Being Scolded

"Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower."

I received a scolding today.  The scolding was from DIL, Sabrina.  What was the scolding about?  Well, I hadn’t posted a blog in four days.  Can you see how she checks on me?  Well, she does.  I told her we’d been busy because it’s Christmas time.  However, that didn’t work … so here’s a blog just because she wouldn’t let me off the hook.

Not much has been happening around here for us.  It’s actually been quite nice. We’ve gone to the occasional store, occasionally met my cousin for dinner and spent occasional time with Terry’s mom. I’ve even been doing some occasional sewing. We also wrapped some packages and shipped two Christmas boxes.  I suppose it would be a mighty short blog to end there so I’ll elaborate just a tad.  I'm pretty good normally at elaborating.

Couple goes to Johnny Rockets at the Tempe Outlet Mall everyday.  They dance to the jukebox music!  We loved watching them as did many other patrons!

Terry’s been riding the little Trek bike I bought.  Now he’s thinking he wants one.  Well, he doesn’t just want one.  He wants THAT one.  It’s easy to ride and the height is perfect for him.   Since I took quite a spill on it, I’m thinking it’s more his height than mine.  He has neuropathy in his legs and would also like to add a little motor assist down the road …. maybe.  Sometimes the neuropathy bothers him a lot and other times not so much.  He seems to have more problems recently though than before.  So, we’ll see what we’re going to do about the bike and a possible little motor in the future …. we will see but that leaves me bike-less.  Yes.  That is a word because I just used it!

We’ve stayed at a lot Elks lodges.  Some have no hookups, others have partial and there are  those with full hookups.  They all have a set donation.    When we originally moved into the Scottsdale Elks we had no idea how long we would stay.   We didn’t think long because the RV sites didn’t have full hookups.  Not that that should really matter to us because we have only had full hookups for a couple days since we pulled out of our son’s driveway in October!!  

  

 < --- on the back of a car window  !

The daily “donation” at this Elks is $15 a night.  However, they do have a monthly rate and a 2-week rate.  We started off paying the daily rate and then the night bartender gave us a weekly rate of half of the 2 week rate.  What a deal!  However, when we went to pay this last time it wasn’t the same bartender.  Not only were we not going to get the rate …. a little argument ensued about how much we had been paying.  Receipts had to be checked and it wasn’t fun.  They did agree to give it after checking but Terry decided instead that it was time to hit the road.  We were really ready anyway. 

Update:  Remember the email issue I’ve had with ATT and Yahoo merged accounts preventing me from password changes?  Remember I had to close out my main email account which was suppose to make it possible to unmerge the accounts …. but didn’t ?  Well, since November 10th I’ve spent hours on the phone with both. Today a satisfactory work-around took place.  It’s not ideal but it will work.  I started to detail everything but that would turn a short blog into a very long blog.  I’m currently downloading all the folders and online files from my old email into outlook now.  I’ll never again save important information, serial numbers and contact information online.  What a zoo this has been.

 

Am I off the hook, Sabrina?  We do have some activities ahead of us though.  I just have to be better at staying current and taking pictures.  I haven’t been good at that at all.

Check out Southwest Airlines’ Christmas map?  Don’t you love it?

There is more coming ... more about our move, our great friends who will be watching Duchess for us over Christmas so we can fly the 3,000 round trip miles to spend the holidays with family instead of drive AND our trip to the Arizona Opry.  I'm just too lazy to write about it all now.

‘Tis life on the road.

Old Town Scottsdale

"You only live once but if you do it right, once is enough."

Scottsdale has a name that usually is associated with money.  It’s not a town that houses lots of housing projects.  Matter of fact, the homes in this town are at the opposite end of the big bucks.

         

Scottsdale is to Arizona what Palm Springs is to California.  Car dealers around here include not only the Benz and Beemer's but also the real cars – the Maserati's, Bentleys, Jaguars and the Ferraris.  It’s not a cheap place to live.  Just being in this established high end town, adds many dollars to the value of the home, the stores you shop, the places you eat.  It’s a prestigious address. 

Thus, since it was so prestigious we decided that’s exactly where we needed to stay.  Our temporary address was in Scottsdale.  It wasn't a high end park but it still was Scottsdale. We decided to hobnob with the other half for a while.  So, what was the name of the upscale resort with the prestigious address we decided to set our levelers down in?  It was the Scottsdale Elks.  All the premier shops are just a short drive away from the park.  Now the Elks  may not be high-end but we certainly had a high-end address. 

Wednesday was a really busy day.  Remember all the buying Terry had been doing recently for himself but yet saying it was for my birthday?  Remember those manly things?  Well, yesterday was my birthday so it was really my turn.  He offered to buy me a drill and this time I turned him down.  I absolutely have no desire for a drill or a hammer or a screwdriver or anything else he might want to buy me like that.  Instead ….  I bought myself a bike!

Now I had wrestled between two bikes.  I really, really wanted the red one because it was RED but the other one had everything I wanted on it including the 700cc tires and didn’t need to have a few of it’s parts replaced.  It was in near new condition.  I figured that would be the logical one.  Oh, we really looked at some fancy bikes but justifying one of them for me wasn’t going to happen.  I don’t plan on riding it in the desert or racing in a race or anything like that.   This little Trek is certainly much lighter than my Adventurer folding bike but not as light as a couple of the other ones I looked at.  I wanted a bike with suspension but I don’t know what the heck for.  I thought it looked pretty spiffy with it.  Besides if I ride along side Lee or Tammi with their bikes, my bike would look like it might fit in. That was important!  This baby has 24 gears ….. I’m thinking I’ll probably use 3 or 4 of them.

My folding bike is at the consignment shop in Quartzsite.  Feel free to walk in and buy it. I would like that.  Would I buy another folding bike?  Absolutely not.  There are definite advantages to them though.  Folding bikes will fit in smaller places easier.  However, they are usually heavier than a bike of the same size.  You also have to work harder to accomplish as much as a non-folding bike.  Unless you’re interested in a top-end folder, I’d definitely look at a non-folding one unless you only have a small space, don’t care about the weight or the extra workout. Of course, my knowledge of folding bikes is limited to the one I bought for $180 and know it’s pretty close to the bottom end of the market.  It had 20” tires which meant each rotation of that wheel put me down the road only about 58 1/2”.  A bike with 26” tires would have put me down the road about 81 1/2 inches.  My new bike has 700cc tires and each rotation of those tires gets me a little over 85 inches.  It’s amazing how much farther it seems I can even coast. 

Check out my new bling valve stems !

Tammi popped into Phoenix on business.  How about the timing on that one?  I took 3 pictures of her at dinner with my phone.  Two were fogged out and the third so dark I couldn’t see it so there you go with that one.  She finished up about 5:00 at work so we picked her up at the airport and headed to Cracker Barrel for my birthday dinner. .  We both had nummy catfish while Terry had his normal vegetable plate with dumplings.

Happy Birthday to me!  Buying birthday presents is over.  I’m going to buy like Shoeless Joe does now and start looking at Christmas presents.  For now on it's going to be Merry Christmas to me!

‘Tis life on the road.

Off to the Big City -- Scottsdale

"Take risks: if you win, you will be happy; if you lose, you will be wise."

Quartzsite was left behind on Thursday.  We were on our way to the Big City.  Sometimes it’s fun being in a Big City.  There are many more places to go, a better selection of grocery stores or anything else you might need or want is normally available.  Besides it's much cheaper to buy fuel, food and just about everything else.

Toni took this picture of Parker,  from their RV in Quartzsite.  I loved it so decided to borrow it.

Definitely an Arizona landscape.

Along with big cities also come big freeways.  We all  know what’s on the big freeways …. lots of traffic.  Our trip for the day was only about 140 miles.  It was a good trip and uneventful.  With all the problems we’ve had recently, we’ve come to really appreciate the uneventful travel days.  We still weren’t quite sure where we were going to end up.  There were so many options we were considering.  We figured it might be best if we just found a temporary place to stay while we tried to decide where to go.  That’s what we did.  Scottsdale sounded like a good option.  At least in Scottsdale we were saving another 30 or 40 miles from traveling through Mesa and Apache Junction.  We've never been fond of big city traffic.

Once parked and set up we met friends, Jim and Sandie, at the Texas Roadhouse for an early dinner.  It was sure nice seeing them again.  With all the health problems and operations Jim has had recently, he looked great.   Well, Sandie looked good too.  She’s spent so much time in the hospital waiting rooms recently that she’s almost calling them “home”

.

 

We tried to decide what RV park to settle in so the next day we drove around a bit checking some of our options out. We're not fond of small tight RV parks with spaces so close you can look in each other's windows.  We're not fond of the big, big parks with hundreds of people.  I guess that really limits us when we go to town.  We did have reservations at an Encroe park in Apache Junction though our Thousand Trails membership.  However, we did discover there has been a recent change to the specific sites they allow the transients to be in.  We looked at some of the sites that were available to us as members and decided that's just not where we wanted to be.  I guess we're just too used to the wide open spaces in the desert.

One of the places we visited was Usery Mountain Park.   We’ve stayed there before and absolutely love that place. The spaces are big and in some you can't even see your neighbors!  The problem is no weekly rates are offered and you can’t even stay longer than 14 days.  Usery is part of the Maricopa County Park systems.  We love  their parks.  I'm sure if they didn't limit the stay, every one of them would be packed all winter.

We didn’t make any decisions.  We ended up putting out our mats, chairs and awning and then just paying for a week where we’re at.  That gives us more time to be confused I think.  We certainly didn’t make a decision.   We were the first here so have the end site and it feels like we're someplace else and not even close to the big city.   When we open our door and sit outside we can't even see another RV because the other 7 sites are on the other side of us.   For now we're good and instead of making any big decisions about other RV parks,  we took off to meet Terry’s mom and head to Cracker Barrel for dinner.  We both love that place and I especially love their catfish dinner. 

Usery Mountain Campsite

And, another one there.

Sunday was casino day.  Terry’s mom loves going to the Arizona Casino but hasn’t been since Terry’s dad died in September.  That’s where we went.  We’re still not sure what we’re going to do and where we’re going to settle in for the next couple of months …. or, if we’re going to.  Terry’s mom has been so excited to see us and made us promise we’d do things together over the next few months.  Oh ... ohh ... we really didn’t figure we’d hang around here too long but now we know we’d feel pretty guilty if we pulled out and went someplace else.  We’re not sure what we’re going to do.

In the meantime, our little JAG is sitting on it’s trailer.  It’s not being used.  We would like to find a park where we can ride it but that may not happen around here.  Having a JAG may not work for us .... hmm.  Sure, Scottsdale is full of Jags but not the kind we have.


Thanksgiving is coming up.  I have another dilemma there.  Should I try to head north for the holiday or just hang around here?  I'm certain you know how full those airplanes can be at holiday time and I'm not overly fond of sleeping at airports.

 Don’t you just love dilemmas?

‘Tis life on the road.