The rain-gods are being nice to us these days. There have been some rain squalls and one very loud thunderstorm since we arrived here in Lake Havasu City Arizona. It has still been nice, because the rain has been happening at night and then the sun comes out and the temperature is right back up to 65 or so by the afternoon. We have been riding the tandem all over town. This is a town of 50,000 or so, and it is somewhat hilly. Nothing real serious like San Francisco, but it keeps us grinding away as we work our way around town. Sunday we set out to introduce ourselves to the congregation of the Community Presbyterian Church. It is all the way to the fringes of town up against the foothills. I planned a leisurely ride to cover the eight miles predicted on my Street Atlas program in about an hour. In fact we gat started an hour and a half before the 11:00 start time for their Worship Service. In a sense that was my undoing. My lovely stoker suggested a quick detour to Wal-Mart on the way to church. Since we were getting such an early start I couldn’t stall her off, so off to Wal-Mart we went. To make a long story short, we arrived at the Church over half an hour late, huffing and puffing and sweaty all over. Oh well, we tried. We are really doing well on the bicycle so far this year. In the first month we have ridden 240 miles. The hills don’t seem quite as steep, and our waist lines are staying nice and trim. We have both shed the five pounds we gained around Christmas vacation when it was raining so steadily.

We were invited to join a “Wild Flower Walk” by the park ranger here at Windsor Beach on Saturday. Ranger Tim was able to point out many desert wild flowers including Lupine, Desert Lilies, Desert Milkweed, Scorpion flowers and Creosote bush. The desert is so green and it appears that virtually every species will be blooming shortly. This is really the silver lining for all of the rain clouds we have been enduring.

Judy and her sister, Sonja, are creating a bed quilt masterpiece. It has stripes and flowers with squares and diamonds. They have run out of fabric a couple times already. Over the previous few weeks we have shopped regularly trying to match the original fabrics. We were even exchanging photos with daughter-in-law, Barb, so she could shop in Morgan Hill for matching fabric. That means this is a two state search by now. At this moment they are trying to pin this whole thing together on our dining table. Remember that this is a 34 foot motor home. The dining table is about 24 by 48 inches in its glorious fully extended mode. They have pieces propped on the chairs and hanging onto the floor. They are trying to match up the pieces of fabric so that the stripes line up with each other. They hold up one piece over their heads and pin parts together then pull out the next section to see how that lines up. Me, I am just hiding out over here in the corner hoping the thing doesn’t rare back and say “Feed me!”

Well that is what it is like to hang out in Lake Havasu City. Judy and I send our love to all of our friends and relatives that are following our adventures through this e-mail each week.