Spring!

What says Spring more than flowers and birds? One day last week we visited the Cibola National Wildlife Refuge and discovered a bird creature I did not even know existed - a burrowing owl. Since this area is a refuge, there are man made "houses" for these animals (I think this set of houses looks like an owl)and they loved to pose. Check out the little guy peeking out of the hole on the left.

Some of the owls we saw were banded, but not all.

This one looked like it might have a bad foot. And don't you think his face looks old...
They would let us get close if we were quiet but they were always vigilant.In addition to the burrowing owls, there were egrets. It always tickles my funny bone when these birds are in what looks like waterless settings. - there was a small canal just below this mound of dirt.

And I was actually able to capture a picture of a roadrunner. These creatures move very quickly and I have many many blurs...

See the cracks in this non-irrigated piece of ground.

Near the visitor center, the cactus were in bloom.

These flowers look and feel like very thin tissue paper.

And at home, my flowers are in full bloom. The gardenia smells even better than it looks.

The zinnias are full of color. They were mom's favorite flower and always make me smile.

This setting has been good for my garden.

On Friday, we took a drive up to Lake Havasu to check out potential campgrounds for next year. We ended up looking at several campgrounds (found a couple of possibilities) and checked out model homes. We weren't serious about the houses but it is always fun to get prices and see styles. You can tell you are in Lake Havasu when you see The London Bridge... go figure...

But the best sites of the day came on our drive home - just look at this sky!

And, we had some sad news this week. My good friend, Kathy Baker, died. Several years ago, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, received treatment and had it beat. As happens, all too often, cancer reappeared in the last few months and it spread quickly. The last time I saw her was when she took a day off school and came to mom's funeral. Both of our summers were hectic, we talked, but never got together and I regret that.

Kathy was a person that brought joy to any setting. I met her at a principals' conference and quickly realized she was a person I wanted to have in my life. Mike and I and Tom and Kathy attended a conference in San Diego once, went to The Price Is Right, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves in the week we spent together. She accidentally dropped her purse off the pier and into the ocean and considerd Mike a hero when he grabbed a fishing pole and literally fished it out.

She was a faith filled person who encouraged you to be your best. Conversations were treasures because they got to the heart of life, not just surface topics. And she was competitive, oh was she competitive. Kathy loved card games and games in general and gave Mike a couple of "new names" when he beat her.

Kathy spoke at my retirement party and I have a picture from that party of she and I and Suz and Adrienne. It is sitting on the counter as I type. Good friends are hard to find; I am glad that Kathy was one of mine! I will miss her.

The Colorado River

We have moved to one of our parks on the Arizona side of the Colorado River. The closest "town" is Ehrenberg and we are about 20 miles west of Quartzsite. We have never been to this park before so we had no idea what the area was like. The park is nice and our site is beautiful. Since it is nearing the end of the season and there aren't that many rigs in the park, we were able to get a site right on the river. The town of Ehrenberg, on the other hand, is a series of falling down trailer houses surrounded by trash with not a redeeming feature that I could see. Ehrenberg makes Quartzsite look good! Blythe, CA is only five miles away and that is where there is a grocery store.

The view is ever changing from our site and always interesting, but I am especially enjoying the sunsets. Mike doesn't even mind cooking when this is the view.

Just to show you what a good job Mike did polishing the MH, this is sunset reflected off the side... Cool huh!

Our first two days here were spent CLEANING the inside. It seems that to matter how big your home is, it still is too big when it comes time to do that good thorough spring housecleaning.

I am happy to report that cabinets, cupboards and drawers are organized; the carpet and floors have been scrubbed, and everything else has been dusted and polished. It feels good to have it done!

With the cleaning behind us, we headed north to visit an historical site named Poston. Poston Relocation Center was one of 10 internment camps for Japanese people during WWII. It still is unbelievable to me that United States citizens were rounded up and put in camps because of their ethnic origin. When I express this sentiment, I am always reminded by someone that the fear after Pearl Harbor was very real and the government felt it had to do something... BUT, what must it have been like to be Japanese American living a normal life with a family and a home and a job one day and incarcerated the next because of where your parents or grandparents were from. When we visited this memorial, there was a middle aged gal there whose parents had met at Poston and married later. I did not have a chance to talk with her, but what stories she must have heard from her parents. This is the memorial - nothing much - easy to drive by for most people.

This internment camp was built on the Colorado River Indian Reservation, over the objections of the Tribal Council, who refused to be a part of doing to others what had been done to their tribe. The Bureau of Indian Affairs, in Washington, D.C., overrode the objections and said it would be a way to bring improvements to the Reservation. The camp is named after the man who put in the irrigation system, which later did benefit the agricultural efforts of the Indian people along the Colorado River. All that remains are some buildings which were a part of the main camp and when we explored the area, it did look like one of the buildings may have been re-purposed at one time. Literature says that other buildings in the area are now used for agricultural purposes.

At the peak, between 1942 and 1945, over 17,ooo Japanese Americans were housed at the three sites (three miles apart) that comprised this camp. Most of them were from southern California. One group of men from the camp enlisted and distinguished themselves in service to their United States... the same country that had rounded them up and put their families in an internment camp.

Housing area - one door, one window

Poston War Relocation Center was, in the early 1940's, the third largest "city" in Arizona and had three schools for the more than 5,000 children housed there. Now, think about this: Poston War Relocation Center was built by Del Webb. Yes, the same Del Webb that went on to build "over 55" developments all over Arizona. Most well known is "Sun City" by Phoenix. Huh... rounding up "identified" people in one location seems to be a specialty of this fellow. I won't be able to look at a Del Webb development the same again!

I will close with this inscription on the monument. We Americans do not have a pretty history. Will we ever learn not to punish all when we are afraid of the actions of a few...

(Please enlarge and read this in its entirety.)

"Normal" Days

We have been enjoying some "normal" days lately. When our MN friends were here we felt more like tourists, but now they have all returned home and it is back to being just our regular life. We are still in the Coachella Valley (Palm Springs Area) and we are at one of our membership parks, so there is always something for us to do on those normal days.

This morning, I got up early and enjoyed coffee outside while watching hummingbirds enjoy their breakfast. They have been visiting us regularly since we put up the new feeders this past weekend. We bought two of the smallest juice containers available and hung them from the bedroom awning; I actually awoke to the sound of rapidly moving wings this morning.

This one must be very young; it doesn't really have any color.

This one is a little meany; I watched him chase away several others.

And this one looks just plain shy.Since I had some energy this morning, I went to walking class and water aerobics. This afternoon, I enjoyed learning the basics of wire wrapping jewelry. It isn't a hobby I will pick up but it was a fun couple of hours and I have a new bauble.

While I was being creative, Mike got a good start on cleaning and waxing the motorhome

Yesterday, we golfed at the Vineyards in the morning and couldn't believe our eyes when we got to the 8th hole. All of this is new construction done in the past week! (For those of you who have been on the course, that is the house that was broken into on the left side of the picture) In the afternoon, we did the weekly marketing. It is a true joy to shop when produce is fresh from the fields and reasonably priced. $.85 bought enough fresh brussel sprouts for a meal and a bundle of spinach was less an a dollar.

Over the weekend, I planted the first part of my vegetable garden. Of course, it takes me hours to decide what plants I want and in what planters I will put them. The grape tomato plant looks healthy.

When we were in Yuma in January, I planted lettuce and we have enjoyed several fresh salads. Now I transplanted it so I could use the big pot for tomatoes.

Four plants should provide enough peppers for us... for awhile anyway.

Better sign off, making taco salads for dinner before Mike heads off to play Texas Holdem.

Normal days are good.