Mesa, Arizona Arrival

We said our goodbyes to our Quartzsite friends and drove a few hours to our next home for the month of February.  It was quite a shock to our system after spending most of January camping for free on BLM land in wide open spaces and peace and quiet to now being in a Mobile Home/RV park.  We're parked close to our neighbor and only a block wall separates us from a busy street.  The park is nice, well maintained, and full of snow birds!  Many vehicles parked here have license plates from northern states and even more from Canada.  I hear the park population goes down to about 30% full starting in April and through the summer when it gets extremely hot here.

The park is nice with two pools and club houses with various activities and amenities.  We haven't joined any activities because I feel the crowd is much older than we are and we're only here for a month.

See us parked next to the mobile home?
Our truck is parked between the mobile home and our trailer.

One positive about being settled into one place for a couple of months is we started to attend a local church - Central Christian Church.  It's within walking distance to our site.  Since we're not expecting to see anyone we know we're more focused on the service and that's a good thing.  Visiting a new church changes things up a bit.

One nice thing they have done every Saturday night so far is have free hot dogs, chips, and drink after service so people hang out and chat.

Good hotdogs!

While settled in to the Phoenix area, we got the shell installed on our truck so now the truck bed is enclosed and we have more protected storage space.  Al ordered the shell to match our paint color back in December knowing we would be in this area and with the lead time on the order, it worked out perfectly.

Last October while at the Cochiti Army Corp of Engineer (ACOE) park in New Mexico, we met another couple, Dorothy and Jerry and their dog, Sadie.  They started their full-time RV life around the same time as we did so we had a lot to talk about.  We kept in touch since we left them after caravaning to Santa Rosa, NM and knew we would both be in the Phoenix area in Feb & March.  First time we went to their park in Casa Grande to see their new rig and have lunch at a cute cafe nearby.

Look at Sadie smiling for her photo!

Then, the next week they came to visit us at our park and then we went to lunch.

Dorothy & Jerry turned us on to a great Italian restaurant in Tempe called RigaTony's.  I would say it's now my favorite Italian restaurant! If you're in the area, you have to try their lunch specials which come with endless salad and bread!

It was great to see Dorothy, Jerry, and their sweet dog, Sadie, and catch up on our various adventures.

Another Arizona sunset photo to end out this entry.  This one is the view out our bathroom window taken by Al!

As we spend more time in the RV we're learning the types of places we like to camp.  Although this park is nice, it's not our thing.  I don't expect that we'll be looking to stay in this type of park for the foreseeable future.  Like most places, there are pluses and minuses. 

It's been very cold here for normal Arizona temperatures!  Hopefully it will warm up soon as we get going with our spring training activities!  But first, a dental road trip to Mexico!