Welp, it’s been a busy last couple of weeks, hence the delayed updates. And if it wasn’t for Amy doing the last few blog entries, we’d be even more behind. (Thank you, my dear!)
It feels great to be out of California. Nothing against CA — loved it — but moving on to AZ feels like progress. Here’s the sunrise from our first morning in Quartzsite, AZ. (It seems the town of Quartzsite is comprised almost entirely of RV parks and retirees. Seriously. It’s striking.)
During the week, Amy and the girls found a nearby remote-control airstrip. I’ll let Amy describe it:
Amy: We found a Remote Control Airfield near Quartzsite’s park. We pulled in to see what was going on and met a new friend, Art Hastings. He invited us to come back in the morning when the place would be hopping. Emily and Natalie were really excited about this idea, so we went back. Art and his friends showed us the many cool RC planes and how they work. Then they let us try out flying them! They made it look so easy, but we had to consider the direction, wind and speed to get the plane to go where we needed it to go. It took a lot of concentration and they were very patient with us. We had a blast! Even better, we made some new friends.
It’s pretty common for Em and Nat and to create entire worlds in the dirt and gravel of our campsites. This was a campground airport I believe:
If you smelled something delicious on the evening of February 3, this was it:
The campground had free RV-washing equipment, so we put the whole crew to work:
Careful where you walk. (We kept seeing these signs on the side of the road and had to inspect.)
Amy is a sucker for local fruit. Fresh, local, delicious fruit. (As an aside, that’s broccoli growing in that field. Broccoli!)
We drove to Yuma to check out the Yuma Territorial Prison. Not a place you wanted to be in the summer. It was sort of the Alcatraz of the late 1800’s.
Some prison guests got special accommodations in the “dark cell.” Again, not a place you want to be unless being locked naked in a 5-foot tall cage with a dozen other people for 21 days straight is your thing.
Being so close to Mexico, Border Patrol is out in full force:
There’s a lot of land in Arizona controlled by the BLM (Bureau of Land Management), where you can basically just pull off the road and camp in the desert. For free. It’s like a Wal-mart parking lot, but without the noise and lights of a city. There are zero amenities of course, but it felt great to get away and “rough it” in such a remote setting:
It was a great place for another rare campfire:
Letting the morning sunshine in through the big windows helps wake the girls:
A Sunday morning stroll through BLM land:
A shot out the window as we rolled out of Quartzsite. It is simply RV stuff everywhere in that town:
We arrived at our campground in Phoenix last weekend, but ran into (literally) a few problems. I pushed one of the slide-outs right into the electrical box, scratching the RV and cracking the cement pad. Ugh…it made me sick. To top it off, the sewer connection leaked everywhere. We later moved to a different spot, but I still have that scrape in the RV to take care of. I guess I’ll try to paint it.
My Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Bob live in Phoenix (just a couple miles away from our campground). It was so good to finally see them:
We spent Super Bowl Sunday at my Aunt and Uncle’s house along with my cousins Alyssa and Derek, Derek’s wife Jen and their kids. It was weird seeing all the shots of Indy during the game.
The next day we visited my grandma at the nursing home. She lived next door to us in Indy during the summers until just a couple years ago. It was good to see her, but also very sad — she has no memory of me, Amy, or my girls.
Despite her memory loss, she still has her pleasant personality and seemed happy to have visitors.
If you smelled something delicious on the morning of February 7, this was it:
Amy helping Nat with school:
My mom flew in from Indy mid-week, so we went to the airport to get her. Ever since we toured the Boeing plant, Em has been fascinated by airplanes:
My mom being greeted by my other girls back at my Aunt and Uncle’s house:
Finally did some hiking this weekend, sort of. I’m seeing a lot of this though:
We eventually found a better location. It still wasn’t a rugged hike, but it was at least away from the crowds and the signs. And it just felt good to be outside!
There are a lot of cacti out here, but let me tell you about one lil’ guy in particular: Cylindropuntia fulgida. Also known as the “jumping” cholla cactus. Looks fuzzy and cute, right?
They’re not. They drop these little grenades on the ground that latch on to one’s shoe at the slightest touch:
They also latch on to one’s middle daughter’s shoe:
…and one’s oldest daughter’s shoe.
I had to get out the pliers to remove these needles — they were long enough and strong enough to go all the way through the sole.
I still love the desert though:
…even if every saguaro cactus looks like it’s flipping me the bird:
DANG IT!…
I just like this photo of Amy:
That night Amy and I helped my mom with a long overdue and daunting task: sending thank-you notes to all of the kind folks that brought meals, sent flowers, made charity donations or in some other way supported us during the extremely difficult days following my dad’s death back in August. It was hard trudging through all that again, but it was a good reminder of how many great friend we have.
Today we visited Montezuma’s Castle (it was mistakenly assumed by early explorers to have been built by the Aztecs, and the catchy name stuck). Oh to have been able to visit in 1951, the last year that visitors were allowed to actually go UP to the ruins:
Hey Arizona, here’s what the Arnolds think of your signs:
It was a little chilly (only by AZ standards); good enough for a picnic:
We stopped by this place called Arcosanti, a community/compound out in the middle of the dessert that aims to be a prototype for sustainable, eco-friendly cities and communities.
It sounded interesting, but it frankly…wasn’t.
McSnack time: (For the record, this is the first time we have set foot in a fast food restaurant since we began this trip 8 months ago.)
I’ll end with this: I just got the owners manual for our RV (it didn’t come with one; we had to order it.) I just thought this paragraph was funny. I guess Fleetwood RV and I will just have to agree to disagree.
We’re going to be hanging out in Phoenix for another week and spending as much time as we can with my mom, aunt, uncle, cousins and grandma.