Joshua Tree NP

We are settled in enjoying a brew, watching BB on TV looking out over the canal watching golfers on the 5th green after a 180 mile scenic road trip through Joshua Tree NP. The park isn't too far from here, but we have never visited this area. So we decided a road trip was in order. We drove around through 29 Palms into the north park entrance. Most of the worthwhile sites are on the north portion of the park.

Here's Jim heading to the Skull Rock.

We drove to an elevation of 5185 to get a view of the whole valley.

We ran into a corvette club, beautiful day for a drive.

Here are the Joshua trees. It's not really a tree but a species of yucca. Joshua trees can grow over 40 feet tall at a leisurely rate of an inch a year. In the mid-19th century, Mormon immigrants had made their way across the Colorado River. Legend has it that these pioneers named the tree after the biblical figure, Joshua, seeing the limbs of the tree as outstretched in supplication, guiding the travelers westward.

 We noticed some rock climbers scaling the hugh rocks in the area.

 This gives you a perspective of how tall the trees actually get.

We made a full circle and came out the south entrance at I10 east of Indio. It was interesting, but not one of my favorite NPs. You probably need to experience it once, but that's probably enough. Enjoyed the trip and glad we got to view the area.

It will be a leisurely evening on the patio with leftovers for dinner. We are heading back to Tucson tomorrow to avoid all the traffic on Sunday. So our short trip will come to an end tomorrow morning. The weather has been beautiful, and a good time was had. But back to work.

Happy Thanksgiving

We will be putting the turkey on the  BBQ later this afternoon to enjoy a wonderful evening on our patio next to the motorhome eating all the scrumptious food, watching BB on TV enjoying a glass of wine. I hope everyone else will be enjoying their perfect Thanksgiving also.

The weather has been fabulous with relaxing days. Just been going for our walks/bike rides, golfing, boat cruises, reading, playing computer games and just relaxing. I do need to point out that on Tues. I finally had a better golf score than Jim. I was 1 over par at 55 and he was 2 over par at 56, then yesterday we tied at 60.

Last evening we enjoyed prime rib night at the restaurant, good as always. Those of you who are wondering why we only go to the restaurant here at the resort, it's because each lot must pay $1400 at the beginning of each season to use during the 6 months that they are open. And since we own 2 lots, we have $2800 worth of food to eat. That's more that we normally would use in a year (probably 3 years). So every time we come over here we need to use our credit at the restaurant. To us, we would prefer just BBQing at the lot and enjoying our own cooking.

I wish everyone a Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving. Gratitude, praise and thanksgiving activate the divine laws of abundance. May all of you have an abundant day!

Time Flies

Here it is Tuesday already - it feels like time just flies by when we are over here - mainly doing nothing.  Yesterday we started the day with a long (4 miles) walk - well Jim walked and I road my bicycle.

The weather couldn't be any better, cool at night but warms up to almost 80 during the day. As you can see-bright blue skies. Here is some scenery along our walk.

Found several bushes with these pretty flowers along side the road.

We did our normal golf in the afternoon, then after we got the ham on the BBQ we headed out for our evening cruise.

Today started out the same with our walk/bike ride - relax until golf, then boat cruise. What a boring life it is here! Tonight leftovers from our ham dinner last night. It will take us over a week to consume all that food we made. Need to make room for Thanksgiving turkey though - the pumpkin pies have already been made and tested (just to make sure they were ready for Thanksgiving).

Made it to Indio

We made it on the road Friday at 11am. Jim wasn't able to get away until then. Uneventful trip to Indio (the kind we like). Once we arrived and the patio washed off, cushions on the chairs, we settled in for a beautiful evening enjoying wine and a steak dinner.

Sat. we finished setting up outside, uncovering the boat and cleaning the casita. The RV was dirty, so we scheduled the RV washers to come out and clean it up. They were about an hour late, so our golf for the day was delayed until late afternoon. Jim shot a 1 under par which tied his best score. We'll see if he can continue his good play. After an evening boat cruise, we ended up at the restaurant for our first dinner of the season.

Today has been quite relaxing - just went for our morning walk then we have been enjoying a restful afternoon on the patio - such beautiful weather, in the high 70s. We will be heading out to the golf course shortly with finishing the day with another boat cruise and dinner at the restaurant.

I haven't hauled out my camera yet, so no pictures today, maybe in the next few days.

Catching Up

Yea, I'm a little slow in posting that we made it back to Tucson on Oct. 21st from our Oklahoma trip.  A total of 2,479 miles were added to the coach's odometer on this trip. Overall, the trip was a success with getting many items taken care of on the coach plus some more memorable times we had.

Finally all construction in our back yard is complete. The pool and decking was pretty much done before we left, but the grill was not complete. That was finally completed a week after we got home. But now we have a fantastic new back yard that we have been enjoying on the weekends. The fridge is stocked (and sampled), the grill works fantastic and everything looks great.

To complete the outside, I just needed to go around the house and spot paint places that were chipped/damaged through the whole ordeal. From all the patchwork the AV guys did inside the house, I also spent a day painting all the patches on the walls. So life turned back to normal for a little while.

On November 2nd Jim's father passed away, so we flew out of Tucson to Fond du Lac, WI (via Appleton) on Monday  11/5 for the funeral on Tues. One nice thing out of that, Jim saw cousins he hasn't seen since his younger days, plus seeing everyone in his family was great.  Wed. flying out of Appleton, it was a little touch and go making our connection in Chicago. First the flight was delayed because of weather in Chicago (that's what they gave as an excuse) then once we were all boarded and heading out to the runway, they stopped the plane, shut down the engines and told us that Chicago airport has closed down because President Obama was either flying in or out of there. But we made it to Chicago just as our flight to Phoenix was boarding - so all was well.

If Jim's work schedule allows, we will be taking off in the RV again to Indio this Thursday. Will post our fun-packed experiences.