Memorial Day Weekend Near Happy Jack, AZ

Woo hoo, a three day weekend!!!

Friday couldn't have come any sooner. We hurried home from work and hitched up the new camper and headed north for the third weekend in a row. This time we were going to the Payson area. Marcia's parents got off work a couple hours before us and were going to get up there first and find a spot. Once we got close, we contacted them on the CB radio. The place we chose was near Blue Ridge Reservoir about 40 miles north of Payson and 5 miles north of Happy Jack.

By the time we got there, Dave and Kathy were already setup with their camper. Paul and Barb, friends from the 4x4 group, also drove up to camp with us. Here is a picture of the forest service road heading to the reservoir near our camp site.



The next afternoon, Jerry and Ellen, also from the 4x4 group, came up to join us. Here's a picture of our group just after they arrived.



Dave and Kathy's Jeep with canoes and camper.



Paul and Barb's Jeep with tent.



Virgil and Marcia's Jeep with new camper.



Jerry and Ellen's Jeep and tent.



When Jerry and Ellen showed up, they started unloading and announced that they had a brand new tent. Oh yeah, everyone gathered around to watch the show. It soon ended up being a full participation show. After some work and fixing a broken string in one of the poles, the tent finally got setup.



Still wanting to try different things with our new oven, Marcia made pizza for supper on Saturday night.



Not pictured are blueberry muffins that we made for breakfast on Saturday morning. For breakfast Sunday morning, Marcia baked cinnamon rolls. On Sunday night, we fired up the oven again and made chocolate chip cookies for everyone. We were too busy eating them to take a picture.



After breakfast on Sunday, Dave and Kathy headed down to go out on their kayaks for a couple hours. The rest of us drove down to the end of the road towards the dam. We hiked the rest of the way down to the very end looking over the bottom side of the spillway.







As we hiked back to the vehicles, we looked down and saw Dave and Kathy in their red and yellow kayaks. Can you see them waaaaaay down there?



After that, we headed out to explore some of the forest service roads in the area. The last 3 pictures are from where we stopped for lunch off forest service road 300 (The Rim Road). We took FR96 from Blue Ridge Reservoir south to FR300. We then looped back to the campground. Here's a link to the path we took.

New Camper - Dead Horse State Park

Northbound again this weekend!!! Off to pick up the new camper. During the week we cleaned out the old camper and got it ready for trade in. We made it up to Prescott by 8:30am and did a walk through and signed off on all the paperwork. We wanted to test everything out, so we drove the camper north through Jerome to Cottonwood. On the north side of Cottonwood is Dead Horse Ranch State Park. For $19 a night, they have water and electric hookups.

On the east side of the park are some water areas for fishing. You can see those in the following two pictures.





Dead Horse has two different camping areas. The one to the south has more trees and is down in the valley. We chose a spot on the northern loop which doesn't have that many trees, but you can see for miles. Here's a picture looking south with our Jeep and new camper.



We were excited to try out the new amenities. For supper, Marcia made spaghetti and then we baked brownies in the oven. And finally, we had bacon, eggs, and hash browns for breakfast.

Camping in Prescott

We loaded up the Jeep and hooked on to the camper and headed north this weekend. Once arriving in Prescott, we drove right to the white spar campground south of town so we could find a spot before they filled up.





Back in town they had a arts and craft show going on in the town square. We did a little shopping and then ended up at Many Trails RV in Prescott Valley. We had been thinking of trading in our camper this fall and wanted to look at some of the smaller models they had. Well, we ended up finding one we really liked and they cut us a pretty good deal. So, we bought a new camper. The model we got is a Wanderer manufactured by Thor, 19FQ. It's a 19 foot travel trailer for a total of 22 feet long when you count the hitch length. It has all the bells and whistles for a trailer that size.

Here's the floorplan:


An exterior picture:


The front with queen bed and wardrobe on each end:


Kitchen:


Dinette:


Photo towards rear with kitchen on right and dinette on left. Bathroom is through the white door.

Shed Jr.

There is now another shed on our property. Trivia: Guess where it came from?

A. Marcia was jealous of Virgil's shed and wanted one of her own.
B. Where did that come from? We didn't put it there.
C. We've spent so much money at Home Depot, they gave us a free shed.

Ok, none of the above. Since my new shed is a workshop and not for storage, the garage had been used as storage. It's getting hotter and we wanted to be able to get both vehicles inside, so a new storage shed was needed. We assembled this one on Sunday and put it on the RV pad for now. Eventually we plan to move it behind the other shed by the pool pump. It measures 8 feet wide and 6 feet deep. The new shed is big enough for our bikes, extra camping equipment, and the pool cleaning supplies. If we organize it a little better, we could fit more.

Cinco de Mayo

Today is May 5, or as the Mexicans celebrate it, Cinco de Mayo. I have no clue what the holiday is really about, but do know it involves drinking a lot of beer. Today I put on a new shirt and will be drinking a few bottles of DosXX.



History: Sinko de Mayo

Most people don't know that back in 1912, Hellman's mayonnaise was manufactured in England. The "Titanic" was carrying 12,000 jars of the condiment scheduled for delivery in Vera Cruz, Mexico, which was to be the next port of call for the great ship after New York City.

The Mexican people were eagerly awaiting delivery and were disconsolate at the loss. So much so that they declared a national day of mourning which they still observe today. It is known, of course, as Sinko de Mayo.