Another stay in Sedona

Sedona is an amazingly beautiful place!

We went with Doc and Sharon Watson on a sunset Jeep ride.  The driver promised a "chiropractic adjustment" and he kept his word!  Was a lot of fun, besides taking us to some great vistas.

We all hiked a trail or two together.

We did plenty of this, also!!

Spent one afternoon on the scenic VerdeValley train to Perkinsville.

There is a fish hatchery almost next door to the campground.  Happened to see them rounding up some catchable-size rainbow trout that they were shipping off to Fool Hollow Lake.

Also on the fish hatchery grounds we spied a nesting Black Hawk.  Pretty cool.

Great weekend renewing treasured friendships with great friends!

the Watson's

Spend a lazy Arizona day soaking up some sun in Sabino canyon with Doc and Sharon Watson.  We're going to hang around Tucson until Easter and then the four of us are going up to Sedona for a few more days together. 

First saguaro blooms of the season in Sabino Canyon.

Arizona cactus bloom

First one opened yesterday morning.

A new one this morning, but yesterday's is fading away in the hot sun.  Trichocerrus only last one day, but this one is a day bloomer and not a night bloomer so at least we can see it.

Just can't LOOK at them enough!

And my prickly pear are beginning also.

A cactus beauty

Any day now!!  I've been watching this cactus for a week now as the buds swell.  I expect it to open every day but so far it is just looking more and more like it could burst open any moment.  In the mean time, here are some other beauties that have graced my yard these past weeks.

actually, I can't take credit for this one.  We found it blooming in the parking lot of the Ritz Carlton a few weeks ago.  It was the most abundant cerrus speciman we had ever seen!

73 miles, 4 hrs and 19minutes.

Today was another Tucson bike ride.  This one began in Marana and looped around the Tucson Mountains returning to Marana.  Was called, "Tour of Tucson Mountains."  Here's Will at the finish, 73 miles in 4 hours and 19 minutes.  He was satisfied with his time.  Wasn't really a race but still interested in his time.

Besides the big ride there was a 5 mile "fun" ride which ended at the same place.  Was fun to watch all the kids and families out enjoying the ride.

Sedona

We journeyed to Sedona, Arizona with Wayne and Judy for a long weekend.  They were on their way back to Wisconsin and we wanted to make a short trip to try the new RV out.  First day we arrived was beautiful, but that night a front came through and dumped a bunch of snow on us.  Well, we got to check out the furnace.  And it turned the amazing red rocks of Sedona into an even more amazingly beautiful landscape!

We stayed south of Sedona near Page Springs in a nice quiet, birdy RV resort near a natural springs. . .named Paged Springs.

When the sun came out on day three, it was wonderful hiking as the snow was melting off the trees--and occasionally falling down our necks!

One of the hikes was to Fay Arch.  The picture is a little hard to see, but that is an arch that Will is standing in front of.

Can't go to Sedona without stopping at "the Chapel."

Fun weekend with good friends in a beautiful part of Arizona.  We did find a few glitches on the RV that we need to have fixed but mostly it was all good.  I think we'll keep it!

Found this on YouTube--too good not to pass on

I can't believe were doing this!!

Can you find Will?  We're 3rd and 4th in line in front of the Apple Store in the predawn hours waiting for a chance at an iPad II

It all started with a phone call from China. "Hey, Mom, can you do me a favor?"

He wanted one of the new iPads that just were released in early March.  Not available yet in China.  In fact he wanted two of them for his company.  "Sure, Doug, no problem"--Having no idea what this world was all about.  A quick call to the Apple store in Oro Valley said they were sold out, but new shipments come in most days and you just need to come over and be there when the store opens to see if what you want is in today's shipment.

  Well, not quite so simple.  Line begins to form each morning at 5am, at 7:30 am they start to give out "tickets" for the iPad you want which you can get and pay for when the store opens at 10am.  So that's exactly what we did--we were up at 4:15am to get to the store to stand in line (along with 36 other people this day) and we did get the units with Doug's preferred specifications.  Quite the experience for us "un-techie" people.  Now keep in mind this line has formed every single morning in front of the Apple store in Oro Valley (and across the nation) since the new one was released 3 or 4 weeks ago.  Each store only gets a limited number each day and they are sold out before the store even opens.  Several at the back of the line went home to come back another day to try again. 

  We learned more about iPad and Apple products standing in line and chatting with other people--who were also questioning their sanity.  And we did not even get to keep one to play with it--we shipped them off to him.  We just figure we have one up on Doug now and he owes us big time.

Our new summer home!

We moved up in the world and traded in our 2003 Winnebago for a  Itasca (also Winnebago) Impulse. We parked the old rig next to the new one on the sales lot and moved everything over.  Just like moving into a new apartment!  This one is actually a little smaller by a couple of feet in length but is layed out much more efficiently with some new, fun features that weren't even thought of 8 years ago!  And Will is so tickled with all the outside storage which is a lot more than we previously had--at least it is easier to access.  So now we're reading all the manuals and trying to get up to speed on how everything works.  I wanted to drive it home and just park it in the driveway and just look at it and play with everything, but alas we left it in the storage lot.  We're going to take a short trip to Sedona next weekend to try it out.