Yosemite National Park

3/30 – 4/2/2015 –  The trip to Yosemite started off innocently enough, that is until we followed the directions from our GPS.  It led us onto CA140 and then onto CA49, aka “The Mother Lode Highway”.  After getting on CA49 we saw a sign advising that any vehicle over 35 feet should not use the road.  Well, there was really no place to turn around, so we proceeded on very carefully.  The road was a series of 7 degree hills up and down over 20 some miles of switchbacks through the mountains.  It was a real adventure that Chippy has warned me never to attempt again, good advice.  I will never trust a GPS again, and will verify every route with my trucker’s atlas.  After we arrive at Yosemite Ridge Resort we decided to decompress for the remainder of the day with lots of wine.  The rest of the trip was great despite the fact we will probably need new brakes on the car after our travels through Yosemite, the sights were amazing.  Yosemite Valley was one magnificent landmark after the next beginning with El Capitan, Three Brothers, Bridalveil Falls, Half Dome, Yosemite Falls, Cathedral Spires, and Hetch Hetchy Reservoir with several more waterfalls and the giant Sequoia’s everywhere.  Yosemite is celebrating its 150^th year as a National Park thanks to the persistence of John Muir and the determination of Theodore Roosevelt, and it is truly a site to see with the massive granite walls surrounding the Yosemite Valley and the vast wilderness of the Sierra Nevada’s towering beyond.  The park is surrounded by several campgrounds as well as many more inside the park as well as the Yosemite Lodge and The Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite Village.  Yosemite has certainly been an unforgettable adventure and will live in our memories for a very long time.   

Ahwahnee Hotel

Bridalveil Falls

Cathedral 

Three Brothers

Yosemite Valley

Hetch Hetchy

Half Dome

El Capitan

Goodbye Arizona, Hello California!

3/13 – 3/28/2015 – Goodbye Arizona, Hello California! – Wow what a great month March turned out to be, not only with the weather in the high 80’s most of the month, but also some great times.  Started out with a fantastic round of golf at a really great course at McDowell Mountain Golf Club courtesy of my old boss from Xerox Matt Grissom in Scottsdale, Thanks Matt!!!!  While I was golfing Chippy enjoyed a special hamburger luncheon at our resort with all of our Arizona snowbird friends.  Then we had a really great St Patty’s Day dinner of Corned Beef and Cabbage at the RV Resort. Then we joined a group of about 25 from our resort and had a dinner show at the Arizona Opry and saw a great show put on by CC Ryder.  We continue to enjoy the weekly jam sessions at the resort and of course we never miss the ice cream socials or the monthly horse races.  I continue to enjoy the weekly golf outing every Tuesday with all of the golfers from the resort and Chippy loves the peace and quiet when I am not there, so out of the goodness of my heart, I also play on Thursday's.  This past Tuesday we ended the season with the annual resort championship and everyone had a really great time, which was topped off with a party and awards ceremony for the golfers and spouses the next day hosted by our golfing coordinator Frank and his wife Joan.  We will really miss the wonderful friends we have made at Superstition Lookout RV Resort and hope to see them again sometime down the road,  they have really made us feel like part of their family in the three months we have spent here in Apache Junction.  Along with the wonderful weather we have enjoyed here in AZ we have also been fortunate to have had enough rain this past fall and winter to see the desert flowers in bloom and the desert much greener than most years, the cactus flowers are really a sight to see.  We now look forward to our next journey through CA via Yosemite NP then on to OR so see our fiends Jamie and Dennis.  We have really been blessed to have been able to spend this winter in AZ and leave with so many wonderful memories and new friends.  Thanks to everyone who made us feel so welcome!!!!!

Hamburger Luncheon

 


St Patty's Day Party

 
Horse Racing

 


Ice Cream Social                                                        

Golf Tournament

Desert in Bloom

 

2/14 – 3/12/2015 – Good Sam Rally and so much More!!!! – It has been a very busy month which started off with a Valentines Dance at the RV Park where I became Fred Astaire and Chippy was Ginger Rogers and we danced the night away.  Then at the end of the month we dry camped at the Good Sam Rally at the Phoenix Raceway and had a blast.  We enjoyed live entertainment every night and did seminars and shopping by day.  Thursday night was the Dina Preston Band, Friday night was Ticket to Ride, a Beatles Tribute Band and Satuday night was Super Diamond, a Neal Diamond Tribute Band.  The entertainment was great and we did some serious safety upgrades for the Motorhome including new smoke alarms, and fire suppression systems on the engine and refrigerator.  Don’t want to chance a motorhome fire while we are having so much fun.  Met lots of nice folks at the Rally and learned more about the fulltime lifestyle.  After the Rally it was back to the RV Park for our weekly activities including horse racing, weekly musical jams, golf and happy hours.  Last week we spent a fantastic day wandering Old Scottsdale and then enjoyed visiting my old boss Matt Grissom and his lovely wife Tricia where they served up a culinary feast in their beautiful home at the foothills of McDowell Mountain.  This week was busy with a casino bus trip on Monday, a pizza luncheon at Organ Stop Pizza (http://www.organstoppizza.com/) home of the “Mighty Wurlitzer Pipe Organ”.  This musical instrument is really too amazing for words, the console itself has 276 keys and 798 stops and controls which are used to play hundreds of other instruments.  Definitely a must see if you are ever near the Phoenix area.  Wednesday was a farewell party for a long time resident of the park who will not be returning due to health issues and Thursday as usual is golf day, boy do I love this retiree lifestyle.  

Good Sam Rally

Good Sam Entertainment

Good Sam Pics
See if you can find us in the first two photos

Organ Pizza

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHIPPY

1/22 – 2/13/2015  – MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC  - We have been hitting the concert circuit among other things for the past few weeks.  Of course each week we have the Country Jam at our campground, but we have also been traveling around to so much more.  We attended our first Bluegrass Festival in Case Grande AZ which featured about 20 bands over three days and it was amazing.  We also had a Kenny Rogers impersonator at the campground, who sad to say, sounded better than Kenny Rogers performance at Ocean City Maryland a couple years ago.  Next our neighbors took us to an Old Tyme/Polka Jam which was quite different with lots of accordion music, which instilled childhood memories for Chippy when she was a blossoming prodigy on the accordion.  For Chippy’s “Landmark” Birthday which of course was the high-point of our Month, I wined and dined her all day, with breakfast at a local diner then off to the Lone Butte Casino for some gambling, then a movie and a fine Mexican dinner at our local Cantina.  A delayed birthday present was a dinner show at the Arizona Opry where we were totally blown away by a marvelous Willie Nelson and friend’s performance by impersonator Steve Weltz.  This past weekend we also attended our first Renaissance Festival which was astounding as well as peculiar.  We never realized so many people dressed up to participate in such an event, especially the ones that wore the full royal regalia in the hot desert sun.  It was certainly an experience that we have now checked off the bucket list.  Once a month the campground has a full moon party where we howl and the moon and cook over an open fire, what a sight seeing the moon rise over Superstition Mountain.  We also fit in weekly hiking and daily visits to the gym to try to overcome the mysterious shrinking of our clothes in the hot desert sun.  

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BEAUTIFUL WIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Birthday Dinner

Little Bit of Bluegrass

 

 

Renaissance Festival

 

 

Full Moon Party