So in Arizona, we are in Day 4 of stay at home…or something like that…the days all blend together even more than it did when we were just retired, not retired and under stay at home recommendations. I just want to get in the truck and drive somewhere! 🙂 Our neighbor, Jenny, who is younger than us will grocery shop for us tomorrow — wanted to see if that worked better than Instacart had been doing. I am not bashing Instacart at all, I am sure they are stressed to the limits but it will be nice to see if this option is better.
Our place in Big Lake is planning to open mid-April as long as the water lines are not frozen. Sounds like the weather has been cooperating up there so I think they will be able to make the date. Not of the common buildings will be open. People can golf, but no leagues and you need to practice social distancing on the course. We have discussed what our return plans are and right now are just on hold on making a decision. With so many current restrictions (heard FL was only letting those with FL license plates in to their state) we think it is better to wait and see. Plus being on the road it may be hard to find places to eat and rest stops, so we thought we would just wait. Thankfully we have our Friday night Zoom virtual HH with the family, so that helps!!
Everyone is pretty much WFH back in MN, except Jermar who does still go in to the office. His company provides a lot of boxes for medical companies so are right now considered essential. Jackie is WFH, but she now has an 18 month co-worker to keep an eye on her all day long! 🙂 I know so many of my friends from Robinson understand that challenge as they also try to WFH with little ones wandering around, or asking questions about their online classes!! Hang in there everyone!!!
I wanted to catch up and write about Jenny, Emily and Erin’s visit!!! We had so much fun!!!! …and hopefully they did too. They flew in late Wednesday night March 4th….and I mean late…we got back to our house around 2am. Thursday morning we headed to Las Vegas, where we had an airBNB for a few days.
Thursday
The drive was fairly long — 5 hours or so but we did go up through Jerome and over the hills that way. We stopped along the way for lunch and again enjoyed the ability to eat outside — even Max enjoyed it!!
Unfortunately we did not actually get in to Vegas until later in the evening, but the lights of the city coming over the hill were amazing!!
Friday
The plan for Friday was to see Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam. This is the view of Lake Mead from the freeway!
Doing some Google searching I found we could rent a pontoon boat on Lake Mead, and it was a sunny day, so we decided to check out the pontoons that were for rent. We could only rent it for a few hours, but gave us a chance to drive around the lake and get a view of the Hoover Dam from the other side!
After our 3 hour tour of Lake Mead, we had enough time in the day to still head over to Hoover Dam before it closed. Before we headed there, we had to walk the very long dock back to our truck and the fish and wildlife were just crazy in the water!!! Although there are signs not to feed them….well, you know people!!
Although we were too late to take the Dam Tour, we got lots of Dam pictures! 🙂 It really is an amazing sight to see and we will definitely go another time and get on one of the tours!
That evening we booked a tour of downtown Las Vegas in a Tesla X! David loves the Tesla cars so this was his chance to ask an actual owner lots of questions while he showed us some interesting sights in Vegas. We knew would would probably not go down there with the girls during night time, so this was a great chance to see all of the lights!!
And of course we had to take a selfie at the Vegas arm!! Erin, with her long arms, is our selfie master!!
When we were driving down Fremont Street, one of the casinos had a sign “craps” — Erin burst out “CRAPS!!! What is that??” We all laughed and then her mom explained that it was a game, not what she was thinking!! 🙂
Saturday
Saturday was our day to venture down to the Las Vegas Strip!!! It was crazy with so many people!! (And this just a few weeks before it would all be closed down!!) Some of the street performers were very interesting, not probably really focused towards kids! David had never been to Vegas either so it was interesting for him too…..but wall to wall people!! May be hard to tell from the pictures, but the sidewalks and stores were packed!
We did have lunch at a great restaurant, but could not sit outside, the wait was too long. But also ran in to some of Jenny’s friends from MN — what a small world!!
We then decided to split up so the girls could see what they wanted, do some shopping, and we could take our time. Of course we saw the fountains at the Belagio, the canals at the Venetian and looked at all the colors of M&M’s (no Candy Corn flavor….LOL) at the M&M store. We finally met back at the Miracle Mile shopping center, where we parked and went back to the rental. It was a long day of walking for all of us!!
Sunday
Since the girls were on Spring Break, we had already spent 2 days doing touristy stuff and we were going to do more back at our house, we decided Sunday would be there day to do what they wanted…and that was do nothing!! So we did nothing, and packed for our trip back! In fact, we actually decided later in the day to just head back a day early!!
Monday
Tuesday was brunch at one of our favorites – Crema….but this time it did not include any flying applesauce!!
We explored some of the gift shops in downtown Old Town and then decided to head to Montezuma Well because it had some great hiking paths.
Tuesday
Tuesday was Pink Jeep Day!!!! This time I booked a trip that would provide a “little more 4×4 experience”! And boy did it ever!! Once he cranked that jeep in to 4 wheel drive you immediately noticed how much that was needed!! We were going up and down rocks, one side up, one side down, but it really was fun. We also had a stopping point on this one where we could take pictures!! The sights were beautiful!!
Wednesday
In Sedona there is a tourist sight — Chapel on the Hill. So Jenny, I and the girls decided to visit that and also take the drive up 89A so we could go to the scenic overlook.
This was my first time driving the truck on the windy, twisty, switchbacked 89A and it was really fun to do!! We were all excited to get up to the top so we could take more pictures from the overlook down into the Sedona valley!! We got up there and it was CLOSED!!! WHAT!!!???!!! So disappointing!!
Thursday
Thursday was back down to Phoenix so the girls could catch their flight home!! It was so much fun having them visit!! Emily and Erin are growing up so fast – it was such a great visit. Lots of laughs and good memories!!
Stay healthy!
TIFN
Of course we need a little boy treat!! 🙂
Dandy Ventures 