Luncheon engagements two days in a row....!

Monday at noon, we had a bloggers get together at the Streets of New York... an Italian, New York style deli....  Its only about two miles North of me here on Signal Butte...

That was pretty far from Ray and Cindy who are staying over in Val Vista RV Park.. And from Susan in the Good Life RV Park in that same neighborhood...  But with Gordon and Juanita about ten miles to my South and Sandi and Jim up in the North part of Apache Junction, I would think it was somewhat centrally located...

I was going to take my phone and get a picture, but alas I drove off without it..  Ray gave his camera to the waitress and she shot a group photo  of all of us anyway...




From the left around the table, Gordon, myself, Jim, Sandi, Susan, Ray, Cindy and Juanita in the blue blouse... (picture stolen from Ray's blog without shame....)

I ordered a little Meaty Beast pizza, and the crowd had a good time with me and the beast name...  We were all talking at once, so I'm not sure if we were listening too well..  LOL, but a lot of stories passed and we held that corner of the restaurant for a couple of hours... We hadn't had the group together since last year, but as bloggers we were all up to date with each others lives like old friends..

Ray did a better job of reporting on this and has more pictures, so go see his write up here....

Today, (Tuesday), I went to Casa Grande to visit my former business partner from the central Iowa area...  Craig has a Tiffin Phaeton, which he parks at Palm Creek RV Resort...

If you haven't been to Palm Creek, it really is a resort... Not just an RV park..  True, your space isn't much different as its the same old gravel lot with a concrete patio, but they have every imaginable activity available...  The park surrounds a full 18 hole golf course and the entire place has much more of a Country Club atmosphere than most of the other parks here in Arizona... Also the buildings and common grounds are newer and nicer...

We sat leisurely catching up on each other's lives for quite a while...  We are both widowers, so we have that in common...  We moved our little get together up town to McMasher's Sports Bar, and their outside patio...  Craig bought, and wouldn't have it any other way....LOL  Thanks Craig!

Tonight I watched the Iowa basket ball team go down in flames to a charged up Minnesota team up in Minneapolis...  ugh.... that hurt...

That's about it from here...

Retired Rod

I'm still here.......

Somehow even with the filter on comments set against anonymous commenters, the post that I made informing of Loyce's passing is getting spammed...  That's almost cruel..  I know its a computer without any sense of what is happening, but...........

I have spent the last several days attending a religious conference in the North end of Phoenix...  Joyce Meyer is an evangelist from St Louis, and I relate to her Midwest manner of teachings...  They have been coming here for a number of years, but this is the first time I have attended..

It is 45 miles from the house here in the East end of Mesa to the North end of Phoenix..  With the parking lot reminding me of the arrival and departure from a football game, it took about two hours to make the 45 miles, causing me to arrive home after 11 PM...  

I made this trip three times, but gave up on the fourth time, as I was worn out..  The conference was crowded to beyond overflowing with many overflow rooms connected to the main sanctuary by large video screens...  It was an amazing experience..

On other days it has been amazingly warm here, and I have been riding the motorcycle almost daily to various destinations...  Usually a restaurant or a distant Wal Mart..  One day it was in the upper 80s, or perhaps 90...  This was the first time this year that I actually felt hot...

I contrasted this to my family that was suffering below freezing back in Kansas and Iowa..  I didn't have the heart to write much about our good fortune in weather and that I was enjoying it...   

Late in the week, my friend Bob Evans in Des Moines passed away to his maker...  Bob went with us year after year to the Dayton Hamvention..  He was more senior in years than some of the rest of us, and eventually had to stay home several years ago to take care of his handicapped wife..  We all understood, but missed his presence...

He was a Navy man serving on a destroyer in WWII..  When ever we would get ready to drive away for Dayton, he would proclaim "Cut er Loose"...!

So Bob is now with his maker, and with this departing from our world..... I wish Bob to "Cut er Loose!" in his new journey in the afterlife...

Retired Rod 

The original Roosevelt Dam

As reader Becki points out in her comment on the last post, Roosevelt Dam was originally a brick structure and the Wikipedia entry has this picture taken when it was much newer, or way back when it was new...




As she points out, the road actually went across the dam on the top, and the bridge wasn't there...

The dam was started in 1906 and finished in 1911...   In 1996 the old dam was completely encased into the new concrete dam...  The Wikipedia info is here.

This is a more detailed history and a bunch more neat info here...

Retired Rod

Friends Visit

Biscuit was sky high when my friends Roger and Dianne arrived on Saturday morning...  She ran and ran...  Jumped up in Dianne's lap and licked her to death....  I have never been able to cure Biscuit of jumping up on folks...

We headed out on a country tour of Globe, and Roosevelt lake...  Biscuit got to go along and she was hard to settle down...  But eventually sat in the back seat fairly still... She went just as nutty over Rich when he was here too...

We just drove around sight seeing ended up at the Roosevelt dam..  Again I am struck with the really low level of the water...  We haven't had any rain this past winter, at least while I have been here...

It was late in the afternoon and the shadows were all over the front side of the lake, but the low sun illuminated the concrete back wall nicely in early evening glow...  So that gave me the opportunity to grab a new header photo...

We were able to have a nice breakfast the next day, before sending our guests on to their next friend here in the Valley....

While way too short, I really appreciated the time I was able to spend with Roger and Dianne...

Retired Rod