Jerome, Quartzite and Las Vegas

Today is Thursday,1-10-08, and we drove to Jerome, AZ for the day. Jerome is a living Ghost Town. The current population is 329, but at its peak it had a population of 25,000; therefore, it is considered a Ghost Town. The reason for Jerome’s existence is the discovery of gold, however, the main mine ended up producing 397,000 tons of copper, 221 tons of silver and 5 ½ tons of gold. Today it is a tourist town with many antique and artist gallery shops. There is a State Park in town with a museum, but it was closed for some construction work, so we will have to visit again some other time. You can not really tell from the pictures, but the terrain is so steep that mothers would tie ropes around their children so that if they started to fall down the mountain they would not go very far down the hill. Now that’s living on the edge.
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Cave Creek Regional Park has an old Clay Mine that Sandy and I hiked up to. We found out it was originally excavated for gold, but no gold was found so a lady decided to sell the clay sediment mixed as an elixir. It turned out the only thing it worked for was Dysentery, but that was enough to let her relatives reap the profits to this day.
In the afternoon we were sitting outside enjoying the weather and a covey of Quail were milling around behind us. They are always so much fun to watch as the scurry around.












On Thursday the we drove to Quartzite, AZ to see the Big Tent and RV show that so many RVers attend this time of year. The only available places to camp were all "dry camping" which means no hook-ups. It was extremely dusty where we parked because there were no paved roads. We went to the Tyson Wells Flea Market on Friday. We usually don't do flea markets, but we did buy a couple of thing. Saturday was the first day the Big Tent and RV Show was open, so we spent the day there. The whole area was something we wanted to see, but I do not we think we need to go back there again.




We left Quartzite on Sunday the 20th and drove up to Lake Havasu City on AZ highway 95 on the east side of the Colorado River. In Lake Havasu City we stayed at the Crazy Horse Campground. We ended up in the second row, but lucked out in that there were two open sites in front of us, so we had a fairly good view of Lake Havasu.



Lake Havasu City is where the original London Bridge was moved to. I understand that when it was rebuilt here it ended up about 100 feet shorter than the original length.






On the way up to Lake Havasu City we passed by the Parker Dam. Trucks and RVs are not allowed on the dam road, so on Monday we drove back down in our car to see what is the deepest dam in the world with some 235 feet buried in the ground.





















The Bill Williams National Wildlife Refuge is located just above the dam.







Today, Tuesday the 22nd, we drove up Highway 95 to Las Vegas, NV to visit with some former neighbors from Apple Valley. Later in the evening we went to the downtown area and quickly lost $65 between us in the slot machines. Fremont Street is covered with a large TV screen on which light shows are put on each hour in the evening.


Our friends, Dick and Shirley, came over early Wednesday afternoon to visit before we went to lunch and take in a show with them. We really had a good time reminiscing about the old days and friends in the old neighborhood. Earlier, they had given us a DVD of old videos of some of the gatherings we had in the past. It was funny to see the old clothes and hairdos (for those who used to have hair back then). For lunch we took in the buffet at the Rio and then went to Hooters and to see Bobby Slayton, a stand up comic and was pretty good.
The next day we spent walking around the casinos. It has been over 25 years since I was last here and has it ever changed. In the evening we went to the Bellagio to see the Cirque du Soleil show “O”. “O” comes from the French word “eau” for water, so the show has a water theme with a 25 foot deep pool that they perform with. It was a very good show and would recommend it if you get to Las Vegas. This is a show that Sandy and her girlfriends were coming to see on 9-13-01, but as you can guess from the date, their trip was cancelled. When they got rescheduled to come in November, they were not able to get tickets, so this was on Sandy’s list of shows to see. Here are some pictures standing in front of the Bellagio with a view of their fountains and a night picture of the Eiffel Tower at the Paris Casino.



Dick and Shirley have a jewelry shop here in Las Vegas, so this morning, Friday, we took the opportunity to visit the store. When we left the RV resort we noticed a huge column of black smoke coming from the Strip area. As we were driving up to see Dick and Shirley we stopped and took the following picture of the fire at the Monte Carlo Hotel and Casino. Thankfully no one was hurt.

After visiting with them some we went back to the Strip for lunch and went to The Mirage to see the Danny Gans show. He is “the man of many voices,” part impressionist, part comedian, and part singer. The first few minutes got off to a slow start, but then picked up and was well worth the time and $$’s to see.

Today, Saturday, was a day that we changed our schedule. Dick and Shirley had given us some free tickets to us at show Downtown, but yesterday while eating lunch(seems we are doing too much of that) at a buffet, we overheard some people talking about a show they had gone to and really enjoyed. Sandy asked them which show that was. It turned out to be the Cirque du Soleil show "The Beatles Love". Now, Sandy was a Beatles freak back in her early days, and even gone saw their concert in Minneapolis in 1965. Since I knew this, I had asked earlier if she wanted to see it and she said "no", however, after hearing the people talking about it we decided to see if we could get tickets. When we got to the box office all they had for this night's show was for the 10:00 show (too late for us), but they did have some single seats for the 7:30 show. We ended up with two seats in front of each other on the aisle and they turned out to be some of the best seats in the house. Another show to see if you are in town and like the Beatles. More $$$’s spent.

It’s been raining on and off all night. This morning, Sunday, they said Las Vegas had about ½ inch so far. Sandy is washing clothes and I am updating the Diary and Blog. After Dick and Shirley close their store today, they are coming by to take us out to the Palms for supper. Tomorrow we are heading back to Phoenix with a stop a Lake Havasu City for a couple of days.

Spent Christmas back home, now back to Arizona

Remember: you can click on the images to enlarge them.


It's time for a little update. As you know from our last post, we decided to go back home for Christmas and New Years. We had time to visit with some of our friends in Lakeville, Apple Valley and, most importantly, our families in Staples and Aberdeen. We also had a chance to visit with our friends at Fure Financial who are helping us to afford living this lifestyle.

We spent the 23rd, 24th and 25th in Staples with Dave's family. Glen and Becky had everyone over for Christmas dinner and it was fun to see our nieces and nephew with their families all at the same time. On the 26th we drove to Aberdeen to be with Sandy's family. Sandy's mom served a big meal for us and Sandy's sister, Cindy, and her husband, John. John's brother, David, also joined us. He had come from Ohio to spend Christmas with Cindy and John so it was nice to see him again after many years. Now we're going to have to hit the hiking trails to wear off some of that holiday food we ate.


South Dakota was very foggy and the trees were always covered with a beautful coating of frost. It looked just like a picture on a Christmas card.








We drove back to Apple Valley and stayed with our friends, Pat and John. We spent New Years Eve at their house eating fondue and playing cards with our friends, Donna and Jerry. On January 3rd Jerry picked us up at 5:00 AM and took us to the Minneapolis airport for our flight back to Phoenix.

Jane picked us up at the airport and took us to get our motorhome out of storage. Now we're back in our favorite spot in Cave Creek Campground. It's been raining quite a bit again the past week, so on Sunday the 8th, we went to the Cave Creek Museum for a few hours. This area has been the site of many mining ventures as well as cattle and sheep ranching. This is also where the Apaches made one of their last strongholds.






The museum has a large collection of Native American pottery dating back over 2,500 years.






After the museum we took a short drive up to the Spur Cross Ranch Conservation Area which was formerly a large cattle ranch. We just took a quick look to see if we should come back on a nicer day, which we will. On the way back we had to slow down to a crawl on the road. It seems the Coyotes around here don't have much to fear.(Foxhunter, maybe you need to make a quick trip done here to wake these guys up.) Foxhunter is my fishing buddy, Terry, and he may reply in the comment area to the Carp King, that's me--Dave.



Now that the rain has stopped the skies are clear blue. All this rain has made this part of the desert foothills so lush and green. This should make for beautiful wildflowers this spring!






We thought we would add something at the end of each of our Blogs. We will try to have a plants, trees or something of interest that we have seen. The first one is the Senita Cactus, AKA Old Man Cactus.

That's all for now.

Dave and Sandy

Where does this road lead?

At 7PM on December 4th Jane called and asked Sandy if she would like to accompany her to Denver for a few days. They would be leaving at 8AM the next morning. Sandy thought about it for a couple of minutes and said "sure, what else do I have going on to keep me here. It's time for another adventure." Poor Dave, guess I will just have to survive on my own (Pizza Hut here I come).

On Friday the 7th while Sandy was gone, I made a trip to a Flea Market out by Apache Junction. The place is advertised as having over 1600 vendors. That may be a stretch, but there sure were a lot of them. It was both a mission to pick up a gadget up for a friend and a sight seeing trip. Now John has his needs filled for a few years. (3 items for $2.00 and 114 miles-- what a bargain!) But then, what are friends for.

Sandy and Jane came back today (12-8-07). They had a good time, and Sandy got to see some snow. It must have made her feel like she was back home in Minnesota. Her daughter's home is in the mountains west of Denver and a large elk herd grazes regularly all through the area. One evening the house was surrounded by elk--what a sight to see!

Last year when Sandy and I went to San Diego we spent a night near Dateland, AZ. Dates are grown there including the delicious Medjool variety. We bought some then and wished we have gotten more, so Sandy and I decided to take a short drive back down to Dateland and pickup some more of those good dates.

On the 12th, Sandy and I drove up to Wickenburg. On the way up we stopped at Lake Pleasant Campground to check it out for the future. They have good paved sites and also have a boat landing where I might be able to try out the Port-A-Boat. We then continued up to Wickenburg and had lunch. From there we decided to run up to Prescott, but on the way Sandy spotted Stanton Ghost Town on the map, so off we went following the GPS. When we pulled off the highway there was a sign "Primative Road - Mininum Maintenance". That should have been the first clue. The road looked pretty decent to start with until we got to Stanton. We did not find much of a ghost town, but there were lots of campers looking for gold. Turns out there are gold claims around the area north of town going towards Yarnell. As we headed towards Yarnell we saw some signs “CLAIMS FOR SALE”.
"Where does this road lead?" "Where does THIS road lead?"
After Sandy had several near heart attacks, I decided I should stay clear of the shoulder.
"WHERE DOES THIS ROAD LEAD?"






We finally made it to Yarnell and back onto a real road. Had we started our journey at the other end of the road, I'm sure we would have abandoned that trip and stayed on the main highway.

On the way back home Jane called and said they had just picked up a new puppy. It is a Standard Poodle, 4 months old and weighs 50 pounds. So the next day we stopped over at their house to check out the new puppy. He came with the name of MoJo.





That evening Ron and Jane came over for supper and we had some more discussion on MoJo’s name. It seems there is a sexual connotation to MoJo so now it's a hunt for a new name. Friday we went back to Jane's and continued the mission of picking a new name for "The Dog formally known as MOJO". Many names were discussed such as Jack, Montana, Rocky, Winston etc., but no agreement was made.

On the 15th, Sandy and I went for a ride up I-17 to Flagstaff. The temperature in Flagstaff was 29 degrees at 1:00PM and they had about 1 1/2 feet of new snow, so I got to see snow for the first time this year. We sure had a nice view of Humphreys Peak (12,633 ft) coming up the I-17.













On the way back we took highway 89A through Sedona, Cottonwood and Jerome.










On Wednesday the 19th we flew into the Twin Cities to spend the holiday season with family and friends. Minneapolis has quite a bit of snow. After we got settled in we went to eat at TGIF’s. When we came out into the damp cold, Sandy said “now I remember why we went south for the winter” and it was only 20 degrees outside. (warm by Minnesota standards)

On Thursday Sandy and I went down to Dave's former company and took some treats for their morning break. We had a good visit with everyone. In the evening we met up with Dale and Mary Jane for supper at The Green Mill and ended up spending 2½ hours visiting. We're hoping the roads will be good for traveling but we've had freezing rain and snow.

Blogging in the DESERT!!!

Some Blog in the DESERT!!!








While some read.





It’s been a couple weeks so we guess it’s time to update the Blog.
We spent the 16th & 17th of November in Benson, AZ to do a little sight seeing. We toured Kartchner Caverns which are about 89 miles southeast of Tucson. The caverns are still alive because of the precautions taken when developing for tourism. Two tours are available. We took the one that is only open from October 15th to April 15th. Bats return to this part of the cavern to give birth and raise their young (pups) during the rest of the year. This is a cave that is well worth the time to see.
Later we went down to Tombstone and took in the sights. And, of course, we had to take in the "Gun Fight at the OK Corral". Admission included a small museum so we spent some time going through it. Just after we got started going through the museum a guy in costume came over and spent the better part of an hour giving us a private tour and colorful insight on the local area.

We felt he appreciated someone taking the time to read about the historical events and artifacts rather than running in to just to see the show. He provided a whole new perspective on the harsh and often cruel life of the lawless wild days in the old western mining towns. We think we saw him a few days later on TV narrating a short on the Encore Western Channel. You now, all them Cowboys look alike. We then spent some time walking around the streets and old buildings of Tombstone.


On the 18th we headed up to Cave Creek Recreational Area Campground just north of Phoenix to visit our friends Ron and Jane. Cave Creek Campground is a county park with lots of space between campsites. They invited us to their home for Thanksgiving to have dinner with their family. Thanks to Ron and Jane for inviting us to share a great dinner with some great friends.


In the evening you can watch the sun set and listen to the coyotes howl. Then in the morning, we watch the sunrise. Yes, Heather, there is a sunrise (private family joke) and watch the Quail and an occasional coyote run through in the brush.


Lately, we have not been doing much other than sharing some time with Ron and Jane. Ron and I have been spending some time working on their Lazy Daze motorhome installing See-Level tank gauges and a Link 10 battery monitor. We survived the big rain storm that dumped 3 inches of rain a couple days ago. Flash flood warnings were in effect overnight so we were glad to find ourselves firmly on solid ground in the morning.
We have made arrangements to fly back home for Christmas and New Years. We must miss the snow and cold. We're anxious to see family and friends again, but we'll also be glad to return to sunny Arizona again.

Dave and Sandy.

Well, we are finally in Arizona

Well, we are finally in Arizona. After leaving home on Wednesday the 7th of November, we had three one night stands. Or is it we stopped at three different towns before getting to getting to Amarillo, TX. The first three nights were at West Omaha, NE, Millford, KS and Enid, OK. Along the way we stopped to see a Pony Express station and Museum in
Marysville, KS. However, after driving around for about one-half hour to find a parking place for the motor home and walking four blocks to the museum, we found it closed for the season. Too bad because it sure looked like it would be interesting.
















Once we got to Amarillo we spent five days there and took time to see some of the local sights. On Monday we took a little drive along Route 66 thru town. It turned out there were about 90 horse statues placed through out the area. Each horse was uniquely painted much like the Snoopy statues in St. Paul a few years ago. Here are some examples:





On Tuesday we went to the “Panhandle Plains Historical Museum” with the idea that we would also go to the Palo Duro Canyon State Park. After spending 6 ½ hours in the museum we decided to go to the park the next day. This is the biggest historical museum in Texas. It was very interesting and well laid out. Anyone who enjoys history could spend the better part of two days there.




















On Wednesday we went to the Palo Duro Canyon State Park. This is the second largest canyon in the USA. Some areas are 2500 feet deep with beautiful red rock formations.
















We passed through Roswell NM, without seeing any UFOs. Last night we stayed in Alamogordo, NM. When we got up this morning we watched a covey of about 50-100 Quail scurrying through the desert brush looking for food. It was amazing how fast they move around and stay in their little groups.

Tonight we are staying in Benson, AZ about 40 miles SE of Tucson. We will spend a couple of days here before heading over to the Phoenix area to spend some time with our friends Ron and Jane.

By the way, Jane, we thought you said keeping up this blog would be a snap.

We have made the move and are on our way

Dear Family and Friends.

Dave and Sandy have an ANNOUNCEMENT.

This past year has brought some major changes to our lives. Dave retired on 12-31-06 (Sandy had retired in 1998) and in January we started a coast-to-coast trip of the southern US in our Lazy Daze Class C motor home. After our return to Minnesota on March 30th we started getting ready for a trip we had planned to the Pacific Northwest with our friends, Ron and Jane, from Scottsdale AZ. Between the two trips we made a life changing decision.

We had been looking for a smaller town home for the last couple of years with the knowledge that we would be spending our winters somewhere in warmer climates. With that in mind, we decided to sell our house and our Lazy Daze motor home shown below.















We put our town home on the market on June 12th and left for our trip to the Pacific Northwest on June 20th. Being aware of the slow housing market, we looked forward to a relaxing trip with our friends. Well, our house sold on June 28th with closing scheduled for August 31st. Upon our return home on August 3rd we had a lot of work to get done by the 31st. We had a huge moving sale and moved out of our house on August 29th with a lot of help from our friends. We wouldn’t have been able to do it without their help.















THIS IS OUR NEW HOME. We have gone from a 4,000 SF town home to a 450 SF motor home. It’s a 42 foot Tiffin Allegro Bus diesel pusher. For the past 2 months we’ve been very busy getting settled in our new small space and, so far, we’re still on speaking terms. We’ll leave for Arizona in early November and return to Minnesota in April. Jane, our friend from AZ, set us up on a blog site when we were with them on our summer vacation. We can make no promises, but we will TRY to update it every couple of weeks to keep you posted on our new life adventure.


Best wishes to all of you,

Dave and Sandy

SELLING OUR LAZY DAZE AND HEADING HOME

We left Spokane, WA on the 27th and made it into Redding, CA on the 28th. We spent the rest of the 28th, 29th and the morning of the 30th cleaning the RV and packing the GMC Envoy for the trip back. Ann and Rod from the LA area had bought the Lazy Daze before we left on the trip contingent on inspection at the time of delivery. All went well and they picked it up on July 30th.

Mount Shasta is just north of Redding and still had plenty of snow even though it was 100 degrees in Redding.

We Started for home after we made the deal. The Envoy was loaded to the gills. I even taped the tailgate handle so I would not absent mindedly open it.

Had to remove stuff to get to the cooler. I drove all the way home because if we moved the seat for Sandy to drive we knew we would

not get it moved back for me to drive.

We spent August 1st in a motel in Cheyenne, WY and when we turned on the TV they were reporting on the I-35W bridge collapse.What a terrible thing to have happened.

August 8th was a big day for us as we picked up our 42 foot Tiffin Allegro Bus from Kings Campers in Wausau, WI. 

This turned out to be our home for the next two years before we bought a house again. In that time we met many people who we are glade to call friends today. 

Having a chair to sit in is the only thing we miss in the RV we have today, well maybe Sandy misses the washer and dryer.

Here are a couple pictures of us starting to load up the Tiffin.

Now it's on to a new adventure, full-time RV'ing.

Until next time,

Dave and Sandy