THINGS I WON'T MISS
1. The strong smell of the Dairy Barns and feed lots that are near the roads we traveled.
2. Jumping cactus that seemed to like to attach to me when walking in the desert.
3. Cheap wine
4. Interstate driving at peak hours
5. Intermittent WiFi reception
6. Arizona dentists
7. Short showers and lack of hot water ( we have that solved now)
8. Mesa Swap Meet or Market
9. Red necked prejudiced people that we ran into, who hated anyone who was not white and would pull a gun if they could get away with it.
10. Americans who believe that the Canadian Medicare system is flawed and lots of people die waiting for appendix surgery.
11. American political mentality. Such hate for who ever is in power vs the Canadian way where we might not agree with the party in power but we respect our leader.
12. The airplanes early in the morning but we did get used to it after awhile.
THINGS I WILL MISS
1. The new friends we made and the old friends with whom we got to spend time.
2. Playing canasta every day that I could at 11:45
3. Only seven miles to drive to shop
4. Waking up every day to clear skies and sun
5. Driving into Casa Grande and seeing small mountains on all sides
6. Looking out the window and seeing palm trees and cacti
7.In a Pear Tree ( my fav store)
8. Craft classes and learning new art ideas
9. Pub cheese
10. Freshly picked oranges (the sweetest you have ever tasted but go bad quickly as no preservatives)
11. Craft and Yard sales somewhere within driving distance every week
12. Honey Dates
13. Artisan Bread and Buns from the Tues market
14. Being able to have the sun roof open on the car every day
15. Louie and Philip who did my pedicures for $20 and my gel nails for $35 and a fill for $15 and who also increase my knowledge of their hardships of their life in Viet Nam
16. Seeing Harvey enjoy his billiard mornings with his new friends.
So friends and relatives who read this blog...it is now done until the next time I get the urge to write about something important in my life... I think I may start a craft blog but not for awhile..I need a break. I now have 5 blogs that will be inactive. I sure wish they just went away, as I find it hard just deleting them myself, as just a little of one's soul are in those written words.
Thank you for reading, thank you for your nice comments, thank you for understanding that they are just my words and may not be the way you think..but isn't it wonderful that we all are different.
Cheryl
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Home
...and she clicked her Ruby Red slippers and said " There is no place like home!"
We arrived back in SC about 5 pm, stopped to get a few groceries, piled them on top of the stuff in the back seat and headed home. It started to snow/rain as we travelled down #4 and we figured Yep ....show us your force Mr Winter. ......but we did pack in a box of sunshine and heat and you should be getting it by weekend..lol
We got the heat turned up and brought in a few things from the car and then started the task of trying to get the water turned on and the hot water heater lit.
Harvey flipped the switch for the pump and NOTHING. He then made the crawl under the house to look at the pressure system and poke at it a bit. STILL NOTHING He flipped the breaker a few times and then left a message for our Plumbing Prince Harry at the Coop to call us. We figured no water tonight until he could come out tomorrow and fix the problem.
We went next door to our friend Donna's place to see we could turn on her water in case we needed to go to the toilet and then came home to find the water was working..... I guess the Plumbing God just wanted to show us his power too....
Then the task of bringing into our house a house hold of things from Arizona......lots of things we will not take next time. I think I heard Harvey murmur..."you are not taking all this crafting crap next time". By 9 pm we were fading so fast we finally figured we needed to eat , so made a plate and turned on the TV........NOTHING......yes the TV did not have any channels. We had turned off our Bell service for the time we were away and I guess when they turned it back on at the end of February it needed some re setting. I called the toll free line and got the Grump from Bombay..... He lead me through a long process and finally got it working.
Today we will start putting things away so we can walk through the rooms again, washing clothes, putting away all my boxes of craft supplies.....and look out the window at the snow and grey skies and wonder WHY?
I will do one more post tomorrow and then this baby will be put to bed....
We arrived back in SC about 5 pm, stopped to get a few groceries, piled them on top of the stuff in the back seat and headed home. It started to snow/rain as we travelled down #4 and we figured Yep ....show us your force Mr Winter. ......but we did pack in a box of sunshine and heat and you should be getting it by weekend..lol
We got the heat turned up and brought in a few things from the car and then started the task of trying to get the water turned on and the hot water heater lit.
Harvey flipped the switch for the pump and NOTHING. He then made the crawl under the house to look at the pressure system and poke at it a bit. STILL NOTHING He flipped the breaker a few times and then left a message for our Plumbing Prince Harry at the Coop to call us. We figured no water tonight until he could come out tomorrow and fix the problem.
We went next door to our friend Donna's place to see we could turn on her water in case we needed to go to the toilet and then came home to find the water was working..... I guess the Plumbing God just wanted to show us his power too....
Then the task of bringing into our house a house hold of things from Arizona......lots of things we will not take next time. I think I heard Harvey murmur..."you are not taking all this crafting crap next time". By 9 pm we were fading so fast we finally figured we needed to eat , so made a plate and turned on the TV........NOTHING......yes the TV did not have any channels. We had turned off our Bell service for the time we were away and I guess when they turned it back on at the end of February it needed some re setting. I called the toll free line and got the Grump from Bombay..... He lead me through a long process and finally got it working.
Today we will start putting things away so we can walk through the rooms again, washing clothes, putting away all my boxes of craft supplies.....and look out the window at the snow and grey skies and wonder WHY?
I will do one more post tomorrow and then this baby will be put to bed....
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Still truckin along
Last night we made it to Orem Utah..... we thought we had stopped in Provo but the bill said Orem...lol
Those Morman towns all look alike lol
We had a good supper at Applebees and then faded early.
Up and to breakfast by 8 and on the road by 8:30. It was a beautiful sunny day but as it was only plus5 I did finally move from sandals to socks and shoes....My feet were not happy but they were warm.
We zipped along at 80 miles an hour most of the time until we got into the mountain curves where Harvey kept trying to pretend he was a race track driver around the curves. I closed my eyes a lot and hung on to the handle above the door. The passes were clear and no snow on the road so that made the day alot better.
As it was sunny I took out my little cactus that I found in our gravel in front of the park model in Sunscape. It was only half the size of my little finger and I knew he would not survive, so I decided to plant , water and feed and smuggle into Canada. I have him planted in a plastic juice bottle and today I opened it up and let him breathe and sit in the sunlight. Tonight he is under the lamp that is faking Arizona sun. I am assuming a cactus is a plant and I am not allowed to bring across the border. Will little "Sunny the Cactus" make it? Stay tuned.
Tonight we are settled into La Quinta in Helena and tomorrow night we hope to be in our own bed at home.
Those Morman towns all look alike lol
We had a good supper at Applebees and then faded early.
Up and to breakfast by 8 and on the road by 8:30. It was a beautiful sunny day but as it was only plus5 I did finally move from sandals to socks and shoes....My feet were not happy but they were warm.
We zipped along at 80 miles an hour most of the time until we got into the mountain curves where Harvey kept trying to pretend he was a race track driver around the curves. I closed my eyes a lot and hung on to the handle above the door. The passes were clear and no snow on the road so that made the day alot better.
As it was sunny I took out my little cactus that I found in our gravel in front of the park model in Sunscape. It was only half the size of my little finger and I knew he would not survive, so I decided to plant , water and feed and smuggle into Canada. I have him planted in a plastic juice bottle and today I opened it up and let him breathe and sit in the sunlight. Tonight he is under the lamp that is faking Arizona sun. I am assuming a cactus is a plant and I am not allowed to bring across the border. Will little "Sunny the Cactus" make it? Stay tuned.
Tonight we are settled into La Quinta in Helena and tomorrow night we hope to be in our own bed at home.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Day 3 Mexico
Today we woke up early ( well I did..sleeping beauty had to be woke with the smell of coffee)...and could hear the wind howling. I looked out and could hardly see the mountains from blowing sand and dirt. We went down for a cheap breakfast and then drove to the car par and walked back into Mexico.
I had ordered two pair of glasses, one just trifocals and the other trifocal sunglasses. The cost was $85 for each of them. They were to be ready at 10 am but when we arrived at 11:30 only one was ready and we were told that the sunglasses had too much of a curve to be able to put the trifocals lens in to be visually correct. Do you not think that could have been noticed yesterday??? So after arguing for a few mins, we agreed to having them mail to us at home. If they don't fit I guess I will just have to try to fix myself.....
It was then time to hit the road and fight the wind north. We made it to Laughlin by 5 o'clock and settled into the Aquarious Casino Hotel. I lost my money quickly and I am sitting in Starbucks doing this dumb blog ( that will be euthanized shortly). If we want WIFI in our room it will cost $12 for each laptop...Me thinks NO!........
Well I better go find Harvey and see if he has won enough to pay our bills this month......
We hope by tomorrow the snow will have stopped in Salt Lake and north. If not we will stay another day and just call Blue Cross and extend our insurance. We did not know you can do that but we have been told you can do it once during a trip.
I had ordered two pair of glasses, one just trifocals and the other trifocal sunglasses. The cost was $85 for each of them. They were to be ready at 10 am but when we arrived at 11:30 only one was ready and we were told that the sunglasses had too much of a curve to be able to put the trifocals lens in to be visually correct. Do you not think that could have been noticed yesterday??? So after arguing for a few mins, we agreed to having them mail to us at home. If they don't fit I guess I will just have to try to fix myself.....
It was then time to hit the road and fight the wind north. We made it to Laughlin by 5 o'clock and settled into the Aquarious Casino Hotel. I lost my money quickly and I am sitting in Starbucks doing this dumb blog ( that will be euthanized shortly). If we want WIFI in our room it will cost $12 for each laptop...Me thinks NO!........
Well I better go find Harvey and see if he has won enough to pay our bills this month......
We hope by tomorrow the snow will have stopped in Salt Lake and north. If not we will stay another day and just call Blue Cross and extend our insurance. We did not know you can do that but we have been told you can do it once during a trip.
GoodBye Sunscape Hello Mexico Day 1 and 2
After 3 days of massive clean out of things we could not take along and then cramming things into every tiny space available in the car we were ready to leave. I know if we come again, we will not bring alot of the things along that we did not use this time and we will down size food a lot earlier. It was shameful the amount of opened food we threw away. We did give away some of the unopened containers, like pop, salmon, and cheese. It seemed the last 2 weeks just flew by and time ran out for us.
We got to the border and parked our car in the parking lot and walked quickly into town to find the dentist.
Now if you don't know ..Aldogones is a small Mexican town very near the border of California/Arizona...called Baja Calif. It is said there are over 400 dentists in a 6 block square radius plus hundreds of eye glass places and pharmacies as well. There are Mexican men all along the street calling out to you if you want a good dentist or pharmacy drugs. Lots of Americans come to get their legal drugs and as well lots and lots of Canadians and Americans are getting dental crowns, implants and other dental work done at a 10th of what it costs at home. Of course "Cash only"
You see the very rich and the average person getting beautiful white smiles in a few days work.
I asked what it would cost for a complete upper plate, a partial lower plate and my last 4 front teeth cleaned and whitened. Total would be $500.
Now back to our arrival. We had recommendations of good dentists from a few different friends and chose the one that quoted the cheapest price for a new bottom plate. With our little tiny business card showing the map to the shop, in hand, we nearly ran down each street fighting off the hawkers to find the place as we thought we were late. I had forgot that there is no such a thing as late in Mexico or any other southern hot country... They all move at a speed slightly below slow.....
They must of thought us crazy as we loped down the middle of the street. We first turned the wrong direction and headed up the wrong way but after giving a couple of dollars to a man he told us to go the other way, We finally found the little hole in the wall office and the tiny door sign that could have easily been missed if we had blinked.
We entered and the seats were all filled with other Canadians waiting for the dentist. The beautiful Marie who spoke perfect English welcomed us and took the information on what I required. She informed us to make a new plate and have it fitted, we would have to wait 3 days. We had figured 2 days not 3, and as our insurance will run out by Monday, we knew we could not wait that long. She said she would have the dentist check to see if it could be repaired instead. I was called in and handed over my plate that was in two separate pieces.... As he rolled his eyes I said..."They were in my pocket and just broke as I shrugged my shoulders. He played around trying to fit them together as if they were pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and then called in another Dr who the placed them into my mouth, held them pushed up to my four remaining teeth and the other Dr started shooting something in my mouth and then something like solder or glue being used to hold them together.... Quickly an impression was taken of the whole contraption in my mouth and said they would send it to a lab to see if they could redo the silver part to make it hold together. I was to come back the next day at 1 pm . They would do their best but no guarantee would be issued.
Day 2 Mexico
I returned Thursday, waited an hour and was taken into office where the dentist put the plate into my mouth and then after finding many placed the gave me discomfort....he went out and ground and sanded down the spots about 4 times. It finally felt good and it was sent on my way to pay for the two days work. I paid the $50 and I have been eating well ever since.... Now two things that were different from home ( well other than not understanding them and listening to Mexican music during procedure) was the fact that at no time was I given a bit of water to wash out the goop from the impression or the taste of his fingers and never was I shown a mirror to see how I looked.
We then headed towards the border as we knew the lines would be getting long. We had heard about the bikes with seats at the back that will take you in the car line, through the border check and then right to the walk way to the car park for only $5 a person.
We found a line of people waiting and spent 90 mins waiting for our turn while others walked and passed us as they went through the border check. After an hour we were just all too stubborn to switch bike spots or go to the walk line and just waited it out.
We watched the guards with guns as they watched the cars go by and also visited with other misplaced people.....
We left Sunscape early Wed morning and dropped off the last garbage
and headed for Yuma. We had booked to stay at the Quechan Resort and Casino which is only a couple of miles from Algodones Mexico. We raced toward Yuma after being held up a half an hour or more due to traffic down to one lane as a big semi had smashed.We got to the border and parked our car in the parking lot and walked quickly into town to find the dentist.
Now if you don't know ..Aldogones is a small Mexican town very near the border of California/Arizona...called Baja Calif. It is said there are over 400 dentists in a 6 block square radius plus hundreds of eye glass places and pharmacies as well. There are Mexican men all along the street calling out to you if you want a good dentist or pharmacy drugs. Lots of Americans come to get their legal drugs and as well lots and lots of Canadians and Americans are getting dental crowns, implants and other dental work done at a 10th of what it costs at home. Of course "Cash only"
You see the very rich and the average person getting beautiful white smiles in a few days work.
I asked what it would cost for a complete upper plate, a partial lower plate and my last 4 front teeth cleaned and whitened. Total would be $500.
Now back to our arrival. We had recommendations of good dentists from a few different friends and chose the one that quoted the cheapest price for a new bottom plate. With our little tiny business card showing the map to the shop, in hand, we nearly ran down each street fighting off the hawkers to find the place as we thought we were late. I had forgot that there is no such a thing as late in Mexico or any other southern hot country... They all move at a speed slightly below slow.....
They must of thought us crazy as we loped down the middle of the street. We first turned the wrong direction and headed up the wrong way but after giving a couple of dollars to a man he told us to go the other way, We finally found the little hole in the wall office and the tiny door sign that could have easily been missed if we had blinked.
We entered and the seats were all filled with other Canadians waiting for the dentist. The beautiful Marie who spoke perfect English welcomed us and took the information on what I required. She informed us to make a new plate and have it fitted, we would have to wait 3 days. We had figured 2 days not 3, and as our insurance will run out by Monday, we knew we could not wait that long. She said she would have the dentist check to see if it could be repaired instead. I was called in and handed over my plate that was in two separate pieces.... As he rolled his eyes I said..."They were in my pocket and just broke as I shrugged my shoulders. He played around trying to fit them together as if they were pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and then called in another Dr who the placed them into my mouth, held them pushed up to my four remaining teeth and the other Dr started shooting something in my mouth and then something like solder or glue being used to hold them together.... Quickly an impression was taken of the whole contraption in my mouth and said they would send it to a lab to see if they could redo the silver part to make it hold together. I was to come back the next day at 1 pm . They would do their best but no guarantee would be issued.
Day 2 Mexico
I returned Thursday, waited an hour and was taken into office where the dentist put the plate into my mouth and then after finding many placed the gave me discomfort....he went out and ground and sanded down the spots about 4 times. It finally felt good and it was sent on my way to pay for the two days work. I paid the $50 and I have been eating well ever since.... Now two things that were different from home ( well other than not understanding them and listening to Mexican music during procedure) was the fact that at no time was I given a bit of water to wash out the goop from the impression or the taste of his fingers and never was I shown a mirror to see how I looked.
We then headed towards the border as we knew the lines would be getting long. We had heard about the bikes with seats at the back that will take you in the car line, through the border check and then right to the walk way to the car park for only $5 a person.
Back to the hotel and spent the evening playing the slots.. I won $294 on one pull so that was kind of fun but soon I bored of the slots and headed up to the room to watch a bit of TV, Harvey followed soon and to sleep early.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Last Week
This will be our last week of normal living here in La LA land.....We will take in some billiards, cards, bingo, and the yearly theatre production put on by residents. I wonder what they do if the play calls for a 20 year old? lol
We also are going to spend sometime looking at other places to rent that we had contacted in the fall when we were looking for a place to rent. We do not know if we will be able to come back next year but if we did, we want to have a few ideas on places to stay. Where we are now is for sale and certainly no guarantee that it will be available. We will take some pictures and talk to a few people to get ideas on rental places. We like this park as we have made friends but there are other nice parks in the area as well.
Yesterday was a fun day at the casino in Fort McDowell as we got on to slots that paid and took away all day long. We stayed on the same set of Wizard of Oz slots and walked out with about $450 to the good.... Now that does not happen very often so a great way to end our time here.
As well in the evening we played Card Bingo and each of us one a game.... Now in card bingo, it cost ten cents a game and with about 30 people playing , we made enough for a hamburger.....
We are going to stop buying any groceries and try to get rid of some of the things we have in the frig and cupboards as we do not want to take any food home so we will be throwing out spices, sugars, flours , baking supplies ( lol which I never used ) and we will be eating things like soup, pasta, rice, and mixes that I thought I would use.... We are running out of peanut butter and the jam is gone so breakfasts might be strange. Actually the only thing we still have lots of .... is Wine!!! Now how does one use that up for breakfast.....?? I have bought so much wine for the goofy labels as I want to make a collage hanging with labels..... Most of the red wine has got drank, but still left with chocolate red wine, sweet wine and wines that the label is wonderful but not even sure what it is....lol Also some of the white wine that sells for $2.95....not the greatest but perfectly drinkable.....
Did I tell you, I really don't even like the taste of wine......
I am very concerned on how we get everything into the car to go home.
As we have summer clothes , winter clothes and boots, old clothes and new clothes (mainly because we have both gained back over half of the weight we lost before we came ) then there are great deals we got on bedding and towels, 2 new comforters and 2 blankets (we bought for the blow up beds for company) bag chairs (for people to sit on when they visit us) vases and flowers and ornaments bought to make the place homey, all the craft things I made, and all the craft supplies I bought here plus the huge container I brought with me. Oh and also another computer and printer we bought here as ours were kapput.....
Well that just tired me out talking about packing all that stuff....there is a park sale that is taking donations for March so we may have to see what all they will take......
Time to get going.................
We also are going to spend sometime looking at other places to rent that we had contacted in the fall when we were looking for a place to rent. We do not know if we will be able to come back next year but if we did, we want to have a few ideas on places to stay. Where we are now is for sale and certainly no guarantee that it will be available. We will take some pictures and talk to a few people to get ideas on rental places. We like this park as we have made friends but there are other nice parks in the area as well.
Yesterday was a fun day at the casino in Fort McDowell as we got on to slots that paid and took away all day long. We stayed on the same set of Wizard of Oz slots and walked out with about $450 to the good.... Now that does not happen very often so a great way to end our time here.
As well in the evening we played Card Bingo and each of us one a game.... Now in card bingo, it cost ten cents a game and with about 30 people playing , we made enough for a hamburger.....
We are going to stop buying any groceries and try to get rid of some of the things we have in the frig and cupboards as we do not want to take any food home so we will be throwing out spices, sugars, flours , baking supplies ( lol which I never used ) and we will be eating things like soup, pasta, rice, and mixes that I thought I would use.... We are running out of peanut butter and the jam is gone so breakfasts might be strange. Actually the only thing we still have lots of .... is Wine!!! Now how does one use that up for breakfast.....?? I have bought so much wine for the goofy labels as I want to make a collage hanging with labels..... Most of the red wine has got drank, but still left with chocolate red wine, sweet wine and wines that the label is wonderful but not even sure what it is....lol Also some of the white wine that sells for $2.95....not the greatest but perfectly drinkable.....
Did I tell you, I really don't even like the taste of wine......
I am very concerned on how we get everything into the car to go home.
As we have summer clothes , winter clothes and boots, old clothes and new clothes (mainly because we have both gained back over half of the weight we lost before we came ) then there are great deals we got on bedding and towels, 2 new comforters and 2 blankets (we bought for the blow up beds for company) bag chairs (for people to sit on when they visit us) vases and flowers and ornaments bought to make the place homey, all the craft things I made, and all the craft supplies I bought here plus the huge container I brought with me. Oh and also another computer and printer we bought here as ours were kapput.....
Well that just tired me out talking about packing all that stuff....there is a park sale that is taking donations for March so we may have to see what all they will take......
Time to get going.................
Monday, February 20, 2012
Monday Monday
I am up early and ready for our bus trip today to the Fort McDowell Casino for the day. I think Ft McDowell is north of Mesa so it will be about a 90 min drive. It only costs us $5 each for the bus trip so that is the cheap part of the day. All we ask is that we get to play the slots for a few hours with out losing our allotment....if we win any money that is just a bonus.
Friday saw us drive up to the Mesa Market or as they used to call it "Mesa Swap Meet" It was huge and just about anything you would want to buy. A massive amount of womens clothes (tops) and lots of jewllery but too big to cover it all in the 2 hours we were there. We then hopped over to Hobby Lobby so I could look for a few things I needed to add to my crafting needs. We were back home by supper time and wiped out. I have no idea how some snowbirds live in those huge cities with the ridiculas traffic.
And here is my finished basket that I made in the Basket Weaving class last week
Yesterday we had our friends Art and Carol Berg in for supper with lots of laughs, cards, wine and food. We went over to the Sky Diving and Wind Tunnel with them as they had never been there before. It was a very busy day there with lots of jumpers , lots of tandem jumps and may spectators,
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