WINTER 2005
SEEKING THE SUN
1. Casa Grande Az (our home park)
2. Amado AZ (over night stop)
3. Kino Bay (Western Horizon Park) Mexico about 400 kms south and west of border
When we joined the Western Horizon Park
System, we had to choose a
"home park". Just why that is I have no clue and the rules and
regulations relating to park usage and home park usage is too
confusing to recount here! Suffice it to say that Elsie
understands all this minutia and I don't have to! But, we choose
Casa Grande because it is a smaller city that is just starting to grow
with snowbirds. Indio and Yuma have already undergone the
transformation to LARGE. In Indio, it takes over 30 minutes just
to drive to a Safeway and Yuma is little better. In Casa Grande
the traffic is almost no problem and all facilities are easy to get
to. In the next ten years, all this will change and Casa Grande
too will swell to become unwieldy. But, for the next few years
we can enjoy.
The idea here is that we spend two weeks, for free, in a Western
Horizon Park (WHP) and one week out in another system (we have 5 other
systems to choose from). Now this does not count if you are going
into your home park or Kino Bay Mexico. Again why??? who
knows!!!! We decided to spend two weeks in Casa Grande and then head
south to Kino Bay. Now at Kino Bay you can spend up to six weeks,
for free, and then "buy" your week out for $105.00 US, and then spend
another 6 weeks for free. Are you confused yet???? Also, if
you choose to do work at Kino Bay you can stay as long as you wish. Now, you are really
confused!!! On top of that, everyone seems to have paid a
different amount to join WHP. Conversations on this topic in the
hot tubs of all WHP go on for hours and hours. No one really
understands. All we can figure is that we paid a little less than
most of the others and more than a few lucky ones. Given that
Elsie was doing the negotiations, is anyone surprised that we got a
good deal?????
Casa Grande park Desert Shadows is a neat place. It has a really
busy activity schedule stretching from cards to exercise to all sorts
of crafts etc. Or, you can do as we mostly do, simply read and
choose only those activities that interest us. One of the best
activities is the dinners and lunches they provide. 
Five nights a
week they lay on a dinner for up to $6.00 and three days a week they
lay on lunch for $3.00. When you consider that we are not paying
a daily rate to stay in the park, the cost of travel is getting
manageable. (I know that Elsie will be upset here so I had better
mention that you do have to pay $1.00 per day because the electricity
is
so expensive down here ... so there is a daily fee ... but for a buck
... hardly worth mentioning eh?
We pull into Desert Shadows and park beside another rig from BC.
Now
this is where it gets scary.... follow carefully now ....
While in Pilot Knob we met a couple Frank and Ruth who were full timing
it in a Teton Home 5th wheel. They had just bought a huge tractor
to pull their rig and were having problems with the quality
control. It was good to have them as neigbours and we ran into
them again in Desert Shadows. We also met in Pilot Knob the Rory
and Kathleen O'Sullivans who were from North Van. In fact their
sons had both gone to Argyle and Kathleen was the Head Secretary in
Balmoral. We had a great time sharing names and experiences of
colleagues. To our surprise, not only were Frank and Ruth in the
same street as we were but so were Rory and Kathleen. Now, back
to
the rig beside us. Pay attention ... there will be a test on all
this at the end!!!! Our neighbours turned out to be also
from North Van . We have all heard about 6 degrees of separation
but this was really strange. Their names are Ron and Diane
Worth. On chatting with them, it turned out that their son is
Colin Worth who was the first RCMP liaison officer for Argyle and he
married one of the Argyle staff. Now it doesn't stop here ... it
turned out that Ron worked for IBM and remembered meeting Elsie at the
WCB in the late 60's. Elsie was one of the first women in the
computing field so Ron remembered meeting her. Now this is
peculiar ... right???? Hold on ... it gets even more
strange. Diane was a teacher in Delta and worked with Elsie's
brother's wife's step sister and her husband. By the time
we had sussed all this out, it was Happy Hour which was a good thing
because my brain was hurting. Thank God for Happy Hour!!!
Needless to say, we had a good time in Desert Shadows. It became
a combination of rest and relaxation and wandering the local
area. One day we drove out to Gila Bend (the G is pronounced
H) to see the petroglyphs. It was just over an hour drive back on
the highway and then 15 miles into the desert. If you remember, I
set up Elsie's Christmas gift ... the GPS ... so she had the damn thing
with her in the car. Off we go in the Honda, with the computer
safely nestled on Elsie's lap. I haven't mentioned much about
this gizmo but for Elsie it is a dream come true. Once she locks
onto
a satellite she knows with several feet just where we are on the
earth's surface. She knows the altitude and speed and can see for
miles on either side of our path any road, big or small, that
exists. As you all know, Elsie hates sitting in the car running
down the Interstate. She would rather be on a side road where she
says the views are more exciting. I wouldn't know of course as
driving on some of these tiny roads requires so much attention that I
rarely see much outside the vehicle. Today was no exception ....
The roads were paved all the way to the petroglyphs. We got there
with no problems and found that it was really quite neat to see
graffiti from over 5000 years. 
I can just picture the parents
of
the guys who drew these pictures complaining much like we do about our
"taggers" today. I guess it only takes several thousand years of
existence to change something from being a disgrace and ugly to being
an historical site. I have included a bunch of pictures of these
figures ... it is interesting to see. It was time to head
back and I should have been more alert ... As we drove, Elsie is
staring at the damn GPS. Motoring down this nicely paved side
road was not acceptable to my intrepid navigator. "Turn left" she
suddenly said. Not thinking, I comply and found ourselves on a
dirt road running parallel to an irrigation ditch running through
some farmer's fields. Remember that this is in the high desert
where the ground is sand when dry and goop when it is wet. 
Do you
remember that there has been more rain down here than they have had for
years? Well, as you can imagine we were in for an interesting
ride. "No problem", she says. "This road cuts off a couple
of miles off the other road". You remember ... the nicely paved
one?
Well, the first part of the road looked OK. It was sand but
reasonably graded. In for a penny in for a pound ... I figured OK
lets try it. We were great for several miles and then the road
turned wet. When this stuff gets wet, you have no clue about how
deep the puddles are, but you do know that if you stop, you will need a
tow truck to get out. Just keep going and hope like hell you
don't have to stop or that there is now bottom to the puddle. The
mud is splashing up the sides of the Honda and even over the
roof. The windshield became translucent. The washers would
not be able to move the glue that was forming. I glance over at
Elsie and there she was .... holding on for dear life, a huge grin
plastered all over her face, her eyes not really in focus and screaming
"WhaHoooooo". She does terrify me at times.
To make a long story short, we did get to Gila Bend and a gas station
to get the windows clean enough to see the way home to Casa
Grande. On arrival home we went immediately to a car wash that
had high pressure hoses. 
Six dollars and twenty minutes
later we
could identify the Honda again. The colour of the mud was the
same shade as the Honda so as we washed, the only thing to really
change was the weight of the vehicle. I'll bet there was over 100
pounds of muck on, over and under the car. So much for the GPS making
my
life easier .....
Yet another day, there was the Cactus Fly-In in Casa Grande. The
municipal airport hosted a vintage plane fly in one weekend. It
was really fun to stand on the runway watching all the little planes
taking off and landing. They had some really old 1920's examples
and some of the more modern ones. We had a really great morning
there, and for the afternoon we went to the chile cookoff and
car show. This was a busy day and Happy Hour could not come soon
enough!!
During the weeks there, we were talking to Ron and Diane Worth who had
just returned from Kino Bay. They gave us detailed maps on how to
get to the campsite and really peaked our interest about this
park. There was nothing else to do but to book two weeks in
Mexico to see how we liked it. 
Getting into Mexico is a chore! Not only do you have to cross the
border into the country, usually not a problem, but you have to go
through the tourist card visa center about 20 km's into Mexico.
Because we were not sure about driving times, we picked a campsite just
a little north of Nogales for one night. This was one of those
lucky choices you sometimes make. It used to be a dog race track
in the '80's and now has been converted into a camp ground with lots of
neat things to do in this area. The town next to it is Tubac Az
famous for its crafts and stores... Just a little north is Green Valley
a huge retirement village. Lots to see and do here so we will
have to return next year for a little longer visit.
Now Mexico ... what to say ... Car insurance first I guess. Our
Canadian Insurance is not valid here so you must buy Mexican
Insurance. It costs $62.50 per day to insure Harvey so we insured
him only for the day drive into Kino Bay and the day drive home.
We insured the Honda for the 15 days and it cost around $170.00.
So if you go for a short time it tends to be a bit spendy to come down
here. Paradoxically, it only costs very little more to insure
for 6 months so next time we will come down for longer than 2 weeks.
Documents ... You have to have copies of driver's license,
passports, car registration to give them about 21 km's into
Mexico. You have to pull over and get into a line to get your
tourist card ($21.00). Then you get into another line and find
out that you have to give them a copy of the tourist card you just
got. No problem they say ... there are people just outside the
door who will make copies for you for 25 cents a copy. Minimum
cost is 2.50. As we had made our copies at home, we only had to
have copies of the tourist card. Not 50 cents ... no ... 2.50
minimum. What a rip!!! 
Then you had to fill in form after
form as you stand in line with others waiting ... after that you got
into another line if you were going south of Sonora Province where you
paid more and got another card and windshield decal. It can take
several hours to complete all this while standing in the hot
sun. All this from a poor country that really needs tourist
dollars .... GO FIGURE .....
The roads down here to Hermosillo are not bad. They are
toll roads (about 36.00 US ) and are four lanes so we encountered
no real problems. One thing did happen as we were rolling along
at 60 mph .... all of a sudden it sounded like someone was throwing
rocks at our windshield. It sounded like a machine gun and
suddenly we could barely see out the window. We had run into a
swarm of bees and had several thousand of the little buggers committing
suicide on each side of the wind screen. The wipers would have
little impact on the carcasses so we continued albeit a little
slower. After Hermosillo the road switches to two lanes and then
it gets fun. Trucks heading straight towards you at 60 mph and
giving no quarter on their side of the road.
The lane is
just
over 8 feet wide ,... as is Harvey ... and also the trucks are
over 8 feet wide. Add to this that most of the road sides have
broken down and potholes abound and the drive was a little
scary. But we made it to Old Kino and on to New Kino and to the
road out to the Park.
The road to the campsite is only 10 miles long but is all gravel,
mostly wash boardy and full of potholes. With any vehicle on
airbags, like most A Class RV's, washboard is HELL. That 10 mile
road takes over one and a half hours to cover. But you do make it
and what do you find???? PARADISE!!!!!!!!!!!
Now this place is great!!! There are probably 50 sites or so all
on a bluff over looking the Sea of Cortez (Gulf of California)
All sites are level with a cement pad with a picnic table. There
is 30 amp power to each site and a sewer connection for only the grey
water. Fresh water is metered at each site and goes for 10 cents
a gallon. The views from the sites are out of this world.
The temperatures vary during the day from 75 to over 90 degrees with
usually a breeze to make sure that it is comfortable. The sky is
usually deep blue which contrasts with the lighter blue of the
water.
Does this sound like paradise???? It will do for us until
something better comes along!!!!!
Every RV Park we have been to in the past has usually been
friendly. The RVers tend to be a social group who seem to enjoy
similar kinds of things. 
Of course, there has always been
the odd "exclusive" type who can be ignored but they are in the
minority. Here, there is only "inclusive" people. We had
just arrived, set up and were cooking dinner when a knock came on the
door. A women was standing there and invited us the next day to
go back into town for a crab tostitto (sp?) lunch. We agreed, of
course, and next day we jumped into a pickup and roared back into Old
Kino to the Oyster Farm. Here was where the oyster boats brought
in their catch and was typically Mexican ... flies everywhere under a
roof covering a bunch of picnic tables. I won't bore you with
much more detail, but for a buck you got a Tostito about the size of a
saucer that was covered to a height of 2 inches with fresh crab.
Three of these suckers and you were full. So, for 3.00 plus .80
for a pop, you got a crab meal that was fit for a king. Or....
you could have raw oysters ... or shrimp for the same price. WOW
was I a happy camper!!!
The next day we were invited to go to Shell Beach to hunt for sea
shells. This beach once covered a lot more land and as the land
rose, the shells at the bottom became the shore of the present
beach. All you had to do is knock them out of the sand.
just what Elsie is going to do with the resulting bucket of shells is
anyone's guess. To get to the beach, you have to drive through a
Seri Indian Village. The Seri Indian make these world famous
baskets that if you are into Indian crafts you would die for. The
vary in cost from 20.00 for a small one to over 1200.00 US for one
about 2 feet in diameter and 3 feet high. Nice to look at, but
not our "cup of tea"!
The next day we were back in Old Kino for a good bye dinner for some
people who had been there since the American Thanksgiving. I had
garlic prawns, Elsie had a special prawn dish, and we both had a huge
Margarita. Each plate had 10 or 12 large prawns ... just how
close is heaven???? The total bill for both of us was
$27.00. The Marlin is famous for its good deals.
The Campsite has a swimming pool and hot tub that seem to stretch over
onto the beach. 
We have been trying to swim each
day but there is so much going on it is hard to fit in
everything. If you decide to just sit outside and read, it won't
take but a second and someone wanders over, sits down and begins to
talk. I thought that I was a good talker, but some of these guys
could talk the bark off a stump!! The first day, one fellow,
Maurice from Ontario, wandered by and I mentioned that our satellite
dish did not get a signal. Well ... that was sufficient!
The next thing I know he is off like a hare and when he returns it is
with his spare external dish and begins hooking it up for us.
But, Harvey, having the roof mounted dish, means that to hook up
another dish, you have to get behind the satellite receiver inside and
disconnect the roof and connect the external. This did not sit
well with Maurice and off he goes to get an "A B switch" which he
proceeds to install. Now, if I want the roof dish I choose "A"
and the outside one I choose "B". It seems that this kind of
thing is his hobby!
Well, I won't go on too much more. Except I must mention last
night's dinner in yet another restaurant in Old Kino. Almost the
entire group was there at Comedor Vickies where for 6.00 we were served
a full course Mexican meal complete with pop and desert. Today,
we are back to the oyster farm for more crab. Thursday March 17th
there is a big St Paddies Day meal 
here at the camp grounds .... it
just continues .... and continues .... and continues .... I think
we know where we will spend next winter!!!!!! We leave here on
March 22nd and head to Nevada for Easter.
I have to get this off this morning as right now I am piggy backing off
the neighbours satellite dish. He is leaving today so I will have
to get this done.
So, all is well here, and we hope that all is well with you
........ It seems that there has been a lot of sickies at
home and too many people having to resort to the medical community
while we are away. We will catch up with you on our return April
3rd. Why in early April you ask???????
Joe, Elsie, and Hops who is learning to bark in Mexican ..
. 
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