Back to Mesa, Arizona, Antiquing and Pool Party - Jan 3 - 14th

After finding out are flight to Vancouver changed to 6:50 pm instead of 3:30 last night, we decided to leave the house at 9 am anyways. With the fridge empty and garbages all empty, we didn't even want to make coffee to leave any mess. We would hang out in Victoria to take up some time.

First stop is breakfast at the Doghouse Restaurant in Duncan. Ray's breakfast, Coconut Creme Pie. They make the best pies there he says. lol I ordered toast and coffee. My appetite is still limited from my cold.

Here's a pic of  a cool car in the parking lot at the Doghouse Restaurant.

We arrived in Victoria where Ray parked in the waterfront parking lot. I stayed in the car reading and watching the little ferries going back and forth while he went off and explored some of the stores downtown. I still am not feeling wonderful. 

Bastion Square

After an hour or so, we headed to Sidney to catch up with our dear friend Laurel, She just purchased a condo there. It's nice to see her as she leaves for Austrailia January 20th to spend the rest of our winter there. I wore a mask to not infect her with my grunge. lol

She sure has a great view of the Sidney harbour with a huge sundeck.

View from dining room table.

Some artwork created in Austrailia that Laurel loves she brought over here.

After a short visit, we headed out around the corner for lunch. Sure's nice to catch up.

Back in the car to the Victoria airport to turn in our rental car and then a 3 hour wait for our plane. Going through security I ended up in secondary screening. I packed 2 kinds of cough syrup in my carry-on. Who knew that would incite a pat down, swabbed for drugs everywhere and every article checked in my suitcase and swabbed. They even tested the cough syrup. They were not very busy so I'm sure that had something to do with it. After the "search ended" and signed off, I asked the border security if it was the cough syrup and he said yes. The next morning at the hotel, I threw it all out. Heading to Vancouver Airport I didn't want to go through security again and this time ... no problem.

Fortunately the plane departed the gate on time, but Vacouver tower asked for a 15 minute delay in takeoff to avoid congestion on landing. Landed in Vancouver with rain showers. Taking the Hampton's shuttle we were in our hotel room by 8 pm. I took lots of cold meds all day to combat my cough and wore a mask to not infect anyone else. I sure am happy to get to our room as I'm pretty tired.

After a so so night of sleeping, the next morning we were on the shuttle at 6am back to Vancouver Airport without any liquid cough meds lol.  After getting through security and customs, we only waited 2 hours for our flight. Sure is nice being in row 1 as we get on first and can relax. We were delayed taking off by 20 minutes as there were several passengers whose connection was late getting in. We must have had a tail wind as the flight was just under 2 1/2 hours instead of 3 and we landed in Phoenix at 1:15 AZ time as scheduled.

Here are a few pictures over Zion NP area.

Grand Canyon area.

We had a great breakfast on board and the flight was really smooth. After arriving at Phoenix we walked straight to ground transportation and called up an Uber. Back at the motorhome by 2. First up is going to Fry's to pick up some groceries. Back at the MH and after turning the water on and propane, we unpacked and then "resumed the position" by 4 pm. Good to be back to our home on wheels. Cooler here at 14C (58F) but so much better than rain. Here it's sunny with clouds, even got to wear sunglasses. :)

Our neighbours brought over our inverter parts that arrived December 22nd. Yeah! All set to have that system completed in Palm Springs.

After Ray got our water hooked up, 6 people stop by and let us know we were "leaking" all over the road. Damn city water valve. It's leaking and overfilling our water tank again. Ray just turned it off and we operated on the pump and will figure it out tomorrow.

Friday morning I slept in until 7:30 ... wow, 2 hours after Ray got up. Sunny skies this morning but cool outside for here. I'm still coughing so we hunkered down for most of the day. Ray went out to pick up a few groceries I'd missed items on our list and some more beer. When he got back and turned the car off it started behaving weird with the seat not going back and some lights flashing. He turned the battery switch off and back on and came into the coach. Sometimes due to towing, the car's computer gets confused and we have to turn it off and back on again.

At 5:15pm we got back into the car to head out for dinner and nada.... the car wouldn't start, just flashed lights and clicked! Well we scrapped that idea and will deal with that tomorrow. Hopefully just charging the battery will solve this, otherwise it will be a call to BCAA.

Saturday morning Ray got out early and got the battery charger on the car. An hour later he was able to start it and let it idle for awhile to finish charging. Yeah, problem solved. We should have used the battery interuupt switch that for the month.

Now that we are up and running, we decided to visit a couple of antique stores nearby. Ray's on the hunt for more buildings for his Christmas Village. Buying new is just so expensive. He was very lucky as he managed to get 7 new buildings for the price of one new one!

After 2 hours wandering around, we went back to Uncle Bear's Bar and Grill for lunch. They celebrate dogs here with green astro turf outside for bathroom breaks and a lovely patio to sit at.

Back home after our 3 hour jaunt it's time for a nap. I'm feeling much better and coughing a lot less but still have not got my energy back. It was nice to get out for awhile though.

Sunday was a wet cold day. I played in my kitchen, making hamburger soup, bread and got our 4 loads of laundry done. For dinner it's roasted potatoes, and broccoli and tenderloin steak. Yum.

Monday back into the glorious sunshine with not a cloud in the sky. Cold though at only 34F and a high of 46F today. I went to do some grocery shopping at Walmart and Ray went to the clubhouse to work some more on the puzzle they have going on there. He said there were a couple of ladies checking him out to see if he was wearing a wedding ring. lol Better keep an eye on him. :) Once back  he drove off to another huge Anique Mall on the hunt for things for his Christmas Village north of us off the I-17

At home it snowed. Here are a few pictures. Sure glad we are back down here in Arizona!

Pat's backyard.

Tonight we went to Organ Stop Pizza for dinner. We love going there listening to the huge Werlitzer Organ and all their funny accompaniments. The pizza is delicious as well and they have Kiltlifter beer on tap.

Yummm

Here is a short video of the Mission Impossible theme.

and down he goes!

Tuesday another cold morning at 2C (34F) but the sun is out and there are blue skies, we'll take it!

Today's adventure took us back to the antique store north of us off the I-17, The Brass Armadillo. Ray wanted to show me this one. Wow this place is even larger than the other two we have seen. Ray was able to purchase a few more items for his village and I found a beautiful stained glass lamp that will go perfectly at the Lakehouse in the hallway. A great find.

It matches our post and beam construction

Back at the park for 2 pm and out to the pool party. It 's ribbon cutting day for all the work completed over the summer here. This included refinishing all around the poolside areas, buildings painted, refurbished stage and pergolas installed. Even the "big wigs" were here. Boy is it packed. Live music started at 12:30 and the main festivities were to start at 4 pm. We were lucky we went to find a seat at 2:30 as it was the last table available. The whole park must be here!

We could barely see the stage from where we were sitting. Ray on his way back from ordering lunch.

After eaing lunch we sat back and listened to the canned music. At 3 pm a new band started, and we ended up dancing to 5 songs. Ray's so happy to do what he loves, dancing. He's really not done much of that in the last 15 years due to his back. Years ago we even took dancing lessons. You should have seen us attempting to Jive after all this time. Too funny! At 4 pm the resort offered 25 cent beer, wine and soda and Brisket sandwiches for $7.95. A swarm of people moved to partake. As we ate lunch, I just drank the beer, two fisting it lol.

Shortly after I took this picture of Ray, the dance floor totally filled up with line dancers. It's really a thing here at the resort. It provides an outlet for all the single ladies to get up and dance. Maybe in our future we might take it up as it's just moving legs and not twisting. Ray should be able to manage it after his knee surgery.

At 5 we headed back to the motorhome. Ray's back had enough. A great day here in sunny Arizona.

Wednesday another stunning blue sky day. Out the door at 9:45 am heading to Apache Junction. There is a model train store Ray plans to check out. While he's visiting that, I went for my much needed pedicure done at Walmart. He managed to find a set for his village. The current one purchased 16 years ago doesn't fit our counter. 

Ray managed to find not one but two train sets! One will run inside the other train track. One is a CN Train and the other one is the Durango Silverton train set, a replica of the one we just took in Durango. It was a going out of business sale, so he was able to get a great deal. We made sure it all worked before packing it back up.

Obbie's Trains

Happy guy. He tried it out with the shortest track, it will be a bigger oval once set up at home.

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I spent the afternoon reorganizing under our bed to fit all his new village pieces and train set. lol It fits!

Thursday morning, a warmer start to the day at 7C (45F), very cloudy and grey looking outside with the possiblity of a shower later this afternoon before the sun reappears. At home they are looking at brutally cold temps overnight tonight with snow developing later this afternoon. I will take the cloudy skies here. :)

From my camera at home ... pretty frosty looking  before the snow coming tomorrow.

Thursday was a chore day for me, getting more laundry done. Pretty quiet here. 

Friday we went to the Mesa market. Ray needed another sweatshirt as the weather has been cold and that's pretty much what he has been wearing instead of his lovely collection of short sleeve shirts. On the way back to the motorhome we did a shop at Frys. It always amazing me how many things they sell, including clothes and toys.

A little snow at home. It was so light that our neighbour cleared his driveway with his leaf blower lol

Saturday morning. Hard to believe another week has gone by. The temps are starting to get warmer here but not at home. -14C (7F) this morning in Lake Cowichan!!! Here 4C (39F) Very different and it will get up to almost 60F today.

With it being a lovely warm afternoon, Ray and I rode our bikes around the resort. It sure is a huge place with 3000 spots! They have a great off leash dog area, lots of pickleball courts, bocci ball courts and even a wood working shop. They redid the bocci ball courts this summer.

Back at the motorhome to finally be able to sit outside for awhile with warm sun and no wind.

Unfortunately Ray has come down with a cold. I don't know how he missed getting the horrible one I had to only get one now .... the only place he has been without me is at the clubhouse doing a puzzle. There were ladies exercising near him though???

Sunday, another sunny warm day. Today is pack up day so we are ready for hitting the road tomorrow morning. I went out and filled the car with fueland did a bit of shopping and left Ray at home. He is feeling worse today and spent the afternoon napping while I sat outside and enjoyed the sun. Hopefully tomorrow he feels better. 

We plan to stay overnight at Cummins in their lot as usual. Our appointment is Tuesday at 7am to replace the leaking air hose. Our original plan was to leave today and get it fixed on Monday, but everyone forgot Monday is a holiday. Traffic should still be minimal going through Phoenix as it is a holiday.  Hopefully it only takes them a few hours instead of all day, but with Cummins it probably will be much longer than we would like.

After our appointment we Ray plan to stay overnight for two nights in Quartzsite on our way to our next destination. We would like a chance to walk through Tyson Wells to see the vendors.  We are due at Lake Havasu State Park for our reservation on Wednesday so we will see how much time we actually have.

That was the first two weeks of January. Now we get into warmer weather. Yeah!