Is this Golf?

Michael's cousin (mine, too) gave us our annual golf lesson at The Practice Tee here in Tucson.

It is so much more difficult that it looks and much more tiring after hitting 165 balls between us and that is not counting putting practice.

We are NOT ready even for a golf course but might sign up for a clinic which includes 3 lessons in April. Atleast we have to see if we really will like golf since we plan to spend time in the desert.

After days, hours and weeks of searching, driving, writing e-mails, meeting with people we have finally found a rental home for April and May.

It is on Sunrise Mountain Ridge in the Fairfield area of Tucson.

2 bedrooms, 2 baths and a wonderful view of the city of Tucson. A community pool and hot tub close by, lots of places to walk to and a great back yard and patio where we hope to grill most of our meals and eat outside and watch the sunsets.

Looking forward to 'our' first home since 1990.

Tucson and Environs

• We arrived in Tucson around February 29th and haven't stopped for a rest yet.

First, we spent time with Michael's cousins, George and Marjorie at their home in Tucson, then days with our realtor looking for a home to buy, then Michael's cousins arrived from Greenwich, CT, for a week, then looking for a home to rent for April and May, then our friends the Veseths and Sue's family arrived for a week.
For more information: http://wineeconomist.wordpress.com (They brought our mail which is a much appreciated task in itself - how many pounds of mail?)

We visited the Desert Museum with the entire family and had typical Tucson weather - sleet, wind, rain and even snow! However, we all enjoyed the Museum anyway.

Another day we drove up to Mt. Lemmon and marveled at the views up and down.

And lastly, literally their last day, we visited wineries in Elgin, Arizona, and were pleasantly surprised with tasting wines which much better than we had anticipated.

Now, for Michael and I it is back to finding a rental home, sorting the mail, and just enjoying ourselves here - tough life.

Casa Grande Ruins National Monument

Monday, March 3rd, we drove from Tucson to Casa Grande to meet our friends, John and Guelda Messina for lunch at Ochoas Mexican Restaurant.
A real find of a restaurant - good food, good services, very reasonable and nice surroundings - what more could you want? Would recommend to anyone in the area.
Then off to Casa Grande Ruins National Monument. It was very interesting. The Hohokam people lived there around the 1300s and built elaborate navigation systems from the Gila River to their villages. The large building in the photo was used for observing the sun's movements throughout the year and also it is believed for important social/religious events. No one knows for sure but these are the best guesses by archeologists.
It is believed that after as many as 20 years of drought that the people just left - Hohokam means the people who disappeared.

We drove up California Highway 74 out of Palm Desert where scenes from "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" were shot.

Although we can't remember which corner was which a lot of it looked very familiar.

Our first photo op along the way.

We hadn't stopped here in years and of course it was under repair and closed but it is still an interesting place.

The Famous Lafayette Friends of the Library Bookroom

These photos only show a portion of the bookroom.

I still think it would be fun to camp out here and really check out the books.

Every day at least six grocery store bags full of books show up and when we are visiting we help to price them each day.

There are volunteers who come a couple of times a week and put the books on the proper shelves and help to run the book sales every other weekend.

While in Palm Springs we drove through Joshua Tree National Park both to see the park and to find photo ops.

Here are a couple.

The night view through Saguaro cacti from Michael's cousins' home in the foothills above Tucson.

First time I tried a time-elapsed shot so I have a lot of room for improvement.