Thursday, November 21st

Another damp day in the Valley of the Sun.  It rained hard most of the night with lots of thunder and lightning, although we missed the hail they had in some parts of Phoenix.  This large storm we encountered yesterday is forecast to lose some of its fury but will not end until Friday afternoon.  It rained off and on today with some nice warm sunny breaks every so often.  Just around supper time it was a downpour with the lightning and thunder for about a half hour, the rest was just showers.
  It was another busy day as Marg cleaned inside the trailer while I washed the patio/driveway and used the squeegy to push the water out.  We dug out our ornaments for the front of the place.  I took the excess water out of the golf cart batteries, took it off the jack stands and got it out of the patio area.  I use a turkey baster to take water out of the 6 batteries.  Last spring I put a whole 4 quart bottle of distilled water in the batteries, today I siphoned off about a third of that, the rest lost to evaporation.  Amazingly the batteries showed it fully charged, I guess I disconnected the right cables last spring.
  We had lots of visitors stopping to say hello and renewed old acquaintances.  The park is full and has been for a while now, we were definitely not early to arrive here.  The other couple from Grande Prairie that have a lot here arrived about 4 weeks ago as have many others.  There are only a few people not here yet.
  Lunch was a sandwich and the pecan pie.  Last night we each had a piece of pie and Marg not wanting hers, ordered a take-away pie that she still did not want at lunch today.  Very fortunate for yours truly.
  After lunch I went to buy water for the cooler and then we emptied the Arizona room.  It was pretty much full of the patio stuff, so took a large part of the afternoon.  On a negative note the bike has a flat front tire, so will not be riding for a few days yet.  A common problem and usually a failure of the tube requiring replacement.  Sometimes the summer heat causes other problems, like I had a bottle of degreaser that sprung a leak and drained out in the shed.  The glue traps in the shed were full of crickets.
  The place was looking just like it did when we left, so just about done.  When we finished for the day I went to shoot some stick to see if I can get my mojo back.  With the pool players around here I wanted to practice on my own first.  Marg stayed in as Mediacom came to install our TV, internet & land line.  It went pretty well as we had the identity and password from last year.  When the installer saw that it went smooth as silk.  If you want to call, our land line in the park model changes every year and now it is 480-845-1159. 
  After all the work today, Marg wanted to rest up a bit before supper, so stayed in, but I went to happy hour.  It was cut short as the storm clouds were moving in again.  We went out to Denny's for supper and both of us were happy with our choice.  Our waiter was new on the job and it was his 20th birthday today, so we left him a little extra in cash for the tip.  Rather than leave the it on the table Marg to care to hand it to him personally, just to be sure.
  Oh yesterday I was a bit rushed doing the blog in the Village Inn, so never reported the kilometers from Mesquite to here.  It was 680 kms, an easy distance when the weather is nice.