Thursday, December 23, 2010
Thursday, December 23, 2010
We’re all set up in Mesa, Christmas lights are out (Dave even got a string to go around the top of the orange tree/shrub), the Santa Hats on the side mirrors and our little Christmas Tree and Santa are on the table over the steering wheel. We will be here until the middle of March - which is longer than we originally intended to stay, but Dave found a great Jazz Concert the first part of March, so we decided that we would take advantage of the price break for a 3-month stay! And this means that we can go see a couple of spring training games - including Texas playing San Francisco!
For those that are following us, you will remember that last year Dave twisted his back when we arrived. Fortunately that wasn’t the case this year. That isn’t to say that our arrival wasn’t without some excitement. First, we arrived in Mesa, took the right exit and were about to turn onto Main Street and NO, couldn’t do that. The whole street is torn up. So we went up to the next street, took a couple of right turns and were headed back towards Main Street and another set of signs saying that there was no way we could get on Main Street in order to make a left turn into the resort. Now if you are saying, well just go around and come in on Main Street from the other way, unfortunately we can’t do that because there isn’t enough room to make a right turn into the park with the car attached. So I called the park office and they said to go to the back gate and our key card from last year would let us in. You already know that it didn’t work - luckily a gal behind us swiped her card so we could get in. Turns out that most of the cards from last year won’t work this year!
So, we got in, got registered, got backed into the site, plugged in and everything was going great UNTIL I went to put the jacks down, level, and put out the slides. Couldn’t do it - the “low battery light” came on. But we knew that the batteries were fully charged, which meant that we had a bad cable connection again. So for the next two hours Dave spent cleaning all the batteries cables/terminals and replaced one of the cables. When he was done, I touched the button and down went the jacks! No sore back, but some sore knees for awhile.
The reason that we arrived early this year was because of the Dave Koz & Friends Christmas Smooth Jazz Concert at the Mesa Arts Center. Now, while we both like Dave Koz, we really hadn’t intended to get here early enough to attend the concert until I told Dave that one of the “Friends” would be Candy Dulfer - - the next thing out of his mouth was “get the tickets!” We did - but the best seats were sold out so we ended up in the front row of the balcony - WAY, WAY up in the theater. The music was outstanding - in addition to Candy, the others joining Dave Koz and his very remarkable band were Brian Culbertson and Jonathan Butler.
We also have tickets at the same theatre (but not up so high) to see “A Chorus Line” with our friends Jeff & Suzanne when they get here in January.
We’ve watched the California coast get battered for the past week, while enjoying lots and lots of sunshine, but yesterday evening the skies finally opened up and the area got a really good soaking. All of the trees and shrubs all seemed to appreciate the rain - they were looking very parched. The sun has returned and it looks like we are in for another nice week of sun and 70s during the day.
We hope everyone has a great Holiday Season and a fantastic New Year.