Three Wise Men
Palm Tree (as an alternate to the traditional fir or pine...)
Reflections in the pool.
Nope, not fireworks. It's the guiding light, all wisemen follow this.
Best of the Season to All!!!
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
December 13 - Signs of the Season
Just a quickie note. Went to the local Mormon church here in Mesa to view a most extravagant (but beautiful) light display. Sorry about the slight blur, hand held ya know.
Three Wise Men
Palm Tree (as an alternate to the traditional fir or pine...)
Reflections in the pool.
Nope, not fireworks. It's the guiding light, all wisemen follow this.
Best of the Season to All!!!
Three Wise Men
Palm Tree (as an alternate to the traditional fir or pine...)
Reflections in the pool.
Nope, not fireworks. It's the guiding light, all wisemen follow this.
Best of the Season to All!!!
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
December 12 - Butterfield Overland Stage
Thanksgiving is past us and Christmas draws near. I hope all of you are having a good holiday season. We certainly send you all our best wishes.
Being in Mesa, Arizona for the winter tends to make me lazy. I am playing more golf than sightseeing. However, we did make a trip to Algodones, Mexico with friends. They had to go for a dentist appointment, and they wanted company on the long drive. Having been there several times last year I think I exhausted most of the scenic picture taking opportunities . If I were to take up human interest photography, however, I would have a new source for hundreds of pictures.
The locals are interesting, colorful, but poor. I expect it is like most border towns. There are a few with money as a result of running businesses that trade with Americans, but most are poor. Algodones is known for good/inexpensive dental work, low cost eye glasses made in one to two hours, cheap prescription drugs, and liquor stores. Americans come in droves, park in a big paved lot on the American side and then walk across the border. The town starts immediately past the border gates.
However, the merchants are beginning to be pinched by new American restrictions. New rules on bringing prescriptions back across the border and hikes in drug prices reduce the saving and increase the difficultly of buying drugs. Liquor is now restricted to one liter every 30 days. But, the biggest headache for me is that it is now a time consuming process to get back across the border with your purchases. The customs officers record your name, liquor purchase, and verify your prescriptions against your drug purchases as you return to the US. This is time consuming and the number of officers has not been increased. What used to take 10 minutes took us close to 90 minutes this time. Fortunately when the line gets really long they seem to forego the recording and pass people through with the "anything to declare" question, stopping only those that make them curious.
I did come across a courtyard that I did not remember, and it made a nice picture. Most of the town looks like the street picture rather than the courtyard.
On the way back (just West of Yuma)we made a detour in order to drive by an old Butterfield Overland Stage Company stage stop that we had spotted from the interstate. Took a bit of winding around, but it was interesting. It surprised me that this site was not preserved in any way, apparently it has not been adopted by a historical group.
In 1857 John Butterfield of Utica, N.Y. won a government contract to carry mail from St Louis to San Francisco twice a week. His route was Southern in order to avoid heavy snows so that he could run year around. They also hauled people and small cargoes as a side to the mail. Mark Twain traveled the line in 1861 and wrote of his experiences. If you would like to know more about the stage line try going to
http://www.discoverseaz.com/History/Butterfield.html
or Google "Butterfield Overland Stage Company" and get a buzzillion (actually 50,900 or so) references.
Being in Mesa, Arizona for the winter tends to make me lazy. I am playing more golf than sightseeing. However, we did make a trip to Algodones, Mexico with friends. They had to go for a dentist appointment, and they wanted company on the long drive. Having been there several times last year I think I exhausted most of the scenic picture taking opportunities . If I were to take up human interest photography, however, I would have a new source for hundreds of pictures.
The locals are interesting, colorful, but poor. I expect it is like most border towns. There are a few with money as a result of running businesses that trade with Americans, but most are poor. Algodones is known for good/inexpensive dental work, low cost eye glasses made in one to two hours, cheap prescription drugs, and liquor stores. Americans come in droves, park in a big paved lot on the American side and then walk across the border. The town starts immediately past the border gates.
However, the merchants are beginning to be pinched by new American restrictions. New rules on bringing prescriptions back across the border and hikes in drug prices reduce the saving and increase the difficultly of buying drugs. Liquor is now restricted to one liter every 30 days. But, the biggest headache for me is that it is now a time consuming process to get back across the border with your purchases. The customs officers record your name, liquor purchase, and verify your prescriptions against your drug purchases as you return to the US. This is time consuming and the number of officers has not been increased. What used to take 10 minutes took us close to 90 minutes this time. Fortunately when the line gets really long they seem to forego the recording and pass people through with the "anything to declare" question, stopping only those that make them curious.
I did come across a courtyard that I did not remember, and it made a nice picture. Most of the town looks like the street picture rather than the courtyard.
On the way back (just West of Yuma)we made a detour in order to drive by an old Butterfield Overland Stage Company stage stop that we had spotted from the interstate. Took a bit of winding around, but it was interesting. It surprised me that this site was not preserved in any way, apparently it has not been adopted by a historical group.
In 1857 John Butterfield of Utica, N.Y. won a government contract to carry mail from St Louis to San Francisco twice a week. His route was Southern in order to avoid heavy snows so that he could run year around. They also hauled people and small cargoes as a side to the mail. Mark Twain traveled the line in 1861 and wrote of his experiences. If you would like to know more about the stage line try going tohttp://www.discoverseaz.com/History/Butterfield.html
or Google "Butterfield Overland Stage Company" and get a buzzillion (actually 50,900 or so) references.
Thursday, November 23, 2006
November 23 - Thanksgiving
Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We had one, thanks to the friends of the son of friends (that complicated enough for ya?). Anyway, we celebrated T-day with a group of very nice people in their home in Auhwatukee (a suburb of Phoenix). We ate the traditional T-day meal of way too much of everything. The food was wonderful and the company was excellent (and in my case the wine was flowing freely). The Thanksgiving picture is of the table before we ravaged it......
We are staying in an RV park in Mesa (another of the many suburbs of Phoenix). Our section of the park is called The Ranchos. We have a nice big paved site with a brick patio, a gas grill, telephone and cable TV included. It even has mail delivery right to our mailbox at the front of our site. We made our reservation for this site last April. It is in the East valley of the Phoenix metroplex which is the primary target of an estimated 300,000 snowbirds. For you non-RVers, snowbirds are winter guests to the area who are trying to escape the unpleasant weather of their home states.It is really nice area, convenient to any kind of shopping you can imagine. There is plenty of entertainment within a 30 minute drive. The park we are in also books entertainment and one of the shows that we have made reservation for is Brenda Lee. Sure hope she hasn't lost her voice, but then what's the chance she'd book and RV park if she still
Sunday, November 5, 2006
November 5 - The Desert Bar
We are now safely settled into our winter site in Mesa, Arizona. The trip was a safe and easy one, mostly because we avoided routes that would take us up high and thereby close to snow.
We stopped in St George, Utah to visit an ailing friend. She had a mild heart attack, which turned out to be the least of her problems. The cure ended up putting her into a rehabilitation hospital for a couple of months so far. Moral is, hospital care can be as or more dangerous than your original health problem. The good thing is that she is finally getting better.
We also stopped in Lake Havasu City to visit friends. This is where we were introduced to the main topic of this log. That is the Nellie E Saloon, which is known to its hundreds (thousands?) of patrons as "The Desert Bar". It is located on an old mining camp, with lots of old mining equipment littering the surrounding area.
The bar opened in 1983 and was a favorite destination of off-roaders who approached the bar by a 4-wheel trail over the nearby mountains. Our trip to "The Desert Bar" was by a 5-mile dirt road, but we were promised that on a future visit we would take the 4-wheelers route. This is a shot looking towards the bar from that dirt road. That is a Jeep Rubicon in the pic, they come from the factory with most of the options that 4-wheelers want (plus, much to our glee, A/C, automatic, and plushy seats).
Here we look down on the bar, where we drank beers, listened to live music, and ogled some really hot young woman (okay, so Sharon didn't ogle, she just punched me).
This last picture is of the original bar (looks like a lemonade stand, doesn't it).
Some interesting trivia........the original water supply for the bar was a 50 gallon tank brought in as needed on a pickup, then an old firetruck, and finally a well that is 360 feet deep.........there is no electricity from outside, it is supplied by solar cells.........the towers rising over the bar (second picture) are for cooling, water is pumped up, runs over pads, the evaporation cools the air, cool air is heavy and falls, wow, air condtioning...........the bar is only open on weekends from Labor Day thru Memorial Day.........it is owned, operated, and was built by one man (and is continually under construction).
The bar is North of the town of Parker, Arizona. The bar is a legend in the area and its local followers have been supplemented by Snow Birds and tourist. We were there early in the season and it was still packed. See more about the bar at http://www.thedesertbar.com/.
We stopped in St George, Utah to visit an ailing friend. She had a mild heart attack, which turned out to be the least of her problems. The cure ended up putting her into a rehabilitation hospital for a couple of months so far. Moral is, hospital care can be as or more dangerous than your original health problem. The good thing is that she is finally getting better.
We also stopped in Lake Havasu City to visit friends. This is where we were introduced to the main topic of this log. That is the Nellie E Saloon, which is known to its hundreds (thousands?) of patrons as "The Desert Bar". It is located on an old mining camp, with lots of old mining equipment littering the surrounding area.
The bar opened in 1983 and was a favorite destination of off-roaders who approached the bar by a 4-wheel trail over the nearby mountains. Our trip to "The Desert Bar" was by a 5-mile dirt road, but we were promised that on a future visit we would take the 4-wheelers route. This is a shot looking towards the bar from that dirt road. That is a Jeep Rubicon in the pic, they come from the factory with most of the options that 4-wheelers want (plus, much to our glee, A/C, automatic, and plushy seats).
Here we look down on the bar, where we drank beers, listened to live music, and ogled some really hot young woman (okay, so Sharon didn't ogle, she just punched me).
This last picture is of the original bar (looks like a lemonade stand, doesn't it).
Some interesting trivia........the original water supply for the bar was a 50 gallon tank brought in as needed on a pickup, then an old firetruck, and finally a well that is 360 feet deep.........there is no electricity from outside, it is supplied by solar cells.........the towers rising over the bar (second picture) are for cooling, water is pumped up, runs over pads, the evaporation cools the air, cool air is heavy and falls, wow, air condtioning...........the bar is only open on weekends from Labor Day thru Memorial Day.........it is owned, operated, and was built by one man (and is continually under construction).
The bar is North of the town of Parker, Arizona. The bar is a legend in the area and its local followers have been supplemented by Snow Birds and tourist. We were there early in the season and it was still packed. See more about the bar at http://www.thedesertbar.com/.
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