Lost Dutchman Rodeo Days Parade

Saturday morning we enjoyed a variety of horses, horsepower (old vehicles and farm equipment) and beautiful weather. We also enjoyed the AJ High School band (about the only live music in the parade!) There was also good representation from the local police, fire, waste  services and local businesses ... but way too many politically flavoured floats.

"Burro-Mobile"

(a burro is pushing from the rear!)

Colour coordinated!

Driver said the tractor pulling the thresher is a 1950

In Laws / Out Laws Get Together

We met up with our daughter's in-laws in Mesa today.

Rose Lynn & Elise attended Quilt Arizona! 2020 at the Mesa Convention Center. Hundreds of display quilts and plenty of vendors - say no more!

Bill and Ron took their bicycles to Tempe, rode up through Scottsdale to a favourite restaurant, Randy's, for lunch, and back to Tempe through Phoenix along the Cross Cut Canal.

A good time was had by all!

👍👍👍👍

Canada Day at Rock Shadows

It was a noisy sea of red & white togged Canadians at the annual Rock Shadows Canada Day Party. Just over 200 Canucks attended an evening of visiting, eating a volunteer-prepared meal and dancing to a live band.

The decorations were silver and ice blue with a snowball & snowflake theme - just in case we were homesick for those! Not. No detail was unobserved as the wine on the tables was a bottle of white and a bottle of red, bearing the winery name "Smoking Loon"!

Some of the food prep volunteers

We helped to decorate the hall with the special theme items

Licence Plate Creativity

PADE 4 

(on a beater truck)

2THPICK

(?, but amusing)

WHERAMI

(good one for travelers?)

HUA2LCO

(Pacific beach area, Huatulco, in southern Mexico (Oaxaca))

CRV4573

(oddly, this standard issue AZ plate

 was on a Kia Sorrento not a Honda CRV!)

AK47RND

(not sure about this one at all....)

Rain in the Desert

We had a 12 hour episode of rain from early morning to mid afternoon today; it went from light showers to downpours with quiet moments in between and there were flash flood warnings for the area. Bill even had to drive his music gear over to the Saturday afternoon jam location - usually he loads it into a wheeled trolley for the trip.

Windy & Nasty but Worth It!

It was a discouraging start to our hike on the L.O.S.T. (Legends of Superior Trail) trail out of Superior, 40 min east of Apache Junction; "gale force" winds (15mph / 25kph ?) were roaring through the canyon at the trailhead when we started about 9 am but became quieter in various sections and didn't feel so abusive as the temperature climbed above 60F / 16C. We almost gave up on the hike!

The trail follows the original 1920s alignment of US Highway 60 from the town of Superior up the lower portion of scenic Queen Creek Canyon to the historic Claypool Tunnel (1919). It's about a 2 mile / 3 km climb up to the tunnel and then an easy stroll down!

Rose Lynn and our condo friend Louise huddled against the chilling wind.

Large gusts would make us think about our balance!

Scene from the tunnel looking over the rugged Queen Creek valley, 

a water tank and our path leading down under the the current Hwy 60 bridge (seen in the previous shot)

Soon, all three of us were relieved to be out of the wind, enjoying lunch at Sun Flour Market on the historic Main St. of Superior (a copper mining community). Tomato Bisque soup, sandwiches and carrot cake hit the spot!

Historic Main St. Superior looking SW towards Picketpost Mountain

(borrowed photo)

Historic Main St looking SE with the dramatic Apache Leap 

in the left background (borrowed photo)

Sun Flour Market is in the white building with the burgundy truck at front

Windy, Warm and Wanderfull

What a fun ride we had today.

We started in Tempe but spent most of our time in Scottsdale, first on a standard route and then we went exploring! We had looked at our bicycle map and found a path along the Cross Cut Canal that we had never ridden. Bill made a good turn off our usual path and it took us directly to the Canal Path (new to us) and into downtown Scottsdale where we ate our picnic lunch in the shade beside the Arizona Canal. From there we were in familiar territory and it was a direct ride to the Cross Cut!

We'd do it all over again the same way!

Our lunch view

All who wander are not lost?! 

Spring Blooms

An acreage field that stores old farm equipment seems to have been seeded to these daisies (coreopsis?) that are in full bloom

Orange & yellow blooms

We have seen other spring blooms on our rides in the area including both pink and white apple trees and large blooming yucca plants. More to come we hope as we plan to travel to Death Valley on the way back to Alberta.

Family Day Fun

It was fun to have conversations with both of our children on Family Day. Janine, Colin, Zach & Magnus were enjoying a long weekend off school and work , playing in the snow in Calgary while Tyson and Veronica were having a quiet day at home, off work and studying.

Family Day is a statutory holiday occurring on the third Monday in February in the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan. Family Day celebrates the importance of families and family life to people and their communities.

Doing What We L💘VE

Cycling ~ Eating~ Music

It was a fun day for us - a great ride, lunch on a sunny deck, and a dinner show "Illusion of Elvis" at Rock Shadows.

Danny Vernon/Elvis and his wife Marcia/Ann Margret

Illusion of Elvis was a fun experience. Danny Vernon does a respectful, not overly theatrical, tribute to Elvis; the fact that his voice, moves and looks are easily so evocative of The King made the musical illusions very convincing. The couple have great performance chemistry so the on-stage banter and crowd interaction were a highlight. We sang along with most of the numbers.

The rousing standing ovation at the end said it all!

The Great Bran Hunt

Wheat bran - the object of our hunt!

So, Bill eats raw bran daily and it is easy to buy in Calgary. It was always a challenge when we wintered in Brownsville TX but this year it was hard to find here!

A couple of weeks ago it was time to replenish the supply so we started at our local Fry's store; after checking the cereal and baking aisles several times, we determined that there was empty shelf space for it in the "Bob's Red Mill" products in the baking. Over the next little while we checked at a couple of Walmarts, and then on a bike ride we checked another Fry's, a Safeway and an Albertsons! We finally settled for bran buds and then on the next trip to our Fry's it was once again in stock....😒

Small world? Small problem?

C H E B S

Cards

Hike

Eat

Bike

Socialize

Decided this could be a good acronym for our favourite activities here in Arizona.

Each week we play Euchre here in our Park and the Pettys have been lucky the past two times - Rose Lynn had the top score last week and last night Bill was the big winner.

Bill plays Bridge twice a week - once here and once at another Park. We also have the occasional Pinochle game with our neighbours Keith & Carol, and sometimes play Pegs'n'Jokers here at our Park.

We have been happy to have our hiking "guide" Jeanne here all winter to show us interesting routes. Even go out on our own sometimes. Rose Lynn has been hiking with Susan on Wednesday mornings while Bill is at the computer club meeting.

We have enjoyed lots of food adventures here at home, with friends, and around town as our activities take us to different parts of the metro area.

Biking continues to be our main motivation for this part of the world. There are so many choices riding from the Park as well as transporting the bikes to different locales. We most often ride on our own as we are impulsive riders...calm enough? warm/dry enough?  time enough? and we're off!

Our socializing takes many forms - Saturday music jams, singing in the Park choir, dances here at the Park, music & theatre events, the charity sewers, and, of course, game nights with friends.

Cool and Calm

Great day for a hike with Jeanne on the Boulder Canyon Trail NE of Apache Junction near Canyon Lake.

Even though the temperature was barely 50F/10C, the calm weather meant it wasn't long before we are removing layers on this rubbly climb to various viewpoints of the Superstition Wilderness backcountry and of Canyon Lake.

 Weaver's Needle dominates the horizon

Canyon Lake view (borrowed this image!)

What an exhilarating experience!

Arizona is Cool!

And we don't mean hip!

It was 38F/3C this AM and we expect that trend to continue for a few days. It's sunny, clear and quite windy making all the difference for comfort levels ...but it's a dry cold 😉

"I didn't come to Arizona to be cold!"

Susan T., Rock Shadows RV Resort

Sweet!

These clips seemed to reflect our lives - 

so we brought them home!

A New Hat for Bill's Collection...

There's a story...

While out riding yesterday morning we stopped at a yard sale and found this Mexican style cowboy hat for $1.50! Then we had to get it home.

That afternoon Bill posed wearing it at the jam.

 It was too warm to wear except for this picture!

P.S.

This morning we were at a local ACE Hardware and saw the same hat priced for $24.99 - we got a deal!