It has been a long time since I updated our Blog. Normally I read the most recent Blog first of those I read regularly. There are lots that I read so thank you to all you responsible regular bloggers out there. I, however, find it very hard to get going on a blog. There is always something else to do: reading is an obsession and our friend, Nick Russell, is always recommending a book to read. Since I really respect Nick and love reading his books, I just have to download another book for my Kindle and then I’m lost. I usually read until I finish the book. No blogging, no sleeping, and no cooking. What can I say? I love to read. Then there is my knitting. I have to have my hands busy. A good friend brought my ‘busy hands’ to my attention when I hit my head and lost consciousness, my hands did not move. That’s when she knew it was serious. I think I have inherited this from my mom because she is also a ‘busy hands’ persons doing needlework for the Shrine, computer jigsaw puzzles, reading and also knitting. Lastly, I am addicted to card games. I cannot open my computer, tablet or phone without playing at least one Spider game. So all that said, writing a blog is the last activity I choose to do on my list of things I should be doing.
I’m going to try a different approach to this blog. Since I have not written anything down for so long the chance that this might be quite long and my readers might get very bored hearing what Tom, Pansy and I have been doing, I will start with today and go back in time. That way when you get bored you can just quit reading, but know where we are now and what we are doing now.
Now we are in a little, and I’m talking really little, town of Wikieup, Arizona. The ranger at the Casa Grande National Monument told us about this restaurant and RV park so we set it as our destination. We have no Verizon, the regulars in the park have been here so long most of the trailers are up on blocks. When I was walking in checking out the road Tom would be taking, a man was walking with a phone to his ear speaking quite loudly toward a trailer. The woman in the trailer opened the door shouting for him to get out, go away and some other choice words. Fortunately, he left and I did not see any firearms. We have seen a couple of other residents and they are quite friendly. We ate at the Chicago Style restaurant and it was good, a hamburger and onion rings for Tom and Wings for me.
Our drive today from the Moose lodge in Arizona City through Phoenix up Hwys 10,17 to 93 was uneventful but beautiful. The recent rains had brought out the Cholas’ white needles, and the bright green leaves of the Joshua trees. The roadway was ablaze with yellow, coral, and baby blue flowers. The ride was lovely.
Yesterday
We had originally planned to leave Arizona City yesterday, but realized we had paid through today. Staying at the Moose is very economical, $5/day for 30 amp and water, but being frugal we were not going to throw away $5. We spent instead $37 plus gas to visit the Casa Grande Ruins, saw the movie Legos with popcorn, and ordered a pizza to go from Tommy’s Bistro in Casa Grande. So much for frugal.
Tuesday, March 4
My cousin, Robyn, and husband Mike live in Chandler so anytime we are near we try to make it a point to visit them. Robyn is still working so we planned on dinner. Robyn said Mike will use any excuse to order pizza and she made a scrumptious salad. We picked up a couple bottles of red wine recommended for pizza. We had so much fun catching up on our families, our travels, and touring their beautiful condo which sits on the 5th hole of the golf coarse. We sat out on the patio until the mosquitos forced us inside. We reluctantly left after 9 since Robyn is still a working girl.
Monday, March 3
We had planned to visit Escapee Friends, Diane and Andy Hitzel, at the SKP Co-Op park in Casa Grande. I thought I had the route planned, but I should have put the address in the GPS because I figured wrong and we got to Happy Hour so late, everyone was just leaving. We talked to Diane, Andy and their friend Bruce, got a quick tour of the park including the original space of Joe and Kay Peterson, founders of the Escapee Club. We learned this was the very first Escapee Co-op park that the Petersons have started. We moved to the Hitzels’ patio and talked until we all got too cold and dinner was calling.
Sunday, March 2
We got up early and drove down to Tucson to go to the North Tucson Friends community church. Our friends, Anne and LeRoy Willis have their beautiful Liberty bus parked right in back of church. We chose the perfect weekend to be near Tucson to go to church. Matt Macey, from Wichita spoke on Missions and we were asked to stay for the potluck. Now let me share, the potlucks at Friends Churches are the best! There was even a whole room for just the deserts! We visited the Willis’ bus after church and Matt and Pastor Adam joined us. We had a great visit. We left north Tucson and drove to Vail to see our Golden Spike buddies, Patty and Dan Chance. If you are a follower of Dan’s blog, Travel by Chance, you know he is busier than any beaver building everything from a huge garage, a wall supporting the extension of the drive, a shelter for the tractor, gate, and more improvements than I can even list. We couldn’t wait to see their new beautiful house and desert land. Patty even sent us home with her famous Mac ‘n Cheese. Soooo good.
Friday, February 28
We decided to have dinner at the Moose Lodge. The menu was fish and shrimp. We had just sat down and were eating our salads when Escapee Boomers Diane and Andy Hitzel walked in. We knew they were staying in Casa Grande Escapee Co-op and had just moved to a new space (we follow them on Facebook). We didn’t expect to see them at the Moose in Arizona City. It is always amazing to be somewhere in the US, small town or large, and see an RV’ing friend.
Wednesday, February 26
We move from Yuma, Southern Mesa RV Park, to Arizona City Moose Lodge. We had spent a week back in Yuma. We ate out several times and I picked up some bad food and was sick for several days. Finally feeling better we made plans to meet Cool Judy and Luke Rinehimer for dinner at Lins Chinese Buffet. Another get together with RV’ing friends was when we met Betty and Jim Steindorf at Kneeders, a sandwich and bakery. We really like the Yuma area, lots of shopping opportunities, Wednesday Movie and Dinner with the local SKP Boomers, and great restaurants.
February 10 – 18
This is the week of the Western Pyrotechnic Association’s annual conference, Winter Blast. This year it was the 25th Silver anniversary and was going to be the best ever. Mom and daughter, Jennifer, a member of WPA, drove over from Fresno and stayed with us. We went to the Fireworks display Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We see so many of our Escapee friends at Winter Blast. This year our friends, Terry and Nick Russell joined us for the Friday display. Here we are, Tom, me, Terry, Nick, Mom, Denise our niece also a pyro, and Jennifer.
These are only a very few of the hundreds of pictures I took.
February 3-10
Yuma for the South West Arizona Geocachers, S.W.A.G., Mega Event. It is a multi-day event including a Flash Mob, dinner at a local restaurant, and the big caching event. We stayed at the Villa Alameda RV resort. We rarely stay at such a pricey park, but this time of year most of the parks are full of the winter snowbirds who spend the northern cold winter months in the warm Arizona dessert. We visited Nick and Terry Russell, shopped, went to the movies twice, dined with friends, Margie and Tom Malloney, and read, knitted and did I mention shopped? I even found the perfect outfit for the event of the year, our granddaughter, Julie’s wedding.
January 23 – February 2
Scaddam Wash for the SKP Geocaching Rally. We were part of the Administrative team and helped present workshops, helped with the evening projections on the side of our RV and generally anything that needed to be done. It was a busy week. We did some night caching, ate out, held lots of drawings and gave away wonderful prizes. We were so happy to see Linda and Joe Garvin come and learn about our fun hobby, geocaching. Linda and I graduated from High School together and we always hope we will see them on the road. This year we did!
Well, that about ends this blog. I don’t know who could possibly read this to the end, but if you did, congratulations. Maybe I can get myself in gear and at least do one a week, but who knows? I feel like such a slouch since Nick, Dan, Nancy, Cool Judy, Anne, Sharon, Greg, Dennis and so many others I read every day can do a blog. WAIT, maybe I don’t blog because I read too many other blogs every day. Well, I’m not going to stop that so I guess I’ll just have to try harder.
So until next time, cache on!
