Heading East by Going West.

Dinners and lunches at our favorite places, shopping (that’s what we come to Yuma for) and it gets us into the right frame of mind for the rest of the year.

The run from Yuma to San Diego was routine and boring as we chose to drive Interstate instead of the back roads simply because we haven’t towed the new car very far and so we took the easy way.

Happy Hour with the Shanty Shakers.

Our destination was the Pechanga Casino in Temecula CA about 40 miles north of San Diego. This is a full feature RV Resort and, pleasantly, gives Passport America discounts for week day stays so we have already paid for our $40 annual dues in discounts!

Pechanga RV Resort, nice park.

The purpose of this stop is a rally organized by our great friends “The Shanty Shakers” the San Diego chapter of our favorite RV club The Escapees.

Another happy hour

Everyone was ready for a good time after being locked up for the last year and it showed at the daily “Happy Hour”. We had a lot of catching up to do with everyone, it’s been about 3 years since we saw everyone. We also met some of our RV neighbors who were full timing with their kids, they hadn’t found the different discount camping places, or the apps to find camping and the cheapest gas so we wrote everything down for them. A day later we met a second couple and did the same for them. We love to share the resources.

The Bourbon, everyone wants the bottle!

We all went to Ritchie’s Diner in Temecula for lunch and it was really good. Later there was an auction to support the CARE facility in Livingston TX. Those who wanted to donated wrapped gifts worth between $50 and $100 then we all bid on them but didn’t know what was in the packages. I lucked out and won a large fancy bottle of Willets Kentucky Bourbon. Best of all we raised about $1000 !The week just flew by.

Ritchie's for lunch.

We moved south to the Thousand Trails (TT) Pio Pico park near Jamul. Not one of our favorite places but as we have to pay TT annual dues and we didn’t use them even one time last year, we need to make maximum use of their parks this year to break even. I’ve said plenty of things (Usually bad) about Pio Pico so I won’t repeat myself!

Pio Pico

We called our friends Gene and Annette Stout and got invited to join them at the El Cajon Elks on Saturday for the Taco Lunch. When we got there the half of the Shanty Shakers who weren’t at Pechanga were there at the Elks! It was like another rally. In the evening we went round to Ken and Gloria’s for Kens tasty Smoked Pork and to hang out with Mike, Dana, Fey, and Tammy and catch up with all the shipyard and motorcycle news. 

Plans were made and re-made but life happens and we move on. This gave us a chance to visit some of our old haunts like Torrey Pines. Barbara worked across the road at UCSD and I flew paragliders there for a couple of years. Not much has changed there, it’s still a very tranquil place.

Torrey Pines paragliders

Less tranquil but still a fun place has been Shakespeare's Pub down on India Street near the airport. This has been the scene of many office and personal parties and still has the best Fish and Chips in San Diego. We sneaked in for lunch the day before we had a reunion of the old crowd there, more happy memories!

We strolled thru the area called Seaport Village and were pleased to see it has been tidied up since the last time we visited as it had become pretty run down.

The Star of India on the Embarcadero

I’m out of practice writing the blog and clean forgot to take pictures of the reunion! It was amazing. I am proud to say that our colleagues are also our friends and a bunch of them showed up! Barbara, Travis, Dean, Amin, Marcos, Carlos, Steve and Eric amongst many. Thanks so much.  I didn’t know which way to turn there were so many conversations going on! I hope nobody thought I was ignoring them. Everyone wanted to talk about our adventures and where we were going next. By the time we left I thought it was around 7pm, but when we got back to the rig it was 10.30pm!

Breakfast with the Shanty Shakers was followed by dinner with our ex neighbors and good friends Jason Ruby, Mike and Cathy and their kids Molly, Angus, and Sienna. How great to see everyone again.

Barbara and I with Mike Cathy, Jason, Ruby and Sienna, Molly and Angus

We squeezed in a couple of trips to our favorite places Balboa Park, Old Town, Seaport Village, The Embarcadero, Mount Soledad and Coronado.

Balboa Park Arboretum

Gene and Annette took us to their favorite lunch spot, The Junction in El Cajon. Ken and Gloria had us over again to work on the Edge to fix the lighting socket and more food.

And suddenly 3 weeks had gone by!

Thanks EVERYONE for a great time.

2021 here we come!

 

The time to pack up and leave has suddenly arrived. Barbara’s doctors appointments have been done and she has been told she is fine. More appointments in October to check so we can get going.

We had planned on stopping in San Diego for a couple of weeks and now an RV Rally has popped up so 2 weeks has turned into 3, with stops in Yuma along the way. We plan on reaching Maine this summer and naturally that brought up the thought of yummy lobsters, which in turn brought up thoughts of Lobster Fests and Lobster Rally’s so we made reservations for those too in August.

The rig needs the usual maintenance doing before we set off, so tires, slide seals, slide mechanisms, jacks, hoses, water tank flushing and a dozen other small tasks had to be done.

The new tow car a 2014 Ford Edge

We have a “New” to us car, a 2014 Ford Edge SUV which had already been set up for towing but the tow bar mechanicals and electrical needed getting revised and tested. When we plugged in the car we got no lights. The rig and the car individually had lights but nothing in the tow mode when the signals, brakes and running lights come thru an “Umbilical” from the rig to the car.

Inside the umbilical cord for the Edge

I bought a tester which showed no power to the plug and I had no idea where to start looking on the coach. Fortunately there is a Monaco Owners web page and someone there steered me to the power distribution box at the rear of the rig where I found 3 blown fuses. I’m pretty sure that was as a result of the umbilical getting pinched by the tow bar late last year, which may have caused an internal short. We always carry a spare so that should sort things out. That unfortunately didn’t fix all the problems as the Edge has a system that charges the car battery as it is being towed. This takes 6 wires and the existing umbilical has only 4. The local Tractor Supply store had a premade umbilical which I cheerily wired the car plug too. We decided on a test run before we left . The darned wire was 12” too short! As a temporary measure we used a good on from the Miata.

This was getting frustrating as no we only had one working turn signal and no brake lights. Worse the car was locked in park and I had no idea why. The owners manual (Always read the manual) showed a brake /transmission interlock that could be manually reset in an emergency. We got it to the Ford dealer and they found a blown fuse.

We eventually got to a NAPA Auto Parts store and they had some 7 conductor wire which let me make up 2 new umbilicals. One more do over when I found the wiring diagram I was working from was wrong (!!**!!^&*!) and we had working lights and a charging system.

The rig is super shiny after getting washed and waxed in the park by a mobile cleaning company we like. We have got the inside dusty carrying in all the stuff that we took to the Park Model last year. It all has to go back again and get re-stowed.

We rented the rig out to some friends who had sold the 5^th wheel they owned before being able to move into a house they are having built here. So they had it for 6 weeks. They gave us all their stuff for hooking it up to the water and sewer, so now we have 3 water hoses, 5 sewer hoses and about 4 TV coax cables! We are glad we could help them out nd they took great care of the rig. Thanks Brian and Ruth!

Apart from working on the rig we have of course been hanging out with our friends and we figured out that lots of us had birthdays in April, May and June and Paul had his 80^th soon. That got me to thinking (Always dangerous) and I came up with the idea of a “Progressive” birthday party. For our UK readers who may not be familiar with this here’s how it works.

Our back yard is just made for parties!

Usually its a Progressive Dinner in a neighborhood where several families get together. One family has starters at their house then each family hosts a different part of the dinner and you “Progress” from one house to the next until you are done.

Jim and Lani volunteered breakfast and we all brought omelet ingredients that got put in an freezer bag then dropped into boiling water to cook it. Coffee and Mimosa’s too!

Next Dennis and Staranne had Corn Hole (Beanbag toss in UK) but we were all so full of breakfast we just sat in the shade and chatted.

Ed and Ruthanne hosted lunch and laid on a fine spread of salad and sandwiches

Karen and Paul had Margarita's for everyone to celebrate Paul’s 8oth.

Barbara and I had the back yard set up and the grille hot for burgers and Brats and my cooler was soon emptied of the Black Butte Porter and Negro Modello beer I had in it.

We all staggered over to Carols for Ice Cream and by the time we left at 9pm we had all been partying for 11 hours!!

The girls table

Everyone had a great time but we were all exhausted after,

Nice surprise from Mike and Marci

We were recovering from that when we got a surprise call from Shanty Shaker friends Mike and Marci Parker who were at that minute heading towards Casa Grande. What a great surprise! We love surprising people and being surprised by others. Marci was worried we would be too busy to want to see them, Ha!

Draft Negro Modello to celebrate

We took them on a tour of the park, then of Casa Grande and ended at our favorite Mexican Restaurant Taco Giro. We talked for ever. They are fulltimers too and spent a whole summer touring Europe and Russia. All to soon it was time for them to leave. Great to see you.

Then it was time for us to leave too and we headed west to Yuma.

Much as I dislike Thousand Trails we did pay our dues again this year even though we never used them once last year and they didn’t offer a refund or discount on the membership of the extra “Trails Collection” we bought just before the pandemic hit. During the phone call they asked if I wanted to renew the Trails Collection again and I got hot under the collar that they wanted more money when we never got to use it last year. I must have said the right words because they gave it to us free this year!

So we found ourselves in the Foothills Village Encore RV Resort for 4 free nights. Not a very good park being right next to the Interstate and all gravel which makes it dusty. It has some pretty short and narrow spots too but we were put in a wider one due to the snowbird season being over and the park all but deserted.

Back on the road and the Edge finds some good beer.

Yuma has become one of our favorite spots and we hit some familiar places like the Elks Lodge, Prison Hill Brewing Company, Da Boys Pizza, Wally’s World (A great place to shop for RV knickknacks and junk) and the RV Superstore.

A new place was the Cloud Museum just 20 miles away in Winterhaven CA which boasts of the largest collection of Model T cars in the world. I don’t know if its true but they had a bunch. Unfortunately they were closed for the summer season but we got to walk around and peek thru the gate.

The Cloud Mueum boasts the most model T's in the world

A quick trip across the border into Mexico for lunch and a few bottles of tequila was fun.

Algadones Mexico and El Paradiso for Lunch

Dinners and lunches at our favorite places, shopping that’s what we come to Yuma for and gets us into the right frame of mind for the rest of the year.

What a year

 If you have lived on this planet for the last year you know what has been happening and how it has effected us all. There isn't a lot of point in me trying to tell you what you already know.

We survived, some really good people, good friends, didn't. Some have survived but live with the after effects. We feel very fortunate to have been untouched by it physically.

I have been unable to go out and paint. All the local art groups, except the Urban Sketchers group I run, closed their doors. We as a group work outdoors, we aren't a big group. We felt we could manage all the safety protocols and still be creative but it hasn't been easy. Inspiration just hasn't come to me. I hope it will return as we recover from this terrible blight.

I took up a hobby that I have enjoyed off and on since I was about 7. Back then my uncle and aunt bought me a model airplane for Christmas and I was hooked. From plastic kits I moved on to balsa and tissue flying models, gas powered U control planes and on to radio control planes with bigger gas engines.

Friends I made at the RC Club Rick left Daryll right

The hobby has completely changed much to my surprise. Balsa kits and planes built from plans are a thing of the past. Now Styrofoam planes with electric motors are everywhere. The radio control sets which had specific frequencies are gone, now they frequency hop and there is no limit to how many can be in the air at the same time. They have gyros built in so beginners don't have to fear crashing.

Old planes don't have the gyro system!

I missed the gas powered models and I love to build them from scratch, so when I joined the local RC club I asked if anyone flew them. Several people said they had them but hadn't flown them in years. After some prodding and organizing we got a weekly "Nitro Friday" going and the models started showing up at the field.

That has kept me busy all winter and being outdoors we could manage the risk by following the protocols.

Now here in Arizona the State has relaxed the rules, people are beginning to get out. It has been like waking from a bad dream and we have started to think about getting out on the road again.

Our plan had been to go to the UK for the whole summer and see all our old friends and our families. This year will be our 50th wedding anniversary.

Lockdowns and quarantines have killed that plan, but we still hope that we can do it next year.

We WILL be celebrating our anniversary on October 23rd in Las Vegas. Elvis will be renewing our wedding vows! We have several friends who also have wedding anniversaries around the same time and want to celebrate with us, so we have hotel and campground block bookings made for October 22nd and 23rd. We will be camping there 21st thru the 28th. If you would like to join us let us know and we will send you details of the hotel and campground we will be at (they are adjacent).

Which brings us to what is next.

The motorhome had been in storage since October last year but some friends in the park sold their trailer and needed a place to stay for 6 weeks, so we set it up on their site for them. Now they have gone and we have begun to get it ready for the new season.

The Monaco and Miata together

My model airplanes wouldn't fit in the Miata and reluctantly I sold it, replacing it with a huge Cadillac Escalade which I call the Nimitz because its a huge airplane carrier!

The Escalade is HUGE.

 

 

Our new towed vehicle the Ford Edge

 

The Fiesta saga goes on and on although we have some hope it will settle soon. Needing a car to tow we bought a 2014 Ford Edge which a friend had already set up for towing behind their motorhome. It only had 68,000 miles on it and looks almost like new.

The last day for the Miata. It's gone to live in Scottsdale.

So what's the plan?

We have decided that we are going to be leaving here around May 2nd and head over to San Diego for a couple of weeks, then we are heading diagonally across the country to the Finger Lakes area of Upstate New York. We have always liked that corner of the US and last time we were in Maine we set ourselves the task of making the lobster an endangered species. We failed miserably but did eat a lot of them. We intend to try again this year then travel south down the East Coast to see our son and his wife near Baltimore and the friends we have from when we lived there. We have friends in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina to see again too before we head back to Arizona for another winter.

There is one thing I find hard to talk about still, and that is that Barbara has been fighting breast cancer most of the winter. Its a long story but she has had 2 surgeries and several weeks of radiation treatment. She has a couple more doctor visits and some imaging to get done before we leave but we are hopeful that she has it beaten. 

I hate to end on a low note, we are hopeful that it is just the start of a climb back into the light.

Stay safe, more as we get going.

BnB

Full circle

 

We squeezed in a visit with Ralph and Crystal, with a dinner out, then sketched in a route back to Casa Grande.

We are on the road again, as the old song goes.

We decided on a fairly direct route south thru Wyoming and Colorado and our first stop was going to be Lusk but the roads were so good and there was so little traffic that we got there by lunch time so after a break for said lunch we carried on to Cheyenne.

Our favorite app RVParky showed several campgrounds and one sounded interesting, Terry Bison Ranch. It had a restaurant, train rides, horse riding, a Bison herd and better still it was a “Passport America” (PA) park that gives discounts for PA members.

The reality was very different and we found a dusty potholed place that was very run down, campers that obviously hadn’t moved in a long time. It was right next to I25 so traffic noise 24 hrs a day that got drowned out only by the trains that ran between the CG and the Interstate!

Checking in they told us there was a “Totally free breakfast” in the restaurant and live music on Saturday night.

We checked in for 2 nights as high winds were forecast for the next 2 days, and the forecast was right! 60 mph gusts then the temperature dropped to 50 during the day and 30 at night.

Things got worse when the smoke from a wildfire 30 miles away blew our way. Then the live music which we assumed was in the restaurant turned out to be an outdoor rock concert that lasted until 10pm. Then the concert goers returned to the tents they had set up near us and partied until 2pm.

Next morning we sat down to watch the Formula 1 race we had set the satellite system to record overnight but there was no signal. When I went to investigate I found that somebody had disconnected the cable from the dish antenna, pulled the cable to the rear of the coach OPENED OUR BATTERY COMPARTMENT and tied the cable around the strut on the door so the door stayed open all night.

The office could care less about it, we checked the CG rules and noticed that unlike every other park we’ve been in this one had no quiet hours.

When we went for the “Totally Free” breakfast they looked at us like we were from outer space. There was no free breakfast.

Thankfully the wind died down after our second night and we headed south again.

At this point I have a confession to make. It’s something we say we never do, but we did it. We are sorry, we will try not to do it again after this.

We drove on Interstates!

There I’ve said it, there is no taking it back. We got on I25 in Wyoming and we are going to stay on it until we get to New Mexico. There aren’t any seriously good side roads thru or around Denver, or for next several hundred miles on a direct route.

Driving this far on the Interstates reminds me why I dislike them so much, especially thru big cities like Denver where 30+ miles of heavy traffic and construction drove me to distraction.

Then we stopped in West Pueblo CO at another campground listed as Passport America and found Haggards CG way out in the middle of nowhere. Tidy and roomy, quiet and friendly. It was all we want in a campground and we made reservations for 3 nights.

The bad news is that they only give PA discounts after October 1^st, but then they gave us the good news, they give discounts for Escapees members all year round!

What a delight this place was. Just an open vista out to the distant hills, I glanced out of the window and saw a covey of quail fussing about, just 50 yards from us. Another morning there was a small herd of antelope on the other side of the fence!

We explored the area and found Pikes Peak was just a half day trip followed by Colorado Springs and side trips to a British Grocery store and the Elks Lodge. Pueblo was a nice find too as they have a River Walk very similar to the one in San Antonio TX.

In our wacky world we love to find the funny side of things and the River Walk reminded us of Wichita Falls.

  https://banbrv.blogspot.com/2016/04/stuck-on-wichita-falls.html

There the falls had been washed away by a flood. 

In Pueblo they had rerouted the river because of a huge flood in 1921, so they had constructed the “River” Walk as an homage to the river that wasn’t there anymore!!

All too soon we were moving on and back on the Interstate again. Fortunately there was very little traffic and we sailed along on the boring concrete slab but made good time. So good we decided that we’d skip our next stop and go all the way to Albuquerque in New Mexico. We set a new record for us by driving 350 miles in one day.

Albuquerque was like a small homecoming for us as we bought the current RV here almost exactly 2 years ago after the engine in the Rexhall died. (https://banbrv.blogspot.com/2018/10/new-mexico-adventures.html).

Back then we lucked out and got front row at the Balloon Fiesta that Albuquerque is famous for. We assumed it was cancelled due to Covid, and it was, but instead they had Balloon Siesta where 100 carefully controlled balloons were flown from points around the city to remind everyone that although times are tough right now there is hope for a recovery. I was very touched by that.

Back to Interstate 25. We had pounded down that for a total of nearly 800 miles! Unwillingly, but there was little choice on this route. We were headed for Show Low Arizona and the GPS wanted us to take another Interstate, I40, but we outsmarted her and got on Rt 60 instead for a very nice drive thru rolling hills and varied scenery. Traffic was almost non existent and we could cruise around 65mph. Such bliss!

3 nights at the Elks there was pleasant and let us explore another area of Arizona we haven't been to with just 175 miles to go until we were back in Casa Grande.

Back to South Dakota

 

Worlds Largest Pheasant in Huron SD

We enjoyed it so much we went back to get another night but it was Friday and the whole campground was reserved by the gamblers for the weekend so we rapidly filled the water tank, dumped the other tanks and headed West for South Dakota.

We enjoy running around South Dakota. Much of the western side is taken up with the Black Hills, famous for Custer State Park, Mount Rushmore, Deadwood, Spearfish and the Crazy Horse Monument. All of which we have visited.

The Eastern and Central part is for the most part farmland with miles and miles of corn, sunflowers, soy beans, cattle and horses. The Lakota tribal land are there also.

This area was what were called “The Prairies” when the settlers came thru. Thousands of square miles of grassland on which vast herds of Buffalo grazed and on which the Native Americans depended.

Plains Indian Head Dress

Laura Ingals Wilding wrote the famous books upon which the TV series “Little House on the Prairie” was based. Our first stop once back in South Dakota was to a small town, De Smet.

No luxury houses on the Prairies

The barns were pretty fancy though

And the barn dwellers.

This is one of the several places where the Ingals family lived as they apparently moved fairly often, which accounts for the several “Ingalls Homesteads” we have seen around the area.

De Smet is the home of the Laura Ingalls Wilding Pageant so I suppose they lead the field in Homesteads!

You get to tour the area in a covered wagon

And with a little help you can drive the wagon,

Of course none of the buildings at the homestead are original as the farm changed hands over the years. They are “representational” and offer a peek into the life of a prairie farm in the 1850’s. Today it is a quaint place to visit but back then it must have been a tough place in the middle of the harsh winter.

The church was moved here complete

There is even a garage

Some campgrounds belong to the US Government. National Parks, Forestry Service, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Army Corps of Engineers (COE). They can be found using the Recreation.gov website and reservations are made there too. We like them because we have the Senior Pass for getting into all National Parks free. A bonus is 50% off the cost of camping in their campgrounds.

So near Fort Thompson SD for $9 a night we got 50 amp electricity, a faucet for water (Which we were not allowed to stay attached too except for filling our tank) and a dump station on the way out.

Left Tailrace Campground near Fort Thompson SD

Like most COE parks this was adjacent to a dam, the Big Bend Dam in this case. It was very well kept and extremely peaceful.

St Josephs Indian School

Exploring the local area we stumbled across the Akta Lacota Museum and St Josephs Indian School. We spent a morning wandering around the school museum, tribal cultural center, medicine garden and the nearby town of Chamberlain.

In the Museum

The Medicinal Garden

Heading West we decided to just pound down I90. Yes we actually drove 200 miles on Interstates! Forgive us. We have explored this stretch of the state in the past and to be honest there isn’t too much to see, just rolling farmlands with immense fields of corn. So Interstate it was to Rapid City and the Elks Lodge we like so much.

Sheri had mentioned that she loves reading the blog and seeing how we bump into people we know just here there and everywhere. Right here in Rapid City we saw that Ralph and Crystal who we know from our Motorcycle days in San Diego and who have just celebrated their 2^nd anniversary of full timing where in town. Naturally a meet up was planned.

Then there was a message from Bob and Carol who we know from Sundance in Casa Grande. They were going to be in Rapid City too. How good was that?

And suddenly we were 6 for dinner at the Lodge and it was Prime Rib night. Everyone just got along great and the evening just flew by.

When we first started our full time adventures we had dreamed of sitting talking to fellow full timers and our dreams came true right here at this Lodge. How apt then to be back after 5 years and have a repeat performance! We met a very nice couple Austin and Leigh who are Full Timers, Escapees and Bloggers. www.boundingaround.com and we spent a great evening swapping places to go and campgrounds to stay at.

Our reason for being back in Rapid City of course was to renew our drivers licenses which expired earlier this year. South Dakota kindly extended them a year but we hope to be in UK next year when they will be due for renewal.

Anyway our appointment finally came around and in about 10 minutes we both had shiny new licenses in hand,

Immediately the dreaded “Hitch Itch” kicked in and we both wanted to move on. We squeezed in a visit with Ralph and Crystal, with a dinner out, then sketched in a route back to Casa Grande.

We are on the road again, as the old song goes.