January 4th

  It was a bit chilly last night, but much warmer than the last 3 or 4 days.  The sun got out early and warmed the valley of the sun to about 60F today.  Much nicer day, lots of people in shirt sleeves and a few in short pants.  The forecast is for it to get warmer each day until Wednesday.  Feeling sorry for the family and friends in Alberta, particularly Grande Prairie, where it is absolutely frigid.  Not sorry enough to go home though, so don't ask!
  We went out and picked up the stuff needed to put the trailer skirting back in place after the heating repairs from yesterday.  Picked up a thermostat and some pipe insulation.  I am going to insulate all the exposed pipe even under the trailer to minimize the risk of freezing.  It has not been a problem so far, but there are not many things more damaging than water, so an ounce of prevention.  While I was there I got a key cut.  Now technology is taking over how that is done.  The girl scanned my key and then handed it back to me.  I thought that meant she never had the right blank so didn't put it in the grinder.  But no, the machine just spit out the key all cut to the pattern and when I got home it was a perfect fit.
  After we stopped at CVS [pharmacy] as I wanted a some band - aids and iodine as I keep getting cuts and nicks from working with the metal on the skirting.  While we were there, Marg bought some of the sale items.  There were some really good deals, but the best was the can of Campbell's tomato soup she bought.  She had some coupons, but swiped her loyalty card and got a bunch more coupons.  Then she redeemed one form home for 50 cents on the soup, clipped one she got in the swipe for 50 cents off on that can of soup and then another from the swipe for a dollar off on any can of soup.  The bottom line was the can of soup cost 27cents after the first coupon, then she got credit for the 50 cents, then the dollar; so in the end they paid her $1.23 to take the can of soup.  We saw a piece of TV this about this and that was what prompted her to try and see if it was true.  I told her at that price she should have taken a truck load home.  LOL
  On the way home we stopped in at a large flea market on Apache Trail. It's not anywhere near as large as the Mesa one, but still pretty good size.  While we were wandering about we ran into some people from our RV park.  One of the vendors had called Kenny about a pistol he had, so Kenny & Doris were there to see what it was.  Kenny didn't want to show the guy his pistol [a .380 auto] until he saw if he was interested, so Doris was carrying it around the market in a case.  As it turns out he wasn't interested, so never made a deal, but when we saw them, Doris said she was packin' today.  Pretty funny.
  Got back to the park and I had to help Jerry move some furniture out as he is getting his carpet cleaned tomorrow.  It was pretty funny as he had 3 other guys lined up to be there at 3, that was when he told me to show up.  But he was at our place at 2 asking if I was coming over, so when I got there we moved the stuff.  Then when the other guys showed up at 3, I guess they left shaking their heads.  At least that's what they said at the ice cream social.
  When I got back to the trailer, Marg was gone.  Apparently Linda came by and is determined to help her get some plants going.  Not sure why as this is a desert and we won't be here to water anything for 8 months of the year.  Anyway there are two large planters out front as we speak.  I got the skirting but back and taped up the fresh water line.  By the time I was done, it was supper.  We still had some of the swiss steak left from the other day and Marg had put some potatoes and vegetables and it was still very tasty.
  After supper it was ice cream social.  Marg had a nice sherbet and I had a small dish of strawberry.  That was about it, oh yeh, I scanned the event calendar for the association and posted it on their fb site.  Good thing I got some ink cartridges for the printer.  I think we will leave this one down here.