For those of you who asked I've included a picture of our new home, am still trying to find where I put things. You'd think it would be easy in about 500 sq. ft. Not. I still don't recognize it when coming back from a walk, I notice my car before the MH.
Phoenix as many, many dry rivers, the great thing is most of them have paved multi-use trails running along side. We found a string of geo caches along the New River, the minimum space between caches is .10 mile, we found 7 along the New River making it about a mile and a half walk. Luci enjoys every minute of our geo cacheing. We put a tracker on her when we were in Ft. Sam Houston, she walks half again as much as us. The RV Resort has a little café, Fat Freddies, so we stopped for lunch before going back to the coach. Signs on the wall say "never trust a skinny cook", we never saw Fat Freddie so don't know for sure if he is plump. My baby sister Laurie came to dinner, I fixed BBQ'd lamb chops (for the first time ever) that turned out perfect. She's been sick with the "crud" for a couple of weeks.
Lauri made an appointment for me with her hairdresser, it was in Chandler, clear across metro Phoenix, I asked her how long it would take to get there, an HOUR, changing freeways 3 times. The salon was quite large, the stylists were all private contractors, it was fun to be in that atmosphere again, you'll find all kinds of "looks" on them, from purple hair with tattoo's all over to conservative. Candyce was fairly conservative. The hair cut is nice, a little shorter than usual but "it'll grow". Gary drove me, (thank goodness) while I was getting my hair cut he surprised me by getting the car washed. Lauri had told us about a brew pub in the area that was supposedly the "best in the world" so off we went. It was "OK" but by far not the world's best. We called Gary's much older sister to wish her a happy birthday. They are getting ready to drive Route 66 in their 50's something Mercury with another couple, they are planning to be gone 6-8 weeks.
As you know Phoenix is a mecca for baseball spring training. We decided to go to Surprise Civic Center to pick up another string of geo caches, thinking Saturday would be a good day no one would be around. Wrong, right next to the Civic Center was a huge park, including a dog park. We did take Luci in for a while. As we walked around we ran into the stadium where the Royals and the Rangers play their games, talk about bad timing. We really had to be in our stealth mode so no one would "muggle" the cache. We picked up 15 caches, atleast these were in a circle so we didn't have to retrace our steps. When we got back to the park we rode our bikes around, bonanza, I found a park model home giving away oranges and grapefruit. They were pretty good except for the seeds.
Sunday we went to church service in the park. When we got back I changed our itinerary, to shorten the miles we have to take to Salem, originally we were going to be in Yuma but now we are slowly making our way north up the Colorado River then across to I-5, We should be in town by the 14th if all goes on plan. We had Lunch with Lauri at the Rockbottom brewery, there are several in the western states. It was good, Lauri was starting to feel better but still not eating much.
Monday we cleaned the new coach for the first time. I was a little "ticked" that the dealership hadn't cleaned to excess glue off the tiles. Later we went out to the White Trunk Mountains to do a hike. We took the waterfall trail, only about 2 miles in and out, of course there was no waterfall but the rock formations were beautiful. We had dinner with Lauri and Alyssa, my niece, at Richardson's, a New Mexican cuisine restaurant. Delish, double delish! The best guacamole I've ever eaten. It had been two years since I saw the two of them in San Diego for Lauri's 50th BD with our older sister Judy who lives in east San Diego county. After dinner we went to see the house she is buying, built in 1958 mostly re-done, it's really cute. Of course it has a pool.
Tuesday we realized time was running short to see and do the things we'd wanted to do (same old story) First thing I did was call to wish our granddaughter Alyssa a happy birthday. I can't believe 25 years ago we spent the night at the hospital awaiting our first grand child's arrival. We enjoy playing mini-golf, on our way to dinner last night we spotted a large amusement park with a mini golf course. After lunch we left to play golf, I won by 2 strokes but it was quite a close match. Gary and I both had a "hole in one" and another we both stopped counting at 10 strokes. The weather has been so beautiful everyday we've been here and this day was perfect. After our competitive game of golf we went to the Desert Botanical garden, truly an oasis in the middle of a huge city, a must see for every visitor to Phoenix. Like the park in Tucson, you would never know you're surrounded. The park is exclusively for the arid plants and people of the Sonoran Desert. I love the desert, raised on the Oregon coast that seems odd, but especially the rugged mountains and the saguaro cactus. We were especially lucky, Dale Chihuly, a northwest glass blowing artist had sculptures all through the garden. We walked through the trails in the afternoon then after another beautiful Arizona sunset we walked through again to see the sculptures lighted. My question is how did they put them in the hard arid ground? Some look like spikes or poles with no visible holder.
We left Phoenix Thursday morning for Ehrenberg Az, right on the Colorado River. The manager must have liked us, she put us in a space that backs up to the river for the same price as the smaller spaces away from the river. We have a grassy area that runs down to the beach. Are we lucky or what? We're going to be here for three nights before heading up to Lake Havasu.
Enjoy the pictures, I got a little carried away selecting them.
TTFN
Gary and Pam
Gary reading to Luci
