My sister Kathy and her husband Denny got us a year’s membership in an organization called Harvest Homes.
Basically, what this enables you to do is find a winery, brewery, or farm that allows you to overnight on their property. You need to be entirely self-contained, they do not provide any utility type hook-ups, but what they do provide is an awesome alternative to the sometimes not-so-good Walmart Parking Lot Experience. This can obviously be a win-win for everyone. You would be a fool not to patronize the establishment and purchase some wine, beer, spirits, fresh produce, or whatever they have to offer in exchange for the overnight stay. You may even make a friend or two! In our case (because when you are standing at the bar doing a wine tasting) the subject of “where’re ya from?” inevitably comes up which leads to the “Full-Time Story” telling which has everyone mesmerized and saying things like, “Yea, me and the old man have wanted to do that too!”
Staying at these establishments is an entirely pleasurable experience, one that we look forward to repeating every chance we get. Yesterday we pulled into Soniota Vineyards in Elgin (pop. 117) Arizona. Go ahead, look it up and see where it is. Just about anywhere in Arizona is in the middle of nowhere, so you can imagine how nowhere Elgin, Arizona is. That is the beauty of this experience. The M.O.N. (Middle of Nowhere) is exactly what you may be looking for especially if you are in the Witness Protection Program. We saw a Border Patrol random checkpoint yesterday set up on a little road that led out of Mexico. We were going towards Mexico, so they did not stop us, but we expect that today, as we head away from this area, that we may be stopped.
I will put my Groucho Glasses on to avoid recognition.
Today we start to wind our way back to Texas where our little Honda CRV is waiting to be hooked up the motorhome. This will enable us to further explore areas that we travel to because (as we have found out) when we just have the motorhome, we don’t fit just anywhere! Hopefully, the wind will have died down a bit. The last few days have been crazy windy, which if you are a regular reader, you know how difficult it makes driving this thing. We even went through a Haboob! Which is a dust storm in reality, but the term Haboob, (which is what it is called in the Sudan) is much cooler to say!
But not to drive in.
They (the Arizona D.O.T.) have warning signs on the highways flashing when this event is about to occur. Our phones even went off as we were driving from Phoenix to Tucson on Interstate 10, like they would with an Amber Alert or another similar event.
It scared the Bejeezus out of us. Almost total white-out conditions. They recommend that you pull over, turn off your lights, and keep your foot off the brakes because you don’t want someone in back of you to see your lights and try and “follow” you through the storm.
We are now Haboob Certified.
If the weather cooperates, we are going to try and stop by Tombstone, Arizona today. The home of the infamous O.K. Corral and the subsequent shoot-out with Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and their group against the loosely formed outlaw gang called The Cowboy’s. Apparently, the Town Fathers (and Mothers?) have made wise choices over the years and have kept as much of the historic fabric as possible intact. It is a Town, no admission charge, just go and see it all (and hopefully drop a few bucks in a local establishment.)
Reports to follow in another post.
