Iguana Tails

One of the places that we kept hearing about was Fountain Hills, one of the suburbs of Phoenix.  When we got there, all we could keep saying was wow !  As we drove closer and closer to the town, our jaws just kept dropping.  Multi million dollar homes were build literally in between the rocks of the foothills!  But then we got to the main area where the fountain was located and our jaws unhinged yet again. So much green grass in the middle of the desert, with the beautiful mountains in the background of the lake. As we waited for the top of the hour, for the fountain to go off, we walked around and found a little park that had the perfect viewing spot for the fountain.   There were also dozens of American Coots around the park and one little boy was having the time of his life feeding them.  We were enjoying the show just as much as he was!   As we watched, we couldn't help but think of the movie Ice Age, where all the dodo's were running aft...

One thing that I really wanted to do while we were in Phoenix was to go to some of their warehouse/ discount fabric stores I had read about.  Of course I was in heaven the minute I entered the ginormous store and Rick ever so patiently gave me some time to look at everything.  If places like this existed back at home, I shudder to think how big my fabric and craft supplies stash might be.   I only walked out with a few pieces of fabric to make masks and bags out of, that cost a fraction of what they would in the common fabric box stores. Since our RV resort was right next to the Pioneer Living Museum and we kept passing it daily as we drove into town, we finally walked over and paid the entrance fee to go in and visit. We learned (from extremely talkative and friendly workers there) that they were currently shooting a movie AND holding a wedding reception.  Since both parties were sharing the same grounds as the all the visitors, we got quite the earful. ...

Our next stop was Phoenix.  We got reservations at a 55+ RV resort on the north side and decided to stay an entire week so we could continue to enjoy the sun for a while and do some hiking in the amazing hills that were surrounding all of Phoenix.   Aha Moment:  We had no idea Phoenix was such a mountainous region!   While driving around the city, we came across a candy factory in the town of Glendale that was 100% gluten free.  It let you sample all their chocolates!  To say we gorged ourselves on free samples and then on the bag of chocolates we bought is an understatement.   Nope, we didn't buy the ginormous chocolate bar, but it was the biggest one we had ever seen. The hikes around the area are just incredible and we find a new mountain/park to hike each day, which also gets us out and driving around and seeing the huge, sprawling city.  Surprisingly, getting around is incredibly easy (much easier and nicer than any city we hav...

We are now back in Tucson and visiting with Cole again.  (And he thought he was rid of us 'till the summer - HA!) Since we were only going to be in town for a few days, we didn't want to pay the exorbitant fees at the RV resorts in town, so we found a place out on the BLM to camp.  Turned out really well!  Luckily it was the weekend and the kids didn't have plans, so we took Cole and his roommate out to a famous restaurant in Tucson called El Charro Cafe.   The restaurant is known to be the oldest Mexican restaurant in the nation, run by the same family.  The restaurant claims to have invented the chimichanga and the boys got quite a kick out of not only disagreeing with us for a while but then learning how it happened. We had to wait an hour for a table but we walked around the downtown area of Tucson during that time.  Our food was amazing and it was a great day all in all. Sunday was our reservation at the Sonoran Desert Museum.  (Due to Covid,...

  We drove as fast and as far as we could away from Texas and the bitter cold (and ice storm), and then realized we were pretty close to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, which we had always wanted to see.  So we made a little detour.   We decided to stay at a small RV park about 30 miles away  - that way we could make a quick trip to the caverns the next morning.   When we got to the campground, we were shocked to see how dirty the truck and RV were from all the sand, salt and road dirt.  We couldn't even see out of the trailer's windows! The Carlsbad Caverns were at the top of a windy and narrow road and with all the freezing fog and low visibility, we were so glad that we had left the trailer back at the campground.  It was even a slippery walk to the caverns from the visitor center, due to the ice, but then we started walking down, down, down into the earth.  It was absolutely astounding how big the cavern was!  Almost all the bat...

Driving from Waco to Rio Vista was all on back roads and took us through some small rural towns.  The one thing we noticed was that each town had a huge, beautiful court house that was far and away the biggest building in the town.  Rio Vista was no different. When we arrived at the campground that was within walking distance of the Byles' home, we were greeted by a super nice park attendant.  She told us that we would have the park to ourselves as everyone had cancelled their reservations due to the impeding cold weather and ice/snow storm.   We received a pass to put in our window with stern instructions to park only in that spot.  When Rick joked with her about changing spots once we got into the park, she emphatically told us that we would have to come back and get a new park pass and basically, don't switch from the spot she put us in. Once we got to the next gate (and had to enter in a code) we were literally escorted to our site by another park atten...

  I finally got to see the famous Magnolia Market at the Silo's in Waco, TX, for myself.  After watching it on HGTV multiple times, it was a treat to see it in person.   I was surprised by the fact that it was more of an entertainment venue than a shopping place - and it was really spread out!  There were lots of places for folks to sit and relax, outside of the stores. At first I thought it was going to be a bust, as I walked into the main store and thought that was it.  (Plus it was very blah.  Everything is very "farmhousy" and monochromatic.) However, I walked further into the complex and found the rest of Magnolia Market.  It was interesting to see that each little store was actually a different shopping theme.  One was men's stuff, one was women's bags, a perfumery (I ran out of that one pretty quickly), a children's shop and even a paper themed shop, where I spent the most time. Rick caught up to me as I was finishing up my walk throug...

We finally made it to my long time friend - and previous GE coworker - Debbie Foster's house.  She lives on LBJ Lake in Sunrise Beach, TX, which is not very far from the coveted area called Horseshoe Bay.  (There are dozens of multi-million dollar homes along the lake in this area.) Relaxing at her lake house gave my feet a chance to finally turn the corner and start feeling better rather than worse each day.  Since Deb used to be an ICU Trauma Nurse and was carefully monitoring my healing process, I wasn't worried when I actually started having to take pain medicine again at night, to get some uninterrupted sleep. Really and truly - it looks much worse than it is.  There is absolutely no infection and most of the blisters have drained on their own and healed.   After a few more days of intense itching, as the last of the healing process takes place, I'll be good as new. On our way through the back roads of Texas, we passed through quite a few small towns t...

There were a couple factors for us deciding to do a few travel days back to back.   First, my feet were getting worse.  The ginormous blisters that started forming made wearing shoes difficult and walking was arduous.   Second, New Mexico was shut down due to Covid and we didn't want to risk having any issues with finding camping spots and/or groceries.   Third, there just isn't that much to see between the SE corner of Arizona and along Hwy 10 to San Antonio. We did stop in a little town called Junction, named because of two rivers that meet there - one of which is the only river in Texas that flows North.  I had read about a city park that allowed RV's to stay overnight there at no charge, so that's where we pulled in a for a few days.   It was a park full of pecan tress and I had a lot of fun picking up pecans.  Of course I couldn't just stop collecting a few of them, much to Rick's dismay.  Pretty soon, I had pounds and pou...