July 25
Today is the day!
Yesterday we packed up all the outside stuff and removed the stabilizer jacks. When you have been at a site for a while, you do tend to spread out, so you really should check everything to be sure it is properly stowed. We also learned that lashing your lawn chairs to the ladder on the back of the trailer is not as easy as one might think. It definitely takes both of us and a lot of bungee cords to get that accomplished! I might seriously consider that lawn chair caddy I saw over at Isley's (another trailer stuff place).
We learned today that we need to figure out a better plan for the computer desk. Once we roll in the slide, the desk doesn’t quite fit in front of the sink as we had planned, so we have to come up with a way to lash it on to the TV cabinet. For travel we put the TV, computer, monitor, and printer on the floor between the slide and the fridge. Doing it that way we had just enough room for the desk to sit partway on the floor and partway on the slide. It worked, but we didn’t like it much. The way we packed up this time was OK for a short trip to a spot where we plan to stay for a while, but it would be a major pain to do it this way for travelling. I think lashing the computer desk in will make a big difference.
We hooked up and headed out cautiously. The big fear about the electric cord being too short was nothing. There was plenty of length. We left at 7:00 AM on Sunday so there would be as little traffic as possible. That way we could adjust the brakes and practice stopping. The trip was pretty uneventful. About the only thing to talk about is the big hills between Phoenix and Cottonwood. Phoenix is at about 1000 feet elevation and Cottonwood is at about 3300 feet. However, to get there, you do have do go over 5000 feet. It was an excellent test of the truck which made it up the steepest hill at 45 mph without even working terribly hard. We’re pleased with its performance.
When we arrived at the Turquoise Triangle RV park it was very humid. We did a lot of sweating, even though the temperature was only about 85 degrees. First thing we turned on when when we got the electric hooked up was the air conditioner. (Mostly to cool off after setup.) Setting up was a breeze—I think we’ve got that part down. The cats came out from wherever they rode as soon as I opened the door, so I guess they weren’t too traumatized by a moving house. All in all, it took about an hour to get the outside and inside back to “normal”. Then we just sat down in front of the fans and cooled off. Then, and here is the best part, we turned off the air and opened the door and windows. I know all you folks down in the Valley of the Sun understand why this is the best part. Even better than
86 degrees is the fact that our site is completely shaded as you can see in these pictures. Now all we had to do was decide what we wanted to do.
July 30
We spent most of the first week just getting caught up on a lot of computer work that needed to be done. However, we have found a very nice state park called Dead Horse Ranch State Park that would be a good place for a weekend. They have hot showers, toilets, electric at the site if you need it and at least a little shade at every site. It’s $10 a day for the site with no electric and $15 if you want electric. They also have a group site area if you need it. There are a lot of hiking trails, and a small lake for fishing only. Just a few miles up the road from there is a place called Tuzigoot which is the ruins of an old Indian community. We have walked all through Tuzigoot before this trip and plan to visit Montezuma’s castle which is also not far from here.
We took some pictures of the inside of the trailer too, so everyone can see what it looks like.
The weather here is pretty much the same each day. When we get up in the morning, it’s about 70 degrees. (Definitely blanket weather.) By noon it is usually about 85 degrees. In the afternoon it sometimes gets up to about 93, but mostly it clouds over and gets pretty dark and then rains some. We have had everything from 8 little spits of water to an hour of pretty good downpour. Most of the time, we turn the air on sometime in the afternoon and off again after dinner. You gotta love that! That pretty much brings us up to date. We have some plans for the next couple weeks, so look for the next update to the diary about August 10th.
