We had great time in El Paso, but I knew there was a golf game waiting for me in Phoenix. Well, not exactly Phoenix, but Peoria. When I last left you, we were in the town of Lordsburg, NM. As I said in my last article there just isn’t a lot to say about Lordsburg.
From Lordsburg we went to the Apache Gold Casino where there is not just a casino, but a gas station, hotel and RV Park. We arrived early in the afternoon, so I took advantage of good weather and flat, dry asphalt surface to rearrange the basement so that my golf clubs would be a little more accessible. I was successful in the rearrangement, but I have some ideas to make it even easier to get to them in the future.
After cleaning up, Connie and I walked over to the casino to make a contribution. We found the quarter slots and had a few hours of fun on 20 or so dollars. Then I decided to get a beer. To my surprise and delight they had penny slots at the bar. So, another couple hours and three beers later I had gone through another five bucks and with no regrets. A fourth beer would have been disastrous to my already not great play. In the end we both had a good time and slept well that night.
The next day we drove over the mountain and into the Phoenix area. I had found a RV Resort in Peoria about six miles from my cousin Dan’s house. We were pretty excited about being that close and in a city again. The RV Resort wound up being a manufactured home park with 15 RV sites out of about 400 residences. However, the resort did have a good bit to offer. We didn’t care that we were the only RV within sight of our space. None of our immediate neighbors seemed to mind either.
We got to Peoria early in the afternoon, so we did some grocery shopping then I called Dan and made a date for dinner that evening. To prepare for dinner I put four miles on one of the treadmills in the park’s fitness center. That turned out to be a good decision as Dan and his wife Karen took us to a great Mexican Restaurant for dinner. In fact it was the best Mexican food we had eaten since arriving in South Texas back in December. Connie and I both forgot the name of the restaurant and I am really sorry for that, because the food was outstanding. Better than the food was the time spent with Dan and Karen. We don’t see this couple often enough or long enough when we do see them, so it is always a great reunion when we do get together. We had a wonderful evening catching up on our respective lives.
The next day Dan and I went golfing. Last year when we visited Dan and Karen we played golf, but the game was cut short by a pretty serious thunderstorm complete with marble sized hail and a lot of rain and lightning. Dan took me back to the same course this time so I could see what the rest of the course looks like. We played with a father son couple from Chicago. They were in the area on spring break looking at Arizona State University where Luke, the son, has been accepted for the fall. It was also an opportunity for dad and son to do a little bonding without mom and the kid brother. They are both pretty good golfers with the son driving the ball over three hundred yards. He lacks a little accuracy, but all in all he was pretty good. Dan and I play bogey plus golf, but we had a great time. Just for the record, I out scored Dan by one stroke. In the end the score didn’t matter that much we had a lot of fun talking about family and our respective careers while enjoying a wonderful day on the course. There was not a cloud in the sky.
When we got back to the RV Park we found Karen and Connie having had lunch with one of Karen’s friends sitting in the coach swapping stories. One of the things they talked about was one of Dan’s former client’s, Ric Slager. Dan had a career as a large animal veterinarian specializing in horses. Ric Slager and his former wife owned horses and Dan was their vet. Ric Slager is a nephew of Connie’s brother-in-law, Jim Slager. That over used statement “What a small world this is” certainly is appropriate here.
Our visit with Dan and Karen was too short, but we really enjoyed it. We hope to do a little better planning in the future so we aren’t just dropping in. We both would like to spend a lot more time with the two of them.
By the way, I have just about removed my slice from my golf game. I even tried to slice a shot to get around a corner and had trouble doing so. It is true that the ball goes further when it goes straight.
From Peoria we headed Northwest to Kingman, Arizona. The drive was not real long, but the wind was pretty strong and I wanted to get the coach washed and waxed before we got too much further down the road. The place we picked to stay was .7 miles from a Blue Beacon Truck Wash. We got the $80 RV special and it was worth every penny plus the tip I left the hand driers.
We also fueled up at the truck stop in the neighborhood. I was pumping diesel on one side of the island and a gasoline hose on the other side of the island just started spraying gasoline. There was no nozzle on the hose, but for some reason the pump started and gas did indeed flow. The guy who was parked on that side of the island took off for the building. I reached around and grabbed the hose and crimped it off holding it that way until Connie was able to confirm the pump had been shut off. My reaction was delayed a bit because I was not sure what had happened and I guess I expected the fellow standing there would do something a little more pro-active than running and I had to stop pumping my fuel first so we wouldn’t have a double catastrophe. In the process I managed to get gasoline down my leg and into my shoe, so as soon as I was able to let go of the hose I went into the station to clean up. I was amazed at the lack of concern that existed in that building for what must have been a couple of gallons of gasoline running along the concrete and into the asphalt right outside the building. We got away without an explosion and when we drove by the station on our way out of the RV park this morning I noticed that the nozzle had been replaced.
Today we drove some 300 miles, the longest drive we have had in the RV in a long time. We got up early and got out fast, so we just kept going. Tonight we are staying at Edwards Air Force Base of California 58. We turn to the north tomorrow. Any guesses as to where we are headed?
One last thought before I post this. I learned the value of that wash job we got yesterday. No sooner than we got on Interstate 40 this morning we ran through a swarm of what I have decided were bees and spattered a whole bunch of them on the front of the coach. By the time we arrived at Edwards it was getting hard to see out the windshield and the front of the coach was more yellow than white. I was concerned that I would be spending the rest of the remaining daylight cleaning off the spatter. As it turned out, all I had to do was get them wet and then my window washer cleared them right off. For the painted parts I used the window washer to soak the spatters and then used a microfiber cloth to clean them off. I was amazed at how easily they came off. We leave here tomorrow looking as clean as we did coming out of the wash yesterday.
Sorry, there are no photos this time. Stay tuned and keep working on our destination.