After several weeks exploring New Mexico, we decided to continue meandering westward to keep our options open for rendezvousing with friends who had already reached southern California.
We were still on the fence if we would just explore more of Arizona, or push to get on through. We still had a couple weeks to figure it out before our friends would be moving on, which gave us some much needed ‘no planning’ time.
Benson, AZ – SKP Saguaro Co-op
Now being Escapees members for nearly 2 years, and having helped them recently launch Xscapers (their new offering for working aged RVers) – we felt it was high time that we actually stayed at an Escapee’s associated park.
I have to admit, their park offerings confused me. They have a network of their own parks called Rainbow Parks and SKP Co-ops that are owned by the park’s members. And then they have partnered with over a 1000 parks that offer special Escapee’s discounts ranging from 15-50%.
The SKP Saguaro Co-Op park (our review) in Benson, AZ was the first that naturally matched our travel plans, and also is the one we had heard the highest praise for. It helped too that our friends Jil & Tom are leaseholders, and were going to be around. The park currently has first timers special through the end of the year for $50/week plus electric, which sealed the deal.
They way this co-op works is Escapee’s members 18 years of age and older can put their name on the ‘Hot List’ with a refundable $500 deposit. As leases come up, you can bid. The person with the lowest number on the list gets the lot. Prices start at around $10,500 plus any upgrades the lot has had (such as adding a shed or casita). You then just pay annual maintenance fees, and electric. When you don’t want to stay on your lot, you can put it the rental pool – so that folks like us can stay in the park.
The park is overall very well maintained, and the leaseholder lots are quite generous in size.
The clubhouse has constant activities ranging from yoga, poker, happy hour and crafting. There’s a communal wood shop with tools and space for projects. There’s onsite RV storage. The park is surrounded by wide open desert with hiking trails. It’s spitting distance to attractions like Bisbee, Kartchner Caverns and Tucson.
And if there’s a theme, it’s that everyone we encountered is super friendly. Sometimes, a touch too friendly honestly (at least for these introverts). We were greeted no less than a dozen times upon our arrival and told about all the activities going on.
We hear the average age at the park is lower than other co-ops in the system, mostly because they don’t have 55+ rules for residency. Which is great to see. But we were definitely some of the youngest during our visit, and we found most of the activities weren’t our cup of tea.
We really did like the co-op concept for a park. A spit of land to call your own that has very low ongoing costs. A back-up plan. A resting spot for a season. We’re not anywhere near ready to settle down and nor is RV park living really our preference, but the concept does have our minds spinning as a viable future homebase option.
And we can’t help to think what parks like these might look like several years down the road if more of our age-peers were to buy in, and transition to communities not focused on traditional retirement, but co-working. That would be pretty awesome.
Anyway, we do recommend checking out a co-op park in your travels. The more long term neighborhood feeling of community amongst Escapees was really quite special.
So, what did we do in Benson beside check out the co-op?
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Thanksgiving dinner with Jil & Tom. We hung out with our buddies Jil & Tom as much as we could. We even shared in Thanksgiving celebration together, in which I made my family’s traditional chicken fajitas. It was a joy to get to know both of these guys better, and delightful to have companionship for the holiday.
- We visited nearby Kartchner Caverns, which was pretty amazing. They don’t allow photography inside the caverns, so we have none to share. The caverns were discovered in the 70s by two young spelunkers, and they managed to keep it secret for over a decade until they could get the property turned over to the state. The story itself is almost as inspiring as the caverns. Well worth the visit if you’re in the area, and they do have a nice looking campground onsite.
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Test fitting two electric folding bikes into the back of our MINI. We went into Tucson for a day to test ride some electric folding bikes, which Chris had been deep in research on for weeks. We also test rode a couple models recently in Sante Fe. Our criteria has been able to fold into our spare bay in the bus, and the back of the Mini Cooper. Amazingly, we located several that would work – and we were able to test ride most of the top contenders. We found a set that met our ideal confluence of price, functions and joy of riding – and were able to bring them home the same day. The splurge is our combined birthday and holiday gifts to each other. We’ll follow up later with a dedicated post on why we went electric folding bikes, what options made our list, what we ended up with and our first impressions of them after a couple months of use. Yup, we’re keeping this in suspense.. mostly because we don’t have time to field questions on them right now.
- We dined at Mi Casa multiple times. Benson is a small town with the basics you need – post office, grocery store, car wash, a couple dining establishments and a hardware store. So when folks at the park kept saying Mi Casa was the best Mexican restaurant in town, our expectations were not so high. It’s not often we even mention the places we dine at. So let me say, this place is pure passion and art. Family owned, each plate is delivered to your table looking like a masterpiece and the flavors absolutely divine. It’s one our top favorite Mexican restaurants. Period.
All and all, we stayed in Benson for 9 days and really enjoyed our visit.
Arizona City – RVillage HQ
At the end of our stay, we were feeling recharged enough to carry on and decided to push towards Desert Hot Springs to meet up with our buddies Nina & Paul of WheelingIt and Paul & John on RVGeeks. We still had a few days to play with, and our friend Curtis (founder of RVillage) invited us to drop by and park at his place for as long as we liked.
It was great to catch up with him, and get some relative non-social time for a few days while he flew away and we housesat. We knew upcoming months might be more social than preferred – so the solitude was much appreciated.
We continued to get caught up on a lot of projects, including our extensive cellular booster testing that we’ve been working on this fall (the report is now available to our members). We also did lots of joy riding on our new electric bikes.
Arrival to Desert Hot Springs
Nina & Paul were already settled into Sam’s Family Spa, and Peter & John were inbound. We decided to make the 330 miles drive in one day to give us plenty of time with dear friends. We got in a solid week with Nina & Paul before they headed on, and Peter & John will soon be headed out.
Of course, because of how many times we and the WheelingIt crew have blogged about the area – we knew it would be a winter draw. We’ve enjoyed many other meetups during our time here.
We’ll catch you up later on our time in Desert Hot Springs – but it’s been absolutely marvelous. We’ll likely stick around for another week or two – spending Christmas and maybe New Years mostly on our own. Taking advantage of our monthly spot and some delightful hot mineral pool soaking (seems to be a theme lately, one we’re rather liking).
But in the meantime, we did co-host a rather spontaneous live video Q&A last evening with Peter & John. The archive is now available on YouTube.
Happy Holidays
Wherever the season finds you, we wish you much warmth, joy and love.
Happy Holidays from our home to yours!
Hey y’all. Quick question. Are you still loving your e-bikes? (I’ve been seriously considering one)
We still have them and enjoy them.
Happy New Year! Wow! That is right near where I am. I rented a lot south of there. Like the sound of that park and not knowing the area, it’s good to hear about some of the things to do nearby, when I get this warehouse of stuff put away. That co-op sounds like a good investment. AZ is the snowbird capital after FL and so demand is high along w/ prices. Look forward to hearing about Desert Hot Springs.
Thank you for sharing!!! I truly enjoy the content, insights, experiences, and just…it all! Thank you for being so courageous!
Looking forward to your post on your bike purchase. I’ve been researching folding e-bikes too, but haven’t had a chance to test drive yet, so I hope to learn from your experience.
Glad you are back! Best wishes for a wonderful new year.
Dear Chris and Cherie… Very nice to see you’re back! May we invite you to visit Frederika and myself at our home base since last March, Jojoba Hills SKP Resort, in Aguanga, CA – just about halfway between Desert Hot Springs and San Diego. It really is the crown jewel of the Escapee parks. True, it’s a 55+ park if you want to be a member, but visitors have no such restriction. And regarding activities: we just love being quiet and private most of the time – it is a truly beautiful, peaceful setting with views in all directions (Mt Palomar looms just across the valley to the south). All the best, Pete & Frederika
It was so wonderful to spend time with you both and get to know you…it was a wonderful Thanksgiving and it was great to know you were there for us during our emergency… I hope you know you can count on us too….
Hey Cherie and Chris, Happy Holidays! I’ve been severely disabled the past year or so. Noodling around on the interweb a couple of months ago I first discovered your youtube videos – I think I’ve now seen them all – then your blogs, links, etc. I’ve been living vicariously through your travels, travails, and community, it has meant a great deal to me. Thank you for sharing your journeys, knowledge and humor.
Paul
Best of the season to you and our wishes for all the R and R time you need to keep your batteries from getting ‘tired’.
Just wanted to wish both of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from both of us. May the new year bring much joy and happiness.
So happy for the time we spent together in DSH. Wish you a most wonderful and warm week!
Nina
It was short, but it was meaningful… and worth the effort to get here.
Hi ! Thanks for your Blog and the post you put out here online. I so wish I could travel like you do. I am retired, I have a travel trailer, I have a truck to pull said travel trailer BUT I’m just to chicken to do it. I’m a widower so theres really nothing holding me down other then being chicken to just do it……. I’m rodding away here in rainy Oregon and not liking it one bit….. So maybe one of these days your post will get me out on the road. Please don’t stop writing…..
Ted.
I don’t know… but seems to me that the certainty of rotting away in a place that doesn’t bring you joy, is likely to be far worse than any unknown you might encounter by fulfilling your wishes of travel. Get out there.. life is short 🙂
Beautiful sunset photo! Great to have you back! Keep in touch with your R&R. Merry Christmas to you both and of course Kiki!
Happy Holidays and thank you for the Q&A video with John and Peter.
Really enjoy the videos and time we get to ‘spend’ with you guys. Even more fun with the RVGeeks around. Hope to meet up one day. In the meantime, thanks for all you do and so glad you are back. Some R&R does wonders!!
G and I hope you, Chris and Kiki have a great Christmas!
love your posts…living on the road from my desk is fun (i think) Had a question?
out of all the places you have traveled, can you name the two top places that you liked so much you could live there if you ever came off the road???
looking forward to hearing your answers. PS – I may not be the 1st to ask this question
We do get asked a lot what our favorite place is… and honestly, if we ever found such a place, we would live there. But, we’ve not. We love the variety of a mobile lifestyle. If we came off the road, it would be situational (like care taking family).. so that decision would be influenced by other factors.
We spent last week at the Benson Co-op and had the exact same thoughts. Friendly people, huge lots, no activities that interested us, and wouldn’t it be cool to have something like this filled with working age RVers. We also ate at Mi Casa and enjoyed our fantastic meal 🙂 Enjoy the rest of your time at Sam’s, and have a very Merry Christmas and peaceful new year.
Great to hear we had the same take-away of the co-op parks. We started a thread on the Xscapers group while were there, and seems we’re definitely not alone in the fantasy. But just not sure I have the energy to forge creating it. 🙂
Hope our paths finally cross sometime this winter!
Nice to see you’ve got some more down time in a warm spot (hope the winds are cooperating). Happy Holidays to you and Chris and Kiki.
It has been mighty windy the past few days… good to be still to ride it out. Wouldn’t mind it letting up so we could be outdoors more.
Happy holiday to you guys also. Enjoy your soaking time and can’t wait to see what new adventures you embark on in 2016.
I’m so glad you wrote about the Escapees park, I have been meaning to research them. It’s wonderful to read your posts again. I wish you both a warm and wonderful ending for this year and a bright and beautiful beginning for the new year.
Merry Christmas and happy 2016.
Thanks for the review of the escapes park in Benson. Not a full timer yet, but will be soon. also enjoyed the show with peter and john.
It was a fun video cast.. the laughter is good for the soul!
Hi, Wonderful holiday blog. Thanks for sharing your holiday travels. I never would have guessed you were introverts. You rock! I identify with that. Love people but need quiet time to recharge. Welcome back to active blogging and thanks. Deb
Good to have you back!
Great show last night guys. You guys look like your having a ball. I couldn’t help but laugh along as the wine flowed and the stories and laughs became what Full Timing is all about. Cherie was a great moderator as she kept to the question “script” but the real joy was less the answers and more the laughing and fellow shipping that unfolded. I envy what you guys have. I cant wait to see who my wife and I will meet along the way. We are very excited to start our adventure. Thanks so much for your coaching and the time you put into everything you do for your community. Awesome……..just Awesome!!!! If you guys ever make it to N.E. Oregon, I have a place for you to park. I even have a sewer dump. Check out my home town web site at JosephOregon dot com. It is better in the summer for sure.
Brett
Awww… thanks for this heart touching comment. It was so much fun to share a slice of our evening with P&J. Friends on the road rock!
We stayed at Saguaro Co-op Park in the spring of 2014 and ate at Mi Casa and we agree wholeheartedly with your review of both.
I am so very glad you have been enjoying some much needed alone time together. It is with great enjoyment I sit and read your blog comments, dreaming of the day when I will be able to personally visit many of the places you mention. Have fun with your bikes, I hope you are wearing your helmets, continue to take time to breath and enjoy your Christmas and New Years holidays!