Mail pick up on the road when - where

[BatDude]

Thanks to Norm & Ginny of 16' Scamp fame- who we met last year (2016) face to face, we joined Escapees.

They have great mail forwarding service. The previous winter (2015) on the road to escape Mich. winter we had a friend collect the mail and forward with explicit dates and locations where we would be so we could remain current with mail (bills etc.).

Hmm. We continued to check the Jekyll Island Campground Office for our mail after our friend indicated he had sent the mail in a large envelope more than 10 days prior. Long story short... he did not look at dates and sent everything to Key West KOA that we were not going to be for nearly a month. Ooops!

I called the KOA and they agreed to hold it until we arrived.

This year for our trip out of Michigan in mid-Nov. we were again heading south again to Jekyll with stops in Myrtle Beach and Huntington Beach S.C.

Escapees mail service to Jekyll for the 2 months we were there was awesome. Every few weeks we had mail!

Then we were hopping first to Florida for a week then across nightly stops along the gulf en route to Arizona. With only a night or two at each stop we did not have mail forwarded. We did schedule +/- 7-8 nights on Padre Island however, we did not want to risk missing the mail. As it was we only stayed 4 nights due to bad weather coming in that would last several days. We were there long enough to alert the staff and have a sea turtle rescued (details on Carolyn’s FB page). Escapees mail forwarding is First Class with a tracking number and can be expected in 5-7 business days. After Padre we continued to Louisiana and overnighted with friends in New Orleans.

We knew we would be in the Chiricahua Mountains for at least several days. This is one of the most bio-diverse areas of the U.S. and has been high on my long time bucket list places. We were not certain where we would be, at one of the Forest Service camp sites or at a nearby commercial campsite. So a solid 10 days before arrival I had our month accumulation of mail forwarded to the nearest town Portal, AZ.




I assumed that the first day there as we would be staying with friends who have a house on the New Mexico side of the border 8 miles away, we should be able to find the Portal U.S. P.O. with little problem. This given our new tow vehicle has full GPS/Nav features for towns and cities.

The U.S. P.O. tracking indicated we could expect to pick up the general delivery mail on Saturday. Turns out that the P.O. there is not open on Saturday so we stayed a few more days and did pick it up on Monday morning at 9 AM. Turns out no GPS was needed as the P.O. was easy to find as it was one of only a dozen buildings in Portal.

There is so much to see and do here we have extended our stay another 3 nights at Rusty’s RV Ranch just north of Rodeo, N.M. The first night we stayed at our friends house, but they had to return to work in Dallas, TX so we opted for the RV park in Rodeo, N.M.

Do not trust web sites… this place while it had a full hook up spot for our 16’ Scamp, did not come close to minimum expectations. So we towed the Scamp north up the road 8 miles to Rusty’s where we are now. In the next day or so we will go over the mountains and visit the Chiricahua National Monument as a day trip. Only 34 miles away over narrow dirt mountain roads so it will take about an hour and 25 minutes or so.

Oh there is no gas available locally- really remote area are Rodeo, N.M. and nearby Portal, AZ. No grocery stores close either (some beer and wine places so priorities are OK) however, there is one small basic grocery available and gas some 30 miles and > 55 miles for serious groceries.

So far we have been able to walk at least 5 miles of trails each day, and a few days closer to 10. Colder than expected but at the higher altitudes there is still snow.

We are still headed for Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and will be there maybe next week. Wonderful thing about Scamping… one can be spontaneous. Oh all the Forest Service camp sites beautiful as they are, have no hook ups so are boon docking which is OK, but more important no dump stations.

OK time to save our Verizon Hotspot band allocation and stop my rambling and get this posted. I may post some pics of the area… breath taking beauty.

[llinderman]

Bat Dude,

I hope you have your passports with you when you are in Organ Pipe Cactus NM because you wouldn't want to miss going down to Rocky Point (Puerto Penasco), Sonora, Mex. for the day. We did it last week (2/20-2/23) and had a ball.

It's only about 2-hours south of Organ Pipe. The road there is very clean as is the town. Be sure to bring a cooler and buy some seafood. I recommend a fish market called 3 Boys. Giant shrimp for $8/lb, sea bass and grouper for $3/lb.

Larry Linderman

[Tom 72]

Thank you for your forwarding advice and travel details. Another frequently used forwarding method is UPS Stores, formerly Mail Boxes, etc. At your direction they can stuff whatever you want, such as just first class mail into a flat rate envelope and catch you. Of course individual first class items can be forwarded but this seems to be slower.

[Kai in Seattle]

So far we haven't been gone long enough to need mail forwarded anywhere, but this is good to know it's available!


We used ot ask our neighbors to pick up our mail but they, too, travel, so we just let the post office hold our mail now and they'll deliver it all on a date we specify--usually a day or two after our expected return just in case we have a delay.


That's worked fine and we'll do it again this year.


We also have all our regular bills auto-pay now, so at least the power, phone, etc. won't be cut off while we're gone. It's the odd, occasional things we'd need forwarded...thanks for the info!


BEST
Kai

[BatDude]

Hmmm,

After 3 passports later mine has expired after we left Belize 25.5 years after arrival back in the U.S. So we will not travel to Mexico. I heard through the grapevine that generators are "not" permitted" in Organ Pipe?

How does one boon dock w/o topping up batteries?

Guess we will find out when we get there.
Tnx for the great tip.