Travel Blog

So we have a couple of games under our belts, and I'm going to be honest...it hasn't been all that fun. It's the usual coupling of poor communication and incomplete training. But we'll muddle through. I'll write a post just about our experiences at work, but it's my one day off before we get back to it for the next three days, so I'll save it for late this week.

Anyway, today was our return trip to Casa Grande Ruins for the behind-the-scenes tour. We're really glad we did it. It was an interesting tour, and not too many people get to see what we got to see. The NPS only offers these tours in March, and only on the weekends, one tour per day. So we feel pretty lucky.
I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Off limits (but not to us today!):

What they call Compound B:

Another shot of Compound B:

Closeup to one of the houses:

All along the walk, we got to see a bunch of pottery shards and pieces of obsidian. I was amazed because the tour guide told us it was ok to pick them up and look closely at them, as long as we put them back. I thought that was pretty generous.

Ground littered with pot shards:

Phil holding a particularly good example of the Hohokum pottery:

Stagecoach trail that led to Florence, Arizona in the early 1900s:

And during the walk, we were told about burrowing owls (I have to look them up online) and a couple of Great Horned Owls that live in the Big House. So when we were done with the hike, Phil and I went back to the Big House to try to see them. We saw one.

Shhhh, he's sleeping:

Phil and I finally visited the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument yesterday. We walked from our RV park as it was only about two miles or so, and the weather was, as usual, lovely and temperate. (Sorry, my family and friends in Pennsylvania who are getting buried in snow, snow and more snow.) We had to walk about another quarter-mile to get from the entrance gate to the Visitor’s Center, and we came across this cool tree along the way:

It reminded us of the worm guys in the break room in the movie Men in Black.

And I liked these cacti, so I took a picture of them. I’m a big cactus fan for some reason, even though I’ve ended up killing a few in my time. (Talk about not having a green thumb, eh?)

Casa Grande Ruins National Monument preserves an Ancient Sonoran Desert People farming community and "Great House." Created as the nation’s first archeological reserve in 1892, the site was declared a National Monument in 1918. (I took that passage from the NPS website.) If you want to read more about the history and culture of the monument, visit the NPS website at http://www.nps.gov/cagr/historyculture/index.htm.

After we paid the entrance fee and before we went outside to the ruins, we watched a short video and then got to browse a really nice, little museum they had in the Visitor Center. I’m recommend spending some time in there if you get the chance to visit, even though most of the folks skipped all the info and went right outside.

The main event is what they call the “Big House.”

Around the Big House are all the little walls and enclosures that they figured were other smaller houses. They have no idea what the Big House was used for, but Phil and I formulated some opinions. Phil thinks since there used to be a 7-foot wall around the entire compound, they were going to great lengths to protect something inside. We don’t think the Big House was anyone’s house. We think it was like a temple or some other religious site wherein something pretty important resided. But that’s just our guess. The park encourages you to come up with your own theories since no one’s ever going to know for sure.

Our entrance fee receipt is good for a week, and we’re really glad about that because next weekend they’re having a special tour where folks get to take a walk with a Ranger to places that are usually off limits to the public. We’ll be going outside the main compound area to a ball court, where it’s surmised the games were such that the losers would be offered up to the gods (ah, the good old days), and to another nearby compound. We can’t wait, and I’ll be sure to take plenty more pictures.

We had another training day at Phoenix Municipal Stadium yesterday. I didn’t have to be there until 11:00 a.m., but because Phil is a Stand Lead (no, not Stanley or Stan Lee), he had to be there at 9:30 a.m. So I had some time to kill. I asked our boss if he had any suggestions as to what I should do to bide, and he said it would be okay for me to go out and watch practice. I asked if it was okay to take pictures of the practice, and he said it was cool to do so. Well, alright.

So I go find a good seat in the stands and wait for players to take the field.

And I wait some more.

And some more.

Then I see a security guard coming towards me from one direction, and an older couple approaching me from the other direction. The couple meet up with the guard (who totally ignored me, which was fine by me) and ask him if the team was practicing today. Turns out no. The team was over at a nearby stadium practicing there for the day. Not that I would have recognized any of the players anyway, but wouldn’t they have added a little something to those pictures? Oh well, maybe some other time, even though the next time I’m at the stadium, it’s a work day and I’m not supposed to bring any personal belongings with me. Shucks.

Training went well, and we both feel we’re ready for opening day on Friday. And on our way back to Coolidge, we decided to take a detour through Apache Junction and look at another RV park we’re thinking of moving to when our time’s up at Indian Skies. We thought that since Apache Junction was a lot closer to the stadium than Coolidge is we’d save a lot of travel time. Not so. Traffic sucked. I think it ended up taking us as much time to get there as it would have taken to go straight back to Coolidge. So we may just beg the folks here to give us a good deal on two more weeks. But anyway, the scenery was a heck of a lot better than our usual route home. I didn’t take any pictures because I hate taking pictures out of the car window, but even if we don’t end up living in Apache Junction, Phil and I will go there again just to get some pictures of the Superstition Mountains. Spectacular. But I did get a picture of the Florence Court House, so don’t be too disappointed.

We took our truck to Tempe Dodge  in for its (nearly) 90,000-mile tune-up on Tuesday. Six hours and $700 later, we got into our truck to leave and it wouldn't start. Now, up until that point, we were in fair spirits. I mean, sure, we were told it would take only two hours and it ended up being six, but they found some things wrong with the truck that needed attention, so we were understanding about that. And sure, we were going to be shelling out a big chunk of change, but our truck is the most important thing we own, so we know we have to take care of it, so even though it stung, we accepted that too. And we, being the easy-going folks we are, didn't even get too upset when, after paying all that money, our truck wouldn't start. Things happen, and at least we were still at the dealership so they could fix whatever the problem was, right? So our Service Advisor, who had been great the whole day, came out to see why we were still hanging around, and when he found out the truck wouldn't start, he went off right away to bring out the technician who had been working on it for the past six hours. Here's where we started to have the problem (and know we know why they have Service Advisors as go-betweens).

First, our poor Service Advisor practically had to drag the guy over to us. Second, without even saying something like, "Gee, let me see what this could be," the tech turned the key (without first letting the light that tells us when it's ok to start our diesel engine go off, by the way), and hearing it just go click, says "It's your batteries." Ok, fine, but why were the lights turning on and all the little start-up sounds going off? And ok, say it's the battery...what did you do to them in the past six hours? I didn't say this out loud, of course, because I was a little turned off by the attitude. It was actually our Service Advisor who popped the hood and made the tech look around, which the tech did, and fiddled with a few hoses and such, and said again, "It's probably your batteries. Dodge always puts old batteries in when they sell a car, unless it's like a Viper, or something." A startling enough statement on its own, if you ask me, coming from a Dodge Technician in front of customers who not only paid $50,000 for the truck, but who had just also paid $700 in service charges to have him work on the truck, but he followed it up with the old customer service favorite, "There's nothing we can do about that." Then Phil and I couldn't keep our mouths shut anymore. Phil told him we had NEVER had any problems with the batteries, never had any problems with starting the truck, ever. And I chimed in that wasn't it quite the coincidence that today would be the day we had our first problem? He said, and I quote, "It's not our problem." The poor Service Advisor, at this time, was turning purple and I know he tried to kick the tech in the shins without us seeing. Phil was at a loss, having just been through a customer service training thing that told us never to do EVERYTHING this tech just did. And all I could come up with was, "Dude, we just paid $700 to have this thing serviced."

And I gave him a look. I'm not sure what kind of look, but a look, at which point he fiddled a bit more with some connections and then went to turn the ignition and viola! it started right up. Phil and I were very glad to get away from there, but our confidence in what the real problem was is shaky. I'm thinking it was a loose connection, which, if he would have just looked under the hood in the first place, he could have fixed without telling us our batteries were pieces of crap and the subsequent bad customer service clichés. Just keep your fingers crossed for us that when we go to start up our truck again, it actually works.

My mother-in-law, Pat, always told me I should approach the Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce and ask for compensation for my precipitation-making abilities because every time I come to town, it either rain or snows, even if it hadn't for a long time before I got there. I always said I have the "Baker Touch," because every time my dad would have some sort of vacation time, it would rain and he'd be very annoyed. So now that we're in Arizona, it's rained for the past three days, and temperatures are ten degrees lower than normal for this time of year. Do I have a gift, or what?

I'm glad for the cooler temperatures, though. It's better for the dogs. But the locals are a bit disgusted, even the folks at the Chamber of Commerce, so I don't think they'll be throwing any money my way.

Yesterday Phil and I went to Phoenix for our Spring Training orientation. It was pretty fun. (Oh, and we both passed our Food Handlers test, so that's all settled.) We've been placed at the Phoenix Municipal Stadium, and it was really cute. I didn't take my camera with me because I didn't want to look like too much of a dork, but I'll take it with me soon and get some stadium pics. I did take a picture of a nearby park where Phil and I parked for a bit because we were way too early for the orientation.

Now we cool our heels for a week, and then we have another orientation session, and then we have our first game on March 5th. Go Oakland A's!

We made it to Coolidge, Arizona, yesterday afternoon, and got squeezed into our spot for the next month at Indian Skies RV Resort.



It was pretty rough, but Phil did a great job, and two of our neighbors helped direct. Phil didn't even take out the neighbor's awning like I thought he was going to do, and he missed the palm tree by inches. Good job!

One thing we are not used to at this time of year, however, is the high temperature here. We pulled in yesterday to 77 degrees, and since we are used to about 40 degrees, we were sweating and melting all over the place. Luckily, this place has a pool, so after we got set up and the dogs were taken care of, we headed for a dip. When I got back to the RV, I made sure to call my folks in PA to tell them I was just out swimming. Har har.

We're just relaxing today, but tomorrow we're heading into Phoenix to take a food handler's test so we'll be ready to work on March 5th. I'm pretty good at handling food, so I think I'll do ok.

I'll end this with another picture of our RV spot, and I post more soon.

I'm not much into sports, so I wasn't planning on watching the Olympics, but Phil was out massaging the other night and I was home alone flipping through channels and stopped on the men's short-track speed skating. I was watching the qualifiers, and saw Apolo Ohno, who started dead last and who skated in last place up until the final lap (he looked like he was just out for a relaxing skate most of the time), with the announcers saying with every lap that he should be about to make his move soon, when all of a sudden he went into the last turn and whipped around every other skater to beat them by quite a distance. And I must admit I was shouting and cheering him on, clapping my hands like the wind-up cymbal monkeys. It was thrilling. And I ended up watching the rest of the events that evening. In a time of such divisiveness, it's nice to have things like the Olympics that unite us. (Even though I will admit to rooting for the Chinese figure skating couple last night - they were freakin' awesome.)

Phil and I head out of Albuquerque tomorrow morning. We just have a few things to wrap up here before we leave, like signing our tax forms at the Tax Lady's place (who, by the way, decorates her office in various hues of purple, including a purple mouse for her computer, and who, every year commends us on how we live our lives in one breath and yells at us for having so many damn W-2s in her next breath) and going out for Chinese food tonight with Pat and Paula. I also want to swing by this old psychiatric hospital that they're turning into a hotel here (we are making plans to come back and stay there when they open - talk about haunted!), and take some pictures of it to share on here.

So I guess that's it for now...see you in Phoenix!

So, Phil mentioned I took a job with kids. Can you believe that? Goes to show how desperate for work I was, right? Well, not only did I make it through the entire week, they liked me so much there that they asked me back for a couple more days this week. Pretty good considering when the phone call came in and the temp agency said it was working with kids, I very nearly (and automatically) said "no way!" But as the head of the school told me, "You have the touch." Ha! Take that, everyone who knows me.

It was a very interesting gig, though. The school was on a reservation (pueblo). I was actually called "white girl" one day by one of the women I was working with. She wanted to make sure the "white girl" could handle eating chilies. I said "bring 'em on." Oh, yeah, I was fed like four times a day there. And one day they served fry bread. If you've never experienced fry bread, come out west and make sure you do. Heavenly.

Even though the initial job description had me with Head Start-aged kids that I would read to and stuff like that, when I got to the school, they placed me in the Infant Room. That's where the kids from ages 8 weeks to 2 years go. And yes, that means they need their diapers changed. Luckily, the first time I tried, I totally ruined a diaper (put it on the kid backwards and somehow managed to rip the little tab completely off), and since they're so expensive, they didn't make me do that anymore. And no, I didn't ruin it on purpose just for that outcome. But my day was spent playing with four 2-year old girls and sometimes playing with and/or feeding two almost-a-year-old boys. And the really interesting part was learning a bit more about Native culture, especially when Nana came in for language class. She would sit the children down and do nursery rhymes and stuff in their language. It was really neat to hear "Itsy, Bitsy Spider" and "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" in their language. I was lucky to just be able to be in the room for that, I think. Non-native folks aren't privvy to a bunch of their tribal things, and it was cool to be a part of that in any way. I was even invited to their summer feast and the Buffalo Dance that's coming up this month, but unfortunately, Phil and I will be moving on to Arizona before the dance, and we'll be in South Dakota this summer.

Oh, that reminds me, we got summer jobs in Custer State Park in South Dakota. It's for sure now, so we aren't afraid to tell people. Yay! Phil will be front desk manager and I'll be working in the gift shop at the State Game Lodge. Check it out online. It looks pretty darn awesome.

That's it for now. I don't know how often we'll be blogging. We just bought Phil a new computer because the old one got dripped on and fried, and the day after we got the new one home, my computer when kablooey. Not cool. We don't have it in the budget right now to buy me one (keep your fingers crossed for our visit to the Tax Lady on February 13th), and I hate using Phil's messy desk, so I'll do the best I can. I also lost my writeup of all the pictures I've used at the top of the page, so if we repeat any too often, that's our excuse.

So I promised you an update on our plans for the summer. We'll get to that next week. Meanwhile, we have been called up to the Big Leagues. That’s right we are leaving here next month to go to MLB Spring Training in Phoenix, AZ. But, instead of knocking balls out of the park with steroid induced muscles, we will be slinging beer and hotdogs at one of the stadium’s concession booths.

We will be working for Aramark, which is the leading operator of stadiums, arenas, and even parks across the country. For us that means, if we like the work, we will have a good chance of going to work at another venue on down the road. Sue is already checking to see who handles the concessions at Heinz Field.

Speaking of Sue, she did survive her week of working Head Start out on the Pueblo. They placed her in the infant room where she fought a loosing battle to not change diapers. She’ll tell you the whole story sometime soon.

In other news, we suffered a loss last week. Our main computer died after five years of valiant service. Our data loss has so far been minimal because we had most of it backed up, but Sue is about ready to kill me for being on “her” computer all the time. So on that note, it is time to shop for a new laptop.

Albuquerque got hit with those storms out of the west and we had some snow last night.

Sue is huddled in bed and refuses to come out until it melts, so I will be your blogger today.

Like Sue said, we are back in Albuquerque. After we left last March we thought we were going to be gone for awhile, but in this economy, the devil you know, and who knows you, seems better than the devil you don't.  Before coming back we tried to find some workamping jobs elsewhere, but there must have been a truckload of applicants for every job. After sevral dozen resumes didn't bring us anything, we called up one of the Temp agencies we have worked for here and they jumped all over us coming back. So we redid the tests and re-activated and now Sue is working as an extra teacher in a Head Start classroom (I know) and I'm doing a landscaping gig.  By the way, Gabe, if you are reading this, do you have to do anything special when you transplant a Sage bush from one side of a yard to another?

In other workamping news, this week Express Employment Professionals in Independance, KS sent a note to all of us who worked for them at Amazon.com saying that Amazon.com is no longer going to be using them to recruit workampers. Apparently Amazon.com is recruiting directly, paying a little more per hour, but not providing a campsite. On the Open Road Forum there is an ongoing discussion of this development, in case you are considering doing Amazon.com this fall.

Tune in next week and we should have an update on our plans for the summer.