From desert Boondocking, to SKP parks

Kofa Ko-op SKP Park, the next stop, in Yuma.

   On Valentine’s day we pulled into the no-frills boondock parking. This is the closest we have been parked to other RVs and surprisingly it didn’t feel cramped. Maybe because everyone is so friendly! This is a small but nice park with a pool and hot tub. We got in on the Valentine’s Day Dance that evening which was quite fun. We met some great people and I got to dance a bunch. I even got in on the line dancing and pretended I knew what I was doing!

   The next day we went with some new friends to the Arizona Market which is a series of vendor booths set up under a permanent roof. It was a step up from what we saw in Quartzsite and we had fun browsing through the shops. I even found a couple of dresses that made their way into my wardrobe and Jerry acquired a tiny fan to go in the RV fridge.

  That evening after having our own little jam session with the clubhouse piano (and my recorder and BethAnn’s mountain dulcimer and violin), we then moved on to our rig to play cards—Hearts, of course! The next day I had an ‘off’ day with tummy ickies and spent most of it in bed. Happily I was much better the next day which was good since we were off again to North Ranch SKP Park between Congress and Wickenburg.

Methuselah is home to lots of birds.

The name of this large Saguaro!

   Finding the boondocking area at North Ranch not to my liking, we were pleased to find we could get a hook-up site and so we moved. Later that day I discovered we were plunked right down in the middle of some our Boomers group (originally met at Quartzsite) and saw some familiar faces! We enjoyed chatting with them at the Boomers 4:00 Happy Hour.

   North Ranch has deeded lots rather than lease lots. It was very interesting to walk around and look at all the different things that people had done from full houses to just an empty lot with RV hookups and all kinds of variety in between. There were some pretty amazing RV garages or covered areas, some had upper story decks. Easy to get in more walking than expected with so much to look at! And they have this fabulous cactus garden where I took bunches of pictures. One Saguaro dated back to 1600! It was home to many birds and the bird chatter and song around it was fun to hear.

   The next day we went into Wickenburg and went first to the Library (a very nice one!) in order to get some internet and catch up on things. Turns out AT&T has no towers near North Ranch, so we didn’t have any internet at the rig. We drove around Wickenburg a little and poked our noses into a few stores and headed back in time for me to join a Hand and Foot game in the evening. It’s the first time I have had a chance to play that game for years! Great fun and good comradery.

Big trees!

Jerry bearly gets away from the shopping!

   On Friday we drove up (and I mean UP!) to Prescott to see Jerry and Trudy Hokensen. The road up into the mountains was curve after curve after curve. Happily, there is another way that we took back home which was much better. We ate lunch with them in this very cute, very Western themed diner, then did some window shopping in Downtown Prescott. There are lots of great stores there, and someday I want to go back and spend more time checking them out! After being in small towns and out in the desert so much, it was exciting to at least see some familiar big box stores and some nice upscale shops.

Jerry and Trudy

    We had originally thought to leave on Saturday, but Jerry and Trudy decided to come see us at North Ranch, so we happily put it off a day. They trusted their GPS and ended up going around the mountain which took way longer and involved 20 miles on a dirt road, but we had a nice visit anyway.

    While waiting for them, I had a very relaxing day puttering around my little home. It was so nice to have hookups so I could run my food dehydrator which is a problem on the solar panels since it has to run for so long and daylight runs out before I’m done. I got caught up on several things (including laundry in their very nice laundry room) and it felt pretty luxurious to be able to use however much power I needed and not have to make the water stretch quite so far. I wondered if we would get spoiled!

    On Sunday we moved to Casa Grande (south of Phoenix) to the RoVers Roost SKP Park to check that one out. It is the first Escapee park built and is small but with a nice atmosphere, very welcoming people and while they don’t have a pool (North Ranch doesn’t, either) Jerry says the jogging is good there as the desert ground there is soft dirt instead of rocks. And we had internet there. I found the piano to be nice and the showers also. Of course getting in on Hand-KNEE-and-Foot (another variation of the game) was great fun.

   Only two nights here before heading off to Estrella War, but I’ll save that week for another post.