Legend Trail Golf and a Hockey Game

This morning we had to get up extra early because we had a 7:12 tee off time.  Today we went to Legend Trail.  I really enjoyed this course.  It was very challenging.  Didn't do so well on the first nine but improved on the back nine.  The scenery around us was beautiful.  This would definitely be a do-over course for me.  We haven't seen much wild life.  Only bunnies on a lot of the holes.  Afterwards we enjoyed a glass of wine and beer together and ate our lunch.

We headed off to Glendale where we were going to enjoy a hockey game between the Leafs and Coyotes.  We were early enough that we could go to the Tanger Outlet Mall.  There was not a lot at this mall that kept us there for a long period of time.  We enjoyed a coffee afterwards at Starbucks and than headed off to where the arena is.  We had dinner at the Yard House.  The servings were huge.  If you looked around the restaurant we were amazed at how many leaf jerseys we saw.  We arrived in the arena and did some walking around to see what they all had.  We were told we were allowed to go to the bottom of the stairs and take some pictures while the teams were warming up.  It was fun to be there even though the leafs didn't play well at all.  It was like they struggled with the puck as it was bouncing a lot on the ice and the leafs were falling fairly frequently.  The leafs lost this game 3-2.  It was still fun to be there.  We drove home but were so tired, we went straight to bed.  Sorry for the delay in this blog.

Enjoyed looking at the cotton fields again.

Eagle Mountain and Hiking The Hole in the Rock

This morning we are very excited as we get to go golfing again.  We were up by 5:30 and on the road by 6:15.  We enjoyed some breakfast and headed down to the golf course.  The weather was much cooler to start out with at 50 degrees.  We started off with a warm coffee.  We hit some balls at the driving range and practiced some putting.  We saw a few bunnies on the course and our first sighting of road runners again. There was a pair running around but we didn't have our cameras ready to take a picture.  The course was not in a good condition as we remembered it from last time but it was good to be out again.  As the sun came up the weather got warmer and eventually we were taking our sweaters off.  We enjoyed a glass of wine and beer with the lunch we had brought and than headed home so Ralph could finish working on his homework.  Grace and Teresa went for a soak in the hot tub for a while.

We decided it might be nice to try a small hike before going out for dinner.  We went to Papago Park where they have a trail that brings you to a Hole in the Rock. It was a short hike but very scenic. At this time the moon was starting to rise already.  It is almost a full moon.

We enjoyed going back to the restaurant that Anita and Tony like to go to, The Cantina Loredo for some more yummy guacamole.  Our meal was very good.

We headed back to our Condo, made our lunches for tomorrow and had our little competition that we do when we go golfing.  Today's competition was the most greens in regulation for even holes only.  Ralph was the winner of our first competition.  Grace had the joy of congratulation him.

How can a lone tree grow out of the rock?

The moon is starting to rise

Wobbly Legs!!! Who Me??

Today we started out with a bit cooler weather but still nothing to be upset about.  We enjoyed some breakfast together and did our devotions.  Afterwards Grace and I went on a 20 minute walk to get some exercise in.   Grace showed me where the pool and hot tub was.  When we got back we packed a lunch to take along with us so we could eat before going on our horseback ride. 

We headed off to MacDonald’s  Ranch where we had booked a 2 hour horseback ride.  We quickly ate our lunch and were ready to enjoy our time on the horses.  We had to sign our life away before going.  We were all excited.    Grace got to ride Hobo, Ralph got to ride Static, Lawrence got to ride Cisco and Teresa got to ride Zorro.  I am happy to say Zorro did not jump up on his hind legs.  Phew!!  Our tour guide was George.  We walked the trail and observed the cacti on the land.  We saw a hawk, some lizards,  a kangaroo mouse and some quails running around.  There usually was a long horned owl in a tree that we passed but he wasn’t there this time.  That was too bad.  At last our ride came to an end.   Getting off the horse was a whole different story.  Some of us had some pretty stiff legs and wobbled a little as we walked away from the horse.  After walking a bit, we were back to normal but you sure felt your legs afterwards.

We came back home as Ralph had some work to do.  We enjoyed a drink at home and relaxed at the Condo.  We got our clubs ready for our first round of golf tomorrow.  We are very excited to start playing some golf.

Our leader George

Desert Botanical Gardens and Old Town Scottsdale

Still adjusting to the time change, we were all up between 6:00 and 6:30.  We enjoyed a shower and some breakfast and than went to Starbucks for a morning coffee and while we enjoyed that we decided to check out the Desert Botanical Gardens.  The cactus were amazing to see.  We did a lot of walking and thoroughly enjoyed seeing the different types of cactus.  There were not to many in bloom any more but they were very nice to look at still.  They had an Exhibition of Ofrendas which was a form of art honouring the dead.  A little different.  We even got to take some pictures of butterfly''s.  We thought we were taking pictures of Monarchs, but they were Queen butterfly's.  A cool thing we saw when we entered the gardens, was a piece of art from the Artist we saw in Seattle who made glass pieces of art.  They had some glass pieces by the entrance before you walked in.

After the Desert Botanical Gardens we went for some lunch at Majerle's which was in Old Town Scottsdale. After lunch we walked through the town.  There were lots of jewellery stores that contained a lot of pieces created by the Navaho's.  Almost every store was a jewellery store.  Grace and I felt almost like we were back in Alaska as it was much the same there to.

We got back to the condo and download our pictures.  Lawrence had to move some files from the laptop unto the hard drive so I could download all the pictures.  We took a lot today.

Finally we enjoyed a nice meal and we are looking forward to a good nights sleep again.