April 3, 2009

Today we knew it was going to be a high wind day. They are predicting wind gust up to 50 mile an hour. We secured all the outside gear and even took the dish off the tripod and stored it in the basement---just to be safe. We closed all the windows, cause we knew there would be sand blowing around, and turned on the air for the furballs. Then.......

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise...............Gomer Pyle.....remember that! We headed down the road to Surprise AZ. Wow, what a busy place. Wally World was our first stop to stock up some essentials. I just could not believe all the people shopping. I see no signs of an economic slow down in this town, the consumer is alive and well.

We finished our shopping and headed to the Credit Union ATM that is located in Wal Mart. We have had a small check we have needed to deposit for some time and had not been able to find a credit union ATM capable of taking a deposit. That is probably our biggest issue with fulltiming. We do most everything on line, but we can’t make deposits. As I said, this place is an absolute zoo! There were people standing in line for a teller at the bank, but fortunately we were able to walk right up to the ATM. You know the drill....slide the card, punch the password, tell the machine you want to make a deposit and.........BEEP, BEEP, BEEP! I swear the thing was sounding an alarm. I’m sure folks are thinking we are doing something very bad by now--so I hit the cancel button. DH and I regroup and decide to try this one more time. The stupid machine still beeps, but apparently that is the machines way of letting you know you may slide your deposit into the “deposit slot’. As soon as we did that it stopped beeping- huge sigh of relief! We wanted to make a withdrawal next and it did the same thing. This time the loud beep is to remind you to remove your cash--I swear we are starting to feel like fish in a fish bowl. You know when you use an ATM, you are trying to be discreet and not draw attention to yourself. This stupid thing announces to the world that you have cash in hand. Fortunately, we made it out to the truck without being robbed.

After the traumatic event at the ATM, we headed to the nearest RED ROBIN restaurant for lunch. You may recall in an earlier post that we had our first Red Robin meal on a trip to Prescott. DH enjoyed the meal so much that he signed up for their B-day club. DH B-day is April 6th and Red Robin had already emailed him his coupon for a free burger of his choice. Free is always a good deal and he even got a free ice cream sundae to boot! Again, this place was full of folks--no sign of economic distress here either.

On the way back to Congress, I spied a neat looking shop along the side of the highway. It had a lot of mexican pottery and metal sculptures. I have been looking for something to decorate the outside area of the fiver. I found the cutest metal sculpture of a bird. I’ll have to get a photo for you. It rocks back and forth in the breeze. I also found a ceramic frog--it hangs on the wall---not quite sure which wall as of yet :-)

We arrived back at the fiver late in the afternoon. The furballs were glad to see us and I took them out for a walk before settling down for the evening. The wind had really started to kick in by this time and we were a rocking and a rolling till mid evening. No matter though, we were snug as little bugs in a rug here in the fiver. Watched a little tv and then off to bed....zzzzzzzzzzzz