March 15, 2005

March 15, 2005

Congress & Wickenburg, Arizona

DAY 270

 

Today was sunny, but cool and windy.

Teddy was sick this morning. Poor kitty. I think he must have been grooming himself to lick off the flea "spot-on" treatment we put on him yesterday. I wasn't feeling well this morning, either. I wasn't sick from licking the back of my neck, however. HA HA HA ! I did my regular preventive maintenance this morning, then took an empty propane tank for refilling. I thought more sleep would make me feel better, so I took a nap until lunch. After lunch, we drove to the town of Congress, about 4 or 5 miles north. We wanted to get haircuts. Congress was a smaller town than we thought, with only one hair stylist business. There was a line up waiting, so we decided not to wait. We looked for a service station to fill up with diesel, but Congress doesn't even have a gas station. There was a sign pointing down an old trail up into the mountains, to the old Pioneer Cemetery. We decided to go take a look. We drove a few miles up into the mountains until we reached an old, abandoned gold mine. There are quite a few old gold mines in this area. Most of them are long ago abandoned by mining companies, but some die hard individual prospectors known locally as "scroungers" still work the mines and nearby streams / "cricks" running down out of the mountains. Near the old mine is a cemetery from the mid-1800's that served the town that existed up by the mine back then. The path to the cemetery was a couple of miles of a path that got less and less defined the further up we went. I switched Dee-Dee to 4 x 4 mode and crawled, at idle speed, up and over and around a trail that was more horse trail than vehicle trail. It was an interesting old cemetery, and a very interesting "off road" experience. We were both very impressed with Dee-Dee's capabilities.

We drove down out of the mountain, and back into Congress. Joanne bought some fresh produce at a road side stand. We decided to drive south about 15 miles, past North Ranch SKP Park, back to the town of Wickenburg. Wickenburg was a much larger town than Congress, perhaps a population of a couple of thousand people. We both got haircuts, and filled up Dee-Dee with diesel.

We drove back to North Ranch, and had a great barbecue supper. I spent most of the evening working on updating and analyzing my investment files. We watched Amazing Race.

DSK

March 14, 2005

March 14, 2005

North Ranch SKP Park, Congress, Arizona

DAY 269

 

This morning was cloudy, a bit cooler, and windy. It rained for a few minutes this morning. A bit of rain makes the desert bloom even more. The afternoon was sunny and warm. The evening was cold and very windy. The forecast calls for snow tonight in the northern parts of Arizona.

Teddy and Bo woke me up at 6:15 A.M. again this morning. Teddy seems to think that as soon as the sun rises, he should be fed. His antics wake up Bo, who then wants to be walked. The two of them ganging up on me makes it impossible to sleep. I fed them, walked Bo, and went back to sleep. Harvey's windows have day / night shades ; a semi-transparent shade for day use, and an opaque shade for night use. We lower the night shades only in the bedroom, and always use only the day shades in the living area. I think I'm going to start lowering the night shades in the living area, to see if that keeps Teddy sleeping a little longer. If that doesn't keep him sleeping longer, my next step will be to buy solar / light shades for the roof vents.

This morning I phoned MTS Mobility, and paid the cell phone bill. Next winter I'm going to have to try a different service package. Our cell phone bills on a monthly basis are outrageous, and we rarely use the phone. Then I unhitched Harvey from Dee-Dee, and took Dee-Dee to adjust the air pressure in the tires. I check tire pressures and adjust them as necessary, on a weekly basis. Joanne joined me on an obedience training session with Bo, then we walked over to see Saguaro Park. Saguaro Park is a landscaped park on the edge of the RV park property. It was built by, and for, and is maintained by the residents in the park. This is a very large park of over 400 home sites. Some sites are RV home sites, some are mobile home sites, and some have regular “stick and brick” homes built on them. Saguaro Park is built around two old, named Saguaro Cacti. Sheba is about 145 years old. Methuselah is over 400 years old and is one of the oldest known Saguaros in Arizona. I'll walk back another time and take a picture of Methuselah for my blog.

This afternoon, I took a nap, then walked back to Saguaro Park to take a couple of pictures of Methuselah. I returned to the trailer and downloaded the photos from the camera to the laptop.

Then I took the computer over to the computer room, got online, and retrieved investment data. I'll update and analyze my investment files tomorrow. I spent some time playing with Bo, with his new "Foxy" retrieving dummy. Ducky is dead ! He sure loves those retrieving dummies. We have to always keep a spare in the cupboard. He destroys them at the rate of about one every two weeks. We administered monthly doses of flea "spot-on" treatments to Teddy and Bo, and heart worm medication to Bo.

At 6:30 I went to watch a session of the park's wood carving group. Tonight's gathering was a group of one. I chatted with the fellow as he worked on a wood carving of a fisherman. We chatted about Escapee organization politics. I don't think I'll be taking up wood carving any time soon. I returned to the trailer about 7:30 for dinner, and an evening of watching TV.

DSK

March 13, 2005

March 13, 2005

Mesa / Phoenix to Congress, Arizona

DAY 268

 

Today was sunny and hot again.

Teddy and Bo woke me at 6:15 this morning, asking for breakfast and to be walked. Usually I would feed them and walk Bo, and go back to sleep when they wake me that early, but this morning I stayed up and went for a shower. I didn't want to risk going back to sleep, and being late to meet with the men at the group area by 8:00 A.M.. This morning was the last morning of the rally, and traditionally there is a "hitch up breakfast" on the last morning of an Escapees rally. The Alberta Roamers Chapter 44 has a tradition of the hitch up breakfast being prepared by and served by the men, for the women. The men all met at 8:00 A.M. and began working on breakfast. Scrambled eggs, bacon, and pancakes. If I would have known how horribly most old men cook pancakes, I would have volunteered as one of the cooks. Instead I was a server. And a charming one at that ! Tea served correctly. Coffee cups never empty. Serve from the right. Take away from the left. Too bad the pancakes were all burnt, and the eggs were all cold.

Breakfast was over by 9:30, then it was time for closing ceremonies and farewells to new friends. We returned to the trailer and prepared to leave. We were on the road about 10:30. Out of Usery Mountain Park, then onto McKellips Road in Mesa, travelling west across Mesa and into Tempe where we got onto Hwy. 202. McKellips Road had mature orange trees growing along the side of the road, so I stopped and picked some for myself. How convenient. Through Tempe on Hwy. 202 and onto Interstate 10 in Phoenix, heading west, and partway across Phoenix, onto Hwy. 17 heading north. Phoenix and its surrounding suburbs are quite a large city. North on Hwy. 17 to Hwy. 74, west on Hwy. 74 to Hwy. 60, northwest on Hwy. 60 to Hwy. 93 at Wickenburg, a short distance northwest on Hwy. 93 to Hwy. 89, then a short distance north on Hwy. 89 to North Ranch SKP Park.

The desert is in full bloom, and it's astounding ! We arrived here at North Ranch about 2:30 P.M.. We set up in our site, had lunch, then I napped with Bo while Joanne got caught up on laundry. At 6:30 we went to the park's Sunday evening Ice Cream Social. We met and chatted with a couple from Washington state, north of Seattle. After eating ice cream, we weren't really hungry for supper yet, so I took the laptop down to the club house, to get online to retrieve e-mail and update my blog. I haven't been able to get online in about 12 days. I was third in line for the modem connection, and by the time I got online, retrieved e-mail, and updated 3 days worth of blog, somebody else was waiting for the phone line, and it was the time Joanne told me to be back at the trailer for supper. I signed off and went back to the trailer, planning to get back online late at night. Hopefully there won't be anyone else wanting the phone line late at night.

It's now about 10:00 P.M., and I'm sitting in a little outdoor phone booth / computer room beside the club house, updating my blog, and listening to coyotes howling nearby !

DSK

March 11 & 12, 2005

March 11 & 12, 2005

Mesa, Phoenix, & Apache Junction, Arizona

DAYS 266 & 267

 

Friday ; Today was sunny and hot. Temperature in the mid-80's.

After morning coffee and socializing, the rally group left for the Landmark Restaurant in Phoenix. Joanne and I "car pooled" with Marcel and Louise. Louise's English is a bit weak, and she appreciates having Joanne around to converse in French with. The road sides are all abloom with blue, orange, red, and yellow wild flowers. The late brunch / early lunch at the Landmark was nice. A very nice salad bar / buffet. It was a teensy bit over priced, I thought, and most everybody in our group thought that the 18% gratuity built into our bills was a bit outrageous. Over lunch we chatted with a couple from Idaho, who belong to the Alberta Roamers Chapter 44 because it's the closest Escapee chapter to them. She was his third wife. He lost his first wife to cancer, after 25 years of marriage. He lost his second wife to cancer, after 7 years of marriage. Sheesh ! I hope his third wife outlasts him.

From the Landmark we headed to the America West Airlines Training Centre at Phoenix Sky Harbour International Airport. America West ( Air Traffic Control call sign "Cactus" ) is a regional air carrier based here in Phoenix, flying "hub and spoke" routes all over the southwest, as far north as British Columbia and Alberta, and as far south as Costa Rica. One of the members of the Alberta Roamers Chapter 44 has a son working for America West as a flight attendant, and he arranged for our group to be able to tour their pilot training centre, flight attendant training centre, systems and operations control centre ( flight planning and dispatch ), and emergency command centre. I found it very interesting, as did the other pilots in our group, of which there are quite a few, but Joanne was bored to tears. We drove back to Usery Mountain Park from Sky Harbour International during afternoon rush hour. I'm glad Marcel was driving and I could be just a passenger. Gee ... Montrealers drive the same no matter where they are !

We had a late "Happy Hour" when we got back to the campground. Joanne was one of the women who provided today's "Happy Hour" snacks. I taught Marcel and Louise 2 magic tricks, and they taught me some duo juggling. There's a number of different ways for two people to juggle together. I was able to marginally grasp a couple of the techniques. A new juggling technique is not the sort of activity that can be mastered in 5 or 10 minutes, even when one knows how to juggle. Marcel "tortured" a couple of women around a picnic table with my "magic genie bottle" routine, a trick I usually reserve for only young children. I didn't think that adults wouldn't "get it". Apparently I was wrong.

We had a light supper back at our trailer, then I went back to the group area about 7:00 to get the campfire started. I was tonight's campfire "host" again. After the campfire, one of the rally attendees brought out a telescope and we did some star gazing. I got to see Saturn and its seven moons.

 

Saturday ; Today was sunny and hotter. Temperatures in the high 80's.

I went to the group area fairly early this morning for coffee and toast. At 10:00 A.M. Joanne and I left for the 17th Annual Arizona Renaissance Festival & Artisan Marketplace, about an hour east of here at Apache Junction. The rest of the group left about 9:45. We were late this morning. We spent a long, hot day at the festival. The Arizona Renaissance Festival is a big event here, on each of eight weekends every February and March. The festival site is a huge venue. I would estimate it to be between 5 and 10 acres of parking lot, and an equal size of festival grounds. The theme is, of course, medieval times. The site has about 6 stages scattered throughout its grounds, with continuous entertainment at each stage, rotating every half hour. From stage area to stage area, are vendors, craftspeople, and artisans, all selling their wares. There's a variety of food and beverage booths, and children's carnival rides. The main arena stage has 3 performances a day of a jousting tournament. All entertainers, vendors, and employees are dressed in medieval costumes, as are a significant number of the visitors. Many of the local people attend this festival year after year, and are attired appropriately. Kind of like how those of us from St. Boniface dress up for the Festival du Voyageur every winter. The entertainers are comedians, jugglers, magicians, musicians, dancers, etc.. We attended a few comedy type shows, a magic show, an exhibition of tame, trained raptors such as falcons and hawks, and a ventriloquist act with his irreverent skeleton dummy named Ded Bob. We were surprised to see a magician with less magic skills than me, performing professionally. Marcel and Louise later told us they feltthe same about a juggling act they watched. The best show was a young husband and wife comedy team, performing as Ima Nutt and Mark Ease. We saw their 1:00 P.M show, and returned to their 4:00 P.M show which included their Border Collie, Bonehead. They had a gumball machine with a large lever. It was filled with dog biscuits. Whenever Bonehead performed as expected, he was allowed to run to the side of the stage and flick the lever, dispensing a biscuit to himself. Bo would like one of those !

We stopped at a Wal-Mart for a bit of grocery shopping on the way back to Usery Mountain. In the Wal-Mart parking lot, we bought some Girl Scout cookies. I referred to the little girls who were selling the cookies as Girl Guides, and their product as Girl Guide cookies. They looked at me as if I were from Mars. Down here they're called Girl Scouts. Talk about branding myself as a "foreigner" ! We got back to the trailer around 7:00 P.M., just at dark. We weren't hungry, so we headed over to the group area for an evening of musical entertainment, and a campfire.

I just returned from taking Bo for his bedtime walk. As we walked by a neighbouring motorhome, the 2 German Shepherds inside began to bark. That started a pack of coyotes howling, just a couple of hundred feet away in the desert. Needless to say, I walked Bo on a pretty short leash ! ! !

DSK

March 10, 2005

March 10, 2005

Usery Mountain Park, Mesa, Arizona

DAY 265

 

Today was another sunny, hot day. I like it !

Last night, for the second night in a row, we could hear coyotes in the campground. Their howls sound as if they right are at the trailer door, but I guess sound carries at night. Last year at this rally, a dog sleeping outside, tied to a rig was attacked by coyotes. I guess they're pretty bold.

I woke at dawn this morning, to feed the animals, and walk Bo as the sun rose over the mountain. Warm, light breeze, birds singing, it was almost enough to turn me into a morning person. Well ... almost enough, but not quite. I showered, and went over to the group area for coffee and socializing at 8:00. I was planning to join a led hike to the top of the mountain, leaving at 9:00, but the hike leader was this gung ho drill sargeant type. I'm not really keen on hiking up a mountain first thing in the morning at break neck speed, so at the last minute I decided to pass on the opportunity. About 10:00 some group games began. More my speed for the morning. I played a game of Ladder Golf in a group of four. I lost. Then I played Rummykub in a group of four which included Joanne, who had come over to the group area about 9:00. I won the game of Rummykub. We recently got that game, so it was an opportunity to learn how to play. Then I played another game of Ladder Golf. This time my team of two won, but I didn't make much of a contribution to the game. My team mate contributed 13 points before I finally managed to score a two to win the game. I passed on playing Marshmallow Golf. Around 11:30 I returned to the trailer to take Bo out for a walk and give him an opportunity to visit a bit. Some "pill" has requested that dogs be kept away from the group area due to allergies. It's beyond me how a dog in the general vicinity of an open picnic area can aggravate somebody's allergies, but ... I guess there has to be one in every group ! Joanne continued to play Rummykub, and won the next two games in a row. She liked the game, so maybe it'll be a game that we can enjoy playing together, like Scrabble. Great ... now she won't be asking me to play that damn Humzinger !

We had lunch in the trailer, then I took a short nap while Joanne prepared our contribution to the late afternoon communal dinner of finger foods. We returned to the group area at 2:30 for a "get to know one another" mixer game, followed by a men versus women game of beanbag baseball. I snuck out of that to go back to the trailer to prepare for my magic performance. I felt particularly nervous about performing today. I performed on Hallowe'en at Trout Lodge for a bunch of kids, and again at the C.A.R.E. Centre for a bunch of old folks, some of whom were Alzheimer's patients, but other than that, I haven't done magic for about 15 years. Performing for this large gathering made me nervous. The communal finger food dinner started about 4:30, and entertainment started about 5:30. First performers were Marcel and Louise Lemieux from Montreal who do a good duo juggling act. Marcel purports to be able to teach anybody to be able to juggle within a few minutes, following just a few simple instructions. He picked a member of the audience at random, and sure enough, was able to have him juggling within a minute or two. Good thing that the "randomly selected" audience member was already a juggler ... me ! HA HA HA HA HA ! Marcel has offered to teach me duo juggling tomorrow. My magic performance followed Marcel's and Louise's juggling. I made a few little mistakes, but nothing that I wasn't able to adequately recover from. All in all, it went quite well. Rather than watching me, Joanne watched the audience to guage their satisfaction with my performance. She thought my act was well received and appreciated. After my magic, Marcel and Louise performed again, this time as dancers. Finally, there was an act of really bad joke telling, à la George Burns and Gracie Allen. There was a short break, and we returned to the trailer to feed the boys and walk Bo, put away our leftovers and dishes, and sort out and put away my magic props. At 7:00 we returned to the group area, for campfire, music, and dancing. Tonight’s musicians were a man playing keyboards, and another playing saxophone and clarinet, performing mellow dance tunes from the 50’s and 60’s. The horn player was very good. Joanne even asked me to dance. I can’t recall the last time she asked me to dance. I never knew a good saxophone mellows her out that well. Maybe I should take up the sax ? NAHHH ! About 8:30, we left the campfire, and returned to the trailer to watch the last half of tonight’s episode of The Apprentice. Joanne went to shower, while I worked on this journal entry.

I tried to get online, through the cell phone, to update my blog, and retrieve e-mail. I made about 5 attempts to sign on, and each one failed, despite the phone showing a strong signal. I finally realized we must be in an area of only analog cellular coverage. Data connections won’t work.

DSK

March 9, 2005

March 9, 2005

Usery Mountain Park, Mesa, Arizona

DAY 264

 

Today was sunny and very warm, temperature in the low 80's. I couldn't help but think repeatedly today ; some people have to drive through the snow to their PET VALU stores, and unload trucks in the freezing rain ... but I don't ! HA HA HA HA HA < SNORT SNORT SNORT >

Teddy and Bo woke me early this morning to be fed and walked. Sometimes when they wake me this early, I feed them, walk Bo, and go back to sleep. Sometimes I just roll over and ignore them. Today I stayed up after feeding them and walking Bo. I watched the sun rise up over the mountain. I went to the comfort station and showered early. We're using the comfort station here for showering, since we don't have a sewer connection at our site, and we don't want to fill up the bathroom grey water tank too quickly by showering in the trailer. Without using the shower in the trailer, we can probably make it the whole week without having to drive to the dump station to dump the holding tanks.

I spent much of the morning working on a job I've been procrastinating doing for a long time. I worked on building our investment files in the MS Money software. I have the investment files built into spreadsheets, and when I update them, I manually transfer the data to MS Money. When I'm finished building them into MS Money, I should be able to update them directly into MS Money. Just before noon, we walked with Bo over to the group campground to see what's happening with the rally. The official start to the rally activities was at 2:00 P.M. today, but we wandered over early to check things out, and socialize, which is the largest part of any Escapee rally. We chatted with a new arrival, a couple from Montreal. We returned to the trailer for lunch, and as Joanne was preparing lunch, I took Bo out for an obedience training session. He's progressing well.

After lunch, we returned to the group campground picnic area where the rally officially began around 2:00 P.M. with registration ( and socializing ) followed by official opening ceremonies ( and socializing ), then the "adoption" of each first time Chapter 44 rally attendee ( like us ) by an "experienced" Chapter 44 member couple. We were "adopted" by Lil and Gord Casey from Pincher Creek, Alberta, in the southwest corner of the province, near Alberta's borders with British Columbia and Montana. After more socializing, the communal spaghetti dinner began at 5:30. Immediately after supper, I went back to our rig to get my campfire building supplies. I volunteered to be the "host" for tonight's campfire, as well as again on Friday evening. I got the campfire going by 7:00 P.M., in time for the evening's entertainment. Tonight was a woman singing and playing guitar, accompanied by another guitarist and a man playing the dulcimer ( tsymbaly to my Ukrainian friends ). The entertainment ended about 8:30, and we all sat around the campfire until about 9:30, "dissing" Americans. HA HA HA !

DSK

March 8, 2005

March 8, 2005

Usery Mountain Park, Mesa, Arizona

DAY 263

 

Today was sunny and very warm. The temperature was in the high 70's. The rest of this week is supposed to be sunny and getting even warmer every day. Spring has arrived here in southern Arizona.

Bo got humped today by a Lhaso Apso. HA HA HA HA HA ! Who's Top Dog now, Bo ? HA HA HA HA HA ! ! !

This morning I gave Bo a bath. After he dried, I brushed him thoroughly. He sure is a gorgeous dog right after he's bathed. Too bad his freshly groomed look only lasts about 10 minutes. Right after lunch, we went to the campground registration station and paid for our campsite for the rest of the week. We've decided to stay in the serviced part of the campground, as opposed to the unserviced group campground where the Alberta Chapter 44 Rally is being held. Our site is very close to the group campground, and we prefer to stay in the serviced part of the campground, so that we have electricity. If we're going to be leaving Teddy and Bo alone for long parts of each day while we attend rally activities, we want to be able to have air conditioning in the trailer. Well ... that ... and, of course, we wanted to watch Amazing Race tonight and The Apprentice on Thursday. After renewing our campsite, we headed down the mountain and into the city to buy groceries and fill up with diesel. When we got back, and put away the groceries, we took Bo and wandered over to the group campground, where most of the rally participants had already arrived. The rally officially begins tomorrow, but most of the attendees were arriving today. At 4:00 P.M. there was an unofficial "Happy Hour" gathering at the group campground ramada covered picnic table area. Everybody introduced themselves. I got recruited to perform a magic show at Thursday's Happy Hour. We thought we would be the only "visitors" to this Alberta chapter rally. There were actually quite a few non-Albertan Escapees attending this rally. It seems this annual Arizona rally hosted by the Alberta chapter is quite a popular event. As we were leaving the group campground area after "Happy Hour" Bo met a little white Lhasa Apso tied up outside his rig. They sniffed each other, tails wagging, then the Lhaso Apso mounted Bo. HA HA HA HA HA ... poor little Bo. Looks so good, and smells so good, right after a bath, he's irrestible to even other neutered dogs. Yes, yes ... the little white fluff ball wasneutered !

We barbecued burgers for supper. The days are getting longer. The weather is getting great. Barbecue season has returned for us. WOO-HOO !

DSK