Monday, February 1, 2016

#20 - Coveys Great Adventure - January 2016 - Yuma and Benson AZ

Yuma and Benson - January, 2016

We’ve been traveling long enough now to be returning to places that we have already visited. A couple of days after Christmas we retraced our steps to the Cocopah RV Resort in Yuma, AZ. It was time for our annual dental checkup in Los Algodones, Mexico.

Cocopah dog park. Schroeder and Lucy reading "the mail"
Cocopah is a little more expensive than most places that we stay, but it has a lot going for it, including the best dog park we’ve seen anywhere. Almost any time of day, a dozen or more dogs are hanging out at the park, just waiting for a new butt to sniff. It is quite a site to see a pack of dogs ranging from a Bull Mastiff to a Chihuahua running around together having a great time. I’ve yet to see any aggressive behavior.

We felt like old hands as we casually pulled into the Indian parking lot and strolled across the border into Los Algodones and right to the Alamo Dental clinic. An hour later we had clean teeth, checkups (one filling, me) and were back on the street looking for lunch. The bill for everything was $120. We celebrated with a margarita and beer!

Unlike last year, we felt like we had seen most of what there is to see in Yuma, so we spent a few days just hanging out. January is certainly colder than March, so swimming was out. I took a golf lesson, more to see if I still could hit the ball than to learn anything. I actually surprised myself, but I certainly felt it the next day. One night we went to see the new movie “The Martian”. I rarely like movies but this one really lived up to its billing. Go see it if you can. Surprisingly, the old folks made it to midnight on New Years Eve, despite killing a bottle of champaign. I think we kept the dogs awake past their bedtimes, too.

On January 4, 2016 (yikes!) we headed out to Benson to try to get a site in our favorite park for the next two months. Saguaro SKP Co-op doesn’t take reservations, so we’d been a little anxious about whether there would be space available. We didn’t really have a Plan B if there wasn’t any. It turned out to be no trouble at all, and we soon settled into site 288.

View from the coach
Hundreds of thousands of people move to sunny, warm Arizona in the winter, to escape the bitter cold and freezing snow of more northern climes. Three days after we moved in, we woke up to… bitter cold and freezing snow. Ok, it was only 4 inches, but this is the DESERT, it is supposed to be WARM. Not this year. Daytime temps rarely hit 65° and hover right around 30° at night. As I write this on February 1st, we just had a little hail, the wind is howling, and I just disconnected the hoses because it is supposed to get down close to 20° tonight. El Niǹo certainly is making itself felt.

A desert princess and her court
Weather aside, the Saguaro Co-op is every bit as nice as we remembered it to be. Happy hour every evening, dinner at the clubhouse on Monday nights (chili relleno tonight), flexercise on MWF mornings and beading MWF afternoon keep us both busy. We danced to a pretty decent rock ‘n roll band on Saturday night and movie night last week featured The Martian. I’ve got a full wood shop and a pretty well equipped metal shop to play in, too. We are all taking advantage of the extensive series of trails and washes to hike every day. We also have decent cable TV and they are installing what sounds like a state-of-the-art free WIFI system that may be running before we pull out. It seems like I’m raving about this place, but it really is pretty special.

We are really looking forward to another visit with Ed and Christine Woznicki next week. Kayeanne is headed to Tucson in the morning for the Gem and Mineral show to buy yet more beads. I’ve got a visit scheduled with a welder on Wednesday to finish an upgrade to the tow dolly. Who knew retirement was so busy?

More soon,


Bob

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