Cave Creek

Today, with friends, we visited Cave Creek, a little town, situated in the foothills north of Phoenix.   In the 1880's it was a mining camp and still caries over the mining/western atmosphere today.   Cave Creek's chief draw is tourism offering many small independent shops, several restaurants and some art galleries.    No big name stores or eateries here, just plain folk.  

 We had lunch at the Buffalo Chip Saloon, just because we like the name..   To give you an idea of the menu Bob had the "Big Buckin Burger". Oh well.  

 Later as we were strolling around we discovered the Norby Gallery.   As Monday is a slow day in Cave Creek, we were able to spend time in the gallery talking with the owner and artist, Arthur Norby.  He was a gracious host giving us the tour,  answering all our questions, knowing  full well we were not going to be a customer.   We had questions concerning  a full size sculpture he is working on, and some of the paintings.   The mood of the gallery shifts from very high priced items to the rather whimsical paintings and garden sculptures.  

It was a fun day checking out all the little shops with a variety of western themes.   One of the shops offered pieces of peanut-brittle free and water $10. a bottle.   I thought this was odd until I tasted the candy and boy was that HOT.  They also sold chili beer.  We could see a chili pepper in each bottle.

Togetherness

  The Joy  of Togetherness  

Happy Thanksgiving

  HAPPY THANKSGIVING DEAR FRIENDS       Our holiday feast  will be much like the first Thanksgiving dinner with a different groups of people coming together to celebrate the day.   Our table will sit eighteen, all neighbors and snow birds.  We will all share stories of Thanksgivings past with our families and a joke about how much snow some state just got.  We will talk about what  is going on in the park and about our children and grandchildren.  Some of us will bring pictures of new great grand baby twins.  Each will bring their best dish to share.  Of course there will be turkey, dressing, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, whipped potatoes and assorted pies.  What a feast it will be.   And at the end of the day, all the threads of our past will be entwined to make up a happy winter family.  

Count Your Blessings

Count your blessings every day
Be they great or small.
Bow your head and humbly pray
To our Savior, Lord of all.

For life and health, and all good things,
For love and friendship, too.
For all the joy each new day brings
We give our heartfelt thanks to You.

The colors of a rainbow,
A sunset in the sky,
The sun, the moon and stars which glow
Are things we cannot buy.

The laughter of a child at play,
The miracle of birth,
A friendly smile along the way,
What are these blessings worth?

We see the flowers bloom in spring,
The colored leaves of fall.
We hear the birds so sweetly sing,
And thank God for them all.

Be thankful for each blessing,
And when you kneel and pray,
Give thanks at the beginning
And the end of every day.

                                                 ©1993, Dee Remade

 

AOL and the ADS

  Please Don't Click Any Ad-Banners on This Blog.  I do not  endorse them.  They were put there by AOL without my permission.      Dawn

  I have given this ad problem some thought and have decided to stay put for now anyway.   Many of the journals have explained how to get rid of or at least not see the animated ads.  If you haven't seen the directions , here they are direct form Barb's journal, HEY, LET'S TALK.  

  Click Pop-Up Controls, then click on Block animated
media from AOL. Exit the page you're on, then access it again.
The ads should be gone. *** They are there as the page appears, then will be gone. At least they are so far.  

The journal community will never be the same again.  Some wonderful writers have left for another blog community and some have switched to UK AOL, which will probably have this same fate in the future. Did anyone see the article in BusinessWeek's Blogspotting?    Here's the link if you are interested, Angry AOL bloggers now push boycotts  

 I hope that we can all visit back and forth like neighbors moving out of the neighborhood, but still remain friends.   Time will tell.          Dawn

Mary's Birthday Lunch

HAPPY   BIRTHDAY    MARY   

          Today was our friend Mary's birthday.  I won't tell her age, but I will tell you that she is still a spring chicken.  To celebrate this occasion Bob and I, Mary and her hubby Chuck went to Anzio Landing Italian Restaurant.

  This is a award winning restaurant and is a favorite of Mary's and myself.  It is  romantic dining with  white table clothes and has a unique decor of the 40's with an interesting bar made from a Cessna aircraft.  Anzio's is located at Falcon's Field, which is owned and operated by the City of Mesa, and serves as home base to more than 900 aircraft.  We were given a window table with a panoramic view of the mountains and runway 22.   Many diners fly in to eat at Anzio's.  

The food is so good here starting with the wonderful salad with a variety of greens, dried cranberries, olives and mandarin orange slices, served with hot garlic rolls.   Next was Creamy Garlic Pork  tenderloin with cranberries, mandarin oranges, onions & penne pasta in a creamy garlic alfredo sauce........and Fettuccini Alfredo with Chicken Marinated chicken sautéed with red and green peppers, zucchini, & yellow squash, in a garlic alfredo sauce with fettuccini ........   And to celebrate her day, Mary was given a very large piece of double layered fudge cake topped with vanilla ice cream, smothered with raspberry and vanilla sauces and four spoons.   So yummmy.  

 I hope I didn't make you all hungry!!

Six months on the road.

    We often get asked questions about our cost to travel in a motorhome.   

 Well today I tallied up the cost of diesel from Arizona to Massachusetts and back again.  Holy crap!  This does not include gas for our toad car.    

 When we get into a chosen area, we use the car for sightseeing  within an hour's drive or so.  Going East , from Arizona, we took the northern route and returned the southern route. 

The trip took six months and took us about 7,354 miles.  Going to Massachusetts was not such a straight line as our return trip.  From April 21st to Oct. 14th, we spent $1866.21 on diesel for the motorhome.   

 The map above follows our route from Massachusetts to Arizona.

   We belong to several camping clubs that offer up to 70% off a night rate.  The total cost for sites for the six months was $2,425.21, plus yearly membership fees.

Any more questions, just ask.

Have a good weekend.

My Name is Maggie

  My Name  is Maggie

    This is Maggie, a recent member of our family.    We have been looking for her for the past two weeks and finally found her with the Arizona Humane Society at Petco.   We wanted an adult, stay in the house cat.  We found her Saturday and bought her.  The elder gentleman who, we believe is a volunteer??, went to cut off her paper collar and instead cut off one quarter of her ear.  Can you believe that?  No one, other than us found this to be a big deal.  She had been in a second level cage and he put these sharp scissors in there to cut the collar.  Did he think she would not move, holy crap, what a stupid thing to do.  I guess we are lucky he didn't put her eye out.

Even though she was off to a rocky start, she has adjusted well to her new home and roomies (me and Bob).  She is a laid back type of a gal who enjoys company and an occasional belly rub.   Maybe I could learn something from her!