Christmas Eve in Tucson

Following are pictures of how RVers decorate for Christmas in the desert.  Wishing you all a warm and Merry Christmas! 

 

 

My favorite.  See the small elf next to Santa?

Christmas in Tucson

Our Friends Jeannie & Scott

Two weeks ago we left Big Mama Gypsy in her spot and drove to visit our friends from Bend who have a home in Florence, AZ.  During our time there, they suggested that we visit the ghost town of Goldfield near the Superstition Mountains.  The largest mine in the area was called Mammoth Mine.  For a little history see http://goldfieldghosttown.com/?page_id=20 .  Following are a few pictures of us, our friends and some experience at Goldfield.  Bear had a chance to play with his friend Jake.

Katherine with a Wallaby who is
used to visit injured troops

Superstition Mountains




Mike and Katherine with
Large Saguaro

Katherine and Jeannie on a Zip Line

 

Contrary to what folks may think, it does actually rain in the desert.  We’ve already had three days of rain within the time we’ve been here.  Also, temperatures are now in the 50 to 60 degree range in the daytime.  But after following the weather in other parts of the country, we aren’t complaining!

The Big Mama Gypsy blogs may be a bit shorter and fewer during times when we are in one place for longer periods but they will be have more pictures.

Wishing all my friends and loved ones a very Merry Christmas!

 

Our Christmas Decorations
with thanks to Donna for
loaning us her tree

Southwest Holiday Luminaries

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

!!

 

 

 

 

Trivia:  Did you know it’s illegal to cut down a saguaro cactus?  It is!

 

 




Desert Trails RV Park, Tucson, AZ

It’s hard to believe that we’ve been in one place for over two weeks!  We checked into Desert Trails RV Park on the 13^th of November and are planning to stay here through the 13^th of January.  We weren’t sure at first if this would be a place we’d enjoy.  There isn’t’ much space between you and your neighbor and the lots are all gravel.  We met the neighbors behind us the first day.  They are avid mountain bikers.  The first thing they asked us is how long we would be staying.  We told them through mid-January.  They asked where we are going next.  When we told them we would be in Casa Grande, they were surprised.  Over the first few days here, we found that most people would be here for 4-6 months.

 

The park is southeast of the Tucson city limits and snuggled up to one of two Saguaro national parks.  Hiking/biking trails begin at the edge of the park.  Also, it is very quiet at night and we can hear owls calling to each other and coyotes howling.  There is also a creature here that is new to us.  They are called Javelinas and typically like to go through the park at night scavenging for anything they can pillage like, garbage, flowers, etc.  We haven’t seen them yet, but both our neighbors have seen them roving through the park at night.  We’ve been told they have very sharp teeth and when threatened will bite.  Another thing we’ve learned about the wildlife is to scout the perimeter of the dog run for rattlers.  A resident of the park said it would cost around $1,500 to have a dog treated for rattle snake bite.  Yikes!.  Needless to say, we are careful to keep an eye out for both these creatures when taking Bear out.

Shootout at Old Tucson



You can see that I misbehaved at Old Tucson

On Saturday the 21st, we went to the biggest tourist trap around call “Old Tucson Studios”.  Over 300 old westerns were filmed there by the likes of John Wayne, Burt Reynolds and Clint Eastwood.  We watched some stunt actors explain how the original stunts were performed by the actors, a sheriff explained how he handled the bad guys and a judge explain how justice was handled in the early days of the West.  All in all, it was a one-time fun event.



Mission San Zavier del Bac

We also visited Mission San Zavier del Bac. See San Xavier del Bac Mission .  This is the oldest intact European structure in Arizona.  It is currently being renovated but still holds mass everyday in the morning and early evening.

We finally found a couple breweries in Tucson and it wasn’t an easy task.  “Ten 55” is a very small nano-brewery nestled in an industrial area.  They strictly brew beer (i.e. no food) but the brews are pretty good (see http://1055brewing.com/). We also found Barrio Brewing (http://barriobrewing.com/).  They have good food but are a bit snobbish about their ho-hum beers.  We brought our Ten Barrel growler along in case we wanted to get some fresh brew and the bartender said they have a policy that they don’t fill growlers other than their own.  Ooooo.  I thought that’s like biting the hand that feeds you. However he did “make an exception” for us since we’re from Bend.  We purchased a growler of their IPA.

Katherine and Mike and Ten 55

Last night was karaoke in the event hall.  I’m a bit shy when it comes to singing in front of people (although some of my Bend Research buddies might argue with that).  But, yours truly got up and sang 5 songs, two were duets with my recently made buddy (i.e. meaning last night on the stage), Nancy.  It didn’t matter how badly you sound, almost everyone who came took a turn.  It was hilarious fun!

Another Tucson, AZ Sunset

The weather today is supposed to be sunny and 76 degrees.  Guess I’ll be playing bocce ball with shorts and flip flops.

Tucson trivia:  An Irishman, Don Hugo O’Connor, founded the Spanish city of Tucson. He was an Irish expatriate hired by the Spanish Empire to upgrade frontier defenses against Apache raids and Pima discontent. He visited Tucson in August, 1775, and seeing that it was a strategic location, ordered that it become the Spanish military presidio.

 

 

 

Mojave Desert

10Nov2014

It’s really hard to believe that it’s been 11 days since the last blog.  It seems like a lot longer. 

After we left Calistoga, we headed to Mojave, CA, a 4-hour drive, with the intent of staying 2 nights.  We drove through huge groves of Joshua trees (sorry, I didn’t get any pictures).  We arrived at 1:00 pm to check in only to find a note on the door of the office that said it’s closed between Noon and 2:00 pm.  We pulled our rig to the side of the road and hoped it was out of the way enough.  We looked around the park while we waiting and decided to if it worked out, we would just stay one night.  I called ahead to Needles, CA to see if we might be able to check in a day early.  When told yes, we settled on just one night in Mojave. 

We noted that the main part of the park had back-in spots which I had been told when making reservations were the only spots that had full hook ups but that our rig length would fit.  Actual observance told us that the park road was too narrow with palm trees close in around the spots.  It would take a lot of jiggering to get Big Mamma Gypsy settled in.  At check-in we asked if pull-through might be available (water and electric only) and opted for that.

There were a number of reasons we wanted to move on.

1. It was too late to consider of moving on because the next stop was another 4 hours down the road and we had already driven 4 hours that day.
2. Also, the altitude is at about 2700 feet and it gets cold really fast when the sun goes down.
3. What confirmed that we made the right decision is that the only places to eat were fast food and Denny's  Not being a fan of either, we found a local Mexican restaurant where the food was okay and the beer cheap ($1.25 for a bottle of Corona).

Big Mama Gypsy in Needles

The following morning, we hooked up the Jeep and headed to Needles to the Palm River Resort.  The road signs on the way there advertise it as “5 star”.  We think that that acclaim is stretching it a bit.  Our lot is a pull through and is on pea gravel which is a relief after being on soft ground or rotting leaves but we have no shade.

The park provides some activities.  On Wednesday we played bingo with a group of about 10 people.  Each game was $.25 so Mike and I played a couple of cards each game.  We spent a total of $6.00 for 6 games but came out ahead because I won twice so we ended up with $8.50.  Woo hoo!  Nothing like earning money for fun entertainment.  There is a pool and hot tub on site.  The pool isn’t heated.  I think the idea is if you REALLY want to swim, you swim first then jump in the hot tub.

 

Both Needles and Mojave are very depressed areas.  However, we did find a really nice dog park only a couple of miles away and have been taking Bear every morning before it gets too hot.  There’s nothing more relaxing than a tired dog sleeping at your feet.

We also realized if we didn’t want to eat salt-laden food every day we would have to take our diet into our own hands.  The nearest grocery store is across the river in Bullhead, City, AZ.  Now we have what we need and can eat healthier!  The biggest challenge is trying to determine what groceries will be needed and the time in which you can use them up (I hate wasting food).

Two days ago we hired an RV repair person to help locate/repair a mysterious leak under the sink that started some 2-3 weeks ago.  Over this period of time I’ve tried sealing any suspicious joint with E-Z Weld 222 (a wet weld PVC cement) and have been using a cake pan to capture the leak.  To no avail, every morning/evening there would be a puddle in the pan.  Grrrr.  So, Mr. Repair Man spent about 45 minutes trying to find the leak.  Nope.  He couldn’t find it either was really baffled.  He tightened everything he could find and so fart hat has solved the problem.  We’ll find out whether it “sticks” during upcoming travel.  Everyone we talk to about full-time RVing says, “Just remember.  It’s a big box moving down the road.” 

We found one historic site in Needles.  It is the El Garces Hotel.  It has been restored but has a "for lease" sign on it so we were only able to look in the windows.



El Garces Historical Building (Front)

El Garces Historical Building (Back Side)

Relaxing on the deck in Bullhead City, AZ

We’ve taken a couple of side trips just to explore.  We went to Lake Havasu, AZ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Havasu) where you can practically smell BIG money.  We also went to Bullhead City, AZ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullhead_City,_Arizona) where we found a small place to grab a bite to eat and enjoy the mountain views.  We also decided to wander up to Laughlin, NV (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laughlin,_Nevada).  It’s like a mini Las Vegas.  I lost $2 there on the penny slot machines.

Casino in Laughlin, NV

One more day in Needles and then we’ll stop for two days in Tonopah, AZ.  So far, all we’ve been able to find as an attraction there is a natural hot springs and I’m sure we’ll have to check it out.

Sorry for being short on pictures.  And, oh, we didn’t realize when we visited Laughlin that Tim McGraw was going to be there that evening.

I’m still missing all my friends in Bend.  Be sure to write or, better yet, send pictures!

Trivia:  Do you know what famous cartoonist spent some time living in Needles from 1928 - 1930?  Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Needles,_California and go to "notable people" at the bottom.

Six Days in Calistoga, CA

31Oct2014

Happy Halloween!!

It’s been a great week in Calistoga and the weather has been in the high 70s and low 80s.  The rain arrived today but we’re good with that.  Tomorrow we will be pulling out to head further south to Chowchilla, CA for just a couple of days.  Our aim is to only do two, 2-day stay-overs a couple of times in a row, then find a place to spend a week.  We did three of these two-day stints to start out and it can get pretty exhausting.

I  was a bit doubtful of Calistoga when we got here. Eating out here is pretty expensive.  However, we found that there are 3-4 restaurants that have really good happy hour deals.  So instead of eating out, we snacked out!  It’s worked our pretty good since our favorite place so far has been Bosko’s Trattoria.  Napa wines can be extraordinarily good but also extraordinarily expensive.  During Bosko’s happy hour from 4:30 – 6:30 pm you can get any of their select wines for $6 per glass.  The average prices during non-happy hour are between $10 and $18 per glass.  Plus they have some pretty good appetizers for reasonable prices. (Boskos)

Huge petrified Sequoia - See the tree growing out of it?

We did some of the "touristy" things in the area.  I found the petrified redwood forest particularly fascinating!  (http://petrifiedforest.org/)





This was actually the tallest petrified tree

Side view of tree growing out of petrified wood

We  also visited the local geyser.  Those of you have seen the geyser in Yellowstone would probably have laughed.  It sprays about 60 feet in the air about every 30 minutes.  I found it entertaining because it would bubble and burp every few minutes to keep you on your toes for the real eruption that lasted about 3-4 minutes.  I feel it was worth the money spent.   (http://oldfaithfulgeyser.com/ )




For those of you who've seen the movie "Bottle Shock" (which we own and watch at least every other month), below is a picture of  where the movie was filmed.  It's based on a true story, although we found from the person serving tastes that it was embellished a bit.  It's much more beautiful in person than it was on the movie.


Chateau Montelena

We had our real first challenge getting our mail shipped to somewhere close to us. The place we are staying in Calistoga is actually part of the Napa County Fairgrounds and the manning of the office is very sporadic (i.e. weren’t sure if we would actually get our mail here), so we felt we should find a UPS store. 

 

On Monday we realized that we should stock up on some groceries and needed to look for a UPS store (see previous blog).  Calistoga only has a small boutique grocery store that’s pretty expensive. So, we used Garmin to find the closest Safeway which is in Santa Rosa about 10 miles away.  While at Safeway, we noted a UPS store in the shopping center.  Great, we thought, we’ll just get our mail sent there.  When we got back to the motor home, we got on the internet to find the address for the UPS store.  We made a note and Mike call the Bend UPS store where we are receiving our mail and gave them the address we found for Santa Rosa.  We were told that our mail would arrive Wednesday afternoon.  According to the timing we went back to Santa Rosa and followed the directions to the UPS store.  Alas, no mail.  I used Garmin to double check the UPS store address in Santa Rosa and alas!  There were three locations!  Hmm what to do now.  We called the UPS store in Bend and asked them for the address where the mail was supposed to go.  The young lady replied, “it was the address you gave to us”.  I tried to suppress my angst and asked her to confirm the address she had on file since we found there are actually 3 locations in Santa Rosa.  As she verified it, we realized it was not the one next to the Safeway we had gone to.  Here’s where I have to say again, “Thank you for the Garmin!!”  We found the UPS store where the mail had gone and it was there.  Whew and yea!!  Success!!

We also had our first test to see how our set up with Wal-Mart for prescriptions would work.  We went to the nearest store in Santa Rosa (again).  Mike went to the counter and spoke to the person there.  They were able to find him in their system and said they could certainly have his prescription filled and it would be ready by Friday.  (They were true to their word.)  However, while we were in the store, we looked at Garmin for vehicles and found a reasonably priced one.  We’ve been so happy with the RV one that we "just had to" get one for the Jeep (where we don’t have to take the safe routes that the RV Garmin provides us). 

So tomorrow we’ll be on our way further south.  We’ll keep you posted on our progress.

Katherine and Mike Rossman

P.S.  I appreciate any input from you on whether the blog is getting too wordy or boring.  After all, I want to keep you interested and entertained!!

Surviving the Coastal Winds

Wow!  We've had quite a ride (literally) the last few days. 

After we left Florence last Wednesday, we wound our way down to Crescent City and ran into some pretty serious winds!  The Hiouchi RV resort was okay.  Gravel pull-throughs with grassy areas between for Bear to roll in (he love his grass fix).  We stayed there a couple of nights.  Our first portion of our trip is to make headway south in search of warmer weather!

Friday, we headed down to the Redwoods to stay at the Giant Redwoods RV and Camp.  It rained torrential downpours the whole time we were there.  At times during the late afternoon and early evening you could hear high winds approaching through the trees, then there would be a sudden push of the motor home.  It was a bit nerve racking watching limbs, leaves and pine needles blowing sideways.

Saturday, when we woke up and the power was out so we decided to drive through the redwoods.  There were a lot of downed branches and we were warned by the camp host to be careful if we decided to hike, noting that we could get "conked" on the head by a dropping limb.  We chose not to hike anyway because the rains were so heavy (I know... I'm a whimp!).  The drive was certainly worth it because the views were awesome!!

We also took a drive up to Eureka and found a brewery there!!  You'll all be happy to know that we tested their brews against Bend's.  A pretty tough standard! It was called Lost Coast Brewery http://www.lostcoast.com/main.php.  I had their "Great White" beer and Mike had their IPA.  Gotta say, they weren't Bend beer and were a little more on the mellow side.


When we woke up on Sunday we still had no electricity, so we called Calistoga RV Park to see if we could get in a day early.  They said yes, so we headed down.  The Garmin way suggested to get to Calistoga after exiting highway 101 is though the hills on Hwy 128.  We questioned Garmin's abilities because it was really tight curves and my time of driving.  We made it unscathed but I needed a large glass of wine that evening to calm down.

If it weren't for the convenient walking distance to town, I probably wouldn't recommend this RV park.  It's basically a large parking lot with gravel pad sites and we are pretty close to our neighbors.  The first night we were here there was a large RV group meeting in the campground.  We started to question our stay at that time, but they all pulled out the next day.  Now there are quite a few less RVs in the park and the nights are really quiet.

Calistoga is noted as "Spa Town USA" and it's no joke.  I really want to get a massage, but it's going to take some shopping around because Lincoln Avenue Spa, the only one investigated so far, costs$180 for a 50 minute deep tissue spa... yikes!

Yesterday we drove to Santa Rosa to locate a UPS store where we will have our mail delivered on Wednesday.  This is when we found out that Garmin must be right.  The steepest incline we covered in about 8 miles to get there was 16% up/down grade.  On the way back to Calistoga, I used my IPhone to track the altitude gain.  Both Calistoga and Santa Rosa were right around 380 feet above sea level.  The highest altitude over the hills was over 1,000 feet.  That's a lot of climb and down hill.  Whew!  I could almost watch the gas gage drop as we climbed.

Now we are in for relaxing for a few days, and I'm looking forward to more!!

I have to keep reminding myself  that this is an adventure so you take what you get and always have a positive attitude.  That's what makes this so fun!!

Hoping all my friends at Bend Research continue to prosper.  I look forward to hearing from you.

So the Journey Begins

23Oct2014

So the journey begins.  We spent our first two days in Florence.  The trip from Bend was relatively uneventful except that I had my first emergency slow down experience.  We headed out in the morning BS the shadows along the Willamette Pass were long and dark.  As pilot at the time, I was focusing strictly on the traffic and staying in my lane.  Mike, as co-pilot is supposed to watch for any hazards.  At one point he began saying “deer” (not as in the affectionate “dear”.)  The louder he said it the more I tried to focus on where they might be.  Regardless, I began t slow down.  When I finally saw the female herd of about 6-7, they were still trying to figure out whether to cross the road or not.  My mind had resigned that if I had to hit one that would just be the way it was.  I actually was able to slow down enough to NOT hit any of the deer, but it was pretty close. I was thoroughly on alert from there on out. 

The Florence RV park, Pacific Pines was a full service RV park but strictly on concrete.  Not much fun for Bear who loves to roll in the grass.   We had a good time at the casino there.  I used 4-$1 dollar bills in the penny slot machines and came out with $6 so I considered it quite a success.

We had some time for Bear at the beach the beginning of the second day but the clouds moved in and it began to drizzle.  It was a good challenge getting hooked up on Wednesday morning in the pouring rain.  Always something new to learn.   Mike started as pilot and by the time we were on the road the rain had really set in.  Little did I know how lucky HE was because by the time it was my turn to drive, gusting winds had set in.  If you’ve never driven a 39-foot motor home with a dingy on the back, let me tell you from personal experience that it was a knuckle-buster… two hours of knuckle-busting...hang on to your hat tension.  I was really happy to get off the main highway.

We finally got to our next destination in Crescent City.  Hiouchi RV resort is about 7 miles off the main highway of 101.  Oh, and by the way, I would like to thank all of you who contributed to the RV Garmin.  We should have listed to its directions rather than the printed map we had.  It was a short-cut, you see, what we had on that paper map.  And now we know why.  There were some testy curves on the road we took and in between some really gorgeous, Redwood  trees growing VERY close to the road.  We made it to the RV park unscathed.  However, next time, we’ll take Garmin’s route even though it might be a little longer!!

Tomorrow will be a new adventure as we head to a park within the redwoods for a 3 day stay.  We were told to be sure to bring our own food since the nearest town is quite a ways away.  So we’ll see what tomorrow brings. 

Until later, best wishes to all my friends at Bend Research.