After leaving Grand Rapids on January 10th, fighting Wind, Rain, and Snow all the way… we finally arrived in Texarkana, TX on Monday, January 14th. Good to be back home for both of us! After a nice week-long visit with Alice’s family (and usual big family meal & get-together at the local church), we left Texarkana on Tuesday, January 22, for our eventual destination of Wickenburg, AZ.
We wanted to avoid Interstate highways as best we could, so we chose to drive Texas Highway 82, which runs East-West from Arkansas to the New Mexico state line. Rural small-town Texas is beautiful! One thing that strikes a visitor to Texas from the upper Midwest… is the sheer prosperity and strong economic activity one sees all over… Vast farms, construction, gas & oil drilling, cattle, even factories. Another thing is the clear & unabashed faith expressed in God… in signs, businesses, and billboards… and the friendliness of people. It is like a whole other nation.
We spent our first night after leaving Texarkana in a Walmart parking lot in Bonham, TX. Very friendly people. The following night in a Lubbock, TX Walmart parking lot… and the third & forth nights in a small RV park located close to Carlsbad, NM (side visit to Guadalupe NP). The following two nights were spent in an Escapees RV park in Deming, NM… with side visits to Columbus NM, and Silver City (both historical sites). We encountered very high winds on I-10 upon leaving Deming… and finally made it to the little town of Vail, AZ, spending the night in a ‘very’ large restaurant parking lot.
Note: “spending the night” in a parking lot sounds like hardship… but in fact, in a motorhome with a generator, fridge, oven, furnace, water, HD TV… it is quite comfortable! Saves money, too. And “Escapees” refers to the “Escapees RV Club”, a large national organization dedicated to supporting serious RV’ers.
We finally made our destination of the Escapees ‘North Ranch” RV Park located outside Wickenburg, AZ on Tuesday, January 29th. Yay! Just in time for the RV Boot Camp starting Feb 1st… with NO pushups, but three days of intense RV education & savvy experience being shared. This was an extremely beneficial class, and we would highly recommend it to any new RV’ers. After the Boot Camp was over, we moved on to a beautiful Desert ‘Boondocking” site for a couple of days… and then to an equally beautiful Thousand Trails RV park located just south of Sedona, AZ, complete with electric, water, sewer… just like home! We will be here (Thousand Trails) until the end of February… and then figure out where to go next. Somewhere sunny, warm, interesting… we are sure!
Below are some pictures – hope you enjoy them.
Jim & Alice
Jan 29 – Feb 5, 2013
Escapee’s “North Ranch” RV Park.
Walk path out into the desert, at the RV Park located outside of Wickenburg, AZ.
Feb 5 – Feb 7, 2013
Vulture Peak Trailhead – boondocking.
In this picture below, we have just selected a “BoonDocking” site out in the desert, a few miles outside of Wickenburg, AZ. This location happens to be a Trailhead, on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land. We can camp here free, for 14 days, after which we must ‘move’ to some new location…
Note the sunshine in the above picture! And warm temperatures! Also note the
Satellite Antennae …. HD TV out in the middle of the desert. Cool! There
were several other campers here, wonderful people to visit with. (We met
a very nice older couple… 71 & 90… acted like they were 20 – The man was a
WWII vet, that had served with (and met) Gen George S. Patton). Equipped with sufficient water, toilet, LP gas, and a generator/battery bank, a motorhome can comfortably stay in places like this for several days to a couple weeks. Arizona has hundreds of places like this… courtesy of Federal Government lands.
Feb 7 – Feb 28, 2013
Thousand Trails, Verde Valley RV Park
A few days later we moved to a Very Nice Thousand Trails Campground
located near Cottonwood, AZ (Just South of Sedona). The picture below
was taken as we entered the campground. Note, the cliffs in the background are the “Cliffs of Sedona”, 20 miles distant.
A few days later, the weather changed! We had a little snow at our Campground site… but much more in the surrounding mountains… Alice took the below picture in the mountains & canyons of Sedona, AZ.
The weather actually turned brilliant sunshine the next day… while yet
still getting cold during the night. Makes for cozy sleeping!