MWR: Morale, Welfare and Recreation. In my case, military campgrounds. Before you had to be either a 100% Disabled Veteran, a Medal of Honor Winner, former P.O.W or of course retired/active duty military.
So, now that my 20% disability rating met the criteria, I thought I'd try this particular facility as my first attempt to use such campsites.
I displaced from the Cactus Forest BLM site near Marana, AZ, after saying goodbye to RichardM and BridgetM as they rode off towards Benson, AZ in their current journey to Texas.
In less than two hours, not counting the time it took to get propane, gas and a sandwich at a Flying J Travel Stop, I was at the Gila Bend AFAF and handing over my VHIC to the security guard at the main gate.
The guard remarked to me: "Hey we just started accepting these." and he passed me on through after writing down some information on a clipboard. I figured, well, that was easy....
I got to the registration office for the campsite and the person who does the check-ins was at a meeting I was told and to come back about an hour later; to go just pick a site and setup. OK!
Got setup, got UDF'ed by a fellow veteran about life with a Class C motor home (he and his wife are shopping around) and also about Fiona of course.
I unloaded Fiona after setting up the RV, left the base to go the 3-4 miles to nearby Gila Bend (initial impression: one strip town) to get some groceries at the Dollar General, didn't spot an open food market so choices were slim.
Got some stuff and headed back to the base, got waved through the gate by the same guard without having to show my ID again and went to the registration office to check in.
That's when the expected bureaucratic difficulties began. The lady seemed quite insistent that my VHIC wasn't quite correct. She was under the impression it should state "Authorized for MWR" on it, even though the paperwork she had showed an example ID card just like mine, and I pointed out to her that "Service-Connected" was one of the approved choices. Sigh.
She hemmed and hawed, looked through more paperwork, finally deciding that since the guard at the gate had let me in, I must be authorized. She signed me up for four nights at $12/night for power, water and sewer. Not bad.
Once I was back at the URRV, I called the VA helpdesk and asked if there was an update ID that said "Authorized for MWR"; was told NO and that I'd done everything correctly. It's just a training issue as I suspected since it usually takes a long time for everyone to "get the word" when something new like this is authorized.
Oh well. As you can see from the pics, the campground is basically a big gravel/dirt parking lot, quite level and decent spacing between sites. No trees to speak of but there are laundry facilities. The registration office has a nicely outfitted lounge area with WiFi open to guests 24/7 but am getting good cell signal here so not a big deal either ways.
More to follow. I've camped near near Gila Bend before, having checked out their tiny museum/city hall. It was a bit over a year ago as a matter of fact: LINK
Clear skies for today's sunset, crappy location though....will have to find a better one for the next good sunset:
No comments:
Post a Comment