Can We Move, Please? Some Warmth Returns but the Day Takes a Turn for the Worse

Pilot Knob RV Resort, Winterhaven, CA

On Wednesday, Feb. 5^th I tried the ‘slip out of bed quietly maneuver’ but even a mouse couldn’t do it without waking the sleeping beauty beside me. He stirred and got up just a few minutes after me. I slept well all night, not waking until 6 am. It was another coolish night below 50F but we are hoping for a bit of a warm up today. Weather folk promising sunshine and 63F. 😊

The start of our day was bright and beautiful
although under cloud covered skies

 Bill and I had another hope this morning too. The rv’er on Site 79 is scheduled to pull out today. That means we can pull in. We want to move. We’re crammed in here along the fence like sardines and we have no cement patio, neighbours we don’t converse with and certainly less room here. The only bonus is the back window view of the desert, sunrise and sunset. I can walk to see those same things though from our other site.

There is something special about a cloudy sunrise and sunset, isn't there?

We did our 1 ½ mile walk and it felt very cold with the ever-present winds again. Today is the last day for those too, fingers crossed. I made my tea and when the office opened at 9, Bill went up and confirmed our move. Then we just had to pull slides in and wait.  Finally, at 2 minutes to check out time, they left. We just had to jig around the corner and claim our site. Sounds easy. Bill hooked up, did the tug test (pulling ahead with front jacks down to make sure it is locked and loaded – so to speak) and I started walking over to 79.

While waiting for our site to be vacated
this caught my eye
Now, do you really think that little car can pull that Mountain Aire?
Funny, how it looks.

When I heard the noise, it wasn’t good news. We’re not sure exactly how or why, but the hitch pin didn’t catch. The Suite dropped onto the truck rails and the pin box rammed the tail gate. Our neighbor, Jim, on the end site came down to help. Bill was able to reconnect and he pulled around and backed into our spot. With borrowed blocks from Jim, Bill raised the Suite enough to get the pin over the crumpled tail gate.

Black Beauty is hurting today

This is not a pretty sight

 Right now, we’re both feeling sick to our stomach. With 2 crushed rails and a totaled tail gate, we are feeling pretty beaten down. Jim helped Bill get the gate off, where it will stay until replaced with a new one. We finished setting up and Bill drove up to report our move to #79. After a quick set up with the satellite, I made us eggs and sausage for breakfast or rather lunch. It was noon hour. The sun is brilliant today but the strong winds are forcing the temperature to hold around 58/60F.

There's no fixing this tail gate

I finished setting up inside and did the dishes while Bill fired off an email of the damages with pictures to our insurance company. Nothing else we can do at this point. We tell ourselves that it could have been worse but that isn’t always easy to focus on. Bill is really bummed. The position of our Suite is different than it was before but neither of us feel like doing anything about it. We are parked closer to the tree and the patio but we’ll deal with it just as it is.

The drop has also cracked the fibreglass on the nose cap of the Suite

At my suggestion, we put our large patio mat on the gravel at the edge of the cement pad and that will extend our seating area. Not that we need it necessarily but we might! Bill stretched out in his recliner and dozed off. I’m glad because he isn’t worrying when in dreamland. I got my 3 new balls of wool out and pulled up the pattern for a sweater I found a few days ago. I hope I am successful; it would be good for 3 seasons. I wasn’t in the mood to start it though.

sitting at Happy Hour, a little rodent (gopher, prairie dog?)
was driving Ken nuts
He disappeared when I got my camera out and refused to make any
more appearances
It was cute watching him throw dirt up out of the hole

Kim texted around 2 to see if we were up for a Happy Hour today after our upsetting morning. Heck ya! Even more so than usual! Ha ha. So, at 3, we put some drinks in a cooler and walked up to their site. 

Black Beauty without her tailgate
is looking saddened

I dressed for outside and that is where we all stayed. The sun was nice and by 4ish the wind began dying down. It needed to. We walked back home at 5 and settled in our recliners for a bit before supper. I know I dozed off for a few minutes.

The sun set through our tree

We still had chili left, enough for one more meal so I reheated that. Bill wanted his with toast so made that himself. I had a salad on the side. 

A good hearty meal tonight

As I was eating, I felt discomfort on my upper right tooth. I believe it is my wisdom tooth and I realize that it is loose. What the? Nothing like things happening in threes. First, Bill’s dental issues. Then the truck damage and now my tooth. I knew that at some point my wisdom tooth would have to come out but I didn’t expect it this year.

Stunning

Oh my! No words necessary tonight

I’ll have to call in the morning for an appointment with Dr. Eva. I sure hope it isn’t going to be too costly. LOL We got the dishes done and then got into our books. The sky was beautiful tonight just after sunset so I had to run out and get a couple of pictures. It wasn’t a great day but we are still here, still healthy and happy. Bill received word back from Wayfarer’s (our ins. Co.) and he will chat with them in the morning. A quick response like that is exactly what we needed to get.

The good news is that we got moved to our new site
We are very happy about that
Good night y'all!

Thank you for stopping in to see what we’ve been up to. Tomorrow will be a better day.

Jacks Up, Wheels Down, Sunny Drive Further South, Collages of the Day

Quail Ridge RV Resort, Huachuca City, Arizona

Last pictures of Elephant Butte L.S.P
Goodbye little bunny 

 Bill and I were both up by 6:30, in and out of the shower with our first drinks by 7 on Monday, Dec. 2^nd. We didn’t take the time to read blogs this morning. I didn’t go for my walk either. My choice, I wanted a shower instead. We shared my two cinnamon rolls from yesterday and packed the cooler with fruit and snack bars for the road. We’d planned to pull out between 8 – 8:30.

Au Revoir, sunrises
this one from out our dirty window

Everything inside was done and at 7:30 Bill went outside to take down the satellite dish. We had a neighbor pull in with a small Camp-Lite trailer. She was alone and seemed to be having trouble disconnecting. You know the rest of the story. Of course, Bill went over to assist which delayed our departure for about 10 minutes. We noticed Bob and Jo-Anne were hooking up soon after 7:30 and so I texted that we weren’t ready and why.

Jo-Anne and Bob wait for us to catch up

They went ahead before 8 to the dump station. I guess they were in a hurry to get out of here! Ha ha Unfortunately, they had to wait about 20 minutes and we joined them by 8:30 after dumping tanks at Desert Cove Loop. It is a gorgeous sunny day and a calm (as shown by the American flag) 37F day. I know we are going to warmer temperatures even though we will still be around the 4,400’ elevation mark.

Such a calm day - all day

Goodbye Pat's
You need to lower your gas prices!!!

Leaving Elephant Butte L.S.P. where today’s high will be 55F/12C and Huachuca City, AZ will be 64F/18C when we arrive. Yay! Yay! Double Yay! (which is 4 Yays). 

Some rugged scenery along the way

We caught I-25S without going through T or C although that would have been a bit shorter. Who cares about a few miles if you are avoiding traffic?  We drove the 40 minutes taking the exit to Deming and Hatch. I used the walkie to prepare Jo-Anne for entering Hatch, The Chile Capitol of the World. She had her camera ready.

Bill and I have driven through often but other than on our way through stopping for fuel or lunch 2 weeks ago, we haven’t done the tourist thing. We turned the corner and pulled over on Main St. (NM-26) Jo-Anne was as excited as I was to be able to go into a couple of their shops. I’ve never seen so many chilis in one place. This was a fun stop and Bill and I got a great idea for something we’re doing back home. I picked up a Christmas ornament for our tree and Bill found a hanging chime.

The owner of one shop said
We put chili's on everything but our Corn Flakes!
They had some pretty hot chili powder labelled "Warning, beware, Ghost chilis"
and I thought of our friend, George :)

I had to take a picture of this pretty ladies room in a Hatch
gift shop/restaurant

Somewhere along the way, we stopped for fuel, I guess it was at Deming. How nice to have 2 pumps out front marked specifically RV Pumps. We’ve never seen that before. We weren’t that low but knew we needed it before our destination. 

Some Arizona scenes
Snow covered mountains a way off in the distance, looking closer than they are
pretty overpass decorations

Getting close to Benson, we pulled off at the beautiful Rest Area (the one with the naturally stacked rocks). I told Jo-Anne not to sneeze as we left it as it might jiggle those rocks. They are amazing! We always wonder how they stay up there. 

That stop was at 1:30 and 10 minutes later we were back on the road with only 35 minutes to go. We all managed to survive through the lunch hour with our bars, fruit and nuts. Supper might be early though. 

It wasn’t far from there to get to the park and soon we were turning right onto Hwy. 82 and left into Quail Ridge RV & Mobile Home Resort. Bill and I went in to check in with the gals in the office and Jo-Anne came to check in Big Red as well.

As we got closer to our destination, I noticed the spec in the sky
You should be able to see the Border surveillance blimp in each photo
It has also been called a Tethered Aerostat Radar System (TARS)
There are 5 other states where the blimps are tethered
and in case you wondered, yes, one came down in high winds in 2011
in a Sierra Vista neighbourhood

The good news is that although we are in different rows, they are right behind (or in front of, depending how you look at it) us so very close for connecting while here. We do plan on a few excursions together in and around the area, we just need to figure out which days work best for which locations. We’ll chat in the morning about that. We were both all set up by 2:30 or 3 and we were lucky again to get enough of a satellite connection for many channels.

Bill tried to slow down as we turned in so I could get this picture
sorry for the blur

 Bob, unfortunately, with his dish on the roof, has not had luck since we crossed into the U.S. There seems to be an issue with his dish because, we can only assume, of a new upgrade in September after they’d purchased this system. I’m probably not describing it properly but bottom line is that they have borrowed our dvd binder and are watching a lot of movies right now. After things were set up, Bill and I had a bit of cheese, I had celery and a handful of pork rinds.

Our site on the west side of the park
where we've never parked before
We both like this spot 

We sat outside for a bit until around 4:30 Jo-Anne and Bob were taking Higgins for a walk around the park so we joined them. The air was cooling down from the lovely 66F we had in the full sun upon arrival. We can see the ‘blimp’ over Sierra Vista off in the distance, actually seemingly hovering over Big Red. There have been a few A-10 jets (I think that is what Bill called them) flying over too so this could be an entertaining ‘flight’ path too.

Our friends are behind us
The sites are long pull throughs

Our friends, Deb and DJ are still here in the park as permanent residents. We met the Grays’ in 2016 and then connected again in 2017 on our return. We will be looking them up one evening for a quick visit before moving on this Sunday. They are a younger couple, still in the work force so not home during the daytime hours. When we returned from our walk, I warmed up the chili I actually remembered to take out of the freezer this morning. We had some toast, in our new toaster, on the side and some creamed Jell-o for dessert. We’d forgotten to turn the hot water heater on so dishes had to wait for a bit.

The permanent sites are nicely decorated
and people get very creative with their available resources
This low fence is made from eaves trough aluminum and rocks
wrapped in wire for the posts

In the meantime, I wrote on my post and updated my record book for all of our purchases. I do it month by month and hadn’t written up anything beyond November. How slack of me! With that done, I turned The Voice on downstairs and Bill moved upstairs to the other tv. We don’t see each other much in the evenings during Hallmark movie time but it is only a short period of time and we are both content with that.

At Elephant Butte, I only saw sunrises
Here, I'll capture more sunsets, I think

We walked the perimeter of the park together before it got dark

Jo-Anne and I were amazed at this living
tree (?) with its roots above the ground

This has been a good driving day and we arrived safely mid-afternoon with an extra 10 degrees added to our daytime high. This is a nice membership park that is also open to the public. We are all staying for a very decent rate of $13/night. That includes an electricity surcharge. 

this picture is for George and Suzie
A new addition to Quail Ridge, where the chefs serve ribs on Wednesdays
and other options during the week
I'm sure you would have enjoyed their offerings
We'll check them out while here

Meanwhile, it is only Monday, so we had homemade chili tonight

We won’t be in the park too much with all of our goings on but it will be quite comfortable here. We are anticipating more friends arriving on Wednesday but that is their story.

Goodnight from Huachuca City, AZ

Thank you for stopping by

Heading Further East with a Southern Jog, Family Birthday, Moving Day Back Home

We were awake at 6 and up a few minutes later on Saturday, Mar. 9^th. We had our tea and I noted the cool (cold!) 41F/4C temperature on our weather station. Brrr.  I didn’t plan on walking anyway, we wanted to move as soon as we were all ready.  We had toast and hit the road minutes before 8. Clemson had been up through the night so he had to be woken and dressed at 7:45.

And from Brownfield, the sun gave me a lovely show

Good morning!

I put his sweater and his harness on and popped him in the truck after his morning constitution. He probably wondered ‘what the heck, Mom?’ A couple of things back home worth mentioning today. First, Happy Birthday to my daughter-in-law, Chaela. I hope it is a great one for her. 

Happy Birthday, Chaela

Second, my daughter, Bridgette and Chris move into their new home! We are both so excited for them after each selling their homes in record time. Good luck you two!

Bridgette and Chris
taking the beautiful plunge of moving into a 'new' home together

And this is the equally beautiful home they just bought
We are dying to see it!

We are blessed again with a lovely clear sky for travel. The winds got really wild last night and even worse around 2:30 where some rain fell for about 5 minutes and they reached around 35 mph. 

Rob started out leading today since he's been to our destination before

Then it seemed to stop and we went back to sleep. We do have a windy day, but nothing like that and it is a tail wind for most of the day's travel. That is a bonus for us! So, on US-380E the wind helped us with our gas mileage but on US-84S it wasn’t as kind, with sidewinds.

we were too close to get the whole sign
It was printed on a wind turbine blade

We took a couple of breaks along the route, rest areas to stretch our legs and then once on I-20E the wind was doing us favours again. Our mileage was great and we stopped at an Alon fuel station to top up once more and that should get us to our destination. The prices for diesel have bounced all over but nothing over $3/gal so we were happy campers. Literally. We pulled next door into an empty lot and had our lunches. It was 11:45 am.

We stopped here to eat our sandwiches for lunch
It is great when you can find spots like this

Once we got on the road again, our side of the highway was grooved. The sign said ‘textured pavement’, which we both got a chuckle out of. It was a new way for them to say ‘rough road’ in my book but Bill said back home we call it something different. Where I thought it was something done on purpose to slow traffic down, Bill thinks it is something to help the water runoff. Maybe we’re both right (or wrong).

Textured pavement
(and it was on the highway heading west also)

From I-20 we turned onto FM 4 (Farm Road) which is a two-lane highway again. It felt good to be off the Interstate for the rest of our journey and it was very much farm country with quite the variety of homes. At some points, we felt quite wealthy, looking at what some of the families were living in and then further down the road, some absolutely beautiful homes and properties making my jaw drop. 

This was a neat 2 lane highway
with many different views along the way

This is what we need at the Ridge entrance

Granbury's water tower

We enjoyed the twisting and turning drive as it took us through Lipan, Thorp Spring onto Avery Rd, US377N through Granbury and then onto TX-144 to Glen Rose and Tres Rios RV Park.

Destination and we were all ready to stop

This is one of our membership parks, we are in here under Coast to Coast which means we pay $10/night everything included. We have 30 amp, our choice, and were able to park beside Rob and Pat. This is the beginning of spring break here (and March break back home) so the park is packed with more rv’s and families coming in by the minute. Again, literally. We were aware of this but by staying for 2 weeks, we will still get a quiet week before we leave.

We have a nice quiet spot with lovely soft grass

 We were guided to our sites and the kind staffer helped us get our units (and other visitors) into the sites to the best advantage. We set up and were able to relax by 3. Well, Bill was still busy with his ‘toys’. The wind vane and the solar lights took longer. I sat outside with a wine cooler until he finished and then he joined me with his own drink. We sat in our shorts until the 80f temperatures dropped off to 74 and then moved inside.

And Rob and Pat next door with an equally nice site
We were tired but happy from the drive so had our own Happy Hours today

I know that it is still warm, very warm, but we were in the shade and I needed to either put more clothes on or go inside. Clemson wanted out so he and I took a long walk around the park. That is when I decided that we are in the best possible sites here on this lovely grass and away from the bulk of the families. I’m looking forward to walk more on my own or with someone other than a nosy little mutt. God love him but he sure sniffs a lot! 😊 

Lone Star Lodge where you can have breakfast, lunch or dinner

I took some pictures of the trail (down there) that I'll walk tomorrow

Back at the Suite, I started making something with ground beef. I didn’t really have a plan but started throwing onions and the spices required for a stroganoff into the fry pan after the meat had browned. I added sour cream and stirred it in. On the side I cooked some elbow macaroni and mixed it all together for a sloppy meal.  If Bill doesn’t like it, I won’t make it again, but sometimes Ketchup fixes anything! 

It looks to be a beautiful park from what I've seen
and I'm anxious to explore in the peaceful morning hours

When it came time to eat, I suggested a bun on the side. You know what? It didn’t taste half bad! We both enjoyed it and now have leftovers for another meal. Dishes were cleaned up shortly after 6. 

Tonight's supper
This was a made up recipe mostly and didn't taste too bad
I'm sure we've all done that!

I’m thinking of home again, at the end of this post. I wonder how my daughter made out with her move today. I’m sure she’s tired even though she says all she had to do today was pay big bucks and watch younger people lift her stuff. I got a kick out of that but I'm glad she hired someone to move her. I’ll talk to her tomorrow.

A couple of cherry (?) trees in blossom
spring is literally just around the corner

This has been a good day. We’ve moved another 350 miles to the east and the warmth followed us. We are in a beautiful park with trees and green grass. My sister, back home, would love it. On the drive today, I started a new crochet project. I think Clemson needs a new blanket. Here I am working on the first part ball of yarn so a good colour to start with.

Just getting started

I think we're going to enjoy our stay here
Good night all!

We’ll have a good night’s sleep with a window or two open tonight as it is only going down to 54F. I hope you’ve had a good day too.

Thankyou for stopping by today.