Sacramento, California March-April 2010

There will always be a part of me that considers the Sacramento area my home. I was raised from birth to age 18 in Orangevale, and spent the next 32 years living in various parts of Sacramento. I still have children and grandchildren that live in the area. And even though Dan and I travel full time all over the country, and live by the motto "Home is Where You Park It", both of us still have our regular doctors and dentists in the area. We have our favorite restaurants, and know where to go for just about anything we need. I am always excited when I think about coming to Sacramento, because I know I will see my family, and feel a sense of comfortable familiarity in my surroundings.

So, when I was twice the victim of thieves during my recent stay here, it was especially upsetting, and left me feeling sad and let down by what I think of as my home town. First my bicycle was stolen from the RV Park we were staying in, and it was cable locked at the time. It took the thief a few tries to cut through it, but eventually the deed was done and my bike was gone. A couple of weeks later, our truck, which was locked, was broken into and my purse with all the normal things you find in a purse, was stolen. The entire week following that was spent trying to diminish the repercussions of possible financial loss and identity theft. I know, I know… why did I leave my purse in the truck? Even if the door was locked? Don't think I haven't beat myself up over that one!

But the wondrous event that brought us here in the first place, and what really made it all worthwhile despite the bad luck, was the birth of my newest grandchild, Pearl Eve. This is my fifth grandchild, and I was lucky enough to spend time with all of them during our recent stay. Because seeing them can wipe away just about any sadness I might feel about anything else, I am dedicating the visit to Sacramento and these photos to them.

Skiing In Flagstaff, Arizona

Even though we are in sunny Arizona, we were delighted to take advantage of the snowy mountains in the Flagstaff area for a three day ski getaway. We tracked the weather for a couple of weeks, and when it looked like the conditions were most favorable, we booked a room in the "Ski Lift Lodge & Cabins", loaded up our gear, and headed out.

Flagstaff is about 145 miles from Surprise, with MapQuest giving us an estimated 2 hours 13 minutes on the road. We left Wednesday morning, wanting to arrive in Flagstaff about lunch time, then spend a couple of hours in the early afternoon getting the lay of the land before checking in to our room at the lodge. Before long, we ran into rain, and as we climbed, the rain turned to a rain-snow mix, and finally, just snow. There was also several feet of snow on the ground in and around Flagstaff.

After lunch, we checked out the Snow Bowl Ski Resort for down hill skiing and The Flagstaff Nordic Center for cross country skiing, our plan being to spend one day at each place. With so much snow on the ground, and the forecast calling for sunshine and clear skies the next couple days, we were anticipating a great couple days of skiing. We were not disappointed!

Thursday we headed to Snow Bowl. The snow conditions were perfect, the crowds manageable, and the weather in the morning was perfect. After lunch it started getting foggy, then the snow clouds followed the fog, and soon it was lightly snowing. We skied a while more, but when visibility kept diminishing, we decided to pack it in. It was a really fun first ski of the season.

Friday we drove to the Nordic Center where we spent the day cross country skiing. The weather was pristine! Clear blue skies, nary a breeze, and the sun shining off the snowy forest floor like sparkling diamonds. It was peaceful and quiet, everything blanketed in white, the snow absorbing the ambient sounds. Sometimes all you could hear was the swishing of the skis across the snow. Although we weren't the only ones there that day, at times that is how it seemed.

I've included some pictures the lodge, Snow Bowl, and the Nordic Center.

White Tank Mountain Regional Park

The Phoenix area is not only a desert, it is also surrounded by numerous mountain ranges. To the northeast are the McDowell Mountains, to the west are the White Tank Mountains, and the Superstition Mountains lie to the east. The Sierra Estrella is southwest, and within the city itself are the Phoenix Mountains and the South Mountains. All these mountains are an easy drive from Phoenix and the suburbs, offering thousands of acres for hiking and biking. With the mild winter climate, this is the perfect time of year to explore these trails. So far Dan and I have taken a couple of hikes and one bike ride in the White Tank Mountains, about 18 miles away, an easy drive out of the city, located in White Tank Mountain Regional Park.

The park itself sprawls over 29,572 acres where the 4000-foot-high White Tank Mountains separate the Phoenix Basin of the Salt River Valley from the Hassayampa Plain. The mountains are steep, deeply serrated with ridges and deep canyons, and include fault lines. Floodwaters, pouring down chutes and dropping off ledges, have scoured out a series of depressions, or "tanks", in the white granite rock below, thus the name of the mountains. There is evidence of ancient Arizonans dating back 10,000 years, with hundreds of figures and symbols pecked on the rock faces of the Mountains.

Dan and I really enjoyed hiking and biking through the many varieties of cacti, including Barrel, Saguaro, Cholla, and Prickly Pear. Unfortunately this isn't the time of year when these cactus bloom, but then again - do I really want to be scaling a mountain with a 1300-foot elevation gain in 100 degree plus weather? Probably not!

Hope you enjoy these pictures of our most recent hike and bike ride in the White Tank Mountains Regional Park.

Surprise, Arizona

We wrapped up our summer in Michigan on September 30, 2009 and started our southward trek on October 1st. We were scheduled to arrive in Surprise, Arizona, our winter destination, on November 15th. In the six weeks between leaving Michigan and arriving in Surprise, we had RV maintenance scheduled, a new truck purchase (unscheduled), and family to visit. After making the rounds and taking care of our business, we arrived at the Sunflower RV Resort, one day ahead of schedule.

Surprise is a suburb not too far west of Phoenix. It is an outgrowth of Sun City, and the population grew by tens of thousands during the 1990's and early 2000's as retirees flocked to the area. Then you add the snowbirds, like us, that come to live here for a few months each winter, and you can imagine the congestion! It was sort of a shock leaving the bucolic and peaceful village of Hillman and landing smack dab in the middle bustling city life again. It is possible to insulate yourself from the mass confusion somewhat if you never leave the resort, but occasionally you do have to go out for supplies. And golf, which is the main reason we ended up here to begin with. Several other golfing couples we've met along the way were congregating here for the winter, so we decided to join them.

Sunflower RV Resort offers a lot of amenities in and of itself: Bingo• Bocce Ball• Cactus Ranch House Grill • Car Wash Area• Computer Center• Dinner Dances• Dinner Theater• Driving Cages• Exercise Classes • Fitness Center• Fitness personal trainer • Grand Ballroom• Heated Pool and Spa• Hiking Club• Horseshoe Pits• Kitchen• Lapidary• Laundry Facilities• Library• Massage Therapy On Site• Meeting Area• On-site Post Office• Outside Patio Area• Pet Area• Pickle Ball• Picnic Area• Ping Pong• Pitch 'n Putt Course• Pottery/Ceramics• Putting Green• Quilting & Sewing Room• RV and Boat Storage• Shuffleboard Court• Silversmithing• Social Hall for Community Gatherings and Parties• Stained Glass• State-of-the-Art Fitness Center • Three spas and a Eucalyptus Steam Room• Two Tennis Courts• Vendor Market Day• Water Volleyball• Weekly Dances• Wood Carving• Wood Shop. Okay, you get the idea…

At first I wasn't quite sure about the "tin city" we were parking in. Row after row of streets lined with mobile homes and RV's. No lawns, but a lot of rock and concrete, cactus, and palm trees. But, I figured, we are in the southwest, the dessert, and I'm sure this is the appropriate landscaping for this kind of climate and terrain. After being here for a few weeks, I have actually come to appreciate the regional approach to landscaping. Especially during Christmas it was fun to see the blending of traditional decorations with the existing flora - twinkling lights wrapped around a prickly cactus, silver bulbs placed on the tips, and palm trees sparkling decorated like a Douglass fir.

Upper Peninsula, Michigan

No trip to Michigan would be complete without a trip to the Upper Peninsula, or the UP (pronounced YOU PEA, not "up"). The UP is where the Yoopers live (those who live beneath the Mackinaw Bridge, which connect the upper and lower peninsulas, are referred to as the Trolls). So, two summer trolls (that would be Dan and I) decided we would take a short trip to the UP for possible hiking, to see Lake Superior, and enjoy the gorgeous scenery. Our fist mistake was to make this a "short" trip. There was just too much to see and do for a three day trip, half of which was spent driving. But since the drive itself was quite beautiful, with just a touch of autumn in the air turning the tips of the trees yellow, red, and gold, we really couldn't complain about that too much.

Our first stop was to Big Spring, also known by its Indian name, Kitch-iti-kipi. Two hundred feet across and forty feet deep, this is Michigan's largest spring. 10,000 gallons of water a minute gush from its fissures in the underlying limestone, and is absolutely crystal clear from the surface to the floor. By means of a self-operated & tethered observation raft, visitors are guided to vantage points overlooking fascinating underwater features and mysteries. Tiny swirls of sand on the bottom of the spring are kept in constant motion by gushing waters coming up through the fissures.

After Big Spring, we wound our way to the town of Marquette, a major port on Lake Superior and home of Northern Michigan University. Because Lake Superior is so big (it even has waves like you see on some ocean beaches), it has quite a coastal feel to it, with beautiful beachfront homes all along the shoreline. This was a fun town that we only planned to spend one night in, and we wished we had allocated more time (next year!). We stayed the one night, then started moving towards Whitefish Point the next day.

On our way we stopped for a guided boat tour to Pictured Rocks on Lake Superior. These awe-inspiring cliffs are shaped by wind, ice and pounding waves. The cliffs are colored in shades of brown, tan, and green by the iron, manganese, limonite and copper in the water. As the water trickles down the rocks or mountains, and waves slam into the cliffs with a vicious suddenness, the sandstone Pictured Rocks are formed and changed.

Turned out we had to head home after this due to problems with the truck, so we never made it to Whitefish Point. Next year, next year…

The picture above that looks like it is upside down (trees on the top, water on the bottom) is actually a picture taken of the reflection on the water at Big Spring.

Visit From a Friend

In August, Jim Esarte, a good friend of ours from Sacramento, flew to Michigan to spend a couple of weeks visiting with us. Jim had never been to this part of the country, and since we were here, it gave him a good reason to make the trip. We tried to cram as much activity as possible into those two weeks! We played a lot of golf and made several day trips to nearby towns and tourist destinations. We also attended one of the Elk Viewing Rides & Gourmet Dinners, as well, so Jim could get a feel for Thunder Bay Resort. When Dan and I had work obligations, Jim struck out on his own and explored surrounding areas.

One of our visits took us to Traverse City, "The Cherry Capitol of the World", and the second most popular tourist destination in the state behind Mackinaw City. After spending a couple of hours shopping in the quaint downtown area, we drove on to Petoskey to the Odawa Casino for dinner and a little gambling. On another day we drove to Mackinaw City and took the ferry to Mackinac Island where we spent the afternoon walking across the small Island, exploring and looking for the perfect fudge shop.

Another outing took us to Sault Ste Marie in Michigan, where we stopped by the Soo Locks, then crossed the international bridge into Sault Ste Marie in Ontario, Canada for a quick tour. The Soo Locks allow ships to travel between Lake Superior and the lower Great Lakes and pass an average of 10,000 ships per year in spite of the locks' being closed during the winter (January through March) when ice shuts down shipping on the Great Lakes.

The three of us played several rounds of golf here at Thunder Bay, and Dan and Jim went to two other golf courses in the area as well.

We very much enjoyed Jim's visit and are very happy that he took the time to come all the way across the country to spend time with us this summer.

Comerica Baseball Park, Detroit, Michigan

Attached are some snapshots of Comerica Park, home of the Detroit Tigers.

As anyone who has followed our blog already knows, one of our goals as we travel the country is to get to all the Major League Baseball fields for a game or two. So whenever we find ourselves in close enough proximity during baseball season, we build a trip to the nearby park into our visit. Since this summer we have been in Michigan, we made our way to Detroit for a couple of days to watch the Tigers play against the Seattle Seahawks. We drove north to Detroit, about 225 miles, on Wednesday, August 19th in time to catch the evening game, which Seattle won (Seattle 3, Detroit 1). The next day the weather was touch and go with a big storm forecast for the afternoon game, but with only a 6 minute rain delay, the game was played to completion, this time with Detroit the winner (Detroit 7, Seattle 6). Since we aren't from Washington or Michigan, it was easy to root for both sides (although, if truth be told, I am a little partial to Washington State).

It was fun touring Comerica Park, where the Tiger theme is everywhere you turn. Comerica is located in downtown Detroit, and you can see the high rises as you sit and watch the game. You can find a tiger Merry-Go-Round and a baseball Ferris Wheel for the kids to ride, and all the usual assortment of ball park food. We were lucky enough to find veggie burgers (vegan, even!) and veggie dogs to choose from, and fruit bowls and stir fry vegetables and rice were also available. After we had a beer and gorged ourselves with peanuts, we could have stopped right there, but we went with the veggie burgers anyway. We want to do our part to keep the veggie options available, haha!

Next year if we come back to this area we will try to make it to either PNC Park in Pittsburg, or Progressive Field in Cleveland - or maybe both!

Mackinac Island

In July we had visitors all the way from California! Dan's brother Larry and his friend Mary Ann were nearing the end of a cross country trek and since they were relatively close to our neck of the woods, they did a swing by before heading back home. They were here for three days, and we tried to fit as much in as we could during that time. We went on the Elk Viewing Ride & Gourmet Dinner one night, and we took one full day to visit Mackinac Island, across the Mackinaw Bridge, and both Mackinac and Mackinaw are pronounced the same (Mack-In-Ah). That was confusing until someone on the Island explained it to us - then it was even more confusing!

Mackinac Island is 8 miles in circumference, and covers 3.8 square miles on Lake Huron. It is located at the eastern end of the Straits of Mackinac between the Upper and Lower Peninsulas of Michigan. To get there, you can go by private boat, ferry, small aircraft, and in the winter, after the lake freezes over, by snowmobile. The Island has a ban on almost all motor vehicles, so once there, you must get around on foot, bicycle, or horse drawn carriage. We hoped a ferry in St. Ignace and set out on foot for our tour. The crowds were amazing! This is quite the tourist attraction, and the number of ferries coming and going, along with all the people, is enough to make you dizzy!

Most of the main street is lined with retail shops, candy stores (the Island is famous for its Mackinac fudge, and tourists are sometimes referred to as "fudgies"), gift shops, and Victorian style hotels. We battled the throngs to explore this for a while, then took off for a hike up a hill and to the outer perimeter of the Island where we found Arch Rock, a natural limestone arch standing 146 feet above the Lake Huron Shoreline. We passed on touring Fort Mackinac, too pricey, and I'm tired of visiting memorials to war, in any case. (Where are the memorials to Peace?) We hiked a little in the woods, and then headed back down to Main Street for some lunch, then back on the ferry for the trip home.

Here are some pictures of our day on Mackinac Island.

Huron Sunrise Trail Bike Ride

When we get the right combination of events – good weather, a day off “work”, no other plans, and enough energy – we like to find fun places to ride our bikes. We heard about a bike path in Rogers City (about 30 miles from Hillman) called The Huron Sunrise Trail, that meanders around 8 miles of Lake Huron, through woodlands and Hoeft State Park, and ending up at Forty Mile Point Light House. This sounded great, so we headed out for a ride and a picnic. We picked a beautiful day to do this! The temperature was pleasant, the ride was easy on paved road the entire route, no climbing to speak of, and the scenery was spectacular. The lake was in view most of the ride, the park was a perfect place to stop for lunch, and the Light House was a fun place to learn a little more about the history of shipping on Lake Huron. It’s hard to fathom how big this Lake is (and all the Great Lakes, for that matter!). With the sand beaches, light houses, and sea gulls, you can almost convince yourself its really an ocean! I’ve included a few pictures we took along the ride.

Hillman, Michigan

Two months ago we arrived in Hillman, Michigan. (I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to update our blog!) Hillman is a very small town (population 800), a village, actually, in northeast Michigan, about 25 miles inland from Lake Huron. Last September we heard about Hillman through a job advertisement from Thunder Bay RV and Golf Resort posted in our daily Workamper’s e-mail. The job description read “Summer on Michigan's sunrise side at Thunder Bay Golf & RV Resort. Resort includes RV park, suites, villas & chalets; Championship Golf & our nationally acclaimed Elk Viewing Carriage Ride. Seeking friendly, enthusiastic, flexible Workamper couples to work 36 hours/week/couple in exchange for unlimited golf w/cart, Full Hook-up site, Wi-Fi & cable TV”. Since we had never been to Michigan before, and the lure of unlimited golf was hard to pass up, we decided to apply for the position. Fast forward to May, and here we are along with five other Workamper couples. The “jobs” have been split up among the twelve of us; I primarily help Linda with the gardening on and around the golf course, and Dan performs a variety of maintenance related tasks including splitting and stacking wood for the resort cabin, mowing greens on the golf course, sanding tees and greens, and whatever else comes up.

The weather has been very cool since we got here, and folks tell us it has been much cooler than usual this year. This is quite a change for us, coming from Sacramento and very hot summers! We are lucky to see a day over 75 degrees! I’m not complaining, mind you! I much prefer the milder weather. I’m also enjoying the slower pace of living in a small town. Folks here are incredibly friendly, and it’s true – everyone does seem to know everyone else. Everyday at noon and 6:00 p.m. the church bells ring, and since the church is right next door, I get to enjoy this even when I’m sitting inside my 5th wheel home. Local fruits and vegetables are starting to become available and it reminds me of growing up in Orangevale and eating fresh and local fruits, nuts, and vegetables. Most businesses close on Sunday and holidays, and even the newspaper we subscribe to is only delivered Monday – Saturday. There are some drawbacks – the closest Starbucks is 50 miles away, and we have to drive 25 miles to the nearest “big town” – population 11,000 - to take care of most of our business.

One of the draws to Thunder Bay Resort is the Elk Viewing Carriage Ride. Visitors are taken by horse-drawn carriages through the woods and treated to Elk viewing (a herd of Elk is maintained by the resort owners). Along the way visitors are entertained with stories about the resort, the owners, the Elk, and the history of the area. The ride culminates at the Resort Cabin where guests are served a gourmet meal prepared by Jan Mathias, one of the resort owners. Jack Mathias (Jan’s husband and the other owner) entertains guests with stories about Elk, his family, and will answers any questions visitors may have. Here is a link to Thunder Bay in case you want to check it out: http://www.thunderbaygolf.com/

My next posts will include some of the fun things we have done away from the resort since arriving in Michigan!

P.S. – Dan is enjoying the unlimited golf, and I have taken a few lessons and am beginning to enjoy it!