A few days at Val Vista Winter Village, Casa Grande

Wednesday, Jan 30

Our first full day at Val Vista. Internet service is slightly better, but still far below acceptable standards. Maybe they paid attention to the email sent to support, even though they haven't replied as yet. Today is a windy day, so even though it's sunny, it's quite cool outside. We went to town again today, looking for windshield repair places and to check out the golf course. The city golf course looks like our speed, so we booked a tee time for tomorrow afternoon. The expensive times are before 1pm, and the cheapest times after 3pm. That implies that it normally gets quite hot in the afternoon, making morning golf the preferred time.

We also went looking for outlet malls and shoe stores and, although we found some of both, Elaine wasn't impressed; Graham is never impressed by shopping, so his opinion doesn't count. We did stop by at the local RV dealer, to kick tires. We were impressed with an Alfa they had taken in trade (with less than 5000 miles on it). Alfa has very high ceilings and lots of different features that you don't see on other makes. Their asking price was around $170K.

Around dinner time, there was a quite nice sunset that we photographed from the roof of the motor home. The trees are all within the campground and the surrounding area is all desert with low scrubby bushes. In the distance, you can see hills that quite literally grow out of the desert. It's flat all around and then a hill will rise up 1-2000 feet...odd, but interesting.

To keep up with the tradition, we'd like to wish a happy birthday to two special people; Lynda and grandson Austin ...have a great day and year!!

Thursday, Jan 31

Well, here we are at the beginning of our third week on the road. It seems like we've been doing this forever. But to put it in context, we will spend the same amount of time in Mexico as we have to date since we left Calgary. Then it will take much longer to make our way back north again, since the plan is to head off to California for awhile.

It was only 1 degree Celsius when we woke this morning. Today is the first golf of 2008, played at the Dave White Municipal Golf Course. We met and golfed with Myrna and Gary, from Canal Flats, BC. Got some good tips on sights and restaurants. We'll have to go to the ostrich farm. Have to mention good service and good food when we see it. First, we called Tom at Superglass Windshield Repair to repair a rock chip in the windshield. Not only did he come promptly, but we were away playing golf at the time, so he went ahead and fixed the chip anyhow...nice guy and highly recommended if you need his services. The second was the tip to go to Mimi's Restaurant for good, reasonably priced food. We did and it met all expectations. Since we were first time patrons, Mimi's provided a box of four assorted muffins for us to take home. This will be breakfast for a couple of days, since they are the size of Costco muffins. Mimi's is recommended if you're down this way.

Friday, Feb 1

Today was WARM and with very little wind. It was a chores day, fixing little things on the motor home and car, and doing laundry. We also spent some time in reserving some spots in Yuma and San Diego, since the weather seems to be getting better. Good thing we did because several of our 'picks' in Yuma were already booked solid. One had over 1000 sites and was fully booked!

Saturday, Feb 2

A special side trip today...see the next journal entry. On the way back, we visited three show homes. Huge homes (up to 2800 square feet with triple garages) can be had for just over $200K US including the land. Apparently, the bottom has fallen out of the real estate market here. We also went shopping for essentials and took some awesome sunset pictures.

Today's Happy Birthday (or happy anniversary of her 29th birthday) goes to daughter Cathy. Have a wonderful year Cathy!

Sunday, Feb 3

Our final day in Casa Grande. Also, it's Superbowl Sunday! Didn't do much of anything today, just talked about doing this and that and never really got going. We did bath the dogs, just so they'd look nice for the border patrol tomorrow :-).

The Giants upset the Patriots and Brendan will be unhappy. I keep telling him, any team on any given day, can beat any other team! On the other hand, I didn't bet on the game, so I don't really have the courage of my convictions.

We're looking forward to Mexico tomorrow. It's supposed to get cold at night here (below zero in places), so we need to be further south.

Jan 30, 2008

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