Geocaching in Quartzsite

One of our favorite hobbies while we're traveling is geocaching. On Wednesday we had an open day, so we decided to check out caches around "Q". We picked out 6 varied caches and started exploring. We found the first two right away because they were close to where we were parked. The third one was at the Quartzsite golf course. We didn't even know there was any grass in the area, let alone a golf course. Well, our trusty GPS took us out a dirt road (the majority of the roads are dirt) and we found the course. It was real unique!


Of course every country club needs a clubhouse. Here's the one in Quartzsite.

There's a full 18 holes located back and forth across the road. The fairways are wide, but the greens are hard read.

We found the cache and left our golf ball traveling bug there. We figured that it was the perfect spot to leave it, since it wanted to visit all major golf courses in the U.S.

Our final cache took us out of "Q" about 5 miles on the typical dirt road. In fact this road was more of a Jeep trail. It lead us out to the area where Gen. Patton trained his troops in WWII before the invasion of North Africa. There are a lot flat areas where the troops stayed, including some unique arrangements of rocks.

After we drove the car as far as we thought it was safe, we walked the last mile to cache enjoying the historical area. We were the only ones in the area, and we could almost hear the tanks roaring as they trained. As usual Linda with her good eyes for the unusual found the cache. It was an exciting day doing something different in the desert.

Here's where we left the car. We are real glad be bought the pilot with it's high clearance and 4-wheel drive. It lets us do some unusual and exciting things.

On another geocaching note, we helped our friends Bob & Kathy hide a cache along side of the road in front of their farm. It's called the Red Barn, named for Bob's red barn on his ranch. So far 4 people have found the cache. It's almost as exciting for people to find the cache as it is for us to find them.

Remember that when you see underlined words in our posts, you can click on them to see a link with more information. Also, if anyone wants to go geocaching with us, just let us know and we'll set it up the next time we visit with you.

Happy Trails, Surprise,AZ

While we were in Quartzsite, AZ, we visited a resort in Surprise, AZ, which is Northwest of Phoenix. The resort is named Happy Trails and used Roy Rogers & Dale Evans as spokes persons. The resort is surrounded by a golf course. This is the main clubhouse.

And here's the main swimming pool. There is 3 other pools available around the park. The resort has 1500 different sites. It also has activity rooms for many crafts including quilting, jewelry, and woodworking. There's a big ballroom where many special events are held. It's a very active community.

This resort is different from most RV parks because you can buy the lot like a condo. Then you can make improvements such as patios, roofs, storage areas, bathrooms, and in some cases, complete rooms with kitchens, bedrooms, & bathrooms. Everyone is unique, but here's a picture of one of the sites that has an small condo added on to the RV parking spot.
There are many members of the Monaco Northwest group that own lots in this development. We're not ready to make a commitment to buying here, but we might come back in March for an extended stay to check it out and stay put for awhile.

Quartzsite, AZ

Well, we made it to Quartzsite from LA with no problems. And we found the group we were meeting, which can be difficult. And now we boondocking, which means that we're completely without hookups. We can only use the water we have on board, and our electric power comes from our batteries or the generator. It's a lot of fun to see how long you can survive with these limited resources.

We're camping with our friends from Monaco Northwest who we met in our travels during the summer. We attended their rally in Birch Bay, WA, and also the Monaco rally in Salem, OR. They're a real fun group and we looking forward to spending some quality time with them on outings, happy hour, and around the campfire.


When we were backing up the motorhome into our spot we messed up the desert. Naturally, Linda couldn't let that pass so she restored the pristine sands.

This is a really nice spot that is BLM land where you can camp for free for two weeks. That might have something to do with the 500,000 other RVs parked out here. But it's so large of an area there's plenty of space for everyone to spread out. Here's the view out our front windshield!

One of the draws here is the giant flea markets and the annual RV show. There's hundreds of RVs on sale here also. We're going to explore the area while we're here and try to figure out why there's so many people here.

Linda & John's Birthday Weekend

As some of you know, John's birthday is 1/12 and Linda's birthday is 1/14. This year, with John's birthday on a Saturday it created a perfect Birthday Weekend.

John spent Saturday in front of the television watching the NFL playoffs hoping Seattle would go to the Super Bowl, but it won't be this year. John also had one of his favorite dinners-pizza. Sunday was more football, but included a nice visit with Linda's sister Donna. The day was topped off with a great family dinner with Lois, Matt, & Suzanne at a great Chinese restaurant P.F. Chang's. The food & the company was outstanding. Everyone tried all of the dishes that was ordered. Linda even tried some of John's salmon!

Monday was Linda's day. She had her choice to do whatever she wanted to do. I mentioned Disneyland, shopping, a visit to the beach, etc. She decided she wanted to wash the motorhome! Well it was dirty, but still. . . . but the motorhome does look great. We finished the day with another great dinner. Linda's Mom, Lois, took us to a new to us restaurant, The California Cafe in Whittier. It served good old fashioned comfort food. Linda & Lois had Pot Roast, while John had Baby Back Ribs. The food was great.

On Tuesday Linda got her hair done, and then we headed to Laguna Woods to visit John's mother. We had a great dinner at Don Jose, then we went back to Betty's house to visit and work with her on her new computer she got for Christmas. She now has high speed access instead of dial up. It should make it easier to view photos on the web, so expect an increase in email from her. Hopefully she won't get hooked on Ebay.

We also had many phone calls and cards from the rest of our family and friends, including a special call from our daughter, Jeni, from Clemson, SC. We sure miss her on these special occasions. Next year will be a special birthday for Linda so I'll have to come up with something better than washing the motorhome. Keep checking back to see what I come up with.

Christmas, 2007

Christmas is always a big event for the Huber family. We parked the motorhome at Wilderness Lakes again to be near Matt & Suzanne's house. They were hosting Christmas Day at their home of the first time, and Mom & Dad wanted to help.

The weekend started when on Friday when we went to LAX to pickup Jeni. It was great to see her again, even with her heavy bags. Then it was a quick drive(by LA standard)out to Matt's house to let Jeni settle in.

On Sunday, 12/23, John's Mother's side of the family met at Linda & Mike Murphy's house.

Betty has one sister, Shirley, and we are lucky to share Christmas with her family. Shirley had 2 children, Linda & Kathy, who then had 5 children between them, then came all of grandchildren, and now, great grandchildren. It's amazing to think back through the years and remember when Linda, Kathy, & John with the children at Christmas.

It made for a very special day with a house of young children who were very excited about Christmas. Linda made a very special dinner, not an easy feat for so many people, and everyone opened presents. It was a great way to start off the official Christmas celebration.

On Christmas Day, Linda's side of the family met at Matt & Suzanne's house. Linda & John had volunteered to do the cooking. We started in the morning with everyone arriving at different times because of the long distances some of the family had to travel. In fact, Rick, Val, and Iris came all the way from Visalia in Central California. We really appreciated the extra effort they made to come to Matt's house.

Of course, the center of attention for the day was baby Iris. She also received the most presents, go figure.

Jeni seemed to really enjoy her presents, including a new Sony camera.

Matt & Suzanne hit the big score with a new LCD HD television. John's planning on going to Matt's house for the Superbowl!

Everyone got great gifts. Linda & John got many great things for their new traveling lifestyle, from clothes to books to DVDs. There will be no boring times in 2008. There was also presents for the newest members of the family, Michael & Katie's baby, and Rick & Val's second baby. Next year should be interesting.

The downside of the holidays was a spell of sickness that spread through the family, including John's mother. No one was spared and it put a damper on after Christmas activities. But by New Year's Day everyone had recovered enough to watch the Rose Parade and the Football games.

So we finished another great year. Let's hope 2008 is just as good.

Click here to see other Christmas pictures in our Picasa web album

http://picasaweb.google.com/jchuber1/Christmas2007