February’s “windshield view” for 2022 was taken from our little piece of the Arizona desert at the Boyce Thompson Arboretum near Superior AZ, on February 24th 2022, it was the morning after a winter storm that brought snow to the surrounding mountain tops, I walked out in front of the coach to get this photo, trying to avoid the power wire that is draped across in front of our coach. The snow had melted off the foliage already, but was beautiful on the mountains as lit by this mornings sunshine.
This month found us still volunteering at the arboretum in Superior, while enjoying the Arizona sunshine, and as much as the winter storm on the last Wednesday of the month was a strong reminder that we are still in winter season, the rest of the month has been showing us that spring is already here in so many ways. The photos of both have their own beauty and will be another set of great memories of our nomadic lifestyle allowing us to experience what mother nature has to offer.
February will go down in history as the month that Russia declared war on Ukraine for no reason other than, it was a dictators whim, he can say it was because he was living in fear, but the reality is he did it because he could. This is also the month that most American States decided that the Covid-19 pandemic was over, even although here in Arizona more than a hundred people a day still die from Covid, but there is an election this year so the pandemic has to be over. It is also the month that the far right held Ottawa hostage hidden behind a few unvaccinated truckers calling for the end of vaccine mandates that have saved thousands of Canadian lives. It is also the month that the government decided to end the blockades by impounding vehicles and arresting the organizers, which drove the wedge deeper between the left and the right.
In Ontario the Premier of Ontario has started his pre-election give a ways, so far he has eliminated our annual license plate renewal fee of $120 per vehicle, he also eliminated tolls on some new highways, as well as removed many pandemic mandates. Its is always fun when there is any Canadian election, as the party in power spends like drunken sailors, with no regard for the future cost.
Inflation has been on a year long steady rise and with the a wack-job leader in Russia declaring war it will just add to that situation, and I fear we could be getting close to some goof in power pushing a button that could have devastating effects, as the world seems to be dividing up into different camps and a world war doesn’t seem impossible to me anymore. It’s February and as I listen to the political divide here in the States increase, as the talking heads are already telling of near warlike situations along the Mexican border, just to try to fuel their already failing political campaigns. The only issues at the border, just become political fodder, to keep the talking heads talking, and weaving such lies that they are destroying their own border town because of their spinning lies, sad but true.
While all this has been happening we have been living our best life possible, here at Arizona’s best kept secret, we have added to our RV family with, some of the people we are working with, and many that have changed our lives for the better, and I hope will be part of our future plans, as we move forward.
February’s “windshield view” for 2021 was taken on the 13th of February at 11:57, looking west from our new site @ LHR. It was a Saturday morning and I had to walk in from the road, the temperature was -10 degrees on the dash of the SportTrac and was confirmed by a similar reading inside of the coach. I have been making a trip to the coach every few weeks to confirm that the solar is keeping the batteries fully charged and was pleased today to see that they were 100% charged again. There were a few coyote tracks on my walk through the park but not much else with the cold snap driving most creatures into some form of hibernation.
February finds us snowed in on Picton Street in Goderich, now February in Goderich has had some excitement. We have had a runaway train that destroyed a building after hitting a transport on its way to derail at the end of the railway line next to the harbour. Huron has moved to the “orange” level when we emerged from the “stay at home” order which has meant that we can now enjoy a meal at a restaurant with two of our closest friends. The continual snow storms had blocked the road into the coach at LHR, and the extreme cold temperatures have made the trek into the campground more of an endurance test. But during the last week of February the need for a propane delivery had forced the plowing of one track into the park allowing me to get some great footage of the beach area and extending my practice with drone flight. Some milder days and the longer days with the sun higher in the sky have seen the snow settle quite a bit. Miss Laurie has completed another month at the blue sign store, I have spent the another month reading, and Mr. Sam has pretty much taken over total control of my editing time by standing or sitting on my keyboard. So recent editing has been confined to Mr. Sam’s nap times that while are quite often are also totally unpredictable.
February 2020: Found us at LaPosa West LTVA which we have visited a number of times, mainly because of its closeness to the Big Tent RV show held in late January. We were still at LaPosa West because I was adding a couple more solar panels onto the coach roof as well as having some solar charging issues because of a voltage drop across our resettable fuses. We also took day trips with Bob and Shari to Yuma to have lunch and visit with Francine and Gilles, as well as a trip west into California to the Glamis sand dunes and Cibola National Wildlife Refuge on the Colorado river on the California / Arizona border. After dumping our tanks and reloading with water we ventured a little further north to one of my favorite BLM dispersed camping areas Plamosa Road where we made a trip to the “Desert Bar” and visited with Ray from “Love your RV” another fulltiming Canadian who was also out at Plamosa Road. By the 11th of February we were heading back toward the bright lights of Las Vegas. Las Vegas has a lot of different spots to stay in the area from the extravagant RV resorts to boondocking areas out near Lake Mead. We chose a campground at Arizona Charlies which is located at a good sized Casino on Boulder Highway, we chose it because we could get an inexpensive month long stay which gave us a place to leave the coach while we stayed at our time share with friends and also a place to remove the kayaks and bikes from the SportTrac so we could take advantage of the valet parking at the Timeshare. As silly as this may sound even though we are full time RVer’s we still need some vacation time and we use our timeshares for this purpose, whether its pool time, beach time, casino time, show time its just good to be able to enjoy a little actual vacation time. After our week in our timeshare condo we found ourselves taking in the sights around Las Vegas. The coronavirus was just making its presence known although everything was still open, buffets and all, this was the time during which Trump was still calling it a democratic hoax.
February 2019: Will seem very laid back as compared to our adventures of 2018, and similar to January 2018 we were still at Oak Grove RV Resort in LaBelle Florida for our four month winter stay. Totally different than our normal nomadic lifestyle being settled into one location left us heading out of the resort on many day trips to the beaches, or shopping, or on kayaking adventures. We continued to enjoy the park amenities like the pool, pickle ball, bingo, and other events offered during the month. I was playing golf weekly with others from the park, but the highlight of this park was the wonderful people we met during our stay. We truly made life long friends which developed during our season at Oak Grove RV Resort.
February 2018: Found us leaving the Arizona desert and heading for the bright lights of the casinos in Nevada as we spent a couple of nights at the Pioneer Casino in Laughlin Nevada on the Colorado river. The Pioneer casino offered seven days of free lot-docking for just the price of signing up for a “players card” and as a bonus they throw in a few bucks of “free play” on the slots which we were able to promptly donate back to the casino in just a few moments. There are a number of casinos in the area, all with frontage on the Colorado river and have formed a beautiful river walk between casinos as well as a water taxi system on the river to move people around. Las Vegas was our next stop at a full hook-up campground just a couple of blocks south of the famous Las Vegas strip at Oasis Las Vegas RV Resort. Miss Laurie had a Scentsy meeting in Vegas and it was Super Bowl weekend so we found ourselves so busy we did not get a chance to enjoy the park as we should have. From the bright lights of Las Vegas we headed back to Arizona and one of our favorite boondocking spots Craggy wash located just north of Lake Havasu on AZ-95 where we settled in for 10 days of off grid camping, Craggy is a BLM area so free camping for up to 14 days. But after 10days in the desert we headed south to meet up with Bob & Shari at their winter campground in Ehrenberg AZ at the River Breeze RV Resort, back to full hook-ups and a week of hard partying to celebrate Bob’s birthday, warm weather, a little golf, and pretty much any other excuse to have a adult beverage. After a week we headed further south to Quechan Casino in Winter Haven California for a couple of days of lot-docking and a side trip to Mexico to purchase some glasses and prescription drugs that are all available over the counter in Mexico. And we finished off February in Yuma Arizona at Fortuna de Oro RV Resort, this was a free camping spot that Miss Laurie scored while attending the Quartzsite RV show in January, this was a huge campground with multiple pools and activities, our experience was not good although it had nothing to do with the park, it was because of a whole crew of drunken senior idiots on golf carts crashing into things like our brand new satellite receiver. The stay there just left a bit of bad taste for the park although it was most likely a nice park if you picked the correct area to stay.
The Buchanan's Rolling Down The Road 