With temperatures approaching the very high 90’s already in Yuma, winter visitor season is rapidly drawing to a close. The freeways are once again clogged with RVs heading north or east and it will only be a matter of a couple weeks until our neighborhood becomes deathly quiet once again. We ourselves won’t be here long to enjoy the quiet since Marc’s next Chili’s project is in Bakersfield starting April 21st. As homage to the season, our neighbors Stan and Patty threw their traditional St. Paddy’s Day Party, including lots of wearing of the green. Marc was unable to attend since he is camped out at Lake Martinez helping out on a remodel but despite the 97 degrees, I joined in for some fabulous food, including Patty’s corned beef Irish stew. Hot food for a hot day? You bet! The best part though was watching Stan do his Elvis impersonation as he sang karaoke “Suspicious Minds”.
Marc and I recently took a couple weeks looking around at other parts of Arizona for some land on which to eventually build but after wandering around the Verde Valley area and Cottonwood and then farther south in Marana (outside Tucson) and Casa Grande we came up empty handed. Although we saw some beautiful pieces of property, there always seemed to be a “gotcha” which upon deep consideration precluded it from possibility. 
Our favorite town was Casa Grande, recently very improved with major new shopping and now, recession-languishing subdivisions. It enjoys a very central location between Phoenix and Tucson plus sports all the medical we were looking for. Although there were some fine acreage type parcels available the deal killer became the cost of walling or fencing them off for security purposes. I’m just not into spending $24,000 for a block wall. There was also the consideration that Casa Grande really only runs about five degrees cooler than Yuma in summer and that’s not quite enough for us. We did attend the state Chili Cook-off where we sampled some killer chili, including our favorite by this Glendale schoolteacher, Kilt Lifter Chili. 
We came to the conclusion to sit tight for now and see how the future plays out with my mother’s aging and what she might require in terms of our presence later on. Or at least, my daily presence later on, because she has no long term care insurance so it will fall to us to take care of her in the event of a health catastrophe. We did attend the Yuma Air Show this year and stayed for about half of it. With the long walk to and from the parking lot and standing (we had not thought to bring chairs), Marc’s foot was just killing him and by 1 p.m. he had enough. There certainly was a lot going on to entertain the masses and some of the vintage planes were really a sight to see, including Fifi, the last flying B-29—the same model which dropped the bombs on Japan ending WWII.
As many of you have noticed my updates to the blog have fallen by the wayside. There is only so much inspiration when one faces the mundane world of daily work, even though in different locations. I will plan to continue to write an entry as the notion strikes but they will likely occur very randomly unless something in our lives changes to make it different.
