Hockey Night in the Desert!

We had a real busy day on Saturday, and I waited until today, (Sunday) to look at all of the 175 pictures I took and decide which ones would make it to the blog. I came up with my list, however the blogger program is giving me grief tonight, and I only managed to get a few uploaded, and have decided to give up for the night. So here is what you get!

We started out early on Saturday by heading out for Phoenix. It was a beautiful morning, and the forecast was sun and 25 degrees... it did not disappoint!

Just a couple miles out of Yuma we had to run the gauntlet set out by the U.S. Border Patrol. They let us right through, but we were delayed a bit.

We made it up to Phoenix in good time and decided to go and visit South Mountain Park, which is a park inside the city limits of Phoenix. You climb the mountain in your car, or on your motorcycle, or your bicycle, or your running shoes, and we watched people use all these methods. It is just over 5 miles up to the summit, but it is worth it. You end up with a commanding view of the valley that Phoenix is built in, and is protected on the south and north sides by mountains. You have to be here to see it. Never come to Phoenix without going up South Mountain! Never!

On the way into Phoenix you pass this monster prison. Big in every way, and on the way home it was all lit up.

We passed this saguaro cactus on the way, and I managed to get a picture of what they did to it! For some reason it is braced. We found a few like this. I think it was rotting at the bottom, and they brace it up until the plant is able to rejuvenate itself and support the entire plant again.... sounds good right!

Anyways, pretty good camera work as Johnny was flying at about 70 miles per hour and I took this out the side window on the fly! You need a real fast shutter speed to do this...

As we were driving along Johnny said "Hey, look at the cotton field!", so of course I grab the camera and fire off another shot in the dark!


This next picture is part of the chain of mountains south of Phoenix, it was one of the larger ones....

This picture is the road you take to start the climb up South Mountain. You can see all the TV antenna's and radio and cell phone towers at the top.

At the summit, you will find this lookout, which is called the Dobbins Lookout. Thousands of people have made the trek up here and all were rewarded with the view

This is one of the pics I got up top, you can see the downtown portion of Phoenix off in the centre of the picture. There was no cloud cover on the day, but there was some brownish smog over Phoenix... :-((

Pat wanted here picture taken with a cactus! Judy took this one.

This is a view of a nice red mountain on the far side of Phoenix's Airport...

Pat grabbed my camera and shot this picture looking north west up the mountain chain that protects Phoenix on the south side!

John and Pat taking in the view from up top!

You can use the camera's auto timer and end up with a picture with everyone in it! I got out my super tele-photo lens and took and picture of downtown Phoenix with an airplane directly over the downtown if you look close.... it is on it's final approach to the airport for a landing.... yes, it made it!

Here is Johnny taking a break and inspecting the stone building on top of the mountain. People like to climb all over it...

This picture is one of my favorites of the mountains, and will end off the blog for tonight! Bedtime is near. It is looking west from up top!

Tomorrow I will post some pictures of the hockey game we went to Saturday. It was a blast! Computer will not co-operate tonight!

Till tomorrow...

Another New Year!

We started off the New Year this morning with some nice sun, however it was a bit cool, but warmed up as the day went on. 1st thing on the agenda this morning is the gym for me and the pool for Judy.... gotta keep up the exercising!

I spent most of the morning on clean up. Cleaned the dust off the motorhome which is a bigger job than you might think. Windex seems to work real good on the fibre glass sides of the motorhome I found out today. After the motorhome, it was time to clean up the motorcycle. It was dirty, and took over an hour to get it the way I wanted it, but, I made it. Looks good, and is safely tucked away in the garage till the next trip!

John and Pat came over in the afternoon for a "New Years Day Hot Tub Party" with us. It was real nice down at the pool sitting out taking in the sun. One think about Yuma, lots of sun! It was about 20 degrees or so this afternoon and it felt real good. We spent a couple hours at the pool area talking to some of the other people from the resort!

Judy made up a great dinner of ham and potatoes and veggies for us, so we feasted on that. We didn't get around to taking pictures at the pool as we all had our hands full, but I did manager to get a pictures of John and Pat after dinner at the RV for the blog, just to let everyone know, they did in fact make it to Yuma!

I had PVR'd the "Winter Classic", which was the outside hockey game between Boston and Philly this afternoon, so John and I took the game in over supper time. Great game, with Boston coming from behind for the tie, and then winning in OT.

John and I were just getting is shape as far as watching hockey is concerned, as tomorrow we go to Phoenix to watch the Coyotes take on the Detroit Red Wings at the Jobing.Com Arena in Glendale. Should be a great game and we have real good seats only 10 rows up from the ice surface. Can't wait. We are going to leave early tomorrow and visit a park in Phoenix first, and then have dinner and the game. Game time is 6:00 p.m. so that will put us home past midnight so don't be looking for a blog on Sunday morning as it won't be there! I promise to bring my camera and get some shots at the game and the park!

Well, here is hoping everyone has a great New Year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

2010 Who would have thought?

This morning we did a bit of running around for a few things after exercises of course. They promised my bike would be ready by lunch but of course that did not happen....

At 3:00 we got a phone call from the Morrison's who made it to the Hotel! they were here. I drove over on Judy's bike to show them the way to our park, and then Johnny and I drove into Yuma in their rental car to pick up my bike which was ready!


Of course we had a few glasses of cool aid and talked over many problems in the world. We set the BBQ on fire and cooked up a mess of baked potatoes, BBQ steak, some corn on the cob and a few other goodies to make for a great dinner! John and Pat were pretty road weary, however we started to watch the Canada USA jr. hockey game, and managed to pause it while we ate. After dinner we enjoyed the end of the game that Canada wins in a shoot out!


It was a beautiful night here with a full mood and no clouds! We did manage to watch the Dick Clark new years special, and of course celebrated new years at midnight, well in New York anyways! It was only 10:00 p.m. here, but who really cares. John and Pat are now long gone for their hotel room, and will start the fun tomorrow!

Happy New Year to everyone back home from Judy and I. Hopefully it is a good year for everyone. We are looking forward to it!

till next year....