Happy New Year

Hi everyone,
  Hope you all had a great Christmas. Ours will be one to remember. Ray came down with a upper respiratory infection which put him in the hospital in Safford for two nights. His oxygen levels were low. He was released on Christmas morning and was so happy to be back in his recliner recuperating.
  The Friday before Christmas, we went out for a Christmas dinner with 12 other volunteers and employees from the park. Had a great time.
  On Saturday we took a drive over to Tucson for some shopping. It's about 120 miles but didn't seem to bad of a drive. We'll probably take a few more trips that way.
  Time has gone fast here. We are half way through our stay here. We still have a few places we want to see around this area. We'll have to start planning our travels to the western parts of AZ and UT this spring.
  Hard to believe another year is coming to a end. We had a lot of great times with family, old friends and new ones. We visited many wonderful places. We're looking forward to enjoying many more adventures in 2016.
  We hope everyone has a very Happy New Year.

Happy Holidays

Just wanted to wish everyone Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Busy at Bisbee

Hi all,
 Seems December camping is not on many peoples minds as the campground has been pretty quiet lately. We worked in the office the other day and had no incoming reservations. That makes a pretty slow day. I started to read a book and Wendy was able to get some basketry work done, pretty rough I know.)
 Wednesday we had a pot luck Christmas dinner with all the volunteers and staff. Ooh so good, ham and fixins and about 7 different deserts. Of course I made sure I didn't hurt any ones feelings and tried them all. I could have used a wheelbarrow ride to get home.)
 I had missed an event in the last post where a few of us ventured to hear a Christmas concert. Eclipse 6 is a six man acapella group from Utah that has performed here yearly. They sang some Christmas favorites and mix of other music entertaining all ages. They closed it off with a original Christmas piece. I didn't have my phone but if you are interested you can hear some of their stuff on Utube. A good way to get more Christmas spirit, a good time was had by all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqZMfBVI49A
  We took a ride after work one day to the Hot Wells Dune area. A primitive camping area on BLM land that is popular to the four wheelers and dirt bikes in the dunes. One neat side is there are two hot tubs that are fed by a solar pump. They look pretty fancy and out of place here in the desert surrounding. Different from our hot tub in Roper Lake the temp is hotter, 104 compared to our 95. We like ours better as at 104 you really cant stay in to long.
 On the way home as dusk was just setting in we had two bobcats run in front of us shocking the heck out of us. They of course didn't want to pose for any pics but what a thrill to have seen.
 Friday we took a ride with Bob and Rose down to the town of Bisbee. We had toured some of the town two years ago but it was the first time for them. Bisbee is south and only 10 miles to Mexico.    It was built by a large copper mine that began in 1917 and active until 1974. It is now becoming known for the many art and antique shops. It is pretty unique in how it is built into the mountainous setting. We browsed through some of the shops and had a nice lunch just outside town. 

  

What do volunteers do??

Hi all,
Remember us?  Sorry a bit late on this but I was waiting til after this weekends events to write a post.
 Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving, we enjoyed a nice turkey meal out with a few of the other volunteers. We do miss having the day with family but admit it's kinda nice not having to do the cooking and cleaning- I know we're bad.
 So what do volunteers do here at Roper Lake. The campground was full for the holiday and we volunteered an extra day on Sunday to help out. We have been doing some cabin cleaning which to us is a piece of cake after doing cabins at Suwannee River. These are just sleeping cabins with no bathrooms and cooking done outside. We have also taken on the chore of weekly scrubbing of the hot tub. Usually those are jobs done by the park rangers but they are short handed so we like being able to help out. That and it beats pruning and weeding.    
 We spent a little time to decorate our site.

 This week we have been busy helping to decorate a float for the Christmas light parade on Saturday.
They have not entered a float in a few years but with a new manager something she wanted to do. We tried to show all aspects of the park from cabins, to fishing, and even our hot tub.  

This was ours.

 I know I said we would be taking more drives to get out but with the holiday and such we just haven't got to do them. We do try to get a daily walk in usually around the lake. Nice seeing all the different birds fly in although they are the most photogenic when we don't have the camera.

 We did do a short ride to Wilcox for lunch with Rose and Bob. The Big Tex BBQ in an old train car is a favorite spot of many here. We also checked out a  book store there with great deals on used books.