Here we are, on the road: We’re in Peoria, AZ

March 17, 2013 Lorraine’s report

Well, another week has come and gone. Happy St. Patrick’s Day to John/Thelma and all the family back home. Hope you have a nice day enjoying it all. Also, we forgot to wish Chuck’s sister, Corliss, a very Happy Birthday; Johnny, too, his was on the 6th.

We’ve had a lot of fun exploring this area. It’s way to big to do it all, but what we have done, we’ve enjoyed it all. Phoenix is pretty big, with all the towns and different areas that fill this big valley. It really is “The Valley of the Sun”, with all this wonderful area here.

I was reading on last year’s calendar for the 17th of March, and it showed that it was 42 degrees in Bellingham, there was rain and wind and of course it was cold. What a difference a year makes. We didn’t expect to be here, enjoying this record setting week.

Chuck has covered our daily entries, so I will say, See you all down the road…

Hugs to all,

Lorraine

3/17/13 Chuck’s Report

This is our second week here and we are still enjoying the area and especially the warmer weather. I can certainly understand why folks like to come here during the winter. And there are lots of people who we’ve met who used to come down for the winter and now they have a house and live here year round. Not sure that’s in our future but we are still looking to see what we like and what is available.

Last Sunday we stopped at Best Buy to return a Kindle Fire cover that didn’t fit Lorraine's and bought one that did. Afterwards, we did some driving around when Lorraine suggested we head over to a casino for dinner. We went to Talking Stick Resort Casino, about an hour away, mostly on the freeways. I will say the freeways are good but the traffic can be a bit much, especially when there is an accident or during rush hour.

Neither Lorraine or I liked this casino, not only because we didn’t have any luck on the slots but mostly because it was overcrowded. Once again, the 6 million folks on the freeway and now they’re at the casino too!

Monday we had plans to stick close to the rig, we were due to have our replacement credit card delivered and had to be here to sign for it when it got here. They said it could be anywhere from 9 am to 4 pm and couldn’t/wouldn’t narrow the time down for us. Seeing as how we had to be home anyway, I had planned on starting our taxes, we have most of the information and I could get the forms filled out.

It was just a couple of minutes after 9 when the Fed Ex truck driver pulled up and delivered our new credit card. I spent the next few hours getting our taxes in order and found out we will have to pay some this year. I still need to get a bit more information to complete the taxes but I’m not in any big hurry since I don’t plan on sending the forms in until mid-April.

We have been trying to find a Chick-Fil-A place so we could try it. They aren’t open on Sunday so we figured we would find one on Monday. Even with our new GPS, we couldn’t find one very close but decided to head to the nearest one, about 10 miles away. Once again with the traffic, I’m starting to believe that may be a deal breaker to settling down here and this wasn’t even rush hour.

I can’t say the sandwich was that good at Chick-Fil-A, not bad but nothing to write home about. We would probably eat there again but if there was a KFC nearby that would win our business instead. But I still think highly of the owner, a good Christian man with Christian beliefs who runs his business the way he believes is right.

Tuesday morning Lorraine got in a cleaning mood, she cleaned out her closet and we got a couple of bags of stuff for goodwill. Afterwards, Lorraine got ready to try the swimming pool, they have two here at this park. I went with her but brought a book to read and sat in a lounger while she was in the pool. She really liked the pool, said the water temperature was about 90F or so and it was a real pool, shallow on one end and 8’ on the deep end. She also tried the hot tub for a few minutes but soon went back to the swimming pool instead.

Wednesday was another day for touring the area, this time we wanted to head out to Superstitious Mountain. The first place we stopped at was the museum, not too much here except for some mining equipment that had been used around the area. There was also some hiking trails that we walked for a bit, got some good views of the mountain.

They also had a picture of a poor golfer who had fallen into a Teddy Bear Cholla or Jumping Cholla and was covered with the spines or stickers from it. They said it took over three hours for the firemen/first responders to pull them off enough to load the guy into the ambulance for the trip to the hospital, not fun. Here is a picture from Dave’s blog of one of them, notice all the ones under it that are just waiting to attach themselves to someone or thing. They look nice but it is an accident waiting to happen if you get too near it. (thanks for the picture, Dave)

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Thursday we had invited Dave and Sandy to come by for a visit an dinner. With all the nice weather, it sort of feels like Bar-B-Q time so I dug out ours and Lorraine par-boiled some pork steaks. Of course, as with any BBQ, Lorraine did all the prep work and got everything else ready, all I did was cook the meat. But I accepted all the glory for the meal, ha.

We had a good visit, played some cards and had a good meal, thanks for coming by. We ended the day by sitting outside in the shade, just enjoying the evening with a nice visit.

Friday was another day to check out the area, this time we returned to Sun City area. I think we may need to talk to a real estate agent to assist us, there are lots of areas to check out. We stopped by Wal-Mart for a few supplies before returning back to the rig. Lorraine suggested we see another casino in the area, Gila River is about 45 minutes or so away, so off we went.

This time when we got to the freeway, it was really stop and go for about three miles. It ended up there was an accident that was causing all the back up but whatever, it was horrible traffic. We got to the casino and signed up for their player’s card. They gave us $10 free play and another $10 if we accumulated 10 points plus they will be sending us an additional $5 free play if we give them our email address. I walked away with a little bit of their money but Lorraine didn’t have any luck. We checked their buffet but neither of us was that hungry so we settled for a Fat Burger instead.

Yesterday was - - another day to tour the area. This time I wanted to check out Surprise and Sun City West. We both liked some of the things about Sun City West, in fact, there were three open house tours that we stopped to check out just to get some information from the agents. The agents were helpful even though they all wanted us to buy the house they were showing, of course. But we are just looking, haven’t made any decisions and there are still a couple of places to check out yet.

OH, I forgot to wish my sister a Happy Birthday last week. Her birthday was on the 14th. Happy Birthday Corliss, hope you had a good one. You must be getting close to my age by now, huh?

One other thing to mention here, we’ve picked up hitchhikers. We got infested with ants, lucky they aren’t fire ants. I sprayed around everything touching the ground from the rig the other day but still they have found a way in. Lorraine keeps a bowl of M & M on the counter for me and they found that.

It must be a common occurrence here as when I went to Home Depot to get some spray, they have a very large assortment to chose from. Anyway, spraying the visible ones with Windex and around the cabinets, under the drawers and behind the fridge with raid and dust, I hope we have got them under control. At least we haven’t seen any the last couple of days.

Like I said earlier, the weather has been just great. It has been getting into the low 90s in the afternoon but the mornings and evenings are great. The temperature only drops to the high 50s or low 60s at night and of course there is plenty of clear, blue skies all day long. With the low humidity and higher temperatures, both Lorraine and I don’t have our body/joints ache as bad. Too bad we had to wait until this time of our lives to check this place out, ha.

We plan on staying here for another 10 days or so, depending on if we want to stop by Yuma on the way back to the Bay area. We still need to dry our bones some more before we leave. We will be staying at 1000 Trails in Palm Springs for a week, currently scheduled to get there on the 29th. Our friend, Tim, is finally on his way South and he will be meet us there. I’m looking forward to seeing how well he is liking this weather, if he likes it, maybe he will head down earlier next year.

Ok, now to add some pictures. I don’t think Lorraine has taken too many but I bet I can find some cactus pictures to add. Even though we both miss the green, we like the desert, mountains and cactus around here.

Pictures from Superstitious Mountain and local area.