Sun City, Arizona for October - December 2017

We arrived on October 1, 2017 at one of our favorite RV Resorts, Paradise RV Resort in Sun City, AZ.  Even though this resort has it all, a great swimming pool, exercise room, library, banquet facility with entertainment, pickle ball courts, tennis courts, even a lawn bowling green!  Plus other activity shops, woodworking, pottery, glass and jewelry shops and maybe even a few more we haven't discovered.  Paradise promotes a Special for October through December for about $300 per month plus electricity.  October has been a record setting month of warmer than normal temperatures in Sun City and therefore we ran the air conditioning a lot.  The good thing about the desert is that it does cool off considerably immediately after the sun sets.  As a result, we mainly ran the AC during the daytime when we were at the RV, but we do spend a lot of time over at Shilo's house (Gari's mom).

We have been up to some of the usual things and a few new things as well to keep things interesting.  Below Shilo and Steve are getting happy as three racks of baby-back ribs are going back on the smoker-grill for the last half of the cooking process (heavy-duty foil wrap phase).

We went car shopping with Shilo, after all Shilo's car is only 20 years old, a 1996 Honda Accord.  Below Gari and Shilo get the feel of a Hyundai Sonata.

This is the hot little number Shilo ended up with, a bright red 2017 Honda Accord Sport SE!

It wasn't all play here, Gari puts the finishing touches on cleaning the roof.  Next steps, Steve caulks and Gari waxes...

Gari applies the wax.  We used a marine product for fiberglass, which was advertised to be UV resistant.  We will see. The roof is looking great right now we must say!

We couldn't resist having another baby-back rib smoke out!  Below Steve removes the back membrane on rack #1.

Shilo and Gari take care of the seasoning.  Shilo tweaked the rub recipe this year and it was a marked improvement!  They wrapped the ribs and let them marinate in the rub over night in the refrigerator.

Pit-Master Steve prepares the Smoker-Grill for the three racks... Steve opens the Smoker-Grill and is overwhelmed by the smoke in the shot below!

Three racks on the smoker for phase one cooking; direct onto the grates, no foil.

Those ribs are ready to come off! It is about to get delicious in here!

Steve and Shilo bond over the smoked ribs project.  Judges declared a full success!  The team was so integrated that we had a repeat smoker performance with a 13 lb turkey after Thanksgiving.

Since we ate out on Thanksgiving the team wanted to make our own smoked turkey and have plenty of leftovers!

Of course there was more eating... L to R: Shilo, Gari, Faye, Hank and Steve celebrate Faye's birthday at Carrabba's Italian Restaurant.

The food and service were very good.  The wait staff brought Faye an awesome birthday cake; it was big enough for all of us and Faye passed the lovely chocolate dream around the table.

 Shilo and Gari take a turn at Fay's birthday dessert.

We came back for a competitive card game of Rummy 500.  Faye shuffles as Gari reviews the rules.  Retired Civil Engineer Hank looks like he is analyzing a way to take maximum advantage within the rules... and he must have the correct formula because Hank was the big winner of the contest!

Another birthday cake... afterall, it is an hour or two since we had the first birthday cake!

We took an over-night run down to Yuma, AZ to help Jerry move into his double-wide for the winter.  The water in Yuma is extremely hard and there are always water leaks when you move back in for the winter.  We replaced the kitchen faucet and one bathroom faucet and tightened several other fittings and got control of all the leaks in short order. 

Not much hope to repair this fixture, this is a replacement job!

Gari gives smartphone pointers to Yvonne and Jerry, which is interesting because Gari doesn't even use her own phone.

We rode around the Foothills neighborhoods looking for rental lots.  The spot below is an example.  We scored a reservation on E. 49th St. in the new section.  Yuma was already getting crowded, which doesn't usually happen until January or February.  The scuttlebutt was that the hurricanes in Florida and Texas have convinced more snowbirds to visit Yuma this winter...

Thanksgiving Dinner and a show!  Shilo treated us to a fine adventure.  We traveled by brand new Prevost bus from Sun City to Apache Junction... all the way across the greater Phoenix area.  It was a 90 minute ride each way, but we went in comfort and style.  Shilo, Gari and our new friend Gloria are seated below waiting for Thanksgiving dinner at Barleen's Dinner Theater.  Notice at Steve's seat the pumpkin pie is missing, while everyone else has a nice slice of pie.  What could have happened to Steve's pie?

The show after dinner was awesome.  The singer in the purple coat was from Norway and was a singer with the Righteous Brothers; he was excellent.

This singer was one of the Barleen family.  He had the deepest base voice we had ever heard.  He was singing some Elvis Presley here.

This was the guy with the hair, he was a good musician and comedian, but his hair was the best. 

This fella married one of the Barleen sisters.  He picked that mandolin faster and more cleanly than any we had ever heard.  It was truly amazing.

This is the base guy doing an impression of Dean Martin singing.  We think he did it even better than Dean!

The three Barleen sisters perform a little Andrews Sister music.

This was the finale by the Barleen siblings only.  They sang a rendition of Hallelujah.  It brought tears to my eyes... in the good way, the very best way. 

Yakima, Washington to Sun City, Arizona 2017

We decided to leave Yakima early in the fall to get ahead of the cold weather for our trail south this year.  We finally settled on a departure date of September 21st.  We have a loosey goosey way of travel planning truth be told.  Since we normally don't make reservations for an overnight stay we know it isn't critical to depart or arrive on a specific date or time.  This makes it nice for avoiding bad weather or reacting to other conditions that may make us want to go earlier or stay later.  The 21st turned out to be a fine day and we were off!  Another thing we always do as part of our trip planning is forecast the weather in each way point destination along our intended trail and make similar checks on DOT 511 sites in each states for any road condition notices or warnings.  During these checks we determined that we would likely be spending at least two nights in sub-freezing temperatures; that would be at the first two stops in Island City, Oregon and Rome, Oregon.  The other intel we gathered was a road closure near Parma, Idaho, where we would transition from I-84 to Rt-95.  Sure enough the road closure was accurate and we ended up following cell phone maps over country roads that eventually evolved to glorified farm field dirt roads just before we rejoined our intended trail on Rt-95.  For a while there we thought we may end up on a two-track dirt road, but it didn't quite come to that!  That was in southern Idaho near the Oregon border, just before waypoint C on the map below.

This was our planned trip route and ended up also being our actual route, of course there were a couple of last minute way point lay-over changes along the way!  We made this move in 11 days.  Five of the days we spent in Pahrump, NV just looking around and recuperating from the previous days on the road.  We thought Pahrump may be a place to set up a home base one day; right now we are thinking it may be a bit too far south and hot in the summer.

We had some real nice scenery in northeastern Oregon.  Below is a shot out the driver's window of the North Fork Umatilla Wilderness, which is a part of the Umatilla National Forest.  Blue Mountain State Park is in this area and Mt. Emily at 6,110 ft above sea level.

This was a good long uphill grade for us to pull on I-84 just east of Pendleton, Oregon.  We were happy to see the mountains in our rear-view mirror after that climb.  Our 2013 F-450 boasts 400 HP @ 2,800 RPM; interestingly enough, our new 2018 Ram 5500 will have only 325 HP.  How could this be for a more heavy duty truck you ask?  The answer is emissions control.  The Ram 5500 is considered a fully commercial vehicle, and the emissions regulations are more strict for commercial vehicles.  In order to meet these tougher requirements the truck makers use the same 6.7L diesel engine, but just de-tune it a bit on the commercial rigs, and voila - lower emissions and lower HP and torque too!  The good news is that will be plenty of HP for us to pull our load, and now we will have a powerful turbo exhaust brake to help slow us down on the downhill side.  Because every time we go up...  we always must come back down on the other side eventually.

We wonder which came first... the Casino or the church?  Did they pray for good luck and then go to the casino?  or did they go to the casino and then go pray for forgiveness?  Only in Nevada are these major organizations on the same corner.... Winnemucca, Nevada.

We were going to stay at the casino in Winnemucca, but the Walmart down the street appeared to be a better choice all around.  This was the first night above freezing since we left Yakima, WA.  We went in and did some shopping as always.  We came back and cooked our dinner and used their free WiFi before we laid down for the night.

The next night we stayed at Miller's Rest Stop just west of Tonopah, Nevada.  This is the first rest stop where we have stayed overnight.  This place had an RV overnight parking area separate from the remainder of the rest area.  There was also two potable water hydrants there for our use. Very nice overnight stop.  I believe we were in there with about 4 or 5 other RVs.  There was a motorcycle guy who slept on a picnic table in the RV area with us.  That looked cold to me!

We made it to Pahrump, Nevada (just west of Las Vegas) the next day and stayed at the Escapees park "Pair-a-Dice" for 5 or 6 days.  It was a nice rest and we were invited by my employer Arcata to visit our CEO and Operations Officer for lunch.  If that wasn't thrilling enough for us, the CEO offered to order us a new Ram 5500 through an agreement that they have direct with Dodge manufacturing, which would get us a volume discount that is below dealer's cost!  There will be more to come on that story!

We left Pahrump and stayed one night in Congress, AZ at the North Ranch Escapees park.  The next morning, October 1st, we rolled easily into Paradise RV Resort in Sun City, Arizona.  There we will stay until after Christmas.  Merry Christmas to All and to All a Goodnight!

A Car Trip to British Columbia and Camano Island

Jerry traded his Honda CRV in and got a new Honda Ridgeline pickup truck.  Jerry decided that a road trip was in order and Gari and Steve were game.  Departing from Union Gap (Yakima), Washington, the first stop is Westbank, B.C. to visit our good friend Yvonne.
The scenery along the route did not disappoint.

The beautiful rock garden entrance to Yvonne's development.

A view down Yvonne's street.

There is Yvonne's home on the corner with Jerry's Ridgeline parked under cover.

Jerry inadvertently reprograms the Canadian Satellite TV System.

Gari searches the Canadian Internet from the kitchen laptop.

Yvonne took us on a nice tour of Historic Peachland, B.C.  This stop is at the steps of her historic Methodist church with Gari and Yvonne.

Three little ladies asked Gari to take their photograph using their pad.  Kind of funny, because Gari doesn't use a pad!  No worries, Gari can figure out just about anything.

Yvonne leads us down to the stream where the Kokanee Salmon gather to spawn.

Look there they are, that one is a whopper!

We see a Great Blue Heron wading with the ducks along the stream.

A lunch stop at fancy Fitzpatrick Winery on the banks of beautiful Okanagan Lake.

The interesting tasting room.

Were were seated on the patio overlooking the lake.  This is a picture of a Jade plant.

The wine waiter came by with our selections, it is really getting exciting now!

Steve is pleased with the Merlot.

 Jerry and Gari check out the beautiful view.

Steve found a Springer friend.

Next stop the old school building now the local art museum.

As a celebration of the 100th Anniversary of Peachland the local artists laid out a mosaic painting of a local historic scene, and regular folk get to paint in a 1"x 1" square.  Gari signs in to get her square assigned.

Now the instructions....

Gari executes as if she were kin to Michelangelo.

Some cowboy tried his hand, oh wait that is Steve.

We got to visit with Lucille just down the road from Yvonne's house.  Lucille prepared a nice lasagna dinner complete with fine red wine.

Headed back to the US through the magnificent scenery.

Almost back to the border.

Now on Camano Island, Washington on Puget Sound.

Jerry's longtime friend Ron is our Tour Guide on Camano.  Ron has been living here for over 20 years.

Ron took us down to the beach in his golf cart to pick some wild Blackberries.  Gari and Jerry are getting into the Blackberries now.

 A stop by a $1.5M waterfront home for sale.  Can be yours for the right price.

The place does have a nice western view.

Sunset over Puget Sound from Ron's front porch.