Yuma and Casa Grande

We made new friends at the rally and have plans to meet up again next summer with some of them. Right no it's time to think about moving on again to get closer to Casa Grande. Won't be long before we're back in Sundance for the winter!

The evenings had been getting cool in Albuquerque and heading south was in order. We overnighted in Las Cruces at a really nice park called the Hacienda RV Resort which was pricey at $45 a night but very clean and with lots of facilities. While we were there we called our old friend Jess who lives down the road in El Paso TX and we all went out for dinner at Cracker Barrel. We caught up on 2 years worth of news and the evening flashed by.

It was REALLY cold in Las Cruces down in the low 40's at night, so we decided to head to Yuma AZ for some RV accessory shopping and to warm up. The forecast was for 80's daytime and 60's at night there, much more to our taste.

Cold evenings in Las Cruces

Yuma has always been our “Go To” place for RV stuff as there are so many places there that specialize in RV related stuff. We were shocked then to find one of our favorites was gone. Al's RV seemed to always have what we needed, but when we got there the store was empty and locked up tight. There was no notice to say why. Another local store told us they couldn't make any money lately and had closed the business down. Our other favorite the Arizona Market Place was closed until November 1^st too and we didn't get the things we wanted.

Gene and Annette

So we went back to the campground (The Escapees KOFA Park) and caught up with laundry and other chores around the rig.

Celebrating 47 years together in Algadones Mexico

We posted on Facebook that we were in Yuma and our phone started ringing. Our friends Annette and Gene Stout from the Shanty Shakers in San Diego were also in Yuma. We all went down to Algadones across the border in Mexico and went for lunch and drinks to celebrate our 47^th wedding anniversary! It was so much fun catching up with all the news. The next day we all went for brunch and planned on dinner for our last night together before we head off to Casa Grande.

Shrimp La Diablo Algadones

Dinner was excellent and Annette was cleaning out their freezer prior to storing their rig for the winter, so she loaded up several bags of food for us to take home with us! We will be the stars of the snack table at our darts nights in Casa Grande for a couple of weeks.

The artists in Algadones will decorate anything, this is an insulated cup.

And then we were there in Casa Grande being welcomed at the gate, the office and around the park by people we've come to know over the last several years. Paul and Karen rolled up in their golf cart and we exchanged news, Mike dropped by and kindly gave us some beer he thought we'd like to try. Scott and Suzanne sent us a message that they'd be dropping by for a couple of days on their way somewhere.

It's like slipping on a familiar warm jacket when the temperature drops on an autumn day. That warm cozy feeling.

And then the activities to keep us busy. The Plein Air painters have several outings coming up, the Photo Club is next weekend, art on Tuesday and Wednesday, darts 2 evenings a week, shuffleboard 3 mornings. “Welcome Home” says the lady in the activities office.

It really does feel like home.