We moved! (But not too far...)

Here goes the broken record again.... just another beautiful day in Arizona. It had to be up to about 27, or 28 degrees C this afternoon. The nice thing about Yuma is, NO CLOUDS... just the Sun, and that is the same forecast every day! We talked to a number of people in the Resort today, and they all vouched for the weather! Judy and I simply LOVE IT!

We got up this morning, enjoyed our coffee, did the email thing, and then decided the lot we picked out when we first got here was way too close to the Interstate Hwy. and way too much traffic noise. We went to the office, and asked that we be moved and they were very accommodating, and we found a new site that is the total opposite of the one we left. Very little noise from the Highway! Only drawback is not too much sun on the site, but that may turn out to be a blessing in disguise. We are on lot 392 now, not 103. So, if you are deciding you want to mail us a cheque to help us maintain our lifestyle.... use the address in last nights post, with the lot number as 392!

It took us a couple hours to move as set up again, and we were concerned about satellite signal on the new lot, however I have them both working, and was able to watch the Leafs lose to Buffalo by 3 to zip tonight :-((

I took no pics again today, yikes, what is going on, so I picked up Judy's camera again and have relied on her for today's pictures.

The first one is a picture from somewhere inside the Resort, just not sure where....???? .....

The next couple pictures are of our new site, which is right beside one of the Park Models units.

As you can see, I was just getting ready to head out for the afternoon on the motorcycle when Judy took this, but we have lots of room for all our toys.

All the sites have a nice concrete patio on them, we ate lunch outside this afternoon on our patio and it was great, nice and warm.

As mentioned we did take a ride on the bikes into Yuma this afternoon. We are about 5 miles or so out to the east. First we went to Wallmart to pick up a couple items we needed, more on that in the next day or so on the blog, so stay tuned, and I had to make a visit to the Chiropractor. We happened to drive by one, so I just stopped in, and they were able to take me as a "walk in" I have been having problems with my neck, and no mater how hard I tried, Dr. Taylor from Gravenhurst just won't come for a house call. Felt a lot better after my treatment, and have to go back on Wednesday.

Judy got a picture of their Office, don't ask me why, but she did....

We got back from the Chiropractor just in time to watch the Leafs lose.... after the game, which finishes real early here.... about 8:30, we decided to head down to the hot tub. What a beautiful night for it, with just about a full moon. We spent over an hour down there, and met some people from Alberta. There is a bunch of them from Alberta. The one guy we met is staying right across the road from us. All of them are real nice, and we had a nice "Canada" party going on in the tub tonight. We were the only ones there. It seemed very funny walking from the hot tub, back to our RV in our wet bathing suits, down a couple of streets all decorated up with Christmas lights! Weird....

Received a nice email today from one of my RBC friends today, Ronda, from Barrie. It was nice to hear from Her, and she says she is getting tired just reading all the stuff Judy and I have been doing in November! It has been fun Ronda! Much more to come yet.

Time to go to bed, another big day tomorrow, I am sure...

YUMA, ARIZONA..... "WE ARE HERE!"

This morning we woke up in Tucson, and were greeted by another beautiful day. The sun was up, with a few clouds, but quite warm... we were on the road by 9:30 today, as we had a lot of prep work to do before leaving the "Diamond J".



As we left Tucson Judy was busy snapping pics out of the window of the RV. Here is one of Tucson...this is the downtown core of the City. Appears to be a real nice city, about the size of Sudbury I figure...




It did not take long to clear the city limits and make our way towards Phoenix and then on to Yuma.... doesn't take long with a speed limit of 75.... once we cleared the limits of Tucson it did not take long to get back into the mountains... don't know the name of this one, but it was quite unique...

It was quite a nice drive, about 240 miles worth, and before you knew it, we were into some FARMING, yes that is right John Morrison, farming! Look at the green! They have some sort of irrigation type system, that is for sure, as it is real dry here!

We came across the largest cattle yard that I have ever seen.... John Morrison again, would be in his glory! The desert simply turned black from all the cows in this huge cattle yard. I did not know how they could even feed them.... Judy got a picture of only part of the yard....too bad you cannot see much of the cattle, but there was a bunch of them... big bucks...

We stopped in Gila Bend, a little Town about 30 miles out of Yuma. We had to take the opportunity to load up with $218.00 of Schell Diesel Fuel, and have lunch in the parking lot. There was lots of people with RV's here, and they had a spot you could dump your tanks and take on a tank of fresh water for free, for all the people that go out and "boondock" in the desert.

There was a big set of mountains between Gila Bend and Yuma that we had to cross, and Judy took a bunch of pictures of us clearing the pass...the first one is just starting up...

OK, starting to get serious now....

Almost to the top, just a bit to go now...

There... we made it, now we are clear to Yuma...

We got into Yuma around 3:00 and after a bit of a search, we stopped at Bonita Mesa RV Resort, in Yuma. A beautiful resort with a lot of Park Model Units and RV's . They had to search the computer, but they did find us a spot, with a southerly view for the satelites no less, and we decided to take it for a month. We will be here till at least December 29th, and possibly more, we will have to see how things go! When we got here it is 22 degrees C. and sunny. We had to get all set up, and I kind of messed up a bit taking the bike trailer off the RV and the tongue fell to the ground.... not a good thing.... Well, first we had to take everything out of the trailer, bikes, motorcycles, spare tire for RV, Judy's weight set, all kinds of stuff, and then try to figure out how to raise the tongue, in order to get the jack wheel back in place to hold it up. Judy came up with a great answer, she said " why not use that fancy jack you brought with us that you use to lift your motorcycle in the air with???" Duhhhh, ya that would be an excellent idea... In 5 minutes, we had everything back under control and carried on with our setup routine. Managed to get both the satelite dishes up, and was able to catch some of the Grey Cup Game. Good to see Montreal win! Big comeback!

We do now have mail delivery for anyone who wants to mail us cheques! You can mail us at:

Bonita Mesa RV Resort,

9400 N Frontage Road, Lot 103,

YUMA, AZ. U.S.A. 85365

They deliver our mail to a box where we can pick it up.

So now we have to settle into live in Yuma... lots to do and see, and that starts tomorrow. It was dark by the time we got all set up, so we did not have a chance to take pics of the site. That will be tomorrow...

Enough said for today... the next 3 to 4 days weather here looks fantastic.... can't wait!

A hike, a ride, the big blow! A WOW Day overall!

WOW! What a day, where do I begin....

Finally this morning I got my wireless router problems resolved, thanks to David Reid of REMAX, Gravenhurst. Dave is not only the best Real Estate Agent in Gravenhurst, he is also a computer guru...

When we woke up at 7:00 this morning it was already 16 Degrees C. Enjoyed breakfast and coffee, and then decided to take a hike out back of the RV Park, in the desert.

It is like walking in a cactus flower garden. Could not believe it. A great 1 hour hike. Here are some pics of the hike.

Yes this is pink!


Gonna have to look up the names of these plants.


There are lots of these saguaro cactus's around, they are kind of the symbol for Arizona and are found mainly in the Tucson area and can actually obtain 200 years of age!


Apparently the picture below is what happens when they get to be 201 years old.... :-((


I just had to take this picture....

After the hike we had some lunch and the laundry had to be dealt with, but by 2:30 or so, we were able to head out for a bike trip. Had to stop and fuel the machines up, and this picture was taken believe it or not, at the gas station just a mile or so from our camp ground. Note the pink cactus in the background behind me... it was cool...

Our destination this afternoon, was Tucson Mountains State Park, I did a bit of internet research and this place is only 2 miles from our RV Resort. This picture of Judy is just entering the park. It turned out beautiful this afternoon, around 23 degrees, but a bit of a wind.

Just after you enter the park from the east side, you run into Old Tucson Studios, which is a theme type park. You pay to get in and it is a full day of movies, gun fights, cattle rustling, just about everything from the wild west. They make western theme movies here still.

There is a large mountain range right inside the park, hence the name. There is a pass cut through the mountains, which was financed for $1,000.00 back a long time ago by a guy named Gates, and so it is the Gates Pass. It is incredible, and I recommend anyone to come and see it. We could not believe it, and spent 2 hours exploring this pass and the park. The pictures do not tell the storey. It is very dramatic scenery.... you have to be there!

When we got to the top of the pass, there was a pull off, and we climbed up a bit of the mountain to a small little "fort" they had built up there...

This is the little fort we climbed up to... it was quite a climb...

The view was incredible from up where we were, and we had a blast...

I took this picture from inside the little fort, looking out...the little building you see at the parking lot level is washrooms...

This is the actual top of the pass...

Driving the 3 to 4 miles of the pass road, was some of the best roads we have driven our bikes on yet....period! You have to be there..... so, come on down to Arizona!

We drove up the road a bit to a Desert Museum, and Judy had to stop and take a picture of this sign, as our Daughter, Kristina, just love weird signs.... so don't feed the coyotes!

After we drove through the park, it was time to head back to the RV and on the road back, I had to stop and snap this pic of the sun going down behind a mountain.... the sunsets and rises here are terrific!

All in all a great day of touring around. We did get a big wind today for a few hours, but by 5:00 it calmed down, and is nice tonight.

We met lots of great folks today, that love to tell you their storey.

Looks like we might start heading to Yuma tomorrow.... we will see.

Got the map below updated, so take a look at it, and thanks for reading!

On the road early this morning, and yes, we hit "ARIZONA" by about 3:00 this afternoon. We stopped on the east side of Arizona for our lunch and were parked right beside a bunch of mountains, called the Texas Canyon. They were great...

We soon hit Tucson this afternoon and Judy had our campsite all picked out. Just south of Tucson about 12 miles out in the desert and mountains... However we had another job first... "Dora" our Endura (RV) required a bath. Judy using her "Eagle" vison scouted out a Truck Wash also used by RVs.

Here I am in action, getting her nice and clean again.

Along the way when we got to Tucson, there was a bunch of big cactus plants that Judy was able to catch with the camera...

This first picture is along the road out to our campsite...

This plant is actually inside our campground...

When we got set up, we had our our own cactus right on site:

I told Judy to give it a big hug, but she wouldn't.... I don't know why?????

The weather here this afternoon was 25 degrees and nothing but sun! We are happy! Two years of planning is finally here!

Tomorrow we plan to go hiking out in the mountains here at the campground, and maybe break out the bikes for a ride.

Plan on staying for a couple days anyways, and then maybe onward to Yuma... the weather is even better there!

New Mexico! We made it!

Left Texas at our regular 8:30 this morning, and it did not take long to figure out the oil companies were going to go broke today. There was us, and a couple lonely truckers on the highway, and that was it. For the first couple hours we saw no one, the whole highway to ourselves.... yes, it was Thanksgiving Day, USA style...they take the whole week off!

We stopped for lunch at a great highway stop and took a couple pics... it was right in the mountains...

They built these fancy tee pees over the picnic table.... kind of cool...

We were driving along and we came across this mountain, that I really liked, so we renamed the mountain, "Mount John"... we failed to notify the State of Texas yet though....

After lunch we made it to El Paso, Texas. Very big city, and real neat. Everything was closed though today for the holiday.

Right after El Paso we hit the New Mexico Border and we dropped back in time another hour. We are now two hours behind all you folks in Ontario...

We had something happen this afternoon that we have never had to deal with before.... we got stopped by the Border Patrol! They had set up a complete highway checkpoint and were talking to everyone who came through. New Mexico and Arizona both border on Mexico and I know they are having problems with Mexicans crossing in the USA by simply walking across the unprotected parts of the border. When it was our turn, I think our Ontario plates helped us out, as they Agent simply told us to enjoy our afternoon and sent us on our way... phewwww...

Judy snapped a quick pic of the border stopping point...

Allowed to carry on with our trip, we made it to Deming, New Mexico, (kind of sounds like someone we know... Mary) Judy picked out a nice Passport America park that is real cheap, and we set up camp. They were have a big Thanksgiving Dinner for all the campers, and invited us, however we decided to stay in the RV tonight as we were both road weary. Judy made us a nice Thanksgiving Dinner - chicken, mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn, and pecan pie for desert! Yikes we put like 5 pounds on each. Great dinner.

I looked out and just missed the sunset at the park but got this picture:

Get used to seeing some Arizona sunsets, they are great, and full of colour.

As we look out our RV window tonight, this is what we are looking at... love it....

Judy has been doing the navigating mostly on the trip so far, and can sniff out a Passport America Park at 100 miles. She tells me tonight we are within striking distance of Arizona for tomorrows trip. Yipee!

Will let you know tomorrow how we make out! The forecast for southern Arizona for tomorrow is sunny and 25 degrees C. Yipee!

A day of "Desolation"

We left Top of the Hill RV Park this morning at 8:30, our usual.... and headed out in brilliant sunshine and warm temperatures. You could not find a cloud in the sky today, it was great, and the temp got up to about 18 to 20 degrees C. not too bad!

Our whole trip today was through an are with nuthin but rolling hills and no people. No houses, no Towns for over 250 miles. It was great. In the afternoon we came across a windmill farm and we gave up counting at 1,000 of them.... I have never seen so many at once..... crazy, I hope they are generating a lot of electricity for them!

This picture sort of shows you the terrain we crossed today:

The rock cuts in the highway seem to be made of limestone or something very soft, there is no good old "muskoka rock" out here....

In Texas everything is big, including the speed limit.... check this out:

Yes, that is 80 Miles Per Hour! Our motor home is measured in mph, and the top speed is only clocked at 80... We have been travelling at 65 mph which seems to be very comfortable for us. Most people on the highway today were not going 80, only about 70 ish.... Judy did most of the driving today, and handled that big rig very well, and didn't even freak me out once!

One thing for sure today, those cactus plants started to win out, and they are everywhere!

We made it to Fort Stockton today, still in Texas. It is a nice small town, and we have a spot in an RV park for $10.00 tonight! Full Service... thanks Passport America!

Short blog tonight, as I am having a fight with our wireless router....gggrrrrrrrr..... I hate that thing... Did watch the Leaf's win tonight in Tampa Bay! Go Leafs Go!

Till tomorrow!

Oh, will not update the map until tomorrow... no time tonight to play with that!

Watch out for the "Cactus"...

When you travel across the country from one side to another you sure see some strange things, in last nights blog I was talking about levies that hold back water, and swamp land. Well, today we are on the road and decide to stop for a break at one of the road side stops, and low and behold what do we come across????

CACTUS! This was growing in the wild beside the parking lot so we took the pic. We found them growing all over the side of the road as we drove along... Don't know what kind of cactus plant it is, as I am not really "up" on my cactus plants.... if you know the name of this type of cactus, leave a comment on the blog!

As you can tell by what I am wearing in the picture, it was another beautiful day. Not quite as nice as yesterday, and it is a bit windy. Nice day for travelling!

While we were at the rest stop, we always check our equipment and Judy snapped a pic of this little butterfly trying to hitch a ride on our trailer tire...

We made it through 2 major cities today, Houston Texas which is huge, and then 2 hours later we made it through San Antonio. A bit of a challenge driving today as we had a cross wind that always wanted to blow the RV into the left lane... yikes....

We stopped in a small town on the west side of San Antonio, called Boerne, at a camp ground called "Top of the Mountain". The name serves it well. The landscape in this area is very unique. Lots of rolling mountains, and ranch settings.

People build great big houses on the top of these mountains.

We made it to our camp ground around 3:00 this afternoon, and it was bright and sunny, so we walked around to get our legs moving. The sites here are very nice, we are right on the top of the mountain, and the camp ground is filing up as people are coming in for the American "Thanks Giving" this Thursday. Actually they all take the week off pretty much. Thanks Giving is a bigger holiday here than Christmas is.

We are in the "Lone Star" State, and everywhere you look, you will see the Lone Star... even on the cement curbs on your campsite!

Judy decided to pass on jumping in the pool for a swim, she said it was just a bit too cool...

Right beside the front office, the have a pen set up, which is the home for this guy... don't know his name or what he does for a living at the park, but he sure liked rolling in the dirt.... he was covered in it and seemed pretty happy.

Received some nice comments from AnnaMarie at the "RBC" last night on the blog. Yes, Anna, I remember we do have to come back to Canada.... :-(( but not for a while yet. Some of the blogs I read daily of other RVer's, are talking about problems some of the Snow Birds are having crossing the Boarder this year into the U.S. Glad we did not have any problems, it was actually real easy for us.... must be cause we look like nice people!

Tomorrow is another travel day. We will not get out of Texas tomorrow, still a piece to go! But with the weather the way it is, who cares! Met some nice people who parked beside us this afternoon from Corpus Cristi, and they tell us this is actually a little cool for this time of the year, and it is usually warmer....bring it on! They wanted us to winter down at the southern tip of Texas, they say it is great! That is for another year.

Had a nice skype video conference with Emmie this afternoon. She looks like she is doing very well! We sure miss her already, and have just left her!

Well, time to call it a night! My bed is calling....