Saturday morning and we are still at the Roberts Resort in El Mirage, our last full day to play with our little friends…yes tomorrow will be a sad day day as everyone heads in their own direction but it’s only till the next time we are together. So today will be another busy day, a ten o’clock decision will be made for pickle ball, or billiards as an early dinner is being planned by the Bannon’s, and there were rumours of multiple cocktails and / or after dinner drinks. This will be a big day in the Ward house as OH-IO takes on their arch rival Michigan State, Ohio hoping to keep their winning streak alive, it’s an early game here starting at ten this morning…GO BUCKEYES!

I’m sitting watching the news, as there are rescue crews searching for children washed away from their vehicle in a local wash! People remember it’s called a wash for a reason, and for people unfamiliar with the power of water it can be a lethal combination, the bottoms are usually flat and easy to set up on but they are also the first area to flood. Please to all the boondockers ot there be careful, it’s great to be off the grid in the middle of nature but it’s not worth your life or damaging you rig. I can’t imagine the agony of watching your children being washed away.

The sun is coming up as I write, it was cold last night, dipping into the thirties over night and only climbing to 57 or 17 degrees today, I know all you that are up north where it is cold and snowy are not feeling real bad for us right now, but I’m ok with that…lol. We are back into the mid sixties next week and while not real warm, we are fine with those temperatures as they are great for hiking or other activities, and with overnights in the low fifties or high forties it is great for sleeping.

Well Black Friday has passed without the purchase of any batteries, but it appears there may be some bargains to be had on Cyber Monday as there will be a blemished battery sale, just cosmetics, the performance and warranty are guaranteed and in place, and I don’t really care if there are some case imperfects. So Monday morning I will be chasing down some batteries. After speaking with Ray who has installed 3 100 amp/hour lithium’s, I’m looking forward to this upgrade more that you can even imagine.

With a little more rain overnight and the cooler temperatures, the decision was made to play billiards instead of pickle ball, Miss Karen brought snacks and the afternoon was great fun as we all honed out pool skills or not. Miss Shari and Bob prepared dinner with some huge New York strips barbecued to perfection with grilled asparagus sautéed mushrooms and baked potatoes, dinner was great followed by much discussion of what is in store, we all had a chance to face time with Betty and Butch, as it was a good day for the buckeyes, kicking the Michigan around team big time. It is so hard to believe that we have been together for a week and that it all ends tomorrow, this has been such a blessing, and again we just have to give thanks for such great friends and the opportunity to have spent this time together, we had a little celebration for Rays birthday next month.

Day 787

Well it’s finally raining, I mean thunder and lightning, kind of raining, but it doesn’t seem to be too hard, a steady rain, and my main thought goes to the spring colour in the desert. The forecast is for sunshine by noon but it will be a cooler day as we are very close to the days high temperature already, but at least we are not parked in the middle of a wash today, but again the rain has come overnight. The sun came out before noon and it warmed up a little but it’s going to dip into the thirties overnight and just be in the fifties tomorrow before warming up for next week.

It’s Black Friday, so not the day you want to go shopping or at least a day I don’t want to go shopping…so we went shopping…well it was just Costco so apparently that didn’t count as a Black Friday shopping destination. We needed to stock up for our month in Why, it’s not really close to anything, so there are just some items that are not available in the area and if they have the item is a lot less expensive. The store was busy but not real crazy and we managed to purchase more than we had planned, apparently that always happens when Miss Laurie lets me go with her, I’m not sure I believe that is the case at all, but it is what it is, and I only picked up a couple of items…like really.

So we spent the afternoon playing eight ball again as most of the park is still really wet, drainage is not one of the Arizona builders strong suits, in fact in most cases it falls into the fail category. There was a noticeable level of improvement from the previous days event, took a couple of beverages with us and a pound and a half of shrimp as an appetizer before going out to the grill on site for fish and chips. Dinner was good nice flaky cod lightly battered (I had the grilled salmon), but just frozen fries, good French fries are real hard to come by in the States. A fry truck could make a killing here, doing fresh cut fries, fry trucks are real common back in Ontario, there are some better than others, but most are far better than fries, they would go crazy for the Lions Clubs ribbon fries.

Day 786