We went to Costco in Mesa today. It was crazy busy and I felt young. Another clear 82 degree day.
Author: harrylange
Lost Dutchman SP – Sunday November 8, 2015
We have had this motorhome since November 2004 and it wasn’t until we retired that we started pulling a car. One of the irritating challenges of hooking up the car’s tow bar is getting the correct distance from the hitch on the motorhome.
From the driver’s seat I can not see where the tow bars hook onto the car.
The hitch on the motorhome has sliding arms which give me about six inches of margin. Just before we left home this fall I made this stand and put a piece of doweling in it which I can see from the driver’s seat.
Since I took this picture I have added a string to measure the distance between the dowel and the hitch locking ring so I have the correct distance every time. This system has made hooking up the car a lot easier.
I added these pieces of parachute line to the safety lock rings last year. We were at Fort Flagler and I moved the motorhome about a 100 yards before I hooked up the car. When I got the car in place one of these safety rings was missing. Somewhere along that 100 yard road it fell off and bounced into the grass where I could not find it. Live and learn.
Lost Dutchman SP – Olive Oil – Friday November 6, 2015
We went to an olive grove today; Queen Creek Olive Mill.
It was interesting and we purchase some tasty olive oils. They have a “Bacon” flavored olive oil.
The grove is currently 7000 trees and 16 different types of olives.
The olives are mixed to produce the flavor they are looking for:
washed
moved up to the grinder
than the centrifuge, which is the round stainless steel head in the middle of the machine. The oil comes out the bottom spout just above the “H” in Harry. This is their small machine, they also have one which will do 2.5 tons an hour.
It was a nice day.
Lost Dutchman SP – Peoria – Thursday November 5, 2015
We drove over to Peoria looking for a RV park for March 2016 and spring training. Since we don’t know anyone who has taken their RV to Spring Training it has been a challenge to find a park. One of my goals in coming to Phoenix was to find a place for Spring Training. The Peoria visitor’s center was not all that much help. Their did have a list of more parks then I could find online however it was just a list of names, addresses, and phone numbers, nothing about any of the parks.
The park we have reservations for is in Goodyear 25 miles from the ball park. They have 438 sites and as of this morning had 12 open sites in March. I guess this is why it is hard to find any information about the parks. They are all sold out every year so there is no point on spending any time or money letting people know you exist.
We are set and I’ll get game tickets when they go on sale in November. Retirement is good.
Lost Dutchman SP – Wednesday November 4, 2015
We went to Arizona Museum of Natural History in Mesa today.
This display covers three floors high and has a flash flood every 20 minutes.
Lots of hands on displays, this actual bone says:
“Please Touch”.
Most of the pictures I took involved dinosaurs, however the museum covers time back to the beginning of the universe to current time with Arizona movies.
These displays show how fossils appear in nature.
Numerous large animals.
The last thing we did was pan for GOLD.
Great museum and we had a wonderful afternoon.
Lost Dutchman SP – Tuesday November 3, 2015
Hank and I got out for a walk this morning.
One thing about the desert, all the plants want to kill you.
I did learn a new word today, “vegan fur”.
Here are a couple more pictures from this afternoon the evening.
We are getting some heavy showers this evening.
Lost Dutchman SP – Monday November 2, 2015
Monday of a travel date, we plan to be here for two weeks.
This is a nice state park and we are in a new section of the park. I made the reservations a couple of weeks ago for two weeks. We were lucky to find a park which has sites open for two weeks, the weekends are usually full for reservation sites. We are in site 85.
Caballo Lake SP, NM – Sunday November 1, 2015
In camp all day currently watching the Seahawks game. This will be our last day in New Mexico for a while, we are currently planning on attending the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta next October. We will be leaving early tomorrow morning for Phoenix and Lost Dutchman SP, it will be an 8 to 9 hour day on the road.
During the last 14 months and our three trips south we have spent 65 nights in New Mexico. We will spend the next two and a half weeks in Arizona and then home for Thanksgiving.
Spaceport America, NM – Saturday October 31, 2015
Today we took the tour of Spaceport America the private spaceport being used by Virgin Galactic to send people into space. The tour was interesting and an opportunity to visit a place which may have a significant impact on the development of space.
Google Earth view of the main terminal.
This view is from 32,000 feet showing the 12,000 foot runway. An interesting google footnote is these pictures were taken on December 14, 2013. There are newer pictures of Truth or Consequences, NM which is only a few miles west of here from April 1, 2015. I’d have to say Branson has some influence on where Google takes pictures.
This is where we walked into the hanger and into the visitor’s center. The visitor’s center had some new high-tech displays and information about space and the spaceport.
This globe shows the major satellite orbits around earth. Besides the 6 passenger spacecraft which will take people into space for 4 minutes, only $250,000 in advance, Virgin Galactic is working on a reusable craft to take satellites into space.
This is one of the displays they use for a plus G’s experience.
This is looking through a window down into the hanger and a mockup of the passenger space craft.
This is the admin and runway tower building, also the fire department of spaceport and surrounding area.
This is the hanger doors side of the building.
Here you can see the track for the four hanger bay doors on this side, there are four more on the other side of the building.
Our picture of the walk in entrance of the hanger.
Hanger and admin buildings.
This is a really long runway, 12,000 feet.
Cool sculpture at the entrance to the spaceport.
The stars on the inside of the curve.
I’m glad we went.
Caballo Lake SP, NM – Friday October 30, 2015
Today we into Truth or Consequences to the local museum.
It was nice museum with a lot of information about the area.
From long ago.
And not so long ago.
