Dinner with Liz's family

We visited Eileen in the hospital, and she was looking pretty good. She was still under infection control, so we put on disposable gowns and gloves for our visit.

Richard decided that he needed a small tripod, so we went to a camera store, and found a suitable tripod, which is Richard's Christmas present.

We drove over to Liz's house for a tamale dinner. We admired their remodeling project, which looked very nice. Anna had strep, so she did not join us for dinner, but we included her in the picture. A nice evening. Their entire block was decorated with Christmas lights, very pretty.

Chihuly Glass at Botanic Gardens

We started the day by going to church at one of the huge churches in Sun City West. After mass, we went over to talk to the organist, Joan, who used to teach with Marianne. It was nice to see her again. She is now 80 years old, and still playing.

We visited Eileen in the hospital after mass, she was looking pretty good.


We headed for the Phoenix Botanic Gardens to meet Liz and Emily, to see the Chihuly Glass, and the plants. The glass was impressive, and it is amazing to see how many varieties of cactus and other desert plants there are. The juxtaposition of the glass and the plants was very interesting.




After the Botanic Gardens, we ate dinner at a restaurant, and visited Eileen in the hospital.

Evening in Sun City West

We slept in, relaxed, and did chores in the morning, and then went to see Eileen in the afternoon. As we were leaving, we saw Patrick and Stacy coming in. Eileen reported that she had a feeling of well being around 3 PM. Eileen's spirit is high, as usual, and she is glad that she in in the hospital, getting good care.

In the evening, Marianne and Richard went for a walk around the neighborhood in
Sun City West. We saw quite a bit of urban wildlife, notably a Gila Woodpecker, a pair of Harris Hawks, and a coyote. The Harris Hawk is a new bird for us.

Santa Fe to Sun City West

We got up early, left a cold Santa Fe, and headed down the road to Albuquerque. Marianne wanted to take the southern route, through Hatch, but Richard wanted to take the shorter route, through Flagstaff. Richard was driving, so we turned on I40 to Flagstaff. The traffic was not bad, and the driving was easy, thanks to relatively little wind, most of the day. We had lunch in Winslow at a family Mexican restaurant; we were panhandled there by Indians. The reservation looked mostly sad.

Flagstaff had lots of snow on the side of the road, glad that we were not there the day before.

On our way down from Flagstaff to to Phoenix, Liz called. Eileen was in the hospital. Marianne was pretty upset. We headed for Eileen's house, and parked the camper in her driveway. We then headed to hospital, and visited with Eileen a bit. A damper on our plans to have fun in Arizona, but we will try to do some fun things while we are here.

Heading South

We left Thursday morning, on our way to the Phoenix area. Happy to be escaping the deep freeze in Colorado. Our plan is to spend time with Eileen and her family up to and including Christmas, and then head to the California Desert.

It was a hard and slow drive, mostly due to a strong headwind, which is troublesome in an RV. We decided to stop in Santa Fe.

There is a party at Liz's Friday night, but we may not make it.

Fishing at Delaney Buttes

We slept in. Richard went out on the boat and fished for an hour and a half, with no success. We spent the afternoon reading and relaxing. We also went out for a short hike.

It was a stormy day, so there was lots to look at in the sky.. The radio from Laramie says that the high for tomorrow will be unseasonably cool, in the 50s.

After dinner, Richard went out on the lake again. After trying scuds and pheasant tail flies at 10 feet down without success, Richard changed to a Kastmaster spoon. He soon caught a large rainbow, who had swallowed the lure deep in his neck. Richard released it, only to see a cloud of blood, and then that fish kept coming back to the surface. Richard decided that it would die anyway, so he netted it and brought it in for dinner. We measured it at 18 inches, a big fat fish. We cut off the head and tail, and then cut what was left in half, as we figured that we could not at the whole fish in one meal.

Richard went back out, and caught another large rainbow, 16 inches, which he released. It was well dark when he came in off the lake.

Boulder to Delaney Buttes

Marianne exercised in the morning, while Richard sprayed a couple of his sculptures, and got ready fro the trip. For this trip, we are bringing the RV and the boat, a 62 feet long rig. We left Boulder midday to drive over to Delaney Buttes lakes, near Walden. The drive over was uneventful, over Berthoud Pass through Winter Park and Granby. The beetle kill is amazingly large, in some places dead trees as far as the eye can see.

The fly shop in Walden said that we need to go deep at the lake, maybe 10 to 12 feet down, with a scud or a pheasant tail. For the rivers, try a hopper and a dropper. We set up at South Delaney Buttes lake. Richard was a little under the weather, so too tired to fish in the evening. He hopes to feel better tomorrow and get in some serious fishing.