Spring 2020 (06-01-20)

March started out just as much fun as January and February with country music festivals, and a trip to the local race track.  The music festival included a Motocross demonstration that was fascinating to watch.








The racetrack was a new adventure for us, and one we will definitely repeat.

We really got a kick out of the fact that kids as young as 5 have their own races, and the winner is brought to the podium and interviewed.  Quite a hoot.

It wasn’t long, unfortunately, until Covid-19 reared its ugly head.  Even as I write this, months later, we have no idea when things will even settle into a New Normal.







But anyway, in mid March Paul and I had to fly to Massachusetts to deal with a family emergency. While we were there, Coronavirus became much more of an issue- restaurants were closing and people were beginning to isolate themselves.  We made the decision to drive the rental car back to Arizona, instead of flying.  “ We” (Paul)  drove 13 hours a day, eating take out food along the way and trying to come in contact with as few people as possible.

Once we were back in Havasu, we hunkered down at the house with Liz and Randy, and were soon joined by Mike and Julie. I am sure they appreciated my husband’s greeting.

















For the first two weeks we distanced ourselves from each other, only meeting up on the back patio or in the pool.

 After two weeks, it was safe for us to co-mingle, which we did, on a regular basis.  We shared meals, pool time, and started a regimen of walking almost every morning.






Food shopping was a joint event- we all had access to an online account at Smiths grocery store and Walmart.  Every week or so we would place an order and one person would go pick it up. Back at the house we cleaned everything before putting it away.




Once the weather warmed up, we ate most of our meals outside, and even made beignets one night.






























The boat saw some use of course, and hanging out in the pool was an almost daily ritual.

Someone had the brilliant idea of having a progressive dinner one night, so after a few days of planning, we came up with a menu which included some new dishes for us to try, and some new drinks as well.













We had appetizers and orange martinis  in Liz and Randy’s rig, a quinoa salad and Caipirinha    (Brazilian drink) at Mike and Julies, dinner and wine at the main house and dessert with Nutty Irish on the back deck.

It was warm enough for a night swim that night which made for a great ending to an awesome night.

The warm weather also brought some other visitors- some were welcome and some were not.  Imagine Liz’s surprise when she was sitting outside reading, and looked up and saw this Arizona diamond back rattlesnake about 6 feet from her. Animal control was kind enough to come and remove him for us.







Other visitors were much more welcome. In addition to the hummingbirds and hooded orioles, We saw numerous quail families come through the yard.  We had great fun watching the little fluff balls.

Probably the most fun was the roadrunner family.  This is the first time we have seen more than one roadrunner at a time.  The parents essentially decided to raise their two babies in our yard.  They weren’t really afraid of us, and spent many hours hunting bugs out by the pool.

The male was so comfortable with us that he would sit in a pot that has an irrigation hose in it while we swam in the pool 4 feet away.  Paul would turn the water on for him so it would be a cool place for him to sit. 



During the 2-3 months we were hunkered down together, even though we managed to have a lot of fun, Paul and I were still dealing with family issues and I was dealing with some health issues of my own, which added to an already stressful time.









We considered ourselves very lucky though.  Being retired, we essentially had no where we had to go, and nothing we needed to do except stay home. We were very thankful that the 6 amigos were able to hunker down together for so long.

Towards the end of May Mike and Julie took off for the summer, and the rest of us waited a little longer to see what was happening with the virus.  Eventually the weather got so hot, we had to make our plans to get out of town.

The second week of June we packed up the trailer and headed out for the summer.