Snowbird 2015

Yes, I did make the annual snowbird trip to Arizona this year.  Unfortunately, Mona had to work and wasn't able to make the trip.  When I left the weather forecast for the Oregon Coast looked good so I decided to head to one of my favorite spots, Yachats Oregon.  I just love the beach and the rocky coast there. 

 

See why I like Yachats.  You get to look at scenery like this.

 

Or this...  It's a great place to be to take pictures when the weather is nice. 

 

After visiting my brother in Palm Springs I went to the Quartzfest again.  It's a gathering of Amateur Radio operators in the Arizona desert each year for a week or more.  I've blogged about it before so I won't go into detail here other than to say it's like Woodstock or Burning Man for HAMS. 

 

Since it is like Burning Man, it was decided that we needed something similar so one night we had a "Burning Ham Man" fire which was broadcast on a national podcast.  The Burning Ham Man even had a couple of  Handi-Talkies in his hands.  The radios were old, non-functioning units but they helped make for a great show.

 

The Seattle Seahawks, my home town football team, made it to the Super Bowl again this year which was held in Phoenix.   There was no way I could afford to go to the game, but there was lots of free activities the week before so I decide to go and partake in some of the fun.

 

The downtown Phoenix area was Super Bowl central.  It was fun to see many of the sky scrappers all decked out with NFL siding.

 

This was one of my favorites, a 4 story Russel Wilson on the side of one of the smaller buildings.

 

I like to camp at Lake Pleasant when in the Phoenix area.  This was the view from the motor home door one evening.

 

One of the activities I like to do while is Arizona is to kayak on the Colorado River.  This cave I was in is near Lake Havasu.

 

I usually spend a couple of weeks camping just north of Yuma.  One night a couple of hot air balloons came floating by just before sunset. 

 

This year I was able to meet up again with Bob and Vonnie from Coeur d'Alene who were also snowbirding in Yuma.  One day we went to Los Angodones, the dentist and eye glass capitol of the world.  There are more dentists there in just a few square blocks than anyplace else in the world.  Most people just park on the US side and walk across the boarder.  Folks come from all over the USA and Canada get their dental work done there.  I got my teeth cleaned a couple of days later for $40 after researching which dentists had good reputations.  Prescription drugs were also considerably less expensive there, some as little a tenth of the cost in the US.  It's just criminal how expensive medical care is in the US compared to the rest of the world. 

 

But I will admit I was a little suspicious of their power wiring.  Bob retired from the power industry and was amused by this pole.

 

Lastly, the sunsets are pretty cool in the desert.

 

Mona and I just got back from a trip to Hawaii visiting her relatives there among other things.  Hopefully I get that blog done in a few days.