ART ON EVERY CORNER….MESA, AZ

Thursday, February 19 – Marsha convinced Paul to do another Volksmarch in Mesa, AZ. We started at the Best Western Hotel to pick-up the map and directions. It begins with a tour of downtown Mesa, which we both enjoyed.

This mural wrapped around the entire building.

Man are they spending some money in Mesa. It is a beautiful city.

They are extending the Mesa light-rail train through Mesa and into Chandler. This is major construction and big time money! It is close to being finished and is really a nice addition to the downtown area.

Scattered throughout downtown Mesa there are 38 different sculptures that make up the city's public art collection. Here are just a few…

The Big Pink Chair

Flowering Stiletto

Booked for the Day

They Are Waiting

Here is a webpage that has all the sculptures with information about each one. There are so really neat pieces.

The Volksmarch then took us on a side spur outside the downtown area. Paul doesn't understand the purpose of these “off the beaten path” detours. There wasn't anything to see but the back of a couple hotels and some empty streets. Marsha did pass the post office. She was looking to buy some stamps.

We then returned to Main Street and finished up back at the Best Western Hotel.

Friday, February 20 - We met up with fellow bloggers and RV'ers Sharon and John (On The Road Of Retirement), Sandie and Jim (Where Are The Dixons), and Jeri and Terry (Just Wanderin’) this afternoon for happy hour at SanTan Brewing Company in Chandler, AZ. We were with these friends in Quartzsite about a month ago but enjoyed their company so much, we wanted to get together again before we began moving all over to different parts of the country.

We enjoyed tasting several of SanTan's micro brews and finished the afternoon with dinner. We had a wonderful time and enjoyed reminiscing with our friends. It's such fun to share past experiences we have in common with fellow RVers and discuss future plans as we contemplate future travels.

L-R: Paul, Marsha, Jeri, Terry, Jim, Sandie, John, Sharon

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!

ROCK SOLID

Wednesday, February 18 – Paul finally got the opportunity to install the 5^th wheel stabilizers today. He's been watching for these at a good price for over a year. He saw a set he liked while we were in Quartzsite at the RV Show and purchased them.

This is the first RV Park we've been at that allows Paul to work on his RV and has a nice work area (concrete) to make installation easier.

Installation required us to hook-up to the truck. Paul then installed the top brackets for the stabilizers to the front jack legs.

He then had to remove the landing shoes from the front jacks to install the bottom brackets. This caused a little trouble because these shoes take quite a beating from the hook-up process and were a little bent-up. He had to use his hammer to try to flatten them out so he could get the bolts to line-up properly.

Once the lower brackets were installed, it was a quick and easy process to install the stabilizer bars to the jack brackets.

These bars remain in place while towing. We simple remove a pin and loosen the tension on the bars and they raise up with the jacks.

The pins have red safety flags attached to remind us they must be removed before raising the jacks.

We notice a firmer less wobbly 5er immediately. There is virtually no movement when walking up and down the steps that someone sitting on the sofa or at the table can feel.  The stabilizers effectively eliminated all the wobble.

These are the finished stabilizers on the front landing jacks.  Since these do such a great job stabilizing the 5th wheel, no stabilizers are needed on the rear jacks.

One last safety flag is installed next to the switch that is used to raise and lower the landing jacks.  It acts as a warning and a reminder so we don’t forget to remove the locking pins from the stabilizer bars before raising  the jacks.

This installation makes it nice when we are sitting at the same campground for an extended period of time. That's what we try to do these days, so this is an improvement we should enjoy.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!

MESA, AZ…HOME FOR THE NEXT MONTH

Monday, February 16 – We pulled out of the Indio, CA, Elks Lodge bright and early this Monday morning. We had to make a quick stop at their dump station to empty our holding tanks so we weren't hauling unnecessary weight over the mountains east of Indio on our way to Phoenix, AZ.

That completed, we hopped on I-10 East bound for the next 225 miles. Passing through Quartzsite, AZ, we were surprised at how many RVers were still camping out in the desert. We pulled off the interstate on the east side of Quartzsite to fill up on diesel fuel. It was 75¢ cheaper in Arizona than in California. If we could have waited to fill up in Phoenix, diesel was selling for $2.45 a gallon. That's about a $1.00 cheaper than in California.

The drive through Phoenix was uneventful, even though traffic was a little heavy. We arrived at our destination, Holiday Village RV Park, by early afternoon. We have moved from Pacific time to the Mountain Time Zone, so we lost an hour along the way.

Holiday Village RV is predominately a mobile home park. Most of the residents are here for the winter. We drove around the park and there are only about a dozen RVers in the park. That's fine with us. The price is right! It really is a much nicer park than our first impression led us to believe.

We have a cement pad to park on. Good news for Paul! He's permitted to
wash the RV and truck. Yeah!

And a cement pad to sit on.

Looking right.

Looking left.

They have a very nice pool, Jacuzzi, club house, library, laundry, game room, etc. The streets are paved and the sites are gravel with concrete patios. 

So it's not a luxury RV Resort by any means, but we’re happy with our choice and will be here for the next month. We've been to the area previously, most recently three years ago, and have visited many of the popular stops. We are anxious for Spring Training baseball to begin in the next couple of weeks so we can cheer on our Cleveland Indians.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!