After our drive up to Lyman Lake State Park last week, Midget-San didn’t move for six days. I didn’t leave the RV park in that time. I know a lot of people are fed up with the stay-at-home orders and it looks like restrictions are finally easing up in most areas. I think full-time RVers had a somewhat easier experience coping with it. In our case, Donna and I are used to spending time together in a confined space – we live in about 300 square feet!

A lot of our activities are done together and when we arrive in a new area, we spend time exploring together. I’m not the most gregarious or social person around, so staying “home” and only going out when necessary hasn’t been especially hard.

Monday morning, we fired up Midget-San to do our weekly grocery shopping. Before we went to Safeway, we made a couple of sightseeing stops. The first stop was at the White Mountain Historical Park in Springerville. This park is maintained by the White Mountain Historical Society and has historic old buildings and equipment on display.

The buildings were originally located in various parts of Round Valley and were moved to the park for display. One of the older buildings was the Becker Grainery. This was a grain warehouse for the Becker Store in Springerville circa 1875.

One of the things you might notice in the photos of these old buildings is the log construction method. The logs are sawn and fitted together, but they’re not tight against one another. There is considerable space between the logs which had to be sealed – chinked they called it – with a mud and stone mixture. The chinking required periodic maintenance.

The other notable fact is the square footage of the dwellings. People lived in tight quarters back then.

Clay Hunter, a hunter and trapper, lived in this tiny cabin for 60 years.

The Diamond Rock Cabin was part of resort in the area in 1915.

During the Great Depression, the federal government formed the Work Project Administration (WPA) to carry out public works projects and put people back to work. We could probably use something like that now, but there’s a problem. Nowadays, government stimulates the economy with hand outs. When unemployment benefits exceed the pay for manual labor, nobody will want to take the job.

After walking through the White Mountain Historical Park, we climbed up the hill to the highest point within the city limits. At the top of the hill is the cemetery and a water tank for the city water supply. Although we only climbed a few hundred feet, the thin air at this 7,000 -foot elevation had me breathing hard.

From the top of the hill, we could see for miles.

One of the sights you can see from points around the valley is the Round Valley High School Ensphere. The Ensphere is a dome constructed of wood in 1991 at a cost of $11 million. It is where the high school football team plays their games – it can hold 5,500 spectators when configured for football and 9,000 people for basketball or volleyball. It’s the only domed high school football stadium in the country according to Wikipedia. Not bad for a school district with about 2,000 students in all grades.

We drove by the Ensphere for a closer look on the way to the store.

At the Safeway grocery store, we found most people were wearing masks. But many, including most of the store employees, didn’t have their masks over their noses! The mask doesn’t offer protection to others if you sneeze with your nose exposed!

Last night, Donna grilled Sriracha-honey glazed chicken thighs. She served the chicken with jasmine rice and sauteed bok choy with a splash of tamari. Yummy!

Over the last couple of years, Donna has been manning the grill more and more. But she still cooks indoors as well, using our two-burner induction cooktop. Recently she remembered the demo in Quartzsite where we bought the Healthcraft cookware designed for induction use. With only two burners, she sometimes has her hands full trying to time everything to serve at once. With the Healthcraft cookware, you can cook with more than two pots and/or pans at the same time by stacking them.

In the photo above, she’s steaming broccoli in the large pot on the bottom and keeping a chicken dish warm on top. She’ll have to experiment more with it to get the technique down.

The weather for the past week has been mostly pleasant with daily highs ranging from 70 to 75 degrees. The afternoons were mostly windy. Yesterday, the winds were gusting as predicted and this afternoon the forecast calls for a high of 77 degrees with 20 to 30 mph sustained winds and gusts of 55 mph! If the high wind warning holds true, I may have to pull the living room slide in to preserve the canvas slide topper.

*Just so you know, if you use this link to shop on Amazon and decide to purchase anything, you pay the same price as usual and  I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!