A Very Sad Week

On Tuesday January 28^th Chris lost her Father and I lost a Father In-law and good friend. Our thoughts have been with the family during this difficult time. Chris will be flying home this Monday for the burial and returning on Thursday. This past week has been a very sad time for us.

We are staying at the Val Vista Resort, in Mesa Arizona, until tomorrow. This is a beautiful resort offering park models and RV sites. There are three outdoor pools and hot tubs and an indoor pool and spa. Each space has citrus trees that renters or owners are allowed to pick from. We were lucky to have our own grapefruit tree, and a lemon tree close by.  We will be leaving here with some very fresh fruit.  

Tomorrow we are heading to Florence AZ where we will be staying for the month of February.  

Thomas Tacik

Indoor pool and therapeutic spa 

Sports theater where any game can be seen 

Nicely stocked library

Fresh Fruit

Last night's sunset

Daily Happy Hour

One of the three outdoor pools

Our daily haul

Beautiful Mesa

Because of the situation with Chris’s Dad we decided to head for the Phoenix area in case she needs to fly home. We called this morning and got reservation at an RV resort in Mesa just east of Phoenix. It’s beautiful in Mesa and looks like it will continue to be so for the next ten days.

Friday we will leave Mesa and go to Eloy AZ where we will be for the month of Feb. It will be nice to stay in one spot for a while. 

We were able to get the RV washed today in Tucson. It was good to get all the salt off. It looks like a different RV now.

Back to Beautiful Weather

We left Elephant Butte around 8:30 this morning and had a leisurely drive through southern New Mexico and into Arizona. We stopped for the day in Benson about 45 miles east of Tucson. The temperature swings have really been severe from 14 the night before last to mid 60’s here in Benson. It’s so nice to have the windows opened and fresh air again. We don’t have wifi here so I’ll try using my phone as a hotspot.

Our first rest stop in Arizona, blue sky's warm weather.

Saturday Jan 25^th

We had a great evening here in Benson. The campground is within walking distance to a Denny’s so we walked over and had dinner last evening. 

Sunday Jan 26th

We had our heater set at 60 degrees last night and it only came on once then we ran the furnace this morning for a short time to take the chill out. After breakfast we took a long walk, the sun was out and not a cloud in the sky.

After lunch we took a long drive in the desert, we did come across a large Pecan or Walnut grove. The groves are so unusual because they keep them free of all debris under the trees. It looks so neat and clean. 

View from our RV

View from our walk this morning

Familiar Places

Coldest morning yet, 14 degrees. Things are looking up after today however, and the wind has stopped, we will be heading south today where to not sure but it will be the right direction.

First stop this morning is to get more LP to keep the furnace running. We are no different than everyone else watching their heating budgets go through the roof this winter.

We had to stop for gas so we did in Elephant Butte NM. We have been here before and decided to hold over here for a while. We love NM’s state parks and this park is one of the reasons we do.  Electric, water, fast WIFI and beautiful scenery to boot.

Chris took a long walk down to the lake and took the following pictures....

Cold and Windy

It’s cold and WINDY today so windy that we are going to sit tight for another day and wait it out. With the wind the chill factor is in the low 20’s. So a new plan for today calls for a trip to the Albuquerque Biological Park, lunch, check out the mall and maybe a movie. I almost forgot we want to visit some of the Breaking Bad filming locations around town as well.

We spent the morning driving around town finding the filming locations from breaking bad......

Sleazy Motel

White's Car Wash

Walter White's House

Los Pollos Hermanos 

Jesse Pinkman's House

Jesse's Favorite Restaurant 

Tuco's Office

This afternoon we went to the Albuquerque Aquarium and Botanic Gardens here are some pictures.....

Bumming around for the day

We drove into Albuquerque this morning to look around a bit. We stopped at Camping World to look at camping items and to see what was out there and what we thought we really needed, we didn’t  find anything. Next we went to the new Mesa RV dealership that just opened here. We purchased our RV from Mesa RV in Tucson last April so we thought we would look around and to see if they had a RV wash so we could get rid of the salt that is all over our RV.  They did not have an RV wash but referred us to another place in town. We found the wash but did use it.

We drove around Albuquerque and finally stopped for lunch at the original route 66 cafe. It was really a neat         cafe and we really enjoyed our lunch.

We then drove to the Petroglyph National Monument in hopes of taking a nice hike around the park but the park has been closed because of trail damage caused by recent storms. So we decided we would visit the local Casino and see what we could get for free. Three dollars at the slots for signing up. Oh well.

Then it was back to the RV Park where we did some laundry and relaxed the rest of the day.

Route 66 diner

Inside the diner

do you remember this

or this

or this

could you play this