Sunrise Resorts – Random Rovers

Baseball at Moses Lake

It is June 21st 2018 and we are off to Moses Lake to watch our grandson Tyler play in a base-ball tournament. In the previous weeks we had done some minor maintenance on Bertha. Mostly just cleaning and polishing, but also revised the undercarriage lighting, replaced the hide-a-bed with a table so we would have a little more working space inside, and removed a lot of unnecessary stuff that had accumulated in all the places I find to put it. I figured that if I hadn’t needed it I likely didn’t need to have it in my way. I am, however, sure that Mr. Murphy will find an inconvenient time to prove me wrong.

As you can see we arrived in good condition and got set up. It proved to be a good thing that we came as do to a scheduling change our son could not get a motel room for Friday night and would have had to drive back home. Instead they stayed with us so we got to have a lot more time with them.

Tyler did a great job a the plate.

And on the mound. Grandpa didn’t get any pictures of his awesome fielding.

MosesLake3 — **Pier4 Pull-Thrus and Back-ins**

We spent four nights had a really fine time visiting, sight-seeing, and watching baseball. The park was nice, the neighbors Friendly, and the sky was blue. What more could we ask for on a weekend with son and grandson?

Happy Trails,

Your Random Rover, Gordon

A Short Trip To Get Away From All The Work!

It was our 41st Anniversary so we decided it was time to get away for a few days, revisit some old haunts, reconnoiter a few places we had never explored, walk on some sand, pick a few mushrooms, but mainly just relax. The weather was neither all bad or all good it was September/October on the Washington coast.

Our site at Pacific Holiday -- Long Beach, WA — Our site at Pacific Holiday — Long Beach, WA

The drive down to Long Beach was pleasant along well-known scenery and well-traveled roads. We got great cinnamon rolls at the Long Beach Bakery walked the beaches, took a drive through Cape Disappointment State Park where we camp hosted a number of years ago, did a little shopping in Oregon, and just relaxed.

We took some walks on the beach. (E takes more beach walks than G does) These pelicans and seagulls acted like they owned the place, imagine that.

We did some shopping at Ocean Shores and Astoria on the really wet and rainy days. (The Astoria Sunday Market is definitely worth seeing for great produce, baked goods, and crafts.) But we also found time for mushroom hunting which was fun but not productive. I have not been able to ID these guys but they are certainly different.

And found many Slippery Jacks, which are supposed to be good,but with all the very wet weather, I could not bring myself to trying the slimy things, yuck!

It was wet, cold, and windy but I got my sweetie and she is smiling because she is on the beach. Life is good.

Moved to our next stop, Grayland Beach State Park, just a few miles north of Long Beach but 70 or 80 miles drive because of the bay in between. We made a number of trips to Westport, WA, just north of the park.

Mr. Snail thinks this is his beach

many sand dollars — What will we ever do with all these sand dollars?

In addition to the snail we found sand dollars. We also saw many mushrooms but they were not in good condition for eating.

From Grayland we again headed north through Aberdeen and Hoquim to Copalis.

One of the worlds great gourmet treats. I found a few pounds of these marvelous King Boletus in perfect condition, so of course had to collect, cook some, and dry the rest. Will enjoy these guys for a while.

The very poisonous Amanitas were in abundance. Fun to look at but don’t mess with them! We enjoyed a few days here walking the beaches and shopping in Ocean Shores.

From Copalis north to our last stop a little way south of Forks.

And a day hiking the Hoh Valley

It was a crisply chilly but bright and beautiful day at the Hoh Rainforest.

On our last day we went to Rialto Beach west of Forks, WA for one more dose of sunshine and surf.

I have been remiss, I did not realize that I never published this post from September / October 2016 and it is already mid February 2017!

Busy keeping the shiny side up, your Random Rover,

Gordon

On The Road Again

Our easy first day consisted of less than 200 miles through relatively familiar desert and all went well with Elaine towing (well, the truck did the work but she was the pilot) about 1/3 of the way.

After setting up at the Apache Gold Resort (an Indian Casino with golf course and rv park (parking lot with hook-ups)we went into Globe, AZ to do a little antique, tourist, and junk shopping. From noon until 8:00 pm we had triple digit temperatures which would not have been too bad had the campground not lost power sometime while we were out to dinner. We commiserated with neighbors, read magazines and books and generally waited it out until we were so tired that the heat did not keep us awake. It was in the low 70’s when we woke up around 6:30 am. After I had showered and while Elaine was in the shower, I discovered that sometime during the night the power had come back on but had tripped our breaker so I reset that turned on the AC and brewed some coffee. (Clean, cool, and rested, with a good cup of coffee I should say something about silver linings but will refrain and move on.)

After breakfast we packed it up and headed for the white mountains. It was a beautiful day for a drive north around Roosevelt Lake on state route 188 which is double-nickel highway with majestic views of lake, desert, mountains, saguaro cactus, and juniper-pine forest.

With very light traffic all the way to Payson even the driver was able to relax and enjoy the drive though he certainly wished for a few more places to pull over and take pictures to share. Oh, did I mention lots of steep grades?

We arrived shortly after noon at our base for the next few days, White Mountain Park, an rv park between Heber and Showlow, AZ. We set up, relaxed, and generally took it easy.

White Mountain is an old Sunrise Resort park that was devastated in the big fire of 2002 so it has no large trees making it more of a mountain meadow setting. It is very peaceful and quiet here with lots of big blue sky. It reminds me of Deer Lake Idaho. While out gallivanting Gordon found and purchased a piece of juniper and a piece of manzanita, both of which will be used for some as yet unplanned project when he gets home. Elaine found some yarn to complete a crochet project and some design books. Tomorrow we will leave the Mogollon Rim and arrive at our first destination, Monument Valley.

Travel Wherever The Trail Takes You,

The Random Rover