On February 24th we arrived in Hope, Arizona, about 35 miles east of Quartzsite at the junction of highways 60 and 72. Hope is a thriving community with a service station/mini-mart, an antique shop, a water storage tank, three or four houses and a RV Park. And that's it. No post office. No Wal Mart and no MacDonalds. (see a panoramic view of Hope, AZ)

The RV sites at Ramblin Roads are a bit larger than other parks and the water is great. There is a par 4 desert golf course with outdoor carpet for tees and greens and a jam session every Tuesday evening. Many other activities go on... potlucks, ice cream socials, line dancing, quilting, Saturday morning breakfasts, etc. ... but we seem to have settled into a "late breakfast/early dinner" sort of a pattern which is not compatible with a lot of group functions. We did the weekly jam sessions and we sold a few wood carvings at the craft show the park had one Saturday.

The weather was chilly-to-cold at night and the sun was warm, but the wind was cool during the day. We even had some 'heavy' rain one day. Steve says when they put out a storm warning around here it means it might rain. This past week the wind has died down and the sun has been shining... the kind of weather we come to Arizona for. The desert is blooming and much greener than we have ever seen it. There are flowerbeds around the park that have beautiful orange and yellow flowers in full bloom and the creosote plants are covered with tiny yellow flowers.

Shilrley and Bill Randolph from Yuba City stay here in the winter and we have had a good time visiting and golfing with them. We have taken a couple of trips in the vicinity. One was to the Parker Strip to stop at Castle Rock Shores where we stayed last year. We went to visit with Gloria and Tom Snell and Dale and Avis Gant. We also got to see Marla, who runs the office. The day we went to visit Tom and Gloria they came over here to visit us! They got back in time and we had a nice visit.

While in that area we drove around the Parker Strip and across Parker Dam. In Parker we got some groceries at the Safeway store, then headed home. We stopped at the Bouse World War II Memorial along highway 72 to check out the army tanks and information that is posted about them.

One day we took a ride to Alamo Lake. It's a great ride through desert lands if you enjoy them. Alamo Lake is a good sized reservoir about 30 miles north of Highway 60 at Wenden, AZ. It is the headwaters for Bill Williams River that flows into Lake Havasu. It's a nice big lake but hasn't much to offer in shade trees. Bird watchers might enjoy the cottonwoods that are there because I spied a nest with a great blue heron guarding it. A state park has campgrounds for RVs there but you would need to take all the supplies you wanted for your stay because it is so remote. There is a small convenience store there for the basics. If you're looking for solitude... Alamo Lake is the place!

Another trip we took was to Phoenix to visit Betty and Everett Emmons who were staying in a RV park for a couple of weeks. It was a nice trip and we had a nice visit but I don't think I ever need to see Phoenix again. It's just another big city with shopping center after shopping center. I'm sure it has it's charm and it's quaint places but there is too much traffic to fight to find them. Betty and Everett moved from Phoenix to Lake Havasu City and passed the 72/60 junction just across the road from the park we're in. At the time it was pouring down rain and they didn't want to stop but I could see the top of their rig and the air conditioner as they made the turn onto 72. Betty had called and we were talking on cell phones at the time!

Our really big trip for this location was into the mountains to check out the SKP park near Congress, the Thousands Trails park near Cottonwood and to go up to Prescott, Jerome and Sedona. It was great to get to see those places. We would have liked to go on to Flagstaff, but it was getting late and we needed to head home (and it was snowing there!). The entire trip was about 380 miles and a lot of it was on switchback, twisty mountain roads with incredible views.

Jerome... a little town that is stuck on the side of the mountain... has switchback streets lined with antique, second-hand, and souvenir shops and small cafes and saloons and some bed and breakfast type places... if you think you could sleep in a rickety old house stuck on the side of a mountain! But it's really something to see. And going down the mountainside after departing Jerome you can look out across an enormous valley to the beautiful rock formations of Oak Creek Canyon. Sedona defines 'southwest' to a T. It's hard to imagine you could ever get tired of looking at the adobe buildings backed by the beauty of the canyon. The rest of the trip was anti-climatic to be sure.

One day we were visited here in the park by David and Susan Franklin from Travelhome Park in Yuba City. They had been on a grand vacation to Florida and the Keys .... and the RV stores!!! They were traveling in their brand new Allegro coach with vinyl graphics on the sides that change colors depending on how the light hits them!

The month flew by. We spent some time writing stories for the RV Companion and did some woodcarving and Fran golfed a bunch... and then it was time to leave. We pulled out Sunday morning, February 25, and head for a few days in Yuma before going back to California. Once you leave here they say you are "beyond Hope!"