Apricity West 4

January 5, 2024 - Friday

Dance class is full and growing. Picture of a few of us who wore our sparkle t-shirts...

Many snowbirds are coming into the park this time of year with their toys in tow. LOUD ATV’s, and some motorcycles, invade us. Back in Wickenburg, the cowboys and cowgirls are streaming in with their horse trailers. In other words, traffic and things are getting very busy here. We’ll be moseying on to Tucson on February1st, just 3 hours down the road. We surely will miss all of the people and events here - no other park that we have been to has as many activities. 

 

January 6, 2024 - Saturday

Remember the day we went to John and Eileen’s on the wrong day? Well, today was the right day! We visited for a few hours and then started preparing the meal - pork tenderloin, mashed sweet (but white) potatoes, sautéed green beans, salad and rolls. The perfect ending was a Brookie - stacked brownie and chocolate chip cookie dough from Trader Joes. 

 

Air Balloons graced the sky as we headed home.

January 7, 2024 - Sunday

I rose very early today so we went into Safeway to drop a little $$ - home before 8am, played a little uke, crocheted a little bit, made a little rizi verzi (rice and savoy cabbage soup) - all before noon. 

 

Good thing we went early - the very large snow flakes floated to the ground to melt upon our return. 

This is a shot from our friends property 15 miles out in the desert.

Weaver Mountains capped in white.

January 8, 2024 - Monday

Today was the big gig at the Wickenburg Senior Center. It went very well except for needed cleaning up of intros and outs. Listen to the video in the body of the email. They served a delicious lunch too - Italian chicken, cauliflower, baked beans, salad bar, fruit cup, and a piece of cake! 

At about 7:30pm, the TV shut off and lights went out and came back on, but dimmer lights. The green lights were on at the hook up outside. This is a major concern when you have turned off your propane and are using electric for heat, cooking, fridge, water pump, etc. Rich was in a deep sleep, but I woke him up anyway, thinking it might be a circuit breaker. He got up in the freezing cold (50 inside, 30 outside) and looked over everything inside twice and couldn’t find a cause of this phenomena. So we snuggled up and went to sleep confident that there was no threat of fire, but worrying about what was wrong with our tiny home.

 

January 9, 2024 - Tuesday

At about 4am, we lost all power. I started checking Facebook and realized that we had gone through a brownout which then became a blackout affecting Congress and neighboring towns north of us. This was good news to us, since it wasn’t our rig that had a problem. We had left the freezer and fridge doors shut tight. Now the water, which we left dripping during the night, stopped running. We worried that it had frozen. The power came back on at about 11:30am and, thankfully, the water ran too. There is a pump which fills the community tank so with the power out, it couldn’t supply water to anyone in the park. Phew!

 

Our neighbor, Heather, came out with Bella and I told her I really wanted to check in with her without knocking on her door, but didn’t have any contact info on her. Later in the day, she invited us to follow her Facebook page, “Ramblin’ Rennae.” She is sharing her solo journey on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube in an attempt to become “Influencer” status which can monetize her posts. Who knew that this quiet, reserved young lady was posting her travels on several medias? Just search Ramblin’ Rennae on Facebook for your viewing pleasure.

 

Went for a music practice at Dot and Harvey’s - the harmonicas came out for a few songs and so did Rascal, their Siamese cat, who doesn’t appreciate them at all. Harvey and I worked on a few new songs to change things up a little. Time will tell how successful we are...

 

January 10, 2024 - Wednesday

After my line dancing, we went into the Elks for another delicious lunch. We invited Cindy and Dee for margaritas at 4pm and visited for a couple of hours. 

 

January 11, 2024 - Thursday

This was my first time to yoga in a while. I joined the HUG  (Hassayampa Ukulele Group) group which usually only meets on Tuesday mornings, but threw in a few extra rehearsals on Thursday mornings to prepare for the gig. Yoga is Tuesday and Thursday, so I missed a few weeks.  

 

Well - today’s jam was outstanding in that we had a new talent show up - Ramon on keyboard. He is a gifted musician and singer - the place was rocking with his riffs and the regulars were challenged to keep up. Denny on Dobro stepped up. Listen to the video clip in the body of this email. Rich even played a little harmonica. Harvey did a terrific rendition of Midnight Special too - the place was rocking. 

I forgot to mention that Rich got a standard ukulele last week. Well, since then he saw a unique Enya carbon graphite that is seamless - no glued sections at all! He ordered one and it arrived today. It’s a beauty and he had better get more disciplined about practicing than he is with his guitar, uBass, and harmonicas! Just saying’.

Another beautiful end of day 💕