Warmer Weather Ahead

We will be traveling to Mesa, AZ and will spend the rest of December through March 31st at the Mesa Regal RV Resort as Workampers doing various resort related jobs. Each of us will work only 12 hours a week so we will have plenty of free time for ourselves.

Our new temporary address is C/O Mesa Regal RV Resort, 4700 E. Main Street #176, Mesa, AZ 85205. This Resort is just up the road from where we stayed last winter.

We leave on Tuesday so have lots to do in our unseasonably cold weather here in Alpine, TX. Our furnace has been working overtime keeping us warm & snugly. Am looking forward to those warmer temps.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We drove over to Marathon, TX to share the day with the Charlesworth family (Jim & Cherokee; Brent & Leslea and their 2 daughters, Collee and Emily; Brandi & Joe and their 2 daughters Madalyn & Lucy) and other family and friends of Brent and Leslea's. We got acquainted with Jim & Cherokee in Raton NM some 35+ years ago a few months before Brent was born and have remained good friends through the years. We always enjoy our times spent with each other and have lots of memories to share.

When we get set up in Mesa I'll try and update our Blog with a photo of Mesa Regal along with a weather update.

Day Trip to Observatory

This is the 82" Telescope that the guide moved into place by rotating the top half of the dome. He only opened it a few inches so no birds could fly into the facility.

We discovered this little roadside park built into the stone alongside the road on our way to the observatory.

On Saturday we drove over to the McDonald Observatory about 16 miles north of Ft. Davis, TX. Beautiful drive as the cottonwood trees were a gorgeous bright yellow and the oak trees a very dark burnished red. The road is very curvy and winding up to the elevation of 6,791 ft. (atop Mt. Fowlkes), which also happens to be the highest maintained road in the state of Texas.

We took a 90 minute guided tour that featured the 82" Otto Struve Telescope and the 107" Hobby-Eberly Telescope. There also was a solar presentation in the auditorium showing live images through a 35" telescope with a white filter to capture images. We learned all about the sun's magnetic fields, solar flares and the sun orbits. It would take 109 of the Earth's planets placed side by side to make up the diameter of the Sun. Really fascinating info but a lot of the technical info on the actual telescopes was way over our heads. We did see how the telescopes moved to track stars in the sky. Different telescopes have different functions such as the one used to track man-made satellites orbiting around earth.

About 80 residents/astrologers live in close proximity to the facility and of course their workday begins about 11:30 at night until dawn. Certainly would be a different way of life. The facility continually has visiting astrologers from all over the world gathering data for research and study.

The image of the silver geodesic building houses the largest mirror telescope in the world and the 2 white domed buildings house the 82" and another smaller telescope. One of the white domes top is open for the postcard image - usually it is only open at night. The top half of each of the domes rotate around so the telescopes can track the stars as the earth rotates. Our guide rotated to dome while we were inside and it almost felt like a Disney ride because of the optical illusion it created (we were stationary yet we felt like we were moving!).

All in all, it was quite an educational day that we truly enjoyed. Enjoy the photos and if you ever get close to an observatory go see it and explore the possibilities.

Brrrr . . . Nights are chilly!

The nights here are getting very chilly. Lowest has been 32 degrees but now seems to be more in the mid 40's thankfully. Days are warming up to mid-high 70's which is much better.

We've not done any traveling this week due to chillier and very windy weather. But, Dee now will work 2 days a week in the Lost Alaskan RV Park Office. It will only be from 4-6 pm and then close up the office for the manager but it's a start getting some training and experience. Monday is her first day. The schedule is very flexible for the Workampers, they work 2 days and then off six days. She is really looking forward to learning the ins and outs of RV Park office management. Best part is, it won't interfere with her bridge playing 2-3 times a week!

CoCo has yet to find a playmate even tho there are many dogs in the park (1 couple had 4 small dogs with them!!!). Thankfully the RV next to us with two pit bulls moved from the park on Wednesday. Those animals are extremely worrisome to us even though the owners try to convince us they won't hurt anyone.

There was an antique car show in Alpine on Saturday and several of the owners stayed in the Park so we were able to see their restored cars up close. Beautiful work on a couple 1929 coupes.

Saturday evening we participated in the Park's Halloween party. About 35 people were there so we were able to meet many of our neighbors for the first time. Lots of food to eat, like we need that. It was an enjoyable evening.

That's it for now.