Arizona's Verde River Valley

Welcome back friends. Our last chapter concluded on Wednesday, March 12^th, when we made the 140 mile trip from Casa Grande north to Camp Verde, Arizona. Camp Verde is in the Verde Valley area of central Arizona and we are staying at one of our membership RV parks here.

Thursday, March 13^th, I left the coach about 9:00 and drove into the Jeep dealership in Cottonwood so they could confirm the issue with the A/C. Although it had been all documented by the dealer in Casa Grande, the service people in Cottonwood couldn't order the condenser until they confirmed the problem for themselves. It only took about an hour and I was on my way back home. We spent the rest of the day in the coach, taking care of small projects and relaxing. At happy hour we had cocktails with the Bullocks and then a nice dinner of lasagna that Peggy put together. We had a great dinner and went back to our coach about 8:00 for the rest of the night.

Friday, March 14^th, Happy Pie day. This is Pie (actually Pi) day because the simple value of Pi is 3.14. I only learned of this a couple years ago. Knew about the value of Pi, just didn't put it together with Pie day. Oh well.

We left the RV park around 10:30 with Peggy and Vernon and went out to do some geocaching. We ended up with nine new finds, along with a couple of DNFs, within about two and a half hours or so. After caching we drove into Cottonwood and had lunch at a place called Randall's. We have eaten here before and the food is always excellent. They are strictly a breakfast and lunch restaurant, but they have a big menu and large portions. We didn't get in until nearly 1:30, close to closing time, and the place was still packed. We had a great lunch, I had the fish and chips, Peggy had the fish tacos, Jackie had a Mexican chicken fried steak dish, and Vernon had a Navajo taco. They were all specials for the day and they were all wonderful. Peggy's fish tacos were the biggest I have ever seen served.

After lunch we stopped at Walmart for some shopping before heading back to the RV park. We left the coach about 5:30 and drove back into Cottonwood to the Jerome Elks Lodge. It gets a little confusing as the lodge is for this whole area of the Verde River valley, but Jerome is the old mining town up on the side of the mountain and is where the lodge was formed in the late 1800's. The lodge building now is actually located in Clarkdale, which is the old town where the copper smelters that processed the ore from Jerome were located. It too dates back to the turn of the century. It is still an active town, but much smaller than Cottonwood. Cottonwood is the larger, modern town and most of the members of the Jerome Lodge are from Cottonwood.

The reason we were going there is that they were holding a dinner dance, and we were going to meet my brother Dennis there. Dennis,who is my only full brother and is eight years younger than I, has lived in Cottonwood for about 35 years. He has been in banking all that time and now manages a bank in Sedona, about a 40 minute drive from his house. He has actually been involved in the Elks organization longer than I and has served a couple of terms as Exalted Ruler of the Jerome Lodge, as well as being a District Deputy for the Arizona Elks State organization.

We didn't get to the lodge in time to eat, but we didn't want to anyway because of our big, late lunch. Dennis' bank doesn't close until 6:00 on Fridays, so he wouldn't be there until around 7:00. We got to the lodge a little after 6:00 and were met at the door by a one of Dennis' friends, a woman named Nancy. Nancy was married to Dennis' best friend Gary, who was also his business partner in their karaoke and DJ business. They did music gigs all over the Verde Valley. Gary died of heart failure a couple years ago and Nancy took over as partner with Dennis in the business. Nancy introduced us to a number of the other people at the Lodge, including the current ER and some other Lodge officials. She kept us company until Dennis got there about 7:00.

We had drinks and chatted with Dennis, Nancy and some other people at the Lodge until about 8:30 when we decided we better head back to the RV park. We had about a twenty minute drive back and didn't want to be out too late. All in all it was a very pleasant and entertaining night and we enjoyed it a lot. We made it back to the coach a little after nine and watched TV until bedtime.

Saturday, March 15^th, we were up early, out of the RV park by 9:00. We were headed for Sedona, about 35 miles north of Cottonwood, to watch the town's Saint Patrick's Day parade, and also to do a little shopping, sight seeing and geocaching. We stopped on the way and picked up Dennis at his house, then drove on to Sedona. We were fortunate to get good parking, close to the parade route and the shopping area of Sedona. We set up our chairs and relaxed, doing some people watching while waiting for the parade to start. Peggy and Vernon were also there, although they took their own car because we were picking up my brother. The parade started right on time at 10:30 and lasted about an hour. It was a typical small town parade, lots of kids and high school bands. There were also a lot of local companies with floats and marching groups. It was very enjoyable.

After the parade Jackie and Dennis and I walked around and did a little window shopping in downtown Sedona. Peggy and Vernon we

nt off on their own as they wanted to find some breakfast. After an hour of shopping we went into West Sedona for lunch at a very nice little cafe, Cafe Jose, that Dennis suggested. It was not too far from his bank and he said he goes there frequently for lunch. Again, the local food was excellent. Jackie and I both had breakfast and Dennis had a Reuben sandwich. After lunch we did an hour of geocaching in the area, finding two and getting two DNFs. One of the caches was interesting and fun in that it was located in the lobby of the Sedona police Department. The cache was hidden there by a cacher who is also a Sedona Police officer. It was a cute cache, a big plastic tool box that was locked with one half of a set of handcuffs. The cache description said you had to solve a puzzle to get the combination to a small lockbox on the wall over the cache. I guess that inside the lockbox was a handcuff key. However, I didn't need to solve the puzzle because I still carry a handcuff key on my key ring, a leftover from my law enforcement days. Problem solved! The cache had some travel bugs in it too, so we spent some time swapping travel bugs.

After caching we drove back to Cottonwood, stopped at a Fry's grocery for some things that we needed that Walmart didn't have, then dropped Dennis off at his house. We went back to the RV park just about in time for cocktails with Peggy and Vernon. Dennis drove over about 6:00 or so and we talked for a while before BBQing some hamburgers and polish sausage for dinner. We had a great dinner and Dennis stayed until about 8:30 visiting with us. After Dennis left we watched TV until bedtime.

Sunday, March 16^th, we enjoyed a quiet morning with the Sunday paper and the TV news. Around 1:30 Dennis came over to spend some time with us. We sat and talked, watched a little TV and had a couple of beers. We also did a little stuff on the computer. About 5:00 we had cocktails and Vernon started cooking the ribs. We had three racks of baby backs for the five of us. Vernon is an excellent cook when it comes to doing BBQ ribs. He said he learned the method from his son who does a lot of cooking for some of the Jeep groups he belongs to.

We ate about 6:00 and had dinner outside. It was a very nice day, in the low 70's with no wind. We had a very pleasant dinner and stayed out until the moon came up about 7:30 or so. Dennis went home and we then cleaned everything up and went into the RV for the night. A very nice, relaxing day with family and friends.

Monday, March 17^th, Happy St. Patrick's Day. This was a stay at home day for us and the Bullocks. Got a few chores done around the house, including the laundry. Washed clothes here at the park's laundry because it was close and we had all day to do it. We had cocktails with Peggy and Vernon at 5:00 and then dinner around 7:00. I had put a corn beef on to cook in the morning and by dinner I had a full Irish meal of corn beef, potatoes, carrots and lots of cabbage. Dennis came over around 6:00 and had dinner with us too. We had plenty of food and a great meal. About 8:00 everyone left for home and we cleaned up and then watched TV until bedtime.

Tuesday, I was up and on my way to the Jeep dealer in Cottonwood by 8:30. They had the part for the A/C repair and I was on my way to get it installed. By 10:30 they were finished and I was on my way back to the RV park with A/C that worked. About noon we went to lunch with Peggy and Vernon to the Mexican restaurant that is just a mile or so from the RV park. The place is called La Fonda and every time we go by the place it seems to have a lot of customers. We had eaten there before and remember the food as being pretty good. I don't know if our memory was bad or they have changed the recipes, but the food was mediocre at best today. The chili relleno looked like a fried egg and had very little cheese, and what was there was there was yellow cheese. We probably won't go back. After lunch we went back to the coach and did some chores and just relaxed the rest of the day. We had cocktails at 5:00 but no one wanted dinner because we ate a late lunch.

Wednesday, March 19^th, we were out of the coach by 10:00 with Peggy and Vernon, headed into Prescott to do some geocaching and shopping. When we got into Prescott Valley, the town just south of Prescott we started doing some caching. We were able to get six new finds, but also got three new DNFs. Some of the caches in this area are really tricky. About noon or so we stopped at a Chinese place in Prescott Valley called Canton Dragon. This was a sit down place, not a buffet, and it was very nice. It had very high ratings on Yelp when we checked it. They had a very extensive lunch menu that included soup, entree, egg roll and fried rice, all for $7 to $9. The service was great and the food was outstanding. All four of us had dishes that were marked as spicy, and they really were. Sometimes they say spicy but it comes out bland, these were excellent. I would highly recommend this place, which is right on the north side of the main highway in the middle of Prescott Valley.

After lunch we drove into Prescott and did some site-seeing before stopping at Costco for a shopping run. By 3:00 we were back on our way home. We had cocktails at 5:00 with Vernon, but Peggy had gone into cottonwood to an urgent care so she could get an allergy shot. She was sniffling and sneezing so much she was miserable. She hadn't made it back by the time we went in to watch TV. We didn't have dinner because of the big lunch again.

Thursday, March 20^th, we left the RV park about 10:30 with Peggy and Vernon and headed to the town of Jerome, perched on the side of Mingus Mountain above Clarkdale and Cottonwood. Jerome has always been an interesting place for me and I have been coming here since the early 60's when I was a teen growing up in Phoenix. The town was founded in 1876, initially as a gold and silver mining town. Within a few years copper was discovered and the town and it's copper mines flourished. This became the largest copper mine in the state, producing over three million pounds of copper per month. At the turn of the century it was the fourth largest town in the Arizona Territory.

The depression took it's toll and the town's population dropped by 75 percent as demand for copper dried up. There was some resurgence during WW-II, but by 1953 all copper mining and production ceased and Jerome became a virtual ghost town. During the 60's and 70's the town was mostly populated by hippies and bikers, however, the artistic tendencies of these counterculture groups gradually brought in more main stream artists and by the 80's the town was becoming a legitimate tourist attraction. There are now dozens of shops and restaurants in town and the streets are packed with tourists and sightseers.

We were lucky enough to find a parking place right away, something that can be a bit difficult, especially on weekends. Last year we drove up here and never did find a spot and had to go back down the hill without doing anything. We spent an hour or so going through shops and doing a little geocaching. We then decided to go to lunch. We went to a place called the Haunted Hamburger, which has really good ratings on Yelp. The restaurant is located on the upper levels of the town in an old, turn of the century, house. According to the waitress the place has been in business for about 20 years. They have both inside seating and an outside patio with killer views of the Verde Valley. The menu is mostly burgers, but they do ribs and Philly steaks too. I had the Philly steak, but was disappointed that it had no onions or peppers, only meat and cheese. Everyone else had burgers and said they were very good. The prices were reasonable, although not cheap and the service was good, despite the fact that the place was packed. Even on a weekday we waited 20 minutes and the line was twice as long when we left.

After lunch we walked around town and looked in some more shops. We found two geocaches that were in town. We finally made it back down to the car and drove back into Cottonwood. We had to stop at Walmart for some supplies before heading back into town. We had cocktails with the Bullocks, but again no dinner because of the big lunch.

Friday, March 21^st, was another stay at home day. Got a few chores done and worked on the computer for a while, as did Jackie. Cocktails at 5:00 with the Bullocks before a very nice ham dinner that Peggy put together. We had dinner and talked until about 8:00 when we back to our coach and watched TV until bedtime.

Saturday we went out caching with Peggy and Vernon again, leaving the RV park about 10:30. We cached around the Clarkdale area, the smaller town just north of Cottonwood. Back at the turn of the century Clarkdale was the smelter town where all of the copper ore extracted in Jerome was processed. It was also where most of the employees lived and many of the old company housing areas are still in use. My brother Dennis and his wife lived in one of the small employee houses for several years after they got married. We ended up with eight new finds before heading back to the RV park.

Dennis came over about 3:00 or so and we chatted and just relaxed. We had cocktails about 5:00 and then I made a nice dinner of chili Colorado burritos, beans and rice for everyone. We had a great dinner and talked until about 8:00 when everyone left and we were left with the TV until bedtime.

Sunday, March 23^rd, we had a great family day. My brother Ken and his wife Susan drove up from there home west of Phoenix to spend the day with us. They got here about 10:30 or so and we just talked for a couple of hours. We had last seen them a few weeks ago when they came down to Casa Grande to spend a day with us. About 12:30 my brother Dennis, who lives in Cottonwood, also came over for the day. The only one's missing from my family were my brother from Las Vegas and the one from Virginia Beach.

Shortly after Dennis got here we set out to do some geocaching. Dennis is the one that got Jackie and I started with the hobby, although he doesn't actively cache anymore. He stills enjoys going out with us and searching, despite the fact that he doesn’t log anymore. We got Ken and Susan involved a few years back, and Peggy and Vernon also. We took two cars, with Peggy, Vernon and Susan in their Jeep and Jackie, Ken and Dennis in ours. We went out on a dirt forest service road not too far from the RV park and picked up a series of four caches hidden out in the desert. All of the cache names started with “cursed skull” and the actual caches were pieces of a plastic Halloween skeleton with a small tube hidden inside. The pieces of skeleton were tied to the limb of a large tree and the tube, which contained the log, was inside the bone. There were two arms, with hands, and two legs, with feet. They were not hard to find, but it was fun looking for them and finding a small skeleton part hanging in a tree. After we got those caches we found two more in the area before heading back to the RV park with six caches under our belts.

After we got back to the park we just sat outside, enjoying the great weather, and talked. Peggy and Vernon, who have know both Ken and Dennis for several years, were also out there with us. We had cocktails starting around 4:00 because we were planning an early dinner so we could eat outside. Jackie was making a big pot of her wonderful risotto with shrimp and asparagus. Around 5:30 we had the picnic table set up and Peggy served a nice salad. By 6:00 we were eating the risotto with some garlic bread and everyone was very happy. The finale was a big cheesecake that Ken and Susan had brought up with them. By the time we were done with dinner everyone was very satisfied and very full. Peggy and Vernon went back to their coach shortly after dinner and Ken, Susan and Dennis stuck around and talked until about 8:00 when they all left for home. Jackie and I watched TV until bed after a great day with family and friends.

Monday, March 24^th was a stay at home day. Did a few chores but mostly relaxed. Had cocktails with Peggy and Vernon at 5:00 and then Peggy served dinner, Parmesan chicken, which was excellent. By 8:30 we were back in our coach in front of the TV. A nice quiet day.

Tuesday we left the park with Peggy and Vernon about 12:30 and drove into Cottonwood to have lunch at Randall's restaurant again. We had eaten there a couple days after we got here and liked it a lot, so we decided to give it another try. This lunch was also great, this is a nice place to eat here in Cottonwood. After lunch we went to Old Town Cottonwood and walked around the shops there for about an hour, then drove to Walmart for a shopping run.

After Walmart we headed back to the RV park and I spent the next hour packing up the outside stuff, getting ready to travel tomorrow. While I was packing up the outside Peggy and Jackie were in our coach making salad dressings. Peggy likes several of Jackie's recipes for dressings and they decided to make a couple up before we parted ways. Some other friends of ours, Jim and Pat Goetzinger checked into the park today and are in a site just down from us. Jim and Pat came over and sat and talked with us while we had cocktails. Because of the big lunch we didn't have any dinner. We talked with Peggy and Vernon for a while, but about 8:30 we went back to our coach for the evening.

Wednesday, March 26^th, another travel day. We were leaving Camp Verde and heading back west to Ehrenberg, Arizona on the Colorado River. We are only going to be there for two days before moving on to Indio, California, but the important thing is I need to take our Jeep back to the dealer in Blythe to finally (I hope) get the problem with the transfer case fixed. We haven't been able to tow the car since January. I am worried though, because we heard from our friend Clark McKay that his Grand Cherokee wouldn't go into neutral again yesterday, and this was after having the new part put in, the same part I am having installed. Eek.

We got out of Camp Verde a little after 9:00 and started our 230 mile trip to Ehrenberg. We took the 303 loop around the north and west edges of the Phoenix metro area, so traffic wasn't too bad, but the wind was blowing really hard. There were a few times when I had a hard time holding on to the coach. Jackie was again following behind, driving the non-towable Jeep. After a stop for lunch and another for fuel we arrived in Ehrenberg about 2:30 and quickly got set up. Since we are only here for two days we only had to arrange the inside, no decorations or anything outside. After a very stressful drive I was happy to relax for the rest of the evening.

Thursday, March 27^th, I was up early and headed to the Jeep dealer in Blythe by a little after 8:00. It took them about two hours and they delivered my car back to me, supposedly fixed. Of course, I was concerned because they told my friend Clark the same thing. I did test it in the driveway of the dealership and it went in and out of neutral OK. Fingers crossed.

After I got home, we had lunch and then went out to get a couple of geocaches. We ended up with two new finds. One was a new cache, only put out a few months ago. The other was a cache that we had looked for a couple of times in the past, the last time in February of 2011. It appears that the owner finally replaced the cache after a whole bunch of DNFs, because all of a sudden everyone was finding it. We drove out there, a place in the desert nearly across the river from our RV park, and, Yea! We finally found the cache and got the smiley. This makes us happy. After caching we went back to the coach and spent the rest of the day inside relaxing.

Friday, March 28^th, another travel day. We didn't need to get an early start because we are only going about 100 miles west to Indio, California. We left Ehrenberg about 10:30 WITH the Jeep IN TOW! It went into neutral when I hooked it up without any problems. Hooray! The trip was uneventful and we pulled into the Indian Waters RV Resort in Indio about 12:30. We got our site and got hooked up pretty quickly. Jackie went out and got some burgers from In N Out for lunch and we finished getting set up. It is nice being back in the warm weather, but it does make setting up a little more sweaty and uncomfortable. I also took the Jeep down to the car wash for a badly needed bath.

While we were registering at the office another rig pulled up behind us and it turned out to be a very good friend of Jackie's from many years ago, Eddie Buenedia and his wife Darlanne. Eddie lived in the Coachella Valley for many years and was a member of the same church group that Jackie was. He and his wife moved sometime in the 90's to a home in Point Roberts, Washington. Point Roberts is somewhat unique in that it is a part of the United States because it is a peninsula of land that extends south of the 49^th parallel, the official border between Canada and the United States. However, it's only land access is through Canada. In order to get there by car you have to leave Washington, go into British Columbia, drive west and then cross south back into a portion of land that is part of the State of Washington. Jackie and I had gone up there to visit them back in 1998 when we first got together.

Although that was the last time we saw Eddie and Darlanne, we have stayed in touch with them by email and social media. This past year they decided to become full time RVers like us. They bought a used coach, got rid of their house and most of their possessions and hit the road in January. We have been trying to help them out with answers to a lot of their questions. Jackie knew they were going to be in the area about now, but didn't realize that they had made reservations to be in the same park at the same time as us. We were very excited to get to see them again.

Our other friends, Ray and Suzie Babcock are also here at Indian Waters, having come here from Yuma, the last place we saw them, about a month ago. They are parked not too far from us and came over to say hi after we got parked. Eddie and Darlanne got the site right next to us. After they got set up they came over and we sat in the coach and talked for quite a while, catching up and listening to some of their adventures as new Rvers.

About 5:30 we left the coach and drove a couple miles to the Indian Palms Country Club to meet some old friends, Bob and Gloria Baron. This is the same country club where we had our house before we sold it in 2005 and started out in the coach. Bob and Gloria also live in Indian Palms, but we actually met them through the Indio Elks lodge when we were members there. This was way before we went full time. We had a smaller RV and were members of the Indio Elks RV club. We went on a lot of trips with the Baron's and other people in the club, as well as working around the Elks Lodge. Another of our old Elk's friends, Wayne Russell and his wife Sharon were also at the club, Wayne doing the music along with a friend of his.

We had cocktails with Bob and Gloria and Wayne invited me up to sing a couple of songs for the crowd, which I thought was nice. They really were not doing karaoke, they were entertaining, but Wayne knew that I had a karaoke outfit too and liked to sing. We also ran into some other old Indio friends at the club, Jim and Jackie Babington. Jim, known as Cowboy to his friends, was a regular at Cactus Jack's bar back in the days when we were too. He later married Jackie who had bought the other well known bar in Indio, Neil's Lounge. Jim now runs the bar and bar-tends a few nights a week. They were at the country club because they also own a house in Indian Palms.

We finally left this gathering of old friends about 8:30, after having a couple of drinks and some light dinner. We headed home and were going to relax in front of the TV until bedtime. However, about 9:10 I felt the coach, and my recliner, start to rock back and forth and shake. It turns out there was a 5.1 magnitude earthquake in La Habra, a city in Los Angeles County about a hundred miles to the west. The quake was strong enough to be felt all the way east to Indio. They also had a number of smaller after shocks, but we didn't feel any of those. We ended up watching news coverage of the quake on the local network channels until it was time for bed. The quake caused some minor damage near the epicenter, but nothing serious.

Our arrival here in Indio marks an excellent place for us to close this chapter and get it published. We will be here for ten days before moving on to Silent Valley Resort near Banning, California. Until the next time, remember that life is meant to be lived, not viewed. Have fun with what you got. See ya soon.