the Youngest Snowbird:

Love, Love, LOVE This Place

We may have found a permanent winter home in southern California.

Don't wanna get ahead of ourselves, but Rancho California in Aguanga has pretty much everything we want in an RV resort.

numerous pools and jacuzzis

tennis and pickleball courts scattered thru-out the resort

14 hole golf course (unlimited play for $150/month or $200 per couple)

stocked fishing lake

paved interior roads and a great variety of rental sites to choose from

and beautiful landscaping with tropical palm trees and dramatic foothills in the background

The plan is to return this fall to see exactly what the weather is like in this area between November and February. (I feel like a bit of a hypocrite after vowing we'd never spend any more time RVing in Cali... but this resort is definitely changing our minds about RV value in this state.)   

electric use update: as of this morning we've used 44 kilowatt hours of electricity, for a total of $9.24 (at 21 cents per kilowatt hour); at this rate, metered electric will cost $12/week or roughly $50/month 

Rancho California in Aguanga

We are now in Aguanga, California at a gorgeous RV resort we found online.

Rancho California is a huge (500+ sites) park where lot owners have beautifully landscaped their own sites and either use them or rent them to snowbirds. Some owners may rent privately, but we went thru Kim and Candace at Fairway Associates. I can't say enough good stuff about these two ladies. They were quick to respond to my emails and they tried to accommodate us in every way; that's more than I can say for many of the RV parks we've stayed at.

The rental rates at Rancho California are reasonable for what you actually get. We picked a private, landscaped lot with:

• a lake/fountain view and no one behind us
• a huge concrete pad
• a special built-in turf strip for the dogs to pee on
• wicker lounge furniture and a outdoor table/chairs
• a shade umbrella
• free tennis, pickleball, swimming  

This site is $600/month with full hookups BUT you have to pay for your own electric.  And at 21 cents per kilowatt, it's not cheap. We're new to the metered electricity thing so we decided to monitor it closely for a week and see what kind of power we consume.

It's not going to be much since:

• we never use hair blowdryers or our a/c units 
• my computer is always on the eco friendly screen
• during our stay we'll use the propane furnaces instead of space heaters
• we switched the fridge and hot water heater over to propane

We have used the coffeemaker and the microwave a handful of times, but so far, after two full days here we've only used 3 kilowatts.  Is that possible?  A whole 63 cents worth of power?  We thought we may be reading it wrong, but it's digital so it's not hard to figure out. I hope we're not missing something.

Anyway, this resort is perfect for us. It has a golf course (one month unlimited play for $150 or $200 for a couple), 6 tennis courts, 2 pickleball courts, 6 swimming pools, 5 jacuzzis and lots of safe space for my daily walks and our dog walks.

And if that's not enough, it was sunny and 25C today. And tomorrow. And the next day...

Special note to my cyberpal Mexi-Croft:  As requested, I am getting off my lazy butt and putting together a post about our Tiffin customer experience. Since first driving our unit off the lot, we've had so much bad luck with it that I was waiting to see if everything they said they fixed was still working after our trip west... and it IS!  Post coming up soon!

And one last thing: Thank You Rene` and Jeanette from the RV Voyageur Blog for not only walking around Yuma and getting contact info for RV sites, but also for recommending the Quechan Casino in Yuma.  We boon-docked there overnight and filled our grumbling, empty bellies with the buffett dinner - awesome after a long day on the road. Thanks again, you guys! 

T-Shirts fur Dogs

Here's what this childless (by choice) couple spends our cash on:

Dog clothing. Pathetic, but true. 

Shelbert developed a shampoo rash and she's been scratching her belly lately so we had to get her a snug t-shirt to stop the scratching. The Bert's shirt says Get Your Nose Out of My Butt.  Dog humour.

She loves her new shirt. Unlike most mutts, Shelby really likes wearing clothes. We're not dog psychologists, but we think snug shirts make her feel safe, like a warm security blanket.

While at PetSmart we decided to pick up a shirt for Stormin Norman too.

Probably a total waste of money as Normie is a macho little thing who believes he should be running thru the wilderness, wild and free.  And naked.

He hates all dog clothing, including his new t-shirt. He can't even look at me right now. 

the shirts were $7.49 each, on sale at PetSmart

Pics from Las Cruces to Tucson

JohnnyDisco travelled another 282 miles yesterday from Las Cruces, New Mexico to Tucson, Arizona.

We left Coachlight RV Park (full hook-ups - PA rate $18) at 8:30 Friday morning. About twenty miles west of Las Cruces was a border patrol check stop, which we were quickly waved thru.

Then it was a lot of this:

This whole area was pretty soggy. That may look like white snow on the ground (on the other side of the train tracks) but it's actually huge puddles of rain water soaking into the desert.

The trip from Red Bay, Alabama to Tucson, Arizona was 1554 miles or 2500 kms.

And (hope it doesn't go to his head, but) we made the trip in one piece thanks to this good-lookin Fella, who is such an awesome driver.

(I notice he's gone a bit more grey this trip - is it road stress or Kelsi stress? Either way it's certainly helping us sneak into those 55+ parks   :) 

51 Minutes from El Paso to Las Cruces

These are the final pics from Wednesdays travel day.

We drove 461 kms from a rest stop just past Wickett, Texas to our RV park in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Here was our first peek at El Paso, Texas - population 650,000. 

there was lots of road construction in progress, like every other major city we've driven thru

the majority (85%) of the population of El Paso is hispanic

exit to the border crossing into Juarez, Mexico

from the interstate you can clearly see the border wall separating El Paso from Juarez

(every single time I see that wall I feel so lucky to be born in Canada, surrounded by opportunity - it's really all just luck of the draw, isn't it?)

Pictured below is housing on the Mexican side of the border; shanty style houses, huts and trailers, many of them missing windows and doors.  There are no vehicles in the pic and I honestly don't know if anyone lives there - but it looks very similar to the hillside housing at the Nogales, Mexico border.

The Juarez Mountains are in the background.     

The north end of El Paso is minutes away from the New Mexico state border.

lots of dairy farms along this stretch of I-10

entering our destination city of Las Cruces, New Mexico (population 97,000) - in the background you can see the Organ Mountain Range

It's day two of our rest stop in Las Cruces, and although we really like this part of the USA, JohnnyDisco will be back on the I-10 Friday morning, westbound for Tucson.

But before ending this post, I have to show you what My Fella picked up today at The Outlet Shoppes at El Paso.

When it comes to shoes, he's like the male version of Imelda Marcos.

And now my manly Fella is the proud new owner of the hot pink trimmed golf shoes, pictured above. The size 13 pink PUMA shoes retail for $110 US dollars, but he picked them up at the PUMA outlet store for $5 bucks. 

(this would be the perfect time for me to make a smart-alec comment about my guys shoe fetish - but as the owner of twelve identical khaki GAP miniskirts, I'm really in no position to judge)

Praying for Gas

Day three of our trip west started early yesterday morning:

• we left the rest stop at 8am
• panicked a bit after seeing we had less than a quarter tank of gas
• panicked more when we hit the road and drove straight into a headwind
• continued panicking when Garmin identified the next gas station as being 61 miles away
• felt incredibly relieved to finally make it to the Chevron on the hill
• where relief changed to outrageous disbelief that the thieving Chevron owners were charging $3.99/gallon... 65 cents more than anyone else on this stretch of the interstate 
• we grudgingly pumped $50 worth of fuel (about 12 gallons) and continued on to Van Horn, Texas where gas prices were back down to $3.35/gallon

After filling up the tank, we hopped back onto the I-10, westbound towards El Paso. 

wow, look who's awake for once...

apparently the time change made Shelbert tired again

but Normie is wide awake and ready to go

This part of Interstate 10 runs parallel to the US/Mexico border and El Paso is directly across from the Mexican city of Juarez. About 20 minutes before El Paso we saw the first border checkpoint in the area.

there were a few border agents parked along the roadside in case one of the eastbound vehicles tried to turn around before the checkpoint 

Shortly after the check point we hit the outskirts of El Paso, Texas.

My Fella and I are actually heading to the big outlet mall in El Paso this morning but I'll post the rest of our road pics later this afternoon.

Hasta la vista, babies!

Red Bay to Texas

It's been 3 solid days of driving since we picked up JohnnyDisco from the Tiffin Mothership on Monday. 

More about our Tiffin customer service experience in an upcoming post, but so far everything they fixed seems to be working. Fingers crossed.

We left Red Bay, Alabama on Monday around noon and stopped for a quick propane fill-up at L & L Gas.  The folks on staff were fun and very opinionated Alabamians, and during the fill-up we had a great conversation about 'wet' and 'dry' counties. (Quick reminder: Franklin county is dry.) I won't reveal what was said but I can tell you the words 'hypocrites' and 'church' were tossed around a few times.

From Red Bay we drove south down the historic Natchez Trace Parkway. Despite being winter, there was a lot of greenery thru the parkway, except for one long stretch where a tornado levelled the area back in April 2011.

Miles of forest along the parkway were completely ripped apart. Definitely an eye opener after all the tornado watches/warnings we'd experienced over the past four months in Alabama.

Our little RV family (happy to be reunited with JohnnyDisco) drove a total of 765 kms on Monday - thru Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and finally pulling over at a welcome center just past the Texas border.

Tuesday morning we were back on the interstate by 9am, after a quick fuel-up and grocery stop. We were heading westbound on the I-20 towards Dallas.

After the Dallas  turn off, the I-20 gets pretty lonesome. Yodelling twangy country song kinda lonesome. "I'm so lonesome I could cry", kinda lonesome...

The interstate is flat and straight and the open fields are dotted with oil rigs, wind turbines and tumbleweed.

And the odd oil refinery.

We drove past Midland, Texas - home of George Dubya.  I waved ... sort of   :) 

Just past Odessa, Texas we stopped for Subway (for the 15th night in a row) and then parked at a truck stop for the night.

Unfortunately within half an hour, a truck and trailer packed with yahoos pulled up next to us. And they brought the party outside. Five drunken meatheads - laughing, drinking and slamming doors right outside our bedroom window.  One of the twits was actually yelling into his cell phone at his girlfriend.

It took us 3 minutes to get dressed, pack up JohnnyDisco and hop on the interstate towards another Texas rest stop, just a few miles down the road.

In all we drove 905 kms on Tuesday.

The above pic is Garmin, leading us to the Subway store and then the interstate rest stop. In the bottom right hand corner you can see the speed limit on this stretch of Texas highway is 129 kms/hour.

We were doing about 100kms in the RV, but guys were blowing past us at 140 and 150kms/hour. Apparently things aren't only bigger in Texas, they're waaay faster too.

Gulp

You probably already knew this, but:

A dry county is a county in the USA whose government forbids the sale of alcoholic beverages. Hundreds of dry counties exist across the United States, almost all of them in the south:

• Of the 67 counties in the state of Alabama, 3 are completely dry and 23 are partially dry or "moist" (these counties contain cities that have voted to allow alcohol sales) 
• In order for an Alabama city or county to hold a wet-dry vote, 25% of the voters in the preceding general election must sign a petition requesting a vote.
• A city must have a population in excess of 1,000 residents in order to have a referendum to go wet. Petitions can be made to go from dry to wet or wet to dry.
• In dry counties, it is illegal to transport more than one case of beer and three quarts of liquor.

Here's a map of all the dry/wet counties in the USA, according to the smartest person I know, wiki.

Red Bay, Alabama (where we are right now) is in Franklin County, named in honor of Benjamin Franklin. As of 2010, the population was 31,704. And it is a dry county. Ack.

After pondering this whole wet/dry county thing for awhile, My Fella found this interesting tidbit from the website Alcohol Problems and Solutions:

"About two of every three counties in Alabama are dry. That is, they prohibit the production, distribution and sale of any alcoholic beverages. However, Alabama permits the sale of fireworks, tobacco and firearms and it does so with virtually no restrictions or regulations.

For example, there is no state permit required to purchase or carry rifles and shotguns, no licensing of owners of rifles or shotguns, and no registration of such deadly weapons. Similarly, there is no state permit needed to purchase a handgun, no licensing of handgun owners, and no registration of handguns. Even young children can carry and use dangerous firearms. Alabamians apparently view a drink as more dangerous than fireworks, tobacco, or rifles, shotguns and pistols."

hmm...

What the Heck?

My last post disappeared. 

strange...

No time for a redo since we got a very happy message yesterday afternoon from Peggy at the Tiffin Mothership.  JohnnyDisco is ready to go.

We'll be on the road by 9am on our way back to Red Bay, Alabama and (hopefully) a fully functional motorhome. Whoo hoo!

it would seem that some of us are more excited than others