Tuesday, February 11.2020

  It rained last night and the roads had a fair amount of standing water.  It was a bit cool as well, although the forecast was for it to warm up.
  We had plans today to attend the Snowbird Extravaganza in the Mesa convention center.  While it is put on by the Canadian Snowbirds Assoc, it is open to everyone.  There are many sponsors, but Medipac who we purchased travel medical insurance from is a big one.  We have known about it for years, but usually it conflicts with other things we are doing.  This year we made plans with two other Cdn couples, one from GP, the other her sister and spouse from Stony Plain and our friends from Kansas.  We left here at 9:30, the starting time for it so arrived after it had been going for about a half hour.  There was a trade show in the lobby and a stage show in the main auditorium.  We made our way through the sponsor booths first, collecting a bunch of brochures, entering some draws and picking up handouts, like bags, pens, coupons, assorted nick knacks.  The we went in to the entertainment.  It was a packed house with good entertainment, but likely everything being free had something to do with it.
  The day did indeed turn out nice, but the wind was a bit cool down here in the valley.  In the high country north and east of here they had a fair amount of snow last night and today.  I believe the weather said the snow was above 7,000 feet.

  The first act was Jimmy Flynn a comedian from Newfoundland who is just plain hilarious.  He also does a bit of singing and gets the crowd going.  At the end of his act, the entire room [something around 1,000] were on their feet singing:  I's the by and a bunch of fast tunes, swaying to the music.  The next act was Valdi, who was a musical legend in the 60's/70's in Canada anyway.  He was very good and entertaining as well.  The third act was a comedy act, but didn't think it was that great, so went out to the lobby.  Marg was sitting next to a lady who walked away from her purse, leaving it on the seat.  Being concerned she turned it over to a booth manager at that location, but waited around to see if the lady came back.  When she did, Marg directed her to the booth.  If you have never experienced something like that it is a study in human behavior.  The lady went from looking very agitated and anxious to over joyed.  She hugged Marg for a long time, then a couple more times, just gushing with words of appreciation.  Nice to see. 

We also ran in to Gerry & Deb there as well, I guess they go every year.  The one couple with us wanted pictures with Valdi and then we left.  The event went on all day and lunch was available for sale, but it didn't appeal to us, so we went looking for a place to eat.
  We stopped in at Garcia's, a Mexican restaurant and a very nice one.  We ate there several years ago and others in the group had last year, so it was an easy choice.  It was packed, so we sat on the outdoor patio.  They put on a patio heater, so it was very pleasant out there.  Mexican places usually give you complimentary chips and salsa as a starter and the ones here were very good.
  We had a few things to do when we got home and then it was happy hour at 4.  We were surprised to see that it had rained a lot today and the roads were again very wet as back in Mesa it never even sprinkled.  The Blankes were hosts tonight, so a pretty good sized group.  I took a hot chocolate in an insulated drink container as the day was cooling off again.  Now that was a first for me.
  We weren't that hungry so had a light supper and finished off the lemon pie.  After that it was on to bingo.  The big surprise there was Marg won the double daub for $110, so a great way to end the day.  It sure cheered her up as it has been a while since she won and the room applauding didn't hurt either.