Springtime in Arizona

Hello again readers, welcome back.  Our last episode ended on Thursday, May 17th when we crossed the Colorado River out of California and into Arizona.  This transition marked the official beginning of our summer travels.  We had left Silent Valley Club, our private RV resort in the mountains south of Banning, and traveled to Ehrenberg, Arizona, just across the river from Blythe, California.  We pulled into the Western Horizons park in Ehrenberg, where we have stayed many times in the past, for an overnight stay before continuing on east.  We didn’t even unhook the car.

Friday, May 18th, we left Ehrenberg about 9:00 a.m. and started east on I-10, headed for Apache Junction, Arizona, on the far east end of the Phoenix metro area.  We are headed for the Canyon Vistas RV Resort, a new park for us in an area that we had not visited together before.  After we got settled into our spot we just relaxed for the rest of the day.

Although this area will be new to Jackie, it is not to me.  Having grown up in the Phoenix area, and lived most of my life there, I have been to Apache Junction many times.  My step-grandfather had moved there from Wisconsin in 1959, a year before my mother and step-dad left Milwaukee and moved to Arizona as well.  Grandpa built a very nice house on five acres of land at the foot of the Superstition Mountains, which rise above Apache Junction.  At that time there were very few houses in the area, which had been homestead land originally. 

The house had the most beautiful stone fireplace that was built with stones that my grandparents gathered from the desert around Apache Junction.  Grandpa also had a barn and corral

and kept a couple of horses that we used to ride when we went out to visit.  My favorite was a big palomino named Angel that was a great rider.  I spent a lot of hours on Angel, riding in the desert around the house.  We lived in Tempe and then later Phoenix, but would go out to Apache Junction at least once a month or so. 

Of course, the Superstition Mountains also hide the mystery of the Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine.  The Lost Dutchman Gold Mine is a legend of a very rich gold mine hidden in the Superstition Mountains.  There are also thoughts that the mine is beyond the Superstition Mountains into Mexico.  No one truly knows where the mine is, because the Dutchman kept it a complete secret.  There are several legends on how to find it though and each year people search for it.  Some have even died on their search for the Mine.

The mine was named after German immigrant Jacob Waltz ("Dutchman" was a common, though inaccurate, American slang term for "German").  It is perhaps the most famous lost mine in American history.  Historians think that people have been seeking the Lost Dutchman mine since at least 1892, and according to one estimate, 8,000 people annually made some effort to locate the Lost Dutchman's mine.  Others have argued the mine has little or no basis in fact and is a legend.  Some historians argue, however, that all the main components of the story have at least some basis in fact.  According to many versions of the tale, the mine is either cursed, or protected by enigmatic guardians who wish to keep the mine's location a secret.  All of us who grew up in Arizona heard many versions of the legend.

One of the tasks I have set for us while we are here in Apache Junction is to see if I can find where my grandparent’s house was.  There are hundreds of homes in the area now and as best I can tell from looking at Google Earth satellite images, the original house is no longer there.  I am fairly certain I have located the correct intersection and think I can see the faint outlines of the old horse corrals.  We shall see.

Saturday, May 19th, we left the coach after lunch to go out and do some caching in the Apache Junction area.  Lots of caches around here and we have never cached here before, so great pickings.  We managed to get a dozen new finds with only one DNF in the course of a couple of hours.  After caching we visited the Apache Junction Elks Lodge.  They have a nice new lodge north of town and the place was quite crowded.  We realized right after we got there that part of it might have been that the Preakness horse race was on.  We had a cocktail and watched the race on the big screen.  Everyone was quite excited when I’ll Have Another, the horse that won the Kentucky Derby, pulled out in the last quarter and won the race by a nose.  Perhaps a new triple crown winner?  We had one drink, picked up a lodge pin for our banner, and then headed home.  We stopped on the way to pick up a pizza for dinner.

Sunday, May 20th, we needed to get some chores done so after lunch we loaded our laundry into the car and drove into Apache Junction to a laundromat.  After our clothes were done we drove into Mesa to the Costco to stock up on some stuff and then stopped at Walmart in Apache Junction on the way back to the coach.  Once we were done with our chores and got home we just stayed around the coach for the rest of the night.

Monday, May 21st, we decided to spend the day doing some sightseeing in the central Arizona mountains.  I put together a day long drive that would take us northeast out of Apache Junction on the Apache Trail to Roosevelt Lake, then southeast to Globe, Arizona, and then back west to Apache Junction.  The entire circle route is about 120 miles.  I also did some caches along the route so we could gather a few new caches along with the touring.  Since it was forecast to be over a hundred today through most of central Arizona, we packed some water in a cooler bag and left the coach about 9:30.

The first leg of our tour was along the Apache Trail.  The Apache Trail runs about 45 miles from Apache Junction to Roosevelt Dam on the Salt River.  Although portions of the route are thought to have been used by the Apache Indians to roam through the Superstition Mountains hundreds of years ago, the current route was a dirt wagon road built starting in 1904 as a way of getting supplies and equipment from the Phoenix area up to the site Roosevelt Dam was being constructed.  The road is narrow, winding and, in some areas, treacherous, but most of it is now paved.  Only the last 22 miles, from just south of Apache Lake to Roosevelt lake is still dirt. 

As you leave the City of Apache Junction you have the beautiful face of the Superstition Mountains on your right and the first attraction of note is the Goldfield Ghost Town, about 4.5 from Apache Junction.  Built after a gold strike in 1892, Goldfield thrived for five years and was populated with about 400 inhabitants.  The town boasted 3 saloons, a boarding house, general store, blacksmith shop, brewery, meat market and a schoolhouse.  When the gold ran out the town died.  Today, Goldfield is a tourist attraction.  Among other things you can shop, visit the Lost Dutchman Museum, tour the gold mine, and take a narrow gauge train ride.  We didn’t bother to stop since those kinds of tourist traps don’t hold much interest for us.

Other than the great scenery of the peaks and canyons of the Superstitions, the next point of interest comes about 22 miles north of Apache Junction at Canyon Lake.  Canyon Lake is one of the reservoirs created by the Salt River Valley Water User’s Association, which, along with the Salt River Power Authority make up the Salt River Project, or SRP as it is known to most Arizonans.  The SRP came about because early settlers in Phoenix and nearby areas were forced to depend upon the flow of the Salt River to sustain agricultural activities.  However, the Salt was prone to both floods and droughts and proved to be a less than reliable resource for the settlers.  Failed plans to build a dam on the river in 1897, combined with a series of droughts, heightened the need for controlling the river.  With the passage of the National Reclamation Act of 1902, funding for reclamation projects with low-interest government loans paved the way for the creation of the Salt River Valley Water Users' Association the following year.  Over 200,000 acres of private land belonging to the ranchers and farmers in the association were pledged for collateral and the association was officially incorporated February 7, 1903, becoming the first multipurpose project under the reclamation act.  Construction on the Roosevelt Dam would commence the following year.

SRP owns and operates four reservoirs along the Salt River, which are Roosevelt, Apache, Canyon and Sahuaro lakes.  They also have three on the Verde River further west, Horseshoe, Bartlett and Blue Ridge.  While the main function of these reservoirs is to serve as water storage for the Salt River Valley metro area, they also serve as recreational centers.  The lakes are regularly stocked with fish, and are supplied with boat ramps for water sports. 

At the confluence of the Verde and Salt Rivers, just northeast of Mesa, Arizona, SRP has built the Granite Reef diversion dam which funnels the water from the rivers into the vast series of irrigation canals which crisscross the valley.  When we first moved to the Phoenix area in 1960 we lived right on the banks of one of these canals and it served as the family swimming hole.  Swimming in the canals is now illegal and highly frowned upon, but, that was then.  My brother Dennis learned to swim in the Tempe Canal.

All of these lakes, with the exception of Roosevelt, are within Maricopa County and law enforcement services are provided by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, my old agency, which has a very large Lake Patrol Unit.  They provide patrol services both on and around the lakes and rivers in the county.  They have several dozen boats and in their “navy” as well as aid stations at each of the lakes.  For a time I was Commander of the Tactical Support Division which had as one of it’s commands the Lake Patrol.

We stopped at the scenic overlook for Canyon Lake, took some pictures and found our first geocache for the day.  Mormon Flat dam that created Canyon Lake was completed in 1925 and was the second SRP dam constructed, Roosevelt being the first.  The lake is just under 1,000 acres in size and can hold nearly 58,000 acre feet of water.  The dam, like all the SRP dams, also has hydroelectric generators which provide SRP power for its electrical customers.

When we got out of the car at the Canyon Lake overlook we found something on our car that I have never seen before.  There was a dead quail hanging from the hood of the car, over the front fender!  Somehow the bird got it's leg caught in the narrow gap between the hood and the fender and was apparently beat to death against the fender as we drove.  It was down in the blind spot caused by the A-pillar on the car, so I never saw it until we stopped.  It's leg was so wedged in I had to open the hood to release the body.  Oopsie!  Sorry quail family.

The next stop, just a couple of miles north of Canyon Lake, was the community of Tortilla Flat.  Tortilla Flat is an unincorporated community and is presumed to be Arizona's smallest official "community" having both a U.S. Post Office and a voter precinct.  The town has a population of 6.  It is the last surviving stagecoach stop along the Apache Trail and in addition to a couple of stores, a restaurant and bar, there is a small museum in the old stage stop building. 

Although the general area was a camping site for prospectors exploring the Superstitions back in the mid to late 1800's, the actual town of Tortilla Flat got its start because of the road construction to Roosevelt Dam in 1904.  Because of the distances there was a need for a rest stop for freight haulers on their way to the construction site at Roosevelt Dam and Tortilla Flat served that purpose, being about halfway.  Shortly following the construction of the road, Roosevelt Dam became a big tourist attraction.  At that point Tortilla Flat was a stage stop for tourists and mail carriers through the 1930s.  The name "Tortilla Flat" is alleged to have originated from some cowboys who used to drive cattle from Globe to Phoenix.  During one cattle drive to the Phoenix markets, the cowboys celebrated their sale, and, having a little too much to drink, forgot to get supplies while they were in town.  They ended up with only flour to make tortillas when they camped at the flat and were stranded by rising water.  Today there is a bar and restaurant, a couple of shops and a small museum in the old stage stop building.  I have seen bumper stickers on cars back east that say “Where the Hell is Tortilla Flat?”  We picked up our second geocache of the day here at Tortilla Flat.  We also spent a little time checking out the stores.

A few miles north of Tortilla Flat the pavement stops and the road becomes the original dirt and rock carved out of the canyon sides.  Here is where the ride can get a little hairy, although if you take the route northbound, as we did, and don’t double back, you at least have the mountain on your right rather than the drop off into the canyon for most of the trip.  The road is rough, washboard in most spots, and much more narrow than it was on the paved portion.  This part of the road has been regularly graded, but is otherwise unimproved from the original 1904 road.  You cross a number of the original one lane bridges, both steel and concrete, and the grades are steep with many hairpin turns.  It is not a difficult drive so long as you don’t get in a hurry and keep your eyes on the road.

About ten miles after the end of the pavement you come to Apache Lake.  This lake was formed by the construction of Horse Mesa dam in 1927 and was the third of the Salt River reservoirs built.  The lake has a surface area of about 2,600 acres and can store nearly a quarter million acre feet of water when full.  The lake is narrow and long, reaching nearly the entire ten miles north to Roosevelt dam.  We drove around the area a little, but being a weekday in the summer, there wasn’t much activity. 

Once leaving the entrance to Apache Lake you continue on the Apache Trail another twelve miles to where the road ends at the site of Roosevelt Dam.  Just a half mile or so south of the dam there is a sign that marks the county line between Maricopa County to the south and Gila County to the north.  The last mile of the Apache Trail climbs the side of the canyon from close to river level below the dam to a point several hundred feet above the dam, providing some pretty spectacular views of Roosevelt dam.

As I stated earlier, Theodore Roosevelt Dam was started by the fledgling SRP in 1904 and was completed in 1911.  When it was completed it was the tallest masonry dam in the world at 280 feet.  The dam was dedicated by President Theodore Roosevelt, for whom the dam and the reservoir are named.  In 1996, a massive expansion project aimed at increasing the capacity of the lake was finished.  The dam was resurfaced with concrete and raised an additional 77 feet, which increased the lake’s capacity by over 20%, and provided badly needed flood control space on the Salt River.  I have mentioned in other episodes of this blog the massive floods in the Salt River Valley in the 1980's and I vividly remember the news stories about the possibility of flooding topping Roosevelt dam and creating a domino effect of failing dams which would have flooded half of the Phoenix metro area.  This was the first time I have seen the new look of the dam.  My memories are from the earlier days when the dam was basically a curved block wall.  Now it looks like any other concrete dam.  They have also built a huge new highway bridge across the Salt River canyon in front of the dam.  In the old days Highway 188, which runs from Globe to Payson, went across the top of Roosevelt dam on a narrow, but still two lane, road.  With the new bridge the road was rerouted and the public can no longer get down on top of the dam.  It is a very pretty bridge though.

Roosevelt Lake has a surface area of nearly 21,500 acres and is the largest lake that is wholly inside the state of Arizona.  There are lakes along the Colorado River that are much larger, but they are all partially within adjoining states.  With it’s increased capacity Roosevelt can now store almost 3 million acre feet of water.

Once we got off the Apache Trail and started southeast on Highway 188 we were on pavement and were able to make good time.  For the first half of the 30 mile run from Roosevelt Dam to the Town of Globe the road runs along the south shore of Roosevelt Lake.  Back when I lived in Phoenix, and during the various times I owned boats, we used to come up to Roosevelt for long weekends of boating and fishing.  Except to get another geocache we didn’t make any stops between Roosevelt dam and the Town of Globe. 

The history of Globe is centered around mining.  In 1875, prospectors found silver on the nearby San Carlos Apache Reservation, including an unusual globe-shaped silver nugget.  This gave rise to the name of the town.  The plans for an incorporated Globe were established in July 1876 with retail stores, banks, and Globe's first newspaper printing its first issue on May 2, 1878.   By February 1881, Globe was the Gila County seat.  The silver started to give out in just four years, but by then copper deposits were discovered.  By the early 1900s, the Old Dominion Copper Company in Globe ranked as one of the world's richest.  The Old Dominion closed in 1931 and mining operations moved to the nearby town of Miami.  Globe's economy remain's heavily dependent on the mining industry, and even today city is home to one of the few operating copper smelters in the United States.  Globes current population is just under 8,000.

We got into Globe about 1:00 p.m. and were pretty hungry.  We found a Mexican restaurant near the center of town called Irene’s Real Mexican Food.  The internet reviews we read gave it four stars, so we gave it a try.  The food was OK, pretty bland and not especially memorable.  I guess it was “Real” Mexican food, but only in the sense that it was not imaginary food.  At least the portions were fairly large, so we didn’t leave hungry. 

After lunch we did a couple of geocaches in the historic district of Globe.  Both of the caches were what are called Virtual geocaches.  Virtual caches have no physical container or log to sign.  To get credit for the cache you have to answer questions about what is at the cache site.  One was an old church which had the first church bell installed in the town of Globe.  There was a plaque on the wall of the church with a story about the bell and the answers to the questions were on the plaque.  By the way, this cache was our 3,900 find, so we took a picture to commemorate the milestone.  Yea!  The second cache in Globe was only a few blocks from the church and was an old steam locomotive that had been preserved and put on display in a town park.  This was also a virtual and we had to answer questions related to information on another plaque that told where the six other surviving engines of this same model are located.

After leaving Globe we started on the return leg of the circle tour, west on U.S. 60 back to Apache Junction.  This route took us through the mining towns of Miami and Superior.  Miami, Arizona is another copper mining town with an interesting story behind it’s name.  A Polish immigrant and prospector, Black Jack Newman, is recognized for being the one to help create the town of Miami.  He named his copper mine Mima, after his fiance Mima Tune.  However, trouble started when another group, from Miami, Ohio, staked their claim nearby.  They named their mine Inspiration and when it came time to name the tiny community, there was an argument.  Finally, a compromise was struck.  They agreed to spell it “Miami,” yet say the name “Mima.” Eventually Newman’s mine was sold and became part of the Miami Copper Company.

The town of Miami was founded in 1907 with both the Inspiration Mine and the Miami Copper Company in operation.  Both the Inspiration and the Miami Copper Company began the construction of huge reduction plants in the early 1900's and the large copper-ore reduction plants earned the town the nickname “Concentrator City.”  Although during it’s heyday Miami actually had a larger population than it’s nearby rival Globe, the mining activity has all but stopped and the current population is less than 2,000.

We stopped at one geocache in Miami, but we ended up not finding it, scoring us a new DNF.  The cache was hidden in a small park where there was a bunch of old mining equipment on display.  We think the cache was a magnetic type hidden up under one of the equipment items, but it was just too hot to do a proper search.

The final major point of interest on the trip was the town of Superior, Arizona, about 20 miles west of Miami.  Superior is another turn of the century copper mining town.  In 1900 the name of this location, as it appeared on a map of the Pioneer Mining District, was Hastings.  However, the name was later changed to Superior because the town depended upon the operations of the Arizona and Lake Superior Mining Company.  By 1904 Superior was a real frontier mining town with many tents, several primitive board homes, a store, boarding house, blacksmith shop, and a post office.  With the construction of a huge smelter in 1914 by the Magma Copper Company, the future of Superior was secure as long as copper ores continued to be fed into the smelter.  In 1981, the smelter closed down.  The current population of Superior is about 3,000. 

I remember in the 1960's and 70's driving along U.S. 60 between Superior and Globe the entire valley would be covered in thick, ugly smog, the result of all the mining and smelting activity in the three towns.  Miami was probably the worst, being stuck in the middle.  Smelting of copper requires a lot of acid and the smog had a very rank, acrid smell, almost a taste.  It was a pretty bad thirty mile drive through the ick before you climbed out of the canyon outside Globe into fresh air again.

We picked up a couple more caches along the side of the road after Superior and we ended up with nine new finds for the day, along with the one DNF.  We finally got back to the coach right at 4:30, so the circle trip took us seven hours.  We got a lot of pictures, saw some great scenery, did some caching and just generally had a great day.  Once we got home we just chilled the rest of the night.

Tuesday, May 22nd, the weather forecasts predicted today to be the hottest day of the week, close to 110 degrees in some areas of the Salt River Valley.  Since we had no need to do anything today we decided to just stay in the coach for the day and avoid the heat.  We kept both A/Cs running, closed all the shades to keep the sun out, and just hunkered in for a hot day.  Early in the afternoon I did venture out for a brief, 20 minute, splash in the nearby pool and spa, but after that I stayed under cover.  We were able to keep the coach reasonably cool by keeping the light out, both airs on and not opening the door.  As it turns out, it only got up to 109 in Apache Junction.  Piece of cake!

Wednesday, May 23rd, I wanted to experience a bit of nostalgia today so I suggested to Jackie that we drive into Mesa for lunch at one of the Big Apple restaurants.  We also had to do some geocaching today to get a find for our days of the year grid, so I plotted some caches in Mesa, not too far from the restaurant.  The restaurant is meaningful to me because back in the mid 70's I was a Sheriff’s Deputy with Maricopa County, working as a detective in the Warrants and Fugitives detail.  It was a plain clothes assignment and our job was to locate and arrest people wanted on warrants.  It was one of the more interesting and fun times in my career.  My partner and I used to eat at Bill Johnson’s Big Apple at least three times a week, sometimes more.  At that time they only had one location, the original, on East Van Buren Street in Phoenix.  They had great hamburgers, as well as other stuff, were not expensive, and the staff was very friendly.  Because we were in there so often we became well known to all the waitresses and even the managers and owners. 

Since those days the company has built four other locations around the metro area, including the one in Mesa.  For the most part they used the same design for all the stores, so when we walked into the one in Mesa I was immediately taken back to all the time I spent in the one in Phoenix.  The menu has changed, more options, higher prices, but the food was still very good.  I had the BBQ beef brisket and it was wonderful.  They still give a big meal for the price and I was very happy with lunch.  After we had lunch we went out to do a few caches, but after only four finds and one DNF we decided it was just too hot to be out caching.  It was 106 according to the car and the sun was blazing hot. 

Since we were already quite a ways west, we decided to go by the Chandler Elks Lodge for a visit.  We have never been to that lodge and, according to the book, they were open every afternoon.  Chandler is a fairly large suburb of Phoenix, located southeast of Phoenix proper, near Mesa and Tempe.  We drove to the lodge and found a very nice, large building right near the center of town.  There were a half dozen or so people in the bar and the bartender was fairly friendly.  We had one cocktail, got a lodge pin for our banner, and then started back towards Apache Junction and home.  We did have one more stop to make along the way.

Previously in this chapter I talked about my grandparents and the home they built on the slope of the Superstition Mountains back in 1960.  I have searched the area on Google Earth and their house is no longer there.  I was fairly certain I had located the correct spot where the house had been and I noted the coordinates, so I wanted to drive out there just to see if anything looked familiar.  We drove to the location and there is a relatively new looking house there.  Unfortunately, although I am pretty sure it’s the right spot, there was just nothing there that would allow me to confirm absolutely that it was the right place.  I guess that’s just another thing that will have to be just a memory.  After our little tour of the area we went back to the coach for the rest of the night.       

Thursday, May 24th, we decided to just stay in for the day and avoid the heat.  Did a few chores but mostly just relaxed for the day.  Friday, May 25th is another travel day.  Time to leave Apache Junction and head southeast to Tucson, Arizona.  We left Canyon Vistas Resort about 9:30 and drove south through Florence and Coolidge, small central Arizona farming towns, heading for Interstate 10.  We stopped at the Flying J on I-10 in Eloy, just outside Casa Grande, to get fuel.  Once we had a full tank of full we continued east on I-10 to Tucson.  The wind was blowing very, very hard, making it almost difficult to keep in one lane.  I kept the speed down and just trundled along at 57mph, staying out of the way of those who wanted to go faster.

We got to the Adventure Bound RV Resort, which is actually on the southeast side of Tucson, about noon.  We got settled in and just relaxed the rest of the day watching the wind blow.  We will be here in Tucson for five days, through the Memorial Day weekend.  We like to be off the road on major holidays.

Saturday, May 26th, we awoke after a windy night, but at least to cooler temperatures.  It is only supposed to be in the 80's for the next couple days.  Today we decided to do some shopping so we left the coach about 11:30.  Our first stop was My Big Fat Greek Restaurant, one of our favorite places to eat.  Anytime we are in Tucson we always find time to eat here at least once.  I don’t care for lamb, but they have plenty of stuff with cow too, so I am happy.  I had a steak and cheese pita, which was basically a Philly cheese on a pita rather than a hoagie roll.  Jackie had a regular Greek pita, which is a mixture of lamb and beef.  The food was excellent and the service was good.  The only thing that wasn’t up to the same standard as in previous visits was the calamari.  Today’s was thick and tough, although it was very tasty it was a little too chewy.  I think they must have changed brands.

After lunch we headed to the local Costco to stock up on vodka.  And by stock up I mean two six packs of 1.75 liter bottles.  Our thinking is that once we leave Tucson, and Arizona, we are getting into states that have much less liberal liquor laws than California and Arizona.  The stricter the laws, the more expensive the booze.  We decided to stock up and try to get through as much of our summer travels as possible on Arizona liquor.  After Costco we made a stop at a SuperCuts and both got haircuts.  We then headed back to the coach and relaxed the rest of the afternoon and evening.   

Sunday, May 27th, Race Day!  I asked Jackie if she wouldn’t mind if we stayed home today so I could watch the two big races of the summer, the Indy 500 open wheel race and the Coca Cola 600 NASCAR race from Charlotte.  She had no problems with the plan and had lots of stuff on the DVR to watch for the afternoon.  Fortunately, we are in a big city, so we have good TV reception as well as cable at the RV park.  This means that I can watch what I want back in the “man cave” while Jackie has control of the satellite and DVR in the front.  I spent the morning watching Indy and then the late afternoon watching NASCAR.  I like auto racing, but don’t often take the time to watch the races because we are doing other things, like caching.  Both races were good and I enjoyed the day.  Jackie got in a lot of Lifetime Movies and other shows that she likes.  We never left the coach the entire day.

Monday, May 28th, Memorial Day.  Memorial Day was originally called “Decoration Day” and had it’s beginnings shortly after the Civil War.  It was to be a day of remembrance for those who perished in the way and was celebrated by decorating the graves of the fallen with flowers and flags.  By the 20th century it was an official holiday and was traditionally celebrated on May 30th.  In 1967 Congress passed the law which moved four holidays, including Decoration Day, to Mondays, thus allowing for three day weekends.  The same law officially changed the name of the May holiday to Memorial Day.

My primary point in discussing the history of Memorial Day is to emphasize that the day is intended to honor those who lost their lives defending this country.  While I appreciate the thought and the support, most everything I saw on television today gave the impression that it was a holiday for all service members.  We already have a day for remembering those who served, Veterans Day.  Let’s try to remember what Memorial Day really means, that Freedom isn’t Free, it has been purchased with the most precious currency there is, the lives of the men and women who have died defending it.

After watching some of the Memorial Day tributes on TV, we left the coach about 10:30 to do some caching.  Today was forecast to be in the low 90's, and we wanted to get an early start.  Because there happened to be a series of caches set out along a dead end road not far from the RV park, we were able to capture fourteen new finds in about 90 minutes.  We also met another geocaching couple on the same route just as we were finishing up.  Although there are hundreds of thousands of cachers, it is still pretty rare to actually run into other cachers out in the field.  Right next to one cache we found there was a Cholla cactus that was shaped just like a large cross.  Very fitting for Memorial Day. 

After caching we grabbed some lunch at a little bar and grill called Montgomery’s, located in the community of Vail.  Vail is about five miles southeast of the Tucson city limits and appears to be an small, unincorporated bedroom community.  There was a fairly new strip mall on the main road and Montgomery’s was in it.  We decided to stop there rather than drive all the way back into Tucson, and we were not disappointed.  It was a very nicely appointed bar and restaurant with a very friendly staff.  We were there late for lunch, close to 1:00, but there were still a dozen people in the place.  I had one of the specials, which was a prime rib dip and I have to say it was one of the best beef dip sandwiches I have had.  Jackie had a Reuben, and she said it was very good as well.  The prices were reasonable, the service good and the food excellent.  It’s a little off the beaten path for visitors to Tucson, about a mile north of I-10 on Vail road, so you would have to be going there on purpose to find it.  Unless, of course, you are geocaching in the area as we were.  We were very happy with the place.  After lunch we drove to Walmart for some supplies and then went back to the coach for the rest of the day.

Tuesday, May 29th, we left the coach after lunch and drove about ten miles north of the RV park to Sahuaro National Park.  The park is actually divided into two sections, called districts, one west of Tucson and the other, the one we went to, to the east of Tucson.  The total area for both districts is just over 91 thousand acres.  There are visitor centers in each of the two districts.  The primary purpose of the Park is to conserve and protect a representative section of Sonoran Desert.  Saguaro National Monument was created on March 1, 1933 and on October 14, 1994, Congress elevated it’s status to National Park.

Our first stop was the visitor’s center, which was undergoing remodeling.  Just outside the building, in the shade at the rear, was a family of javelina.  There were five adults, two juveniles, which the ranger said were a year old, and two piglets which were only a few weeks old.  All sleeping right up under the big picture windows that look out the back of the building.  I lived in Arizona most of my life and spent a lot of time in the desert and have only seen javelina once before out in the wild.

After checking out the visitor’s center, and getting our National Parks Passport stamped, we took the scenic loop road through part of the park.  The loop road is about 8 miles long and you can cruise very slowly so as to get a good look at all the different types of cactus and plants along the route.  It took us about an hour to do the entire road.  We saw some very interesting looking cactus.  No other wildlife though, probably because it was close to 100 degrees and full sun.  Most everything was hunkered down in the shade for the afternoon.

After our visit to the National Park we did a few geocaches, mostly because we had to have at least one on this date for our days of the year caching project.  We actually ended up finding five new caches, including one virtual cache inside the Park.  One of the other caches was a tribute to a Tucson police officer who was killed in the line of duty about eight years ago.  After caching we drove back to the RV park and relaxed the rest of the afternoon and evening.

Wednesday, May 30, we packed up the coach, rolled in the walls and headed back out on the open road, this time going to Deming, New Mexico, about 200 miles east on I-10.  We left early, about 9:00, because we wanted to get on the road before the heat of the afternoon hit.  In addition, once we cross out of Arizona we go into Mountain Daylight Time and we lose an hour.  Arizona doesn’t do daylight savings time, so in the summer it has the same time as California.

We had a fairly uneventful drive and got into Deming, New Mexico to the Low-Hi RV Ranch about 3:30 local time.  It is in the mid 90's and very windy and we can see the smoke from one of the big wildfires in New Mexico blowing across the sky to the north of us.  Hopefully, the wind won’t shift and bring the smoke to us.  We got settled into the park for a three day stay and just stayed in the rest of the day.

Our departure from Arizona after nearly two weeks is a perfect point to close this chapter of the blog and get it published.  We are only in New Mexico for these three nights and then we go into Texas for nearly a month at a couple different places.  Until the next time, remember that you only get to go around once in this life, so enjoy the ride!  See ya soon.

California Mountain High

Welcome back to our story.  Our last chapter concluded on Wednesday, May 2nd, with us parked at the Silent Valley Club, our private membership resort south of Banning, California.  We have been here for about two weeks and will be here for another two weeks before beginning our summer travels to the Midwest.

Thursday, May 3rd, we had a stay at home and relax day.  We did a few chores around the house, including, of course, my publishing the last chapter of the blog.  All the while we were relaxing there was a nice four pound corn beef boiling in a pot on the stove.  About 5:00 the Babcocks came over to our house for cocktails and about 6:00 we served up the corn beef and cabbage, along with carrots, and some dinner rolls.  A very simple, but very delicious meal.  All four of us love corn beef and cabbage and everyone seemed to like tonight’s version. 

After dinner we cleaned off the table and played some cards.  We played a game called Phase Ten, which actually takes quite a while to play.  We were only about a third of the way through the entire game when it was getting close to 9:00 and the Babcocks had to go home to let the dog out.  We saved the scores and will pick up again, maybe tomorrow.  After the Ray and Suzie left we watched TV for a while and then off to bed.

Friday, May 4th, we needed a geocache find for the day for our “days of the year” grid on our stats page.  We didn’t want to drive all the way down the hill to Banning since we are going down there tomorrow for some events, so we decided to revisit a couple of caches right near the RV park which we had already found.  Since we are “training” Ray and Suzie Babcock to be geocachers we figured this was a good excuse for us to go back to caches we had found before.  We loaded Ray and Suzie up in the car and went out to get a couple of caches.  The first one we found was right outside the entrance to the park and was a very clever cache.  It took them a little while to find it, but they finally did.  We went ahead and signed the log again too, thus giving us a cache for the day.  We then drove to the little village of Poppet Flats, just down the road from the park, to find another that was supposed to have some travel bugs in it.  Unfortunately, the four of us were unable to find it, even though we had found it about 18 months ago.  I remember the location in general, but did not remember exactly where the cache was hidden and we couldn’t find it again.  Sad to get a DNF on a cache you have found once.  Oh well.

After finding our cache we went back to the coach and played cards with the Babcocks.  We finished the game from the night before and played another game of Phase 10.  Ray won both games.  We then had cocktail hour after which the Babcocks went home and we just relaxed the rest of the evening.

Saturday, May 5th, Happy Cinco De Mayo!  Arriba!  While not an “official” holiday in the United States, May 5th is widely celebrated and enjoyed, especially in the western part of the country.  Many Americans think it is Mexican Independence Day, their equivalent of the 4th of July.  Actually it celebrates the 1862 victory of the Mexican army over a French invasion force.  The day is not really a big deal in Mexico and is generally only celebrated regionally in the State of Puebla where the battle actually took place.  In the U.S. it is considered an excellent excuse to eat Mexican food and drink beer.  If everyone in the U.S. is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day, they are Mexican on Cinco De Mayo.

We and the Babcocks were up early and in the car by 8:30, headed down the hill to Banning to attend a geocaching event.  Jackie and I had attended this same event last year when we were here.  It is only a one hour “meet and greet,”

but they are fun because you get to meet geocachers whose names you have seen on cache logs.  We have actually got the Babcocks interested in caching and they have even signed up with a caching name, “1Fire.”  Ray was especially excited about going to the event because it was put on by a cacher whose name is “Active Fire” and, although is not a fire fighter, he owns several pieces of fire equipment, including a 1952 Mack fire engine that he brings to the events. 

We arrived at the event, which was easy to find since the big red truck was parked in a lot just off the main street.  We had coffee and cookies and talked to about two dozen other geocachers for about 90 minutes.  Several

of the cachers are folks we have met before, but we did meet a couple of new people.  After the caching event the four of us walked around the Art Hop street fair which was going on in Banning.  This is an annual event also, but it really doesn’t draw very many participants.  There were a couple dozen booths set up in the street, mostly community groups with a few jewelry sellers thrown in.  It took about an hour to see everything there was to see.

After the street fair we went to a restaurant called Gramma’s in Banning for brunch.  Gramma’s has been around for a long time and has a great reputation.  The Babcocks have eaten there several times, but this was our first time.  The food was quite good and you get plenty of it, so it’s a good value.  After lunch we did some geocaching, getting the Babcocks their first official geocaches.  Although they have been caching with us for the last week or so, they weren’t official cachers and were not signing the logs or logging the finds.  Today they are official.  Welcome to the hobby Ray and Suzie!  We got seven finds, with one DNF, before deciding that we had enough for one day.

We drove back up the hill and relaxed around the coach until 5:00 when we went over to the Babcocks for happy hour.  About 6:30 the four of us walked over to the restaurant at the RV park for the special Cinco De Mayo dinner.  The bar and restaurant here at Silent Valley have been closed for the winter and this was the first time they were open.  The food was cooked by volunteers and was a very limited menu, just some typical Mexican specialties.  I had tacos and the girls had taquitos.  Ray first ordered the green chili dinner, but the chili was so hot he couldn’t eat it, and he likes hot food.  Jackie and I both tried a bite and declared it too hot to eat too.  Ray had them take it back and bring him a couple of tacos also.  After dinner we went back to our respective coaches for the rest of the night.
                           
Sunday, May 6th, we planned a stay at home day.  About 10:00 the Babcocks came over to say goodbye.  They are leaving Silent Valley and heading home for a few days, then off to the California coast around Ventura.  We may see them again next month in Texas.  They are talking about trying to get to San Antonio the same time we are there.  I spent a few hours doing travel planning for our summer trip, filling in details and fine tuning the itinerary.  We have decided not to go to Connecticut but rather stay in the south central and Midwest parts of the country.  This will cut about a thousand miles off our total travels which should save us some fuel money.  It will also enable us to slow down and spend more time at various destinations in the south.  We are now planning to drive the Natchez Trace Parkway all the way from Natchez, Mississippi to Nashville, Tennessee.  People have told us it’s a great drive and now we will have the time to appreciate the area.  Other than a couple other minor chores that’s pretty much all I did today.

Monday, May 7th, a beautiful day at Silent Valley.  The morning fog is gone and we expect temps in the 80's today.  I spent a little more time doing travel planning, including making some reservations at state parks along the Natchez Trace.  I was not aware that Mississippi had such a good State parks system.  Almost all of their State parks have RV parks with at least water and 50 amp electric.  One of the parks, the one near Tupelo, even has sewer hookups.  Most of the sites are only $18 a night, although the one with sewer is $24.  We will be spending a total of 20 nights in parks along the Natchez Trace Parkway.  Should be fun.

After lunch we did our laundry in the park’s laundry facility.  It has been two weeks, which is about the extent of our clean underwear supply.  After laundry we just relaxed in the coach the rest of the evening.

Tuesday, May 8th, we left the coach before lunch and drove down the hill and then east to Palm Springs.  We had to pick up our mail at the UPS office near the airport.  Our official mailing address is a UPS store in Pahrump and about every two weeks or so we have them bundle up and send our mail to us.  Silent Valley doesn’t allow any mail or package delivery, so we have to have it sent to the nearest customer service center.  After we picked up our mail we went to a little restaurant in Cathedral City called Boys.  I used to eat there quite often when I worked at the Desert Princess Country Club, which is only a mile or so up the street.  They have the best pastrami sandwich anywhere and I like to eat there from time to time.  Since we were going to be close by I thought today was a good day.

After lunch we fueled up the Jeep, diesel is about a quarter cheaper per gallon in the Coachella Valley than it is in Banning, and stopped by our friend Barry Cohen’s shop to say hi.  After a brief visit with Barry we got back on the freeway and headed back to Banning, back up the hill, and to the coach for the rest of the night.       

Wednesday, May 9th, Jackie woke up feeling really bad, her allergies are kicking up again.  Runny nose, sore throat, headache, itchy eyes, all the classic symptoms.  She spent the day on the coach watching TV and I spent most of the day in the back of the coach in my den.  Did a little housecleaning and administrative stuff, but not much else.  Thursday was more of the same for Jackie.  Again, I did a few chores, some maintenance on the coach, but mostly just played with the computer while Jackie rested and tried to feel better.

Friday, May 11th, we left the coach after lunch and drove east towards Palm Desert.  Jackie had managed to get an appointment with her doctor for late in the afternoon so he could confirm that she had allergies and give her an allergy shot.  First we stopped at Best Buy and did some shopping.  We have been considering buying a tablet computer for a while now and finally got one.  We bought the newest Asus Transformer EEE 10.1 inch tablet with the latest Android software.  It got great reviews in the computer magazines and is way less expensive than the new Ipads. 

While we were buying the new tablet we were talking to the Verizon phone reps in the store and they were having a special where we could upgrade our MiFi, which is how we get our wireless internet, to the new 4G system at no cost except for the sales tax.  Although 4G is not available everywhere, where you can get it the speed is greatly increased.  So, we went ahead and did the upgrade.  We finally got finished at Best Buy just in time to get Jackie to here appointment on time.  She got a quick check and it was confirmed that she had allergies, not a cold or the flu, and she got an allergy shot.  I also got a shot that I was supposed to have gotten back in February during my physical.  At that time they were out of the vaccine, so I got the shot today.  We then drove back to the coach, after picking up some KFC for dinner, and relaxed the rest of the night.

Saturday, May 12th, Jackie was still not feeling very well, so we had another stay at home day.  I spent a good part of the day setting up and playing with the new tablet.  I also redid our calendar and migrated from the old Palm system that I have been using for years to the Google calendar.  The Google calendar doesn’t make especially pretty printed calendars, but the big upside is it is maintained online so it is available from any of our computers, the tablet and even Jackie’s phone.  Getting it set up on Jackie’s phone, which is a Blackberry, took the longest time.  Google and Blackberry don’t play well together.  I finally got it done though.  Other than that, we just hung around the coach all day.

Sunday, May 13th, we left the coach about 11:30 and drove down to Beaumont for lunch and to do some shopping.  We went to La Casita, one of our favorite local Mexican chains, and had lunch.  The place was pretty busy, being Mother’s day and all.  After lunch we went out and found one quick geocache.  We needed a find for today to help us fill in our “days of the year” grid, but Jackie still is not feeling all that well, so we didn’t want to do a lot of caching.  After our quick find we went to Walmart for groceries. 

On the way back home we stopped in Banning and gathered some information we would need to solve some puzzle caches.  Puzzle geocaches require the solution of some sort of puzzle to get the actual coordinates for the cache location.  It can be a word puzzle, a math puzzle, trivia, or some other type of challenge.  This particular set of caches, there are three, require you to go to four different murals painted on buildings in the City of Banning, and answer questions about the murals.  Things like, how many men in the picture, how many birds, and so on.  Once you get those numbers then you had do some math problems with the answers to get the coordinates.  We gathered all the information and I solved the math problems later in the day.  We have to cache again on Wednesday, so we will look for the actual cache containers for this series then.  After we got home we put the groceries away and relaxed for the rest of the day.

Monday, May 14th, another glorious, sunny day in Silent Valley.  We decided to just stay around the coach for another day and only did a few chores.  Mostly we just relaxed and hoped that Jackie would get over the worst of her allergies soon.

Tuesday, May 15th, Happy Birthday to the love of my life, my wife Jackie!  She woke up feeling slightly better than the last few days, but we decided to lay low for another day to give her a chance to continue to improve.  I did spent a couple of hours getting all our outside stuff taken down and put away in preparation for our departure on Thursday from Silent Valley.  Thursday will mark the official start of our summer travels for 2012, which will ultimately take us too Indiana for the FMCA rally.  Major stops along the way include Apache Junction, and Tucson, Arizona, El Paso, San Antonio, and Corpus Christi, Texas, New Orleans, the entire length of the Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi, and Louisville, Kentucky.   All together, out and back, we are looking at just under 6,000 miles.

Wednesday, May 16th, our last full day in Silent Valley.  Again the weather was beautiful, sunny and warm.  We had to have some caches for today to fill a blank spot in our days of the year grid, so we left the coach about 11:30 and went down the hill into Banning-Beaumont.  Jackie was feeling a little better and had not coughed as much last night as she had been.  Since we didn’t go out to eat on her birthday I let Jackie pick a place for lunch.  We went to a Chinese place in Beaumont called First Dynasty Chinese Restaurant.  Jackie said the place had excellent reviews on Trip Advisor. 

We got there just after noon and were surprised to find only a couple of people in the restaurant.  By the time we got done eating we were the only ones there besides staff.  The restaurant was big and very nicely decorated.  I told Jackie it reminded me of the old Chinese restaurants my parents went to back in Milwaukee when I was very young.  The food was very good, the lunch choices plentiful, and you got a lot of food for the cost.  I really don’t understand why it doesn’t do a better business.  Although it’s on the main street of Beaumont, it is near the old downtown, which is a couple miles from the current center of commerce.  The location may have something to do with the lack of people.  If you are in Beaumont, check it out if you like Chinese.  No buffet, just great menu food.  After lunch we did a little caching and were able to get six new finds, along with one DNF.  After caching we headed back up the mountain and relaxed for the rest of the night.

Thursday, May 17th, a travel day.  We left Silent Valley about 10:00 and started east towards Arizona.  We were headed for an overnight stay in Ehrenberg, Arizona, just across the Colorado from Blythe, California.  There is a Western Horizons Resort there and we can stay overnight for only $6 with full hookups.  On the way across the desert between Indio and Blythe we did something we have never done before.  We stopped to get a couple of geocaches while we were traveling in the motor home.  Normally we wouldn’t cache while traveling, but we needed to get a cache today to fill a hole in our days of the year grid.  We are determined to fill the grid this year.  So last evening I did some research and found five caches that were hidden just off the freeway near off ramps.  They

were all within a few miles of Desert Center.  The first one we checked we didn’t even stop because after I pulled off the freeway I found there wasn’t anywhere to safely park the coach.  The second one had a large gravel area where we were able to park the coach and walk to the cache, only a few hundred feet away.  We got the cache and even got to trade a couple of travel bugs.  We got a second cache just down the access road from the first.  The second one was at an old abandoned service station that had been on old U.S. 60 in the days prior to the freeway.  We parked under the canopy, had lunch and got the cache.  So we were able to get two new caches for the day.  Yea!

We crossed the river into Arizona and pulled into the Western Horizons park about 1:30 and got parked.  It was pretty hot, well over 100 degrees, so we just stayed in and sat in the A/C resting.  We didn’t even unhook the car since we are only here one night.

Our arrival here in Arizona will mark the end of this chapter of our story.  We will be in Arizona for about two weeks, so I will publish again after we leave Arizona and head into New Mexico and Texas.  Until we meet again, keep the faith, stay happy and love life and everything it has to offer.  See Ya.

Back To California

Hi there, welcome back. Our last episode concluded on Tuesday, April 17th, when we arrived at the Indian Waters RV Resort in Indio, California. Our original plan for this time period had us leaving Camp Verde and going right up to the Silent Valley Club, our time share RV park near Banning, California. However, it occurred to me that I had doctor’s appointments on both Wednesday and Thursday of this week in the Coachella Valley and that it made more sense to stay over in Indio for a few days rather than commute the 50 miles from Silent Valley. Since we can stay here at Indian Waters for only $11 a night it was a no brainer. We will stay here until Sunday and then drive up to Silent Valley.

It was in the 90's when we got into Indian Waters, so I didn’t do much outside beyond the necessities, utilities, sunshades and leveling. We did want to go out and get at least one geocache since we needed one for the 17th on our “days of the year” grid. After lunch we went out with information on three caches which were fairly close to the RV park. It was well into the nineties, but at least it was dry and not too uncomfortable if you didn’t spend a lot of time in the sun. We were unable to find the first cache we went to. If it was there it was hidden in some dry, scratchy bushes, and we couldn’t see it. I didn’t want to wade into the brush in shorts and I was already sweating, so we just did a DNF on the cache. We found the second cache, which gave us our find for the day, so we said good enough and headed back to the coach and the A/C.

Our friends Jay and Donna Blumenthal, who have been at Indian Waters all winter and are parked a couple of spaces down, came over for happy hour. We sat and chatted for an hour or so before they left to go to dinner. We had dinner in and spent the rest of the night in the coach trying to stay cool.

Wednesday, April 18th, I had a doctor’s appointment in Rancho Mirage, over on the east side of the valley, at 2:30. We got over there and I got in to see the doctor fairly quickly. This appointment was with a dermatologist and was primarily to get a skin check as a followup to my melanoma scare three years ago. Now that I am on Medicare it is not cost prohibitive to get the medical attention that I should be getting. With my previous insurance we really couldn’t afford to go to specialists unless it was a bona fide urgent need. The doctor looked me over and didn’t find any new spots of concern to him as far as skin cancer. He did cut off a whole bunch of moles and skin tags that I have had for years, including one on the back of my neck that I called my second head. It was pretty big. I now have a clean bill of health for my skin for another year.

After we got done at the doctor we did a few geocaches over in Rancho Mirage. Again, we needed at least one on this date for our stats page. Although it was still hot, in the nineties again, it was not too uncomfortable. We were able to find five new caches in the course of an hour, along with one DNF. We decided that was enough for the day, given the weather. We then drove over to Palm Desert to visit with ShaneRyan, Jackie’s Godson. We had wanted to visit his mom too, but she was working. We spent about an hour catching up with Shane, who is now 17 and almost 6'4" tall. We didn’t want to spend too much time there because he had some friends over, but we did have a nice visit.

After talking to Shane we went to the nearby Casey’s restaurant and bar to meet another of our friends in the area, Ed Cosak. Ed and Jackie were business partners years ago, before I came out to the Coachella Valley, and remain friends. He met us at Casey’s and we had a couple of drinks and chatted for about 90 minutes. He had to leave to get to a concert at one of the local casinos, and we left to head for home. On the way we decided it was too late to go home for dinner, so we stopped at Cactus Jack’s Bar and Grill, our old hangout when we lived here, and had dinner there. I had the beef ribs, which are to die for. Only place I ever eat beef ribs. After dinner we went back to the coach for the rest of the night.

Thursday, April 19th, we left the coach and went back to Cactus Jack’s again for lunch. Jackie likes to go there on Thursdays because they always have lamb shanks on special on Thursday. She had the lamb and I had what they call on the menu the “Giant Fish Sandwich.” Yes indeed, it is big. At least a pound of fried fish overflowing the bun. Way too big to eat like a sandwich, you have to just cut it up and eat it open faced. Pretty tasty though.

After lunch we drove to another doctor’s appointment, this time with a gastroenterologist in La Quinta. As part of my Medicare welcome physical my doctor told me it was time for the old colonoscopy. Yikes. Anyway, I talked to the guy who will do it, got the prescription for the pre op cleanse, and scheduled my ride on the Silver Stallion for April 30. Happy Happy Joy Joy! After the fairly quick doctor’s appointment we did our shopping at both Walmart and Costco. Once we were done with that we headed back to the coach to get out of the heat. It was close to 100 today and is supposed to just keep getting hotter. It will be good to get to Silent Valley, which is at 4,000 feet and at least a few degrees cooler than here in the desert. We spent the rest of the evening in the coach.

Friday, April 20th, we didn’t have anything scheduled to do. After lunch I decided that I would go to the local urgent care about my left ear again. I have been having problems with it being stopped up and occasionally painful, for more than two months now. A month ago, in Casa Grande, I had gone to urgent care and they did a cleanse to get rid of wax, but it didn’t seem to help the overall problem. I got in and saw the Physician’s Assistant (PA) and she decided that I most likely had a fungal infection that was causing a discharge that was blocking the ear. She gave me a prescription for an anti-fungal drops and I was on my way.

I went to Walmart to get the prescription and ran into a series of snafus that made for a frustrating afternoon. They didn’t have the exact medicine that was on the prescription and they missed the mention in the remarks section where the PA had said what could be substituted. I ended up having to drive back to the doctor, get another prescription, and then back to Walmart, where they discovered their mistake. Oppsie! One would think that a pharmacist would read more closely. Anyway, they filled the prescription and then didn’t charge me because of the mistake. OK, I’m mollified. After that I went back home, after a three hour medical adventure, and we stayed in the rest of the night.

Saturday, April 21st, we left the coach about 11:30 and drove over to pick up Jackie’s Godson Shane for lunch. He had some friends that had spent the night, but he said they would be fine without him and he wanted to go to lunch with us. They had all been to Huntington Beach yesterday swimming and got back late, so they just stayed over. The three of us went to La Casita, a local Mexican chain that has very good food. I had my usual large taco salad, which is the best ever. Jackie and Shane split a variety platter dinner for two. We all ate well and had some very nice conversation. Shane is very polite and has an open manner that makes him very easy to talk to. Much different than a most other 17 year olds these days. After lunch we dropped him back off at his house and we went back to the coach. The temperatures were to be well into the 100's today and the car was already registering 104 on the dash thermometer. Yikes!

About 4:30 we left the coach again and drove over to the Motor Coach Country Club, a couple miles away from our park, to spent the evening with our good friends Barry and Colleen Cohen. We sat outside on their nice semi-covered patio and had cocktails and chatted. Later the girls went into their coach and played cards while Barry and I just sat outside and talked. Barry and I can talk for hours. Later Barry put together a pizza for dinner which was quite good. He did a homemade Italian sausage for a topping and it was like a rich spaghetti sauce on pizza dough. After dinner the girls played another card game and we talked more, enjoying the cooler evening. We finally left about 9:30 and went back to our coach for the rest of the night.

Sunday, April 22nd, another moving day, and with the heat the way it has been down here in the valley I am glad we are heading for the mountains. We got everything packed up and left Indian Waters about 10:00 and started on the 55 mile drive west to Banning and then south, up the hill to Silent Valley Club. Regular readers will know that Silent Valley is a very large private RV park that is up in the mountains at about 4,000 feet. There are eleven miles of winding, uphill road to get there, but the road is good enough for me to get the coach up without any major issues. The park is private and is sort of like a time share where we own a undivided interest in the lease from the Forest Service and all the improvements. We can stay there for up to 120 days a year, although to date we have not managed more than 60 with all our traveling.

Once we got to Banning we stopped and unhooked the car because it was very hot and I didn’t want the coach to overheat on the final climb to the park. We also took the time to get a nearby geocache because we needed to have one on this date for our stats and didn’t want to have to go out looking for one later. We did find the cache and then started up the hill. Once we got to the top and into the park we found a nice site and got settled in. Although it was still warm, in the mid 80's, it was way better than down in Indio. We are parked only a few hundred feet away from our friends Ray and Suzie Babcock, who are also owners here. They have been up here since last Tuesday and knew we were coming up. We stay in contact with them and regular readers will remember that we frequently cross paths with them on our travels and spend time with them. We were last with them in El Mirage, Arizona, after the Good Sam Rally.

We are going to be here for nearly a month, so I spent more than the usual amount of time getting our outside set up. I put

out mats and lights that I normally don’t do for short term stays. Once I got everything set up I relaxed in the coach for a while. We went over to the Babcocks for happy hour and spent a couple hours talking with them and some friends of theirs that are also up here, Larry and Rennata. We have met them before, but not spent much time with them. After happy hour we went back to our coach and BBQ’d some chicken for dinner and spent the rest of the evening relaxing.

Monday, April 23rd, we awoke to a very foggy and cool morning. The entire valley was cloaked in clouds and it stayed that way for the entire day. Since we didn’t have any plans to go off the mountain anyway, it really didn’t matter. After lunch we packed up our laundry and went down to the laundry facility at the activities center. The park has a very nice laundry with a dozen machines. There was only one other person in the place at the time, so we were able to get enough machines to do all our laundry at one time. We played some cards while the wash was working and were done in about two hours. Yea, clean clothes for another couple weeks.

After laundry we just chilled in the coach for the rest of the afternoon. We went over to the Babcocks for happy hour and then about 6:30 retired to our own coach for dinner and TV the rest of the night. A very nice, cool, relaxing day.

Tuesday, April 24th, my granddaughter Kayla’s birthday! Happy Birthday Kayla! This morning the mists and fog from yesterday were gone and we woke up to sunshine again. However, because it was never able to heat up yesterday it was cold this morning, 47 degrees when I woke up at 7:30. We continued the theme of relaxation today and didn’t go anywhere. We stayed around the coach all day alternating between playing games and getting some minor chores done. I did a couple of small repairs that I have been putting off and Jackie worked on catching up her daily diary.

Wednesday, April 25th, We hung around the coach until after lunch when we headed down the mountain for the drive to Rancho Mirage for a doctor’s appointment. This time it was an opportunity for me to visit the neurologist that first treated me in 2008 when I was diagnosed with trigeminal neuralgia, or TGN. The condition is also known as tic douloureux or prosopalgia, and is a neuropathic disorder characterized by episodes of intense pain in the face, originating from the trigeminal nerve. It has been described as among the most painful conditions known to mankind. It is estimated that 1 in 15,000 people suffer from TGN, although the actual figure may be significantly higher due to frequent mis-diagnosis. In a majority of cases, TGN symptoms begin appearing after the age of 50, although there have been cases with patients being as young as three years of age. There is no known cure for the condition, although in extreme cases there are surgical remedies with drastic side effects, such as face paralysis. In most cases the only treatment is pain management with drugs. In my case the pain is controlled to a great extent by the use of gabapentin, a drug used for the treatment of seizure conditions such as epilepsy. I just wanted to touch base with the doctor to see if there were any new or different drugs or treatment options available. We had a nice visit and I learned that there is nothing new on the disease. He confirmed by current treatment and I was on my way.

After the doctor’s appointment we headed back west to Beaumont for a shopping stop at Walmart. Once we had our supplies we headed back south, up the hill to Silent Valley. We did make a stop for one geocache to fill a date on our days of the year grid. Although the weather said it was going to rain, the skies were still mostly clear. We stayed around the coach the rest of the evening.

Thursday, April 26th, we had been expecting the rain and it didn’t disappoint. About 1:00 a.m. the rain started in earnest and it rained off and on all night. Certainly not enough to cause any flooding concerns, but enough to be able to know it was raining. When we got up it was still raining and it rained on and off most of the day. Around mid-afternoon it finally started to clear up a bit and the rain finally came to a stop. Since we knew we weren’t going anywhere today we just relaxed, played games, did inside chores and had a quiet day in the coach.

Friday, April 27th, a bright, sunny day! After lunch we drove down the mountain to the Banning-Beaumont area to do some geocaching in the great, mild weather. We first made a stop so Jackie could get a haircut and then we went over to the Kohl’s store because they had a big sale and Jackie needed a new pair of jeans. I ended up with a couple of new tees and Jackie got her capri jeans. Once all these errands were done we started caching and in a couple of hours had garnered ten new finds, along with a couple of DNFs. One very interesting event happened while we were looking for a cache behind a commercial building in Banning.

We believed the cache to be hidden amongst the electrical service boxes on the building and we were checking them out. We kept hearing this strange sloshing and thumping noise. At first we thought it was coming from inside the building and I suggested maybe a washing machine? I finally realized that it was coming from a large plastic trash can behind the building and about ten feet away from where we were standing. The can was about four feet tall and didn’t have a lid and I thought maybe a rat or a racoon was inside thrashing about. I cautiously moved over and peeked over the edge and saw a gray squirrel inside the can. There was about six inches of water in the bottom of the can from the recent rains and the squirrel was soaked. He (or she) was jumping up the side, but couldn’t reach the top of the can to pull itself over and out. I think the big fluffy tail, soaked with water, was weighing it down. I told Jackie what it was and told her to stand back. I then slowly tipped the can over until the squirrel could scamper up and out. He immediately headed for cover around the corner of the building without even a thank you or “here, have a nut.” Anyway, I did my good deed for the day because I have no doubt he wouldn’t have gotten out and the cold night probably would have killed him.

After caching we drove back up the mountain to the RV park and happy hour. We went over to the Babcock’s with our cocktails and some snacks and chatted for a while. Then Ray served up a nice batch of beef stew and garlic bread that really hit the spot. We ended up finally leaving about 9:00 and going back to our coach for the rest of the night.

Saturday, April 28th, again promised to be a beautiful spring day. I left the coach a little before 10:00 a.m. and walked over to the RV park’s community building for a meeting of the Board of Directors for the resort. Since this is a nonprofit membership resort with a deeded interest for owners, they are required to have an active, elected board manage their affairs. Ray Babcock, who is also an owner, went with me. We sat through most of the meeting and, as usual, the outlook for the park is not good. Even before the economic crash six years ago the park was having problems as aging owners started defaulting on their dues when they stopped RVing. The financial problems for the park have only gotten worse over the years and their current cash flow projections show them in the red by the end of this year barring any changes. I anticipate a dues increase, up at least $100 from the current $600, and maybe even a special assessment of several hundred dollars. We like coming here and would probably not default on our membership, but a raise in rates is not a thing to look forward to.

After the meeting we went back to the coach and gathered up the girls and the four of us headed south to Idyllwild for a day of caching and fun. The Babcocks are aware of what geocaching is from having been around us, the Wilsons and the Bullocks, who all cache. However, they have never actually done it, so we asked if they wanted to go caching with us today just to see what it amounted to and they said yes.

Our first stop in Idyllwild was Jo Ann’s Café for lunch. Although there are several other restaurants in Idyllwild, a tourist town in the mountains east of Hemet, we usually end up at Jo Ann’s when we go up there for lunch. We had a very nice lunch and then set out to do some caching in the Idyllwild area. The very first cache we stopped at with the Babcocks turned out to be a DNF for us. Great demonstrators we are! We then set out to do a series of caches set out on a

fire road that circled around the west side of Idyllwild. There were ten caches in the series and we managed to get all ten. Over the course of the searches each of the four of us found at least one or two of the caches. The road was a narrow, dirt track, but for the most part was a fairly easy grind for the Jeep. There was one very muddy spot where I had to send Ray out as a scout to check before I raced through without stopping so as not to get stuck.

After doing the ten caches on the fire road we did two more easy ones along the main road in Idyllwild and then started back to Silent Valley. We had happy hour with the Babcocks at our house before heading off to our individual coaches for the rest of the night. The Babcocks said they had a great time and would like to do it again. I don’t really see them becoming avid cachers on their own, but I think they would enjoy getting out with friends every now and then just for the fun of it. We had a great day.

Sunday, April 29th, another great day, but we will be staying at home. Today is the prep day for my colonoscopy which is scheduled for tomorrow. Today I have to be on a clear liquid diet for the entire day and take the “colon blow” preparation in the evening. Not going to be a pleasant day. We did leave the coach for a few minutes in the morning to go over to the Babcock’s and meet their son Mike, who had come up for the weekend. Other than that, I just sat around and played games and got hungry. The evening was the worst. I won’t go into great detail, but suffice to say I didn’t venture far from the potty.

Monday, April 30th, we left the coach about 9:30 and started the fifty mile drive to Rancho Mirage and the outpatient surgery center at Eisenhower Hospital. My colonoscopy was scheduled for 10:45 a.m. We arrived and I got checked in and within about ten minutes I was ushered into the pre-op area and prepped for the procedure. By 11:00 I was taken to the OR and was lying on my side with my butt hanging out, talking to the anaesthesiologist. He pushed the plunger on his little IV syringe, he got a little fuzzy and then I woke up back in the pre-op area none the less for wear. Didn’t remember a thing, didn’t feel a thing, didn’t hear a thing.

Other than some gas pains from the air they pump into you during the exam, I had no discomfort. I asked the nurse what they gave me and she told me it was propothol. No wonder Michael Jackson liked the stuff! Instant out, instant awake, and I could moonwalk. Well, not really. The surgeon found no polyps and no other major issues, so I got a clean bill of health and don’t have to go through this again until 2022. Yea! After I got dressed Jackie drove us back up to Silent Valley where I vegged for the rest of the day. It was nice to be able to eat and drink again.

Tuesday, May 1st, May Day, May Day! May Day (two words) is a primarily northern European holiday related to the Celtic festival of Beltane and the Germanic festival of Walpurgis Night. May Day falls exactly half a year from November 1, another cross-quarter day which is also associated with various northern European pagan festivals and it has traditionally been an occasion for popular and often raucous celebrations.

As Europe became Christianized, the pagan holidays lost their religious character and either changed into popular secular celebrations, as with May Day, or were merged with or replaced by new Christian holidays as with Christmas, Easter, Pentecost and All Saint's Day. In the twentieth and continuing into the twenty-first century, many neopagans began reconstructing the old traditions and celebrating May Day as a pagan religious festival again.

On the other hand, the term Mayday (one word) is an emergency procedure word used internationally as a distress signal in voice procedure radio communications. It derives from the French “venez m'aider,” meaning "come help me."

We needed to have a geocaching find for today to fill a hole in our “days of the year” grid, so after lunch we headed down the mountain into Banning to do a few caches. When we awoke this morning the park was hidden in thick fog and it hadn’t lightened much when we left to go to town. However, once we cleared the valley that the park is nestled in and got on the north side of the mountains the fog cleared up. It was still pretty windy and chilly, even at the lower altitude of Banning, so we only did five caches before going into Beaumont to do some shopping.

Our first stop was Best Buy where I picked up a new DVD/surround sound system for the coach. The one that came with the coach burned out several months ago, so we have been without the ability to play DVDs or use the surround sound system in the coach. I finally decided to buy a new one and found a nice Sony system at Best Buy that would do everything we needed for just over $200. This system had much better reviews than the slightly cheaper RCA systems that Walmart had on their shelves. Our old system was an RCA, so I opted to spend a few more dollars for hopefully a better system.

After Best Buy we went to Kohls where I bought a couple new shirts and Jackie got some new jeans and a top. After Kohls it was off to Walmart for some groceries and then back up the hill to the RV park. We went over to the Babcocks for happy hour and then stayed for a nice lasagna dinner. Their other friends, Larry and Ranatta, were also there. We brought over a big pan of garlic bread to go with the lasagna and salad that Ray and Suzie had fixed. We stayed there and chatted until about 8:30 when we went back to our coach for the rest of the night.

Wednesday, May 2nd, we were greeted with more morning fog. I spent a couple of hours in the morning getting the new DVD and surround sound system installed. I had to do some jury-rigging and splicing to get everything to work together, but I got it done and now we have sound and a DVD again. Yea! We had decided to go caching today in Banning again and the Babcocks wanted to go as well. Looks like we might be getting another disciple interested in the hobby.

We left about 12:30 and went down the mountain for our first stop at a Thai-Japanese restaurant called Zen, which is on the main street of Banning. We had spotted this place on Friday while we were geocaching. There happened to be a cache in the parking lot behind the restaurant and it looked interesting to us. The online reviews of the place were all positive as well. We had mentioned it to the Babcocks, who also like Thai food, and we decided to try it for lunch today. We were not disappointed. The restaurant is located in an old house and is very nice inside. The menu was huge, incorporating both traditional Thai dishes as well as sushi and sashimi. Two of our group ordered yellow curry, I had sweet and sour chicken, and Suzie had a dragon roll, which is one of the sashimi dishes. All of the food was excellent. Ray was stationed in Thailand during the Vietnam war and said the food was very authentic. Everything we had was great and the prices were reasonable. The service was a little slow, but it was very busy for lunch, so it was understandable. I can highly recommend Zen Thai restaurant, which is located on Ramsey Street, just west of 8th Street, in Banning, California.

After lunch we set out to do some caching. In the course of a couple hours we were able to garner a dozen new finds, along with one DNF. Unfortunately, the DNF was a cache that we had been unable to find last year when we were here. Even with two more sets of eyes we were unable to find the cache. Poop. After caching we made a couple of shopping stops, one at Kohls and one at Walmart. The Babcocks had heard about our bargains from the big sale at Kohls and wanted in on it too. We also stopped at Walmart for some groceries before heading back up the hill to the park.

Ray came over for a few minutes at cocktail hour, but Suzie was too bushed from the busy day. We didn’t have any dinner either because everyone was still full from the great lunch. We just relaxed and watched TV, with our new surround sound, for the rest of the night.

It has been a little over two weeks since we published the blog, so this seems like a good place to stop and get this online. We will be here for another two weeks before we begin our summer travels. I will publish again once we leave Silent Valley. Until the next time, keep the faith, have fun and stay happy. See ya.

Beautiful Central Arizona

Hello again. Our last episode concluded on Monday, April 2nd, with our arrival in Camp Verde, Arizona at the Western Horizons resort. Camp Verde is located in the central Arizona mountains, about 100 miles north of Phoenix. The resort is only about a mile off of Interstate 17 and less than a mile from the Verde River. The city of Cottonwood, where my brother Dennis lives, is 11 miles northwest.

We got to the park about noon and spent most of the afternoon getting settled in. Our friends Peggy and Vernon Bullock, who had also come here from the Good Sam Rally in Phoenix and the park in El Mirage, are parked right next to us. Later in the afternoon we packed up two weeks worth of dirty laundry and drove into Cottonwood to wash clothes and linens. On the way back we stopped and picked up one geocache, thinking that we needed one for this date. Turns out we didn’t, but it still counts as a find. About 5:00 we were back at the coach for happy hour with the Bullocks. We had a little BBQ for dinner, hamburgers for us and chicken for the Bullocks, and then retired to our coach for the rest of the night.

Camp Verde is the oldest community in the Verde River valley. The town has a unique history, dating back to the early 1860s. Settlers first began migrating into the Verde Valley because of the mining industry. The first military establishment was a temporary post overlooking the farms at West Clear Creek. In 1865, the next post, Camp Lincoln was established. In 1865 the name was changed to Camp Verde. The post was moved to its present day site in 1871, due to the onset of a malaria outbreak. In 1878, the name was changed to Fort Verde to signify permanence. The fort was occupied from 1871-1891; with the post officially closing in April of 1890. Much of the old fort has been preserved and is now an Arizona State park.

Just outside of Camp Verde is Montezuma Castle National Monument. On December 8, 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt celebrated the passage of the Antiquities Act by declaring four sites of historic and cultural significance as our nation's first National Monuments. Among these was Montezuma Castle, which the President identified as a place "of the greatest ethnological value and scientific interest." Although very few original artifacts remained in the structure due to intensive looting of the site, Roosevelt's decision assured the continued protection of one of the best preserved prehistoric cliff dwellings in North America. Montezuma Castle National Monument quickly became a destination for America's first car-bound tourists. In 1933, "Castle A", a 45-50 room, pueblo ruin was excavated, uncovering a wealth of artifacts and greatly enhanced our understanding of the Sinagua people who inhabited this riparian "oasis" along Beaver Creek for over 400 years.

Early visitors to the monument were allowed access to the structure by climbing a series of ladders up the side of the limestone cliffs. However, due to extensive damage to this valuable cultural landmark, public access of the ruins was discontinued in 1951. Now, approximately 350,000 people a year gaze through the windows of the past during a visit to Montezuma Castle. Even 600 years after their departure, the legacy of the Sinagua people continues to inspire the imaginations of this and future generations.

The Monument also includes the site of Montezuma Well, a natural limestone sinkhole through which some 1,400,000 gallons of water flow each day from two underground springs. The sinkhole, which was once an underground cavern measures in at 368 feet across and 55 feet deep. The water is highly carbonated and contains high levels of arsenic. Montezuma Well's outflow has been used for irrigation since the 8th century. Part of a prehistoric canal is preserved at the picnic ground, and portions of the original Sinagua canal are still in use today.

The existence of the well was almost unknown to Anglo Americans before the publishing of Handbook to America by Richard J. Hinton in 1878. In 1968, Montezuma Well was the subject of the first ever underwater archaeological survey to take place in a National Park, led by archaeologist George R Fischer. The Yavapai people believe they emerged into this world through the well, and as such, it is a very sacred place to them.

Tuesday, April 3rd we left the park after lunch with the Bullocks and did some geocaching in the general area of Camp Verde. We had a really good afternoon with 21 new finds and no DNFs. A lot of the caches were out in the desert on some Jeep trails, so it was good we had the Geo-Jeep with its high clearance. After caching we returned to the RV park for happy hour. Later Jackie fixed her nice chili rellano casserole and we and the Bullocks had a very nice dinner in our coach.

Wednesday, April 4th, we and the Bullocks left the park early, about 10:00, and set out for Flagstaff, Arizona, about 50 miles north on I-17. Our primary purpose for driving all the way to Flagstaff is to visit the Camping World store. Regular readers may recall that back in March, when we were parked in Casa Grande, Arizona, a big wind storm had blown one of our air conditioner covers off of the roof of the coach. I had jury-rigged it back on, but it needed to be replaced and the Flagstaff store was the closest Camping World that had a cover in stock.

It took about an hour to get to the RV store, which was about ten miles west of town, and we spent a little while shopping before leaving with our new cover, and a few other goodies, stuffed in the back of the Jeep. We all decided we needed to have some lunch about that time, so we did a little Google search on the smart phone and found there was a Greek restaurant called Taverna on the west end of town. It turned out to be a very nice place in what appeared to be a fairly new building. The place was large and bright, and the staff was very welcoming. The restaurant was busy, but we got seated and served quite quickly. The menu was large, but not cumbersome, and the food was wonderful. Two of us had lamb shanks, I had the stuffed peppers and one had another Greek dish the name of which I don’t recall. Everyone reported that their food was excellent. My two large peppers were more than I could eat and I ended up taking one home for lunch tomorrow. I can highly recommend Taverna, located at 2420 S Woodlands Village Boulevard, in Flagstaff, to anyone who craves Greek cooking while in the Flagstaff area.

After our lunch we spent a couple of hours doing some geocaching in the Flagstaff area. We got seven new finds, along with two DNFs, before deciding it was time to hit the road for the trip back to Camp Verde. After we returned to the RV park we had happy hour with the Bullocks before retiring to our coach for the rest of the night. After the big lunch we didn’t even need dinner.

Thursday, April 5th, was to be a chores day. Vernon and I both had some chores to do, the biggest of which was the installation of the new backup camera systems that we had bought at the rally in Phoenix. While Vernon and I worked on our new cameras the girls left to go for lunch and do some shopping in Cottonwood. I started working about 10:00 or so and it took a good five hours to get the camera installed and working. The only issue I wasn’t able to tackle today was putting the new, smaller, flatscreen monitor in the hole in the dash where the old one resided. That will have to be put off for another day. For the time being the new monitor sits on top of the dash. I was also able to get the new air conditioning shroud installed on the roof, despite the high winds we were experiencing. By the time the girls got back home I had my tools cleaned up and was relaxing after a busy day.

We had happy hour with the Bullocks and Jim and Pat Goetzinger, who are also staying in the park, came down and joined us. We chatted for an hour or so before we went in for dinner with the Bullocks. We had another BBQ and had some very nice hamburgers with all kinds of goodies, including escargot for everyone but me. I don’t care for the snails, but I do like the garlic butter they are cooked in and ate a lot of bread dipped in the sauce. After dinner we just relaxed for the rest of the night.

Friday, April 6th, we stayed around the house until about 5:00 when we drove over to Cottonwood to spend the evening with my brother Dennis. He still works full time as a bank manager in Sedona, Arizona, so we wanted to visit him on an evening when he wouldn’t have to get up to go to work the next day. Dennis is the second of the five boys in our family, and he is the only other one to share the last name Holt. He is eight years younger than I and was born in Milwaukee as I was. Our other three brothers have our stepdad’s last name, Disch, and were all born in Phoenix.

We visited with him for a couple of hours, catching up and looking at his ongoing kitchen remodel, before heading out for dinner. The three of us went to a Mexican restaurant in Cottonwood called Concho’s. Although the place has been here for about six years, we had never eaten there before. It had really great ratings on Trip Advisor, an internet rating site, so we thought we would try it. It is located on Main Street, just north of old town Cottonwood, and is in a very old building. The place would be easy to miss since it is set back off the road and all the parking is in the rear. They have a large patio area and a big dining room as well. When we got there just before 7:00 we were the only customers, but the place filled up quickly.

They have a very large, authentic menu and we ordered our usual Sonoran favorites. I got the red chili burro and a taco, Jackie got a chili reallno combo. The staff was excellent, very attentive and friendly, and the food was very good. My red chili was excellent, but Jackie said her food could have been a little more spiced. The excellent salsa provided did spice it up a little bit. We had a very nice meal. We did find the place was a little pricier than other Mexican restaurants in the area, but the portions were huge. All three of our meals had to come on multiple plates because of the size of the portions. We all took food home with us for the next day. After dinner we dropped Dennis back off at his house and went back to the coach for the rest of the night.

Saturday, April 7th, we left the coach around noon, after lunch, and drove back over to Dennis’ house to pick him up for some geocaching. Dennis is the one who first told us about geocaching back in 2007. Prior to that we had never heard of the hobby. He still enjoys caching, but doesn’t do much on his own because he stays too busy with work and other projects. He likes the hunt, but not the administrative work. The three of us headed out and managed to get thirteen new finds, along with one new DNF. However, among the finds were two caches that we had DNF’d last year when we cached here. We always like to fix DNFs when we can.

After caching we dropped Dennis off at his house, so he could get his car, and then we drove back to the RV park. Dennis came over a little while later to spend the evening with us at our place. He sat with us for happy hour with the Bullocks and the Goetzingers, and then we had a nice lasagna dinner in the coach. Jackie made a big batch of yummy garlic bread to go with the pasta. After dinner Dennis and I retired to the back of the coach and spent a couple of hours with the karaoke machine singing and having a very nice time. We finally decided to quit about 10:00 and Dennis headed back to his house and we went to bed. A very nice day with family.

Sunday, April 8th, Happy Easter to everyone, Happy Passover to our Hebrew friends. We spent the day around the coach, mostly relaxing but also doing some cleaning and cooking for an Easter dinner for family and friends. Jackie and Peggy are doing most of the cooking for a dinner at which we are expecting about 12 people. About 3:30 my youngest brother Ken and his wife Susan arrived after driving up from Phoenix. They will be spending the night with us so we can spend tomorrow with them as well. Over the course of the next hour we were joined by my brother Dennis, who lives here in the Verde Valley, and his girlfriend Mona, Mona’s daughter Harmony, who is visiting from Hawaii, where she lives, and Gary and Ramona Wilson. We had been expecting Ramona’s brother, who lives in Sedona where they are parked for the week, but he had other plans and didn’t come.

So we had eleven people and we all just sat around between our coaches, in the shade of a wonderful Easter day, and enjoyed the mild temperatures and the companionship of friends and family. The weather had worried us because eleven people in one of our coaches is doable, but not comfortable. Fortunately, the weather was perfect. The wind, which had been blowing fairly hard most of the day, settled down about 4:00 and we had just enough breeze to cool the air. About 6:00 we got the food out and everyone had dinner. We had ham, turkey, and all the holiday fixings and we had way more than even this big group could eat.

After dinner everyone stayed around and talked and visited until about 8:00 when the Wilsons and Dennis and his group left. We cleaned up the leftovers and then we went into our coach with Ken and Susan and visited for another couple hours. We finally pulled out the sofa bed and got them settled in for the night and we went to bed as well. A very nice Easter.

Monday, April 9th, we all got up about 7:00 or so and by 9:30 we were out the door ready for a day of caching. We introduced Ken and Susan to caching a couple years ago and they love it. We took Ken and Susan in our car and Peggy and Vernon rode with the Wilsons, who are just recent converts to caching. We then set out to capture some caches in the area. We got about eleven caches in a couple of hours, along with one DNF, and then decided it was time for lunch. The Wilsons had to go back to Sedona to see Ramona’s brother, so that carload departed. The four of us went into the little town of Camp Verde and had lunch at a little café called the Verde Café. It was a typical local café, the waitresses seemed know most everyone that came in, and the menu was mostly sandwiches and comfort food. The food was very good, inexpensive and you got a lot to eat. I would give it a good recommendation. It is on Main Street, right in the middle of old town Camp Verde.

After lunch the four of us headed out for more caching. We continued our success and by 3:30 we had managed to get a total of 20 new finds for the day. We also got another DNF, bringing our total to two. We headed back to the coach where we chatted for a little while before Ken and Susan started back to Phoenix about 4:30. Poor kids still have to go to work tomorrow. Later we had cocktails with the Bullocks outside before heading into the coach for the night. It was a great day, but tiring and we crashed pretty early.

Monday, April 10th, my granddaughter Ashley’s 21st birthday! Happy Birthday Ash! For the second day in a row we got out for an early start on the day. We left the coach around 10:00 for a trip to the Prescott, Arizona area. Prescott is about 45 miles southwest of Camp Verde, and is a fairly large mountain community with a long, rich history. The area was a center of mining in the Arizona territory in the 1800's, and Prescott was the territorial capital for a number of years before it was moved to Phoenix. Vernon Bullock is a bit of a history buff and likes to go to old mining sites and ghost towns and he knew from his research that there were a lot of them around the Prescott area.

Since we were unsure how bad the roads might be to get to some of the areas in the mountains south of Prescott, we rode in the Bullock’s “real” Jeep Wrangler. The four of us were in their Jeep and the Wilsons followed along in theirs. We got into the town of Prescott about 11:30 or so and stopped at the Forest Service office in town, hoping to get some maps of the back roads. All of the area around Prescott is part of the Prescott National Forest. Unfortunately, we found that they did not have the kind of detailed road maps that we had hoped for. It seems that now you have to go to a bookstore and buy commercial maps, the government doesn’t do them for free any more. Poop. Nonetheless, we knew of a few sites, including the old mining town of Walker, named after Joseph R. Walker, a mountain man and fur trapper who led a prospecting party into the mountains of central Arizona, which was then a part of the New Mexico Territory. Walker’s discoveries and the subsequent mining boom are touted as the reason Prescott was founded.

We did a couple of caches in town and then found a Mexican restaurant where the six of us had a pretty good meal. The restaurant was called El Charro. The place is on Montezuma Street, just a half block off of Whiskey Row and the old courthouse square, which represents the center of the Prescott tourist area. The food was good, not great, but good. Most everyone had something different and the reviews where mixed, but no one had really bad food. After lunch we started exploring. We decided that we would stick with what little info we did have and we started south on Walker Road, which would take us to the site of the old mining town of Walker.

There wasn’t much in Walker other than a sign indicating that the area was once the site of a booming mining town. We then passed through the community of Potato Patch which had a lot of signs indicating it was a private community and you might be wise to stay out. Since you have to drive five miles on a twisty, bumpy dirt road to get to the community, they probably value their privacy, and probably protect it. We reached the junction where Walker road ends and meets the Senator Highway, which is also a rough dirt road that follows the original trail that led from Prescott down into the Salt River Valley where Phoenix lies. We decided to take the Senator Highway back to Prescott since it was getting late.

We did some caching along the way and managed to get nine new finds. The last of the finds turned out to be our number 3,800, another milestone in our caching “career”. There were several really neat caches including one called “Pink Car”. This was described as definitely a Walker Road landmark for approximately 73 years and a must stop. The car has a bit of history to it. Some 73 years ago it was left at this spot and rested comfortably for all those years. Story has it that back at the time when the gold and silver mines were active in this area, a local doctor known as the town drunk rolled the car. Supposedly the insurance company paid him for it, so he just left it there. Earlier this year it was "removed" by a group of kids not knowing it was considered private property and they did the right thing and returned it to it's resting place. They even gave it a new paint job since the original paint had lost it's curb appeal may years ago. We found the cache, which was attached to the car by magnets, and took some pictures of our group around the car.

Once we got back to Prescott we started back towards Camp Verde and arrived in time for happy hour with the Bullocks. Since we had a long day and were tired we didn’t do any dinner and just crashed in front of the TV for the rest of the night.

Wednesday, April 11th, we had a quiet morning for the first time in a few days, not in a hurry to get out and go somewhere. After lunch we left the coach and drove to Cottonwood just to do some exploring. We went to old main street, which has been cleaned up and now houses a lot of restaurants and shops. We spent a couple of hours walking around downtown, going into shops and antique malls, just enjoying the cooler day. It rained lightly on and off all afternoon, but nothing that would spoil the day. After downtown we drove to the mall and found a geocache, located behind the J C Penny’s store, that had eluded us a couple of days ago. We had gotten a hint from the owner of the cache and this time we found it. Yea, a fixed DNF.

As long as we were there we walked around Penny’s for a little while before going over to Walmart for some last minute shopping. We also ended up going to Fry’s for some stuff that Wally World didn’t have. Finally, about 4:30 we headed back to the RV park for happy hour and dinner. We and the Bullocks got together and did some steaks on the BBQ along with a salad and some yams. We had a very nice dinner and by 8:30 everyone was back in their own coaches relaxing for the night.

Thursday, April 12th, we left the RV park about 11:00 or so to go some errands and then have lunch with a good friend. Our first stop was just outside of Camp Verde for a geocache that has eluded us for a week now. We have DNF’d the cache twice, once after even getting a hint from the owner! The cache is rated a 3.5 difficulty, which is pretty hard. The max is 5.0. Peggy and Vernon, who had been out caching already this morning, met us there and between the four of us we finally found the little bugger. It was a very small plastic tube, smaller than your pinky finger, tucked under a tuft of Bermuda grass on the side of the highway. Geez!. Nonetheless, finally fixed the DNFs.

After finding that cache we drove into Cottonwood and stopped at Walmart for some stuff we forgot to get yesterday when we were there. Mostly office stuff like paper and printer ink. We go through a lot of ink printing maps for our geocaching. We had a 1:00 lunch meeting in Cottonwood and still had a little time, so we stopped at a very nice antique store on Main Street. A little before one we went into the Mai Thai restaurant, which serves, no big surprise, very good Thai food. We were meeting Pat Ruese for lunch.

Regular readers may recall that last June when we were in Flagstaff we drove down to Sedona and had lunch with Pat and Ed Ruese. Ed and Pat were full timers for 25 years and Ed was the founding President of the Full Timers Chapter of FMCA, as well as holding numerous offices in FMCA, including INTO Vice President and Senior Vice President of FMCA. Pat happened to be the President of the 100%ers Chapter of FMCA, an offshoot of the Full Timers, when we joined the Chapter in 2006 and I was recruited as Vice President. As it turned out, that would be the last time we saw Ed. Last summer, while the Ruese’s were back in Madison, Wisconsin, at an FMCA Convention, Ed had a heart attack and passed away. Fortunately for Pat, they had decided a couple years ago that they needed to have a home base after 25 years on the road. The bought a little house in Clarkdale, which is a small town right next to Cottonwood.

We had a very nice lunch and caught up with what Pat has been doing. She seems to be doing very well and has a lot of friends here in the Verde Valley. She is staying very busy with crafts and other activities and is enjoying the great weather. She will be going back to Washington DC this summer where Ed’s remains will be interred in Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors. Ed was a retired U.S. Navy Commander. It was very nice to see Pat again.

By the way, the food at Mai Thai was excellent, as was the service. It has a very nice, quiet ambiance, and the portions are large and tasty. The restaurant is at 157 S Main, Cottonwood, Arizona and is just off Mingus Road on Main. I can highly recommend it for anyone looking for good Thai food in the Verde Valley.

After lunch we drove over to the Cliff Castle Casino, located near Camp Verde just off I-17. It is a Yavapai Apache Nation casino and sits on the top of a hill overlooking the Verde Valley. We were at the casino last year for a show featuring Bill Engvall, but we didn’t go in after the show because of the crowds. We were in there for less than an hour and lost our $60, so we said enough. That should take care of our gambling urge for a while. The machines were very tight and there were no nickel poker machines. After we left the casino we found a new geocache that had been placed in the parking lot just a few days ago. We were the fourth to sign the log. We then returned to the coach and spent the rest of the evening relaxing. We had cocktails with the Bullocks, but we didn’t do dinner because of the large, late lunch we had.

Friday, April 13th, eek! At 10:00 we went to the clubhouse at the RV park for a “members meeting” put on by manager of the park. We had hoped that Jim Loken, the owner and CEO of Western Horizons would be there, but he wasn’t. The manager, Marsha, was very nice and spent nearly an hour talking about what is going on with Western Horizons, which parks have been sold, and what rights we still had at the various sold parks. About the only thing I didn’t already know was that when Western Horizons sells a park they have a contract with the park to lease back about a third of the sites at the park for Western Horizons members. I wasn’t aware there was an actual lease contract, I thought it was just an agreement with the new owner to allow Western Horizons members access. It was a good meeting and we were glad we went.

After the meeting we and the Bullocks loaded up in our car for a day on the road, exploring and geocaching. Our ultimate goal was Payson, Arizona, a small mountain community northeast of Phoenix. It is almost due east of Camp Verde, but higher up in the eastern mountains of Arizona. Payson is about 60 miles by road from Camp Verde. Although I have been there many times, having grown up in Arizona, none of the others have been in what is known to Arizonans as The Rim Country. The name comes from the Mogollon Rim, a steep slope defining the southwestern edge of the Colorado Plateau, and along its central and most spectacular portions is characterized by high limestone and sandstone cliffs. The name Mogollon comes from Don Juan Ignacio Flores Mogollón, the Spanish Governor of New Mexico from 1712 to 1715.

Much of the land south of the Mogollon Rim, which includes both Payson and Sedona, lies 4000 to 5000 feet above sea level, with the escarpment rising to about 7,000 ft. Extensive Ponderosa Pine forests are found both on the slopes of the Rim and on the plateau north of it. The Rim is nearly 200 miles wide and cuts across much of Central Arizona.

The road from Camp Verde to the top of the Rim near Pine, Arizona, is know as the General Crook Trail, named after General George Crook, an Army commander in the area in the 1880's. The road roughly follows the route of a trail his troops blazed from Fort Verde to Fort Whipple, near Flagstaff. The route is very scenic and climbs more than 3,000 feet from the high desert of the Verde Valley to the top of the Colorado Plateau, above the Rim. From there we turned south and into the small mountain area known as Strawberry-Pine. They are actually two separate towns about four miles apart, with Pine being the larger of the towns. We did a couple of geocaches in Pine before deciding to stop for lunch. One of those caches was number 1,300 for Peggy and Vernon.

We had lunch at HB’s Place, a small diner in the middle of Pine, right on Highway 87. The history of the place that was printed on the menu shows that the property has been in the same family since the 1930's. It started as a café and gas station and is now strictly a café. The café is still family operated and is a very clean, bright place with a patriotic theme. Everything inside is red, white and blue, and very USA. It has a typical café menu and the food was quite good. After lunch we visited the Strawberry-Pine museum which was right next door. There was a virtual cache at the museum and we had to locate the answers to six questions about local history by looking at the museum displays. We learned a lot about the area, even stuff I was not aware of.

We then started further down the hill, did a couple more geocaches along the road, and then stopped at the Tonto Natural Bridge State Park. There was another virtual geocache at the park which we wanted to claim. It required us going into the park and taking a picture inside the park, as well as answering a question about the arch. Tonto Natural Bridge is a natural arch that is believed to be the largest natural travertine bridge in the world. The area surrounding the bridge is a state park and is located off State Route 87, just 10 miles north of Payson The bridge stands over a 400-foot-long tunnel that measures 150 feet at its widest point and reaches a height of 183 feet. The arch was first documented by David Gowan, a Scotsman, in 1877 while hiding from hostile Apache tribe members. Gowan was impressed by the location and persuaded his family to emigrate and live there. Gowan also tried to claim the land for himself under squatter's rights. Gowan family members lived near the bridge until 1948 and their lodge building survives to this day and is included in the National Register and serves as the State Park headquarters. After taking some photos of the arch and the general area we continued on towards Payson.

We got a few more caches along the road and finally reached Payson about 3:00 or so. Payson is located at a point which is very close to the geographic center of the State of Arizona, so it calls itself “The Heart of Arizona.” Payson considers its founding year as 1882, at which time it was known as Green Valley or Union Park. On March 3, 1884, the town officially established a post office and Postmaster Frank Hise recommended that the town be named after a man named Levi Joseph Payson. Senator Payson was very instrumental in the establishment of the Post Office and in honor of his help, the town decided to change the name to Payson. Payson had its first rodeo in 1884 and considers its rodeo the "world's oldest continuous" as it has been held every year since.

In 1918 author Zane Grey made his first trip to the area surrounding Payson. He would come back with regularity through 1929, and would purchase two plots of land near Tonto Creek, including 120 acres under Myrtle Point. Grey wrote numerous books about the area and also filmed some movies, such as To the Last Man, in the Payson area in the 1920s. During the 1930s an effort began to try to get Payson a better road to connect it to the outside world. At that time Payson was very isolated with a trip from Phoenix to Payson taking four to five hours. Throughout the 1950s work on a paved road from Phoenix to Payson progressed and the paving was completed in 1959. The road was nicknamed The Beeline Highway, a name that sticks to this day, because it made a beeline from Phoenix to Payson.

We explored Payson for a little while, got a few more caches, and then went to the Payson Elks Lodge. This was a new lodge for all of us and we had a very nice visit. There were a couple of members at the bar and they were very friendly. It was getting late, so we only had one cocktail, got our lodge pins, and then started back towards Camp Verde. All in all, we had a very fun, very full day, with a total of 14 new geocache finds and no DNFs. We finally got back to the RV park about 6:00, had some cocktails and a late dinner with the Bullocks in their coach. Peggy had made a pot of ham beans from the ham bone left over from Easter. Dinner was excellent and we finally went back to our coach about 9:00.

Saturday, April 14th, the skies opened up in the middle of the night as the storm the weather service had been promising for a week moved in. I woke up at about 1:30 a.m. with the wind blowing and the rain hitting the top of the coach. It didn’t rain a very long time, but what we did get was heavy. Then about 7:00 a.m. or so the rain started again, along with a brief period of light hail. When I got up the skies were dark and gloomy, everything was wet and it was cold, in the low 40's.

Our original plans for the day were for Vernon, Gary and I to go into Camp Verde, to the Fort Verde State Park, for an old west re-enactment festival. We presumed it would be a bunch of guys dressed in old calvary uniforms, playing battle and so forth. The girls were going to drive to Sedona for lunch and shopping. Well, Vernon called Gary, who is staying at the Elks Lodge in Sedona, and found that it was snowing. Gary said he wasn’t coming over for the re-enactment and Vernon and I decided that if they were being really authentic, and camped out overnight, they were going to be wet and unhappy. The girls didn’t want to drive in the wet and possible snow, so we all just decided to stay home for the day. We had also planned to have a big farewell dinner for everyone tonight since we, the Bullocks and the Wilsons are all leaving on Monday and heading in different directions. We won’t see any of them until August in Indiana. Everyone agreed that the dinner was still on since we could eat inside.

Jackie and I spent the day doing chores and some light housekeeping since we were hosting the dinner. Jackie was making a big pot of her special risotto with asparagus, shrimp, mushrooms, and scallops. Other people were bringing side dishes. Since we had the time we also did a couple of loads of laundry at the park’s laundry facility.

About 3:30 my brother Dennis and his girlfriend Mona came over. A little while later Gary and Ramona Wilson came, along with Ramona’s brother Hal, who lives in Sedona. It turns out that Hal banks at the local bank where my brother Dennis is the manager. Small world. Once the Bullocks came from next door the party was on. There were nine of us, which pretty much fills the living room of the coach, but it was not overly crowded. Everyone had a great time chatting and nibbling on snacks and having cocktails. About 6:15 dinner was served. We only had salad, garlic bread and the risotto, but it was wonderful. The risotto was a big hit with everyone. After dinner we all sat around and talked until about 8:00 when the Wilsons and the Bullocks had to leave. The Wilsons had a 30 mile drive back to Sedona, but the weather had pretty much cleared up, so the roads were OK. My brother and Mona hung around for another hour or so and we talked. When they left we cleaned up the house and then watched TV until bedtime.

It was a nice dinner with friends and family. We will miss traveling with our friends, but we also have a great time with just the two of us. We will see most everyone back in Indiana in a few months when we all cross paths again.

Sunday, April 15th, Happy Birthday to Smokey the Cat! We got Smokey in 2000 as a kitten and since he was a feral cat we could only guess he was five to six weeks old. The vet who checked him agreed. Based on that we picked a day that was easy to remember, tax day. So today he is the ripe old age of 12! My brother Dennis came over about noon and the three of us went out to lunch at the Verde Café in Camp Verde. We had a nice talk and agreed that we would try to get together in May when we come back through the Phoenix area. We will be staying on the far east side of the valley, but we will make the effort. After lunch the three of us went out for a couple of geocaches. We had to have at least one for the day to fill the day on our “days of the year” grid. We managed to get two fairly quickly. Peggy and Vernon, who had been out caching already, met us at the two caches so we could all cache together.

After we got home we talked with Dennis for another hour or so before he left to head home. I spent an hour or so packing up stuff, getting ready for our departure from the area tomorrow. We had cocktails with Peggy and Vernon and then did a carne asada dinner with them. We BBQed some chicken and beef carne and had all the fixings. This would be our last time with them until late summer. We talked until about 8:30 before heading back to our coach for the rest of the night.

Monday, April 16th, we were up early and getting packed up to leave. We pulled out of Camp Verde just before 10:00 after saying farewell to the Bullocks. They are also leaving today, heading for the Grand Canyon for a few days before heading back home to northern California. We had a 230 mile trip today, heading southwest, through Phoenix and back to Ehrenberg, Arizona, on the California-Arizona border. The trip was uneventful and we got pretty good fuel mileage, almost 10 mpg, because it was mostly flat or downhill. We arrived at the Western Horizons park in Ehrenberg about 2:30 and got a site for just one night. We didn’t even unhook the car or put out a sewer connection. Water, electric and put the slides out. After I got hooked up we never left the coach. I was pretty tired from the four hour drive so we just chilled the rest of the night.

Tuesday, April 17th, we left Ehrenberg around 10:00 or so, again on the road headed west. Today we are going to Indian Waters RV Resort in Indio. It is only a 100 mile trip, but we had to stop for fuel in Arizona before crossing the border. Fuel is at least forty cents more per gallon in California. We paid $4.03 in Arizona and later saw it for $4.49 in Indio. Yikes! We made good time and got into the resort right about noon. It was quite hot, close to 90, so I did the minimal amount of setup outside. We are only here for five days, so we didn’t need a lot of stuff out.

We were surprised to see our friends, the Jay and Donna Blumenthal, were still are Indian Waters. They have been here most of the winter. We are parked only two coaches down from them this time and they came over to say hi when we got in. We got set up and had lunch and then went out to get at least one geocache for our “days of the year” grid. We needed one for this date. We missed the first one we tried, it was in some heavy brush and it was just too hot to dig around in them, not to mention I was wearing shorts and didn’t want to get all scratched up. We just took the DNF after looking for a little while. We did find the second cache, logged it, and called it a day. We went back to the coach to cool down. Although we both like the heat, having spent many years in the desert, it will take a little while to re-acclimate to the heat. Jay and Donna came over to our coach for happy hour and we had a nice time catching up. After they left we had dinner and just relaxed the rest of the night.

With our arrival here in Indio I will close this chapter of the blog and get it published. We will be here for five days, mostly to take care of some doctor appointments for me. On Sunday we move up to Silent Valley Resort, near Banning, where we will be for nearly a month. We will publish again sometime during our stay in Silent Valley. Until the next time, be happy and live life tot he fullest! See Ya!