Monthly Archives: April 2015
Mister’s New Toy . . .
About 1pm I went up to the park guardhouse to let them know what site we were in and to ask about receiving packages from Amazon.
Their handout says they don’t take USPS mail, but with Amazon you never know how your package will be shipped. It could come via UPS or Fedex, which is not a problem. But often Amazon uses the UPS or Fedex version of Smart Post. This is where the package is shipped via one or the other to the local post office, who then delivers it to the local address. So what I wanted to know is if packages are delivered that way are considered USPS mail and would be refused. But when I ask the ranger about that, he said there is no problem with any USPS mail. So I guess I’ll put my order in and see what happens. During our last visit to Wal-Mart in Apache Junction we picked up a new toy for Mister. 
It’s made out of recycled corrugated cardboard, and is supposed to be a combination bed / scratching post. Well, he’s got the bed part down, and spends a lot of time on it, but he’s apparently a little unclear about the scratching post part. He’s used it once, but would rather use my leg or the curtain valances. Oh, well. For dinner tonight we had leftovers again, in this case, the ones from Joe’s Farm Grill. We’ve still got our leftover Famous Dave’s BBQ, but we’ll probably go out tomorrow for dinner so we can stock up on more leftovers.
Looks like we’ve got a run of really nice weather coming up, with days in the low 70’s and nights in the high 30’s. Really nice weather, especially since we’ve only got 30 amp electric here at our site, so we can only run one AC. ___________________________________________________________________ Thought for the Day: We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. – Aesop adsfdf
Verde Valley Bound . . .
Jan and I were up about 6:30 this morning, wanting to get everything pretty much ready to go before we drove over to the IHOPon Signal Butte to have a Leaving AJ breakfast. Unfortunately, since Nick doesn’t do anything before 11am, even eat breakfast, he and Terry were no-shows. Bummer!
By the time we headed out for the IHOP about 8am, everything was done, except to let in the awnings, disconnect shore power, and crank up. By getting to the restaurant about 8:15, we had hoped to avoid a wait, but were told 15-20 minutes anyway. But they called us in about 3 minutes, so it worked out fine.
By the time we got back to the rig, pulled out of our site, got hitched up, and pulled out of the park, it was about 10:15. Once again we had no problem with the airbags coming up, so it looks like that cycling the airbag dump switch a couple of stops ago took care of that problem.
We headed west on US 60 for about 20 miles and then north on the 101 Loop for about 30 miles. This put us out on I-17, bypassing most of the Phoenix traffic. Once on the Interstate you start the long climb up through the mountains, gaining about 2500 feet along the way. The one really steep section, 5 miles of a 5% grade, we still stayed above 40, and even passed some trucks along the way.
Since what goes up, must come down, we then had about 5 miles of a 6% grade down into the Verde Valley. But our PacBrake Exhaust Brake kept us at a steady 55mph all the way down without having to touch the brakes.
We pulled into the Verde Valley Thousand Trails about 12:45, make the 135 mile trip in about 2-1/2 hours. These first twophotos were taken with our dashcam.
We got the last site in the H section up top by the Club House, so we could have hopefully have decent cell/data service. But they don’t make the sites easy to get into. Nothing like having sharp, pointy trees along the side of the rig as you’re pulling in.
But we were finally parked and set up. And we do have a nice view out the windshield.
We decided to just stay in tonight and have the leftover pizza from Organ Stop Pizzathe other day, and we may just have leftover Famous Dave’s BBQtomorrow night.
Doing nothing for a while is nice.
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Thought for the Day:
“How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.†– Benjamin Disraeli
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