We're back 2019 already! Tuesday Jan 8th

  Well it has been an eventful week already and it has just begun.  We left home in a snowy cold day, I think it was minus 25C.  But we were all dressed in our winter regalia, knowing we had to move around on our trip to the airport and then a walk on the tarmac in GP to the plane.  Everything went well on the first leg of our journey, with a 2:30 PM departure.  We got to Calgary about 75 minutes later, compare that to 7 or 8 hours of white knuckle driving in that blizzard like weather. 
  We had a long stay in the Calgary airport, thankfully it is just that much better than Edmonton for amenities.  We had to go through another security screening even though we were never out of the secure areas and then the U.S. border control.  At the security screening, it was a non-event for me, except they did a hand search on the backpack which turned out fine.  It was a bit more thorough process as we had to take our shoes off and put them in the X-ray buckets.  Marg on the other hand got pulled over for a full screening.  They hand wanded her, swabbed her and then checked the bottoms of her feet.  Good thing we had lots of time.
  At the U.S. border check we had declared edible food so had to describe the cookies and butter tarts in Marg's  case.  Again he just gave me a cursory look and asked how many months we would be in Arizona, but seemed to have more questions for Marg.  Not certain what she has been up to as this had never happened before.  LOL
  We got something to eat, it was Japanese and very good but the wasabi was very strong.  A little went a long way.  I had to go in to the men's washroom and take off my long johns and heavy sweatshirt, it was that much nicer there.  The flight was not over crowded and was a larger aircraft, one of the Airbus planes, so a good trip.  There was a good selection of movies on the flight and Marg watched one and then some of the other stuff on the system.  Me, well I just put it on the map to see where we were.  The distance really passes quickly at 800 kmph.  We had to de-ice so got away a few minutes late and made it to Phoenix Sky Harbor right around 11.  Our ride took a few minutes to find us and we were at our unit shortly before midnight.  I had to turn on the water and water tank by flashlight.  The good news was that I had remembered to shut off the furnace as the place was only 58F [about 13C] inside.  That should mean we can expect of small power bill this month.
  With nothing to eat that meant a trip to Walmart, they are open all night here.  Now we know where all the freaks go after midnight in AJ.  We were probably the only ones in there without tattoos of piercings.  Wait I do have a tat.  Anyway we got enough to get us by for a few days and got to bed close to 2AM.
  Naturally we slept in a bit this morning, about 8 AM.  People started coming by pretty early.  I had to get my shop vac and pick up some water in the air re-circulating unit.  They had a pretty good rain storm the day prior, so I expected it to be a problem in the big duct from the unit.  One of these days I should do something to stop that, but its a bit of a complex issue.  Marg cleaned up the place as much as possible with people stopping in to chat.
  I had a problem with a loose wheel on the golf cart before we left in December, so my next project was to pull the rear wheels off the cart.  I didn't need to do both, but I wanted to look at the brake shoes to try and stop the noise they were making.  I needed some grease, so had to go and buy a grease gun.  Naturally I went to Harbor Freight.  No free gift today, I used the discount coupon.  By the time I was done I had the gun with one tube of grease for $7.99.  Back to the park where I re-assembled it, adjusted the tire pressures and greased the front end. Marg had been cleaning up the cupboards and making supper preparations in the slow cooker.  Apparently the stove got accidentally turned on and there was a plastic pack with muffins in it on the burner, so her next task was airing the place out.  Not a big deal as the temperature was over 70 [19 C] today. 
  After lunch cleaned up and putting my stuff away, I had to change to shorts and a tee shirt.   It was hot in the sun!  We had put a lot of stuff away when we left, so had something akin to setting the place up to do.  Somewhere the day went and it was time for happy hour.  It was well attended today so was very noisy.  The place was rife with gossip today about events over the last 3 weeks.  Kenny put it well when he said something like - everything was quiet, business as usual until we went away, not sure what the heck happened after we [them and us] left. Marg has made arrangements to go with the gamblin' gals Friday and signed us up for Patti's fancy dinner; I am signed up to be the darts master at the pub night and for golf tomorrow.  Need to figure out how to dress like a darts master before then.
  The slow cooker supper turned out excellent and we finished just in time to go to bingo.  There were lots more greetings at bingo. A lot more people have arrived since we left for the Christmas break, some annuals and others who are among the 3 month winter visitors. We finished up just in time for bingo where it was a large crowd.  That meant the payouts were large too, as was the competition.  That didn't faze Marg as she won one of the games and was down to one number on several others.  The money ball wasn't won and was already over $400, so it will be busy next week.
  Time for us to turn in, almost forgot the pace of our life here.