Monday, January 06, 2003
Quail Run RV Resort, Arizona City, AZ - Dec 7-Jan 6
We decided to spend a month here over the holidays because our afore-mentioned friends, Pat & Dennis Wood, are workamping here for the winter. We enjoy the holidays more when we are parked for the month, especially near friends. It is wonderful to just wander over for an interesting conversation or a challenging game of cards. It is also close enough to Tucson to visit with Doug's dad occasionally, which is especially nice during the holidays. We were even able to attend a Christmas open house at one of Doug's friend's house.
Our first week here we read about a world-record attempt to link 300 persons in a free-fall jump at a nearby sky-diving center. On Thursday we decided to go over in the afternoon and check it out. We were amazed at how many people were gathered at this tiny airport to watch what was going on. We were rewarded by getting to see one attempt and then the actual world record "performance". They have to have a planned formation, with all skydivers linked in a specific pre-planned position, and hold the links for at least 3 seconds. Judges jump with them and take pictures above & below which are reviewed before announcing that a record has been set. A final condition of success is that all the people must get down alive! There had been 4 attempts a day for 4 or 5 days before success. It was exciting and interesting to see so much of a completely foreign sporting event. The judges said that they actually held the formation for 7.2 seconds. We could see them clearly from the ground.
With a group from the park, we went to Organ Stop Pizza in Mesa for a lunch buffet. The pizza is not wonderful, but that is more than made up for by the performance on the "Mighty Wurlitzer". This amazing instrument was originally built in 1927 to accompany silent movies. Organ Stop purchased the instrument in the early 1970s and completely rebuilt & enhanced it. The organ has over 5500 pipes, with some several stories tall, and is currently the largest Wurlitzer Theater Organ in the world.
A couple we knew from games nights in Boulder have moved to Prescott recently. They were able to come down for a visit & a day of games while we were here. We were able to finally meet their 18-month old daughter, Julia. We had previously only viewed her photos on the web. She is quite adorable in person, too!For our Christmas dinner, we decided to try a vegetarian buffet at a place in Tucson. We were able to combine this with a visit with Doug's dad, which made it even more appealing. The food was quite good.
Doug got to achieve one of his "life goals" by going on a hot-air balloon ride with our friends. Willie has quite a fear of heights, so she remained on the ground. The balloon first took up a group of sky divers who all jumped out while Doug & Co (and two more skydivers) gave pursuit in the chase van. The balloon landed in a dirt lot in the center of Eloy and our group all clambered aboard as people from blocks around appeared on bike and foot, and traffic on nearby streets stopped and stared. It was quite exciting to have traffic stopped so you could go ballooning. They soared up & became a tiny dot in the sky. Then the two divers jumped out of the balloon, which was quite frightening for Doug, watching a human plummet free-fall toward the earth. After all were safely back at the parking lot we celebrated with a champagne toast.
We are planning a quiet New Year's Eve, playing games with our friends & their grown children, who are visiting for a few days. Tomorrow we will celebrate our 11th wedding anniversary. Next Tuesday we will head towards the Organ Pipe Natl Mon area for several weeks of sightseeing & hopefully some hiking & birdwatching. We have a few enjoyable birds in the park: an Anna's Hummingbird comes regularly to our window feeder, and a Burrowing Owl sits in a tree in the park during the day.
The cats are enjoying it here. Amber & Rainbow have been going outside on their leashes; Gracie & Trixie don't seem at all interested in being outside. Amber has become most insistent about going outside and has rolled in the dirt so much you can hardly tell how white she used to be!!# posted by Doug and Willie @ 2:36 AM 
