Yesterday was our last day in Apache Junction, and as much as we enjoy visiting with Terry’s parents, Pete and Bess Weber, we’re ready to get back up to Show Low, where it is a little cooler, and we can get another grandkid fix.

I spent part of yesterday doing some bookwork and maintenance on our subscriber mailing lists, and logging in several vendor registrations for our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally in Elkhart, Indiana.

As of now, we have less than 20 of the 50 amp full hookup sites left, and twelve 30 amp full hookup sites. We still have quite a few 30 amp water and electric sites, and lots of 20 amp water and electric sites, but the folks who wait too long to register, and then expect full hookups, may be disappointed.

While I was doing that, Miss Terry installed another set of the Levolor window blinds that I mentioned in yesterday’s blog. These went on the small window in our bedroom, and I think they look pretty good.

A few people asked me if the blinds would rattle going down the highway. I don’t think so, since they come with metal brackets that attach to the wall or inside the window frame, depending on your installation. The bottom of the blinds slide into these brackets, which holds them securely and prevents any movement or rattling. At least that’s the game plan, we’ll know for sure after we actually do any traveling.  Plus, there is room for the blinds to pull up snugly in the header at the top of the window, where it is unlikely they can rattle.

Today we have an 8 a.m. appointment at Camping World in Mesa to get the problems with our inside dual wheels corrected, and hopefully we’ll be out of there in a couple of hours. Then we’ll head back up the hill, as local folks call it, to Show Low.

We have our choice of two routes, either U.S. Highway 60 east to Globe, and then the same road north through the Salt River Canyon to Show Low; or we can take State Route 87, the Beeline Highway, north to Payson, and then State Route 260 east to Show Low. The first route is the more scenic, with the dramatic drop down into the Salt River Canyon and the climb back up, but the route through Payson is a little easier and the road is better most of the way.

Since we came down through the Salt River Canyon, I’m leaning toward the Beeline Highway going back up, just for a change of scenery if nothing else. But I never know for sure which way I’ll go until I get there. That freedom is one of the advantages of the RV lifestyle. We usually don’t have to travel by any certain route, or be any certain place, unless we want to.

We have met a few fulltimers who are so rigidly locked into schedules that they never leave themselves any room to explore whatever comes up along the way, or even  to have a buffer in case bad weather or mechanical difficulties interrupt their trip. Most folks like this either loosen up and learn to roll with the punches, or they realize that fulltiming isn’t for them and they eventually find themselves settled down, either in a long term RV park setting, or back in a sticks and bricks house.

Thought For The Day – Everything worth knowing leaves bruises.

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We pulled out of Juniper Ridge RV Resort about 9:30 yesterday morning, drove twelve miles  in to Show Low, and then followed U.S. Highway 60 south 48 miles across the White Mountain Apache Reservation to the Salt River Canyon, a dramatic chasm that folks here in Arizona refer to as the “Other Grand Canyon.”  The route took us from the high pine country of the Mogollon Rim to the fringe of the desert. The road between Show Low and the canyon is mostly two lane, with frequent passing zones.

The seven miles down to the bridge at the bottom of the canyon are a series of tight switchbacks, with more twists and turns than a politician’s biography. It can  be intimidating to a flatlander driving an RV through here for the first time, and the rule is slow and easy. I shifted our Allison automatic transmission down to third gear and let the transmission and exhaust brake hold us back.

Climbing back out of the canyon on the south side, the Cummins diesel engine did a fine job, and before long we were out of the curves and making good time rolling south. We did have to stop for a few minutes at a road construction zone that had the highway down to one lane.

In Globe, we picked up State Route 77, a narrow roadway with its own share of hills and curves, and took it south past the mining towns of Winkelman and San Manuel, then past the historic town of Oracle, and the turnoff to the Biosphere, until we eventually came to Tucson.

We pulled into Tra-Tel RV Park a little after 2 p.m. We had covered exactly 200 miles, dropping from 6500 feet elevation in Show Low to 2300 at the RV park. With that drop in elevation came a steep rise in temperature. On Sunday we had two inches of snow in Show Low, and it was 95 degrees when we stepped out of the Winnebago in Tucson!

Tra-Tel  is a small, friendly place, which is our base whenever we’re in Tucson. The RV park is less than half full, and we got a nice 50 amp full hookup pull through site. The minute I had the electric cable plugged in, Miss Terry turned on the air conditioner to cool it down inside the motorhome.

The purpose of our visit to Tucson is to spend some time with my cousin Beverly, who is one of my favorite people in the world, so once we were settled in, we drove across town to her apartment near Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. Along the way, we passed the Pima Air and Space Museum, with it’s impressive collection of military aircraft, and then the Davis-Monthan “bone yard,” where retired military aircraft are brought for storage and eventual dismantling. There sure are a lot of taxpayer dollars sitting behind those chain link fences!

We had a nice visit with Bev, took her out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse, and then went back to her place to chat some more. By about 8:30 I was getting droopy from our long day, so we said our goodbyes and promised to see Beverly again today. Miss Terry drove back to the RV park, and we spent the hours before bedtime catching up on e-mails that had come in during the day, and watching the Biography channel on television.

We’ll be here in Tucson a week or so, and it’s supposed to be in the mid-90s all of the time we’re here, so I expect our air conditioner will get a good workout.

Thought For The Day -  A smile is a curve that sets everything straight.

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For a week or so now, we have been up early every morning, and that’s a habit we really need to break. It’s ruining my bad reputation. 

We left the Escapees Dreamcatcher RV Park in Deming, New Mexico a little after 9 a.m. and drove west on Interstate 10 to Lordsburg, where we stopped at the Flying J for fuel, and then took U.S. Highway 70, the Old West Highay,  northwest into Arizona. We had never traveled this route before, and it is a nice two lane road that is a more direct route to central Arizona that taking Interstate 10, which dips south first before going north toward Tucson and Phoenix.

There were a few hills, but nothing serious, and we had to slow down through small towns like Safford and Thatcher, but we made good time. When we entered the San Carlos Apache Reservation, it was like going into a Third World country. The small Indian communities we passed through were depressing places where the yards of the houses were littered with trash, and the people we passed didn’t look very friendly.

We had planned to stay at the RV park at the Apache Gold Casino, a few miles east of Globe, which would put us within about a 90 minute drive north to our daughter’s home in Show Low, perfect for a day trip. But when we arrived, the convenience store that is also the office for the RV park was closed for several days, and when I went inside the casino to inquire about an RV site, nobody seemed to know anything, or offer much help.

This attitude of indifference reminded me of what I had come to know as the norm on the White Mountain Apache Reservation, which is the neighbor to our old hometown of Show Low. The Apaches are never rude, they just let you know that you’re welcome to come to their casino and spend your money, or pay to fish in their lakes, but don’t expect much in the way of hospitality.

I finally found a security guard who told me that they were “probably” full, and even if we could find an open site, he had no idea if we could stay or not, or how much it would cost us. He did say we could dry camp a night or two for free out by the highway in several long spaces reserved for eighteen wheelers, but when I asked him about security in the area, he just shrugged. We just did not feel comfortable leaving the motorhome unattended there while we went to Show Low. I guess that’s a holdover from our burglary last month. We have no fear dry camping anywhere within reason, but leaving the rig like that, with no RV neighbors nearby, just didn’t feel good.

We were only about 70 miles from Apache Junction, where Terry’s parents live, and our ultimate destination, so we decided to just drive the rest of the way in and find an RV park where we can get a monthly space, and then drive the van to Show Low in a day or three.

There was a lot of road construction on U.S. Highway 60 between Globe to Miami that was pretty much stop and go  traffic, but once we got through that it was an easy drive the rest of the way. The Winnebago performed well coming through the mountains, and the 7% climbs and the trip back down into the Valley of the Sun was no problem with our Cummins diesel engine and exhaust brake. We arrived at the Elks lodge in Apache Junction and took a dry camping spot with several other RVs, and a beautiful  view out our windshield of the Superstition Mountains. 

Once we were settled in, we drove over to Terry’s parents’ house and had a nice reunion with them, and I  know they were sure happy to see her. It had been a long day, so when we left them, we stopped for a quick dinner and got back to the RV tired and ready for bed. Before we began our fulltime RV adventure, Arizona was our home, and it’s good to be back.

We have a lot of friends and subscribers who want to get together, and by the time we got back to the Elks lodge, I had eight e-mails from people wanting to get together today or tomorrow. We’ll try to do some visting once we get caught up a bit. But the next few days will be devoted to finding an RV park, washing a couple thousand miles of road grime off our Winnebago and van, and then family time. We’ll be in the Apache Junction area for over a month, and we’re looking forward to some down time.

Thought For The Day – Live in the possibility rather than the probability.

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