Visitors & a roundup

Sunday morning we received an unexpected call from friends Pat & Steve F.  We last saw them in Red Bay, AL. and went out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant with them.  Well, they had just arrived in Tucson and were staying a couple days at the Pima County Fairgrounds campground.  Pat wanted to meet with us and go out to dinner at a "Mexican" restaurant.  She has been dying for some good Southwest cooking and figured it didn't come much better than here in Tucson.

Last spring the Rancho Rustico restaurant opened up a couple miles from us, so we setup a dinner reservation for Sunday evening after church service.  They arrived right on time and we sat down to non stop chatting with them.  They have been on the go since Red Bay and visited friends in Colorado Springs and checked out Santa Fe, NM and fell in love with the town.  They had planned on staying longer in that area but the forecast was for cold weather and snow.  Not to their liking.

We all enjoyed our meals and Pat was thoroughly pleased with the place.  They serve a huge plate of food and it's almost impossible to eat it all.  However, we all managed to clean our plates except for Pat.  Piker!   After the meal we sat around and chatted some more and will keep track of each other's travels and hopefully meet up with them somewhere next spring.  They will be volunteering at the Lost Dutchman in Apache Junction for a few months.  We are thinking we will be able to meet them somewhere in-between here and there before departure time for each of us.
 
I was forced to go grocery shopping by myself today and got everything except for buying the wrong pumpkin pie mix.  Not bad for me.  On the way to the store I was in the middle of a cattle roundup by a Tucson policeman.  There was a lone steer running down Houghton Rd on the wrong side of the fence.  I tried to block it with the car, but that didn't work.  I hoped to herd it thru the entrance to the park, but the cattle guard did it's job and the steer beat a hasty retreat behind the car and continued down the road toward I-10 and El Paso.  I think the policeman needed a lasso to retrieve this steer.  Hopefully, it didn't get onto I-10 and cause an accident.  I guess we'll check the news tonight.

These ones are on the right side of the fence.

 
It looks like we will be on our 5th campground manager this year.  The couple who managed the park the last few years split up and she ran the park for the last 6-7 months.  We found out today that she will be leaving within the next couple weeks and I assume someone else with take over the position.  

Each has averaged less than two years on the job here at CCRV.  It shows since each year there are fewer and fewer snowbirds in the park and more permanent people.  While I understand the need for year around income for the park, it seems like the more permanent residents, the less friendly the park is.  Many of the permanent ones work and don't socialize and that becomes a problem as fewer snowbirds show up.  Too bad, this used to be a nice friendly park with many activities and nice people.  That's not to say the permanent people aren't nice, they just tend to keep to themselves.

I won't be that friendly either starting next Monday with my knee operation scheduled to take place at 7:30am and PT scheduled for later in the same day.  YUK!