Our first winter in Arizona was very memorable to us. It followed a more hectic time. Yvonne had just retired, we sold our house of 30 years and moved to our new house at Lac La Nonne. Following Sandi and Tito's lead, we purchased a winter house in a Mesa retirement community called Leisure World. Despite the cheesy name, we discovered that Leisure World (LW) was one of the best places in Arizona to live in.
During our stay we were not short of Canadian visitors. Amy & Stephen came from Vancouver followed by Christmas visitors Maurice & Jeanette, Rachelle, Paul & Marianne, Denis & Shannon and Stan & Cathy Dezaeyer. We enjoyed having Yvonne's sister Doris stay for a week and Amy returned for another 4 days. We know the road to PHX very well.
Lake friends Ken & Gail Duffield (Wintering in Yuma) and Jerry & Mary Wispinski (Maricopa) dropped in. Joan Jansen, also from Lac La Nonne was visiting relatives in Glendale and we all met to hike White Tank Mountain during her stay. Len and Lorrain Perras, whom we've known since we were teens, were vacationing in Havasu. They spent a night at our place and received a royal tour of LW. Wes and Helen Gates, from my Imperial Oil days, noticed our names in the Leisure World Newspaper and decided to drop in one day. They have been wintering in LW for seven years.
Sandi and Tito drew us into their circle of LW friends, Glen and Kathy Griffiths from Sherwood Park were two that we met frequently. Tina & Damien and their kids visited S&T for a week and we got to spend time with them too. Sandi's sister Glennis and husband Lawrence, from Redwater, rented a place in LW for 3 months. We visited in the Rec 1 hot tub often.
We also met several American residents that will certainly remain friends for years to come. Rob and Julie Davis from Iowa and Mike and Ruby Artz from North Dakota to mention only a few. We look forward to meeting up with them again.
Lady Gadriva (our GPS unit) kept insisting we take another route. Not wanting to have this electronic "black-box" have it's way, we chose to ignore it. When we got onto the I-60 we quickly realized why. Bumper to bumper trafic at 5 MPH for almost an hour. All because of a single car accident in the far-left HOV lane. The accident did look quite spectacular. The vehicle rolled over a couple times and there wasn't a square inch of that car that wasn't damaged.
Welcome to Nevada.
Highway Patrol car, fishing for speeders, parked on the wrong side of the road.
Welcome to Idaho
The beginning of a long slushy drive.
Welcome to Washington.
Intermittent snow and cool weather all the way to the Canadian border. Luckily no accumulation of snow on the road, just wet and miserable. We kept saying that we should have stayed in Az a couple more weeks. Temperatures all the way through Idaho and Washington hovered around freezing and there was snow everywhere.
Welcome to British Columbia.
We crossed the Canadian border near Salmo. As we approached the tiny customs building we could see three Border Agents watching from the window. We were the only ones in sight. Although we had nothing to hide, I was certain we were in for a thorough vehicle search but to our surprise, 2 minutes later, we were motoring towards Nelson.
When we arrived at Joel's an hour later the temperature was +10C (50F)
When we arrived at Joel's an hour later the temperature was +10C (50F)
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