March 25th - April 3rd, 2024 - Our time in Yuma

WOW!  Time really goes fast when you are having fun - LOL!

So what have we been up to for the last 10 days?

We did organize the shed - at least in part.  We will do more when we our here next season.  We also got an estimate for some improvements we want to make on the lot.  Hopefully we can get that done in November or December.

We had our cat, Gray, to the vets for bloodwork and a check-up.  He is gaining weight but eating less food so I was concerned.  The good news is that all his tests are wonderful and he is a healthy cat.  The bad news for me is that I now have to really monitor his food by counting his calories.  Next, I will be doing that for me. LOL!

Isn't he the cutest!

In February at our park's annual membership meeting, there was an issue that concerned me so I volunteered to be on the Ad-Hoc Committee to address the issue.  The first meeting I attended by phone, the next meeting was my birthday and the last one I attended was this past week.  There is a great group of people on the committee and I am learning a lot about how parks work and some of the "legalities" of park operations.  I will miss the last meeting but will be there in the fall.

After the meeting on my birthday (3/26), members of the park went to EATS (Chinese Restaurant) to celebrate all the other March Birthdays and Anniversaries.  It was fun.

The next day (3/27), we went back to Los Algodones to my favorite restaurant to eat.

Happy Birthday to me 😁:

Yes, the Margaritas and Garlic Shrimp were still wonderful!

Our favorite bartender was there, Leo, (on the right) and gave me a big hug for my birthday and a big hug when we left.  He introduced us to his little brother (on the left).  At first I didn't believe it was his brother and he convinced me it was.  I could not pronounce his name so hopefully next year I will.

As many of you know I just LOVE yard art and this little guy came back over the border with us.  Can't wait to put him in my yard in PA!

They had an awesome camel and an awesome giraffe but getting that home would be a problem..

Our friend, Judy, came into the park that day and we spent some time getting caught up and then out to dinner.  Sadly, I did not take a picture.

The weather has been crazy here!  Cold some days; warm to hot other days; and we had lots of wind and rain.  

Pictures of one of the dust storms coming thru - Looking west:

Looking south:

Looking east:

And that dust just covers everything!!  We usually close up everything and put the air conditioning on cause it is that fine, I can taste it.  

Besides the normal shopping, laundry, etc., I spent a considerable amount of time planning the next few months of our journey.  I only do reservations about 2 weeks in advance and also have backups if it doesn't work out.  Depending on the weather, we hope to spend a little time in Nevada before heading north.

I also spent time on the phone preparing for our trip thru Canada:  What credit cards can we use and not incur any charges? How about cell phone and internet coverage?  Insurance? Medical?  Do we have enough of our medications? What can I bring into Canada - food, alcohol, etc.?  What paperwork do my cats need?  ETC...  I also found out that I could get Canadian money from Wells Fargo with no fee so we made that happen here since there is no Wells Fargo in Canada.   Finally, since my cats eat special food, I ordered enough for the next few months until we get to Anchorage.  I think we are covered!!

One interesting thing I did over the past week was take part in an Alzheimer Study.  As many of you know, my mom had Alzheimer's and a few years ago I inquired about participating in those studies.  I have been in one study now for almost 5 years.  I do it online every three months.  They contacted me to see if I was interested in doing a short term one - every day for 5 days and then repeating in 6 months.  Since I knew we were going to be stationary and the internet was good, I went for it.  I will tell you that this one was hard.  Plus at the end, they asked for an evaluation of the test.  Yes, I will do it again.  I have also participated in other short term ones but most of them I did not qualify.     If anyone is interested in participating in studies like this, you just need to Google the specific disease and make sure the study is done by a university or hospital.  Once you are in one of them, others will contact you.  Also, if you need testing, many doctor and hospital groups participate.  One of the studies I was in two years ago, the pretest was bloodwork and they referred me to a doctor in Pottsville. (I had to give 11 vials of blood and they actually paid me. That was a nice surprise.  But, I did not have the specific proteins that they needed so I could not participate.)  If I were home more, I would look into some of the cancer studies because of the prevalence of cancer in my family.  

Tomorrow we start our trek north so stay tuned and enjoy today.