ARIZONA, with a short trip to Las Vegas

We made it to Arizona, and during the ride, Tony got in another nap in order to re-charge for the Mansfield's visit!

Here's the famous "Bunkhouse" or Guest House for those friends visiting Barbie & Uncle Pete; We love the eclectic assortment of artwork and trophies throughout the Bunkhouse, which is, by the way, a 2 bedroom home.

Here is the main house - a wonderful adobe atop a hill, with breathtaking 360 views.  

Note the inclined walkway,
which has been named: "The Ho Chi Min Trail"

Here are the three Mansfield "puppies", TJ, Harley and the ever frisky Rosie;  I actually tried to have them sit and pose, and you can see how that turned out:

And some views inside the house:

The powder room is decorated in the  "Day of the Dead" very popular around here - but I can attest that the Mansfield's are definitely not devil worshippers:

Tony inadvertantly cracked a tooth, so he and Peter immediately called their Campfire Club buddy, Dr. Finn, who advised them to yank out the broken piece. So, the guys disinfected a pair of pliers (with Tequila, of course), and out it came!  

We drove south to Nogales, AZ, a border town, to have lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant, and on the way home, we stopped to visit a grotto, to light a candle for our late friend Scotty, a CFC member.  The grotto is built into the face of a rock cliff, and you need to climb steep stairs to reach it.  A mother promised to have the grotto built if her 3 sons would return from the war; now, people light candles there for the sick and departed.  It is as full as it can be, and every time we are in the area when we visit, we light a candle for Scotty.

By Thursday, all 10 of us have arrived at the ranch. We went to the Gem Show in Tucson, where merchants from around the world gather to sell to eager jewelers and shoppers with lots of money to spend.  There are huge tents all around Tucson for this once a year extravaganza. We all contributed to the cause, to help the economy, of course! 
Chuck found himself the perfect seat made out of carved wood from Thailand.......

Afterwards, we had our own little tailgate party in the parking lot:

And by then, we were ready for dinner at our favorite restaurant in Tucson, Vivace.

Our hosts for the week, Barbie and Uncle Petey

Millie and Chuck from Scottsdale

Marlene and Dave from Albuquerque

Suzie and Stuart from L.A.

And Us!

We are at 4800 feet elevation here at the Mansfield's, and it's been extremely cold - yesterday morning it was 9 degrees!!! Colder than back home.  They've broken all records going back over 25 years.  Sure, we come for the warm weather, and it's freezing.  


We needed more firewood, so the He-Men were on it:

As Stu said: "How many Senior Citizens does it take to chop down a tree??"

We all prepared our favorite dishes each night - you can be assured that we ate very well.  Here was our contribution - "dungie" crabs:

After 8 days of R & R, we headed north to visit with my high school friends, Doreen & Bill, who recently moved from Long Island to Oracle, AZ, just north of Tucson.  

We had to unload some food from the motorhome, which was placed in storage while we were there, and OMG what do you think we made?

There's those crabs again!

We were out and about one day, and came across a common sight in AZ - look closely there's a roadrunner in the photo:

Beep-Beep

We flew to Las Vegas where our friends Carol & Vinny picked us up in a van, so all six of us could be together as we traveled during our 4 days here. As we drove on the highway, there was a mattress in the lane up ahead, and someone pulled over to retrieve it. Carol warned Vinny to avoid it, but nooooo, Vinny had to drive over it. We felt the bump as we drove over it, and then heard people honking at us and pointing to our van.  Well, we realized that we were dragging the mattress under the front wheel !!!  It was absolutely hysterical! We pulled over, but not before we captured a photo of the mattress from the van window:

Bet you've never done this before!

You can't make this stuff up !!!


We met up with another couple, Roseanne and Ron, who live out here in Henderson, NV, and ate at our favorite restaurant in Las Vegas, Roma Deli. The table we are sitting at is the only granite table in the place;  Celine Dion had it made for her when she eats here with her family, and we always request it when we come.  Bill is ga-ga over Celine, and I thought he would kiss the table.

Here are the three buddies who met in Viet Nam, over 44 years ago - 

The Robin Hoods

Roseanne & Ron

Carol & Vinny

We drove to the Hoover Dam to see the progress on the new bridge.  In 2009 when we were here, the work was about halfway done, and was completed recently.  The road to the Hoover Dam is now just an outlet road with a turnaround;  you can no longer drive from Arizona to the Dam.  You have to drive into Nevada, and follow the signs to the Dam.  Here's a photo from last year's construction project, followed by the finished bridge, about 1.3 miles long:

This was taken in 2009

Here we are today in front of the span

Here's all six of us

The Hoover Dam was a magnificent engineering feat - a marvel to look at every time we see it.

We saw the Criss Angel show at the Luxor - the magic acts were great - this stuff always drives me crazy.  How do they do it???
During our stay in Las Vegas, we walked around in Caesar's Palace and Bellagio, where Ron works. The feature exhibition in the Bellagio was a tribute to Chinese New Years - the year of the rabbit.  

We had dinner in Morton's Restaurant, where Ron, Jr works, and feasted on incredible food and service. 

Later, we heard the magnificent David Osborne at the piano in Bellagio's. 


We took a ride to Phoenix to see Uncle George, Carol and Michelle who was in from San Francisco.

A few years ago, after Aunt Lee passed away, Tony planted an orange tree in her memory.  This year, we were able to pick the fruit, and Uncle George also gave us some picture-perfect ruby reds from his grapefruit tree.

A little crooked, but the grapefruit tree survived the frost

Drove back to spend more time with Doreen & Bill. Their community in Oracle, Saddleback Ranch, is still under development, but there's plenty to do - We joined a Putter's group, made greeting cards at a crafts meet, shot some pool, drooled over the new model homes in this Robson community, did some shopping and had some great meals at local restaurants. 
This is one of the many exquisite sunsets from their patio, which has a 180 degree view of the Santa Catalina mountains.

On the docket is a Native American Fair with 140 artisans, music, food and dance.  Also, just up the road is Biosphere 2, which served as an incredible science experiment between 1991-1993.  

Four men and four women spent two years totally enclosed in a sphere, completely cut off from civilization. They were responsible for harvesting their own food from 4 different biomes: savanna, desert, ocean and tropical forest.  They had 250,000 gallons of emergency water, but by the end of the two years, the entire supply was unused, as they acquired water from condensation within the sphere. This one-of-a-kind facility sits up on a ridge at 4,000 feet, in the middle of a high desert.  It was recently named one of the 50 must see "Wonders of the World", with real-time research on the future of the planet.

Tony won this painting from his bid at the miniatures show 
at Settler's West Gallery in Tucson

Tony bought me this magnificent piece of Santa Clara pottery 
at a Native American Art Festival

At another Artisan Show in Oracle, we bought Doreen & Bill 
this painting as a housewarming gift

We ventured out to an indoor range to get in some shooting.  Bill & Doreen have never even held a gun (I remember how that felt), but by the time we left, well, just suffice it to say that Doreen was Annie Oakley reincarnated.

On our last night here, the sky was lit up with stars, so much so that it was as if we were in a planetarium.  The communities here are essentially set in the desert, and its about 10 miles to the nearest town, so there was very little ambient light.  Wish I could have captured it in a photo.


We leave Arizona tomorrow, and head east to Deming, NM, which will be our base while we venture out to see nearby ancient Indian cliff dwellings.