Superbowl Pool, Shooting & The Sheriff

Somehow or the other I got roped into running the Superbowl Pool here at the park.  I asked if there was going to be one and the next thing I know it was my job.  Gerry drew up the squares on a large sheet of paper and I took it around yesterday evening to get it started.  In a couple hours there were 60 slots filled and this morning I took the pool to the coffee and donuts gathering at the clubhouse.  The remaining 40 slots were filled in 10 minutes and there were more people interested in joining.  Wow!  Now all we have to do is wait for the big game on Sunday and see who wins.  I hope my number or Gerry's comes up early and often.  Fat chance!

Gerry went to her usual sewing club group this morning and I had some free time on my hands.  Al & Sharon were going shooting out in the desert and asked me if I wanted to go along.  Sure, why not.  I followed them in our car since they had errands to run and I didn't want to be out there shooting that long.  We arrived at an ADOT pond that was dry and full of cans, bottles, pumpkins,  targets and more junk than you can imagine.  It sure looked like it was in constant use and there was a fortune in spent ammunition all over the place.  Literally thousands of shotgun shells, .22 caliber and larger caliber shells.   There were piles of shells raked up in a number of places.  


While we were shooting, who showed up but the local Deputy Sheriff.  Oooops!  No, there wasn't a problem.  He shoots out there himself and was just checking who was there.  We had a nice long chat with him and he assured us that it was legal and fine to shoot there.  That was a big relief.  The range area was on BLM land and there was another area for shooting nearby.  We could hear them firing some very large caliber guns.

I had my .22 Ruger Single Six pistol and shot around 100 rounds and had a great time.  My accuracy sure has fallen off as I've gotten older.  I never was a great shot, but I could at least come close.  Maybe the sights were off and that was the problem.  I did help speed up the demise of some beer cans and a skeet target.


By this time Gerry was almost finished with sewing so I headed back to the park.  We had a nice relaxing afternoon and I tried to stay awake in my easy chair.  It did creep up on me a couple times and I grabbed a snooze or two.  I hope I can fall asleep this evening.

Wuertz Gourd Festival, Bike Ride & Nascar - Dale Earnhardt Jr

The weather here today was great and we decided to take in the Ice Cream social at the clubhouse.  We rode our bikes up there and had an unpleasant surprise when we found out our bike seats were wet.  Ooops!  We did get through that mishap and enjoyed the ice cream social.  There weren't many people there but we did enjoy a chat with those who were there and then took a short bike ride.

We rode around the park and checked out how crowded it has become in the last couple weeks.  New people are coming in every day but there are still a number of sites open.  I guess it must be a result of the economy and fuel prices.

We stopped by and enjoyed Happy Hour with Ron & Dee C on the spur of the moment.  They didn't know they were hosting happy hour until we showed up and the drinks started flowing.  We chatted with them for a couple hours and worked on our tans at the same time.  We finally gave them a break and headed down the road for another short bike ride and then home.   Note to self.  Get in shape and ride more.

We got a phone call from Henry, our son in law and were discussing the Nascar races in Phoenix and Las Vegas.  They want to attend both races next year since they will be one week apart.  Sounds like a good idea to us and we will have to look into RV parking spots at both races.

During the conversation Henry mentioned Dale Earnhardt Jr. building a Western town on his 200 acres place near Kannapolis, NC where he lives.  Dale Jr. got the idea from a similar place Willy Nelson built in Texas.  Dale wanted to keep his friends from trashing his recreation room, so he had this place built.  You can read about it here.  Whisky River   It is an interesting read even if you aren't a Nascar fan.   Check it out.

The Wuertz Farm Gourd Festival at the Pinal County Fairgrounds in Casa Grande, AZ and will be held on Feb 3-5 this year.  We've been to the festival the past couple years and have enjoyed seeing all the decorated gourds there.  Some of them are really works of art and must take hours to complete.  They have to be seen to be believed.  The website for the festival is here:
Wuertz Farm Gourd Festival .

The word from our blog friends Jerry and Suzy is that she is recovering nicely and all is going well.  We wish her continued success in her full recovery

Casino Night

The park sponsored a casino night and we decided to go up there and break the bank.  We bought $5.00 of chips (funny money) and Gerry proceeded to commence gambling.  I watched some high stakes gamblers play blackjack for a while and the dealer was loosing big time.  I think that is the first time I saw a dealer loose so much money so quickly.  He finally turned it around when another person sat down to play.  I think that changed the cards and he began to win.

I went over to watch Gerry and friends gamble at a game called "chuck a luck" with three big dice in a rotating wire cage.  There were numbers 1-6 and a couple other ways to win.  After a while I joined in and played for an hour or so with $2.00 of the funny money (20 cents).  Gerry almost went broke and I lent her some chips and she began to win again.  I finally went belly up and just watched for a while longer.

At the end of the night they collected all the money that the park won and raffled it off with tickets.  A woman was the big winner of $8.00 and the park broke even.  They can't legally win any money and it was all disbursed.  The idea wasn't to win big, but to play the game and socialize.  Everyone who attended had a great time and the party broke up around 10:30.  

We wound up loosing a grand total of $1.00 for the evening.  We did each have two drinks and some cheetos and peanuts.  I think we came out ahead on the evening.  

Gerry says it is a warmup for our trip to Las Vegas in February.  I hope we can do as well there and only loose a dollar. It would even be better if we could win some money.  Hope is eternal.

Tucson GEM Show & Cattletown Steakhouse

The Cattletown Steakhouse here in Tucson has a very nice fish dinner and we've gotten in the habit of going there on Friday nights during Lent.  It isn't Lent, but off we went there tonight.  Ron & Dee K called and asked if we were interested in going there for dinner and it sounded good to us.  We lucked out and found a parking space right in front of the entrance.

We left here in plenty of time to get there for the Earlybird special, however we hadn't planned on the place being mobbed with patrons.  There was a 20 minute wait to get seated and the drinks were delivered quickly, but the dinners were another story.  It took a while but we were enjoying a good conversation and the time went by quickly.  We managed to stuff ourselves and had to waddle out of there without dessert.  That was fine with all of us.

We always run into people from the park at the steakhouse and tonight was no exception.  There were 3-4 other couples there and we chatted a bit and then hit the road.

The place was full since the 58th annual Tucson Gem & Mineral  show started today.  The are hundreds of huge tents and other places full of gems.  We have gone to a number of the tents in the past, but I don't know if Gerry still wants to buy more gems.  Time will tell.  See the following link for the Tucson Gem Show

It was another sunny and warm day here in Tucson and the weather forecast is for more of the same for the ncxt week.  Shorts and t-shirts were the order of the day around here.  It would be nice if we don't get another cold snap, but I imagine that is just wishful thinking.

Saguaro East Nat'l Park & Breakfast

For some reason Gerry and I woke up before 730 am this morning and couldn't get back to sleep.  Terrible!  We decided to go out for breakfast at a local restaurant which will remain unnamed.  We got there early enough to get seated right away and the coffee was poured very quickly.  Good sign.  We ordered the special and I shared it with Gerry getting the pancakes and I got the rest, including some sausage.  I think the sausage might not have been cooked properly or the grease was old and it did a number on my stomach.  I won't go into detail for your benefit.

I had plans to go shooting with Al & Sharon around noon and was waiting to see how my stomach would react.  Not good, so I cancelled on the shooting and we will schedule it again real soon.  I always enjoy shooting and hope we can go in the near future.

We hung around the motorhome and finally about 3pm got cabin (motorhome) fever and had to get out.  The Saguaro East Nat'l Park is very near to us and we always enjoy the 9 mile ride through the park.  At various times of the year there are different cacti blooming, but today there weren't any in bloom.  It was still an enjoyable ride and very relaxing to us.  

We were very surprised to see the number of cacti that had died since last spring.  There was a very long cold snap in January 2011 and evidentially a number of the cacti couldn't handle it.  We counted well over 50 dead ones, including a really neat one we had taken a picture of in the fall of 2006.  Here is what it looked like then and up to last spring.

Here is what it looks like in January of 2012.  It was a sad scene and it feels like we lost something really special.  The cactus was well over 120 years old and held a special place for us.  Sad!

 
We chatted with the ranger on duty on the way out about the number of cactus that had died the past year and they were suprised there were so many.  The previous thinking was that the long hot summer was the cause of so many dying, but evidently that is not the case.

We took our usual number of photos in the park and some are shown below.  The park was used to graze cattle a number of years ago and the cattle ate the young saguaros before they could get large enough to protect themselves.  Since it has become a park and the cattle have been banned, the growth of new saguaros has increasing each year. 

On the way home we drove by a beautiful home that looks more like a hotel than a home.  It is called Rancho Milagro (Miracle Ranch) and is fantastic.  Rich or poor, it is nice to have money.

The fences in the picture enclose a number of horse riding areas and they were running a tractor with a rake over them and they looked like a horse show was coming up.

Moneyball

Every Monday night there is a movie shown at the clubhouse.  They have a projector that blows up the movie very large onto a screen.  Tonight was Moneyball with Brad Pitt and while I am not a Pitt fan, he did a good job playing the part of Billy Beane, General Manager of the Oakland Athletics.  I enjoyed the movie, however Gerry felt it moved too slowly.

The movie is based on a book written about how the Oakland Athletics can survive in a small market with such a low payroll.   The book discusses Billy Beane's methods as the GM of the Athletics and how he, along with Harvard-educated statistician Paul DePodesta , used sabermetric principles to run his team in a cost-effective way. According to the book, this allowed him to be successful despite his financial constraints. The book and Beane's methods have influenced the way many think about the game of baseball, including other teams and even players.  

If you like baseball,  then I would recommend seeing this movie.


Other than the movie we had a quiet day here at the park.  It was a little cooler today, but we were outside in short sleeves and comfortable.  Nice!

Another 0 fer day

Yes, that is right, a 0 for 2 day in sports.  The only team I really care for a little bit today, the San Francisco 49ers lost to the dreaded New York Giants in overtime.  A muffed punt setup the final score of the game with the Giants making a field goal.  Final score 20-17. 

The Giants lost two games this year to the Washington Redskins 28-14 and 23-10 and looked bad in both games.  The Skins lost to the Patriots 34-27 after leading for most of the game.  What does that say about the Skins?   I don't know!

The New England Patriots beat the Baltimore Raven 23-20 and I was hoping both teams would lose.  Since that wasn't possible, I would have preferred the Ravens to win since we are from Maryland.  It was painful to actually root for them, but I can't watch a game without pulling for one team or the other.   There will be no joy in mudville tonight.

This was a slow day for us with watching football and taking it easy.  We were worn out from last week and needed a day of rest.

It was very dusty in the area today.  There have been strong winds west of Tucson for the past couple days and I guess the dust is heading our way.  The mountains south of us are usually very clearly seen and this morning they weren't even visible.  As the day wore on they came back into view, but were still hazy.  I'm glad we weren't out in the dust geocaching or we would be miserable by now.

I ran out of space for photos on the blog and had to either delete pictures or buy more space.  I checked into purchasing more space and got 20G additional space for $5.00 a year.  I felt that was a bargain and jumped at it.  Now I just have to take some pictures worth posting on the blog.

For many years we spent Jan-April in the Florida Keys and loved it.  Now my niece Jeanie and her husband Curt have discovered how nice it is down there.  They have rented a place in Islamorada, FL and are staying there for the month of January.  She sent me a picture today that makes me very jealous and envious.  They went to the No Name Pub on No Name Key and loved it.  There was an hour long wait and they decided it would be worth it.  Check them out.  

The Pub was one of our favorite places to go down there, but you had to get there very early to beat the rush at dinner time.  They have very limited seating and on weekends there always was a crowd.  During the week wasn't much better getting seated there.

Birthdays, Anniversary & Blue Grass

This was an interesting day at the park.  The morning started off with a crepe breakfast put on by Mark & Susan.  Mark has worked in a restaurant in the past and he and Susan prepared the crepes for over 70 people this morning at the clubhouse.  The women ate for free since it was women's appreciation day.  I wonder what they will prepare for men's appreciation day??  Gerry and I had intended to go to the breakfast but Gerry woke up with a splitting headache and decided it would not be a good idea to attend.  We heard from friends that the crepes were excellent.  Now we have to talk Mark and Susan into preparing them again in the near future.

As the day wore on Gerry began to feel somewhat better and her headache subsided enough to go out to dinner with Sharon & Al to help them celebrate her birthday and their wedding anniversary.  On the way there we ran into some steers on the road out of the park.  This is the first time we've seen them there this year.  Now we have to watch it coming and going to avoid hitting one.  One little fella was quite curious and walked over to check us out and stared for a long while.  He had on his winter coat and looked like he must have been brought down from the top of the mountain with his long hair.



We decided on Mimi's Cafe as the place to go and had an excellent dinner there.  We've been to a couple Mimi's Cafe  in different cities and enjoyed the meals there.   This was a first time for Sharon & Al and they thought it was great. I still don't understand why Sharon got married on her birthday.  Now she only gets one present.  Bad timing

The park had a local Blue Grass band called Dusty River band playing this evening at the clubhouse.  There were 5 guys in the group and they put on quite a show.  The 2 hours went by very fast and they had the group clapping and toe tapping the whole time they played.  The clubhouse was full for their performance and there were only a few seats available.  It was the best turnout for an event this year and everyone enjoyed them.

The park is at it's fullest this year since we've arrived in December.  There are still open spaces, but each day new people come and go.  It looks like the RVers are finally arriving for the Gem show and all the other events going in the next few months.  

Green Valley & 1,000th Geocache

If you don't have any interest in geocaching, then this might not be an entry you will enjoy reading.  It's all about geocaching and our 1,000th find in the last 27 months.

We traveled down to Green Valley, AZ to do some geocaching.  It is basically a retirement community about 20 miles south of Tucson.  There are a number of golf courses, lots of walking trails, parks and many geocaches.

There were two really neat geocaches we found today.  One was up in a tree about 10 ft above the ground.  We have seen a couple like this one and realized there was a wire or string holding the cache in the tree.  This one was well disguised, but we found it fairly fast.  It also was a difficult find to get close enough to it since there were fences surrounding the area.

We reached a milestone today for finding geocaches with our 1,000th find which is shown with Gerry being the one who found it.  This cache was in Green Valley and just a short walk from a parking lot.  We have really enjoyed geocaching these past 27 months and look forward to finding the next 1,000.  We have been in some interesting places that we would never have chosen to go to, but looking for the caches has taken us there.  You have to try it to enjoy geocaching and the challenges it presents. 

One of the caches we found before this one was at a Presbyterian Church.  It was well hidden also, but once again we have seen one like this before and were successful in finding it.  The church was beautiful and had twin bell towers, a huge picture window with a view of the nearby mountains.  We were in time to hear the bells chime for the 5pm hour and they reminded us of the churches in our home towns.

You could see the mountains in the window with the Whipple Observatory in the distance. 

The Whipple observatory complex is located on Mount Hopkins, Arizona, USA (55 km south of Tucson) in the Santa Rita Mountains. The observatory is run by the University of Arizona and the Smithsonian Institution, and has a visitor center in nearby Amado, Arizona.

We had a late lunch at the Wisdom Cafe which is 2 miles south of Tubac on the frontage road.  We had a difficult time finding the place and since they close at 3pm, we really had to hustle to get there in time.  We had a nice lunch and the restaurant decor was very old and Mexican looking.  Neat place to have lunch if you are in the area, but tends to be a little expensive for a luncheon menu.  Gerry said the Margarita was pretty good, but not the best one she has had out here.

Travel Bug

Last but not least is a Travel Bug we found the other day while caching in Tucson.  Gerry wants to keep it, but we have to let it go and place it in another cache that holds Travel Bugs.  What do you think, does this one explain the weather out here to the T?  This one needs a little TLC and repair to put it back into good shape.  Someone put a lot of thought into this little dude.  Once we repair the TB we will find a good place to leave it.




And to think, we did all of the above with only driving about 165 miles on a sunny and warm day here in southwest Arizona.  Life it good.

See, I told you to not read this if you weren't interested in geocaching.

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The Park is filling up & Genealogy

The day started off with us attending the coffee and donut gathering at the clubhouse.  Either the park or different RV dealers provide the goodies each Tuesday.  They also have a lucky buck drawing, but we have only won that one time.  Today we did win a folding stool that we don't have any use for and now will have to find a place to store it.  

The RV vendor sells a new product line, however it sounds like his main business is providing a consignment place for sellers and buyers.  We've seen his business from a distance and often wondered what he sold.  Now we know.

It seems like the rvers from previous years must have gotten lost on their way here this year.  For most of this season we've been here the park has many open spaces.  In fact, it had fewer rvers than any time we've been here for the past 6 years.  All that has changed in the past few days with the arrival of 6-7 new rvs each day.  Most are staying for more than one night and I am sure the park managers are glad to see that.  There is only one opening in the row that we are in and if Steve & Judy hadn't bailed on us, that would be full also.

We went to the all you can eat pizza night at the clubhouse and had a great time.  Dave comes in with partially prepared pizzas (dough) and prepares pizzas on a counter.  He has 6 ovens that are used to heat the pizzas and really puts them out there fast.  55 people signed up for the pizza party and there were around 85 people there.  Quite a surprise to the social directors, but the pizza guy was prepared for 90 and all went well.  We sat with Ron & Dee and Ron and enjoyed the banter back and forth.

After the party we got back to the MH in time to see the NCIS TV programs and they were both repeats that we'd seen before.  There wasn't much worth watching so we just watched the Bourne movies that were playing.

I spent some time researching a relative on the ancestry.com website and not only found her, but her marriage, husband's name and info about their three children with two spouses shown.  I then searched a newspaper in the town where they lived and found his obituary from 2009 which had a lot of information about them.  It is amazing what is out there if you know where to look.  These people are in a line from a half sister to my great grandmother.  It is always difficult to trace the female side since you never know their married names, but in this case I found marriage data on three of them in the line.  

Camera repair & Geocaching

We took Gerry's old Panasonic Lumix camera in to have it cleaned a week or so ago and today we went in to pick it up.  They did a great job and the spot we had when we took pictures was removed.  Now we have two great Lumix cameras to take pictures and fill up our disk storage.

Since we were in the upper Northwest corner of Tucson and we don't get over that way very often, we decided to do some geocaching.   When I say we, it usually means me and Gerry goes along with it.  Today was a very neat day in that we found 8 geocaches and some great scenic spots.  In particular, there were some great metal sculptures on a fence near one cache.  Check them out below.

 
One geocache was really unusual and the owner had it hidden inside his fence.  I don't like to go on private property since I don't want to trespass, but this one said it was fine to enter his yard.  He had built a travel bug (TB) hotel with a combination lock on the front.  Inside he had a number of TBs and we selected a real neat one to pass along.  We also dropped off a TB that we had picked up in North Carolina a month or so ago.  I imagine the owner was getting worried about it being lost.  

Truly Nolen is a pest control company out here in Tucson and they must have over 800 old cars all restored and sitting around the area.  Their name is always on the cars and you can't miss seeing them.  A cache was placed in this particular car that was right outside the offices of Truly Nolen.

We rewarded ourselves with a trip to Cold Stone Creamery and Gerry used a coupon and her gift card to buy two ice creams.  As usual, they were both great.  Low calories also.  Do you believe that?

Now we will have to go geocaching more often to cut down on the calories we took in today.  See, there is a method to my madness.

Slow, Slow day & Maryland Terps

This was a do nothing day outside since it was drizzling rain at times and cloudy and overcast all day.  I wanted to watch the NFL playoff games so there was a good excuse to do nothing.  I almost finished up with doing nothing today and only have a little more to do tomorrow to complete the task.

The football games were interesting but both teams I wanted to win wound up losing.  The Green Bay Packers were big favorites to beat the New York Giants and wound up receiving a sound beating at home.  That was a surprise, but also that is why they play the game.  You have to win it on the playing field, verbal wins don't count.

The Baltimore Ravens played the Houston Texans and wound up winning.  Even though we are from Maryland, we do not root for the Ravens.  Lots of reasons for this, but I won't go into that now.

At least the Univ of Md Terps beat Georgia Tech in basketball.  The Terps have a 12-5 record and have done a lot better than I thought they could.  The have a very young team and just got their 7-1 center eligible to play.  They were small inside and now have some height and a stopper in the middle.  Now it will remain to be seen how they do when they get into the meat of the ACC schedule, but I am optimistic they will do well. 

I managed to spend hours researching on ancestry.com and found a lot of information on my ancestors.  It is amazing what is out there and how they have tied different facts together.  I found more info today looking on the computer than I could find in months if I had to go to the source for the data.  One thing you have to keep in mind it is still necessary to prove the information and not accept everything at face value.

Gerry worked on making birthday, anniversary, etc cards today and came up with a real nice one.  I can't show it since it is possible that the couple it is going to may read the blog.  MAY is the key word.

Our friend Gloria has a new blog page and you can follow it by clicking on Gloria's New Boring Weblog on the right side of the page.  She and Doug spend the winter in Melbourne, FL and are right on the beach.

I spent some time chatting with a couple friends and catching up on what is going on with them.  I remember when phone calls were so expensive that you had to think long and hard before you made a long distance call.  I don't think the younger generation knows what a long distance call is.  It's just another call to them.  We used to call home to Illinois on a person to person call and ask for ourselves to signal our parents that we made it home safely from Illinois to Maryland.  I wish we would have had cellphone access back when our parents were still alive so we could have talked more.

The rain will contribute to some beautiful flowering cactus in a short while, so I thought I'd include a photo of a flowering cactus from a previous year.  I hope they are as pretty this year and I can get some more nice photos.

It is raining slightly now and should be good sleeping weather tonight.  I think I will go and find out if this is the case.  See ya!

RV Show

La Mesa RV brought a lot of RVs to the Pima County Fairgrounds today and Sunday for a mini rv show.  They do this a couple times a year and this one was much smaller than the one in the spring.  There were more 5th wheel units than motorhomes, but they still had a very good selection of motorhomes.

We are partial to the Tiffin products and they had a number of 2012 units there to kick the tires on.  There was a good mix of gas and diesel units and most of them were new.  The first and last MHs we looked at caught our eye the most.  For only $215-221K you could be driving one of these beauties.  We liked two units in the 36-38 ft range that had most of the features we want.  We didn't talk price to the salesmen since they can't quote you a price.  They bring in the "finance guy" to talk to you.  That is, after they weed out the people who really aren't interested in buying.  We didn't get past the first salesman.

We were looking at one motorhome and a couple came into the unit and started talking to me.  I had chatted with the woman and they were trying to work out a deal on a 2012 Journey and thought they were going to buy it.  They couldn't get the figure down to where they wanted to pay for it and were looking further.  The salesman was right behind them when the lady said they couldn't get a deal, I said to the salesman they should shave off the price.  He didn't really appreciate my comment and a few minutes later asked me to leave "give them some privacy" since they wanted to take the unit for a drive.  We left and went to the next MH and lo and behold they showed up there about 4 minutes later.  The lady laughed about following us, so I told them we weren't going to be thrown out of two mhs for anybody.  We all got a laugh, except for the salesman.  He got a little case of lockjaw about that time.

We stopped by cousin Sharon and Al's 5th wheel for a short visit and a couple beers.  They are staying at the fairgrounds and were happy to have some company.  We hung around for an hour or so and headed home for dinner.

Gerry is a member of the Dairy Queen blizzard fan club and she printed out the coupon for a free blizzard and off we went to the DQ.  You have to buy a med blizzard and then you receive a medium or smaller blizzard free.  We can't eat a medium blizzard so we bring it back to the MH and put half of them in the freezer.

Castle on Hill & Lost Restaurant

Our friends Judy & Steve pulled out this morning and began their long trek to Mission, TX.  They made a commitment to friends of theirs from their hometown to be there and join up with them.  They had hoped to leave early but had forgotten they needed their electric meter read and settle up their bill.  They finally pulled out of here around 9:30am and were on their way to Van Horn, TX.  They called this evening to say they made it there fine and were surprised to see how far San Antonio was from Van Horn.  460 miles is a long haul in a RV and if there is any wind,  it is a rough ride. 

We decided to go out to dinner at a restaurant between Vail and Benson today and called to see if Al & Sharon wanted to join us.  We've seen the restaurant from I-10 and we weren't sure how to get to it since it was located on a frontage road.  We drove a number of miles on the frontage road and never did find the restaurant.   Finally we turned around and headed back to another restaurant.

There was a very large house on top of a tall hill and it looked like a castle.  We stopped to get a couple pictures of the place and it was very impressive from a distance.  I don't think we could afford to pay for the driveway leading up to the house, let alone the land and house.  It appears they had a great view from up there and the place looked very interesting.  Maybe we will drive up there and pretend to be lost.  Then again, maybe we won't since we don't know who lives there.

We finally decided to stop at a local restaurant in Vail called Montgomery Bar & Grill.  We have had dinner there many times in the past and enjoyed the place .  Tonight was no exception.  We all enjoyed our meals and cool drinks and caught Happy Hour so that was a bonus.  We called it an early evening after that and dropped Al & Sharon off at their 5th wheel.   

Visitors & Sunsets

We had special visitors today come knocking at our door.  I have been following Jerry & Suzys blog for a long time and we've talked about getting together one of these days.  Today was the day.  Suzy had an appointment in town and they stopped by on their way back to Benson.  We hope we can get together and have lunch or dinner with them in the near future.  It all depends on schedules and other events.  It was great seeing them and a very pleasant surprise.

We had planned on relaxing today and getting caught up on some paper work and chores we've put off for a while.  I put some old tunes on and we just chilled out.

I managed to spend some time searching for dead people on the ancestry.com website and was successful in finding more information about some of my elusive ancestors.  Little by little we are filling in some gaps.

We had a beautiful sunset here in Tucson this evening and I managed to get some nice photos.  It is almost impossible to actually capture the brillance and color of the sunset, but this is the best I could manage.

Genealogy & Ancestry.com

Yesterday I mentioned installing the latest Family Tree Maker program on my computer.  I have been using a very old copy of FTM and been happy with it, but wanted to see what new features the latest changes have been made to the program.  So far, there a few thing I don't like about it such as the reliance on being connected to the internet all the time.  They also want you to load your data to their databases and you lose control over the information when you do that.  It helps others see what you have, but there is a lot of information in my system that I don't want to share with everyone.

I did find an entry for a sister of my grandfather who left the area in Illinois many years ago and eventually moved to California.  I had heard that she moved but could not find anything on her.  I thought she must have married and I didn't know her married name.  That wasn't the case though, she never married and I found where she had passed away in Los Angelas, CA in 1959.  I an not 100% certain that she is the sister, but the death record strongly indicates that it is her.  They mistakenly entered her father's last name as Columbus, when it fact it was his middle name.  Easy mistake to make.

Today I received a message from a LISH family researcher who had been trying to contact me for a long time.  He had an old email address that I haven't been using for the past 6-7 years.  He had used a lot of my information to search for more family data and has done a good job finding information.  Maybe I can get off the dime and fill in some blanks and sketchy areas in my ancestors.  The LISH line were early Mormon pioneers and were in Utah in the early 1850s.  He moved around a lot and had three different wives with one passing away, divorce and I'm not sure of the other.

We had a nice dinner with Judy & Steve who are preparing to leave here Friday morning for Texas.  They are seeking warmer weather and want to see what it is like in the RGV.  (Rio Grande Valley)   It will be interesting hear how the like it down there and their impression of the area.  The RV park they are planning on staying at for a couple months borders the Rio Grande River and Mexico is just across the river.  The Border Patrol uses the dock at the park to launch their boats so they should be well protected.  Good luck guys and happy travels.

Tiki Pool party & Potluck

There was a tiki pool party today for happy hour and it was held too late in the day to actually jump in the pool, so we just had wine, cheese, crackers and grapes.  We got there a little late, but still in time to celebrate with the group.  It was a bit cool after the sun went down and we all drank some more wine and the the party moved indoors.  A couple more drinks and we probably would have jumped in the pool or hot tub.

There was a potluck dinner at the rec center and we enjoyed a variety of food and good company.  Gerry prepared some meatballs and took them to the dinner.  They were good, actually too good, since they all disappeared quickly.  Judy prepared some enchiladas and they also went quickly.  Dee's smoked polish sausage and sauerkraut was finished before we even got to the dish.



Judy and Steve stopped by after the potluck dinner and we had a few drinks and chatted for a couple hours.  They are leaving the park for Texas on Friday and we will miss them.  They like to get out and do different things and like to see new places.   

Earlier in the day I went shopping for some needed items at Costco.  Where else?   They had Turbo Tax Deluxe tax preparation software on sale for $39.99 after a $10.00 rebate.  As usual, there were more items in the basket than I intended to buy, so the savings didn't cover them.

Office Max had a 20% off bag in the Sunday papers so I took advantage of that to buy the latest Family Tree Maker program which includes three months free subscription to Ancestry. com.    I installed the program, activated the subscription and started checking into some family information.  I ran down a few leads and found some information that I didn't have.  Nice program.

Cowboys and Aliens

If days get any quieter around here I will stay in bed all day.  We didn't do much other than necessary work around the MH.   Monday is movie night at the park and tonight they showed Cowboys and Aliens as the feature presentation.  I didn't want to go since the NCAA Football championship game was on tonight.  I watched a little of the football game and didn't find it that interesting so I went with Gerry to see the movie.

They provide soft drinks and popcorn before the movie and we grabbed our supply and took our seats.  I am not a movie critic, but thought this was a good movie to watch.  It was a little out there, but had an interesting story and kept us entertained.  The two hours went by very fast and we left there in time to watch Castle on TV after the movie.

Just another exciting day here out in the desert.  Tomorrow is coffee and donut day along with Gerry going to the sewing group.  Maybe I will do some geocaching and see what I can find.

The football game that I missed consisted of 5 field goals and a touchdown by Alabama resulting in them winning 21-0 over the LSU Tigers.  Earlier in the season LSU won 9-6 in overtime over Alabama, but Bama got the big prize this time.

Brookside Gardens & Sony Mavica 200 Camera

I purchased my first digital camera back in 2001 when the Sony Mavica 200 camera was introduced.  It was an unusual camera in that it had a 3.5" CD that held 177mg as it's storage device.  It was a 2.1 megapixel camera with a super great lens.  You could use rewriteable CDs and that was a great feature for it's time.  Around 155 pictures taken at the highest quality would fit on one CD.  We were planning on going to the Albuquerque Kodak Balloon Fiesta and I wanted something to take the hundreds of photos that would be taken by me out there.

I had researched digital cameras and it was difficult to determine which would suit my purposes and it all boiled down to the Mavica CD 200.  Earlier models used floppy discs, but the storage capacity was so small that they weren't feasible for taking hundreds of pictures.   A photo trip was necessary early on to figure out how to use the camera.  I read up on it's features, how to use the buttons, knobs and such and went to the Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, MD which was near our house at that time.  I tried all the features and immediately went home to check out my work.

Here are some pictures from that first try.  Keep in mind that these pictures were around 900kb and not the huge sized ones you get now from newer cameras.

I still have the camera and it works fine, but the 3.5" CDs aren't readable on my laptop computer now so I only use it occasionally.  My biggest worry when I bought the camera was that the disk drive would fail quickly.  It still does a great job after more than 10,000 photos.  That is quality that is hard to find in cameras in this throw away era that we live in today.

No, I do not want to sell the camera.  It will be a museum piece in a few more years and we can show it on the shelf next to Gerry's first Brownie camera she got by selling Christmas cards back when she was 12 years old.   It still works also, but it is almost impossible to find film for the camera.  Even if the film was available, it would be difficult getting it developed.

Now it is time to put the Christmas decorations back in storage, assuming I can find a place to store them outside in the storage bins.  That may be a major problem since space is in short supply.

 Wish me luck.