BLACK FRIDAY

The weather has turned cooler this past week with daytime temperatures in the mid 60’s (16-18 C) and night time lows down to 32-34 (0 to 3 C).  Yes, it does get cold in the desert and even though they planted flowers in all the flower beds around the resort, they have to cover them up at night to protect them from the cold.

We played golf a few days ago at the Francisco Grande course which is a few miles west of town.  There is a large hotel there and there is a facility that used to be a training camp for the San Francisco Giants back in the 1960’s and apparently, John Wayne stayed there more than once.  It is not very busy out there now and the golf course is okay but not in as good condition as some of the other ones around here.

This weekend is a big event here in the US with Thanksgiving on Thursday and the rest of the weekend is the start of the Christmas shopping season.  Thanksgiving Day was quiet as all the retail stores were closed—only grocery stores, restaurants and gas stations were open.  Even the golf courses closed early so people could spend time with their families.  We celebrated the day but didn’t repeat our home Thanksgiving routine even though turkeys were on sale for 29 cents a pound if you spent $25 in the grocery store.  Hard to pass up on that but our oven won’t handle a large bird.

After Thanksgiving, the next day is called Black Friday.  It is a huge shopping day, much like our Boxing Day, and the stores are open as early as 3 a.m. with early bird sales.  Of course, people line up outside the stores in the wee hours and then charge in to get those special deals.  We saw on the news that some people even got trampled trying to get into a Target store and they showed a clip of 2 women fighting over a TV.  Great start to the season of love and peace.  We went out to a few stores around noon and there were certainly good bargains to be had and the line-ups for the cashiers weren’t too bad.

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Black Friday is the discount shopping day that follows American Thanksgiving, which is always on a Thursday. Retailers promote Black Friday as the day to start shopping for Christmas. Black Friday is often advertised with "Christmas Sales" as well as "Thanksgiving Sales."


The word "black" in Black Friday refers to the term "in the black" meaning making a profit. Today, Black Friday is not a crucial source of profit to retailers, but is important in driving traffic into stores. Many retailers mail special Black Friday circulars to consumers, announcing deeply discounted items in the hopes that consumers will visit their store on Black Friday.

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The resort is gearing up for the holiday season by putting lights on all the palm trees at the entrance, along the driveway and all around the pool and activity centre.  The maintenance guys have to climb the palm trees to wrap the lights around—loggers sports Arizona style?

We’ll try to get some night time photos to show you how nice it looks.