#9 Coveys Great Adventure - Yuma, Benson and Burro Creek

Yuma, Benson and Burro Creek - March 2015

We really enjoyed Tucson and especially Justin’s Diamond RV Park, but once again we were itching to get moving. Personal and mechanical maintenance had moved to the top of our priority list, so we packed up and headed out on March 1st. We thought the generator problem we discovered last summer had been fixed before we left but it reoccurred when we dry camped in Quartzsite. Our first stop, then, was Cummins Coach Care in Phoenix where we spent a couple of fun days camped out in their parking lot and waiting room while they worked on the generator. $1,000 later it looks like they fixed it this time.

Las Algodones main street

Our dental and vision insurance lapsed when I retired, so like many, many others in the same boat we headed to Las Algodones, Mexico, right across the border from Yuma. Las Algodones (LA) exists solely to serve the health needs of American and Canadian seniors. There must be 300 dentists, 100 optometrists, 50 plastic surgeons and 25 pharmacies jammed into a area smaller than most malls. Mix in a few hundred stalls selling belts, bags, blankets, jewelry, carved animals of every species and several cantinas and bars, all within walking distance of the border crossing and you can see why the place is packed when the snowbirds arrive for their seasonal stay.

She hadn't had a root canal

Getting to LA is easy, it has its own exit on I8, about 5 miles west of Yuma. The actual border crossing point is on an Indian reservation and those enterprising folks have a monopoly on parking in their lot that directly connects to the border. You just walk across, right into downtown LA, where dozens of shills immediately try to get you to follow them to the establishments that they work for. They are humorous and very pushy, but not threatening. Just smile and keep walking, you easily break through the scrum.

The big draw here is, of course, price. Routine dental care is roughly 1/3 the US cost, and implants and other complex procedures are even lower. It was my turn this year and I had a root canal and three crowns done for the cost of a single crown in Thousand Oaks. I also had an eye exam and got new lenses for about 1/3 what I paid at Lensecrafters a few years ago. As I write this 4 weeks later, I am completely happy with the glasses and the dental work.

Best dog park we have ever seen

We splurged a little and stayed at the Cocopah RV and Golf Resort (CRV) on the Cocopah Indian reservation in Yuma. CRV is a big place with about 1,000 sites, a very nice golf course, restaurant, pool, spa, cable tv at every site and one of the best dog parks we have ever seen. Schroeder and Lucy had a couple of acres of green grass to run around on and dozens of other dogs to hang with. Needless-to-say, we spent a lot of time there every day.

It took five trips to LA to get all of my work done, but in between those we managed to see a couple of interesting places in Yuma: the notorious Yuma Territorial Prison, and the Yuma Quartermaster Depot, at one time the Army supply depot for most of the southwest.

Notorious felon

Yuma was the first capital of the Arizona territory so criminals from all over the area were sent to the Territorial Prison to serve their sentences. What is left of the prison is now a State Park. Over the years, most of the land and buildings of the original prison were re-purposed or destroyed, but the main administration building and a couple of sections of two cell blocks have been preserved. Its reputation in pulp fiction as a hellhole seems to be more myth than substance. While it operated, it was known among its peers as a humane and progressive penal institution. That doesn't mean it was a country club, but there appears to be no record of systematic abuse of prisoners. Given the climate in Yuma and the reality of the facility itself, though, any time served there was clearly no picnic.

Until we visited the Yuma Quartermaster Depot I had no idea that Yuma was a major river port. Before dams and irrigation completely altered its character, steamboats plied the Colorado River from its mouth at the Sea of Cortez to Yuma and beyond. The fort was the Army’s supply depot for Arizona, New Mexico, west Texas, and southern Utah and Nevada. Ships would bring cargo to Port Isabel, Sonora, where it was offloaded onto river boats for delivery to the warehouses in Yuma. Until the railroads arrived about 1880, very button, bullet and bean that the Army consumed in the southwest arrived by mule train from Yuma. In its heyday the fort used over 900 mules to keep supplies moving to the outposts established to protect settlers from marauding bands of Indians.

Once the medical issues were resolved it was time to move on. We had been hearing good things about SKP Saguaro, an Escapees Co-Op park in Benson, AZ, and decided to check it out. Benson is roughly 45 miles southeast of Tucson, about 320 miles from Yuma using smaller, non-highway roads where feasible, a comfortable day’s drive for us. Benson turned out to be a neat town, big enough to have a Safeway and a Walmart, but small enough to see in about 15 minutes. Benson is a major terminal for the Union Pacific Railroad and fright trains pass through about every half hour, day and night. It is also on the road to Tombstone and Bisbee, and home to Kartchner Caverns State Park.

It is amazing to see what people have done in 288 sq.' 

SKP Saguaro is the nicest RV park we have ever stayed in. I can’t imagine what could top it. The facilities are flawless, there is something going on every day at the big clubhouse and the people could not have been nicer. This is our first experience with an Escapees co-op park, where virtually everything is done by volunteers. In fact, the park itself was conceived, designed and partially built by the original founders. We just happened to arrive the week before their 25^th anniversary celebration. We quickly decided to stay the extra week and were immediately pulled into the festivities.

What with happy hour every day, beading and other crafts several times a week and breakfasts and dinners a couple of times a week there is no reason to ever be bored! And those are some of the normal activities, unrelated to the anniversary events, which included 3 dinner dances, a parade, blind man’s bluff in golf carts and a tour of the little houses called casitas that most sites have to supplement their RV’s accommodations.

These folks really know how to have fun!

This place is so busy it has its own cable tv channel that is updated every day to keep people up to date. There are about 300 leased sites in the park and we are number 276 on the waiting list for a vacancy. With attrition in the current lease holders and the folks on the waiting list (all “old” folk, after all), we figure we’ll get our shot in 4 years or so.  We’ll wait, it’s that good.

Mary, Kayeanne, me and Sam

It was a real treat to get together with Sam and Mary Proia while we were at Benson. Sam and Mary were visiting other friends in Tucson and the six of us spent the day touring Tombstone’s legendary Boot Hill and cruising the shops lining main street. While clearly a tourist destination, Tombstone has avoided becoming a total caricature. The grave markers in Boot Hill gave mute testimony to how hard, short and brutal life on the frontier really was. We had a great day, and it was hard to see them leave.

Benson has another outstanding attraction: Kartchner Caverns State Park. While not quite the same scale as Carlsbad Caverns, Kartchner is a living cavern. It is still growing as it has been for millions of years. The Arizona State Park Service has done a remarkable job preserving the site while providing excellent visitor access. The colors and shapes and sizes of the rock formations are really striking. The contrast between the harsh desert surface and the dark, cool, damp cavern was about as extreme as it gets. No pictures are allowed, co check the website. Admission was a little pricey, but I’m glad we decided to go. 

After spending all the money fixing the generator, we decided we’d take a shot at dry camping on our own for a few days to see how we liked it. We had dry camped in Quartzsite but were with a large group of folks including our friends the Woznickis. All of the RV parks that we stay in have electrical and water connections, and most also have sewer. Dry camping sites have no services at individual sites, and may or may not have a sewer dump station and/or access to fresh water. That means that we rely on the services built into our coach for electricity, heat and air conditioning, fresh water and waste containment.

Dry camping runs the gamut from just pulling off the road into the desert or primitive campgrounds that might have trash barrels, all the way to ones that provide improved sites with some amenities like picnic tables and campfire rings. Kayeanne spotted Burro Creek, a BLM campground near Wikieup, AZ, on the internet and we headed there from Benson on March 23.

Burro Creek campground through
the coach windshield

As dry campgrounds go, Burro Creek is pretty plush. Each of the 20-odd sites has a picnic table with sun shade and fire pit with cooking grate. There is a sewer dump station and fresh water spigots are sited around the campground, it even has flush toilets but no showers. There is an on-site camp host too, always a civilizing influence and a great source of local knowledge. There is no cell or data service at all out here.

We spent 5 days enjoying the splendid natural setting deep in a canyon with flowing water and an abundance of wild life. Burro Creek is popular with bird watchers and we saw blue herons, egrets, hawks and turkey vultures. We just missed a pair of eagles that had been hanging around for several days before we arrived. 

The dogs loved Burro Creek

We were very pleased (relieved) that the systems in the coach all performed as expected, and we had all the comforts of home living in the desert. We needed it, too, because the temperatures exceeded 90 degrees in the afternoon and plunged to mid-40’s overnight. Despite fresh water, grey water and black water tanks that are somewhat smaller than I’d like, we were able to get through 5 days by conserving water whenever we did use it. Paper plates, cups and bowls really help cut down the water usage. The generator kept the batteries charged up and allowed us to run the air conditioners during the worst of the afternoon heat. It may be a dry heat, but it was still HOT.

On the 28^th we pulled out of Burro Creek to return back to North Ranch (see #7) for Bead Week. About 125 avid beaders descended on the Escapees RV park near Wickenburg for an orgy of bead jewelry making. Kayeanne got roped into teaching a class, and I signed up for several events planned for the beading widowers. That’s it for now!

#8 Coveys Great Adventure - Arizona Part 2

Arizona part 2: January 17-31, 2015

We are certainly seeing a lot of southwestern Arizona this month. We really enjoyed staying at North Ranch and touring the area around Wickenburg, but were ready to move on and revisit one of our favorite parks, Dead Horse Ranch State Park. On the 17^th we hit the road to Cottonwood to rendezvous with Christine and Ed Woznicki. 

Dead Horse Ranch was the destination for our first RV trip, and it was just as nice as we remembered. The park has a small river running through it that creates two distinctly different sections. We like the Quail Loop campground, which is along the river and has lots of trees that shade all of the sites. The other campground is on a nearby hilltop without any trees or shade, but compensates with great views of the surrounding hills and spectacular sunrises and sunsets.

The happy wanderers

Cottonwood has two unique personalities. The newer part of town offers all the usual chain store shopping options where we stocked up on groceries, wine and a few parts for the coach. Old Cottonwood, on the other hand, is the original town comprising a number of interesting shops, restaurants and galleries spread out along Main Street that has avoided looking too much like just a tourist trap. It’s a quiet, kind of low key place to stroll around, have lunch or dinner and just relax. One shop you don’t want to miss is Ye Ole Hippie Emporium at the east end of town. Along with an interesting assortment of 60’s revival “stuff”, it has a neat selection of off-beat posters, funny bumper stickers and signs pertaining to that era, and some very eclectic period music. Kayeanne says the book selection is worth browsing, too.

Jerome clings to the side of the mountain 
above the old copper mine

Revisiting the old mining town of Jerome was one of the main reasons I wanted to return to Dead Horse Ranch. Last year we had just enough time to drive through it and realize how much there was to see. Jerome was the site of one of the richest copper mines in Arizona, but when that played out in the 1940’s, it became a ghost town. In the ‘60’s, hippies started moving in and slowly began rebuilding the town as an art and crafts center. One thing lead to another and Jerome is now a popular destination with lots of shops, bars, restaurants and a very interesting mining museum that has a mine shaft going straight down over 1900 feet. It is covered in thick glass that you can stand over and look way, way doowwwnnn. If you have problems with heights you probably want to pass on that, but the rest of the museum is certainly worth seeing, too. Don't miss all the old equipment spread around the grounds.

This is one of the easy sections

Huge sink hole near Sedona

Ed and Christine towed their highly modified Jeep along on this trip. One day we planned to head into the back country that is only accessible with that kind of vehicle, but every trail we tried to use was closed. Not discouraged, we went to Sedona where Ed gave us a demonstration of what he described as "easy" rock crawling. I was a little nervous when he just drove up a boulder field that I wouldn't have wanted to walk up, but the Jeep handled it without even working hard. Very impressive stuff. 

Problems with the complex systems in the coach are my worst fear about this whole adventure. Casa Covey has run flawlessly since September when we had a number of incidents when the engine wouldn’t fire up. I thought we’d solved that problem with fresh batteries and a new relay in the start circuitry, but it wouldn't restart after pulling into the campsite at Dead Horse. Needless to say, that raised raised my anxiety level. After a few minutes it did start, which was both good and bad news: good that we could move to a better site and get properly positioned for the week, but bad because it is much harder to find and fix an intermittent problem. Ed and I spent most of two days testing circuits, looking at wiring diagrams and talking through the circuit logic. The upshot of all this cogitating was to replace a fuel system relay and the small solenoid it energizes that in turn triggers the big starter solenoid on the engine itself. It has started flawlessly since, so we’ll see whether we nailed it this time.

 My pictures don't do it justice, so I borrowed this one

Every January, tens of thousands of RVs converge on the desert around the village of Quartzsite AZ transforming it into the largest RV gathering in the world. After a week in the relatively lush area around Cottonwood, it was time to head to Quartzsite. As you crest the hill on I10 and start down the long grade toward town, you can see RVs are spread across the desert for miles in every direction. The draw is the world’s largest RV show, but for many people the show is only an excuse to head to Quartzsite to hang out with folks that they may only see once a year. Literally hundreds of thousands of RVs bring more than a million people to this small patch of desert every year.

Abandoned mine near Quartzsite

Like last year, we joined the group of Foretravel owners that Ed hangs out with on the Internet. They generously tolerate our Monaco coach among their classy, exclusive rigs. Ed’s son, Zack also joined us for a few days, and we all went off-roading in the desert, visiting an abandoned mine and seeing some really spectacular desert country.

 The entire desert around Quartzsite is controlled by the US Government Bureau of Land Management, so it is open to public use, including camping. We just pulled off of Rt. 95 onto a dirt road that lead to a flat piece of desert and spent the next 5 nights at no cost other than the fuel we burned in the generator.

Ed and Christine

Our group comprised about a dozen coaches, with some leaving and others arriving every day. Visiting each others rigs, talking about upgrades, solving problems and general palaver made for a very pleasant visit that we now look forward to every year. The RV show was interesting, too, but we managed to keep our wallets (mostly) closed. Maybe next year.

On January 26, Ed and Christine headed back to California and we pointed the coach toward Tucson where we will spend February at Justin’s Diamond J RV Park. More on that next time.

#7 Coveys Great Adventure - Arizona Part 1

Arizona part 1: January 1 -17, 2015

On New Years Day, we hooked up the wagons and headed east, looking, among other things, for warmer weather. Our departure was delayed a few hours by…ice. Yup, it sleeted and snowed overnight (it’s SoCal! WTH??) and we were stuck until it all melted. One of the first hard lessons we learned about living with an RV was that frozen awnings and slide covers must be fully thawed out before you try to roll them in. Really bad damage will occur if you try to rush things, so we waited until the sun rose over the hills surrounding Meadowbrook and eventually melted all the ice.

After being in one place for a month, the first few miles on the road can be a little exciting. Despite checking and double checking drawers, doors, latches and switches, Kayeanne seemed to be popping up every 5 minutes for the first hour to deal with the latest crash, bang, boom or thud. Someone once described RVs as earthquakes in motion, and I believe that’s pretty accurate. We’ve had drawers come right off the slides and end up in the middle of the floor, shower wands hit the floor with a frightening crash, pantry racks shoot out of cabinets on right turns and many other interesting events. One of these days we have got to write up a pre-departure checklist!

Saddle Mountain RV Park

Late that afternoon we pulled into Saddle Mountain RV Park in Tonopah, Arizona, about 50 miles west of Phoenix. Why it’s called Saddle Mountain I never figured out since the park is located in the middle of a very large, flat desert, over 25 miles (no exaggeratio

n) from the nearest supermarket. Tonopah consists of a freeway interchange, two gas stations, a nice RV park, a popular local’s bar and grill, and a huge poultry operation that you could smell 10 miles away when the wind was right. Luckily it was about that far from the park, because the stench driving by it was almost intolerable.

Sunset from the coach at SMRVP

Surrounded by desert and by surprisingly huge farms, SMRVP turned out to be a happening place, especially if you were into off-roading with Jeeps or quads. Everyone seemed to have at least one or the other or both. We found a large, end row space in the short timers section with a great view of the desert. Most of the park spaces are rented for several months or year round by snowbirds from all over the US and Canada. A full roster of activities filled the park calendar every week. Kayeanne went to two beading get-togethers. The dogs and I spent many hours hiking the trails and dirt roads in the desert near the park.

After a week we had exhausted Tonapah's many attractions and were ready to move on to North Ranch, an Escapees Rainbow Park near Wickenburg, AZ. Despite the sparse amenities (no pool or spa) and really poor WIFI, North Ranch turned out to be one of our favorite parks, so far. The Escapees is an organization formed in 1978 specifically to support full time RV'ing. Run exclusively by volunteers, the park has a couple of hundred privately owned sites of various sizes and several dozen transient sites that rent by the day or week. We spent 10 days in site 29, backed up to the field that contains the dog park and with a great view out the windshield over the park and desert to the distant mountains.

North Ranch Park Model

North Ranch is a very interesting mix of people at various stages of life. All are retired. Many of the sites are occupied by folks who, for one reason or another are no longer traveling full time. Some still have RVs and go on the road for part of the year, but others have sold their rigs and settled permanently at NR.

A number of the NR sites contain “park model” RVs, a hybrid between a large travel trailer and a mobile home. Park models are roughly 3-600 sq.’, depending on whether they have been added onto or not. Although they are towed onto the site like a trailer or a 5^th wheel and are built and titled like an RV, they are really never intended to move again. After delivery, the wheels and axles are removed and semi-permanent supports are added, similar to a mobile home. Park models are very popular throughout RV parks in the Sunbelt because of their relatively low cost and quick delivery.

One of the larger NR home sites

NR also has many larger lots, up to a quarter acre, allowing people to build more elaborate homes that often incorporate a large garage specifically to house their RV.

NR is a happening place. There's a comprehensive activity schedule (pickle ball, beading, off-roading, Chi Gong classes, dance classes, happy hours, breakfasts, lunches, etc, etc, (phew!).  The proximity to Wickenburg and the surrounding area proved to be a real bonus for us. Wickenburg is clearly a small town in the best sense of the term, but it is large enough to offer two good markets, a couple of sizable hardware stores and a few good restaurants. With Amazon deliveries by UPS, FedEx and USPS right to our site, all of our basic needs were met. One market even carried a few decent wines at reasonable prices!

Suspending the travelogue for a minute: weight is a big deal on RVs. Tires, wheels and axles are rated for maximum loads and really bad stuff happens if you ignore those ratings.

Steer tire failure can be really serious
(from Michelin website)

We had the coach weighed in Paso Robles on a truck scale that scared me silly because it showed that we were right on the max weight limits on the steer (front) and drive (dual) axles. We had less than 1,000 lbs. available out of a 47,000 gross vehicle weight limit. Yikes! I suspected that we were heavy, but not that heavy.

Truck scales just give an axle weight, so you can’t tell whether one side (wheel) is carrying a disproportional share of the load and might be over its limits. I lost a lot of sleep over this because tire pressures have to be adjusted to match the load. Too little pressure leads to catastrophic tire failures. That is bad in a car; it can be extremely serious on a coach like ours. Without good weight data you are only guessing at the right pressures.

Finding a place to weigh individual wheels is not easy. North Ranch is one of three Escapees sites that offer the SmartWeigh service, a process where each wheel is weighed independently. Weighing the wheels individually gives vital information about what share of the load each one is carrying. It turns out that we are right on the limits but not over on any given wheel, and I had guessed pretty close on the pressures. We can’t buy any pottery, iron or glass souvenirs, and we need to drink up the wine cellar but I now sleep better. 

Wickenburg has a legitimate western heritage dating back to the mid-1800s. It is a for-real cowboy, cattle herding, ranching town that is only beginning to be yuppified (real word) and is quietly resisting that insidious fate. Many of the ranches are still operating, although some are being turned into golf courses surrounded by faux-adobe ranchettes. 

The Desert Caballeros Western Museum is a must see. Many local museums are not, but this one is worth the time. It has accumulated a really nice collection of Remington bronzes and paintings, but the highlights for me were the photographs from 1900 to the 1980's of the people who worked the ranches over several generations, especially the women. When we go back to NR I’ll spend more time at the museum. Walking around the small downtown area is a relaxing way to spend an afternoon, too, with a couple of ice cream shops and several eateries to pass the time and sustain life. The library has strong free WIFI; drop a couple of bucks in the jar on the way out, please.

Until we spent a couple of hours in Jerome last year I didn’t realize how big mining was and is in Arizona. NR is roughly 60 miles from Bagdad, AZ, a town I'd never heard of. Bagdad is the location of one of the largest open pit copper mines in North America, and it is also one of the few remaining “company” towns in the country. Freeport-McMoRan (FCX) owns every building and employs every person in town, even if they don’t work in the mine itself. When people retire they have to leave town. Many have lived there all of their working lives and retirement can be especially traumatic for them.

Getting to Bagdad takes a little effort. Its located about 40 miles up US93 from Wickenburg, then about 20 miles across the desert on 2-lane swoopy, curvy roads (fun!) that climb into the mountains. Bagdad is a clean but rather colorless town. It had one gas station, one market, one fire station, one .... etc, etc. It also had one 9-hole golf course that was free to whoever showed up to play. Carts were $5 per round, but you could walk the course and pay nothing. We had to play, but the less said about that the better. We stunk.

The pit is several miles across

As interesting as Bagdad town wasn’t, the reason we were there was the mine. Once a day FCX escorts visitors to an overlook where the active mine can be seen. The pictures can’t begin to show the scale of this place. Underground mining began in the 1920s, and open pit mining started in 1945. The current pit is over 2,000 feet deep and miles across. As they dig away one mountain they create another with the scrap rock and dirt that has to be cleared from the ore-bearing rock. It is called overburden. It turns out that the key to open pit mining economics is how much overburden there is and what you have to do to get rid of it. 

That little truck climbing the hill is three stories tall

The scale of operations and the apparent capital investment is just staggering. From our vantage point, dump trucks seemed to be dogging it up a small grade. Then a pickup truck came along to give some scale to things. The mine dump trucks are simply enormous. They are so big they have to be assembled on site. The reason they crawl up the hills is because they are carrying a few hundred tons of overburden or ore. They are roughly ten times the size of conventional dump trucks! Bagdad operates 12-hour shifts around the clock, 365 days a year. The mine never stops working.  It’s a fascinating place, we learned a lot and really enjoyed the day.

Wow, I can run on! We left North Ranch on January 17, bound for Dead Horse Ranch State Park to explore Sedonah, Jerome and Cottonwood, and then on to Quartzsite with Christine and Ed Woznicki. More soon, stay tuned.

#6 - Coveys Great Adventure - Christmas at Meadowbrook RV Park

December 2014

Kayeanne has decided to publish her own blog, so watch for it coming soon.

It was great to get together with so many of our friends from Thousand Oaks and Pasadena during the latter part of November, but we needed to move closer to family in Hemet, CA for Christmas. I don’t remember how we found Meadowbrook RV Park in Perris, CA. At first glance, it didn’t seem very interesting: a 55+ residential park with a few short-term spaces is not usually what we look for when searching for a place to stay. Something on the website caught my eye, though, and we ended up spending the month of December.

Casa Covey fit right in among the full time residents

Meadowbrook is a co-op formed in the mid-80’s by fulltime RV’ers who wanted a home base that fit their unique needs. It is a very eclectic mix of about 160 park model RVs, 5th wheels trailers and motor homes nestled in a small valley off Rt. 74 about half way between Perris and Lake Elsinore. The park is spotless, with wide roads, a small pond, and some shade trees. Cell phone service is not good because the park is in a valley, but we did get WIFI via the hotspot feature on our phones despite missing lots of voice calls. For some reason, WIFI seems to be easier to connect to than voice when conditions are marginal.

One of the many park model homes that
permanent residents have built

This park is a real gem: it's clean, very quiet, and the residents couldn't be friendlier. Everyone also seems to be dog friendly; Lucy in particular became very popular because she is quite outgoing. There are trails around the perimeter of the park that Lucy, Schroeder and I hiked at least once every day. Since we were staying for the whole month, management found us an unoccupied resident’s site rather than putting us in the transient area. Because we were in a “resident” site, people treated us like a local. The neighbors couldn't have been nicer.

Meadowbrook is surrounded by hiking trails

One reason we chose Meadowbrook was its proximity to Ed and Christine Woznickis. When we camped together in Nevada City, Ed and I decided to tackle a major upgrade to Casa Covey. Our coach still had a square CRT-type TV that dominated the overhead cabinets over the dashboard. Not only was the TV not up to modern standards, the cabinet that housed it had some serious drawbacks: it hung down several inches below the adjoining cabinets, obscured the view through the windshield and caused real pain to both of us. We have several lumps on our heads from knocking into it. It had to go.

The new TV and cabinet mods transformed
the front of our coach

Once we got to Meadowbrook, Ed and I pulled out the old TV (yikes, it was heavy!) and managed to remove the cabinet without doing any permanent damage to the adjoining cabinets or ourselves. A local woodworking shop did a great job shortening the cabinet by 6 inches and adding a filler strip on the back that matched the original cherry wood and finish. We re-installed the cabinet (making the whole assembly a little stronger in the process) and mounted a new flat screen TV that looks like it was a factory job!  No more lumps on our heads, and it really opened up the view through the windshield. I love it when a plan works!

Meadowbrook gave us good access to our family in Hemet for Christmas, but it seemed like we spent December in the car. We made trips to Thousand Oaks, Los Angeles, San Pedro, Pasadena, West Covina, Temecula, Carlsbad, Redlands, Riverside and other places I forgot. We wracked up over 2,000 miles on the car! It certainly was great to see everyone, but by the end of the month we were ready for some peace and quiet.

Really?? We are out of here!

Beyond spending time with our friends and family over the holidays, we came back to SoCal for the warm winter weather. The Oregon coast was getting decidedly nippy when we left.  So we were more than surprised when we woke up on December 30^th to snow, ice and temperatures in the 20’s. RV’s do many things well, but freezing temperatures, snow and ice aren’t what they are designed for. It was clearly time to move on, so on the first day of 2015 we pulled out for Arizona.

#5 Coveys Great Adventure - November 2014: Nehalem to Simi Valley

November 2014                 

Be sure to read Kayeanne’s thoughts, below.

After being in one place for 6 weeks it was really time to move on. We wrapped up our camp hosting stint at Nehalem Bay State Park on November 1^st and hit the road south looking for warmer and dryer climes. I can't recall three dry days in six weeks, so we were ready for a change. Our first stop was at Valley of the Rogue State Park (VRSP) near Grants Pass, Oregon for a couple of nights, and then on to Nevada County Fairgrounds in Grass Valley California to meet our friends Ed and Christine.

VRSP is located a few miles south of Grants Pass OR, right on the banks of the Rogue River. This is another great Oregon State Park, with all of the things we have come to expect from OPRD: big sites, easy access for large rigs, fire pits, picnic tables, clean modern facilities and hands-on camp hosts. The park stretches for a couple of miles along the river, with excellent walking and biking trails. Half of the park was closed for the off-season yielding a huge area for the dogs to explore, which they took full advantage of. About the only negative was the close proximity to the I5 freeway. Traffic noise was always evident, but after awhile it kind of faded into the background.

We took advantage of being near a large town for the first time in weeks and hit Home Depot, Petco and a couple of other stores to replenish our stocks. Kayeanne discovered a Unity church in Grants Pass and went to services while I explored the local dog park with Lucy and Schroeder.

After a couple of nights at VRSP we moved further south to the Nevada County Fairgrounds RV Park in Grass Valley, CA. Grass Valley is about 60 miles northeast of Sacramento in the heart of the California gold country. We camped there with our good friends Christine and Ed Woznicki. 

Crusher used to separate gold 
from quartz rock

This RV park is a bit of a dichotomy: the location is great, the setting is terrific, but the park itself was a bit of a dump. Narrow sites, no fires allowed, no tables and the worst restroom and shower facilities I’ve seen in years really took some of the edge off for us. Access to the actual fairgrounds, the local area attractions and surprisingly good WIFI did help mitigate some of the disappointment. Spending several days with Christine and Ed was the real pleasure, though.

 Grass Valley and Nevada City have embraced their  rich, colorful history as the center of California’s true  gold rush. Unlike placer mining where loose gold flakes  are separated from gravel, Nevada City and  Grass  Valley focused on hard rock mining to extract  the gold from huge quantities of gold bearing quartz  rock. The mines each employed hundreds of workers,  many from Scotland and Cornwall where centuries of  coal mining had taught valuable techniques and a real  appreciation for safety. Mine shafts at the largest mines  in Nevada City eventually reached a depth of 11,000  feet and put out over 360 miles of tunnels under the  region. Mining started in the 1850's and continued until  1956.

North Star Mine Powerhouse &
Pelton Wheel Museum

Both towns have done a good job of preserving and presenting this fascinating era without becoming tourist traps. We visited the Empire Mine Historic Park in Nevada City, site of the largest and richest of the mines that flourished in the area. Unfortunately, we went on a weekday when many of the buildings were closed. Still, we were able to see the main shaft head and get a real appreciation for what it must have been like to drop two miles on a series of inclined rail cars to reach the current work zone where blasting and digging went on around the clock.

We spent a couple of fascinating hours at the North Star Mine and Powerhouse & Pelton Wheel Museum in Grass Valley, home of the largest Pelton wheel ever built. The Powerhouse supplied electricity and huge volumes of compressed air to run hundreds of drills and other equipment in the mine. Pelton wheels were, and maybe still are the most efficient water wheels ever designed.

Pelton Wheel

We arrived at the Powerhouse only to find that it was closed for the season, a major disappointment. We toured the outside exhibits and explored the grounds including the aqueduct that delivered a column of water 6 feet in diameter to drive all of the Pelton wheels in the Powerhouse. As we wandered around the back of the museum we encountered a guy clearing leaves from a bunch of large old rusty machinery and stopped to talk. It turned out that Rolf is a retired physicist, self-taught mechanical engineer, and one of the lead restorers at the Powerhouse. The pile of iron that he was clearing off was an old trip hammer, his next project. He immediately volunteered to give us a private tour. As you can imagine, we jumped at the chance and spent a really fascinating hour with a man who, it turns out, IS a rocket scientist and truly does understand what he is talking about. Even absent Rolf’s tour guidance, if you have a chance to visit this area be sure to see the Powerhouse.

Rolf and the world's largest Pelton Wheel

At Rolf's urging we also went to the Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railway Museum. Not only are the exhibits themselves interesting, the work shops where the engine and rail car restorations are done are also open to visitors. All of the work is done by old retired guys who are happy to talk your ear off about what they are working on. Great stuff.

Our next stop was the Alameda County Fairgrounds RV Park in Pleasanton, CA to visit friends in the Bay area. Pleasanton has good shopping, eating, dog walking and a BART light rail station connecting it to San Francisco. The fairgrounds cover a large area with many places to walk and things to see. The RV park met all the basic needs but wasn't very congenial. The sites were supposed to be grass, but the drought had turned much of it to dirt, making it hard to keep the coach clean and unpleasant for the dogs to lie outside. We also had to use blocks under the wheels to get the coach level. 

I like trains of any kind and looked forward to riding the BART system. The nearest station was about 4 miles from the RV park and we were on the platform with tickets in hand less than 20 minutes after leaving the coach. 45 minutes later we were disembarking (detraining?) at the Embarcadero station in downtown San Francisco.  We made our way to the Ferry Building to meet Karen Mohr, a good friend of ours and designated tour guide. After a full day of sightseeing and fine wine drinking I took BART back to Pleasanton leaving Kayeanne to spend the night and following day with Karen catching up on things since the last time they had gotten together. We also spent time with our old friends Mimi and Scott Bruce. Scott cooked a terrific pot roast dinner with very tasty braised brussel sprouts

After a few days it was again time to move on. I don’t like to drive the coach more than 300 miles or so at one stretch, so to break up the trip we stopped at Yank’s RV Park in Greenfield CA. It turns out that Greenfield is part of the Monterey wine region. We spent a day wine tasting, but this area is known for growing Pinot Noir, not our favorite varietal. We found a good, reasonably priced Syrah at Scheid Vineyard but didn’t stock up.

The trail runs through a cave

Soledad, a few miles north of Greenfield is know for two things: a very large state prison and, more important to us, Pinnacles National Park. The park exists because of very interesting geological formations that are completely unique relative to the surrounding area. It turns out that these formations originated near Lancaster California, roughly 200 miles south of Soledad. Over millions of years the San Andreas fault has slowly moved the Pinnacles formations north. We spent most of the afternoon hiking the “easy” trail through the park, marveling at the rock formations. The trail goes through a tunnel that, while short, is pitch black so be sure to take a flashlight.

Unique rock formations unlike anything else in the area

Yanks RV Park is the newest, most well equipped park we've ever stayed in. Only three years old, the amenities included a pool, a spa, cable tv to each site, a dog park with dog washing station, an exercise room and a laundry. Everything was like brand new and immaculately maintained. The only drawback (aside from the cost!) was the wind. Every afternoon it started to blow and kept blowing all evening, making it about impossible to sit outside. We really enjoyed this place and will stay here again, but three nights was enough.

On November 19, we closed the circle, arriving back at the RV park we stayed in on the first night of this adventure, Tapo Canyon Park in Simi Valley, CA. We stayed in Simi through the end of November to spend time with Liesa, enjoy Thanksgiving with our family and visit our many friends in the area. We haven't been this busy since the crazy week before we left! It was great to see everyone, but we were ready for a break. We pulled out on December 1, headed to the Meadowbrook RV Park in Perris, CA where we will stay through Christmas. More about that next time.

Kayeanne’s Thoughts

We left Nehalem State Park early in the day.  The weather was good, so we had an easy drive to Grants Pass.  The most memorable part of that day for me was going around a corner and seeing Mt. Shasta in all her glory plastered in front of our huge windshield.  She was covered in snow and it was hard to even consider the idea of a drought.   

We stayed in Grants Pass for a few days, and my beading friends will find it interesting to know it is the home of Fire Mountain Gems.  I was disappointed that they did not have a factory store.  They are one of the largest beading companies in the country but are strictly on-line.   

Moving on to Grass Valley, California, we had a wonderful time with our friends, Christine and Ed.  Grass Valley is a relatively small town and is adjacent to Nevada City, only four miles away.  Both are quaint, historic gold-rush towns that have done a great job of preserving their heritage.  I could definitely settle down in this area.  It has a lovely energy with enough bead stores to keep me happy as well as a Unity Church.  While visiting the North Star Mine and Powerhouse, Christine and I were fascinated to find a stream running below the museum with several rock-balancing sculptures. It was amazing to see the formations that people had arranged, and we gave it a pretty good go with one of our own. 

The fairgrounds we stayed at were surrounded by redwoods and boasted a gaggle of geese who lived in the pond in the campground area.  We were welcome to walk through the fairgrounds with our dogs which we enjoyed doing every day although it felt a little eerie walking by all the eateries and game booths while the fair was closed.  They did host two events while we were there and lucky for me, one of them was a bead show.  The other was “The Grass Valley Alter Show, Renewal and Rememberance” which included alters created by individuals in memory of people, places and events.   We found out it has been taking place annually since 1997, and it was very interesting to see how people expressed their feelings and views of the world through this creative media.

Our stay in Pleasanton was great because we had the chance to visit with old friends.  My high-school friend, Mimi, and her husband Scott wined and dined us in their beautiful home, and Mimi and I had a chance to catch up on a few lost years.  We then headed to San Francisco to see our friend Karen, and I was lucky enough to spend the night in her downtown Victorian-style flat.  Not only was it a ton of fun, but she let me take a bath in her bathtub which I haven’t been able to do for four months!  

Greenfield was wonderful for two reasons, one being Pinnacles National Park.  We loved hiking in this beautiful rigid landscape.  We knew that the trail went through a cave but we became a little nervous when other people we had met along the way had turned back because it was too dark to see anything.  When we came upon the path leading to the cave, I didn’t believe it was a path at all.  There was water to wade through and rock walls to climb over and if Bob hadn’t scouted it out, there was no way I would have gone in.  I was up for an adventure, however, and by the time we finally found the light of day again, I felt I understood Tom Sawyer just a little bit better. 

Simi Valley sunset from our campsite

The other reason I loved Greenfield was because of the Yanks RV Park.  We had a Jacuzzi, a pool and an exercise room practically to ourselves, and the dogs loved the private dog park.  We lived in luxury for four days before returning to our old haunts in the Conejo Valley. 

We so enjoyed our time in Simi Valley.  This was the campground we stayed at the first night we left and so we had come full circle; there and back again.  Being with our daughter, Liesa, was the best, and getting together with family and friends took on a new and important meaning for us.  In some ways, it feels as if we’ve been on a long vacation and are now just beginning our new lives.  Every time I leave a place, I feel a comingled sense of regret and anticipation which I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to.