The big reveal!
Unless this is your first visit to my blog, you know I haven’t posted the location of our latest campsite on Roosevelt Lake, east of Phoenix. Usually that’s one of the first things I do upon our arrival at a new camp. I didn’t this time because I needed some alone time. Since Bridget and I will leave the area soon, today’s post will show and tell you about this very nice campground.
Schoolhouse Rec Area is on the southwest end of Roosevelt Lake.
The lake level is low which, of course, means the shoreline has receded. The boat ramp next to Mesquite Campground leads into dry lake bed. Mesquite isn’t really called a campground, but rather one of the loops of a very large camping area. The other loops are closed for the winter. Therefore, I call it Mesquite Campground. (I can do that if I want.)
The camp fee at the present time (soon to change) is $6 regular/$3 with senior pass.
This is paid at a local business where one purchases a Tonto Pass. The pass is placed on your vehicle’s dashboard and your senior pass (National Forest Service lifetime discount pass which you buy when you turn 62) is hung from the rear view mirror.
The roads to and within the campground are paved.
Each site has a shelter, fire ring, and a picnic table (some have two tables, like ours). There are trash dumpsters, two drinking water spigots, and two restrooms with flush toilets and sink with large mirror.
I haven’t counted how many sites there are. I’m guessing forty. In the last two weeks Bridget and I have had the campground all to ourselves, save for a couple of campers who camped for only a night or two. It’s been a treat living here!
Several sites are long pull-throughs.
You can see from the truck camper and boat (below) how long the parking areas are. His truck fits easily ahead of the camper.
These photos were taken early in the morning, thus the harsh shadows. I took a few of the Best Little Trailer, but they didn’t come out well due to the door side being in heavy shade. I’ll try again tomorrow, later in the day.
Our site has a shelter, two picnic tables, a fire ring, a mesquite tree and palo verde tree, and room to park vehicles side-by-side. In other words, there’s plenty of room for an RV, a toad, a boat, and a visitor’s vehicle, probably with room to spare.
I moved one of the tables to the back of the site, not wanting to use the one under the shelter because it’s close to the road.
I chose this site because it’s unlikely to attract a neighbor, it’s near the restroom and water spigot, it has a view of the mountains (the bigger mountains not shown in the above photo), and it has a pretty mesquite tree (shown below).
In order to create the next photo, I ordered Little Miss Dumpling out from under the BLT and positioned her in front of the mesquite tree with a strict order to stay put. Notice the long back-in parking area in the site beyond ours.
I haven’t checked cell phone coverage here (haven’t charged my phone since we arrived). The internet signal is steady and strong with 4G at 2 bars. Of course, that’s with the Wilson antenna.
We have visitors!
Bridget and I are inside the BLT when I hear a vehicle stop at our campsite. I step outside and immediately recognize John Schroeder from the profile photo I’ve seen on his blog, Just Finding Our Way.
John and his wife, B.J., live in Apache Junction (near Phoenix) along with their King Charles spaniel. They camp in a Scamp 19 trailer. You can read about their search for our campsite in John’s 12/28/14 post entitled “Boxing Day.”
By the time they find us, the light is fading fast.
We have a brief chat (brief because it’s cold, as well as becoming dark). John hands me a bag of citrus and several of B.J.’s hand-decorated, home-baked Christmas cookies and snickerdoodles.
Sorry, no photo of the cookies. That’s too bad because they were pretty. I wasn’t able to set the shutter speed at CTM. (That’s Cookies To Mouth, a very high speed that even my Panasonic LUMIX can’t handle.)
So far I’ve eaten one of the oranges which I’m guessing came from John and B.J.’s tree at their house. Very sweet!
However, those little yellow-green things — I don’t know what they are, lemons from hell maybe? — boy, are they tart! I think my ears are permanently backward.
Gee, John, you could’ve put a warning label on them. Just kidding… Thanks for the cookies and fruit!
Remember the funnel I bought?
Here it is in action. It works very well for funneling water poured from my one-gallon jugs into the fresh water tank.
When I dumped the waste tanks on the way to Schoolhouse Rec Area, the Shell station in Globe didn’t have a spigot for drinking water. At least I didn’t see one there, only a spigot at their dump station and that’s not water for the fresh water tank.
Since a hose isn’t allowed on the spigots here at the campground, the funnel-and-jug method is an easy solution!
One last photo of a campsite at Schoolhouse Recreation Area. Until next time . . . .
rvsue
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