Casa Grande to Spring Training

The campground at Casa Grande was unique. It was not large (400 residents), it did not offer many amenities, but I don’t ever remember being in a happier community. We arrived Friday eve. On walking into the clubhouse we were greeted warmly. “Come to breakfast tomorrow morning, $3 each, everyone will be there.” The next morning we got in line for biscuits and gravy and sat with older folk from our home state, Wisconsin, and many other northern states and Canadians. That eve, after Barb and I had investigated other camp grounds in the area for future long term residence, we came back to observe the campground  members involved in a dance. Most were there, the polka, the fox trot, the line dance. This RV community stresses fun and involvement.




Sunday morning found us at Central Lutheran in Arizona City. Again, in this very multicultural community, the 70 congregants looked like us, most were older, and only 3 children were in attendance. The pastor, a robust graduate of UPS, his wife from PLU, skillfully applied the essence of “Transfiguration” as we lead into Lent. It was a potent message that we hope to skillfully apply.

We left church and drove south to visit Barb’s cousin in Tucson. We stopped for lunch at Waffle House (Arizona has the closest Waffle House to Puyallup). Barb had some of Bert’s chili (Bert was at Ben and Penny’s wedding) and I had some southern pork shops topped with gravy. Barb found my selection “disgusting”. “I am in the South," I responded. "I’ll have a salad tomorrow.” Just a few miles down the road we passed the Starbucks that Kari opened, at 4 a.m. for those many months, to serve the commuters of Tucson, on their way to work.



We spent the afternoon with Janet, Wayne and Keri, Barb’s cousin, husband and daughter. The last time we visited their home was on the last leg of our 07-08 trip around the U.S. We stopped here to visit Barb’s aunt LaVan, who lived in the “mother in law building” in the back yard now occupied by Keri. In 08 we “hooked up” to Aunt LaVan’s house and spent a few days exploring family history. Now, 3 years later, Aunt LaVan has passed and we, as cousins, had much catching up to do in the sharing of more family history.

Sunset Sunday eve

Monday morning we awoke to wind. The prognosticators had predicted it. And, Ben, I may have broken a promise I made to you so long ago, I did not “hunker down”. We set out the 70 miles in 40 mile side wind to our destination. After driving through the center of Phoenix, often on 6 lane interstate where every driver feels territorial, we landed in a destination RV park, just down the road from spring training. This is the area where, at this time of year, Barb wants to see, “my Boys”, the Mariners.



We settled into our site and within a few hours we were at the Mariner ticket booth purchasing tickets for a few games during our stay.



Later, as I biked around our RV resort (900 sites), I ran into two friends from Puyallup, their RV’s just a few hundred yards from ours.

Our present site in El Mirage outside of Phoenix