Stuff you probably won't care about....

This has been a very boring week and will continue to be so until I finish working on the house (yard, painting, cleaning carpets and tile, blah, blah).  I don't have even one good picture so I decided to take a picture of my lunch...Toni's Taco Salad Supreme (see recipe below).

Award season is upon us again.  I am far behind in watching the movies most likely to be nominees this year but I do have two movies I highly recommend:

"Boyhood"  It won the Golden Globe award last night,  will surely be nominated this year for an academy award,  and it certainly deserves to be.  It is lovely in every respect and, months after seeing it scenes continue to touch me.

"Wild"  It stars Reese Witherspoon, is a sexually explicit but true experience in the life of Cheryl Strayed, and is an accurate accounting of her book--which I highly recommend reading before seeing the movie. Actually, I enjoyed the book more than the movie but the theatre experience was worth an award as well...

Tucson has opened a Roadhouse Dinner Theatre and, last week, was the first time I was able to experience it.  I loved it.  All the old uncomfortable seats have been removed and now there are great big, plush recliners with wooden table trays that slide around over your lap.  Full meals including alcoholic beverages may be ordered right to your seat with a handy button to push if you want dessert or a drink refill.  The ticket was not much more expensive than most theaters and the food was also not too bad (really good hamburger at $9.00, a variety of gourmet popcorns, pizza, draught beer, etc). I don't expect to be eating in a theater very often but it was definitely a fun way to watch a good movie.

Toni's Taco Salad Supreme...

Start with some corn chips,

Top with any or all of the following: chopped lettuce, tomato, green peppers, black olives, some beans (any you like), corn kernels, chopped green onions, Whatever.

If I have it I like to add a cup of homemade chili at this point but it isn't necessary (most of this isn't necessary as you may have already guessed)...

  For the final lo-cal dressing (LOL) I like a mixture, 1/2  of my favorite salsa and 1/2 Greek yogurt.  Then top it off with grated Coteja cheese (or cheddar, or Jack, or whatever).  Believe me, this is better than Taco Bell.

So sorry to be so boring.  I will attempt to be a better blogger in the future but don't expect much till I am on the road again.  And who knows when that will be.

The Holidays

Some of my favorite people helped me get through Christmas without the depression that kept threatening to creep in.

Friend Suzanne (standing), who is caretaker for Belle (in recliner), and Belle's daughter, Judy (on left) all put together a great meal seasoned with lots of joy and merriment.  Belle has the most delightful sense of humor that belies her age of 96--she is another inspirational nonagenarian.

In attendance were some furry, four-legged friends as well.  Sweet Angel above and...

darling Erin helped greatly in making me smile.

Then an afternoon with Belle and Suzanne at the movies followed by dinner and this mega-desert.  It seems that Belle and I share a chocolate addiction.

Thanks, friends, for a lovely Christmas before I high-tailed it out of town mere hours ahead of a week long spell of freezing weather.

I have resisted winterizing the RV because I travel in it intermittently all winter.  Winterizing means emptying all the tanks, wrapping pipes, covering stuff and then waiting for spring.  But I want to take small trips that include spending the night, when I might want to use the toilet, cook a meal, or take a mini-bath. 

Hence, the RV is at risk when a freeze comes through.  That is when I look for warmer desert.  Yuma (3 hrs away) is my best go-to place, though San Diego (6 hrs away) is a possibility if the temperature drops too far down.  This past week the nights have hovered just above freezing here in Yuma so I have been on the edge of moving into the Central Valley section of Calif.   

Yuma has two really nice libraries and I have spent most of the time going from one to the other.

For reading time and mealtimes I have been parking here on the Colorado River under the oldest bridge in Arizona.  It is picturesque and quiet enough for a nap.

 One day I drove out into the desert but it was too windy and chilly to do any walking. 

I found this little house and wondered what might be living in there.

It is a shocker to come across these fields that are unbelievably green in an otherwise stark landscape.

Anything will grow in the desert if it just has enough water.  

This made my mouth water.

I continue boondocking and prefer it over the RV parks that are filled to overflowing right now.  It seems I am not the only one looking for warmer weather.   One fellow RVer informed me that there was always plentiful free parking at the Paradise Casino on the Quechan Indian Reservation...

And he was right.  There is this enormous dirt lot that covers acres of desert and when I arrived there were only these few RVs.  By night fall there were many many more--but still more room.  I spent one night and it was very quiet--I think everyone was inside playing the slots.  All but me that is.

Yuma has a great variety of free places to stay.  There is endless BLM land that is open for parking but I thought it was just too cold and uninviting.  There are two Walmarts with huge areas for RVs plus a Sam's Club, a Cracker Barrel, and 4 or 5 truck stops--all okay for parking.  As usual I favor the Cracker Barrel and had it all to myself for most of the week.

So it has been a week of reading and trying to answer some of the correspondence that I've let lag.  Winter is not so bad when I am curled up, all toasty warm, with a mug of hot chocolate and a good book.  The only thing missing is Sigh Me to snuggle up next to me.

Two more nights and I will return to Tucson to paint the kitchen, weed the yard, and shampoo the carpet.  I sure hope another freeze comes along soon.