Monday, January 2nd - Late Breakfast with Drew

 We picked Drew up this morning and had a late breakfast at Manhattan's.

Food was excellent, Neither Kathy nor I could finish our omelets.

The place has some great sweets.

Once again the combination of the snow, clouds and mountains made for great scenery. I wished I could take pictures that showed how great the views are.

Zoomed in.

Today I tracked down an RV repair place close to here. One of the guys is supposed to come here around noon tomorrow to see what they can do to fix our step problem.

This is a Thousand Trails campground, which means it is a "free" place to camp if you have a paid up Thousand Trails membership. A membership appears to be good deal if you like to camp in an area where they have campgrounds. They break the US into 5 zones. The annual base membership lists for $670 for the first zone and $90 per additional zone. There are 200 campgrounds spread over the 5 zones, virtually none in the midwest. The only 2 in Michigan are near the middle of the lower peninsula. The "enhanced package", which costs an additional $370, adds more than 100 additional campgrounds spread over the five zones, none in the midwest. The value for snowbirds, or full-timers, is lessened considerably because, as I understand it, you can only stay 14 consecutive nights at the same campground.

The enhanced package has a lot of campgrounds clustered in southern CA, southern AZ (both in the Southwest Zone)and southern TX & southern FL (both in the Southeast Zone). For snowbirds who didn't mind moving 20-30 miles every 2 weeks it might be an okay deal. You could find 2 or 3 campgrounds you like and just continually move from one to the other.

There is also some fine print, isn't there always, about certain resorts being "fee resorts" that charge $20/night to stay at them.

Palm Springs Oasis, where we are staying, is an Encore Resort, one of the enhanced package resorts. The heated pools, hot tub, etc. are nice but the sites are postage stamp size; no picnic tables, no fire rings and pay internet. This is an expensive area. The rates here are $83/night, $497/week, not including over 7% in additional taxes.. I think we paid $1,300 for a month.

One "bonus" of staying here is that we now are on their list of people who get "sales" offers. We are going to take advantage of one of the offers. We check out of here on the 18th, travel 1,500 miles to Donna, TX and check into Victoria Palms on the 25th, for a month. The rate is $399/month. 

The current plan is to leave there on Feb 25th and SLOWLY make our way the 1,100 miles back to Centertown, arriving around the end of March or early April.

There are a lot of snowbirds here. I need to check with some of them to find out what type of deals they got.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours.

PS. Lydia, I miss you to.