Christmas in the sun!

Oro Valley (Tucson), Arizona

(seeing relatives and friends)

December 18, 2016 - January 2, 2016

From the Phoenix area we headed to the Tucson area so we could celebrate Christmas with my mom who lives in Oro Valley, a community on the NW border of Tucson. Although she turned 92 last August she had the house pretty much all decorated for the holidays.  We helped with some outdoor lights but that was about all.  Before we knew it, Christmas day was upon us.

Great Blue Heron statues decked out for the holidays!

Mom had invited two friends for Christmas dinner and arranged through Safeway to get the entire dinner - all we had to do was go pick it up. In my mind I pictured picking up a hot roasted turkey and all the trimmings (ready to eat potatoes, dressing, and gravy along with cranberry sauce, etc.).  Our first indication that something was wrong was when they couldn't find my mom's name on their list and suggested that perhaps someone had already picked up the food!  No, we explained - that couldn't have happened.  I looked through the list of orders and found mom's name on it but it had a question mark in front of it and had been crossed off in heavy black marker.  I'm now thinking - what the heck are we going to do? We have guests coming! The lady behind the counter didn't miss a beat however, saying she would fix us up.  She went back to the area behind the deli and soon appeared with a big shrink wrapped turkey which she placed on the counter with a THUMP!  I thought she was giving us a frozen turkey but it turned out to be a cold but fully cooked turkey - just add heat.  Next she came out from behind the counter and went to the nearby deli island where she grabbed 2 packages each of Reisers mashed potatoes, Reisers corn meal stuffing, Reisers prepared gravy, Reisers broccoli au gratin and one package of Reisers cranberry sauce.  I'm sort of stunned at this point - quietly saying to my mom "We could have done this ourselves without Safeway's help!"  With everything placed in a large bag we headed for the checkout stand - trying to keep from laughing at the difference between our expectations and the reality of our Christmas dinner.  When we got home we heated everything up and with a little doctoring from Laura the dinner passed muster.  Even our guests had a laugh about it. We still don't know if everyone else who ordered Christmas dinner from Safeway got the same food we did or if this was truly a fall back back position, cleverly handled by the deli worker.

A terrible picture of our Christmas dinner guests!
Nobody tell them I posted this,

One of my mom's friends could only be described as a Christmas fanatic.  She decorates her apartment to the max and loves to have people come by to see it. I think you can see from the pictures below that she has an amazing collection.  Every single room has something to see and I believe she has well over 300 Santa Claus's throughout the collection.

Lots of lighted buildings in her collection.
Her grandson fixed it up so she can turn everything on with one switch!

Some of her many Santa's on the floor in the living room.

Mom and I in her living room.

While in the Oro Valley area we've stayed at several places.  The nicest being Catalina State Park where the views of the north side of the Santa Catalina mountains are fantastic.

Saguaro cactus are plentiful in the park - and these two are huge.

Barrel cacti are also plentiful.

We saw several coyotes in the park.
They don't seem to be spooked by the RV's or the people.
There are lot's of jack rabbits and cottontail rabbits around so I think they eat pretty well.
This one certainly looks quite healthy. 

Sunset on the Catalina mountains as the moon rises.

Late afternoon light on the Catalina's.

The subtle colors of sunset.

Beautiful clouds over the Catalina mountains.

Catalina State Park is so popular, it gets booked up quickly when the snowbirds start arriving - making it difficult to get a spot for more than one day.  You could probably move to a different spot everyday and manage to stay for quite awhile but that gets frustrating so we moved up to the town of Catalina and stayed at the Wishing Well RV Park.  It's a bit run down but the people are very friendly and nice.  

The "Wishing Well"

On Friday nights we went with mom to play Mexican Train with "the girls."
The stakes were a bit high - $.25 for the whole night and the lucky winner gets about $1.50!

On Tuesday nights we played BINGO with a big group of people.
There the stakes are even higher.  $1.00 per card!
If you win a game you might take home $3.00!

Splendido (where my mom lives) furnishes cookies, water and lemonade for these types of functions.

Hello Sunshine

Heading for the Phoenix Arizona Area, 

(seeing friends)

December 13, 2016 - December 18, 2016

Wow - I'm really behind on this blog.  We've been in the Tucson area for 9 weeks now and the time has flown by.  But I digress.  Before we headed for Tucson we drove from Salt Lake City to Phoenix, stopping overnight in Leeds, UT and Wickenburg, AZ before we made it to Sun City West where our friend Dolores and her mom Wanda live.  We visited them last back in May as we were heading north to get out of the heat.  This time we were looking for some sun and heat to warm us after our chilly stay in Salt Lake City.

On a side note - we traveled down I15 through St. George, UT and the most northwestern corner of Arizona as we headed to Las Vegas.   It's the first time we'd been on that stretch of highway and I was astounded how rugged the mountains were in that area and again marveled at the skill of the folks who build our roads. Talk about hard work!

Back to Sun City West and Delores.  We had a wonderful Thai lunch with her and got caught up on all the latest news. We all worked together back in the early 80's (oh so long ago!) at Pacific Northwest Bell Telephone.  She and her mom do the snowbird thing between Juanita, WA and Sun City West - really a nice way to enjoy wonderful weather.

From there we headed across Phoenix to Apache Junction to see our friends Joni and Nell.  Although they live in beautiful Sedona, AZ, they spend a good deal of time in Apache Junction (AJ).  We were able to camp very close to their rig and we spent 2 nights there.  They took us out to Tortilla Flats in the Superstition mountains just west of AJ. It's quite a place and fun to visit.  The drive alone is worth it.

Tortilla Flats consists of just a few wooden buildings -
a restaurant, ice cream parlor and a small historical "museum."

Nice example of the innards of a saguaro cactus on the boardwalk.

Womens rest room in the restaurant! Lots of picture opportunities here!
We laughed ourselves silly taking them.

This is the best picture we took.
Joni's head - perfectly aligned with the painting on the cubicle door.

This one is pretty good as well although Laura's head seems a bit small for the body.

The doors on some of the cubicles are quite low.  Too bad
I wasn't wearing something black so my shoulders wouldn't show!
You can see from my face that the corset is too tight!

Either the door is too high or Nell is too short?

Every square inch of the walls and ceiling of the restaurant were covered with dollar bills.

John Wayne guards the place so no one is tempted to steal the money.

Panorama of Canyon Lake in the Superstition Mountains.

Joni and Laura taking a "selfie" at the rest stop.

The next day we headed back across Phoenix to Tempe where Laura's friend Marianne and her husband Marc live.  They've known each other since 1976!!!!  They had lunch together and Laura got updated on M&M's kids and grand kids.  No doubt about it, they are loving the role of grandparents!

Marianne

Farewell to SLC

Salt Lake City, UT

(genealogy research)

November 6, 2016 - December 12, 2016

Burr - it's been cold here for the last two weeks.  We've even had snow and this is not in keeping with the number one rule we had when we started this trip - i.e. summers in the north and winters in the south.   Luckily the Family History Library provides lots of opportunity to ignore the weather except when coming and going.  One nice thing about the snow - it makes the mountains really stand out.

The mountains here are very close to the Salt Lake Valley.
Great skiing is only about 45 minutes away.

Christmas trees for sale at Whole Foods Store.  The streaks are from snow - not rain.

View from our campsite looking over towards the office.

View from West Jordan, Utah

Just another view of the beautiful mountains here.

Barney - all snuggled up in Laura's robe.

One of the things we like most about this campground is the large number of trees but that comes with it's own set of problems for the maintenance people. The scads and scads of leaves must be dealt with.

One day a crew of guys started work on the leaves.
We think there were 5 people wielding leaf blowers...

...and a guy scooping up leaves and making big piles in various parking spots.

There were probably 6-7 piles like this when they were finished.

That's our motorhome just to the right of the tree in the foreground.

For a while things looked pristine but as you can see - there were still leaves
yet to fall so it didn't stay looking like this for very long.

Thanksgiving came and went while we were here.

We had planned to go out for Thanksgiving dinner but our
car ended up in the shop so we didn't have transportation.
Found this "turkey" in the fridge but elected for nachos and guacamole instead.  Yum!

Many of you know the story of our last long (2 month) stay in SLC. We arrived with 1 dog and 1 cat and we left with 2 dogs and 2 cats after our brains turned to mush after so many days of research! This trip we were absolutely committed to leaving with only the dog we arrived with.  That was until we found this darling little long haired dachshund and .... well....how could we resist.  She looked so much like our first dog Hilde.

Luckily, little Roxie actually belongs to a fellow camper so we couldn't adopt her.
The thought of stealing her did briefly cross our minds however.

Right after Thanksgiving they turn on the Christmas lights in Temple square and thousands of people come to see them throughout the month. We heard that they begin putting them up in July but I have no way of knowing if that's true.  We went in to town one night to see them and I'm sharing them below because they're pretty amazing.

The story of Jesus's birth is narrated with special lighting and scenes depicting the event.
This is the manger scene.
Behind this scene is the Tabernacle where the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performs.

The three wise men

The Morman Temple in SLC.
Neither the Temple nor it's immediate grounds are decorated.
It's lit like this all year round.

This is the SLC Mormon church.
The "pink" lights in this and the pictures below are actually red.

This is the lobby in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.
The building was originally a hotel before the church bought it.
As you can see - it's interior is very impressive.

The ceiling in the lobby of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.
So beautiful!

The Garden Restaurant in the Joseph Smith Building is famous for its Creme Brule!
We ate dinner there after seeing all the lights just so we could have this for dessert.
It was delicious!

We ended up in SLC longer than expected in order to have some work done on our solar system. It should have been done by last Friday (Dec 9) but has dragged on because one of the parts didn't come in.  The part is supposed to be here tomorrow (Monday - Dec 12th) and once it's installed we, like the geese below, will be on our way south to warmer weather.