Merry Christmas from Arizona

December 21, 2010


Merry Christmas!!

 We are all settled in Casa Grande, AZ. and are staying at a great RV Resort....Palm Creek.  In January, we understand that there will be about 1800 RV's in the park.  It is on a Golf Course and many of the people here are golfers, so we don't have an excuse any longer about not being golfers.  We have met some wonderful people and are looking forward to all the activities...tennis, exercize gym, golf, pickleball, lawn bowling, shuffleboard, swimming (2 pools), poker/billiards, library, dance classes, computer classes, yoga and pilates.... and great artistic things for Jill---pottery, painting, silversmith, basket weaving, woodworking, lapidary, sewing/quilting...haven't even discovered them all yet!   Steve even managed to find a nice Trap Club in town, so he can shoot trap every week! BBQ's are held every couple weeks in the main Activity Center and Vendors come once a month for a huge flea market with lots of artsy stuff!  Happy hour is also a daily activity here.....and with so many neighbors, we can travel to a different one every night, or just stay home on our patio and someone will surely show up to join us.
There is a casual dance every Saturday night in the ballroom with live music, so date nite is built right in!  We drove around the park last night in a golf cart to see all the decorated RV's and it took us an hour and a half just to see them all!  The park is just beautiful...with hundreds of big palm trees, all decorated with white Christmas lights. The golf course has a creek running through it and several ponds with fountains.  Harley loves the "dog park" and makes us take him for walks several times every day.  The weather has been great--in the 70's during the day and 50's at night.  We've had a couple rainy days, but that hasn't slowed us down a bit!  Even doing laundry is fun because the laundry building is adjacent to one of the pools, so I just put in the wash, sit by the pool, and wait till it's done.....couldn't be more fun!
We are only about 50 miles from Phoenix, so have made several trips there, and Tucson is about as far in the other direction.....but Casa Grande has everything we need and some great shopping centers, so we will get to know this area pretty well, I'm sure.
If you did not receive a Christmas card from me.....sorry.....please know that we are having a great time, but really miss our family and friends and are feeling a little guilty about missing all the snow!  We do wish you all a Merry Christmas and hope that you enjoy a Great 2011!

Here are some photos of our time here so far.....I'll try to keep up with the photo taking and will post again when we do something exciting!

Entrance gate to Palm Creek




 


the golf course on a morning walk



this is what we see on our walk every day



view of our neighborhood



Harley enjoying the "dog park"



Christmas lights out the back window of our RV



Just want to also include a picture we took last summer when Amy, Andy, Zoe, and Jackson were in Lewiston for a visit.  Was great to have them here with Sara, Cameron, Emily, Kathryn and us for our "Christmas in June"

what a great group.....our family is very  blessed!

Thanks for following our Blog.....we wish the best for you all and hope you have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Love,

Jill, and Steve

We made it to Arizona!

Dec. 11, 2010

Along the River Walk in San Antonio, Texas

Texas is ONE BIG STATE!  We took 6 days to get from east to west and then spent one night in New Mexico and have arrived early in Arizona.  We are at Tucson, AZ tonite and plan to be in Casa Grande tomorrow where we will settle down for 3 months.
We found Texas very interesting and very different from where we have been for the past couple months.  We managed to have a great day in San Antonio at the Alamo and along the River Walk.  They have done a great job of creating a fun way to enjoy the river through town and have turned it into a great meandering canal running through and under buildings and streets in the down town area.  Lots of shops and restaurants along the way with great trees and plants.  We also enjoyed several hours at the Alamo and found that the "Hollywood" version is not entirely accurate (John Wayne did do a great job in the movie tho!)
Here are some photos of our time in Texas...we were not allowed to take pictures inside the buildings at the Alamo, so here are some courtyard pictures.....

going in to the Alamo

Chruch at the Alamo

cannon in the courtyard



live oak in the courtyard of the Alamo



just a pretty archway

Here are some shots of the River Walk in San Antonio.....really beautiful!!


River Walk





walking right on the river's edge....no railing or wall...



friends Harley made along the way

tilework under the bridges

Here's where the scenery begins to change and looks more like the desert.....Las Cruces, New Mexico.  We spent a day here and visited Old Town Masilla.  Billy the Kid was here once!  We liked seeing the adobe buildings and the "Southwest" flavor.

Las Cruces, New Mexico

little shop in Masilla

great doorway to a home

just a pretty scene

more friends for Harley at our campsite

We are looking forward to the next leg of our adventure....3 months in Casa Grande.  Boy this retirement stuff is really nice....

Galveston, Texas

Dec. 5

Harley thought this would make a good pet

Found a great RV park just east of Houston--- Turtle Bayou RV Park, and are making this our home for two nights.  Took a ride into the Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge last evening and saw where the Ranger says "all the Canadian Geese go for the Winter".  He says the geese are just beginning to arrive, so didn't see many, but caught this great bird hanging out.

We were surprised to find out that Galveston is an island, so took a ferry to check it out.....

Houses on the beach are all up on stilts

Beach dog!

How would you like to ride one of these?

"Dickens" era Festival goers

Once we entered the Historic Secion of Galveston, we happened upon their World-Famous Victorian Holiday Festival... "Dickens on the Strand" . They close off several streets in the 9 block Historic section for a parade,  lots of food, Victorian-inspired craft vendors, and hundreds of people dressed in "Dickens" era costumes roaming the streets.  Seems the guest of honor this year was Lucinda Dickens Hawksley, the great-great-great granddaughter of Charles Dickens.  We missed the formal ceremonies, but enjoyed strolling the streets with many of  the locals celebrating the holidays.

Hope you are enjoying our blog.....several people have asked us to re-send our blog address, so are going to post it again to "all".  If you want to catch any past posts, you can click on the date on the right side of the blog and it should take you to that post.  If you want to continue to follow us, you can just add this site to your "favorites" and then follow by clicking in every now and then, or you can just type our blog address into your http bar and it will come up.  You can also post comments if you want. The blog won't come to you via e-mail because it is just a web page, and you can check it whenever you want. I will try to post every week or so.

Out of Florida and on to New Orleans

December 3, 2010

Here is a map showing our path so far.....lots of miles and more to go!  Our plan is to be in Casa Grande by December 15, so we are continuing to travel west.  We traveled north out of Florida and visited Ocala, Talahassee and Pensacola.  Ran into a little trouble with the  big slide on the RV near Ocala, but Steve was able to take it apart and replace a broken bolt, so we were able to continue.  We didn't stray off course too much as the weather got pretty cold...I know, nothing like the snow in Idaho, but it was cold for Florida and we ran into a very windy, rainy day near Pensacola, so didn't investigate the beaches there.  Our next stop was New Orleans, and we had a great time exploring the area there!  We camped at a great State Park with beautiful hundred year old trees--Fontainbleau State Park in Mandeville, Lousiana.  We drove the Pontchartrain Causeway to New Orleans and were pretty impressed with the 26 mile long bridge.....



tree in Fontainbleau State Park



Pontchartrain Causway to New Orleans

French Quarter

Bourbon Street

We walked around the French Quarter and then took a carriage ride to see it again and hear the history.  Were surprised at how narrow the streets are and how busy it was on a Thursday.  The balconies and buildings were fun to see and we understand that renting a balcony room during Mardi Gras goes for about $700.00 per night and that there is a 2 year waiting list.  We stopped at a bar on Bourbon Street and had a beer, so that was our contribution!

Harley on a Horse Drawn Carriage Ride...great artwork for sale

lunch on Front Street

 

courtyard garden



typical house in the French Quarter

We were not able to get to the Garden area of New Orleans to see the mansions there, but got a glimps of what the courtyards look like behind some of the homes in the French Quarter....homes look so small from the street with just a stoop, a door and maybe one window on the main floor, and if it has a second story, it has two windows and a balcony above.  Must be pretty cool inside though!

We celebrated our last night in Lousiana by having a great Southern buffet at Cajun Charlies near our RV park near Lake Charles.  Dined on catfish, crab, shrimp, frog legs, alligator, crawdads, gumbo, carrot souffle, sweed potato fries and fruit cobbler......good we are leaving the south soon, as our waistlines can't take much more of this great food!
Next stop...Texas!

Miami and Key West

Nov. 25.....Happy Thanksgiving!

Key West.......only 90 miles to Cuba!

We have been enjoying the 80+ weather here in Miami for the last two weeks and spent a night and a couple days in Key West.  We took the motorcycle down Hwy 1 all the way to the end of the Keys.....it  really is a different world down here!   We sure enjoyed the ride and were amazed at the sights along the way---the beaches are endless and the 7 mile bridge was quite an experience.  Was fun to see the Atlantic on one side and the Gulf of Mexico on the other.  We were lucky to have great weather and were surprized to find so many people in the little towns along the way.  In Key West, most of the people were on bicycles or scooters because the roads are narrow and there are houses and shops on every square inch of sand.

on the road...Atlantic on left, Gulf on right

these guys are everywhere...look close, do you see both?



one of the great mansions at Key West



even the birds love a great sunset!



We also made several trips into the Everglades and learned a lot about the landscape.  Didn't realize that it is actually a river of grass and is 60 miles wide at some points.  It is a limestone based lowland with mostly seagrass growing everywhere.  It was explained to us how the "hammocks" (forrested areas), cypress stands,  mangrove forests,  marshes, seagrass meadows and swamps are formed.  This is all the work of alligators, overflow from the Okeechobee, and rainfall.  Quite a place to visit!

alligators, birds, fish, turtles...all together until someone gets hungry!

The anhinga is a bird that dives into the water to catch fish, pops back up and then must stand out in the sun to dry off and bring its body temp. back up.  They are everywhere!

We also took day trips into downtown Miami and saw the beautiful skyline and beaches there. Steve and I went there in the truck and another day Steve took a Harley ride into town with another biker he met here at the campground.  We had a great surprise when Suzy and Danny Luper arrived in Ft. Lauderdale after their cruise in the Caribbean with friends.  We were able to meet up with them and had dinner at a great restaurant.  I'm sure they were shocked to return back to Lewiston to find all the snow and cold weather there!



Miami Beach with cruise ships on the horizon



Suzy and Danny Luper in Ft. Lauderdale

As we get ready to head north again in a couple days, we are sure thankful for Sara and Cameron for taking care of things at home.....we are having the "trip of a lifetime" but sure do miss all of our friends and family and life at home.  We reflect on the things we love.....mountains, cabin life, Idaho drivers (believe me, they are better than Florida drivers) and our friends and family. 

Ft. Myers, Florida

Thanks Joan and Dick!!!!

Nov. 13

What a great 3 days we had with my Aunt and Uncle!  We parked the trailer, boarded Harley and let them roll out the red carpet for us to explore the Ft. Myers area. It is on the Gulf side of Florida and further south.  They treated us to a boat ride on the Suzy Q, which provided up close views of the mangroves, manatees, dolphins ,turtles and a magnificant variety of birds.  They also took us for a personally guided tour of Shell Point, and Sanibel Island.  We walked a wonderful beach on Captiva Island and saw the beautiful shell beaches the area is famous for. It was great spending time with them and being able to see the area that they have called home for many years.  Here are a few pictures of our time there.....


we lunched here at Rum Runners




various sea birds and distant Mangroves



Mangroves-up close



Captiva Beach



Sunset.....was way cooler than the picture...



We said good bye to Joan and Dick and headed to the eastern side of Florida and are now staying at a great RV park just south of Miami  for the next  two weeks.  We figure staying here will allow us to explore up the East Coast around Miami and down through the Keys.  Along the way we traveled through Alligator Alley and even saw a few gators in the canals along the road!!!

Will keep trying to have fun............