Weather Change

I was watching the Weather Channel and the storm that is heading for the Midwest and they changed to the Tucson area.  We had beautiful weather out here for the whole month of January and gotten used to it.  Well, that is all going to change in a few days due to the Arctic air dropping down into the U.S.  It looks like Wednesday and Thursday nights will be down in the low 20s and highs in the 40s.  Now for those in Illinois who will see ice, snow and temps down around 0 degrees that doesn't sound too bad, but for Tucson that is cold.

We were getting ready to go out this afternoon and it was sunny and cool, but nothing unusual.  5 minutes later we heard the sound of sleet hitting the roof of the MH and looked out to see it was sleeting quite hard.  Gerry grabbed her camera and managed to get a shot of the car with sleet on it.  A lot melted as soon as it hit, but there was some still on the car.  It cleared up again and we headed down the road and ran into heavy rain and strong winds.  Crazy weather.

All in all it wasn't a big deal, but there wasn't anything else going on today to write about so I thought I'd share our winter storm with you.  LOL.  I do hope that the predicted storm for the midwest U.S. doesn't cause any problems and that the weather men were in error on their predictions. 

Caching on Mann Rd

Gerry and I went geocaching today to take advantage of the great weather we've been having out here in Tucson.  Sunny, warm low winds.  Great!

Today's blog is dedicated to the two people who got us started on geocaching.  I won't name any names, but I think anyone who knows us will figure out who M & C are. 

The road to the cache wasn't maintained and was very dusty, but doable in our Saturn.  There wasn't a lot of traffic so that kept the dust down, but that didn't fail to get our car so dusty we will have to have it washed.  We had to drive about 4 miles on this unpaved road.  I'm glad it wasn't raining. 

We made the first turn at the road sign to the right and continued to the cache.  It wasn't a difficult find but these kinds of caches can only be in a few places.  Are you all beginning to get a hint from the clues?  I would rate the clues at a 1,1.  

 

Gerry signed the log and replaced the cache in it's hiding place and we headed back to civilization and more caches.  The mountains in the back on the entrance road are the Santa Rita mountains and we can see them clearly from our motorhome.    

 

The road back had a few obstacles placed in our way, but we managed to avoid them.  It is neat that the road builders managed to preserve the over 100 year old Saguaro cactus in the road.  


You can see the penalty for getting lost out here in Arizona.  Be careful when you go off roading.

We found 7 caches today and our first letter cache.  It was the most difficult cache since we didn't really know what we were looking for.  It told the story of the first Post Office in Vail, AZ and was very interesting.  They must have been real tough cookies back in the late 1800s in order to survive out here.


Oh, btw, the cache name dedicated to M &C was  "hey Mann" and it's geocode is: GC2J11E.   Ok, no more hints.  Send me an email for FTF.

Cattletown Restaurant

Gerry, Dee, Ron and I went to the Cattletown restaurant this evening for the Friday fish dinner.  Cattletown is in a rough section of Tucson but the food there makes it worthwhile going.  We got there early so we could take advantage of the "early bird" specials.  

We got seated fairly quickly but it took a long time to be served our drinks.  They are always slow with drinks since they get a big rush of people around 5pm.  You would think they would put another bartender on during this busy period, but they don't.  Anyway, in good time the drinks came and we enjoyed them as usual.  The fish was as tasty as usual and we enjoyed the meal very much.

Football Sunday

Gerry and I ran a few errands this morning before the playoff games.  It was such a nice day outside that we almost skipped the games.  NOT!

We enjoyed both games and felt like we couldn't lose on who won the game.  The only team we didn't want to win was the New York Jets and they lost, but really made a nice comeback and almost came back from 24 points down.  Playoff games are the best ones to watch since there is so much on the line.

Gerry fixed a pizza and we had it between games.  It was a store bought one that she heated up.  Thin crust and very good.

That  was our day out here in the West.   

The picture below doesn't have anything to do with today.  It was taken on our trip to Alaska in 1995.  The White Pass railroad runs from Skagway up toward Whitehorse, Yukon Territory and returns.  The view from the railroad must be beautiful and we saw the tracks across the valley on the drive in.  We were in Skagway on the 4th of July and enjoyed the town and the parade.  We caught the ferry ride to Haines, AK and then continued on north to Alaska.  It was a great trip and everyone should put it on their bucket list.

Birthdays & Anniversaries

Yesterday Gerry and ran a couple errands in the morning and made a Costco run.  I picked up a Tom Tom GPS for the car and will check it out.  So far the jury is out on whether we will keep it or not.  It wasn't that expensive so we will most likely keep it.

My bother Dick was born on Jan 20 and we called him to wish him a happy birthday.  He isn't really into celebrating his birthday but many people called him to remind him of the event.  

Today was another birthday celebration with my cousin Sharon and also her wedding anniversary with Al.  Bad timing on her part having both on the same day, but hopefully Al will remember one or both of the celebrations.  We had dinner with them at their RV park and Al made some great spaghetti and garlic bread.  I went back for seconds so that tells you how much I liked it.  We visited with them for a couple hours afterward and went back to our MH.  Thanks guys, we had a great time.

Gerry's Christmas cactus has started blooming and is beautiful. A little late, but still welcome.  It will be in full bloom in a couple days and the other Christmas cactus is a few days behind the larger one.

Casa Grande

Gerry's nephew was flying into Phoenix today on business and we had arranged to meet him for a late lunch.  Casa Grande is 80 miles from us and 45 miles for him so we arranged to meet there.  We got to the restaurant around 2:45pm and there he was waiting for us.  It was great to see him.  We last saw him in June of 2009 when we visited with his family in Park City, UT.

The lunch crowd had left and we had a nice table in the back and didn't feel bad occupying the table so long.  We brought each other up to date on what was going on in our lives and before you knew it the dinner crowd started coming in.  He had to pick up his partner at the airport and we bid him a fond farewell.  Hope we don't have to wait so long to visit with him again.

We did a little geocaching before the lunch and picked up a few caches.  After the lunch we went out again and found a few more.  There were 3 caches that we couldn't find and 6 found so that was nice.  We drove all over Casa Grande and saw the good & bad parts of the town.  Overall it was a nice town with a lot of modern box stores and restaurants.

Casa Grande was originally called Terminus because that was where the railroad ended.  For some reason they decided to call it Casa Grande after the Indian ruins, even though the ruins actually are in Coolidge, AZ.  You learn something new everyday and that is what makes geocaching so interesting.  Good exercise also.

We drove 190 miles total today and it wasn't that bad.  I-10 is about a mile from us here and the restaurant was about 2 miles from I-10.  The speed limit is mostly 75mph except through Tucson where it is 65mph.  Of course, we saw a number of people pulled over by the state troopers due to speeding or other violations.  One car was being checked by the drug sniffing dog and the driver was in handcuffs. 

Now we are home tired out and taking it easy.  Busy day.

Anyone for Football

Since my beloved Redskins decided to take time out for rebuilding, I can watch football without getting too worked up.  Last weekend three of the teams I was rooting for lost and this weekend all four won.  Especially nice was watching the Jets - Patriots game and the final score.  Don't get me wrong, I am not a Jets fan by any means, but they were the better of two evils.  

So I am devoting the photo above to the Patriots, Seahawks, Falcons & Ravens.  Even though we live in MD, we can't bring ourselves to root for the Ravens since they are Redskin rivals.



Lest you thing the whole day was taken up with football I want to report we made a run to the Dairy Queen so Gerry could get her DQ fix.  She should be good for a week or so now.                                                                                                                                           

Eggs Benedict and Cacheing

Gerry and I like to go to the Village Inn restaurant on Wednesday for lunch or dinner and take advantage of the free pie day.  We missed Wednesday and decided to go today for eggs benedict to see if they were any good.  The verdict was yes and we will try them again at a later date.

After the meal we decided to do a little shopping and didn't find what we wanted so we went geocaching in the area.  We had found 696 caches and were looking to add 4 to the list and get to 700 found caches.  We did better than expected and found 7 caches and a benchmark marker.  The weather was beautiful and we didn't want to stop looking for caches but we finally called it a day.

The 700th cache was called Sunrise Chapel and was behind a very interesting church.  The cache wasn't that hard to find but the beauty of the area made it special. The church yard was landscaped a while ago and it looks like it needs some TLC to bring it back to it's previous beauty.  The church has a stained glass window that was outstanding. The middle photo  was taken through the church window with the reflection of the Catalina Mts superimposed on the picture.  The red & blue part is the stain glass window.  The photo above is Gerry with the Catalina Mts in the background. 

Mannys for Lunch

One of our favorite Mexican restaurants in the area is Mannys in Green Valley, AZ.  We try and get down there at least once a month while we are in the area.  It also is one of the favorites of friends Ron & Dee so we decided to go down for lunch today.  We didn't leave the park until after 1pm so the lunch crowd would be gone by the time we got there and our timing was almost perfect.  A large group of people were leaving as we pulled up and we got a table very quickly.

The food there is good and plentiful and the beer is cold.  Combine that with good company and we had a great time.  Of course the beans made me pay for it later, but as Mark Twain said, "eat what foods you like and let them fight it out later", or something like that.

We stopped at Wal-Mart on the way back so Ron & Dee could pick up somethings and Gerry & I also shopped a little.  We got out of Wally World under $2.00 so I was happy.

When we got back to the park our neighbors behind us were enjoying the great weather and engaging in happy hour so we joined them for a while.  They said that Air Force One flew over the park earlier taking President Obama to the Memorial service for the 6 people who were shot last Saturday.  The TV news around here has saturated the airways with all the events concerning the shootings, much like 9/11 in the news when we lived in the Washington, DC suburbs.  


More and more is coming out about that very disturbed individual and it seems he is crazy and his ramblings don't make any sense.  He has been obsessed with Giffords since 2007 and has carried it through the shooting.  What a sad event for the nation.

Caching and Quilting

I couldn't skip updating the blog today given the date of 1/11/11.  My grand daughter was married on 10/10/10 and it is getting spooky out there.

Gerry went to her sewing and quilting group this morning and did whatever they do during this period.  The excitement and suspense of the group is too much for me to handle so I just dropped off her and the sewing machine and beat a hasty retreat.

They worked on a quilt for the brother of the little 9 year old girl who was shot by the nutcase last Saturday.  The quilt is in a patriotic pattern and was made with love.  The group usually makes quilts for children in the hospital under the Linus project.  Last winter they presented over 150 quilts to the project.

I worked on downloading some new geocaches just in case we got a chance to go out looking.  It was a beautiful afternoon and we did manage to spend a couple hour caching and found 7 caches.  There were two that we had looked for in the spring time and were unsuccessful.  Today we managed to find both of these caches along with a couple other difficult caches.  We didn't find two of them and I think they have been muggled.  i.e.  Some person found it and threw it away or kept it.

Gerry had started on a roast beef and had it in the oven waiting for us when we got home shortly after dark.  She also prepared potatoes, gravy and green beans.  Great!   Now I am sitting her stuffed tired out, but contented.


Good night.

Wild West

Thanks to Doug I have a title for the blog today.  It sure has been a wild wild west today out here in Tucson.  I imagine everyone has heard that a Federal Judge was shot and killed along with 5 others at a Safeway Grocery store.   Garbriella Giffords, an Arizona US Representative was having one of her meeting with Tucsonans at a Safeway store and a 22 year old gunman shot her and 19 other people.  She is still alive but the Judge was killed along with a 9 year old girl.  The others haven't been identified yet.

It is a shame that there is so much hate and animosity in the US in recent years.  Too many people resorting to drastic measures when they don't agree with someone's viewpoints.  Things have to change for the good of the US.

The TV stations devoted all day to covering the tragedy except for NBC which broadcasted the NFL playoffs.  There wasn't a lot of new information during the day and the other stations rehashed the events over and over.  At least they showed restraint in all that happened.  Some national stations reported Giffords was dead when in fact she wasn't.   Sad that they would jump the gun and report that!

On a happier note, Gerry made a homemade bean soup that was great.  Two bowl full great.  I am enjoying it now but will pay later in the night.  Trust me, it was worth it.

CCRV has made some changes here lately and not for the better as far as we are concerned.  They have two sections to the park and the back section has always been for families with children or dogs, while our small section had neither.  While we both love children and dogs, we don't really enjoy camping next to them for 5 months.  They have already booked both groups into our area so it looks like this will be our final year at CCRV.  Such is life.  They have a business to run and make a profit, while we will find another place for next winter.  That is the beauty of having a RV, it has wheels and can be moved.

Don't get me wrong, we have a site at the end of a row with a long time neighbor so these changes won't affect us that much.  We had discussed not coming out here next winter due to the long drive and desire to see other parts of the US.  Maybe Texas or Florida for the next winter.  We do plan on attending the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta the first of October  and head out from there.

Today was a beautiful winter day with temps in the high 60s and a sunny day.  If it wasn't for the football playoffs, we would have been out scouting the countryside.   Maybe during the week.

That's all folks.

Slow Days

It has been slow around here the last couple days.  Time to recharge the batteries and head back into the fray.

Our friend Ron had a birthday on New Years Day and we invited him over for some homemade chili on Wednesday night.  Saturday was left over day so we couldn't invited him for that.  

We took my new computer that I bought in October back to Costco.  It was crashing quite often and I didn't want to bother sending it back to HP and waiting 8 weeks to get it returned.  Much easier to return to Costco under their 90 day return policy and buy another one.  They are great with returns and that is one reason I continue to buy from them.  

The new computer is a HP also, but has 8gig ram, 640g hard drive, 7200rpm hard drive, larger video card and a 17.3 inch monitor.  So far it has been great and I think I will be happy with it.  I will use it for a while before I install Turbo Tax on it to make sure it doesn't cause problems.

Sharon & Al came over for some of Gerry's homemade pork chops & wild rice casserole.  Super.  I managed to control myself and we have some leftover for lunch or dinner on Friday.   Yummy.

Just  a short blog to let everyone know we are still out here.  C U

Football

Did everyone get their fill of football this weekend?  Talk about overload.  My two favorite college teams won their Bowl Games and that was good.  I graduated from the Univ of Maryland and they won fairly easily and the Univ of Illinois also won big.  The Washington Redskins didn't have a chance to get in the playoffs, however they gave the NY Giants all they could handle.

We took advantage of the nice weather today to go geocaching.  There were two caches close to the RV park and we found the first one very easily.  The 2nd cache posed more of a challenge.  It was located in the desert about 1/4 mile from a parking space.  There were a few paths out there but they didn't lead to the cache.  We found it attached to a dead cactus on the ground and signed the log.  Then we had to walk back to the car as the sun set.  I had the foresight to lock onto a large house and used it to find our way back.  
We stopped at Pizza Hut and picked up a pizza for dinner and headed back to the RV park.  They had a special on stuffed crust pizza and that is one of Gerry's favorite pizza.  It sure hit the spot.

The last few nights have been very cold with temps down around 20-24 degrees.  At that temp we have to be careful with the water hose and the pipes in the MH.  We made it through fine and the forecast for tonight is for warmer weather.  The next week it will be in a warming spell so that will be great.

You all have fun this year.

New Years Eve

Well, we celebrated another New Years Eve and had a great time at the CCRV party.  They had Becky Rose playing her one woman band and she did a great job.  She has played here before and always puts on a nice performance.  She brings along a number of different hats to complement her singing and playing.

Everyone brought along some finger foods for the celebration and there was a ping pong table full of goodies.  There was more food than everyone could eat and we actually had leftovers.  Highly unusual for this crowd.  Nobody went away hungry or thirsty tonight.  


They had a Chinese auction of many different items including a TV, GPS, Sony DVD Player, Camera and many more prizes.  Each person bought tickets and then placed them in envelopes in front of the item and a drawing for each item was held.  We didn't win anything but Dee won a CCRV jacket.  The excitement in the air was electrifying to say the least.  


We all had a great time dancing, eating, talking and celebrating the end of one year and beginning of the next.  Actually, we had to leave the hall around 11pm since it was time to close it up.  Once the auction was over everyone bailed out in a hurry.  Our little group, Ron & Dee, Judy & Steve, Ron K, and Gerry and I had a great time.  Mel, Ron K's mother in law sat with us and was dancing all evening.  A fun time was had by all.

 Happy New Year from Gerry and me.

After this party broke up we joined Judy & Steve in their 5th wheel for a nightcap and finally got home around 1:30am.  

We had a long day that started with helping cousin Sharon and Al move into their new 5th wheel unit.  What a beauty.  It has tons of space, a fireplace, huge TV and looks like it is 40ft long.  Actually around 36ft.  They parked their old unit next to the new one and transferred all their stuff over.  Ron, Gerry and I got there in time to help them a little and they were on there way home to finish the job.  Congratulations Sharon and Al.  What a way to start the New Year.