All's Quiet on the Home Front

The day almost got away from me with no blog. But, here I am.

This week was very quiet with the highlight being the opening of a new Dunkin Donuts. We had read that Monday was a pre-opening practice day for the crew and that the food would be free. Hmmmmmm.......free food. Guess where we went.

The place was packed and a little disorganized but we each got a croissantwich with bacon and egg and cheese along with a cup of coffee. They were pretty tasty but I don't see us spending much time there.

Afterwards, we rented a couple of free dvds at the local Redbox. The best was Avatar and the other was Alice in Wonderland (Tim Burton's version). We both enjoyed Avatar and will probably pick it up when we find it on sale somewhere. Alice, on the other hand, was ok, but once is enough.

Wednesday was the crummy day. I had a dentist appointment and if anyone cares.....I HATE dentists! The worst of it is I'm on penicillin for a week for an infected tooth and then next Wednesday I get to have it pulled. Wow, I am not looking forward to that.

Yesterday was my sweet Emma's 7th birthday. Seems like yesterday I had the joy of watching her birth. Happy Birthday Sweet Emma-lemma-lemma!!!!!

That's about it. Weather's still hot, air conditioner still works and no trip into the desert. Aren't you glad you tuned in to hear this blather?

Hot, Hot, Hot

First and foremost.......Happy Father's Day to all the Dad's out there! With a special hug to Bob!

We broke down and started using the air conditioner this week. I'm sure we won't be too thrilled with the electric bill but it feels nice inside. the downside (besides the bill) is that it's so comfortable in the coach that we don't spend much time outside.

Doug did some panning of the dirt he brought home last week. To our delight,


this appeared. It's a nice little flake along with some tiny pieces.

The gold called to us again on Wednesday so we spent the day in the desert.

This little guy was waiting for us in the wash where we like to dig. Those colors in the picture don't begin to do justice to his real colors. He was about 10 inches long with that tail and didn't seem to be the least concerned with us. It was about nine o'clock in the morning and already the temperature was in the 90's. He was just soaking up the heat.

After several hours of digging, we hopped back into the air conditioned car and decided to follow a jeep trail that we had never been on.



We discovered this old house way back in the desert. Of course Doug had to investigate! I was more than a little concerned about snakes but Doug poked around for a few minutes without any problem. It's interesting to find old places out here. My imagination takes off, dreaming of who took the time to build this home so far away from everything. And why? Gold, I'm sure. What a rugged way to live.

Other than that, we stuck close to home. A little garage sale-ing over the weekend netted us nothing. We found that sales here start early (7 or 8) and are over by 1pm. We'll have to adjust our timing a little if we want to find some bargains.

Stay tuned......we'll be back next weekend.

Once A Week

It's just impossible to blog every day when we are staying in one spot. But, I am determined to blog at least once a week with a recap of our (not too much) adventures.

The highlight of last week was indubitably getting 50 amp power at our site. We have been here two months struggling with 30 amp power. If it's good power, we do ok. But in this park it is most definitely not good power. That meant we could only run one item at a time. If the coffee was cooking, no using the toaster or microwave. In order to use the hair dryer.......turn off everything else. When the power went off at 11:15 at night and the only thing drawing power was the tv, that was the last straw. Doug spoke to the park manager, who convinced the owner that 50 amp was a necessity. Yee haw!!!!

Wednesday morning at 6:15 the electrical guys showed up! Doug raced outside to help and spent 8 hours digging trenches and helping install stuff. The next morning they came back to finish the installation with new power meters and life is good.

Friday, we took a ride to Phoenix (actually Glendale) to Doug's idea of heaven......Harbour Freight. This place is Disneyland for tool guys. While he shopped there, I ran next door to the Oroweat Bakery Outlet. It's one of my favorite places. I stocked up on bagels and bread then met Doug with his treasures.

Doug took our neighbor Dale out to our favorite gold digging spot on Saturday. Dale is quite elderly and struggling with cancer but he loves the desert and gold. Following their trip, Doug spent the afternoon repairing the rear tire on the Jeep. He found a screw stuck in it, plugged it, aired it and test drove it. Hooray it works again.

The weather has cooled a little bit. In fact, we even had a few light sprinkles yesterday morning and the high only got to 92. Today we still have some clouds but we are creeping back into the mid to high 90's again.

There's nothing exciting planned for next week. So, if nothing exciting happens, you'll hear from us next Sunday.