Saturday June 11th 2016

As yesterday came to an end my plans were to work on the house today. When I woke up this morning it was cold and dark. My ambition rapidly drained away. Today turned into a chores about the RV type day. The weather never improved. During the middle of the day a rain front went through the area, but nothing really changed.

I worked on the computer trying to develop plans for the next dozen months. My biggest concern right now is to lock in the month of January in Florida and the month of March in Arizona. I’ve got a good idea and many reservations between now and the end of December. I can fill in any gaps in the weeks ahead.

February is a repositioning month to the west. I will be covering a lot of miles going west. It is about twenty five hundred miles to the Phoenix area. I’ll probably stay a night or two in a location then move on another three hundred miles or so. Planning stops crossing the country will be based on weather and availability. I’ll make reservations as necessary a day or two ahead.

In Arizona I want to stay in the Mesa, Tempe, Apache Junction area east of Phoenix. This area has several of the baseball spring training sites and many RV resorts. The RV parks seem to be either huge or tiny. The huge places have more than a thousand sites with most sites dedicated to permanent park model units. The small ones have less than 50 sites. Reading web pages and reviews just adds to my confusion.

Ideally, I’d like to be in one location for the whole month of March, but that may not be the best solution. At some of the places you need to make your own arrangements with utility companies for stays of a month or more. A couple of places have rules similar to renting an apartment. They want references and security deposits. The weekly rates, although higher, don’t have these additional requirements. So far these quirks seem to be unique to Arizona.

I have a short list for both January and March. I’ll do a little more checking over the next couple of days. I want to try and lock in reservations in the next week. The longer I wait the more difficult it may become.

Today was also laundry day. I got caught up with the dirty cloths, bedding and towels. The laundry is pretty good here. The washing machines are not the cheapest at two dollars a load but the dryers are large capacity and allow you to add quarters to extend the time to whatever you need. Fixed time dryers never seem to cook the cloths long enough.

The campground had some turn over this morning. Some of the units that I took for weekenders turned out to be travelers who moved on this morning. This afternoon they were replaced by more travelers. Trailers from Kansas and California arrived for the evening. I’m waiting for an Alaska RV to set the record for distance traveled. I’ve seen such travelers elsewhere, but not here yet.