Update: November 1st, 2018 – We left Michigan early September, worked at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, attended two RV rallies in Texas and now are wintering at our RV lot at Rover’s Roost SKP Resort in Casa Grande, AZ.
Welcome to our blog. I started writing posts and publishing to this blog as we departed on our maiden voyage in our (new to us) Airstream motor home.
As we traveled west and subsequently back east during the month of April 2016, I tried to take lots of pictures and post almost daily. The only time it may have been a few days between posts was due to the inability to get free and reliable internet WiFi connection.
All the posts in this blog are in chronological order with the most recent being at the top of the list. With the exception of THIS post. This post is called a “sticky” post because it stays at the top of the list all the time as a welcome and to explain some things.
So, whenever you come here, you’ll always see THIS Welcome post first, but then the next post will be the most recent that was written.
When you see BLUE text, that is a LINK. If you click on that link, you’ll be taken to another page (in a new window) to tell you a little more about what I was referencing in the post.
You can always click on any of the pictures to open them up in a larger viewer to see them more clearly
You can scroll down (and look at the right side) to see an area where you can “follow” our blog. Then you won’t have to keep coming back to see if there’s anything new, instead you’ll get an email when there’s something new posted.
We’d love it if you add your comments at the bottom of any of the posts. Don’t be afraid, if there’s something you’d like to say, just write it in the box and click on “post comment”.
That’s it for now, we hope you enjoy visiting the blog and catching up on our travels. We look forward to when we might be able to connect “down the road”.
We’d really appreciate it if you would do us the favor of helping us continue to publish this RV / Travel / Workamping blog. Do you purchase any products from Amazon? If you do, it would be great if you’d use the link in the sidebar or one of the links below to get to Amazon … after that you can change your search. By making your Amazon purchases from our site, we will receive from Amazon a small percentage of your purchase and it doesn’t cost you any more. We’d really appreciate your help.
Thank you,
Herb & Kathy
Once or twice each month we (folks here at Rover’s Roost RV Park) have what we call a “Tag Along”. We just hop in our car (or someone else’s) and head out on a road trip.
This month about 10 or 12 of us went up to the Dwarf Car Museum just southwest of Maricopa, about 30 minutes west of our park.
Quick trip out I-8 to the museum
A lot of us really didn’t know what to expect .. and boy were we impressed!
Ernie and his helpers have, over the years built from scratch little 5/8 scale automobiles. These are real beauties as the pictures below illustrate. But what is really fascinating is that they are all made from flat sheet stock! They make their own roofs, fenders, door panels along with all the stainless (looks like chrome) grills, trim, headlight rings, window frames …. and more.
They will take a stock steering wheel from a junkyard and cut it down (taking sections of the diameter out) so that it becomes a smaller version of itself. On the dashboard, even though the actual dash is scratch made from sheet steel and stainless … what about the gauges? They use stock gauges but cut out part of the dial (or scale) to make it smaller and then hand paint the markings back on the face plate before cutting down the glass and reinstalling. Painstaking work.
The museum is really more of a shop – Out in the middle of nowhereHow it came to be …
Click on any of the images below to see a larger view
’54 Chevy
This ’60’s era Chevy is ALL from sheet metal – all hand formed and welded!
They use Toyota engines and drive trains
They roll the bumpers, grill, light rings, hub caps, tail pipes, body trim all out of stainless
Ernie and his buddies were there the day we visited – there were probably about 35 or 40 of us altogether. I asked one of them what their day is like. He said “we start work at the shop about 7am but then slow down (or quit altogether) when the visitors start to come in.” “Then we start up again late afternoon and work until 8 or 9 at night.” When asked how many hours it takes to make one of these beauties he answered “about 3000” or so.
I commented on how dedicated they are to spend those kinds of hours each day toward achieving the finished product. One of them piped up and said “but only for 6 months – then I go home to Minnesota”. My reaction was one of relief and I commented “that’s good that you get a vacation from this” and he replied “yeah, I go back home to my shop in Minnesota and work on my projects there.”
There is no fee to visit the “museum” but they do accept donations. There is an endless loop video playing in a little theater that shows how these cars are made from the ground up. Seeing this video really gave me an appreciation for all the talent, imagination, and effort that goes into producing these masterpieces. These guys are truly artisans.
If you find yourself in the Phoenix or Tucson take a drive to the Dwarf Car Museum at Maricopa. You’ll be amazed at what you’ll see and even more so when you talk with the fellas that make these little wonders.
We’d really appreciate it if you would do us the favor of helping us continue to publish this RV / Travel / Workamping blog. Do you purchase any products from Amazon? If you do, it would be great if you’d use the link in the sidebar or one of the links below to get to Amazon … after that you can change your search. By making your Amazon purchases from our site, we will receive from Amazon a small percentage of your purchase and it doesn’t cost you any more. We’d really appreciate your help.
Thank you,
Herb & Kathy
During one of our days off duty at The Big Tent RV Show, we took a road trip up to (and across) Parker Dam, Lake Havasu, and Bullhead City.
We started the trip taking State Route 95 straight north out of Quartzsite and crossing the state line at the town of Parker. On up 95 a few miles we crossed the Parker Dam back into Arizona. Thank goodness as gasoline in California is about $2 per gallon higher than in Arizona!
Our friends and co-workers Paul & Chris went with us and we enjoyed the day together. Driving as far as we did gave us a lot of time to talk and catch up on each others travels.
Paul & Chris (from Iowa)
Parker Dam crosses the Colorado River and was built in 1942. You can see some of the Art Deco architecture in the design of the dam.
(taken from Nat Park Service web site) ” What you see is not what you get at Parker Dam, known as “the deepest dam in the world.” Engineers, digging for bedrock on which to build, had to excavate so far beneath the bed of the Colorado River that 73 percent of Parker Dam’s 320-foot structural height is not visible. Its reservoir, Lake Havasu, is a different matter. Its deep blue water stretches for 45 miles behind the dam, creating an oasis in the Arizona desert. Gracing the shore at Lake Havasu City is the historic London Bridge, reconstructed brick by brick in 1971 and adding to the city’s claim as “Arizona’s playground.”
Click on any of the images below to open a larger view
We continued on up (the Arizona side) State Route 95 and made a quick stop at the Bill Williams River National Wildlife Refuge. Kathy and I had stopped here a couple years ago and wanted to give Paul & Chris a chance to see it as well. The Refuge is huge, but the part that’s easiest to see is a small peninsula into the river. The peninsula has shade shelters with benches so you can use your binoculars to see all the water fowl that lives in the habitat. The nightfall pictures below are from our stop on the way back home from Lake Havasu and Bullhead City.
Click on any of the images below to open a larger view.
Our next stop was Lake Havasu City. We kept this portion of the trip short, we just visited the London Bridge, grabbed a bite to eat at a local cafe and then back on the road. (Thanks Paul & Chris for buying our lunch!)
This is THE original London Bridge, moved to Lake Havasu City from London back in 1968 by Robert McCulloch. Find out all the details of the moving of the bridge at this link. It doesn’t cost anything to park in the lot and walk along the water’s edge. It must cost the store operators an arm and a leg in rent to have a storefront at the foot of the bridge. There is a small island on the far side of the bridge where there are residential units, restaurants, and more shopping.
Next stop on the trip … Bullhead City. We purposely made the drive on up the road to Bullhead City to have a brief visit with Rob & Michelle. Kathy and I met Rob & Michelle when we were workamping at Pere Marquette Oaks RV Park in Michigan in summer of ’18. We spent the day with them in the Tucson area a month or so ago and wanted to stop in and say “Hi” and introduced them to Paul & Chris — you never know when they might have the opportunity to cross paths again.
Unfortunately, I FORGOT to get ANY pictures of Rob & Michelle or their beautiful RV site looking toward Spirit Mountain on this trip! So here’s one I stole off Michelle’s Facebook page..
Rob & Michelle … fellow full-time RV’ers we met in Michigan summer of ’18
Thanks for riding along … we look forward to spending time with you again soon!
We’d really appreciate it if you would do us the favor of helping us continue to publish this RV / Travel / Workamping blog. Do you purchase any products from Amazon? If you do, it would be great if you’d use the link in the sidebar or one of the links below to get to Amazon … after that you can change your search. By making your Amazon purchases from our site, we will receive from Amazon a small percentage of your purchase and it doesn’t cost you any more. We’d really appreciate your help.
Thank you,
Herb & Kathy
We just returned to our winter home at Rover’s Roost SKP RV Park in Casa Grande, AZ after spending a “mostly” wonderful 10 days or so at Quartzsite.
What’s Quartzsite you ask? Quartzsite is a small town in the western Arizona desert, only about 15 miles or so from Blythe, California. Quartzsite (during the summer) is a sleepy little town of about 3000 people. But WATCH OUT! Because when winter arrives, the town and surrounding desert lands explode with RV’ers and Van Campers and all sorts of folks from all over the country.
The red balloon is Quartzsite. The blue balloons are places on our bucket list
The population in the winter goes from about 3000 up to 300,000 or more as folks show up to attend one or more of the many shows that take place. You have the Big Tent RV Show, Gem show, Rock Show, Jewelry Show, and on-going Flea Market(s) over the winter months.
The show officially started on Saturday January 19th although we arrived early on Tuesday the 15th to an area in the desert about 6 miles north of Quartzsite known as “Boomerville”. Boomerville is an unofficial area off the north side of Plamosa Road where about 500-600 Escapee (baby boomers) meet each year at Q to renew old friendships.
It was a crappy cold and rainy day and our good friends Paul and Chris arrived from Yuma with a flat tire on their motorhome.
Replacing the tire in the rain and mud of the desert
Thankfully, Paul & Chris had subscribed to the Escapee Roadside Assistance program and the repairman (with a trailer full of tools) was out to the site within about an hour or so.
While the repairmen were working on replacing the tire, the rest of us gathered in Walter & Rebecca’s rig. We had all met for the first time in Livingston, TX back in December of 2017 and it was great to spend time together again.
Waiting for the tire repair in the warm comfort of Walter & Rebecca’s rig
The following morning we (the 5 couples working together in the club booth) moved on down the road to the site of the “Big Tent” where we would be working over the next 10 days or so.
In line waiting to get escorted to our parking spot at the Big TentWe got a prime spot right in front of the Big Tent (that’s our green rig in the middle)
The parking area filled up quickly with vendor’s rigs. There were nearly 500 vendor booths inside the tent along with dozens more outside selling everything from new and used RV’s to generators, cell phones, satellite TV systems, RV park spaces, accessories, personal health and beauty aids, leather goods, jewelry, and TONS more.
Here’s a shot of one of the 3 rows inside the tent before most of the vendors arrivedA shot of one of the vendor rows outside the tent during a weekday, the weekends were busier(L to R) Lisa, Rob, Jim, and Dennis setting up the booth ready for the crowdsJim and Chris (background) talking with a prospective member along with Paul and Lisa (foreground) signing up a couple of new membersHere’s a quick look video inside the Big Tent
We were fortunate to have 5 couples working the booth and we all had a great time getting to know one another. We had at least 3 pot luck dinners.
Robyn and Larry live in New Mexico and will be retiring and transitioning to full time RV life in May while Dennis and Connie from the Cincinnati area along with Rob and Laura from Indianapolis and Kathy and me (from Ohio) are full timers. Paul and Chris still live on the family farm in Iowa during the summers and travel extensively during the winters. Our fearless leaders Jim and Lisa are both retired but working again for the club as leaders of the RV Show Teams and of the club Head Out Programs (Caravans/Cruises/Bus Tours). Believe me, with their hectic schedule, they are FAR from being retired!
Our crew at the booth near the end of the show. Unfortunately, Lisa didn’t make it into the picture this day
Click on any of the images in the gallery below to see a larger view
A LOAF of French Fries!
Motorcycle Lifts for your pickup truck
An “Artsy” vendor
CUTE & Effective
Selling Diesel upgrades
Pork Butt, Ribs, and Brisket on the smoker
As we’ve said before … traveling the country and seeing all the beautiful landscape is rewarding enough, but the big reward is meeting all the new folks and developing such great new friendships. We so look forward to our next opportunity to meet up on down the road.
We worked the booth selling new memberships, we walked the tent looking at all the many vendors had to offer, we spent too much money buying “stuff” (which we can talk about later), and we had a great time over numerous dinners laughing and sharing stories.
All in all, it was a GREAT trip and a wonderful experience. Only the first day was a bummer due to the bad weather and Paul & Chris’ flat tire.
If you’re an Escapee RV Club member and you’d like to work one of the RV shows across the country, reach out to Lisa (you know who she is). If you’re an RV’er and you’re NOT an Escapee … come on along and join us! Here’s the link – it’s a great RV club … and so much more. It’ll be the best $39.95 you’ve spent in a LONG time! (psss – tell ’em Herb n Kathy sent you)
Thanks for following along on the ride .. more to come about our other adventures later and we look forward to meeting up with you somewhere along the way!
We’d really appreciate it if you would do us the favor of helping us continue to publish this RV / Travel / Workamping blog. Do you purchase any products from Amazon? If you do, it would be great if you’d use the link in the sidebar or one of the links below to get to Amazon … after that you can change your search. By making your Amazon purchases from our site, we will receive from Amazon a small percentage of your purchase and it doesn’t cost you any more. We’d really appreciate your help.
Thank you,
Herb & Kathy
The Saguaro Cactus (pronounced Sawarro) is the largest of the cactus family and can live to be 150-200 years old. These are found in The Sonoran Desert of Arizona and Mexico and occasionally in southern California.
These cactus have one tap root that only goes down about 2 feet or so and other roots that spread out just below the surface and spread out as far as the plant is tall. Although a 10 year old plant might only be about 1″-2″ tall, they can grow to be 40-60 feet tall and sprout their first “arm” at about 150 years old.
The Saguaro get most of their moisture during the summer rainy season and can end up weighing between 3000-5000 pounds. Arizona has strict regulations about harvesting or collecting Saguaro.
Once a Saguaro dies, the woody ribs can be used to build furniture, roofs, or fences.
A healthy Saguaro about 40′ tall in the National Forest
We hopped in the car and took a day trip down from our winter home at Rover’s Roost RV Park to visit the Arizona-Sonoran Desert Museum, the Saguaro National Forest and maybe the International Wildlife Museum.
The blue dot just to the left of Casa Grande shows our home and the red balloon about an hour southeast is the Saguaro National Forest where we spent most of the day
We headed down I-10 and entered the Saguaro National Forest from the north. Although the visitor center was closed due to the federal government shutdown, the park/forest was open and we could wander all we wanted.
As usual, you can click on any of the thumbnails below to see an enlarged view and then you can scroll right or left to see the next picture.
There’s so much to see … even though we’re not hikers. And there’s many other types of cactus growing in this region besides the Saguaro. Some of it is even flowering now in the midst of winter when generally this happens in the spring.
We then drove on down the road a bit to the Arizona-Sonoran Desert Museum. But as it turned out, the entrance fee was $25 each and we were already half way through the day. We decided that for that price we had better come back another day to be able to take advantage of all the museum has to offer. We’ve heard lots of great comments from friends who have been there and want to be able to get our money’s worth.
Lunch is always a highlight of my day and this one was no exception. At the south end of the park trail is a nice little cafe called “Coyote Pause Cafe”.
After a late lunch we moved on down the road a little further to the International Wildlife Museum on Gates Pass Road. Although this museum costs only $7 each to get in, it was getting into mid-afternoon and we wanted to hit the road (I-10) before the Tucson rush hour traffic.
We’ll come back another day here too. But at least now we know what we want to see and where it is.
Thanks for coming along and be sure to sign up to get our future blog posts automatically by entering your email address in the little box on the left side where it says “Sign Up To Follow Our Blog”.
You can check out all our RV full-time travel videos at herbnkathyrv on You Tube and click SUBSCRIBE down in the lower right corner of any of our videos.
We’d really appreciate it if you would do us the favor of helping us continue to publish this RV / Travel / Workamping blog. Do you purchase any products from Amazon? If you do, it would be great if you’d use the link in the sidebar or one of the links below to get to Amazon … after that you can change your search. By making your Amazon purchases from our site, we will receive from Amazon a small percentage of your purchase and it doesn’t cost you any more. We’d really appreciate your help.
Thank you,
Herb & Kathy
We met Rob & Michelle when we were working up in Michigan last summer at Pere Marquette Oaks RV Park. They were pretty new to the full-time RV lifestyle themselves having retired from work, selling their home and buying the truck and the 5th wheel to live in as they traveled the country.
We were glad to find that Rob & Michelle had made their way from Michigan to Arizona and were staying at an RV park near Tucson for the month of December.
We reached out to them through Facebook and then spent the day together driving up to Mt. Lemmon (about 9000′). It was a beautiful day with temps down in Tucson at about 70+ degrees and the sun was shining brightly. We knew the temperature up on the mountain would be 20-30 degrees cooler.
Mt. Lemmon has a summit at 9159′ and is located in the Santa Catalina Mountain Range of the Coronado National Forest. The Catalina Highway is a two lane paved road that heads north from Tucson and winds it’s way on up to Mt. Lemmon Ski Valley and the little town of Summerhaven that sports a couple restaurants, a general store, and a few other small businesses.
The white squiggly line you see going up from Tanque Verde is the Catalina Highway that takes you to the summit
Summerhaven, although home to a few full-time residents, is mostly inhabited by folks who come up from the hot desert climate to escape from the heat of the summers.
One of the restaurants in Summerhaven on Mt. Lemmon
We stopped at most every wide spot in the road to be able to get out and marvel at the sites as we looked at the oddly shaped rock formations and the view of the expanse of Tucson down below.
Remember, you can click on any of the thumbnails below to see an enlarged view and then you can scroll right or left to see the next picture.
One of the really cool things we found before heading out on our trip was an app called “Mt. Lemon Science Tour“. This app can be downloaded from your device app store (free) and it is an approximately 1 hour narrated tour of the ride to the top. It tells you when to pull over, pause the app and goes on to explain what you’re looking at! It’s a really great idea … but we ended up having too much fun talking about what we’ve all been up to since the last time we were together. Kathy and I decided we’ll go back up sometime and use the app to learn more about what we’re seeing.
As we pulled over at one of the larger roadside parking areas we noticed about a half dozen U.S. Border Patrol vehicles. It seemed odd that they would be chasing after some bad guys all the way up here.
The parking area with Border Patrol vehicles
But as we moved closer to the overlook at the wall we could then see what all the activity was about. They were practicing their rescue techniques having installed hardware to perform a repelling operation. They actually had one of their members in a basket and were preparing to lower him over the edge into about a 100 foot drop to safety. We stayed and watched a while before we moved on.
This first video shows them getting ready to drop him over the edge – head first!
Part 2 video of the repelling operation – he’s about halfway down the cliff
All in all, it was another beautiful day in paradise and it was especially great that we were able to share it with two of our full-time RV buddies Rob and Michelle.
We look forward to maybe hooking up with Rob & Michelle (and many others) when we’re at the Big Tent RV Show in Quartzite the last week of January.
Thanks for coming along and be sure to sign up to get our future blog posts automatically by entering your email address in the little box on the left side where it says “Sign Up To Follow Our Blog”.
You can check out all our RV full-time travel videos at herbnkathyrv on You Tube and click SUBSCRIBE down in the lower right corner of any of our videos.
We’d really appreciate it if you would do us the favor of helping us continue to publish this RV / Travel / Workamping blog. Do you purchase any products from Amazon? If you do, it would be great if you’d use the link in the sidebar or one of the links below to get to Amazon … after that you can change your search. By making your Amazon purchases from our site, we will receive from Amazon a small percentage of your purchase and it doesn’t cost you any more. We’d really appreciate your help.
Thank you,
Herb & Kathy
One of the great advantages of being in one place for a bit of time (in this case the winter season) is that you get to know the other folks in the park and they quickly become your friends, or in many cases .. your family.
Last week a lot of “the family” took a tour of one of the many local cotton farms – The Caywood Family Farm just east of Casa Grande.
Being that we lived in central Ohio for 30+ years, we were somewhat familiar (but not well versed) in the farming of wheat, soybeans, and corn. This tour provided us with TONS of information about the cotton business. We’ve seen the cotton bales and modules in fields along the road and we’ve become well aware of the cotton transport trucks, but this tour really opened our eyes to the entire process.
Some of the pictures in this post were taken while on the tour, others were taken at fields or at nearby gin, and then a few were pulled off the internet to round out the post.
Nancy Caywood was our tour guide and shared with us that she is the third generation of the Caywood family to farm that property.
Nancy Caywood
Her son Travis is now actually running the farm and Nancy and her helper Al handle the tour operation.
We learned a lot during the 3 hour tour about the cotton farming business and how hard it is to “make it” given the dire water situation here in central Arizona along with all the government regulations on when they can plant, when (and if) they can have water, how they are required to control dust, when they must have the crop out of the ground and so many more “must” and “must not” regulations.
Here are some of the interesting facts we learned;
Water rights are first given to the;
Native Americans then;
City and County Governments then;
Industry then;
lastly to the farmers (if there’s any left)
A typical round “module” of harvested cotton weighs about 5000 pounds
The rectangular modules weigh about 15,000 pounds
The harvest weight will be about 2/3 seed and 1/3 cotton lint
Crops can be planted as early as late March (weather dependent)
Crops MUST be off the field by mid-February (regulation)
Crops generally get picked twice each season before the plant is cut and turned under
Between field preparation, planting, fertilizing, picking, 2nd picking, cutting, tilling, leveling, and other necessary operations the field is crossed by tractor 15 times or more during a typical season
A typical John Deere 4 row picker costs about $650,000 (new)
Central Arizona farmers typically grow either Pima (Egyptian) Cotton or Upland Cotton
The cotton “modules” are trucked to the local cotton gin for cleaning and separating the seed from the cotton lint and packaging to be transported to storage and ultimate sale to textile mills
Cotton or cotton seed is used in; clothing, animal feed, pharmaceutics, explosives, adhesives, oil, toothpaste, currency and hundreds of other applications
95% of the cotton grown in the U.S. is exported to the Pacific Rim (China, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore and others)
Al and Nancy started off the tour with a little homespun music (play the video)We loaded up on two wagons for the farm tour
The cotton seed is planted in the spring after the final frost. The seeds begin to germinate and pop their heads out of the ground about a week later. Cultivating is done to minimize weed and grass growth that would otherwise choke out the cotton plant.
The crops are watered by flood irrigation. The ditches are filled with water from either; on site wells or from canals coming to the area from the Central Arizona Project. The CAP gets it’s water from Lake Mead. Yes, that’s right … central Arizona gets it’s water from Lake Mead (nearly 300 miles north of Phoenix). The opening and closing of the irrigation gates to the fields are controlled by government agencies with hefty fines to the farmers should they be caught abusing their privileges.
Typical Irrigation Ditch (gates controlled by government agencies)
The flower has fallen and the unopened boll is exposed
About 2 months after planting, buds begin to form on the plant & in another 3 weeks or so the blossoms open with pale yellow flowers.
In a few days the petals change color to dark purple. A few days more and the flower withers and falls leaving the BOLL that contains the seeds and moist fibers. Eventually, as the seed matures the BOLL bursts open exposing the fluffy bounty. The cotton now is ready to harvest right after it is sprayed with a defoliant. This allows the leaves to fall thereby producing a cleaner cotton harvest.
Now the boll is open and ready for the picker
Here’s a typical hopper style picker. This two-row picker collects the cotton in the large hopper in the back. When it’s full, the picker then dumps the hopper into a large rectangular Module Builder
This picker holds loose cotton
Here’s Nancy showing us the head of their two-row picker. This picker pulls the cotton out of the plant boll and places it up into a hopper in the back. The loose cotton is then “dumped” out of the picker into a large rectangular cotton module builder that can then be transported to the gin for processing.
Nancy and the Picker Head
Here’s one of the picker heads showing the tall row of spindles (silver horizontal spikes). The spindles are about the size of your baby finger and rotate (very fast) and have little teeth on them that catch and pull the cotton off the plant. At the same time, the vertical shaft that the spindles are attached to is also turning and moving the spindles under a brush to remove the cotton so it can be blown up into the hopper at the rear of the picker
Inside the picker head showing the spindles and brushes.
This shows the doffers that pull the cotton off the spindles so it can be blown up into the hopper
Once the cotton is picked it needs to get to the gin for processing .. right? So the farmer dumps the cotton from the picker into what is called a Module Builder.
The wheels on the Module Builder are mounted on hydraulic rams so that the “box” can be lifted off the ground so it can be towed by the tractor
The module builder is basically a large metal box that is open on the top and bottom, one solid end and a gate on the other end. It is usually hooked to a tractor to not only move it around the field, but also to supply the hydraulic power for the ram to pack the cotton tightly
The inside of the large module builder. Note the large white arm that holds the ram to pack the cotton tightly. The ram is remotely controlled to move from end to end
The walls of the module builder are sloped being wider at the bottom than the top so that the builder can be pulled off the module easily
Here’s a You Tube video I found online that shows how the Module Builder works
After the module is packed, it’s time to pull the builder away and then the transport truck comes to pick up the module and take it to the gin for processing
The wheel hydraulic rams lift the builder, the tractor pulls the builder forward, and the cotton module is left on the ground awaiting transport to the gin
This cotton transport truck drives onto the cotton field, backs up to the end of the packed cotton module, turns on the chain drive track in the floor of the trailer, and backs up …. at the same speed that the chain drive runs. This picks up the module .. one foot at a time .. and neatly deposits it into the truck trailer where it’s then taken to the cotton gin for processing.
One of the large 15,000 lb modules on the feed conveyor into the gin
Close-up of the conveyor system feeding the gin. The blue bin in the front holds the yellow (round) module wrappers to be compacted and sent to plastic recycling
Just some of the modules sitting in the gin lot waiting to be processed.
The newer and larger cotton pickers can produce their own round modules
A newer 6 head cotton picker that makes it’s own round modules
This picker rolls the cotton into round 5000# modules. These larger pickers eliminate the need for a separate (rectangular) module builder
The round modules are dropped in the field by the picker and then a very large fork-lift type of truck goes out and picks them up and sets them onto the flat bed trailer for delivery to the gin.
This picture below shows round modules arriving at the gin and being weighed
Round modules coming from the farm and being weighed at the gin (40,000# est)
Look closely below (right side of picture) and you’ll see the tractor placing the round modules onto the conveyor to head into the gin for processing
Modules being loaded onto a conveyor belt that feeds them into the gin
Trucks loaded with the ginned 500# cotton bales to head to storage (for ultimate sale)
Unfortunately, we can’t go into the gin to see the operation first hand (safety issues), but I found this YouTube video online that explains the process very well. Although this video was done in Australia, the process is very similar if not identical to how it’s done here in Arizona.
An Australian video of the cotton ginning process
The picture below shows the large piles of cotton seed that will be processed further for things like; cottonseed oil, fertilizer, animal feed, soap, glycerin, cosmetics, rubber, and a lot more that we use every day.
Large piles of seed outside the gin. This will be processed further for other products
All in all it was a great day and we thank Nancy Caywood for the very informative tour. Now when we drive throughout Arizona and see all the cotton farms, we’ll have a new appreciation for the crop and the people that work so hard to produce it, especially given the limited water supply.
We’d really appreciate it if you would do us the favor of helping us continue to publish this RV / Travel / Workamping blog. Do you purchase any products from Amazon? If you do, it would be great if you’d use the link in the sidebar or one of the links below to get to Amazon … after that you can change your search. By making your Amazon purchases from our site, we will receive from Amazon a small percentage of your purchase and it doesn’t cost you any more. We’d really appreciate your help.
Thank you,
Herb & Kathy
We took a drive over to Avocado Nursery near Coolidge, AZ – only about 20 minutes or so northeast of our spot at Rover’s Roost RV Park. Kathy had a small Barrel Cactus that she had bought at Kroger in 2016 and it’s been on the dashboard of the coach ever since. She’s re-potted it a couple of times and our daughter Sara had given her others to add to her collection when we were visiting Ohio back in the spring of 2018.
The (now brown) larger spiky cactus turned brown seemingly pretty fast. We weren’t sure if it just got too much sun, was infected by some sort of bug, or was just root-bound.
The Barrel Cactus along with the others seemed to be doing ok, but we decided it might be a good thing to get some larger containers and re-pot them into fresh soil with larger surroundings so they could flourish. We don’t know what we’re doing when it comes to plants and flowers, so that’s why we hit the road — besides, we like road trips – no matter how long or short they might be!
They couldn’t tell us definitively what had caused the one plant to go brown all of a sudden, but they offered to get us some other containers and also do the planting for us. Ordinarily this would be something we’d do ourselves but living on the road in an RV means if we bought a 5# bag of soil, and some gravel for the bottom we’d still have to lay out a tarp at our site (all gravel and concrete) and we’d most certainly have leftover soil and gravel to deal with getting rid of.
It was just so much easier to let them do it for us.
While we were watching and visiting with the ladies doing the re-potting, I took the opportunity to talk with the owner, Phil.
Phil and his wife bought the 10 acre property in 1980, built their home, and began to build the nursery. They were both school teachers (Phil taught vocational agriculture and horticulture for 30+ years) and had the summers off and although the southern Arizona summers can be brutal, these two forged ahead and built their home, the greenhouses, and all the other little buildings on the property, all while building the nursery business at the same time.
Although Phil’s wife passed away a few years ago, he and his 6 employees work 6 days a week to keep this retail garden nursery open along with working at their 300 acre wholesale nursery up near Douglas, Arizona.
Kathy and I walked throughout much of the 10 acre grounds and wanted to share some of what we saw. Here’s a sampling of what we found at this rare find in the desert. And as always, you can click on any photo to see an enlarged view.
Although you don’t see a lot of pretty multi-colored flowers like those of us from the mid-west are so accustomed to, when we look closely we can see the buds and blossoms on the cactus and see the beauty that the desert has to offer.
We’d really appreciate it if you would do us the favor of helping us continue to publish this RV / Travel / Workamping blog. Do you purchase any products from Amazon? If you do, it would be great if you’d use the link in the sidebar or one of the links below to get to Amazon … after that you can change your search. By making your Amazon purchases from our site, we will receive from Amazon a small percentage of your purchase and it doesn’t cost you any more. We’d really appreciate your help.
Thank you,
Herb & Kathy
Entrance to the compound with the Great House in the background. Note the bird nest holes in the cactus on the right.
Throughout the southwest, and specifically Arizona, there are many sites of ruins from early native peoples.
Last week we took a short drive from our winter home at Rover’s Roost RV Park in Casa Grande, Arizona on over to Coolidge where we visited the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument.
The other ruins we’ve visited in Arizona have been home to cliff-dwelling peoples (see this link to our other visits) while this one was home to Sonoran Desert farmers. In the center of the community is the “Great House” and the foundations of other smaller buildings and meeting and work areas surround the larger structure. Further out from the walls of the community were an impressive network of large and small canals for crop irrigation.
The Sonoran people abandoned (for unknown reasons) the area about 1450 A.D. archeologists tell us while the area was first visited by non-native people around 1690.
Here are some pictures of our visit, but you can find more information about the ruins by clicking here.
As always, you can click on any picture to get an enlarged view to see more detail.
The wood beam and metal bar are recent efforts to reinforce the wall to keep it from falling
Thanks for riding along with us.
Take Care of yourselves and our best wishes to you wherever you might be.
We’d really appreciate it if you would do us the favor of helping us continue to publish this RV / Travel / Workamping blog. Do you purchase any products from Amazon? If you do, it would be great if you’d use the link in the sidebar or one of the links below to get to Amazon … after that you can change your search. By making your Amazon purchases from our site, we will receive from Amazon a small percentage of your purchase and it doesn’t cost you any more. We’d really appreciate your help.
Thank you,
Herb & Kathy
We were through this area a couple years ago and stayed at the Escapees “North Ranch” RV Park at Lakewood, NM and took the opportunity to visit Carlsbad Caverns, but our schedule at that time didn’t allow for a trip to Roswell.
So this time (after ABQ Balloon Fiesta and RV rallies at Wellington and Brownwood, TX) we decided to take in Roswell and it’s surroundings for a couple of days.
We “dry camped” just about 12 miles due east of Roswell at Bottomless Lakes State Park. Dry camping means there are no hook-ups for electricity or water (fresh or waste). We bring along our own electricity and water so dry camping for a week or so is not a problem for us.
Our (1st) Dry Camping Spot at Bottomless Lakes State Park
When we pulled in and reviewed the sites available, we decided to camp at “The Devil’s Inkwell”. We backed the coach into a nice wide spot where we could take a walk up the hill and look down into the “inkwell” and over our site to the western setting sun. A beautiful and quiet spot.
Panoramic view of Devils Inkwell and our dry camp spot down below
The “Bottomless Lakes” are really giant sinkholes. There are a number of them in the park ranging from 17′ to about 90′ deep. The water is crystal clear and while some of the water is great for aquatic life, some of the other lakes are too high in saline (salt water) for anything to live there.
After our first night there, we moved our rig from Devil’s Inkwell over to Lea Lake Day Use area. This gave us a great view of the lake and although there were other campers in the area, no one was closer than a couple hundred feet.
Here’s our spot right at the edge of Lea Lake
This is a view from the park road up atop the lake. Our rig is on the right side of the picture at about the 2 o’clock position
And of course, who could visit the Roswell area without trying to connect with an alien or two?
These guys welcomed us as we drove into town.
Part of a display the the UFO Museum in town
Spooky – Their eyes followed us wherever we went
Visiting the International UFO Museum
We ended our 2nd evening with a “night out” to the Cattle Baron Restaurant. We split a Teriyaki Kabob and each enjoyed their salad bar. What a great meal!
My FIRST trip to the salad bar! – Not good for my “Low Carb” diet but you just gotta splurge sometimes!
We could’ve just driven on westward toward our final destination, but being this close we figured we just had to stop and see the sights at Roswell. It was worth the time to see not just the alien novelties, but the park was beautiful and restful.
We’d really appreciate it if you would do us the favor of helping us continue to publish this RV / Travel / Workamping blog. Do you purchase any products from Amazon? If you do, it would be great if you’d use the link in the sidebar or one of the links below to get to Amazon … after that you can change your search. By making your Amazon purchases from our site, we will receive from Amazon a small percentage of your purchase and it doesn’t cost you any more. We’d really appreciate your help.
Thank you,
Herb & Kathy
UPDATE: It’s October 30th, 2018. We left Albuquerque on Oct 9th, attended the RV Nomads Rally in Wellington, TX followed by the Texas Country Air(stream) Rally in Brownwood, TX then to Lake Colorado City State Park (TX) and now we are at Bottomless Lake State Park at Roswell, NM for a couple nights. We are on our way to our winter home at Rover’s Roost RV Park (Casa Grande, AZ)
We just crossed the two year mark as full-time RV’ers. We’ve sold our Sticks n Bricks house in Ohio and lived virtually rent-free by Workamping our way around the country.
As Workampers, we stay at RV parks, campgrounds, and other places for free in exchange for (generally) about 12-20 hours per week working at the park or campground.
Very often parks and campgrounds want to bring on Workampers for the entire season .. usually 5 or 6 month stints.
We started the full-time RV lifestyle to see the country and soon realized that if we only move twice a year … or go back to the same place twice … then we’ll be about 130 years old by the time we see all the places we want to go!
As a result, we’ve been looking for shorter term gigs. That’s how we came to volunteer at Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta (AIBF). We met our new good friends Matt and Sherry last winter at the Escapees RV Club “Rainbows End” park in Livingston, TX while we were all Workamping there.
Matt & Sherry Hylbom “Get Out The Map”
Matt and Sherry shared with us their experiences the previous fall working at the AIBF and it sounded exciting to us, so we reached out to the contact they gave us and here we are!
We arrived a full 3 weeks before the start of Fiesta, and we spent that time; chalking boundaries of all the 1600 RV parking spaces, stringing flag lines around the perimeter lines of each of the 40 or so parking areas, setting up the volunteer break tent with tables, chairs, fridge and freezer, and getting the check-in booth all ready to greet and register the soon- to-be arriving RV’ers.
Early on, before the show begins … stormy weather can be seen obscuring the Sandia Mountains – See the rainbow just over the bed of the pickup?
Of the 1600 spaces, about 400 had water and 30 amp electric. Electricians ran all the electric, but volunteers ran all the water lines
As one of the 1100 Navigators (Volunteers), we both got these snappy jackets!
Most of the south lot is dirt, some gravel and even some old asphalt. Dusty week for sure with all those rigs coming and going!
And then the fun begins!
Kathy worked 6 hour shifts at the check-in booth as RV’s pulled in to the lot (room for 1600 rigs). There are 3 windows at the booth so she worked with two other ladies each shift. They checked in the arrivals and gave them their parking passes and each rig also received a “goody bag” with some small gifts and lots of printed information about the event and the grounds.
The Check-In booth where Kathy and the other ladies worked
My primary responsibility was to stand at the head of the line and greet RV’ers pulling up, ask them to check-in at the booth, and then once they had their parking credentials, point them in the direction of a “parker” driving a golf cart who would then take them to their spot.
Pix published in the Albuquerque Journal
Our work day started at 7:30 am when we all met in the volunteer tent and had a short meeting about what size crowd we could expect that day. Since everyone had reservations, we knew what groups were coming in and which ones were leaving on any given day.
Although some stayed for the entire 10 day event, many came just for one or the other of the weekends.
Rigs would be lined up in the drive from the night before and we parked all day until closing at 7:00 pm. Any arrivals after that time dry camped in the entrance drive until the next morning.
Although we worked a LOT of hours during the 10 day Fiesta, we did have an opportunity (3 times) to take the shuttle bus across Alameda Avenue to the launch field to see the balloons. We went once in the morning to see the daily “Mass Ascension” and twice in the evening to see the “Glowdeo”. It was also great to be able to see the balloons land right in our RV parking lot occasionally!
Here’s a slide show of some of the pictures I took. If you want to see ALL of the pictures, then go ahead and follow this link to a Google Photo Album I put together.
A pancake breakfast for the volunteers
Kathy and me in front of the Balloon Museum
Inside view of the Balloon Museum
Our 450 hp 6 cyl diesel power generator for the volunteers
The “Poop Team” working with the pump truck to drain our waste tanks (twice weekly)
Our new friends Ron and Judy (from MO)
Our new friends Bill & Sam (from WI)
One of our dinners out with friends
Just thought this was a great shot!
We say all sorts of rigs come in
This one’s for sale ($40k)
NASA’s entry
Riding the shuttle bus to the launch field
My mother had this car (64 Comet Caliente) only hers was dark purple)
More Balloons
Karmann Ghia (VW) also for sale
Balloons at Mass Ascension
Early morning Mass Ascension
Vincent Van Gogh
More Balloons
Even more balloons
Our fearless leader Mike (also known as Pablo) and one of our hard working volunteer buddies Dieter
The nightime Glowdeo
Another meal with friends
Our leader Mike (Pablo) and his wife Mairiene
All in all, it was a great event and a once in a lifetime experience. Kathy and I spent just about a month from mid-September to mid-October and although we worked long hours many days, it was great making new friends, seeing new sights, tasting new/different foods, and being part of the AIBF experience.
They always need volunteers (Navigators) and if you think you would like to volunteer and in turn receive; free RV site, free utilities, free food, tickets to all events, and a really nice jacket … then early in the year, go to this link. Don’t be discouraged if the web site still shows last years info, just wait a few weeks and try again. In 2018 the volunteer web application didn’t start until May.
There you can fill out the application. They need about 1100 volunteers to make this event work. Some volunteers are golf cart shuttle drivers, some are guest info folks, some work on the launch field, and a host of other volunteer positions are available. If you have an RV and you know you want to be a “parker” then indicate that on the application. They need and should have about 35-50 volunteer parkers.
Although we had a great time, we won’t be going back. Kathy and I made the decision to live the full-time RV lifestyle so that we could “see the country” and we’re working toward that goal. If we go back to the same place twice, it’s just gonna take that much longer to see all that there is to see … and there’s a LOT out there!
We’d really appreciate it if you would do us the favor of helping us continue to publish this RV / Travel / Workamping blog. Do you purchase any products from Amazon? If you do, it would be great if you’d use the link in the sidebar or one of the links below to get to Amazon … after that you can change your search. By making your Amazon purchases from our site, we will receive from Amazon a small percentage of your purchase and it doesn’t cost you any more. We’d really appreciate your help.
Thank you,
Herb & Kathy
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