Farmers Market and Museum Trip

Saturday morning we went to the historic east end of Tucson to a farmers market we heard about in one of the blogs we follow. It is right near the Amtrac station and is in the courtyard of Maynards Market & Kitchen, both a market and restaurant. It looked interesting and we will have to try the restaurant another time. The farmers market was small, but they had some produce as well as pastries, salsas, teas, soaps, copper river salmon pies and other homemade dishes, and some other items as well. We bought a banana and serrano salsa and bought a delicious coconut brioche/croissant that we shared.

Farmers Market

Old Car sitting in courtyard

Historic District

      We took Savannah with us but then headed home to drop her off before heading to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum which is just a few miles from the campground. It is a natural history museum that also includes a botanical garden and small zoo.

                                                         
       Much of the Museum is outdoors with a 2 mile long trail that goes through 21 acres of desert landscaping that including 1,200 types of plants and 300 different species of animals, including bear, coyote, javelinas, gila monsters, etc. Unfortunately many of the animals were sleeping such as a bear we spotted and also a javelina.

                                                                                 

Sleeping Javelina

Statue of Javelina in front of Museum

    There is a cave area that has samples of rocks and minerals in the area that was very interesting.

                                                                                 

At 10 and 2 o'clock there is a raptor flight demonstration. We watched four Harris Hawks performing while a ranger gave a talk on them and other flying birds of prey, that includes hawks and owls in addition to various types of hawks.

                                                   
  We  enjoyed our time in this very interesting museum

                                                                                                                                                      

Spending End of Year in the Desert

Wednesday we arrived at Oasis Palm RV Resort. It is close to the Salton Sea. It is also within an hours drive of Anza Borrego State Park It is a nice little RV Park with loads of fruit trees, such as orange, lemon and grapefruit and you are welcome to pick some.

We went in one day to check out a Farmer's Market in Borrego Springs and also check out the State Park. There are a lot of places to boon dock on the drive there There will be hundreds of RVs for the long weekend. Lots of places to drive ATV's and hiking is also popular. We first went to the Farmer's Market as it closes at noon and we got one of our usual early starts NOT. You wouldn't think there would be a good selection of produce being out in the desert but you would be wrong. This  is actually an agricultural area. We bought some produce as well as some hummus, dates, and turkey bratwurst.

We stopped at the Anza Borrego Visitor Center to get a map of the Park and took a short walk around the Visitor area to look at the different types of plants that are in the Park. It is the largest state park in California and the second biggest in the Continental states.

We would definitely like to come back in the Spring time when all the flowers are blooming. It is suppose to be spectacular. As we had items from the Market that need to be refrigerated we headed back with the intentions of coming back another day to do some exploring.

The owners of the park put on a  New Year Eve's Party with everyone bringing some appetizers and drinks. The owners furnished champagne for the Midnight toast. Of course, we had a few practice toasts before the official toast. We met some really nice people, including quite a few from Canada. Always fun to share RV stories with others. We had a great time and didn't make it back to our RV until after 1:00.

We had a great year visiting some places we had been before and many new places in the western part of the United States. Being from California and having taken many trips up and down CA, we still went to a number of great new spots, such as Avila Beach, near Pismo Beach, Ocean Cove Campground near Jenner and the Trinity Alps in northern CA. We did a lot of exploring in Idaho, another beautiful state, and up into Canada going as far as Jasper and Banff and thoroughly enjoyed their magnificent Rockie Mountains. We went to Waterton in Canada and Glacier, their sister site in Montana. Back to Yellowstone where we visited in 2003 was another highlight. We went to an Escapees event in Wyoming and stopped into our "home state" South Dakota. We had been to Colorado a number of times but our trip to the Rocky Mountain National Park was a first, different from the Canadian Rockies, but beautiful in their own way. We stopped in Moab, Utah for what was going to be a few day stop over and we ended of staying for 2 weeks. A great state park near Canyonlands National Park and Arches National Park. There were other places not mentioned here, just amazing how much we saw in this last nine months since we left So Cal in April. The last few months including Heather and Ryan's wedding as well as spending Thanksgiving and Christmas with family. Another great year and we are ready for more new adventures next year. What a life!!
Hope everyone had a great year as well. Have a Happy New Year.
                                                                            

                                                     

Off to the Market

Cranbrook has a Farmer's Market on Saturdays and is having its first Wednesday evening one Cranbrook is the largest urban city in the area known as the East Kootenay. There is just under 20,000 residents in the city proper and around 27,000 in the metropolitan area. It is home to the Kootenay Ice, a WHL hockey team. There are a number of hockey players who make their home in Cranbrook Scott and Rob Niedermayer, who played on our beloved Anaheim Ducks team when they won the Stanley Cup in 2007, grew up here. In fact, they have a Hockey school in Cranbrook next week and so they are in town. The market has a lot of arts and crafts and some produce and other food products. It took place at Rotary Park. We bought some nice bell peppers which I will stuff with  quinoa, garbanzo beans and feta cheese, cherry tomatoes and whatever nuts and seasonings I decide to use.

                                                                   

Nice weekend in Spokane

Saturday, we went to the Liberty Lake Farmers Market. This market has been around since 2001 and is very popular. It started with 8 vendors and now as around 40, including local produce, baked goods, and other specialty items. You can also listen to music and have a bite to eat. We bought some fruit, including some very yummy, very sweet apricots. We also bought some salsas after having some samples. Of course, we also went to our friends, Dave and Silvia's booths which are right next to each other Silvia makes beautiful jewelry and Dave sells Milano organic spices, dried fruits, and teas.

   We had a great pizza while we were there. Veraci Pizza has their own handmade portable wood-fired pizza oven and uses fresh and local ingredients.

 We made plans to spend the day with our friends on Sunday. They have a lovely home in the Spokane Valley. Their track is called Sherwood Forest, which is very appropriate as the streets are tree lined and you do feel like you are in a forest area. We first went to have a bite to eat at a well known hamburger spot and then came back to their house to spend the day. We sat in their beautifully landscaped backyard. They get snow in the winter and you can see the hard work they put in after winter to make their garden look so great. They have an awesome dog named Bentley, a Goldendoodle(golden retriever/standard poodle). Bentley and Savannah had a great time playing in the backyard together.

What an enjoyable day. We talked about our travels and theirs over the last years and shared pictures on our computers. They went on a three week trip to New Zealand, which sounded wonderful. Back in the 80s, we all went on a lot of trips together, including a ski trip to Banff, a number of Mammoth trips with them and all our kids and a Mexico trip with the 4 of us. There were also lots of fun times, visiting restaurants, going to plays and other events. What great memories. We just relaxed and enjoyed the wonderful weather. Dave cooked up a delicious stir fry dish after partaking of some fruit from the farmers market and cheeses and crackers. Dave and Silvia said they were envious of our life style. However, they seem very happy and contented in theirs, being part of the community in  this lovely area. We all promised not to let so many years go by again without keeping in contact. We will most likely be in the area again on our way to Alaska, which we hopefully will be traveling to next summer.