Off Road Vehicle Paradise

One day I WILL own a side by side.  Back when I was working, when I could afford a side by side, I had no interest in owning one or a quad. But now, I am fortunate when I can get a ride from someone. Every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday at 10:00, a group goes out for a ride (weather permitting). The rides rarely get canceled.

So, why did I call this post Off Road Vehicle Paradise? There is no restriction for riding on the beach. And, then there are the hills, the high desert plateau, the dunes, and the canyons. Now for some of the pictures.

Two rigs boondocking on the beach.

Riding on the high plateau looking toward the Sea of Cortez and Baja across the sea.

Stopped for beer break.

The view from on top of the bluff

Stopped on top of the bluff.

The new lighthouse and the village of El Golfo de Santa Clara from on top of a bluff.

The old lighthouse, replaced this year.

I tried loading some videos, but I couldn't get them to work.  I'll try to figure it out in the future.

El Golfo RV Beach Resort

What is it that I really like about El Golfo besides the fact that it doesn't snow in the winter. Maybe it is the sunsets?

Or is it the fisherman that drive their trucks and trailers into the surf right up to the floorboards? Being a fisherman in an open boat is one tough life.

Or maybe it's all the activities we have: darts, holey board, bocce ball, shuffleboard, karaoke, and cards. It has become quite obvious that I was having too much fun to take pictures. Next season I will take the time to get pictures of our activities. This park is like summer camp with no adult supervision.

Next post I will highlight some of our off road trips on quads and side by sides.

Mexico

We finally arrived in Mexico. We are staying in the CRA (Colorado River Adventures) Beach Resort called El Golfo, in El Golfo de Santa Clara, a small fishing village on the Sea of Cortez.

Our trailer reflecting the setting sun. This is early in January and the evenings were quite cool.

The view from our site.

We are 90 miles South of Yuma in the Sonoran desert on the Sea of Cortez, aka the Gulf of California. Because it is a desert, we get very little rainfall. But occasionally it does rain here in paradise.

Occasionally, it storms and the sea gets angry. If you look closely at the picture of the view from our site, you will notice several yellow electrical pedestals near the sea wall. There are two reasons that no one is on them. First, only CRA members can stay on a beach site and only for two weeks. Long-term campers don't want to move after two weeks. Second, during a storm the waves come over the wall. Last year, the sites got washed away, but they are now rebuilt. Being on the wall might get you hustling in the middle of the night to move away from violent waves crashing over your rig.

Our little palm tree is taking a beating. It did keep our chair from blowing away.

The sea wall being pounded by the waves.

100 feet of sea wall was undermined and fortunately did not collapse during the storm.

It has all been repaired now and is ready for the next big storm. The wash out was about eight feet deep.

We have recently decided to stay in Mexico and not return to New England this summer. That doesn't mean that we won't be doing any traveling. We still don't own a home and will continue to live full time in our RV. Right now, the plan is to leave Mexico in early June and return in early September. I think Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana will keep us plenty busy.

Our next few posts will be about what makes this place such a nice place to stay. If any of you RVers out there would like to visit El Golfo, send me a private message on Facebook, or send me an email. You can find that information over on the right-hand side in the web version. 

You can stay as my guest for up to 7 days for $10 a night.

If you are concerned about traveling alone in Mexico, I will be willing to meet you in Yuma and guide you down.

Now that I have Mexican internet, I can finally update my blog while I am in Mexico. Our Verizon international plan only allowed us 0.5 gigs a day, not nearly enough.

Until next time, adios mis amigos.

Arizona

Day 20 finds us leaving Colorado Springs with four new tires on the trailer and the hopes of an uneventful trip to Arizona. We stopped at the Walmart in Trinidad, Colorado, for the night and replenished needed groceries.

Day 21 we stopped at another Walmart, this time in Edgewood, New Mexico.

Days 22 - 24 we stayed in a Coast to Coast RV park called Hidden Valley Resort in Tijeras, New Mexico. Calling HVR a resort requires a good imagination. However, we did have full hook ups, so we did have desired AC. Our site was extremely narrow and not level, and all of the C2C sites were like that.

I leveled the trailer. Compare it to the truck.

There is barely enough room to walk beside the trailer and enter door. 

Day 25: We traveled to Anthony, New Mexico, and stayed at the Sombra Antigua Winery. This is one of our favorite Harvest Hosts stops. It is near El Paso, Texas, where my grandson Sean Wallace is stationed. Sean recently married Jennifer Gutierrez, and, suddenly, we now have two great grandchildren, Bryant and Donavella. Sean brought his family out to visit with us at the winery. It was a Sunday and they had food and entertainment at the winery. 

Sombra Antigua Winery

Bryant, Sean, Donavella, and Jennifer

Day 26 was a disaster. We headed West and had a planned stop at another Harvest Host, Pillsbury Winery. Our GPS took us down an imaginary road that didn't exist except on paper. As we tried to get back on track it took us down a narrow road which had a sign posted "No county maintenance beyond this point." It was a two-way road wide enough for our truck and trailer and horrible muddy ruts. With no way to turn around, I put the truck in four-wheel drive, said a quick prayer and powered through. The winery was closed. Sam Pillsbury was headed to town as we arrived and he told me where I could park. Now, for the reason day 26 was a disaster: I picked up a piece of metal in one of my brand new tires, probably on that muddy road with no county maintenance. When I did my walk around before leaving in the morning, I noticed that the trailer had a flat tire. Being a pro at changing tires by now, I put the spare on and we were soon headed to Yuma. We stayed at the AMvets post overnight and arrived at Big O Tires first thing in the morning. I bought road hazard protection when I bought the new tires, so the problem was taken care of at no cost to me.

Ugly.

Quickly changed and back on the road again.

Day 27, October 2, 2019, we pulled into Yuma Lakes RV Resort. We visited with our friends John and Linda Wilde as well as having happy hour near the pool area with a lot of our El Golfo friends who stopped at Yuma Lakes before going to El Golfo.

Sunrise at Yuma Lakes RV Resort.

Moon rising at Yuma Lakes RV Resort.

We stayed in Yuma until October 15th and then went to the Bull Dog Canyon OHV Area in the Tonto National Forest for a little boondocking. We were extremely disappointed. The road had deteriorated to almost impassable for everything except a four-wheel truck camper. Our favorite site was closed. The further in I went the worse the road got. Finding a place to turn around was bad. The spot I chose wiped out my front two stabilizing scissor jacks and almost tore off my tank drain pipes. Then, to add insult to injury, we didn't see any wild horses near our campsite.

Damaged stabilizing jack.

We finally settled into a nice site.

Nice view from our campsite.

Jake is not impressed.

A view of our trailer from a wash where there was evidence that the wild horses had been close a few days before.

We had come to the Tonto Forest because Kay was going to have eye surgery to remove one cataract. We only stayed 6 days and finally decided to stay at Paradise RV Resort in Sun City, Arizona, closer to her appointments. The drive across Phoenix was horrendous. This turned out to be a good decision. A retired mechanic stopped me and said that I should get the rear end checked on my truck. I did and found out it needed to be rebuilt. GM parts manufacturers had been on strike and there were no GM parts to be had anywhere in the country. The GM dealer finally agreed to rebuild the rear end with aftermarket parts and, after a week, we were finally on the road again. This delay worked out, as Kay was able to have her second cataract surgery a week after her first one.

We left Sun City and went back to Yuma, this time staying on the BLM land near the VFW off of US 95. While we were there the heater quit. We took it to RV World in Yuma and they said they could look at it in three months. So, off to El Golfo we went, where we would have electricity to run a space heater.

Being in Mexico does create a problem for writing the blog because I run out of usable data to quickly. Currently, we are in Tucson, with WiFi at a motel. I am working on getting better internet in Mexico. My next blog post will be about Mexico.

Thanks for stopping by.  Leave a comment to say hi.