And that's a wrap!

Here we are on New Year's Eve... when I pull together pictures for our Christmas letter, I look over our year and enjoy again all the things we have done. Here's a bit of a recap:

Our travel map for 2023 -- starting in Florida, working our way up the east coast all the way to Newfoundland, then heading west to Illinois, then south to Texas, ending up in Arizona. A total of 74 stops in the motorhome for the year.

According to our Garmins, we put 10,291 miles on Gracie and 6,426 miles on the Jeep during the year. I am a little surprised at the relatively low mileage for the Jeep. Gracie gains miles between stops, and the Jeep gets miles driving around when we're staying in a place for a few days. I guess we stayed put more when we stopped at a campground or traveled to places closer to the campground than we may normally do. Note: in case you're interested, the odometer on the Jeep does *not* count miles when the Jeep is being towed.

We added to our "visited" list: several northeastern states -- New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont -- as well as Canadian provinces -- New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Ontario. Later in the year we added middle America states: Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma. We almost got all three in one stop as we stayed in a casino parking lot near the point where the three states join - but we stayed in Kansas on that stop and stayed in other places in Missouri and Oklahoma. 

In general, a state or province goes onto the map when we've visited it and spent the night in it in Gracie (our motorhome). Note though, I do have Dominican Republic indicated as "visited" - we went there in November, 2022 - without Gracie.

Of the 48 contiguous states, we have only Kentucky and Colorado left to visit - we don't have specific plans on visiting either of those in 2024. We do have a plan to take an RV trip to visit Alaska in the summer of 2024 -- no plans to take Gracie to Hawaii though!

We also took a transatlantic cruise in April, 2023, visiting the Azores, Portugal, Spain, France, and Italy.

 

Obviously these stops did *not* include Gracie!

In case you would like to see the PDF of our Christmas 2023 letter, I think I have shared it with anyone who has the link via Google Drive here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-3CmO26kpsd1-cYnAxby0HaGbXy7ehu5/view?usp=sharing

Taking up carpet

On Wednesday, Carl attacked the job of taking up the indoor/outdoor carpet on the patio of our lot...

We forgot to take a "before" picture - but you may be able to see the green carpet on the patio in this picture from a couple of week ago. It doesn't look *too* bad from a distance, but it was really in bad shape with rips and holes and generally looking pretty disreputable! Carl said that, when he and Sue purchased the lot in the spring of 2019, it was in bad shape, and 5 summers of beating sun had done nothing to improve the carpet.

Carl started with the section in front of the shed (the white building behind is the back of our neighbor's property on the next street over). We had figured that if the carpet did not come up well, it would be better to have it partially scraped up in the back of the lot rather than the front. It came up pretty well -- just a bit of glue left on the concrete.

In process on the front part -- there was one stubborn part which had come up a couple of years ago (while the lot was rented out and we were not here) -- one of our neighbors had offered to tape it down, and the tape he used was VERY good tape!

Bundles of ugly green carpeting to go to the dumpster.

Just a little more to go.

I had been away while Carl was doing all this work -- when I got home, he was sweeping up.

Carl used his battery-powered multi-tool with a rigid blade attachment to convince the recalcitrant carpet tape to come up.

While he was working with the multi-tool, I used the flat-bladed shovel to try to get some more of the carpet glue scraped up and continued sweeping up the remnants. He was able to get all the green carpet up and a lot of the carpet tape. We put a plastic tarp in the back of the Jeep and loaded the rolled up waste carpet into the back of the Jeep to carry it to the dumpster. We decided to stop with the on-going scraping of the carpet glue in preference to getting the carpet deposited in the dumpster before sundown.

The dumpster area is also known as "The VO (Venture Out) Market" - a place where people can take items which they no longer want or need so that others can pick up if they have need or want them! A guy was there leaving a set of shelves (that we examined with a thought of whether we may be able to use). We decided that no one would want to have our rotted green carpet so just tossed it into the dumpster.

Now to finish getting the carpet glue up and to decide what to put down instead!

Frost in the morning in Mesa

I mentioned that it was chilly on Christmas morning when we went to the pool for pool exercises... we went back on Wednesday and it was again chilly...

The cars were a little frosted (I forgot to take a picture of the Jeep, so this was a random red car that we passed as we were walking to the pool).

There was steam coming up off the pool water from the heated pool. It wasn't quite as beautiful as it had been on Christmas morning (when we had not taken our phones with us to the pool) -- but still made a pretty sight!

It is also interesting that if we go into the hot tub, we "steam" when we exit it as the water evaporates off of our bodies! I guess it happens coming out of the pool too, but not as noticeable.

Christmas Day

On Christmas Day, we started by heading to the pool for water exercises. The lady who leads them had said that she planned to be there on Christmas morning, but, we guessed she changed her mind. It was a bit chilly (47F), and steam was coming off the heated pool and hot tubs. There were two other ladies who also came for pool exercises, so we just went through as much of the routine that is normally done as we could remember. (We purposely did *not* remember to do some of the parts of the exercise that we don't like, like "climbing the ladder".)

Carl's son, Scott, had scheduled a family Google Meetup (like Zoom) meeting for the morning, so we got onto that when we got back to the rig...

Carl was testing out his connection and found that there were "disguises" that he could put on... Santa...

... cat on the head...

... and pirate!

It was good to get together with family using technology, and toward the end of the time, Carl put on his "Santa" disguise and the grands all got the giggles from that! Then they had to try out the different options -- it was quite funny!

We got to chat with Jimmy and Regina in the afternoon -- always good to get to talk with family!

In the evening, we had a park "Christmas dinner". The way they do it is to have table hosts, who pick up and warm the ham for their table. There are 18-20 people per table, and each person brings a dish to share. We each also paid $4 which, I think, helped defray the cost of the hams.

There were 12 tables -- it was nice because we got to meet other folks in the park.

Our table

Another view of our table.

We enjoyed getting together with "neighbors" - getting to meet some more folks from the park! Our host and hostess were a couple that we had met line dancing a few weeks ago. This is their first year to visit the park and they are renting - they are so nice and we've enjoyed getting to know them better.

We hope all of you enjoyed your Christmas day!

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve, we started with church service in the ballroom here at the resort.

Normally, Carl's family tradition was to go out for a steak meal in the evening on Christmas Eve, but the resort was having a candlelight carols service at 5pm, so we decided we'd rather go at lunchtime than go in the dark after the candlelight service.

We went to the Longhorn Steakhouse. We haven't always made it out for steaks on Christmas Eve -- last year, Carl was dealing with a cracked tooth so we postponed our steak outing until a couple of weeks into January when we figured he would be able to enjoy it more! This year, we made it out earlier in the day.

Christmas Eve Carols and Candlelight Service.

Zoomed in on the Advent Wreath. You may notice that the 4 candles around the side are very tall and thin. The first Sunday in Advent, I thought, "Wow, those will burn down fast!" When the guy came out to light the first candle, he picked it up and flipped the switch on the bottom -- ah, they won't burn down at all!

That theme continued with the candles we used in the service - small electric tea lights!

We each turned our candles on for the final hymn, Silent Night. We missed the "passing" of the light from one person to the next, but it was nice not to have wax dropping down our hands or on the floor!

By the end of the service (when we had the candles on), it was just after sunset. This was the view from the ballroom (second floor) back toward our lot in the east of the park as we left the service.

We enjoyed our Christmas Eve!

More pre-Christmas fun

I know that the date of publish for this is *after* Christmas, but I have pictures and stories still from before Christmas, so there will be a few more pre-Christmas posts!

On Friday night, we joined the "TGIR" (Thank Goodness I'm Retired) Friday evening gathering with music and dancing (the picture is of many spirited participants in the "Y-M-C-A" song).

On Saturday, we had planned to cook our turkey dinner...

You may recall that we had quite a search to find the turkey -- here it is all thawed and in the bake-in bag ready to go into the oven.

Some of the completed dinner on the buffet counter -- mashed potatoes, dressing, and turkey. We also had green bean casserole, gravy, and home-made (well, RV-made) cranberry sauce.

Loaded plates - Yum!

The dinner took 7+ hours start to clean-up completion. We're not sure why, but the turkey took about twice as long as was indicated in the bake-in bag directions -- we kept on taking it out and checking the temperature and finding places that just were not anywhere near the recommended temperature. We were concerned that it could be that some parts would be very dried out, but it was all moist and delicious! And now we have lots of leftovers!

Enjoying Christmas Lights

Merry Christmas! We are praying that you are enjoying the celebration of the birth of our Lord and Savior!

Last week, although we had biked all around the community a couple of weeks ago looking at the Christmas decorations, we decided to bike through again because (1) some more people have come and decorated and (2) now we knew which lots and blocks were determined to be the winners, so we wanted to look at those.

Heading off on the bike -- we decided to start on the far side of the park and work our way back to our area.

The decorations in front of the Community Center

One of the holiday lights contest winners...

... this was the first place corner lot!

The entrance area to the community -- from the inside looking out...

This is a picture taken a couple of years ago by the community of the lights at the entrance - from the outside looking in!

Another corner lot house (I don't remember if this was one of the winners or not!).

This one was designated as the "Daytime Lot" first place winner, but they are pretty lit up for nighttime too!

This was *our* favorite block of lights - but they did not win this year. If someone wins in a year, they cannot win for the next two years -- so we're guessing that this block may have won in one of the previous two years and they weren't eligible to win this year.

We were grateful to be able to enjoy Christmas lights without having to go driving outside the park after dark!

Resident Christmas Party and Memorial Walk

On Wednesday evening, the park hosted the Resident Christmas Party and Memorial Walk. The information indicated that there would be cookies and punch and a performance by "Resonance Vocal Ensemble". They announced the winners of the "Holiday Lights Awards" for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place blocks, lots, and corner lots.

We asked another couple at the bottom of the stairs up to the ballroom to take our pictures in front of the decorated trees in the lobby -- very festive!

Upstairs in the atrium area there were luminaries for the residents who had passed this past year. We found the luminary for our friend, Bob Bingham.

The "Resonance Vocal Ensemble" (http://www.resonanceve.com/) performed for us...

... we thoroughly enjoyed their performance! (If you'd like to see one of their performances, the one they did at Venture Out in 2017 is available here: https://youtu.be/ZQaAmcaCYjs?si=ECBEX7ULU-5dZ9Qu.)

One of the songs that they performed I had not heard before, "The Hands that First Held Mary's Child" - looking at the Christmas story from Joseph's perspective. Here's a video done by another choir: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fks0tdHmoYI

Here are the lyrics (author Thomas Troeger, 1985):

The hands that first held Mary's child were hard from working wood. 

From boards they sawed and planed and filed and splinters they withstood.

This day they gripped no tool of steel, they drove no iron nail,

but cradled from the head to heel our Lord, newborn and frail.

 

When Joseph marveled at the size of that small breathing frame,

and gazed upon those bright new eyes and spoke the infant's name,

the angel's words he once had dreamed poured down from heaven's height,

and like the host of stars that beamed blessed earth with welcome light.

 

"This child shall be Emmanuel, not God upon the throne,

but God with us, Emmanuel, as close as blood and bone."

The tiny form in Joseph's palms confirmed what he had heard,

and from his heart rose hymns and psalms for heaven's human word.

 

The tools that Joseph laid aside a mob would later lift

and use with anger, fear, and pride to crucify God's gift.

Let us, O Lord, not only hold the child who's born today,

but charged with faith may we be bold to follow in His way.

"Rockin' Cardio"

One of the exercise classes here in the park is done by a young-ish couple who are residents in the park - it is called "Rockin' Cardio".

They are *very* energetic and fit, and seem to have an endless collection of matching outfits... On Wednesday, they did a picture of our class:

The class is done with drumsticks that we try to beat one against the other (the sticks) or on the floor in time to the music while doing lots of "normal" exercise moves (squats, lunges, etc.).

Tom and Cheryl, our instructors - lots of energy and enthusiasm.

We are woefully out of shape, but, the only way to get *in* shape is working on it, so, we are working on it!