Happy Birthday, Mark!

Denisa thinks Mark is sure looking handsome on his birthday for an old guy!  Happy Birthday!

Years ago we agreed that it was the responsibility of the birthday boy (or girl) to plan what they wanted to do to celebrate their day.  Denisa has always planned fun activities that usually involved taking a day off work and going somewhere special.  Mark has usually opted for a meal out at a favorite restaurant after working all day.  So it's not surprising that Mark's birthday wasn't a super-exciting celebration this year.  He claims that it's really hard to plan something special to do to because living on vacation is special every day.


So after eating chocolate pie for birthday breakfast, we left our camping spot in Tucson and headed north up the interstate to our next destination.  Driving through Tucson and Phoenix in a motorhome is not exactly a birthday fun day, and it was a longer drive than we usually make.  But we got settled in our new home in Prescott Valley by early afternoon, and we really love it here!  Thanks to our new friends Bill and Paula for suggesting this area of central Arizona for a few days!

We are staying at Fairgrounds RV Park, another Passport America Park that gives half-price camping for members.  That membership has certainly paid for itself, and something that every full-time RVer should do.  The park was close to full when we got there, and we noticed that the license plates of our neighbors were Oregon, Iowa, Ontario, and South Dakota.  It is certainly a place that travelers from all over North America come to stay.

After a birthday dinner at Guido's (complete with a complimentary canoli for dessert) we headed to the Prescott National Forest south of town.  We found ourselves at Lynx Lake. 

Lynx Lake is a pristine lake at high altitude, and we sure wished we had time to put the kayak on that calm water!  Because we've been living in the desert, we haven't seen a lake in a very long time.  It's nice to find out that the town of Prescott is surrounded by mountains, national forest,  granite dells, and lakes.  

After being in the sand and cacti for months, it's nice to be in the mountains with pine trees now. We celebrated Mark's birthday with a nice walk around the lake.

We got a hiking map and have decided we could take a different hike every day for several months without repeating a hike!  The white square in the middle of the map is the city of Prescott.  All the colored lines on the maps are not highways--they are hiking trails.  We are going to love it here, and it's a great place to do some training for the Grand Canyon hike at similar altitude.

The town of Prescott Valley seems to be very new.  They have a new hospital, new library, new schools . . .  On top of that, they have good shopping, and Denisa was certainly excited to find a Trader Joe's in town.  Her favorite purchase was this bag of fresh peas.  If you know Denisa, you should know that her favorite snack every spring is peas fresh out of the garden.  This is her birthday present a few months early!

So we will be in Prescott Valley for a few days until it's time to relocate to the area a little closer to the Grand Canyon.  Until then we are enjoying calling this area home.