We arrived in Chandler, AZ in mid November to see my son and family for a couple of weeks. Patti decided to fly up to Cody, WY and see her daughter and help her out, as she was caring for her father who had recently fallen. A couple of weeks turned into a 4 months stint. After Patti returned to AZ (after two months) we stayed in Audra’s father’s condo in Scottsdale waiting for new carpeting to be installed. The first time they brought the carpet for installation, it was 5 feet too short so it had to be re-ordered. The second time they brought a 5-foot piece of carpet to patch into the existing short carpet. When you’re paying for new carpet you don’t want a patch job. So next they had to reorder the whole carpet and then it took 10 days for us to get an install date. Well, after a month of dickering with Home Depot, it was finally here and the installers did a great job. So if you want carpet, go to a carpet store, NOT Home Depot.
After our extended stay in AZ and WY… we are back on the road again. Patti and I both came down with the awful flu that has been going around and we were very glad we had a condo in Scottsdale, AZ to recuperate in (thank you John), instead of our little pull behind, Rosalita. Neither one of us had been this sick in years!!! Needless to say we were both somewhat weak still and Patti is finally getting over a mean cough that kept her, and me, awake for several nights.
Since Patti was still exhausted, I asked my son to help with the hook-up of our Rosalita, thank you Nasir. We headed south and east on Thursday, March 2nd, to St. David, AZ, which is 9 miles south of Benson, AZ. The drive was uneventful and took about 3 hours after a fuel stop for our thirsty Toyota, and a grocery stop in Benson to replenish our food supply, after all it had been 4 months since we last were on the road.
Last year we stayed in St. David at the Benedictine Monastery, but we choose to stay in an independent campground this time. We weren’t sure if the Monastery would have any spaces since it is still high season for retreats there.
The independent campground, Apache RV Park, was fine; level sites, water, electricity, peaceful and quiet – not the most gorgeous campground we’ve every stayed in but very adequate. We are just a few miles from the Monastery and we could go and visit the peacocks and the San Pedro River if we choose. As it turned out, we did a drive through on Sunday and the place was quite full so we felt our choice was a good one to stay at Apache RV Park.
While we were at the Apache campground we wanted to pull out the awning to dry it out as we had a couple of good rains while the RV was parked in Chandler. As I was unlocking the roller arm brake, the top of the brake broke. We asked the owner of the Apache if they knew of any RV repair places they would recommend and she said, “No”, but was kind enough to get us names, phone numbers and addresses of two places in Huachuca City, AZ about 20 miles south of St. David. I called them on Saturday (when the piece broke) and “RV City” would look at it on Monday if we could be there by 9 or 10AM. Thinking of moving the RV with the arm brake broken, I didn’t know if the awning would unroll while we were doing 50 – 60 miles per hour, so I borrowed a tall ladder and decided to duck tape the awning to the roll bar, just for good measure.
We arrived at RV City precisely at 9AM and they took a look and as luck would have it … they had the part we needed and said it would be a quick fix. True to their word it was a quick fix – in order to fix the part though, they needed to unwind the awning to the full extent, which was fine – but the wind had picked up and it took two of us to hold the roll bar so it didn’t blow to Phoenix. It took basically 15 minutes to take the old broken part out and slide the new part in. While we were waiting for the paperwork to be computerized, we saw a sign that read their rate for repair was $145./hr. It might be a quick fix but maybe not a cheap fix. As it turned out it cost us $45.00 for both the part and the labor. We were delightfully surprised and grateful! I guess when you put out good energy – good energy comes back.
Since we had no idea if they would have the part in stock or have to order the part, creating a delay in our travel plans, we had made no further plans for our next destination. We asked about RV parks in the area and they said there was one just behind their business, and they knew it had vacancies. We checked out the Mountain View Campground and decided to spend the night – since it was later in the morning when they finished the repair.
Mountain View RV Park
We came for one night and stayed for six nights. Little did we realize it is Spring Break in this part of AZ, so we renewed after the first night, after calling around for other campgrounds in the Bisbee area, our next destination (which were full). This campground is a typical AZ campground – rock for grass, yucca for trees, cactus for flowers and not much shade to speak of. It is very clean and has all the amenities we need: hot showers, laundry, at-site water and electricity, AND warm weather. We have the best site in the park, as one camper informed us. But they all look very much the same, to us. Our site #97, is at the rear of the campground (providing peace and quiet from the highway) and has a nice view of a mountain range, presumably in Mexico, which still has a dusting of snow on the top, go figure.
Stayed tuned… next post from Bisbee, AZ
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