Casa Grande RV Resort

I told you in the last post that I would show you the pools at our RV Park, and we will. But first we're going to tell you that this morning we were BAD! We went to the Golden Corral and had their breakfast buffet. We are not fans of buffet's but the Golden Corral is actually much better then Hometown Buffet or the Las Vegas buffet's.

We had way too much of everything. From grilled to order steak, to ham steak, to fresh made to order omelette's to pancakes, to bacon, to cinnamon rolls we didn't control ourselves!  It even included juice and milk for $5.99 per person!

We did a little shopping and got back to the park and decided we should walk around the park for awhile!!!

Here are some pictures of the park we took. This is the entrance to the park.

Park Entry

You can see some RV's near the palm trees. Those are near the road and I'm not sure why people are parked there. There are plenty of unoccupied sites inside the park where you are more secure and it would be removed from the road.

These are the check-in offices as well as the library and pool table room. There is also a shower room here.

Office buildings

You can take or leave a book in the Library. It is on the honor system. This is completely guest driven. Through the door in the back is the billiards room.

Library

Here is the billiards room. There are four pool tables in here.

Billiards Room

If you want to get away from it, there is a pond on the property with benches you can sit on. There is also a walking path around the pond.

Pond

There are two swimming pools here, but one is designated for playing volleyball. The water temperature is in the mid 80's. 

This is the swimming pool.

Swimming pool

This is the volleyball pool.

Volleyball Pool

The Jacuzzi has two sets of jets, one for each side of the pool. When we first got here it was not hot enough, but we asked them to turn it up and they did! As you can see it's between the two pools.

Jacuzzi

The BBQ area is next to the pools. They have hamburger lunches for $3.50 several times a week and I think they do it here.

BBQ area

They have lots of activities here, but so far we have not done any. They have an Ice Cream social at 2:00 today and we may go to that.

Well that's it for today,

Love you all!!!

Brian and Patty

Casa Grande, AZ

We made it to Casa Grande on Monday. We are staying at the Casa Grande RV Resort which is an RPI. They just spent over a million dollars renovating the park and it really shows! Because Casa Grande is in the desert there is no grass here, but there are some trees. There is a cement pad with gravel to keep the dust down. We were lucky enough to get an end site.

Site 77

They have 2 swimming pools and a Jacuzzi, and a pond in the back. I'll try to take pictures before we leave next Monday. Although it has been chilly here they do keep the pools warm and we have used them already. 

Here is a picture of our truck this morning at about 8:00. It got into the low 30's last night. With our fireplace going we kept toasty!

Frost on the truck

We decided today to go to the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument. Casa Grande was named after the ruins, however the ruins are actually in Coolidge which was named after the Coolidge dam.

Coolidge

Coolidge has a population of about 12, 000 people yet it has a SuperWalmart, a Sonic Burger, a Safeway and other stores. The ruins can be seen from the Walmart parking lot.

They consider this a Prehistoric Ruins, because although the buildings were built about the year 400, and in Europe tools were being used from copper and brass, the Hohokam Indian tribe built this using sticks and by hand. They also had no written language so the engineering is amazing.

Saguaro Cactus

The current covering you see was built in 1932 to protect the ruins from further erosion. As you can see there is also a lot of Saguaro Cactus around here.

Every hour they provide a guided tour to give you information about the area. Also in the visitor center they had a movie with the history of the 'Great House', as well as the Hohokam Indians. The Hohokam's no longer exist, but they believe the O'odham may be decedents of the Hohokam.

Almost as old as the Ruins!

Patty was perusing this 'condo' property, but I convinced her that the 5th wheel was a better fit for us!

Patty's Condo

The walls are build out of Caliche which is a hardened deposit of calcium carbonate. It is really a precursor to modern day cement and is why the 4 story "Great House" has stood for 1800 years! 

I just like the way this picture came out with the prisms of the lens showing through in the picture!

Sun spots

Patty took this picture of the purple cactus. Don't know what kind it is, but is was pretty.

Purple cactus

We ended up spending about three hours at the monument. We took a picnic lunch, ate sandwiches and then went back and looked some more and took more pictures. After that we headed back home to Casa Grande.

It was a wonderful day.

Thanks for reading and please leave any comments you may have!!

God Bless you,

Brian and Patty

Rest Day

Today has been a rest day. We did go to one flea market we hadn't been to yet and we also went to an outlet store that I will talk about later.

The flea market was pretty much a junk sale. Nothing for us here, but it was still interesting to look at.

Flea Market

As I said before, there are these swap meets and flea markets all over town. All you need to do is stop somewhere and there WILL be a sale someplace! There are also huge gem and mineral shows but we found that we are not much interested in that. Here is another picture of the flea market.

Flea Market junk

Patty did pick up some kettle corn and I did pick up some peanuts in the shell at a produce dealer. Here you  can see how we can park easier on the scooter, the truck would not have fit here. You can see the kettle corn bag across the seat of the scooter. :)

Scooter parking

I mentioned earlier about us shopping in the outlet store. All of a sudden I heard my name!! A retired Sheriff sergeant that I used to work on his computer when I worked at the Sheriff's department was in the store. I had seen him back in April or May when I had parked the scooter in from of Costco in Oxnard next to his Harley. We both came out at the same time. He has a Montana 5th wheel and doesn't really full time, but does travel for months at a time. He is in Quartzsite now for several months staying in a different RV Park. 

Last time we came with Scott and Terri we also saw someone we know. SMALL world! 

On the way back to the RV we had a few rain drops hit us. Later in the evening it really started raining and rained all night. 

Saturday is wash day and a little sight seeing. Probably won't update again until we hit Casa Grande which we do on Monday.

We love you guys, 

God Bless you,

Brian and Patty

Hi Jolly Camels

We decided to take a break from all the swap meets and bargain hunting. Parker, Az is about 35 miles from Quartzsite and their is an Indian casino there. Patty is always up for a casino so we drove up to Parker and first went to the Bluewater Casino.

Bluewater Casino

The casino is right on the Colorado River. Patty and I both got their players cards which gave us $10.00 each of free play. You need to play that through, but can cash out any winnings from that. After winning $41 and change between the two of us we cashed it out figuring that would buy us lunch and fuel for driving us here! We walked down to the river and the River's Edge Cantina. Although the casino was very busy with alot of people that made us look like youngsters, the Cantina was EMPTY. I suppose their hoveround chairs may have ran out of electiricy buy the time they got to the cantina. :)

We were agressively greeted by the staff at the restaurant letting us know about their specials. Street tacos for $1.00, chicken or beef! Patty was in the mood for Mexican food so we decided to eat there.

Not very busy!

The view was great and the tacos were actually very good, and what a bargain! The staff was very happy to have some paying customers. I'm sure during the summer you would have to wait hours to get in here.

Here is the view we had.

Colorado River

After lunch we went to the SuperWalmart for a few items. We were getting a "Lamp Out" warning light and noticed that my left brake light was out, so we went to AutoZone to buy a new tail light. When we got back to our campsite we replaced it which fixed the problem.

On our way back to Quartzsite Patty saw this Quartzsite sign with camels on it.

Quartzsite Camels

I had heard about the camels in Quartzsite and read there was a Hi Jolly Monument. Hi Jolly was actually Syrian born Haiji Ali. In 1856 Secretary of War Jefferson Davis (yes the same one that became president of the southern Confederacy)  decided to import camels into the arid Southwest to experiment for moving freight and communications. Hi Jolly as the soldiers named him was the caretaker of the camels. He was universally known as Hi Jolly.

Hi Jolly Monument

Although the camel experiment was successful it was eventually scrapped and the camels were left to fend for themselves in the desert. Most died off but the last one was shot by a farmer when he found it grazing in his garden in 1893.

Hi Jolly is buried under the monument in the Quartzsite cemetery.

Quartzsite Cemetary

Well that's it for today. Monday we leave for Casa Grande, AZ.

We love you all,

Brian and Patty

Quartzsite, AZ

We got to Quartzsite on Monday January 21. For those of you who don't know what or where Quartzsite is, it is the largest accumulation of RV'ers in the USA! Someone called it a senior citizen RAVE party. Snow birds flock here from all over the country for about 3 months of Winter in their motorhomes, 5th wheels, and travel trailers. Normally there are about 2,000 residents here, but during December, January and February there are about a million people in and around Quartzsite!

The funny thing is that although all the RV Parks are fully packed with no vacancies, most people set up in the desert without hookups. $500,000 Prevost motorhomes with solar panels and going to town to buy water for their rigs.

RV Everywhere!!!!

We were last here several years ago for a weekend with our great friends Scott and Terri. We stayed in Blythe  CA in a Motel 6 and drove the 20 miles in each day. We had decided when we retired we would come in the RV and stay a week. We were originally going to boondock (stay in the desert without hookups) but decided to stay in a park. Knowing how hard it would be to get reservations I called and reserved back in March of last year. After researching it I found that Quail Run RV had the best reviews.

Quail Run RV Park

There are swap meets and flea markets all over town. This one is called Tyson Wells Flea Market. It is huge.  We took this picture from the freeway overpass. You can see how far the vendor booths go!

Swap Meet

Here is another picture of the swap meet from the street. You can see the traffic. During the day this is the way Quartzsite is. It has been awesome having the scooter, being able to get around the mess! The scooter also allows us to find parking everywhere.

Bumper to bumper traffic

They have the "Big Tent" which is the place the RV vendors really want to be. This only happens for the last two weeks in January. There are RV's for sale all around the tent, as well as other vendor booths around it too. The "Big Tent" is the furthest tent you can see in this picture.

The Big Tent

This is inside the Big Tent. A lot of "Fair" kind of vendors as well as RV stuff. We had hard water stains that we got on our shower doors from Santa Paula that we could not get off. A vendor was selling some stuff that he guaranteed would remove it safely. It was pricey, but money back if it didn't work and since we are here for a week, I was willing.. Guess what? It worked as advertised!!!

Inside the Big Tent

Well that's it for today,

We miss you all!

Brian and Patty

Rose Parade Floats!

This post is written for January 2nd.

On New Years day Patty suggested we go to Pasadena on the 2nd and view the Rose Parade floats! What a great idea!! Because we are now retired and considered 'seniors' we were able to do early entry. This is much better as you do not need to fight the crowds that start at 9:00.

We got our picture taken at the parade theme float, "Oh, the places you'll go!". An old friend of ours, Charlie Higbee suggested that this was perfect for our new full timing lifestyle. I made the picture my Facebook profile picture.

Oh the places you'll go!

We could have arrived at the Rose Bowl parking lot earlier but we didn't get there until about 7:30 or so. From there we took the shuttle bus across town to the viewing area. We were the only two people on the bus. By the time we arrived at the float area it was about 8:15. The gates opened at 7:00 and next time I will be ready to get in by 7:00 because by 9:00 the general public was able to come in. Still at 8:15 the crowds were very sparse and you could easily get good pictures.

Small crowds early

We didn't leave until about 11-11:30 and this street was so jammed we could hardly get back through it to leave. Patty and I do not like crowds like that, but it was awesome early!

This was the first float we saw. It is amazing how they used flowers to make it look like fur on the bears. What really amazed us was that on TV it just looks like painted statues, but close up it is a bunch of extravagant floral arrangements.  On the Dole float they told us they had used 24,000 pink roses! That was just the pink ones, they also had white, and red and yellow roses!

First float we saw

And of course they don't just use flowers on the floats, the green and purple on the bottom of the Cat in the hat float are cabbages, the white on the face of Thing 1 and 2 and the flower petals are shaved coconut, the red suits on the Things are hollyberries.

Cat in the hat

This is the float from Cal Poly. Crystal graduated from here. It won the Bob Hope Humor Trophy so we had to take pictures of it. It was titled Air Tuxedo.

Air Tuxedo

Many of the floats used animations and some were run by propane. This float had two V-8 big blocks that had been converted to propane. One engine ran the animation of the float and one ran the propulsion. A separate person drives the float and runs the animations.

Mechanics of a float

Patty really liked this City of Downy float. They used green and yellow bell peppers for the sidings of the house. I thought the bark of the tree looked real so I asked what they used for it. Can you guess??

Well it turns out the local Pasadena Eucalyptus trees shed their bark every year. So the bark on the trees was local Pasadena BARK! 

Patty's dream house

Disney had the best float in the parade. It had the best animation and in my opinion was just the best overall. It was an replica of their new theme area Cars Land in California Adventure. It didn't win any trophy's at all, which didn't make sense. I asked a Disney employee why it hadn't?

Disney's Cars Land

Well it turns out that the parade has rules as to length of the floats. Disney didn't care. This is just one HUGE advertisement for the new Cars Land. It is way too long to be considered for a trophy, but almost every home in America and probably in the world got to see what Cars Land it about. Disney got what they wanted out of it!

Well that's it for today. The blog is back now that we are back traveling.

Love you all,

Brian and Patty