We were supposed to go to Parker to visit a friend on the 12th, but his wife emailed on the 11th to cancel, unfortunately during a visit to Yuma he was hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer. We went to Parker to visit and get groceries a few days later to find they have moved to Mesa where they purchased a double wide trailer awhile ago, guess we'll catch up with them back in Saskatoon.
The last Pinzgauer (very old Swiss army vehicles) trip of the season was on the 14th, so we were up at the crack of dawn and got the last two seats. There are three Pinzgauers, two hold 14 and one 12, which were full and one fellow following in his 4X4, and we all had a great time. We were gone about 81/2 hours, only travelling 130 miles through desert, mountains, and climbing rocks and boulders. The "path" was so ruff and steep that at one point the fellow in the 4X4 had to rearrange some rocks so he could continue.
We received an email that the date and place has been chosen for the 2013 reunion. Ray and Sandra are hosting it in Wainwright Alberta, and I have already booked our campsite in the camp ground a few blocks from where they live. For those who don't know what the reunion is, 6 guys (and their lovely wives-who of course do all the work!), who met back in the stone age and are all the same age, try to get together every year to remember and swap stories of "the good old days". We are really looking forward to hanging with the gang for the weekend!
I've been having issues with my iPad so I phoned Steven who said "I'm here you're there call, you'll have to make an appointment with a genius." Of course my response was "That's why I called you. I didn't know there were other geniuses." Well, apparently there are paid geniuses at the apple retail store, so we're off to Phoenix for our appointment at the Genius Bar. Wow, they are good, seems it's not me it's my iPad, and they replaced mine, Steven couldn't have replaced mine! But he'll still be the first genius I call, well not for long, he's making his dream come true and we're beyond proud of him. He's been talking of an adventure through Europe and he's booked his ticket leaving in May and might come home in July, unless he's having too much fun, which means we'll have to visit him.
While on the Pinzgauer trip I was busy picking rocks to add to my collection and the next day Shellee and Waldo, who were on the trip with us and are avid rock hounds, stopped by for beers and to give me some Apache Tears that they found last week while they were out rock picking. I took them over to Roger to ask him to tumble them for me, but there were not enough, so he took mine and filled my bucket full of ones he had already polished, I now have so many I'll be handing them out to everyone!
A few days later I took Shellee and Waldo out to Swansea Mine for a rock pick. We had a great day exploring, taking pictures of lizards, cactus, and finding some good rocks for them to take home. We all managed to find some copper, fool's gold, and even some REAL gold, not enough for any of us to retire on, but enough to put a smile on our faces. On the 28th they loaded their motorcycle onto the trailer, rocks and the new equipment they bought for their lapidary into the car and headed off to ride some roads through California to finish off their holiday before heading home to North Dakota. They're great people, I miss them already, and I hope we're able to stop for a visit on our way home.
We've been exploring Quartzsite and Phoenix more. We can see spring coming, all the trees are starting to turn green, along with what I'd call grass growing on the ground, it's actually changing from dirt to green. I'm still enjoying my beading and paper craft classes and since we'll still be here, we've purchased dinner theatre tickets for later in March. Those are the highlights for the month of February.
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