A little snow, a little jewelry and a little hike

Tucson snow, ugh

    When we last met, I told you we were attending the New Year’s Party at the resort. The party was fun, but we were still over tired from the trip and turned in a little early (11:30 p.m.). Because of the advanced age of most people in the park, they had the champagne toast at 10 p.m. so the folks who wanted could go home early.

    The entertainment for the party was Albert Galli, a local resident of the resort who plays a mean clarinet and has a wonderful voice. Lots of music from our era and we sat with a very nice couple from British Columbia who are here in the park for the first time. They spent the evening, when we weren’t dancing, picking our brains about fun things to do around here.

    I was up early on New Year’s Day so I went to the gym for a little work out before returning to the trailer where we watched the Rose Parade and then gorged on football games for the rest of the day.

   The weather here has not been great. Actually it has been poor. At times it was warmer in Michigan than it was here in the desert, but by the end of the week that changed. But for the second time since we have been coming here we had snow on the ground.

A short, but nice hike

   When it snows here it is similar to when we have really bad weather back east as the television weather folks go bananas. The mountains surrounding Tucson are snow covered and it is really quite beautiful. The line for the locals to go up to the mountains is long and, of course, we have no interest in fighting traffic to play in the snow.

    Over the week, Joan has been processing the squash that I grew and that she brought from home. She cooks up the squash and then freezes it for use while we are here. That has become an annual ritual. As I mentioned in the previous post I am back working with the table and chair set up team as well as preparing to lead the Thursday night Bible study staring this week.

    On Friday, Alan, I friend I have met here over the years, and I did a test hike up the Garwood Trail in the National Park. With the shutdown there are no services, but the trails all seem to be open and we did just a short hike (a little over 3 miles and about 600-foot elevation) just to get our feet wet before the more major hikes that start next week.

   The weather has been so cool that Joan and I have been holed up in the trailer so much that on Thursday we decided to go see a movie. “The Mule” with Clint Eastwood ended up being our choice and it was quite good.

   Joan has rejoined her friends in the pool for aquasize and she attended both the Women’s Bible Study and her Polymer Clay jewelry class on Friday. She really enjoys the jewelry making and has really gotten good at it.

Joan's jewelry

    Of course, there have been plenty of minor chores, laundry, minor repairs to the trailer and cleaning that have occupied much of this week.

    One of the sad things about coming back is seeing how many of our friends here didn’t make it back either because they no longer can travel, or worse, have passed away. We are attending the memorial service later this month for my friend Walt Harmer who died suddenly this past fall. Walt, if you recall, is the man who used to loan me his ladder to get on the roof of my trailer and who let me pick lemons off his tree at his home in the resort.

   Each year we would always end the season having dinner with Walt, who lost his wife, the first year we were here. One year we would treat and the next he would treat at different restaurants. A couple other acquaintances have also passed away since we were here last. Guess that’s just part of getting old.

   On the plus side we have reconnected with many of our long time friends here so all the news is not bad.

   Things will really ramp up here next week as the first Market Daze and the first concert, a John Denver tribute, will happen.

   Church tomorrow and we’ll finish off watch Wild Card weekend football as the weather promises to be crappy tomorrow with rain coming into the valley for Saturday and Sunday.

   Lots of new building in the area, including the new Amazon distribution center which is only a mile down the road from the resort. When we left last year the area was a wild empty wilderness area. Now it is a huge building with a completed parking lot that looks like it could open fairly soon. Lots of jobs coming this way with it.

   There have been a number of personnel changes at the resort and the general manager, who we really liked, is no longer here but the new guy seems equally nice.

   We pray that the New Year will be good to all our family and friends. Check in next week and we’ll bring you up to date on our activities.