Giddy
That is how we feel right now.
The house is gone, we have everything (and more as it turns out) that we need with us in Charlie, and since Saturday, March 31 we have been at a beautiful RV “resort” in Mesa Arizona. We are staying here the month of April visiting my brother and his family.
I will tell you about the trip to get here in another post, it is a story unto itself, especially the first day. But for now, we are black and blue from pinching ourselves. The weather, the swimming pool, the site, the sunsets, the people, it all seems too good to be true.
Since it has been almost a month since we posted, I wanted to catch you up at least a little via some photos that might show just a bit of how much fun we have been having.
In the picture at left I am working the first day at our new site. I sent this picture to my boss saying “Thanks from Phoenix!” His response was “You suck!”
Our first foray into restaurants nearby was the Hub Grill and Bar.
Here at Mesa Regal RV Resort every day from 3:00-5:00 PM is happy hour, and people do go. A pitcher of beer is $6 so who would not. Mixed drinks are just as reasonable.
Anyway, we saw this couple playing a game we had never seen and they invited us to join them. The game was Rummikub, the couple is Craig and Susan. We hung out with them at a lot happy hours after that first night, bought a Rummikub game for ourselves and enjoyed a couple of dinners with them. Meeting new people was one of our reasons for doing this, and these were great new people to begin with.
In the picture above you may notice that Gretchen, our 2011 VW GTi, in RV lingo our “toad” is missing. We were meeting our niece to take her to dinner one evening and when we went to get gas the fuel filler door would not open. Apparently, VW treats this door just like any other door and when you lock the car, you lock this door as well. What they do NOT do is give you anyway to open it if the actuator fails, as it did in this case.
We took the car to German Motors and they fixed us right up and did not rip our heads off in the process. The price was very fair IMHO. If you find yourself in Mesa AZ with a VW in need of some tender loving care, I highly recommend them.
This past Friday evening after I got off work we went to Old Town Scottsdale to look around. It is a fun place with lots of galleries to explore and plenty of fun places to eat. We stopped for beverages and appetizers at the “Salty Señorita.” Mireille had a Coronarita and I had the garden variety, Margarita. It was a fun place and very lively. We sat outside and had a good time.
After we had refreshed ourselves we made our way a few more blocks to EVO. The Thursday before Mireille had the TV on the Arizona PBS station and stumbled upon a show called Check Please. On this show, the host had three guests who had all eaten at three different local restaurants and they talked about what they ate, what they drank, and what they thought of it all. EVO was one of these three restaurants and as they described the food I knew we had to go, so we did. We are not sorry about it either!
We followed the cues from the show and Chloe, our server. We had the meatballs – if you go you must have the meatballs. For an entree, I chose the Squid Ink Chitarra. I like to ask the server what their favorite thing is, this was Chloe’s and she does not lie! Mireille chose the Italian Sausage Pizza. We always share back and forth and we both loved both things. For dessert, we had the Brown Butter Baby Cake. You have to try this. It is unlike almost anything else we have ever had. Even a bite is worth the price but order it early as it takes over 20 minutes to make and they do not have them sitting around.
While we were there two couples came in and sat near us. They are what we want to get to as far as going out and having fun even when we are what some would call “old.”
Finally yesterday after a bike ride that went about ten miles longer than we had anticipated and a couple of hours playing volleyball in the pool, we took in the other place we saw discussed on Check Please. This is The Beer Research Institute.
I do not know if they make their beer on the premises, but they do make their own beer and while we only tried three different kinds, we can both say that all three are wonderful. The beer list while we were there is below, and we had the Teddy’s Pale Ale, Taxation is Theft 2018, and the 480G IPA. The Taxation is Theft 2018 was the most striking of the three in my opinion.
In addition, again because they talked it up on the show, we had the meat candy…oh my GOD! And we finished with the “Money Shot” which is their bread pudding with vanilla bean ice cream and more bacon. The hamburger in between was delicious as well.
It has been a fun month, and we are in our last week here in Arizona as we leave for our next destination this coming Saturday. Our target for the summer is Quebec to visit Mireille’s family. That is a long way from Arizona and we have to stop in South Dakota on the way. We are planning on breaking the trip into weeklong segments, driving Saturdays and Sundays so we can be somewhere I can work through the week. It is going well so far and like I said to start, we are giddy.
