It has been a long while since my last post but there has just been too much going on with all my medical appointments and preparing for our departure from Florence. We got carried away closing up the park model and got ahead of schedule and turned off the power, forgetting we needed the power on to run our internet router so we were without internet for our last two days. I went for bloodwork on the 17th, a cat scan on the 18th and my appointment with the lung specialist on the 22nd. The cat scan showed the mass in my lung has shrunk since January 7th which is good. My Valley Fever count is lower on the blood test so he cut my medication in half and said to discontinue it after one more month. One thing the cat scan showed though was a cyst on a kidney, which hadn’t changed at all since the January 7th scan. We left Mitzy with friends Jim and Betty (who threatened to keep her permanently) while we were in Casa Grande for the specialist. We went for supper at Picazzo’s Pizza and again it was very good. I had made noises about going to the buffet restaurant for a quicker meal but Picazzo’s was every bit as fast that night.
We played Mexican Train with friends a couple of evenings and Aileen and I played SkipBo several times. We were even with our winning until last night when she beat me all three games. We had a dandy dust storm on the 19th. Mitzy and I were out in the desert when I first noticed a small dust cloud way over toward Casa Grande. A few minutes later I noticed it was much closer so we headed home much faster than normal and we did beat it there. It sure deposited a lot of dust in all the protected areas. The heavy rain that followed washed clean everything that was exposed. Dust storms, like other weather phenomenon, are fascinating.
Sunday the 20th was motor home washing day so I had some sore spots after that was done. I tried using Windex to clean the water spots off the motor home glass but it didn’t even touch it. Aileen went on line and found a good recipe using rubbing alcohol, vinegar and water which really worked. Bev helped me get going on post cards while she was here so I made some of those and they look really good. Of course they cost way more than commercial ones. In between all the other things going on, we did the Chatterbox news typing and I proofed a copy on Thursday. On Thursday evening we took Jacquie and Jim and went to PF Changs (who have a great gluten free section on their menu) on Superstition Blvd in Mesa for supper and it was excellent.
We had a leisurely start Friday morning. I was planning on waiting for the propane guy then went to town for the bank and water place. Stopped at the feed store and asked about a propane fill there since I noticed they had a tank and it was much cheaper so we went there on the way out. We had lots of neighbours to bid farewell so that took awhile. The Mackley’s got home last night from their month in New Zealand and Australia so we got to see them this morning. In fact, Ken came and helped load and wrap the scooter. The electric heater died Friday morning so we thought we’d get one at Walmart. They sold out during the cold spell! We stopped at Ace Hardware and got a heater. It was after 1 pm when we finally got on I-8 heading for Gila Bend then Buckeye and west on I-10. We took the Salome Road intending to boondock near Bouse. It started getting too late for us so we spent the night dry camped at Salome Centennial Park for $8. We had a fabulous sunset out our front window.
We were awakened just after 1 am with no power to our breathing machines. For some reason the battery was way lower than it should have been. We didn’t have any issues with it when we dry camped last fall so not sure what happened. I guess we will be staying in parks the rest of the way. I turned the generator on for a few minutes and the batteries powered up enough to run the small inverter so Aileen could use her machine.
We hit the road about 9:30 leaving the very quiet campground. Gas is $3.299 to $3.399 in most of AZ but jumps by up to 60 cents a gallon when you get to CA. We stopped early at the little wide spot that used to be Rice, CA. Mitzy and I took a stroll over to a fence covered with shoes then checked out a sign talking about the Colorado Desert and the area between here and Blythe, CA. That might be an interesting drive sometime if we are in this area for an extended period.
The Rice, CA boot fence
We are in Yucca Valley, CA tonight and it is snowing quite well. It is about 32F but the wind chill is like the low 20s. The forecast says not too much so hope they are right. We are at 3300 feet here but climb another 800 feet or more tomorrow before dropping down the Tehachapi Hill.
So glad you are getting better! We have snow in Benson, AZ this morning. Did you know about the shoe tree? I forget in what state it was located, but it was a big tree along a back highway, just loaded with shoes. Until some pranksters cut it down! What a shame.
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to know just how many of these shoe/boot collections there are out there. I've seen cowboy boot corner in Saskatchewan, the boot tree on northern Vancouver Island and several boot fences in other places.
ReplyDeleteJohn