Days of Our Lives

Some days are more special than others, and yesterday was one of the special ones. Ted and I met friends for lunch and as the pictures show, we had fun and the food was great! Some people will work for food, we'll go anywhere for food! Usually this means a 25-35 mile drive to one of the nearest towns, but combined with a laundry stop or grocery shopping it is a multi-purpose outing.

Chicken enchiladas with green sauce, my favorite!!!!

Today, I made my weekly trip to the library. In August, I joined the Friends of the Show Low Library and I volunteer one morning a week. Our Friends' secondhand book store sells between $1200-$1300 in used books every month. My job is to help price and shelve all the donations, and when you figure the books sell for $.10-$1.75, a lot of books need to come and go to make up the monthly total. Some days we sell over $80 in used books, videos and dvds. There are only 5 of us doing this work, and it is nice to know my volunteer time is going to a very good organization and I am truly needed.

Even though this building is only 3 years old, a new library is scheduled to be completed in 2 years. This building will be converted to a new city hall. The money the Friends raise is used for furniture, computer lab equipment, etc. It cannot be used for books or the actual building. Last month, the Friends established a new $1000 scholarship at the local college. It is set up to help students finish their last courses. In this region, students struggle to maintain jobs, families, transportation, etc. and rarely finish college in 4 years. Our goal is to make it a little easier for the students who have shown dedication to their education. I'm proud to be a part of that.

Green's Peak

Today, Ted and I took a drive through the local forest roads. Our destination was Green's Peak, elevation 10,120 ft. The local elevation was around 7000 ft. You can see Green's Peak off in the distance from the highway, but we were determined to find out how to get on top! We were fortunate to find one last Aspen Tree in its fall glory.

OK, we're getting closer. You can begin to see the antenna towers on the top. Makes sense since it is the highest peak for miles around.

We did find the road, and it was fairly well maintained. As we got closer, those towers got bigger and seemed to multiply. There was also a fire tower as well.

I don't think they missed any antenna opportunity! I counted 13 towers and all had multiple "things" attached!

We had a good, peaceful day. I've come to appreciate the quiet moments in life, and living in this remote area of Arizona, these moments are frequent visitors in my life.

Getting started...

It seems strange to start a blog at the end of our season in Show Low. As we plan our departure to Yuma, I'm learning how to "blog!" There are so many decisions to make regarding layout, fonts, colors, adding pictures, etc., that I have a steep learning curve ahead of me. So, I'm starting now, so I'll know what I'm doing when it counts!

Background: We purchased our Show Low property 2 1/2 years ago. The land was truly "raw." In order to get set up here, we had to move rocks. I'm not talking about small rocks that you can rake aside. I'm talking about the BFRs, and BFBs. Most rocks are in the 3-5 pound category, but the boulders required heavy machinery to dig out. After bending and lifting hundreds of the 3-5 pound variety, getting help with the BFBs, removing the cactus came next. We have lots of mature prickly pear and cholla cactus everywhere and of course, they were right where we want to put our driveway. Digging out cactus is difficult and mother nature fights back! We had prickers in our gloves, socks and even our shoes. We had prickers surviving 2-3 washings and showing up in our underwear. Nasty. Then, we had to cut down the dead juniper trees. Another tough job!

After the rocks, cactus and trees were gone, we had to drag the new driveway so the cinder layer would be smooth. Then the cinders were laid and we could finally park our motorhomes on our land. The work had only begun, but I'll tell you more about in subsequent postings. This one is just for "starters!"