Escape to Arizona

Since our retirement in 2010, Roger has wanted to hook up the trailer in the dead of winter and escape to the warmth of the south. The last two winters we have met up with my brother Gil and sister-in-law Lois when they wintered in Texas (& New Orleans) and Florida. This year, they are wintering in Surprise, Arizona, which is just outside Phoenix. With my sister Eva and her husband Doug also wintering in Arizona (Yuma), we decided to camp in Arizona in January and February. With temperatures in the -50 C windchills in Saskatchewan, this winter was a prime candidate for the "hook up in the dead of winter and escape south" plan. However, extracting the trailer from its winter storage near Lumsden and loading it up in those frigid temperatures was going to be brutal. Our original plan had been to pick up the trailer on Jan 6, take it to Village RV for some regular maintenance on Jan 7, load it up on Jan 8-9, and take off on Jan 10. We had a window of warmer weather on Jan 3, however, so went and dug the trailer out of storage. The temperatures were back in the deep freeze that weekend, but we loaded the trailer as best we could, coming in the house every half hour to thaw fingers and warm up. I learned that taking the bedding out to the trailer in their plastic storage bags was a bad idea, as the plastic shattered into a million pieces when I tried to remove the bedding! Anyway, we got the trailer loaded, got it into servicing on the Tues, and planned to leave early, on Jan 8, weather permitting. It did not permit. The weather had been forecast to warm up, but with -43 windchills that morning, it didn't make sense to travel that day. We did get on the road the following day, however, on Thurs, Jan 9. And so our tale begins ...

Planned Dates

Jan 09, 2014 to Mar 07, 2014

Countries

2