Tag Archives: Arizona

Snowbirding 2017 Postcards: Mormon Temple Christmas Lights

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I’m spending a few days at a friend’s house in the Phoenix area and she suggested that we go see the Christmas lights around the Mormon Temple in Mesa, AZ. I’d never been to the Mormon Temple — in fact, I didn’t even know there was a Mormon Temple in Mesa. I’m always game to try something new, so we went.

My friend told me that she has good parking karma and she wasn’t kidding. The place was crowded and full of traffic, yet she managed to find a parking spot almost right in front of the temple. They were hundreds of people there, mostly families, all walking around lighted pathways and trees with the obligatory manger.

What impressed me most, however, were the reflecting pools at various places around the temple. The building itself was evenly lit with bright, white light and it reflected magnificently in the calm water. The colored lights added a sort of magic to the scene.

I didn’t take many pictures, but here are a few to give you an idea of what it was like. (I put an interactive panorama on Facebook.) If you’re ever in the area around Christmas time, I highly recommend visiting it — but not necessarily on a Saturday night.

When Home Isn’t Home Anymore

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How I feel about living in a town that was my home for 15 years without actually living in the house that was my home.

My visit to Wickenburg again this winter brings up something I’ve been thinking about quite a bit lately: how Wickenburg was my home but isn’t my home anymore. This wasn’t really an issue in past visits, but is really on my mind this year.

What’s different? Well, I made friends with the folks who bought my old house.

New Friends in My Old House

It was Mary who started the dialog earlier this year. My wasband had left behind a metal sculpture she thought I might want. She tracked me down online; between this blog, my business website, my Twitter account, and my Facebook account, I’m really not that difficult to find. I didn’t want the sculpture and explained why. We started a dialog in email. I thought she and her husband might like my friends Jim and Cyndi (who I house/dog sit for in Wickenburg) so I made introductions via email. They really hit it off. We became friends on Facebook. And the other day, when I arrived at Jim and Cyndi’s, I got to meet Mary and Jeff in the flesh. I think it’s safe to say that we hit it off, too.

We’ve been hiking with the dogs at least once every day since I arrived.

The other day, I went to their house (formerly my house) to lead a hike on one of the horse trails I used to take. I thought it would be a nice introduction to the trails near where they lived. (That turned into a bit of a fiasco when the trail was longer than I remembered and obviously hadn’t been used in some time so it was hard to follow. And what’s with the fences?)

Palm Tree
This Mexican fan palm, which was about five feet tall when we planted it in 1999, is easily 30 feet tall now.

I’d flown over the house in October on my way to Chandler to drop off the helicopter for overhaul. That was the first time I’d seen it in 3-1/2 years. Oddly, I didn’t feel any emotional pangs looking down at it from about 500 feet up. It was just a nice looking house with a well-kept yard and a very tall palm tree.

Still, I thought I’d feel weird about actually going to the house. After all, it was what the court referred to as my “marital home.” But again, the weird feeling never really sunk in.

Mary and Jeff have made some changes to the house and yard that really improve it and make it look better than it ever did while I lived there. They’d increased the height of the wall around the yard and installed some really pretty yet simple metal gates where needed. Whatever vegetation had survived since my departure in May 2013 — a lot died when my wasband turned off the irrigation before deserting the place in the summer of 2012 — had really grown. The single palm tree, the mesquite (Spot’s tree) in the back yard, the two saguaros, the desert willows, and the palo verde that I’d nursed from seed were all at least twice the size I remembered them being. All the overgrown plants and weeds had been cleared out and everything was nicely trimmed.

All these things combined made the house seem different.

Is that why I didn’t really feel any weird emotions while I was there?

Or is it because my mind has completely closed that chapter of my life? Because my mind closed that chapter on the very last day I was there, when I drove away for what I thought would be the last time?

Marital Home?

In all honesty, it really wasn’t much of a “marital home.” How could it be? More than half the time I was there during my short, ill-fated marriage I was there by myself while my wasband played house in his Phoenix condo with a roommate or went back to New York to spend time with his mommy. It was my home, the home I’d painted and furnished and decorated the way I saw fit. Where I worked and played and relaxed, mostly alone.

There had been very little input from the man who occasionally lived there with me before abandoning it for a walled-in tract home in a decaying Scottsdale subdivision. The man who, for some reason, tried to keep me out when I returned that last autumn by changing the locks and fighting me in court when I got in anyway. (As if an $8 lock would keep me out of my own home.) The man who was so desperate to get me out after the divorce trial that he agreed to give me every bit of personal property in the house and his condo that I wanted. The man who wanted it so badly in the divorce that he eventually paid me half of its court-appraised value.

And then he never moved into it, neglected it, incurred huge expenses getting it ready for sale, and wound up selling it for less than his appraiser told the court it was worth.

(Yeah: I made more money on the sale of the house than my wasband did. I did mention elsewhere in this blog that he made a lot of really stupid decisions, right?)

Anyway, although I thought I’d feel weird about going to the house, I didn’t. It was just another house. Sure, I’d lived there for fifteen years, but I’d moved out and I’d moved on. Any fond memories I had about the place had been pretty much erased by the abuse and neglect I dealt with after I married the man who seldom lived there. My mind was on my current home, a home not haunted by a failed relationship and false marriage. My old house was no longer my home and I had absolutely no regrets about leaving this one behind. I was much happier where I lived now.

The “Then” Photo

One of the things I did before leaving home this November was to track down one of the framed photos that had hung on the wall in my old house. It’s an aerial image of the house, shot in 2000, not long after I’d started the landscaping in the yard. All the trees and other plants I listed above are still quite small. My horses are down in the wash — you can see almost all of Cherokee, but just Jake’s butt sticking out from under the shade that is no longer there. I’m standing near the front door, holding my aviation radio, wondering why a helicopter is hovering over my neighbor’s house.

I packed the photo that last winter mostly because I didn’t want to leave it behind, but when I got to my new home, I had no desire to hang it. So I packed it when I headed south.

The other day, I remembered to give it to Mary and Jeff. Part of me was worried that they’d think I was just getting rid of my old junk. I was prepared for a very unenthusiastic response. But to my surprise, they liked it.

I promised them a helicopter ride to get another shot just like it, so they can get a sort of Then and Now comparison. (I hope Mary or Jeff won’t mind riding with a door off to get reflection-free photos.)

I thought I had the original floor plans for the house, too. I distinctly remember them being rolled up and stowed away in one of the poster tubes I had in my office closet. But when I went through the poster tubes I packed and brought to Washington, I couldn’t find them. Maybe my wasband has them. Maybe when his old whore reads this — she follows my blog and tweets because her own life isn’t very interesting — she’ll ask him to look for them and send them to Mary and Jeff. He knows the address.

More likely, he threw them away, as he threw away the rest of his life.

How Do I Feel?

So how do I feel about being back in Wickenburg? Great!

My hosts here have given me a very comfortable place to stay while I watch their dogs and house. I get to enjoy daily hikes out in the desert I know so well and drive my truck down the desert roads I used to bump along in my Jeep. I get to eat at the restaurants I remember and like — the pollo asado burrito I had at Filiberto’s the other day was just as amazing as I remember it and I can’t wait to get up to Nichols West, “the best restaurant in Wickenburg.” (The joke is, it’s not in Wickenburg.) I get to see old friends who are all genuinely glad to see me. And of course, I get to soak up the sunshine in warm temperatures that let me wear t-shirts so I can start working on my summer tan.

What’s not to like?

Best of all, I don’t have the burden and responsibility of owning a home here. And I don’t have to deal with local politics and policies, which are apparently as close-minded, crooked, and skewed to favor the “good old boys” as they ever were. (Seriously, Wickenburg: do you really think hanging a digital sign on the Community Center is going to get the Phoenix/Vegas drivers to stop? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: people stop at destinations. Hanging a tacky sign does not make Wickenburg a destination.)

I’m not tied to Wickenburg anymore and I like that. When I’m ready to move on — or my friends start hinting that I’ve overstayed my welcome — I’ll put my camper back on my truck and head out to explore other places. And when all my friends die or move away, I’ll likely stop coming here. By then, I’ll have other places I prefer to spend my winter time — possibly places a lot farther south than Arizona.

So “home” really isn’t home anymore — and I don’t have a problem with that at all.

Snowbirding 2017 Postcards: A Desert Drive

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I took my truck out to an old favorite destination near Wickenburg this afternoon: Box Canyon. This is literally a box canyon on the Hassayampa River, partially hidden by massive salt cedar trees. Upriver from there is a narrow slot canyon that the river is always flowing through. I drove through that, too, then exited on another road I know to make a loop drive. 

I was scouting for tomorrow’s trip with friends who are new to the area — I wanted to make sure it was possible to reach Box Canyon in my truck before I tried bringing my friends. I can. I’m beginning to think my truck can go anywhere. 

Here are a few photos from the drive. I’ll likely have better ones if the canyon tomorrow, since we’re going at midday. 

Helicopter Overhaul in Progress

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Stripped down and waiting for “the kit.”

Regular readers of this blog might remember my October series of posts about flying my helicopter from my home in Malaga, WA to Quantum Helicopters in Chandler, AZ.

Robinson helicopters are required to be overhauled at 12 years or 2200 hours, whichever comes first. January 2017 would be 12 years for Zero-Mike-Lima, but because I need the helicopter back in time for my late winter frost work and I don’t fly it much during the winter anyway, I dropped it off early to give the shop plenty of time to do the work they needed to do. At this point, they’ve had it for about a month and a half. They’ve had the money they needed to get started for about a month.

I’m back in Arizona now, enjoying the first part of my annual migration to the south. (After 15 years living in Arizona, it’s hard to take the short, dreary days of a Pacific Northwest winter.) I had errands to run in the Phoenix area today, so I thought I’d head down to Chandler to visit Zero-Mike-Lima. I had a part to drop off — a starter that’s part of the “core” that needs to be replaced. The mechanics will pull the existing starter, which was replaced only a few months ago, and I’ll keep that as a spare. The helicopter will get a brand new starter among the many brand new parts that come in the overhaul kit.

And that’s what it’s waiting for now: the kit. The maintenance shop draws up a list of the parts needed for the overhaul and sends it to Robinson Helicopter, along with a huge chunk of my money. The parts folks at Robinson pack up the parts that go into the kit. This takes about six weeks. They then put it all on a truck and ship it to Arizona.

Blades
My main rotor blades sit atop a pair from an R22, along with the “candy cane” bar that protects the tail rotor area. I’ll go back for the blades once I figure out how I can get them home. I think they’ll look good hanging on the wall in my living room.

In the meantime, the mechanics disassemble the helicopter and pull out the parts they need to send back to the factory as cores. I’ll get some money back for those — possibly as much as $50K. (I sent them $175K.) They send the engine to a shop to be rebuilt. They send other parts out to another shop to be inspected. They take the time-limited parts that have no value and literally thrown them on a scrap pile.

So the helicopter is mostly disassembled at this point. Most of its parts are on carts where the tailbone should be. Its doors are on another cart. One of its skids is temporarily on another helicopter that had a hard landing the other day and broke a skid. (I saw the video and it’s amazing that helicopter ended up on its skids.) The other skid is shoved underneath of it.

Fuselage
The helicopter’s fuselage is sitting on a rolling wooden cart right now.

Cart full of parts Cart full of parts
Rolling carts full of parts occupy the area where the tailcone should be.

Helicopter Interior
They stripped out the carpet and removed the seats. None of the avionics will be replaced.

No one was working on it when I got there. They’re waiting for the kit. They had plenty of other helicopters to keep them busy, though. Quantum is a large operation.

I’ll go by and visit again later this month or after the kit has arrived. I’ll bring cookies or pizza for the mechanics. (I really regret not stopping for at least cookies today.) I don’t want to be a nuisance, but I do want to keep apprised of the progress. I want to take photos along the way.

And I can’t wait to go flying again.

Snowbirding 2017 Postcards: Laughlin, NV

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I left Vegas and headed south today. My goal was to find a campsite along the Colorado River near Needles, CA. The direct route took me down Route 95, a typical, mostly straight, desert highway. But when I saw the turn for Laughlin,NV, on the Colorado River, I made a detour. I wanted ice cream.

Laughlin is, in my opinion anyway, a poor man’s Las Vegas. It’s a cluster of about 10 high-rise casino hotels right on the edge of the river. Named for the man who developed the area, Don Laughlin, it attracts mostly seniors from the Sun City area near Phoenix, as well as snowbirds passing through. Indeed, the parking lots were jampacked with motorhomes and trucks pulling fifth wheel trailers.

I’ve been to Laughlin a few times. My wasband and I flew in together at least once, probably in my first helicopter. Back in those days, the airport across the river in Bullhead City, AZ was very close to the river. You’d land and park and then get out and walk to a dock right on the river. A boat would come across the river to fetch you and bring you to Laughlin. I’m pretty sure the boat shuttle was free. 

The time we went there, we went for one of the cheap buffets for lunch. I remember seeing an elderly couple there stuffing food into the pockets of their jackets. I suspect they might’ve been homeless or close to it and had somehow gotten up the money to come to the buffet. It was very sad.

Nowadays, the airport runway is up the hill a bit, farther from the river. The old runway has been turned into a commercial area; there’s a Home Depot on part of it now. When you come in and land, you can still get a shuttle across the river, but it’s in a shuttle van that drives across the bridge. Funny how things change.

Anyway, today I stopped at the Colorado Belle and asked the valet parking attendant where the closest ice cream was. Penny and I walked along the Riverwalk to the Aquarius hotel casino, which I don’t recall being there the last time I was there. I tied Penny up outside, went in, and got ice cream in two cups. We sat by the river and enjoyed them. A lot of old people walked by. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that I was the youngest visitor around.

I took these photos before we walked back to the truck. Amazing how blue the water and sky are, eh?