saying goodbye to Arizona, heading back to Texas

Yep, we're back in Texas. We've had a wonderful time in Arizona, but now it's time to head back home for the doctors/dentist/eye appointments (it's the pits to get old!), the tax appointment, and to see family. It's so beautiful this time of year in Arizona that it was a little hard to leave. All the cactus is getting ready to bloom, it's gorgeous! My brother and sis-in-law will really enjoy it when they get there. While there, we went on several hikes, bike rides and even went to the Rancho Rio arena and watched a little calf roping.  The photos on the left are from our hike to Vulture Peak. Papawizzy made it all the way to the top! He went up with a couple other guys that he met at the saddle. I was glad he didn't do it alone (I wasn't crazy enough to do it!!). It was pretty scary watching them come down! He's pretty excited about it and he has the certificate to show his success! It is a challenging hike, "Vulture Peak Trail, seven miles south of Wickenburg, Arizona, is a short but steep trail that takes hikers from the base of Vulture Peak (2,480 feet) to a saddle (3,420 feet) just below the summit in only two miles. From this point, experienced hikers can scramble up an extremely steep and narrow chute to the summit of Vulture Peak itself (3,660 feet). The final ascent is not maintained and should be attempted only by experienced and well-conditioned hikers"(from Bureau of Land Management.gov).

On our way back, we took the northern route, which took us up through Flagstaff, AZ and east on Interstate 40. It was a great drive. We were able to stop and take a picture at the famous "Corner in Winslow, AZ", it was a really cute place, but easy to miss if you don't search it out. Our first night we stopped in Holbrook, AZ at a nice KOA. It got really cold overnight and we didn't take proper precautions so our water hose froze. We thought, no big deal because we were able to get things packed up and we hit the road. We were planning on dry camping that night but what we didn't realize was that for some reason (we still don't understand), our fresh water tank drained though our water inlet as we drove along! When we stopped for lunch we discovered that our fresh water tank was empty! That being the case, we either had to stop and find a place to refill the tank or find a place to stay with full hookups. We decided to stop in Tucumcari, NM at the Blaze-in-Saddle RV Park which had full hookups. It was a nice park and they had stalls and paddocks to accommodate horses if you had any. The next day we were back in our home state of Texas.

We drove through Amarillo, TX and headed south on State Hwy 287 and stopped in the afternoon in Childress, TX at the Childress City Fair Park. It is the first time we stayed in a city park. It was great! We had water and power hookups and it cost $15 for the night - a great deal! It was a beautiful park with a small lake, lots of water fowl, walking paths and a disc golf course. There were only 5 spots and we had the whole place to ourselves. We'll look for places like that again in the future. As we continued back home, we headed further south on State Hwy 83 and passed through Abilene, TX. It's a cute city, but we got a little lost and almost went under a low clearance crossing that would've taken the air conditioners on top of our rig off! Luckily, we saw the warning in enough time to avert disaster!

After that we took a little side trip on State Hwy 36 over to Comanche, TX where we stayed at a Harvest Host location, Cockrell Vineyards. Harvest Host is an organization that puts businesses such as farms, vineyards, museums, golf courses and other places that have land or space that RV's can park overnight together. RVer's can stay overnight for free. There is an annual fee for this privilege, and all that is necessary is for the RVers to support the business by buying something. It was a beautiful place and we had yummy pizza from a wood fired oven, a glass of wine, bought some honey, and some T-shirts. Needless to say, we spent more than we would have in a regular RV park lol! But is was a great time!

If you look close in the picture on the left, you can see our rig in the background. There was another couple staying there as well and we visited with them for a while and heard about their RV adventures. We'll look for opportunities like this in the future. We'll just have to learn how to control ourselves to make it more cost effective, lol!

A few days before we were to head back to our home area, I got a text from the campground website where we were to stay for the next month on Lake Georgetown. Because of the crazy storm and freeze a few weeks before they had damage that had to be repaired, so our reservations were canceled! It was kinda a De'ja'vu situation because almost a year ago to the day we were kicked out of the same campground due to the Covid shutdowns! Crazy! We were fortunate to find a place in a brand new RV resort, Stone Oak Ranch RV Resort in Georgetown. Now that we're back in our home area, we're enjoying seeing family and friends and going to church in person. We're back to our regular activities like Taco Tuesday and hanging out with the grands! We were excited when we heard that Governor Abbott had lifted the mask mandate, but disappointed when we saw that there are so many people still wearing them :(. 

One of the exciting things that happened when we got here was picking up our new puppy! Miss Journey Faye joined our household on March 10th. She is a medium Sheepadoodle, and is sweet as can be. Before we started on our "adventure" we had another Sheepadoodle puppy, a standard named Scout. She was sweet too, but at 7 months old she weighed in at about 60lbs, so therefore we weren't confident that we could handle the learning curve of RVing full time, living in 250 sq ft, and training a puppy at the same time. We re-homed her to a wonderful young lady in Oklahoma City. It was difficult for me, but fortunately I'm able to see her and keep up with her growth via Facebook, and if we happen to make it to Oklahoma City her new owner says we can visit. After a year on the road seeing many people with dogs, even large dogs, we've decided we could get another dog. Makes me very happy!! I've included puppy pictures of both dogs at the same age, 8 weeks. Check out the difference in paw size alone! 

Hope all is well in your world!

Blessings,

Mamawizzy

Journey Faye

Scout