We had to drive right through the heart of metro Phoenix but the traffic wasn’t too bad until we hit the West side of town. There was an accident on the freeway that had traffic tied up in knots for about 5 miles. Once we got passed that we had smooth sailing until we reached our destination in Goodyear. When we pulled off the freeway I finally saw the tow vehicle behind the motorhome in back of us and it was Vern and Peggy. Since they were not familiar with the Phoenix area I guess they just decided to follow us all the way. We both got settled into the park by mid afternoon and took a little break. When we got in I called my brother Ken, who lives just down the street from the park, and told him we were settled in. He said that he and Susan, his wife, were going out to dinner around 5:30 and asked us if we wanted to join them. We were dirty and tired, so I told him no, but come by the coach after dinner for a few minutes.
About 7:00 p.m. Ken and Susan came by and we introduced them to Vern and Peggy, with whom we were having a cocktail outside in the nice weather. After that we had a nice visit with Ken and Susan until about 10:00 when they needed to leave. Susan has to get up at 4 a.m. for work, so she needed to get home. We agreed that they would come by again Sunday afternoon for a cookout. My kids and grandkids were coming over Sunday for a visit and we were planning a cookout for everyone.
Saturday, October 31st. After relaxing in the morning we decided to take Vern and Peggy out for some geocaching and then we needed to do some shopping. We were able to find one cache close to the RV park and then the damn car started acting up again. We were pulling onto the freeway and it started smoking and running rough and the check engine light came on. As we continued down the freeway the engine smoothed out and seemed to be running ok, but the light stayed on. We went ahead and drove into West Phoenix to the Costco and then stopped at a grocery store. About the third time I started the car, the check engine light went out and stayed out. This car is going to drive me insane with its problems.
That evening we had a very nice cookout with Vern and Peggy. We did some pork ribs on the BBQ and had that along with a salad. Vern, Peggy and Jackie all had escargot and said it was great. I skipped the snails again. After dinner the four of us just sat around and chatted until about 10:00. Although it was Halloween, there were no kids going around the park because it is a 55 plus RV park. We did hear a lot of barking dogs in the surrounding subdivisions early in the evening which was probably the kids all running around trick or treating.
Sunday, November 1st. Shortly after lunch my oldest daughter, Tye, her husband Frank, my youngest granddaughter Jordan, (Tye’s youngest) my son, Roy, my oldest
granddaughter, Crystal (Tye’s oldest) her husband Tyrell, and their son Tyrell Jr., my great grandson, all came over to visit. We pretty much had a houseful, but we had a great time. We had last seen the family in March at my mom’s funeral. It was nice to visit under better
circumstances. Little Tyrell is 18 months old now and walking! Later on in the afternoon we had a very nice BBQ and the gang stayed until about 8:00 or so. Because of our lifestyle of travel we don’t get to see family too often, so its nice to have a fun visit. Everyone seems
to be doing pretty well considering the economy. Crystal and Tyrell had lived in Scottsdale the last time we were here, but they recently bought the trailer next door to Tye, so they are much closer to the rest of the family in West Phoenix now. Little Tyrell was a little more outgoing than he was last time also. Although he is still a momma’s boy and wouldn’t let me hold him without crying, at least he would interact with me while Crystal was holding him. Before they moved closer to Tye, Crystal and the baby weren’t around many people, so he was very withdrawn and shy. He sure is a cute little bug.Monday my brother Ken came over to the house after lunch to do some geocaching. He said that they hadn’t come over on Sunday because Susan had gotten a cold. She also didn’t come over Monday, but Ken said he wanted to learn something about caching because it sounded interesting and fun. He already had a very nice handheld GPS. I spent about an hour with him on the computer, going over the basics, then the three of us went out and found about six caches fairly close by. He really seemed to enjoy it and said that he wanted to start doing it as soon as he recovered from his surgery. He is going in for a minor hernia operation on Tuesday. It’s an outpatient procedure, but he will still have to take it easy for a couple of weeks.
Tuesday, November 3rd we packed up and headed North out of Phoenix for Camp Verde. We are going to be staying at the Western Horizon resort near Camp Verde for the next two weeks. The longest we have been in one place since early in the year. YEA! It only took a little more than two hours to go the 100 miles from Goodyear to Camp Verde. This Western Horizon park is technically our “home” park, the park where we bought the membership. We bought it in 2005, shortly after we bought the coach, but we have not been back since. It just never worked into our plans. We pulled into the park and got registered into a nice 50 amp full hook up site near the clubhouse. While I set up the camp Jackie did our laundry. It was about 85 degrees and sunny so I worked up a pretty good sweat. We hadn’t come up here in the past because we were afraid that it would be too cold in the fall or spring when we are in the area. Guess we need not have worried. One of the reasons we wanted to be up here for a while is that my brother Dennis lives in Cottonwood, only about 15 miles up the road from the park. I also love the Central Arizona mountains because it is where I recreated when I was growing up in Phoenix. Sedona, Prescott, Flagstaff, Oak Creek Canyon and Payson - all hangouts for much of my life - are less than 100 miles away.
Wednesday was to be mostly a relaxation day. I called my brother Dennis and made plans to meet him at his house on Saturday to spend the day. He works for a bank in Sedona, so he was not available during the weekdays. Jackie and I later took the short drive into Cottonwood to do some shopping, but other than that we just hung around the coach and relaxed. One thing we did do was firm up an appointment at the Jeep dealer in Cottonwood to take the car back into the shop next Monday so they could check on the various engine problems we have been having.
Thursday we were going to go out and do some local caching, but Jackie woke up with a scratchy throat, headache and congestion. She thought she was getting a cold and didn’t want to go out and do anything. She really didn’t feel well. Fortunately, whatever she has hasn’t affected me - yet anyway. She slept most of the day while I just caught up on stuff and played on the computer. Friday morning, November 6th, Jackie woke up feeling a little better and we decided to take a drive up to Sedona. Our friends Vern and Peggy had also come up to the Verde Valley area and were staying at the Thousand Trails RV park, just about five miles up the road towards Cottonwood. We knew they were only here until Sunday, so we called to see if they wanted to drive up to Sedona with us. They did so we went by and picked them up. We drove through Cottonwood and were about three miles down the road towards Sedona when the damn car went crazy again. It started running rough, blowing black smoke out the back and worst of all, the oil pressure warning light came on. Only briefly, but it did light up, twice. I stopped the car and checked the oil level and it was fine. When I restarted the car it ran rough for about a minute, then settled down and was running OK again. Nonetheless, we didn’t want to chance driving the 30 miles to Sedona, so we turned around and took Vern and Peggy back home. We visited with them for a while, then went back to the coach for the rest of the day. This car is really starting to piss me off. A two year old car with only 20,000 miles should not be this unreliable. Our old 10 year old Jeep with 150,000 I would drive anywhere, this one I hesitate to go around the block right now. Poop!
Saturday morning Jackie had a relapse and woke up not feeling well again. I still feel fine and she was OK with me going and spending the day with my brother, so I went over to Dennis’ house. We went out to lunch in Cottonwood and had a really nice visit over lunch. We then went back to his house and spent about four hours just talking and looking at pictures of our Alaska trip. We really had a good time. Dennis’s girlfriend, Mona came over about 3:00 so I got a chance to visit with her also. I left about 5:00 because I still didn’t trust the car and wanted to head back to the RV park before dark. Jackie was still feeling poorly, so I cooked dinner and we stayed in for the night.
Sunday, November 8th, we were planning to go spend the day at Dennis’s again, but Jackie still wasn’t feeling good. I called Dennis and told him that we would get together on Tuesday. He had told me he was planning to take a couple of days off next week so he could spend some time with us. Hopefully by Tuesday Jackie will be back to par. We spent the day just hanging around the coach. I caught up on some chores - like this blog - and played. She watched TV and relaxed.
Monday Dennis had to work and I was scheduled to take the car into Cottonwood to the dealership late in the afternoon. They wanted to have the car Monday night so that they could run it Tuesday morning while it was cold. We just stayed around the coach until I took the car in about 3:30 p.m. The dealership gave me a ride back to the coach and we just stayed in since we had no car.
Tuesday, November 10th Jackie woke up feeling much better. In the afternoon Dennis and Mona came over to the coach and the four of us went out geocaching. Dennis was one of the first people to mention geocaching to us several years ago, and he has a
caching name. However, he has not really done any caching. He only has a few on his record, and they are all the “out in the middle of the woods” type of caches. We wanted to show him what urban/suburban caching was all about. In the course of about three hours we had found 11 caches (as well as one DNF) and Mona was very excited about caching again. While we were caching I got a call from the Jeep dealer who told me that they had found a bad fuel injector and a bad oxygen sensor, a part of the emissions system. They said that they had to order the parts and that the car would not be ready until Friday. Since we were in Cottonwood caching anyway we had Dennis drive us by the Enterprise car rental place to see if we could get a car. The lady there told us she didn’t have a car for us but that she would have one on Wednesday afternoon. We knew we would be together with Dennis and Mona again on Wednesday so we said OK. After the caching we went to Walmart and got some pizzas and chips and dips for dinner. We went over to Dennis’s house and had a very nice informal dinner. After dinner we listened to some music on Dennis’s neat jukebox he restored and then had Dennis drive us home about 9:00.
Wednesday afternoon Dennis and Mona came over and picked us up at the coach again and we went back out for some more geocaching. Both of them seemed to really enjoy getting out and searching for caches. This time we found 12 caches in just a few hours. Late in the afternoon we went back to the Enterprise place and picked up a rental car, a nice little Chevy Cobalt. It’s a little compact car but seems to have all the gadgets. It was almost new, with only 2,700 miles on it. It didn’t even have license plates yet. After we got the car we visited at Dennis’s house for a while and then went to one of the local Mexican restaurants for dinner. We have eaten at the Hacienda before and the food is always very good. After dinner we drove our little car back to the coach for the night.
Thursday, November 12th we drove over to Dennis’s and picked he and Mona up and we all took a drive to Sedona. We went to the uptown area and spent several hours
shopping and sightseeing. After walking around all afternoon we were whipped, so after we drove back to Cottonwood and dropped Dennis and Mona off, we just headed home.Friday we decided to take a relaxation day and just stayed around the coach most of the day. Jackie made up a big batch of Halibut chowder for the next day. About 3:30 I got a call from the Jeep dealer that the car was ready so we drove into Cottonwood to pick it up. Thankfully, all of the work was covered under warranty. I had a long talk with the service tech who said that they had replaced two fuel injectors. After replacing the first one they found that a second one had also failed. He also told me that the bad injectors had caused fuel to contaminate the engine oil and that I had at least a quart of diesel fuel in the oil, which was what caused the oil light to come on - the oil was too thin at high RPM. Because of that they also changed the oil and oil filter. When I glanced at the invoice as I was signing it I noted that the cost of parts on the invoice was over $1,300 - just parts, no labor. Sure glad the warranty covered the repairs! As we were driving the car home I noticed that it seemed to be like a new car. No rattling noise, no smoke, just a nice smooth ride. I hope that this has taken care of the problems!
Saturday, November 14th Dennis and Mona came over to the coach after lunch to spend the day. Dennis and I did some karaoke in the back while Jackie and Mona visited. We then fixed a really massive meal for the four of us. Jackie first made salmon dip for an appetizer, then some escargot for she, Dennis and Mona. After that we had some of Jackie’s Halibut chowder - it was SO good. Everyone had more than one bowl so we decided to postpone making the BBQed Halibut we had planned. We decided that we would do that on Sunday. After dinner we sat around a talked for a while until Dennis and Mona headed home.
Sunday we drove over to Dennis’s house in the early afternoon and picked him up to go out and do some caching. Mona was not there because she was not feeling well. We were surprised to find Angela, Dennis’s youngest daughter at his house when we got there. She and her boyfriend were up in the area for the weekend and just stopped by to say hi. After a brief visit with Angela, we headed out in our Jeep to do some caching in the area. We were able to once again find 11 caches in about three hours. AND - the car was running great. I am very happy. We went back to Dennis’s house after caching and did some karaoke on his home system, a great system I might add. About 5:30 the three of us headed back to our coach for dinner. We had some more chowder and then did some Halibut on the BBQ and some Salmon in the frying pan. We had way too much food for the three of us, but it was great eating! After dinner we just visited until Dennis had to leave.
Monday Dennis had to go back to work so we took care of our chores. We drove into the Cottonwood Medical Center in the morning so Jackie could get her annual mammogram taken care of. After that we went back to the house so I could pack everything up for Tuesday’s departure from the Verde Valley. That took me about three hours. I had to laugh because when I got up at 7:00 a.m. the outside temperature was 30 degrees. By the time I got done packing everything back into the coach it was 70 degrees and I was sweating! Welcome to Arizona weather! After finishing my work we drove back into Cottonwood to do some grocery shopping. We will be spending the next two weeks in Salome, out in the Western Arizona desert, and will be far from any big stores. We wanted to get most of what we thought we might need before heading out. After shopping we went over to Dennis’s for one last visit before we left. Mona was feeling better and had picked up some KFC for dinner. We had a nice dinner, did some karaoke and then headed home about 8:00 or so. This has been a very nice visit. It has been a long time since I have been able to spend this much time with my brother.
Tuesday, November 17th - travel day. We left Camp Verde about 10:45 a.m. and headed back South towards Phoenix. The plan was to spend two nights in Tonopah, Arizona, about 30 miles West of Phoenix, before heading to our membership park in Salome, Arizona. We got into the Saddle Mountain RV park about 1:30 p.m and got settled in for our two night stay. After about an hour the 50 amp breaker on our power pedestal went out. The maintenance guy came out and checked it and told us that he couldn’t fix it until the power company came out to turn off the master power to the pedestal. The 30 amp circuit was still working so I told him that we would rather stay put with 30 amps then pack everything up and move to another 50 amp spot. We spent the rest of the day just relaxing and enjoying the rest. The next morning, Wednesday, the maintenance people showed up around 10 a.m. to fix the power. It only took them about 20 minutes to put in a new breaker and we were back on 50 amp again. After lunch we went out to do some shopping in Buckeye (about 30 miles East) and some caching. We were able to find nine caches within a couple of hours. There is one series of several dozen caches located along the Sun Valley Parkway running North from I-10. The caches are less than a quarter mile apart and most are fairly quick finds. After caching we drove out to the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating
Station, located several miles South of the RV park. Jackie had never seen the place close up. I had the opportunity to tour it while it was under construction in the 1980's while I was with the Sheriff’s Office. It is a very impressive sight close up. There are three separate facilities and together they are the largest nuclear generating plant in the Western hemisphere. After that tour we went back to the coach for the night. By the way, the car performed perfectly! We had it up to 70 on the freeway and it continued to run great. In the past it was usually at highway speeds that it would start to act up.Thursday, November 19th we headed out of Tonopah Westbound towards Salome, Arizona and our next stop. We only had about 50 miles to travel so we didn’t have to leave until just before 11 a.m. We are headed for one of our membership resorts, Desert
Vista, which is located just South of Salome on Highway 60. This puts it pretty much out in the middle of the Western Arizona desert. We had been there in February and enjoyed our stay, although there isn’t too much to do out there. This time we were only going to be there nine days. Because we didn’t have far to go we got to the park shortly after noon and quickly got settled in to a nice full hookup 50 amp site. The weather is
wonderful, in the low eighties, and the views are gorgeous. Being here will give us a chance to catch up on some of our “homework” that we have been putting off because we have been busy. One of the things I want to work on is to continue scanning my parent’s old photo albums. While we were with Dennis I picked up three more photo albums to scan. I have already done two. Once I get them done I will distribute the photos on CD to all of the family. Looking at the old photos sure brings back memories.With our arrival in Salome, Arizona I am going to close out this chapter of our travels. As I mentioned, we will be here a little over a week, then in Winterhaven, California (just West of Yuma, Arizona) for a couple of weeks. Those three weeks or so will be the subject of our next episode. Until then, treasure every day and keep smiling!
