New Park, New Outlook

There are so many RV parks in the southwest. A few years ago they were all full. It was hard to get into many of them because reservations needed to have been made months in advance. Last year it seemed they were thinning out a bit. We were told that the winter was unusual and many RV’ers had decided not to travel south due to the economy and the price of fuel. There were high hopes that this year would be different. However, we’ve noticed many parks have more than normal vacancies for the month of December. The park we were at in Mesa had extra sites and so does the one we moved into today. Matter of fact, there are lots of empty spots here but some folks don’t head south until January. We’ll just have to see if this year is a repeat of last or if this might be the upcoming trend with too many sites and too few RV’s to fill them.

It took about 20 minutes to go the approximate 12 miles to our new location. We didn’t say good-bye to Toni and Doug this morning. We just said “See-Ya” as we will be seeing them over the next few months. You never can tell what bush they might pop out from behind. And, I’m certain when they pop out of that bush Toni will have a plate filled with something she just cooked!!

This park is quite different than the one we just left. The sites are about the same size, the park is a little larger and there are no permanent residents. In addition, we have a large grocery store within a mile. We like that because it means no more driving 10 miles to buy milk or whatever else we might be out of. The park also has a swimming pool, a hot tub, a small putting green, a stocked library plus a few other amenities. It’s a really nice park. Matter of fact, it’s one of the nicest parks we’ve been to in this area. However, we’re not quite sure about the location since it’s still in Casa Grande. Only time will tell whether we decide to stay here for the full three weeks or move a little north towards the Phoenix area.

The day started getting busy right after we arrived and set up. The first thing on the agenda was the park sponsored lunch with hamburgers and brats on the grill. Our timing was perfect and we stood in line to get our share along with everyone else. Next was a trip to the Jeep dealership about a half mile down the road. We had ordered a replacement bolt for our vehicle tire carrier a couple days earlier. One bolt had worked it’s way out someplace along the road and this was causing the carrier to rattle. Then, Duchess was totally out of her dog food so it was about a mile north to the grocery store to pick some up for her. Notice how close we were to everything we needed to do. Timing for those chores was probably less than 1/2 an hour. If we had done that yesterday, the drive alone would have taken longer than that. Yippee!! We’re back in civilization …. but are we far enough in?

Next on the agenda was the Fantasy Tours show on Africa. I had never been to one of their presentations so wanted to go. I used to put on travel presentations in my past life and had also been to Africa so wanted to see what they had put together for their trip. It wasn’t quite what I expected it to be but I did win the door prize which was membership in the Enjoy America 50% off RV club.

I just couldn’t pass this up. Check out what this fellow thought was appropriate attire to wear to the luncheon. Sometimes when we think we’ve seen it all … something like this comes along.

It was a good day.