Lost Dutchman State Park, AZ

4 03 2016
Lost Dutchman State Park

Lost Dutchman State Park

Good Morning from the Superstition Mountains of Arizona.  We’re parked in site #85 at Lost Dutchman State Park, just east of the greater Phoenix metro area.  Named after the fabled lost gold mine and set at the base of the most visible of the Superstitions – the Flatiron, the campgrounds 130 sites are surrounded by natural desert shrubs and flowers along with towering Saguaro cactus.  Sites and internal roadways are paved and all sites on this loop (76-104) provide power and water.  Some of the sites on the main loop (1-58) have no services.  All sites are reservable except for the far loop (107-134) which has about 30 walk-up only sites with no services.  While we didn’t note specific sites because all have great views and space – the ones on the main (possibly the original) loop have the most space.  #42 is an awesome pull through site, on the more elevated side and potentially with valley light views.  CAMPGROUND MAP

It’s unfortunate that we’re only here for weekdays – where we spent most of the day time working.  There are hiking and biking trails throughout the park that we’d like to explore.  Weekends are also the time for park rangers presentations including Sunset Hikes, Nights Under the Stars, Birds of the Park and a Park Stroll. Next time, reservations and at least 1 weekend are required for this interesting park.

Departing on Friday, we’ll make our way to Yuma, AZ, about as far as you can go SW before crossing into Mexico.  More from Yuma!

Lost Dutchman State Park
Lost Dutchman State Park
Lost Dutchman State Park
Lost Dutchman State Park
Lost Dutchman State Park – Site #42


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Categories : Texas Roadtrip 2016

In the Pines of Arizona

3 03 2016
Heber RV Park

Heber RV Park

Who knew eastern Arizona was so beautiful?  After leaving the dusty flats of Gallup, we’re about 2 hours south west at an elevation of 6600 feet in the White Mountains surrounding Heber-Overgaard, AZ.  They claim “more trails than roads, more trees than buildings and more wildlife than people”.  We’re parked at the Heber RV Park, a 70 site park along highway 277.  This park offers full hookups for around $40/night.  There’s no over the air TV that we can find, but their free WiFi system handles video streaming very well.  This WiFi system would rate among the very best we’ve found.  It never missed a beat as we worked for several hours and then watched TV from the Genie GO back home.

Initially arriving at the Elk Pines RV Resort to a CLOSED sign, the owner came out to assist and even opened the gates to allow us an easy turn around.  As luck would have it, he owns both parks and his wife is awaiting our arrival once we found the “correct” location.  These two are some of the most pleasant park owners we’ve met. She quickly checked us in and showed us our spot, #5 in the center section right across from the office. Hookups for these center aisle sites are a bit quirky, water and power are on the curb side and sewer is on the street side, but set back at least 10 feet from the rear bumper.  These sites have small concrete slabs with picnic tables.  Tall pines are throughout along with a nicely landscaped park and doggie walk area.

While the weather isn’t warm here at nearly 7000 feet, this is the first night it’s not going to freeze, so no need to fill the fresh tank and put away the water hose.  Tomorrow we’ll continue to the Phoenix area where we’re expecting high temperatures close to 90.  It’ll be nice to finally put the jeans away in favor of shorts and flip-flops.  More from the Valley of the Sun tomorrow!

The Road to Payson, AZ
The Road to Payson, AZ
Superstition Mountains, Mesa, AZ
Superstition Mountains, Mesa, AZ

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USA RV Park, Gallup, NM

2 03 2016
USA RV Park, Gallup, NM

USA RV Park, Gallup, NM

Greetings from Western New Mexico!

We’re currently parked at the USA RV Park in Gallup, NM and only 15 miles from the Arizona State line.  Our original plan was to spend two nights at Bluewater Lake State Park about 65 miles east of here.  But, after pulling into the park and finding no cell service, we opted to continue west along I-40 and stay at a “proper” RV park here in Gallup.

And, this park meets all the requirements of an urban RV park.  You can hear the trucks along I-40, the train roars by every hour or so, and we are located at the end of the Gallup Municipal Airport runway – so what sounds like aircraft strafing runs happen a few times each day.  But, noise aside, the park is a well cared for, gravel sites with paved roads and provides full hookups along with cable TV for about $35/night.  They have an interesting pricing model here – they charge the base rate for a site, then add-on fees for 50AMP service, cable TV, etc.  The parks free WiFi for the most part does OK, but seems fairly limited in the overall bandwidth it allows.  T-mobile provides good 4G here, so there are good alternatives to what might prove to be a frustrating WiFi experience.

With all the big-box stores such as Walmart and Home Depot very handy in Gallup, we’ll spend 2 nights here picking up a few items that we’ve discovered either didn’t make the camper transfer or got lost in the shuffle.  On Tuesday we’ll continue toward Phoenix, with a stop at Heber-Overguarrd along the way.  More from the White Mountains of Arizona.

USA RV Park, Gallup, NM

USA RV Park, Gallup, NM

USA RV Park, Gallup, NM

USA RV Park, Gallup, NM


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Santa Fe Skies RV Park

28 02 2016
Site I-4, Santa Fe Skies

Site I-4, Santa Fe Skies

Good Morning from Santa Fe, NM.
We’re parked at Santa Fe Skies RV Park, where we last visited in October on the way to Balloon Fiesta 2015. We first visited this park in 2010 when we were in the truck camper. The full review is here: SANTA FE SKIES

This park occupies a great location looking toward the north over Santa Fe.  The evening lights and the city in the rising sunlight is beautiful. The grounds are still well-kept and the showers & restrooms immaculately clean. They also seem to have a interesting growing collection of antique engines and road equipment. But, the formerly wonderful WiFi has been reduced to a network that doesn’t support much of anything. I connected, tried a few browser pages and quickly disconnected. We’re not sure if we were just in a prime spot back behind the registration building, or if the network maintenance has fallen by the wayside. However, just as back in October, this visit offered no solution to the WiFi problems other than a cellular connection. However, this is just a quick overnight. Tomorrow we’ll continue south to Albuquerque where we’ll turn west along I-40. Our next stop will be western New Mexico as we head toward Phoenix – more from there!

Site I-4, Santa Fe Skies
Santa Fe Skies RV Park
Santa Fe Skies RV Park
Santa Fe Skies RV Park
Santa Fe Skies RV Park
Santa Fe Skies RV Park
Santa Fe Skies RV Park
Santa Fe Skies RV Park
Santa Fe Skies RV Park
Santa Fe Skies RV Park

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Categories : Texas Roadtrip 2016

Start of the 2016 Texas Road Trip

27 02 2016
2016 Texas (and Arizona) Road Trip

2016 Texas (and Arizona) Road Trip

Welcome to Lake Trinidad and the start of the 2016 Texas Road Trip.  As has become an annual routine, we’re parked at Carpios Ridge campground.  With 6 full hookup sites, these make it easy to de-winterize with lots of fresh water and the ability to easily leave the anti-freeze behind.  We’re parked in site #3, our favorite site #6 was previously occupied.  With piles of snow in the shady spots, there haven’t been a lot of warm days or nights here yet.  Reports seem to indicate about 28 degrees for the low last night.

The last week has been somewhat of a mad sprint.  A bit of history for those that don’t know the whole story.  After the Denver RV show in mid January, we had decided we were ready to “pull the trigger” on a new RV purchase.  We’ve been comparing various models to “the one” that we’d picked last year, the Forest River, Rookwood 8289WS, a 31+ foot, rear living, triple slide fifth wheel.  After internet shopping all the way from Central Texas to Southern California, we ended up finding the model we wanted at Nolan’s RV right here in Denver.  The option list wasn’t exactly right and we weren’t quite where we needed to be on price.  After dragging our feet for a few weeks before the RV show, the sales rep notified us that they’d sold the trailer during the show.  They expected to have more inventory sometime in March.  With this upcoming trip, we’d decided we’d need to find another unit out of state, or wait until we returned to Denver.  But, Nolan’s ended up acquiring a February 17th build slot.  They estimated they could get the trailer to Denver on February 22nd at the very latest.  We picked our exact option list, worked a few numbers and voila, had a brand new RV on order from the factory (fingers crossed)!  As it turns out, the trailer arrived in Denver on the 18th, and was ready for deliver last Saturday exactly one week ago.  We spent about 2 hours on a PDI, swapped all of the contents of the Wildcat into the new Rockwood, signed the paperwork and were off for a 2 night “shake down” trip to local Chatfield State Park.  Our experience (so far) at Nolan’s has been terrific.  We have no qualms fully endorsing them, from the sales team to the service folks – they have gone above and beyond on every level of support.

So, long story short – we’re now headed south with a brand new 2016 Rockwood 8289WS and from the 3 nights we’ve spent in it so far, loving it!  More as we get to Santa Fe Skies, a nice RV park on the south side of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Rockwood 8289WS

Rockwood 8289WS at Chatfield Lake State Park, 1st camping night


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