Day 10 - Ehrenberg, Arizona (Halloween)

California or Bust…

Day 10 – Ehrenberg, Arizona

Monday, October 31, 2011  (Halloween)

6am at the St. Clair Winery… Brigit woke us with a bark when she heard the workers coming in bright and early Monday morning.  We got ourselves ready for the road by 7:30am... which is a pretty early start for us.  Normally we have more to do to set up or leave when we park at a full hook up location.  By that we mean, when we pull in to an RV park, we would check in and get assigned a site number.  We would then pull in to the spot, decide how level it is and what adjustments would need to be made with leveling blocks that we drive on to.  The RV is much more comfortable when it is nice and level.  Then we hook up the sewer, water, electric, TV cable and extend our slide-out… all in all it takes about 15 minutes.

Deming Trivia - Meeting of the Railways... I was particularly interested in the driving of the Silver Spike because I come from Utah where the Golden Spike was driven.  The Silver Spike was driven in Deming in 1881 to commemorate the meeting of the Southern Pacific with the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroads.  Deming quickly developed as a trade and shipping center for agriculture, livestock, and mining in Southwestern New Mexico. 

Union Pacific

Our plans were to drive to Tonopah, Arizona which is about 40 miles West of Phoenix.  About 30 miles outside of Deming, we crossed the Continental Divide at 4500 ft. and the Arizona border was another 50 miles.  We stopped at a scenic rest area that had very different geology then the jagged mountains near by… this area had large round boulders… some stacked on top of one another.  From there we drove downhill to Benson where Drew mentioned it was the perfect grade… for approximately 15 miles and at 65 M.P.H. he did not touch the gas or brake pedals.

Along this section of I-10, were our first sightings of saguaro cactus, numerous Union Pacific trains traveling East and West, fields of cotton and pineapple and more pecan trees.  About half way between Phoenix and Tucson at the intersection of I-8 and I-10 we stopped for gas and had the RV washed at a very efficient truck wash.  Six men with extreme pressure washers can get the bugs off much quicker then we can.  This was a popular truck stop… check out Frankie… he and his owner were getting their semi-truck washed next to ours.



Frankie... from Denver, CO



We made good time through Phoenix, before rush hour, at about 3pm… at this point we decided to keep on driving another 90 miles to either Quartzite or Ehrenberg.  Our stops are usually decided by the RV park choice or options we have using an on line RV Park Review website… http://www.rvparkreviews.com/.  Based upon reviews, our next overnight stop was the Colorado River Oasis RV Park in Ehrenberg, Arizona… about 1 mile from the California border.  This was also a good stop to put our guns away before crossing into California.

FYI – Like many RV’ers, we carry firearms with us… we travel through some very remote areas.  Most states are reciprocal regarding the laws and rules that if you have a concealed weapons permit in your home state, the other states respect that.  However, California is very different, hand guns are basically illegal and when travelling into their State, the guns must be unloaded, locked and stored in a locking case.  All semi-automatic weapons cannot have a magazine capacity higher than 10 rounds.

We were greeted by the “late arrival” hosts at the RV Park and they invited us to join them for spaghetti dinner.  We declined because we had already thawed out a couple of nice Florida Keys lobster but the garlic emanating from the Park Clubhouse sure smelled good.   We walked the dogs through the park and down by the Colorado River and enjoyed the Sunset (which looked very similar to a Florida sky).

Colorado River

Sunset in Arizona

A good day’s drive… 476 miles!!!