We explore Yuma

Hello everyone! We are in Yuma, having arrived here on Dec. 1. So far our impressions of Yuma are not very flattering. This place is one big, flat, giant dusty RV park. Seriously, it is one "RV Resort" after another, and where there is no RV park, there are RV service places, RV dealers, RV washes, and every other service and product you could sell to the RV crowd.

The locals say that in the winter there are more Canadians here than Americans, and we believe it! Ninety percent of the people in our fancy, 5 star RV Resort are from Canada, with most hailing from Alberta and BC. There is a large group from Quebec, and a few from Ontario, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Even one from Nova Scotia. This is a nice RV park, brand new, with 453 spaces. You can also buy your space here, which seems to be popular with the Albertans. We don't quite get it... why buy a place to drive your RV to for the winter? Why bother with the RV? You can build a really nice little house in Yuma for $90,000, and that's a lot less than they pay for their RV's.

We went to both swap meets here, and all they have is a bunch of junk aimed at the over 55 crowd. We are trying to find a nice restaurant for Marlene's birthday, but so far no luck. There are a few nice parks by the river in Yuma, and we enjoy taking Ben for walks there. Unfortunately, for the past week I have been ill, so we didn't get out much. But today I was feeling 85%, so we loaded up the Tracker and headed west toward the Salton Sea, with our destination Slab City.

I have wanted to see Slab City for some time. It is a strange community, located on a former WWII army base. When the base closed the army removed all the buildings, but left the foundation slabs, hence the name. It is in the middle of the desert, about 5 miles north east of Niland, California. The first thing you see on arriving at Slab City is Salvation Mountain, a growing art installation which is the work of one man. His religious shrine is built into a hill, complete with caves. He has used thousands of gallons of cement slurry, and paints. The artist lives here, and continues to work on it. He has been featured on TV shows, and has a stipend from the Salvation Army.

There are temporary residents here, enjoying the weird people and sights, and there are more permanent camps where people live year-round. There are plenty of new, expensive RV's here too, soaking up the sun and paying no rent!

Slab City is probably the last unregulated place in the US. There are no services, the land belongs to the BLM and is open to the use of anyone. The Sheriff's deputies come through the place twice a day, but they leave everyone alone unless there is trouble. Basically, you arrive, pick a spot and set up house. There are people here with fenced yards, garages, and all kinds of odd stuff. Some people have set up house in the giant earthen ammo bunkers. Lots of solar panels in use. Only problem is you have to pack up and drive to Niland if you need fuel, water or dumping facilities.

There are several night clubs in Slab City (all of them outdoors, bring your own drinks). There's also a church, a community center and an underground "shower" in one of the old silos. People live here in all kinds of weird contraptions including old buses, old vans, shelters made out of tarps, old trailers, commercial trucks, as well as every type and vintage of RV you can think of. We were quite taken by the place!

While we were in the area we thought we'd check out the Sonny Bono Salton Sea Wildlife Refuge. Kind of interesting, saw a lot of birds. We then checked out Red Mountain state park, which is a campground by the Salton Sea. We asked the ranger if the water used to be closer to the park, because it looked that way to us. He said the water started receding in the 60's and has been this low since he can remember. We noticed a freshly painted sign indicating the boat launch. Only problem is the water is half a mile away! They've probably been painting the sign every year for the past 40 years without giving it any thought... government work! The ranger gave us directions to "real nice" state campground on a lake about half an hour south of the Salton Sea, so we decided to check it out. Maybe it would have been OK, although the lake is tiny, more like a slough, but it is located between two huge cattle feedlots and a pasture filled with sheep. Imagine the smell! Well we didn't have to imagine it....Peeewwww.

Pictures above are Ben and I at a Yuma park, Salvation Mountain, some of the Slab City clubs, car art, Ammo bunker house at Slab City, old guard house at the Slabs, the Salton Sea. Stay tuned....

We try to get noticed

Hello everyone! On Saturday we went to Firebird International Raceway, the drag strip here in Phoenix. The occasion was the taping of the season final episode of the SPEED TV show "Pinks All Out". We were there as spectators, and to try and get noticed by the TV crew, and so maybe get a booking out of it in the future. To be visible we wore our newly embroidered team shirts.

Well, we don't know if we were seen by the cameras, but we met a couple of jet teams, and saw some interesting action. We were surprised to see a 2 car Alcohol Nostalgia Funny Car team from Edmonton. Sekura brothers racing made the 1800 mile trip down to be one of the halftime shows. They came with a convoy of vehicles, and a team of 16 family members, who were dancing to the beat music playing from huge speakers on their truck. They looked really professional, and were certainly up beat. Too bad BOTH their cars broke and could not run!

There was a competitor from Edmonton too. This guy brought his son's 91 Camaro to fulfill a bucket list wish to compete on Pinks. He got his wish and made it to the final 8 before being eliminated.

Also in attendance was another exhibition car, the Jelly Belly wheelstanding fire truck. This truck is run by a husband and wife team who are older than us! They've been running the exhibition circuit since 1986, and they are lucky to have Jelly Belly/ Jolly Rancher candy company for a sponsor.

Two jet cars were on hand, both from Phoenix. These are the big dragsters, powered by J-60 engines from 60's fighter aircraft. We talked to the owner of one, and he knew who we were, which was a surprise. Both jets ran well, but the show just isn't as spectacular as ours with our little jet!

The racing was close all day, and got closer and closer at the end. By the last round of eliminations there were only .07 seconds separating the cars. Unfortunately, the delays for TV related stuff slowed down the show, and it got boring waiting for the interviewing to end so they could race again. Can't wait to watch the episode on TV.

Sunday we had rain and wind all day, so we stayed in and watched a couple of old X-Files episodes on TV, then we prepared dinner.

We cooked a nice 3 pound pork shoulder roast, that we got at Safeway. As you can see in the picture above, the original price was only $3.04, then we got another 30% off. We roasted the pork slowly, with a nice sage seasoning and basted in pineapple juice. We added yams, onion, celery and garlic to the roaster and cooked it some more. What a delicious meal! Too bad we forgot to take pictures of the finished product, but we were too busy stuffing ourselves. We have enough leftovers for another meal. Total cost: around $6 including a bottle of wine.

Pictures above are the pork roast, wheelstander truck, jet car, Firebird control tower, the 2 Edmonton based funny car teams, and one of the great start line action.

Stay tuned for more...

Phoenix is a big place

Since last we blogged, we've been all over the Phoenix Metro Area. First, we went to an art and craft fair in Fountain Hills, a bedroom community in the northeast corner of Phoenix. It's a nice place, with a large town square park with a lake and fountains. Lots of very expensive bric a brac at the show, but it was fun to see. Not much purchasing seemed to be going on.

The next place we went to was a giant Swap Meet (flea market) in Mesa. It took us an hour to get there at freeway speeds! The swap meet was very big, all under one roof, but the products in each of the several hundred stalls were virtually the same. Up and down the rows you find the same products at the same prices. Looks like there are about 8 or 10 real merchants there, with multiple stalls. Some purchasing going on here, but from what we could tell, not a lot.

Good news to report: We found a nice little dim sum restaurant here. Great food, all prepared fresh after you order from a card. A little limited in the selection, but very reasonable at $1.80 a plate for the usual dim sum fare. We were craving dim sum after last having some in Edmonton in July.

We also found a really good donair place (of course here they are called gyros). Excellent meat, not greasy at all. Good sized serving for a reasonable price. Only problem is the restaurant is in Mesa, an hour from here!

We've found a couple of parks where we can take Ben for nice walks. They're only a few minutes drive from the RV park. At one park we watched a teenage soccer game between a black team and a hispanic team. They played well, and brought back memories of sitting on the sidelines at numerous school yards watching our daughter play soccer.

Around the corner from our RV park we found a big store called World Market. Kind of an upscale Jysk store, with the addition of some great imported foods and wines. Their prices aren't low, but we bought a couple of sale items: a huge jar of greek olives and peppers, marinated in olive oil for $7.99 and a 2 litre jug of extra virgin olive oil from Italy for $6.99. Beat that, Walmart!

We've also immersed ourselves in Phoenix culture, first with a trip to the State Capitol Building. It is located at the end of a mall- style park, long narrow grassy area with numerous memorial statues and walls. Plenty of nice seating for contemplation. We saw a lot of monuments, to fallen soldiers, sailors, pilots, civilians, policemen, even one for fallen police dogs. All very nicely done, and well looked after.

After that successful entree to the history and culture of Phoenix, we decided to visit Heritage Square, where we were told to expect buildings from the early 20th century, with neat stores and restaurants. We found 6 buildings, all used as offices or restaurants. One store that was closed. Only one restaurant was open, the Rose and Crown Pub, and we went in for a look. Nice looking old pub, with a great bar. Marlene and I met at the Rose and Crown pub in Edmonton, 27 years ago, so we had to take a pic of Marlene in front of the place!

Tomorrow we have plans to go to the drag strip here. They are filming an episode of Pinks All Out (SPEEDTV), and we are going in uniform hoping to snag some attention from the TV people for future marketing purposes!

Tonight we are going to grill a london broil steak, which we bought at Safeway on sale for $4.50. It was over 2 pounds, so we cut it in half to make two meals. To go with the meat, we are also grilling 3 giant Portabello mushrooms that we got at the 99 cent store. Also purchased at the 99 cent store: two red peppers, half a dozen tomatoes, and two bottles of a really great barbecue sauce. Total cost at the 99 cent store: $5.08. Of course, dinner will be accompanied with a bottle of our favourite California red wine ($2.45). Food and drink are definitely cheaper here than in Canada.

Above pics are the monuments, Marlene at the pub, the 99 cent store stuff, our olives, and the soccer game. Stay tuned...

Phoenix disappoints

Hello everyone, time to report on Phoenix. We've been here for 11 days now, and we've become disenchanted with Phoenix. Our property search has been terminated, after we spent a lot of frustrating time looking at places. The real estate business here is involved in the same games with the lenders as we encountered in Las Vegas. And then there are the vandals. We saw a nice little house, not right for us, but almost ready to move into. Since we saw it, vandals got in and punched out the walls to scavenge the copper pipes and wires. The place is totally trashed now. It made us sick to see the pictures of the damage.

Our other source of disappointment is the people. They just are not friendly like the folks we met in Tucson. Clerks in stores grump at us, the neighbors can't be bothered to say "good morning", just generally unfriendly. We don't know if its because Phoenix is such a huge city, or because of the devastated economy, but the difference with Tucson is marked.

On Saturday we went to a swap meet (flea market). Place was huge, but there were almost no people around. Then we went to a big mall. Half the shop space is empty, and again there were no people shopping, even at Sears and Macy's. Not a good sign for the Christmas season.

On Sunday we went to see Lake Pleasant, just north of Phoenix. We took a long circuitous route first, and loved the desert scenery. The lake itself is quite nice. It was formed when the Colorado river was dammed here. There are three lakes on the Colorado: Lake Mead, Lake Havasu and Lake Pleasant, all formed by dams. Lake Pleasant was indeed pleasant, with plenty of boats to watch, fishermen, campers, picnickers, and tourists.

Pictures attached are before and after of the poor little house, and from our day out on Sunday. Stay tuned...

Hello from Phoenix

Hi everyone, from sunny Phoenix. When we last updated you, we were planning our Japanese dinner out to celebrate Miranda's birthday. We had chosen a well rated place with a good deal that week for happy hour. So, we drove across town to Takamatsu restaurant, only to find it closed down, boarded up. We were disappointed, but luckily there were several other Japanese restaurants in the area, and we chose one that looked interesting called Sachiko. It was a very plain, simple place, but with some very neat fresh fish deals. Marlene ordered a bento box with soup, salad, tempura, california roll, teriyaki chicken and of course, rice, served in a wooden sushi boat. I had a futomaki roll, and a barbecued black mackerel with soup, salad, rice, california roll. We also had a flask of sake, and green tea too. Food was excellent, service OK, and it was only $48.40.

After dinner, we stopped in to Trader Joe's, and picked up some Italian red wine for just $1.99 a bottle, complete with a real cork! Then we went home and tried it, and liked it. Amazing value! All in all, great celebration for Miranda's birthday, and of our one year on the road anniversary.

We also had told you that we were looking at houses in Phoenix. We found one, and made an offer, only to find out that there were now two offers ahead of us! Too bad, because it was in a decent neighborhood, and in reasonable condition for a foreclosure. We offered $16,750 against a list price of $19,900.

We went to Target to buy some shirts for embroidering, because we had a Halloween job booked in Tucson. Shirts were $50 and embroidery with the logo was $21. A good deal. Then our job at Tucson Raceway Park was canceled the next day because no drivers had registered to race. (read all about it at: www.tucsonracewaypark.com).

Sunday the 24th. we went to check out Kennedy Lake, an "urban fishing reserve" in Tucson. There are 4 of these little "lakes" that are stocked with game fish. In Alberta we would call these ponds, but here in the desert they are lakes. Anyway, we had a nice walk, and Ben enjoyed it immensely. The only complaint: The loud honking of the geese!

Sunday afternoon Marlene and I went downtown to the Jewish History Museum for the opening of the time capsule from 1910. They had promoted a street fair, but there were just four mangy booths set up by synagogues to sell memberships and paraphernalia. Worst of all, there was NO FOOD!!! How can you have a Jewish fair with no food?? We strolled up and down the street, but the sun was high and the temperature was soaring. We wanted to watch them open the capsule, but it was being done down in a dip where you couldn't see anything, so we left. We read online that there were mostly documents that had faded and fallen apart. We did learn that the next weekend they were having a Jewish food fair, complete with an attempt for the Guinness Book of Records entry for the World's Largest Matzo Ball, which is supposed to weigh over 200 pounds, and will be cooked in a specially made 1500 gallon soup pot. It would take 36 hours to make. Too bad we will miss it, but I will make some soup of our own.

This week we stocked up with groceries and liquor, including some matzo ball mix so I could make my matzo ball soup. We also renewed our PO box, and we researched and located a storage facility for our trailer. The soup turned out very well. We also did 4 loads of laundry.

Wednesday night we didn't feel like cooking, so we ordered from Pizza Hut. A Super Supreme Big Italian. This is a GIANT pizza, over 2 ft. long, won't even fit in a box. Total price including delivery: $19.99. It was delicious.

Today we dropped off the trailer in storage, then picked up the Tracker and headed north. This was the first time towing the Tracker, and it towed well. We arrived at our spot at Phoenix Metro RV Park in the north of Phoenix at around 1:30, and by 2:00 we were all set up. This place is different from Desert Pueblo in Tucson. It is mostly RV's, with some mobile homes too. It is clean, and the spots are large, so it is quite nice, and it was priced $100 a month less than others we checked out.

Tuesday we are meeting our realtor to look at some more properties. Still no word on the place we made an offer on 2 weeks ago!

Pictures above are Japanese birthday meal, Kennedy Lake, and our giant pizza (with a beer can for scale reference!). Stay tuned, things are going to happen now!

Tucson cools off

Hi everyone, we're finally back blogging. We've endured 105 degree days since we arrived here, and the last few days we've had seasonal temps of high 80's. We were walking Ben at 6 am every day, and then again after sundown, otherwise he would burn his feet. Now we can wait until 7 or even 8 before he has to go out!

Because of the heat, we really hadn't been doing a lot, but we were out house hunting. We found a nice mobile home in a 55 and over park, and made an offer on it. It was listed for $12000, but we offered what we thought it was worth: $5000. Unfortunately the owner lives in Washington, and was traveling and couldn't be reached. It took two weeks to find out our offer was turned down. Kinda strange, since the owner is paying $500 a month to have it sit there, and its been like that for over a year!

Anyway, after that frustrating wait, we decided to look further afield, and also to look for a house on a property, not a mobile home park. There are few such homes in our low price range in Tucson, but lots of them in Phoenix. So, on Saturday we drove to Phoenix, and did drive-by's of listings we'd looked up online. We met up with a realtor, and we're going to look at 5 of them with him tomorrow.

Yesterday we went to the Tucson Meet Yourself fair downtown. This is a multi-cultural fair, spread around several venues in Tucson Centro. We sampled a nice Thai combination dish: Chicken satay, Pad Thai, yellow curry chicken and rice for $6. We also tried sweet potato pie at a native booth. A lot like pumpkin pie. Then we had to have some of the Afghan lamb kabobs wrapped in nan bread, also $6. That was very tasty.

We watched quite few classes from a local Latino dance school performing on a big stage. We also demolished a huge Mexican fruit cocktail. Giant pieces of melon, apple, mango, orange, strawberry and cucumber. We heard a nice blues band at one of the venues, too. We went into St. Augustine's Cathedral, and sat for a few minutes of the service. Also in attendance at the fair were the local lowrider clubs. Some really well prepared cars were on display. I don't get the lowrider thing, but it is very big down here.

After we'd had enough of the crowds at the fair, we went to the Jewish Cultural Museum. It is housed in the original synagogue built in Tucson in 1908. Jews started coming to southern Arizona in the early 1800's. Many of them were from Germany, originally going to California to serve the miners of the gold rush, then moving east to Arizona to set up businesses to serve the military and the ranchers. By the time Arizona became a state in 1912, some of the Jewish businessmen had become powerful in the community. There were many more Jewish men than women in Tucson, so men would often marry local Mexican ladies. Today, Tucson has a large Jewish population, and is served by 13 synagogues.

Next week we plan to go out for a celebration dinner. First, we are celebrating the 21st birthday of our daughter Miranda, and we are thrilled for her! Second, this will mark the anniversary of our first year on the road. We are still hoping to do a couple more jobs before shutting down jet car operations for the winter.

We've attached pictures of the Tucson Meet Yourself activities. Stay tuned...

Happy New Year (Rosh HaShana) from Tucson

Hi everyone, greetings from Tucson. After leaving our noisy over night spot at the Flying J, we made an uneventful trip to the Walmart on Valencia in Tucson. Our plan was to stock up on groceries, then go check into our site at Desert Pueblo Mobile Home Village. We were surprised to find the Walmart in disarray, undergoing renovations. We navigated the narrowed aisles, gathering enough supplies to see us through a couple of weeks. We had no car here yet, so shopping would be difficult once we got set up.

Fully stocked, we proceeded to Desert Pueblo and got set up. Same site as in February, very nice here, but fewer people around. The snowbirds won't start to roll in until mid-October. Also, a number of the year-round residents have passed away. We like it here, people are friendly, the place is spotless, but we feel old here. Saturday morning we rented a car so we could go car shopping. Enterprise gave us a good deal, and they picked us up too.

On Saturday evening there was a "picnic" for the community. We showed up, but turned and left when we saw the long, long tables stretching across the room, occupied by rows of white haired folks, all impatiently waiting to be served their "picnic" dinner.

Hungry, we went in search of a small, Greek cafe that was highly recommended online. Marlene was having a craving for a donair, so we were seeking a really good gyro, basically the same thing. We ended up at a great little place called Fronimos (www.fronimos.com) . Here you order at the counter, then wait at a table for your food to arrive. A friendly fellow behind the counter could see our confusion as we looked around, and asked if we had been in before. Replying that we had not, he explained the process and gave us menus to peruse. Marlene decided on the gyro sandwich, a pita rolled around slices of beef and lamb, slathered in Tzatziki sauce and onions and tomatoes and served with a Greek salad. Marlene really enjoyed this plate (even served on plastic!).

I ordered the house special: braised lamb shank in tomato and rosemary sauce, served with saffron rice and a salad. I really liked this meal. The meat was tender and tasty, and there was a lot of it. The rice was light and fluffy, and the salad was made with fresh lettuce, cucumber, tomato, onion and olives. After demolishing our entrees, we eyed the pastry display and decided to take a baklava and a kataife to take home for later. Oh yeah, we also had a lemonade and a Snapple. Total cost of this meal: $28 with excellent food and service.

I had started the horrible task of finding a vehicle to buy. We had planned on something small enough to squeeze into the trailer with Armageddon, so we looked at a few Mazda Miata's, but Marlene found them too small for her liking, and I found them expensive. We went home to rethink our plans, and in the end we decided to buy something suitable for use here and in Mexico, that is small enough to tow behind the motorhome, gets good gas mileage, and fits in enough stuff for a two-night trip in Mexico.

We had learned that if we buy a car at a dealership we would have to pay 9.1% in state and city taxes, as well as a documentation fee of at least $263. We were told this covered the cost of bonding a title, transferring the title, applying for registration, fees associated with title transfer, etc. To me it smelled bad, especially since dealers aren't shy about asking for big money for old cars. We decided to shop privately, and after a lot of looking we found a low mileage Geo Tracker (Suzuki Sidekick) in nice shape. We had to pay more than we really wanted to, but it is a clean little jeep-like machine. We handled the title transfer, registration and all of that ourselves for $42. But first we had to get insurance. Hah... not so easy. Tried online with Geico... application went well, they took my credit card number and gave us a "guaranteed" premium that was very reasonable. Then they phoned and said they couldn't do it because we don't have Arizona licenses. We can't get Arizona driver's licenses unless we are landed immigrants or better.

We also tried a live agent in an Allstate office. She quoted us $621 for six months of terrible coverage (just $100,000 in liability), and we would have to first get 5 years worth of insurance company experience letters and driver's abstracts. NOT.

Finally, I called a nearby agent called EZ Insurance, and the proprietor Josh said they could do it for us. We trekked on over to their little office, and found a small, family run agency with the family actually living behind the office. Of course, this is a Hispanic family. We waited while Josh dealt with a couple of clients ahead of us (both Hispanic), then his wife Elizabeth arrived and offered to help us. A few minutes thought, and half an hour punching away at the computer and Elizabeth was able to get us covered, with much better coverage, and at a lower price than Allstate, and no documents from Canada required. And which company did she place us with? Progressive, one of the ones I had tried online to no avail. Go figure!

We celebrated our success with a couple of drinks, and made arrangements to pick up our new Tracker the next morning. Friday morning we went to the bank to get money to pay for the car, then drove across town to pay for the car and take delivery. The seller was a retired fellow, the neighbourhood Mr. Fixit, and he took his time over the whole thing, but eventually we were ready to leave. Marlene was nervous about driving the rental car, but she did just fine. We dropped the rental off, and then went to register and title the car. A painless process at the 3rd party registration place. We had been warned that the wait at the government registry offices could reach 3 hours!

Friday night we celebrated our successful entrance to the new year (Rosh HaShana) with a rack of lamb that we scored at Safeway. It had been priced wrong, instead of $20.99 a pound it was priced at $2.99 a pound. So we had a nice piece of lamb for $3. We also had my Mediterranean eggplant salad, roast potatoes, green salad, roast garlic, French bread and of course some nice red wine. Now we are stuffed, and decided to update you all about this week.

Pictures above are me making salad, Marlene with the new car and our dinner table ready to feast.

Stay tuned...