Tombstone, Whitewater Draw, Shady Dell

I can’t write a blog without a few pictures to remind me what we’ve been up to.  That usually means quite a bit of sorting especially when you’re trying to remember what all you were up to during a 3 week period. I sorted and sorted.

Every Saturday morning a group around here gets together for donuts.  The group constantly changes so you never know who is going to show up.

Buck got a new pool and naturally he loves it.  We put the fold-up one away for travel.  This one’s a little bigger and he fits in it much better.  Buck also loves to get into our cool little rocking chairs so when we saw a “cooler” one we bought him his own.  They call it a cot for pets but he uses it more like a chair.

We also thought it was better to be safe than sorry with our hitch since the one Terry and Robert installed in Washington was only a 15K hitch.  It was replaced with a 20K hitch.  We ordered the hitch from eTrailer.com after much conversation and several emails back and forth.  We were trying to decide whether to let Camping World install it or order it.  Camping World wanted several hundred for the installation.  eTrailer told us the hitch came all assembled in one piece.  This is what we got.  It arrived in three boxes and obviously was not all put together.

Terry and I had planned on taking a little vacation to Tombstone.  It just happened to be the same time the Hyders would be in the area.  We decided to meet at the Wells Fargo RV park which is right across the street from the OK Corral.  The park is in a great location but again, Buck, didn’t do well with all the gun fights going on all day long.  

Our visit to Tombstone was over Veteran’s Day.  We were told there was a parade so we set out our chairs and got ready to watch.   However, it didn’t last over a few minutes and we had a great laugh about our anticipation of a full fledged parade. 

We took a ride to Whitewater Draw Wildlife Area.  This area is known for all the thousands of Sandhill Cranes who winter here. They are really snowbirds too. I had read about them several years ago so was looking forward to checking it out.  What an awesome view!   We were sure all 30,000 cranes were there when we visited!

Our return to Tombstone via Bisbee and stopped at the postcard perfect Shady Dell.  The manager gave us a tour of all the vintage trailers.  What an interesting place.  The trailers had been refurbished inside and out.  They were rented to the public.  At the location was also a “vintage” drive-in theater and diner. 

We also took a small tour of the town of Lowell.  It wasn’t a long tour obviously but very interesting and also very retro.






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Soon it was time to return to the Phoenix area and try out the new hitch.  We had an appointment at Camping World in Avondale for warranty work.  We left before sunrise and didn’t return until after sunset.  What a long day.   We had thought most of the issues had been fixed but that wasn’t the case.  We still have a list of items needing to be fixed.

Buck took advantage of the fresh water leak!

Our biggest issue was the water valve.  We couldn’t hook up to city water without having our tank filled.  Obviously, we were constantly overflowing the tank.  Thus, our water pump had been in constant use and Terry had to replace it.   We still have only half of our awning lights working and a leaky low-water valve.  However, I fixed the leaky tube by plugging it with a cork from Hobby Lobby.  I’m guessing that saved Keystone $400 and the cork cost me $2.

It was almost dusk when Camping World pulled our RV out of the service area.

The RV has no bumper so we’ve ordered a bumper that should fit it.  Other guests, Jim and Sandi (but not the blogging Jim and Sandie) have a welder so we need to get that done before either of us move on.  It sure is nice to be around people who know how to do this stuff.

The RV park at the Elks had an RV BBQ night providing food for the RVers.  What a fun evening. 










Afterwards a few of us sat outside and watched the movie “RV”  together.  What fun!  All we needed was the projector and a screen.  Jim had the projector and we provided the screen --- the back of our 5th wheel.








Since Terry and I are heading to Washington state for Thanksgiving, a pre-Thanksgiving dinner was celebrated with his mom and his sister.  They will be flying to Virginia for Thanksgiving and having dinner with our grandson, Justin and Terry's brother.  We weren’t sure whether it would be Sunday or Monday dinner but was changed to Sunday.    We ate at the Keg in Chandler.  Another great meal and a great time.

Terry has a dental appointment on Wednesday so he will fly out on Tuesday.  Buck has reservations at a Doggy Hotel for a couple nights and once he’s “checked in” I’ll fly out on Wednesday.  I’m sure it’ll be a great Thanksgiving celebration with family and after that, I’m heading to the mall for Black Friday Christmas shopping Thursday evening!

I did do some shopping here for cold weather clothes.  I’m not so sure I’ll need it for the southwest Washington area since temperatures are predicted to be in the 50’s and low 60’s.  That’s still COLD but the following week Janice and I are heading to Chicago for their annual Christkindlmarkets.  The Christmas markets in Chicago are huge and located in central downtown.  It can be very cold in Chicago! Right now snow is in the forecast!  Terry and I went a few years ago and it was frigid then too.  Hopefully, we’ll be dressed warm enough.  We’re only there a couple of days but it should be fun.  Who knows what we’ll find.

'Tis life on the road.