Happy New Year from Lake Havasu

We arrived here yesterday around noon.  The house we're renting is nice but we haven't figured out a good route to get back when we go out to eat or shop.  Good thing our GPS knows how to get us home.

 

We saw lots of country driving out here through the mountains.  There is more open space than cities or towns.  We had to be sure to stop for fuel when we did get to a town as there were place where we went almost 200 miles and didn't see anything close to civilization.

 

We saw several of these in the open fields in Wyoming.  Their snow fences look a bit different than what we see in Minnesota.

 

Once we got further south into Utah, we were in the mountains.  These are just a couple of the more scenic views we saw around Provo, Utah.  After the mountains, we went through a gorge, but it was so hilly and winding, I was hanging on too tight to let go and take any pictures.

 

We drove over 1700 miles and the nice scenery made the drive more enjoyable.  We were fortunate not to run into any bad weather along the way to slow us down.  Now, we need to do some exploring to see the sights which we're looking forward to once we get rested up. 

 



Christmas for the Birds

This morning I met girlfriends for breakfast and was greeted with what looked like a sundial but ended up being bird seed.  One of the girlfriends said her daughter received this as a gift but didn't have a desirable place to hang it and remembered all the birds we have and feeders we have out here.  We got rid of a couple feeders earlier so had an available hanger. 

 

It didn't take long for the first customer to arrive.  This special treat will probably be gone by the time we get home from our winter trip.

 

 

Thanks, Kerry!  I'm sure the all the birds we get around here will be enjoying this special treat before too long.

Small Group

This year's Anderson family get-together was smaller than usual mainly due to illnesses.  We had enough food left to send home with everyone that came so nothing went to waste - lots of "care packages" as my Dad would say.

 

 Watching the Vikings winning.

 L-R: Herb May (my niece's husband); my brother, Jerry; niece, Kaylyn; and half of my sister, Joanne. 

 

 

I did a good job of getting the back of my sister, her granddaughter, Brandi, is facing us and her grandson, Brady, in the back.  These are Kaylyn's children.

 

We missed Joanne's husband, Jim, this year too.  He's currently in a rehab facility recovering from a hip replacement.  We fixed him a big plate of food along with some goodies that he can share. 

 

Hopefully, everyone that was sick will be well by Christmas and we're hoping next year to be back to a full house.

Good Friends

Even though we're having some very cold weather here lately, three of us who use to go dancing every Saturday night in temperatures much colder than this got together for lunch today.  We haven't been together for almost ten years so it was nice to get caught up in person rather than e-mails and Facebook.

L-R: Suzanne Johnson, Me, Mary Ellen VonRueden

We all live in different small towns so trying to find a place that was somewhat central was a little hard.  We found a town that none of us had eaten at so good thing there's "Google Searches" to at least get a starting point.  We ended up at a local cafe called K-Bob's in Princeton, MN and it was your typical small-town, local, cafe.  It worked out well - each of us was about 1 hour away. 

Maybe next time we'll try for a warmer day but I'm glad we made this one today.

Snow?

We are having our first measurable snow here today but it doesn't stop these guys from eating.  We've never seen ducks around our place this late in the season.

After they finished eating, they sat under the apple tree.  They've been here before.

It's dark so the bright red doesn't show up the best for this Cardinal - still a pretty bird though.

The Chickadee is on the "grab and go" plan with the sunflower seeds so it's hard to get a clear picture.  This was the best out of 4 tries - doesn't say much for my photography.