Time to catch up

We left Mesa this morning for Lake Pleasant Regional Park. It was about an hour and a half drive to the northwest side of Phoenix. We are just north of Sun City West and Surprise Arizona. It’s a beautiful park that includes RV and Tent camping, fishing, boating, swimming, and hiking. We are camped on the west side of the park overlooking the desert and valley below. On the other side of us is the lake. We haven’t seen much in the line of lakes down here so this is a nice surprise. We are staying here for a week so I expect we will have a lot of down time. We are out far enough where trips into town will be far and few.

Our view from our campsite

Another view from our RV

The other side of the campground

Lake Pleasant

I don’t know if it is because we are high in the hills or not but it is very windy today. The wind takes some of the fun out of sitting outdoors. The wind also keeps us from lowering our awning which we will need as we are facing west and the only other shade we have is a small tree.  

 Another view of the lake

Sunday March 9^th

The wind has in fact died down and it is just beautiful. Just sitting and enjoying our morning coffee or reading has made the entire trip worthwhile.

After a very leisurely morning we drove into Wickenburg to visit the Desert Caballeros Western Museum. This museum has been called Arizona’s most western museum. There are over 400 paintings, drawings, etchings, lithographs and sculptures. It is one of the finest collections of Western art in the country. The main building has two levels with the upper level containing the art and sculpture galleries and the lower level depicts life in the town as well as out on the ranches of Wickenburg during the early 1900 hundreds. The second building or the Cultural Learning Center features exhibitions about local mining history, Arizona minerals, American Indians of the Southwest and many fabulous photographs. It was a very enjoyable afternoon.

Some pictures from the museum..

Because the town did not have a jail outlaws were chained to a tree, the above sign reads: 

The Jail Tree

From 1863 to 1890

Outlaws were chained

to this tree

for lack of a Hoos cow

escapes were unknown

Back on our mountain side campsite we spent the late afternoon and early evening sitting outdoors watching hot air balloons as they made their way through the valley. 

 Can you spot the balloon

 There's four in this shot

 This one is tough, but there are four balloons

I don't know, but I see five

Monday March 10, 2014

So much for staying close to home and do nothing today. We did do nothing this morning but have our breakfast and coffee sitting in the sun, I’ll never get use to that. But this afternoon we went to Surprise AZ to buy some envelopes so I could get our Minnesota taxes filed and Chris could send some papers she needed to send. So a trip to Wal-Mart for envelopes and who can go to Wal-Mart and only buy envelopes we can’t so we loaded up on a few other things. The shopping trip was followed up with a trip to the post office and then a stop at Red Robin for lunch. Again back home for happy hour, catch up on the daily news, super and hopefully a quiet evening.