RV Park Mini Reviews for February 2018

Destiny Phoenix RV Resort - Goodyear, AZ:  We have stayed here before.  It is just a few miles from where family lives, so it makes it very convenient.  It is a little pricey for nightly or weekly stays, and caters primarily to long term snow birds.  It's a very social place.  I would recommend it for anyone who likes this type of camping.  Next year, we will probably look at one of the county parks.

River Lodge RV Resort - Parker Dam, CA:  We have been scoping this place out for years.  You know how you build things up in your mind, and then the reality hits, and disappointment sinks in.  Yep, well, that's what happened.  Let me be clear.  The place itself is fine.  If you are a golfer, you will love it, because it has a 9 hole course, and it is free with your space rent.  The RV sites are of decent size.  We had excellent satellite reception for Direct TV.  And the weather for the 9 days we were there was wonderful.  Our huge problem is the total lack of cell and wifi service.  That just did not work for us.  We even purchased the park wifi package, but it was slow and sometimes it would not connect at all.  For some people this might be okay, but for us, not so much.  It is a very social group here among the long-term snowbirds.  Everyone one was friendly, but we just did not fit in.  It was too bad, because on the surface, this place ticked off most of our boxes.  The other down size is that it is 12 miles into Parker - if you have a big ass truck that will not fit going over the Parker Dam Road.

Wilderness Lakes Thousand Trails - Menifee, CA:  One of our favorite parks in the Thousand Trails system.  Not sure why exactly.  It is in the middle of some small farms as well as residential areas.  There is close in shopping.  The sites on the 30 amp side are of good size.  There is a 50 amp area with sites a little closer together but not bad.  If we were here in the summer and wanted to run AC units, we might consider that area.  During this visit, we drove around, just exploring the area.  We did take a trip up to the UC-Riverside Botanical gardens, which was a nice half day excursion.  And the highlight was finally catching up with husband's aunt and uncle.  We met for lunch and a stroll on the beach in Oceanside.

Orange Grove RV Park - Bakersfield, CA:  I have read about this park for years, and we finally decided to give it a try.  We left Menifee, CA and came up north on I-215 to I-15, cut off at Hwy 395, over to Hwy 58 and down into Bakersfield.  The park is an easy exit off of 58, and I was surprised given how close we were that there was very little traffic noise.  Check in was quick and easy.  Orange trees by every site.  You are free to pick the oranges and the park even provides the picking tools to reach the ones high up in the tree.  The nightly cost came to about $40 and I thought was a fair price for FHUs, convenience and oranges!  Unfortunately, I failed to take a photo of our site :(

AZ 303 - How Do I Love Thee, Let Me Count The Ways

Well, really there is only one.  No traffic!  We left Destiny Phoenix RV Resort at about 11:15am.  Turned left out of the park, and followed the N. Citrus Avenue detour route a few miles and right on to 303.  If you can tolerate the reduced speeds of 35mph and 45mph in certain spots, the rest of the road is completed and wide open.  I really do not like the traffic (or rather the drivers) in and around Phoenix.  I grew up in Seattle, and traffic itself is not a big deal for me, but the aggressiveness and rudeness and inattention of the people behind the wheel of vehicles drives me nuts.  This was such a nice and easy drive.  It connects right up to I-17 at about the Carefree Highway.  Easy peasy.

The drive up I-17 to Camp Verde wasn't bad.  There are a few portions of that freeway where you are climbing up and traffic gets snarled with slow moving trucks, but all in all, it was good.   We arrived at Thousand Trails Verde Valley about 1:15pm.

If you are not familiar with Thousand Trails parks, you make your reservation ahead of time, but when you arrive at the park, you drive around, pick a spot and then let the office know which spot you chose.  This park is very spread out with 5 sections of camp spots, called A, B, C, H and M.  Why they skipped D, E, F, and G, and then I, J, K and L, I do not know.  Future planned camp sites would be my guess, but it could be the same reasoning my 4 year old grandson uses when he counts - he doesn't like 4, 5 and 6, and will often just skip from 3 to 7.  Go figure.  At any rate, we drove through the park twice looking at spots.  I'm not a big fan of the lay out of camp sites.  There are many sites that are very close together.  They share a power/utility pole so the slides on the non-entry side of one rig is less than 3 feet from the slides on the non-entry side of the next rig.

We found a single spot, not sharing a pole, and we have a nice grassy (Arizona desert grassy) spot between us and the next rig.  We are facing south to north, so in the morning, we have shade outside our door.  In the evening, the shade is on the other side.  Yesterday afternoon, we drug our chairs around the far side and enjoyed the shade in this 90 degree weather.  Granted, sitting near our sewer connection wasn't my first pick, but I turned my chair so it was behind me.  I had a nice view, peaking through the rigs across the road from us, of the trees and beyond.  I'm enjoying all the hummingbirds flitting about.

Our neighbors in the site next to us took off this morning.  They were headed to San Diego County.  I was telling them about the 303, and how they could easily take that, and then catch the highway in Buckeye, AZ that would take them down to I-8/Yuma.  He said he planned to take I-17 down to the 101 in Phoenix, and on to Gila Bend to pick up I-8.  I'm not sure why, with 303 available, one would choose to go through Phoenix, but to each his/her own.  At any rate, Kim's aunt and uncle are on their way here today, and fingers crossed, this site next to us will still be available.  No saving sites - darn it!

Park pictures in the next posting.

Look Grandma, It's Snowing!

This is 18 month old Torren, caught in the act of making it "snow".  I have a similar picture of his uncle with a box of tissues.

Look Torren, it's sunshine and 90 here in Goodyear, AZ.  And I put Grandpa to work picking fruit here at Destiny Phoenix RV Resort.

Oranges

Grapefruit

The "girls" (Kim's mom, Kim's aunt and myself) are off for pedicures today.  The "boys" (Kim's uncle, Kim's brothers, and himself) are going to do who knows what...as long as they stay out of trouble, we are good.  Then another family dinner as this is our last night in Goodyear.  With any luck, I will remember to take pictures!

Goodyear, AZ - How Time Flies

I'm not quite sure how it got to be Friday already.  But I've looked at my computer, my iPhone, and the paper calendar on the wall, and they all assure me that it is indeed Friday.  I may need to turn on the TV and check with Facebook to be sure, but it looks like I just lost about 3 days.

Well, technically, I didn't loose them.  Kim and I have been doing "stuff" that is hardly interesting to anyone but those involved.

I first want to take the time to say again how much I love, love, love the River Breeze RV Resort in Ehrenburg, AZ.  It is one of those jewel of a park things.  I reviewed in on rvparkreviews and was really hesitant to do so as I wanted to keep it all to myself.  I have been looking for "the" park for us to winter in, and this is definitely one that will be on the top of my list.  We are still a few years from making a long term commitment to being away from the grandkids for a whole season, and I have other places to investigate.  Now granted we were only there for two days, and as I understand it, many of the snowbirds had already left to head north again, but the park was quiet and green and peaceful.  There were a few boats on the river, and I could see how in the summer the noise from all the partying may be bothersome, but it wasn't a problem while we were there.  While the weather was summer perfect for those of us from the PNW, I'm sure the longtime Arizona folk considered it at least sweater weather, if not coats and uggs weather.  We were in shorts and enjoying the sunshine.  While I didn't use any of the facilities at the park, they did have a pool and hot tub (which they keep covered when not in use - conserving the heat and keeping it clean).  The laundry had 6 washers ($1.25) and 6 dryers ($1.00).  There was a Rec Room with a pool table, a ping-pong table, and folding tables for cards or jigsaw puzzles, along with a kitchen for potlucks and parties.  Everything was clean and well maintained.  I just loved the energy here. The nearest shopping is in Blythe, CA, across the border.  I'm already looking at when we can return later in the year.

The 2.5 hour drive to Goodyear (just west of Phoenix) was uneventful.  Not my favorite stretch of highway, but then I'm not the one doing the driving.  I'm just the one looking out the window.  I think Kim appreciates the cruise control factor more than I do.  We stopped at the Bouse Wash Rest Area for a pit stop and lunch break.

I believe there is such a thing as too many options.  Between the new GPS, Google Maps, a regular map and instructions on a website, we had 4 different ways to get to Destiny Phoenix RV Park.  Because we knew there was construction on I-10 here, new on and off ramps, and revision of other on and off ramps, we elected to follow the website directions instead of the others.  Glad we did.  The others would have had us pulling the rig all over the area.  We came off the Citrus Avenue off ramp, turned right and drove about ½ mile, and voila!

A nice park, as far as I can tell.  We haven't spent much time here - although it has been 3 days apparently.  Kim's mother and brothers live here, so we have been visiting with them.  We had breakfast with a high-school classmate of mine that I had not seen in at least 35 years.  I hope she doesn't mind my sharing our picture.

Today we are back over at my mother-in-laws for a bit, and then off to do some shopping.  I will say one thing for Goodyear, Avondale, Litchfield Park and all the surrounding areas east of Phoenix, there is no want for shopping opportunities, that's for sure!  Tomorrow, we are meeting up with some other friends for breakfast.  Sunday, more relatives arrive.  Who knows from there.  And then we leave for Verde Valley on Tuesday!

As I said, not much of interest to report this week.  Here are a few pictures of our site at Destiny Phoenix RV Resort.  With any luck, I may convince Kim to go up to Estrella County Park to check things out.  I'm not holding my breath though.  I'm trying to remember that this week is about seeing friends and his family, and not just about what Betsy wants to do.  I have 51 weeks a year for that.... wink-wink-wink.  In my dreams......

And this is an empty spot next to us.  Love having the orange trees around us!

More resort pictures to follow in the next few days....unless time continues to fly.