21Mar 2012 by Lboll No Comments

Grand Canyon/Williams, Sedona and Jerome, AZ

Traveling

Remember how I said snow was being predicted in the high country in AZ? Well did we get the snow but I’ll come back to that later. We moved from Lake Havasu City to the town of Williams, 67 miles south of the Grand Canyon. This northern Arizona town sits at 7,000 ft elevation and Route 66 runs through its main street. We found a nice RV park, Grand Canyon Railway RV Park that was a few blocks off main street and stayed put for one week. The Grand Canyon Railway runs out of Williams. This is a train that runs every day of the year except Christmas from Williams to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. We decided this was the way we were going to make our…

18Mar 2012 by Lboll No Comments

A Drive Back to Western Arizona

Traveling

We heard about this Ghost Town close to the CA/ Arizona border and decided to take the 240 mile trip back to Western Arizona to see it. On the way we stayed two nights in the “Cowboy” town of Wickenburg. Usually we do a little research before we start off to find our next possibly campsite but we had heard that the BLM land (Bureau of Land Management) in the desert was nice so we decided to check that out in Wickenburg. On our way into town we stopped at an antique store and asked where the BLM land was. After getting directions from a local and with the 5th wheel in tow off we went to find our next campsite. Just a few miles out of Wickenburg we started…

03Mar 2012 by Lboll No Comments

Arizona Desert

On Our Minds, Traveling

Ok, I’ll have to take back some of my concerns about the desert. There is beauty in some of the desert we have seen. But some of it has been dusty and barren and doesn’t have a lot to offer (like trees). We started are Arizona journey in Quartsite, a supposedly must stay place for any RVer. Quartsite is a town in the middle of the desert with a population of about 4,000 people. But in January of every year thousands and thousands of RVers come to Quartsite for a couple of weeks of flea markets, RV sales and just about anything else RVers would be interested in. They can set up camp in the desert for a few dollars a night with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). We…

03Mar 2012 by Lboll No Comments

A Pitfall of RV Full-Timing

Full-Time RVing

People ask us all the time what we don’t like about RV full-timing. I’ve voiced my dislike for laundromats. I’d now have to add finding a dog groomer to my dislikes. We never realized how wonderful it was to take our dogs to the same groomer for the past 14 years and she just knew how we liked the dogs groomed. We have tried Petsmart and a private groomer in Oregon and they were so-so. But we found this woman in Apache Junction who took the prize. She was recommended by the KOA where we stayed. We took in Ivy, a Bichon, and picked up Ivy, a Poodle. When I dropped Ivy off the woman asked how I wanted her groomed. I went over everything but she had other ideas. …

08Feb 2012 by Lboll

Southeast, CA

Campgrounds

Off we go travelling towards Arizona through the southeast part of California. We travelled through a small portion of the Mojave Desert through the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains. Our first stop was in the town of Banning, CA in the foothills of the San Jacinto Mountains. We spent three days exploring the area. Not much to explore but the camp host recommended we take a 22 mile drive into the mountains to the town of Idyllwild. The 22 mile drive was beautiful as we climb to an elevation of over 5,000 ft. Idyllwild sat in a valley and was worth the slow, winding climb. The town was small but had some fun, unique shops and restaurants. It was great walking around and we had lunch at an ok…

31Jan 2012 by Lboll

Ventura, California

Traveling

We have truly found the best view at a campsite since we entered CA. When we were at Pleasanton, a couple staying next to us told us they were heading to Ventura to Rincon Parkway, a strip of blacktop along Hwy 1 that the County of Ventura allows RVs to stay at for $27 a night. So we went online to check it out. By the description people gave that had stayed there it was exactly that – a strip of blacktop a few feet off of Hwy 1 between the ocean and a railroad tracks that carried Amtrak trains every few hours. With no hook-ups at the sites we decided to look a little farther. On the same section of Hwy 1 were two actual RV parks run by…

27Jan 2012 by Lboll No Comments

Central California

Traveling

Seacliff State Park in Santa Cruz was our next stop. Okay, here is one of my complaints about CA. The state park system in CA is terrible. It’s not that they don’t have nice state parks but they are so expensive for really nothing. The sites are normally close together and short, not meant for RVs over 25 feet. The least we paid was $35.00 a night and this was with no hook-ups. Seacliff, because it sat right on the beach, was $55.00 a night and there were no hook-ups plus we sat on black top with no space between us and our neighbor. Now it was our choice to stay here because we wanted the experience of staying right on the beach but $55 a night – really? And…

26Jan 2012 by Lboll

Northern California

On Our Minds

I’ve been really having a hard time getting started writing about our California adventure. It’s not that we haven’t been having a wonderful time in CA. We have seen some beautiful areas. I love CA’s beautiful trees and flowers. One of the first things that we saw as we crossed the border from Oregon was the Giant Redwoods. We went through the 31-mile scenic drive called the Avenue of the Giants of the Ancient Redwoods. We spent time hiking in some of the groves and even got lost once when we got turned around on a trail. We spent an anxious hour trying to find the trail that would take us back to the truck. We also spent time hiking at Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve in Guerneville, CA. Beautiful…

10Jan 2012 by Lboll

Our Abby

On Our Minds

Today we lost one of our beloved four-legged family members to kidney disease. It was a tough decision to make and one we always prayed wouldn’t come. We’ve been very fortunate to have had almost 15 years of loyal companionship with Abby. In her younger years she loved to play fetch with the ball in the back yard and would wear herself out trying to catch the light beam from a flashlight as we moved it across the floor. She has been a great traveler and a trouper when it came to hikes until these last few years. We made a huge mistake when we went back to Minnesota for the holidays. After several visits to our own vet, being hospitalized and knowing she wasn’t going to fully recover, we…

08Jan 2012 by Lboll No Comments

Christmas in Minnesota

On Our Minds

We’ve been asked why we haven’t posted anything since the first part of November. Not sure other than leaving Oregon was sad and anticipating our trip back to Minnesota was all that was on our minds. So I’m going to talk about Christmas back in Minnesota and come back to our adventures in California later. Joe and I could hardly wait to get back to our kids and grandbaby Cate in Minnesota. We gave ourselves 5 days to make the 2052 mile trip back. We were so fortunate. The weather was perfect which made the roads perfect. We left CA on Dec 16th and were in MN on Dec 20th. We were so excited to hold our granddaughter but our dogs had other ideas. Both ended up sick on the…