2023 - Winter & Spring Part I

Winter 2023 saw us in the Phoenix area. This is the first time we had spent four months in one place. The park we stayed at was Sunrise RV Park in Apache Junction. It's close to Mesa with a bonus of some high school classmates in the area as well as my uncle and aunt. My second knee surgery was scheduled for early December. All went well and I recuperated nicely in the warm weather returning to aqua aerobics after 6 weeks and doing PT nearby. 

One of the excursions we took was to the Musical Instrument Museum (MIM). It is a fascinating place exploring the origin of musical instruments from all cultures. 

These are just a few of the photos from the museum. Truly a fascinating place for music lovers!

In March we moved to Tucson. One of the reasons for that was that we were attending the Escapade Rally at the Pima County Fairgrounds. 

We hadn't been to a RV rally for a while. We can always learn new things and we enjoy meeting other RV'ers. There is always something to talk about!

In Tucson I was also able to catch up with high school classmates Cheryl and Kathy. (Oops, forgot to take some pictures.)

Our next stops were Nevada and California. We'd been scheduled to go there in 2020 but then the pandemic hit and our plans were put on hold. Finally we were able to add the NV and CA stickers to our USA map. 

Before:

After:

That leaves NJ and CT as the only states in the lower 48 that we haven't stayed overnight in.

In CA we stopped in to see my brother Greg and wife Diane. Then we headed on to Greenfield where we were based for a month. It seems that we are lucky in being in places at the right time. After the harsh winter CA had (lots of snowfall and rain) this spring was designated a "superbloom" time because of all the moisture they'd had. We got to experience seeing lots of vibrant flowers.

These were alongside the road by a vineyard.

These poppies were in our campground. 

While in the area we did several side trips. One was to Monterey where we did a whale watching excursion. We also walked along the famous Cannery Row. 

Another excursion was to San Simeon to see the Hearst Castle. This rivals the Biltmore in NC. Too many pictures but here are a few: 

I am realizing that there is a lot more to cover and lots of pictures I want to include so I've decided to split this into two parts. Stay tuned!