A Couple Weeks in Southern Arizona

Hello again, welcome back to our story. Our last chapter concluded on Tuesday, March 5th, when we moved from Yuma Lakes RV park to the Casa Grande RV Resort, 180 miles east of Yuma. We didn't get into Casa Grande until mid afternoon, so after we got settled in and setup, we just hung around the coach for the remainder of the day.

Wednesday, March 6th, we elected to have a stay at home day to try and get some chores done. I spent most of the day in the office working on administrative stuff, bills, correspondence and publishing the blog, and doing some minor repairs around the coach. Jackie was busy in the front, mostly working on making new fabric covers for our driving seats in the front of the coach. The seats are synthetic leather and get pretty dirty from the cats being on them all the time. They are also hot in the summer months, so we decided a while back to make fabric covers. The first set, which have been on about six months, were charcoal gray and Jackie decided that they were too dark in color. We bought some new, lighter color fabric the other day and she worked on getting them fitted to the seats. She got the drivers seat done and started on the passenger. The new color is beige and is almost the same shade as the dashboard of the coach, so they look very nice. Other than me making a run to Home Depot for parts, we didn't leave the coach all day.

Thursday, March 7th, we left the coach after lunch to go out and do some geocaching and then chores. We did a group of caches that were recently put out in the area of the Casa Grande airport. The airport is only about a mile north of the RV park. We were able to get nine finds in less than two hours. After that bit of caching we stopped at a couple of grocery stores to stock up. We also stopped at the Elks Lodge for a few minutes. We wanted to pick up a schedule of activities for the month and thought about having a cocktail there, but the place was packed and there was no room at the bar.

After we left the lodge we stopped at one more geocache which was just a block or so from the lodge. We were a little apprehensive about tackling this one because the difficulty rating was 4.5. Caches are rated by the owner for difficulty, which is how hard it is to find, and terrain, which is how hard is it to get to the cache. The ratings are from 1 to 5 at half increments. The terrain ratting on this one was only a 1 as the cache was in the parking lot of a Mexican restaurant. The GPS took us to the area of the cache and while looking around I saw a green irrigation control box set in the ground. This is sometimes used as a hiding place, so I took the top off of the box and saw the main water line for the restaurant and a shut off valve. There was a very serious looking box attached to the valve which appeared to be an automatic shut off device, similar to what you might find if someone wants protection from flooding do to a broken pipe. It all looked very official, so I put the top back on and continued looking.

We looked around some more, but we couldn't find anywhere the cache might be, just an empty parking lot. I went back to the box and looked inside again at the stuff. When I reached in and started touching stuff I discovered that the bolts that held the shutoff device in place were not connected to the concrete base, they were phony. A little more moving around stuff and I finally figured out that you had to disassemble the shutoff device, which was not real, and the cache log was inside. Had it not been for the fact that we had found a similarly devious hide in Casa Grande last year, I would not have attempted to move this thing around as much. Very sneaky hide, but we did get it, bringing our count for the day to ten. After that victory we went back to the coach.

After a quick dinner we left again at 6:30 or so and went down to the clubhouse for Texas Hold'em. We had a fun table, only six of us, but everyone had a good sense of humor and it was fun playing. I was the big winner on the table for the night, ending up with about five dollars above my initial five dollar buy-in. Jackie didn't do so well, but still only lost three dollars. We had a good night.

Friday, March 8th, the rains came to town. It started raining sometime in the middle of the night and it pretty much didn't quit all day. We just stayed in the coach, doing projects and chores and playing games. In the early afternoon the main part of the storm front moved over us and we had really high winds, 40 mph with 60 mph gusts, and thunderstorms. We didn't have any thunderstorms directly over us, but we could see and hear them off to the west. Kind of a nasty day, but other than a little bit of leakage in one slide, we got by with nothing more than a day in the coach.

Saturday, March 9th, we woke up with the skies still cloudy, but no rain. The rains had quit overnight and the weather gurus were claiming that by this evening the skies would be clear. It was pretty cold today, the high was only supposed to be 59. About noon my brother Ken and his wife Susan arrived with their RV. A while back, when they found out we were going to be in Casa Grande, they made arrangements to take a couple days off work and come down for a long weekend with us. They live in Goodyear, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix, and it is less than a 50 mile drive for them to come down to Casa Grande.

We have had them visit with us on various occasions over the years, but they always had to stay with us and sleep on the couch. This time they bought their own RV. Last year they bought their first RV, a 30 foot camp trailer, small enough for them to pull with their Honda truck, but big enough to make a nice weekend RV. Ken said this was only the second time they have been out with the trailer, and it is the first time he has ever backed it into an RV space. We had saved the space right next to us and it wasn't a pull through. He was anxious about parking, but actually did a very nice job of getting it in pretty quickly and easily. Susan helped with directions, as Jackie does with me, and I just stayed out of it, only watching to help if he got into trouble.

We had lunch and let them get their trailer set up and then about 2:00 or so we went out to do a little geocaching in the area. They are our caching “children” in that we were the one's who introduced them to the hobby. They immediately became fans and now have almost 2,500 finds and eleven hides in just four years. We first went to two caches we had already found here in Casa Grande that were very interesting and challenging finds. We let them look for them on their own and only gave a hint when they seemed to get stuck. Eventually they figured both of them out and got themselves two new finds. We then went out and went after some other caches in the area that were new to us as well. In just a couple of hours we had eight new finds, along with a new DNF. It came out even though because one of our finds today was a cache that we had DNFed last year when we were here.

After caching we went back to the RV park and they came over for cocktails and dinner. Jackie made some chicken enchiladas and we had a very nice dinner and sat and talked until almost 10:00. They left and went back to their trailer for the night. We were almost ready to go to bed when Ken knocked on the door and said that he was concerned because the carbon monoxide alarm in his trailer was going off. I went over to help and figured out that there couldn't be a problem with CO because he had turned off the propane completely, so there was no combustion going on, and the front door, which was only a couple feet from the detector was open. There was no way there was a sufficient amount of CO in the trailer to activate an alarm. We read the manual but didn't learn much. I finally had them pull the fuse for the alarm, let it set for a minute and then put the fuse back in. The alarm went back to normal and seemed to be reset. I think it is just a bug with the alarm. The trailer is new and still under warranty, so they will have the dealer look at it when they go back home. With them taken care of I went back to our coach and we went to bed.

Sunday, March 10th, we left the coach at noon with Ken and Susan in our car and drove east to the town of Florence, Arizona to do some geocaching. Florence is a fairly small town, about 25,000 population, and is the county seat of Pinal county, the same county in which the much larger Casa Grande is located. However, it is the presence of the Arizona State Prison which makes Florence notable. The prison complex near downtown Florence was the first state prison in Arizona, having been opened in 1908, four years before statehood. Prior to that the territorial prison for Arizona was in Yuma.

The prison in Florence is still in use today and is the site of the original execution chambers for the state. Until 1933 hanging was the method of execution used in Arizona, however in 1930 a woman named Eva Duggan was hung for the crime of murder and when she dropped the noose popped her head off, much to the horror of the 70 witnesses. After that incident the legislature changed the method of execution to the gas chamber, which was built at the Florence prison with inmate labor and first used in 1933.

I remember from my days with the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office transporting prisoners from our jail in Phoenix down to the prison in Florence. At that time it was the only State prison. The woman's unit was right across the street. There are now 13 prison complexes scattered around Arizona, but Florence still claims the original as well as the State's “supermax” high security prison, located about three miles down the road from the old prison unit.

We came to the Florence area to cache because there was a series of caches placed on a road running east out of Florence into Gila County on which someone has placed 300 caches, all located about a tenth of a mile apart. We knew we would not be able to get all 300, but we started down the series and started finding caches. The caches were all fairly simple, small container under a pile of rocks just off the road, and the road is not heavily traveled, so there wasn't much traffic to contend with. We actually started caching about 12:45 and finished cache number 100 at about 5:30. We had also picked up five other caches along the road which were not part of the series, giving as a total of 105 finds in less than five hours. This was a new “best day” for us. Ken and Susan had a 250 find day a year or so ago, so they didn't break that record. However, we also hit our 5,000 finds milestone today, and Ken and Susan hit their 2,500 find milestone. So it was a record breaking day in many ways.  One of the caches we found was located near a rare, crested saguaro cactus.  Experts claim that only one in 10,000 saguaros develops the unique crested top.

We were exhausted after jumping in and out of the car 105 times in five hours, so we drove back to the RV park, took a quick break and then the four of us drove into town to Mimi's restaurant for dinner. We had a nice dinner, and some nice conversation, before going back to the park and crashing for the night.

Monday, March 11th, we spent part of the morning relaxing and reading the Sunday papers from Phoenix and Casa Grande. About 10:30 we packed up Ken and Susan again and we drove back to Florence for some more caching. The reason we are driving to Florence, which is about 30 miles from Casa Grande, is that we have pretty much found all of the geocaches in Casa Grande. We come here for a couple of weeks every year, so it doesn't take long for us to get the few new ones that are placed between our visits. We had not cached much around Florence, so it was a cache-rich environment for us. We didn't want to do the same kind of “power-caching” we did yesterday, so today we stuck to finding the various regular geocaches hidden in and around Florence. We found a few caches, stopped for lunch, and then cached until 4:00. Even without a power trail we still got a total of 37 new finds for the day, a pretty nice afternoon of caching.

Several of the caches were located around the Casa Grande Airport and were interesting because a couple of them were located in and among the ruins of the old WW-II vintage Casa Grande Army Airfield. One was next to the old base swimming pool and another was in the foundation of the toilet and shower hut near the remains of the old barracks buildings.

After caching we drove back to the RV park, arriving just in time to celebrate happy hour with our friends Peggy and Vernon Bullock. Peggy and Vernon had arrived in the park around noon today and were parked just a few coaches down from us. We had been expecting them to arrive because both they and us are going to Tucson this weekend for the FMCA INTO area rally being held there next week. We last saw Peggy and Vernon in Indiana in August at the FMCA rallies. They headed east out of Indiana and spent the rest of the summer and the entire fall and winter on the east coast and in Florida. It was great seeing them, and their little dog Belle, we really missed them. We enjoy traveling with the Bullocks and have spent many weeks traveling together since we first met them in 2009 on our trip to Alaska.

The Bullocks already had dinner on, so about 6:30 we left with Ken and Susan and went to Eva's Mexican restaurant, located near the RV park. We have been to Eva's before and enjoyed the food, but tonight the service was terrible and the food only OK. I don't think I can recommend it anymore like I used to. We probably won't be going back again. After dinner we went back to our coach and watched TV the rest of the night, as did Ken and Susan.

Tuesday, March 12th, I got up early and left about 8:30 to take our Jeep to the nearby dealership to, once again, get the air conditioning fixed. On Sunday, while we were doing the power trail I noticed that the A/C had stopped blowing cold air. This will make the fifth time the A/C on that car had broken since we bought it in 2008. We complained to Jeep, but the only thing they did for us was give us a “good will” gift of two years of free routine service, oil changes and the like. They would not take responsibility for what has to be a design flaw which causes the A/C condenser to always break.

After the dealer shuttle dropped me off back at the RV park we drove with Ken and Susan, with Peggy and Vernon following in their car, to the Palm Creek RV Resort on the other end of Casa Grande, for their monthly craft show. Palm Creek is a very upscale RV resort, but we had stayed there for a month a couple years ago because we won a month for $199 at an FMCA rally. The normal rate is four times that. Each month during the season they have their craft show and get a hundred or so vendors to come in and set up booths. It is mostly clothing, jewelry and craft type items. We spent about two hours there before driving back to the RV park.

After we got back to the park Ken and Susan finished packing up their trailer and left for home about 1:00. It was great having my brother come down to spend some time with us. We had a great time. We spent the rest of the day in the coach doing chores. The dealership had called me and told me that the A/C condenser had a couple of holes in it, but that they didn't appear to be from something hitting it. They were in an area where the condenser would be protected from rocks and so forth. He wasn't sure what had caused the problem, which is the same issue as the last four times, condenser failure, but that it would have to be replaced and he had ordered the part. They would keep the car overnight and fix it tomorrow when the part came in.

About 5:00 Vernon came over for cocktails. Peggy was at a nail appointment and came over when she was done. We talked and had dinner, pork in green chili. We talked after dinner until about 8:30 when the Bullocks went back to their coach and we watched TV until bedtime.

Wednesday, March 13th, my son Roy Jr's birthday. Hard to believe my youngest is now 39 years old. Where does the time go? I asked Vernon to take me down to the Jeep dealer about 9:00 so I could take him the receipt for the last repair of the A/C condenser, which was only seven months ago at the Jeep dealer in Springfield, Ohio. The service writer here in Casa Grande thought that he might be able to get the part covered since Jeep warranties all their parts for one year or 12,000 miles, and we had not exceeded either limit.

Surprisingly, I got a call about noon from the service writer that they had finished fixing the car and it was ready to pick up. The best news was that there was no charge at all. He not only covered the part under the warranty, he covered the labor and incidental charges as well. He said, “you already paid for the installation once” and he didn't think it was fair to charge me again to reinstall the same part. Yea! I had fully expected to pay for the labor and was delighted with this dealership's attitude towards customer service. Happy to have A/C again too, as the temps are going to climb into the 90's this weekend.

I had Vernon make another trip to drop me off at the dealer, it was only a mile from the RV park, and I picked up the car. Shortly after I got back Jackie and Peggy took off to go do some grocery shopping. I stayed at the coach and did a few chores. About 5:00 we went down to Peggy and Vernon's for happy hour and then later BBQed some steaks on the grill. We ate at their coach and had a delightful evening with old friends. About 9:00 we finally packed up and went back to our coach for a little TV before bed.

Thursday, March 14th, a great desert morning that was forecast to turn into hot by afternoon. The area is supposed to have it's first 90 degree day of the year today, and the next couple days are forecast to be the same. We didn't do anything until after lunch when we and the Bullocks took a drive to the shopping center. We didn't want to go caching because of the heat and the fact that Vernon does not do well in hot weather.

We made a couple of stops, Petsmart, Penny's, and Walmart, before heading home after a couple hours of shopping. About 5:00 we went over to Peggy and Vernon's for cocktails and Peggy asked me to take a look at her new computer and try to show her how to do some things that she couldn't figure out. Her old computer was Windows Vista and her new one was the new Windows 8. Well I found out pretty quickly that I couldn't figure out anything about Windows 8 either without spending a lot more than an hour or so looking at it. The program is completely changed from prior versions and very confusing and user unfriendly. I tried installing some programs that you would think would work, like Google Earth, and got very confusing and unhelpful error messages. I spent a very frustrating hour with the computer before finally telling her I couldn't help her, at least not right now. I needed to do some reading about Windows 8 first.

The four of us then went back over to our coach for dinner. We did some cheeseburgers on the BBQ, and some fries and beans and just had a simple, but fun, dinner. About 8:30 the Bullocks went back to their coach and we relaxed with the TV the rest of the night.

Friday, March 15th, I went out in the morning, before the heat came, and put away most of the outside decorations and stuff. We are leaving here in the morning and want to get an early start, so I tried to do as much as possible to get ready. After lunch Jackie and I went to the laundromat and did our laundry. We ran a couple of other errands after laundry, but didn't do any geocaching. It was a little to warm in the afternoon and any caches we haven't found are way out of town.

After we got back to the RV park we noticed that some other friends of ours, Bev and Jerry King, had arrived at the park for an overnight stay. We are all, us, the Bullocks and the Kings, going down to Tucson tomorrow for an FMCA rally. About 6:00 the six of us went out to dinner to Macayo's Mexican restaurant in Casa Grande. Macayo's is a big Arizona chain of Mexican places and the food is pretty good. When I was a kid there was one of the original Macayo's not too far from our house and we used to eat there quite a bit. We had a nice meal and good conversation. We last saw the King's in Indio in January at the FMCA rally there. After dinner we went back to our house and sat with the Bullocks for a night cap. About 9:00 they went to their coach and we watched TV until bed.

Saturday, March 16th, we had the coach packed up and ready for travel early and were on the road by 9:30 or so. We, the Kings and the Bullocks, are all traveling to Tucson, about 80 miles south on I-10, to attend the FMCA International Area Rally. The Bullocks left about 90 minutes before us and the Kings left the same time, but had to stop for fuel, so we weren't traveling in caravan. We got into the Lazy Days RV Resort just before 11:00 and were assigned our spot. We were able to get parked and get completely set up before 12:30, which was good because the weather said it was going to be close to 90 today. We are parked right next to the Bullocks, but the Kings are in handicap parking down closer to the park office.

After lunch we left the park to do some shopping. We stopped at Camping World, which is actually on the same lot as the RV park, and bought a couple of things we needed. We then made a trip to the nearby Costco to stock up on some things. We hadn't been close to a Costco since January, so we bought quite a bit of stuff before heading back to the coach. Later in the afternoon we went over to the Bullocks for happy hour. The Kings came up to visit as well and we had a nice get together. We were kind of tired from the travel day and shopping, so we just had dinner in our coach and watched TV the rest of the night.

Sunday, March 17th, Happy St. Patrick's Day! We dressed in green for the holiday and left the coach around noon with the Bullocks to go for lunch and do some geocaching. Our first stop was the My Big Fat Greek restaurant for lunch. MBFG is “must do” restaurant for us for whenever we come to Tucson. I am not a big fan of Greek food in general because I don't care for lamb, but they have other Greek oriented food that is not lamb that is great for me. I have had the stuffed peppers before, as well as a couple of different Greek dishes made from beef, and they are all wonderful. Since we went for lunch today I had the steak and cheese pita, a sort of Greek Philly cheesesteak. The steak was tender and cooked perfectly. Jackie, Peggy and Vernon all had the traditional Gyro and they also loved their meals.

After lunch we did some geocaching in the area around where the restaurant was located. We cached for a couple of hours and ended up with 13 new finds, as well as one DNF. After caching we went back to the RV park and found that our other friends, Ray and Suzie Babcock, had arrived at the rally and were parked right across the street from us. We went over there for happy hour, and were shortly joined by the Bullocks, the Kings, and Clark and Judy McKay, some close friends of the Babcocks whom we have met a couple of times. We managed to get all ten of us in the Babcock's coach for happy hour. After cocktails some of the folks went out to eat while we went back to our coach for a light dinner on our own. We were still full from lunch, so we didn't have much. We spent the rest of the night relaxing in the coach.

Monday, March 18th, we left the coach about noon, this time with Ray and Suzie Babcock in our car, to do lunch and some geocaching. Peggy and Vernon had to hang around the RV park because they are having some problems with their coach and needed to wait on a service tech. The four of us went to the Jason's Deli for lunch. Jackie and I had first discovered the Jason's Deli chain when we went to the one in Moreno Valley, California. We went there because I had discovered through the Internet that they were known for their muffalettas, A muffaletta is a New Orleans specialty that I first tasted last summer when we were in Louisiana. It is ham, salami and cheese, and an olive salad spread, served on a special, large, twelve inch round bun. It is toasted and served hot and, because it is so big, is usually available in a half or quarter. We were traveling with the Babcocks in Louisiana and both Ray and I fell in love with the dish.

The one I got in Moreno Valley was very authentic, and very good, and I knew that they had a couple of locations in Tucson, so when I knew that the Babcocks were going to be at this rally with us, I made sure that we made time to get to Jason's. I had a half muffaletta, Ray ordered a full. He ate half and took the other half home for a lunch on a later day. Jackie had a very nice looking beef and cheese dip, and Suzie had a ham sandwich that was huge. Jason's has great food and big portions, so come hungry.

After lunch the four of us went out for some geocaching in the area. We cached about two and a half hours and got a total of ten new finds, along with a couple of DNFs. The weather has changed to partly cloudy with temps in the low 80's, which is perfect caching weather. After caching we went back to the RV park and then over to the King's coach for cocktail hour. We sat around and talked until about 7:00 when everyone went off to their own coaches. Since we had such a big lunch we didn't even have dinner. We just watched TV until bedtime.

Tuesday, March 19th, Jackie and I were up, showered, dressed and out of the coach by 8:45 this morning. We went down to the sales center for Lazy Days RV to attend a free RV driver's training course. The RV park in which this rally is being held is owned and operated by Lazy Days RV as an open, public RV park. They offer this free course three times a week during the winter season to anyone staying in their park, or buying an RV from the company.

The instructor was a retired Pima County Sheriff's Office Commander. Although I knew a few Pima County guys during my career, I had never met him. We chatted a little during one of the breaks, but learned we had apparently never crossed paths. He was a very good instructor for the classroom part of the training, although the large class size, due to the rally being in the park, threw his timing off and he ran about an hour and a half over the normal time.

The course also includes some driving time within the RV park in one of the dealership's RVs, but we had probably 40 people in the class and he couldn't do all of them in one day. Most of the people who are already fairly experienced drivers, like myself with over 60,000 miles behind the RV wheel now, bowed out of the driving. I did encourage Jackie to do the behind the wheel part and she did. She got about fifteen minutes of time behind the wheel, mostly doing sharps turns and curves around the RV park. This was good for her because she doesn't have much experience with the coach in a confined environment. She has driven on the freeway, but never in traffic or a tight area like an RV park.

About 5:00 we went over to the McKay's coach, which is right across the street from us, for a potluck out on the patio. There were five couples, us, the McKays, the Babcocks, the Bullocks and the Kings, in the party. We had happy hour until 6:00 when everyone brought out the food. Jackie made her taquito casserole, Peggy made enchiladas, Ray made taco salad, and we had all kinds of side dishes to go along with everything. The meal was great and I ate way too much. We partied and talked until about 8:00 when everyone packed up and went back to their own coaches for the night. A great time with good friends.

Wednesday, March 20th, we left the coach about 11:30 or so with Peggy and Vernon in our car to do some sightseeing and caching in the old, historic part of downtown. Our first stop was a little patio cafe called La Cocina which was in the Presidio neighborhood of Tucson. A Presidio was basically a Spanish frontier fort and was usually built as soon as the Spanish explorers came into a new area. Tucson was founded in 1775 with the construction of Presideo San Agustin del Tucson. During the Spanish period of the presidio, attacks were repeatedly mounted by the local Apache Indians. Eventually the town came to just be called Tucson and became a part of Mexico after Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821. Tucson was not included as part of the Mexican Cession of 1848. It was with the later 1853 Gadsden Purchase that Tucson became a part of the United States of America.

Today Tucson is the second largest city in Arizona, after Phoenix, with a population of over 525,000. The city covers an area of over 225 square miles and is 60 miles north of the Mexican border. Tucson is home to the University of Arizona, which was a land grant university founded in 1885 when Arizona was still a territory,

After lunch we looked through some of the shops near the cafe and then did a little driving and geocaching in the historic area. We ended up with six new finds, along with one DNF. It was a little difficult getting around near downtown as Tucson has a lot of renovation and construction going on in and around the downtown area. We also visited the train station, which is home to a transportation museum and has an old Southern Pacific steam locomotive on display.

After caching we drove back to the RV park for a little rest before happy hour. About 5:00 we went down to the King's coach for happy hour. We stayed there until about 7:30 when we went back to our coach and sat outside with our little group until almost 9:00. The weather was very nice and it seemed a shame to be cooped up in the coach when it was so pleasant outside. After everyone left we went in and watched TV until bedtime.

Thursday, March 21^st, we witnessed a miracle. Jackie walked out of the coach at 8:05 a.m. to go to breakfast. The breakfasts are included in the rally fee, so we decided since we paid for them we might as well eat them. We walked down with the rest of our gang, the Babcocks, Bullocks and McKays, to the big tent where we had a nice buffet breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, potatoes, and pancakes. We had a nice breakfast and chatted with several friends.

After breakfast we went back to the coach and Jackie showered and got ready to go out into the full world. We kind of hung around the coach and relaxed for the rest of the morning and early afternoon. We did spend some time decorating the front of the coach for a contest. The theme of this rally is “Fiesta” and we had bought some paper flowers when we were in Algadones last month along with a cheap looking flower arrangement. We had also bought some very festive looking cloth with chili peppers on it at a fabric store. We set up a table with the flowers and table cloth and then brought out two pink plastic flamingos we had bought the other day. We put bandanas on the flamingos and put the whole package on display in front of the coach. Turned out kind of neat.

About 2:30 we went back down to the big tent where all the activities are and helped with the Chapter Fair. I helped with the booth for the Full Timers Chapter, of which I am the vice president. Jackie helped out at the Military Veterans booth. The fair lasted for an hour, after which we helped take down the booths and get everything packed up. We went back to the coach and had happy hour with our group out in front about 5:00. We stayed out there until after dark when everyone went back to their own coaches for the rest of the night.

Friday, March 22^nd, I went down for breakfast about 8:00 but Jackie decided to stay in the coach this morning. While I was eating she was getting ready so we could go out and do some geocaching as soon as breakfast was over. After I got back we took the Bullocks and went out to do some local geocaching. We cached mostly around the edges of nearby Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. Davis-Monthan was established in 1924 and has been an active Army Air Corps and U.S. Air Force base, with a variety of various commands and missions, ever since. It is probably most well known as the home of the Air Force Materiel Command's 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group, the command which is responsible for the storage and recycling of old military aircraft from all branches of the service. This activity is better known as the “Aircraft Boneyard” with thousands of old military aircraft stored on hundreds of acres of flat desert within the boundaries of the base. Surrounding the base are dozens of private recycling companies which purchase surplus aircraft and parts and recycle the metals and parts.

We only cached for a couple of hours and ended up with six new finds and two DNFs. We got back to the RV park just before noon and met with the other four couples of our little core group at the RV park's restaurant for lunch. Ray Babcock had managed to get his hands on some free lunch coupons which provided free lunch for our entire group. We had to pay for beverages and any extras, but the main entree was free. Yea! We had a very nice lunch which was only marred by the fact that Ray told us he had been having “weird” feelings in his chest for the last couple days and had decided he needed to go to the ER to get checked. He has had a lot of heart problems in the past, including several surgeries, so he didn't want to take any chances. He is also a retired EMT, so he knows the signs to watch for.

After lunch Jackie and I went back to the coach and relaxed for few minutes before hosting a social hour at 3:00 for the Full Timers Chapter of FMCA outside our coach. We had about twenty people at the height of the social hour, including one older couple that we hadn't seen in five years. They gave up traveling and now live in Tucson, but they drove over for a visit with old friends.

At 4:00 we left the Full Timers social gathering, which was still going on, and drove over to the King's coach for the Military Veteran's social hour. There were probably a hundred people at that one. We stayed there for about 90 minutes, visiting with friends and enjoying the group, before heading back to our coach. We sat outside with Peggy and Vernon for a little while, but we were pretty tired and soon went into the coach for the rest of the night. We talked to Suzie later in the evening and she told us that Ray was in the ER, seemed to be stable, but they wanted to keep him at least overnight for observation.

Saturday, March 23^rd, the last full day of the rally. Jackie and I were both up, showered, dressed and out of the coach by 8:15 so we could go to breakfast. The breakfast was OK, although, like most buffet lines, the food was not very hot and Jackie likes her food hot. After breakfast we went back to the coach, picked up our caching supplies and the Bullocks and went out to try some more geocaching. Peggy and Vernon had been out exploring the desert west of Tucson a couple days ago and had noticed that there were a couple of geocaching series, or power trails, along some of the roads out there. I had downloaded some of the caches and we thought we would go out and try to do the series. Usually a series, where one cacher hides a number of caches in close proximity, usually about a tenth of mile apart, is fairly easy. They are usually put out there so cachers can get high numbers of finds.

This series, however, was different. We tried six caches of one of the series and found only three and had to DNF three. The caches were hidden in the desert, amid the bushes and rocks, and the three that we found were hidden inside of trash, old cups, bags, that kind of thing. This part of the desert, because it is at the edge of the city, is full of trash. We finally got tired of digging through trash and being frustrated at not being able to find the caches. We tried one from one of the other series in the area, but we had to DNF that one too. Turns out it was by the same guy who did the first series, and the caches were of the same type. We then started doing more conventional caches in the area with better success. We ended up nine new finds for the day, along with the four DNFs, which we didn't like. At least one of our finds was a cache that we had DNFed a couple days ago. The owner had emailed a hint to us, so we went back out and grabbed it. Yea!

After caching we went back to the RV park where I spent some time getting the outside stuff put away in preparation for our leaving tomorrow. Jackie did the same for the inside. We want to get an early start because we have over 250 miles to travel. We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging around the coach. At 5:00 we drove down to the events area for dinner. They had two dinners at the rally, both of which were an extra cost. We had only bought tickets for the one on Saturday. We sat at a table with our group, the Kings, the Bullocks, and the McKays. The Babcocks would have been there, but Ray was still in the hospital and Suzie didn't want to come to dinner without Ray.

The meal was pretty tasty, with roast beef, potatoes, veggies, and chicken. After the meal we stayed for the entertainment, which was a trio that played light jazz and Broadway music. The gal who was the keyboard player and lead singer had an excellent voice, although the music was a little slow for me. It was very reminiscent of what you used to hear in the sixties in nice bars and nightclubs that had entertainers. We stayed mostly because they were drawing door prizes and a fifty-fifty raffle after the entertainment. I did win a door prize, which was a copy of the very first FMCA magazine, printed in 1964. It looks like it will be an interesting read. We didn't win the raffle. After all the drawings we went back to the coach for the rest of the night.

Sunday, March 24^th, we got up early, got the coach packed up and were on the road by 8:30. We were heading west, back to the Yuma area. The trip was 254 miles, so we wanted to start early to make sure we got into the park by early afternoon. We made one lunch stop, and stopped for fuel on the outskirts of Yuma to fill the coach. Diesel is about seventy cents or more cheaper in Arizona than California, and after Yuma we are headed to San Diego. We wanted to make sure we started with a tank full of cheap Arizona fuel.

We arrived at the Pilot Knob RV park about 2:00 and got registered and parked. Pilot Knob is one of our membership resorts and we had been here about two months ago. The Bullocks also came to this park and we ended up with spaces right next to each other. After we got parked I spent a couple hours getting settled in and set up and then we just relaxed. It is about ten degrees warmer here than Tucson, about 87 degrees today, so we didn't spend a lot of time outdoors. We did go out for cocktails in the shade about 5:00. It was not too bad out of the sun, and we sat and chatted with Peggy and Vernon for an hour or so before going back into our coach for the night.

The start of another stay in the Yuma area marks a great place to close out this chapter and get it published. We will be here for two weeks before moving on to San Diego. Until the next time, remember what the great Lawrence Welk once said. “There are good days and there are bad days, and this is one of them.” See ya next time.

The Yuma Foothills Region - Part II

Hi there followers, welcome back. Our last chapter ended on Friday, February 15th, as we reached the end of the first two weeks of our month long stay here at the Caravan Oasis RV Resort in Yuma, Arizona. By way of catching up, Jackie has been sick with, first a cold, then bronchitis from the cold, now allergies on top of the bronchitis, which hasn't gone away yet. I am also suffering from allergies, but at a much less severe level than Jackie, and I don't have the lung congestion that she does.

Saturday, February 15th, we woke to what was promised to be the warmest day of the winter so far, close to 80 degrees. Jackie was feeling really crappy still, so we decided that we needed to just stay at home for the day again. She even thought about going back to the urgent care center, but when she called she found they were not open on the weekend, so she just stayed home, took her meds, and tried to get to feeling better. It didn't work very well because she had a rough night and woke up Sunday morning feeling worse that she did yesterday. She decided she needed to get some medical attention, so we went to a different urgent care center. This one was close to the RV park as well, but it was associated with the Yuma Regional Medical Center hospital rather than a private company.

It took two hours for her to get in to see the doctor and she came out with news that she had severe allergies. The doctor gave another allergy shot and told her to just try to keep exposure to the allergens to a minimum and keep taking her meds, including an allergy medication. She said that the doctor told her that allergies here in Yuma, and Arizona in general, were very severe, so much so that he has seen a lot of people who lived here leave for other states. He said he has also been told that fewer winter visitors are coming because of the bad allergy climate. That is not especially good news since we are going to be in Arizona at least another six weeks.

After the doctor we went home and stayed in with the windows closed and the air conditioning running. I went out and got some pizza for dinner and we ate, then watched TV the rest of the night.

Monday, February 18th, Happy President's Day. Jackie was still down pretty hard, so after lunch I went out by myself and did the laundry at one of the local laundromats in the area. I then did some shopping at Walmart and CVS for meds before heading back home to check on Jackie.

She was a little better in the afternoon and about 5:30 we went over to the Babcocks for cocktails. Ray fixed dinner a little later for the four of us. He BBQed some pork chops on the grill and we had salad and scalloped potatoes. This was the first time in a number of days that we have socialized with the Babcocks. We are feeling badly because they will be leaving at the end of the week to go back home for a while and there a lot of things we wanted to do with them while they were here. We stayed at Ray and Suzie's for a couple of hours, then went back home and watched TV the rest of the night.

Tuesday, February 19th, we left the coach with Ray and Suzie after lunch to run into Yuma for a Sam's Club run. We were almost out of Absolute, which is absolutely not allowed, and Sam's is the cheapest place in town to get it. We spent about 90 minutes shopping before heading back towards the RV park. On the way back home we stopped and got one new geocache for us. It was one that the Babcock's had already found, but they thought it was cute and wanted us to see it. It was a little green maraca hanging in a bush and the name of it was Green Mexican Rattler. We were expecting a fake snake or something.

We hung around the park until about 5:00 or so when we drove back into Yuma with the Babcocks to go to dinner at a local Mexican restaurant. We were meeting Gary and Ramona Wilson for dinner. Gary and Ramona are often mentioned in the blog as good friends of ours who are also full time RVers. The last time we saw the Wilsons was in January in Indio at the FMCA Western Area rally. They had arrived in Pilot Knob, near Yuma, a couple of days ago and we wanted to get together and catch up.

We had a great dinner at a place called Mi Rancho. It is on 4th Avenue, the main drag in Yuma, just a few blocks south of 24th street. The food was wonderful, the service good and the prices reasonable. We had some great conversation and enjoyed meeting up again with old friends. After dinner we went back to the RV park for the night.

Wednesday, February 20th, we left the coach about 10:30 or so with Ray and Suzie in our car, and drove down to the Mexican border so we could cross over into Algodones, Mexico again. The Wilsons had gone down there early to get some dental work done and we had agreed to meet them for lunch and some shopping. None of the four of us needed any dental or optical work, so it was just a pleasure trip for us this time. We shopped for a while, then the six of us had lunch at the El Paraiso restaurant, one of our favorite spots. We spent almost two hours at lunch, enjoying the meal and talking.

After lunch we shopped some more and then Gary had to go back to his dentist for a quick followup. We and the Babcocks went back across the border and headed for home. One highlight of the trip was we all found a fairly new geocache that was hidden in Algodones. We have gotten a total of three down there over the years, and the one today makes four. This was the first Mexican cache for the Wilsons and we also took them to one of the other caches down there so they now have two in Algodones. We went back to the RV park and Jackie and I were kind of beat, so we just crashed the rest of the afternoon and evening.

Thursday, February 21st, we went out after lunch to take Jackie to her followup consultation with the pulmonary specialist she has been seeing here in Yuma. She went to him because her doctor in Indio wanted an evaluation for possible COPD and we couldn't get an appointment there before it was time to leave. The doctor here sent her to get an echo cardiogram and also did a breathing test on her. The bottom line is that the doctor said she didn't have COPD. She had slight restrictions in her breathing, but nothing life threatening. It was good news to find out that Jackie doesn't have anything serious wrong with her, even though her current state with the bronchitis and allergies makes her feel like she is going down for the count.

After the appointment we drove back to the desert area south of the RV park and met up with the Wilsons and Babcocks who had been out geocaching for most of the morning. The six of us then continued caching for about two hours. We ended up with eleven for the afternoon and they both ended up with 29 for the day, a pretty good count for them.

We went back to the RV park and relaxed for a little while and the Wilsons went back to Pilot Knob. About 5:00 the four of us drove back to Yuma to meet the Wilsons one more time for dinner at the Olive Garden restaurant. This was sort of a send off dinner for the Babcocks who are leaving Yuma tomorrow to back home to Menifee in Southern California for a while. The Wilsons are going to be in Yuma until early next month, the same as us. We will see the Babcocks again in Tucson in just about four weeks at the FMCA International Area rally. We had a great dinner at Olive Garden. I had the lobster cannelloni that was to die for. Very rich, but very tasty. After dinner the we all went back to our coaches for the rest of the night.

Friday, February 22nd, about 9:30 we said goodbye to our neighbors for the last two weeks, the Babcocks, as they left to head back to their house. We always have a good time traveling with them and we will miss their company. After lunch we went out to some local geocaching and got ten new finds in less than two hours. One of the finds was number 4,800 for us. Yea! After caching we drove to the Supercuts in Yuma where we both got our hair cut. Jackie tries to get her's cut every month or so. I haven't had a haircut for nearly a year and my pony tail was getting kind of long. Now it's pretty short, but it will grow back. By the time we got done at the hair salon it was getting close to cocktail hour, so we drove back home and stayed in the rest of the night.

Saturday, February 23rd, I had a rough night with my allergies and didn't get much sleep. Jackie is still not feeling well, so we decided to stay home. Both of us did get a few chores done around the house, but neither of us strayed outside where the allergies live. Sunday was more of the same. Stay in the house, try to get better. I did watch the first NASCAR race of the season from Daytona.

Monday, February 25th, we were both feeling slightly better this morning and decided we needed to get out and about a little bit. We left the coach after lunch and went out to do some geocaching near the RV park. We managed to get nine new finds within about 90 minutes or so. We later picked up another cache making the total for day ten.

One of the finds was pretty unique in that the cache was a large piece of five inch PVC pipe, about two feet long, with caps on both ends. It was painted cammo green and was ten feet up in a tree at the cache site. To get the cache you had to unhook a loop of rope from a latch tied to the tree, then bring the pipe down to eye level on a pulley system. When we were done we pulled the pipe back up to the high branch, tied off the rope and it was rehid. Interesting cache. Ray and Suzie had told us about their finding it a week or so ago, but they only remember what the cache looked like, not which one it was. As soon as we saw it we knew it was the one they had told us about.

Another cache we found was out in the desert near the railroad tracks that go through the Yuma area. The first time we tried to get it we were on the wrong side of the tracks and didn't want to cross over because there was a train parked there. We came at it from a different direction and were blocked by a canal. We finally followed a power line trail in from another direction and got to the cache. The cache was pretty simple, but a couple hundred feet from the cache, under one of the power poles, was a very neat pet cemetery. Based on the dates on some of the tombstones it had been there close to twenty years. It was all bordered with white painted rocks and there were several pretty nice tombstones, as well as a lot of more modest, wooden crosses and such. Very touching that people thought enough of their pets to create this little oasis in the desert for them.

After our caching we drove to the shopping center near downtown and did some shopping. We stopped at Jo Ann's so Jackie could get some new fabric to cover the driver and passenger seats in the coach. We also stopped at Dollar Tree and Penny's before driving back out to the foothills area where the RV park is located. We made one last stop at Fry's for groceries and then went back to the coach for the rest of the evening.

Tuesday, February 26th, we left the coach about 1:00 and drove into central Yuma to a brand new Chinese restaurant called Lin's. The place is right across the street from the main shopping center and we have been watching them work on it over the last month we have been here in Yuma. The place finally opened last Monday and we decided that we needed to give it a try before we left Yuma.

We met our friends Gary and Ramona Wilson, who are staying out in Pilot Knob across the river, at the restaurant about 1:30. Even at that late into the lunch hour the place was packed. We had trouble finding a place to park. Luckily, Gary and Ramona had gotten there a little early and had already put their name in, so we only had to wait another fifteen minutes before we got seated.

We had seen that there were already two reviews of the restaurant on the TripAdvisor website, and both of them were positive. On the up side, the place is very big, and very pretty inside with lots of seating. There are four long, two sided buffet tables for most of the food, plus another counter in the back with a sushi bar, cook to order Mongolian beef, and a steak bar, presumably for the evening crowd. There were all the usual choices of Chinese, along with quite a bit of American cuisine. The service, which, because it is a buffet is basically drinks and whatever extras you might want, was spotty at best. I wrote that off to new staff and the first couple weeks of business. I don't think they have all the staffing profiles worked out yet, and may not have been expecting the huge crowds they have been seeing.

The other three people in our party thought the food was excellent. I found almost all the selections to be bland, with little flavor and mushy texture. The beef in the pepper beef dish was almost slimy, pretty ugly stuff. The egg drop soup was good and some of the non-Chinese stuff I had, like the shrimp, was pretty tasty. This place is part of a chain and I was very disappointed to find that they didn't provide any hot mustard except for the mild, tasteless crap that comes in the little plastic pouches. To me that is a sign that they don't really value quality over quantity. Get the people in, get them out, collect the bucks. I might try the place one more time next year if we come through here to see if they get the growing pains out, but I was not overly impressed.

We spent about two and a half hours at lunch, visiting with the Wilsons and had a good time. We probably will see them one more time before we leave and then will likely not cross paths with them again until mid-summer. After lunch we stopped at a couple of Walmarts so Jackie could try to return a little cat house we bought for Benji that he didn't like. We also made a stop at the Salvation Army so I could drop off some donations. We also tried one geocache, but it turned out to be a toughy that we ended up DNFing because we couldn't find it. We then went back to the RV park and watched TV the rest of the evening.

Wednesday, February 27th, we woke up feeling a little better than in past days. Both of us are sleeping better at night with a lot less coughing and nose blowing. Not sure of the allergies are going away, or we are just getting acclimated, or the medications are finally kicking in. I don't care as long as I feel better. Jackie's bronchitis seems to be getting better every day.

After lunch we decided to go out and do some geocaching so we drove down to the Barry Goldwater bombing range to do some caches. All of these caches were off the road a few hundred feet, so we only got ten caches in a couple of hours. Some of them were pretty neat. Out here on the range, where the general public can't go unless they obtain a permit, cachers don't worry too much about hiding the caches. Several of the caches were cool little wooden structures inside of which the cache was placed. One was a birdhouse, one was a large carved wooden SUV, and one was a small building with a radio antenna on the roof. It was dedicated to a local cacher who is a ham radio operator. After our ten finds we went back to the coach and relaxed the rest of the evening. Jackie made a nice meatloaf for dinner and we watched some TV.

Thursday, February 28th, my brother Russ's birthday. Happy Birthday Russ! He lives in Las Vegas and we usually get to see him at least once a year when we go through the area. We left the coach early, about 10:00 and drove west into California and back to the Pilot Knob RV resort where our friends Gary and Ramona Wilson are staying. We had made plans to have a long day of caching in the desert with them.

Since Gary was sniffling and coughing he suggested we take two cars. Both of us have Jeeps, so the planned desert travel was not a problem. This also allowed them to take their dog with them so they wouldn't have to worry about the time getting back to their coach. We did a series of caches that were placed in the desert about five miles north of I-8 and about fifteen miles west of the Arizona border. This series was placed about a month ago and is called the Presidential Series. Each of the caches is named after a president and they are set out in order of their presidencies. They even had a cache for Grover Cleveland's second term since he was the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms. They also added four caches at the end for the White House, Pentagon, Flag and Constitution, making a total of 48 caches in the series. The information for each of the caches contained a little bit of trivia on the president for which the cache was named. Some of the information was very interesting and entertaining.

The caches were set out every 500 to 1,000 feet along a couple of desert roads (Jeep trails) and a power line trail in the shape of a triangle. Both the Wilsons and us had packed picnic lunches and we started caching a little before 11:00 and finished the last cache of the series about 3:30. So less than five hours, including a lunch stop, and a total of 48 finds. One of the caches we found was number 500 for the Wilsons, a big geocaching milestone!  We didn't DNF any of the caches, although there were a couple where we were close to quitting before one of us finally spotted the hide. The weather was in the mid-70's with just a little wind, so everything was set for a great day driving in the desert. The Geo-Jeep got a little bit of a workout, but nothing too bad.

After our caching we headed back to the RV park because Gary and Ramona were going to go out and do a couple more so they would have a big “most finds” day in their stats page. I think they ended the day with 56 finds, better even than our best day. We stopped at Walmart on the way home for some supplies and then back to the RV park for the rest of the night. A great day caching with friends and the allergies didn't kick up too bad at all for either of us.

Friday, March 1st, . I spent an hour or so in the morning putting away some of the outside stuff we had put out, mostly decorations and such, in preparation for our leaving in the morning. We left the coach about noon and drove to a nearby Mexican restaurant called Pepe's, actually Los Manjares De Pepe, to have lunch with Jon and Rita Ham, some motor home friends who have a winter place here in the Foothills area of Yuma.

John is a very dedicated geocacher who has over 10,000 finds to his credit now, as well as a lot of hides he has placed in the Yuma area. His real passion is FTFs, or first to finds. He has an app on his phone that lets him know the second a new cache is published within fifty miles of his location. He then immediately goes out to find the cache so he can claim the first to find. Right now he has over 1,500 FTFs. I think we have four to our credit after five years of caching.

John and Rita are also members of a number of the same FMCA chapters as us and we come across them often when we are doing rallies around the country. We didn't want to leave the Yuma area without having at least had some time with them to chat and catch up. The restaurant, which was a very small place in the shopping center at I-8 and Fortuna Road, had very good food at reasonable prices. The place had gotten very good ratings on the ratings sites and we now see why. I had the red chili and it was excellent. We spent over an hour at lunch, chatting and enjoying John and Rita's company.

After lunch we drove west for another stop at the Arizona Market Place outdoor market to walk around and look at stuff some more. We shopped for about ninety minutes and bought a few things before leaving and driving into Yuma proper to watch the Midnight at the Oasis classic car parade. Midnight at the Oasis is an annual car show in Yuma that is one of the larger in the west, drawing over 1,000 classic cars and hot rods. It is an all weekend event with cars on display during the day and concerts at night. The event always kicks off on Friday night with a parade. Not all the cars in the show participate, but they do have about 600 in the parade. We were in Yuma two years ago during the event and came to the parade with our friends Peggy and Vernon Bullock and had a great time.

We got set up early, about 3:30 and were quickly joined by Gary and Ramona. We had told them about the parade yesterday when we were with them and they thought they might like to see it. We spent about an hour just talking and waiting for the parade to start. Once the parade got to our location we watched the cars and took a lot of pictures. There were some very nice old cars and hot rods. I would like to have a nice, pretty classic car, but it is a VERY expensive hobby. It looked like almost everyone in the parade was of baby boomer age like us. Not a lot of young people can afford to participate in it. The parade ended about 6:00 and the four of us drove to the nearby Yuma Elks Lodge for a cocktail. Since it was Friday night, their big dinner night, we ended up staying for dinner as well. We had a couple of drinks and a very nice dinner before finally heading home about 8:00.

Saturday, March 2nd, we spent the morning packing up the coach and about 10:30 we were on the road for an eleven mile trip from Caravan Oasis RV Resort to Yuma Lakes RV Resort. Yuma Lakes is a membership resort affiliated with the company Colorado River Adventures. They have eight resorts in their system, five along the Colorado River, spread from Needles, California down to Yuma, Arizona, two in other California locations, and one in Mexico on the Gulf of California. We are not members of this system and had “won” a drawing from a recent rally where they were offering three free nights of camping, a notebook computer, a $200 gas card, and another $200 bonus gift. Of course, we would have to sit through their presentation and sales pitch to get our gifts, but we figured we were strong enough to resist the pitch.

We had been to Emerald Cove, their first resort, in California across the river from Parker, Arizona, back about ten years ago. Our friends the Cohen's had bought into the system and we went for a weekend with them. This was way before we sold the house and bought our big coach. We were not impressed with the campground then, although we were guests of the Cohen's and didn't get the sales pitch.

It only took us about forty minutes to make the trip and we checked in at the gate only to find out from the lady manning the check in booth that we would not be getting the tour or sales talk because the sales office at this resort had closed for the season on Friday. Of course, this also meant that we wouldn't be getting our gifts. She did say we could still stay for the three nights for free, so we at least had a place to park. Even though neither of us were crazy about being subjected to the strong sales talk, we were very upset that we wouldn't have the opportunity to get our gifts as promised. It's not like they didn't know we were coming. We had a letter with our stay dates in writing, and Jackie had called on Thursday to confirm our arrival and had been told that they were looking forward to our coming for the tour.

We were assigned our spot and got parked pretty quickly. It didn't take us too long to set up since we are only going to be here for three nights. Usually for these short stays I don't put up the sun screens or any of the decorations. I park, hook up the utilities, level the coach and put out the slides. We put the insides back to normal and that's it. Once got setup and had a quick lunch we left to drive back to the Arizona Market Place again. When we were there there yesterday Jackie had seen some salt lamps that she thought she might like to have. She talked last night with Ramona Wilson who told her that they have two in their coach and they love them. They supposedly produce ions which are good for your breathing health and disposition. I am not sure I believe that, but they are pretty, so I told Jackie to get one if she still wanted one. We went to the Market Place and got a real nice one that looks like a bowl. They have a light bulb in them and are translucent, so they put out a very pretty orange glow.

After the market place we stopped at Wamart to pick up a couple things for a dinner that Jackie was making tonight. We had invited the Wilsons over for dinner, our last chance to see them since they are leaving the area on Sunday and we won't see them again until late summer. The Wilson's arrived about 4:30 and we had cocktails and chatted. Gary was also doing some cleanup work on Jackie's laptop to try and speed it up a little. He has a couple of cleanup programs that he keeps on a flash drive so he can fix other people's computers. About 6:30 we had dinner, a nice chili relleno casserole that Jackie had put together. The Wilson's left about 8:00 and we just relaxed the rest of the evening with the TV.

Sunday, March 3rd, we awoke to pretty much overcast skies, which surprised us since the weather forecast had called for clear skies and temperatures in the 80's. I guess Mother Nature didn't watch TV last night. We decided that since we weren't going to have to hang around for a sales presentation from the resort today that we might as well go out do some geocaching. This resort is located on a small lake, really just a pond, between the desert and agricultural land north of Yuma proper. It is about six miles north of Interstate 8. The area to the north of the resort is low hills and desert and I had seen that there were a lot of caches fairly close to the park.

We left the coach about 1:00 and spent just a couple of hours driving around the desert finding caches and ended up with 24 finds for the day and one DNF. That is a pretty good total for a short afternoon, especially in the desert. All the caches were close to the gravel and dirt roads that we were traveling, and most were pretty easy to spot. They were also fairly close together, which is not always the case for desert caching. Several of the caches brought us near the McPhaul Bridge, and old suspension bridge across the Gila River.  This bridge, which is very narrow, was built in 1929 and was the first bridge across the Gila River on Highway 95, then the major north/south highway to Yuma.  The bridge was abandoned in 1968 when the highway was realigned and a new bridge built.  The bridge is now known locally as "The Bridge to Nowhere."  This bridge is an example of the kind of things that geocaching brings to us.  Had we not been caching we likely would never have gotten near this neat old landmark, nor learned of it's history.  After caching we went back to the coach and stayed in for the rest of the afternoon and evening. I did make a trip down to the spa at the resort and soaked for an hour or so.

Monday, March 4th, our last day in the Yuma area. We left the coach after lunch and drove into town to do our laundry. The RV park had a small laundry, but we usually have two weeks worth of clothes and you normally can't do that much at one time in the small RV park facilities. After our laundry we made a stop at an RV supply store to try and get a couple of parts I need for some minor repair work. We also stopped along the route home at a couple of geocaches. We found one and had to DNF one. We then went home to the coach and stayed in the rest of the afternoon and evening.

Tuesday, March 5th, we had the coach packed up, the car hooked up, and were out on the road by 10:15. We are headed to Casa Grande, Arizona, about 180 east of Yuma on Interstate 8. We made a stop for fuel before getting on the Interstate and, after a quick lunch stop along the way, arrived at the Casa Grande RV Resort about 2:30. This resort used to be called Desert Shadows and was one of our Western Horizons membership parks. About 18 months ago it was sold by Western Horizons to the same guy who bought the old Western Horizons parks in Pahrump and Indio. We have been to those two since the new owner took over, but this was our first visit to the “new” Casa Grande resort. As with the other two parks, the new owner is still offering very favorable rates to Western Horizons members, so we aim to take advantage of them.

We hardly recognized the front entrance when we arrived at the park. They have really cleaned up the park, new paint, new pavement, fresh gravel and some other enhancements, including putting 50 amp service at all sites. Previously only about half the sites were 50 amp. We got checked in quickly and were parked by about 3:00, getting setup for our 11 night stay here. It was supposed to be two weeks, but we cut our stay here short to accommodate our visit to Yuma Lakes, which turned out to be a waste. We spent a couple hours cleaning and getting setup, and then just chilled with the TV the rest of the night.

This marks an ideal place to close this episode and get it published. We will put something out again after our stay in Casa Grande. Until next time, keep the faith and find the joy in life. See ya.

The Yuma Foothills Region - Part I

Hello friends, welcome back to our story. Our last chapter concluded on Saturday, February 2nd, when we traveled 22 miles from Winterhaven, California to the east fringes of Yuma, Arizona and the Caravan Oasis RV Resort. It only took about 40 minutes to move from our RV park just west of Yuma, in California, to the new resort. It took longer to get the coach ready to travel than it did to actually do the traveling. We will be at this resort for a full month.

Both Jackie and I are fighting colds at the moment, so once we got set up at the resort we vegged out on the couches for the rest of the day. We took some meds, and just relaxed with the TV all the way through until bedtime.

Sunday, February 3rd, Super Bowl Sunday! We are both still working to get rid of our colds, so we decided that this would be a good day to just stay at home and rest. I went out in the morning and got a Sunday paper, some cold medicine and the makings for a big pot of chicken noodle soup. Other than that, we didn’t go anywhere. We watched the game starting at 4:30 and it was a pretty decent game. Since neither of us are huge football fans - Super Bowl is the only game we watch all year - we just randomly picked sides just for rooting purposes. I ended up with Baltimore and had a great time for the first half. Jackie was happy for most of the second half, up to the last two minutes. Oh well. Good Job Ravens. After the bowl game we had a nice dinner of chicken soup and went to bed early hoping that the colds will be on their way out soon.

Monday, February 4th, we both woke up feeling a little bit better. Still well below a hundred percent, but heading in the right direction. We had to get up and out early because Jackie had a doctor’s appointment at 9:00 for a redo of her echo cardiogram. The tech wouldn’t say what the issue was, only that the doctor who reviewed the pictures wanted the test redone. This time I went in with her so I could see the sonogram of her heart. Pretty neat, although I didn’t fully understand everything I was seeing.

The test took about a half hour, after which we stopped at a coin laundry to wash clothes. We were a little over two weeks without doing laundry, which is no big deal for anything except undies. I have enough shirts and pants to go six months, but the underwear supply is more limited. The original plan was to do laundry in town, near where Jackie’s physical therapist’s office is, because she had an early afternoon appointment there as well. However, Jackie decided she just wasn’t up to the exertion with her cold and cough, so she called and canceled.

After we got our laundry done we just headed back to the coach, had lunch, took our meds, and vegged the rest of the day, working on getting better. We stayed around the house, watched TV and relaxed until bedtime. We did have a nice dinner of hamburgers cooked on the BBQ, so I was feeling well enough to get that done.

Tuesday, February 5th, Happy Birthday to Me! Yea, I made the double six! I woke up feeling much better, I am at least 99 percent over the cold. Jackie, not so much. She had a rough night and slept on the couch for a lot of the night because of her coughing. That is the worst symptom she has at this point.

Since Jackie was still feeling poorly, we stayed in for the day. I got a few outside chores done, maintenance checks and so forth. The temperature actually went all the way to 79 by late afternoon, a beautiful desert day. I requested corn beef hash and eggs for dinner and that’s what my baby fixed me. Yum. Not a bad birthday for an old guy.

Wednesday, February 6th, Jackie had a little better night, but still woke up feeling a little down. Nonetheless, we left the coach after lunch to do some geocaching. We needed a cache for today for our days of the year challenge and Jackie felt good enough to go out for a while. Being out in the nice warm weather actually made her feel a little better and we ended up getting ten new caches for the day. We now only have two days left on our challenge.

After caching we went to the nearby Walmart for some supplies and then headed back to the coach. We BBQed some chicken for dinner and spent the rest of the evening watching TV.

Thursday, February 7th, our ninth wedding anniversary. We were married in Indio, at the Elks Lodge, nine years ago and it has been a wonderful nine years. The majority of it has been in the motor home, on the road and enjoying life. We have had a very happy nine years.

As far as our current health state, it is much of the same. I am pretty much over my cold, with only a few nose drips and the occasional cough, and Jackie is still coughing up a storm, with a headache and stuffed up head. She is better than she was a few days ago, but still not over it. After lunch we decided that we needed to get out of the house for a while, so we went out and did some geocaching. We did manage to get six new finds for the day.

We had intended to go see what the Yuma Lakes RV Resort looks like. It is a membership resort which has invited us for a three day stay after our time here at Caravan Oasis. We wanted to take a look at what it was like, but we didn't bring the paper and neither of us could remember exactly where it was, or how to get to it. It is close to Yuma, but kind of off the beaten track. We decided to put that off for another day.

After our caching we stopped at the local Fry's store for some groceries and picked up some KFC for dinner. Jackie didn't feel like going out for an anniversary dinner, so we did the next best thing and brought in takeout. We had dinner and relaxed in front of the TV the rest of the night.

Friday, February 8th, another of our several anniversaries. This one celebrates the date in 1998 that I first got back together with Jackie. I am pretty much cured of the cold, but Jackie is still miserable. Finally, about 3:00 we decided to take her to the urgent care center down the road. She was in there for quite a while and the final determination was that her cold had gone down into her chest and was now bronchitis. The docs gave her a couple of shots and an antibiotic prescription. Hopefully, within a couple of days the worst of the symptoms will begin to fade.

Our friends Ray and Suzie Babcock arrived at the park late this morning as well. We had been with them for a week at Pilot Knob and they stayed for another week before moving over to here. They will only be here for a week before heading back home to Temecula. Ray wanted to spend a week in Arizona so he could get an Arizona ID card. All his guns were stolen last summer in a burglary of their house, and he wants to buy a couple more guns. Arizona will only sell to those with an Arizona ID.

He went down to the Arizona Motor Vehicle Division this afternoon, showed his receipt for the RV park, and got an Arizona ID card. Not a drivers license, just an ID card, but it is enough to be able to buy a handgun here in Arizona. He spent the rest of the afternoon running errands. They were gone to dinner by the time we got back from the doctor's so we didn't even get together for cocktails. Jackie went to the couch and spent the rest of the night there trying to get better.

Saturday, February 9th, we woke to wet streets for the first time since coming to Yuma this year. We didn't have much rain overnight, about ten minutes of light rain, but enough to get everything damp and dirty. At least it wasn't enough to activate the leak in our front slide. No water inside this morning.

Jackie is still working on getting better. We left the coach, with the Babcocks aboard, about 2:00 to go to a geocaching event. Tomorrow is the first ever Mega Geocaching event to take place in the State of Arizona, and this afternoon we were going to a “pre-event” meet & greet at a local restaurant. A Mega Event is classified by Geocacing.com, the gurus of the sport, as any caching event which has at least 500 participants register online that they will be attending. Most of the caching events we have been to have been less than 100 people. The Yuma event in 2011, which we came to had about 300 attending. Last year's was a little bigger, but still not “Mega.”

On the way to the pre-event we stopped and picked up one geocache because we needed a cache on this date for our days of the year challenge. Signing into the event also counts as a “find” for stats, but we wanted a real cache too, just to be completely fair. We arrived at the event just after the starting time and there were a couple of hundred people there. There were a number of caching teams which we knew, either meeting them at other events, or running into them out in the field. There were many more caching teams with names that we recognized, either from caches of theirs we have found, or caches we found where we saw their names on the logs.

The event was held at a place called the Fun Factory, which is an entertainment venue with a water park, go carts, mini golf, arcade, and that sort of thing. They also had a restaurant with basic stuff like burgers and fries. Unfortunately, because they were expecting a pretty big crowd, they set the event up outside, near the water park. The water park was closed for the season, but the big patio next to it would have been ideal had it not been cold and windy. Most of the people came, walked around and visited for a while, and then left. We stayed about 90 minutes before deciding to leave. We didn't even want to eat there because the food was fast food quality but restaurant priced.

We drove back to the RV park so that the Babcocks could take their dog for a walk, and then about 5:00 the four of us drove into central Yuma and went to the Outback Steakhouse for a nice dinner. We were celebrating my birthday and our two anniversaries all on the same day. This was the first day in a while that Jackie even felt like going out to eat. As is usual with restaurants in Yuma during snowbird season, the place was packed, so the service was a little slow and spotty. The food, however, was very good. Jackie had lamb and I had a big “slab o' cow” steak. After dinner we drove back to the RV park and got together with the Babcocks for a night cap, after which we went back to our coach and relaxed the rest of the night.

Sunday, February 10th, we were up and out of the coach early, actually by 8:00 a.m., which is quite a feat for us. We were headed for downtown Yuma for the Yuma Mega Geocaching Event. The four of us went in Ray's car so that we could take advantage of his handicap parking tags and arrived at the city park along the Colorado River right at 8:30. We got our chairs set up on the lawn and then the four of us participated in the event's poker run. The organizers set out five ammo boxes at different locations, all inside of the park, and provided a piece of paper with the coordinates to the participants. The finding was supposed to be just like finding a geocache. Inside each of the five caches were several hundred small playing cards sealed in envelopes.

The idea is to load the coordinates for the five caches into your GPS unit, and then go out and find them. Each caching team, in our case Jackie and I, would then take one of the envelopes out of each of the five boxes. Once you had your five cards you turned them into the desk, they opened the envelopes and you found out what your poker hand was. It took us about a 45 minutes to get the five caches, but all we got for our trouble was an ace high crap hand. The Babcocks managed to get a pair of jacks, but even that probably wouldn't win anything. As it turns out, the winning hand was four of a kind and they won $100.

We spent the rest of the morning visiting with people, gathering travel bugs, buying caching stuff, including the event tee shirts, and participating in some other caching related games. It was clear that they had reached the Mega Event status as there were clearly over 1,000 people there. Keep in mind that most caching teams are two people, so 500 team names is close to 1,000 people. We never did get a final count, but the last word on RSVPs was that they had about 600 teams registered to come, some from as far away as Europe and the East coast.

About 12:30 they served lunch, which was a very nice tri-tip BBQ dinner, and managed to serve the over 1,000 guests in about 15 minutes. They had this event very well coordinated. It was even recognized by the City of Yuma, which issued a proclamation citing today as Geocaching Day in Yuma. After dinner they had the drawings for some door prizes and a 50/50 drawing, but neither us nor the Babcocks won anything. About 2:30 we finally packed up our gear and headed back home. The weather had cooperated, keeping the winds down and temps in the mid-60's with a nice warm sun. By the time we got home we were all beat, so we just went to our respective coaches and crashed for the night. A very fun day and a great event.

By the way, in addition to getting the event on our cache find count, we found one other geocache in the park because today was another of the days we needed to find a cache for our days of the year challenge. The big difference, today was the LAST day we needed. Our stats page now shows that we have found at least one geocache on every one of the 366 possible days of the year! Now we have to develop a new personal challenge to tackle. Yea Us!

Monday, February 11th, another cool but mostly clear day. Jackie slept a little better last night, but still woke up with a very congested chest. She didn't want to go anywhere today, so we just stayed at the coach and did busy work and played on our computers for the entire day.

Tuesday, February 12th, another great desert day. A little on the cool side, but no wind or clouds. Jackie woke up feeling a little better and said she had a pretty decent nights sleep. She decided that she needed to get out and about today, at least a little, because just staying on the couch all day didn't seem to be helping her get better.

We left the coach after lunch, about 1:00 or so, and drove to downtown Yuma for the street fair that is held there every Tuesday. They close off Main Street in old town Yuma and the vendors set up booths for a variety of merchandise. The first thing we noticed when we arrived is that the fair is only a block long, about half the size it was in past years we have gone. It used to stretch the whole two long block distance of old Main Street. It actually only took us about 45 minutes to walk up one side and down the other. We visited one shop, a little trinket shop that Jackie likes, and then got in the car and left. We didn't buy anything and were less than impressed with what the street fair has become.

After leaving downtown Yuma we drove to an RV resort called Yuma Lakes, located about ten miles northeast of the main part of town. Yuma Lakes is a membership resort, run by a company called Colorado River Adventures. They have another resort on the California side of the Colorado River, across from Parker, Arizona, called Emerald Cove. We visited Emerald Cove ten years ago or so with our friends Barry and Colleen Cohen. They are members of the company and took us as guests. We were not especially impressed with that property, however, we were recently offered a free three night stay at Yuma Lakes if we would sit through their ninety minute sales presentation. They do have six other “resorts” in the Western U.S., as well as one in Mexico that we are pretty unlikely to ever use.

They claim that we will get a notebook computer and a $200 gas rebate card, whatever that means, if we come and visit the property. We will be going there at the end of our stay here in Yuma, before moving on to Casa Grande, and we wanted to at least get a look at what the property was. It is not as junky looking as Emerald Cove, but not a real nice property. In fairness, it is about the same quality as most of the Western Horizon properties, a membership company to which we already belong, so certainly not anything we aren't used to. There is no guard gate, so we drove around for a little while before we decided it wasn't bad enough for us to cancel our free visit over.

After checking out Yuma Lakes we drove back towards home, stopping along the way to do some geocaching. We got ten new finds in about 90 minutes, most of the caches being out in the desert on sand roads. It's nice having a four wheel drive so we can do caching in these areas where you might not want to take the family sedan. Once we got our ten finds it was about 3:30 and we needed to make a Walmart run, so we packed up the caching gear and went to the local Walmart.

After we got home we had the Babcocks over for cocktails at 5:30 and then served dinner for the four of us about 7:00. I made spaghetti with a nice meat sauce and some meat balls, and garlic toast. Because Jackie has been feeling bad, this was the first time in a week we had dinner with the Babcocks at the coach. We have been out with them a couple of times, but we try to do dinner in at least a couple times a week when we are traveling with friends, and we just haven't been up to it lately. The Babcocks left about 8:00 or so and we watched the rest of the President's State of the Union speech and then some of our regular TV shows before heading off to bed.

Wednesday, February 13th, we left the coach with Ray and Suzie about 10:30 to spend some time outdoors. We stopped at an RV supply and hardware store not too far from the RV park and did some shopping, then drove a little further down the block to the offices of a company that does RV renovations. We are currently planning to have some remodeling done to the inside of the coach this summer up in Oregon. Ray had told us about a company that he has used for a number of repair and remodel jobs on his coach and we have already gotten a ballpark estimate from them for the work we want done.

Among the things we want done are replacing all the carpeting in the front of the coach with a wood or tile laminate material, removing the road side couch and building some cabinets in that space, rebuilding the front cabinets to enable installation of a larger TV, and some repairs to the bed and a slide. All of the work we want to do is about $10K, way cheaper than a new motor home. We figured as long as we were in Yuma we would get a second opinion and cost estimate from a local remodel firm. We talked to the guy for a while, looked at some work being done in their shop, and made an appointment for him to come out to the coach in a few days to give as an estimate.

After our stops at the RV places we drove to the Yuma Marine Corps Air Station, located in the middle of town adjacent to the Yuma airport. We wanted to get passes to allow us to go onto the Barry Goldwater Bombing Range, which is a huge section of land between the Mexican border and I-8. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of geocaches on the range and it is open to the public so long as they obtain a permit from the base. The permit is free, and it is basically a medium for the military to let you know the rules and that it is a barren area where you could get lost, stuck or even blown up, and if you do and get injured or die, not their problem. We have been caching on the range several times, but Ray and Suzie have not and we wanted to go out caching on the range with them before they leave Yuma in a week or so.

After we filled out the paperwork and got our permits, we drove onto the base to explore a little. We had driven with Ray in his car and being retired military he has stickers that allow access to the base. Our first stop was the base Exchange to do a little window shopping. After that we drove around the base for a while and I found one of the air squadrons that I had been associated with back in the 60's when I was in the Marine Corps. It was VMA-214, the legendary Blacksheep squadron of WW-II fame. They are now headquartered at Yuma. In the late 60's they were at El Toro in Southern California and I fixed the radar systems on their aircraft. I also wanted to see if I could spot any of the new F-35B planes that are just coming into service with the Marines. It is a new vertical take off and landing fighter intended to be the replacement for the old A-8 Harrier jets. The way the base is laid out I couldn't see out on the flight line, so I didn't see any of the three new planes they now have based there.

After we were done on the base we drove to the IHOP restaurant for lunch. Once lunch was done the four of us went out for a couple hours of geocaching. We finally quit about 3:30 with seven new finds and one DNF. One of the finds was number 400 for the Babcocks. Yea, a milestone! We went back to the RV park and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon. Ray came over for a few minutes at cocktail hour, but he didn't stay long. We didn't even have dinner because of the late lunch and just spent the night with the TV.

Thursday, February 14th, Happy Valentine's Day and Happy 24th Birthday to my Granddaughter Courtney, who's middle name just happens to be Valentine. Jackie update is that she is still fighting the cough and congested chest. She is pretty much OK during the day, but by evening she is starting to drag and get tired, but she still has trouble sleeping because of the frequent coughing jags. Hopefully she will continue to get better.

We had a nice day, supposed to be in the low 70's today, so we decided to do some more geocaching with Ray and Suzie. They are getting close to passing Gary and Ramona Wilson in number of finds. Unfortunately, Gary and Ramona have been dealing with some illness in the family and haven't been able to cache, giving Ray and Suzie an opportunity to go past them in total finds.

We were fortunate today to be able to get to a power cache series out in the desert just a couple of miles south of the RV park. We had our car, which is four wheel drive, so we weren't too worried about the sand roads and trails. A power series is a group of caches hidden by the same cacher, usually in close proximity to each other, sometimes as close as the minimum 528 feet. This one happened to be 16 caches hidden along a power line road in the desert and the caches were less than 1,000 feet apart. We managed to get all 16 in less than an hour, which is a pretty good find rate. We then did several other caches in the desert and some in nearby neighborhoods, for a total find count for the day of 36, all in about three hours of caching. This was a new single best day total for the Babcocks, and also put them ahead of the Wilsons in total finds by two. Yea Ray and Suzie. Another milestone! Our best day is still 55 finds, a feat we accomplished last November in Pahrump.

After caching we went back to the RV park and Jackie and I waited for the guy from the RV renovations company to come over to look at the coach. He came a little late, about ten to six, and spent about a half hour with us, looking at the floor plan and listening to what we wanted done. The bottom line was that he was at least sixty percent more expensive for the stuff we wanted done than the company in Oregon that we have already talked to. I guess he is out of the running. One advantage in Oregon is no sales tax, but I think the Oregon company has a labor advantage too in that the owners of the company are also the guys doing most of the work.

After talking to the renovations buy we went with Ray and Suzie to a restaurant just around the corner from the RV park called Daybreakers. It has a great reputation and Ray and Suzie have eaten there and recommended it as well. It is basically a truck stop, being located right next to the Flying J service center. The food is typical comfort stuff, but it was pretty good and reasonably priced. I had a prime rib french dip that was excellent. Jackie had chicken fried steak and eggs that she said was pretty good too, and you got lots of food. We will probably go there again sometime while we are here.

After we ate we went into the bar for a while because they had karaoke on Thursdays. There were a lot of people in there and you could tell from the way they talked and acted that it was a regular crowd for the Sunday and Thursday karaoke sessions. Most of the people also had their own karaoke disks, which is another giveaway to a regular crowd. I put my name in for a song, but only got one in because it was a very long rotation, almost an hour before I came up. After I sang we left and went back to the coaches, where we watched TV until bed.

Friday, February 15th, the end of our second full week here at Caravan Oasis. With our not feeling well, colds, allergies, bronchitis, etc., we haven't been able to do all the things we wanted to do while we are here. Time is going by too fast! We left the park with the Babcocks about 11:00 and drove to the Arizona Market Place outdoor market to walk around. We were here a couple of weeks ago, but it is a fun place to visit for a couple of hours, get some exercise and do some light shopping. I bought a few odds and ends and some parts for the motor home, but Jackie didn't get anything.

After our shopping time the four of us stopped and picked up one geocache, then went to a restaurant not too far from the RV park. The place was called Parrish's, and we had seen it a couple of times while driving around the area. The decor and look of the place made it seem to be a Mexican restaurant, so we decided to try it. To our surprise, it was a sports bar and grill with a deli menu. Oh well, we ate there anyway, and the food was quite good. Three of us had the fish and chips and was very good. We would probably go back there again sometime. I can recommend it if you find yourself in the Foothills area of Yuma hungering for a sandwich or other pub fare.

After our late lunch we took a drive to the house of some friends of ours, John and Rita Ham, who have an RV lot in the Foothills with a very nice casita. They are Monaco owners and we met them through FMCA and Monaco International Chapter. They are avid geocachers, with over 10,000 finds. We had been telling Ray and Suzie how nice their property was and we wanted to show them. The Ham's weren't home, so we just looked at the outside of the property, let Ray and Suzie find the geocache that John has hidden in the front of his lot, and then we went back home. Jackie wasn't feeling well again, so we just spent the rest of the evening in.

The end of our first two weeks here marks a good place to publish this episode. We will publish again at the end of our stay here. Until the next time, remember that happiness is 90 percent attitude. Focus on the positive as much as possible and make every effort to enjoy this far too short life we are given. See ya next time.