On to Gallup

We woke up to a beautiful clear, but cold morning. It didn't take long to get breakfast; get everything we'd gotten out the past two days put away; slides in and jacks up. We checked the lights and watched the wheels on the Toad properly roll. Unlike yesterday morning, everything worked just like it was supposed to.

The Meteor Crater RV Park has a small souvenir store and gas pumps. We decided to go ahead and get dieseled up so that we would not have to make another stop. And besides, diesel was $2.09 a gallon versus the $3.19 we paid the other day. I paid with a credit card at the pump and filled up. I didn't get a receipt, so went inside to get one. When I asked for the receipt, the clerk printed it, then looked at me and asked if we hadn't stayed in the RV park last night. I said we had, then he said they gave a five cent per gallon discount to their guests. He proceeded to give me the refund in cash! 

I cannot say enough good about these folks that run Meteor Crater RV Park. Between the free night and the fuel discount, they were sure nice to us!

Our journey today took us through the last of Arizona and into the brilliant colors and scenery of New Mexico. Gallup is only about sixteen miles from the border. We had stayed here at USA RV Park three years ago. When I called to make a reservation, we were still in their books, so it was quick. We got everything hooked up and I even washed a load of laundry this afternoon.

WIND!

Boy, am I glad we decided to spend a second night here. While it was grey and overcast. - and chilly - it was relatively calm when we got up. But then the wind came up and big, black thunderheads started rolling across the sky. We got a few sprinkles of rain, but the big storm clouds passed us by. We had reports of flooding and power outages back in the Phoenix area. What we got was the wind! I'm sure glad we weren't out on the road in those big gusts.

We spent a relatively quiet day, but what a change from our winter sojourn. We were wearing long pants, sweaters and socks. So much for shorts and sandals!

I made a pear tart for breakfast and fixed porkchops with Brussels sprouts and apples in the oven for supper. In between, we watched the Mariners game. Not too happy about the way the season is going so far...
I had to tape the PBR from Little Rock as it was on the same time as the baseball game. It was tough to see JB Mauney get hurt when his bull tried to climb out of the chute and squashed him against the back of the chute. Sounds like he's got an injured hip pointer. Today's winners were definitely the bulls, but we were pleased that Ryan Dirteater rode his bull and won.

We had been thinking about heading over to Albuquerque to visit friends, but we were looking at both the calendar and the map and decided we are sort of running short of time to detour that far east. We think we'll go ahead and head to Gallup, New Mexico and then take 481 north to Farmington.

Lots of Miles

We are settled in at Meteor Crater RV Park near Winslow, Arizona for the next couple of nights. I'm watching the Mariners game while Forry is snoring in his recliner.

Our usual practice after we have everything ready to go is for me to stand in front of the RV while Forry uses the turn signals; then I walk around to the back of the rig and check that the rear turn signal lights and the brake lights are also working. Next I walk a bit to the side, standing where Forry can see me in his side mirrors, and wave him forward so that I can see that the wheels on Toad II are turning freely and following nicely. Well, this morning they weren't! I waved Forry down and we went through the whole procedure of preparing the Toad to be towed. And once more it didn't work. We never did figure out what we were doing wrong, but it took four attempts before everything finally worked correctly.

We headed out for Highway 17, going all the way through Phoenix and its suburbs. It takes over an hour just  to drive through. Makes you realize just how sprawled out an urban area it is. It's a huge altitude gain as you head north. I think we were up over 5000 feet by the time we turned onto I40 at Flagstaff. We made a couple of rest area stops on the way and bought some expensive diesel ($3.09) at a Shell station.

We pulled into the Meteor Crater RV Park a little after 4:30 and had a pleasant surprise. The lady at the desk told us since this was our fifth visit to their park,  tonight would be free! What a lovely way to treat your guests!

We Move - A Little Ways

It rained hard during the night - for about two hours. I know, as I didn't sleep well, kept waking up intermittently. By six AM, I gave up and started putting stuff away. We were supposed to be at Gene's RV Shop for a 10 AM appointment, but we made such good time, we were there by 9:30. And they were running behind, so we didn't even get into the shop until after eleven!

Mike not only had two new hoses made, but he power washed the very oily radiator where hydraulic oil had been dripping. He thought it would only be about an hour's task, but it was after five pm when we finally paid the bill and left. By then it was way too late to leave for Meteor Crater which we had hoped to be our first stop. I tried to call a few of the many RV parks in the Mesa area, but since it was after five, all the offices were closed. I finally talked to a small park owner who said he had no pull-throughs, but he knew that Val Villa across the road from him did and that they had a full-time gate guard that could assign us a site.

So we headed about six miles down the road and pulled into a nice wide space. Many sites as well as Park Models are empty and we noticed For Sale signs on many of the Park Models. Eagle View had been half empty as well when we left - the exodus of the snowbirds is well underway!

HOT!

It got up to 98 degrees today according to the news. I certainly believe it! It was the hottest day so far this year. I turned the A/C on early and it still barely kept the rig cool.

The Mariners played at noon today for the third game of their series with the Texas Rangers.  With a few home runs and a ninth inning rally, they won 9-5. Sweet!

Mike, from Gene's RV Repair, came about five pm (he'd had a busy day!) to check out the oil leak that was keeping the bedroom slide from retracting. He was able to make a temporary fix so that we can pull it in and then take it into their shop for a more permanent fix. While he was here, he put the new chassis batteries in for us. (It was sure nice to hear the engine turn over so nicely when he finished!) We'll find out tomorrow whether they can take us in the shop on Friday or if it'll be Monday...

Errand Day

Toad II is a bit low on oil, but for the first time, we didn't bring any extra Schaeffer Oil with us (we did bring some for the Diesel engine in the RV...). We've checked a couple of places and made some phone calls without success. We talked with the techs at Schaeffer today and they suggested we just buy a quality name brand synthetic oil and add it.  We ended up going to O'Reilly Auto Parts at the recommendation of the local Chevron dealer who doesn't carry any synthetic oil. While we were there, we bought two new batteries from them as well.

From there it was off to the Post Office to mail some bill payments and to resend the shirts I had messed up the address on. Hopefully, this time I've gotten it right and my little great-nephews and niece will get their goodies.

Next stop was at the local Scottrade office in Mesa. We needed to make some adjustment to our accounts and I needed to find out how much I was going to have to take out for my Required Withdrawal from my IRA this year. 70 and a half seemed so far off when I set the IRA up, but it certainly arrived fast (and several years ago, at that!).

We headed back home and made a stop at the Citrus Ranch on Gilson Road. I've been wanting to stop by all winter, but it seems like the GPS never returned us home that way. It's kind of a shacky place with priced bags of various citrus piled on tables with an "Honor Cashbox." Next to the shack was a pasture with four Angus cows. They were grazing on oranges which were spread all over their pasture in long rows. I've seen cattle fed left over turnips and carrots, but never oranges!

We got home just in time to watch the Mariners beat the Texas Rangers 10-2! So much better than last night's game!

A Clean Auntie Violet

The boys from ANS Detailing were here a few minutes before eight this morning. Andrew sounded a whole lot better than he had when I talked to him on Friday. He and his crew had had a rough week with lots of work. He said they were exhausted. But after a weekend's rest, they were raring to go.

You cannot believe the amount of dirt that rolled off of the roof. We had had the rigs washed and waxed when we arrived last fall, so just had them washed today. Such a difference it made!

I had been fussing about the screen on the exhaust fan in the kitchen needing to be cleaned. Forry was using the step stool to undo the clips holding it up, but couldn't keep his balance. So I ended climbing up and managed to undo it. Because it's in the kitchen, it was greasy fuzz and dust. I ended up using a brush along with the cleaner to get it clean. The blades of the fan were just as grimy. I found the easiest thing to use was some of the Clorox wipes. There were so dirty it took almost a wipe sheet per blade! The only trouble with doing something like the fan, is it makes the area around it need cleaning. Maybe another day.

Today was Opening Day for the Mariners down in Texas. Unfortunately, Felix didn't have his best outing and they lost 2-3, in spite of first inning home runs by Cano and Seager. It was fun to "chat" with Havela and Ben during the game - we may make a Mariner fan out of him yet! Or maybe we'll have to start watching some Cubs games with them...

A Quiet Sunday

It didn't start as a quiet day. Forry woke up from a strange dream a little after five this morning wondering if we "had gotten gas yet?" He got out of bed, walked up to the living room, looked out the window, then came back to bed and went to sleep...!

I made a peach tart for breakfast, but that was about the extent of my labors. We spent the day watching the 15/15 Bucking Batle, the Gospel Music Awards, the PBR from Sioux Falls, South Dakota and now the Country Music Awards. It made for a pretty mellow day.

Forry tried to start the RV in order to further charge the batteries without success. Looks like we will be shopping for batteries tomorrow.

Returned Mail

As I was putting stuff away yesterday, I ran into the receipt from the Post Office for the Mariner gear I had sent to our great granddaughter and the great nieces and nephews. Just for fun, I used the tracking numbers on the receipt and followed each package to their destinations. To my surprise, I discovered that one of the packages had been returned to the Eagle View office just yesterday!

When I checked addresses with Niece Becky, I discovered I had used a post office box number they hadn't used for several years! The only thing I can think is that when Scott fixed my laptop, he used a Carbonite backup that still had the old address. Guess we'll have to make another trip to the post office.

Both Sister Sherry and Daughter MM called and were concerned about what I had written about hitting my head yesterday. I had to assure them that I was fine and no, I didn't need stitches! Forry was feeling a bit better today, but he is still a bit achey and tired. He did walk over to the office with me to reclaim my package.

I had to chuckle today when I noticed the site we moved out of yesterday was still unoccupied. We'll keep an eye on it and see how long until it's filled...

Tough Day...

Well, I guess it's a good thing we decided we would stay on here another week. We certainly would not have put on a lot of miles today. Forry has been complaining a lot about pain in his legs and one of them seems to want to give out on him every once in a while. He used a chair while we were bringing in the sewer, electric and water hoses, but it still wore him out. We got the slides in with most of the stuff put away.

Then when it was time to pull up the jacks and start the engine, we had nothing! I pulled the car around and put the jumper cables on, but still nothing. Just no juice! One of the maintenance guys came along with his pickup and added his jumpers to the mix. After a l-o-n-g twenty minutes or so, we finally had enough juice to start the engine. The maintenance guy hung around, picked up the jack pads and brought them over to the new site and put them in place. He even took over my planned task of hosing down the old site to tidy it up for me. All with a big smile!

Forry was exhausted when we got to the new site and slept in his recliner all the rest of the afternoon. I wasn't too active myself as I had managed to hit my head on the corner of the slide while I was hooking things up. Fortunately, I was wearing my usual bandanna headband (to keep the sweat out of my eyes) as head wounds bleed so darn much. I would have been a bloody mess without it.

Granddaughter Havela and Ben moved today as well. The lease on their little house in the country was up and they have been unable to find another place they can afford, so have moved into Ben's parents' basement. The one nice thing about it is that his folks have good wifi service, so we were able to Skype with them this evening. It is so fun to see how active little Great Grandaughter Kahlyn has gotten. She was having a great time chattering and climbing all over her Mama and the couch.