Go West, Young Man

After a whirlwind week in which I worked on painting, packing, and cleaning from sun up to sun down and Alvin had to complete his last few roofing jobs, we had one last visit from the family, went to one last church service, and I tornadoed through the house one last time ensuring everything was in its proper place. Because Alvin had to work all the previous week, he spent part of Monday completing all the winterizing and little projects he needed to get done before we finally strapped our boys into their seats, did one last run through the house, clambered into the big Dodge, and ventured westward.

We lumbered down the Cumberland Parkway one more time before hitting 65 and driving toward Nashville. We drove on through Memphis and crossed into Arkansas before stopping at a Love’s for the night. It was such a neat experience to be able to crawl out of our truck and into our own bed for the night. The boys were delighted to wake up and look out the window to watch the semis come and go. 

We got breakfast, did a couple of loops around the parking lot to burn off some of the boys’ endless energy, then headed out. We passed into Texas that morning and soon learned there is truth behind the old adage, “everything is bigger in Texas”.  We passed by acres upon acres of ranch land and fields full of longhorn cattle and brahmas. Texas seemed endless. We discovered Buc-ees and stopped there for lunch. Once again, it was a delight to be able to walk out to our home and sit at our table to eat lunch and take a quick siesta. How come no one ever told us how nice travel is when you have a camper? We drove and drove straight through the middle of Texas and eventually pulled into a Love’s in El Paso to spend the night.

The next morning, we ate a big breakfast at Denny’s before continuing our trip. We traveled through New Mexico before finally entering the great state of Arizona. The terrain turned to miles of endless desert wasteland. It was so different from anything we’d ever seen in real life. We stopped for lunch at a taco truck before embarking on the final leg of our journey. Finally, after passing through the great Sonoran desert, we found ourselves in our new home of Yuma. We arrived in a little over 48 hours, 30 of which we were driving. We parked for the night at the home of a buddy of Alvin’s who is also one of his new fellow employees and had pizza with his family.

The next day we set out on our mission to find where we would park and make our home. We soon discovered that Yuma RV parks are not very friendly to children. In fact, the vast majority of them require residents to be 55 or older and we were turned away from park after park. Finally, one park worker mentioned a place just down the road that she said may not be our taste but we could give it a try. As it turns out, this park was precisely my taste and while, like all the other parks, it is a 55 and older park they were much more friendly and allowed us to stay as long as they have vacancies (which, due to Covid, they have many of). This little park is outside the city and surrounded by miles of citrus groves, date groves, and alfalfa fields. What is not irrigated is desert and there are beautiful rugged mountains in the distance that I can see from my kitchen window. I love the agriculture and the farmland around here and this place far exceeded my expectations. It is peaceful and beautiful. And, as I suspected, the boys are a huge hit here in the park. They bring delight to many of the neighbors and I get comments daily on what a joy it is to see young faces around here (somebody tell that to all the other parks that turned us away!). The neighbors even arranged a trick-or-treat event for the boys which I believe brought them more delight than It did the boys. They came away with more candy and snacks than they could ever eat, and the neighbors were all so thrilled to give it to them.

It has been a delight to live here so far. I enjoy walks around the park and out into the countryside with the boys. We live close to the Marine Air Base and the boys are thrilled with the military jets that swoop overhead. Everything out here feels very much like the movie, “The Right Stuff”. Though I don’t think Chuck Yeager is trying to break the sound barrier overhead and so far I haven’t seen any training jets crash into the desert, thank goodness.