Thursday - Friday, April 10 - 11, 2014 (Oracle, AZ)

Thursday

Today was our last full day at Saddlebrooke Ranch and we started the day out by driving the golf cart up to the fitness center and working out.  The workout equipment was wonderful and we got a nice good workout and the facility wasn't crowded at all. 

We did have a meeting with Terri our sales agent this morning at 10:00 a.m. so after a quick breakfast on the patio it was off in the golf cart with Gracie for our meeting.  When you are part of the "preferred guest" program, you usually take a tour of the community and models but since we had done the one day visit, Terri said that we didn't need to do another tour.  Our meeting today was just a check in to see if we had any questions.  We had a nice visit with Terri and made a comment that the 3 night/4 day stay just wasn't long enough to try and experience everything there was to do.  The house also comes with two bikes and they have a nice nature trail that you can ride and we had yet to try that.  We also asked if it would be OK if we could drive around the golf course that evening.  18 holes of golf also comes with the visit but since we weren't golfers, we didn't take them up on the golfing, but we did want to see the golf course.  We were told that it would be no problem to take the golf cart around after dinner. 

After our meeting we headed to the pool for a couple hours.  The pool here is amazing and it is never crowded.  At this community about 70% of the residents live here full time since the climate is cooler than the Phoenix area.  Saddlebrooke Ranch is about 3500 ft elevation and even in the summer the nights cool down.  The winters are not as warm as Phoenix and often they will even get a slight dusting of snow which usually doesn't stick around very long.  It actually reminded us a lot of the Bend area though the summers are consistently much hotter.

While we were at the pool, Rich's phone rang and it was Terri our sales agent.  She asked if we wanted to stay another night at no cost; she had checked and the house wasn't scheduled for another preferred guest until Saturday.  Well she didn't have to ask twice, the answer was a big YES.  

Here is a beautiful Ocotillo bush, this one has lots of blossoms.  Most of the year they look like dead twigs.  Even now the leaves are so tiny they don't show up in the picture. 

Here's Gracie on the back of the couch, which is one of  her favorite perches.

After dinner, we went on our golf cart ride around the course.  We started on the back 9 holes and saw two coyotes and a couple of BIG jack rabbits.  The rabbits down here have huge ears, bigger than their bodies and even their bodies are huge.  We've never seen such big rabbits.  It was a very pretty ride, but it started getting dark so since we get another night here, we'll do the front 9 holes tomorrow night.   

 Friday

We started the day out with another workout at the fitness center and again it wasn't crowded at all.  After breakfast we headed back over to talk with Terri, she wanted to touch bases with us again and see what we thought about the community and if she might have some potential customers.  When we got there, she was meeting with another couple so we decided to wander out to the models and check them out again.  We had 2 favorites, the Hermosa, the Dolce models when we first got here.  But after our stay and doing some number crunching just for fun on the options, the smaller Hermosa no longer penciled out to be the most economical option.  So that left the Dolce and now the Artesa on our top two list, which until we actually spent time in the Artesa (they are no dummies when they put you up in these nice guest homes) really wasn't on our list but now it was.  =)  Anyway, while we were looking Terri came out and said that she would be a bit longer but to just hang out here in one of the models if we wanted, so we went to the Dolce model since we already knew what hanging out in the Artesa model was like.  Rich made a nice long phone call to his son and I sat outside on the lounger next to a water feature until Gracie got too warm and we headed inside.  Once inside, we chilled out on the couch cooling off and looking at some of the coffee table books on Arizona.  Finally we were getting hungry and decided to have lunch and catch Terri after lunch which worked out for her also.  We were kind of bummed that we didn't get to spend the morning hanging out at "our house" mostly because I didn't have my book along but it still was nice just chilling out in another model home.

After lunch we had our "visit" with Terri and got some more questions answered but alas, no purchase at this point in time.  I would highly recommend that if you are looking into an active 55+ community to check out the various Robson Communities.  We found them to be very enjoyable and the homes are beautiful and affordable.  I had never considered a "retirement" community before but after having visited and stayed at one for several days, can definitely see the charm and attraction.  It even got us thinking about taking up the sport of golf.  =)

 We did have time for one last visit to the pool.  I just loved the pool area, it was so relaxing and peaceful and swimming in the pool was wonderful.  The water was a little cool when you first get in, but after a few minutes it was very pleasant. 

After dinner we took our golf cart ride around the front 9 holes and again saw a coyote and various big jack rabbits.  We were blessed with a beautiful sunset to end our last night at Saddlebrooke Ranch.  What a memorable visit, I'm so glad we "splurged" and took advantage of their special reduced pricing on their preferred guest program.

Colors just beginning to show

More color

the sky was on fire, it was amazing