We made it to Mesa and stayed at Val Vista Villages RV Park. Wow what a nice park with a lot of activities and events within the park, live music every night with a full drink and food menu, 4 different pool areas, 15 pickleball courts (this was the highlight for us), woodshop, and so many other amenities. Our site was plenty big enough with a fenced in patio area that had a built-in gas BBQ. We only had one small issue… our arrival was a little eventful. We had gotten previous instructions to call right before we got there, but no one would answer the phone. So, we pulled right up to the main gate to get an “Oh My Gosh, you should not have come to this entrance your rig is way too big”. At this point we had no other choice, so we made 4 extremely tight 90 degree turns with our two escorts (one in front and behind) and lots of onlookers clapping and cheering at each turn. Our good friends Vicki and Leon flew down from Washington to get out of the rain and cold and spend some time in the sun with us. We had a great time together! We went to Goldfield Ghost Town, learned all about reptiles at a reptile exhibit, attended a salsa festival, explored some of the different downtown areas which included visiting some breweries and of course we played pickleball. It was so nice to see them and we really enjoyed the time together.

Our next stop was back to Phoenix with an early morning appointment to get the alignment done on the 5th wheel. For the first time we hooked the truck up the night before and spent the night with all the slides in (we don’t run the slides unless we are level). It was a little tight crawling in and out of bed, but it worked and we were able to make our 7:00 AM appointment. Although they were unable to do the alignment, seems the axles have different spacing between them, so this will be something we will get resolved when we are back at the RV Factory in Elkhart this July. We got situated back at Desert Shadows in Phoenix and the next day Rick, Tangy, Kim and Kevin arrived from Washington. For those of you that don’t know, they are the ones that introduced us almost 6 years ago. Rick and Tangy stayed with us and we could not have asked for better house guests. They were such a pleasure to have around. The six of us had a great time together attending Mariner spring training baseball games at three different parks (one of the games did get rained out, but not before we stood in the rain for an hour) and hanging out at the RV cooking meals together. Shout out to Kim Crane for doing virtually all of the cooking! We all spent an evening at Kim’s brothers house where he made an excellent brisket for us all to enjoy. Rick and Tangy headed home and then there were four. David and Kim C. got in a round of golf and we spent a couple nights at Kim and Kevin’s place enjoying the free happy hour. Kim took a private pickleball lesson at The Pickleball Space. She learned a lot and is now trying to incorporate all of it into her game. We had a fun night out to dinner at an authentic Mexican restaurant with Keith and Jenn and then got to play some games with them, Jada and her boyfriend. We did order the two games that we played that night. We also got a project completed on the RV while we were in Phoenix. We upgraded our battery bank! We put in four new lithium batteries to give us a total of 824-amp hours. We previously had 200-amp hours. We made all the new cables and did the install ourselves. It was a fun project that we got to do together with only one minor oops… David shorted a tape measure out on the batteries and completely destroyed it (see pic).

We then spent 3 long travel days to go 1,000 miles to our next stop in San Antonio. We spent one night in Deming, NM and it turns out the Luna Rosa Winery was right down the street. It was a great winery and they are also a Harvest Host, so next time we go through that area we will be staying there. Then we stopped in Fort Stockton and enjoyed a peaceful evening just hanging around the RV. Now it’s time for a new addition to our blog (thanks for the suggestion, Dad!). We have started keeping a log of the unusual things we see along the road. Here are a few… Big Johnson Creek, car vending machine (Carvana), Ostrich farm (right on highway 10), trucker at a rest stop pulling a traffic barrel out from under his truck, Prius with a solar panel on the roof to keep the batteries charged, frontage road calisthenics (in the middle of nowhere), and a cowboy church.

We are now in San Antonio and are really excited because David’s daughter Jenna, son-in-law Evan, and our grandbaby Jolie are coming to visit us. Thanks to all of you that have been following along and have a wonderful Easter.