Snug as a bug in a rug

As Denny and I sit here eating dinner the mountains across the roadway from the campground are slowly disappearing behind a cloud of dust. The winds have been slowly building today, at times gusting hard enough to rock the trailer on its wheels. A low pressure system is moving in and we can feel the temperature starting to drop. We certainly won't be taking our evening walk tonight; we're not anxious to eat dirt, thank you very much.

The disappearing mountains remind me of the weather-forecasting rock. You know the one that is tied to a rope and hung from a tree branch? You look out your window and if the rock is wet, it's raining, if it's white it's snowing, if you can see the rock clearly it's sunny, if it's hard to see it's cloudy outside, if the rock is moving it's windy and if the rock is gone there's a tornado? The mountains have been like that this week. One day distant rain clouds devoured the top half of the mountains this week, on another day high clouds dappled them like an Indian paint pony, and most days the crevices and craggy peaks stood out in sharp relief in the brilliant sunlight.

Having grown up in the mostly flat state of Ohio, mountains fascinate me. Their sheer size astounds me, the variations of rock type, color and textures fascinate me and their beauty draws me. I now know that wherever we finally settle, there will be mountains to watch at sunrise and sunset and the many hours in between. Even if they sometimes disappear.

Lazy Sunday Things We've Seen Recently

This week's Lazy Sunday theme is things we've seen this past week. There will be no pictures of the campground inhabitants sunning themselves in deference to friends and family back east who are suffering from freezing rain, sleet and inches and inches of snow.

This coyote was resting in the campground's storage area. The night before he was walking along a row of stored rvs as Denny and I were taking our nightly walk around the campground. The coyote kept pace with us from about 50 feet away, which means he's becoming acclimated to the folks here and might mean that people start losing little dogs and cats if they leave them out unattended. Just a simple fact of life in the desert.


Patches is caught in a quiet moment. The photo is yellow because it was dark in the fifth wheel and I still can't manage to take a clear picture of her using the flash. She doesn't stay still long enough and I can't getting the camera settings right. Someday...


Note: The same photograph after Darb cleaned it up using Photoshop--wow! Does anyone have a job for a research assistant who is pretty talented on the computer? The grant money ran out on his current project so he's job hunting in the Columbus, Ohio area. Mothers worry, don'cha know?


One evening on our walk I stepped out onto the beach to get a picture of the fading sunlight hitting the distant mountains. These coots and mallards immediately raced up from the river to see what I was going to feed them. Note the ones still paddling in from the far side of the river. I guess the next time I'll bring cat food--they love that.

This Little Egret was feeding in an irrigation ditch near the Poston Monument. Nearby was a Great Egret but I missed getting both of them in a shot together due to the weeds along the bank. The birds were positively gleaming in the sunlight.


Driving along I-17 heading out of Phoenix takes you right under the flight path of Sky Harbor Airport. I didn't get the camera out soon enough to get a shot of the plane that was so close overhead it looked like it was going to land on the interstate. I didn't play with the colors of the photograph--the sky is that blue on a clear day.


Everytime we headed west out of Phoenix I'd remember that I wanted to bring the camera to take a picture of this tableau in the desert. Now that I finally remembered the camera, some idiot broke or shot off the fleeing farmer's head and hand. There's always someone around to ruin a good thing. The man and tractor cut-outs are life sized, so the baby cut-out is quite large. Whoever created the scene has a wonderful sense of humor (the baby is playing with another piece of equipment belonging to the farmer).

The Poston Memorial

Driving along Hwy. 95 near Poston, Arizona you will spy a tall column rising from the desert floor on the east side of the road. Blink and you'll miss it, but what you've just passed is a memorial dedicated to the 17,000+ Japanese Americans who were interned here during WWI, held as "enemy aliens".

Here in the small community of Poston which is part of the Colorado River Indian Tribes land, once stood a concentration camp for the Japanese people living in the United States who were ordered there by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942. Their crime was simply to be of Japanese heritage at a time when the U.S. had declared war against the country of Japan, even though some of the people sent to live in these camps were second-generation Americans.

When the Native Americans discovered that the government intended to imprison the Japanese on Indian land, they were vehemently against it. The Native Americans knew all too well what it felt like to be held on a reservation and wanted no part of a relocation center on their land. But the Bureau of Indian Affairs overruled them and so the relocation camp was built here. There were actually three separate areas, Poston I, Poston II and Poston III. While the clearing of the land and barracks building was done by private contractors, the school buildings and gardens were built by the evacuees.

For the full story of the evacuation camps, click on the words Poston, AZ above for an excellent explanation of the basic construction on the National Parks Service website. Of course, what they don't go into is the horrible outrage of putting our citizens into a concentration camp during wartime.

Circling the monument are a series of plaques explaining a bit of the history of the evacuation camps, some of the poetry written by those detained within its fences, and a dedication, part of which reads: "This memorial is dedicated to all those men, women and children who suffered countless hardships and indignities at the hands of a nations misguided by wartime hysteria, racial prejudice and fear. May it serve as a constant reminder of our past so that Americans in the future will never again be denied their constitutional rights and may the rememberance of that experience serve to advance the evolution of the human spirit."

The tar papered barracks are long gone, decayed and torn down. The adobe school structures lasted longer but have been abandoned. Other buildings are being used for various purposes but if you walk beyond the tall column of the memorial itself you will see no indication of what happened here 60 years ago. Thousands of lives were interrupted, homes and businesses and jobs were lost, personal belongings gone forever and there is no sign of that at all. There needs to be a museum here, to remind people what our government did to its own citizens in the time of war. Over 1200 of the evacuees here in Poston volunteered for service in the armed forces and fought overseas in Italy, France and Germany, earing many honors for themselves and their regiments--men that had been given a status of enemy alien turned around and served honorably for their country.

I didn't know.

Stupid computers

Yesterday morning when I came back from water aerobics Denny informed me that his laptop was frozen at the opening screen. Wonderful! We have a 7 month old Gateway laptop that we spent big bucks on, that's only used for gaming and online surfing by Denny (who never downloads anything onto it because he's totally computer illiterate) and it's locked up.

A call to Gateway's technical support connected me to a tech who told me to do things I had already tried on my own (and much more quickly) since he was following his little list. The end result? I had to reinstall the operating system, of course.AAARRRGGGHHH. I had no backups since this is a gaming computer, but that's no big deal other than it is very time consuming to reinstall everything and it's difficult to copy items from the desktop to the laptop because the two disk copying systems fight with each other and the Gateway views the Compaq-createdCDs with info as blank disks.

Thus, a lovely sunny day was spent inside downloading and uploading and configuring, etc. and it continues today. I think this is why my favorite cherry-rhubarb pie was baking in the oven when I came home from water aerobics this morning (sorry Darb, Denny WILL make you one the next time we're home)--it was a peace offering. Which I will accept graciously.

I love computers and I hate computers. Pass the pie.

A Little About the Area

Our current campground is part of a private network of campgrounds in Southern Arizona and California--a membership campground. You pay an large amount of money upfront to purchase a membership which entitles you to stay "free" for two to three weeks at a time before you have to leave the park system for a week which in theory allows other members access to the campground. You also continue to pay yearly dues for as long as you own your membership. We figure we used the system enough to have paid off all our fees by the second year, so it has worked for us.

What is strange about this particular park is that the campground does not own the land it sits upon. The Colorado River Indian Tribes own about 300,000 acres along both sides of the Colorado River (Arizona and California)and they worked out long term leases with the various campgrounds and mobile home parks on both sides of the river. Coming up Hwy. 95 from Ehrenberg you'll see fields of cotton, alfalfa and sorghum being grown by tribal members and of course there is the ubiquitous casino in Parker. The CRIT has apparently come to an agreement with Wal*mart to build a new store and shopping area in Parker, which would save everyone about an 80 mile round trip which would be handy. But they are also planning on creating a new museum at the Poston War Relocation Center where thousands of Japanese-Americans were interned during World War II, so the efforts of the tribe are not simply commercial. How ironic that a group of people who were forced from their native lands onto reservations are creating a monument to another race of people who were forced onto a different type of reservation.

The town of Parker exists mainly on the tourist traffic--those who come to play on the Colorado River. There are a few restaurants, a couple of fast food places, two grocery stores, a tiny museum, the casino and some small retail stores. Like so many towns in southwestern Arizona, its populace swells in winter when the RVers arrive which can be a double edged sword to those who live here. Unlike many other towns overrun with snowbirds in winter, the people who live here don't seem to resent our intrusion too much. And believe me, after a while, you come to appreciate that a lot. Of course, the river draws people year round for water skiing, jet skiing, boating (the cigarette boats are fantastic here), fishing and leisurely cruises on pontoon boats so the folks around here are used to tourists. It's a good place to relax or to be a busy as you want with water sports or hiking/biking/ATVing in the desert hills. Just don't come to shop.

Lazy Sunday Many Faces of the Superstitions

I can sit and watch the play of sunlight on these mountains for hours. Depending on the light and angle, the cloud cover and amount of pollution (unfortunately) you will see a different mountain every day. The Lost Dutchman Mine is somewhere still to be found deep in the mountains' midst and there's a lot of history and mystery to them there hills.



While the entire range of mountains in the area are known as the Superstition Mountains, this particular peak to me lets me know I'm back in one of my favorite areas.




Early morning rain clouds over the Superstitions.



Dusk at the Superstitions.



Cloud patterns on the mountains.



A bright sunny day in Gold Canyon.



We wrote down the phone number of the realtor selling this house. We realize it's out of our price range since nearby lots are selling for $400,000 for 5 acres. But it has amenities that we like, such as...



...an absolutely stunning view of the mountains.

Organ Stop Pizza

Our last evening in the East Valley was spent with friends Barb and Rene at the Organ Stop Pizza restaurant. In five winters of visits to the Mesa area we had never eaten here, although several campgrounds had tag-along trips on a regular basis. So I figured it was time to see what the hoopla was about.

Winter season hours begin at 4 PM and when we arrived at 3:45 PM there were already people lined up in front of the door. Hmm, I thought: either the pizza is fabulous or this organ show is pretty good. You enter the lobby of the building and order your pizza/salad/appetizers at the counter and then find a seat until your number lights up on the "ready" board. All the lower tables had reserved signs so the four of us went upstairs to find a seat. I will say that if you go, find a seat at the center section upstairs, because you miss a lot if you sit on the side walls which is where we sat.

At 4:30 sharp the lights dim and the huge Wurlitzer organ starts to rise from below the center podium, slowly revolving as the organist plays. There are 6000 (yep, thousand) pipes creating a phenomenal outpouring of music that at times vibrated the floor beneath our feet. This is not a good place to meet your friends for casual conversation because once the music begins it is LOUD. The organist was extremely accomplished, the variety of pipes and boards that comprise the organ created the sound of a full orchestra and there were puppets and bubbles and dancing lights and sing-alongs and boy, what a show! All this for the price of a pizza, which was pretty good too.

Put this one on your list of places to see.

Ouch, no couch. Or, the couchy has an ouchy.

Two separate employees called us on Monday to tell Denny and I that our new couch had arrived, so we made an appointment for this morning because we were leaving the Phoenix area to settle for a couple of weeks in Earp. We pulled into the service bay and settled into a conversation with a Flagstaff man who was considering a trip to Alaska and spent an enjoyable half hour talking about this and that. At that point we heard someone being paged to go to our service bay and both our heads swiveled towards the service department to see what was going on. Another 15 minutes passed and we were paged. Okay, we thought, they just needed another set of hands to get a heavy sleep-sofa over the kitchen island because space is tight. Nope. We should be so lucky.

A very chastened young man came out to get us and show us our brand spanking new couch, still half in the box. The factory had placed the false front panel upside down across the seat area of the couch and due to heat/rubbing/friction/whatever there were three large spots of wear and one one inch tear on both arms of the couch and the edges of the false front panel. I think the young man was some sort of supervisor because he was taking pictures and e-mailing Flexsteel and trying to find a solution, but we told him we had a reservation in Earp and we were out of there. The bad part is that we've already paid for the couch and we need a sleeper sofa (regular sleep sofas from a furniture store are too wide/long for our trailer) so once again we are waiting to hear what is going to happen. We are going back to Phoenix in two weeks for another week long stay but the couch is supposed to take seven weeks to make and deliver. So it will be interesting to see what they will do.

And so we have no couch. And already at this campground the stereos are blaring because we're on the Colorado River and the families are here to party, boat and jet-ski over the long holiday weekend (I forgot about that when I made our reservation) . We need a drink.

But hey, we're here safely, it's 81 degrees at 5 PM (sorry, Darb, I just had to say it) and otherwise life is good. I guess a perfect life would be boring, huh?

A Little Mushy

We didn't meet cute and his eventual marriage proposal wasn't romantic, but come May we'll have been together for 25 years. We had to practice for three years before we were sure we each wanted to try marriage again, but now we joke that we've lasted way longer than his first two marriages combined. And far longer than anyone else at work predicted (I'm sure there was some money lost on that).

But here we are and that guy with the long sideburns gets more romantic the older he gets. Who'da thunk it? Happy Valentine's Day, Denny. I think I'll keep you around for another 25 years.

This and that

"7 INCHS LAST NIGHT, 3 INCHS OF SLEET TODAY SINCE 11AM AND NOW IT IS SWITCHING BACK TO SNOW FOR ANOTHER 5 INCHS TONIGHT. THE NEXT FEW DAYS IT IS GOING TO BE DOWN TO 0 AT NIGHT. OTHER THAN THAT THE WEATHER IS GREAT. JUST THOUGHT I WOULD MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER"

That was the e-mail we received from a former co-worker today. Here, we had .04" of rain and it was chilly enough to put on a sweater. Let's all say "awww". We have family in Cincinnati, Dayton and Delaware, Ohio as well as N. Tonawanda, NY and they are all suffering through tons of snow. I make a specific point not to mention the weather unless they ask. After all, I'm not that mean.

Camping World called last night to say the lost couch had been discovered in a new delivery from Flexsteel. Fine, whatever. We're leaving here Friday, so we'll stop on our way out of town and have it installed. That is, if they don't lose it again in the meantime. Y'all will be the first to see the photos once it is finally installed.

Denny and I haven't been doing any sightseeing this time around. Things like oil changes, grocery shopping, checking out the flea market for Ohio State Buckeye Tostito Bowl tee shirts for rabid fans back home (of course, these were requested at Christmas, before the Buckeyes lost) and such have taken up our time. It's tough being retired.

Patches has discovered that slizards live in the rocks lining the arroyo behind our fifth wheel and wants to be outside all the time. I was told today that there may also be rattlers there, so we may have to curtail that activity, although the snakes should be hibernating this time of year. One has to remember we're back in the desert. To date, we've not yet seen any rattlesnakes or scorpions and that's just fine with us. Although I have to admit, I'd love to get a picture of a rattler in its native setting.

Checking online I see that a couple new geocaches have been place on or around Silly Mountain. We haven't climbed Silly Mountain in a while and I'd like to see how the repaired knee handles it so we may give it a try tomorrow. So far the dry desert climate hasn't made a big difference in the constant ache in my knee but I'm hoping that will change. I did subject the knee to a lot of punishment the last couple of weeks working out to an exercise tape so that might be part of the problem.

Denny and I are avoiding going back to any of the big RV dealerships here in town; the lure of a new rig is hard to resist. We're thinking about switching back to a gas motorhome since the cost of diesel doesn't seem to be coming down at all and sometimes we get tired of parking way out in the far reaches of the parking lot due to the poor turning radius of the F450 (Denny hates having to make 3 and 4 and 5 point turns it takes to get into a parking spot). However, the new motorhomes come with big prices and that's not something we want to take on at this point. But man, they're pretty now with their full body paint and cherry cabinetry and fireplaces and all (yep, all the comforts of home). Hmm, new motorhome, get a job....nah!

To all those suffering through inches (yes, I know my friend's spelling was incorrect) and inches of snow, y'all stop by, ya hear?

Lazy Sunday Pets

Last night was our annual Arizona Opry get-together with our friends Barb and Rene. This year there's a new pet in the household, young Miss Noel, who spent quite of bit of her time entertaining us.

The Opry was a lot of fun, as always. The house was packed and it appeared that everyone there had a good time. You get a lot of entertainment for your money. We consider it a must-see if you're in the Apache Junction, Arizona area.

We met Noel for the first time yesterday. Noel belongs to Barb and Rene or perhaps vice versa. For this picture, Noel decided to make a squinty face for me.

Noel loves to play fetch with stuffed animals.

Noel is a Maltese/Shih tzu mixture, which makes her a Maltzu or a Shihtese. I think.

Patches is preparing to protect her turf...

against the big, bad doggie.

This is how Denny walks the cat.

Not Happy Campers

Denny and I came up to the Apache Junction area because there is a Camping World at Mesa and we needed to special order a new couch so we thought we'd kill two birds with one stone by having the couch delivered here while we were visiting frieds. As a special order, they needed at least seven weeks for it to be built and delivered, so we made our general plans to fit that schedule. Mid-January we received a call from Camping World saying the couch was in, so we set an appointment for this week as by then we had made plans up to that point.

Today we arrived a half-hour early for our appointment, sat for a half hour before being told to back the fifth-wheel into a service bay where we left it. Denny and I took advantage of the fact that LaMesa RV was right across the street and window-shopped for motorhomes for an hour. We returned to the service area, figuring it took 15 minutes to install our awning topper and ten minutes to carry in the couch. The new awning was just being installed, so we wandered back to the RV dealer to look at one more motorhome and then we returned to find the service technician finishing up with the awning, so we figured the couch would go in next so we stood by the rig to watch. We waited and waited and waited and finally a half hour later a service tech stopped out and asked us if someone had called us to notify us that the couch was in. "Why?" we asked. "Because we can't find your couch and it's not in our warehouse" was the reply. I could feel the beginning of a slow burn so I asked the tech why someone would call us three weeks ago to make an appointment after telling us our couch was in. He said, "don't shoot the messenger, go talk to the guys inside". So we did. All in all, we talked to five people, up to and including the service manager and it took another hour before they decided the couch was MIA and that they had to revise the bill and service order. Camping World still has no idea where our couch may be, and it took 5 people and 3 hours to have an awning topper installed and a bill revised. Camping World at Mesa is a place to avoid folks. It's scary there.

Our reservations are made all the way up to April, at which point we're going to be in Utah. Where our couch is and when it can be installed is questionable. The worst part is that Camping World has had our payment since December, when we ordered the couch so we're kind of stuck.

Life on the road doesn't always go smoothly. I won't even get into the hassle we had at the office of my once favorite campground here in Gold Canyon. That's a whole 'nother story and I haven't had enough alcoholic libations yet to get into that mess. Thank goodness I have the Superstition Mountains to gaze at to calm my soul. That always happens here--I love these mountains.

New stuff tomorrow

The local Native American tribes benefited by our presence at the Apache Gold casino today. The casino was nice enough to send a bus to our campground so that we could toss money into the local economy, which a great number of us managed to do. There wasn't a lot of bragging about winnings, so I think most of us returned with our pockets much emptier.

The trip up to Globe does take you through some beautiful desert areas and canyons so the 2 hour drive goes quickly (it would be much faster by car). I didn't want to take a chance losing our camera so I didn't get any shots of the scenery, but there are some very striking rock formations out there.

We're moving on tomorrow, there's a new hide-a-bed awaiting us in Mesa as well as a new slide topper for the bedroom since the one we have now is peeling away in layers. We're hoping they'll let us unhitch so we can leave the cat in the car, otherwise we have a problem. The thinks you don't consider when you decide to bring a pet into your lifestyle.

Safe travels.

Arizona City Golf Course

The Arizona City Golf Course is hidden within a plat of homes in the middle of the city. In the winter it sees a lot of use since there are only two public golf courses in the general area. The rangers try to keep play moving (yes, one told us to speed it up a bit on one hole) so you're able to play 18 holes in a 4 hour time bracket, unlike many courses in Florida. The course itself is in fairly good condition for the amount of play it receives, although there was one green that was pretty burned out. The watering system seems to be a bit erratic in places as some areas were soggy while others were bone-dry. The greens are also pretty fast which makes them a little more challenging than their layout would seem.

This time of year if you are a couple you will probably be paired up with another couple to speed up play. We were paired with a lovely couple, Syl and Sandy, who now live in Reno, NV but travel south by RV during the winter. They had actually driven close to 68 miles from Gila Bend simply to play this course. We're glad they did, for we feel we made some new RVing friends yesterday.

Hit the Duffer's Lounge for a couple of beers and some iced tea and you have a tab for just over $4 and they'll throw in a basket of salsa and tortilla chips. That's a deal you can't refuse!

Prices for golf can vary; yesterday the course was offering a special of green fees, a cart and a sandwich for $24.50 per person. Denny and I used our Golf Card discount and paid $37.31 for the two of us for green fees and a cart, no sandwich. Such a deal!


The ninth hole at the Arizona City Golf Course. There's not a lot of water on this course so this area has a lot of coots and mallards wandering the tee box.

I was trying to show that there are more than tans and browns in the desert as this duplex was a lovely dark shade of lavender but the harsh sun bleached the color right out of the photograph.

You Can Have Your Cold Weather

When I checked the Dayton Daily newspaper feed this morning I saw it was -5 degrees at 8 AM back in Ohio. I guess when I send my daily e-mail to my mother this afternoon I probably won't mention how it's supposed to reach 79 degrees here today. That would be a bit of salt in the wound, don't you think? I know when my mother writes me she'll probably tell me she's wearing a thermal top, a cable-knit sweater, jeans and a cardigan over the sweater with the thermostat on the furnace set to 72 degrees. You see, my mom has something like zero body fat so she freezes in the winter. Denny and I have tried to talk her into moving west, but at her age she's afraid to leave friends and the family members she's recently re-connected with. I guess I can't blame her, but man, that is just way too cold for me. And yes Coll, I realize you deal with frigid temperatures up in the 'peg all winter but you Canadians are crazy anyway. Heh.

We have golf on the agenda this week since the temperatures are finally right to play in comfort as well as a free bus trip to a casino in Globe on Thursday. Of course, it won't be free in the long run because Denny and I always end up leaving our money there to support the local economy/Native American tribe, but that's okay. There's a couple more beading classes that I might sit in on and I noticed there are a few more geocaches in the area since we were last here so we may get out and hit a few of those also. Of course, it's always nice to just sit in the sun with a cool, alcoholic beverage of our choice by our side as we chit-chat with those who walk by, too. Now why would you want to stay in the colder parts of the country with choices like these?

Lazy Super Bowl Sunday

There's been a lot of hoopla the last few weeks over Super Bowl Sunday. I have to admit, I'm one of those who only watches the game to see the new commercials that are made especially for this one game. As a matter of fact, when the Darb IM'd me one day a couple of weeks ago mentioning the fact that there were signs, banners and pictures of the Colts plastered all over Indianapolis I turned to my long-suffering husband and asked him if the Colts were playing in the Super Bowl or something. This, of course, I did not admit to my son but simply replied as if I was totally aware of what was going on. Yeah, right. The last real interest I had in a professional sports team was during the heyday of the Big Red Machine, when parking cost a dollar and you could get seats to a double-header in the nosebleed section for $5. I did love me some Cincinnati Reds back then.

Obviously you are not going to find pictures of big sporting events in my photo albums so we'll stick with the standard scenic stuff, but I will include a Clydesdale simply because they are awesome beasts. While I'm not fond of beer, I do love the Bud commercials--how could you not?


If you visit Grant's Farm in St. Louis, which was donated to the city by the Anheuser-Busch family, you'll have the opportunity to see several Clydesdale horses as well as a variety of other beasts.


You never know what you may find when walking around a campground. In past years several peacocks roosted in a tree next to the campground but I've not seen them so far this year, just this lone male looking for a handout.

Many of our member campgrounds are quite scenic. This one is in Louisiana--our rig is the first one on the right. Our current campground is known within the member park system as the parking lot in the desert. It's built on gravel and concrete, as are most desert campgrounds, which saves water on landscaping and maintenance but doesn't make for a pretty picture.

The forecast in Florida is for rain, so here's some sunshine.

The beautifully green Gunnison River in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park in Colorado. Denny and I loved this park.

The San Juan Mountains and the golden aspens of Colorado.

Not busy, just lazy

I just realized I've been MIA this week. Truth be told, it's simple laziness and the fact we're in an area we've explored in the past so we're just veggin' this time around. Of course, at these 55+ campgrounds you can stay busy all day and never leave the grounds. A sample activity sheet for the day looks like this:

• 8 AM Walk away the pounds
• 8:30 AM Muffins and Starbucks Frappaccino, just in case you worked off any calories at the Walk away the pounds session
• 9 AM Silver stretchers-another exercise program that's more intense than it sounds
• 9 AM Computer class/Casino Tag-along/Brake Maintenance and Safety seminar, etc.
• 10 AM Craft-beading/wire angels/whatever
• 10 AM Line dancing/wood carving/pool tournament
  
• 10:30 AM Water aerobics, weather permitting
• 1:00 PM Craft class/cribbage tournament/pool instruction for the ladies
• 1:30 PM Line dancing instruction
• 2:00 PM Estate planning/healthy living seminar/RV safety, etc.
• 5:00 PM Meal offered by campground
• 7:00 PM Bingo (obligatory at least once a week), live entertainment/RV tour seminar/Texas Hold 'em Poker.

This is a moderately busy schedule. We've been in campgrounds where there may be only 4-5 classes/gatherings scheduled per day and we've seen schedules that run from 7 AM to 7 PM with multiple classes going on simultaneously. Me? I hit the Walk away the pounds group and try hard to keep up with the 70+ year old cotton tops that have been doing the 3 mile routine for weeks--they're a fit bunch! My knee is telling me that I have been sadly remiss with my therapy and now I'm paying for it. We'll check out a couple of the seminars, maybe tag along to a casino but we've been puttering around the rig with miscellaneous chores, a switchover to Direct TV and an immediate switch back to DISH TV (involving an extra cable stretching across our cabinets--not acceptable), leisurely walks around the campground and working out where we want to travel this summer.

It's still much cooler here than normal so we've only been able to enjoy one afternoon of sitting in the sun so far. We've actually had rain here in the desert the last couple of days and it's been gentle enough that the rain had a chance to sink in instead of simply washing away. That's unusual here.

That's my tale of laziness. Now it's time to prepare to sweat and pant and watch those tough old broads ask the activities director for a second session of Walk away the pounds after we finish the first one. Gasp. I'm a wimp.