Here We Go! -- Jan 3, 2016

Into a brand new year!  Happy first Monday of 2016 and the first day of rain since I've been here!  No solar help today...and maybe tomorrow :-(((  That means the generator will be running a lot.  Good thing I have a full tank of gas!

Nikko is not a happy camper today! Do you see "bored" here?  Poor guy! 

Hard to believe we've turned another page in Father Time's yearly almanac --- where does the time go?  Thank you all for welcoming in 2016 with me and Nikko!  We're looking forward to lots of new adventures this year!  

It was pretty quiet around the ol' campground over the holidays.  Some people leave to visit family but most have returned now.  About 50 of us went to Lin's Chinese Buffet in Yuma for our Christmas Day luncheon.  It's quite a large buffet....several rows of food!  We all stuffed ourselves for $10.95!

There was a beautiful full moon on Christmas night....first on December 25th since 1977!

The new year, with El Nino's help, is starting off with cool temps and LOTS OF WIND around here! One day we had gusts of 61 mph.  It lasted about 18 hours.  After just a few hours, I was feeling a bit seasick in the RV!  LOL! But at least it's not in the 20s, 30s, 40s or 50s!  It's been in the 30s at night -- BRRRRRR -- but that seems to have passed for now.  Here's the upcoming forecast - lotsa sun! :-)

We've had some decent golf days, tho.  Here's a photo of my golfing buddies.... Tommy, Bill, Steve, Peter, TJ and Ray.  Missing on this day was Walt, Tom and Daniel.  They don't give me any slack just because I'm of the opposite gender!  One day....and one day only....I beat them all with five birdies!  My one day of golf fame!  LOL!  Of course that didn't surpass the days that Tommy and TJ each had two holes in one - in one round!  We have fun -- that's all that matters :-)

And there have been plenty of nice days for folks to go boating and fishing out on the reservoir waters...pretty nice for December!

Not much has been going on here except a lot of great sunsets and sunrises!  Always something to look forward to....almost every day.  So, for your viewing pleasure, that's what will take up most of the rest of this post!  Here we go....I hope you like orange and pink!

In between the sunrises and sunsets, I've gone back to reading mysteries and such on the colder, windier days...Kindle books and books from the campground library...... and I've been playing around with more zen art.  A fellow traveler that I met on FB ordered two of these little art pieces.  I made five from which to choose her favorite two.  She did....but I sent her all five as a little Christmas present :-) She was surprised!  This was one of the surprise pieces....

Since my birthday in October, I'm officially "old" now - LOL! - and I'm living on a fixed income. I've always been good with budgets so it's nothing new for me to plan with numbers.  For example, from this "pay check", $105 in groceries has to last me five weeks (normally four, but the calendar put it at five this time).  That's a $3/day meal budget. But no problem! I got plenty of practice stretching the food budget when I was a Personal Chef.  Just hoping gas prices give me a good break this summer! At 7.4 mpg, I need all the help I can get!  I mention this "fixed income" scenario primarily to let everyone know you CAN live this lifestyle on a limited budget!

I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for sticking with me for the past 18+ months on this adventure!  AND for remembering to use the Amazon links in this blog for your purchases. You pay the same and I earn a small commission. December was a good earnings month due to holiday shopping.  Let’s just say, it paid ¾ of my Verizon bill, which is, obviously, very detrimental to publishing the blog!  So, THANK YOU to each and every one of you!  I hope you were pleased with your purchases and will continue to use the links here.  Gift cards are useful all year long for birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day…and “just because” days!

Not only does Amazon have its own gift cards, but they offer gift cards for specific restaurants, department stores, clothing/shoes, kids/toys, home/garden, food and health!

Enjoy Amazon Gift Cards!

I’ll leave you now with some beautiful sunrise photos….. this is the way days can start out here in the desert!

Have a great first week of 2016!