Changing our Minds, February 14-20

When we left Casa Grande we headed for the Scottsdale area a  do some exploring. It was Valentines day and Joel wanted to take in an early dinner  in Scottsdale .  We also planned  make a day trip to Cottonwood from there as I needed  to check on my house on wheels and shuffle some more stuff around, this being my last chance before heading east for the next year.  (also, one last chance to to change my mind!? Ha! Ha!). 

 We pulled into the Arizona Casino,   and unhooked the car to run a few errands.  When we returned to the casino we checked on the  weather and Cottonwood weather was suppose to turn cold the latter part of the week.  We decided to hook up and take the big house to the Thousand Trails Verde Valley RV park in Cottonwood while the weather was suppose to be good. (How nice to be retired and not have a rigid itineary). My house is stored at the TT RV storage area so going to the park made things really convenient. . Joel needed to spend a few days  doing maintenance on the big house and I needed to shuffle stuff around.  Wow! a park with full hookups  sounded good and the fact the laundry was piling up (the park has a good laundry) made the decision a no brainer, plus the sunsets are pretty spectacular.

A few days turned into almost a whole week!  The weather hadn't turned ugly as predicted.  We decided to take  a “day off” to go explore Prescott.  It was raining (there went to good weather) and the forecast was for drizzle but it seemed like a good day to drive to Prescott.  Well, on the way it started to snow, which is no biggie for me having lived in snow country for the past 18 years, but seemed to be for the other drivers.  

                                                           The town square in Prescott

The old town part of Prescott was a mess. Cars were skidding every which way.  In fact, the  the main downtown street was closed off by the police.  There is a small hill which ends at a stop light and the cars couldn’t stop going down the hill, most likely because they were driving too fast.  I was amazed how everyone was freaking out about a little snow.  Apparently, they don’t get snow that often, so the snow storm was a real novelty.  Joel asked me if the snow made me miss Truckee.  Actually, not too much until we explored the hills with all of the snowy trees. 

We walked around town in the snow storm dodging slush, and explored some of the little shops and greatly contributed to the economy.  I’d been after Joel to buy a cowboy hat.  (He hates hats. Says he looks dorky in them).  We’d seen a beautiful one at the Ronald Reagan library for over $200 which was perfect but obviously a little spendie, so he passed on that one.  The little store in Prescott had a good selection of what Joel was looking for and the store owner gave Joel a really good deal.  Joel purchased a new hat  and it looked really good on him.  Now I won't have to nag him about wearing a hat in the sun. 

I wasn’t looking forward to the drive back to TT but the weather did let up a little and the snow turned to rain so the drive back through Jerome was uneventful.

Sunday, I said goodbye to my “little house on wheels”, and we headed for Tucson via Scottsdale. We have to be in Tucson by Tuesday, so it will take a day or so to drive 200 miles.  Wow are we lazy!