Exploring the neighborhood

Tonight after DW got done with work we explored our neighborhood a little bit to see the different types of vegetation we could find.

Prickly-Pear Cactus


some type of Aloe-Vera cactus


Barrel Cactus


Small Saguaro Cactus


Mesquite Tree


Pink flowering bush. Frenchie variety

While walking around, off in the distance to the South around Chandler, AZ a HUGE monsoon had formed. Monsoons develop during the rainy season here in Phoenix typically July through September. They form in one spot and can be very dangerous. They are pretty much stationary and can last over an hour. The news tonight reported straight line winds, heavy rainfall and numerous cloud to ground lightning strikes. It was very impressive with the sun setting.

The soaring beauties returned again this morning.

We awoke this morning to see not two, but five balloons soaring above. It just amazes us at the things we have missed living in Minnesota. As all of you know little things like the balloons soaring overhead touch DW & DH in ways we hope everyone could understand. The beauty of controlled & uncontrolled flight has always been something DH has been interested in. Our friend Craig in MN has a brother that flies ultra lites & Craig & DH have discussed flight numerous times. If you look at one of the balloon photos, the design on the balloon is actually a saguaro cactus & a real one is in the foreground of the photo. Life is magical & strange sometimes. It's like god has put us in this place for a reason.

DH took the thermometer outside again today and put the temp needle in the sun to see what it would register for a heat reading if you were actually standing or working in the sun. AMAZING!!!! The shade is definitely where you want to stand in down here. But again we struggle to find a way to tell all of you that it's HOT, but not the way you think......

Here is a photo of the back of our house. DW is sitting outside with Muncie on our patio. We look forward to everyone visiting once the weather UP-Nordth has turned for the worse. We miss you all!!!!!!!!

Soaring the beautiful landscape of Phoenix, AZ

What a treat to wake up to this morning. We awoke early to the beautiful presence of a couple of hot air balloons soaring high above the desert floor right in our backyard. It was a sight to see.
As everyone who knows us & has been to our previous house in Southern MN, the back yard was in pretty good shape, however a neighbor who believes that weed control is pouring multiple bags of wood chips over the infested over growth of weeds left a sore taste in our mouth for many years.
For DW & DH to awake to such a magnificent sight as you see here, it helps ease our transition into the Northwest valley of AZ. We know why we are here and this is an example of why we feel the way we do. Here are a few more photos. We hope in the future we see more balloons in the sky soaring in the hands of mother nature. What an absolute change from what we were used to.

DH has been doing some contract work for his previous employer & he took a break this afternoon to check the thermometer outside and snapped a quick photo.

Yep it says 111.7 Degrees. DH & DW have tried to explain to many people the difference of how the heat feels here in AZ. Don't get us wrong, it's HOT! But we and the dogs have adjusted already & the only thing we notice that could constitute difficult would be entering a vehicle after it's sat for about 40 minutes or longer. A few minutes of air conditioning and all is well. Oh how we will think of you all in the winter time!!
(Note: Click on ANY of the photos on our blog for a larger image.)

Local news reports Natives invading houses of relocated Minnesotans

Well it's 9:45 p.m. local time here & we were just out in the backyard soaking up the warmth of the day when we heard a ruckus with the dogs. We stopped them immediately to see what was going on and we were amazed at what had strolled onto our patio to check out our pad. Phoebe, being the Mean, Vicious, Guard dog she is, didn't let us down. She managed to de-tail a Gecko that was meandering across our patio and enjoying our spacious back yard. We felt so sorry for
"Frenchie", the border crossing Gecko. He looked so sad.

I guess if I was strolling along, minding my own business, and someone chewed my tail off I wouldn't look so happy either!
We managed to get "Frenchie" to higher ground via a medic transport chopper "sheet of paper" and he looked VERY relieved! DH & DW were stunned to look immediately after the incident to see the tail that had separated from "Frenchie", squirming unattached by itself on the patio and it kind of reminded us of a chicken with it's head cut off.

We've never seen that personally, but have heard about it since we were youngsters. We wish "Frenchie" a full recovery & we will check on him in the A.M to make sure that he was able to check out of the Jarvi Memorial Hospital. :-)

Finally we're connected with the real world again!

Well folks, it's been one heck of an adventure. We are here to tell you that we made it with a few hick-ups but we survived! We would like to thank everyone back in Minnie-soda for all of your gracious help in packing, loading the trailer and clearing out the house. Without your help, we would not be here, we'd still be in MN wondering how the heck do we pull this off! Oh and a SPECIAL thank you to Dale who decided he would check the brakes on the trailer and pulled a hub off only to find the brake pads fell to the ground. DH went and bought all new brake pads for all 4 tires & Dale did a complete brake job for us on Sunday morning. Thank you ALL of you who helped us. Let me start by saying that the first day of our travels went pretty well. DH had a heck of a time traversing the trailer down the road. Every big Semi that passed created a vacuum that had him startled every time one would pass. Let's just say that this is an understatement about the roads from Minnesota to Arizona. They are HORRIBLE!!!!!! The last time we stopped on our first day of travels was to get fuel in Olathe, KS. DH noticed as he was making a turn that a tire looked like it was pretty low in his drivers side mirror. Upon further inspection we noticed a nail sticking out of the sidewall. We were pulled into a gas pump stall when Sheri got the attention of a tow-truck driver in the next bay who was fueling & she worked her magic to get him to at least inflate the tire so we could pull over on a flat spot to change the tire. Sherri got her way and the tire was inflated allowing us to move the trailer to a spot where we could actually change the tire. Sheri said she came along as the pit crew & she wasn't lying. She yanked out the jack & had the trailer off the ground in no time. We managed to change the tire and made the decision to spend the night in KS. The next morning DH & DW brought the tire to a repair shop to have a plug installed for $14.00. It was repaired and we returned to the hotel to find Sheri had removed the spare tire off the trailer and was waiting patiently for the repaired tire. Traveling earlier on Monday the GMC Envoy had a service engine light come on but all the gauges were reading normal and the transmission was working as it should. We all decided we should run it to the local GMC dealer and at least have them check out the error code.

The engine fan was stuck on low. The shop technician said if you're heading to the Kansas City Turnpike, you SHOULD replace it or you will definitely overheat. They told us it would take a few hours & cost us $880.00 (OUCH!) We had wandered out into the parking lot while the Envoy was in the repair stall & a sales person had greeted us and asked if we were looking? We explained our situation and had a nice chat with him for about 20 minutes.We found that this was a SMART decision. We shook his hand and headed back to the bay where the Envoy sat. We watched the salesperson we had just finished chatting with enter the bay and had a brief conversation with the technician & within minutes 2 technicians were working on the Envoy. In about 35 minutes the truck was fixed and put back together and we were on the road. They went far and above anything we had expected. We went back and picked up Sheri and we were on the road again and not looking back. The next two days of traveling went smoothly as far as vehicles go. DH however had rough roads for what seemed to be eternity. Just when he thought things were smoothing out, things got progressively worse. A few times you could hear him saying some expletives over the hand held walkie talkies we had purchased for communicating between the two vehicles. These proved to be life savers as we went through the big cities. DH would turn on the blinker for which lane he wanted and DW would pull out in the Envoy and block traffic for him. We got it down to a pretty good science. Here is a photo of one of the stops we made after some pretty tough roads.

We left on Monday morning and had hoped we would be in Phoenix by Wednesday afternoon. Due to the hick-up in the early evening on Monday we eventually made it to Holbrook, AZ Wednesday late evening and decided to spend the night there and finish our travels on Thursday morning. Here is us leaving Holbrook, AZ.

We made the final trek into Flagstaff and headed south to Phoenix. We thought again how wonderful it was that Dale had checked the trailer brakes because it is pretty much a 6% downgrade on the roads from Flagstaff to Phoenix. If Dale hadn't repaired the trailer brakes, who knows what would have happened. I know with the brakes working it didn't take long for the 11,350lbs in our trailer to get me motoring down the mountain. But all said and done we would never attempt this kind of trip again. We will hire someone to come pack, haul and unload for us. But we have lots of memories to look back upon with this endeavor. Thanks again Sheri for riding along and putting up with the dogs. I'm not elaborating on them because they traveled like troopers. At least that's what I heard. So we would like to show you how our new home looked after the trailer was unpacked. Our pit crew gal Sheri worked her Butt off for us & our local friend Tony arrived to help DH move the big stuff and in about 8 hours we had the whole trailer unloaded. "WOW" Did we tell you it's HOT here? Guess everyone wanted stuff out & in as fast as we could get it done. Lots of water was drank to complete the task, but for the most part it went without problems. Nothing was broken.

In the last few days while DW has been at work, DH has been trying to get things to a more normal state in the house. He has made some strides in making the house livable for all of us. It is monsoon season here in AZ right now & last night when the sun was going down there were some impressive storms that had formed earlier in the day & they looked so beautiful from our back yard last night.

DW loves her new job & DH has a meeting tomorrow to discuss doing some drawings for a rental company here in Phoenix who has connections to Barrett Jackson Automobile Auction Company. He will try to sell his talents tomorrow & he hopes to make a great impression with his talents & hopes to be working full time very soon. We have stored the trailer at a self storage company as we can't have it parked in front of our house. We are thinking that we'll probably want to sell it, but we aren't sure as of yet. Here is a photo showing it in storage. DH was relieved when he pulled away as to not have the wart "trailer" attached to his ass. Too funny!

Should we actually be blogging right now???? Good question!

Well here it is one week from the trip of a lifetime. I (DH) am going to post a long blog tonight. DW & DH are sitting here in our living room (DORM ROOM, COLLEGE STYLE, NO FURNITURE) deprived of sleep. Yesterday, we tore down our bed and anything larger than a box & decided that a couple of sleeping bags would work just fine for us on our hardwood floors. We have both decided that we will NEVER think that option again. Hardwood floors to sleep on as mature adults is NEVER an option anyone should consider. DW currently is going through another tub of photos she has collected over the years. She used to work for a photography place so she had doubles of every photo she had taken for 9+ years. She has made great progress in sorting out her photos as she has emptied yet another tub. Yesterday, DW's family arrived at our house around 10:00 A.M. They came from Pillager MN, Savage MN, & Owatonna MN. DW's Mother and Boyfriend (Mike) were here as well. Our friends Shari & Dale showed up also. Everyone stepped up to the plate to help & we basically emptied everything from our home in about 12 hours. The dogs are feeling the stress of the move because they are so confused. We both feel so sorry for them because we can't communicate what it is that's happening. Here is a photo of Phoebe sitting in Muncie's dog basket, she looks so sad!


The last few days have been very emotional for DW & DH! DW's family left late this afternoon & we've realized that this next week will tear us down emotionally! We are taking things in stride however, knowing that our friends and family will always be there for us. With all things happening, we are struggling with another aspect of things - Co-workers, friends, & neighbors. We know feelings, emotions, thoughts, memories, and so many things we can't describe makes our move so much harder for everyone. We do know that we, DW & DH, will succeed & push ourselves to better our lives as we have been taught from our parents. We love all of our friends and family members more than you know!!!! Below are some photo's showing what happened in the last few day's.


We will be posting more photo's of the house and trailer later in the week. DH & DW are exhausted and we are struggling with finding the energy to keep going. We have no doubts we will finish, but it's difficult to say the least. Stay tuned!! We are off to bed!

U.S.S. Chrysler Imperial

Our move is approaching faster and faster every day. Part of our move entailed moving our 1962 Chrysler Imperial. People have called the car several nicknames because of it's size. DH has had an Imperial since High School. He can't remember one time that the car had fit on any one's car trailer. We thought we would try our trailer to see if it would fit and were pleasantly surprised to find that it did. We hauled the car out to our friends Karen and Dave's farm house & stored it in their barn. Our plans are to come back in the spring once the snow melts to retrieve it. Below are a few photos to show you how much of the trailer it used. We had about 3/16" to work with between wheel wells inside the trailer. DH hit the mark the first time loading it. Amazing how he has an eye for centering things. Must be his love of design and the fact he's had the car since High School. Impressive sweetie! Great job!

Did we mention that DH has never strapped a vehicle down in a trailer before??? Well with a little thinking and a few different options of placement for the straps, it wasn't long before it was pulled into place and wasn't going anywhere. We got the truck & trailer on the road to Dave and Karen's & you could feel the weight of the car in the trailer but the truck had NO problems handling the weight. We figure all of our stuff in the trailer will weigh half the weight of the Impy.