Sierra Vista

We went to Sierra Vista where my youngest brother, David and his wife Kari and son Blake, live. They were very accommodating and we had a really good time visiting and sharing a couple of meals.The have a very nice home they built several years ago. They did a lot of the work themselves. It is pretty much at the base of a mountain range. They have a great back-yard barbecue area and a pool. I should have gotten more pictures, but it is one of those times I didn't get the camera out very often.While we were at Sierra Vista, our friends from Emmett, Russ and Louise Manwaring, came and stayed with us for a couple of days. The Manwarings are bird watchers or "birders." So we went up Ramsey Canyon which is a bird and wildlife preserve close to Sierra Vista. There were some fascinating trees and plants. This is a tree that grew sideways and then several trees grew up from one of the branches.
The hummingbirds were just starting to come out. I was lucky to get this really good picture of one of them.

The next day we went to the town of Bisbee. It is actually the County Seat for the same county that Sierra Vista and Tucson are both in. It is an old copper mining town that they have preserved from the time it was built in the early 1900's. The mine is no longer being worked. The population in the early years of the town was around 20,000 and now it is about around 10,000 (I think).
We found one of the local "residents" to be very friendly.
The town is build in a small valley and the houses are almost built on top of each other, with long cement and wooden stairs leading from the streets to the homes. They actually have some that are 1,000 steps long. Some are kind of crumbly, but they have tried to keep them preserved, and most are still used by the residents.
The streets are very narrow--some are more like wide sidewalks! It's a good thing Russ and Louise took their small car instead of us driving the dually!

This old VW bus kind of gives you an idea of what many of the residents are like. A lot of them seem to be dressed like the "flower child" era. It is a very "artsy" community and it was fascinating walking around the town.

We want to thank David and Kari for the fun time we had at their home and will definitely plan to visit again next year, if they are willing to put up with us again.

From Savannah to Montana

A salesman came to the park in St. David and had a Montana 5th Wheel with him. We should never have looked at it! Terry has always wanted a Montana, but we were not planning on getting one for another year or so. But, as you can see, we changed our minds. It is a 2005 (the Savannah was a 1998) and is about a foot shorter than the Savannah. It is similarly arranged, but with the kitchen on the other side and the TV and computer desk on the side with a large window in the rear. Terry always wanted that big window in the rear. The only thing is, when we are in an RV park, the scenery is usually the back of another RV! I told him that the window was his and so he has to keep it clean! I really like the computer desk. It is twice as large as the old one and there are two windows to look out of!We bought it at Beaudry RV in Tucson. They have an RV park as part of their sales complex. There is a place called "Transition Row" where they park your new RV and your old RV right next to each other and give you three days to move in, while having both RV's plugged in with electricity and water. It was a great way to do it.
Ryan is now living and working in Phoenix so he came down for the weekend and helped us move. It was so great having his help. After he helped us, he even made time to help our neighbors (an 82 year-old man and his wife) move some of their heavy stuff! For some reason, it seems like the newer RV's just don't have the storage space the older ones do. But, we finally managed to get it all in. Afterwards, we even took it to a certified scales and weighed. We were 167 pounds under the maximum weight for the Montana!! (Wal Mart, here I come.)
The recliners in the Montana were missing and in their place was a rocker/glider. They gave us some money to get another chair, so we just matched the rocker/glider instead of getting a recliner. Terry and Ryan had a good time putting it together (they finally resorted to reading the directions.)
As you can see, we are pretty settled in and our new chairs are very comphfy!! Now we are off to Sierra Vista, AZ, to spend a few days in my brother, David's driveway.

Mar 8-20, St David

We took Ryan to the airport Saturday morning, went back to Casa Grande and we were "on the road again" to St. David. It is about 55 miles south of Tucson, AZ. Travis and his four boys were going to Tucson the same day to spend their Spring Break week in a timeshare condo. Shannon went to London with her sister and then met up with them on Wednesday.

Travis and the boys came to stay with us for a few days. We had a pretty full house and wall-to-wall boys. It was one of the few times that I have been the only female in the house when our any of our family have been with us!
St. David was a really nice RV park. There was a nice little miniature golf course. I am not sure who was the grand champion, but everyone had fun.
The park has two artisan water "lakes" that are more like large ponds. There are lots of ducks and they are stocked with fish. Nathan caught the only fish we caught.
There was a nice pool that the boys all enjoyed. They kept doing cannon balls and dives into the pool. As this picture of Nathan shows, some of them got the photographer kind of wet!
I think this was maybe the first time the boys had played shuffleboard. (I didn't let them know it was an "old people's" game. Here is Nathan, Nicholas, and Josh playing the game.

One day we all went to Tombstone. There were lots of "Kodak" moments to be had.
Here's another one.
Terry and Spencer were trying to have a conversation with this gentleman, but they couldn't get him to talk much!
We went to Boothill Cemetery and walked through all of the grave sites. There were some pretty interesting stories to read about.
The rough and tough "Howard Gang." They are wanted Dead or Alive in some parts of the State of Arizona!

The boys went back to Tucson after spending Sunday through Tuesday with us. On Thursday we met up with them at the Karchner Caverns. They were amazing to see. They were discovered by some cavers (people who like to explore caves) in the 1980's who were exploring a sink hole in the side of a mountain. They kept the caverns a secret for 14 years until the State of Arizona passed a bill to make it a State Park so that they could be protected and preserved. Thanks, Travis and family, for the great time!

We really enjoyed the St. David RV park. We met some really nice people. One of our neighbors came over one day and said they were going to Costco and asked if we needed anything. Then she brought us some chocolate cake the night before we left to say good-by. I even got a haircut from a retired hairdresser who is now an RV'er. It was a great haircut! We look forward to staying at St. David again sometime.

Casa Grande

After getting back Emmett, we left Las Vegas and went to an RV park in Casa Grande, which is about 30 miles south of Phoenix. I feel so bad because this is the first place we have gone (and we were there for two weeks!) that I didn't take any pictures. We had such a good time there. There were so many activities and meals and entertainment that we were busy all of the time. I had pulled a tendon in my ankle and Terry was fighting a bout of gout in his heal, so we rode our tandem bike a lot. Everyone knew who we were because of the bike.

I went to water aerobics and to stretching exercise classes. We went to a couple of seminars and we played pinochle one afternoon. We ate at the clubhouse several times and went to their entertainment at night.

On the way there, one of the tires on the condo blew apart. We were barely able to get off of the freeway to a motel parking lot before it went flat. We changed it there and had to buy four new tires after we got to Casa Grande. Terry had been telling me that the tires were ten years old and needed to be replaced! One of the seminars we went to at the Casa Grande park was on tires. Well, Terry had also been telling me that the pickup needed tires, especially on the front. Well, needless to say, we got new tires for the front of the pickup. Thank goodness it was a new month from the week before when we got the Condo tires (that means it is a new budget cycle).

One day Terry came back from a walk (to the restroom) and said there was someone who just pulled into the park with Idaho 1G license plates! It turned out to be Lester Wallace and his wife. Terry and he knew each other so we visited with them several times. Also, our son Ryan had a job interview in Phoenix while we were there, so he was with us for a few days. One of his best friends, Erik Thomas from Emmett, lives close by with his family, so we got to see them also. It seemed like "old home week!"