A FUNNY FOR ALL THE YARN BUYERS OUT THERE

Goodyear AZ (Low 40 Mostly Sunny High 70) 

A number of the blogs we follow mention shopping for yarn, we are sure this never happens.

If you have not read "Pickles" by Brian Crane check for it in your comics section of your paper, it is usually a hoot.

Till next time,

Bob and Jo

CIRQUE D'OR

Goodyear AZ (Low 49 Partly Sunny High 73)

We had quite an adventurous day yesterday, we got out of our comfort zone a little and we survived.

We went with some friends to the Cirque D'Or show at the Herberger theatre in downtown Phoenix. Adventurous in so many ways; rode light rail to downtown instead of driving, out after dark, walked around downtown after dark, rode light rail after dark, and then driving after dark. Just proves you need to step out of your comfort zone now and then because we had a great time.

After we departed the light rail we walked to Pizzeria Bianco for supper. 

Arguably one of the best pizza places in the country (New York Times, Food and Wine, Zagat, James Beard winner) and it did not disappoint. we split the "Sonny Boy" a simple mixture of cheese, tomato sauce, salami and olives that was wonderful, you could tell the ingredients were fresh. Add this place to your list of places to eat.

We then walked to the Herberger Theater for Cirque D'Or. We have to agree with the advertising on this one, it was one of the most electrifying and mesmerizing shows that we have ever seen. Featuring a cast of some of the youngest world champion acrobats, contortionists, and aerial artists from around the world, although the theme of this show was Shanghai China, this award winning spectacle left us breathless at times. Even when they failed, which was inevitable but incredibly rare considering some of the stunts they were attempting, the show was still great. Their failure made it seem even more real and more amazing.

Too many highlights to mention but we will list a few that really caught our eye. First was an acrobat that did a front facing split and then just flexed his thighs and lifted straight up. Second was another acrobat that stacked chair upon chair, we think maybe at least a dozen and then did stunts on the stack of chairs as it got higher and higher. Lastly, and probably the best, were the hoop divers. Hoops were stacked on top of each other and the team dove through them. Of course they had to keep adding hoops until they were about 12 feet off of the ground and diving, twisting, some forward and incredibly some backwards, through these hoops. We don't know how frequent it is for a performance to get a standing ovation in Phoenix but Cirque D'Or got one last night.

Since you cannot take photos or videos here are some images we captured from the internet.

If Cirque D'Or is ever available we would recommend your attendance, you won't be disappointed. It was a acrobatic variety show with some of the best acts we have ever seen.

Till next time,

Bob and Jo

"SAVING MR. BANKS"

Goodyear AZ (Low 40 Sunny High 74)

We recently saw a really good movie, "Saving Mr. Banks".

It tells the story of how the "Mary Poppins" movie was made. Tom Hanks plays Walt Disney who tries over 20 years to convince Mrs. P. L. Travers (played by Emma Thompson) to let him turn her "Mary Poppins" stories into a movie. A little sad in parts, don't want to give too much away to spoil the movie, but a very good story if that makes sense. And a very good story made into a very good movie. Best movie we have seen probably since the "Kings Speech".

Tom Hanks (best actor), Emma Thompson (best actress) and Paul Giamatti (best supporting actor) as well as the young girl in the flashbacks, all deserve Oscar nominations. The acting was first rate, top to bottom.

A couple of tips; take kleenex and stay to the absolute end of the movie, well into the credits. If you do you will consider this time well spent.

Till next time,

Bob and Jo

WHOLE LOTTA EATING GOING ON - JO'S 2014 BIRTHDAY EDITION

Goodyear AZ (Low 37 Partly Sunny High 73)

We sign up for loyalty programs, or e-clubs, at some of our favorite places to eat. Sometimes we get are discounts throughout the year or something for birthdays. Jo's birthday is in January so we have started utilizing the deals.

We already mentioned the pumpkin pie in a jar at Red Lobster, ironically on the last day it was offered this pumpkin season, which was excellent.

The pumpkin pie in a jar was in addition to the $5 off we got for 2 meals as a birthday gift. In addition to Red Lobster we already have gotten a free pizza at Schlotzkys, free entree at IHOP, free drink at Starbucks, and a free steak at Black Angus. We still have the following coupons to use sometime over the next couple of weeks.

- discount on 2nd entree at Famous Dave's
- free dessert at Abuelos
- free dessert at Longhorns
- free entree at First Watch
- free dessert at Mimi's Cafe
- $ added to loyalty card at Black Bear Diner
- $ added to loyalty card at Landry's group of restaurants, there is a Claim Jumper in the area
- free creamslush at Sonic

Of course at Denny's if you present your ID on your birthday you can get a free meal, no coupon required.

There are a few offers that we cannot use since there are no restaurants in the area like Taco Bueno :-(

We may not be able to use all of them but we will give it a good try :-)

Till next time,

Bob and Jo

DIFFERENT KIND OF REVIEW

Goodyear AZ (Low 35 Sunny High 70)

A different kind of review from what we have been seeing from fellow bloggers, a review of our pumpkin season. We had pumpkin pie in a jar at Red Lobster, free for Jo's birthday (which we will blog about later). 

The pumpkin pie in a jar was excellent, maybe the best pumpkin thing we have had this year which got us thinking about our pumpkin experiences.

We are pumpkin-aholics, there we said it. For us the pumpkin season begins in September when Einstein Bros has pumpkin bagels and pumpkin cream cheese. This year we had a couple of places that had incredible variety:

Aldi (a discount grocery store in the Kansas City area); pancake mix, ravioli, spaghetti sauce, ice cream, spiced yogurt, waffles, cheese cake, and others we cannot remember now.

Trader Joe's; cream cheese, macaroons, croissants, bread pudding, waffles, cheese cake, ice cream, pancake mix

Then we had pumpkin at other places;

Pie at Bob Evans which is one of the best pumpkin pies

Chocolate chip and pumpkin cookies at Frys Grocery and Safeway

Bagels at the aforementioned Einstein Bros, Dunkin Donuts, Paradise Bakery here in Goodyear, 

Pancakes at IHOP, First Watch, Mimi's, Black Bear Diner

Bread Pudding at Sneads BBQ in Belton Missouri which was excellent.

Ice cream; Blue Bell which was excellent and Dreyers.

Cream cheese muffins at Starbucks.

This was probably our best pumpkin season, so in the continuous improvement mode from our old working days we will strive for next year to be even better :-)

Till next time,

Bob and Jo

GRAPEFRUIT FOR BREAKFAST

Goodyear AZ (Low 38 Partly Sunny High 68)

Right next to our site is a grapefruit tree. 

When Bob gets back from his morning walk, and if we are having breakfast at home that day, he picks a grapefruit fresh for us to enjoy. Here is the grapefruit tree looking out our door.

What a great way to start the day in a great place to be during the winter.

Till next time,

Bob and Jo

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Goodyear AZ (Low 36 Sunny High 70)

While walking today Bob heard the quote of the day as it applies to being a snowbird in Goodyear, "time is flying by, don't seem to be getting much done, but we are always doing something".

Really sums up our time here so far, wish we had said it.

Till next time,

Bob and Jo

FINALLY SAW "THE HOBBITT"

Goodyear AZ (Low 40 Partly Cloudy High 69)

We finally got to see "The Hobbitt: The Desolation of Smaug".

It was a good movie with lots of action. You really get to know the characters in trilogies, this being the 2nd movie based on the book "The Hobbitt" by JRR Tolkien. The good thing about the two Hobbitt movies so far and the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy is that you don't need to read the books before you see them, in fact neither one of us has read any of Tolkien's books. It is a movie we can recommend.

We got to talking about how the movies we have been watching lately, or want to see in the future, seem to be of the genre of the Hobbitt movies, or Marvel comics, or Hunger Games. What we would call regular movies with human stories just haven't been that good lately. We're hoping that changes with "Saving Mr. Banks" which we plan to see next.

Till next time,

Bob and Jo

PHOENIX ZOOLIGHTS

Goodyear AZ (Low 40 Sunny High 74)

During this holiday season we went to the Phoenix Zoo for the "ZooLights".

An annual attraction that attracts about 300,000 visitors from Thanksgiving and this year running until January 12th. Our photos of the 3.7 million individual lights did not come out so well so I borrowed some from the web.

It was a fun night, we like seeing Christmas lights and this was one of the best we have seen.

Till next time,

Bob and Jo

2013 YEAR IN REVIEW

Goodyear AZ (Low 36 Sunny High 74)

2013 was an interesting year for us, a year of adventures both planned and unplanned. We spent last Christmas in the Kansas City area for Bob to recover from his aortic valve replacement surgery. Experienceing a winter in the RV reinforces our desire for warmer climates during the winter. We got most of the snow for the winter in February and March.

We left the Kansas City area in late April and still got snowed on in the Des Moines area. 

This year we were able to check off a lot from our bucket list. Among those were Salisbury House in Des Moines, 

tulips and sightseeing in Pella, 

Grotto of the Redemption, 

and the Buddy Holly sites in Clear Lake.  

We then spent the summer on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in Houghton.  

These were the planned adventures. What we did not plan on was some maintenance issues that caused some distress and time delays. We had some water damage while in Houghton along with almost having a fire due to our transfer switch burning out. While stressful the only impact is that we ended our summer vacation a little early and headed back to the Kansas City area for repairs and some upgrades. While the RV was being worked on we stayed in an Extended Stay Hotel in Overland Park Kansas. The upgrades we had done were replacing the RV refrigerator with a residential refrigerator and adding a dishwasher drawer. 

While this was happening we celebrated our 4^th year of living fulltime in our Carriage Cameo. On our way to Goodyear Arizona we had another planned upgrade, adding day/night shades from MCD Innovations in McKinney Texas. 

After that work was completed we had yet another unplanned adventure, one of our slideout motors went out. We spent an extra week or so in Abilene and San Angelo Texas getting that repaired. For the most part we don’t “have” to be anywhere at a specific date so we can enjoy the area that we are at a little longer.

Every year we jam a lifetime of vacations into one year but there is still so much more to see and do. Next year we plan on touring California to Oregon to Washington for summer then down to Denver in September and then back to Goodyear AZ for the winter.

Till next time,

Bob and Jo

WASN'T MEANT TO BE

Goodyear AZ (Low 36 Partly Sunny High 68)

Guess it just wasn't meant to be yesterday. We had plans to see the latest Hobbit movie but when we got there about 20 minutes before the start there were only 12 seats left. Not wanting to force our neck into a permanent upward glance we gave up on a movie pretty fast. The day after Christmas must also be a big movie day, who knew? We spent the rest of the day going to lunch at Claim Jumper then shopping then back to the park to greet Jo's cousin and wife who just arrived at the park.

One of the many reasons we like this part of the country for the winter is that we tend to see more movies here than any other place in the country. Part of that has to be the free popcorn you get with the purchase of a Harkins Theater loyalty t-shirt and a cheap refill on a large pop with the purchase of a loyalty cup.

So far this visit we have seen "Thor: The Dark World", good movie with a lot of action.

"Delivery Man", another good movie with a sweet message and an excellent job done by Vince Vaughn.

Next we saw "Hunger Games: Catching Fire", another action movie that was very good. 

We could recommend any of these movies if you were looking for a movie to see. After the latest Hobbit movie we want to see "Saving Mr. Banks" which looks really good.

Till next time,

Bob and Jo

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Goodyear AZ (Low 38 Sunny High 70)

Merry Christmas, "Do not be afraid. Look, I bring you news of great joy, a joy to be shared by the whole people".

Remember, Jesus is the reason for the season.

Till next time,

Bob and Jo

PHOENIX RV SHOW

Goodyear AZ (Low 34 Sunny and Nice High 68)

Bob recently went with his friend Bob to the Phoenix Holiday RV Show. This is Bob's (both of them) kind of show; free parking and free admittance.

The show was held at the University of Phoenix Stadium (where the Arizona Cardinals play) in nearby Glendale Arizona. For the RV Show they pulled the field out.

This is a great stadium to tour, if you ever get the chance you won't regret touring this stadium.

Also Bob's kind of show is that although there were some neat RVs to look at there was not the one that made you want to trade up.

Before the show the Bobs ate at Which Wich Superior Sandwiches near the stadium and we both agreed that our better halves would enjoy this place. It was a great time for the Bobs while the better halves were at their Christmas luncheon at the park.

Till next time,

Bob and Jo

MEN'S CHRISTMAS LUNCHEON

Goodyear AZ (Low 44 Rain Early the Partly Sunny High 60)

Bob recently attended the Men's Christmas Luncheon at the park. Not as well attended as the Women's the next day but it was still a good time had by all. The food looks great

The boys are hungry

After eating Mike regaled us with some jokes he had printed out and then, as men are prone to do, we solved all the worlds problems and talked about great places to visit in our RVs.

Till next time,

Bob and Jo

NOT TOO MUCH EXCITEMENT

Goodyear AZ (Low 42 Partly Cloudy High 72)

We haven't been doing too much since we got to Goodyear except for the usual appointments when you are settled in one place for awhile like haircuts, doctors, truck service, etc. The weather has turned nice so what free time we have we sit outside and read. That means our truck hasn't moved much.

We will try and blog once a week and after special events. Bob did go to an RV Show which we plan to blog about and we are planning to go to the Phoenix Zoo for ZooLights.

We did have another random thought, this time dealing with being a tourist. When we spent awhile getting across Texas we realized that with Texas plates we could not get away with doing something stupid and people seeing our out of state plates and go, dang tourists. We will just have to be more careful in Texas :-)

Till next time,

Bob and Jo

A PLACE FOR EVERYTHING

Goodyear AZ (Low 30 Sunny High 55)

A Place for Everything - and Everything in it's Place

When you get a system in place you have to stick to it. That includes buying the same sized accessories that you use inside your RV. We first noticed this when we bought olive oil, the jar had to be the same size to fit where the old one was. We were reminded of that when we did our reorganizing after we were able to move back in after our repairs and upgrades. Here is our paper products drawer being rebuilt.

First the snack bags,

Then the aluminum foil

Then the wax paper

Then the press 'n seal, which is so much better than sarann wrap

Then the gallon ziploc bags

Then the quart ziploc bags

Finally, the chip clips and twist ties

A Place for Everything - and Everything in it's Place

Till next time,

Bob and Jo

HOW TO EAT WHERE THE LOCALS EAT

Goodyear AZ (Low 33 Sunny High 55)

How do you eat where the locals eat? We ask people if they were out of their home town for a long time and were heading back into town, what is the first place you would eat at?

We asked ourselves that very question on the drive into Goodyear. We decided on a shrimp burrito from Senor Taco.

You get a lot of shrimp, rice and a white sauce that is incredible. Bob went and got two shrimp burritos to go, actually one shrimp burrito and for only 50 cents more got the daily special that included a drink and two rolled fish tacos. More food than we should have eaten but everything was good.

Our second meal eating out was the turkey and cranberry sandwich at Paradise Bakery (that also includes a free cookie). Our third meal eating out was breakfast at TJs Homestyle. 

It will take us a while to visit our old favorites but then we want to try some new places. Tonight is "Rib Night" at the park and that is always good.

Till next time,

Bob and Jo

ARRIVED AT OUR WINTER HOME

Goodyear AZ (Low 43 Partly Sunny High 73)

Arrived here yesterday with the cold weather hot on our heels, or should we say cold on our heels :-)

At least we get one day of typical winter weather here but the forecast is for highs in the 50s and lows in the 30s so the BWE is in full effect. If we are going to have this kind of weather we guess it is better to have it just after you get here as you are not yet acclimated to the usual weather.

Here we are parked at our site for the next 4 months or so.

Till next time,

Bob and Jo

WHY WE AVOID WEEKENDS

Willcox AZ (Low 30 Partly Sunny)
Goodyear AZ ( Partly Sunny High 72)

We try to avoid doing too much on Saturdays since we like to leave Saturdays to the locals. But we have done so little sightseeing lately we just decided to give it a try.

After breakfast and showers we were ready for lunch. We decided on Big Tex BBQ

But when we got there it was closed for remodeling. So instead of there, and instead of where the locals eat, we decided to eat where the truckers eats, Country Pride Restaurant in the Travel America TravelCenter. Turns out a lot of locals eat there because the place was packed. The food was really good, Jo got the chicken and dumplings and Bob got a chicken breakfast with a whole green chile on the top. We also checked out Apple Annie's Country Store which is in the old Stout Cider Mill location. Never had the pies before but Annie's apple cranberry pie is sure good.

After that we decided to head to the Rex Allen Museum

Guess what it was closed too. Not to be deterred, and since it was a short walk we walked to the Friends of Marty Robbins Museum and it was closed due to a family illness.

In our defense all these places should have been opened on Saturday. It wasn't a total bust though, we walked through the oldest continually operating store in Arizona that had a neat display on the history of Willcox. We then walked to the Rex Allen statue.

By this time some reenactors were putting on a gunfight show.

We then heard about not really a gunfight, more like bringing a knife to a gunfight story. Warren Earp was killed in Willcox in 1900, he brought the knife. Warren was the younger brother of Wyatt Earp. Since we have been to Tombstone, and to the Earp's boyhood home in Pella Iowa we decided to try and find Warren's grave in the historic Old City Cemetery.

It took us some walking around but we did find it.

Although not the day we had planned it was still another day fulltiming and visiting the sites in this great country of ours.

We are off to Goodyear today to our winter home for the next few months. Should be great weather when we get there with highs in the low 70s for a couple of days. But it looks like the BWE is in effect later in the week with temperatures in the 40s.

Till next time,

Bob and Jo