Saskia and Richard's RVing Adventures

So we picked up our new fifth wheel from the dealer, with some issues fixed and some still to be rectified in July, (when we will be back at Indian Skies RV Resort for a month). After a quick load of essentials and some creative packing, we headed out on our 2 week road-trip which would get us to Idaho in time for our next camp-hosting job. Our first stop heading generally in a northerly direction, was at Tonto National Monument. We have a lifetime pass for National Parks (including National Monuments) in the USA, so any visit to either is free of charge. I have previously written about our visits to sites of the Ancient Ones , and I wanted to see how their culture differed to that of the Salado people who settled in pit houses and cliff dwellings in the Tonto Basin area of Arizona at about the same time as the Ancient Puebloan people. Of the two hundred once thriving communities in this area, we visited only one. Combining a three mile round trip hike with a guid...

It's HOT, and we are ready to leave Indian Skies. Record breaking spring temperatures here in Coolidge have finally forced us to switch on the air-conditioning. Easter called many of our seasonal residents home to reunite with their families in Canada and the northern US states of Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, though the weather there is still very wintry. The last two weeks has seen many more leaving. We had planned to travel as soon as our new fifth wheel was ready, and do some sight-seeing before arriving in Idaho at the beginning of May. But we encountered a few hitches. After picking up our new Sabre 5 th wheel in El Paso on 28 th March, and having it inspected for Texas license plates, we had a couple of nights to check it out. They say that you rarely get a new 5 th wheel that is in pristine condition – and we were advised to do a thorough check just to be sure that everything worked. Luckily some of the issues we found during those first few days where...

Since hunkering down to our work-camping commitment here at Indian Skies RV Resort, time just seems to have flown by. We have been super busy, not just working but in our personal lives too. Oh yes, there have been plentiful occasions for dining, karaokeing, dancing, making new friends, catching up with friends we have acquired during our travels, and happy-houring with our fellow resort residents. Living in a 55+ resort allows little time for rest, or blogging! In between all this social activity (and some sickness), Richard and I added to our extra-curricular workload by buying a park model in the Resort. We intend this being our base for the foreseeable future. From now on, we will be part time RVers only – a significant life change. Of course, we still intend to travel in the summer months, but no longer need as big a travel trailer as the 38 foot long 5 th wheel Sundance we lovingly nicknamed the Jet, in which we began our full time RVing life three years ag...

It seems incredible another year is coming to a close and we will be beginning our 4 th year in the USA – still on wheels, but almost on terra firma... We began 2017 in Coolidge, at Indian Skies RV Resort, in Arizona, in a 55+ RV community (that means the residents have to be over 55 to stay here). It was here we experienced our first taste of work-camping. We started helping the managers in the office, working 10 hours each a week, for the compensation of a free rental site. It was our first experience of a snowbird winter resort and we loved the place so much we decided we would come back this winter. In January, Richard and I flew to Scotland and I became a celebrity for 10 days. I appeared on Scottish TV and even on a BBC Scotland Radio talk show; visited a prison, several high schools, a school for the mentally and physically challenged, several highbrow venues in the Glasgow and Edinburgh area; and met with the Scottish Minister of Education, all due to my role as...

Tucson is a rather lovely city. It nestles at the bottom of Mount Lemmon, and between two sections of the Sonoran Desert that hosts the multi armed cacti known as Saguaro. You know, those cacti you first saw in old westerns, a great many of which were filmed in Tuscson. You might find it fun to check out the numbers of films that were shot in Arizona over the years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_shot_in_Arizona Saguaro cacti only grow in this part of the Sonoran Desert between Phoenix and in the vicinity of Tucson, where a National Park was set up to protect the species. It is an extremely slow growing cactus, with the arms appearing when it is between 50 and 70 years old. They can live as long as 200 years, and grow up to 60 ft (18 m). We simply had to visit the NP on the east side of Tucson (there is one on the west side also, but this one was nearest) and take a better look. There is a loop drive through, but we decided to get up close and personal and did ...

October 15 th was the day we finished our six month stint as camp-hosts in Elk Pines RV Resort. It was sad to say goodbye, but we know we will keep in touch with those residents we can count as friends. However, at the same time, Richard and I were ready to move on and get back on the road. We weren't sure if we needed to go back to Texas to re-register our trusty truck, Benny, or our fifth-wheel trailer, the Jet, but it seems Texas law has changed and there is no physical need to take them a thousand miles to a Texas garage for certification. Online registration is enough, which just shows that the internet has more uses than simply keeping in touch with family and old and new friends.  So that meant we had two weeks to see a little more of southern Arizona.  We were due to begin our next work-camping position on 1st November in Indian Skies RV Resort, Coolidge, where we spent last winter. It looks like life as part-time camp-hosts suits us.   We d...