What a beautiful sunny, warm day to celebrate and dedicate Bob and Barb's church AND the bell tower in memory of Bob's Mom and my Aunt Jeanette. 
From left to right - Mary, Barb's Mom, Bob, Barb, and Keith.
Bob designed and put every one of the rocks in place.....a meditation area. You truly had to see this in person to appreciate it's beauty. 
After the service, 10 of us made our way to a lunch hosted by Bob and Barb. It was a wonderful day with family and friends. 
On to the Metro LightRail, like the trolleys we HAD back in Reading when I was a young girl. And my Mom says they should have NEVER stopped them in our area. I agree after using them all day. How wonderful - no parking the car - and they drop you off right by where you want to go. 
This is Barbara in front of a bed of beautiful pansies... just before we got on the metro.
/Before this was Tempe Beach Park, it was where the ferry took the settlers across the Salt River. It's a wonderful park with activities for everyone. 
It's now the Tempe town lake.
With the Metro running across.
Our destination was to arrive at The Heard Museum for the world champion "Hoops" competition. This was a weekend event, held outside. There are 21 tribes in AZ alone. We sat on the grass and watched small indian children preform in the large dirt circle accompanied by a drum played by 8 to 10 adult indians, who were chanting for each competitor. The finals would be on Sunday with the World Champion Adult Male trying to retain his title.
After the young boys came the teen girls...It was a beautiful day with temps. in the high 70's.
Just perfect for a lunch outside after an hour tour of the museum. Watched more dancing before heading back to the Metro and home to Bob and Barbs'. 
Keith LOVES to shop new markets...so, off we went to this Mexican food store... I wasn't able to take photos in the store and not sure why, but I obliged.... All I can say is we never saw such a huge store of MX food and so many people shopping in it. 
Went across the street to the ORGAN STOP PIZZA.... Well, this has been going on for 30 years and is so very unique... First you get in line at the counter to order your pizza...Then you get a ticket with a number on it...and next you get your salad and drink and find a table. 
As you wait for your number to light up on what I call a bingo numbered board, up on the stage, out of the FLOORcomes this man playing an organ. The whole room is full of instruments - on the ceiling and around the front of the stage. The building has balconys full of patrons besides the main floor...reminded me of the Hoop Dee Doo Revue at Disney. What fun it was to sing show tunes as we ate our pizza. And so....this is how we spent our Sat. night.
Said our good-byes to Desert Shadows, Western Horizon, (ROD) at Casa Grande ...headed for Tempe AZ to park the RV at Apache Palms RV Resort. 
Really enjoyed our 2 week stay here...could do so much from Casa Grande. We would do this park again!
Pat and Jerry picked us up bright and early to go to Kartchner Cavern. You are not allowed to take any photos there, so this is what I've got! It's 9 miles south of 1-10 Exit 302 off SR 90in AZ, contains one of the world's few living wet caves open for viewing. There are more than 30 types of colorful formations growing for more than 200,000 years out of the limestone beneath the Whetstone Mountains. The guided BIG ROOM TOUR features striking calcite formations and giant boulders...this is the tour we took. The tour was 1 1/2 hrs...we were down several hundred feet and...the paths are about 2 plus miles long. It was AMAZING!
As we drove out of the park we saw this rain storm going across the area in front of us...I can't discribe how awesome it was - as we've never seen anything like this before.. You certainly couldn't see a thing if you were in that rain.
Harry and Karen met up with us - they had just pulled into Casa Grande ROD where we were staying... Met up at the Golden Coral for supper and GREAT conversation. 
Vivien sent me this shot of Brad (who is 6ft. 5") shoveling out their cars...He said he just didn't know where to go with any more snow! 
Our dear neighbor, Stephanie send us this photo of our house...the one on the right... They said we got 24 inches this storm.
We have the best friends....Pat and Jerry drove 45 min. from Gilbert AZ to Casa Grande to pick us up and took us to Sabino Canyon another hour and a half south ... The drive there was so beautiful. We had no idea what was coming ....but they did.
The view from this entrance was so spectacular that we just couldn't wait to see what the 10 mile tram ride would be like.
One after another - there were scenes like this with water flowing over the bridges we would cross in the tram.
Sabino Canyon is just one of seven canyons right next to each other. We were on the 3 p.m. tram so the sun was warm ....but when we were in the shadows, it was very cool. No amount of pictures I could put on the blog could do justice to this awesome place. 
Many people were wading in the freezing water....we passed on that. 
Each turn was more awesome than the last. In another month the flowers will be blooming ...
The tram stopped at the end of the canyon for a short time ....Everyone got out to take photos. 
Sabino means rusty red color.
And as the sun was slowly disappearing behind the mountains.... our tram made it's way back to the visitor center.... What a wonderful day!!!
Vivien was so kind to send us these photos from their home in PA.... 15 inches of snow from this storm!
We saw on the t.v. that Washington D.C. got 36 inches...
All I could think about was Brad having to dig out their cars... This is what we're missing!
