The 20K Celebration

Last month I found my 20,000th geocache and chose to celebrate the occasion with our AZ geocaching community by hosting a meet and greet event.

commemorative GeoCoin I purchased in hopes of 

reaching the milestone

some of the resort's geocachers

geocachers from Montana

Hubby surprised me with flowers & a balloon

we shared cupcakes with the 60 people who attended

and gave them door prizes 

And More Culture...A Play

Late last month I paid for a ticket to a play Girls Only because it was billed as a hilarious play portraying different ages and stages in a woman's life. It was and It did.

familiar landmark

downtown Phoenix

2 women of similar age were the actors

ad-libbing, audience interaction, comedy and singing

scene was a teenage girl's bedroom

main costume was bra and panties

the only scene and scenery of the play

the group from the resort and the two actresses in their bathrobes

we laughed for 105 minutes

a great show

another theater landmark

a prickly pear margarita with dinner ~ YUM!!!

A Little Culture with the Lettermen

Friends invited us to join them at a Gold Canyon Arts Council concert on Friday night. The Lettermen were  on the program. We weren't certain if we would be seeing The Lettermen or a person/group who has bought the rights to the group and their music. When they came on stage, it was evident 2 of the 3 certainly were NOT part of the original group. But to my surprise and pleasure, Tony Butala at age 80 is one of the original Lettermen.

cropped photo from Hubby's new phone camera

Tony Butala is in the middle vocalist

wearing their letter jackets for a set of songs

She Cried and so many others I remember

from the 1960s

crowd interaction, soloists, and so many of their hits

concert started at 7:30 and ended at 9: 45

and at a price that was so reasonable

and in comfortable seats in theater seating

A great evening of music and entertainment!

Snow in February

Yes, we expect snow in AZ in February, but not in the area of The Valley of the Sun! Yes, and on occasion, we expect we might see some on Four Peaks or on the Superstition Mountain, but not like we have seen this week! Our area  of the country has experienced record lows at night and a record low for a day time high. this week Areas in northern AZ  have received from 3 to 4 feet of snow late this week. Folks in our resort said their rain gauges showed 3 inches of rain in the two days. Flood warnings were posted on the TV stations. The resort's walkways and low spots all had water ponds. All in all, it has been a wet, cold two months.

Thursday, February 21st, late afternoon:

it started raining Wednesday night, all night and all the next day

then Grauple fell (not quite sleet or hail)

snow on the neighbor's roof

and our lawn furniture

and vehicles

Interesting enough, the northern half of the resort did

not get the Grauple that fell in the southern part of the resort.

Friday, February 22nd, about 8:15 AM:

snow covered Superstition Mountain

Friday, February 22nd, about 2 PM:

Saturday, February 23rd, around noon:

already melting 

at least there was some sunshine...some

We are ALL looking forward to the promised normal

temperatures for the last week in February, and

more SUNSHINE!

Monday in Mexico

As is typical of the Yuma S*W*A*G weekend, there are two events on Monday.  The first at 8:00 AM is Say Good-bye to the Canadians. It always meets in the same place, near a historic train engine near a hotel.

the usual geo-chit chat time

and finding a replaced (redux) geocache that won't disappear

like the last ones

After grabbing a coffee and roll at a nearby convenience store, we headed to Los Algodones, 10 miles or so west of Yuma, along the California border. The second geocaching event on Monday was held in the dining, drinking, shopping area named Paraiso. Five of us planned to geocache together once we crossed the border and then head to the event at 11:00.

I think there is a new roll of razor wire along the sheet metal wall

in the CA parking lot

there was a geocache Hubby and I needed for a 

challenge cache

tucked behind the sheet metal, at the end of 

The Wall on the Mexico side near the river

definitely new & more razor wire

we stopped for a geocache at the veterinarian's office

turkeys, chickens & ducks

no pig that we could see

Our geocaching excursion in Algodones took us to some of the back streets of the little community. Safe back streets, just ones not seen by the shoppers or those seeking dental and eyewear businesses. Along the way, a geocacher from Massachusetts joined our little band of 5 as we collected some of the newly placed geocaches. He needed to leave to meet someone, so an AZ geocacher joined us. While he and Hubby were exchanging names, they realized he had been geocaching in Watertown several years ago. He and some other cachers we knew were in our neck of the woods and we joined them for dinner one evening. Small World!

then back to The Wall for another geocache

our Wall selfie

signing a T-shirt to show we were at the event

We have geocached, shopped & drank in Algodones several times. Janice's father gave us a heads-up on a border change we could expect and I am so glad he did. In the past, depending on the time of day, we could expect at least an hour wait in line to cross the border. That depended on the number of custom's agents on duty; sometimes 2 or 3 and during really busy times, maybe all 4 lanes/lines would be open. Now 2 custom agents stand just on the Mexico side and ask to see identification BEFORE allowing  travelers to enter the turnstile and the custom's building. That takes two custom agents from the lines inside the building making the lines slower than what we experienced in the past. The reason for the change is, so I was told, if illegals  reached the turnstile and building prior to having appropriate documentation, they could declare asylum. That meant paperwork and the need for placement until they were sent back,  even if the border was a mere 10 feet away. Just one more change we noticed on this trip in the areas near The Wall.

and then, one more date shake for the road from

The Naked Date Farm...our favorite!

as we headed east to the Phoenix Area

Saturday & Sunday in Yuma

Saturday started with an event and ended with another. We met Janice and her dad (parents from CA and winter in Yuma) at 8:30 to begin another geocaching scavenger hunt. Janice had plotted the geocaches in quadrant areas of town to eliminate driving back and forth all over, wasting gas and miles. We completed our hunt around 1:30.

The most interesting stop on our scavenger hunt was a geocache at The Gate in The Wall at Gadsen. There is a strip of US soil on the other side of The Wall, but Mexico is VERY CLOSE.

Interesting that the bars would not stop the average size person from climbing through. I found out later the metal fence just stops a mile or so down the field. Fields on the other side of The Wall. A canal and fields on this side of The Wall.

The other fun part of the scavenger hunt was the other communities we saw. I had never been southwest of Yuma. San Luis is another border town with a port of entry. Although we do not know for certain, we believe many of the field workers probably come across the border in the company buses at this point. Janice's father said the Mexican side of San Luis is a very large community.

our reward for being one of the first 

250 to complete the scavenger hunt

In the afternoon Hubby and I continued our hunt for some of the area geocaches. I thought this one was interesting. The cache owner nailed the tobacco can (bottom) to the sawed off tree limb and attached the lid with fishing line. Recycle. Repurpose. Reuse.

There was another event that evening. We stopped by and did some visiting before calling it a day.

Sunday was the official Yuma SWAG event. S*W*A*G: Southwest Arizona Geocachers. I've had THAT wrong. Again we signed in at the event. Did some shopping and some visiting and some hunting for nearby geocaches.

another geo-coin memento of the 2019 Yuma S*W*A*G

Several acquaintances recommended we stop by the geocache named Little Rocket Man.

Hubby scouted out what needed to be done to get to the treasure in the rocket. He found a tool padlocked to the fence. I found the needed code to open the padlock.

insert the tool and begin turning

and turning

the the rocket lifted from its base

revealing a hidden compartment in the 

post holding a container

And there it is...the log book

we added our names to prove we had stopped at the cache

a lot of work by the cache owner

and well worth the stop

Monday is the final day and the final post of the Yuma weekend...