Goodyear AZ (Low 36 Partly Sunny High 68)
Guess it just wasn't meant to be yesterday. We had plans to see the latest Hobbit movie but when we got there about 20 minutes before the start there were only 12 seats left. Not wanting to force our neck into a permanent upward glance we gave up on a movie pretty fast. The day after Christmas must also be a big movie day, who knew? We spent the rest of the day going to lunch at Claim Jumper then shopping then back to the park to greet Jo's cousin and wife who just arrived at the park.
One of the many reasons we like this part of the country for the winter is that we tend to see more movies here than any other place in the country. Part of that has to be the free popcorn you get with the purchase of a Harkins Theater loyalty t-shirt and a cheap refill on a large pop with the purchase of a loyalty cup.
So far this visit we have seen "Thor: The Dark World", good movie with a lot of action.
"Delivery Man", another good movie with a sweet message and an excellent job done by Vince Vaughn.
Next we saw "Hunger Games: Catching Fire", another action movie that was very good.
We could recommend any of these movies if you were looking for a movie to see. After the latest Hobbit movie we want to see "Saving Mr. Banks" which looks really good.
Till next time,
Bob and Jo
Goodyear AZ (Low 38 Sunny High 70)
Merry Christmas, "Do not be afraid. Look, I bring you news of great joy, a joy to be shared by the whole people".
Remember, Jesus is the reason for the season.
Till next time,
Bob and Jo
Goodyear AZ (Low 34 Sunny and Nice High 68)
Bob recently went with his friend Bob to the Phoenix Holiday RV Show. This is Bob's (both of them) kind of show; free parking and free admittance.
The show was held at the University of Phoenix Stadium (where the Arizona Cardinals play) in nearby Glendale Arizona. For the RV Show they pulled the field out.
This is a great stadium to tour, if you ever get the chance you won't regret touring this stadium.
Also Bob's kind of show is that although there were some neat RVs to look at there was not the one that made you want to trade up.
Before the show the Bobs ate at Which Wich Superior Sandwiches near the stadium and we both agreed that our better halves would enjoy this place. It was a great time for the Bobs while the better halves were at their Christmas luncheon at the park.
Till next time,
Bob and Jo
Goodyear AZ (Low 44 Rain Early the Partly Sunny High 60)
Bob recently attended the Men's Christmas Luncheon at the park. Not as well attended as the Women's the next day but it was still a good time had by all. The food looks great
The boys are hungry
After eating Mike regaled us with some jokes he had printed out and then, as men are prone to do, we solved all the worlds problems and talked about great places to visit in our RVs.
Till next time,
Bob and Jo
Goodyear AZ (Low 42 Partly Cloudy High 72)
We haven't been doing too much since we got to Goodyear except for the usual appointments when you are settled in one place for awhile like haircuts, doctors, truck service, etc. The weather has turned nice so what free time we have we sit outside and read. That means our truck hasn't moved much.
We will try and blog once a week and after special events. Bob did go to an RV Show which we plan to blog about and we are planning to go to the Phoenix Zoo for ZooLights.
We did have another random thought, this time dealing with being a tourist. When we spent awhile getting across Texas we realized that with Texas plates we could not get away with doing something stupid and people seeing our out of state plates and go, dang tourists. We will just have to be more careful in Texas :-)
Till next time,
Bob and Jo
Goodyear AZ (Low 30 Sunny High 55)
A Place for Everything - and Everything in it's Place
When you get a system in place you have to stick to it. That includes buying the same sized accessories that you use inside your RV. We first noticed this when we bought olive oil, the jar had to be the same size to fit where the old one was. We were reminded of that when we did our reorganizing after we were able to move back in after our repairs and upgrades. Here is our paper products drawer being rebuilt.
First the snack bags,
Then the aluminum foil
Then the wax paper
Then the press 'n seal, which is so much better than sarann wrap
Then the gallon ziploc bags
Then the quart ziploc bags
Finally, the chip clips and twist ties
A Place for Everything - and Everything in it's Place
Till next time,
Bob and Jo
Goodyear AZ (Low 33 Sunny High 55)
How do you eat where the locals eat? We ask people if they were out of their home town for a long time and were heading back into town, what is the first place you would eat at?
We asked ourselves that very question on the drive into Goodyear. We decided on a shrimp burrito from Senor Taco.
You get a lot of shrimp, rice and a white sauce that is incredible. Bob went and got two shrimp burritos to go, actually one shrimp burrito and for only 50 cents more got the daily special that included a drink and two rolled fish tacos. More food than we should have eaten but everything was good.
Our second meal eating out was the turkey and cranberry sandwich at Paradise Bakery (that also includes a free cookie). Our third meal eating out was breakfast at TJs Homestyle.
It will take us a while to visit our old favorites but then we want to try some new places. Tonight is "Rib Night" at the park and that is always good.
Till next time,
Bob and Jo
Goodyear AZ (Low 43 Partly Sunny High 73)
Arrived here yesterday with the cold weather hot on our heels, or should we say cold on our heels :-)
At least we get one day of typical winter weather here but the forecast is for highs in the 50s and lows in the 30s so the BWE is in full effect. If we are going to have this kind of weather we guess it is better to have it just after you get here as you are not yet acclimated to the usual weather.
Here we are parked at our site for the next 4 months or so.
Till next time,
Bob and Jo
Willcox AZ (Low 30 Partly Sunny)
Goodyear AZ ( Partly Sunny High 72)
We try to avoid doing too much on Saturdays since we like to leave Saturdays to the locals. But we have done so little sightseeing lately we just decided to give it a try.
After breakfast and showers we were ready for lunch. We decided on Big Tex BBQ
But when we got there it was closed for remodeling. So instead of there, and instead of where the locals eat, we decided to eat where the truckers eats, Country Pride Restaurant in the Travel America TravelCenter. Turns out a lot of locals eat there because the place was packed. The food was really good, Jo got the chicken and dumplings and Bob got a chicken breakfast with a whole green chile on the top. We also checked out Apple Annie's Country Store which is in the old Stout Cider Mill location. Never had the pies before but Annie's apple cranberry pie is sure good.
After that we decided to head to the Rex Allen Museum
Guess what it was closed too. Not to be deterred, and since it was a short walk we walked to the Friends of Marty Robbins Museum and it was closed due to a family illness.
In our defense all these places should have been opened on Saturday. It wasn't a total bust though, we walked through the oldest continually operating store in Arizona that had a neat display on the history of Willcox. We then walked to the Rex Allen statue.
By this time some reenactors were putting on a gunfight show.
We then heard about not really a gunfight, more like bringing a knife to a gunfight story. Warren Earp was killed in Willcox in 1900, he brought the knife. Warren was the younger brother of Wyatt Earp. Since we have been to Tombstone, and to the Earp's boyhood home in Pella Iowa we decided to try and find Warren's grave in the historic Old City Cemetery.
It took us some walking around but we did find it.
Although not the day we had planned it was still another day fulltiming and visiting the sites in this great country of ours.
We are off to Goodyear today to our winter home for the next few months. Should be great weather when we get there with highs in the low 70s for a couple of days. But it looks like the BWE is in effect later in the week with temperatures in the 40s.
Till next time,
Bob and Jo
Willcox AZ (Low 36 Clouds and Sun High 66)
After a brief 2 night stay in Las Cruces we headed for Willcox yesterday. It was 190 miles along I-10, more like it when it comes to distance traveled in a day.
We are at the Sagebrush RV Park in one of the longest pull thrus we have ever been in. Plus we are closer to a wifi tower than we ever have been.
The only time we have had to worry about hitting the wifi tower with our slideout. If you look closely on the right side of the photo near the slideout is the wifi tower, not very tall but we are getting a great signal.
We plan to visit downtown Willcox today for the Rex Allen museum and other sites. Tomorrow we will be watching football, especially the Kansas City Chiefs try to avenge their loss to the Broncos. Monday we head to Goodyear.
Till next time,
Bob and Jo
Las Cruces NM (Low 34 Partly Sunny)
Willcox AZ (Partly Sunny High 66)
Slideout worked 2 times in a row, yeah!!
Happy belated Thanksgiving!
We hit the road again after one night at the Balmorhea State Park, a really nice state park that we would like to visit again. In fact this whole trip to our winter home has been that way. With all the maintenance issues we have been longer than we want at some spots and shorter at the others. When we were at a place for awhile then we had rain or cold or ice at those spots. The end result is that we did little to no sightseeing along the way. Like Bob and Linda say it gives you a reason to come back the next time.
The clouds gave way and we had a very nice driving day seeing the ice and snow that had hit the area. It was 220 miles which is a little longer than we like but still a doable day even after 240 the day before. We went into Mountain Time so the extra hour allowed us to get takeout from Nellie's Cafe in Las Cruces which closes at 2pm.
We had read online that Nellie's is a local place that has been there for awhile and is known for their killer green chile. It has been a long time since we have had green chile in New Mexico so Bob got the water and electricity going and then headed to Nellies.
The green chile was a little hotter than we would like but still good. Our usual green chile fix is in Albuquerque at La Salita or Sadies but we took a different route this time.
We are heading to Willcox Arizona today for the weekend and Monday we plan on heading to Goodyear Arizona, our winter home for a few months.
Till next time,
Bob and Jo
Balmorhea TX (Low 26 Cold then Warming)
Las Cruces NM (Sunshine Mixing with Clouds High 50)
We got a call early morning yesterday from the mobile RV techs who were on their way to install our new motor. They installed it and we ran it to check it out and it worked!! We were amazed at how much quieter the new motor was. Since it was still early in the day we decided to pack up and head to our next destination, Balmorhea State Park, still in Texas.
It was about 220 miles to Balmorhea State Park and we only have water and electric but that is OK as we are only staying 1 night. We want to get to our winter home next Monday if all goes well so we are taking slightly longer trips.
A couple more random observations:
- everybody knows Texas is huge but until you drive it at 150-200 miles per trip you really don't know how large.
- while towing at 65 mph in a 80 mph speed zone the other vehicles can come up on you pretty fast. It was like nothing, vehicle in distance, vehicle coming up on you, vehicle past you, just that fast.
- we have gotten lazy in remembering our parking spot, we just have to walk out of the store and remember the general area because you can see our pickup from a distance. Let us tell you there are a lot of white one ton dually pickups in Texas :-)
It is off to Las Cruces New Mexico today for a couple of nights.
Till next time,
Bob and Jo
San Angelo TX (Low 26 Freezing Sleet High 31)
BWE - Baskerville Weather Effect
Unlike the PDD the BWE affects more than just Bob and Jo. For the BWE to affect Bob and Jo other parts of the country are also affected. Right now San Angelo TX is experiencing below normal temperatures and freezing sleet. For that to happen the cold front has to move a long way south
We apologize to all those affected by the BWE.
Some random thoughts:
- if you are heading south for the winter and see "Watch for Ice on Bridge" signs you are not far enough south.
- this looks like a scene from the movie "The Birds", a very large gathering of black birds at the San Angelo KOA
- slideout motor will probably be installed Monday and Tuesday we will head further south.
Till next time,
Bob and Jo
San Angelo TX (Low 59 Cloudy Late Storms High 79)
Catching up on our stay in Abilene. We finally had a gorgeous day and decided to go to the Abilene Zoo, a small 13 acre zoo with over 800 animals from over 200 species.
It was a gorgeous day
We of course like cats of all sizes, especially since we see the same poses from our 3 not so wild cats. Here is Havar a white Bengal Tiger
An ocelot
Cougar or puma
We also like birds, here is a red tailed hawk
A peregrine falcon
A stork
A flamingo
Other colorful birds
Then there were the traditional exhibits, the giraffe
Black rhino
Zebra
Guanaco, a camelid native South America.
Although it was a smaller zoo it was still neat. They have plans to add an African exhibit in the upcoming years.
It was a great day at the zoo!
Our slideout motor is on order and we should be on the road again early next week.
Till next time,
Bob and Jo
