Schnebly Hill Road, Sedona AZ

We’ve met a group of people here at Verde Valley through our friends Anne & Dave. Each evening we all get together for happy hour and have a fun time. One couple, John and Sissy, suggested a trip to Sedona up the Schnebly Hill Road, so today we all made the trek and what an amazing drive! It’s not a road for everyone…best to have a vehicle with good clearance. We made it with our 2-wheel drive dually pickup but it was definitely a bumpy ride but fabulous views of the red rock made up for the rough road. On our way home we stopped at the Red Rock Barbecue Company for lunch…very yummy! After a lunch of pulled pork sandwiches Dave and I split a piece of wonderful coconut cream pie… mmmmm. It was a fun day with
a bunch of fun people.

Photos & Video
All taken on our drive up the Schnebly Hill Road in Sedona AZ...well the pie pic is from the Red Rock Barbecue :o)

Still in Cottonwood, AZ

It’s been about a month and a half since we returned to Thousand Trails Verde Valley in Cottonwood, AZ. Quite a long time to be in one place for us. I’m not sure we would have stayed here this long except for buying the new trailer. It was definitely a diversion from the norm!

Our friends from England, Dave & Anne, arrived the other day. They visit the U.S. each year and RV around the southern part of the country. The four of us have been meeting up for “happy hour” and having a fun time chatting and catching up.

The park has been fairly busy. With a number of RV Rallies, snowbirds getting ready to head north and families out for weekends or spring break we’ve watched a lot of people coming and going. Not surprising with the lovely spring weather, after all ‘tis the season!

Photos: All taken at Thousand Trails Verde Valley, Cottonwood, AZ

Home Sweet Home

We’ve been pretty busy here at Thousand Trails in Cottonwood, AZ… we bought a new house-on-wheels! Yep, a bigger better home. It is a Montana fifth wheel, 35 ft long with 3 slides. That is 5 feet longer and 2 slides wider than our old trailer and what a difference that makes! We found it at a local RV show, worked out a deal and that was that. We went up to the dealership in Prescott, AZ last Thursday to move all our stuff out of the old trailer into our new one. What a job! We had packed up about 6 boxes of stuff and left them at our camp site so we thought the move would be a quick and easy…wrong! We were exhausted. The next day wasn’t much better as we needed to organize plus move in the other 6 boxes. Of course I have rearranged stuff a few times already and am sure I will do more, it just takes a while to figure out where you want everything. It’s fun though and we love the trailer. It’s roomy and really comfortable, more like an apartment than our last trailer. Life is good… :o)

Photos: Cheye taking it easy at Thousand Trails Cottonwood, AZ
Video: A slide show of our new trailer

Blog-break

I guess it has been a while since I posted...just took a little blog-break! We are fine, back at Thousand Trails Cottonwood, AZ enjoying some fabulous weather at one of our favorite parks. The trip back from Texas was fairly quick, from Whitney, TX to Odessa, TX then Deming, NM and finally Cottonwood. Normally we like to stick to around 300 miles a day on the road but we decided to stretch it a bit leaving Texas. We were trying to avoid another snow storm that was heading through the area. In Deming we woke up to a light dusting of snow but that was the worst of it.

In Odessa we stayed at the Midessa Oil Patch RV Park…funny name but a nice park. I didn’t take a single photo of the place. It’s a busy little park, just off of the freeway so a great place to stop for the night. In Deming we stopped at the Little Vineyard RV Park. A perfectly fine place, pretty much just a parking lot but good service and easy on/off the freeway. We also visited St. Clair Vineyard while in Deming. My friend Marilyn knew we were going to spend the night in Deming and wondered if we would mind picking up some wine she ordered. Glad she did…we ended up doing some tasting and picked up some bottles for ourselves.

It’s been really relaxing here in Cottonwood. With the wonderful weather comes a lot more people at the campground, still it is very peaceful here. I went for a walk around the park earlier and am now sitting outside the trailer, under the awning, typing this post. Dave is beside me reading. So far one person has come by needing an egg, a neighbor stopped by to say hi and chat about travels, a couple RV’s have pulled in and a couple have left. A very pleasant morning… oops… I guess it’s afternoon now…gosh I love this lifestyle!!

Photos:
Above - a couple pics of a hawk and hot air balloon taken at Cottonwood
Below (all taken while driving from TX to AZ):
1. the Courthouse in Meridian, TX
2. a rest area somewhere in Texas
3, 4 & 5. A little snow on the ground near Texas Pass in Arizona.

Getting ready to leave Lake Whitney

The snow is long melted here at Thousand Trails Lake Whitney in Texas. We’ve had a few sunny days and now they are predicting rain and possibly more snow on Tuesday. Since we are leaving tomorrow we will miss the snow if they get some. Fine with me, we got to enjoy the pretty falling snow already!

I thought I would post a few photos of the park without the snow. I’ve also included a couple pics of a fox we saw here at the park. Unfortunately the fox shots are a bit fuzzy, I took them through our back window at dusk and the fox was moving. It was pretty cool, I was computing and looked up, glancing out the window, and there was the fox trotting down the street! I’ve never seen a fox in the wild before. Happily the camera was right beside me so I grabbed it and snapped away. :o)

Snow at Thousand Trails Lake Whitney

Well...our best estimate is we got about 5-6 inches of snow yesterday. Today it is slowly melting away. The roads in the park are manageable, I drove down to the laundry room this morning and didn't slip too much. Of course an empty pickup is the worst on snow but I didn't have far to drive. I had to laugh when I got back from doing laundry...our neighbor obviously enjoyed the snow...his creation is pictured below along with a couple pics of our trailer in the snow.

Lake Whitney

About a week ago we traveled north to the Thousand Trails Lake Whitney preserve. The trip took us by Austin and Waco, Texas, all areas we hadn't seen before. Whitney Texas, the closest town to this park, is a nice little spot. A good sized grocery, a few restaurants, all we need! The park we are at is very nice, and very big. We haven't had the best of weather since we arrived. There has been a couple sunny days but also a few days of rain, some rather cold days... however, you can see by the photos and video...today it turned to snow!

Photos
Snowy scenes from Thousand Trails Lake Whitney in Whitney, TX
oh...in the photo below Cheye is watching a squirrel in the tree :o)