RV Travels with Dakota Duo: Leaving Arizona

Wednesday - today we had appointments with possible advertisers for RVillage.com. Tonight we had Saddlebrooke friends over, Dianne and Marshall - friends of Dan's and ours. They came over for Happy Hour and then we went to Lupe's for dinner. Today was a cloudy and windy day and when they were with us, our motorhome was actually rocking from the wind. They loved it, it reminded them of their times on their boat in Tennessee. We had a great visit - they used to be in advertising and shared alot with us as we talked about our new job. They also have been to Cancun, where we stay, so we shared memories about our fun times there.

Thursday - Up early to get to Tucson for an early advertiser appointment. We had a RV park appointment at 10:00, so we stopped in at another park on the way. The manager understood the benefits of claiming their park and we signed them up to Rvillage. The next two parks wanted to think about it, so we will get back to them. As we left the last park, someone saw our car with our new RVillage magnets and commented on the website. Cool! That afternoon we stopped in to a fantastic Italian restaurant in Catalina and signed them up for RVillage as well. Be sure to eat there if you are in Catalina and tell them you saw it on Rvillage. Tonight we went to Deb & Joe's for supper - our last time together with just them at their house. Just before getting together, we had some bad news about Connie's brother Gerry. Please pray for Gerry and Harriet and healing for his cancer.

Friday - We stayed home and did follow up work for our ads and parks. Then we worked on packing up the outside bays and inside closets. We sat outside to enjoy the sun, as we are at the end of the stay in Arizona. This night we went to St. Helen's for the KC fish fry supper and Stations of the Cross. The fish was delicious, but we were early for stations, so we ended up driving over to San Manuel for the stations. The Lord had that planned for us, the scenery driving over was unbelievable with the sun on the mountains. So many different views of scenery in Arizona and all beautiful.

Saturday - This morning's project was to defrost the refrigerator/freezer. Wally and Jan had a cooler we could borrow and we used the water cooler for the condiments. While that was thawing, I brought out the sewing machine and mended our laundry bag and some clothes. I also shook all the rugs and vacuumed - might as well clean before hitting the road. Tonight Dan and Connie came over and we went to Lupe's to supper. We watched the Arizona/Wisconsin basketball game afterward - Wisconsin won and Connie was happy with that.

Sunday - Mass for the last time at St. Helen's. Home for breakfast and spent the day working on getting ready to move. Tonight we are going to the Cadillac Chapparal for supper for farewell with the group. We are leaving Tuesday and Krista and Brian on Thursday. Deb, Doris and Krista came over early to see our place, Lisa and Jeff joined us too. The other boys were golfing and met us at the Chapparal. We had a great time, great meal and sadly, said our goodbyes to each other.

Our great friends in Arizona!

Monday - spent the morning washing clothes, hung the sheets and bedspread out to dry on the clothes lines at our park. We went over and said our goodbyes to Wally and Jan - they were leaving this afternoon for California to see their granddaughter. We ran a couple errands for last minute groceries and to drop off our unneeded items at the thrift store, the Goose. Home again, we put all the outside things away, Gary unhooked the hoses and we got things ready inside to leave in the morning.

The new leaves

One week later - our tree

Tuesday - up early and packed it all up. Gary left to take the motorhome to the shop - they were looking at our hydralic leak today and I stopped by Deb & Joe's for some last minute mail that had arrived. Said my goodbyes to Deb - we had a wonderful time these three months together - she always makes me laugh. By the time I got to the shop, they had determined that we could get by without repairs now, so we hooked the car up to the motorhome and headed north. We drove up through Phoenix on I-10 and then on I-17 - luckily in the middle of the day - the traffic was not terrible. North of Phoenix on I-17 we exited on #223 and went to Pleasant Harbor RV Park - a nice park next to a lake where our RVillage boss was staying. We ended up staying in the site right next to him and had a great visit. That night we joined him and some friends for supper at the marina restaurant. A beautiful night next to the lake - the view was beautiful.