A neighbor's pickup truck

One of the evenings that we were out walking around our community, when we came back, we noticed lights on in our nextdoor neighbor's house. I asked Carl if they had been on before and I hadn't noticed, or if maybe they came on later in the evening than we are usually out, but he pointed out that outdoor furniture was out on the porch too. The owners live in Idaho in the summer, but we'd had a bad storm just a day or two before, so we thought they might have contacted someone to check the house for them. Anyway, I called the wife's number, and she confirmed that her husband had flown down that day and was in the house (as I was on the phone with her, her husband knocked on our door to get some ice). He had come down to pick up a classic pickup truck that he had arranged to purchase, he would be getting it the next day, and flying back the day after that. He had decided to "open up" their unit for the summer while he was down.

He picked up the pickup truck and left it in their driveway... 

I couldn't get very far away from it to get good pictures... I think it has been painted to look like it has more battering than it actually has. Carl says that it is devaluing our property to have a derelict vehicle parked at the house next door!

"Your Meal is Made Possible by Farmers!"

We enjoy eating at Culver's...

Not only do we enjoy their food, but the sentiments on their cups and table signs are cute too!

Some things seen as we've been in Mesa...

We've been seeing some things that we don't necessarily see during the winter season in Mesa...

We were out in a community east of us - near the Superstition Mountains...

... we don't remember seeing these flowers before. Google Lens tells me that they are Pride of Barbados, also commonly known as the Red Bird of Paradise or Peacock Flower.

This was the view one evening as we were walking around our community -- quite a thick cloud front -- the picture doesn't show the colors as brilliantly as we saw them.

Our community is much quieter at this time of year, but it is good for us as we are trying to get in to see different doctors and professionals and they are much more available now than in the winter season when so many winter visitors are here.

Summer Resident-Led Activities

There are not as many organized events going on during the summer around Venture Out, but that doesn't mean that there is nothing to do...

This is from a board up at the Post Office where various folks have added the events they are hosting each week in the park.

We haven't had the opportunity to join any of those -- other than some pool exercises. 

Lunch with friends

Our community, Venture Out, has arrangements with restaurants in the area that they will donate proceeds back to our social clubs if Venture Out residents go to dine on a particular day.

Monday was one of those days...

So we arranged to go with a couple of friends in the park -- we forgot to get pictures of our group...

But Carl took a picture of the misters on the patio (we hadn't seen ones that worked like those).

We enjoyed our time with friends -- we went with two ladies who live on the street where our RV lot is located. One, Laura, is the person we've known the longest in the park. She and her husband, Bob, were the folks who originally told Carl about the RV lot being available for sale and were instrumental in getting Carl and Sue to purchase in the park. The other lady, Claudia, is a new resident in the park, having just purchased at the end of last season and just retired about a month ago! We got to know Claudia a little better, and, since Carl and I had never been to Vito's, we enjoyed learning about another place to eat in the area!

Doing some cleaning

Sorry for the delay in posts -- we haven't been doing much newsworthy...

Carl had wanted to get the front and back decks of our park model power washed -- and on Monday the weather and his back cooperated for him to be able to get that done...

He did a terrific job and it looks great now!

I was out in the back yard and noticed that the weeds were doing *quite* well -- I started pulling them (the pile in the left foreground are what I already pulled)...

... after getting the most of them pulled.

I finished up with spraying some of the ones I couldn't get pulled -- some of the weeds would just break off when I tried to pull them, so I decided they would be better handled with weed killer.

We've gotten a rain shower over night a couple of times, and the weeds seem to sprout from nothing when that occurs. But the dampness in the ground also makes them easier to pull.

At least it will be dark

Another video from the solar eclipse back on 12 August -- I think this one was taken by the ship's photography team -- it shows a group of passengers around the rear pool on the back deck of the ship, and shows the scene going from nearly eclipsed to full eclipse -- in real time. It looks like it must be sped up based on how quickly the "light" goes out. 

https://youtu.be/unVc6nNYIMw 

What is surprising to me each time I see an eclipse is how little of the sun can be exposed and it still provides a lot of light. Moving through the eclipse from first contact (when the moon first touches the sun) to totality, the light wanes some, like in the evening. But when the moon finally covers the whole face of the sun, it goes dark, snap!

Even if it is cloudy (as it was for us in Kerrville in 2024), it still gets dark. Animals react and people do too (as you can hear the "oooooohhhh"s on the video). As Captain Timmers had told us, "At least it will get dark."

Speaking of Captain Timmers, there was an article about his finding the open spot in the clouds on Holland America's website: https://www.hollandamerica.com/blog/whats-new/ship-crew/captains-view-solar-eclipse/ 

It is interesting how the navigation team had to consider the speed and direction of cloud movement at different altitudes in finding the open spot in the clouds.