Have you been to Stay

Patti and I were debating tonight were should be our next stop. We are planned to leave tomorrow and go west towards Phoenix. After looking at campgrounds and the weather channel, we decoded unanimously – we are going to Stay! Have you been there?

Traditions

Friday, February 18, 2011 – I think I jumped ahead a little with the title. I will get back to it a little later, but for now – let’s start with a short jump to yesterday.
I am not sure what was it that made us decide to resume a tradition we had in the past. Being in Israel, dealing with many Israelis here in the US, whatever it is, we decided to restart and celebrate the Shabbat Evening – a very fundamental and basic Jewish tradition. Not with all the prayers, songs and laws and rules – but the basic. Bake a Challah and a nice dinner, light the candles and bless the house, drink and bless on the wine on the bread and on the food – the core.
Patti planned on cooking all day today. We stopped last night at Wal-Mart and got all the ingredients for the Beef Bourguignon, and some more. That was a nightmare shopping last night – all the night shift people were restocking the shelves, and each and every one of them had its own little boom box playing full blast some type of rap music, to the point you could not hear or talk. Rap is not exactly my favorite Genre either. Came back and work till late to compensate for the time we are off.
All forgot about Diva and her vet appointment, but the alarm clock at 7:00am reminded me. This is the first time I use the alarm clock on the droid, and turned out that the alarm is not compatible with some other application I have, and the alarm would not shut off, until I turned off the phone completely. What can I tell ya – I am not a morning person. You should have seen me, no take it back… You shouldn’t have seen me that morning.
Turns out the vet is just around the corner from here. Took Diva to the vet, came back and sat down to work. Between the conference calls and the programs a write – the time flew by. In the meantime – Patti is working on this super complicated dish and the smells are already in the air!
She cuts the beef piece by piece, drying it with a towel, petting it, talking to it, and laying it on a special plate with its friend beef pieces that went through the same process. A whole bottle of wine disappeared somewhere inside this dish…
While the wine was reduced and the Challah was baking Patti ran to the vet to get Diva. I had a conference call planned at 6:00pm. Why? because this customer is not in the US so I make time adjustments. We tried to shoot for 6:30 or 6:45 but the phone call lasted until 7:30, the Challah bread was cold, and the food had to be reheated,. Patti was disappointed. After a full day of work and preparation she wanted it to be perfect.
Finally had our Shabbat dinner – and the food was nothing short of Devine!! Patti knows her cooking. Had a great dinner and went to bed looking forward for exciting day tomorrow.

Exploring

Saturday, February 19th, 2011 – Now that’s what I was talking about when I said we need to work some and have some fun! Once or twice a week to go out and look around – that’s awesome!
On the map today was the Cliff Dwellings National Monument – 44 miles north of Silver City. We were not quite sure what did the sign mean when it said – 44 miles, driving time 2 hours. How come? Is it for mules? Actually not – it was meant for cars. Hwy 15 is the road that takes you to the park, and it is as enjoyable as the monument itself. A narrow windy road (Mountainous, as the sign says) without center line, very sharp curves that you cannot see if there is a car coming or not. Just trust the common sense of the other drivers to slow down and move to the right as much as possible on those curves.
Views were breathtaking. Mountains, Ponderosa Pines, Scattered clouds in blue skies, and even some snow here and there on the side of the road. It was around 60 degrees outside – a beautiful day for a hike.

It took us just about two hours to get there. We stopped at the visitor center to stamp our National Parks Passport, take some brochures and head out to the sire itself, 2 miles away.
The trail was not too long, and let us along a small stream with small wooden bridges crossing it from side to side. At one point the trail start climbing up, towards the cliff where the caves are. I think the climb was just a little over 100 feet, and we realized – we need to do more of those!! There is only one tour a day, at 1:00pm, and guess what – it was 1:00pm when we got there. We joined a group of people that was there, and followed our guide showing us those three main caves. the place was initially occupied for only 25 years (1175 – 1200) and the initial residents left. It was used again several times after that and you can actually find a corn basket filled with corn that is 200 years old.

By he end of the tour we came back the same way we came up. That was much easier. Wonder why… Patti started to get a headache so we didn’t explore much more. We headed back to the campground enjoying the mountain views and the back roads on the way back.

Decision Time

OK, so we are going tomorrow, but where? One option was to drive through Breer – a small mountain town on hwy 60. I started to look up campgrounds in the area – but they are all closed. Opened May thru October. This doesn’t sound good. I found some campgrounds closer to a bigger towns on the way – Eager and Pinetop Lakeside. On their website you could see advertisements to their winter activities – Ski!!! Oh no,, No thank you!
Short visit to the weather channel assured us that this path is a spring-summer path. At least for us. So we looked on an alternative path. Coming from the south. The distance to Apache Junction is only about 215 miles, and in that area you could find many campgrounds, except they are called resorts, priced extremely high and offer some swimming pool and family activities. That could be great for those who are looking for a resort, but I am looking for a nice place to stay to meet with some friends. And then the penny dropped. We don’t have much to see in Phoenix because we not city people. We are there just to meet friends, and we are not going to have much time to see them until the weekend anyways, so …
So we are staying here. We will move towards the end of the week, maybe Wednesday or Thursday, stay there through the weekend and continue. So that’s it – We are going to Stay. Many places to see around, and the RV Park is not bad.
Man – that was a long one! Did you read all of that? You are the one! Thanks though! (I wrote it :) – Stay on with us, leave a comment and see you next post…