Quartzsite, Arizona to Home

Tuesday, January 17 to Saturday, January 20 - We left Phoenix this morning and headed west to Quartzsite.  For those of you, who have never heard of this place, it's on I-10, about 20 miles from the Arizona/California border.  The town of Quartzsite is actually pretty small.  The year round population is under 4,000.  However, it's a famous place for RVer's because in the winter, they host a series of "shows" and RVer's come from everywhere and camp on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land.

There is a gem and mineral show, a gun show, an RV show, multiple flea markets, etc.  I read that, according to the Arizona Highway Department, as many as 750,000 people, mostly in RV's, converge on Quartzite in the winter.  Most come for a week or two, but some people spend the whole winter here.  I believe it.  They were everywhere!!

We came for the RV show.  Attendance at the week long RV show is typically around 150,000.

We camped with a group called the Xscapers.  Most of these people live full time in their RV.  They don't even have houses.

This is our "camp site".  I marked us with an arrow.  This is only part of our group.

We had fun taking part in Xscapers activities at camp.  There were nights with camp fires, a pot luck dinner, movie night, and daytime seminars on lots of different things.  I went for a hike with some of the other fur kids and our parents went along.  That's me in the front row, 2nd from the left.  Not my best side, but no one told me there were going to be photos.

We also spent time in town checking out the RV show and flea markets.  Fortunately, I had my flea protection and didn't get any fleas at the market.

Sunday, January 21 - all good things must come to an end.   We left Quartzsite bound for home.  

In an attempt to avoid Los Angeles traffic, we went through Joshua Tree National Park.  We stopped and took a quick stroll through the Cholla Cactus Garden, which is a naturally occurring concentration of Cholla Cactus in the park.   

The one thing you may notice is that there are lots of clouds in these pictures.  When we were at the cactus garden, it was 58 degrees and cloudy.  Thirty minutes later, it was 42 degrees and raining, so we didn't stop to take pictures when we got to the part of the park with the Joshua Trees.  We did see enough to give Joshua Tree National Park a rating of "need to come here again".  

By the time we left the park, it was not only raining hard, but the wind was blowing, too!  It was about all Dad could do to keep the motor home on the road.  We'd planned to go further, but due to the weather, stopped for the night in Victorville, CA.  We watched the news and the area we drove through had 45 MPH winds that day.

Monday, January 22 to Wednesday, January 24 - We arrived home on Wednesday afternoon, after overnight stops in Lodi, California and Canyonville, Oregon. 

I thought you might be interested in some stats  -

In 100 days on the road, we visited 20 states.  We traveled about 7,400 miles in the motor home and an additional 6,000 miles out exploring in the Jeep.  

Some people ask, "isn't fuel expensive?" or "don't you spend a lot of money on fuel?"  The motor home averages about 8.5 MPG, so yes, we spend a lot of money on fuel.  At $2,400 fuel was our largest expense for this trip.   Our diesel fuel cost ranged from a low of  $2.07/gal at Buc ees in New Braunfels, Texas to a high of $2.57/gal at Costco in Bakersfield, CA.  We easily could have spent as much as $3.15/gal in California, but we are avid fans of the Gas Buddy app on our phones, which helps us find better prices for fuel along our route.  We also planned ahead for California, so we only fueled once in that state.  We have a 100 gallon tank and we filled up before we left Arizona and coasted into Oregon with a little more than fumes in the tank. 😀  

$2,400 is a lot of money, but Mom and Dad would have made visits to each of their families anyway.  When they fly to visit family, they typically have two plane tickets at $400 each, $250 for a rental car for a week, and $150 for me to go to the kennel.  That's $1,200/family trip or $2,400 to see both of them.  Makes that $2,400 in fuel look pretty darn cheap when you think about all the great places we've been and all the stuff we've seen, in addition to visits with family.  Best of all, I got to go, too.  Priceless!!!!

Our other big expense is campgrounds.  We watch our pennies there, too.  Of our 100 nights, we spent 36 nights camping in free places.  Thanks to friends who let us mooch a place to park!!!  In addition, we spent free nights at Wal-Marts, truck stops, a Cabellas, on Federal Government land, and a couple of cute little city parks in Montana and West Texas.  We love the website freecampsites.net that helps us find wonderful places to park for cheap or free.  This trip, we averaged $15/night for campgrounds.

RVing makes the food component of travel more economical, too.  Mom and Dad buy groceries and cook in the motor home a lot of the time.  They look at groceries as a living expense, not a travel expense.  They'd be buying them, even if we stayed home.  With that said, they also like to eat out to experience the local cuisines of the places we visit.  This trip they spent an average of $10/person/day on meals out.  Of course, I get my rationed amount of kibble, so my food bill is the same, no matter where we are.

Thought you might like to see the final map of this trip.  

I hope you've enjoyed hearing about our travels.  I'll let you know when we decide to set out again.

- Doolin

Phoenix

Thursday, January 12 to Sunday, January 15 - Sorry that it's been awhile since I've written.  My computer privileges were temporarily revoked.   😨  Mom caught me cruising foodnetwork.com.  She didn't like it that I was using her data plan AND drooling on her keyboard.  She says that she is going to keep a close eye on me.  We will see how that works.  😈

After we left Tuscon, we spent four nights "camped" at Mom and Dad's friend Tammie's house in the Southeast part of Phoenix.  Tammie and her husband Ed have a pretty house with a large yard.  They have a swimming pool and RV parking with 50 amp electrical.  It was awesome.  They were so nice to let us stay there.

I got to run around in their fenced backyard and drink from the pool.  They have jack rabbits and I got to hunt them.  I was a little disappointed that I didn't catch any, but maybe next time.

While we were in Phoenix, Tammie and Ed fed us well and we enjoyed catching up with them.  Also, Mom and Dad had lunch one day with Dad's friend Rafael and another day with Dad's friend Ken and his wife Judy.  We also had dinner with our friend Gary who lives near us in the summer.

We were so busy eating and visiting with all our friends that we didn't think to take any pictures of our visit to SE Phoenix.  You will just have to trust me that we had a good time.

Monday, January 16 - This morning we said good-bye to Tammie and Ed and made the long journey across the Phoenix metro area.  It took us over an hour of driving!  Our destination was the White Tank Mountain Regional Park.   We quickly realized that we would need to come back to this park.  The sites all have nice views with space between us and the other campers.  The park also has lots of hiking trails to explore.

We decided to stay there, because it was convenient to our friend's John and Vicki.  They are in one of our RV clubs and we see them often in the summer.  In the winter, they live in Phoenix to be near family.   We had dinner and a nice visit with them.  When we came back to the RV, we had this view of the lights of Phoenix.  

January 1 - 11

When I wrote last, we had just arrived at our campground near Carlsbad.  We spent 7 nights there.   It was nice.  Many of the people who were there own their own sites and they are there most of the winter.  We stayed in a site of someone who either hadn’t arrived yet or was away for a while.  It was different than most of the places we stay.  It was more like a club rally.  There was a calendar of events and things going on every day. 

We arrived on New Year's Day and Mom and Dad were in the club house eating soup, within an hour of our arrival.  Mom and Dad went to some of the other events and I got to socialize with a few of the other people’s fur kids.

We also went out and explored.  One day, Mom and Dad went to Carlsbad Caverns.  Lucky for me I read the brochure before we left for the caverns.  Poodles aren’t allowed in the caverns AND they wouldn’t even let me sleep in the Jeep.  I would have had to check into the pay by the hour “hotel” at the Caverns.  PLEASE, I’m not THAT kind of Poodle.  I decided to stay home. 

Mom and Dad had fun at the Caverns.   They hiked in through the natural entrance, did the self-guided tour of the big room, and then took the elevator back to the surface.   It was a total of 3 miles.  The caverns look pretty cool.  Here are some of their pictures.

They saw a formation that is called the Lion’s tail.  I think it should be renamed the Poodle’s tail.  Let me know if you would be willing to sign my petition!

Another day we went to Sitting Bull Falls.  I got to go along on that trip.  It’s in the Lincoln National Forest and they are much more Poodle friendly.

One day we drove through Cloudcroft (in the mountains) and to White Sands, near Alamagordo.  This was a really weird place.  There were white drifts that looked like snow, but it was warm.  There was sand everywhere, but it didn’t smell like the beach and there weren’t any salted seagulls or dried fish.  I wasn’t sure what to make of this strange place.  However, in true Poodle spirit, I embraced the experience and explored.  Here are some pictures.

Another day, we drove to Roswell.  Mom and Dad went to the Roswell Museum and Art Center.  It is a museum that had Art and History from the area.  In the museum, they had Robert Goddard's workshop.  Goddard is the father of modern rocketry.  They said that it was one of the best free museums they have seen.  They highly recommend it.   We also had an alien sighting.  It was Roswell, after all.   Thankfully, Dad didn’t let the aliens take me. 

A few days, we just took it easy.  One day it even snowed - nearly a 1/4 "!!

From Carlsbad, we went on to Las Cruces for one night.  Mom and Dad had lunch in old Messila and walked around town.

Then, we drove to Willcox, Arizona.   We stayed there for two nights.  The day we were there, Mom and Dad went to Chiricahua National Monument.  They did a 3 ½ mile hike on the Echo Canyon Loop.  They said that it was amazing how much the scenery changes when you are only 30 miles off of I-10.  They both said that it was well worth the drive.

Tonight we are in Tucson, AZ at the Gilbert Ray Campground.  It’s a county park.  We stayed here last year and it’s one of our favorite campgrounds in the south.  This is our camp site.

Sunset was really pretty.

Goodnight!

Our Month in Texas

It's hard to believe, in 2016 we spent 156 nights in the RV.  We spent the entire month of December in Texas.  We arrived at Sabine Pass (on the Gulf Coast in East Texas) on December 1 and spent New Year's Eve in La Mesa (in the panhandle).  It's been a good visit.

We spent two nights at Padre Island National Sea Shore at the Campground on the beach.  We had a beautiful view of the Gulf of Mexico.  I got to run on the beach and Mom and Dad enjoyed some star gazing.  Our neighbor was there to fish and the first night invited Mom and Dad, and several of our neighbors for fish tacos and fried fish that he caught that morning.

From Padre Island, we moved on to San Antonio.  Actually, we almost blew off the island.  Mom and I decided that we never want to be here in a Hurricane.

Dad has several cousins in the San Antonio area.  One night Mom and Dad had dinner with Janice, Robert, and their daughter Jenn at a restaurant.  They are cousins on Dad's Dad's side of the family.

The next day, Dad's cousin Paul came to visit us in the RV.  At lunch time, Paul took Mom and Dad to a restaurant to meet his Mom, his sister Suzanne, his wife Kim, and his sons, Lance and Brett.  After Lunch, Paul and Brett came back to the RV and visited some more.  Paul's Dad was Uncle George, Grandmother's brother.   Uncle George passed away last year, but it was good to see Aunt Maynon and the rest of the family.

The next day, we all went to Janice, Robert, and Jenn's house to meet Leo the Mastiff.  Leo is Jenn's Mastiff puppy.  He's two months old.  Soon he will be as big, then bigger than me.  We had fun playing in his back yard.  After awhile, I got tired, so I took a nap in the Jeep while the humans had soup that Jenn made.  Mom couldn't stop talking about how good it was.

While we were in San Antonio, we visited all the missions on the mission trail.  Here are pictures of two of them.

Mom and Dad went out to dinner on the River Walk and visited the Alamo at night.

From San Antonio we went to Austin.  If you decide to visit Austin, we highly recommend McKinney Falls State Park.  It's almost in Austin, so convenient to all Austin has to offer, but far enough off the beaten path that it's quiet.  Also, there is lots of vegetation, so each site is relatively private and there are hiking trails.  Of course, there are also the falls.  While we were there, Mom and Dad toured the Texas State Capital building and had dinner with George, a colleague of Dad's that he has know for many years.

From Austin, we went to Lake Buchanan to visit Dad's Aunt Lucy, cousin Nancy, and her wife Marie.  I got to play with Nancy and Marie's fur kids Darby and Chuey.  I had fun with them last year and glad to get to visit again.

From Lake Buchanan, we went to Fort Worth.  We got to spend 15 nights there and had lots of nice visits with all of Dad's family.  I was a HUGE hit at the assisted living where Grandmother and Granddaddy live.  Everyone wanted to meet me and touch me.  I like it there.

Our two weeks in Fort Worth went by so quickly.  This is Christmas Day with all the humans gathered around the table.  No one took a picture of the K-9 cousins.  There were seven of us on Christmas Day.

I got to spend lots of time with my cousin Scout.  He celebrated his first birthday on Christmas Eve.  He's a really cool dude and I like being able to run around with him.  I wish he lived closer to me.

Tonight we are between Carlsbad and Roswell, New Mexico.  This week Mom and Dad plan to visit Carlsbad Caverns and explore this part of New Mexico.  Here is an updated map of our travels around Texas.