Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we spent at the Gypsy Gathering Rally. It was lots to do with good seminars each day. The seminars were interesting topics concerning maintenance issues with our RV’s, travel topics and some just fun stuff. Often rallies have seminars that are given by vendors doing infomercials on their products which was not the case at this rally. Tom and I went to a seminar on Thursday about kayaks and even though a vendor of a particular kayak was involved with the seminar all types of kayaks were discussed with pros and cons of each type. Tuesday evening a couple, Easy Money, entertained with Country and Western music. Wednesday evening we had a pizza supper followed with the Cactus Queen Beauty(?) contest in which 8 men dressed up in women’s clothing and then judged by the audience- they were sights to behold. Thursday evening ended the rally with door prizes being distributed.
Friday morning we left the Yuma County fairgrounds and traveled east to Mesa, Arizona, a little more than 200 miles to the Aztec RV Resort. After nearly a week of rally camping (we only had 20 amp electric, no water or sewer hook-ups) I had to catch up on the laundry. In the evening we had dinner at the Organ Stop Pizza, a real unique experience.
This pizza restaurant has the world’s largest Wurlitzer theater organ. While dining the organ is raised up from a pit and an organist plays this beautiful sounding instrument for about 30 minutes and then the organ and organist descends into the pit for about 10 minutes after which all return for another period of playing. This continues from 4-9pm. Tom has wanted to see this restaurant for sometime- another thing he can cross off his bucket list.
Saturday we drove down to Tucson. We had seen a new motorhome in Florida at the Tampa Super Show that we thought we might be interested in and a dealer in Tucson had notified us that they had gotten this motorhome in. After having time to really look over this motorhome in more detail we didn’t feel that it was something that we wanted to replace our motorhome. It had more floor space but less closet and storage space than our motorhome. In the evening we visited with Margaret and Don Phillips, friends of ours that live part time in Maryland and Arizona. Margaret had prepared a nice dinner and we enjoyed being together catching up on news.
Today, Sunday, Tom and I had planned to attend church services here at the campground but we didn’t get up in time to make the 9am services. After eating breakfast we went to the Queen Creek Olive Mill east of Mesa.
This is the only olive mill in Arizona and has only been in existence for several years. A tour for $5.00 per person is available and we did take it but really not worth the price. We were shown a few olive trees in an area open to everyone then we went into a tented area and the process for making olive oil was explained. A free brochure in the gift shop explains the procedure. In addition to a gift shop that sold flavored olive oils, balsamic vinegars, olives and other products there is a restaurant.
The breakfasts that we saw made us wish that we had not eaten breakfast before coming to this place, they were indeed mouthwatering.
After leaving the olive mill we returned to the campground as we had purchased some olive oils and didn’t want to leave them exposed to the heat in the car. It has become quite warm in the upper 80’s in this southern Arizona area. We did go out to the Blue Adobe Santa Fe Grill for a southwestern style meal of Shrimp Chili Rellenos which were very good. After eating we went to Old Scottsdale and walked around the various shops making a few purchases. It was a good day.
