Back to civilization!

We got back to our lot at Venture Out (VO) on Thursday afternoon. We had told our neighbors that they were welcome to use our lot to host a block party -- and they had had a get-together on Wednesday, the day before we returned. We were sorry to miss it, but glad that they had a lot where they could have the block party!

When we got to our lot, we were able to meet our nextdoor neighbor, Barb. She had come back to her place at VO at about the date that we left to head to get tires on our way to Quartzsite. We had not met her before, so it was nice to get to meet her!

While we were away, I had been keeping up with things going on at VO using the VO Homeowners & Friends group on Facebook. One of our neighbors had listed that she had an 8 quart InstantPot that she would like to sell. We had been thinking that we would like to have a larger InstantPot. We have a 6 quart one and often make more of whatever we're making than will fit into the pot; however, we have a second insert for the 6 quart InstantPot, so we'll just split the ingredients into two inserts and cook one and then cook the other. I didn't want to ask our neighbor to wait until we returned to get rid of her InstantPot, but after a week or so, no one had indicated interest, so I asked if she would be willing to hold it for me until we got back from Quartzsite, and she was willing!

We got the 8 quart InstantPot on Friday, and almost immediately put it to work as I had zucchini, yellow squash, carrots and onions that I wanted to make into a soup - I first tried it in our 6 quart and it was going to be too full -- so I moved it to the 8 quart and it fit fine!

Before cooking...

... after! We then used a stick blender and add rotisserie chicken when serving to make a nice soup!

We came back from Quartzsite partly because we had tickets for the Friday night dance. As we were heading into the ballroom, we met up with a friend, Lesa, and enjoyed sitting with her and her friend, Karen, for the evening.

We got out on the floor for some line dancing...

The band was "Cowboy Up" - playing mostly Country Western music.

We enjoyed it -- we're getting back into the swing of things at the park!