A Visit to The Dwarf Car Museum (Warning: lots of pictures!!)

The park host here at Pinal County West Campground recommended that we visit The Dwarf Car Museum ( https://www.dwarfcarmuseum.com/, https://www.dwarfcarpromotions.com/) - she said it was only a couple of miles away and free -- so we checked it out on Friday. Wow!

We found the turn off...

We were surprised to find quite a number of visitor's cars in the parking lot (15 or so) -- we walked up to the shop building...

... and inside to see dwarf cars!

If there isn't someone standing next to them in the pictures, you might think they are restored old cars...

... but they are 11/16 scale.

This was in the "working shop" area...

Back in the display area. You might notice that there are tons of things on the walls too...

In one of the little side rooms, toy cars and lots of trophies.

One of the items on a wall display - I guess at the store, you could open, reconstitute, and heat a can of soup. Note the list of available soups at the top... "Genuine Turtle" -- I don't remember ever seeing that variety in the Campbell's soups at the grocery store!

We headed outside to the things to see outside...

A Farmall tractor (there was an information sign with it, but being outside, the Arizona sun had pretty much disintegrated it).

Carl remembers using a roto-tiller something like this one ...

I took pictures of an article that was written back in 2012 -- it was under plexiglass at the place where the visitor's register was located, so you may see scratches that look like spider webs...

Always tasks to do!

Carl has long said, "If everything is working on the RV, take a picture, because it won't last long!" As we were leaving Freedom RV, he said, "Should we take a picture? Is everything working?"

Well... the major systems are all working, but... there are always minor things that need maintenance and repair...

One item that has been working, but looked a little dubious was Gracie's power cord...

Carl said it was taped up when he and Sue bought Gracie back in 2019.

Now, we aren't plugged in here at Pinal County West Campground (no hookups), but we have a nice shaded picnic table (actually, 3 of them), so it seemed a good time to take on this task.

Carl preparing to cut the old end off (the new end is there on the table near him).

Old end cut off...

Carl did a continuity test on the old end to make sure that the assignments to pins of the color cables agreed with the way that the old end had been wired.

Handy location in the ramada with the power cord pulled out of Gracie's cord reel.

Carl had to expose the separate wires within the power cord, so he cut the outer black covering off...

... and then cut each individual wire as indicated in the new instructions...

... before attaching each wire to its appropriate pin...

All connected...

... and with the back and tension relief attached to the end of the cord.

Since we aren't hooked up here, we won't be plugging in again until we get to Yuma.

Sunset from Wednesday night

Looking east at sunset

Looking east out the "driveway" of our site on Wednesday.

As I had mentioned before, we decided to stay a few additional days at Pinal County West Park Campground, and needed to move one site over to get a reservation through Sunday night. So, we moved Thursday morning. We decided to do one additional task before setting up in our new site...

... adding coolant to the dash air conditioner. We had noticed that the dash air was not cooling as well as we would like, and Carl had refrigerant that he could add, so he added that on Thursday morning.

A picture of Carl trying to type on his keyboard -- he says that Miss Kitty's "help" is the reason that he makes so many typos. She is very demanding that hands are best used for petting kitty cats, not for typing or any other task!

Around Pinal County West Campground

We decided when we were on our way from Tucson that we'd stay two nights at Pinal County West Campground so we wouldn't have to be up and going again on Wednesday... 

Gracie in our spot...

... with the ramada and picnic tables next to her.

Off on a bike ride around the campground...

.... with pretty views all around (if you like the desert, which we do!).

Carl at entrance to the park

Gracie at her site from the campground road...

... and another view.

Carl decided this campground would be a good place to practice his drone flying...

Drone pictures:

Just a little off the ground... we are sitting under the ramada...

Overview of our site -- you can see that there are seemingly no RVs in sight -- there is one down at the upper left corner of the picture where the road makes a sharp right turn, but they are pretty far away.

Another view down toward the south - I-8 is just south of the campground down that way.

Looking north - the ramada in the foreground is the next site up from us.

Looking past Gracie toward the east -- there are irrigated fields in the haze beyond the power lines.

Looking behind Gracie toward the west -- the open spot in the middle of the picture is the middle of the campground - there is a group camping area there and that is where the Park Host is parked.

We decided on Tuesday night that we'd just as soon stay here longer rather than leave and need to find a place to stay in Yuma, so we checked availability, and the site just north of us was available for Thursday - Monday, so we booked it! Carl said that he thinks he likes this almost better than Organ Pipe National Monument since the sites are bigger and a lot more spread out. Of course, there are fewer facilities (just the ramadas, grills, picnic tables, and a port-a-potty at some sites), but we have everything we need, so we don't need other amenities!

March 1 - Slide fix day!

Our big slide in the living area has been stuck "in" since January 14 (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2022/01/progress-on-friday.html). 

In January, I had attempted to make an appointment with Newmar's "mothership" - the 100 bay service facility in Nappanee, Indiana that they built just 2-3 years ago is fully booked months in advance. When I called in January, they put me on a list to be contacted back on what service we needed, and I was cautioned then that the appointment would probably not be until November or December.

I asked if the service advisor in Nappanee could recommend a service center in the Mesa area, and they gave me the name of one, but when I called, they would not accept "waiters" -- the service center wanted us to drop the rig off and come pick it up when they were done - whether that be hours or days or weeks later. We generally stay in our rig while it is being worked on -- not during the day, but every night it gets returned to us and we can stay in it. The person who spoke to me specifically said that they don't accept "Newmar waiters", so I don't know whether that means they would allow owners of other brands of RVs to stay in their rigs or not.

I had found a page on the Newmar site where I could look up approved service centers, and I found that Freedom RV in Tucson was "Highly Recommended, Platinum Servicing Dealer", so I called to make an appointment with them. They were scheduling a couple of weeks out, but with our plans to go to Mexico and Mesa, we scheduled for March 1. Carl honestly wasn't real hopeful -- feeling "snake-bit" that this slide needed a drastic overhaul. I actually was cautiously optimistic, thinking that it might be an easy fix for someone who knew what they were doing, just needed the appropriate tweaks to the controller.

We had called last week to see if we could park in their lot overnight Monday night before our 8am checkin - the service advisor let us know that if we were actively getting the rig worked on, we could stay in their lot overnight, but not the night before service. So, we stayed Monday night at the campground in Marana, and got up early (for us) to leave by about 7am.

Freedom RV on Irvington in Tucson

When we arrived, we didn't see this sign that said to follow the yellow arrows (we saw the one saying that "New Coach deliveries should be at the rear gate")...

...but we saw the yellow arrows and followed them.

Our service advisor, Dusty, told us that we could feel free to leave and they would call us with any questions or updates, so we went across the street to Denny's for breakfast. Sure enough, while we were there, Dusty called, and Carl spoke with the technician working on Gracie. The technician wanted to be sure he understood the problem because he was not finding that the slide was having difficulties and wanted to be sure that he was working on the correct slide. Carl explained what we had experienced, and we finished breakfast and headed back to Freedom RV.

Pillow in the waiting area "Roam Sweet Roam - Freedom RV Motor Home - Go Where The Road Takes You"

Carl went out to Dusty's desk to let her know that we were back -- she wasn't there, but came back in a moment to let him know that the service on Gracie was all done!

By 10am, Gracie was all ready to go.

We put the slide out and in to be sure that we were satisfied, and then started to figure out where we would go next!

I needed to have a repair done on my ring, so we stopped by the mall to drop it off. We're going to be back in Tucson later in March, and figured this was a good time to get the repair completed as it may take a couple of weeks.

There was an interesting display in the mall...

... with a funny caption...

Carl about to be eaten by the dinosaur!

We have reservations at a campground in Yuma starting next week on Monday, and we thought about heading to Yuma and finding somewhere else to stay for a few days, but I looked at a small county park that I had found a couple of weeks ago and where we are booked to stay on our way back from Yuma to Tucson... they had an available space.

West Pinal Park (aka Kortsen Park)

It is boondocking (camping without hookups) though each site has a ramada with picnic tables...

We are happy to be here for a few days!

We are SO thankful that our slide is fixed, though, we're being cautious and we don't plan to use it until we get to Yuma where there will be mobile techs available if we have a problem. We're also grateful to not be in "service center jail", where we would be staying for many days awaiting a fix to be completed!

A trip to Tucson

On Monday, we traveled from Mesa to Marana, in preparation for a service center appointment in Tucson on Tuesday.

We had had mail and packages sent to niece Ginny in Marana, and when I called her after we got checked in to the campground, she said that she was in the midst of a water heater repair... so I offered Carl's assistance...

When we got there, Ginny had it all figured out, Carl just confirmed what she was seeing. It seemed that one of the elements had burned out, and she had cleverly already gone to Home Depot and gotten two new heating elements, a water heater tester (continuity tester) and water heater element socket -- all the items needed to correct the problem.

I think Ginny could have done it all on her own, but Carl was able to put the new element in, and within a few minutes, she had hot water again.

We went to Oregano's and picked up a couple of pizzas for supper and enjoyed supper with Josh, Ginny, and Evan.

What a good-looking family! So nice to visit with family!!!