Saturday, November 21, 2009

Day 8 - Paradise Valley, AZ and Phoenix Botanical Gardens

[Paradise Valley, AZ] This is our second full day (Day 8 on the road trip) at Gloria's (Linda's sister). Had a nice breakfast cooked by Gordon, Linda's nephew. Eggs, sausage and cheese grits. Gordon can be creative. He didn't have any cheddar cheese for the grits so he used some Cheezit's, potato chips and liquid in a blender. Actually, they came out pretty tasty.

Gloria recently became a member at the Botanical Garden in Phoenix. They just today opened a new exhibit on succulents with a special section on agave and aloe. Her membership got her some guest passes and she took us to see the new exhibit. What a wonderful treat this was. I had no idea there were oh so many different cacti. Linda and John took tons of photos which will be posted tomorrow as John is going to work on them tonight. Gloria's gentleman friend, Bill, accompanied us. After visiting the exhibit, Gloria treated us to lunch at Sweet Tomato's (think an upscale Fresh Choice on steroids).

He's doing that while Linda is off with Gloria to a birthday party of one of Gloria's friends. John won't be waiting up. You see, today he put 7,894 steps on his pedometer. The most he's done since he bought it. He's tired. Very tired.

You'll notice we've skipped a couple of days. We'll be backfilling if we actually have anything for those days. We'll let you know when we do.

Today you get a four minute video which we think you'll really like. Each day aroudn 9am and 4pm, Gloria or Gordon grab a bucket of wild bird feed and head for the corner of their backyard fence. Waiting for them are California Gambil Quail and doves. Hundreds of birds. THey throw the bird feed over the fence and chaos ensues. Once in a while an opportunistic hawk will fly over (or Gordon will make a loud noise) and dove fly off while the quail run under a tree. Then the quail scurry back (danger past) and the dove wing their way back. We think you'll enjoy this little video that Linda took this video with her Nikon P5100 point and shoot camera. She did a great job. Here it is...



Didn't write about it in Day 5, but that evening when we went out for Subway, we found a Liquor Barn on the way. Linda got some box wine and John got a bottle of Jack Daniels (on sale!). We've been enjoying a "toddy" before bedtime. Besides, John's doctor told him he would tell him to take a drink a day, but that it would be OK if he did. He usually doesn't but road trips lend themselves to that as you can get pretty tired.

Time to post this and notify all our family and friends. Rest well this evening and we'll have more for you tomorrow.

To visit the photo gallery of our visit to the Phoenix Botanical Gardens, click here.

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