Long time since our last post, to its time to catch up a bit. Before leaving Twin Palms to move in to our new home, we were amazed by watching the palm tree trimmer. We learned that palm trees need to be trimmed once a year or they start looking rather shabby.

MOVING DAY – JUNE 3, 2019

As we reported in our last post, the home we purchased in Mesa was our 8th offer. We questioned our reasons several times since moving in. Primarily because we had hoped to locate in the Gilbert area. We try reasoning to justify our purchase…but resort to reminding ourselves we’re on a two-year plan; after that we’ll know more about post RV life and where else we might want to live. At any rate, we pulled our Mobile Suites up to the front of our house and started moving in on Monday June 3, 2019.

So, where is your Mobile Suites you might ask…well we have it under consignment at Auto Corral RV in Mesa. Not much interest with temps in the 100s, but we’re hopeful it will generate more interest when the Snowbirds start arriving in October/November.

One of the first things we did after moving in was paint the garage and epoxy the floor. Connie painted the entire garage herself using paint from a $20 5-gallon ooops paint bucket from Home Depot. Water in Mesa, most of Arizona really, is terrible. We added a whole house filter, new water heater and a softener. The exiting water heater was 20 years old!! We had the softener connected prior the whole house filter. Seems to work well as we tolerate the water okay. The epoxy floor is incredible.

Another focus on moving in was to get the old brown carpet out of the house. We put in new plank tile where most of the carpeted area exited; then new carpet in two bedrooms.

To our delight, we have found many businesses around our area are convenient to our home. Home Depot, Frys, and Sprouts for example. We can ride our bikes to our new dentist, and Ed can ride his bike to his new doctor. He has been riding to Home Depot a couple times a week. A round trip journey of 4 miles. Sometimes in the 100 degree heat. Silly guy.

Yet another must on moving in was to get the sewing room painted and organized. Other than being the hottest room in the house, Connie loves her setup.

She has an never ending list of sewing to do; mostly quilting. She put many hours in to this tee-shirt quilt. Maybe a geometry II class back in high school would have helped. It took a lot of measuring and re-measuring for it all to come together. She made the quilt for a retired General Motors engineer from our church. Actually, a gift to him from his wife. He worked at the Mesa Proving Grounds until he retired when it closed in 2009. He had saved all these never worn tee shirts.

We’ve been working diligently in the yard. We had been looking for a maintenance free place. Ooops

Ed has taken out several plants. A couple large ones to make room to park the dually, and several others because he thought they looked like they needed to come out. A lot to do with not fully understanding desert life. He got 1 1/2 ton load of gravel and spread it around the front yard. Unfortunately it wasn’t a direct match with exiting gravel and didn’t completely cover. Now what?

While it does get quite hot here through the day, many mornings have been quite pleasant. We can go out on the patio for our morning coffee around 5:30am and enjoy about 1/2 hour of a cool 82 degrees. Later, temps have been in the 104-115 range.

We have a view of the Augusta Ranch Golf Course from our patio. Much better than having a view of a 2-story across a block wall fence. The view must be where our reasoning was captured.

We have discovered, however, that scorpions come out of the block fence openings at night. Ed has sprayed 3 times, but we may still find one when we go out with our trusty blue light. So far we haven’t found any in the house. It is amazing how they glow like a neon sign when they are in the blue light. They even hold still for you to smash them, but if you miss with your smasher, they are quick to disappear. This is our Arizona entertainment folks.

This is the thermometer on our patio in the middle of the afternoon. It will probably go up another 1-2 degrees by 4-5pm. We’ve learned that Arizonians are quite proud of their heat. It is often a topic of conversation. Much like when Coloradans boast about 6″ of new April snow or how they endured a May blizzard. All in all it is a “dry heat” and much much more tolerable when there is no humidity.

To escape the heat, our plans are to leave Arizona August 21, and enjoy the northern Rockies through October. Looking forward to our visit with our full time friends, Cliff and Cyndy. No longer full time. Also with our high country friends, Brian and Angie in Fraser, especially their newly opened Fraser River BeerCo brewery. But also being around family and going to grand daughter Faith’s senior year of volleyball at Lakewood high school. We also plan to venture into Wyoming to see family. Connie will undoubtedly find time to visit her super friends at the Presser Foot, and Ed will undoubtedly drive a few trips for Grace Coach Lines.