Missed Our Chance to be Guinea Pigs

It’s been a rather quiet week for us as we’ve both been under the weather.  We even had to pass up on dinner at Glenn and Sheila’s.  As if we weren’t already feeling bad enough, Glenn had the nerve to send me this photo of the meal we missed.

We did manage a shopping trip to Walmart this week to stock up for Christmas dinner at our house.  We’ve invited a few of our neighbors to join us.

Ken finished up stringing out the security camera wiring through the attic to various locations, but he’ll still be probably be making minor adjustments to get them pointed just right.  I spent some time yesterday trying to set up the auto port forwarding for our network to be able to view the videos remotely.  The ISP we’re trying out seems to want us forced into getting a static IP address which adds quite a bit to the monthly cost.  We’ll probably be looking into other options and see what we can come up with for that.

Life in and Around Arizona City

Life continues to keep us busy working on the house in Arizona, visiting with friends, and a few shopping trips to Phoenix.  We managed a trip to Fry’s Electronics one time and it’s always a fascinating store to explore.

The full moon rises in the sky to our east.  Although it isn’t very clear in the photo, one of the planets is in alignment with the moon above it and slightly to the left.

The termite exterminator made a return visit to the house and spent about 2 hours drilling holes in several places around the house, and then spraying termidor into the holes, then patching them up again.

Skydive Arizona is located in nearby Eloy and we had several flyovers last week of a group of six planes holding skydivers working on a record jump.

Yesterday (Tuesday) we attended the SKP lunch at the Golden Corral in Casa Grande.  It was a little bit busier than last month’s luncheon and we visited with our friends, Andy & Diane, Bill & Shelly, Glenn & Sheila, and John & Jana.

And that should get us a little more caught up again.  Thanks for the reminder, Dennis.

The Last of the Huckleberries Are Gone!

We’ve been feeding and maintaining our sourdough starter since our niece Jennifer gave it to us while in Alaska the summer of 2011.  I add to it every couple of weeks and then we usually have sourdough pancakes the following morning.  When we made our three week trip to Montana last summer, we picked a nice supply of huckleberries which I froze and I’ve been adding them to the pancakes.  This morning I added the last of the huckleberries to the pancake batter and other than the leftovers we’ll enjoy Sunday morning, that is the end to the huckleberry pancakes for a while. 

Later in the morning, we drove around town checking out the local garage sales, but we didn’t find anything we really needed, so we returned to the RV.  For the remainder of the day, Ken was kept busy on projects in the garage and watching the college football games while I caught up on laundry.  We’re looking forward to another quiet day on Sunday.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Ken installed the satellite dish to the fence on Wednesday, but after working with it the signal wasn’t getting to the receiver.  We tried several different settings over the last couple of days, and we’re now thinking that we tried using this dish at one time in our lot in Texas without having any success.  The next step will be to set up the tripod with a Hughes.net dish and a BOW (bird on a wire).  That will be our project for the weekend.

Our neighbors, Joanne and Phil, invited us to their house for Thanksgiving.  Ken offered to fry a turkey for the occasion and we had another one so that we could have leftovers that are always so good over the next few days.  While Ken had the first turkey frying in the pot in the backyard, I prepared enough stuffing to take to the meal as well as have some to have with our turkey.

The first turkey has just been removed from the fryer.

It’s looking very tasty!

Once we had everything cooked and ready to go, we loaded things into the truck for the very short drive (there are two vacant lots between our houses) to Phil and Joanne’s house.  Phil (in the middle) is giving Pam (another friend of theirs) a bad time and Ken is getting a good laugh out of it.

Joanne (who Phil calls the Boss) is in the background while Ken and Phil are chatting.

Our neighbors Greg and Sadie also were here for dinner although I didn’t get any photos.  Once the meal was ready, I just got into pigout mode and ate until I was stuffed.  After dinner, we sat around visiting for a while, then headed back to the house to clean up the fryer and other dirty dishes.  Once that task was completed, we headed back to the RV for a quiet evening watching football, reading and surfing the net.  Ken got a phone call from our niece and nephew in Alaska to wish us a Happy Thanksgiving and he enjoyed catching up with what all they’ve been up to.  Back to the quiet evening.

11/8–11/20/12–Working on the House and Many Trips to Home Depoo

This photo didn’t turn out very well, but there was a double rainbow when I looked outside one day.

We’ve been keeping busy working on the house.  Ken has been crawling through the attic pulling cables for satellite tv, internet and some electric wiring.  Of course, that has created the need for several trips to Home Depoo.  After a trip there today, that spelling says it all.  With the heat in Arizona, many businesses in the area would rather let people bring their dogs into a store then let the pets suffer outside in a closed up car.  I have no problem with people who take care of their pets, but I do have a problem with those who don’t.  While shopping there today, we followed one of the associates down this aisle and found these little piles as seen in the lower right hand corner of this photo.  If you must take your pet with you to a store rather than leave them home where they’re probably more comfortable anyway…PICK UP AFTER THEM!!!!

We’ll be spending Thanksgiving a few of our neighbors.  Ken will be deep frying a turkey for that dinner as well as one for us so that we can enjoy the leftovers.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our friends and family!

11/5–11/7/2012–Back in Arizona City via Tucson and Florence, AZ

On the morning of November 5th, we had an appointment for Ken at the Costco in Tucson to have some adjustments made to his hearing aids.  Before heading in to town, we got the RV ready for travel and moved it to the picnic area of Catalina State Park where they told us we could leave it until we were ready to move.  Once that was done, we drove into Tucson and had breakfast at the Bisbee Breakfast Club.  It wasn’t quite the same feeling as going to the original restaurant in Bisbee, but it was still and good meal.  From there, we drove to Costco and had some time to kill, so we spent some additional money on more items for the house.  It finally came time for Ken’s appointment and they gave him some kind of a moisturizer to hopefully ease the irritation to his ears from wearing he hearing aids.  All errands being completed, we headed back to pick up the RV at the state park, hook up the truck and we drove on to Florence to spend a night in preparation for our restitution hearing early Tuesday morning.  Our drive took us along Hwy 79 and we passed an area where there was a Tom Mix memorial site.  I checked that out later and found that was the location of his fatal car crash in 1940.

We arrived at the courthouse in Florence well before 9:00am on Tuesday and it ended up being a long wait for nothing.  Our victim’s advocate finally told us that the defense lawyer wanted to put it off for 4 weeks.  That completed, it was back to the RV, get hooked up and on the road…made a stop at the Walmart in Coolidge to pick up a few items then back to our place in Arizona City after a stop to take on fuel in the RV.

Today…11/7/12…we didn’t have plans other than for our friends Bill and Diane stopping by to see the house and then have lunch together.  Before they arrived, I moved the truck to the driveway and gave it a quick wash…and I do mean quick…it looks better than it did before…but it still needs work.  When they arrived, we gave them a quick tour of the house and then visited for awhile before going to lunch at the Robson Ranch Grill.  After lunch, we drove to the Eloy Airport to see what was going on with the parachuters.  When we first arrived, nothing seemed to be happening, but after hanging out for a while, jumpers were falling out of the sky.

After their jumps, the divers go to this building to repack their chutes.

Here’s Diane and Bill in the building where the chutes are repacked.  Ken is to Diane’s left.

Once we got back to the house, we visited for about an hour when our neighbor returned from a trip to the hospital a couple of days ago for her husband’s stroke.  Fortunately, his was caught soon enough that he will be okay, but he’s still in the hospital and she was going to follow some friends back to Phoenix tonight while we and other neighbors keep an eye on their house.

10/17/12–11/4/12–Arizona City, AZ and Tucson, AZ

The Moose lodge in Arizona City seemed to have some problems with their power, so we decided to push ourselves and get moved to our lot after only a one night stay there.  At that point, we just kind of got into our routine of doing things that needed to be done on the house and property and a few social visits with friends in the area.

One morning, Ken saw a hot air balloon nearby, but by the time I got out to get a photo it was down pretty low to the ground and just to the right of this house.

I had some downtime and put together a few jigsaw puzzles.  This one is the completed E is for Expresso.

Looking at our house from the northwest.

After a few weeks of every day life in Arizona City, we decided to hit the road as Ken has an appointment in Tucson on Monday 11/5 and we also have a restitution hearing in Florence on the 6th.  We left Arizona City on the 3rd and drove to the north end of Tucson for a 2 night stay at Catalina State Park.  In addition to Ken’s appointment, we’re doing the big box shopping to stock up the freezer with meat and get some items we need for the house.

Here we are set up in our lot at Catalina State Park.  It’s $25 a night with 20/30/50amp electric and water and there’s a dump station here plus the sights are very nicely spread out so that you’re not on top of the neighbor.

Ken’s appointment is for 11am or noon tomorrow..there seems to be a question on the time, but our plans are to head in somewhat early so we can dine at the Bisbee Breakfast Club in Tucson first.  After the appointment, we’ll head back to the state park, hook up and head to Florence for the next night.

Whew!!!  I’m all caught up again…until the next time I get behind!

10/16/12–Yucca Valley, CA to Arizona City, AZ

We were getting more anxious to get back to our property in Arizona City, and although we had plans to stop in Tonopah, AZ for the night, we kept on going.

We passed more windmill farms.

It’s difficult to see with all the bugs on the windshield, but there’s a plane coming in for a landing.

We passed through an area where the tops of all the palm trees were gone…there must have been a bad wind storm through here at one time.

Heading east on I-8…the end of the road is getting closer.

We arrived at the Arizona City Moose and planned to stay there a couple of nights while we got things ready at the house.

10/15/12–Fresno, CA to Yucca Valley, CA

On our drive from Fresno to Yucca Valley, we passed several windmills.

We passed through an area where old airplanes are stored in the dessert.

This is a photo of getting closer to our final destination of Yucca Valley, CA for the night.

We pulled into our destination of the Yucca Valley, CA Elks lodge and there were no other RV’s.  We checked in with the lodge and got permission to stay hooked up and that worked out great for the night.  We got set up and had a meal in the lodge and it was back to the RV to get rested up for another day of travel.

10/11–10/14/12–Eureka to Petaluma to Fresno, CA

We left Eureka on October 11th continuing south on Hwy 101 through the Redwoods and past the variety of tourists stores along the way.

We found a pullout along the highway prior to the city of Willits and stopped for our lunch break and then continued on south.  It wasn’t long before all traffic was stopped and we had to take a detour to avoid a bad accident on the 101.  We later found out it was a one vehicle accident with a pole and power lines were across the road and that the road wasn’t opened again until after 9pm that evening.  It was a narrow country road that we took for the detour, but we were glad we didn’t need to sit there for hours.

The detour eventually took us into Willits which is the home of the The Skunk Train.  That’s something we may have to look into on another trip.

Back in Willits, we once again were heading south on Hwy 101 and judging by the long lineup of traffic, we were glad not have already made it through the detour and not headed north.

And here we’re getting closer to Petaluma where the Elks lodge was our destination for the night.

We left Petaluma on 10/12/12 and drove west and then south to Fresno.

A sign at a raceway that Ken wanted to get to in his younger years.

Several of the roads we took were toll roads where there was no toll for our direction of travel.

A mass transit train parked alongside the road.

When we got to the Fresno Elks, we found out we should have been reservations as they were full.  Fortunately they had a place where we could boondock and that worked out very well for the three nights we were there.

10/13/12:  We had a couple of visits to make while in Fresno.  Our hunting partners for several years, George (Doc) and Sharon live north of Fresno.  It’s probably been 5 years or more since we had seen them.  We’ve been through the area 3-4 times the last few years, but it always seemed to work out that they were traveling and unavailable.  This time it worked out well and we had a very enjoyable visit and meal with them.

Doc, Ken and Sharon.

10/14/12: And the second reason for our visit was to see Jan’s brother Dean who lives here.  We visited with him the next day and we actually talked him into taking us out to dinner…usually, it’s the other way around.

We returned to the RV to get ready for our travels the next day and to relax a bit.

10/8–10/10/12–Eureka, CA

Before leaving Brookings, Oregon and crossing the border into California, we filled the fuel tank so that we wouldn’t have to have too many stops for their high prices.

We followed this logging truck with a full load of only 5 logs.

We drove across the bay to the Samoa area.

There are what remains of an old bunker site.

Back in town, we drove by the Ingomar Club, a large private mansion.

One of the streets in the older downtown area of Eureka.

We were parked and watching this marina where there were hundreds of birds to our right.  Suddenly, they all headed out to our left, but returned after a short time.  We’re assuming that one of the fishing boats may have thrown something overboard that got them all excited over a free meal.

Since the Eureka Elks has full hookups, we took advantage of that to get caught up on laundry and some other cleaning shores while there.  It also gave us a chance to have our mail catch up with us.