RV Adventures

FYI…Congress refers to Congress, Arizona…not our elected leaders in Washington D.C. Just thought I would toss that in for anyone who might be confused.

Congress is a town 60 miles northwest of Phoenix.  There is an Escapees (an RV Club) RV Park there that you can stay at at a discounted rate.   The discount was appealing.  The Park is also in the middle of nowhere which sounded very nice after dealing with the overcrowded park in Phoenix.  In addition, you can get your RV weighed at this campground.  Jim has really been wanting to have this done to make sure we have the coach properly loaded and the weight evenly distributed on all tires.  So we had it done there.  FYI…we are fine.

The Escapees campground was a pleasant surprise.  Typical of most Arizona campgrounds, there is no grass, you are parked on gravel.

All the RVs, lined up in a row.  Can you spot the Blue Flame?

Oh the view!

This campground had a wonderful view of the mountains and a well laid out and maintained cactus garden.

A prickly pear cactus in bloom.

View from a bench in the cactus garden. We visited frequently!

I took a walk one morning and visited the cactus garden at sunrise.

A woodpecker left its home in a saguaro cactus to pose for a picture.

The desert is a noisy place in the morning. I shot a short 14 second video to demonstrate how noisy.

While in Congress, we heard about a gold mine tour.  That sounded interesting, so we took it.  What should have been a 30 minute tour (in our estimation) was 2 hours.  It was hot, there was a lot of standing, we should have saved our money.

Remnants of the mining camp.

It was a HOT day in the desert.

Our quirky and TOO talkative tour guide.

To end our stay in the Congress area, we decided to head up the mountain to the town of Yarnell for breakfast.  Yarnell was in the news in 2013 for the Yarnell Hill Fire.  Nineteen Hotshots (firefighters) were overrun by flames while fighting this fire and lost their lives.  There are memorials all over the area in their honor.

In memory of the Granite Mountain Hotshots that were killed.

Yarnell truly was at the top of the mountain. We had to wind up the hill on a state road that used to be the main route between Phoenix and northern Arizona. We were definitely up there.

View from the top.  Can you spot the road?

It is a rocky landscape. Imagine fighting a wild fire in this environment.

The whole time in Arizona, I have been lamenting the fact that I have never seen a javelina in the wild, even though we have been visiting here for 22 years. My parents see them all the time in Green Valley. I had my camera out taking pictures of Yarnell when BAM! There was a javelina crossing the street. I have now seen a javelina in the wild…if crossing the main street in town counts as “wild.”

Javelin in the wild!

One more important event to mention that occurred during our stay in Congress is our Spencerport house sold! We spent Sunday on the phone with our realtor and receiving documents via email. Thank goodness we had a great Verizon signal AND I have unlimited data on my phone. We certainly made use of both that day. The sale of the house is bittersweet. But keeping the house and traveling as much as we do didn’t make sense. And I have to give a shout-out to our neighbor Dave who helped open the house up for showings. Thanks Dave!!!

We departed Congress to head to Yuma where we had an appointment to get solar panels installed on the RV.  The drive wasn’t far and we were going to arrive in Yuma early at the pace we were setting. So we pulled into a rest area on the highway that cuts through the Yuma Proving Ground (facility used for testing military equipment and encompasses 1,307.8 square miles or 3,387.2 km²). Jim grabbed a book and a lawn chair and had an hour of downtime in the shade. All the while we could hear sonic booms coming from the Proving Ground. This was not your ordinary rest stop.

Rest Stop!

Solar panels mean we can truly stay off-the-grid for weeks at a time and not have to rely on our generate to charge the house batteries.  So we arrived at Starlight Solar (where we got new batteries last year) and once again “camped” on their RV pad. The solar panel installation took all day, so we ran errands, etc. At the end of the day, we had 5 beautiful solar panels on our roof!

Starting the install

Panels at the front

Panels at the rear

Now the decision was where to go next. We had wanted to try out the solar panels in the desert. But the temperature was going to be climbing (97 degrees!) and we knew we would need the air conditioners. Those can not be run off solar panels…so it was either sit in the desert listening to the generator hum or find a local RV Park. We opted for the RV Park, and are we glad we did. We found a wonderful place to stay with great amenities. Plus it’s the low season, so rates are reasonable.

Sunset…from the hot tub

Sunset again.

Our camping spot, nicely landscaped.

Pool time.

Looks nice, doesn’t it? Jim just headed to the Park office to sign us up for 2 more nights.

We aren’t sure where we are heading next, most likely eastward across Texas. We have to be home in three weeks and don’t want to rush getting there.  We’ll figure it out.