Finally Time for Update

We are so enjoying the sunshine and usually warm weather here. Once in a while we get a shower at night, but they sure need rain here and it does clear the dust out, so no complaints. We now have a cart for Cookie that goes behind Ralph's bike, so we all now enjoy bike rides. When Cookie is not using it, the garbage and recycle goes in it to the dump area across the street.

It was very quiet here until November and each day there are more people out and about. Cookie has her favorite buddies that she visits on walks and we are meeting new people and seeing old friends as they arrive.

Having never been here in the fall, we never knew how much cotton is grown in this area. There is field after field all over here. When the plant turns brown it is time to harvest. It has been fun watching how they pick the cotton. It is all done by machine. The first time through the fields the machine looks like a a giant fork lift with lots of "forks"in the front and a vacuum that sucks up the cotton into a bin as it is loosened. That gets about half of it. Then they come through with a giant vacuum and suck up most that is left. The field is then mowed and plowed. They stagger planting so the fields are ready for picking at different times. Trucks are everywhere hauling the cotton bales to processing plants.

We did a tag-a-long with a group from the park to Biosphere 2 near Tuscon. It is now owned by the University of Arizona that runs it as a research lab. The rain forest and ocean are the same as when people were living there. Other parts are being changed for different experiments. It is no longer a closed environment, so the original animals have been removed and they get native ones coming to visit. It was a very interesting tour with lots of stairs and parts that were very hot and humid.










Now for our really big news! We love this park and Casa Grande area and had planned to stay 7 months a year on our lot here in our 5th wheel. When we can no longer travel, this is where we would stay year round. So, with prices down due to the economy, we decided to look for a park model to put on our lot. We just couldn't find anything that we liked. So, we started looking at park models for sale in the park. Just down the street from our lot we found exactly what we wanted and the owner was very anxious to sell to go back to Tennessee with family. So we are now the owners of a park model with attached Arizona room that includes a living area and a computer room. It has a covered and lattice enclosed back porch that includes a finished shed with washer/dryer, water softener, its own hot water tank with utility sink and lots of storage cabinets. The front has a covered porch and carport. It has wood laminate floors throughout, lots of upgrades and was very well maintained. We are keeping our lot for our trailer and we will still be traveling 5 months a year.

So, since we had sold everything, we had to start over. What fun to get to buy everything new! We took possession on November 9 and started a thorough cleaning and then putting everything we had bought away. Our furniture came on November 16 and we officially moved in Nov. 17. We love it more everyday we are here. It is a perfect size, 700 square feet plus 120 square feet in the shed. We love to sit on the front porch and enjoy the sunsets. It is a work in progress, but we have come a long way from the empty place that it was.

If anyone is in this area please call us. We would love to see you and you can see our new home!

Here are a few pictures.
1. Front Porch
2. Living Room
3. TV Room
4. Dining and Kitchen





For Thanksgiving, our dear friends Roger and Barb invited us for turkey dinner. Boy, it was good! Thank you Barb and Roger. Yesterday, we were invited to join a group of Roger and Barb's friends here in Casa Grande. The ladies had facials with hot cocoa and cookies. The guys went to see the movie J. Edgar Hoover, with mixed reviews. Then everyone (16 in all) had turkey noodle soup, stuffing, rolls and pie. We sure enjoyed meeting everyone that we had heard so much about and dinner was delicious.

That's about all for this time. We have lots of activities planned for December, so may have more updates here soon.