Thursday, November 2, 2017

Arizona, Mesa - Thursday, November 2, 2017 - We've Arrived in Mesa


When we left Holbrook, AZ we went through Winslow to stop at the Flying J Truck Stop to fill up with fuel before we settled in for the winter in Mesa.  From Winslow we took AZ 87 south.  There is beautiful scenery along most of this route, but sometimes the road looks like it goes on forever going nowhere.  This area is actually the beginning of the Coconino National Forest even though there are no actual trees to be seen.



Further along the trees become evident.



Although this is a beautiful drive, I have to admit it bothers me because of all the steep declines and long, long inclines.  This particular decline was 6% with a curve at the end for added apprehension on my part.  I might note, Greg doesn’t have the same apprehensions as I do, he’s just driving along doing his thing and I’m worrying enough for both of us.



I liked the way the sun was shining through the trees and adding some interesting shadows.



More of the scenery through Coconino.



Just as we come out of Coconino National Forest we enter Tonto National Forest.  This area seems to have even more curves.



This one is particularly interesting.  Luckily we’ve never met anyone in the middle of this curve.



The Tonto National Forest seems to be more mountainous with a dense covering of trees.



In spite of what this sign and others like it say, we still haven’t seen any wildlife on our trips out here – I don’t think the little lizard we saw last year really counts.  I guess we can count our lucky stars we haven’t had to face a collision with an elk, I hear it can be pretty bad.



This is one of the downgrades.  Even though this drive makes me nervous we hear from people who have done it that the route down through Show Low is even worse.



And, this is one of the inclines showing up on the right.  Makes me nervous just looking at the picture.



The saguaro cactus are starting to show up, means we are almost to our winter home.




We arrived Sunday afternoon and it’s been a busy week so far.  Greg has been cleaning the coach, the outside windows and the Jeep.  The Kansas dust storms left us with a lot of cleaning to do.  I worked today on the inside of some of the cabinets, ran the sweeper and mopped.  We’ve managed to square dance twice so far this week and will be going again tomorrow.  We are back on our low-calorie, low sodium diet with considerations added for kidney health (Greg would prefer no more kidney stones).  So, I’m spending quite a bit of time working on our meal plans and keeping track of what we eat – so far so good but it’s only been four days.

Yesterday we went to the grocery across the street for a restock, it was Senior Citizens Day and we get 10% off.  There is an Osco pharmacy in the store so we decided we would get our flu shots which also gives us each a coupon for 10% off on future grocery purchases.  The pharmacist talked to us about the new pneumonia vaccine, Prevnar 13 so we decided to get that also, this also gave us two more 10% off coupons (this is easier than clipping coupons and Medicare covers it all).  Greg suggested while we were in the waiting area that since we already had our coupons why not just leave.  I made him stay, we got one shot in each arm so last night both of us were kind of hurting, especially from the Prevnar shot.  Today we are fine.  The pharmacist said people over 65 should now have two pneumonia shots, the one we got right after we turned 65 and now the Prevnar 13 shot.  The Prevnar shot is a once in a lifetime event so I encourage all of our friends over 65 to get theirs.

We start work on Monday.  We think our schedule will be Monday and Tuesday, five hours each per day.  Our mail still goes to our South Dakota address and we get it once a month.  But, if anyone needs to get anything to us quicker they can use our Arizona address until April – 233 N. Val Vista Drive, Site 796 V, Mesa, AZ 85213.