Mountain Climbing Time!

I am having all kinds of problems tonight with blogger, it will not allow me to edit my pictures the way I normally do so you are going to see all the pictures in reverse today! It was a great day, sunny and warm, so we went up in the mountains to "Sentinal Peak" which offers a great view of the Tucson area. Here is Judy at the peak, trying to get that great shot....


Yes, that is snow up there in the mountains.... this is taken with the zoom...


Some real neat mountain ranges here at Tucson....

We met a young couple up on the peak and they had this picture taken of Tucson in 1942 and they wanted to come and take a picture today of the same shot! The next picture is as close as I could get to the same shot.... there is a bit of a difference between them...

This is the "downtown" view of Tucson, yes, the same area as in the picture above....

We found a few cactus plants on the way up the mountain....

Here is a change of gears.... Shawn and Jenn took birthday pictures of Emmie, and here is a sample that I borrowed from Emmie's blog....

This next pic is of the sun set out our RV window last night.... what a sky...

This is at the peak of the mountain today, where Judy was taking pictures....

Some tuff dude on the mountain with his 750 Honda!

These guys asked Judy to take their picture, so she did!

A bit of history of Sentinel Peak, hope you can read it!

The students at the University of Arizona made this big "A" up on the mountain a number of years ago...

Tourists.....

We went grocery shopping at "FoodLand" yesterday and this was for sale..... no, we decided not to try it!

Sorry about the problems with the blog today, I have some more pictures from today that I will put on tomorrows blog. Too many problems tonight. Did watch the Grammy's tonight and I thought it was a pretty good show....

Till tomorrow.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMMIE! WISH WE WERE THERE!

Happy Birthday Emmie.... you may not know it, but you are 2....

Judy and I spent the day remembering that day, 2 years ago when I had to play hookie from RBC and Judy and I made a drive to London to visit Emmie on her first day of life. We had to drive in a bad snow storm, but that didn't matter, we made it. Thanks to Shawn and Jenn, we were able to have a Happy Birthday Skype Conference with Emmie this afternoon. Sounds like she had a big day with a party.

Today was a nice day here, not quite as nice as some of our days in Yuma, but nice overall. I spent the morning putting up our satellite internet, which only took about 15 minutes in total and then it was on to the renewed fight with Star Choice, or Shaw Direct as they want to be called now. I must have battled for 2 hours with the dish before I figured out what the problem was. The settings I was using from my computer program were wrong.... uurrrgghhhh.... They had told me the elevation was 52.4 degrees here, but in reality it was life 56 degrees. That does make a difference. Once I made the adjustment I was able to get the signal right away.... oh well, that is the life of a retired Bank Manager.... it is working fine now, and was still able to watch my Leafs lose tonight!

Well, I have a bunch of ketchup pictures for you all tonight, as we have really been offline for the past couple of nights, so hang on, get your Sunday morning coffee and here we go...

This first one I thought was funny, date stamped Jan. 28, and it is our Mexican maintenance man in Yuma cutting the grass! It was a warm day and the grass was long, and smelled like it does in Ontario after a fresh cut of grass.... loved it.

I was out on my morning walk and took a couple pics around the park to show you all some of the cactus plants....

This one was starting to flower after the rain we had...

This is a picture of a neat train set that an older man build around his Park Model Unit. He has been working on it for a long time, and as you can see, it continues into the back yard. This view is the front yard. He is elderly and just loves working on it. I talked to him for 1/2 an hour about it one day when John Morrison was with me.

This is the last row in the park, and full of Park Models.... I just love the colour of the sky here in the morning....

Well on to more exciting stuff...."Hockey".... Here we go on the bus, from Yuma to Phoenix to watch Calgary take on the Coyotes last Thursday night. The bus was great, very smooth, new, and nice TV's to watch movies on... they played the movie "Wild Hogs" on the way down, always good for a laugh... The bus was full of Alberta Fans of course... and it ended up that 3 buses had to go, to bring them all!

This is just outside the front of the Jobing.com Arena, and if you look at the Voo Dooo heads, you will see flames coming out of them...

It was a great night in Phoenix when we were there, however it rained there earlier in the day, and when we got there Judy found the rainbow. We went up to look at it further from the second floor of the building, and it was one of the few times we could see both ends of the rainbow, including the full arch of the rainbow.... don't ever recall seeing that before.... couldn't take a picture as it was simply too big....


The next four pictures are for Dr. Hollinger. As many of you know, the good Dr. is the # 1 Calgary Flames Fan in the world, (ya, I know it is hard to believe he is not a Leaf Fan...maybe one day!) Anyways, we were in line to get in and a Family from Calgary was in front of us and we were talking to them.... They were on a weeks holiday, and had flown from Calgary to Dallas, Texas to watch the Flames play the Dallas Stars on Wednesday night, a game which they lost in a shoot out! Then they flew to Phoenix for the game on Thursday, again, which the Flames lost in a shoot out.... is there a pattern here???? Anyways, this is a picture of their son who is a big Calgary Fan.... There was lots of Flames Jerseys at the game.

We had great seats for the game, only about 12 rows up from the ice. I was able to walk down and get these next few pictures of Shawn's Hero, Jerome (Igy) Inginla for him....

I like this show, it looks like Igy is getting ready to take on the Coyotes by himself...

And here is a picture of Kipper for ya Shawn...

Judy and I got a charge out of watching Dion Phaneuf, one of the the star defencemen for Calgary in the warm ups. He spent his warm up time picking up pucks and skating over the the side boards, and would point out a kid wearing a Flames Jersey and then throw the puck over the glass to him or her.... He seemed to get a bigger kick out of doing that then the kids did getting the puck! They are all just big kids, but with a big pay cheque!

We are not done yet.... next we moved over to Tucson on Friday and here are a couple early pictures of the Resort. It is very well kept and a great place to stay.... Here is the main road you drive in on.... lots of palm trees....

Some of the park model units, with some more palm trees!

This is the pool area... we found out today there are 2 hot tub areas in our park.... yipee!

This is one of them.....

This is a picture of our site. We have our own palm tree... and lots of room. No neighbour on the right side of this picture yet....

This is the view sitting on our couch, looking forward out the slide window. Judy liked that she could see the mountains in the background, lots of palm trees as well....

Our friends David and Angella have made it back to Ontario after a week in Mexico, I am sure they are glad to be home! Hope you had good weather guys! Will talk to you on skype soon!

Hope to go on a hike maybe tomorrow, we will see.... Lots to do in Tucson area!

Till tomorrow.....

Partial blog only...... :-((

Hi everyone....

Judy and I have made it over to Tuscon tonight. Arrived at 4:00 this afternoon, and found our spot right away and got all set up.... well almost... we were unable to pick up a Star Choice signal tonight, not sure why, will figure that out tomorrow.... Leafs are losing anyways.... don't really want to see it... next problem is I cannot upload any pictures, as we thought we could use the wireless internet here, but it won't let me upload pictures to the blog...booo..... tomorrow I will install our satellite dish for the internet, and hopefully will get Star Choice up and running for tomorrow nights game...

Our park here is beautiful, it is not a hardship at all to be staying here for the next month. This place is spotless and well kept! We will post some pictures tomorrow.

Had a great time at the Calgary Flames game last night. They lost in the shootout, but that is life... got to talk to Shawn on the phone during the game and rubbed in that we were there, and he wasn't.... photo's tomorrow...

Just a short post tonight, but hopefully a better one tomorrow night with a bunch of pics for you picture lovers...

till tomorrow....

When in Arizona.... do as the Americans do.....

The forecast for Yuma today was rain, rain, and more rain. However when I woke up, the sun was shinning brightly....Yes! Turned out to be a nice day with no rain, however Judy reported a couple drops hit the roof at 4:00 a.m. when she was up reading her book, I had to believe her...

Judy headed off for the pool today at 9:00 and I went walking around the park. The gym is too full of people these days, however it was real nice out walking in the real world. I also got a chance to meet Dave, from Illinois. He pulls a monster 5th wheel trailer with a GMC Truck, based on the same frame as our Endura. It is the same colour as ours, with the exact same engine and transmission. He was a real nice guy, and we talked for 1/2 an hour. I love meeting people like this and learn about their lifestyles.... him and his wife have been living full time in their 5th wheel for 4 years now, and would enjoy life no other way!

After lunch we headed out for a ride on our bikes, into Yuma. Went to the Target Store for some shopping. Stopped at the Peanut Patch from some goodies and ice cream...

I wish I knew what type of tree this is, as it is huge. It is on the property of the Peanut Patch Business.

Judy was enjoying the ice cream....

Beside the picnic table was this little mini tree that grew these......???????.....

You don't have to tell me this is an Orange tree..... :-))

We made it back to the Resort to participate in our last hot tub in Yuma... :-(( Tomorrow we are heading up to Phoenix on the bus trip to attend the Calgary Flames Hockey Game at the Jobing.com Arena, vs. the Phoenix Coyotes.

So when you are in Yuma, you do as the Americans do, and tonight that was listening to President Obama give his State of the Union Address to the Nation. It has been a year since he was elected and a lot sure has happened. A lot of his speech was on job creation, or, the economy... When we talk to Americans down here, they all admit right away that the American economy is the pitts and needs to improve... Everyone I talk to seems to like the President. Time will certainly tell!

Probably will not be able to put a blog together tomorrow night as we will not be home until after mid-night.

Till tomorrow...

Back to Mexico....

This morning was just simply another great morning! The sun was blazing and it was getting warm quick.... Judy was off early to the pool, and I had a date with the outside bins on the RV. I am starting to get into "getaway" mode for this Friday, as most of you will know we are leaving Yuma, and heading to Tuscon. It was a big job, as for some reason we seem to accumulate more and more stuff???? Go figure.... Took me all morning but I got it all finished!

This afternoon we decided to head back to Mexico. I wanted to go over and get my teeth cleaned to keep my Dentist, Dr. John happy up in Gravenhurst. I did not have any idea which Dental Office to go to, there are lots of them, so we wandered around a bit and I finally found one that looked good....

They charge $25.00 to do a full dental cleaning.... I walked in and within 5 minutes I was in the chair... You have to be tuff in Mexico and realize that the people there will do just about anything to get money from you. The Dental Assistant that did my teeth took 2 pictures with a fibre optic camera before the cleaning and then 2 of the same pictures after the cleaning was done. When I waled in the Office, I asked the price of a cleaning and they told me $25.00. After the cleaning, they show you the before and after pictures on a split screen Hi Def TV they have right beside you in the chair. Now the sales pitch. You see the dramatic difference before and after, and before you know it, they now want $50.00 as they did such a good job. I firmly reminded them the agreed price was $25.00 and that was that. Next, they had 4 other dental procedures they felt I needed, including crowns, and they had all the prices all lined up for me. When did I want to come back for them? After a firm "No".... I left and paid them the $25.00 and we carried on for the afternoon.

I was not finished, need a haircut, so I scouted out a barber shop, and this Lady did a great job cutting my hair for $6.00.

In between, I found a new leather belt that was hand made in Mexico.... lots of bargains today.

The only problem with going to Mexico in the afternoon, is that you have to come back! We got in line to come back into the U.S and ended up waiting for about an hour and 20 minutes...

this was near the back of the line when we started... they had a nice frame up for shade, but forgot to put the awning on it..... ???? ....

The line up crossed the Colorado River. This is what is left of the Colorado after it enters Mexico. Not sure if they still call it the Colorado here or not...

This is a border crossing guards position on the U.S. side.... it is a bit blurry, but they watch the crossing from inside.

These cars are in line to cross into the U.S.A.

Check out this next picture. Today was the first time we saw Mexican Soldiers at the border crossing. Here they are searching a car that is going into the U.S.A.!!!! They were tearing them apart, looking in glove boxes, under carpets, in the trunk, you name it. Looking for drugs. Apparently the Mexican Gov't is cracking down on the Drug Lords... these same cars were searched again, 20 feet up the road at the U.S. Border Crossing.... No hanky panky going on here boy.

Judy and I got checked through U.S. Immigration by the friendliest Border Agent Lady we have every come across. Judy took this picture of the line up after we got across the border.

Turned a little cloudy this afternoon, but was real nice. Of course we got back to the Resort and found the hot tub!

Till tomorrow...

"Fire in the Hole....."

This morning the sun was ablaze and we knew right away were were in for a good one! We had breakfast, Judy skipped the pool, and we went into get away mode on the bikes, and set Quartzite as our goal for the day.

As soon as we got on Hwy. 95 heading for Quartzite, I knew something was up. 4 out of 5 vehicles heading south was a motor home or a 5th wheel. I kind of suspected we had actually missed the big show and I was right. I don't know where they were all heading, probably into California. It took us about 1 hour and 45 minutes to get there, and I was surprised, there was still a lot of RV boondockers left. They all just camp out in the desert, no services! We no sooner walked into the fair grounds, and we were looking for something to eat. Had no problems finding a chunk of good old CANADA as soon as we got there.... too bad we couldn't partake, but this stuff and motorcycles sure don't go together!

The big RV show finished yesterday, and we were told a new show, "Rock and Gems" was starting this coming weekend. They were starting to set up for it already. Here are a couple shots of one of the booths....

I must be missing something when it comes to this stuff, but there was tons of it!

Right in the middle of the fairgrounds, there was this monster Saguaro Cactus growing. This thing has been here for a while, and looks like it has a couple bites out of it!


We walked through a big RV Dealers lot, and came across this RV, which is very similar to ours and was a 2009 model. It was finished real weird inside, and they were asking $127,000.00 as a show special for it.... yikes.... We paid less than 1/2 of that price for ours, and are very happy with it thank you very much....


This is the big tent for the RV Show, however you cannot tell by this picture, but it was over a 1/4 mile long! It was being emptied and we could not get in, but all the surrounding vendors were still open, and it took us the afternoon to get around anyways.


They had a bunch of 5th wheels on display that we looked at...

They had a bunch of these "toy haulers" that we looked at....great for carrying your motorcycles in, or ATV's

These are popular down here, and twirl in the sun, and reflect the rays....

The sign on him says "No Garbage.... please" so instead, people put money on the tray... go figure...

These flags and flag poles are popular with RVer's...

We came across this booth and these folks were selling "Fire in a can". They burn propane. We came across them at the Arizona Market.

They are made out of stainless steel and are quite warm to sit around, so we decided to pick one up and bring it back to Yuma with us... I couldn't resist starting it up tonight when we got back home... Judy took this picture in "night mode" on the camera...

Here is a closer look at the fire... you simply turn it off and put the lid on top and you are ready to take it away.... very easy to use...

I had to strap it onto the 750 to carry it home today, no problem....

And what kind of day would it be without a "mountain shot".... Don't know the name of this mountain, but it is 1/2 way between Quartzite and Yuma on Hwy. 95....

After the mountain stop, we were closing in on the Yuma Proving Grounds, which are about 15 miles north of Yuma, and Judy was yelling on the wireless headsets and was asking me if I saw the herd of wild Donkeys! No, I didn't but she sure did and was quite amazed by them.

Well, we made it back to home base, and of course, found the hot tub and then dinner!

Nice to have our great weather back again in Yuma....

Till tomorrow....