2013 Road Trip - First Stop - Chino Valley, AZ

Hello everyone.  It's been a while since I have posted to the JoeWilmaExcellentAdventures blog.  After our very interesting trip to Death Valley in January 2012, we didn't really make any new road trips.  With the price of gas last year, we decided to make short trips, and fly to our further destinations (with help of free tickets from Eric's frequent flyer mileage).  So we went to Colorado,  New Mexico, and Big Lake, Arizona in the RV, and by air to Indiana in February and November, and on from Indiana to Florida in December. 

In January 2013, we made our annual trek to Quartzsite to the RV show, then we ventured on to Yuma and Los Algondones, Mexico where Joe got new dentures.  That is really a hotspot for dentistry, with more than 300 dentists in that little town.  You can also get eye glasses there.  So Joe has retired his 45-year-old Army dentures and is now sporting new ones.  In March we went over to Yucaipa, California for Bridgette and John's baby shower, then we sidetracked back to Los Algondones for an adjustment on the dentures.  But now they seem to be fitting fine.  In both trips to Mexico, we parked the RV on American soil and drove over to the border crossing, where we walked across.

On the California trip, we spent the first night in Indio, then drove down to the Salton Sea the next day before heading on to Yucapai.  We had seen glimpses of the Sea on our trips to California when John was going to school there, but had never taken the time to drive down to it.  Well, unfortunately, we found out that it wasn't worth the time.  We took some pictures, but the water was too nasty to stick my toe in, and there were no pleasant beach areas to be seen.

From a distance, it is a pretty sight, but up close it was very disappointing.  We couldn't imagine what it must have been like back in the day.

Now we are ready for our summer venture.  We had tentatively planned a trip up the Northwest Coast this summer, but when John and Bridgette gave us the exciting news last fall that we were going to be grandparents again, we had to redo our summer plans to be in Florida in June.  So last Thursday, April 18, 2013, we began that trip. 

We left at 10:05 a.m., after loading for a week.  We drove a total of 145 miles today, under windy conditions but a nice day otherwise.  It was 69 degrees when we left, and probably about that when we arrived in Chino Valley with has an elevation of about 4750 ft.  This is a good place to start our travels, because we generally get to see some antelope up here, and we saw a few almost every day we were here.
We parked the RV in the driveway at our friends, Collins and Marilyn Brundiges.  Collins always tells us he lives on a hill, so maybe we are camping at an elevation of 4752.  They had alerted their neighbor that we were coming because they happen to have a lilac bush, and it happened to be blooming, so I am back in good times with my favorite flower.

  Kaylee has a soccer tournament this weekend 10 miles from Chino in Prescott. Kaylee plays goalie and most other positions on the All Star Soccer Team that she is on, and this is the last tournament of the season.  We got to spend a few nights playing cards with Collins and Marilyn, and went to 4 soccer games on Sat. and Sun.  We won 3 but lost the championship in a "penalty kick" shoot-out.   In the pictures below, Kaylee is the one in the green/black catching the ball, and in the second picture, she is between the legs of the opponent with ball in hand.

Joe and Collins got to spend some quality time together on Friday, spraying weeds around their house while Marilyn and I scoped out the annual garage sales in a neighboring subdivision.  Collins remade my book rack for the RV to fit the oversized camping directory I bought (I told him I was bringing it back for warranty work). 

Monday we had a "down" day, doing laundry, vacuuming the RV, etc., while Collins and Marilyn drove into Phoenix to pick up some friends from England who will be visiting them for the next couple weeks.  We are heading out on Tuesday, destination Santa Fe, NM, for a few days.  We have only driven through there so we intend to see what we've missed.  Then we are heading on to Indiana, then Florida. I want to give the Midwest plenty of time to get rid of their tornado season, so that might determine how much we meander each day.  Hopefully, I will have lots of adventures to post, and some exciting pictures.