I’ve been enjoying a sunny time at Mittry Lake, north of Yuma. It’s a lovely place with a great view of the lake.

We had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with several other Boomer Escapee couples, with good food, good friendships, and particularly nice weather. We stayed here for more days, visiting back and forth, until they left while I remained with other new friends. But I still spend most of every day by myself, taking long walks with Cheyenne and unwinding from a busy summer. Finally I am sleeping for nearly eight hours most nights, the first time in months.

I love the beautiful hummingbirds that greedily reside here, and it took a long time for the bees to find their feeder. The lovely little birds are iridescent in the sunlight, just gorgeous! But they are also greedy and so habituated to humans who feed them at motor homes that as soon as I parked they began buzzing me, expecting food to appear immediately. So funny. Now I put out a top-feeder and the bees don’t seem to be able to reach the food any more. I am gradually winning the insect war, and the flies that get into the motor home are still annoying, but I’m getting good at eliminating those that sneak in. I learned that many plants here are invasive, even worse than the invasive stuff we get in Alaska. One of the most widespread are big ferny trees called “tamaris”.  They are so successful that they’re taking over all other local vegetation.  You can see in this picture, they are the ferny yellow bushes.

Camping here is free, so it’s been good for my budget. There’s no cellphone service for AT&T, but the Verizon internet connection is fine. That means I over-ran my limit last month, will have to pay for it on the next bill. My old friends Bonnie and Doug Towne drove down this week to hang out with me! We’ve been friends since our kids went to school together in Cooper Landing, when my son Peter was just starting kindergarten! That was almost 40 years ago!! It was great to see them again, I love staying in touch with old friends. We drove in to Yuma for lunch at their favorite Mexican restaurant. That was the first time I’ve eaten out on this trip. They lived for ten years in their RV, traveling the country working at various spots before they bought a little house in Arizona, but they still travel in their motor home during the winter.

Saturday was the big Algodones “fiesta” across the border to celebrate the start of the Snowbird Season, so I went there to look around. It’s not the lovely little Mexican village my friends Jo and David visited some 20 years ago… surely it would be unrecognizable to them now. It’s become the border capitol of dentists and oral surgery, and cheap pharmacies. Plus boozatoriums, of course. I guess that’s what happens when they are walking distance from thousands of snowbirds.

We had three days of clouds and some rain, so I finally had to run my generator for two hours to upcharge the batteries. That’s the first time ever that my solar panels weren’t enough! It tells me that I could use another panel when the weather doesn’t cooperate. On the other hand, most of these other RVers are running their generators EVERY DAY! Jeez… They do it just to make coffee! or use the microwave! or to blow-dry or curl their hair! Or even to run a fan! Hard to believe. (and annoyingly noisy!) I will probably go back to Casa Grande and get another solar panel installed, but not until mid-January. I need to save some money before I make the splurge.

Something unbelievable happened this week. A few nights ago, as I was sitting outside by my little campfire in the dark, a new neighbor stepped outside his rig behind me and played the most pure and simple melody on an Indian flute! I was enchanted! Then when I learned that he sells these flutes to musicians and museums, and teaches people how to play them, I took a leap of faith and bought one! I’m gradually learning to play it, something I never imagined I’d do in my “old age”. He says I’m doing great, but I know I have a long way to go. At least I’m determined. My hands feel stiff and sore, but he says the playing will actually help arthritis and develop dexterity, which I hope is true. I’m excited, even though I know I’ll never be a master. Now I must be more frugal than ever, to make amends to my bank account. (http://www.highspirits.com/)

Some photos of this place…

It’s been great to make new RV friends, and I’ll try to get photos of them with their motor homes, mostly to jog my own memory.  Here are some of them…  Connie and John, Roger and Anne, Reiner and Marie, Theresa and Dwayne.