Blog Interruptus

 Sorry about that, but my blog-writing program cratered, so I had to switch to another one.

A week or so ago, Norma, Nancy, and I went to the University of California's experimental farm outside of Holtville, CA. We had a great educational tour and luch of salad (what else!) and homemade ice cream at the end of the tour. This first picture is of two assistants harvesting alfalfa. The driver looks like he's going into space, but they said it was to protect him from itchy, flying alfalfa.

There were about two wagons, or 80 people, on this tour. We got to pick our own veggies: cabbage, cauliflower, brocolli, radishes, iceberg, romaine, and I probably forgot some others.

My favorite: kapusta!

Last Friday, I went up to Brenda outside of Quartzite to visit my friends Rex and Judy at Desert Gold RV Park. The highlight of the trip other than visiting and Happy Hour was hiking the bumps in the desert. We hiked up Flag Hill adjacent to the park. This is a picture of Rex and Judy at the top.

Then I had to sign the log book and be presented with my Indian tear, a little black rock. Then Rex took a picture of me and Judy.

The park is nicely laid out and each site has a palm tree.

These are some huge saguaros that they obviously built the park around.



 On Sunday, we traveled out to Palm Canyon a little south of Quartzite. We hiked up a beautiful canyon and up in a crevice on two different occasions, there were palm trees tucked into a protecte spot.

I got back Monday afternoon, and my friend Ginny came in on Tuesday afternoon. She took me to Applebee's for my birthday dinner a day early. On Wednesday, our singles group had a meeting at the pizza place at Coyote Wash. They sang "Happy Birthday" to me, and gave me lots of cards. Norma bought me a Chardonay that was a great start to celebrating. She also gave me a beautiful hand-made card. Marvin Kerr, our resident artist, gave me a beautiful signature birthday card. Yesterday was his birthday.

This was my birthday cake from the pizza place. I think that's a question mark in the middle.
Yesterday Ginny and I went down to Alagadones. She got a pancho for her grandson in Hawaii who recently broke his arm, so she thought that would be something easy for him to wear. Ginny asked this gentleman about his unusual hat and I took their picture. I think the guy thought we were nuts.

The front of the hat says "Old Age Combat Hat." Then we went to Lutes Casino in Old Yuma for lunch. It's full of all sorts of memorabilia.

Ginny hung around this morning waiting for the car wash people but they had a truck break down, so they never made it and she left around 10 headed for Desert Hot Springs where we visited last spring. Aloha, Ginny!

Continuing the Fun

     I’ve been busy having fun, and it doesn’t necessarily include downloading pictures and posting my thoughts to this blog. It’s also called being lazy. My newest, best Canadian friend Norma had an impromptu Christmas Eve happy hour at her park model. Here we are toasting Christmas.

My longtime friends Cathy and Bob Raner invited me to sit at their table for Christmas dinner at the rec hall. This picture is of their best friends and Bob’s cousin to the far right. Her name is also Cathy, so there are two Cathy Raner’s here at Pioneer RV Park.

The Fun Continues

 

As you might suspect, there’s a lot going on all the time. We are treated to spectacular sunsets constantly, but every once in a while, I decide I need to capture one. This particular shot I’m going to make into a scrapbooking background.

Two Thursdays ago, our hiking group did Pilot’s Knob just across the border into California. I had done this hike four years ago and it scared me, so I found two other companions to hike around the bottom. This is a scrapbooking page that I did of the guys who went over the top and our group later on.

This is a better picture of our group on the backside after we all got together. Our trip back over by a somewhat easy path was only in the mind of the beholder.

It is rather redundant. The person taking the picture is the crazy lady in the red shirt in the previous picture.

The newbie's were intrigued by the clothing left behind by the illegal's crossing the border. They don’t swim the Rio Grande, Gila or Colorado, but the American Canal which provides the irrigation for the produce fields. I have pictures of all sorts of things that Norma dubbed artifacts to include a ballpoint pen, a child’s barrette and all sorts of underwear and outer clothing.

This happens to be a perfectly good baseball cap.

My daily walk is usually into town to some kind of store to run an errand, but I really prefer heading off into the desert. This my preferred path.

Our singles group decided to do an Eastern European ethnic Christmas dinner. So Barb, Frances and I got together at Norma’s to make pirogues, but we had to toast the occasion with a Macadamia nut tequila.

 

Gosh, old people just get together for any excuse to eat and drink. Here’s our spread.

The weather has been so great, but this evening it’s raining. If it doesn’t stop by the time the boys need to walk, that’s OK, I have my slicker.

Busy Having Fun

 

We all remark about how fast every day is going. There is so much to do that it cuts into drinking time; however, “happy hour” is carefully observed daily. Thanksgiving Day was a whole lot of fun. Pictured below, I’m surrounded by all my new Canadian friends.

We were scheduled to hike on Thanksgiving Day, but we all opted out mostly because of the wind. The next week, we hiked up Crazy Lady Trail, again so named because of the group’s experience with a wildly screaming lady a few years ago. It seems that she spent  the night in her small pickup afraid to go any farther up the mountain and unable to turn around. The next morning our group was the first thing she saw. One of the guys got her truck turned around and sent her down the mountain.

It’s been my experience that ocotillo will bloom any time in Arizona as long as it finds a water source.

There were a lot of mine entrances, claims, and deep shafts to fall into. This is one of the entrances.

Ralph and Frank are gazing at a mine entrance in the side of the mountain with Dome Valley in the background.

Near the bottom of the mountain, we found the Dome Cemetery. It was started during WWII. Some of the graves were marked and others weren’t. They all had money, mostly quarters and pennies, decorating the white crosses. This was a very elaborate grave for a nine month old baby.

Norma’s birthday was December 1, and she invited a few friends to a Chinese restaurant in Yuma. She’s probably going to be upset with me posting this picture of her, but it’s so typical of Norma showing her bubbly happy personality.

Only 35 of her closest friends showed up. Oh darn!

On December 4, the border town of Alagodones had a “Welcome Back Winter Visitor” party where they forced margaritas on us and passed out free samples of old people drugs. My single lady friends, Frances, Bernie, Norma and the mariachi are singing “Cielito Lindo.”

Spending the winter in Arizona is a hard job, but someone has to do it.

Life in the Lettuce Fields

 

     When I go for my three or four mile hike around the area, this is what I see. The city of Wellton does a fine job of presenting itself to the snow bird public.

This is the field directly across the street from the road into town and also across the street from the road to the RV park. We all marvel at the precision of the rows. We all watch their every step, so I guess we could start our own veggie fields. The best thing is that we have good prices on veggies from the locals. Notice the proximity of the railroad. They are not allowed to blow the horn at the crossing in the middle of the night in deference to us snow birds.

Sometimes I take a walk directly west; actually most of the people in the park do who don’t want to walk the inside of the park. This goes past Tier Drop RV park and Valley View Estates. Gary and I stayed at Tier Drop in May of 2005 after his the operation on his arm from the IV infection. Pioneer was open, but they didn’t do business in the summer. Valley View Estates is just some fields that a farmer sold to a local developer, but it does have a pretty view.

The landscaping on the right hand side of this picture is different from four years ago. They had planted that area with California poppies and I had some kick ass pictures of that, and it was the screen saver on my old lap top. They may be on my old lap top, but I don’t know how to get them back. Oh well! I love to take pictures of clouds. You never know when you might need them for some scrapbooking project.

Speaking of scrapbooking projects, my newest friend Norma has drawn me into the card making group; however, I did tell her about Photo Shop Elements 9, so we will soon both be into that. We also went to Alagodones, Mexico with her cousins on Monday. Nobody had a camera, but we did have a great time. Our new singles group is going back on December 4, and I will have pictures of that. What I do have are pictures of is last Thursday’s hike. We are supposed to hike this Thursday, but since it is Thanksgiving and we are all going to a big dinner, I don’t know.

We found an abandoned geocache site. I think that would be fun to do, and they do have some groups around here.

Looks like we’re going to have some weather for the next few days. That only makes for good picture-taking.

Fun at Pioneer

 

Well, I reached my winter destination almost two weeks ago, but I’ve been too busy getting settled in, developing a routine with my boys, and having fun. Naturally I took pictures of all this.

The park is located in the middle of veggie fields on the edge of Wellton , AZ. Across I-8 is a golfing community called Coyote Wash. They have an 18 hole golf course, a residential community which is a mix of RV’s and stick built homes. They also have a small shopping center with restaurants, stores, an IGA, and travel center. Everything is within walking distance of Pioneer, so it’s easy for me to get my exercise as I do my shopping.

Here’s a picture of the courtyard at the clubhouse.

These two pictures are of the pool and spa. Looking through the gate in the spa picture, you can see the front of my rig. I’m that close to all the activity. It’s really worked out well considering all the other walking I do.

These are my decorations for my site so far.

Last Sunday was my friend Bob Raner’s 65th birthday, and his wife Cathy had a birthday party for him. These are my friends from Rochester, NY. Gary and I used to be parked  next to them, and we usually get together somehow when they go and forth to NY.

Our hiking group goes hiking every Thursday. This past Thursday was the first hike of the season, and we climbed part way up Betty’s Mountain. Chet, one of the veteran hiker’s, named the mountain after his wife, because they have a perfect view of it from the living room of their 5th wheel.

Someone piled about two feet of rocks and dirt across the road, so the guys had to shovel it down some, so the vehicles could get across. That was an unexpected delay. Here we are hiking up a wash. There were lots of pretty rocks and things to collect along the way. My friend Norma was great at loading up here back pack.

When we had gone as far as we wanted, we came upon a strange creature that was very identifiable: tarantula. I took this opportunity for everyone to gather around at get a picture. Whoever put this thing together did a good job. Wire covered in black velour made the legs and a pillow covered with black velour made the body. We joined our newest best friend for lunch.

My friends from left to right are Frank, Ken, Chet, Dennis and Norma.

Arizona Bound

 

On Sunday October 24, I finally had what I thought was everything I needed for the trip. As it turns out, I forgot the cork screw :(, lemon juice, and onions. Now how can a girl live without those three essentials? Here’s a picture of me and the boys squinting into the sun eager to be on the road.

We left Elephant Butte about 11 AM and arrived in Benson about 3 AZ time. They don’t believe in DST just another reason why I should live here. So I decided to check out Sierra Vista. I got lost trying to find the only two RV parks which were really mobile home parks and really not very  nice. So I went back up to Benson and stayed at Cochise Terrace RV park using my Passport America discount. Gary and I had stayed there many years ago, and it’s really nice, but I was anxious to get further west.

I arrived in Casa Grande to stop at Walmart, just one of my regular stops when on this route. I was considering going on to Yuma, but decided to check out Palm Creek RV Resort. Gary and I had watched them convert the cotton field to something with many incredibly tall palm trees with a golf course. I thought: why not? At the gate, they asked me if I was pre-registered. Oh, I thought, now I’m in trouble. I explained that I only wanted to spend a night or so. No problem. Just two stop signs and hang a right. This place is more beautiful than Desert Palms in California. Now, I’m really in trouble. Oh well, it’s only money. At the desk, she asked, “You only want to spend one night?” Well, how about a week? Let’s see what we can do. They made me a deal that was so-o-o cheap it was ridiculous. They took my picture for my ID badge and I felt like I was in like Flynn. The park ranger helped me back my rig into my space and told me I drove like a pro. What a guy!

I made friends with my next door neighbors the first night, because that’s when I found out I forgot my  corkscrew. They were putting their lights on their palm tree when I pulled in , so I took a picture of them all lit up. After I got my bottle of wine opened, we visited for a while: great people from Washington. Instead of having a park model, they have a Casita, which is nothing but an outdoor kitchen which is very popular in this part of the country. It’s great for outside entertaining and that’s all we believe in when in AZ. Point being that I was probably a little lit when I took this picture.

The next day I walked to Walmart to get a corkscrew and a few other things. Here are some pictures of this gorgeous place. The first is the entrance.

Since the golf course winds through the middle, I can only get portions; however, today I did see a golf bag on wheels being controlled by a remote control. I was so proud that I didn’t stop and stare and make a fool out of myself.

On Wednesday, I spent the afternoon in the spa and pool.

I almost forgot: they have tennis courts, pickle ball courts, and a great play yard for the dogs.

I considered staying here for a month, but I’m anxious to get to Pioneer Park over in Wellton and renew friendships; besides, it’s cheaper. I’ll head that way on Monday.