Happy New Year!

Better late than never! After Christmas in the desert, I went over to San Diego to visit with my daughter and her family. On New Year's Eve, Santa finally arrived there. I guess he knew they were in Hawaii for Christmas!

Ready, set, go! It didn't take long to open the presents. Fifi the dog helped.

Five minutes later...

They moved to their new house a little over a year ago. Now they have a gorgeous view of the entire city!

I loved their Bird of Paradise flowers, and so did the hummingbirds.

On New Years Eve, after Santa's visit, I hurried back to Yuma to go to the WINs New Years Eve party. It was held at the VFW where we were parked, and was open to the public. Ultimate American Country was the band, and one of the best I've ever heard. Unfortunately, they are retiring after this season...

While in Yuma, I went over to visit Molly's grave at the pet cemetery just across the border from Algodones, Mexico. The tombstone was in need of more paint, so I fixed it up.

I also fixed her friend Shadow's, who is next to her.

And I got some white marble rocks, much better that the old ugly rocks I had there before.

Christmas in the Desert

I spent most of December at Mesa Regal RV Resort, where I had been since October 2nd. They have a Fall Special, and I took full advantage of it.

I spent a lot of my time doing this...

It's not always this calm though - Water Volleyball is very popular.

On December 21st, I moved down to Yuma to join back up with the WINs. One of the first things we did was go on an outing to the Valley of the Names. Located north of Yuma, there are miles and miles of names and pictures made with rocks.

We decided to leave our signature...

WINs 2017!

On Christmas Eve, we had a jam session of Christmas songs. I played my Baritone Ukulele.

RVs don't have chimneys, so how does Santa get in? I got a photo!

And I hijacked Santa's reindeer to move my trailer. No gas necessary!

On Christmas morning, we had a pancake and egg breakfast. Yummy!

Then we had a Chinese Gift Exchange. (Google it...) The tall skinny presents were very popular!

In the afternoon, there was a ham dinner and a dance at the VFW, next to where we were parked.

And great news! My youngest granddaughter is now old enough to not be afraid of Santa!

Looking for Silver and Apache Tears

One day when I was at the RV Park in Mesa, Max took 3 of us on a 4-wheel drive trip, out near Superior, AZ.

Our first stop was out to look for Apache Tears, which are obsidian nodules, usually encased in perlite rock. I found quite a few.

They are fairly easy to find - a lot of the rocks in this photo are Apache Tears. You can just barely see the black obsidian peeking through. There's also a large ant making off with a flower bud...

You can see Weaver's Needle in the distance.

We also went to see some very impressive wagon ruts from long, long ago.

And then we went to Silver King Mine, which is now on private property. Fortunately, there was a phone number on the gate, and Max managed to get us permission to walk up to the mine.

Silver King was once the richest silver mine in the world - back in 1881.

Today, it's looking pretty down and out.

I didn't find any silver, but I was happy, because -

There was lots of RUSTY STUFF!

I'm Baaaaack!

It's been quite awhile since I have posted. It's hard to find things to write about when you are in an RV park, happily doing activities and soaking in the hot tub...

But over Halloween, I went to the Fountain of Youth Spa and Resort to attend the annual WIN dance rally. It was lots of fun spending my favorite holiday with 100 of my closest friends. I spent Halloween as a scary pirate, using a costume that I had from a previous dance rally.

Marie Antoinette was afraid she was going to lose her head!

Yes, I understand perfectly...

We had some beautiful sunsets looking out over the Salton Sea.

Back in Mesa, we did take a little trip over to Saguaro Lake.

The birds were out, including this Greater Yellowleg. (I think...)

We took a short hike along the shore.

Since I was in a park, I ordered lots of stuff from Amazon. It was cool how you could see where the delivery guy was, and how many stops he had until he got to you!

We had some nice sunsets here too!