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Our Travel Adventures
Welcome to the Adventures of Larry and Connie Farquhar.
Our First Harvest Host Experience
Stetson Winery
After leaving the Flagstaff area, we headed towards Kingmam, AZ. Our destination was the Stetson Winery off the old Route 66. This winery is a "Harvest Host". We joined Harvest Hosts in December. This membership allows us to unlimited free overnight stays at over 724 Farms, Wineries, Breweries, and Museums. You can pay for a higher membership and also get access to stay overnight free at over 300 golf courses. Locations participating in this program allow members to spend the night free, usually with no hook-ups. You can ask for more than one night, but the rules allow for the one night. There's no requirement to make a purchase while staying there, although the hosts hope you will.
We joined Harvest Hosts last December to take advantage of their premium membership before rates went up. Prices went up by $40 on January 1st. However, we haven't had the opportunity (or need) to stay at one of their locations until now. Having this option just gives us more places we can spend the night for free while traveling. Besides, we get to visit and experience unique locations.
Our First Harvest Host Parking
Connie sampling the wine.
Our first experience with Harvest Hosts was fun. Don Stetson came out to greet us and we chatted for awhile. A very nice host. We were the only RV's spending the night, although they've had over 6 people stay this week alone. They call themselves a "winery", but it's actually just an acre or two of vineyards. They have another company do the bottling for them with their own label. We sampled the wine, which was good. Connie ended up buying a bottle of their "White Table Wine". We were parked next to the grape vines, which were just starting to come out of hibernation. The winery was 6 or 7 miles off Route 66, with the last couple of miles being very dusty. We enjoyed a very quiet and dark night alone in the vineyards.
Rum and Vinegar from the Distillery
While staying at the winery, we drove about 15 miles away to visit the Desert Diamond Distillery near Kingman. This distillery is also a Harvest Host member and we were originally going to spend the night there. That was until Connie learned about the winery. This distillery is for rum products. Of course, we had to have a sampling of their rum. We walked away with a bottle of the Agave Rum and a bottle of their Raspberry Balsamic Vinegar. Very good products! Free camping at a Harvest Host location isn't always "free".
After only one night at the Stetson Winery, we made our way to Pahrump, NV and spent a couple of nights at the Saddle West Casino in their RV Park. We had a few reasons for stopping here:
- We needed to do laundry.
- We needed to fill-up on fresh water and dump our waste.
- We wanted to update information on the casinos in the area for our Casino Camper website.
Mission accomplished and we left Pahrump this morning, staying ahead of some severe winds. The strong winds caught up with us for the last 20 miles as we pulled into another casino parking lot in Tonopah, NV. We'll be here for a night or two to avoid driving in the 45+mph winds.
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Comments 4
Guest - Judy Sheeley
on Tuesday, 09 April 2019 23:42
Connie Farquhar
on Wednesday, 10 April 2019 22:57
Guest - Tom Shaw
on Monday, 20 May 2019 13:58
Glad to hear you had a good 1st HH experience. Ours was at the St Clare Winery in Deming, NM in March. Their Hatch Chili in fused wine is unique. Our friends got bottles as we traveled to from San Diego. Peggy and In have enjoyed your efforts on the military CG site for years. Together we have 44 years in the USAF...
Our first Casino stay at Camp Verde, AZ was likely our last we didn't like the hoops we had to go through to be approved to stay. I wonder if signing up in detail, putting cash on a gambling card Etc. are typical?
Larry Farquhar
on Tuesday, 21 May 2019 23:43
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