Flamingo on a Stick

Nancy and Dan I think what I am most thankful for this Thanksgiving was this opportunity to travel and see so many family and friends that we have not had a chance to visit in way too many years. We spent the day with my roommate from senior year of college. It had been around 15 years since we had seen each other. They are here in Henderson and really are the reason we are in Vegas. We had a wonderful meal and did lots of catching up. Of course we ate too much and by the time we left we felt like we were waddling out to the car. Nancy and Janie Yesterday we just spent time around the rig and at the casino a little. They have a great Mexican restaurant and tonight it was free. Free??? Yep, I am up $80 on the slots! Yea for me. I look at gambling as entertainment so I give myself a certain amount to spend. If it all disappears no biggie, but if I double my money (or more) I cash out. Between penny and quarter slots I am ahead so I bought my sweet husband dinner. That's righ

It is Las Vegas for Thanksgiving. Crazy huh? We think it is a little nutty but it is on the way to our destination for December: Zion River Resort. The other plus it has is my former college roommate Nancy. I don’t want to say old roommate because that would make me old too and as we all know I am certainly not old.  We are planted at Sam’s Town Casino and RV park. The drive in was easy and the park is not too bad. Parking is pretty close together but it is clean and the roads are wide. MGM Grand Sam’s Town has a shuttle service to the Strip and that was great because we had plans to meet fellow bloggers Evelyn and Kevin at Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville and it was nice not to have to drive. We had never met these two face to face so I was hoping we would recognize each other. Luckily I have an ace in the hole; I have John. One thing I have learned is that he is very recognizable with his white hair and beard. Yep, that is what Evelyn recognized. :) We had a great visit and enjoyed o

I’ve seen sunny days that thought would never end. James Taylor probably wasn’t inspired by Iowa’s weather to write those lyrics, but I was reminded of them as we drove through the South West. It rained tonight, briefly, for the first time in over a month. It’s been sunscreen and shorts everyday, so it’s nice to get a break now and then. London Bridge Along with the weather, we’ve been enjoying some of the local sights. Local to this part of Arizona includes the London Bridge. Not a replica; the actual bridge. Apparently it was falling down so London packed it up and shipped it over here where it now spans the Colorado river in Lake Havasu. At one end of the bridge is a microbrewery that makes a decent stout and an outstanding seasonal ale. Barley Brother’s Brewery. The bridge is kinda cool too. Walkway along the river near London Bridge This has been the first time our Kindles have been unable to connect to the ATT network. No TV either, since we depend on our roof mounted ant

Just caught up on our campground reviews for Dream Catcher's in Deming NM, Roper Lake in Safford AZ, and Cave Creek Regional Park in Cave Creek AZ. Sometime I just have to catch up on my homework. :) The link to Notes from the Flamingo on on the right side of the blog. 

I come from the land of allergies. Iowa is a high pollen count state and ragweed runs rampant but I never had much trouble. A little stuffiness in the spring and that was about it. People in Iowa move to the SW because of their allergies. But me? No, I waited until I got here to experience these demons. Now it is not as bad as many of my friends back in Iowa but what the heck, why do I have to be weird?  It seems there is at least one part of every day I find myself sneezing and stuffy, luckily it is not all day. John says I am just allergic to no work and warm weather. I don’t think soooooo.  London Bridge in Lake Havasu City Visited Lake Havasu City today. We found a great microbrewery right by the London Bridge. It was actually an accidental find as we were just looking for a place to park near the bridge. It was lunch time and what better place to have lunch than where they brew their own beer. Now John loves all kinds of crafted brews and he had drug me on board but I am a litt

RV Park across from us on California side Monday when we drove into Buckskin Mountain, which is north of Parker AZ, we had a new experience. Once you turn onto Highway 95 from I10 suddenly about every other vehicle you meet is some type of RV. This turn off is at Quartzsite which many people would call the epicenter of RVing. As we drove north toward Parker and the Parker Strip in the direction of Lake Havasu there actually are more RV parks than sticks and bricks housing. This all follows the Colorado River and across the river is California which also is one RV park after another. It is amazing. There are a couple big parks right across the river from us in California that look nice and have quite a few park models (mobile homes) but also lots of RVs and some of the RV parking is right on the beach. I’m not sure I’d pick this area to stay in but it does have some appeal. Buckskin Mountain Park, our RV on bottom left The thing that would keep me from staying here is the noise

Out on the Go John Trail -what an appropriate name!  John and Jean After 2 weeks in the same place, the longest we have stayed anywhere since leaving Iowa it was time to move on. We did get one last visit in with John’s step-mom Jean and we did a long hike at the park but now it was time to go. Cave Creek is a wonderful park and I am sure we will return. We headed west again and now we are at Buckskin Mountain State park on the border between Arizona and California just south of Lake Havasu on the river. It is a little different than Cave Creek. The sites are much closer together and not nearly as nice but the surrounding scenery is beautiful. As John would say we are in a little bowl of rocky hills. No TV this week! Even the internet is running slow. There were spots when we got here but really not that many, you can tell this is a busy park.  We finally decided on one, it is ok but most of the really good sites were occupied. John did a great job backing in, I think our commu

Cave Creek campground from the Clay Mine trail We got into the relax and do nothing mode yesterday so thought I'd blog about something that has been on my mind. Every morning I log onto the internet to read blogs. When we first discovered this lifestyle of full time RVing it was through Howard and Linda Payne's site www.rv-dreams.com . It was totally a revelation that people lived this way. Through their site and journal I began to find the blogs of others. Some of those were full-time RVers already, others we like us and considering the lifestyle, others were working toward the day they could full time and others were snow birds who have both a sticks and bricks home as well as traveling. Within all those groups the diversity is amazing. Couples who are retired, couples who are working out of their RVs or volunteering for a site,  single men and woman, families, same sex couples, all of whom we have gotten to know from their blogs and whom we appreciate very much.  When we

On the road from Prescott AZ Yesterday we took a little road trip up to Prescott. We thought about going all the way to Sedona but decided on Prescott instead. There is a microbrewery there that gets good reviews so decided to check it out. The drive there is beautiful, it is up in the mountains at about 5,000+ feet. Enough of a grade up that John got to try out his new exhaust break on the way back. The Gazebo in the town square The Prescott area seems big and sprawling enough but downtown Prescott has a very small town feel. The Prescott Brewery is right downtown by the Whiskey Row which is kind of their historic and touristy area. Right in the middle of it is the town square with the court house, gazebo and several statues.  The middle school was not far away and as middle school students do they were hanging out on the town square and being pretty goofy. Boy do I remember those days with my boys, in CR they hung out at the local mall. The brewery was a nice brew pub and we t

When we first began this adventure we decided to sell the house first, then buy the rig. If the house didn’t sell, then no harm. Six weeks later the house was sold so we signed up for a one year lease on an apartment. Plenty of time to figure out what we wanted to do for the RV. What we wanted to do was get a 5th wheel and a truck. We were thinking of a smaller 5th wheel, so I figured a one-ton diesel should do it. A Chevy would have been my first choice, but what we found found locally were two white Ram 3500 diesel quad cab pickups. One was new (in 2009) and the other was was a 2007 with the older Cummins 5.9L diesel. So we got the 2007 truck because it had the engine I wanted and it already had some stuff that I would have had to add to the new one. But one thing the older engine didn’t have that the new one did was an exhaust brake. No problem: I could add it later. So now it’s later and we’re looking at the mountains and I’m remembering I don’t have an exhaust brake. We also had

Our site for the first week. I haven’t done as well writing this week. We have been on the go ever since we arrived here in Cave Creek AZ. We are in the Cave Creek Regional Park just north of Phoenix. Our site week 2 This is a beautiful Maricopa County Park. It was recommended to us by a couple we met at Roper Lake and they we right. The sites are large and you have plenty of room between you and your neighbor. It is clean and well kept and the shower houses are very nice. The sites have water and electric. The first week we had a site that was great for watching the sun set but had little shade, even the awning didn’t help us. Of course it was 90 degrees during the day time all week, so we didn’t pick very well in that aspect so after a week we decided to move to give us a little relief from the sun. However this week the highs are only suppose to be in the 70’s. Wouldn’t you know. We needed to dump our tanks anyway so we chose a site that is a pull thru or more correctly pu

Good thing we don't have a boat?? Leaving New Mexico Before we left New Mexico, we decided to visit a few wineries. The first one was in Roswell, where we met Dale the wine guy/bartender. He was skeptical about the aliens landing in Roswell, despite the preponderance of evidence in the Roswell alien museum. He also explained that New Mexico had 44 wineries. To help us keep track, the wineries were handing out stamps that we could paste in our winery passport. If we visited all of them, the state of New Mexico would send both of us on a wine cruise. Roswell’s had an alien face on it. Cool. Only 43 more to go. The next one was in Carlsbad, where we found a good Shiraz and where to get the best Chile Verde. Too bad we didn’t have time for the Chile Verde. If you want to find the best restaurants in town, don’t bother with the chamber of commerce’s web site (the first two restaurants we tried from the Carlsbad web site weren’t even open). Just go to a local winery, sample some wi