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.