theboondork's RV blog

my new home at ROVERS roost

2/6/2019

This is the freight train that drives by the Dateland RV Park every 30 minutes. I thought I would take a picture of it just so I would never forget that fact. I thought I had put all of my left over Dateland pictures in my last post, but today I ran into these two train pictures. I blame that on my lackadaisical attitude about filing.

I made the 110 mile trip to Casa Grande without incident and arrived before lunch. I checked into the Escapees RoVers Roost RV Park and settled into the boondocking area for the upcoming week at a cost of $32.

Normally all that activity would have caused me to relax for the remainder of the day and maybe well into tomorrow, but all the empty space in my refrigerator compelled me to drive downtown and visit the local Walmart before I started any serious relaxing.

The SKP RV Park was full if you needed a hook-up spot but the boondocking area was only about 1/3 full. Which is the most people I've ever seen in an SKP boondocking area, I'm frequently the only one.

Now I've never been to this particular SKP Park before so maybe this is the normal amount of RVers. But all the other places I've been this winter have been really crowded and this RV Park is no exception. So I'm really starting to believe that there are a lot more people in Southern Arizona this winter.

Some folks may be wondering with me being the boondork and all, why am I paying to camp for two weeks instead of being out in the desert under the shade of a Saguaro somewhere, and the answer is.... Mail.

I was supposed to get some mail and a package during the week I spent in Dateland but due to issues beyond my control, I received neither. Now I could've had both items sent to General Delivery at a Post Office, but due to the importance of these two items and the excellent record SKP has getting mail to me in the past I decided this would be the best option.

theboondork

A train without a caboose just doesn't look right. It looks like part of the train fell off somewhere back down the line.

11 Comments

Tim link

2/7/2019 08:04:01 am

Wow, Tom - that first train photo in your post is great. I really like the lighting in it.

Hopefully, Arizona won't be totally full by the time I get there. Maybe some of these people will miss having a lot of stuff and buy houses again. Dang you minimalist movement.

Tom Hudson link

2/7/2019 09:54:04 am

Thank you very much, the train went by so often it was pretty easy to pick the right time or the right lighting conditions. and even I get lucky every once in awhile.

Tom

2/7/2019 09:57:29 am

Yeah things have been awfully crowded this Winter, I hope it's not a trend But I have noticed for most of my life That we baby boomers Are such a huge glut In the population That we tend to destroy everything In our path

Tom

Barney Ward

2/7/2019 10:20:45 am

Here in the Amistad NPS campsites it is running very light compared to the last two years. Last night here at San Pedro we had a total of six units and now at 1120 we have three. Very slim number of folks this year.

Tom

2/7/2019 10:40:09 am

That's pretty easy to explain..... THEY'RE ALL HERE IN SOUTHERN ARIZONA !

I'm beginning to wish I'd gone to Texas, or even the South because this whole Winter has been, crowded, cold, and rainy. It was very nice yesterday and now today is supposed to be sunny but in the mid-50s. My Daughter text me and said Denver is snowing and 2° below zero. So I guess I shouldn't be whining about the mid-50s

You're lucky to be at San Pedro and if it wasn't for the once-in-a-lifetime chance of seeing a desert Super Bloom I would probably be boondocked at San Pedro myself because it sure sounds like its better there than it is here.

Tom

Linda Sand

2/7/2019 01:06:26 pm

On our model railroads all freight trains had cabooses. Like you said, how else would you know if you had your whole train?
https://www.sandsys.org/modelrr/modelbuilt/

2/7/2019 02:48:24 pm

Wow ! You are serious model train folks. I've always liked model trains myself but I never had the ability to build something like that, but I guess even if I did it would've been another hobby that I had to leave behind like so many others when I went full-time.

When I sold my last restaurant in Cripple Creek Colorado it was full of train paraphernalia. Even though Cripple Creek was most famous for being one of the largest gold strikes in the world, it was also famous for its trains both regular gauge and narrow gauge. People would visit from all over the world and some of them were only interested in seeing the old railroad grades, trestles, and numerous tunnels.

I sold a lot of the train decorations when I sold the restaurant. I had lots of old railroad lanterns,locomotive lights, signal flags, track building tools, all kinds of stuff. I sold a lot more before I went full-time, but I still have more in a storage room that I need to get rid of if I ever get around to it.

But that looks like a great hobby, I was just wondering if you wear one of those old time gray and white striped railroad caps like the engineers wore when you're driving your trains? Because I sure would.

2/8/2019 07:45:18 pm

We never wore the hats but we did issue union cards to our operators.We no longer have any of that stuff but Dave still goes operating other people's model railroads several times a month. In fact he's at one right now.

2/8/2019 08:22:38 pm

It sounds like a neat hobby. I've always liked to see those model train set ups where everything is so detailed that even with a close-up it looks real.

Everything to do with trains attracts hobbyists. We would get people coming to Cripple Creek that called themselves railfans and they just wanted to walk along a narrow gauge railroad grade even though the tracks were long gone. But I would tell them where to find the grade and they would be tickled to death.

Tom

2/9/2019 03:12:07 pm

Yup. Our first trip in a rented motorhome was following the BN tracks along Hwy 2 from Minnesota to the west coast then following the UP tracks along Hwy 30 back home. I collected some great memorabelia from a conductor who was bored waiting for his train to be ready whilewe were in Green River, Wyoming. Today what we have left is a huge blue print of tracks in the Mpls/St Paul area in the mid 1960s that covers our living room wall and some black & white track photos from Dave's photography class in college.

2/9/2019 06:17:08 pm

Well hang onto that stuff, people that love trains, love all kinds of train memorabilia.

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