New Camera, New Tooth and Other Stuff

Nothing much of anything blog-worthy to report, but we are just glad to have our spot here at Jojoba Hills so we can stay put for as long as we like. After ten years some of the luster of moving around all the time has worn off. Now if we could just find a place to plunk ourselves down for the summer where it wasn’t too hot, too buggy or too smoky, life would be wonderful!

Our site, 411, at Jojoba Hills

Neither of us likes lugging around a big camera anymore, and the Cannon we got from our friends has been having focusing issues, so I found the smallest camera out there with a longer zoom, and that’s what we bought. It’s a Sony DSC-HX90V, and it also has an optical viewfinder, not easy to come by these days in a small camera. We haven’t used it a lot yet, but I’ve been studying the on-line manual and trying to figure it all out.

It has a rotating screen to take selfies, which we rarely do. I had to try it out in the car on our way to Garage Brewery in Temecula, with LuAnn and Terry in the back seat. Couldn’t get Jim in the shot since he was driving, but if we ever do want to take a selfie at least it’s easy to see what you’re getting a photo of. And this was before beer!

Inside the brewery I wanted to see if it took good low light shots, but LuAnn was hoisting her beer at the same time so it blurred. Otherwise not bad without the flash.

Laurelee and Libby stopped by for a few nights on their way to the Lazy Daze gathering at Morro Bay. We considered going but Jim wasn’t keen about the traffic we had to go through to get there last year so we decided against it.

We always enjoy their company. Sweet Libby is such a pretty dog. 



Our succulent garden is doing well in spite of the cold temperatures and excessive rain this winter. There’s a little peek at our new CRV, which we are enjoying immensely.



And we have lots of oranges from our tree but they have too many seeds and are pretty tart so I’ve been juicing them. We’re letting them stay on a bit longer hoping that they sweeten up given more time.




This young acacia tree on the common area between our site and Terry and LuAnns' has probably grown 5’ in the year that we've been members here.






Swarms of these silver dollar sized Painted Lady butterflies have been zooming by for about a week now, on their way from Mexico to the northwest to breed. Apparently the vegetation growth from the wet winter has given them plenty to eat along the way. We forgot to take a picture of all of the squished ones on the front of the car when we drove to Yuma recently, but they leave big yellow blobs and the front of the car was covered with them.



Didn’t have much luck focusing through the dirty, streaked glass, but these two hummers were so cute, acting in unison. Normally they fight to keep each other away.





We made two trips to Algondones, a day trip last week so I could get the implant abutment and impressions made, then an overnight in Yuma on Sunday for my last appointment to get the crown Monday morning. After almost a year I finally have all my teeth again, and it feels good!

A couple shots from our drive through Anza Borrego on the way. There weren’t many flowers along our route through the southern part of the park, although we’ve heard there are lots around Borrego Springs.



It’s nice to see things so green.



This was the view from our room at the Shilo Inn in Yuma. We splurged an extra $10 to get a room away from the interstate. We were close to downtown so we went out for a beer and an Impossible Burger at The Pint House, a nice little bar with 50 beers on tap. Yuma has kind of grown on us over time.

It was too cold to make use of the lovely pool

Other than the usual pickleball, ping pong, walking, working out and doing a little volunteering around the park, life has been pretty quiet since we got back from McDowell Mountain. We’re hoping the winter cold and rains end soon so we can get out and do some hiking and experiment with the camera more. I’ll try not to let so much time pass before I post again, but given the time it took trying to do this post using Blogger, now that Open Live Writer won't work anymore, I'm not sure I have the patience. 

Flowers by one of the ponds at Jojoba Hills