Come join our tour of Arrow Rock State Park just outside of Marshall, Missouri. We stayed a couple nights while visiting friends and family in the area. This state park is absolutely gorgeous! Tons of trees, lots of shade, very wide spots and way off the beaten path! It sits north of I-70 in Mid Missouri.
We stayed in Goodyear so we were close to the Goodyear Stadium Ballpark to go and enjoy some spring training baseball. We wanted to be close to our home, just in case we had to hurry home. We kept an eye on the animals through our surveillance camera. Although our team is the Cardinals, we LOVE baseball, so it was fun to see other teams. The first game we went to was on March 22 and was the Cubs @ Reds. The Cubs beat the Reds 9-6. Then, the next day, we went to the Royals @ Indians and the Indians beat the Royals. We went with our dear friend, Dave and his son, David who are Indians fans. They went with us both days and we had a great time! They especially loved the Indians game since they won!
Back-tracking here a little though to when we first arrived at the RV resort. As per our usual routine, Tom gets the “outside” stuff taken care of and I get the “inside” stuff taken care of. So, I’m bustling around getting things done and Tom comes in to the bedroom and asks, “Why is it so bright in here?” Uh oh! We lost the vent lid cover. I didn’t even notice!! Tom got up on the roof to check things out. This had never happened to us yet, so Tom was thinking the worst; that we would have to buy a whole new vent and replace the whole thing. That would mean removing the seal around it and replacing that too. However; when I got up there, I was a little more optimistic that we might be able to just replace the cover. We took the pitiful pieces that were left down to the nearby Camping World so that we could buy another vent lid cover. Thankfully, we were able to match the hinge and got another vent lid cover and installed it easily. We are a little bummed though because the previous lid cover was dark and the new one “claims” to be dark, but isn’t from the inside. It only looks dark from the outside. Weird.
A couple days after we arrived in Goodyear, Tom started noticing that our batteries were losing their charge. They shouldn’t have though because we were plugged in with 50 amp power. So, he checked everything out and searched on forums and YouTube and deducted that our converter must have gone out. After the game on Wednesday, the battery level was down really low and we were afraid that we were going to ruin them. We hurried to Camping World and we were 3 minutes late. Even though we had called and told them we were on our way. Luckily, we were able to find a place that was open later and got there before they closed. They had the converter we needed. The employees at the State Trailer in Peoria were great! So, by the time we got home with the part, it was dark. Thankfully, there wasn’t anyone parked next to us. We were able to park in such a way that our headlights on the truck shone in the basement where we had to put the new converter. We had unloaded the basement earlier in the day and everything was under a tarp under the front of the fifth wheel. Since it was so dark, we only hooked the converter up and didn’t mount it until the next day in the daylight. The next day, the batteries were already fully charged again. Whew! Another “learning experience” taken care of.
The day after the ballgames, we went over to Dave’s house for a visit and then went out to pizza for dinner.
On Friday night, we went to my nephew, Craig’s house for dinner and a nice visit with his family, his wife, Angie, and two of their kids, Cori and Raymond. We brought Daisy with us and she had a fun time playing with their three dogs and the doggie that they were sitting for. It was a houseful of dogs! We had a great time! They were packing to get ready to move. Craig is active military and his orders in Phoenix were coming to an end and they were moving to his next assignment.
On Saturday, I wasn’t feeling too great. I wanted to feel good for our Easter Sunday plans with Dave and his family, so we just stayed home and relaxed. I think that all of the sun and the wind at the ballpark for two days had done me in.
On Sunday, it was Easter and we had a most fun time over at Dave’s parents’ house. A lot of his family came over and we enjoyed the company, the food, and the games. Tom did great at bocce ball – well, of course he did! He’s a GIAMANCO! Haha Then, we played a race horse game. Ummm… it was really fun and I don’t think that I could even come close to explaining it to you. It’s played at the table with a wooden game set and a deck of cards. There is betting, a lot of bargaining, and a lot of hollering. All in fun though!
On Monday, we started getting things packed up for our travel day on Tuesday and just stayed at home. We did do a little walk around the resort and took some pictures to give you all a tour. It was too windy to do much of a “video”, so we just pretty much took pictures.
The Cotton Lane RV Resort is more of a very nice mobile home park with some long-term RV spaces and a few daily RV spaces. It is a 55 years and older community. They had nice facilities and a lot of activities. We didn’t get the chance to do any of the activities because we were busy with family and friends. We would have loved to have had more time to participate.
We weren’t exactly thrilled with the RV spaces as they were very narrow. If you had your awning out, it was almost touching your neighbor’s. Also, they “accept” dogs, however; the park isn’t exactly pet friendly as the dogs are not allowed anywhere except in the dog run. The dog run was a pretty good size and had a nice shade tree and a couple of chairs for you to sit in. (At the time, we thought that the dog run was kind of small until we went to a couple other RV places that had even smaller dog runs.)
On Tuesday, we got all packed and ready to go. However; when we went to pull the bedroom slide in, it wouldn’t come in. Uh oh, what NOW?? After a few hours of pulling our hair out and researching the problem, Tom had to manually crank the slide in with a ratchet! Oh, my gosh! That was awful!
As he was frustrated and angrily cranking and cussing, we had a “discussion” about having too much stuff. Not that “stuff” was the cause of the slide issue, but when you’re frustrated and angry, “things” come out. Sooooo, before we left, I ended up donating a TON of craft supplies. A lot of what I do in my crafting requires heavy supplies and tools. I donated it all to the people at the RV resort. It stung! However; when I received a call a couple days later from a lady named Judy at the RV resort,I felt a lot better. She called to thank me for everything. She runs a group at the resort that makes greeting cards for veterans, and for residents at the nursing homes, etc. She has a group that makes hundreds of cards a year and all of the items I donated would be put to very good use.
So, after we got the slide in and had lightened the load in the basement a bit, we were on our way to Las Vegas.
Even though we liked that the Cotton Lane RV Resort was clean and had a lot of amenities, we don’t really think that we’ll stay there again. It’s rather far from our friends and family down in the Phoenix area.
Our first stop on our full-timing adventure was at the Desert Pools RV Park (Resort) in Desert Hot Springs, CA. The park has over 250 spaces including park models to rent.
As its name suggests, there are three mineral spa pools and a large swimming pool. The spa pools are from natural hot springs and vary in temperature from 96 to 104 degrees. Tom enjoyed relaxing in the pools, but Lori doesn’t like the “water”, so she just sat with Tom and kept him company.
The “resort” held up to its classification and had many resort amenities. Pool, mineral spas, sauna, billiards room, library, fitness center, shuffleboard, tennis/pickle board courts, game room, and dining room.
There were many activities that you could participate in such as: bingo night, pickle ball with lessons, card bingo, ice cream social, breakfasts, dinners, “yard” sales, craft sales, aerobics (both on mat and in pool), and many more.
We enjoyed playing the card bingo game one night. The game is called different things at different parks, but the gist of it is kind of like a bingo game with a deck of playing cards and different “obstacles” along the way. You put money in a pot, different amounts each round, a very minimal investment. I believe it was only about $1.50 total, but it’s fun to win the pot when you win the round.
We also participated in the “yard” sale, and the craft sale, but didn’t sell much, but it was fun visiting with everyone.
We would have loved to stay longer and to have been able to participate in more of their social events.
We enjoyed our walks and bike rides around the resort.
We even met this beautiful kitty, Barney and his servants, Mike and Bonnie.
While in the area we also enjoyed visiting our friend, Tommy
Tom and Tommy have been friends for many years having met in their radio careers in Reno, NV. Tommy gave us a tour of the radio station he is working at and then we went to lunch at Panera. We had a very nice visit with our dear friend.
We also enjoyed the Palm Spring Aerial Tram while in the area. It was an amazing ride in a rotating tramcar giving us a 360° view of Mt. San Jacinto and the surrounding Coachella Valley. The two and a half mile ride from the valley floor to the Mountain Station at the elevation of 8,516 feet took less than 15 minutes.
The view was amazing and we were excited to see SNOW!
The night before we were supposed to leave, we were checking the weather and the forecast was for extreme winds the next day, so we stayed put for an extra day and headed to Blythe a day late. That day, the wind was so high that we actually pulled in one of our slides because the slide topper was blowing too hard. We were so glad that we didn’t try and make the trip in the wind.
We really enjoyed the Palm Springs area and look forward to visiting again!
So while we were in St. Louis, we had to drive by Tom’s old stomping grounds in North County where he grew up and went to high school…Join the excursion, and make sure to leave a comment, plus like and subscribe to our you tube channel too! 🙂
