We ate at a great Mexican restaurant tonight not far from the RV park - Rancho de Tia Rosa. Not only was the food good, but the holiday decor was over the top! Lots to look at!
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Gilbert Riparian Preserve at Water Ranch
We went over to a favorite place today for a beautiful walk. Two years ago I was there several times a week to run. It's hard to describe Water Ranch. It's a park with 7 large ponds (lakes) owned by the city of Gilbert. I read in one place that it started as a water reclamation project. But it is much more than that now. Dense foliage lines the many paths winding around the lakes. In the spring it is a riot of color when the desert blooms. The area attracts 200+ species of birds which are in abundance now because this is a migration destination. We will go back numerous times in the next few months for birding and recreation.
Still very cool here. It will get near freezing tonight.
Photo taken from the Web site.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
In the Phoenix Area
We arrived in the Phoenix area on Thursday afternoon, as planned. We raced the big storm that descended on the southwest, and we beat it! The areas we drove through on Thursday, from Albuquerque on into Phoenix, received a foot or more of snow on Friday, and it is still snowing. Show Low, AZ, northeast of Phoenix, has more than 15 inches of snow on the ground. There was none on Thursday, so our timing was very good.
Thursday we drove from Socorro, NM, to the Phoenix area on US 60. We had never been over this piece of road before. What a spectacular road! After leaving Show Low, it twists, rises and falls along the Salt River and through the breathtaking river canyon. If the Grand Canyon were not in Arizona, this would be a National Park.
It is cold here in Phoenix tonight, and wet. Yesterday was better. Last night we went to Jan and Steve's house at Desert Mountain for dinner. (Steve is Gary's brother) Mary, Gary's sister, and husband John were also there. Very lovely evening.
You may notice several test blog entries below. I have had many problems with my previous blog app on both the iPhone and iPad, so I have changed apps. So far this one works, but not on the iPhone, a serious disadvantage. But one thing is for sure, the app world changes constantly!! So I am hoping I will find something for the iPhone soon.
Test 4
This is a test using Blogsy. The kids waiting for a seat at the pizza place the day after Thanksgiving.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Back on the road
We left in the RV this morning, heading south to Arizona. We don't have our tow car. Will be interesting to see what change is in the fuel consumption without the car. We will rent a car in Phoenix.
We plan to be in Mesa/Phoenix for a few days, leave the RV in an RV park, then fly home. This positions us for our journey next spring and summer to the Pacific coast and on up to Alaska. We will fly down in January for a week or two, then drive down at the end of February.
We picked a great departure day. While it is cold, there is no ice or snow. This has been an amazing fall! We will get to the first town just south of the Missouri border tonight.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
We plan to be in Mesa/Phoenix for a few days, leave the RV in an RV park, then fly home. This positions us for our journey next spring and summer to the Pacific coast and on up to Alaska. We will fly down in January for a week or two, then drive down at the end of February.
We picked a great departure day. While it is cold, there is no ice or snow. This has been an amazing fall! We will get to the first town just south of the Missouri border tonight.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Almost home
We've been driving home for 3 days and are almost to the "barn" in Hastings.
Glad we weren't planning to be on the east coast over this weekend, and we are thinking of the Maine relatives and hoping all will go OK with respect to Hurricane Irene. Steve and Jan left their boat in, but niece Deb and Tim took theirs out. Thinking of all on the east coast who will be affected by the storm. Hope that beautiful home in New Brunswick that we just visited will come through fine. Mary Beth and David said they had seen many storms.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Glad we weren't planning to be on the east coast over this weekend, and we are thinking of the Maine relatives and hoping all will go OK with respect to Hurricane Irene. Steve and Jan left their boat in, but niece Deb and Tim took theirs out. Thinking of all on the east coast who will be affected by the storm. Hope that beautiful home in New Brunswick that we just visited will come through fine. Mary Beth and David said they had seen many storms.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Pomfret, CT
We spent several days in Pomfret and Abington, CT, which are just south of the Mass. border in the northeastern corner of Conn. Why, you might ask, would we be there? (I was certainly asking it!)
Gary has ancestors from there, and the book he is writing is set there. We drove around, reviewing the lay of the land and seeing some specific sites.
We had great weather!
One day we did a hike in the woods UP to a famous spot, the Wolf Den in Mashamoquet Brook State Park where, in 1742, a man named Israel Putnam killed the last wolf in Connecticut. It has been a tourist spot to see for years. Here is the wolf den.
Hope you can read this.
A scene on the way up the mountain.
This is The Abington Congregational Meeting House. This one dates to 1751 and replaces an earlier one.
A view of the Pomfret Cemetery which we stomped around, and found some relevant headstones dating to the early 1700's.
The Old Abington Burial Ground. We stomped around here, too.
A house we believe was built by an ancestor
We spent a morning looking at documents and old maps of the area in the Pomfret library. Found some good stuff.
Had lunch one day at a charming cafe in Pomfret.
Pomfret is home to Pomfret School and The Rectory School. They are prep boarding schools. Very beautiful and "prestigious" looking. I didn't get any photos, but here is one off the Web site that shows the New England architecture.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Gary has ancestors from there, and the book he is writing is set there. We drove around, reviewing the lay of the land and seeing some specific sites.
We had great weather!
One day we did a hike in the woods UP to a famous spot, the Wolf Den in Mashamoquet Brook State Park where, in 1742, a man named Israel Putnam killed the last wolf in Connecticut. It has been a tourist spot to see for years. Here is the wolf den.
Hope you can read this.
A scene on the way up the mountain.
This is The Abington Congregational Meeting House. This one dates to 1751 and replaces an earlier one.
A view of the Pomfret Cemetery which we stomped around, and found some relevant headstones dating to the early 1700's.
The Old Abington Burial Ground. We stomped around here, too.
A house we believe was built by an ancestor
We spent a morning looking at documents and old maps of the area in the Pomfret library. Found some good stuff.
Had lunch one day at a charming cafe in Pomfret.
Pomfret is home to Pomfret School and The Rectory School. They are prep boarding schools. Very beautiful and "prestigious" looking. I didn't get any photos, but here is one off the Web site that shows the New England architecture.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Littlejohn Island, ME
We are having a wonderful time, as usual, with Jan and Steve, Gary's brother. I took several photos of the two adjacent cottages on Casco Bay in Maine. One is under construction which will be used as a guest house. It may be called Moose Lodge - the weather vane on top is a moose. The older cottage will continue to be their own house, and it may be called Osprey Cottage after the osprey frequently seen in the area.
Whatever they are called, it is a wonderful spot, and both cottages are completely charming.
Here is the new one which is supposed to be finished in early September.
View from the dock
Looking from the older cottage toward the new one
Here is the older one
Garden area
My attempt to get both cottages in one photo from the dock
Today we went to a Brunswick art fair. What a charming town. Bowdoin College is located there and we had a brief look at the campus - very pretty! We later had a good dinner in Portland.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Whatever they are called, it is a wonderful spot, and both cottages are completely charming.
Here is the new one which is supposed to be finished in early September.
View from the dock
Looking from the older cottage toward the new one
Here is the older one
Garden area
My attempt to get both cottages in one photo from the dock
Today we went to a Brunswick art fair. What a charming town. Bowdoin College is located there and we had a brief look at the campus - very pretty! We later had a good dinner in Portland.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Prince Edward Island
This storied island lived up to our expectations, in spite of one solid day of drizzle. We loaded our RVs on a ferry to the island and drove north to Brackley Beach where our campground was located.
Our first night we drove into Charlottetown for a wonderful dinner in the old town on a street that is closed to traffic. Several great restaurants, shops and live music.
And what could be better than ice cream at Cows, the PEI chain serving wonderful premium ice cream.
Our second day we drove in the drizzle to Cavendish, via a drive along the coast of the Gulf of St Lawrence. The soil, sand and rocks are very red here, and the coastline views are spectacular.
We toured the Ann of Green Gables house in Cavendish
the site of the home where Lucy Maude Montgomery lived
and the beautiful surrounding grounds.
We drove to New Glasgow for a fabulous dinner at The Olde Glasgow Mill, and then went to a small theater in North Rustico for a play at the new Montgomery Theater. The play, first produced in 1922, was Tons of Money, very broad British humor, well done. All the plays done in this theater appear to have been written and first performed during Lucy Montgomery's lifetime.
Finally, on our last day on PEI, with cloudless perfect weather, we drove to the west side of the island to tour the PEI Potato Museum . PEI grows lots of potatoes, both for seed to export to other countries and for consumption. We learned that by far the largest percentage is used for - guess what? - French fries! Potato fields are all over the island. Beautiful landscapes with rolling hills are everywhere. Very like England.
After a great lunch (I had Malpeque Bay oysters-on-the-half-shell, farmed here) at a nice little pub we stumbled onto in a small hamlet, we played 9 holes of golf at a beautiful course not far from our RV park. Except for Fred, the rest of us were pretty marginal players!
We are sad to leave here. It's a beautiful place.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Our first night we drove into Charlottetown for a wonderful dinner in the old town on a street that is closed to traffic. Several great restaurants, shops and live music.
And what could be better than ice cream at Cows, the PEI chain serving wonderful premium ice cream.
Our second day we drove in the drizzle to Cavendish, via a drive along the coast of the Gulf of St Lawrence. The soil, sand and rocks are very red here, and the coastline views are spectacular.
We toured the Ann of Green Gables house in Cavendish
the site of the home where Lucy Maude Montgomery lived
and the beautiful surrounding grounds.
We drove to New Glasgow for a fabulous dinner at The Olde Glasgow Mill, and then went to a small theater in North Rustico for a play at the new Montgomery Theater. The play, first produced in 1922, was Tons of Money, very broad British humor, well done. All the plays done in this theater appear to have been written and first performed during Lucy Montgomery's lifetime.
Finally, on our last day on PEI, with cloudless perfect weather, we drove to the west side of the island to tour the PEI Potato Museum . PEI grows lots of potatoes, both for seed to export to other countries and for consumption. We learned that by far the largest percentage is used for - guess what? - French fries! Potato fields are all over the island. Beautiful landscapes with rolling hills are everywhere. Very like England.
After a great lunch (I had Malpeque Bay oysters-on-the-half-shell, farmed here) at a nice little pub we stumbled onto in a small hamlet, we played 9 holes of golf at a beautiful course not far from our RV park. Except for Fred, the rest of us were pretty marginal players!
We are sad to leave here. It's a beautiful place.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Baddeck, NS
We spent three nights in Baddeck, NS. Our first evening we went to the nearby Gaelic College for a Ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee), which is a party or gathering where there is music and/or storytelling in the Scotish culture. The part of the program with a couple and three of their five girls singing, girls playing the fiddles, dad on the bagpipes and mom at the keyboard was OK for the first 1/2 hour, but then it became tiring (act not ready for prime time), and the next part was just ghastly - a guy playing out of tune small pipes. So we left. Fred said the last guy sounded like a sick cow.
Here are some photos I took:
Waiting for the swing bridge to close to get on Cape Breton Island
We drove the spectacular Cabot Trail. Here are some scenes.
View from Keltic Lodge
Keltic Lodge
East side of Cabot Trail overlooking the Atlantic Ocean
Deep ravine
The Bog - wonderful bog plants and taiga forest in the background. The taiga is stunted forest due to weather and altitude
On the west side, overlooking the Gulf of St Lawrence
We also toured the Alexander Graham Bell Museum. Bell and his wife lived in Baddeck during his experiments and his development of the first airplane in Canada and the development of a hydrofoil boat.
Scene from the museum looking over the gardens to the lighthouse on an island.
The Bell family still owns and uses the house built here and so it is not open for touring or even visible, but photos in the museum show it to be grand.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Here are some photos I took:
Waiting for the swing bridge to close to get on Cape Breton Island
We drove the spectacular Cabot Trail. Here are some scenes.
View from Keltic Lodge
Keltic Lodge
East side of Cabot Trail overlooking the Atlantic Ocean
Deep ravine
The Bog - wonderful bog plants and taiga forest in the background. The taiga is stunted forest due to weather and altitude
On the west side, overlooking the Gulf of St Lawrence
We also toured the Alexander Graham Bell Museum. Bell and his wife lived in Baddeck during his experiments and his development of the first airplane in Canada and the development of a hydrofoil boat.
Scene from the museum looking over the gardens to the lighthouse on an island.
The Bell family still owns and uses the house built here and so it is not open for touring or even visible, but photos in the museum show it to be grand.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Halifax,NS
Today we toured Halifax, NS. Had a great day. We first did a 1 1/2 hour bus tour that gave us a good overview. Then we got off and walked.
As we toured some of the historic buildings and venues, we were again struck by how nice the people are. The guides we have encountered are happy and eager to tell visitors about their city and its history.
Here are some scenes:
Halifax Citadel
Historic warehouse district on the waterfront
Bandshell in the Public Gardens
Nova Scotia parliament room
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
As we toured some of the historic buildings and venues, we were again struck by how nice the people are. The guides we have encountered are happy and eager to tell visitors about their city and its history.
Here are some scenes:
Halifax Citadel
Historic warehouse district on the waterfront
Bandshell in the Public Gardens
Nova Scotia parliament room
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
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