Camp Life

Greetings from Arizona, where the sun is shining and spring has well and truly arrived! Hard to believe it's been two weeks since our last update! We traveled from Dallas through west Texas, & spent a few nights in Odessa. To all you Texans out there, no offense, but west Texas is SO flat and brown and blah! We traveled through the huge city of El Paso (crazy, nutty drivers there!) and back into New Mexico where we spent a few nights in Deming. We have spent the last week and a half or so in Arizona, first in Benson and most recently in Casa Grande.  Both RV parks were lovely, but there was one really awful thing about Benson - the trains.  I am not exaggerating one bit when I say that they are extremely LOUD and frequent. One night I was awakened (for the umpteenth time) at 3 am by the train blowing it's horn while passing by.  Between 3 and 4 am I kid you not, I counted 5 trains go through town. I realize they HAVE to blow their horns, but oh my word.  We truly do not understand how people can live there.  Then it was on to the Casa Grande RV resort.  Really enjoyed it there, even though it (like all the southwest parks) was all gravel.  Jinx enjoyed "dove-watching" every day at this park.  Hubby played golf one day, we did a little sight seeing, shopping, and caught up on motor home cleaning as well as laundry. Very laid back on our way back west. One afternoon we drove the 35 miles north to Chandler Arizona where we lived exactly 10 years ago.  It was fun to drive past both the golf course where John worked and the hospital where I worked.  We had lunch at a Greek restaurant, and I finally got to buy a few small items from a store called "Lush" that I'd only heard about, but had never been to.  

For the rest of this post, I thought I'd show a few photos of our everyday "camp life" in the motor home.  I haven't taken that many inside snapshots, but will post a few that I have.  Hope you'll enjoy.

Okay, so this first one is not an inside photo... just a shot of our Winnebago Journey and our junky little car (which is I'm afraid, on it's last legs) in a pull-through site.  This photo was taken on our way south, back in October - somewhere in Oregon. Pull-through sites are ever so convenient when you only plan to stay one night and not unhook your car (also known as a "toad").

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Here's Jinx in the living room area on his kitty blanket.  You can see the kitchen sink, stove area, and spice rack in the background.

The bedroom.  I hate this bed.  Hate may be too strong of a word, as I'm able to sleep on it every single night, but it does "cave towards the middle" and I despise that.  Dear hubby denies that there is any "caving" going on.  There is.    This shot was taken back in January.  I can tell because I see the flannel sheets are still on the bed.  Love flannel sheets in the cold weather!

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A side view of the bedroom, showing the closets, drawers, and mirror.  They are all part of the "slide out" section of the bedroom.  In the mirror you can see the window on the other side of the room.  Looks like it was just about dusk when I snapped this one.

The bathroom sink area.  Yes, there are two glasses on the counter.  One for the humans, and one for the feline. He prefers to drink out of a glass on the counter.  I know it's crazy, but that's how it is.  The shower is just to the left. I didn't take a pic of the separate toilet area. Heck, it's a toilet in a small room, not photo-worthy, in my humble opinion.

Easily my FAVORITE feature in our motor home is this.... the washer/dryer. Uh huh, I love this thing.... and it works slick as a whistle!  I use one Tide "Pod" per load.  Once the clothes are washed, this magical machine goes directly into DRY mode.  This has saved me countless hours just sitting around a laundromat (or as they say in other places, "launderette").

Since we were speaking of toilets earlier, here's Jinx the RV cat in front of his kitty "crapper".  He is a master at slipping in and out of that little swinging door above his head.  The mat on the floor is an ingenious invention that catches any little bits of litter that come off his paws on his trip out the swinging door.  Thank you, WalMart!

A view from the "navigators seat" on the road.  You can see I need some tools for the trade.  I have the ever-unreliable "Maggie Magellan" on my lap.  On the dash are the camera and both cell phones, what looks like a bag of kitty treats, and my notebook.  My dear daughter in law will vouch that I cannot leave home without a spiral notebook.  It's full of dinner menus, grocery lists, and these days, explicit directions to the next RV park!  I do check the Google Maps app on my cell phone a LOT.  It has saved our behinds more than once when "Maggie" has steered us wrong - or tried to.

Our last photo shows where Jinx loves to ride.  Used to be, he'd get all worried and need to be locked in his crate for the drive.  Not any more. He hears his Daddy start up that big ol' diesel engine, and Jinxie knows we're going bye-bye again. He hops right onto the dinette seat and has a snooze, till we pull in to the first rest area. Then he jumps down and demands a snack! 

We hope you've enjoyed our little tour around the RV.  Next stop: 

"CALIFORNIA, here we come..... right back where we started from........."

 :-)