Arizona 2026

This was our seventh winter snowbirding in Arizona, at Gold Canyon Golf & RV Resort. We rented for one month the first year, and then two months the second year. By year three we had our 5th wheel trailer, and we have been staying for three months. That first year it felt like a vacation. Over the years with the RV it has felt more like a second home.

Growing up in Minnesota, my family never went anywhere during the winter. My parents never considered snowbirding. My mom was always busy with her activities at home. The idea of several months of “leisure” time was foreign to her. You should be doing something productive.

Being raised that way and by nature, I also have trouble with the idea of many hours of relaxing and recreation. However, I do appreciate getting away from the cold, and being somewhere where you can go outside without worrying about slipping and falling, and do other things like walking, hiking, swimming, and bike riding that we do not do in the winter at home. The free exercise classes a five minute walk away are a no brainer. Many of the things I do at home I do here too, like hand knitting and sock machine knitting.

Each year has been a little different. Wayne’s sister and brother-in-law, Marlene and Steve, did not come until March. We spent quite a bit of time with friends we know from home who rented an Airbnb for two months in Mesa, about 20 minutes from us. Two other couples we are close to in Minnesota came to the area on vacation. Our kids visited for an entire week.

The weather was much warmer than average. Our usual experience has been high temperatures in the 60’s in January and February, and up to the 70’s Fahrenheit in March. This year it was in the 70’s in January, and we used the air conditioner in the RV when daytime highs were above 90 degrees Fahrenheit for all of March. There was a stretch of about five or six days with highs above 100. It was too hot for hiking or bike riding, but we used the pool more than other years, and went to two movies. Wayne got up very early for golfing or a bike ride to get some exercise before the heat of the day. There were tons of grasshoppers all over during the hot weather, and reports of people seeing rattle snakes out earlier than normal.

Our friends Mary Lou and Steven have spent part of winter in Florida for the past couple of years. After listening to us talk about Arizona, they decided to try it out this winter. They really enjoyed the mountain views and dry weather, lack of bugs, hiking, and variety of other things to do. They are considering coming back next winter.

We never get tired of taking visitors on the Apache Trail Scenic Drive. I wrote about it in 2024, you can read that post here. We had an adventure with Mary Lou and Steven this year on the Apache Trail, with the intention of seeing the cliff dwellings at Tonto National Monument near Roosevelt Lake and dam. We got a late start due to roads being closed for the Lost Dutchman Marathon, near where we had agreed to leave their car at the Superstition Mountain Museum. As we were going past Tortilla Flat, there happened to be a free parking spot, so we pulled in. This place was a stagecoach stop in the early 1900’s, but is currently a tourist “town” one block long with a permanent population of six. We stopped and had a bite to eat and used the goofy bathroom.

After stopping at several other scenic points, we arrived late in the afternoon at Tonto National Monument, only to find that the trail up to the cliff dwellings was closed for the day. By the time we got all the way back to the Superstition Mountain Museum to get Mary Lou and Steven’s car, it was getting dark out. The gate was closed and locked. Their car was towed. We stopped at a restaurant for a late dinner, only to find a 45 minute wait time. At this point everyone was ready to go back home and eat leftovers for dinner.

We also took some other friends from home, Steve and Sally, on the Apache Trail scenic drive, getting this photo at the Canyon Lake overlook.

Our friends Kris and Dave visited for a few days. They enjoyed hanging out at the pool at our resort, and we went to an event at the Mesa Arts Center that included artist vendors, music, demonstrations, and a drone light show.

There is a gift shop at Gold Canyon Golf & RV Resort where residents sell their hand crafted products. There is a good selection of practical, fun and creative items for sale at reasonable prices.

Over the last year I had collected a big bag of socks and accessories I cranked out on my circular sock machine. They were for practice, rather than for anyone in particular. I decided to try selling them at the gift shop at the resort. The items were already made, so minimal effort was involved. There is no sales commission, so there was nothing to loose. I was not sure if wool socks would be in demand in Arizona, however they are perfect for hiking which is a popular activity. Following are photos of some of the socks ready to go on sale at the gift shop.

I had a limited supply of sock yarn to make more socks, so I ordered some Cascade yarn and some Aktiv yarn. Aktiv yarn is popular with crankers who sell many socks because it is good quality, reasonably priced, and comes on big cones. Even with the shipping cost, it came out cheaper on a per sock basis ordering directly from the company in Germany. It also arrived faster than the Cascade yarn. Following is a photo of the Aktiv yarn I bought in a variety of fun but not too wild colorways. I will be set for sock yarn for a long time (although that has never stopped me from buying more yarn haha).

I did not want to crank out dozens of socks in every size and style and yarn option. I did make a limited number of new pairs, and then put up a sign offering to knit custom socks in the specific size, style, and yarn requested.

My socks were displayed in baskets at the gift shop. I had to work in the gift shop once per month, for a total of three times in my case. The whole thing is well organized and runs smoothly with a cash only system.

By the end of the season, I had sold enough socks to pay for the yarn I purchased. One person requested a custom pair of socks. There was still a lot yarn left for future sock making. I felt like it was a successful experiment and I will consider doing it again next season.

In addition to using my circular sock machine in the RV, I worked on some hand knitting projects this year in Arizona. I hand knitted four red resistance hats, plus a preemie size red hat for my friend’s new granddaughter, and a mini red hat ornament. I wrote about the red hats in this post. I finished knitting and posted here about a colorwork sweater.

Wayne’s sister and brother-in-law, Marlene and Steve, arrived for the month of March at Gold Canyon Golf and RV Resort. Our kids came for a week at the beginning of March, overlapping with Wayne’s other sister and husband, Yvonne and Gayle, plus some nieces and a fiance. Our son and daughter-in-law, James and Kelsey, rented a large Airbnb in Mesa with a heated swimming pool. Kelsey’s parents and sister stayed with them. Our daughter and her boyfriend, Britta and Isaac, came for part of the week. There was a lot of driving back and forth between Gold Canyon and Mesa.

I went to Goodwill and spent a total of $10 on two dolls, four board books, and a bucket of Duplo to make sure the two granddaughters would have something to play with.

The dolls are around 15″, bigger than they look in the photo. They are both having a bad hair day. The smaller doll did not have any clothes so I made her a sun dress with the sock machine. Blair immediately took the dress off the doll.

I also bought a beach ball and water squirter that both turned out to be popular. The swimming pool at the Airbnb got a lot of use.

The backyard at the Airbnb was a great hang out location for all the various relatives.

Nora liked sucking on a lime, but not a lemon, while at a restaurant.

Some of the cousins went on a hike.

Blair learned how to play foosball.

James and Kelsey got some golf in, but otherwise focused on toddler friendly activities. We took Britta and Isaac to Boyce Thompson Arboretum for a walk around the landscaped areas and an easy hike.

Many cactuses were blooming earlier than usual with the warm weather.

After James and Kelsey went back home, the other young and old adults enjoyed a relaxing day at our resort swimming and playing pickleball.

On Yvonne and Gayle’s last day we went to the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, before they had to leave for the airport. We happened to run into friends from Minnesota, who own a place in Florence, Arizona, about 30 miles south of Gold Canyon.

I participated in my first ever protest at a No Kings event on March 28. The flagship march and protest were held in my home state of Minnesota, but there were protests all over the country on the same day. We attended an event near Florence with our friends there. There were about 200 people participating, which seemed like a good turnout considering we were in the middle of nowhere. Participants held up signs along a busy road. Many people honked and gave us a thumbs up or waved their support as they drove by. Other people gave us a thumbs down or middle finger up, but it was all peaceful.

It feels more like a second home in Gold Canyon each winter, and I really like small living in the RV. However I had had enough of the extreme hot weather and was ready to go back to Minnesota by the end of March.

Because of the warmer than usual weather, unlike other years, we slept in the RV for two nights on the way home. We used the bedroom and bathroom without opening the slides or having any water, electricity or sewer services. The RV battery was enough to power the lights, and we dumped water from a jug into the toilet when flushing. The first night we stayed in the parking lot at Junkyard on 66 Brewery in Grants, New Mexico, after eating dinner there. The tables were made out of old car parts. We had mixed feelings about staying in this town after our truck broke down there on the way home last year. You can read about that adventure here.

The second night we stayed at a truck stop at a very busy highway intersection on the north side of Oklahoma City. There was a lot of loud truck noise for most of the night. On the third day there were high winds and thunderstorms forecast in Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. At one point we hung out at a McDonalds for a couple of hours to wait for the wind to die down, and then stayed west of the storms. We would have driven the last stretch home to West Central Minnesota on Saturday after night three, but there was a winter storm developing there.

In order to not drive into a snowstorm we stayed overnight in Omaha for two nights. This time we used a free night at a Marriott hotel, and then paid for a second night. It was quite nice and a huge step up from the noisy truck stop. Wayne got this screen shot on Saturday from a camera looking out over our driveway.

We drove the last stretch home on Sunday after the storm was over. There was about four or five inches of snow in our yard when we got home, but more importantly a big ridge of snow and dirt at the end of the driveway from the snowplow.

Wayne removed the ridge enough to pull the truck and RV off the road. He did not want to bother shoveling the entire driveway, as he figured the snow would melt soon with warmer weather in a few days. In the meantime, it was cold, the wet snow crusted over, and we could not get out for several days due to hard snow and the RV blocking the way. It was OK, there were plenty of things to do getting things back in order in the house.

I am looking forward to weaving, spinning, and flatbed knitting that I was not able to do in Arizona. Meanwhile, we will be on the road again soon to the Twin Cities for Nora’s first birthday party (assuming we can get out of the driveway!).