Donna and I had some fun activities this weekend – together and separately. On Saturday night, I went to Phoenix International Raceway located on the west side of Phoenix in Avondale with Mike Hall and Ray Laehu. I wrote about the tickets I got for free in my last post. I was surprised to find free parking at the raceway, however I wasn’t surprised to find $8 beer.
This was the first time Indycars have raced here since 2005. The cars were very fast, but I don’t follow the series so I had a hard time identifying the cars and drivers. The lead cars start overtaking the back markers on the one-mile oval after about 10 laps. This really jumbles up the field. Indycar has an innovation that helps the fans – they have an electronic number plate on the side of the car behind the driver that shows their position. The numbers change as the car’s race position changes.
Indycar streaking past at 190mph on the front straight
I always enjoy racing, but I’m not a big fan of oval track races. We had a good time though. The 250-mile race was over after about an hour and half and unfortunately ended with the last two laps under a yellow caution flag. No passing in this situation so the ending was anticlimactic.
On Sunday morning, Donna’s friend, Audrey Arrington, and her partner John Mitchell picked Donna up around 10:45am. They were going kayaking on the Salt River. I unloaded our Sea Eagle kayak, one seat and paddle from the trailer but didn’t unpack and inflate the kayak. Their plan was to take it along with Audrey’s inflatable kayak and set up both of them at the river. I stayed home to watch the second round of Formula 1 racing from Dubai and the Moto GP championship race in Argentina.
They left one car at Phon D Sutton Recreation Area – the place where we dry camped a little over two years ago. The recreation area is posted “no overnight camping or parking” now. We don’t know what happened, but Donna plans to find out why they closed it to self-contained dry campers.
They took a second car and drove upriver on the Bush Highway to a parking area with river access near the bridge on Bush Highway. That’s where they inflated the kayaks and put in. They cruised down the river, mostly floating with the current and enjoying the scenery. The two-hour river trip had some real highlights. They saw a herd of wild horses crossing the river just in front of them at one point. Donna was on the left side of the river and passed in front of the herd while John and Audrey went around behind them on the right. John shot a short video of the horses – you can see Donna in her kayak on the other side of the river.
Video of wild horses crossing the Salt River
Then they saw a bald eagle on a gravel bar alongside a turkey vulture feeding on a dead fish. They also spotted about half a dozen herons along the way. They really enjoyed their time on the water and plan to make another trip. The river is generally not flowing so early in the year. Salt River Project (SRP) just started releasing water from the Stewart Mountain Dam this week and will continue to do so through the summer months.
On Sunday evening, we rode the Spyder over to see our friends, Lana Jansen and Joel Myaer. I brought my laptop along. Joel is a computer guru and convinced me to install Windows 10 on my laptop. I’ve been reluctant to do it based on negative comments I’ve heard from others that made the switch. Joel had shown me how the operating system worked on one of his computers a few weeks ago.
We made the switch at their house where they have unlimited high-speed internet access – that way if anything went wrong and I had to repeat the three gigabyte download process, I wouldn’t be eating up my data plan. I also had the advantage of Joel’s expertise in setting it up. I have to say, so far I like Windows 10. It seems like a hybrid of Windows 8 and Windows 7 or XP.
While the operating system was installing, we went to Mattas Cantina on the corner of Brown and Ellsworth. This restaurant wasn’t there when we lived in the area – it opened a few months ago. The original Mattas Mexican Grill is near Towerpoint RV Resort on Higley and Brown and there are two other locations as well. Mattas serves West Texas-style Mexican food – I guess it’s what’s called Tex-Mex. Donna and I both ordered the chile verde plate. It was way different than any chile verde I’ve ever had. Usually chile verde is made with chunks of slow-cooked pork smothered in a green tomatillo sauce. This chile verde had chunks of slow-cooked pork served with potato chunks and peppers and onions in a spicy sauce. It was very hot but tasty – just different than I expected.
This morning while I was at the pickleball court, I had a phone call from the Mesa Buckhorn Elks Lodge. The woman on the phone wanted to know if I could make it to the orientation tonight at 6pm and the initiation tomorrow night! This was unexpected, but I was happy to say I would be there. About half an hour later, she called back and said she had made a mistake. The orientation is in two weeks on April 18th which is what I had been told earlier. So we’ll extend our stay here at Towerpoint for sure now.
We’re having another hot spell with the temperature expected to be in the 90s for the next few days. It should cool off again by Friday. I know I should be getting some projects done – all I accomplished over the weekend was the usual dumping and flushing of the holding tanks and cleaning the bathroom drains. Just like in a sticks-and-bricks house, drains accumulate hair and whatnot and need to be cleaned out periodically. With the heat, I may procrastinate a bit more – I have more than two weeks before we move – right?
