Arizona in February

Corinne Elks, RVing 1 Comment

We decided to “get outta Dodge” for a few weeks…meaning “let’s leave our home build and give ourselves and our builder a breather.” It was time to let him do his thing without us underfoot. Our friends Dan & Amy were making their way towards Arizona, so we decided to go with them. It turned out to be two full weeks full of socializing and fun. If you are lonely while RVing, you aren’t doing it right.

Picacho Peak State Park

We started with Picacho Peak State Park, located between Tuscon and Phoenix. Coincidentally, friends Rob and Laura and new friends Jean and Duane were also there. Thus started multiple days of fun.

It was amazing how green the Arizona desert was this time of year!

Amy had a milestone birthday while we were at Picacho Peak.

The weather was very cooperative. We had lots of meals, including Amy’s Birthday dinner. Pulled Pork was made by Dan on his smoker. Amy made her Mom’s key lime pie. Yummy!

Jim’s cousin Dennis and his wife (from Minnesota) were in the Phoenix area for the week. Their presence was why we headed towards Phoenix to start with. They stopped by for dinner one evening for a great visit. We didn’t get any pictures of us, but got a great one of the sunset that evening.

Sunset
The sunrises were equally stunning.

Lost Dutchman State Park

When our time at Picacho Peak was up, we headed to east of Phoenix to Lost Dutchman State Park. We had stayed here in 2020 just before the Pandemic shut the world down but didn’t have much of a chance to explore then. The state park was just a stunning this time around.

While in the big city of Phoenix, we made the most of our time. One day we visited the showroom for the cabinet manufacturer for our house. Dan picked up a piece of hardware he needed in Chandler. Amy and I made a trip to the fabric store. We ended that day at Organ Stop Pizza, a place a couple of people recommended we visit.

Organ Stop Pizza in Mesa, Arizona….their claim to fame is the world’s largest Wurlitzer Organ.
We arrived early (along with the rest of Phoenix it seemed) and got our pizza order in. Then the entertainment started. The organ console rose from the floor and the organist entertained while we ate. We enjoyed the visit, but the strictly average pizza probably won’t lure us back.

Another day, Wade and Debi aka RV Explorer came out for dinner. We had not seen them since last Spring. It’s amazing the network of friends you develop on the road.

As I was taking this picture, a fellow camper remarked “You can’t take a bad shot.” He was so right.

Catalina State Park

If it seems we were doing a tour of Arizona State Parks, you would not be wrong. These state parks were all fully reserved since it’s high season in Arizona. But we have a way to monitor the reservation system. When someone cancelled, we were on it…reserving a freed up campsite.

Catalina State Park is located in Oro Valley, a northern suburb of Tucson. Again, Dan and Amy joined us, and we had tons of acquaintances in the area.

I took this picture one morning as the sun was rising over Mt. Lemmon.

There were a bunch of Escapees in the area (Escapees is an RV club we belong to). We met up with the same group from Picacho Peak to celebrate another birthday.

Happy Birthday Duane! I love that he wore the same Birthday crown Amy had on the prior week.

File under “It’s a small world”, one of Dan’s good friends from has a good friend (another ex-Kodaker) that now lives just 5 miles from Catalina State Park. Hal and Vonda graciously invited us over for Superbowl Sunday! You have to shake your head at six former residents of the west side of Rochester meeting up in Arizona.

Pre-football game festivities. It was a lovely afternoon to sit on their back patio. L to R: Corinne, Hal, Dan, Amy, Vonda (Jim is behind the camera).

Return to Las Cruces

Alas, our time in Arizona had come to an end. It was time to head back to Las Cruces. Because there were high winds predicted for later in the day, we decided to get an early start. Let’s see how that went. We were exiting our campsite at 5:53 a.m.

This is us as 5:55 a.m. The voltage readout on the truck portion of the RV was jumping all over the place. Jim shut the truck off and tried to restart it. Nada. We were dead AND we were blocking a lane on the two lane road exiting our campground. With no electrical power on the truck portion of the RV, we had no emergency flashers! So, out came the emergency LED flares. We highly recommend these, just make sure you have batteries!
Jim did some troubleshooting the best that he could. But the problem was an elusive one. So it was time to google “mobile truck service” and place a call. W.W. Williams out of Tucson was excellent!!!

I should also mention that it was cold and rainy out. We turned on the propane furnace for heat while dealing with the electrical problem. We had about 20 minutes of heat when the furnace started blowing cold air. What the heck? That’s a problem for another day.

Dan and Amy came by to lend moral support, that’s their pickup truck. The problem turned out to be hidden corrosion under the battery terminal connections. Go figure. By 11:00 we said goodbye to Dan and Amy (again) and were on the road heading to Las Cruces.

Then this happened. We got an alert that I-10 was closed between Tucson and Las Cruces due to a dust storm.

We tried to get a shot of the dust storm, you can sort of see it on the horizon to the left.

This area is notorious for dust storms. There is a 40 mile detour you can take to keep heading east, but we had had enough for the day. We opted to quit for the day and pull into the Willcox, Arizona Elks Lodge and spent the night there.

This is what it looks like when an RVer checks into an Elks Lodge after a difficult day. You sign the guest registry and order a few drinks.

We made it back to Las Cruces the next day, but not before we crossed paths with John and Tina. Granted, they were heading west and we were heading east. But it gave us an excuse to honk and flash our headlights at each other!

It was funny that we both took pictures of each other as we passed on I-10!

Finally back in Las Cruces, it was time to get that furnace fixed.

The flashlight is shining on the furnace. I took this picture before the furnace was completely pulled out. This repair meant calling a Mobile RV Tech. Jim was able to diagnose that the electrical system was OK. But when it came to dealing with propane, we said “Nope, time to call someone.” It turned out the orifice that the propane passes through was plugged. If you ever need an excellent Mobile RV Tech in Las Cruces, we have a name for you!

Power has been run to the new house and the 50 amp plug is now functional. So we are now parked on our own property and plugged in. We are grateful to the neighbors across the street that let us park in their driveway for weeks on end. In fact, all the neighbors here have been extremely helpful.

FYI….I just put up a new house blog at https://house.cjsquare.com/ if that interests you.

So we are sitting here for a while. We may take a short trip or two. We’ll see. The builder is aiming to have the house finished mid April. Time will tell.

Home Sweet Home(s)

One thought on “Arizona in February”

  1. dominiquefeather

    Thanks for the pictures and video. Y’all certainly do have friends all over the country!!! Glad that the house is moving along. Looks great —should have had you design my house which brings me to the fact that my whole house would probably fit in your RV garage!!!

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