Arizona, Mesa - Thursday, November 24, 2016 - Val Vista Villages

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO OUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS

WE ARE SO BLESSED TO HAVE ALL OF YOU IN OUR LIVES!!

We made my favorite thing for Thanksgiving dinner – carry out!!  I know that sounds like I don’t like to cook, I do and I do a lot of it.  We just didn’t want the temptation of leftovers so we opted to order one serving for each of us from a local restaurant, Midwestern Meats.  This is a restaurant, meat market and bakery all in one building.  It features beef from Iowa.  Our lunch today consisted of baked turkey and a scoop of dressing and one of mashed potatoes with some really tasty gravy, delicious green beans and a roll from the restaurant.  Our homemade contribution was cranberry sauce and a bottle of my favorite bubbly wine.  The dinner also included slices of pumpkin pie and soup.  We are saving the soup to have with some shrimp cocktail for supper tonight.

I haven’t posted in a while, we haven’t been doing much blogworthy.  We are working one day a week for five hours each.  This takes care of our site and utilities.  Our hours are supposed to increase to twelve hours a week for each of us after the first of the year.  We are square dancing 4 times a week, which will increase to 6 times a week in mid-December.  We are taking lessons for the next level of dancing – kind of mind boggling at times.  Greg is better at this than I am.

I’ve attended a genealogy class a couple of times and last night attended one of the quilting group’s meetings.  I need to get my unfinished projects out and start on them again.

We’ve done a couple of things to spruce up the Jeep, we bought new seat covers and matching floor mats.

Also had to buy an add-on step for me, my short legs just couldn’t maneuver in since it has big tires.  People kept telling us the motorcycle was dangerous, we were going to get hurt.  Well, in all the years that motorcycle was our only means of transportation I never got hurt.  The first week with the Jeep I hurt my knee trying to get in.  It’s fine now but Greg knew it hurt because I accepted having an ice pack on it.  That’s when he went online looking for a step for shorty.

Arizona, Mesa - Sunday, November 1, 2015 - Gallop, NM to Mesa, AZ

Pulling into Val Vista Villages RV Resort early this afternoon.  It is 84 degrees here.  When we left Gallup, NM this morning it was 21 degrees with a wind chill to 13.  We were ready to get out of there by 7:00 a.m., a whole lot earlier than our usual time!!

 

 

This is our home for the winter.  Our address will be 233 N. Val Vista Drive, #796, Mesa, AZ 85213.  We are in a different site than we were last year.  This one was a breeze to get into, last year was a real fight.  We didn’t have a patio last year, this year we have a double one which will allow us room to park the motorcycle instead of leaving it sitting on the sidewalk out front.  Our times are going to be off kilter from the kids again – three hours difference from our daughters and two hours difference from our sons.  I think our tree is an orange tree.

Before we left Gallup completely we waited in line at the Blue Beacon to get the motor coach washed.  The dust we picked up in Kansas became splotchy dusty yuck when we came through some rain showers – we were a mess.

I read yesterday that this part of New Mexico has at least 100 trains per day going through. 

We left Gallup on Hwy 40, this is just one of the many different mountain formations we came across on this trip.

Mountains entering Arizona look completely different.

A little touch of color.  Not sure what kind of tree the yellow one is, they really stand out.

As we enter Arizona there is a whole lot of open land, every once in a while we would see a cow or two.

As we neared the Petrified Forest area we saw yet another type of mountain formation.  These are smaller versions of what you would see in the Petrified Forest.

I don’t know the name of this mountain in the distance, but the snow on top was pretty impressive.  This is as close to snow as I want to come J. 

We took Hwy. 40 into Winslow, AZ where we picked up Hwy. 87.

I closed my eyes after I took this picture.  I don’t care if it said the height was over 14 feet, it didn’t look like we would fit.

Not a lot happening on Hwy 87.  It did occur to me that if you had a problem, there was nowhere to pull off.

We are entering Coconino National Forest.  I was expecting trees in a forest.

Found the trees and lots of sharp curves!!

 

 

More curves….

I tried to not look over the edge when there wasn’t a guardrail.  It did occur to me that a little guardrail probably wouldn’t stop a motor coach bent on going over the edge.

Not only were there lots of sharp curves, there were lots of steep downgrades.

 

Even though it was a little tense at times, the mountain views were awesome.

 

 

 

This is really something you don’t want to see when you are driving in challenging situations.  You know this person doesn’t have experience driving this vehicle and has no idea how it might react, plus they are towing another vehicle.  I was glad we didn’t have to follow them for long.

 

 

We knew we were starting to get close to our destination when we started seeing the cactus.

I’m told that the Saguaro cactus doesn’t start to grow “branches” until it is at least 50 years old.  These are some beautiful specimens.

A couple more shots of the different mountain formations before we got into Mesa.

 

 

 

 

Arizona, Mesa - Monday, April 13, 2015 - Val Vista Villages RV Resort

Not much blogworthy this week.  Lots of people have left the resort and headed home.  We are scheduled to work Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week and we are done until next season (November).  They sent us home early today because of the low turnout at the grill, got in two hours instead of four J.

 

We’ve been doing some last minute cleaning inside and out – we want to look spiffy when we pull into our next destination.  We’ll be leaving here on Saturday and heading to the Tucson area for a week or so.  From there we’ll be making our way to Waxahachie, TX to visit some friends.  Our posts will be more frequent once we start having some new adventures. 

We took a walk around the resort and found a few lemons left from one of the trees.  I’ve never seen a lemon as big as one of them – it weighed in at almost a pound.  I’ve got lots of fresh lemon juice frozen.  I also freeze the rinds to grate later for recipes.

 

 

We’ve had some morning visitors this past week.  They are Gambel’s quail or Desert Quail.  Their habitat is focused in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona and Mexico but I guess they can also be found in some areas of southern New Mexico and Texas.  They move pretty quickly so I had trouble getting a good picture.

 

 

I’m posting this picture because this is the view we have had from our dining area window of some palm trees in the distance.  I’ve always thought the ones to the left of the flagpole looked like big hairy things staring at me.  Just the other night Greg said, “have you noticed that those two palm trees look like they have eyes?”.

Arizona, Mesa - Monday, April 6, 2015 - Val Vista Villages RV Resort

Our hearts are sad this evening.  We just heard that son David and grandkids Wyatt and Cheyanne lost their puppy.  Although Rascal was with them only a short time he had become a much loved companion.  Sending hugs to Kansas.

 

 

We worked today, we have this week and next to go.  The number of people coming into the grill is greatly reduced now, lots of people have left the resort and headed home.  One of the Red Hat Ladies groups met for lunch today – their last hurrah for the season.  But, that means one group, nineteen different checks and all of them talking at once J.  The first time they came in I was kind of intimidated wondering if I would get it right, but we’ve done it a few times now and it doesn’t bother me anymore.

We walked through the resort last night and I’ll bet there are less than 50 RVs left on site.  Still lots of pretty blooms around.

 

 

 

 

We’ve pretty much completed our big projects for a while.  We’ve been packing some things to get ready to move.  I’ve been doing some in-depth cleaning.  I get in that mood a couple of times a year and get out the Q-tips and flashlight and go looking for dirt no one would probably ever see, go figure, Greg just shakes his head and stays out of the way.

I got the Christmas candleholders done (the ones I started on 18 years ago).  I know how long ago it was because the receipt was still in the box with the paints – which were still ok after all that time.

 

Our Good Luck Bamboo plant started looking a little droopy so I went on Pinterest to check out what might be wrong.  A couple of things stood out:  (1) you are supposed to take them out of the container you buy them in, (2) the water is supposed to be changed every week or two.  I bought this poor plant 8 to 10 years ago and it is still in its little container it came in (see the little green container in the middle of the pot) and I just add more water when it got low, I never did change it – who knew?

 

 

 

Greg busted it out of its little pot, we washed off the roots and separated them.

 

 

There was just a small amount of damage to the ends of the shoots so Greg got out the pipe cutter – those little rascals are tough – and cut off a half inch or so.

 

 

It’s now back in a bigger container surrounded by rocks for stability and believe it or not, it has really perked up J.  In my defense, I did keep its leaves dusted over the years.

Arizona, Mesa - Sunday, March 15, 2015 - Val Vista Villages RV Resort

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO SON-IN-LAW DAN.

Well I’m disappointed – as I started to write this blog I found out that the pictures I took earlier this week of some beautiful cactus blossoms and the pictures I took today at the NASCAR race at the Phoenix Motor Speedway aren’t any good L.  I don’t know what the problem was unless it was too much sunshine, it’s beautiful and in the high 80s here.

Our seats today were great, we were 10 rows up right between turns one and two.  Harvick’s pit box was right across from us.  Our favorites, Dale Jr. and Tony Stewart, were taken out by crashes, Harvick was next on my list so when he won I was happy.  The Budweiser horses were there and I thought I had some good pictures of them coming around the track – nope.

This race is our last planned event while we are here in Arizona.  We’ll be leaving on April 18 to get back out on the road.  We’ll be headed south to Texas to visit some friends just outside of Dallas, then on to North Carolina for a rally the last week in May, we also plan on visiting with some friends in North Carolina while we are there.  We’ve enjoyed our time here and have signed up to be workampers here again next year.

The only picture that turned out well is of the bathroom sign I redid.

 

 

This is the before picture with lots of little dings in it.

 

 

Arizona, Mesa - Sunday, March 8, 2015 - Val Vista Villages RV Resort

The project for this weekend was putting a swivel mount on the TV in the outside entertainment center.  The stationary mount it came with was good but the way we are parked now means the sun shines on the TV in the afternoon – not good if we want to enjoy the wonderful weather we are having here now.  Since there is a limited amount of space in the entertainment center area Greg had to find a mount that didn’t stick out very far.  However, even though the mount was slim the TV was still too fat.  Off to Wal-Mart to get a skinny TV.  We probably got a lot of funny looks coming back home on the motorcycle with me on the back holding a 32” TV in front of me.  I couldn’t see over the box so I was oblivious to any stares.

 

 

The area under the table is where my spice rack is usually.  That had to come out so he could get to the TV works.

 

 

The new mount works great and the whole thing fits in the space with a little room to spare.

On Friday we had tickets to watch a Cubs spring training game.  The weather was windy but in the high 70’s.  This is the entry drive to Sloan Park.

We were able to park up close.

The park opened last year and is really nice.

 

 

 

I didn’t realize there had been so many Cubs logo changes since 1908.

 

 

 

This was just the second game but a big crowd was anxious to get in.

 

 

The wind was pretty fierce in the upper level, but down where our seats were we didn’t notice it much.  They made an announcement that it was 75 degrees in Phoenix and 25 degrees in Chicago.

Our seats were three rows up from the third base line.  It was a good thing we didn’t have first row seats, we would have been trampled by autograph seekers before the game started.

 

 

The Cubs were playing the Reds.

 

 

The new mascot “Clark” was moving around pretty quickly so it was hard to get a good picture.

Our seats were just seven seats from the Cubs dugout, looked like they had everyone present for the game.