Cyclist Invasion

We were invaded by bicyclists yesterday and in force.  In the afternoon while we were enjoying the Margarita party at the pool, 47 bicyclists and their support crew showed up at the park.  Each year Adventure Cyclists starts a riding tour of the area from Tucson to Patagonia, Tombstone, Bisbee, Tombstone, and Benson.  That's 220 miles in 7 days on a bike.  The tours sounds like something that would have been fun to do many years ago in my life, but not now.  One of the tour leaders told me that the age range for this particular group of bikers was from 24-70+ years.  Quite a spread in ages, but everyone can go at their own pace. 

This morning I was up early and drove by where the group is camped in the park.  They were in little two person tents spread out all over the tent camping area.  When I left for coffee there were a few stirring and when I returned, the picnic tables were full of people in spandex uniforms.  I wonder if the uniforms are warm?

It's 7:45 AM and the bikers are starting to leave the park in small groups or individually.   Some zoom on by while others are riding at a more leisurely pace.  One just went by on a bike with 16 inch rims.  I wonder how many speeds he has on that bike to be able to keep up?  I hope they have a safe trip out there on these wild Arizona roads.

They think of everything for the bikers including a couple of port-a-johns.  How would you like to have that job?   I wonder what the wheelbarrow on top of the van is for?

This link will take you to more information about the tour and routes taken.   Arizona Trails bike tour

Canadian Bacon & Margaritas

There are a number of Canadians staying here in the park and they are a fun bunch.  They decided to prepare a breakfast for everyone  and cooked up french toast, pancakes & sausages.  No Canadian bacon though.  The food was great and in addition they had a Chinese auction for various prizes.  We didn't win anything but enjoyed the breakfast anyway.  They showed a short clip by Tom Brokaw that was prepared for the 2010 Olympics that were held in Canada.  Canadian Clip 


Thanks all you Canucks.  You did a great job and are great neighbors.

In an unusual coincidence Al sent me a copy of the video clip showing the same thing.  It is the one shown above.  Take a look, it is interesting and neat.

Gerry went to have her hair done and I was left alone to watch the basketball games.  I like this time of the year since I get to watch the better teams in college ball and there is something on the line for them to play for.  There were some good games and not so good games on today, but overall it was interesting to watch.

This afternoon we went to the Rich's Margarita party at the pool.  Rich isn't here this year, but they held it in his honor.  We lucked out and had a real nice clear day for the party.  There were a lot of people there and the margaritas were flowing, but they never ran out.  I got Ron to prepare Gerry a great margarita and she enjoyed it very much.  Thanks Ron.

We forgot to take the camera there so no pictures, but trust me, everyone had a great time.

Slow Days

I wish there was something interesting to write about, but we haven't been doing much exciting lately.  The highlight recently was a trip to Costco so we could cash our refund check from them.  Of course we managed to spend a big chunk of the money picking up "necessary" items that we couldn't live without.

Costco has small booths throughout the store giving out samples of products they sell.  It is a good idea since you can taste the items and buy the good ones and ignore the rest.  Gerry likes spicy foods, while I avoid them at all cost.  There was spicy cheese sample yesterday that caught Gerry's eye and she sampled it.  WOW!   It was way too hot even for Gerry.  She had to eat a turkey and cheese sample to cool down the burning.  That helped, but didn't quench the flames in her mouth.  I guess we won't be buying that product.

Dairy Queen has a special this month where you buy one blizzard and get one of the same size or smaller for 99 cents.  Since Gerry is a DQ fanatic, we drove to our local store to take advantage of the sale.  Between the Costco samples and the DQ we didn't feel like eating any dinner.  I guess this is a case of living life and eating the dessert first.

I have been busy watching all the basketball games on TV and one of my favorite teams, Illinois, went down in flames yesterday.  They fired the coach today and already Southern Illinois is trying to hire him.  Maryland is holding their own with North Carolina, but it doesn't look good for them either.   Oh well, wait until next year.

The wind has picked up today and is blowing up a storm.  Many Rvers are coming in early today and getting off the road.  Smart thinking on their part.  This morning the wind was out of the North, then Northeast, East and tonight it will be out of the South.  A few weeks ago we took a trip through Reddington Pass and the winds up there are really howling from the news reports.  I am glad we aren't there since it creates a funnel effect.

Big bad wolf & slow verizon

Today was a recovery day for us back at the motorhome.  We had to unpack the suitcases and then pack the winter clothes back into the suitcases.  Between that job and washing clothes, unloading the ice chest, we managed to shoot most of the day.  Some days are like that.

We went to the potluck dinner at the clubhouse last night and were very surprised to see how low the attendance was.  Usually this is a popular gathering and the place is almost full.  Not so this time.  I wonder what that was all about?

The Verizon internet signal has been very slow the past few hours.  Of course when this happens, you can never get an answer from Verizon what the problem is.   This problems pops up and then goes away.  

The big bad wolf was blowing at our door last night and really shaking the motorhome.  It wasn't bad enough to bring in the slides, but the forecast was for 45-50 mph wind gusts and I think we reached that speed.  There was a period of calm and we both mentioned that the forecast must have been wrong.  Nope, we were.  We were so tired that we managed to fall asleep and can't really report on when the winds died down.

When the wind blows out here you get a lot of dust in the air.  That is the case now, with the mountains to the south covered in a haze.  West of Tucson there is a fire on a mountainside, but it isn't a threat to us.  Everything is so dry out here and I think they will have a lot of problems with fires unless they get some rain.

Well, that was our exciting day as fulltime rvers.  Some days are like that.

Ruidoso to Tucson

We got up early this morning and Judy prepared a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon and juice.  We really needed the coffee this morning to jump start these old bodies.  We wound up chatting until 1:00 pm and loaded the car and left Ruidoso for Tucson.

It was a beautiful clear day in Ruidoso and reasonably warm and we left with the windows on the car open.  The tourists had left from the weekend and the streets weren't busy at all.  This is one of the views we had as we left.  How would you like to see this view every day?

Ruidoso Mountains

We made pretty good time getting through Las Cruces and I convinced Gerry that we had 30 minutes to pick up some caches west of town.  There are 100 caches honoring  service personnel from the Vietnam War.  We found three caches on the way to Ruidoso and picked up 12 more today.  It took about 45 minutes for these finds and we have 85 more caches left in this series.  Hopefully we can pick them up on the way home in May.  Gerry managed to get this picture of me finding one of the caches today.  As you can see, it is wide open desert out there.

Geocache in the desert