Lake Pleasant & Escapees North Ranch

After being stationary for a month if felt good to hit the road again. Although not a long drive from Gold Canyon to Lake Pleasant it did require being in traffic and road construction, two things we don’t particularly like!! This is a county park with 2 separate campgrounds, a total of 148 RV and tent sites. We booked ahead online and could pick our spot. We chose a pull through site in the Roadrunner Campground overlooking the lake. Since we were only going to be there 2 nights we avoided having to unhitch and re-hitch up the car. It actually worked out pretty well since it rained the entire time we were there with the exception of about 2 hours one morning.

Next stop, North Ranch in Congress, AZ. Guess what, it’s still RAINING!!!!! Finally after a couple days here the clouds start to break and we get to see some sunshine again. Don’t get me wrong, not complaining we could be shoveling snow!!

This is an Escapees park and since we are Xscapers (a club within a club for younger working RV’ers) we can use our membership benefits to enjoy reduced rates while staying here. There are a lot of “permanent” residents here and just a couple rows of gravel parking with hookups for travelers. They have a very nice club house and activity center, however most of it is geared towards retirees. That’s fine because we had a couple of very specific reasons for staying here.

First off, we wanted to get our SmartWeigh done. This is one of only a couple permanent locations in the country where they offer this program. They individually weigh each tire on your motorhome and tow car. This is important to us as we had no real idea what our weight was. Our rig is rated at 20,500 pounds and our hitch is rated for 5,500 pounds. They ask you to weigh fully loaded, meaning fill your fresh water tank, propane, etc… so you know what your worse case scenario is. We were not overloaded, however we will be making some adjustments to our tire pressure after this.

Secondly, we just needed a bit of a home base to get stocked up and we prepare to head out Quartzsite, AZ where we will be boondocking for two weeks straight.

The historic mining town of Wickenburg is just a short drive from North Ranch so we took an afternoon to visit the Desert Caballeros Western Museum. Tucked in the basement they have re-created how life was like back in the 1800’s in Wickenburg. Some very neat exhibits! On the main floor they had some world class art exhibits, sculptures by Remington and Charles Russel paintings (no photographs allowed). There was also a very interesting exhibition called, All Things are Possible: The Sculptures of Michael Naranjo from the Tia Collection. Michael was blinded by a grenade accident during the Vietnam War and suffered severe injuries to one of his hands. How he is able to create such beautiful pieces is quite amazing. Here’s a link to an article the Albuquerque Journal did about him.

We spent several hours here. They even include headsets which as you move around the museum give you detailed information about each exhibit. It lets you go at your own pace and really made it a great experience. Don’t worry about cooties, notice the ear bootie cootie protectors??