Sunday, January 27, 2019

Surprise, surprise......

7:14 am - Sunday - January 27th - Winslow, AZ - 24º F, 71% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the southeast......clear blue skies today with a forecast high of 54º F.....a virtual heatwave!

We only had 41 miles to travel to our destination for Saturday.....Winslow, AZ.  Winslow has an Elks Lodge with 20 & 30 amp service (I thought)....no water, or sewer, but only 50 miles from Flagstaff.  Way back when we began our trek back to the west my thought had been to stay here at the Elks Lodge which is at a much lower elevation than Flagstaff, therefore a little warmer, and commute to my doctors appointments.  The added bonus is that the Elks Lodge is located on old Route 66, just a short walk from downtown, and they only charge $10/night.  The parking for RV's is just a large dirt lot, but it is extremely easy to get in and out.  The Elks own the entire square block, and have been on this site since 1937.....


Google Street View

.....as we drew closer to Winslow I began to see very cold overnight temps in the teens and 20's.  At the time I thought they had 20 &30 amp receptacles.  When we were in Winslow back in April of 2018 we walked by this Elks Lodge and checked out the electrical hookups, and for some reason I came away thinking they only had 20 and 30 amp.  With overnight temps in the teens and 20's 30 amp would mean we could only run the basement electric heater, and one electric heater inside, so I had figured we would just hang out a day, or two and then head up to frigid Flagstaff where I knew we could get 50 amp service, but at a premium price of $50/day......I really, really did not want to stay in Flagstaff at 7,200' elevation in the winter.....I had enough of that last winter at the Grand Canyon....:-).....

 My 'Street View'

 Constructed circa 1937

Benevolent Protective Order of Elks - Lodge 536

....we were in no hurry to leave Sun Valley, AZ until the temp got out of the 'teens', and at least into the 30's, and that did not occur until about 11 am.

It took us about 45 minutes to cover the distance into Winslow, and we were parking our home just before noon time.  As I approached the power pole where the electrical outlets are I discovered they did, indeed, have a 50 amp outlet (50 amp is really 100 amp as each 'leg' of the plug carries 50 amps)....surprise, surprise.....

.....with 100 amps you can run a lot of electric heaters, and when it is this cold overnight we prefer electric heaters to the Suburban gas heaters as the electric heaters are much quieter at night.  Typically an electric heater on low draws about 10 amps....we have 4 electric heaters we run in this kind of weather (one in the water bay, one in the salon, one in the bedroom and one in the bathroom) so we are drawing 40 amps at any given time, which would not work on 30 amp service.

At any rate, we were set up in about 30 minutes, and had immediately determined we would be staying in Winslow and commuting to Flagstaff for my appointments......plenty of electricity here at $10/day....easy choice.....plus there is no snow on the ground!

About 2 pm we took the VW out of the trailer and drove up to the Walmart to do some shopping....TLE wanted to make some of her world famous salsa, and I will never attempt to talk her out of that notion!

Around 4 pm we walked inside the Elks Lodge to pay for our stay and met Brian, the bartender.  He gave us a tour of the lodge, and talked a lot about the local area.  This is one of the things I love about Elks Lodges as you can spend time talking to locals about the area and learn what to do, and see from their point of view.

So, we are settled in for about 5 days......once we know the date of my surgery we will make a decision about whether to stay here, or move into Flagstaff....thanks for stopping by!

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