Steve and Judy's Travels!

  The cheering squad was there.         Alex did well.  He qualified for Nationals next month in Oklahoma City (Oklahoma here we come).  Videos will upload tomorrow.   Go Alex!  

  I know it’s the desert.   But there is so much water here!  This is an overhead of Matt’s neighborhood.   It looks like this from ground level.     There are waterfront communities all over town (in Chandler).   https://www.google.com/maps/@33.2479981,-111.8408796,14.22z   Fountains.  Lakes.  Everywhere.  In the desert!     Meanwhile, Judy’s sister Sue, and brother-in-law John, and her sister-in-law Barbara all drove out from California to help cheer on Alex tomorrow night.  We all got together for dinner tonight.   With Barbara’s dog Hachi under the table!   (Lindsay and Arie were there too but not in time for the group selfie.)  

  And we’re back to The Motorcoach Resort.  We got back yesterday.   2018 Arizona Trip Map   We were only going to stay in Arizona for two weeks, but since the Regional Gymnastics Championships are going to be in Phoenix this year, we decided to stick around for a little longer.  Alex competes on Friday.   Go Alex!    

  They’re hard to find.   They summer on the mid-west plains, wandering about on the short grass prairie.  They winter in the south; sometimes seen in the Rio Grande Valley, but they’re hard to spot.  They’re light brown birds that like to stand in plowed furrows, looking like dirt clods.   We got a hot lead on wintering mountain plovers in Southern Arizona last weekend.  We gave it a good effort, staring at dirt clods, waiting for one to move, but no luck.   We did, however, stumble onto a pair of burrowing owls standing next to an irrigation ditch!       A total surprise!    

    I was just thinking.  Electricity flowing through a tightly wound coil creates an electro-magnet, doesn’t it?  This power cord is not so tightly wound, but might those coils at least generate some magnetic field and some resulting heat?  Should I pull the cord all the way out each time I use it, to eliminate the coils just in case?  Probably not.  I think with a wire gauge this large we’re probably okay.  Besides, when we first got the coach, the power cord wound up on a reel, and they never told us to be sure to unroll it all the way, so it wouldn’t melt.   I should leave the power cord coiled up like that once with everything electrical running inside and go hold the power cord in my hand to see if it seems warm.     Now we’re at Cave Creek Regional Park   2018 Arizona Trip Map