The first two weeks at Pleasant Harbor

In the days leading up to the New Year we had terrible weather with rain coming down in sheets (isn't this supposed to be a desert region?) and howling winds all night. One night in particular, the RV swayed slightly and I thought I was back on the boat; especially since I could hear the old familiar sound of the halyard (rope - in sailor jargon) against the mast of the boats in the storage area.

We had temperatures dipping down into the low 30's and daytime highs barely reached 40. To make it worse, that particular week it was warmer in New York and Raleigh. I wondered if we made a mistake coming here.
Thank goodness our electrical consumption is not metered. We made generous use of the furnace as well as the electric heater we had brought along.


The weather did improve after the cold front passed through and we 
started enjoying sunny days in the mid 60s and night time lows of about 40 or thereabouts. Interestingly, even on a bright sunny day, it is 5 to 8 degrees cooler in the shade.


We have been doing a lot of day trips. I had not realized how much there is to see and experience in thsi area. During the cold spell, we visited a few museums in the area: The Musuem of Natural History, The Heard Museum (native American culture and craft) in Phoenix and its sister facility in Scottsdale.

At the Heard, I watched two Navajo women demonstrate Navajo weaving on an upright loom. I am sure my friends Jane Weir, Kathy, and Janet are familiar with this way of weaving, but it was new to me. They did not use a shuttle but passed short pieces of the yarn through the warp threads. They used a comb like gadget (they called it a fork) to pack it in. I had some interesting conversation with the mother and daughter. The mother owns some sheep and she still dyes her own yarn while the daughter confessed that she uses commercially dyed yarn.

Dress decorated with cowri shells

 The smaller Heard Museum in Scottsdale had a special exhibit on Native American dolls (both old and contemporary) that I found very interesting because of the intricate bead work on many of them. Here are photos of a few of these dolls.

doll made using basketry materials

We visited the Phoenix zoo last Sunday and enjoyed seeing the animals in their natural habitats rather than in cages.  We could not sight the cheetahs or the tigers - I think they had not yet returned from Church!!
The highlights of the visit (at least for me) were seeing real life Roadrunners (these did not go beep beep and they were smaller than I had imagined they would be) and prairie dogs as apposed to a National Geographic special on PBS.

To be continued...