Thursday - Sunday, February 13 - 22, 2014 (Lake Havasu City, AZ)

The last week and a half has been pretty quiet, so instead of doing a day to day entry, I'm just going to capture the highlights of the last week and a half.

We both really enjoy our morning routine of line dancing and walk away the lbs.  You would think with all this exercise that I would lose a pound or two but it's not happening, oh well I'm still having fun and I must be getting healthier....right?

The afternoons are usually spent by me (Kelly) reading at the pool for a couple of hours.  Later in the day when everyone is at their "happy hours" Rich and I head to the pool for a swim and we pretty much have the pool to ourselves, it's pretty nice.  The water is so warm, almost like bath water.

On Friday, Valentine's Day the resort was hosting a potluck and dance which we attended.  The potluck was very yummy, lots of good food.  We were both a little disappointed with the dancing though.....for it being Valentine's Day you would think they would play music that couples could dance too, which they did a couple dances, but the majority of the dances were line dances....not very romantic.  Here are a couple of pics from the event.

Kelly & Marie

Rich & Kelly

half the room at the potluck and dance - we hadn't eaten yet, that's why the plates are still clean. 

Saturday morning we had a nice surprise.  The phone rang just as we were getting ready to walk out the door to go to breakfast and it was my uncle Dave and aunt Joanne.  They were in Lake Havasu visiting friends and wanted to get together for lunch.  Well alrighty then, we'll switch gears and instead of going out for breakfast, we went out for lunch at the Red Onion.  We had a great couple of hours sitting around visiting and lunch was pretty good too.  It was nice to get to spend some one on one time with my uncle and aunt.  I only see them at family reunion type events and don't spend that much time with one on one conversation, so this was a real treat. 

Uncle Dave, Kelly & Aunt Joanne

Sunday afternoon it wasn't real warm out so I spent a couple of hours working on my paint by number picture.  It's actually starting to look like something.  You know how when you first start them it just looks like a bunch of random colors, now I can actually see some of the shapes.  One of my grandmother's used to like to do paint by numbers, so while I'm working on it, I always tend to remember her. 

We kept hearing how good the burgers were at In N Out, so we decided to give them a try at lunch one day.  They are definitely good burgers and we will definitely go back again.  One cool thing is that they put scriptures from the bible on the wrappers and cups, they are pretty tiny, but they are there none the less.  They only serve hamburgers and cheese burgers and french fries and all the food is prepared fresh daily.  They even make their own buns without preservatives.  The restaurant was very cheery and bright with a white and red color scheme and it was very clean.  Like I said, we will definitely go back.

Rich caught some bug early in the week and has been pretty sick, so we have had a pretty quiet week as he has been trying to get over the crud.  One day I spent working on taxes and that was depressing.  For the first time we owe money, we will definitely have to be adjusting  our withholdings.  Even though Rich wasn't feeling good, he replaced one of our light switches that had gone bad and he spends a lot of time reading.  I pretty much spend a couple hours every afternoon at the pool, reading and do a bit of swimming, pretty relaxing I must say. 

I did harvest my radish crop and am still picking some leaf lettuce, though some critter is still munching on it.  I picked a couple cherry tomatoes and one bigger tomato off my tomato plants.

My radish crop

We have made some tentative travel plans and it looks like we will be hitting the road again mid March, so we should have some new adventures to relate.  There are still a couple of places/things we'd like to do while we are still here, so hopefully we will get to them, if not, then I guess they will be here for next year.

Friday - Wednesday, February 7 - 12, 2013 (Lake Havasu City, AZ)

Friday

Our day started out with our normal morning routine.  Instead of going hiking with a group from the resort, I chose to do the walk away the lbs exercise, I'm really enjoying that workout.  After our morning routine, we took a quick trip to Walmart to pick up some items.  It's really convenient that the nicest shopping center in Havasu is just a short 5 minute drive from the resort. 

After lunch, I called and sang my traditional "happy birthday" song to one of my brothers who was having a birthday today.  He didn't have to go to work today because of all the snow they are getting in the Willamette Valley.  It's hard to imagine snow when we are sitting in the nice warm sunshine.  It's nice that they are getting some moisture in the valley and over in Bend, they sure needed it.  We both really enjoyed it when it did snow when we lived in Bend, I'm just wondering how come it had to wait until now for them to get such a nice big storm with lots of snow.....oh well. 

I spent some time working updating our blog and then was sitting outside chatting with my mom and who should pull up but some of our friends from Oregon, Terry & Seth and their dog Aggie.  We knew they would be in Havasu in February, we just weren't sure when.  We sure had a nice visit getting caught up on each others lives.  We made plans to get together in the coming week before they head out of town, looking forward to that.

Saturday

We woke up early this morning because we were headed to Oatman.  That is always a question that is asked of new comers, have you been to Oatman and fed the wild burros?  Well today was our day.

We stopped at McDonalds for a breakfast sandwich and hit the road.  Oatman is only about an hour away and to get there you drive on old historic route 66.  It was a pretty drive and we actually were headed up into those hills you see in the picture below.

Historic Route 66

Cholla cactus

Close up of cholla cactus - they are full of stickers, you don't want to brush up close to one or it will grab on to you and they are very hard to remove

We arrived at Oatman before all the crowds, so we got to park in front of this really old building.  The whole town is very old, it used to be a big mining town.  I believe they still do some mining in the area since gold prices have gone so high.  That was one of my disappointments was that I thought we would see more mining activity and be able to check out some old mining sites.  And yes, we saw and fed the burros.  They are wild burros that live in the hills but come into town during the day because they get fed carrots and alfalfa from all the tourists.  Here are some pics from our day in Oatman.

This building has been used in several western movies

An abandoned mine in town, there was a no admittance sign inside the door, I was surprised they didn't have the mine roped off or baricaded because when I peeked, it looked like you could walk in a ways

Oatman Post Office



Rich feeding several of the burros




More burros getting fed.  They aren't shy about coming up and checking out the tourists to see if they have any carrots or alfalfa.  Seems carrots are their favorites.



At noon, in front of the Oatman Hotel they have an old fashioned gun fight skit put on by some volunteer Shriners to raise money to help their hospital.  The blanks they use in the guns were pretty loud and the skit was pretty funny, it got a lot of laughs from the crowd.  They do it in the middle of the road which is actually route 66, they just have the crowd stand across the street on either end of the area they do the skit in and traffic gets stopped for 10-15 minutes.  The Oatman Hotel was pretty interesting inside, apparently Clark Gable and Carol Lombard spent their honeymoon in one of the rooms upstairs.  Oatman was one of the places they liked to come to get away from Hollywood.  The bar and the hotel restaurant ceilings are covered in dollar bills from people who visit.  We forgot to take a picture of the ceiling, but here are some pics of the outside of the hotel and the gun fight.

Oatman Hotel

three actors in the gun fight

Gun fighter shooting

The other gun fighter shooting back

In one of the gift shops along the street, they had a museum of sorts upstairs.  There were several old Harley Davidson motorcycles and several old fashioned bicycles.  It really was pretty cool, we couldn't believe it was just tucked upstairs like it was and there were no ropes or anything to keep you back so you could check out the bikes as much as you liked.

On the way back to Lake Havasu while we were still on historic route 66, we stopped along side the road to view this memorial to the Korean War vets. 

Sunday

We went to church service at Hilltop and then after church we stopped and checked out the winter festival they were having in town.  They had part of the main street blocked off with about 200 vendors.  We spent a couple of hours wandering through the vendors but walked away with no purchases other than two corn dogs.  When you are living in a fifth wheel, space is at a premium so it makes you pay attention to what you purchase and it's a lot easier to walk away from something unless you really love it. 

After our walk through the vendors, we did a bit of grocery shopping and came home and spent a relaxing afternoon reading in the nice warm sunshine.

Monday

With the warmer temps we are having here in Lake Havasu, it was warm enough to go hang out by the pool and actually do some swimming.  I spent a couple hours enjoying the sunshine, reading and doing some swimming. 

Rich spent some time working on repairing a running light on the truck that wasn't working and doing some maintenance on the 5er.

For dinner, we finally had some homegrown lettuce in our salad.  It sure was yummy.

view of my "garden area"

The tomato patch along with my pepper plant which is in the middle pot and surrounded by radishes which we are also eating

close up of the lettuce which is in the foreground and then the chard and spinach which is not doing as well as I would anticipate.  Something other than us is eating some of the chard because I see where there are just some stems sticking up.

Tuesday

Boy, today we did 4 miles in my walk away the lbs class, that was quite the workout but I'm loving it. 

I was vacuuming and Rich asked if I wanted to vacuum out the heat registers and I said sure why not.  So they are screwed down, so he got out the screwdriver and went to work on taking them out so I could vacuum.  It was amazing how much junk was down there from the factory.  I don't understand why they don't take the time to clean out all the wire, carpet and wood scraps, but they don't.  It felt good to get that cleaned out.  We did have a little mishap though....sigh.  Just when we think we can't screw up the 5er any more, we do.  As I might have mentioned, at times it can get quite windy down here which makes the slide toppers flap in the wind and it can get annoying.  Rich came up with this cool idea to make them not flap, he took cord concealers and attached them to the edges of the slide toppers with binder clips and it works like a charm.  The only thing is we have to remember to remove them before we put the slides in.  Well guess what....we forgot.  After Rich put the heat registers back down, I wanted to make sure they were down tight because the slides drag across them when we pull the slides in.   So I'm putting in the slides while Rich is watching the covers to make sure they are down tight and I hear this funny noise on the second slide...what's that?  Yep, you guessed it, we forgot about the slide toppers and the cord concealers were popping off.  We mangled the cord concealers and put a little bitty tear in one of the slide toppers.  Yikes....that wasn't a smooth move.  Now we have a note pasted by the slide topper buttons reminding us to remove the cord concealers before we pull the slides in.  I guess it could have been a lot worse.

We took a quick ride down to Lowe's on our bikes to pick up new cord concealers to replace the ones we wrecked and Rich got a flat tire.  Boy I guess you have to be really careful down here and only ride on the pavement.  We had done a little off road riding on the way to Lowes and I guess he must have picked up a thorn. 

After all those adventures we decided to head to the pool and cool off with a swim.  It was fun swimming and with the warmer weather, more people are hanging out at the pool. 

Wednesday

After our normal morning routine, we ran to the grocery store to pick up a few items for dinner tonight.  Terry, Seth and Aggie are coming for dinner tonight. 

After lunch, I headed to the pool for a couple of hours of reading, swimming and enjoying the sunshine.  The pool was even busier today as the high was going to be 80.  The water in the pool is really quite warm, it almost feels like bath water.

Dinner with Terry & Seth was quite enjoyable.  They got a late start to our happy hour as they got caught in some bad traffic due to an accident.  They said that it appeared like a Mercedes Benz had caught fire, boy someone was having a bad day.  We had a nice couple hours visiting and eating outdoors.  Rich BBQ'd us some very good New York steaks, we are really enjoying our new BBQ.   The weather was perfect for sitting around outside, though toward the end of the evening, the blankets and sweatshirts came out.  Thanks Terry & Seth for a very enjoyable evening.



Saturday - Thursday, February 1 - 6, 2013 (Lake Havasu City, AZ)

Saturday

We just had a lazy day around the 5er.  We got a package of mail from my mom, so spent some time getting that opened and sorted.  Then I spent some time updating our budget spreadsheet for 2014 and then worked on the blog.  Of course we took Gracie on her walk and that was about it for our day.

Sunday

We went to church at Hilltop.  Since we've returned to Oregon we've gone to that church the last couple of weekends.  It's a congregation of about 100+/- and we really like the pastor's messages. 

After church we stopped at the grocery store to get a couple of items to take to the super bowl party we are going to attend this afternoon at the club house.  Hopefully it will be a good game.  We are rooting for the Seahawks.

We headed down to the clubhouse around 4:00 and had some munchies and visited with some of the other park residents.  The clubhouse has a big screen tv and if you are an owner, you can reserve the room for parties, etc.  One of the owners had reserved the room and then just invited whoever wanted to come.  The majority of the attendees were Denver Broncos fans.  There were a few Seahawks fans but we were greatly outnumbered.  The room full of fans started out pretty noisy, but as the game progressed, the Seahawks fans got louder and the Bronco fans got quieter.  =)  I'm glad the Seahawks won, but it would have been a more interesting game if it wouldn't have been so lopsided, but again, I'm not complaining.  It was a fun afternoon/evening, I'm glad we went.  My brother Greg who recently passed away, was a Seahawks and a Payton Manning fan, I wonder what he would have thought of the game? 

Monday

Today was pretty laid back, we did our normal morning workout routine.  We spent the afternoon working on some maintenance projects on the 5er and the truck.  We did use our new BBQ for the first time and grilled some steaks, they turned out very yummy.  I think I'm going to like this new BBQ.

Tuesday

Again, the morning was spent in our normal workout/breakfast routine.  I'm really enjoying doing the Walk Away the Lbs exercise class, I'm always amazed at what a good workout I get. 

The interesting thing I did this afternoon was to attend a Ladies Tea Party that was hosted by the activity club here at the resort.  I was surprised at how many ladies dressed up and wore fancy hats and they had the room decorated very nicely.  I tried to take a couple pictures with my cell phone, but when I got back to the 5er, they were gone....what's up with that? 

At the tea party we were served scones and a fruit kabob and tea followed by little dainty tea sandwiches, a chicken salad, an egg salad and a cucumber sandwich.  After our sandwiches we had some cute little desserts, a cream puff, and two different types of tarts.  They did a drawing for a couple of door prizes and then the party was over.  It only lasted about an hour, I'm glad I attended, I had a nice visit with a neighbor, Naomi but I'm not sure it would be on my list to attend again.  In all my years of reading, when I've read historical romance novels, they had often talked about the afternoon tea hour, so now I know what it's like, at least a modern day version. 

Wednesday

This morning was line dancing, which I enjoy very much, not sure that I will ever do much line dancing other than at the few dances here at the park, but it's a good way to get some exercise for both body and mind.  It takes a lot of concentration to keep those steps in the correct order.  It's amazing how if you let your mind start wandering, how easy it is to mess up.  =)

We both have been spending a lot of time in the afternoons reading and Rich's book supply was getting low, so we packed up the books we've already read and headed to the book exchange.  They have a really nice used book store here that we like to visit.  They have a large selection of used books and they take your old books in and give you store credit to apply to your purchases.  So after a while of browsing around the bookstore and coming out with a sack full of books we headed home to the 5er.  I'm not sure why I thought I needed to pick up two more books since I still have a shelf full as well as that sack full of books I bought for a dollar this summer.  I guess you can never have too many books to read. 

Thursday

Again, we did our morning exercise/breakfast routine which by the time we are finished is usually around 10:30ish.  As I've mentioned before, both Rich and I like to view houses for sale, and we had gotten a call from a local realtor that she had a house that she thought we'd like to see.  Well ok then, we're off.

The house was OK, the view from the backyard the best we've seen so far, no electrical wires.  This neighborhood is one of the few that has the utilities buried underground.  Most lots in town have the utilities above ground.  The backyard also had a nice pool with some nice palm trees.  The big down side to this house was it was on one of the busier streets in town.  While we were looking another couple stopped by and asked if they could see the house, so hopefully our realtor will get a sale out of it.  Don't worry mom, we really aren't going to buy a house down here, we just like to look.  =)

Today it was rather cloudy and cool, the whole week has only been in the low 60's, so we decided to take in a movie in the afternoon.  They have two theaters here in town and we went to the newest one that is in the shopping mall near our resort.  It was a very nice stadium type theater and the movies were pretty reasonable at $5.50 a ticket.  They also had Orville Redenbacher popcorn, yummy.  We saw the movie "Labor Day".  I really liked the story.  We saw a couple other movies during the previews that we'd like to take in while we are here. 

We got a couple texts today from family members in the Willamette Valley who are getting their first major snowfall for the year.  Sounds like they could be in for a bit of snow in the next couple of days. 

Monday - Friday, January 27 - 31, 2014 (Lake Havasu City, AZ)

Monday

It was back to our Lake Havasu routine.  I got up and got ready to go to my line dancing class and Rich went and worked out in the fitness room.  I wonder how many of the dance steps I have forgotten?  I am happy to report, that the class went quite well, I was able to keep up because we reviewed some of the pretty basic steps, whew.  The class has grown quite a bit since I was there because there are so many more visitors to the park. 

After class, I spent a minute updating the blog about our whereabouts for the last couple of weeks then we had lunch.  After lunch I sat outside and was reading in the warm sunshine and decided that it was time to head to the pool and do some sunbathing and swimming.  There were a few people lounging around the pool but not really that many considering how big the park is.  After a couple hours of lounging  by the pool I headed back to the 5er.  It was time to take Gracie for her daily walk around the park.  That was pretty much our day.

Tuesday

Today instead of dancing, I went to an exercise class and Rich went to work out in the fitness room.  Boy that exercise class really is a workout and like the dance class has gotten bigger in size because of the influx of visitors in the park.  I guess Jan, Feb & March is when the park is the fullest as some people wait until after the holidays to head south. 

After class, I spent some time working on our budget/finances and after lunch, headed to my favorite spot - the pool.  The afternoon was spent reading and lounging by the pool with a swim thrown in for a bit more exercise.  Today when I got to the pool I was the only one there for awhile.  I'm really surprised more people aren't taking advantage of the pool but maybe they are waiting for warmer temps, it is still in the low 70's.

Rich's daughter Jessica sent us some videos to watch and we received them today.  They are from the series "That the World May Know" with Ray Vander Laan.  Thanks Jessica & Garry, that was really thoughtful of you.  We started with video # 12 on Jessica's recommendation called Walking in the Desert as she thought it may be helpful since we've had a rough month with three deaths.  It is amazing the treasures that are in the Bible that we just read over because our Western culture is so different than the culture during Biblican times.  I can see that we will get a lot out of them.

Wednesday

The start of today brought line dancing for me and another workout for Rich.  After dance class I spent some time chatting with two ladies from the class.  They have both lost sons within the last several years.  One of the ladies has become a griefshare counselor and sharing some tidbits from that program.  It was a very interesting and enlightening conversation.  I'm glad they took the time to stop and chat with me.  

Again the afternoon was spent reading and lounging by the pool.  There were a few more people at the pool today than there was yesterday, could be because it was a little bit warmer today about the mid 70's.  

Tonight when we went to take Gracie for her daily walk, there was an amazing sunset so Rich climbed onto the top of the 5er and took a bunch of pictures.  Here is one for your enjoyment.

Lake Havasu City Sunset from top of 5er

Thursday

This morning started with my exercise class and Rich went and worked out at the fitness center.  It's sure a nice way to start the morning with some good exercise. 

We decided that shopping was on the agenda for today.  We were on the hunt for a pair of swim trunks for Rich.  We spent the majority of the time in the mall near our resort where they have a Penney's store.  We were successful and Rich found a nice pair of swim trunks - now he doesn't have an excuse not to join me at the pool.  =)  Rich also saw a nice pair of women's boots that were on sale that he wanted me to try on, I didn't really need another pair of boots, but since Rich liked them, I could at least try them on....right?  Well when the sales person brought out the box, they were marked down even lower than they were on the floor, they were $15 wow, how can you beat that price?  Well as I was trying to decide if I should get them or not, the sales person was checking on his computer to see if another store had my size as the ones I were trying on were just a tad bit big and he realized the boots had been incorrectly marked at $15.  He said that if we decided to take them, he would honor the $15.  Well you guessed it, I decided to purchase them, how could I pass up such a good deal?

Tonight we had another amazing sunset I thought I'd share with you all.

Friday

Today we have two birthdays in our family:  Rich & Gracie.  We took a break from our exercise routines and just had a lazy start to the day.  The weather was a lot cooler today, so we spent most of the day just relaxing in the 5er and doing a lot of reading.  I think I read two books and Rich finished one and started on another.

We took Gracie for a nice walk in the park and then got ready to go out to eat dinner.  We had chosen the Montana Steakhouse.  We arrived to around 5:00 p.m. and found the parking lot full, oops, I wonder if I should have made reservations?  Lucky they still had a table available, whew.  I forgot to account for the fact that this is a retirement community and folks tend to eat dinner earlier.  We had a very nice relaxing dinner, Rich had prime rib and I had a filet mignon.  The meals were very good but the ambiance was a little disappointing.  The accoustics in the restaurant weren't very good and it was very noisy and we both felt they could have spent a little more time on the decor inside the restaurant.  We give them a thumbs up for the food and a neutral mark for the ambiance/decor.  We shared a very nice piece of cheesecake with huckleberry sauce for desert which was very yummy. 

Back home, we watched more of the video that Jessica & Garry had sent us.  All in all it was a very relaxing enjoyable day.  Happy Birthday Rich & Gracie.

You are probably wondering what Gracie got for her birthday other than a walk.  Well last week when we went to Quartzite for the big RV Show, we stopped at a vendor that sold pet items and Gracie got a new hat.  The hat is hand made by the vendor's wife.  She had a sewing machine set up in part of the tent and took custom orders.  We always like to support local work versus merchandise that is made overseas.  The orange dot on the hat is the price tag in case you were wondering.....