We Finally Leave Aguanga and Make It to North Ranch

After a few false starts and a few delays, we finally got on the road for the summer!  Our plans are, like usual, firmly written in jello.  We are going East.  That is the major plan, although we do hope to get to the Outer Banks, up the coast to Maine, and back across the country, visiting friends along the way.

We are traveling in a new-to-us 2004 Newmar Dutch Star, and part of the delay was getting it registered and ready to go.  We are now spending our third night in it, and so we are still learning how things work, where the light switches are, and trying to remember where we put things -- we know that Whatchamacallit is somewhere, and didn't we put the Doodad in the kitchen drawer? 

We still have our 2009 Forest River Lexington GTS for sale, although it looks like that will wait until we return to our home base -- Jojoba Hills SKP (Escapee) Resort in Aguanga, CA -- in the fall.

So Night One was spent in a very empty, desolate, dusty park in Quartzsite, AZ.  The number of people in Quartzsite in January swells as hundreds of thousands of RVers descend for what we call "Spring Break for Seniors."  Party in the desert, with most people dry camping and having fun with groups of friends.  Not so much fun in June! Quartzsite becomes just another dry desert town, the hot sun relentlessly fading everything. The RV park office wasn't even open, but a guy named Bill with a dog named Cody came by to take our money.  Cash only!

So now we are at the SKP park in Congress, AZ called North Ranch. We are staying here for a few days to get some shopping done (to get the things we forgot, which turned out to be so many that we needed a long list), figure out how to connect our DirecTV to the dish on the roof (hoping they are compatible and knowing in our hearts we'll have to buy some kind of cable that is just like the ones we have sitting at home), figure out why John can't connect to the internet (we think our hotspot may be bad in a finicky way or his computer decided it really doesn't like him anymore), and get John reconnected to email (his account seemingly went south but we think it can be restored).

North Ranch is mostly vacant this time of year.  We took a walk over to their amazing Saguaro Park today, and here are some photos of it:

Entrance to Saguaro Garden

The star of the cacti is named Methuselah, and has been hanging out here since circa 1600:

Methuselah, with Blossoms 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Look closely at the dark spot at the bottom of Methuselah, center of the photo. Those are bees.  A beekeeper is coming soon to relocate them.

Bees. Lots and lots of bees.

In addition to lots of quail running around, there are lots and lots of bunnies, too.  This little guy was hiding behind a prickly pear:

Hippity Hoppity, There Goes A Woppity

In closing, there is so much is in bloom now, and cactus flowers have to be some of the prettiest:

So lovely!