Getting Packages

When we are stopped at one spot for a little while, it is nice because we can get packages delivered!

We had found, when we were here in the '20-'21 season, that sometimes packages went to the wrong house. This resort is made up of concentric "circles" of streets (they are really decagons -- 10 sided). The delivery guys sometimes end up on the parallel street to the one they are looking for and deliver to 807 Merlin or 807 Navaho rather than 807 Douglas. The signs on the lots usually just have the house number and owner's names, but sometimes a renter is staying on a lot so the name on the sign is not the name of the resident.

Here's a satellite view of our park (with Carl's location marked on my screen capture from Google Maps!)

We decided to create a place at our lot where packages should be delivered -- a nice, waterproof box.

Regardless of our provision of a nice place for packages, we got one delivered by FedEx on Friday evening (after 7pm) and they put it by the door of the shed (near the back of our lot). I guess their default is to put a package near a "door" and that's the door they chose rather than the door of the motorhome. Thankfully, when we got back from the Friday night dance, we came through the back easement area between houses and walked right by the shed - otherwise, I don't think we'd have seen the package until morning, and it poured rain overnight which would not have been great for the package!

Because I had put a satellite-view map of the resort in this post, I thought it was interesting that one of the residents recently posted an early aerial-type photo of the park on Facebook:

The west side of the park was developed first -- in the 1970s. At that time, it was only an RV park, no park models - when we enlarge it, we can see a number of Airstreams and other trailers parked there. The west pool is there (it was rebuilt last year so now it has a different shape), and a large building in the center of the park. It is a round building like what is currently there that houses the ballroom, bistro, post office, activities office -- but we're pretty sure that what exists now is a different structure than what is shown in the picture. Where our lot is (on the east side, closest edge in the picture), it looks like there may have been hay fields, or some sort of crop fields, as seen in the foreground of the picture.

It would be interesting to look back at the history of the property!

Happy Hour is at our patio!

We've been invited to join for happy hour with a couple of different friends on our block, so wanted to return the favor and invite folks over to our place. Since we had gotten the patio furniture, we had a serving table, and a good number of chairs, and our yard was looking nicer, we figured we were ready!

Carl smoked some cream cheese and we made pimento cheese spread and olive tapenade, so with a few options on crackers along with carrots, and celery, we were ready for folks to come!

We had planned it for Monday at 4pm, and, don't you know it, it was threatening rain much of the afternoon, but we had the awning out and kept the chair cushions dry. A bit of a rain hit right at 4pm, but it was over in a few minutes and the weather was great from then on!

We had a nice turn-out...

... and the patio furniture plus our folding chairs provided adequate seating.

Neighbors brought goodies to share also.

Looking at the gathered folks from the other end of the patio.

Since we are in an RV, we actually have one of the larger patios on our block, or even in our resort. In fact, while we were in Quartzsite, we had told the block captains that they were welcome to use our lot for a block party while we were away and they gratefully made use of it - though we didn't get to join!

Various pictures

As days go by, sometimes there are pictures that don't really "fit" with other things and don't really make a story on their own (you might think this happens more frequently than I think it does and thus you wonder why I'm writing a blog entry about some specific minor thing!!!). Anyway... so I get some pictures cleared out of my "potential blog pictures" folder on my computer, here goes "various pictures"...

A few days ago, when we took trash and recycling to the bins using the Jeep (we can have trash collected at our site, but to put recycling out, we have to put it in clear plastic bags, and we don't have those, so we just collect it in the rig and then take it out to the recycling bin once a week or so) -- anyway, Carl noticed that one of the Jeep's brake lights was not working, so we headed out to Autozone to get a new bulb...

He used a reference book in the store to determine the right bulb to get.

When he came back out with the bulb, he told me that it would be less than a 4 minute job to get the new bulb into place. Since we've been married, I've noted that his time estimates are often, ahem, "ambitious" (i.e. it often takes 3-4 times the amount of time he's estimated, but that *could* be because I'm helping!).

Going about the job

Just for fun, I set my watch on stopwatch mode -- sure enough, he completed the brake light replacement, complete with verification test and buttoning up the task in just over 2 1/2 minutes -- well under his 4 minute estimate!!!

Another day we were at the local thrift store looking for "togas". Our resort is having a "Toga Day" on February 29, and, while we have sheets for our bed, we thought that it might be just as well to get sheets for the event that we could then donate back to the thrift store afterwards. We had found two twin flat sheets that were the same color/design, and were trying to figure out how to drape a toga, when friend Gayle from Val Vista Villages appeared!! It is funny because we had been wanting to get together with them (and since have), but we've run into Gayle at a couple of places located between Venture Out (where we are) and Val Vista Villages (where she and Tom are staying).

On another day, there was a bloodmobile visit at Venture Out -- I had checked the appointment schedule against things we already had scheduled and didn't find a time that I could book ahead of time. When we finished with exercise, though, I stopped in the Bloodmobile Bus and they said that they could take me then. It is interesting how they have everything set up in the small space for them to work and folks to be able to donate blood.

This is a "pocket" garden on one of our neighbor's lots. I have heard the flowers called Desert Daisy or Arizona Daisy, but I cannot find those listed in the book I have of "Landscape Plants for the Arizona Desert". They are blooming in a number of yards around... I am pretty sure that they are a wildflower and that they reseed into the same area -- and also into neighboring areas - aka weeds!

I think I'm caught up on "random" pictures for now!

Continued work on the lot

We decided to get some yard work done on our lot...

Our lot has been in pretty rough shape. As indicated before, we took the green carpet up off of the patio, and we've gotten new-to-us patio furniture. But the "yard" outside the patio was also less than great...

... it may not be obvious, but the rocks were sparse and we had a lot of problems with weeds growing up in them.

Behind the pad where Gracie parks, there were a few rocks, and then some bricks that had not been laid very smoothly.

Beside the pad, the rocks were also pretty sparse.

Our neighbor had had a landscaper do work at her lot, putting in "fake grass" and some more stone on the side of her park model. We were impressed with the work that had been done, and contacted the person who did it. He came by and gave us a quote, and we decided that we should have him do it rather than trying to do it ourselves.

They arrived one morning and immediately got to work removing the rock in the front and moving it to behind the motorhome.

Moved rock beside and behind the motorhome.

Rock under Gracie. Our plan is that we should be able to back Gracie up another 1.5-2' so we have a little more room in the front of the lot. They also took the poorly laid bricks out and filled in that area with gravel.

We couldn't believe how quickly they moved the gravel. They also added new gravel in between our lot and our neighbor's, continuing the gravel like she had on the side of her lot. It would have taken us days or weeks to move the gravel -- especially since we don't have the equipment even to handle it here (shovels, wheelbarrow, trailer to haul the materials).

They stopped working at our lot about midday on the first day, planning to return the next morning.

The second day, they returned with the rolled up "grass".

First, they put down a thick layer of sand...

... smoothing and wetting it down.

Then the grass went down...

... it was nailed in all around the edges and in the middle of the carpet as well!

One of the last things they did was put a layer of sand over the top of the grass. The installer indicated that this was to make the blades of "grass" stand up - like pencils in a cup.

It looks SO much nicer!

We figure that we now qualify for "most improved lot on the block" -- just because we started out looking so bad! We're happy to have this big job completed!

Electric box project

We have a shed on our lot, and it was obvious that it had had power and water at some point (we think that there had been a washer and dryer in it in the past). Carl got the power working a few weeks ago...

... but the wire that ran over there from the pedestal (the one coming from the upper hole) was pretty ragged looking. The lower wires are associated with the cable TV.

The wire had never been encased in conduit; it only had the protective insulation that would be around a wire for use outside. The insulation on the part that had been buried in the ground was in pretty good shape, but the part exposed to the sun had totally disintegrated.

Carl had gotten conduit to install...

... he took the front covers off the pedestal and figured out which wires went to the circuit breaker for the shed.

The conduit that we got was a little larger than the hole through the pedestal, so Carl used a drill with a reamer bit to increase the diameter of the hole a little (from 1/2" to 3/4"). We had thought about going back to Home Depot and getting 1/2" conduit, but we're glad we didn't because pulling the wires through the 3/4" was challenging enough!

Closing up the front cover on the pedestal.

New conduit installed on the back of the pedestal

Wow! That looks so much better... and safer!

We were going to get some work done on the landscaping of our lot, so we wanted to get this task completed before the workers came to move gravel around on the lot.

Work on the patio

I wrote a few weeks ago about us removing the "ugly green carpet" from the patio at our lot (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2023/12/taking-up-carpet.html). 

We've been working on getting the tape residue up...

... it gets tiring leaning over!

We figured we're getting close to being done with cleaning the patio, and thought we could start thinking about getting patio furniture instead of using our folding chairs from the motorhome. A couple of weeks ago, we noticed a sign about porch furniture for sale at the front of a house that we walk by frequently (and we thought the furniture was pretty) -- so we decided to purchase it. The homeowners let us know that they had a planned Superbowl party and friends coming over for Valentines and asked if it was possible that we could leave the furniture on their porch until after Valentine's day -- we knew that we had some additional tape to get up from the patio, so we were okay with that.

So, on the 15th, the porch furniture owners let us know that they were done with the furniture, and that they were having new furniture coming the next day, if we were ready to get the porch furniture.

We unloaded the back of the Jeep/Jee-rage and drove to their house. They weren't home, but we started loading the pieces into the back of the Jeep. We had done two trips and knew that we had one more, but there was one large table that we didn't think would fit into the back of the Jeep -- so we thought we might have to carry it the few blocks back to our place...

... but Carl's Ham Radio friend, Tom, was coming over to show him some ham radio equipment, and happened to show up with his pickup just in the nick of time!

Table in the back of Tom's pickup

Later that afternoon, a friend from our Newmar Kountry Klub rally in Sedalia, Christina, was coming over to visit...

... so she got to share our patio furniture for the first time!

The furniture has padded cushions that we'll need to remember to put into the shed in case of rain, and which we'll need to store in the shed when we leave for the season -- but it is nice to have nice outside furniture for guests when they drop by!

Saturday afternoon music and Root Beer floats with the Pet Association

The Pet Association hosted the Venture Outlaws (a group made up of members of the Venture Out community) at the Pet Walk with Root Beer and Orange floats available for sale. 

They provided chairs for the audience...

... a lot of people were there either in the chairs or in their golf carts arranged behind the chairs.

The band was a group of folks from Venture Out -- the Venture Outlaws.

Floats being served -- this is a fund raiser for the Pet Association.

The "pet" walk area -- really it is a flood abatement area, but most of the season, it can be used as a dog walk. When it is extra rainy -- it becomes a doggie swimming pool!

Enjoying the music

Even though it was hard dancing on the asphalt/concrete, we managed to dance to a couple of songs. Enjoying the music here at Venture Out!!!

Friday night dance - Boots and Suits

The Friday night dance was a tribute band to the Beatles called Boots and Suits.

They did many early Beatles songs.

Lots of folks on the floor dancing

The show started with a clip from the Ed Sullivan show introducing the Beatles and then cut to the band's logo.

Waiting for the next song to line dance to... one thing we noticed was that the songs were so short compared to more current music (more current being 80s and 90s!!!). You had to be on the floor dancing from the first beat or you wouldn't make to the floor much before the song ended!

The Beatles music isn't our favorite to dance to, but we enjoyed it anyway!

Valentine's Day Dinner and Dance

Continuing our busy week, Wednesday was a Valentine's Day Dinner and Dance hosted by the Softball Club.

They hosted a formal dinner -- so we got "dressed up" (for us!).

Dinner was in the Bistro -- red tablecloths and decorations.

Members of the Softball club waited on tables

Our table

Our waiter serving our table

We got the steak and shrimp - it was yummy!

After dinner, we adjourned to the Ballroom upstairs where dessert was served.

Our friends, Laureen and Randy

Our picture in front of the Valentine's backdrop

The four of us together

We had a blessed time celebrating Valentine's Day!