When we left Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument we headed for Casa Grande, Arizona. But we stopped so many places along the way we only made it to Gila Bend. We stayed there at Augie’s Quail Trail RV Park which had been recommended to us by one of our SKP Class of ’08 members. I can now recommend it myself. Here’s a couple of pictures from there.
As we drove, I looked mainly at Saguaro cacti we passed. These are the ones I think of as bandit cacti because I so often see pictures of them looking like they are holding their hands up in the air. Now I know they have lots of other poses too. I saw a couple with their hands on their hips, one hugging itself, one looking like Medusa on a typical for her hair day, and one giving a thumbs up.
I also saw my first tumbleweeds of this trip. There were a couple of them crossing the road. They made me remember a resurrection plant I once had. When the plant arrived in the mail, it looked very dead. But when I put it in water, it uncurled and turned green. It did that several times before I left it without water too long and it truly did die.
Our first stop in Casa Grande was the post office to pick up mail waiting for us there. This post office must get a lot of RVers. Their parking lot had spaces long enough for our RV.
We had lunch at Wendy’s. It’s been a long time since we’d done that. I had a chicken sandwich and a baked potato. It’s been a long time since I did that, too.
Then we headed to the Pinal County Fairgrounds where they offer water & electric hookups for $12 a night. It’s just a large gravel parking lot but it made a good place to sit for a couple of days to do monthly maintenance and a major housecleaning. Nick and Terry Russell were parked there, too, but we didn’t visit with them. One of the effects of writing a newspaper for travelers and a daily blog is much of the RV world feel like Nick and Terry are good friends even though they may have never met. I felt like we would be intruding on their quiet time as they get ready to host the Gypsy Gathering at the fairgrounds next week. So, I sent them an email saying we were there then left them alone. I figured if they wanted company, they’d come to us. As it turned out, they had almost more company than they could handle come knocking on their door.
We enjoyed their Gypsy Gathering in Ohio last September but we don’t plan to stay here for this one. We’ve been in Arizona for more than a month. It’s time to move on.
When we left the fairgrounds it was not even 8:30 a.m. That’s because we decided to go to Denny’s for breakfast. Along the way we met a too helpful cop. We knew Denny’s was on the left side of the road but not how far down it was. There was no traffic going our way so we drove in the left lane of the five lane road. (Two lanes each direction with a turning lane down the middle.) Until a cop did a U-turn to get behind us and hit his siren once. We pulled right and he passed us. Then we moved left again. The cop turned on a side road, did another U-turn, waited until we passed him, pulled in behind us and turned on his lights. So we pulled over. He said the siren was meant to be a warning that we were blocking traffic. HE was the only traffic! So, I explained we were looking for Denny’s and didn’t want to be in the right lane when we got there. We could now see Denny’s about a block ahead. He said, “My error. Enjoy your breakfast,” and let us go. Except now there was traffic and we had to wait awhile before we could cross back to the left lane. It was a good breakfast, though.
After breakfast we went next door to WalMart to pick up groceries and another prescription refill. It’s become quite an adventure to pick up my prescriptions because we never know what we are going to get. One time they sent them to the wrong pharmacy and we had to wait while they corrected that. The last batch came in bubble dispensers that are a real pain in the neck. This batch came in three bottles of 30 each instead of one bottle of 90. At least, they finally got all my prescriptions on one web page so it’s easier to reorder them. I keep wondering if Target would do this better than WalMart does.
Our RV is a nag. We were 50 miles overdue for an oil change. We were on our way to Phoenix for our appointment to do that and some other vehicle things when the bonging started. Every time we started the car, it bonged at us to remind us we need to change the oil. Dave finally told it, “Yes, dear.” But now we have fresh oil, a straightened alignment, a very worn spare tire, a horn that works, and parking lights that work. We didn’t get the ESP thing fixed, though, because they needed to order a part from Texas. Since we are headed to Texas, we decided to wait and do that there.
Next to the car dealer there was an implement dealer that had a most unusual fence. It was very short but very effective. What they did was plant lots of prickly pear cactus very close to one another. I wouldn’t want to try to walk through those!
We left the car dealer shortly after 5 p.m. so we headed straight for our planned campground. We are now at Usery Mountain Regional Park, just east of Phoenix. This is a nice park with water and electric hookups for $20 a night. Out of 75 sites they had five left when we arrived. We are in site #8. For another hour or so. Then we’ll head east trying to get through New Mexico during a good weather time as we head for San Antonio, Texas.
TTYL,
Linda
