Balloons/Shuffling/Christmas Lights and Good News

Yuma also has a balloon Festival. Not on the scale of Albuquerque but a nice up close one. I had no idea we could get so close th the activates. So I only too my big lens.

This is the "Glow" part of the show. The had fourteen or fifteen balloons all lit up at the same time.

Because I only had the one lens I couldn't get a panoramic shot.

This of course isn't a balloon but it was lit up real well.

This shows how close you could get to the action.

These are two of the eighteen shuffle board courts we have at "Sun Vista RV"

They are smooth as glass and cleaned every morning to get them ready for play.

Here my team mate is trying to get her "disk" (not Puck) in scoring area. This is very difficult as the glass surface is covered with grains of wax and it takes very little effort to send the disk off the end of the court.

The "Eskimo in black is Mary. It was in the low 50's on the morning of this competition. We all nearly froze.

We decorated the house for Christmas with lights around the front deck.

We also put lights on the Grapefruit tree. (that will take some getting used too)

The view from the street. Mary wouldn't let me get on a ladder or roof to put lights on the house.

This is the good news! Mary has consented to be my wife. We will be married on March 1st. At her home here in Yuma. We will repeat our vows in Oregon when we get there in the spring.

Quad ride / Veterans Day

We and two other couples rented Quad Runners for a guided trip into the California desert.
Here you can see the four Quads. (some of them even ran) They had to push them onto the trailer to load them. They were gutless. The trip was $225 a couple including lunch and beverages. ( I brought our own beverage).

Mary dressed like a "desert rat" for this outing. Turned out we were under dressed.

She wanted the purple one as it matched her "toe nails" it also had tires that were over inflated and for the first hour we were constantly getting stuck in the sand.

The couple in the far Quad were very experienced at this as he had raced Quads and worked on them in another life.

One of our rest stops. We stopped several times on the trip for water brakes.

This is an active bee hive in the desert. One of our guides said that it was here when he was a kid. You can see the Honey cones and where Honey has drained into the cliff.

This side canyon leaves the main canyon at the bee hive. The ladies walked up it quite a ways. The men weren't invited.

This little cave is also near the bee hive. We had a long stay at this location. We had discussed what lunch would be like. I didn't hold much hope for it. Some one said it would be "Wall-Mart" Sandwich and water. They were half right. It was half a Wall-Mart sandwich and water. We had beer.

Here we are after they let air out of our tires and we could keep up with the rest of the group.

This is the engine of our Quad after it blew a head gasket and left Mary and I afoot in the California desert. We were tail gunners and with all the dust we weren't missed for a half hour.

You can see how desolate it was out there. They did come and get us and we were able to push the wreck onto the trailer and get out of there.

The owner of the company wouldn't compensate us for all the trouble we had as "These things always break down". WE had a good time but we told him not to expect any more business from our park. There are 2000 spaces filled with fun loving seniors.

YUMA VETERANS DAY PARADE

As there is a Marine base in Yuma the Marine Color Guard led the parade.

There were many small floats, this one reminded me of a float my kids had in a parade in Salem . Theirs had a pet skunk in the wagon and they took first place.

One lonely Mountie stepping it out.

There was a lot of equipment from both the Marines and the Army proving grounds out side of Yuma.

There were only two mascots in the parade. This Eagle? and Sparky the fire dog. Sparky is on the cutting room floor.

I was very surprised that there were so few horses in the parade. This group of rodeo queens and the Sheriffs posse.

The end of the parade was a obligatory group of belly dancers. They perform at weddings, christenings, Bar mitzvahs and all other functions in the area. Even at Mexican folk dances no kidding.

WHAT IN THE HELL DO YOU DO DOWN THERE?

I have been asked many times "what do you do in Yuma in the winter?" Well between shuffleboard and dancing we have some social life.
This is our motto. Hard to read in this photo. "Why limit Happy to an Hour?

These were bought by Mary to commemorate our two tubing trips down the Colorado River I highly recommend this trip. But remember to bring your drinks in cans as bottles are forbidden.

This is a gathering of our block for a fish fry. Fish were provided by "Jack" the gentleman in the straw hat on the right in this photo. They are "Yellow Perch" from Lake Eire.

This is the fish ready to eat with many other fine foods provided by the ladies on our block.

This is my desert plate. I only tried three deserts out of about seven. I am trying to cut back.

This is the left over fish. It was very good but there was so much food we couldn't eat it all.

Mary made a large corn casserole and I made the world famous "Jalapeño poppers" that were consumed well before dinner.

In the morning Mary and I will compete in a "Leigh shuffleboard tournament" a first for me. I did compete in a local tournament last week and won two out of three games. (got a real lesson in the third game) Will try to update after being humiliated in the morning.

ONE MORE TIME

This is my new look. I found a lump in my beard and had to shave. As it turned out I was right it is more of the skin cancer I have been plagued with the last few years. It is treatable and I am working on it as well as the new ones that showed up on my nose. It is a simple thing just put some cream on it and the cancer goes away. No surgery or radiation. The cream is at no cost as it is covered by my insurance. Mary says that I look younger with out the beard. Life was simpler with the beard. I had to buy a razor and shave at least once a day now.

This is Mary's home in Yuma. It is a nice two bedroom "Park Model" in a gated community. Called Sun Vista "Where the Fun Never Sets". It is a very busy place.

This is the street we live on. It is "Katherine Hepburn" all the streets are named after movie stars. Female stars N & S. Male stars E & W. The street that is reserved for pet owners is... you guessed it "Lassie.

This is a photo of my date for the Halloween dance. We didn't have costumes for this dance.

Sunset for the dance. The Halloween dance was the day before Halloween so members could go to other functions on Halloween.

Some of the members did go in costume. Note the red eyes on Death Angle.

This is a "Verdon" a small bird that visits our humming bird feeder. It announces its coming with a long series of short chirps and sounds like a humming bird.

While in Albuquerque we took a ride on the worlds longest Tram. It is a mile between two of the towers.

Here the tram is coming to the top. Note there is a guy on top of the tram. It is shift changing time and they needed the space inside for paying customers so the help rides on top, with a safety harness in good weather. The weather would never be good enough for me to ride on top.

From the top of the tram we took a chair lift down the back side to a ski lodge for a soda .

The view from the chair lift was great. Completely open.

The Aspen were just starting to turn here.

The first tower from the top looking down.

After Mary had her eye surgery we went to New Mexico for the Balloon Festival. A fish and a pig.

There were so many different styles. These are two of the three bumble bees.

A small group that launched at about the same time.

A Tweety Bird.

Mary wanted to take Delaney Shopping. So we went to the Castle Rock Mall to find ??? Delaney dressed like a teenager for the trip.

The two of them looked at every thing in the mall.

The only thing she found was a T shirt and this pair of Keds in her school color. They didn't have high tops, but she was happy with the low ones.

After shopping we went to the high school foot ball game. The home team won 50+ 0 after the third quarter they put in the mercy rule and let the clock run in the fourth.

While we were in Colorado Mary took me into the Rockies the colors and this is the entrance to the Eisenhower tunnel.

The Aspen were gorges in their bright yellow leaves.

They made a bright color line in the pines and dead trees.