Giving Thanks & Apache Trail

We celebrated all of the many things we have to be thankful for at Alan's and Sharon's with a great traditional holiday feast. True to form, I ate too much because it was all wonderful.

After Alan took the bird out of the oven I went to work with the knife carving this beast. We had all the traditional food with both mashed and sweet potatoes, beets, carrots, green bean casserole, two kinds of stuffing, butternut squash soup, and all topped off with both cherry and pumpkin pie. Way too much food, but it was great having a couple of days of leftovers.

Here we are in the studio with a first course of butternut squash soup. After dinner we relaxed and watched some football. We have been in five different places for our five Thanksgivings on the road and they have all been different and great. Each one has been with different friends or family.

One day the four of us decided to take the big loop drive on the Apache Trail. We had been as far as Tortilla Flats before, but this time we did the whole trip including the 22 miles of dirt road. The first sight that caused us to stop was this big tarantula that had attracted a crowd (four people) along the road. They are neat critters that are really helpful and harmless to humans.

The road was originally built to get supplies to the site of the construction of the Roosevelt Dam. It is a real up, down, over and around trip with steep narrow spots where we needed to wait for oncoming traffic to pass.

We were rewarded with a beautiful up close look at the high Arizona desert.

Here Sharon is taking a picture of a scene she or Alan will turn into a beautiful pastel painting.

It was unusual, but beautiful, seeing the fall colors on the trees along dry creeks in the middle of the desert.

This is Apache Lake, one of three we passed along the road. It is a little strange seeing so much water in the desert.

Roosevelt Dam was originally built in 1901 when it was the highest masonry dam in the world. At that time, Roosevelt Lake was the largest man made lake in the country. In the 90's the dam was raised 77 feet and the exterior was covered with concrete. It took 13 years, until 2009, to raise the lake to the new level because of the Western drought.

Sharon and Alan in front of Roosevelt Lake and the bridge that had to be built when the dam was raised. Even with all the miles of dirt road the Apache Trail is a worthwhile drive to get into the back country of Arizona.

Music, Music, Music

First off, anyone who knows me knows I love music, but have NO musical ability beyond the radio and CDs. Even with that background, the Musical Instrument Museum is a great stop to learn the history of instruments from around the world. The museum is also a great teacher of geography as its displays are arranged by areas of the world starting in Africa, then moving to Asia, Oceania, Latin America, Europe and ending in Canada and the United States.

So true!!
Each visitor is given headphones that play the music that accompanies the videos that often show the actual instruments that are on display. Here is Alan listening to the music of Africa.

This was an excellent display of oil can guitars. The music that came out of these cans was amazing.

On almost every continent early cultures had drums, flutes and stringed instruments in some form. The one that surprised me was how many places had bagpipes. There was even one made from an entire calf hide.

Other displays showed how instruments were made. Here they show how early gongs were produced.

This was a exhibit on the building of Martin guitars.

This one showed how Steinway pianos are made. One of the things I learned was how much of a hands on job making instruments is, even today.

The Artist Gallery has displays of videos of a variety of contemporary artists. These show John Lennon, Toby Keith, Carlos Santana and Elvis. There are many new displays being added to this wonderful museum every week so it is a place we will have to return to in the future.

Here we are at the museum cafe that is licensed by Bon Appetit. Meals are planned using local suppliers and the menus change according to what is available each week. Nanc had a great vegetarian sandwich and lentil soup and I had a wonderful Moroccan lamb stew. The MIM is a great stop for anyone who loves music even if you have a tin ear.

Friends & Trains

We continue to stay busy here in Mesa. There are many activities going on in the park including happy hours with live music on Monday and Friday and dances every Thursday featuring live bands. The weather has warmed up and we have been enjoying the pool and spa. Alan and Sharon have invited us for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner and it will be nice to enjoy the holiday with friends. We picked up our travel documents for the trip to Hawaii, but I am having some second thoughts. We watched Hawaii 50 thinking we could get a feel for the place but there seems to be a lot of crime on the islands. Maybe we should stop watching?? :-) While at AAA I picked up maps for all the states and provinces we will be traveling though on the way to Alaska and have been doing a lot of research on what to see and do next summer. It is great fun planning for all our travels whether it is visiting a local attraction or getting ready to visit the 49th and 50th states.

We had a wonderful home cooked Italian dinner at the home of Linda Rocks and Mike. I worked with Linda many years ago before she moved to Mesa about 25 years ago. We had a great evening sharing stories of old friends and getting caught up with Linda and Mike. If you are in Mesa and need anything related to your bicycle make sure you visit Mike's Bike Chalet on the corner of Brown and Higley.
In nearby Scottsdale we visited McCormick Stillman Railroad Park a unique must see for anyone who loves trains. The park has displays of trains from tiny Z gauge to a full size locomotive and cars with many different sizes between. The center piece of the park is the 5/12 scale Paradise and Pacific Railroad, a replica of the Century Narrow Gauge Railway. We took a ride on the neat little steam train pictured above.

There is a "cattle" car but they would not let us inside because we were to tall. The kids seem to love it. The detail of the replicas are correct down to the smallest parts.

All aboard!! This is a fun ride for all ages.

The engineer fills the water tank for the steam engine.

Another group of trains are part of the Scottsdale Live Steamers. They include this electric train and, of course, tiny steam engines all built at either 3/4 or 1 1/2 inch to one foot scale.

This steam engine, that was built in 1907, was used by mining railroads until 1961. It has been in the park since 1977. The attached Santa Fe baggage car and the Pullman Car are part of the museum.

The Roald Amundsen Pullman Car was one of six the company built to rent to the wealthy for private use. They were all named for famous explorers. This one was used by Presidents Hoover, Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower. You can see on the log that it was also used for Roosevelt's funeral. The dining room was served by a full kitchen. The picture shows Mamie Eisenhower and friends in that room. Nanc is standing in the lounge at the back of the car which also had an open porch. This is not the car used by Truman for his whistle stop tour. He used the one named Magellan that was armor plated for the protection of the President after the start of WWII.

There is also a neat little carousel in the park.

The 10,000 square foot model train building just opened in July 2010 and is a work in progress. There are going to be displays of O, N, and HO gauge trains. Nanc is looking at the prairie dog town where they pop up out of there holes just like we saw in the Dakotas this summer. The bridge is an award winner. The roller coaster will be the center piece of this display. One layout is going to be models of towns in Arizona.

We liked the Clark sign because that candy was made in Pittsburgh and there was a similar sign there for years. The sculpture shows the many different scales of model trains. You can see the display is a work in progress. The parts that are complete were brought from the old small model train building located elsewhere in the park. If you are in the area a stop at McCormick Stillman should be on your list of things to do.

Enjoying Arizona

We continue to have a great time here in Mesa getting things crossed off the to do list and making plans for future travel. We had the carpet cleaned and I polished the rig only to have a huge dust storm followed by rain two days later. Oh well, I know keeping Opus clean and shiny is a never ending task. We bought an iPhone so we have better access to the Internet while traveling and have been spending a lot of time just figuring out how the darn thing works. We are hoping that it is possible to teach an old dog new tricks because it can be real convenient. The first change in our travel plans is to not stay in the Southwest for the entire winter. We learned that in February Betty will be inducted into the Acadian Museum as a Living Legend for her contribution to promoting the Cajun culture. We did not want to miss this much deserved honor so we contacted her and made a reservation for February and March. That means we will also get to celebrate Mardi Gras in Louisiana for the second year in a row. Tough to take be we will give it a try. The other BIG travel plan we made was to book a two week vacation in Hawaii. We are staying in Waikiki for a week and then going to the big island. Once again a tough decision, but we have quite a few air miles and we want to do our part in getting the economy going.

Here are Marcia and Nanc doing the zip line at the Salt River Balloon Glow Spooktacular. We had told Mike we would crew for the glow and Marcia came along one day to also help. She and Nanc talked their way into a free ride from the guys who were setting up the line for the weekend. They both loved it. Marcia missed Saturday because she and Joe where going out to celebrate their anniversary. CONGRATS!!!!!!!!!
Crewing turned in to a bigger deal than planned as we ended up helping all four of these balloons. Left to right are Daniel's Morning Wood, a clown, a haunted house and Mike's Morning Star. We had a fun time, but decided that working with the shapes is a pain in the butt.

The glow was a Halloween event and all the balloonists had candy to pass out to the trick or treaters. I won't tell you who the monkey is but his initials are Daniel Liberti. Bottom is the clown envelope before it was inflated and right is Mike firing up the burners. We did work hard but we had a great time helping and tailgating.

For our anniversary we had a great dinner at d-vine, a very good local restaurant. It has been a great 42 years. Life is good!!!!!

After I cleaned Opus we put this decal on the back. We have had it since we were in Louisiana last spring and finally got up enough nerve to put it on the paint. It sure sums things up, "Let the Good Times Roll". Two days later it was streaked with mud from the dust storm and rain.

Here are Sharon and Alan with some of their work that was accepted for the Arizona Pastel Artist Association exhibit in Cottonwood. Their work has progressed a great deal since we were last here in 2009. They have turned their place into a neat studio and taken many workshops and the effort shows. They did not get any of the awards, but just getting paintings into the show is a big deal. We made a day of it exploring the shops and having a great lunch in the Old Town section of Cottonwood.

We got a call from Dan and Merlene Goan, whom we met at Betty's. They were passing through Arizona and we got together for lunch and to share travel tales. They had a great travel year visiting eleven major league ballparks around the country. We hope to see them at Betty's this winter. We have also been meeting many people in the park at happy hour and the dance they had last week. So far we have been busy enough that staying in one place for an extended time has been just fine even though the weather has cooled a great deal. Phoenix had a record low high temperature over the weekend and today the high is to be lower then WashPA. We even saw s**w in the mountains when we went to Cottonwood. We hope this is just a passing event and not the trend for the next two months.

11-1-11

Here we are, 42 years ago today. We have come a long way baby and like fine wine it just keeps getting better with time. Neither of us could have imagined the life that was ahead of us on that wonderful day long ago. Being married to our best friend who has so many of the same interests just makes it all that much better. We look forward to continuing our fulltiming lifestyle as we explore and discover new and exciting places and things while making new friends together.

This year November 1st is another major milestone as I am now on Medicare. Wow, who ever thought I would live long enough to enjoy that great benefit. LIFE IS GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Welcome to Mesa, AZ

We have a reservation at Sun Life Vacation Resort from the middle of October to January 2, 2012 at a very good rate so we headed straight here from Albuquerque. Of course, we stopped at the Arizona visitors center to pick up our gun so we would not be the only people in the state without one:-) We are off to a fast start seeing many friends, doing major interior and exterior cleaning of the house and going on a couple of adventures all during the first few days.

The first Saturday we were here we got a call from Mike Liberti, the balloonist we met at the fiesta, who wanted to know if we wanted to crew on Sunday morning. Wow, we went from never being in a balloon to going up two weeks in a row. There were only five balloons that flew out of a park in nearby Chandler at dawn so it was very different from the fiesta. Also, the crew was Mike's wife T, who drove the chase car, and Nanc and I. It was really neat getting to fly together this time and we had a great view of Phoenix and the Valley of the Sun. We are planning to crew for Mike at a Halloween glow this weekend.
The first week we got a message from Mark and Renita that they were passing through the area and were going to stay at Sun Life for a few days. We got together with them and Alan and Sharon, whom we also met at Watersedge in Rockport in 2008. Here we are at Tortilla Flats, a neat little tourist spot east of here on the Apache Trail. The walls of the restaurant are covered with money from over 60 nations.

Beautiful desert scene along the Apache Trail that we drove on the day we went to Tortilla Flats.

Mark's picture of an Arizona Desert Bighorn Sheep that everyone saw except me as I was roaming were I could not see it. This is a rare sighting, especially during the heat of the day.

Another evening we all went to Organ Stop Pizza, a neat place with a huge Wurlitzer theatre organ. Orchestra organs were used during the showing of silent movies and have many other instruments attached that make it sound like a full band. This one was originally built for a theatre in Denver and has grown to have nearly 6000 pipes since it was installed here during the 1970's. It is a great stop for an evening of great entertainment and an OK pizza.

Another evening we were invited to Alan's and Sharon's for a cookout. It was fun sitting around and swapping tales of all our travels. Above left are Sharon and Renita with Molly. Bottom are Mark, Mike, Alan and Rose. We met Mike and Rose here on our last visit. They also used to stay at Watersedge.

I always kid Mark and Renita that their 5th wheel is going to end up like Lucy and Desi's in the movie, The Long Long Trailer, as they collect rocks all over the country. When we saw their finished work in Medora this summer I did not have my camera to show what they are doing with the rocks. Bottom left is a raw stone, right are cut stones and the rest is some of their finished work after the rocks have been shaped, polished and wire wrapped. They make necklaces, bracelets, earrings and rings. You can see AND BUY more of their work here.

We knew the Steelers were playing Arizona the second weekend we were here so we went on line and got tickets not realizing there would be THOUSANDS from STEELERS NATION in attendance. We saw the truck above and just followed it into the parking lot so we were with many Pittsburgh fans. Above is our section in the stadium, me partying with fans before the game and Nanc with a real enthusiast. We met people who had bussed in from LA, Las Vegas and other places around the Southwest just to see their team. Here is a short video of the Steeler fans drowning out the boos of Arizona fans when they were introduced. It really was like Heinz Field West.

Bottom is the pregame coin toss and the Steelers scoring a field goal. Top you can see the sea of Black and Gold in the stands. It was a great time (they won 32 - 20) and even Nanc, who would NEVER sit through a game in October in Pittsburgh, loved it.

ABQ Friends & More

Our stay in Albuquerque was more than just balloons. We visited with old friends, both RVing and from our w**king days and made new friends. We also visited a nearby national park site to explore and add a stamp to our national parks passport.

Here we are having lunch with Larry and Amy Stone. After not seeing Larry for over 25 years, we stopped to visit with them in '08 when we passed this way. I w**ked with Larry at my first full-time teaching j*b and Nanc and I traveled cross country with him in 1977 when he was returning from Colorado to Pennsylvania. On that trip we briefly visited some of the sites we stopped at during our travels this summer. They are both doing well and Larry is enjoying his first year of retirement. It was great seeing them again and catching up.
Petroglyph National Monument was just down the road from the Balloon Fiesta RV Park so we had to visit. This is an easily accessible site with a few very short walks that get you up close to as many as 24,000 petroglyphs along a 17 mile lava escarpment. Most of the drawings are believed to be between 400 and 700 years old, with some possibly dating back 3000 years. This is a great place where anyone can view these ancient works.

Jim and Nanc, Kaz and Jackie Hada, Marcia and Joe Jones at dinner. When we were in Gillette 07 mates Marcia and Joe expressed interest in going to the balloon fiesta. We put them in contact with Judy and when a spot opened up they jumped at the chance to attend. Kaz and Jackie were our neighbors and while we were setting up I kept thinking we had met before. It finally hit me that we talked to them at Greenbelt National Park outside of DC last fall. The RVing community is a small world and we often meet people we have seen on the road before.

Left are Jan and Chuck Moore who we met at Quartzite two winters ago. They were parked two rigs away. Right are Terry and Vickie Webb who we got to know while crewing together. We are planning to see them all at Q this winter. We also got together with Andy and Diane Hitzel who we also met at Q and saw again this spring at Betty's but I did not get a picture. As we say so often, meeting and seeing friends along the road is one of the best things about our fulltiming lifestyle.

Well, we are in New Mexico (you know Roswell and all that alien stuff) so Nanc could not resist having an out of this world picture taken. She wanted to buy it to put behind the wheel of the CRV when we are towing it but we passed when we thought about how often we would be blowing the thing up. Such a shame, he is soooo cute.

The Boomers thanking Luke and Judy for all their hard work in putting together a great two week event. Here is a link to her blog about the fiesta. Our thanks again to Luke and Judy for a great time.

The Boomers are about more than having a fun time. Here people peruse a few of the items that were to be auctioned off. The auction was to raise money for Escapees CARE (Continuing Assistance for Retiring Escapees). The goal was to raise at least $1500 and this group really outdid themselves and raised the bar for future auctions with a grand total of $2876. It was a great job for a great cause.

Here Terry Webb, Chuck and Jan Moore and Judy St. Croix were very good in the role of auctioneers and encouraging people to raise there bids with the constant reminder of where the money was going. We did make a couple purchases and had a fun time.

We had a great time and have crossed the balloon fiesta and a balloon ride off our bucket list, but we both agree that this is one event we will fit into our future travel plans.