A WINTER STORM

We weren't part of the dust storms that they had in other areas around us a couple of weeks ago, but we did have an exciting lightning, thunder and rain storm a few days ago.  It started on Thursday evening.  The lightning was striking and the thunder booming and some of it was so close and loud that it set off the neighbour’s car alarm.  We were glad to be under our aluminum roof and didn’t even have to put things away before the storm.

RUNOFF WATER IN COLLECTION AREAS

The rain continued that evening and was steady all day Friday and quite heavy at times.  Winter rains of that duration aren’t common here, so people had to find indoor activities to pass the time.  We went to the movie theatre in the morning, had lunch out and did some shopping.  It seems like a lot of other folks had the same idea and there were kids out of school as well—must have been like a snow day back home.  Saturday was rain showers and clouds, rain again last night and cloudy and cool today.  Not the usual warm Arizona weather that we enjoy.

Stuart played lots of pickleball this past week and I’ve been riding my bike and working out at the gym.  Hopefully, my leg will be well enough for pickleball later this week.  I miss the exercise, the people and the challenges of the game.  We managed to play a round of golf on Wednesday and it sure was nice to have the cart.

We finally got around to washing the dust off the RV roof and of course, had to wash the rest of the RV as the mud streaks went down the front and sides.  I climbed up on the roof and had to crawl on my hands and knees to hose it off as there isn’t much room between the top of the RV and the aluminum roof.  I don’t mind the job and it only takes us a couple of hours to clean the entire rig.

BROWN SAND ON OUR "WHITE" ROOF

ALL CLEAN AND SHINY NOW

We are headed into the US Thanksgiving week and there won’t be a neighbourhood gathering this year.  That’s okay with us—we did our Thanksgiving turkey dinner at home in October.  We’re also planning to stay in the resort on Black Friday and not get caught up in the crowds at the stores.  Too many scary things can happen in the city.  Just yesterday, we had stopped at Safeway for some groceries and then browsed through a furniture shop a few doors away in the plaza.  As we started walking to the truck, a police car pulled up and the officer jumped out, chambered a round of ammunition in his gun and ran towards Safeway where there were other officers.  We ducked behind the corner of the plaza but there wasn’t any shooting so we slowly made our way to the truck and drove away.

The things we will do to get a discount!!  We were shopping at a clothing store in the nearest big mall (Arrowhead Town Centre) and they announced that you could get a 15% discount if you downloaded their store app.  Our tablet was in the truck so Stuart said he’d go get it and download the app and I continued shopping.  Well, he decided to walk outside the mall to the truck and had to climb up and down two rocky landscaped areas between the different parking levels to get there.  Next, he had to get connected to the mall WI FI and that was only available in the Food Court area.  Well, it wasn’t as simple as that.  He had to search the internet to find the mall’s terms of agreement and then get logged in through their portal and then download the app.

He walked back to the store (not a short walk even inside the mall) and we went to the check-out counter to make the purchase.  Well, they told us that he had to do more than download the app.  He had to log in to their site, click on a Friends and Family link and get the promotion code.  So back to the Food Court he went but couldn’t find the right link.  Back to the store for further instructions, back to the Food Court to make the connection and get the code and finally back to the store for the discount on the purchase.  Meanwhile, the store clerk had started the transaction at the till so she couldn’t help anyone else and I stood there for about 25 minutes in total trying to make small talk and feeling bad for the customers behind me in the line-up.  Fortunately, there were other sales clerks working so it wasn’t too much of a hold up for them.  Anyway, we got the discount as we all know that Stuart would never give up once he started on the task.