Flamingo on a Stick

We are back in Iowa for the summer. It's always busy when we get here and this year is no different. So let the games begin! Our trip home was a fast one with stops in Durango CO, Loveland CO, Grand Island NE, Omaha NE and then to Storm Lake IA.  All of that before landing here in Cedar Rapids IA. We finally got a cable and card reader for the iPad. Yippee! I am back in business with photos. I am storing them on the Amazon Cloud where as Prime members we have unlimited photo storage. We visited so many fun places this spring it took me awhile to get them up and edited. What I have decided to do is to revisit the places we have been and finally post on the rest of our spring travels. Today I want to post some more photos of Lake Powell and share some about Antelope Canyon in Page AZ. Houseboat at Lake Powell As I said in the last post, Lake Powell is worth the stop. Someday I would love to do a house boat trip here. They say fall is the best time and that they run sp...

We have been here at Lake Powell for the last week and what a beautiful week it has been. Warm (but not too warm) days and cool nights. We have had some wind but Wednesday was the only day it made hiking a challenge. That was only because then our allergies kick up, it's definitely the pollen season.  We are camped at the Wahweap campground at the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. It is a very nice campground and part of the Lake Powell Resort, so you also get access to their pools, restaurants etc. The best part of this campground are the views. Most sites have a great view of the Lake. We are in a pull thru but next time we would choose a Barack in or pull out type site. You get a little mores space that way and the cost is the same for all the FHU sites. This is a pretty pricey campground but the views make it worth it and I am so glad we are here. Sunday we took the Canyons Adventure Cruise. A gorgeous day and a great way to see more of this area. They have a muc...

The month has flown by and the temps have risen here in Phoenix. It's been great having a nice warm winter but 90+ even in a "dry heat" is a little too warm for us northern folks so it is definitely time to move north. Tomorrow we will move just a little north to Dead Horse Ranch State park. We will only be there a couple nights then it will be on to Lake Powell for a little more than a week and then Moab Utah for a week. So our move north will be gradual and looking at the forecasts for these areas, it looks to be a little cooler. The month here has been great and full of fun activities. We went to 4 baseball games,an NHL game, two RV shows and a jazz festival. There is still much more we could have done and more people we could have visited. We will try to catch them next time.  Our time with Kevin and Evelyn was great and we look forward to seeing them again down the road. Time with Char and Bill was also a treat. They are planning their next move and it was fun to...

In line for the Brewers' spring game This month we are staying at the Leaf Verde Resort in Buckeye AZ just on the west edge of the Phoenix metro area. The weather has been very warm and sunny. We have had a couple scattered cloudy days and just a tiny bit of rain but the temps have been above average by about 10 degrees all month. These warm sunny days with cool nights suit us just fine. I will say it is getting a bit warm for these northern folk and we look forward to heading north at the end of the month. There are lots of fun places on deck for next month too! John, Janie,Evelyn and Kevin Love this photo of Kevin and Evelyn This month has been a very laid back pace. We’ve been to 2  Milwaukee Brewer spring training games with Kevin and Evelyn. What a great way to spend a day. We have tickets to one more game next Saturday. It’s great to be able to spend some time with them. We also have tickets to a Coyote NHL game on the 30th that they are joining us f...

The cactus are beginning to bloom I haven’t written much and my only excuse is I am so enjoying it in Arizona I just haven’t taken the time. The month in Tucson was great. We hiked, we biked, we caught up with some friends, visited several microbreweries and just in general enjoyed ourselves. So I’ll catch you up a little. On a hike at Sabino Canyon Most of our hiking was just out the back of our RV park. The county land and Tucson Mountain Park offer wonderful trails and by the end we actually had a sense of where things were. That’s pretty good for someone who is directionally challenged. I did use my Map My Run app just to make sure we were on track but our last couple of hikes I think we would have done just fine without it. The desert here is beautiful, just filled with such a variety of cactus and brush. Some began to bloom from the recent rains and that was fun to see. I particularly love the Teddy Bear (Jumping) cholla. They look all fuzzy from a distance but t...

Hiking on the land adjacent to Justins Diamond J So the day to tell your significant other you love them is here. How silly is that! Everyday should be the day you declare your love for who knows how many days we will have to do just that. If you are like us this one of the days in the year you absolutely don’t want to go out. We will leave that for those who are still in the courtship stretch of their relationship. We will pass it nicely though with a nice meal here at home. On the menu is steak with sauteed mushrooms, roasted potatoes, salad and a nice bottle of wine. Cheers to all! Our site at Justin's We are two weeks into our stay inTucson and so happy we decided to come. We are staying at Justin’s Diamond J where we stayed 6 weeks back in 2011. In an online review they described this park as quirky and I think that is a good description. It sits right next to Desert Trails which though it has more amenities the sites are very tight. The sites here are decent siz...

Honduras, the Banana Coast I think most of us like to think we're positive people: we try to put a good spin on things and keep the whining to a minimum. Sometimes this might require that we gloss over the details or soldier on in silence. But what would happen if we were faced with real adversity, not just a bad hair day but the kind of soul crushing stuff that threatens your very existence. The kind of stuff that could kill you. Would it even matter if the glass was half full or half empty? Our tour guide for our bus trip to visit a farm in Honduras introduced himself  as Oscar something, but claimed everyone has called him Smiley since he was just a little boy growing up in Cuba. He certainly seemed cheerful enough to be called Smiley. The bus was an old school bus from the States. It still had the school name on the side. Smiley was pointing out some of the local historical stuff (Christopher Columbus actually landed in Honduras on his fourth trip to the new world and th...