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[Ron]

Week 11: Ending January 26, 2003

Monday:
Joan attends seminars on crime prevention health care while Ron rests up. We ready Happie for our morning departure and weigh-in. (We have never weighed our Camper fully loaded. The weigh-in is one of the useful offerings of the FMCA rally.)

Tuesday:
Just down the street is “A-Weigh We Go”, where John & Mary follow us for a weigh-in. They pass; we are heavier in back and on the right, so we have to do some serious rearranging of our stuff. We wish John & Mary an easy trip as they back head east. We drive about 2 miles south to Bureau of Land Management land. It is true dry camping, with no facilities. We purchase a fourteen-day pass for $25. Time to set up camp and rearrange all of our belongings.

Wednesday, Thursday:
Ron continues to try to get better. He has figured it may be a head cold. Wednesday afternoon we head out to the Q Mountain for some 4-wheeling fun. We decide not to venture to the top of the Q Mountain after walking up about half its height. We take pictures of braver souls at the top and marvel at ATVs at the top of a still-functioning mine next door to the Q. (No idea what they are mining.)

Friday, Saturday:
We bid adieu to Quartzsite and head east to Phoenix to visit with Joan’s college roommate, Sue and her family. Sue had offered her driveway, but we fear it may be too small and make reservations for two days at the Mesa Spirit RV Resort. We stop around the corner from Sue’s house and visit for a few hours. Ron meets Lucky and Nathan, the family Australian shepherds, and he loves their puppy antics.

“Mesa Spirit RV Resort” turns out to be an overpriced sea of blacktop with age restrictions and pet restrictions. Sue has a friend named Keith, a fellow New Englander who has also moved to Phoenix, who is interested in seeing our motorhome. Sue extends Keith’s invitation to use his spacious driveway outside of Phoenix, which we accept.

SuperBowl Sunday:
Keith has a magnificent home, jam packed with electronics. The electronics include an extensive Amateur Radio Shaq , and a huge High Definition, Theater Aspect Ratio projection TV. Perfect for watching the game. You can see every blade of grass!

An interesting thing about the broadcast of the Bowl was that that the HD broadcast was about 1.5 seconds behind the LD broadcast, and was from different camera angles! Pretty neat in that Keith’s TV can show both broadcasts side-by-side, and you can select the audio from either one.

We enjoy a cookout (literally – cooked outside, but we chowed down inside) during the game.

We know we’ve been somewhat remiss in our duties in posting these updates and restaurant and other reviews, but we promise (sure we do) to be better about it.