El Presidio Walking Tour

This afternoon, we left the sticks and drove into Tucson to hunt for the historic section of town.  We've tried several times in the past and failed to find anything but highrises, so I was determined this trip.  After driving round in circles in the downtown area, I finally spotted a street with a row of old buildings that looked like they'd been splashed with Easter egg colors.  Stop the car!  We'd happened upon the historic El Presidio district, a perfect place for a walking tour with my camera!

Posting from Bum Truck, Arizona

 We're way out in the Arizona sticks this week for some fun, sun, and relaxation. 

Typical gorgeous Arizona spring day with blue skies and cactus!

The local mall.

Time for this dried up rusted out biker dude to lose the Santa hat and strap on the bunny ears!

Craig tried to get me to pose in front of the outhouse, but I declined.  Watch out for scorpions under the lid!

Time to take down the Christmas lights?

My brother can do that!

Our fun day included some great food at the El Charro Cafe.  My green pollo enchiladas were very tasty!

Craig ordered the famous Original El Charro Beef Tacos, which actually had a hamburger patty in each fried shell.  It sounds a little bizarre, but he liked them!

On the way home tonight, a coyote dashed across the highway in front of the car.  The moon's full, the stars are bright, and what's that sound I'm hearing???  Dead quiet!  Lovin' it!

The Beach Countdown

As we get closer to our next beach trip, my thoughts turn to food. Sad, but true! Where will our first meal be? No clue! Wanna help me pick?

Maybe a fish dish from Victor's Cafe Havana?

Or some fish or steak tacos from Bally Hoo?

I think it'll be too early in the trip to dive into this type of decadence -- enchilada suizas at La Lomita.

Baked shrimp from Fredy's!

Fish and chips from Bally Hoo?

A burrito from Dopi's?

 

Mmmmm.  This last dish looks just right!  Fish from Mocambo's?

The Wearing of the Green!

Happy St. Paddy's Day!  People always assume this day is sacred to me because my married name is Irish.  Not so.  We ate Mexican food for lunch and I'm wearing black and white.

In honor of the day, the best I can do is post a few photos wearing green!   Is it still the custom to pinch people who aren't wearing green on St. Patrick's Day?  (Hope not!)

My Apologies

Boy, do I feel dumb.  I am not on top of the blogger game!

I contacted our HOA today to try and get something done about all the little unsupervised boys in the park behind us who are running amok on their Spring Break.  Mom and Dad are at work, and I think the older siblings who are supposed to be babysitting must be indoors playing video games.

The wild childs are newly obsessed with climbing trees and have spent the last 3 or 4 days standing in the tops of palo verdes looking over the wall at us.  It was amusing the first few days, but humor wore thin yesterday.  When Craig walked Saby in the park last night, he discovered the two Throwbacks (we call them that because they're throwbacks to a kinder gentler time when small children were allowed to run wild and free from one end of the village to the other with no repercussions)  had used their dad's hunting knives to totally strip the bark off an ash tree.

This morning shortly after 8:00 a.m., I was jolted away from my frappe by another wild one at the tippy top of the palo verde behind our wall screaming -- I can see your dog!  I fought the temptation to yell back -- Get out of that tree ya little bastard! -- but Craig reminded me that it might be best not to cement my reputation in the neighborhood as a crazy old bag.

We decided to take a kinder dual approach, not accusing any kids in particular, but just trying to alert parents to what's happening in the park. I  sat down and composed a nice letter to the HOA asking them to relay the dangers of little boys falling out of trees and playing unsupervised with sharp hunting knives to neighborhood parents, while Craig went around the corner to have a nice little chat with the Throwbacks who were once again at the scene of yesterday's crime.

Craig let them pet Saby, then lured them into conversation.  They were friendly and owned up to stripping all the bark from the tree, asked how much a tree like that would cost, said they knew the tree would probably die, and told him their dad lets them carry the sharp hunting knives. Yep.  He gave us the knives to carry.  Craig said his dual-pronged message that skinning trees was not a good thing and knives were dangerous in the hands of 5 and 6-year old's just ricocheted off them like arrows off concrete.  And off they sped on their little miniature bikes hooping and hollering. 

I think Craig may have been too subtle.  He soft-pedaled the message because he has fond memories of two wild and free-spirited friends from childhood, Chris and Ole, who wandered Dodge City in the 1950's shoeless, shirtless, and wearing the same pair of unwashed jeans with no underwear all summer long.  He said his mother would cringe when they walked through the door. 

But enough about grade school gangsters!

Back to my apology!  The HOA letter was automatically sent from my gmail account, which I never use.  It's my go to account when I have to provide an email that I know will end up generating loads of spam.  So, in the process of trying to find out if the HOA had responded, I weeded through 803 emails and discovered that many of my blog readers have contacted me in the past several years with questions, compliments, and invitations to meet them on Isla, etc... 

I'm so embarrassed!  I'm trying to figure out how to install a Join Me on Facebook button on my blog, but the code keeps coming up as an error.   Until I figure that out, feel free to friend me  on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/becky.mchugh.  You can also use the Facebook messaging system to send me a note. 

The tree strippers seem to have abandoned the park, so maybe Craig's little chat did sink in.  Oops, spoke too soon!  The non-blonde is up in the tree again yelling -- I see your dog!  Seriously?  What are you?  Six-years old?  Oops, I guess you are!  LOL

I talked to a mom across the street this afternoon who knows the families and will clue in the parents.  So hopefully the trees and boys will escape further injury, and Spring Break will end soon.  Ahhhhhhhhh.

Thank God I have no interest in nude sunbathing!  (Or any kind of sunbathing for that matter.)  Actually, that could have been a quick solution?   I wonder if you can be arrested for scaring children with your sags and wrinkles in your own backyard behind a seven foot wall?

Just kidding!

Wednesday Chores

Saby can usually be found in the prone position, but she does take her assignment of lizard chasing seriously.

Craig's fitness plan includes trimming trees to keep the peekaboo mountain view.

I've been potting.  Orange mint!

And repotting.  This ponytail fern traded up to a larger home.

Craig also maintains.  These chairs got a new coat of stain.

We spent five hours today huffing and puffing cleaning up frost damage from this winter and working the yucca/aloe farm.  Aloe, yucca, and agave plants all produce babies which can be divided into separate pots.  I purchased one aloe plant and now there are ???  Two original yuccas in the landscaping produced at least 10 large offspring.  And all the agave came from a  baby that crossed the property line from the Bumpuses.  I'm totally out of pots.  

And I'm now de-cluttering.  My collection of garden antiques from my former life in Washington State had consumed one side of the yard.  What looked great in a forest doesn't really gel with the resorty pool look, so I removed all of it except for this old bench, sprinkler, and bucket potted with a cactus.  Next step -- find a dealer who wants to help clean out our garage!   

 I did keep a few old wash pans.  This one became home to succulents divided from other pots.

Craig's back on Raid patrol.  The above pot was full of these paper wasp nests last year, so we're hoping to head off the summer invasion.

Last summer, after the Whack a Wasp game started ruining our pool fun time, we asked the exterminator to get rid of them on his quarterly call.  Ha!  He doesn't do things that fly.  Instead of paying a specialist $350, Craig visited Home Depot and became an expert.  Fifteen cans of Raid later, he had it under control. Unfortunately, the species has homing radar and they're back for more spring and summer fun.

What's on tomorrow's menu?  I'm tired of dividing succulents.

I think I'll paint a bookshelf!