A short tour and a relaxing dinner

Joan staying warm IN the trailer

The day after the big hike we hung around close to home in the morning (I did get in a pretty full workout at the fitness center) but my legs were feeling a little bit of the 8-mile hike the day before.

Joan went to her aquacise class Wednesday and I stayed in (it was pretty brisk outside) watching a local murder trial in Phoenix.  We took a couple pictures of ourselves huddled up inside the trailer trying to ward off the  cold while the heater got going.

One of the outside lights on the trailer, the one that illuminate our entrance stairs at night has been burned out since we started this trip. I tried to find the bulb at the RV park store and at Walmart but was unsuccessful.

Casa Grande National Monument

So on Wednesday afternoon we headed to an RV store to find the bulb. Before that we headed to a storage lot to check on a possible place to store our trailer when our time here is done in April. We found one covered storage lot, but we are going to continue to look for a cheaper place.

It only cost about $15 in gas to find an 82-cent bulb. But at least we can see our stairs in the dark now.

After looking at the storage lot and then picking up the bulb we went to a local “Play It Again Sports” store so I could pick up a used day hike back pack to replace my free Walgreen’s backpack that came apart on my long hike to Wasson Peak.

The “Play It Again Sports” store was recommended to me by one of the other hikers and it worked out pretty well. I found an LL Bean “Stowaway” pack and it was only $15. They are about $40 new and this one looks like new.

A four story ancient "palace"

Back home we had what my mother would have called a “CORe” dinner. The C-O-R standing for “Clean Out the Refrigerator.” After a dinner of odds and ends leftovers, which were all quite good we got ready for the Wednesday night concert.

Performing were “The Alley Cats” and they were very good. They sometimes open for Jay Leno in Las Vegas and along with some really impressive Doo-Wop singing (the songs Joan and I grew up with) they are very funny and entertaining. All too soon it was over, but we did buy one of their DVDs for $10.

They offered a great deal on their CDs and DVD. You could one for $10 or 2 for $20. I’ve posted a you tube video of them here (not from our performance) but if you go to You Tube and search for “The Alley Cats” you’ll see plenty of examples of their work.

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Another view of "Casa Grande"

I’ve been wanting to attend a Men’s Bible Study here at the park and this morning I got up at 6 a.m. so I could still get in my workout and yet get to the 8 a.m. study.

The men, about 15 of them, welcomed me into the study and as it turned out it was the first day of a new study on Philippians so my timing was pretty good. I will miss the next couple weeks while we are in California but I’ll keep up on the study and continue when I return.

The study book is focused on finding “Joy” in our lives no matter our current circumstances.

By the time I got home from the study Joan was up and around. Today she washed the towels and I helped by being her mule to and from the laundry.

The quiet, but Historic Downtown Casa Grande

Tonight we were to meet the daughter of a friend of ours back in Michigan. She and her boyfriend live in Chandler, Arizona and we set up a meeting about halfway between our two locations which happened to be in Casa Grande.

With a few hours to kill this afternoon I went online to see what there was to do in and around Casa Grande so we could spend a little time playing tourist before our 6:30 p.m. dinner time with Chelsea and Ryan at Mimi’s Café.

There are some ruins of a compound built by some ancient Sonoran desert people (that’s what their ancestors prefer them to be called). The ruins at Casa Grande were the first such ruins ever protected by the federal government was back in the 1800s.

Before they were protected travelers and sightseers did a lot of damage taking souvenirs and leaving behind graffiti.

What remains are the now protected walls and remaining structures of the once thriving desert civilization. They are similar to ruins we saw in Northern Arizona 18 months ago as well as those we saw near Cancun at Tulum.

The once thriving compound apparently dissolved with 100 years of the building of the large structure – dubbed “Casa Grande” by a Catholic priest traveling through the area in the 1600s. We spent a couple hours touring the grounds, watching a movie and visiting the exhibits in the visitor’s center.

It is truly amazing to see how advanced some of these so-called “primitive” civilizations really were.

Dinner with Chelsea and Ryan

Then with a little time left to spare we drove to Historic Downtown Casa Grande only to find that the sidewalks had been rolled up promptly at 5 p.m. We decided to walk a couple blocks anyway and grab some photos in case we never get back here. It looks like there are plenty of antique and second hand stores here that might be fun to visit.

With the photo taking complete we made a quick gasoline stop and then headed to Mimi’s Café for our dinner date with Chelsea and Ryan.

They arrived on time and we enjoyed a 90-minute meal and catching up with a very nice young couple. Chelsea is an elementary school teacher and Ryan works in law enforcement here.

The food at Mimi’s was good and we headed home, arriving back at the trailer about 9:10 p.m.  It’s always fun to meet someone you know from back home while on the road a long way from Lapeer.

Hopefully we’ll have another chance to meet with Chelsea and Ryan before we head back north. There are more pictures in the post below of Casa Grande.