Christmas Season in Mesa, AZ

We arrived at our winter location on December 1st and got right to volunteering the next day!  Our first assignment was to get the greenhouse decorated for Christmas before the 2nd Annual Lights of Love light display at Sunshine Acres.  Most of the decorations were items that were donated so we sorted out to see what we could use.

Al stringing lights on a reindeer.

I worked on decorating a Christmas tree.

 

By day it didn't look like much but at night.....

I think our decorations looked pretty good from what we salvaged!

The next day we got to volunteering in the greenhouse and manning a station along the Lights of Love route through the property in the evening. 

Chives

Harvesting chives

View from the top of a tower with the lid removed to see how the plants grow.

The cucumber plants have been productive!

Now that we are stationary for a few months we wanted to have our fresh water tank replaced.  It was bowed in the middle and so we had a mobile tech, ASAP RV, come take a look so they could order the parts from Grand Design.  They emptied the tank in order to inspect it.  Luckily the replacement would be covered under warranty.

  

We were real unhappy with this company in the way they handled our issue.  Al had to get in the middle and follow up with Grand Design directly in order to get the process moving.  ASAP RV was supposed to submit paperwork and photos to Grand Design to get approval for the warranty work and were not responsive to our calls for updates.  It wasn't until Al would leave a message and tell them we were going to call another repair shop then he would get a reply from ASAP.  It was very frustrating dealing with them.  Luckily we were able to get updates from Grand Design directly to get our parts moving along.  The repair wasn't completed until late in April, 4 months after this day of inspection, and right before we left Sunshine Acres.  I don't think their name is representative of their service!

Old 54 gallon fresh water tank with the bowed section showing.
It's stored horizontally in the RV.

New tank on left and old tank on right.

One day every month there is free entrance to the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix.  We've been to the garden before and really enjoyed looking at so many varieties of cactus.  We took our friends, Linda and Randy with us.  This time the park was even better due to the inclusion of Dale Chihuly's glass sculptures.  The exhibit was titled Chihuly in the Desert.

Chihuly's art appears in over 400 permanent collections all over the world, including in the United States, Canada, England, Israel, China, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and Australia.  You may have seen his work at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas.

 

 

Al getting creative with his camera features

 

 

 

Sol del Citron, 2014

Randy, Linda, Nancy, and Al

A unique type of cactus

Randy, Linda, Nancy, and Al

Linda and Nancy

 

Lime and Lava Red Tower, 2021

Opal and Amber Tower, 2018

I really enjoyed the garden this year with the glass sculptures.  Can you tell I love blown glass?  It was fun searching for the different pieces throughout the gardens.

Another night we went looking for Christmas lights with Linda and Randy at a nearby church where they had a photo booth so we had some fun.

 

It was a busy month of volunteering at Sunshine Acres for the various Christmas activities along with our hours in the greenhouse.  We decided we needed a vacation and took off Christmas week for Cabo San Lucas in Baja California, Mexico.  I'll save that for the next blog entry.