The Ides of March foretell a blog post. I actually wrote a blog on February 28 but my priorities shifted, and I went on vacation. You understand, no one works on vacation; so, it languished from lack of attention.

We are now sitting in one of our favorite campgrounds and spots in AZ, Camp Verde. We have stayed here twice before, and it was good to arrive here on Friday to rest, catch our collective breaths, and get ready for our next volunteer gig. We leave here on Monday, March 16 and go to Petrified Forest National Park. We will be there until early May. We already have our work schedule for next week starting “work” on Wednesday, March 18. Hopefully we won’t be in too bad of shape after celebrating St. Patrick’s Day.

Going back to Petrified Forest (PEFO) breaks one of our rules. When we started this life, we said we did not want to return to a location where we had already volunteered. This is the first repeat. There are a number of reasons for the repeat. We bailed out early because of cold weather the first time we were at PEFO. We kind of promised we would come back to make up for that. We have some time to kill. It is on our way to Colorado where we will campground host for the summer.  And, it is our favorite volunteer location with one of the best staffs we have interacted with. There was an opening, and we fit. Win-win for all. We look forward to getting back to work after almost three months off. This goofing off stuff is hard work. Volunteering is much easier.

Perhaps, at this point, a brief rundown of our travels since the last blog post. I think we may have been in San Antonio the last time I wrote, but who can remember that far back.

Anyway, the first stop after leaving San Antonio was Seminole Canyon SP where we first volunteered in March of 2011. We were able to greet and chat with the park manager and the volunteer coordinator as we checked into the campground. That was fun. We chatted with another camper who also was dry docking, and found out that cold, wet , windy weather was moving south into TX and would be coming close to where we were planning on heading in a couple of days. We decided to bail out early. Sunday turned out to be wet and windy but fortunately no freezing until later that night long after we had arrived at our next stop.  

We blew into New Mexico on Monday under version 2.4 of THE PLAN. We made some detours and with an eye to the sky bailed out of one stop early. Despite all, we made it to NM in one piece with all parts of the RV and the toad. It was good to be back in the land of green or red?, bold colors, brown desert landscapes, real mountains, and the south of the border accent. The first thing we had to do was go to one of our favorite restaurants in Las Cruses. A day later it was a visit to White Sands NM to say hello to staff and a green chili cheeseburger at BZ Rockin’ Burgers in Alamogordo. Not to be missed by anyone traveling close to Alamogordo.

We went onto Deming, NM and stayed at an Escapees Campground.  Then we traveled to Benson, AZ which was our jumping off spot for the Tucson Escapade. Tuzi was particularly enthralled with our 4-legged neighbors at the Benson campground.

We stayed in Benson long enough to get out and see the countryside. We visited Cochise’s Stronghold in the Dragroon Mountains and Chiricahua National Monument. The national monument had nothing to do with the Chiricahua Apaches, but was named for the mountain range. This was a “sky island” meaning its higher altitude allowed it to be wetter and supported plants and animals not normally found in the lower elevation desert.

The Escapees Club rally called an “Escapade” started on Sunday, March 8, but we arrived on Thursday, March 5 to attend an Escapees Boot Camp. The boot camp was for all RVers regardless of the length of time on the road. It goes over the basics of owning and running a RV. This would have been good to attend several years ago, but on the other hand we are more familiar with our routine and all our mistakes so that lessons learned were more firmly imprinted in our minds. There were a number of sessions when we questioned what the heck we were doing RVing especially those dealing with safety issues involving fires, refrigerators, towing, and tires. That about covers everything we do RVing. We were also weighed (our rig, not us), and learned with our weight was comfortably below the gross vehicle weight rating as well as the gross front and rear axle ratings. (Good thing we were not weighed; we would have easily exceeded anything described by the word gross.)  We are still on the road despite all the safety worries but still wonder what’s wrong with the adage “ignorance is bliss.” We were so happy before boot camp....

  

There were about 850 RV’s at the Tucson Fairgrounds plus another 91 RV’s at other campgrounds in the area. Official number of attendees was 1,952. Another important statistic was over 2,600 donuts consumed which raised almost $6,500 for Escapees CARE; total money raised for CARE was nearly $12,000. (CARE is a service provided at the Escapees campground in Livingston, TX which provides medical, long term care, and space for Escapees members.) 

Anyway, there were lots of technical sessions, RV vendor displays (and sales), entertainment, and social gatherings.  Shannon chose to learn new bracelet making techniques. Making and selling bracelets are now the cornerstones of our business plan to stay solvent on the road. We were also pleasantly surprised when we reconnected with volunteer friends, Greg and Kathy, who we worked with at White Sands and Jim and Linda who were on our Canadian RV trip this past summer.  

It’s so darn nice here in AZ although I must admit we are running the air conditioner. We’ll take it. We head out tomorrow morning to continue our journey and adventure. And, this time much safer.