#52 – Coveys Great Adventure – December 2018 – UT, NV, CA, AZ

December 2018 – UT, NV, CA, AZ

For some reason, I haven't been taking many pictures lately. Since we've been to most of these places a few times, I guess the urge to immortalize them again hasn't gripped me. More graphics next month, I promise. 

Leaving Salt Lake a day early to avoid the snow storm changed our plans a little. We planned to stay in the Home Depot parking lot in Cedar City, but overnight temperatures under 20° were forecast. The coach heating system would be working too hard to cope with that, so we got space at Willow Wind RV Park in Hurricane UT instead. The 50 amp power connection let us run a couple of space heaters to help the Aqua Hot system keep us warm.

We like Hurricane and weren’t unhappy returning. We stayed at Willow Wind when Liesa lived in St. George and liked both the park and the town. It was a little shocking, though, to see the scale of home construction surrounding the town. Several large developments are underway. It seems that southern Utah is being flooded with people fleeing California. When these homes are completed and occupied, the character of Hurricane, Santa Clara, St. George and the rest of the surrounding area will certainly change. Willow Wind is effectively sold out all winter as new snow birds fill it and other RV parks in the area. I talked to two people who had sold California homes and were waiting for their new houses to be completed. It looks like prices for RV sites will continue to climb as demand appears to be increasing everywhere.

Ripley was due for annual service, so we planned to again stop at Speedco on our way through Las Vegas. Speedco is the “Jiffy Lube” for trucks and large RV’s like ours, and the one in Las Vegas is right off I15. They were busy that morning, but a couple of hours later the engine and generator had 50 quarts of fresh oil and several new filters.

While we were waiting, we noticed several RV’s in line at the Blue Beacon truck wash next door and decided to try it. What a deal: for $35, four guys power washed the entire coach using deionized water that left it virtually spotless. It takes us over four hours to wash it ourselves. We may have hand washed it for the last time. Ripley almost danced down the road.

Trying to drive from Saint George to Simi Valley in one day means fighting LA rush hour traffic and arriving after dark in Simi. We really try hard to avoid both if we can. Camping overnight in the casino parking lot in Jean, NV near the CA-NV state line lets us miss the traffic and pull into Simi in the middle of the afternoon, which is what we did.

Tapo Canyon Regional Park hasn’t changed much. I think this was our sixth visit and we feel right at home in the park and in Simi. We come here to catch up with friends, visit a couple of doctors and generally unwind after a hectic year on the road. We stayed a few days longer this year. It is so nice to see everyone and to catch each other up on our lives, families and events. We really regret leaving, but we can’t imagine returning to the pace of life in SoCal! We eagerly look forward to coming, but we are always relieved to leave.

We decided to try something different this year for Xmas. We had been staying at Jojoba Hills SKP Park in Aguanga for two weeks, but the drive back and forth to Kayeanne’s family in Hemet was too hard, especially at night, and it was too far from Ed and Christine Woznicki in San Juan Capistrano, too. This year we solved both problems by splitting the time between Meadowbrook RV Park in Perris and Golden Palms RV Resort (GPRV) in Hemet. Staying in Perris cuts the time to San Juan Capistrano in half, and the Golden Palms RV Resort is about three miles from the Wiklund enclave in Hemet. Everybody wins!

Xmas, Ripley style

We haven’t been back to Meadowbrook in three years and were pleasantly surprised to find several changes. It is essentially a 55+ residential RV park that has a few transient spaces that they rent out for extra income. The community hired a new management company a couple of years ago that has made a number of needed and highly visible improvements throughout the park. Many overgrown areas were cleared out and trees trimmed, lot holders were forced to clean up their sites and park structures were refurbished. The air of gentile seediness that we sensed before has largely been replaced by renewed pride and interest by the residents. Plus, staying here is a real bargain, so don’t tell anyone, please.

We've stayed in RV parks smaller than the GPRV pool area

GPRV couldn’t be more different from Meadowbrook. I think it may be the largest park we have ever stayed in, with almost 1100 sites, 3 pools, a snack bar, 12 pickleball courts, etc., etc. The laundry room is larger than most laundromats that we have used! It’s right in downtown Hemet, near about anything you need. We wouldn’t pay the exorbitant "regular" price, but in September they briefly offered 70% off, making it a deal we couldn’t pass up.

Liesa and Ed hangin' at Xmas

Staying at GPRV made it so much easier to visit with the family at Xmas. Kayeanne could run back and forth as often as she wished, and they could visit us without having to face a long, dark drive home.

We met Liesa at the San Diego airport and her cousin Ed drove down from LA, so almost the whole family was together. My sister and Kayeanne’s brother were the only ones missing, both suffering through winter in New England. Linda won’t fly, and Grant just moved to Cape Cod and couldn’t take the time off. We missed both of them and were glad to talk when they called.  Xmas was really nice, with way too many presents and far too much good food.

While we were in Hemet we took one more shot at fixing the air leveling and leak problem that has plagued us for months. Alliance Diesel gave it their best shot, but to no avail. I’m really reluctant to work under the coach, especially on the air system that holds the whole thing up, but so far no one seems to be able to understand or fix whatever is wrong. I’ll give it another shot in Benson.

Sunset at Cocopah in Yuma

We pulled out of GPRV on December 27 and arrived in Yuma that afternoon. It sure was nice to see affordable diesel fuel and gas prices again. CA fuel costs are really, really high. The following morning we crossed into Los Algodones MX to visit the dentist and stock up on medicines. I didn’t expect anything more than a cleaning and maybe a filling or two, but it turned out that a lot more work was needed, about $2k more! I’m not sure which hurt more, my mouth or our bank account.

On the 31st we left Yuma for Benson and pulled into lot 19 at the SKP Saguaro Co-op, our new winter home. More about that next time.

Bob