Jan 1 - Jan 6, 2019 Happy New Year & Pioneer RV Park

Jan 1, 2019 !!!
HAPPY NEW YEAR !!
Yeah okay we said that lots last night already but it's a new day. We got up about 9:00 after a late night for us. We are mostly packed up except for the sewer hose and power cord. Priorities though, coffee! When I look out our back window I can see that John & Sandy are setting up their New Years Day gin fizz machine/ blender. They were telling us last night they do this every year on Jan 1. I don't remember the recipe but it's supposed to taste like a creamsicle but with a good shot of gin. We passed, as we had enough last night AND we are driving soon, but we heard good things about it. We chatted a little with people as they walked by and said good bye to us and hello to John & Sandy and a gin fizz. By 11 am we had said all our good byes, hugs and handshakes and we're off. Going to miss this park and our new friends.
The drive was uneventful which was good. Easy directions on the GPS too, I10 to I17 and straight north until the exit to Pioneer RV.

Our new home for a month.

We had an email with instructions because the office is closed today so we will register tomorrow. We pulled in to the office area about 1pm and there was actually 2 maintenance fellas that said they would show us our site and help get backed in. Nice!

Very western theme here too.

It took a few stabs but I got situated on the lot like the fellas wanted me to. There's rules about that as you have to be on the orange line. We thanked them for helping and got unhooked and did a minimal set up. Power, water and level. Good enough for now. We're hungry and craving junk food. We know it's bad but we drove to McDonalds and grabbed a 6 pack of cheeseburgers. Even Margaret ate one haha! We want to grab a quick nap before we go to Barry & Ailsa's place for a New Years dinner. It will be great to see them again as we haven't seen them since September for the race in Golden. They work a 10 on/ 10 off shift and fly back and forth (in the winter) to Phoenix on their days off so they can train in the warm weather year round. They rented a house over towards Cave Creek here in north Phoenix for a few months and we have been invited over anytime after 5pm. Nap and a shower first. Then pack an overnight bag because we likely shouldn't drive home later.

We arrived just after 5:00 and said hi with big hugs to our super athlete friends. The house they rented is very nice and after a quick tour we all opened a frosty beverage and cheered to the New Year and getting together again. These two make fantastic dinners every time we come over and they have a feast planned for tonight. The steaks they bought would feed a very large family!! Ailsa got going in the kitchen and Barry fired up the barbecue and they built a fabulous dinner. We only contributed wine, the easy part.

Lots of yummy veggies.

Barry, Ailsa & me, notice the steaks are cut in half. 

We enjoyed a fabulous dinner that was perfectly cooked. Barry nailed those big steaks. Awesome!

We have dessert too but we're going to wait a little and settle our stomachs. We stayed at the table with more wine and some Coconut Tequila. Told you it was a sleepover ;) Barry & Ailsa very much miss their dog Sam and they love it when we bring Margaret over so Barry can spoil the crap outta her lol. It gets bad as you will see in these next pics. Remember, Barry loves to spoil her!

Steak bits finely chopped with wine for dinner.

Barry invites her to join us for shots. On the table??

Wine & tequila on a pillow, princess. (Ok not really)

Had too much tequila!

We thought it was funny and, no, we didn't feed her booze. She's a pretty happy pooch of course while we talked and laughed at the table. We really enjoyed the evening with Barry & Ailsa and we forgot to take pics of the cake. It was mint chocolate Oreo cake that was dairy free so I could enjoy it too. OMG, so good. We all moved to the living room and ended the evening with a few glasses of water. They are doing a short run and a long bike ride tomorrow. Yeah their short run is my long run & a bike ride? How about a leisurely 40 miles or so on a pedal bike after a run. Yep they are in a whole different fitness level but they are awesome friends. Thanks you guys for another great night!

Jan 2 

We got up around 8:00 and chatted with coffee and breakfast. Leslie and I need to go back and finish setting up and get registered at the new park. As mentioned Barry & Ailsa are going on a run / bike ride today. We took a couple shots of their house before we left. It's a nice place they rented.

Beauty front yard.

The patio or "lanny" in Hawaii lol.

Arizona landscaping, love it.

The pool, unfortunately not heated, I'm not going in.

After big hugs we did the short drive back to Pioneer RV. We took a few pics on the way to the office to register.

Horseshoe pits, lots of them, yeehaw pardner.

A shiny new pickleball court.

A little desert park and the walkway.

Indoor swimming pool and hot tub.

Laundry room and clotheslines outside. Not allowed to hang stuff at your site.

It is a very nicely kept park for sure but holy smokes there are rules! At Chaparral there was one printed sheet of pretty standard park rules. Here, we get a small booklet of rules in point form. The sign in process took about 20 minutes and we had to provide truck & trailer registration. We signed forms acknowledging that we owe payment as prescribed and we won't do anything illegal and signed that we authorize them to charge us for breaking said rules, it was unreal! They wanted Margarets vet records and the computer flagged her as a "terrier cross" so they wanted pictures for identification (in case she was a Pit Bull Terrier...lol). Umm I'm only staying a month, I'm not buying the place, geezus. Maybe it's standard procedure but it's a little heavy to rent a site for a month. Chaparral was way easier. We finished that task and walked back to our rig for a nap. Exhausting haha. After a little recharge we jumped in the truck to go get groceries and I grabbed some things from Home Depot. There is great shopping just a couple miles away. Everything you need is close so that's good. Back to the rig to put everything away and complete our set up for the month and then a well deserved kick back in the lazy boys with a water! Time to take a couple days off from drinking alcohol, we have been indulging pretty heavy lately and I want to get some longer runs in. We need to find Leslie some pickleball players too.

Jan 3

We walked over to the pickleball courts at 10:00 to see if anyone would be playing. Not yet. Nobody ever did show up so we played four games (I won't tell you who won three of them). After we were done we took Margaret for a walk around the park as a cool down. We walked over to the pool and there is nobody there so we decided to have a swim and a hot tub.  Very nice. Had the entire place to ourselves. Awesome. The afternoon and evening was relaxing for me, catching up on blogs but Leslie made a big batch of soup and an Instant Pot tenderloin for supper! Thanks Dianne for the recipe. It turned out really good. A nice evening in front of the TV and some tea. 

Jan 4

Our goal while we are here is to back off the alcohol intake and get ready for my race on the 20th. I started the day with an 8k run and while I was gone Leslie joined water aerobics and walked the dog. Pretty good morning for her too. We worked together on some laundry and after that it's nap time! Love the afternoon naps. We set a timer for 30 minutes and you feel brand new after. (A new retirement thing...lol)

We have a dinner planned with Barry, Ailsa, Steve & Donna at a place called the Buffalo Chip Saloon in Cave Creek. It's supposed to be a good place for barbecue and they have live bull riding at the bar at 8 pm !!! That's the draw for sure. Should be interesting. Oh and live country music at 9:00. We likely won't make it to 9. C'mon, that's almost bedtime ;)  Leslie and I drove to Barry & Ailsa's and not long afterwards we got a text from Steve & Donna that they had been in an accident and won't be making it. They are physically okay but their new to them Santa Fe isn't very good. Not drivable for sure. It's getting towed to a body shop.

Hood crumpled from the spare wheel. Airbags didn't go off.

Not terrible on the back but we'll see how much.

They were hit from behind and pushed into a Jeep with a spare wheel on the back which promptly took off after the accident?? They must have done something worse or they just didn't want any part of the cops being there. Donna called us at Barry & Ailsa's to see if we could drive them back to Steve's sisters place. Of course we can. Dinner is done for tonight unfortunately. We left right away and picked them up in Scottsdale. It was a little ways to where Steve's sisters house so we gave them a hug and said good night. So glad they are physically okay. We'll have to see how it turns out.

We drove back to Cave Creek for a quick stop at Barry & Ailsa's to pick up our computer and have a short glass of wine. Our supper was a tuna sandwich and some sushi that we bought on the way back. Margaret was very happy to see us and was ready for a walk.

Jan 5

It's grocery day again so we drove over to a different store not far from us. There is a huge Fry's and some attached stores at a little strip mall just south of us. They also have a pet store so we grabbed Margaret some treats at the same time. We stopped at Chili's for lunch which was delicious and then back home.

Not a great pic at Chili's

After we put stuff away we decided on a short hike. There is a trail just across I10 that we want to check out. It looks steep but just a short part of it, we'll check it out. We got a text from Barry that they were just going out for lunch and would we like to come along? Damn, we just ate but thanks for asking. They fly out tonight to go back to work for 10 days. Have a great time up north guys, hope it's not too cold hahaha. The hill we are on is definitely steep so answering his text is a good excuse for a breather. Thanks Barry for helping out.

Does it look steep in the pics? It really is.

Turns out the trail ends at the flag, not very far.

Great views from up here. Thanks USA for warm place to be.

Okay so it looks like this got shot to death. 

How would you like to live down below??

Some beauty houses looking to the north.

It was also fun going back down that hill. With the loose rock and the grade you had to watch your footing until it levelled off. Obviously we made it alright. When we got back to the truck we noticed a lady selling fresh honey at a roadside stand not far away. We walked over and she gave us samples of the different kinds and Leslie chose the Mesquite honey for $15 per quart. Kind of expensive but it's right here and all natural. It is really good too. The rest of the day was just relaxing and supper/ TV/ bed.

Jan 6

We are just hanging out here today. As you might have noticed I am catching up on blog posts from December so we are working to get more current. We walked over to the pool for a swim and a hot tub, all alone again, which is nice. After we cleaned up and took Margaret for a stroll around the block. We got to the top of our street and there was 4 people chatting in their driveway. We noticed Alberta plates so we asked where they were from. They are from Bonnyville!! Kevin & Sue Mulhulland I think are from Muriel Lake and Gary & ?? (forgot her name) are from town. Another couple around the corner are from Smoky Lake. Small world down here. Odd thing about this park compared to the last one is nobody gets together in the afternoon. We thought maybe some happy hours with the folks from B'ville but we hardly saw them again. Just a wave as we drive by occasionally. This park is way bigger and there are way more park model trailers so people own their lots. It's not as fun as High Chaparral. That's okay we're getting stuff done and not drinking as much, which was our goal. We didn't do anything "blog worthy" for the rest of the day. They can't all be interesting but hopefully we have more to come haha. I'm getting closer to being caught up now and that feels great because we will be busy next weekend with the race and my boy Derek Carter coming for a visit. You'll hopefully see that soon. Cheers everybody.