Back to the USA Dec 29 - Jan 1

Photo from Google walking on tarmac to the plane.

Well what a day! We were up at 3:15 am and out the door from our hotel room by 3:30 am. The airport is only 10 minutes away. We dropped off the car, took pictures in case they tell us it was damaged and headed into the terminal. Of course we were way early. Our information told us to be at the airport 90 minutes in advance. Well there was no one there lol. We got our boarding passes from the kiosk and waited until security opened for us to get to the departure area. It wasn't until 5:30 am, when we should be boarding that we were told that there was a 100 minute delay! No flight crew! They knew this last night, but didn't inform us til way late. A dropped ball according to the flight crew. Now we were starting to sweat as we only have a 2 hour delay in Vancouver to catch our flight to Phoenix.

You can imagine how upset we were. Fortunately I had checked and there's room on the flight to Phoenix tomorrow and the day after, so we would eventually get there. Once the flight crew finally arrived and we were able to board I felt bad for the guy at the gate ... he was the only staff member. He opened the door to the tarmac so we could walk out and board then run back to the desk to check more people in and then run down to the door to the tarmac.... what a procedure. There should have been 2 or 3 people doing this job and there was only him. The flight crew could not believe it either but also said it happened often.

The plane finally took off at 8:07, exactly 2 hours late. Fortunately there was no wait to get to the gate in Vancouver this time. About 2/3 of the 90 passengers on the plane had connections to make in a short time period. They asked everyone who did not have a connection to remain seated so we could all disembark. The RUN was on. We needed to get to the other end of the terminal and pass through US Customs, fortunately it that was brief and then run to the gate. I did manage to get a golf cart ride for us for the last third of the run. We were one of the last people to board. Fortunately they held back the flight for 20 minutes for all the late comers including us.

Top blue arrow in the picture below is where our flight landed from Victoria. The bottom blue arrow is the gate for our flight to Phoenix!

Didn't pick up the golf cart ride until the circle area on the bottom!

Talk about pooped. Even though it was only 10 am I ordered wine! Felt like 5'oclock to me. lol The rest of our trip was uneventful. We landed, picked up our car and headed towards Queen Valley. We stopped in Gold Canyon for some groceries and were back at the motorhome by 4 pm.  What a trip.

Our motorhome is just the way we left it with no problems. Yeah.

Below is out site #173. They have fairly good size spots, but most are park models. That's Malc and Kathy's unit next door to us.

After putting all our stuff and groceries away we went next door for a quick drink with Malc and Kathy to catch up and plan our next few days with them. We'd bought a barbecued chicken from Basha's for dinner and enjoyed a very quiet evening.

I was asleep by 8pm and slept for 10 hours like a rock. After 3 days of not much sleep it's well appreciated. Ray got caught up in his book so did not come to bed until 10:15 ... I never heard a thing.

Today, Friday, we spent the morning doing some chores and I did a couple loads of laundry. We also went for a walk around the resort to stretch our legs. We are going over to Malc and Kathy's for dinner tonight. Tomorrow I will reciprocate for New Year's Eve. 

Some of the gardens we saw on our walk around the resort.

Cheers!

Saturday morning, New Year's Eve Day, we woke up to clouds with sunny breaks. Perfect for our trip to the Boyce Thompson Arboretum.  We were off at 10 am and returned about 12:30 after a couple hours wandering around the gardens. Beautiful. It is such a huge place and we only did about 1/3 of it, the Wallace Gardens this time. We've been twice but the Wallace Gardens are a new addition.

A BRIEF ON OUR FOUNDER:

Col. William Boyce Thompson, (1869 – 1930),


was an American engineer, financier, and philanthropist who created his fortune in the mining industry. He was the founder and first president of Inspiration Consolidated Copper Company in Globe-Miami, Arizona and Magma Copper Company in Superior, Arizona.

His visits to Russia before the Revolution and again in 1918 just after the Russian Revolution changed his life. As a member of an American Red Cross relief mission, he witnessed rampant crop failure and starvation and saw firsthand the suffering of the people. The Russian experience convinced him that agriculture, food supply, and social justice are linked. This conviction, along with his faith in science, helped to shape his philanthropic projects around plants and plant science.

In the early 1920s, Thompson, enamored with the landscape around Superior, built a winter home overlooking Queen Creek, the Picket Post House. In 1924 he founded the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research in Yonkers, New York (now at Cornell University in Ithaca), and the Boyce Thompson Arboretum on 400 acres around the Picket Post House, in Queen Creek Canyon.

Malc and Kathy took us on a tour of the Wallace Garden, the newest addition.

Boyce Thompson Arboretum’s newest garden, the Wallace Desert Garden, offers expansive views, creekside trails, and hundreds of plants brand-new to BTA!

At 13 acres and with more than 5,000 new plantings, the addition of the Wallace collection moves Boyce Thompson Arboretum into the top tier of botanical gardens around the world. The main trail is wheelchair accessible.

In 2014, the Arboretum was approached with a unique offer. Would BTA accept a donation of an entire garden’s worth of plants collected by Henry B. Wallace—the Wallace Desert Gardens collection? H.B. had filled his garden with an international palette of arid land plants—a stunning array of thousands of mature trees, shrubs, cacti and succulents. He had passed away in 2005 and his foundation was no longer able to maintain the valuable collection in Scottsdale, but they wanted to keep the collection together. At BTA the plants would get the same amount of rain as at the Scottsdale location and would have the same dew point and elevation.

Not only did BTA need to design a new garden, it had to transplant 5,870 plants. Beginning in December 2015, most of H.B.’s collection was moved 75 miles from north Scottsdale to BTA—by truck, car and semi. Logan Simpson Architects, Native Resources International, the Wallace Desert Gardens Board and staff, and Boyce Thompson Arboretum all collaborated to bring the mammoth endeavor to completion. The team developed and designed a 13-acre garden with 1.5 miles of new trails, and a bridge over Queen Creek.

Still have a few roses blooming.

Crested Saguaro

Cactus Wren Nest tucked into the cactus

They have lots of metal sculptures all through the gardens.

Lots of bees pollinating these flowers

Demonstration Garden

Multiple Barrell Cacti in a clump

A Deb Cactus

The knarly bark on one of the old trees.

Ray called these a box of "Q-tips" lol before looking it  up. it's the Old Man Cactus.

The Australian Exhibit

Australian section

In this area a few Arizona Cardinals came around.

Walking down towards the river viewing these vistas. Look how green everything is. Unusal for this time of year.

The bright green new growth.

New growth again

Below the path to the "Grotto". All the banding for the solar lights came from the big boxes the huge trees came in. They reuse everything here.

Took 5 years to move all the plants here from Scottsdale.

Queen Creek

Walked up "Trails End" and found this lovely litte spot to take a moment. They have Native American pipe music playing.

Look how green the hillsides are.

So colourful.

Palm Oasis

A great morning but now time to get my NYE dinner prepped and ready to cook for our guests tonight, Malc and Kathy. Country ribs with garlic mashed yukon golds, stir fryed brocolli with peppers and cherry tomatoes. It turned out pretty good as evidenced by Malcolms second helping. lol

Cheers!

Malc and Kathy left about 8:15 pm. No waiting for New Years here lol I was in bed by 9:45 and Ray managed to last until about 10:15, New Year's Eve in New York. :)

New Year's Day, started the morning with cloudy skies and rain in the forecast so we had a pretty lazy start. Tidying up day as we leave for Quartzsite tomorrow.

By 9am the rain began, a day to hunker down and get laundry finished. Certainly reminds me of the weather at the lake at this time of year. lol The temps here are 51F (11C) versus 39F (4C) at home.

Yup blurry from all the rain on the windshield of the car driving back an forth to the laundry. I will be glad when my broken dryer belt is repaired in Quartzsite.  

That wraps up our December 2022.