Arizona

We've been enjoying Arizona so far, even with the frustrations about getting the hardware etc. we needed for the house. One day a couple weeks ago we went hiking in the White Tank mountains, just a short drive away from where we live. The Phoenix valley is very flat and is surrounded by mountains. We're on the west side. The White Tanks are near us to the west, and the Estrellas are near us to the south. Here's the view from our hike, looking back toward the valley. 

We saw plenty of saguaros on our hike. They only grow at certain elevations, but there were a lot of them along our hike. This grand old man is well over 100 years old. This is very typical of what the desert looks like around here. 

A few days ago our neighbors invited us and another couple over for happy hour. All of us have recently moved here so it was nice to get to know each other a bit. They live across the street, on the golf course, and their yard faces west. They have a fabulous view over the golf course and a wide open area that hasn't been built up yet. Beautiful sunset!

Our back yard faces east, and is walled all around like most around here. I like that we have shade all afternoon and evening rather than sun blasting in (we do get sun in the morning which is nice). We're often visited by Gambel quail. They're pretty goofy looking - they have a topknot that hangs over their forehead, they don't fly much, and they follow each other in a line wherever they go. Here they're on our back wall and on the ground back there. 

PebbleCreek participates in LifeLong Learning (via Zoom these days) and Monday's program was about Arizona State Parks. It was a very good program, excellent presenter, and now we have quite a list of parks we want to visit.

Today DH is riding with a bicycle group. They're doing an 18 mile ride today and he's been riding a lot to get into shape, so he's going along. 

I took a "tour" of the quilting club's sewing room last week. Members are allowed to use all the equipment as needed. They have a long arm machine but you have to take their training and get certified to use it, and during Covid, they're not doing training. Due to Covid, only 10 people can be in the room at one time, so sign-ups are required. I thought I signed up for their charity sewing day on the 20th, but evidently something went wrong with my registration so I'm not on the list and I can't go. I'll try to sign up to use the room one afternoon next week to see if the registration works this time, and to meet a few people. 

We're settling in and it's starting to feel more like home, we're meeting people and starting to do stuff, and we're enjoying it here.