Time for Family

For the holidays, Sparky and Eldo went to visit family....Sparky went to Houston to see her daughter and grandson, and Eldo went with his family on a weeklong cruise to the western Caribbean on the MSC "Seashore".

Sparky's grandson is 12 going on 20. He is taller than both his mom and his grandma! 

We had a great time seeing the holiday lights around Creekside, an upscale area northwest of Houston. We have a holiday tradition in our family of driving around to see lights every season, playing Christmas music in the car while we ooh and ahhh over the lights. Kerry likes to wear holiday sparkle like her mom, so she had on light up shoelaces. Sparky wants some shoelaces just like these!

Kerry took us to Dewberry Farms, which is sort of like going to a county fairgrounds, but it's a farm that has been designed to provide rides, entertainment, and seasonal holiday decorations done up to the max. We went on a cute little train ride all around the complex. The lights were really spectacular.

Some of the amenities were not. The bathrooms, were abysmal. They were basically little wooden porta potty units with several stopped up toilets and a wooden trough sink outside to wash your hands. The bathrooms were not handicapped friendly at all with rickety wooden steps and they were really dirty. No signs of any workers picking up trash or keeping the grounds clean, but there were a ton of visitors there for the lights and rides. The farm has been purchased by new owners and they don't care about upgrading the facilities, nor was it run very well as far as attractions. We had a good time anyway.....Grandson is a great basketball shooter!

We celebrated opening presents...Think Sparky, Jr. likes her slippers?

Sparky definitely loved her hand painted wine glass which joins a growing collection of the same artist....great gift idea!

Eldo had a great time on his 7 night cruise...He did lots of walking which was great for him. The cruise line was called the MSC and the particular ship was the "Seashore"....The ship was Italian and built in 2021. It was a BIG ship, designed to handle more than 5179 passengers! It has 5 specialty restaurants, 18 bars and lounges, 4 main dining restaurants, 6 swimming pools, an infinity pool along with 2 infinity whirlpools, and a waterfront promenade. It also features advance air sanitation technology, to reduce the chances of getting viruses on the ship. Hopefully, next time he will take more pictures!

He thought the trip was great....It stopped in Costa Maya, Cozumel and their own private island as another stop. Eldy did not get off the ship, the kids went to see ruins and other spots of interest. Eldy has seen them and so he stayed on the ship to explore....

The food was terrific, he says...But he didn't take any photos! Silly guy....But here are a couple of the family that someone took....Eldy's son and daughter-in-law...

And Eldy's grandkids....don't you just love Trevor's jacket? They are really great kids and are well on their way to becoming successful, happy adults....

Time passes by so quickly...We hope you and your family had a special holiday season together, thanks for following along with us...

                                        Sparky and Eldo

P.S. A link to Sparky's beginning blog about breast cancer is here:

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/9220056048964552728/4332850761962859671

Yuma Arizona

 Foothills Village RV Park. Site: 131 back in   Highs: 60's, lows: low 40's  Site: 131  AT&T very good (LTE), T-Mobile excellent--133 download, upload 79.5

Friday morning dawned cold and sunny. It was 25 degrees and after pulling in all slides and disconnecting from power, we were to have our truck hitched up to the fifth wheel ready to pull out at 8:00 AM  when the mobile repair tech (Currier Masters) would arrive to replace the front jacks. We were asked to hitch up to take the weight off the rig so he could take each jack and motor out and put the new ones in.

Just one problem. One of the jack motor's was on its last legs and it takes both front jack motors to raise the hitch up to go onto the truck. The left jack motor actually breathed its last breath and quit right then--nada, zip, zilch. The hitch was about three inches too low. No way to get the hitch up onto the truck without damaging it. 

Even though our rig is called a 5th wheel or a 5er, the part inside the bed of the truck is also called a fifth wheel, and that is what the hitch on the RV slides into when we are getting ready to pull out of a campground. It works to connect the truck to the RV. The contraption on the bottom photo is the "fifth wheel". When you are lined up correctly, (Eldo uses a variety of "sightings" to line himself up along with Sparky's recommendations of "a little more to the left", or "a little more to the right", a very precise measurement). (HAHAHAHAHAHAHA)....Eldy is rolling on the floor laughing. That narrow slot in the contraption in the bottom photo is where the round hitch pin slides up, onto and into the slot till it "clanks". Then you know you are hitched up along with a visual confirmation that it's locked in place.

the hitch pin that slides into the truck

The fifth wheel slot that accepts the hitch pin

Currier Masters, John Currier, to the rescue. He used a 3/8 socket wrench to crank up the hitch high enough to slide on and we backed up and locked in. He went to work and about two and half hours later, new jacks were on our rig! Bright, shiny and no road dirt and oil. At this point, we still can't use our automatic leveling system. When you replace the jacks, you have to recalibrate the whole leveling system. Because the drive was delayed this morning getting to Yuma, we needed to get rolling. We will wait a little bit till we have more time to set up and follow the recalibration directions using the control panel. Until then, Eldy has gotten quite good at leveling the coach manually. He uses the Lippert app called One Control. He stands outside and the app controls each jack, the lighting system, the awnings and more. It's pretty cool! He also uses a regular level to check for tilt and horizontal leveling, AND--the most tech advanced tip of all--the half bath bathroom door which is in the center of the coach. He opens it and if it stays open halfway and doesn't swing in or out, we're good!

We made it to Yuma to Foothills Village RV park. This is a nice little park and more for RVs than park models like many Encore parks are. All the sites are back ins. We would say that the majority of Encore parks cater to long term residents and require 55 and older, so usually there are a ton of annual residents and many many park models. (Park models are like tiny homes, single wide house trailers.) Also, the sites are usually extremely tight as they are older parks and were designed for smaller trailers. The sites are narrow, but not as close to your neighbors as they sometimes can be. Although the sites are narrow, they are long enough to put a 42 footer and your tow vehicle in the same site. The gentleman that guided us in got us SUPER close to the electrical post, but we had to fit between the concrete cement pad and the electrical post so that's the way it is. It's about 4 inches or less to touch the post.

After a week here, and checking the weather heading back into Cottonwood, the temperatures are so much colder in Cottonwood, we decided to extend our stay another week here in Yuma. Unfortunately, somebody was coming in to take our spot the day we were supposed to leave, so we had to switch to a 30 amp spot. The angles for the back in's are a little more challenging with a big shrub hedge in front of you, a palm tree immediately to the side of the site, and you have to back in right next to the concrete pad in order not to infringe on the neighboring site. It took a lot of backing up and forth, which wasn't working, and finally, just a drive "around the block" and pull thru from an empty site to get ourselves situated. Close.

Families are welcome here and Sparky enjoys seeing the kids play and sometimes even chatting with them. This week she met Winnie, Winston, and Willow and has been having nice conversations with them. Super well behaved and polite little youngsters. We are here for a week, and our type of membership means no out of pocket cost, it's free for this particular park. They have a very small swimming pool, a hot tub, laundry facilities, and shopping is close by. 

There are cute little cabanas at the end of each row that are available for anybody to sit in the shade, read a book, or drink a cup of coffee. Unfortunately, the next person's site is immediately behind the cabana, so it's not very private as their window looks right out on the little covered patio site.

site #131

There is a LOT of road noise, from interstate 8 and the frontage road. But Sparky doesn't mind as she wears ear plugs at night. Guess why? (Hey, now....cautions Eldo.) 

What will we do while we are here? Well, last year, Sparky climbed a mountain with the most arduous, steep elevation change, over 1200 feet. Because her sciatica has gotten worse, that might not happen this week. Phooey! It's a great cardio buster for sure! She really wanted to do it again, maybe with the help of a lot of Aleve or Tylenol.  NOTE: After going back and reading last year's blog about Telegraph Pass, Sparky decided not this time. It took over 5 hours last year, was over 5 miles, and it was grueling. You can read more about that hike and Yuma here: 

                                        A Grueling Hike

There is a bike trail down near the Yuma Territorial Prison. The prison is a great tourist stop when you are in town. We visited last year and you can read about that here: Yuma Territorial Prison The historical Yuma Prison has been rated the "best haunted destination in the US" by USA Today.

You can pick up the paved bike trail at West Wetlands Park, in northwest Yuma, about 12 miles from the RV park. It is located along the Colorado River within the Yuma Crossing National Heritage Area and you can ride to the East Wetlands and back, about 4 miles each way, from the West Wetlands Park to the East Wetlands Park, which is developing a nice park at the end of that section. It's a nice short ride with a pretty starting point at the family park. 

West Wetlands Park

Shortly after leaving the family park, you see this bike sculpture. Sparky always likes to see it, because she has a brother named Charlie.

There's not much to see after that except the pretty park in the center of town, very close to the prison. Once you get out of the city park, it's riding along a canal on one side and the wetlands on the other, with the Gila Mountains in the distance.

There is a cool little ramada on the way out of the East Wetlands Park. A ramada is a shady place, a temporary shelter with a roof but no walls, traditionally built with native local materials for shade on a hot day. It had some branches across it like you weren't supposed to go inside it, but it was still possible to see what a pretty view was out in the distance, of the marshes and mountains.

Sparky took a little side route along the main bike trail and saw beautiful broccoli fields growing. Temperatures are much cooler here in the southwest, about ten degrees below normal right now, so there is more green and less brown in the areas in Arizona we've visited lately. Did you know that 90% of the nation's leafy greens comes from Arizona, specifically Yuma County. Wow! Amazing considering everywhere you look is desert, but then there are irrigation fields of green, green, and more green. It's really beautiful against the mountains backdrop and the beautiful blue skies. It's sunny most of the time here, 91% of the year! This would be a great place for someone with seasonal affective disorder! 

There are other bike rides and mapped out routes, but they are on city streets and side streets. You can always ride around the RV park, too, for the safest ride! Sparky was warned by two different people just outside a couple of old RV parks to be careful where she rode, probably because they were not in the best areas of town. All righty, then. She will.

Martha's Date Farm

You can visit Martha's Garden and date farm. We did.  It's a very low key operation as far as entertaining visitors. They have more important work to do! The visitor's center is a lean machine. It's large but open areas with a small snack area and some shelves filled with lots of different Medjool date packages--be sure to try a date shake! Medjool dates were imported to this country from Morocco in the 1940's. You can buy boxes of dates and other goodies or have them shipped, and you can take a tour if you sign up on the internet. Trying to connect with them directly by phone can be a problem due to service in the area. Tours are offered twice a day and the price is 10.00. OR--you can watch a video at the visitor center/store and learn a LOT about the date growing and harvesting process. It's pretty interesting! 

Dates have the highest polyphenols among dried fruits and have a low glycemic index for fruit lovers who struggle with blood sugar. Martha's Date Farm grows their dates organically, use no preservatives of course, and the dates are not processed. Dates grow on palms, Sparky did not know that! (Eldo will refrain from saying there are a LOT of things she doesn't know, but she will be the first to admit that, haha.) 

Medjool date palms

The process of growing and harvesting dates is a very labor intensive one, and it's all done by hand here in Yuma. The growing season is six months spring through summer. It takes about 7-10 years for a date palm to fully mature and they can produce up to 300 pounds of dates. 

There are male and female palms. The males don't produce fruit. One male date palm can pollinate 50 female palms. Hmmmmm.....Letting nature do the pollinating is too unreliable with the wind, so it's done by hand. The harvesting is August thru October and several yields result in big, beautiful dates. Dates can be frozen and thawed repeatedly with no harm done to the fruit, just in case you want the best dates in the world shipped to you from Yuma, AZ and you want to save them for the holidays.

  Sparky and Charlie

Besides a visit to the date farm, Sparky visited her brother in the beautiful city of La Quinta, CA. It was a long drive each way, but well worth it and the closes she will be to her youngest brother for a long time. We had a great visit and a great lunch, and Charlie took us for a tour around the area, visiting a nice RV park, and some areas where Charlie sells homes. We also saw the area where the Kardashians have a home, along with Tim Cook, the Apple CEO. The city of La Quinta has an amazing backdrop of mountains and so much beautiful greenery with amazing landscaping, along with cool shops and eateries. And of course, all kinds of amazing, nationally known golf courses. (Sigh)...That's Eldo missing his golf a bit.)

Charlie and Eldy

As far as things to do in Yuma, if nature is your thing, there are two national wildlife refuges in the area, the Kofa and the Imperial. The Imperial refuge has 40 miles of sand dunes where they filmed "Star Wars Episode V: Return of the Jedi", "Spaceballs", and more movies. The Colorado River offers plenty of boating and rafting/floating opportunities.

Imperial Sand Dunes

If off roading is your thing, there is the Arizona Peace Trail, over 750 miles of thrills. If history is your thing, visit the territorial prison, the Colorado River State Historical Park, the Castle Dome Mine Museum, or the Museum of History in Granite and the Center of the World, a quirky tourist attraction outside of Yuma. The granite museum is an outdoor exhibit with massive monuments crafted from Missouri red granite. And of course, there is a lot of Native American history here as well, with the Cocopah--Keepers of the River and the Quechuan--Those Who Descended- having settled the area since ancient times. If art and culture are your thing, there are colorful murals and sculptures all over Yuma's historical downtown district and public art galleries at Arizona Western College.

There are plenty of great eating spots, too! Sparky is always looking for those, haha, because she really hates to cook. We found Mr. Fish & Chips right at the corner lot at the edge of our RV park. It's a tiny place with terrific seafood and jammed every afternoon from about 4:00 on. 

Of course, you've got great Mexican restaurants all over the place. And speaking of Mexico, you can cross over to Mexico just ten miles away, at Los Algodones, to get REAL Mexican food, or great dental care and medications at a fraction of the cost in the US. It's a non-complicated process to go over and back and thousands of people do that every year to save money on prescriptions and dental work. We went to Mexico a couple of years ago, crossing the border at Nuevo Progreso. It was a little depressing at how touristy and economically depressed the area was at that location, truly not a good indicator of the true beauty and culture of Mexico. 

That being said, we have a few more days to enjoy Yuma, then we will head back to Cottonwood, cold or not, for two more weeks, because Sparky's tooth is still not ok, then we leave Arizona and start heading across the southeast through Texas and onwards. We're already planning our summer itinerary, and it looks like we will be weathering the heat in the midwest, PA and NY, then the upper peninsula of Michigan! See you down the road.... Eldy and Jeannie

Lake Conroe Thousand Trails RV Park

Lake Conroe   Highs: 57, 73, 63, 56, 65, 72, 71 Lows: 39, 48, 30, 32, 48, 51, 46.  Site: B66, new section

Lots of kids at Lake Conroe, lots of families

We are settled in at Lake Conroe Thousand Trails RV Park for three weeks. This is our chance to get our slide fixed, (it's not retracting properly and stops part way in,) see Sparky's daughter and grandson, visit with some old RVing acquaintances who live not too far away, and sit tight for awhile as we watch diesel prices climb to over 5.00 a gallon...sigh....It's gonna get worse before it gets better, so we will try to stay put longer and decrease our driving distances, doing all the obvious to save fuel strategies as much as we can. 

Lake Conroe has a new section, which is very nice...big concrete pads not too close to your neighbor, but they are so popular, it's hard to score one. With Thousand Trails, it's first come, first served when you arrive at the park. Timing is everything, get there too early and the people who are scheduled to leave haven't vacated a spot yet. Get there mid to late afternoon, and the prime spots are already taken. It depends on what day of the week you arrive as well. Usually arriving in the middle of the week like Wednesday or Thursday, bodes well for getting a decent spot. Likewise, leaving on a Monday or Tuesday for traveling is better than leaving on a Sunday, but we have done that before. Here is our site for three weeks. We back up to some woods, which is really nice.

Since this is an urban area, there are no great trails to hike or bike trails to ride close by to the park, unless you venture into the Woodlands area which has wonderful walking trails for their subdivisions, but you can ride out of the RV park, turn right on MP Clark Rd., and ride up and down hilly residential sidewalks towards Longmire Road to get an easy 12 mile ride if you go out and back. The Thousand Trails Rd. leading out of the park is a heart pumper, climbing up a ways to get to the intersection where you turn right at MP Clark Rd. and start down the residential sidewalks--unless you want to ride in the street. It's hilly in this area, so you can get a good workout. There is also a small county park on FM830 on the left side as you head towards interstate 45 where you can walk around in circles, haha. It's still a nice little park in the middle of suburbia for a little walk. The trail is about a half mile loop. Sparky just walks in circles and listens to music till she gets 3 miles in.

What is this? Anybody know?

There is also a state forest a couple of exits away--William Goodrich Jones State Forest with some really wide packed dirt trails which would be great for bike riding or just walking. The main trails are laid out in a grid fashion, the scenery just tall pines, not much else. These trails are shared with cyclers (almost none during the week) and horseback riders. (Sparky didn't see any the times she went). This state forest is home to the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker, so if you are a birder, you might look for them. 

internet photo

We see that the interior roads are still bad in the park, full of potholes, some eroded and washed out portions, and there are some drainage issues near the new section due to new construction, but overall, the the park is beautiful. Big, massive pool, (unheated), nice restrooms, new laundry facility, and of course, access to Lake Conroe which is a really big nice lake. If you have kayaks, you can just launch right in the park down at the docks. Sparky might even rent a kayak while she's here and head out on the lake for the first time! 

The park is also heavily into putting in new small homes in a section called The Reserve. LOTS of them! 

The redbuds are in bloom.....A lovely sign of spring!

This park is close to every single type of store you could possibly need and amazing restaurants. Sparky met her daughter and grandson for lunch one day at Uncle Julio's, a terrific Mexican restaurant, on Grand Parkway in Conroe. Awesome food! Sparky's grandson is growing like a weed!

Sparky got in lots of hugs from her grandson while we were in the area. He's almost as tall as her!

And she got soundly trounced at Connect 4, a fun game to play with kids. Sparky just might have to find out how to be more of a challenge at this game and check out YouTube for strategies. (That's where you can find out how to solve the golf tee challenge at Cracker Barrel!) By the way, a really great movie for kids 7 and up to watch is The Adam Project. Just as soon as she can, she wants to watch it again, this time with her daughter and grandson. It's really great...It would have a lot of kid appeal to the young who are growing up on video games and smash 'em, bash 'em battles with the good guys and the bad guys, time travel quandaries for the older generation and the kid, Walter Scobell, who stars in the movie, is really really great. He talks too much, and his lines are so funny! It has a time travel element in it, and showcases family relationships with all that comes with a normal family struggling with some things. Sparky gives it a BIG thumbs up!

We met up with Janice and Dave Evans, former RVers who have since come off the road, for a nice lunch with friends of theirs, at Walls BBQ in Huntsville, TX. Then we surprised another couple whom we know from RVing, Jan and Greg White, who were at lunch with the Evans on another occasion!

Sparky is back in treatment temporarily here in the Conroe area for bad sciatic pain. It just doesn't quit. At some point, we will settle in an area for a more long term stay, maybe in Maine this summer, and get some consistent, more long term PT help. That's one disadvantage to traveling, if there is a medical issue and you are transient, it's tougher to get the issue resolved. Luckily, this problem is more of a persistent annoying problem, albeit painful, and not a serious, life changing problem as some encounter while out on the road full time.

On rainy days, which there are more of here in Texas than there are in Tucson, Sparky crafts---metal stamping, quilting, making jewelry and knitting. Here is a cabled headband Sparky knitted for some very cool days in March. She is also working on a pretty quilted and embroidered spring bee pillow cover, shown at left.

We got our slide fixed by 4 Girls Ranch RV maintenance, whose facility is right next door to the Thousand Trails park. Our big living room slide was going out ok, but then stopping part way when coming back in. The guys explained that it was a little out of kilter, they could tell by the decal strips not lining up and that the window gasket around the window at the side of the slide was pushing against the wall of the RV when trying to come in. That caused the slide to "stick" and stop. They jacked up the slide from underneath, and two guys pushed hard against the side of it, shifting it a half inch to the back of the rig, getting it back in alignment. They brought in 4 guys :-) to fix it because it's a big heavy slide, but it didn't take too long. They did a great job and the price was very reasonable!

Despite fuel prices, we still love doing what we do...traveling and seeing different parts of the country. We will hope and pray that fuel prices don't stop us from traveling, but we can always slow down and stay longer in an area. Sparky loves the different hiking and biking trails, and Eldo loves the change of scenery, atmosphere, and the freedom of traveling to different parks and parts of the country. It's a wonderful lifestyle, and still affordable despite the fuel price changes. However, campground prices are skyrocketing as well, as big companies are buying up smaller campgrounds to take advantage of the big increase in RV travelers. You have to plan carefully and think long term for booking reservations and use camping memberships to save money in order to be able to full time in an RV, that's for sure. So we do!

Our site at Lake Conroe in "B" section

So, that's it for now....Our next destination in three weeks is Mammoth Cave, KY and we will see you there!