Season winding down.

The end of this season will soon be here. Already some residents are packing up and heading home. The huge exodus will begin about the first week of March. Don’t know why because it is still cold and snowy in most parts. Some say it’s because of taxes, and others say they have “work” to do…Ugh, that awful four letter word! We will truly enjoy April when it is quiet and warm/hot (very few will be left here then).

This last week our temps have fluctuated from the very high 80s (90 on Sat) back down to the high 70s. Actually, it dropped to 71 with a low of 48 on Monday (brr). We have also had some extremely high winds which is fueling a fire in the Tucson area. Really don’t know much about the fire, but the winds are making it very hard to fight. There is a statewide high wind warning through tomorrow morning. Now what AZ considers as high winds (gust range 30-60 mph) is much lower than what we get in Oregon, but what we have here blows all the nasty stuff around….dust, pollen, and even valley fever fungus (not a fun lung disease). It is always a good idea to stay inside (with doors and windows closed) when the wind blows like this.

Since last posting, there have been three dinners and even a geocaching event that we have been to. The caching event was held in the desert about 38 miles south of us. It was hosted by a group of geocachers from Apache Junction (A.J.A.C.S.). This was the fifth year the Apache Junction Area Caching Society has hosted this camping event. It was a weekend (three day) event, but we drove down on Saturday and spent the whole day visiting and having a great time with everyone. Here we all are sitting around during the drawing of raffle tickets.The group hid 25 new caches for everyone to go look for, but since it hit 90 degrees that day, we opted to wait for a cooler day to go in search. Besides, the rattle snakes are out and we didn’t want to tangle with anymore of them. Several cachers did run into snakes and even a Gila Monster (yikes)….

Like I said earlier, our season is winding down, but the rock shop will remain open until mid April, so Ken is staying just as busy as usual. He did find some time to make a necklace, bracelet, and earring set for a lady here in the park. She had an old Amethyst and Turquoise bracelet that she loved, but it was hard to hook up, so she asked Ken to put on a new clasp for her….well that new clasp ended up in being a whole new set. As they were checking out her old bracelet, Ken showed her some crystal Amethyst beads from Swarovsky and she liked them better, so decided she wanted a new bracelet made, plus a necklace and earrings to go with it. Yes, she did keep the old bracelet, but she will be wearing the whole new set instead. They really did turn out nice!! Pretty aren't they!!Ken now has 15 pendants ready for next year’s craft sale and will be adding more crystal type necklaces to his list. He plans on using only the best crystal and Sterling Silver for his jewelry.