Sunday, February 23, 2020 - Staying in and Doing Chores

Sunday, February 23, 2020 - Staying In; Chores; One Last Walmart Run

What a wonderful day we had yesterday and as much as we would enjoy finding something else to do today, we needed to get some things done.  I wanted to do laundry (which by the way, our machine is working just like new again).  We also needed to go through the mail we received yesterday, and I still had a few other things that needed to be taken care of.  Today was the perfect day for doing so.  The wind was blowing like crazy, so it was a good day to be inside.

Pictures of the RV Park here in Las Cruces as we returned from Walmart later this afternoon.  It filled up fast between the time we left and returned.  Every morning several leave, and by mid-afternoon it starts filling up again.  Bentley is almost centered behind the tree in the middle.  Notice the large spacing between us and our neighbor.  

I needed to make some reservations for down the road, or at least check on availability.  Some parks do not take reservations unless it is the busy season.  It seems that the further west we head the more I am finding we do not need a reservation, which is great.  Our next overnight stop will be in Bowie, Arizona.  I also checked into a place to park when we reach the Yuma area.  I found that many of the parks listed on RV Parky, the app I use to select one, did not have many current comments, if they had any at all, so we started looking at what would be most convenient for us.  

By the way, our grandson Logan called last night (Saturday evening).  I called and left a message for him a few days ago about meeting up while we are in the area.  We will be in the AZ/CA area over two weekends.  The first weekend he already had plans with some friends to go skiing at Big Bear, but he is free the following weekend, so that makes us happy grandparents.  Logan enjoys being outside so we suggested heading to the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park where we could do some hiking, maybe take a drive around Salton Sea, and if time allows maybe on Sunday we could visit Joshua Tree National Park.  He said he would love to.  We are both looking forward to spending time with him.  It's been over a year since we last saw him after completing his training at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio.   He is now stationed at El Centro, CA.  (Note, we may mix our visits up and visit Joshua Tree on Sat, and Anza-Borrego on Sunday, so Logan has a shorter trip back to the base Sunday afternoon/evening).  Papa also mentioned he would be interested in playing golf, and I think they will make that happen one evening after Logan's work.  

This morning I started looking at locations we might stay near Yuma for our meetup with Logan.  We decided that staying near I-8 was going to work best as it leads directly to El Centro, and it's the same highway we will want to take to reach the National/State parks.  We want to make a visit to Algodones, MX, which is nearby, and we want to visit with a couple of people in the area.  I have been following the blog Chillin' with Patsy for a few years now.  They are currently in the Yuma area.  We will arrive in the area on the 27th, just in time to meet Bill and Patsy before they leave on the 29th.  In addition, a friend of my sister's, Sharon and her husband spend the winters in nearby Yuma, AZ.  We plan to meet up with them as well.  We finally decided after looking at several resorts online, that we would check out the park where Patsy and her husband Bill are staying, Pilot Knob RV Resort, as it is just off of I-8, north of Yuma.  Dean/Logan will look into golf courses in the area, making I-8 easy for him or Logan to make the drive to/from El Centro, so I think this location will be a win-win for us.

I called Pilot Knob directly.  After I asked about available sites and hearing they had plenty, I told her I'd like to make a reservation.  The receptionist asked if I would mind making the reservation online.  I went online to make the reservation and after two attempts I wasn't sure if it had gone through, I called the 800#.  They were closed over the weekend, so I will try to call them on Monday.  In the meantime I called the local number again, to see if they had received anything.  They had not received a confirmation either.  She suggested I contact the main office again on Monday morning.  

I spent the next couple of hours filing papers, updating our budget, and making a list of phone calls to make on Monday before we leave Las Cruces.  We need to make an appointment for a follow up with one of Dean's doctors for April, I tried to make an online deposit to our checking account, but again it did not seem to be accepted.  Dean tried it again later and did not get confirmation either, so we'll have to check on that tomorrow as well.  I called the Escapees park in Casa Grande about our stay on Feb 25/26.  They do not make reservations, however the receptionist advised several people had left today and six more were leaving tomorrow, so she thought we would be fine, but advising me to check again Tuesday morning.

While I was busy doing things like this Dean received a call from our RV dealer.  After our report of the screen on our leveling system not working, they checked with the company this morning.  They suggested having Dean unplug it, wait and then plug it back in.  Wa-lah!  It worked!  Thank you Stephanie!!!!  While Dean had remembered how to operate it without seeing it on the screen, it is something we don't have to worry about now.

We did make a quick run to Walmart for a couple of things this afternoon, that we needed before we leave here.  For supper I made a new recipe after googling chicken stir-fry.  Several recipes came up.  I chose one from Allrecipes.com.  It was pretty easy to make and fortunately I had all of the ingredients.  We both really liked it, so it is a keeper.  I used the vegetables we bought at Toucan Market the other day and some cut up chicken tenders.  We had enough for Dean to have a small serving of leftovers tomorrow.  Now that we know we like it I'll double the recipe so we can both enjoy leftovers in the future.

It was a very busy, but fulfilling day, getting things done and preparing for our move tomorrow.