Mar 16, 2023 (Thu)
As we venture out into the wilds of Mesa, we don’t see much evidence of last night’s torrential rain (locals report it rained an inch last night). There are some water puddles (not enough dirt to be a mud puddle), but that’s about it.
We spend the morning taking care of some chores (stopping by the AAA office, where it turns out that since Mesa is bursting with old people, their trip tik route designers are bursting with business and have a two week backlog!). WalMart provides a new frying pan (we use the frying pan a lot when we boondock and the one we got at Value Village for $5 isn’t up to the task).
2:00 pm More Than a Thousand Trails, Mesa, AZ
If the last big Thousand Trails park we stayed at was “RV City,” then this place is “RV Metropolis.” It has 1,667 units (so 1 and 2/3 Thousand Trails). It’s so huge, it confuses Siri who takes us to the “Card Gate” where you need a card to get in.
Or you need to watch a car go out the exit gate and then swing over to the wrong lane and slip through the gate before it closes. Such high security!
One nice thing about such a huge place is that there are three heated pools and five hot tubs, so we put one of each to good use as we frolic in the Arizona sunshine (and 75° weather). Ahh…

One of the pools and one of the hot tubs at RV Metropolis
3:30 pm RV Metropolis
We’re getting our stuff ready for our big evening, and we need to figure out what’s going on with dinner. Robert stops by the front desk to ask if there’s a restaurant on the grounds (at the last place, there was a restaurant and a quickie food mart.
The front desk clerk cheerfully fills him in:
“Well, our bistro served dinner yesterday, and today they served a fine breakfast, and tomorrow they’ll be serving lunch!”
So, only one meal a day?
“That’s right! And don’t forget the St. Patrick’s Day parade tomorrow, sir!”
Peanut butter toast and mandarin oranges in Harvey for dinner, it is! Which isn’t too bad, plus Gini was just reading that this sort of dinner is super-healthy for you and will help you live to be over 60 years of age! (Her reading material might be targeted to a different demographic…)

On the street where we live (for tonight)
6:00 pm Mesa Arts Center, Mesa, AZ
We are outside the Mesa Arts Center (more on why we’re here in a moment). The art center is (surprise!) surrounded by art, and one of those art pieces is some wiggly chairs that people can sit in and wiggle about.
Robert thinks, hey, I could do this…
For the hilarious (according to 50% of our party) or embarrassing (according to the other 50%) results, please check out the following video:
Robert wiggle waggling in the chair
6:30 pm Mesa Arts Center
There’s a comedian named Mike Birbiglia, who has a dry sense of humor and tells funny stories more than jokes. He’s got four or five Netflix comedy specials and two movies out and we enjoy him very much. When Gini found out that there would be a birthday party for her friend Mona which required us to stay an extra couple of days in Arizona, the Birbiglia concert was added to our activities (and barely in time—this thing is sold out!).
If you want to learn more, look him up on Netflix or check out his website:
We anxiously await the show…

Gini reads through the program for the Mike Birbiglia show
9:00 pm Mesa Arts Center
Our sides hurt from laughing so much. One thing we like about Birbiglia (aside from his mellifluous last name) is that his funny stories almost always have a touching side to them and tonight was no different.
Mike (we feel after spending an hour and a half with him discussing his bladder, his pancreas and his “bloated dead person” body, we’re on a first name basis) just closed a run on Broadway with his show, The Old Man In the Pool.
This show was not advertised as The Old Man, etc., maybe because of licensing reasons? We’re not theater promoters, what do we know? Anyway, it was just “Mike Live.” At no point did he claim that this was his Broadway show or mention the title.
But if we had to pick a title for it: The Old Man In the Pool, so—we got to see a Broadway show in Mesa, Arizona! How cool is that?!?
9:30 pm On the way to RV Metropolis
We call an Uber, because we didn’t want to maneuver Harvey in a parking garage where he probably wouldn’t fit, and we’d have to cruise the mean streets of Mesa, hunting for on-street parking.
Our Uber is a Tesla! This is pretty cool except for one tiny thing (and we mention this because we’ve never ridden in a Tesla before—maybe you have and it’s old hat).
We can’t figure out how to open the freaking door!
From the outside we eventually got it (push on one side of a lever and pull on the other?), but from the inside neither one of us ever figured it out. There was a button to push, but you had to push it in a special way using your thumb (while pushing on the door) and even an avid button-pusher like Robert was baffled.
This was the second day this guy was driving his brand new Tesla, but it’s likely every customer he gets will be the first time they’ve ridden in a Tesla. In three months (figure an average of 20 rides a day, five days a week), he will have had to explain how to open the door 800 times.
We’re betting it’s going to be traded in on a Corolla…
Map

How we got here
Gini & Robert
Harvey Staff
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