WANDERING WITH THE WRIGHTS

January 12, 2020

Almost two months since our last blog and we haven't moved the RV - we are still in Benson, AZ where we have a lot and a small out building (called a casita) that Jerry has been working diligently to fix up for us to enjoy when we are out here.  He has added window blinds, cabinets & counter with a sink, and is now putting up lots of shelving.  In the next blog we will include pictures as it isn't quite finished yet.

In 2019 we traveled 14,851 miles in our Jeep and 6,102 miles in our motorhome.

There are lots of things we love about this part of the country during the winter but the sunsets are real high on that list

Besides all the work on the casita Jerry volunteers with the park landscape committee.  They really work hard and keep the park looting beautiful.  Some days it requires a short nap and Teddy loves joining him.

One of the charitable outreach projects the park does for the city of Benson is help providing Christmas gifts for all the children in Foster Care. When the volunteer wrappers arrive there is a stack of gifts for each child all ready to be wrapped.

This is just one pile of the wrapping paper, boxes, bows, etc. that is ready for us to use to wrap with

After each child's gifts are wrapped that are put in a large bag to be delivered.  All of the gifts are bought and paid for by the park.  This year we provided gifts for 62 children and 11 house bound senior's.  Also many of the ladies here knit hats, gloves, and lap throws for them

And what fun would a Christmas Gift Wrapping Party be with out our own Mr. & Mrs. Santa Claus

Vincent opening up his barn Grandpa Jerry and I gave him for Christmas

My wonderful cousin, Lauri,  and her entire family, Shaun, Kayla, Jerrad & Garrett taking time to visit my mom during the holidays.

This past summer we drove what little household items we still have from storage in IL to our casita in Benson - so it was great fun seeing our very favorite Christmas items we had saved.

We have a wonderful choral group here at the park and they put on a fabulous concert for us

The choral presentation also included a lot of laughs - "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas"

Mrs. Santa getting fresh with Mr. Santa during "Santa Baby"

Even though we miss our friends & family particularly at Christmas time we are surrounded by wonderful people AND

Plenty of great food!!

So that everyone at the park is guaranteed at least one Christmas gift we have a brown bag party.  All gifts in brown bags - maximum value $10.  It is the normal fun gift game where you can take each others - lots and lots of laughs 

Hard to tell from this photo but after the brown bag party they bring out big containers of "snowballs"  they look like snowballs but not cold - and all of us seniors spend awhile having a snowball fight.  We came home with 2 bottles of wine,  and cheese and crackers

Our RV lot is at 3,500 feet so many of the mountains around us get snow - might be hard to see but the snow is beautiful on the mountains - we occasionally even get small amounts of snow here but none so far - which is just fine.

Jerry and I spent more on each other than normal this Christmas as we got hearing aids!!  

Jerry only needed one so I got more for Christmas then he did - lol.  

About 50 miles from us is the town of Bisbee, AZ - very close to the Mexican border.  We visited there last year and took a ride down into an old abandoned copper mine called the Queen Mine which was one of the richest copper mines in history.  It was such fun and we wanted to visit the town itself but it was a cool and windy day so promised ourselves we would go back.  We were with our friends Gail & Wayne when we went the first time and as they are also back in Benson we decided to visit it again together.  The town is in the Mule Mountains and as you can see it is built in the mountains.  

Bisbee is the home of St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church built in 1915.

It is truly a beautiful church

There are many stainless windows that are breathtaking

We ate lunch in the old restored hotel.

Today Bisbee has become the home to many artists and there are many wonderful stores to visit

It is also known for the annual 1000 The Great Stair Climb - The most unique physical fitness challenge.
The 4.5 mile curse features nine staircases (over 1000 total steps) connected by winding roads.  

One of the staircases

Last but certainly not least is our parks annual Polar Bear Party to raise money and food to be donated to the Benson Food Bank.  Every year we try to raise more than the year before and we met the lofty goal again this year.  $9,314 and 2,643 lbs of food

And as we walked out of the clubhouse having raised all that money and food for the needy in this area (the food bank provides food for approximately 50 families a day) - God blessed us with another beautiful sunset.