Christmas Eve

The weather was nice considering it is December, 60F, 15c and no freezing temperatures tonight, delightful day with a little wind. We both have a hard time wrapping our heads around the fact that families are here camping for the Christmas Holidays. We thought we might miss the snow around Christmas but we sure do not, busy enjoying friends and activities here, it is so different, we love it!



Christmas Eve we gathered at the clubhouse, singing Christmas Carols, snacks and some punch.












Left is Ken and Sylvia, park Managers.

Jim and Anne, park Activity Directors.

Ed and Bell, campworkers for the park.

We are all facing this screen which has the words to the carols projected from the Karaoke machine and the music which was provided via CD's on the Karaoke machine. It was a fun evening, singing, visiting and sharing Christmas Eve with our new friends.

Looking forward to tomorrow, turkey dinner with all the trimmings and gifts for everyone!

Karaoke

Karaoke is fun, but not many people are willing to get up and sing.  Pooch and the owner of the park John R.  John has a wonderful voice and Pooch is pretty good.

Donna, Pooch's wife, she always dresses up and brings knitting or crocheting to most events to keep her hands busy.










They love to dance and do at every opportunity.










Woody is not a great singer but I love his willingness to give it his all!

I really do love Karaoke, it is so much fun.  We pick songs from books that are provided by the park and then sing them or talk someone else into singing them!

Cool Day

Was cool this morning 24F -4C with a breeze, I actually wore my fall jacket and gloves when walking the dogs, first time since we arrived that I have wore either. By 10:30 am it was 55F +12C the sky is a beautiful deep blue, reminds of an Alberta sky. Spent most of the day cleaning up the hard drive of my laptop in preparation of selling it. I moved many files to the external hard drive and deleting files no longer required. Moved some video clips to the external hard drive and then checked to see if I could use them from the external drive, no way, USB transfer is too slow, took Sony Vegas forever to create the audio proxy so I moved them to my new computer and decided to burn them to DVD’s before I moved them to the external hard drive for storage. I am feeling bad for Woody, I know he understands that I need to get the old computer cleaned up and get the new one all set up I think he is feeling abandoned. He is keeping himself busy but I know he wants to go out about, not be hanging around listening to me grumble about computer stuff, which he cannot help me with. He is doing all the shopping on his own, cooking for us, and doing laundry, he does normally cook and do laundry but we shop together and go out and about a little more than we have lately.

Dec 19th & 20th

Dec 19^th

Today the highlight was attending the Jam Session, did not take any more pictures, just relaxed and enjoyed the music. Did not do anything exciting, just daily tasks, high today was 66F 18C a great day none the less!

Dec 20^th

Attended the Breakfast Buffet today, always good food and wonderful camaraderie, sure do not need lunch after such a huge buffet! At 2:00 pm gathered at the clubhouse for High Spirits Flutes presentation, more information on learning to play the flute plus sharing with all the flute players here in the park. Harry Seavey (owner of the Flutes and Feathers Productions) commended Woody on his progress; he was very pleased as he felt he was not progressing fast enough

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Returning from the High Flutes Session I settle in to working on the computer, I am still spending a lot of time setting up the new computer, things are taking a lot longer that I anticipated but I will persevere. Woody finds things to do while I am so engrossed with this computer stuff. We spend the evening chatting online with friends.

Willcox, AZ

This morning was very windy (20-22 mph), cloudy and some snow on the mountains, we are joining a group on a field trip to Wilcox, visiting the Rex Allen Museum, and other historic sites, lunch at Big Tex, pie at Stout’s Cider Mill. We met at the clubhouse at 10:00 am, Jim (Activities Coordinator) had called Wilcox to check weather and was informed it was much nicer there so the trip was a go. Wilcox is about an hours drive from the park and we will travel through Texas Canyon on Hwy 90, a very neat canyon with unusual rock formations. As we drove towards Wilcox, the clouds were breaking up and by the time we arrived the sun was shining and the wind had calmed down.

We took a short cut, gravel road but in pretty good shape.

Once we joined State Hwy 90 we drove through Texas Canyon, the rock formations fascinate us and I took more pictures, we drove through this canyon on the way down here but as with all mountains big or small they always present different pictures with weather or direction change.

Hope you enjoy the pictures which of course does not capture the awesome view that our eye can see.

Our first stop was the train station, which has been restored, houses a small museum and the town offices.

Patsy, John (owner of TTRV) and Georgina (park guest and friend).

Jim was filling us in on a little history of the old Train Station.

Just down the street was Big Tex Diner (right), where we planned to have lunch.

The train station as it looks today.

Walked across the street to Big Tex Diner, an old railway car turned into a restaurant for lunch, excellent food and company

We gathered in the addtion, our group was to large to sit in the actual train car.

That was okay though, as you can see they were all decked out Christmas and we totally enjoyed visiting with the gang.

We would surely recommend the Big Tex, the food is awesome and it is a fun place to visit.

Right is the original stove in the train car.

After lunch we visited the Rex Allen Museum.

Statue of Rex Allen, his ashes are spread in this park.

His horse Ko Ko is buried in front of the statue.














The from ranches in the area of Wilcox, AZ

The movie theatre is named after Rex Allen.

The museum is small, is well organized and displays a large assortment of Rex Allen memorbilia.

His guitar.

Some items from his parents home.







Posters from his live appearances and movies.

His saddle and many outfits he wore, I had forgotten how colourful his outfits were.

The buggy used in the TV series "Frontier Doctor", man I had forgotten that show and used to watch it many years ago.

Some of our group.

We left the museum and walked across the street to take a look at the oldest continuous commercial store in Arizona.

The train car that houses the "Big Tex Diner".

Almost everyone bought something at the Willcox Commercial Store, they carry good quality merchandise at reasonable prices. Woody bought a new belt.

The outside of the store has been redone but much of the interior is original including ceiling, floor, many old display cases and the original old cash register which they still use today!

Leaving Willcox Commercial Store we headed to Stout's Cider Mill for dessert. The owners specialize in fresh hand-made products, no preservatives, use fresh apples grown in their own orchard. Our group just had to try their most famous Apple Pie, made with 9 lbs. of apples! It truely is spectacluar!

If you are ever in Willcox do make this a "have to visit" place! They are just off I10 -Exit 340.

We arrived home late afternoon, greeted by our dogs who were very excited to see us and needed a nice long walk after being inside for most of the day! We enjoyed the walk, then spent a quiet evening at home!

For more information on the museum see: http://www.rexallenmuseum.org/

For more information on Stout's Cider Mill see: http://www.cidermill.com/