Heading Back to California

We got on the road Sunday without any hiccups, heading for Yuma. Carol and I stayed at Kofa SKP KO-OP for the night.

These co-ops are part of the Escapee family of RV parks members can either buy into, or stay at temporarily while traveling. This is the site we had for the night. Someone owns this site, but it is in the rental pool while the member is on travel. The shed you see in the picture belongs to the lot owner, and is not usable by the temporary renter. If you were going to plan a stay at this co-op, they do not accept reservations between the months of May to October, due to the weather.

Some friends treated us to dinner because we are selfless, caring, loving, and kind humanoids. The truth is, one of them lost their phone at Escapade, and we volunteered to deliver it to them, for a price. We went to Olive Garden for dinner. Imagine five larger than average people climbing into an itty bitty Nissan, a sight to see. I'm thinking sardines probably have more room in their can than we did in this car. As you see, we sat at the bar, there was a 30 minute wait for a table, and we were hungry. As seasoned adults (used loosely) we had a good understanding of what a bar is for. The girls had margaritas, the guys did bourbon and gin. Carol's margarita was an interesting concoction containing mango. I was adventurous, I had a Roy Rodgers. For those unfamiliar with a Roy Rodgers, it is a cola with a shot of grenadine. Now, lets talk adventurous, I added a shot of Makers Mark bourbon to mine, I call it a Wild Roy Rodgers. After dinner they dropped us off at our trailer, and they headed back across town to where they were staying.

This morning was uneventful. The afternoon we stopped at the Golden Acorn Casino for gas and lunch. We could definitely tell we were back in California, we paid $3.83 for diesel.

 Welcome home. I mowed the front lawn before we left two weeks ago so it wouldn't look like the house was abandoned, it was no use. The front yard grass/weeds are about 8 to 10 inches high. The back yard varies between 5 inches to almost 18 inches. It's great to be home, ha ha.

Time to Pack it In

Friday came and we loaded up the Escapade trailer, signaling the true end to Escapade for this year. the staff functions like a well oiled machine. Most of the staff have been doing "their thing" for many years.

 

Once all was packed up and loaded, we just sat back to relax.

Friday evening Carol and I went out to dinner with two of her cousins.

 One cousin and her husband are the directors for Escapade, the other  cousin and his wife came in from Chico California for Boot Camp and Escapade. We drove to a hamburger joint called Hot Rods, near the fairgrounds. Besides being a restaurant, they are also do custom hot rod builds, which can be viewed from the restaurant. They offer a variety of food from salads to BBQ. A favorite is the "Mac and Cheese" burger. For the mac and cheese lover, you can't beat it. This burger is two beef patties in a mac and cheese bun, yes, a MAC and CHEESE BUN. This year Carol and I kept it simple, a salad and appetizer each. The salad and appetizers was vary large, we brought home three containers of leftovers, I ate all my salad.

As I am writing this I am enjoying some of the spoils from last night. Today will probably be a quiet day, we might watch the Air Show this afternoon.

Here are some late entry pictures from the week gone by.

C.A.R.E. Fund raiser.

Out to dinner with friends.

These pictures are only a representation of living a dream.






Carol and I went for a leisurely stroll around the fairgrounds, and bid farewell to some of our friends (yes, I did pay them so I can call them friends). We took a break, just long enough, before we went on a whirlwind tour for gas and food. Gas was uneventful today.

 The RanchO RusticO is a sit down Mexican restaurant with good food, and decent prices. The next stop on our tour was to Freddie's Frozen Custard. For you west coasters that never leave California, they are similar to In and Out, with frozen custard. We both ordered Chocolate Fudge Brownie Delights, and we both brought half our servings home. There was an air show this afternoon, it was rumored that we might be able to see it from the fairgrounds, didn't happen. We got back to the trailer and collapsed. We are planning to depart for San Diego tomorrow morning.

The Show is Just About Ready

Setup for Escapade kept us pretty busy, and I missed out adding photos into the blog. These are some of the table center pieces that Carol and I made. The road runners are cut from card stock paper, attached to a length of bailing wire. The rocks and cactus are made from florist foam, glued to the paper plate, and small rocks added as the desert floor. We created 40 for the tables in the Hospitality area in the main hall, they were all unique, no duplicate design. The neat thing was the end result. The center pieces were sold off, the money donated to C.A.R.E. C.A.R.E. is an Escapee organization designed to provide assisted living style care to Escapee members no longer able to care for themselves, or just need time to re-cooperate from an illness. C.A.R.E. is an all volunteer staff, and operates solely on donations.

The week before Escapade begins we offer "Boot Camp" classes to folks new to RVing. The classes teach the basics of RV care, fire safety, RV insurance, road side assistance, and what to expect in the RV community once they are on the road. Once Escapade opens there are many other seminars available ranging from what was taught in "Boot Camp", selecting the right RV, WiFi options for the road, social gatherings, photo contest, nightly entertainment, and HOPS (variety of  local one day tours). That nightly entertainment I just mentioned included bands such as "American Rogue", which played Celtic. The second night entertainment was "Redhead Express", they are a brother/sister band playing a wide range of of music, gospel, bluegrass, country, and a little rock. The final night was our "Escapade's Got Talent" talent show. A little history on the title, the first name years ago was " Burnt Sulfur ('cause they stank). This year we had some pretty good acts, ranging from skits to line dancing to blues to rock and roll.

Thursday closed the Escapade for this year. We celebrated fiesta style, with food, drink, and music. Today will be busy with breaking everything down and packing it into the trailer, sending it back to Livingston Texas, awaiting shipment to Rock Springs Wyoming next year.

They Say We are Working

Here we are hard at work, or was it, hardly working, hard to say. The days have been busy leading to opening day. This is me in my leased turbo Porsche driving around, inside no less, looking like I am on a mission. In these earlier days there was a lot of territory that needed to be covered. My slick ride comes with a utility truck bed for hauling who knows what when. Part of my day was attempting to hang banners, which we were fortunate enough to get to re-hang later. Sometimes it just doesn't pay trying to plan too far in advance. What we failed to do was wait for the stage, and audiovisual guys to do their setup.Our reasoning was that there was ample space to get the scissor lift around to string the banner cable, this hall will have over 1,300 people during opening ceremonies, lots of chairs. While waiting for the stage to arrive Carol and I decided to play around with some of her creations for the Selfie Booth. Carol created all the items for changing oneself into someone else, the booth is from Escapees.

This is us making a command decision on who gets the tape. This tape, called Gaffers tape, is some mighty strong tape. We were working on hanging the stage back drop, trying to hide the shiny wires we used to hold the back drop up. After minutes of deliberation, I was outwitted, and Carol got the tape. The end result looks pretty darn good.

We Made it to Tucson

When we arrived Monday we were put to work as soon as the trailer was parked. Some might say, "what kind of a vacation is that", working for fun? When you're around friends, it's not hard to enjoy working. Anyway, I had the opportunity to help unload a trailer full of supplies and materials for the Rally, and run around with my head cut off (under supervisor of course). quickly unloaded the 53' trailer before the ensuing rains. Carol enjoyed making signs for the events, staff, and parking in the warmth of the office. Tuesday showed up with the predicted rain for the fairgrounds, and snow on the hills beyond us. Just because we had rain, didn't mean it wasn't cold this for Arizona morning, especially with the wind. Tuesday I spent most of my day running from building to building dodging rain drops, Carol continued making and laminating signs. My big thrill was driving a golf cart pulling large product carts (APCs) behind it to one of the buildings requiring the materials for setup. After chores of the day, Carol and I drove all the way over to Walmart to do some shopping, a good two miles.  We got back home and made spring rolls for dinner, that consisted of celery (don't recommend, stringy), cucumber, carrot, zucchini, red bell peppers, shredded chicken, and a teriyaki dipping sauce. The afternoon and evening closed out with rain, supposedly the last for a while. We closed the night out with a movie Carol slept through, and me watching Windows updates downloading (WiFi access).

The Journey to Rally has Begun

    Last week we spoke with fellow Escapee needing a place to temporarily park her RV, we told her no problem, our driveway will handle it. She showed up Saturday afternoon while we were finishing our preps for Sunday departure.
    This morning rolled in and we were anxious to get on the road, biiiigggggg mistake. Actually two mistakes, didn't start with God, did not do a thorough walk around, and that cost us our two rear leveling jacks. Fortunately after inspection, it looks like the only real damage is to the leveler brackets.

Other than our grand exit from our driveway, the first leg of our trip was uneventful, despite the head winds. Our stop for the night was at Gila Bend Air Force Auxiliary Field. As with most desert RV spots, there is lots of "open spaces". This facility has approximately 48 full hook up (FHU) sites, and a large area for dry/boondock camping. The sites are double size, so we did not have to enjoy our neighbors cup of coffee in the morning. They had a 24hr. laundry room where you can read, work a puzzle, or check out a movie (to take to your rig), and a nice sized fire pit that can easily seat 10 - 12 people comfortably.

Our Site

 

Carol and I went for a walk and found Saguaro cactus all around. There is military lodging available too. Apparently the military still does bombing runs for training. Have no fear, they don't fly at night, or strafe the park.
   It is now Monday morning, and have broken camp heading to Tucson. The wind kicked up some, a little minor road construction, a few  impatient drivers, and we made it to the Pima County Fairgrounds. More to come, working on getting caught up.