ORCHARD RANCH 55+ SENIOR RESORT AND RV PARK

We're spending the month of June and July 2015 in a beautiful park between Dewey and Prescott Valley in Central Arizona.  It's only 80 miles north of Phoenix, but due to the 5000 ft elevation, it's considerably cooler (15-25 degrees).

There's some history about Orchard Ranch that I'll share.  

In 1890, James and Adeline Hall Purchased 130 acres here above the Agua Fria River and Lnyx Creek.  The Halls named their homestead Orchard Ranch and with the help of their children, Sharlot and Ted. produced apples and beef.  Life on the rach instilled in Sharlot a love of Arizona's pioneer ways.  She wrote about early Americans and collected documents and artifacts.  In 1927, after the deaths of her parents, she sold the ranch and moved her collections into the 1864 log Governor's Mansion in Prescott, which she opened as a museum which now bears her name.  

There is, on site at the Orchard Ranch Resort, the Sharlot Hall Kiosk and the Sharlot Hall Musuem.  We haven't yet, but do plan on going into the Sharlo Hall Museum in Prescott.  Most of her collections are there.

One of the old farm buildings still sits here in the park.  As well as some old west mementos.

As you can see by the sign, this is a 55 and older resort/park.  And, it's a very active place with lots of activities and amenities.  Pickle-ball, swimming, biking, hiking are some of the exercise activities

Here is our site for the two months we're here.  The sites are pretty good sized and all have some shade, which is nice on the 90+ degree days.  Today, it's 110 in Phoenix and 94 here.

Our picnic table was really in poor shape, so I sanded it down and repainted it after asking permission in the office.  They assured me the maintenance guys would be very happy.

It is much nicer, now.

This covered pavilion sits right by the pool for various activities, meals.

These two buildings have card rooms, craft rooms and workout room.  Nice exercise equipment.

This is the office, laundry and big gathering room called the roundhouse (in the background).

We had a great classic car show one weekend.

This '64 Porsche was my personal favorite.

Here is what the surrounding area looks like.  It's a lot like Central and Eastern Oregon.

This first one is from the car as we're coming back from town.  The green area at the bottom of the hill is Orchard Park.

Here is what we see looking west.

This is the Stoneridge area just south of town.  Beautiful golf course and homes there.

This is the view looking east from up at Stoneridge.  That is the southern end of Prescott Valley.

Just to the southeast of us are two small towns, Dewey and Humbodlt.  These first two pictures are some stores they built out by the Highway in Humbodlt.  The third picture is the original main street in Humbodlt, pretty much deserted; they even moved the Post Office down the hill by the highway.

Still Here at Casa Grande RV Resort

We're still here at Casa Grande, for two more weeks before we head to Prescott Valley, 132 miles north at a higher elevation where it's cooler.  

I don't know what the bird situation is at Prescott Valley, but I hope there are lots because Yvonne loves her birds.  Here's a finch right outside our window.

Here's a cool pic taken near sunset with the shadow on our dining room window shade.

These feeders are for the Finchs, Sparrows and Siskins, but this big ole Dove thinks he belongs.

Here's the sunrise reflecting off our 5th.  My favorite time of day is dawn.

They have a lot of pool tournaments here with more people than tables, so they knocked a wall our between what was the exercise room and the billiards room.  They're putting in a couple of more tables.  They moved the exercise equipment over to another room, previously called the "Craft Room".

All the floor space is for "Walk Away The Pounds" exercise class.

And, the room that used to be the Library now looks like this.

They moved the library to another room.

This is the RV storage area at the west end of the park..  They plan to build cottages and put in several dozen pull-through RV sites.

Not a lot more to report; we're just cleaning up things and preparing for our trip.  Two months in Prescott Valley and then off to PA and a "vacation" around the SE USA.  

We're taking our little Subaru up to Prescott Valley with us, so we're putting some money into it to make sure it's dependable and will last us as long as we want it.  Tune-up, some new wiring, a new starter motor, new timing belt.  We love that car.

We'll keep you posted on our travels.  It should get more interesting than this posting!

Back Home in Casa Grande RV Park

After a very enjoyable month in the Coachella Valley at Desert Hot Springs, we have arrived back at our home site here in Casa Grande.  It was awesome visiting with brother Joe and sister-in-law Sandy as well as other friends in the Valley (Don and Barb, Pete and Mary).  But, as usual, it's always nice to be back home.

Here we are departing Caliente Springs Spa, heading east for Arizona.  That is a beautiful place and a really nice resort, although some amenities were not available due to a fire the day before we got there..

Here's where the fire burned through the clubhouse roof.

We decided to not do the 300+ mile trip all in one day, so we stayed overnight at a little park out in the desert 7 miles from Quartzite.  Quartzite is where about 100,000 folks come for a couple of months each winter to dry camp on the BLM land outside of town.  They were pretty much all gone when we got there the last day of March.  

Here is our home for the night.

A nice, desert site.  View out our dining room window.

From here, we traveled through Phoenix to Apache Junction to visit cousins of Yvonne.  Five miles before we got to our destination park, this is what happened to a tire on our trailer.

Since we have dual axles, we were able to limp to the park and get it fixed.  

We met Yvonne's cousins at the Mining Camp Cafe at the base of the Superstition Mountains outside of Apache Junction.  I love this view going that direction.

We decided we want this house.  Pretty nice neighborhood, heh?

From Apache Junction, only a little more than an hour to our home in Casa Grande.

They had the end-of-season party last week, which we missed.  But, as you can see, most everyone headed north to their homes.  Hundreds of rigs bailed out in the last week, leaving us a quiet, peaceful, mostly empty park.   We can handle that.

Palm Springs Tram

We drove (actually, Joe drove) up to the station where you board the tram to go to the top of the mountain.  First of all, let me say that, no, we did not ride up on the tram.  That was not our plan this trip (or any other, as far as Yvonne is concerned).

I just wanted to see the tram go up, and decide if, in the future, I might do it.  I told Sandy I would ride it up next Spring, when they come back to this beautiful valley.  They already have reservations for next March.

Here are Joe and Yvonne in the parking lot below the tram station.  From here, we took the bus up the hill a little ways to the ticket center.

Here is the path the tram takes; there is actually one in the second picture.

Here's a couple of rubes amazed by the tram.

I don't know what is so funny.

Here's the tram coming back full of folks.

Why is Yvonne smiling?  Well, because she found a gift shop; not that she bought anything, but shopping is always fun.

Here we are not riding the tram up the mountain.