This was the harbour in Victoria as we waited for the Coho ferry. The weather looks a bit threatening but it was actually a really nice day. No rain: what can I say!
Such a beautiful spot Victoria harbour is!
I forgot to take any pictures again until we reached Valley of the Fire State Park! It is just north of Las Vegas. The weather was lovely, sunny and warm and it made for great weather to sit out in the evening and watch the stars! Our first campfire of the winter season
Doug having his breakfast out. Nevada was still a bit cool in the mornings until the sun reached our camp spot then it warmed up quickly
These are the types of rocks all around the park. Make for very interesting viewing as tons of birds have nests in the rocks and I am sure some of the caves have bat colonies. You can hear the bats chirping when it gets dark
We took a new route out of the park heading for Arizona. Our friends Sharon and Craig told us about this one. You totally bypass Las Vegas which is just fine with us as the traffic is very congested and a bit stressful pulling a trailer through that area. The new route is beautiful, hardly a car we passed and we come out right above Lake Mead and the new bridge over the Colorado River. This was one of the rest stops we stopped at and you can see how you can see for miles. You will often see me wearing a long sleeve blouse and it definitely isn't because it is cool! After my bout with a pre-cancerous skin lesion this summer, I now cover up when I am out in the sun. My hat is off just for the picture!!
Our next camp spot before we reached AJ (Apache Junction) was in Cave Creek AZ at the Cave Creek Regional Campground. It is just north of Phoenix and slightly north of Scottsdale. We always wanted to camp here so thought it was an excellent opportunity to try it out. It was also a full moon and we wanted to sit around the campfire and enjoy it. Here is to all our ATV riding friends: we usually are out in the desert enjoying the moon rise with you all and looking forward to doing it again with everyone!
It was a beautiful moon and so lovely and warm to sit out and enjoy it. I always forget how beautiful it is and how warm the air is until I get here. I was purring let me tell you!
Our camp spot at the Cave Creek RV park, sitting out enjoying the campfire and the full moon. There were two great horned owls sitting in the trees hooting in the background - really neat
Not only did we get a beautiful moonrise, we also got a beautiful sunset - what more could you ask for
Up early the next morning enjoying our coffee and there come the hot air balloons. Kept us entertained for a couple of hours.
I think there were eight balloons in total
Arrived at our place in AJ just before noon November 06th. I was amazed at how much our plants grew while we were away. Biggest they have ever been. We get the gardener to prune them back to about 18 inches to 2 feet in height before we leave in April and they are never this big when we come back! They had plenty of rain this monsoon season and you can sure tell by my plants! It felt almost claustrophobic!
You could hardly see the house next door
Our orange and lemon trees were so loaded with fruit the branches were hanging to the ground
This is the front side of our house and it was so over grown we could hardly see the Superstition Mountains from the deck
There was no room to put any of my garden accessories out the bushes were so tall. This Texas Sage was so huge it had lost its shape
Even my small palm tree at the front attacked you as you walked in the sidewalk. I forget that those darn branches have little spikes on them that have you bleeding if you get too close!
Only a few of my aerobics group are here so far but they were more than willing to change our exercise time till late afternoon so I am not in the pool with direct sunlight. Doug came down and took our picture and I think it was about 6pm. From the left: Dennis and Sue, Beth, Sharon and Bill
One of the things I always look forward to is the glorious sunsets we get nearly every evening
One of the reasons I haven't had time to get my blog entry done is because Doug and I have been busy installing a new floor in the main bathroom. When we arrived, we found the bathroom linoleum had buckled and needed replacing. One of the chances you take when leaving a house closed up without the air-conditioning on in the Arizona desert!(we have the electric shut off when we are gone) Doug laid engineered vinyl planking and we were very happy with the results. For a small room it took a long time to do. Doug doesn't get up and down from the floor like he used to! He did a terrific job though. This type of flooring is snap and click type flooring with no glue so shouldn't be a problem like a glued floor is where the glue dries out!
If that wasn't enough, the kitchen taps caused us problems. We have extremely hard water here in AJ and although we have a water softener you still can have problems over time. We had installed new taps three years ago but the cold water tap would not run. Doug played around with it for hours and finally got it to work but now it would only turn on in the off position and when turned off was in the on position! Had me in hysterics when I first saw that - I think I was tired, I don't think Doug appreciated me laughing so hard. he was taking it serious! It just seemed funny at the time to turn the water on backwards. I'm a lefty and seemed like it might work! He ended up taking the old taps off and he had to take the whole sink out to do it as the one tap was so corroded it took forever and much grunting and groaning to finally get it off! It was quite a job when you have a garburator, dishwasher and a filtered water system all plumbed in to the sink! We had to go out and buy a new tap set and install it, so that is the picture above. Our wonderful neighbour Rena, supplied us with supper that night as my kitchen was a disaster area. All looks good now though.
The gardener finally arrived Saturday morning and did a terrific job of pruning all my plants. We were very pleased with the results. Doug can now get into the truck with our battling the bushes and we now have some space to park our bikes.
My little Myers lemon tree looks so much better now. Lots of lemons eh? They'll be ready for use in a couple of weeks. I can't wait. They are the tastiest lemons and Pete I'll be posting pictures of lemon pie for you!
This is one of our three orange trees. We'll have lots of oranges again this year. They are usually ready mid- to end of December
This is my two year old Lisbon lemon tree. It was not supposed to have lemons until the third year but as you can see, there are quite a few on the tree. They ripen in February so good timing as the other lemons will be finished by then.
Our one (of two) navel orange tree has oranges as big as grapefruit on it. We can definitely tell they had lots of rain late in the summer!
What a difference the side yard is with the trees/shrubs trimmed! I was able to get my furniture and hanging decorations out of the house finally!
Now that the Texas Sage bush is trimmed I was able to get my saguaro plant stand out and get some flowers in it - you know me and flowers: I need to have them no matter where I live!
I no sooner had the hummingbird feeder out and the hummingbirds were back. They had been buzzing me daily wondering what my problem was that I wasn't feeding them! They just didn't seem to understand I had to wait until the shrubs were pruned.
Doug out on the deck doing what he does best! He deserves the break though after having to do the bathroom floor and the new taps all in the first week we were here!
All my cacti and succulents I planted out front have done well this past summer
One little hummingbird contemplating the world, sitting on our cholla tree!
We have carpet cleaners coming on Tuesday to clean the carpets and give them a good stretch. Another casualty of hot summers: your carpets get wrinkles in them! We also have a house leveling team coming December 05th to relevel the house. Since these houses sit on the ground, the heavy rains this past few months have caused most of our homes to settle unevenly. They recommend re-leveling every 3-5 years and we haven't done it yet so we are due. We have developed a squeak in the master bedroom walk-in closet and bathroom so that is an indicator we need to re-level. Always something to do! That is one reason why we are thinking of selling this year and going back to just RVing for the winter. It gets expensive having to maintain two homes. A lot of work also and Doug is finding with his arthritis, he can't do the things he has always done before!
We sold our golf cart down here within minutes of putting it up for sale! We decided we needed to ride our bikes and walk and with the golf cart you get pretty lazy I must say. Another Canadian couple bought it from us. We have had the cart for 4 years and sold it for $200 more than we paid for it, so were pretty happy! They are from New Brunswick and bought a home in the park this past year. We now have to get out to where we store our ATV and get the battery back in it and get it going so we can go out for a ride or two before we put it up for sale. My cough started again within days of getting here. It is not nearly as bad as it was last year but obviously the dry dusty air does affect my lungs. We determined that riding in the desert probably isn't a good thing even wearing masks. We are having a hard time making that decision though so we thought we would get a few rides in while it isn't too dry before we bite the bullet and sell it. We figure once a month or so we'll just rent an ATV for the day and go on a ride with our friends. That should make it a bit more tolerable for both of us! Keep you updated.....
