Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Christmas Lumminairies


Christmas eve in our park, Fiesta Grande RV, it is a tradtion to put out lumminairies along all the streets in the park. A crowd of volunteers gather in the morning to fill the paper bags with sand and post them along the streets. As they are set down, a volunteer places the unlit candle in the sand. The first picture shows our lined street.





This ophoto shows Roger lighting a candle. All over the park, volunteers were lighting the candles on their streets.










This photo is looking down into the white paper bag, after the candle is lit. They burn all night.










This last photo in the dark shows all the lit lumminairies and some holiday lights as well. This year we were lucky, no big wind and a clear night. Lots of folks walked or drove through the park to look at the decorated sites and enjoy all the candle light and decorations. The amazing thing is that on Christmas morning, by 9 a.m. all these bags of candles and sand are gone.

This is really a nice Christmas tradition and we enjoy it very much. Hope you all had a wonderful holiday.

Happy trails.....



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Monday, December 22, 2008

Holiday lights in Phoenix AZ

These 2 photos are from the Zoolights display in Phoenix. Roger and I went with a tour from our park to view Zoolights and the Mormon Temple lights display. The zoo at night is a completely different atmosphere. There were lots of families and seniors too enjoying the evening. We were lucky after several days of rainy weather to have a clear if chilly evening for the viewing. There were way too may scenes to show here but it was well worth the trip.
These 2 photos are from the Mormon lights display (free) in Pheonix. There are no lighted animal displays, only wonderful light displays, with many different kinds of little bulbs to enhance the scene. These lights reflected in the pool were just amazing. The camels and wise men are in a large open area, and they make quite an impression. Again, there were lots of families and folks out for the viewing. Walking the grounds of the facility and enjoying all the lights made for a very nice evening. We returned home to the park about 10.30p.m. Nice not to have to do the driving too.

Happy trails...
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Jeep trip 2nd part

Here are more photos of that same road trip. You get a look at the rock moving, and consultations that go on one of these trips. Again, they are having the time of their lives! Roger can't wait for the next road trip! Looking at some of these 'roads', which are really ditches, gullies, washes, and dry stream beds, you have to wonder "what are they thinking?!!"
They are thinking, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.... having fun in the AZ sun.....


Happy trails.....

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December Jeep trip


These are photos from Roger's recent jeep trip into the area near Superior AZ. There were 4 Jeeps on this run on a clear sunny day, but kind of chilly. You can see from the photos, these folks had some challenges. I gather part of the fun is moving big rocks to remake the road so they can traverse up and down them. The scenery is out of this world, when you are far from the freeways and a mass of autos and trucks that go screaming past. These folks try to get at least one trip a week in, and in better weather, they try for 2 a week. I'll have some additional photos in the second post on this tag line.

They start out about 7 a.m. and stop in Coolidge at Tags Rest. for breakfast. Then the 'leader' decides where they are off to for the day's ride. They all carry a lunch and it's a full days trip, arriving back in the park about 3 or 4 p.m. This road trip was about 120 miles round trip. The 14 miles off road took about 4 hours! And of course, that is the fun jpart. Final statement: A good time was had by all!



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Sunday, December 14, 2008

Tis the Season








One of the fun things about being in Arizona is having the chance to experience another culture. These pictures were taken at the Tamale Festival held in Phoenix Dec. 13. The sound stage featured this Mariachi Band and singer while we were there. Her dress is just amazing and the music was great! As you can see, the crowd had a great time sampling all kinds of Mexican food, from various types of tamales, to empanadas, nachos, tacos, and other things I was not familiar with. We got there early enough to buy our Christmas eve tamales, some for the freezer, and some to have for lunch. This lady is making empanadas, sort of a Mexican version of ravioli. We also saw tamales being made, and got a recipe to make 30doz. of our own, should we get ambitious!























We also went with our Fiesta Grande RV park neighbors to the local Electric Light parade in downtown Casa Grande. This is an amazing event. There were some 80 groups/floats participating. You can see in one photo, all of us lined up on the sidewalk in our chairs, waiting for the show to begin.








I've also included couple of photos of our coach and site decorated for Christmas. Of course we had to have our chili wreath right in front.








AZ isn't Washington, where there is snow on the ground today. But it is a good place to be if we can't be with all our family. Being on the road isn't being at home, but then being at home is in soooo many places.








We hope you have a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year!




meanwhile, happy trails....











































Monday, December 1, 2008

this is a test


3years ago I painted this rose ... while we were living in Puyallup WA. Our neighbor had beautiful roses in his garden and I stopped with my camera. He gave me a wonderful overview of the roses there, and even gave me a huge deep red rose to take home!