It’s moving day today. We move from Lake Havasu City to Mesa, AZ. We loved it here in Lake Havasu, really loved it.
Bia said her feet were sore, and her legs were sore, as I woke her up. She was sleeping all twisted, so I’m thinking it’s from sleeping funny and all pushed against the wall, and maybe some leg soreness from the bike ride yesterday. I’ll keep an eye on that, but she is fine now after being up for an hour. I had gotten Bia up so I could take her to the library for school, so while I made coffee and her milk, she got ready, and we left. She started her class on time and was on her way. I left her by herself a bit later to go wake up Bella, and get Bia a soft boiled egg that she wanted for breakfast. She stayed there with no problems, and while Carol and I went back to check on her here and there, she pretty much stayed on her own and got her school work all done. She had one more class to call into around 11, which she did from the truck.
Bella woke up, I got the hotspot going, and she joined her ELA class. She was happy to announce there was no math today, and that likely meant she’d be done with school sooner. I got her something to eat, and she was on her way. But, while it sounded like she’d have a great school day, that didn’t last too long. Even with the shorter amount of work, she tried to take shortcuts, complained about having to read a story to properly answer the questions, and was just not in a good spot. We talked to her, there was some yelling, we calmed everyone down, started over, repeated… I sat with her and had a conversation, we talked about her attitude as that is the main problem we are having lately. She said she can’t help it, but did apologize to Carol and I. Then I tried to help her a bit while I worked on getting things ready to go.
After I got the girls going, I started getting things packed. We still had all the stuff outside to put away, including all the bikes, so it’d take a bit longer. I didn’t have a chance to finish writing, so I just jotted down some things I wanted to make sure I’d remember and would expand on later. I also made a quick 30 minute work call. Packing was exactly the same as usual, we have this down to a good routine, and we were rolling out of our spot by 11.
Carol had woken up a little after I got Bella up and started working on packing as well. She also did one last load of laundry before we left, since there was enough and the laundry room here is so nice. She also got some snacks ready for the trip, this time it was cut up fruit, oranges and apples. And she took care of packing everything inside.
I had entered the destination in both GPS (google maps and the trucker GPS) and they both sent me the same route to Mesa, through Parker, so I was comfortable with that route. I checked the wind speeds through our path, and all seemed fine, with some areas hitting 14mph top speeds, which means it’ll get bumpy but will be ok. The drive was actually good, and very pretty. More driving through deserts and valleys, with some bigger mountains and ranges.
We had the lake to our right on our route, and across the water, California. It is nice to drive when the scenery is so pretty, and brings new things to see here and there. We drove for two hours, then stopped for lunch.
I also took the opportunity at that stop to weigh our setup since they had a CAT scale, and it was right there and empty. Carol and the girls went inside the complex to use the restroom and get food while I filled up the truck. Once I did, I went to the scale. It’s quick… launch the app when you’re right in front of it, then drive in and finish the transaction, all on the app. And we are actually almost 200lbs heavier than when we left home. Hahaha… We don’t have much room left on the trailer axles, with just about 500lbs to hit capacity, so we really can’t be adding any more weight to the trailer. But, with the new mattress there, some added things we got along the way, gifts and stuff, and all the rocks the girls keep collecting, it’s not too bad. I should make a round up of rocks and move them to the truck, there’s plenty of payload to go there yet. We had another two hours to drive, and within one hour we were in the greater Phoenix already. Traffic was increasing, roads got bigger and we could tell we are in a bigger area. Weather also kept improving and it got warmer and warmer as we got closer.
The girls tried to get their phones showing up on their screens in the truck during this trip. They were both super excited once they saw it working, like it was the best thing ever. I remember the first time I got my phone to show up on the TV, it was super cool, and just like it happened for me then, it was cool for a few minutes, then it was pretty useless in real life hahahaha.
Our Campground is a Thousand Trails Collections site, and it’s huge, hundreds of sites huge. I’ve never been to a campground that big. It’s about 2 miles off the highway so it was easy to get to. Once we got in, the security guard checked that we were on the list and sent us to the check in office inside. We were supposed to just wait in the truck until someone came to escort us, so we did and it took about 10 minutes for a guy to show up. The park is huge for sure. We had been assigned a spot a few days ago, but it was subject to change, and it did change. The guy had a bunch of paperwork in a folder for us, and he escorted us to our spot. All the spots here are quite big, with enough room for the trailer on gravel, and a double concrete pad for the truck and our stuff. Very nice amount of room for us. It’ll be a comfortable 7 days here. Plus, the weather is great, shorts and T-shirt for sure. Once we got to our spot, it was a back in site and it was a bit tricky to get in as the gravel pad was next to a structure, but, with a few back and forth I got the wheels to line up where I wanted them and we were in and good. From there we started hooking everything up. Bella was playing around, as usual, and making a mess with water, sand, and rocks. Bia kind of helped us get things hooked up, and played around with Bella a bit too. Once we had enough out of the truck and I took the hitch out, Carol left for some grocery shopping. Bella wanted to go with her, so she did and had some mom and Bella time. Bia stayed with me, and we finished what we had left of hooking up quick as she wanted to go to the pool.
We got done pretty quick, and she changed, and we went. We are right by the pool, just one street over, and have one row of empty sites to cross, that’s it. By time we left, the sky was looking amazing, like it was on fire. Bia called my attention and I took some pictures as we walked there.
By time we got to the pool and were settled, the sky was blue, and looked amazing. Wow… Super amazed at what the sky was looking like.
Bia chose a pool and started enjoying it. All the pools here are heated and there’s one for adults only and one for kids and adults. The hot tubs by the kids area is not too hot, so much nicer to hang out. I had my legs in the water when Bia decided it was tub time and we had a good time there. She was enjoying the water and we were enjoying a chat and our company… and the weather. Nice and warm in the high 60s, even around 7pm.
Carol got back from the store with Bella, and then Bia and I went back to the camper. Carol picked up the Amazon order she had delivered to an Amazon locker, and when she opened it, it was the wrong thing. There were two labels stuck to the box and we got the wrong product, someone else’s shoes.. hahahah… dang it, now we’ll need to wait until Friday to replace the water filter, so we’ll have to listen to the three beeps a few more days when we get filtered water.
It is so nice to have all the windows open, door open and it be night. Felt great for our first night here. We put groceries away, continued putting things away in the trailer, the girls got ready for bed and we had dinner. We wanted to get them out early so they can have a good day tomorrow and maybe we’ll enjoy some pool time. They were both in bed and sleeping between 8:30-9pm. Carol and I continued working on some stuff. Carol finishing a video after she got some kitchen stuff done. I worked on getting internet working here. Their wifi is not great and does not stay connected, so I got the T-Mobile card in the hotspot for the girls to use tomorrow. We’ll look into better options for this stuff, seems like in bigger cities the campground wifi always sucks, but then our cell based ones are great, so maybe a big data package with T-mobile will work great. After I got this working, I checked a few things online and went to bed. Carol was reading a book then. I closed all the windows and just left a crack by the kitchen window and the bathroom vent slightly opened, it was just nice inside, but I know it’ll get colder overnight into tomorrow morning.
It was a nice moving day, and great weather for our first day in Mesa.