at the wheel in the water under the trailer.



In this shot you can see the tounge that is used to pull the camper.



In this picture you will see it is registered as a trailer (tags) and it has two out board motors on it to push it across the lakes.



I think it is a very unique rig and plenty worthy of being posted on my blog. I just hope my readers enjoy it half as much as I enjoyed seeing it.

We will be spending a few more days with Ray and Elen before heading to Tucson for a few days....