Wintering in AZ

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Smoky

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Terry:

I agree with you completely.

I spent quite a but of time at it yesterday.  Spraying on Simple Green on the windshield helped a tad, but plain water was almost as good. The best tool was a sponge that had a hard nylon net around it.  That nylon net acted as a scraper.  I also have a squeegee on a stick combined with a hard nylon wrapped sponge to reach the high ends.  Scrub Scrub Scrub every day while the bugs are fresh.  That beats any other approach.  Bah on the chemicals.  Water rules.

Do you have a winter spot in Yuma.  I keep hearing nice things about Yuma.  We are looking for a reasonably priced either annual or winter months place we can nail down each year.  We have lots of recommendations all over AZ, but now the chore of actually finding one begins.  We will be going into AZ with no reservations at all.  We do not plan to leave AZ until March or April.  It is kind of exciting not knowing where we will end up.  Love to find a year round deal like Ron the Satellite Man has.  ;D
 
There are a lot of places that offer similar deals as we have.  Seems the closer you get to the big city Phoenix, Tucson the higher the cost.
I think the BLM land is around a $100.00 a season maybe a little more.
 
Smoky

>>Do you have a winter spot in Yuma.<<

We bought two lots a couple of years ago...glad we did as they have doubled in price.<G> We are going to build a small home with a motorhome garage on one & keep the other as an investment.? Yuma doesn't have as many amenities as Phoenix or Tucson? but it is MUCH less crowed(at least for now) and very RV friendly.

Terry
At Yuma, AZ
 
Terry:

How are the golf courses there?  Any fishing?  Know any places that have Internet dish exposure with openings for annual or seasonal rates?
 
Smoky said:
Terry:

How are the golf courses there?? Any fishing?? Know any places that have Internet dish exposure with openings for annual or seasonal rates?

There is a golf course not far from Terry and Betty.  Not being a golfer we have never stopped there.
 
Smoky said:
How are the golf courses there?? Any fishing?? Know any places that have Internet dish exposure with openings for annual or seasonal rates?

Smokey,

There are lots of golf courses in and about the Yuma area. The phone book lists 10 local golf courses.Though we do not golf, our friends George and Pam golf with some regularity and play a variety of courses. George golfs with a league over the hill in Welton.  There are also  many many RV parks in the Yuma area with friendly dish exposure(no trees) You can go the Yuma Chamber of commerce web site for  names of all parks. www.yumachamber.org You can also go the the  Yuma Sun newspaper's site www.YumaSun.com and read the classified ads to see who is advertising park availability.  Or I think the best bet is to  come to Yuma planning to stay for a week or so and take a look around for yourself.  That's what we did and wound up buying  property.  We love the desert.  I know you want a park with activity but we like it quiet so activities did not matter to us.  We do however go a couple of times a week to another park as we got hooked on bingo.  I joined the YMCA and do water aerobics.

Happy hunting,
Betty Brewer
 
Smoky:

I'll check with you at QZ on your research - we will probably be heading to Yuma about the time we leave there.
 
Finding "just the right park" is turning out to be a daunting task.  We arrived last night at Publo El Mirage resort and do not like it.  Our coach sits in a muddy field with full hookups and a small concrete pad outside the coach door.  Plenty of clear sky for our dishes, and we are 50 yards from one of the golf fairways.  But the golf course is owned by a different company and they are closed for re-seeding and we cannot find out if there are any package prices.  The park office is also closed so we have no where to go with our questions, or to look for a spot that is not muddy.

Looks to me like this place started out as a ParkHome resort and is now trying to add RVs.  Today we are getting in the car and looking for outher campgrounds (or RV Resorts as they call them down here  ;D).  I thought our troubles were over after our 2 year research on coaches.
 
Be sure to take a look at Happy Trails. 17200 W Bell Rd,Surprise AZ 85374. I'll be there by about 16 Oct and will be pleased to show you around.
 
Smoky said:
Finding "just the right park" is turning out to be a daunting task.  We arrived last night at Publo El Mirage resort and do not like it.  Our coach sits in a muddy field with full hookups and a small concrete pad outside the coach door.  Plenty of clear sky for our dishes, and we are 50 yards from one of the golf fairways. 

Smoky

How can you find mud in AZ at this time of year ;D ;D  Don't know how you found Pueblo El Mirage, but I wouldn't have recommended it. You are in a good location, about halfway between Happy Trails and where we live. I used to store my coach just down the road from there. There are some very nice "resort" and other parks in the vicinity; try Sunflower or Cotton Wood down by me. Happy Trails is the nicest but it is a condo rental, so prices may be higher (with a lot of amenities to go along with it) and terms may be shorter.
 
Smoky

You may find a number of golf courses closed for reseeding at this time of the year since they put in a different kind of grass for the winter months in the southwest.  When we lived in the Palm Springs, CA area they did this every fall and spring.  Spring isn't to bad because they let the winter grass die off and the summer grass come back but in the fall they scalp the summer grass off and reseed the winter grass so if you have allergies it is not a good time to be there.  We stayed at Pueblo El Mirage for one season and it was ok but we don't play golf or do any of the other the other things they offer so have stayed at a number of other parks in the area.  Cotten Wood is nice and Happy Trails is very nice with a golf course.  We have stayed at HT's for two months for the last two years and really like it and Russ can tell you all about it and take you around since he has a lot there.
 
Hi Smoky:

>> Know any places that have Internet dish exposure with openings for annual or seasonal rates?
====
You may want to check out the new Desert Palms Golf and RV Resort in Salome, AZ. Parts of the park are still under construction -- however, I know they have at least 380 sites that they are renting as we speak. They have a 9 hole golf course plus a regular size course is also on the map and under construction. One can rent or purchase a lot on either -- I think. The annual rate for an RV site is around $1,300.? The property values in that area are going up constantly -- in that developers have already purchased all of the available surrounding acreage. Property values in QZ have doubled in the past two years as well.

The reason I know of this park is the new park owner has wisely? ;) selected my software as a reservation system. I had planned to be on site this month but the gas prices have caused me to wait a bit. I do plan to be there by at least the 1st week in January to train and assist with the SW as needed.

They are on highway 60 a few miles east of Brenda in the town of Salome. Here's their web page:

http://www.desertpalmsrv.com
 
Bernie:

The mud came from a fire hose that ran right down the pike through the back end of lots on my line to provide water for the golf course reseeeding program.

things are looking better here.  We found out that since we arrived on the weekend, there was no staff to greet us.  The staff does not work weekends until November.  So instead of getting a nice lot that would befit an annual contract, the security guys working the weekend led us to a new unfinished area of the park that is usually given to one or two day transients.  The activity director knocked on our door this morning, we had a wonderful chat and all will be straightened out Monday morning.

What threw me was our own ignorance of the snowbird life.  We thought things would be in full swing in October and did not realize that things do not really heat up until November.  Thus we thought we had landed on a dead moon when we came in dead tired Friday evening.

The facilities here are gorgeous and the golf course is a Fuzzy Zoeller championship course.  We walked around all day yesterday and were VERY impressed.  If they upgrade our location on Monday we will have found a winter home.  We have looked at 4 other parks this weekend, going all the way down to Tucson and so far we still like this the best.  We are going to check out Yuma later this week and also the ones suggested here in this thread.

And oh yes, the toad mileage is now catching up to the rig mileage.  ;D
 
Russ:

Just talked with The Admiral (Sharon) and we would love to have you show us around Happy Trails.  Besides, it would be great to finally get a chance to meet you in person.  :D

I just looked at their web site and it appears to be a different kind of operation than what we have been looking at.  So far we have restricted our searches to places offering seasonal or annual rentals from a park operator.  But looking at the Happy Trails web site it appears rentals are not handled by a park owner, but by each individual.  This suggests that maybe the parcels were originally sold?

Also it was hard to find answers to policy questions like policies on pets.  Though we were able to discern that community members must be 55 or older.

At any rate, Sharon flies back to Baltimore on October 15, thus it would have to be November 1 or later before we could come to visit.  Likely we will have our place nailed down for this year, but we will always be looking to move to a better spot if we find one.  Let us know if you are available in November and we will make plans to come and check out Happy Trails..
 

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