only regular activity in which we have participated are the Texas Holdem games. They have regular Wednesday night and Saturday afternoon games and we have played in most of them. There is a $10 buy in and they are played tournament style down to the last four players, who are then paid out of the proceeds. The Wednesday night game is low stakes - limited bets, while the Saturday game is no limit. We have not won any of the tourneys, but I did make it to the last two tables on one Saturday game.One afternoon we set out to visit the Coolidge-Florence Elks Lodge, located about 20 miles NE of Casa Grande. When we got the lodge it appeared to be abandoned. We started to drive off when Jackie noticed a small sign that said the Lodge was temporarily located in the American Legion Post in Florence. We called the number we had for the Lodge and found that they were building a new building and were in the American Legion currently. We drove to Florence and visited the Legion post, talked to a couple Elks and were able to get a Lodge pin for the Coolidge-Florence Lodge for our lodge pin banner.
On Sunday, the 25th of November we drove up to Phoenix to see my mom, who is in a care
home suffering from advanced Alzheimer's. These visits are always very sad for me because it is not the mom I remember. We met my brother Dennis there and visited with mom for a little while. After our visit we drove up to Cottonwood, Arizona, where Dennis lives. We spent two nights at his house just visiting and having a good time. Monday we spent most of the day in Jerome, an old mining town perched on the side of mountain about the Verde Valley. The town dates back to the 1880's and still has a lot of the original buildings. It is now an artist community with a lot of shops and galleries to wander around in. We had a great time. On both Sunday and Monday nights Dennis and I spent hours singing Karaoke. Oddly enough, both of us have become very involved in karaoke, although he actually makes money when he puts on shows. I do mine mostly for drinks and tips and because it gives me a chance to sing. On Sunday night we stayed up until one in the morning singing in Dennis' living room.On the drive back to Casa Grande on Tuesday we were able to get a photo of the "magical" Christmas tree on I-17. The tree is a large Juniper located in the median of the freeway out in
the middle of nowhere. It is miles from the nearest town or other road. Every year for at least the last 20 years someone - never publicly identified as far as I know - comes in late November and decorates the Juniper as a Christmas tree. Shortly after Christmas in early January the decorations disappear until the next year. There have been several stories in the Phoenix paper about the tree but no one claims to know who is responsible for the tradition. After we got back to Casa Grande I submitted the photo and story to "Roadside America", a website dedicated to the odd and unusual around the country. I had noticed that the tree was not mentioned on their site. A couple days later I received an email letting me know that my "sighting" was published on the web site. This is really a fun website to look at, and can make traveling like we do much more interesting because there really are a lot of odd and amazing things in this country. The web site is http://www.roadsideamerica.com/. Take a look.One afternoon we took a drive over to Coolidge to visit the Casa Grande National Monument. This is an ancient Indian pueblo that dates back to about 800 years before the first Spanish
explorers discovered Arizona. The adobe great house is protected by a large roof to help keep the weather from further eroding the mud walls. The visitors center had some very interesting and informative exhibits regarding the earliest inhabitants of the Southwestern deserts. Having grown up in Arizona I have been to most of the Indian historical sites and find the history very interesting.On the third of December be took another drive up to Phoenix, this time to see my kids and grandkids. My oldest daughter, Tye had arranged for all but one of the grandkids to be at a
park, along with my son, Roy Jr. My other daughter Tracie has moved to Illinois. We had a very nice visit with the kids. Hard to believe that I have grandkids who have graduated high school and that all but two of them are in high school now. We also found out that Crystal, my oldest granddaughter is pregnant again, so in about seven months I will be a GREAT granddad for the second time. I can't be that damn old!This past weekend we made yet another trek up to Phoenix to visit my youngest brother Ken who lives in Goodyear. We had been invited to his wife Susan's 40th birthday party. The party was beach luau themed and we had a good time. It was nice to see Ken and Susan again. We were
not able to stay too late because it was a 70 mile drive back to Casa Grande.This coming Saturday we have to pack up and leave Casa Grande. We are going to head down to Tucson on Saturday because we have an appointment at an RV repair facility to have some work done on our rear view camera system. It has never really worked properly and Monaco is still trying different things to make it work right. We hope to only be in Tucson through Monday, then we head to our old stomping grounds in Indio for a couple weeks.
Will update again after we get back to the California desert. Bye for now.
