Looks like another month has flown by without a new post, although I had good intentions. We've shaken things up around here so blogging has been put on the back burner but things have settled down so it's time to catch up.
We are now happily relaxing in a lovely house near the Sandia Mountains in Albuquerque, NM, caring for two sweet cats until mid-August, but more about that later.
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| We like our new neighborhood. |
A few weeks ago we visited Prescott, AZ for about 10 days to visit with several friends. We had a great time hiking, biking, eating out (Bill's Pizza, Tara Thai, and Hans and Lisa's house, all excellent), and enjoying many happy hours at The Raven Cafe.
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| Our favorite site at White Spar Campground |
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| We spent one night at North Ranch SKP park in Congress on the way to Prescott and back, where this javelina walked behind our site. |
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| He was on his way to the watering hole in front of the office, totally oblivious to people or cars. |
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Beautiful flowing cactus in someone's yard at North Ranch
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In Prescott we hiked the Salida Gulch trail, new trails across from Thumb Butte, Wolverton Mountain and Aspen Creek trails.
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| Maureen, Eric, Hans, Jim and Lisa taking a break on the Salida Gulch trail |
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| View from the trail |
We always enjoy biking the Peavine and Iron King Trails.
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| Jim and Sandy on the Peavine, while John was out riding the "real" mountain bike trails. |
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| Scenic Watson Lake from the trail |
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| View of Prescott from the Wolverton Trail |
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| Fortunately, this was just a controlled burn |
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| View from Aspen Creek trail |
We really enjoyed our time in Prescott and it was great seeing Eric and Maureen, who have lived there for several years, John and Sandy, who were at a local RV park for a month, and Hans and Lisa, who now have a lovely home just north of town.
The day we arrived in Prescott we got the Lazy Daze set up on our site and then took a hundred mile drive to Fountain Hills, AZ to look at an apartment. We got an email a couple days before from Park Place Apartments, which we looked at last winter when we were at McDowell Mountain, telling about their summer rent specials. There was only one available two bedroom on the Avenue of the Fountains side with a view, which we did not get to look at when we toured the place last December. We had ruled it out then because we thought the rent was too high, but they were offering a substantial rent reduction and giving 10 free weeks, and although we will be here until the middle of August, we negotiated and got them to postpone our move-in date to July 1. Since there is no rent due until mid-September we decided to go ahead with it, which means we will be making our way back there when we leave Albuquerque. So just like that, it looks like our full-time RVing days are over!
We had planned to leave the Lazy Daze on our lot at Jojoba Hills over the summer but decided to give up our membership so we wouldn't have to drive all the way back to California after we leave Albuquerque. Fortunately, our neighbors and some other friends bought just about everything we acquired with the lot, and the rest we gave away. Since we only had a week after getting back from Prescott, we were happy it turned out to be so easy.
Jojoba served our needs for the past year and a half, and it's a very nice park, but we just didn't care for the location. We did have fun playing pickleball there, and I enjoyed working with the landscaping committee. On our Wednesday morning work parties there might be anywhere from 15-20 people show up, but on the last project I helped with we needed more muscle to spread 14 tons of rock in the revamped cactus garden by the clubhouse. Over 40 people came to help, and we got it done in just a couple hours.
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| The power of volunteers |
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| The finished garden looked great. We removed a lot of old, half dead cacti and planted a few new ones. |
It was quite a challenge for us figuring out what to take to Albuquerque for three months, then cleaning out the RV and preparing it for storage. Having lived in it for almost 11 years and never storing it, we didn't realize how much work was involved. We hate for it to sit there baking in the heat all summer but it was going to do that at Jojoba anyway. For now we will keep it and see how much we use it before we decide whether we think it's worth the trouble and expense to store and maintain. We've only been at the house in Albuquerque for a bit over a week, but we are both happy knowing we don't have to go back to living in a 30' box when the housesit is over. We love having counter space in the kitchen, a washer and dryer, and not having to dump tanks. Those were things we adjusted to but we aren't missing any of it so far. We may feel differently as time goes on, but we had both become disenchanted with RVing and felt it was time for a change.
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Jim cleaning off all the bugs at the storage lot in Fountain Hills.
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We spent the night at a hotel in Fountain Hills after locking up the RV. Good thing it was less than a mile away since Jim had to go back twice for things we forgot.
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| This will be our new home on the right. Fearless Kitty Rescue is on the left. |
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| I will probably be spending too much time here :-) |
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| The saguaros were all in bloom |
Back to Albuquerque and our job for the summer, caring for these two adorable cats. It is such fun having cats around the house again, but we won't be getting any when we move to Fountain Hills. Since Fearless Kitty Rescue is so close to our new apartment, we will be able to get a cat fix whenever we like.
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| Handsome Luke, who likes to follow us around and keep an eye on what we're doing. |
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| Keira, a very petite former stray with a scarred right eye. She has the cutest squeaky meow. |
We haven't yet gone out and done any exploring around Albuquerque since we've been enjoying just hanging around this comfortable house and taking long walks around the neighborhood.
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| It was cold, windy and rained some our first couple days here. We awoke to snow on the mountains but it melted quickly when the sun came out. |
We can walk for miles on the streets of the neighborhood, or be on a trail in less than a mile.
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| This deer is actually in a yard between two houses, but the houses are far apart and the yards must be left natural |
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| It's very hilly so it's easy to get a good workout even if we stay on the streets |
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| Hazy view of Albuquerque |
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| Foothills trail |
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| Another part of the same trail |
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| Start of the Sandia Tramway as seen from one of our hikes |
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We may have to do this on a hot day since the tram goes up to 10,000'. There is also a 7 mile trail to the top, with 3,700' of elevation gain, and you can take the tram down. We need to get back into hiking shape for that one.
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I think that's all the news from our world. We have RV friends coming to town over the next few weeks so I will try to keep the blog updated. I also intend to stay caught up with blog reading to see what we are missing this summer and maybe give us some motivation to get back out on the road again. For now, we're content hanging out with cats and enjoying the views. Oh, and the 55" TV is pretty nice, too.
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| Pleasant views from almost every window in the house. |
