HELLO CALIFORNIA

Today we hit the road heading for California; it was very windy hitting the coach head on making it a little harder on gas. It was sunny with a high of 20C.

We left around 9:30 and arrived at the Oasis Palms RV Park in Oasis California at 2. When leaving Phoenix we had just changed lanes on the freeway when an end table appeared on the lane we just came from. But from the debris something flew up and chipped our windshield. In some ways we have been lucky not to have received a chip by now.

Dust Storm head

Sand was starting to drift

When we crossed the border into California we lost another hour in time making it 3 in total. So now when we want to watch the Evening News at home we have to tune in at 3 o’clock. This will make it hard being in the middle of the afternoon.  So we may have to watch the 11 o’clock news at 9. (Better!)

Quartzsite is where a lot of people boon dock - camping in the middle of no where with their own water and a generator.

See the trailer in the middle of no where - he is boon docking.

Colorado River

Both navigating devices indicated a short cut to get to the campground. It was called Box Canyon Road. We decided to take it and as we continued along Cathy was getting more and more nervous about where we were going to end up. The road condition was good but there was no place to turn around and she was worried it was going to turn into a path. This has happened to us before on another journey.  

Box Canyon Road - next 3 pictures

We already have met a few people here - you’ll never guess where. (AT HAPPY HOUR!!!) Yes, they have one at 4 o’clock every day. J  There are a lot vacationing here from British Columbia and Oregon.  We will have to get some pictures tomorrow.

All for now...

OFF TO FLORENCE TODAY

It was nice today with the high reaching 16C and sunny feeling warmer.

We headed south east to Florence about ½ hour away. This is a small town which contains a minimum of 5 prisons. There was a state prison, a privately run out of state prison, a border patrol prison, a d.u.i. prison and a sex offender prison. They were all visible from the highway driving into the town.  The towns’ existence seems to be solely on the presence of the prisons.

We checked out the Prison Outlet store which sells items the prisoners make and there were two drug related occupants from one of the local establishments doing community work at this store helping the lady store keeper with maintenance and cleaning around the building dressed in their bright orange suits. Inside there was paintings, pottery, basket weaving, t-shits, pajamas and blue jeans.

You can see the two guys in their prison coveralls.

From there we rode over to the Pinal County Museum a few blocks away which we found very interesting. There was a wide selection of items to see.

If you look just above the coach drivers' hand rail there is a tube which runs into the coach. The rider in the coach can talk to the driver through it.

This was the only women hanged in Arizona.

She made this necklace and sold it to the prison warden to get money to buy a dress for her burial.

The cabinets above show the ropes the people in the pictures were hanged with. The double chair was built to gas two brothers at the same time.

The report showing his last meal.

Electric hair curler

Along the way we passed a National Guard small arms range.

Go figure - now that the weather is starting to warm up we are on the move tomorrow (oh well). We saw everything we wanted to see and stuff we didn’t (snow).

Till tomorrow....

SWAP MEET AND FRIENDS

Today was partly cloudy but nice with a high of 15C and a low last night was 3C. Even though the nights are cool the days warm up nicely from the sun.

We set up a rendezvous with our friends Anne and Ed from Terra Cotta and their son Brian and his wife Liz visiting from Brampton to meet at the Mesa Market Place Swap Meet.  This a large 55 acre flea market with 1600 booths with everything you can imagine for sale. We arrived at 10:30 and already the parking lots were filling up as it started at 7 o’clock. Of course Cathy and I did our bit to help the economy.  

I didn't think the glass was large enough for Cathy.

 

We left at 2 o’clock and then met up again with them to enjoy dinner at the Olive Garden. We were back at the coach by 7 o’clock to relax and have a cup of tea.

That’s about it for now...                        

DOING THE TOURIST THING!

This morning there were remnants of the white stuff around the campground. It went down to just above freezing but the sun helped warm things up (some what).  We took a short ride into Apache Junction to do some grocery shopping as some supplies were getting low. I also had my ears lowered and in talking with the Barber, who has been in the area for 10 years, he has never seen snow in the area. The temperatures lately are unusually low.

After arriving back at the coach we put our shopping away, had a quick lunch then off we went to check out the Superstition Mountains. I didn’t mention earlier the name of these mountains.

 The scenery was great as we headed east to Tortilla Flat, an 18 mile ride. This apparently was the last surviving stagecoach stop on the historic Apache trail. This is a tourist trap but it had one building which was wallpapered with one dollar bills. They were on the ceiling, the over head joists and walls.

Check out all the dollar bills

On the way back we stopped at another tourist attraction we passed going to Tortilla Flat. It was an old gold mine in 1893 and has now been converted to a small town like setting back in the day with a saloon, church, brothel, jail etc.

The blacksmith's art

Had to include a picture of the bordello.

All in all, it was a good day checking out the scenery and the sights.

Till tomorrow...