March 4th

A special day, happy birthday Paige; happy birthday Haylee.  It hardly seems 14 years have come and gone this quickly since our twins were born.  We sure miss out on a lot of birthdays in February & March, one of the negative things about snowbirding.
  It was a gorgeous day in AJ, I think the temp got up to 78F/26C, a very nice warm one or what would pass for a warm summer day in GP.  Believe it or not, this is a bit cooler than we have been accustomed to at this time of year.  I think next week is supposed to be in the 80's every day, but we may not see 100 this year before we leave.  That is increasingly a topic of conversation, when are you leaving?  We haven't really been anywhere this year, the west side of Phoenix & Tortilla Flats is about it. 
  Marg got up early and went with the gamblin' gals to Fort MacDowell.  She came back in a great mood, seems she was close at bingo and won at the slots, to come out ahead overall.  It seems she really did break the jinx at bingo last week and is back to her regular form.  They left the park about 8:30 and got back just after 4, a full day.
  I visited around the park a bit and did some maintenance stuff.  Talking with the guys, they went out to get permits for a new route to take into the desert next Tuesday, so that is likely the plan for next week.

  Went golfing to Encanto today with Gerry C.  This course is right in the heart of Phoenix.  Traffic going was busy, but not bad.  Just a great day to be out on the course.  We were booked for a 2 o'clock T time to get the discount rate, but when we showed up early, the course was so empty that they sent us out 45 min early.  The only negative of this course is they flood it every night and if you take divots like I do, you get a lot of muddy clubs & need to wash the towel after every round.

 This is the lake on the course we call turtle lake.  You can see all the turtles sitting along the shore on the left side of the picture.  They look like painted turtles to me, but as soon as you get close they jump in the water.  They are pretty good size, I would estimate the size of an 8 or 10 inch plate.
  On the next pic, if you could zoom, you would see our balls sitting in the trap, or on the beach as we say.

  Gerry played well today, me not so much, something close to my old average.  It seemed I was striking the ball well most of the time, had some good holes, but not consistently.  My last round here was much more satisfying, when I posted the pic of the scorecard, so the absence of any such pic here should be telling you something.

  When I got back, there had been a block party and everyone was asking why I didn't go.  My excuse was I had to work, explaining that golf is work when you don't do it well.  LOL  I found Marg over at Nancy & Larry's where about 10 of them had gone for happy hour and snacks instead of the block party.  It seems they all got their stuff ready to head over to the block party, but never got there.  Pretty funny really.