farewell dear friend.

It's not that we haven't been busy, it's just me getting settled down to write.  We had an excellent Thanksgiving with Ron's foster brother and their family.  Good food and conversation.
Christmas hasn't started yet.  Well, maybe it has and is almost over.  Anyway, we got all new windows and doors for our mobile.  Tim is finishing up the trim work as I type.  We could feel the difference as soon as they were installed.  You see, we've hit a cold rainy snap in the weather.  They were putting chlorine on the overpasses yesterday to keep them from freezing overnight.
Today I lost a great human being.  Our times spent together was short but he fought a hard battle from the time when he was 18 and I found him slipping into a diabetic coma through kidney and pancreas transplant at 50 and bypass surgery a couple years ago.  He was my ex husband s brother and he was always my friend.  Farewell Jim, you can rest in His arms.

Weathering

We've had a very interesting weekend.  It rained Friday and Saturday and turned cold.  There was a frost warning last night.  Ron ended up covering the outdoor plants and moving a couple inside for the nig  It's 63 outside at 11am.

This weekend was De Tour De Tucson bicycle event.  The route circles the city and is about 107 miles long.  There are places along the route where riders can start and ride shorter distances.  The fastest cyclist completed the entire course in around 4 hours.  Unfortunately there was one fatality.  A car drove into the marked bike path and hit a cyclist.

The main aftermath of the rain is the beautiful whie snow on the mountain tops surrounding Tucson.  The ski resorts will be opening soon.

Eating out and winning money

We've been taking advantage of the upcoming knee surgery our friend, Larry, has scheduled for December.  Trying to get in some of our favorite restaurants before he's immobile.  Tonight was Guadalajara for Mexican.  It's on the top of the list of Mexican restaurants but there are others for different reasons.   Gerry and Larry order one appetizer and one main course for their entire meal and we do the same.  Their plates have so much food on them they feed two people.

Seems like our luck of winning has held over from spring.  I won the first game of the first night of bingo and again this week.  Ron won the 50/50 at coffee and donuts Tuesday.  It was his birthday so we used his winnings to go our for lunch at Red Robin..

Enjoying our friends and looking forward to spending Thanksgiving with family.

Our first weeks in Tucson have flown by.  Guess it's time to catch up.  Everything worked perfectly on our arrival so life has been pretty much unpacking and cleaning.  Even though we covered a lot with sheets, the wind managed to leave a layer of dust.
Our friends are arriving daily.  Every Tuesday morning is a new reunion when we show up for coffee and donuts.
Nothing exciting going on but we're looking forward to a great winter.

Tucson

We both woke up early in Santa Fe so an early start meant an early arrival to our destination.  Since it was only two hours from Tucson, we decided to go for it.  The trip was quite breezy at times but we made it with no troubles.
Got most of the truck unloaded.  Ron decided to call it a night and watch that team win the World Series, which I'm sure will happen.  Looking forward to seeing all our friends who are already here and the rest as they arrive.

Santa Fe all the way.

You guessed it, we're in Santa Fe, NM.  That name has a special place in my life.  My father worked for the railroad most  of his life.  His employer was AT& SF which we loving called "All tramps and suckers free"  but most people knew them as Atchenson, Topeka and Santa Fe.  That was many years ago before there was Amtrak.  I actually could ride the train by myself for free.  When I was about nine years of age my parents, one of my mother's cousins and I all rode to California and back on the train.  We visited a sister of the cousin.

Thus the connection.  Santa Fe,  NM is a nice looking town from what we've seen from the road.  Most of the buildings are flat roofed in the Southwest style.
On our way here on Rt 25,  Ron spotted a lot of smoke off on one of the other mountains.  The desk clerk didn't know anything about it.  Hope it's not a major fire.

T plus 2.

We've made it to the Kansas/Colorado boarder for the night.  The weather has been nice.  Got up into the 60s today.

Settled into the hotel for the night.  Ron`s switching between baseball and football,  both games are being played in St Louis.  Did you know that the Arch is the tallest monument in the United States?  See, you learn important stuff on TV Sports