After Tucson…

Before I left Tucson, John and I visited the El Charro restaurant and it’s an interesting and amusing place. Has a great food reputation. Guess it’s been there over 100 years.

These first few shots are of the bar area where we hung out waiting for a table.

Here’s the outdoor seating. When I came back a few days later, this section was packed full of people in 95 F heat. Yikes. I thought I’d left my glasses here which is why I came back but later I found them at home under my chair. So it was a wasted trip as I wasn’t hungry.

We amused ourselves in the tiny bar for a while waiting for a table and then they called us and had us stand outside the front door while they cleared our table. Then inside, we had excellent Mexican style meals. Very nice. Food was amazing. Yum.

And 2-3 days later, we went to the top of the big hill with a giant A on it that you can see from nearly all of Tucson for some parting shots. It’s a huge valley and since there’s so much room here, Tucson has spread out all over it. The first shot is of downtown, then subsequent shots start north of town and sweep around showing the panorama.

Don’t know what this was as my knees wouldn’t allow me to walk up there. Some historical building of some kind.

I tried to do a picture sweep starting with a look north of Tucson around to the valley where John’s house is. Something like 1 million people live in and around Tucson. It’s gotten to be very popular with the snowbird group. This isn’t the size of town I enjoy for very long but after I tore my retina, I was sort of forced to stay, and I’m very pleased John was nice enough to let me stay at his place. Saved money, was only a few miles from the VA hospital, had some evening company to share a beer and BS with, had someone to go visit the brew pubs and restaurants with, and had fun installing a 50 amp service setup for my RV. Nice spot, but not fun driving in or out of the property.

But I digress…after that hilltop visit shown in the picture series above, we headed to the Funky Monk bar just to hang out. We’d passed it several times during our various visits to downtown or I had, but we’d never stopped there. Turned out it’s a pretty nice bar, with two very good looking bartenders. It’s not a brew pub though so it didn’t count in our attempt to visit all 30 brew pubs in town. As it was, we did visit 20 of them over the 5.5 months I was here in town. Ten days after our visit, there was some gunfire here, and one person died of self inflicted injuries. Of course John and I stop at these places in the early to middle afternoon, have 2 beers and then head home so we often miss all the excitement excess alcohol can cause.

Another look at this nice looking building in downtown Tucson.

Finally, the day arrived for my last checkup at the VA Hospital with the eye surgeon that handled my eye surgery and post-op care. She thought everything looked okay and since I had been planning on leaving Tucson Sunday after that Friday visit with her, and got her okay, that became the plan. It was just a couple days before I left town and I was having a bit of anxiety about having to drive the RV out of the steep area where I was parked, down a rolly polly somewhat steep in places gravel road, then hook up the car, and head into Tucson to a nearby fuel stop to top off the tank before I headed towards Yuma so the dinner out would be a welcome distraction. After all, I hadn’t driven the big bus in nearly 6 months at this point near the middle of May. And that afternoon, John asked if I wanted to come along with him to his doctor appointment (we’re both old, don’t judge) with a plan on going to a different restaurant after so after seeing his doctor we visited a seafood joint nearby his doctor’s office. Wan’t that great, but it was good. Portions were generous. Fish didn’t have much flavor but it was cooked well. Fries were very good. I didn’t have my camera so didn’t get any pictures. I told John then that if I lived nearby in the area, I’d probably come there for dinner once a month or two, but wouldn’t drive all the way from his place to eat there. Anyway, that was the last of our excursions to try out new restaurants or brew pubs and I took the next day, Saturday, to partially break camp getting ready to leave the following Sunday.

The day arrives, and I had thought that I might stop in Yuma and visit Mexico for dental and dermatology work after leaving Tucson. The night before though, I checked the weather in Yuma, saw that they were already having a heatwave with over 100 F temps every day for the foreseeable future and decided that I’ll just wait till next fall to go there when it’s cooler.

John helped guide me out off his property, I make it down the 1/3 mile of some paved, some unpaved driveway to near the main 4-lane highway, and while turning a bit, I get to close to a big rock and pop the outer dual tire. John drove the car down and happened to notice it was flat when he approached my RV. So had to pull out my compressor, fire up the generator to supply 120 Vac to run it, pump up the tire to just 65 PSI (it goes to 100 PSI but that would have taken an hour and I wanted to get on the road).

Anyway, I hoped to find air where I’d get fuel a few miles beyond but sadly, they didn’t have air. And it was Sunday, so the tire shop next to the fuel station was closed. Went ahead and got on the I-10 freeway, and drove north until I saw a big truck stop in Red Rock, which is just short of this pinnacle rock feature. Stopped there and filled up the tire to match the inner dual. Checked it a few times along the route, and it held the air so the tire wasn’t damaged. This pinnacle mount is a landmark between Tucson and Phoenix.

And here’s the temp that I was seeing for most of this trip, good reason to avoid Yuma, good reason to get out of Tucson. But, I do have working dash AC so I was comfortable. I also ran the generator so I could run the house AC for a couple hours before I arrived at Quartzsite where I stopped for the night. Did go to Silly Al’s for pizza. Best pizza on the planet.

Next day, headed north and outside of Parker AZ just 30 miles north of Quartzsite is a fuel station so I stopped there for fuel. Arrived at Preferred RV park in Pahrump, and since I’m a member I get a month of reduced rental so I paid $4.50/night. And around that time my brother contacted me and asked if I would come over to his place in Rosamond, CA and help him get ready to move up to Lynnwood, WA (a suburb of Seattle). It was only up to the 80’s in Pahrump and over at my brothers place in Rosamond, CA they were still in the 70’s with a string of storms rolling through. I decided to just hang around for 2 weeks enjoying the visit before heading over to my brother’s. I really didn’t do much there in Pahrump just basically hung out in my RV contemplating my navel. Or watching reruns of old NFL games. There is a carpentry shop there at the RV park but I didn’t make it in. Mostly because of my eye. Working around power carpentry equipment does require a certain concentration and since being basically blind in one eye is new to me, I put off doing the type of woodwork I wanted. I’m going to build a cubby for my TV and the electric lift mechanism I have it attached to currently. Works well, but needs to be inside a nice box.

So after two uneventful weeks there in Pahrump, drove over to my brothers, and before I’d gotten there, I tried to find an economical RV park nearby. One was closed, one was full up, the others were miles away and the one at the county fairgrounds in Lancaster a few miles south was too expensive. I did find one in Mojave, the Spaceport RV Park, 14 miles north of Rosamond that wasn’t too expensive comparatively so that’s where I stayed, not realizing that the winds in that area are fierce! The HUGE number of windmills in the nearby area should have been a tip off. The winds turned out to be so fierce that they literally ripped the OTA antenna off the top of my RV, tossed it off my roof, and then busted it up. I found pieces of it all over around and under one side of my RV. The biggest piece under the neighbors RV. Luckily, the satellite dish was turned in such a manner as to be impervious to the direction the winds normally blew so it was fine.

The park is 14 miles away from my brothers and I’d drive at 55 MPH to conserve fuel (as it’s outrageous there in CA) over there every day and help him pack. I was there for 2 weeks, it was $155/wk at the RV park and they had some funky requirement for month to month…they wanted you to commit to 2 months minimum. But it was like $250/mo plus electric if you did…for the area, an excellent bargain. But I wasn’t planning on staying for 2 months so after 2 weeks of helping, it was back on the road as I headed north. And to do so, planned on heading straight for Nevada avoiding the really high prices for diesel in Cali. In Mojave the price was $6.49/gal for diesel and not much better in nearby towns. I had filled up in Pahrump at $5.17/gal and the drive to Mojave only burned up around 1/4 of a tank so I still had 3/4 tank left, which is why I headed to Carson City Nevada to fill up. Before I got out of California though, I passed through a couple small sized towns and their diesel was at $8.49/gal. After passing those two towns, around 20 miles south of the Nevada border I passed through a wide spot in the road, just a couple businesses and a few scattered homes but one business was a gas station and it’s diesel was only $6.49/gal so those other two stations south of there were gouging like crazy. Why those city councils hadn’t threatened them with huge windfall taxes I’ll never understand.

Anyway, I kept driving up into Nevada, eventually fueling up where I found a nice lower cost (relatively) of $5.879 for diesel outside of Carson City. Fueled up with 65 gallons, kept driving until I got to Fernley, Nevada, the town where years ago I worked at the Amazon Fulfillment Center. I stayed in the Walmart parking lot, dry camping as I was tried of driving and the local RV parks were more driving. And the next day, woke up at 6 AM, took advantage of the early hour, fueled up nearby and left around 7:30 AM (normally I start traveling around 9 AM trying to miss the earlier rush hour. This time I was so close to the fuel station and the freeway that it wasn’t a worry). After driving a few hours, stopped at Winnemucca, NV for more fuel, and shortly after, my kitty had had enough driving and stomped out of her hiding place to register her disfavor of the entire long drive situation next to my leg for 10 minutes or so, eventually going back to her hidey hole in a huff.

Still early in the day, we arrived at John Day, Oregon where I parked at the county’s RV park there in town and later that evening, had the delicious meatloaf dinner they have at the Outpost. Kitty was pissed I wouldn’t let her outside so she scratched my leg a good one when I got back. Drew blood.

Next day, headed on north and 3 hours later arrived at my destination in Milton Freewater, Oregon where I am now. So now you know it takes just 2 nights and most of 3 days to travel 946 miles. At a leisurely pace.

Got all snuggled in here at the RV park, went to visit my daughter at her new to her house, found that I’m not welcome to park my RV there for anything over 2 weeks so I’ll be staying here at the RV park that appreciates my presence. And have just hung around so far. Dunno how long I’ll be here, perhaps until November. I’ve visited downtown Walla Walla and gone shopping already but that’s about the extent of it. I am thinking of driving the car over to Seattle area to visit all my relations there, sometime in August most likely.

Since I arrived, I have discovered that my sister Teri who lives in Walla Walla is in stage four kidney failure and was getting prep’ed for gastric bypass surgery too so wow…didn’t expect that. I thought she was managing her diabetes situation but I guess it suddenly progressed to where they need to do something serious, like getting her a new kidney. This old age business is really trying. I’d go visit her but her and her husband have both tested positive for Covid and I’d like to avoid getting it. Her surgery was rescheduled because of that of course. Soon though, I’ll go see her.

Thanks for reading!

Jim