McDowell Mountain Regional Park, Fountain Hills, AZ

This morning we moved 32 miles northwest to McDowell Mtn. Regional Park, another Maricopa County park. We will now be 10 miles closer to Jim’s dentist in Scottsdale. This is another beautiful desert park, and most of the sites are even larger than the ones at Usery Mtn. So far we are very impressed with the county park system around Phoenix, although they aren’t cheap, $25/night with water and electric.

I dropped our camera last night and unfortunately it broke the lens so it went in the trash. Jim is still blaming all these things on his breaking that mirror a couple months ago. Luckily Debbie is still traveling with us and never uses her camera, so we are borrowing hers until we decide on a replacement.

We arrived here around 10 this morning, knowing that we needed to get here early to try to get a site. There was only one available but the host told us to both go to the site, and if we wanted, we could both stay at the same site since it was so large.  Or one of us could take the next site if someone else left. We just decided to stay at the same one, since we have great views , we aren’t that close, and it is a long way to our neighbors. In fact I don’t think we’ve ever seen such huge campsites in a developed campground anywhere. The only irritating thing is that they charged each of us the $25/night, although since they have 30 and 50 amp outlets, sharing the power box isn’t a problem.

We’ve had 2 cold, rainy days, but that is changing and the 7o’s are back in the forecast.  We did spend some time at Usery Mtn visiting with Chris and Pat Horst,  Lazy Daze owners from Denver who we had never met before. They are a very nice couple and we are still surprised at how many nice folks we’ve met just because we own a Lazy Daze.!

This looks like a really nice area, although there aren’t as many Saguaro cactus and chollas as there were at Usery Mtn. There are over 50 miles of trails here, so we will keep busy. We’ve seen a bunch of jackrabbits hopping around, and we love the wide open spaces. And Jim’s tooth is much better, so life is pretty good.

Pass Mountain Trail, Usery Park, AZ

Jim’s tooth felt better yesterday and so did my ankle, so we took the 7 mile Pass Mountain hike through the Sonoran desert. It was in the mid 70’s and partly cloudy, a perfect day for a hike. The brochure recommended taking the loop clockwise since it was a more gradual climb, but we decided to go the other way because we would rather climb up the steeper way and come down the more gradual way. It’s much easier on the old knees and less chance of falling. It wasn’t a horrible climb but there were some steep, rocky areas that would have been tricky to get down, so we were glad we did it that way.

The trail doesn’t go to the summit of Pass Mountain, but circles it.  After about three miles of hiking we reached the pass, which afforded beautiful views of the surrounding mountains. The desert is so green this year due to all the rain but we heard that when it all dries up in the summer, the wildfire risk will be greater.

  Today it’s been raining with thunderstorms, so we spent the day piddling around. The rain slacked up later this  afternoon  and we went in to Camping World and a used book store in Mesa. It was 6 o’clock when we got done, so we routed the GPS to Oregano’s Pizza Bistro for dinner, a place we’ve been wanting to try but  haven’t been able to with Jim’s tooth pain. Much to our surprise there was an hour and a half wait for a table. Who would have thought it on a rainy Sunday evening? It sure smelled good in there but we left with no pizza. May try them another day for a late lunch or really early dinner. 

He Might Just Make It

Jim is feeling better today, although he wasn’t too happy when we drove 30 miles to the dentist to get the abutment and impression made for the implant tooth, and the part hadn’t arrived. Our cell phone rang while we were in the dentist’s waiting room to tell him UPS didn’t deliver because they thought the office was closed on Fridays. They are closed every other Friday, so I guess they just didn’t even make an attempted delivery. Of course the dentist is off all next week so it will be Monday the 15th before he can go back. Then another week or more to get the crown after that. We will be getting well acquainted with the Phoenix area by the time this is over. We are going to move to another park next week that is only about 18 miles from the dentist in Scottsdale, so that will help. At least his root canal tooth is slowly feeling better.

Walking through the group area yesterday, we came upon the Arizona Chapter of the Tear Jerkers, an RV club for owners of tear drop and other small classic trailers. There were some really interesting looking ones.

We hiked the Vista trail today, and saw lots of beautiful vistas and the Met Life blimp, which went right over our heads.

We are facing the west so we’ve had these pretty sunsets every night. Tonight should be even better since a few clouds rolled in.

And the Tooth Pain Continues

Jim’s tooth flared up yesterday and he spent a miserable day and sleepless night in pain. He finally took some old Darvocet and got a little sleep. Today he called the endodontist, they told him to come in, and was told everything looked good. In a small percentage of patients, there is more pain after the root canal. They upped his antibiotics and gave him a prescription for Vicodin. After taking one earlier today, he is feeling better, or maybe he just doesn’t care that his tooth hurts now!  He is now wishing he just had it pulled, but hopefully it will get better soon.

Oreo isn’t too worried about him, he just loves to lay on the picnic table in the sun and watch all the birds.

More Dental Problems

We moved from the group area into the regular campground at Usery Park on Sunday. The sites are huge with lovely views.

Jim’s tooth started bothering him over the weekend, so he called the endodontist back yesterday morning and they got him in late yesterday afternoon for an emergency root canal. When he had the previous root canal on that tooth the dentist missed a 4th canal, which was infected and causing him the pain. So if this is successful, at least he will save the tooth. It will just be a matter of time to see if it works. He tooth is still sore, and I suspect it will be a few days before he can chew on that side again.

Today he is going to the regular dentist for an evaluation of the implant to see if it is ready for the crown. With no dental insurance, this is getting pretty expensive. Jim keeps threatening to send me back to work to help pay for his treatment, but I think it should be the other way around!  I wonder how much you get for selling plasma these days….

Washer Toss Tournament

Today we played in the First Annual Southwest Lazy Daze Washer Toss Tournament. If anyone is really interested, here is a link to the official rules and how to build the boards. http://tinyurl.com/yladzxu

Jim and I played once before in Death Valley with the Southern California group, and we were hoping we would do better this time. There is both skill and a lot of luck involved, and neither of our teams made it to the finals. Debbie, on the other hand, got lucky to have a partner who was the California champion, and they were the big winners. It was a fun afternoon of laughing and cheering. These are the winners on the podium, and yes, the Olympic theme song was playing in the background.

Tonight after dinner we sat around a big fire and enjoyed a beautiful evening under the full moon. Most of the group is heading out tomorrow but we are planning to stay for awhile. Jim’s dental problems may keep us in the Phoenix area for a few weeks.

Another Day at Usery Mountain

We drove to D & R Family RV in Glendale yesterday and had the propane connector for the catalytic heater installed. They started working on it as soon as we arrived and an hour and a half later we were on our way back to the park. Since Glendale is on the northwest side of Phoenix, and we are staying on the east side, it was an exciting 40 mile drive there at 8 in the morning. The traffic was much better coming back so it wasn’t quite as nerve racking for both driver and passenger. We would recommend D & R if anyone needs RV work done in the Phoenix area. They were prompt, professional, and their prices seemed fair, although the place is not much to look at. We used our new heater a little bit last night, and it was great this morning to take the chill off, although it was already 50 degrees outside when I got up. We managed to set off the carbon monoxide detector today, so we learned that just cracking the kitchen window isn’t quite enough. At least the detector came on before we passed out!

Yesterday afternoon we hiked the Wind Cave trail with Chuck and Carla, a 1.6 mile hike up the mountain. It was a beautiful trail, but I unfortunately twisted my ankle on the climb up. It didn’t feel too bad until we were heading back down, but it is red and swollen today, so I will not be hiking for a couple days. Now I have to convince Jim that it’s okay to go without me.

Some views from the trail. We had a bird’s eye view of the campground and our group area.

Jim, Carla, and Chuck at the cave.  There are lots more trails in the park and I hope my ankle feels better soon so I can get to enjoy them.