The Elks Host With the Most

It’s hard to believe that Christmas is fast approaching.  I cringe with envy hearing people say they have finished their Christmas shopping.  Even though we’ve really cut back on numbers of gifts we’re buying this year, it seems we’re further behind than ever.  We just haven’t had time.  We have definitely been too busy even for us but really, it’s not our fault!

After our whirlwind two day trip to get my license renewed in South Dakota before it expired, we thought we would have time to put ourselves back together.  We haven’t.   Our first day back  we took Terry’s mom Christmas shopping.  That was an all day event but she needed to get the gift buying behind her.   I’m not sure who was more zonked – us or her but she had her walker and we didn’t.  That was Friday.

Terry had previously promised her we’d take her back to the casino on Saturday.  We thought she might have forgotten.  She hadn’t and she reminded us.  That was our plan then for the day.  However, just as we were leaving our RV the host at the Elks showed up at our door bringing fresh out of the oven homemade bread!!  We sure did a good job picking out this place to stay.  How often does the host at your campground bring you fresh baked bread?  It was yummy too!  I think they’re going to have to use a tow truck to pull us out of this place!  Don’t ask me where this Elks is because I won’t tell you!  All you’ll want to do is take our site!

Anyway, off to the casino we went.  Our hopes of only spending a couple hours at the casino were dashed away when she won her first jackpot …. a little over $1,700!  (Yes, I did say first.  There was also another one but a little smaller.  Pooh.  It should have been me!) There was no way we could pull her from that machine for hours and hours.  Obviously, Terry was ready to go bananas.  We finally had to give her a time we were leaving and if she wanted to get a ride home, she had to leave that machine.     We aren't anxious to take her back to the casino.  In the future we might have to do it in shifts. 

My new camera arrived on Friday.  It even arrived in perfect condition.  Have I had time to play with it?  Heck no!  As you have probably figured out, we’ve been way too busy.  I did get a chance to take it out of the box, put in the battery, attach the lens keeper, hood and strap.  Sunday’s another day though and right now we have no plans and no obligations other than trying to get a little more Christmas shopping done.  Maybe I’ll get a little shooting action in too.

There doesn’t seem to be the number of people shopping in the malls this year or maybe just not yet.   It also doesn’t seem like the stores have hired as many holiday workers as they have in the past.  For the few people we saw, the lines are long, long, long and checkers are few, few, few.

After our shopping event on Friday we stopped at Mimi’s in Chandler to eat.  How many times have you had the manager of a restaurant stop by to ask you how the food and service was?  I’m going to say pretty often.  Managers often do that.  We had the general manager of this Mimi’s walk over to our table too but not to ask us how things were.  He stopped only at our table and only spoke to Terry’s 87 year mother.  First of all, he baited her (yes, baited is an appropriate word here) with a $5 coupon to use in January.  Then, he told her she could have that coupon if she’d buy a $25 gift card.  If I said, we were quite surprised and not pleased with his sales pitch, would you understand why?     Well, that evening I dropped a comment on Mimi's website.  This morning I had a quick response (misspelled words and all) from the Service Manager at the local Mimi's.  It was definitely a short form letter sent to all their dissatisfied customers offering a free meal.  Why is it restaurants feel they need to offer a meal to entice you to come back again? Why would we want to go back to the same restaurant if we weren't happy?

Now that we’re settled in a great little area for a few months, that doesn’t mean we’re still not taking a look at the map for other places we might want to venture.  As my dad used to say, the grass for me is always greener on the other side.  Except …. this time I’m just talking about a day trip or two.  There are many wonderful places to visit or even revisit when in the Phoenix area.  Sandie tuned me onto Groupon and I discovered a couple interesting “leave the driving to us” tours.  One was for a Sedona Jeep adventure and another one was for a trip to the Grand Canyon.  Maybe after Christmas we’ll have to look into one of those …. maybe.  However, I do have a couple other ideas already planted in my head.

We figured it was probably about time to take a look at flights to Portland for Christmas.  It’s a little early to tell if we’re going to be able to get on a flight or not but we can look.  We have to shop for seats available on a plane.  I guess we wouldn’t have to if we weren’t so cheap but the savings pays for fuel in the motorhome!

‘Tis life on the road.

Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.