Winter 2022–2023, It’s a Wrap!

Our winter stay became a month longer than originally planned. Towerpoint invited us to come in early a discounted rate and because we stayed two weeks longer in April for me to take care of a medical issue we actually stayed four months in Mesa AZ.

We surprisingly only did a little bit of hiking mostly due to the chilly weather most of the winter this year .It seemed all the extremes limited our long hiking excursions whether it was cold,,rainy or super hot.

We did, however, enjoy the amenities of the RV park. We were able to fall into a routine of working out at the onsite fitness room five days a week and as a result we are certainly in better shape now than we first arrived. Now we just have to maintain this level of fitness sans the convenient fitness center.

We also played a little bit of disc golf, a sport we both really enjoy playing. We played some pickleball at our resort as well. We prefer just playing singles when we play pickleball as it gives us a better workout than doubles does.

We met a lot of new people who we now call friends and were lucky enough that late in the season some of our  previously made friends showed up here. It was so fun to enjoy their company as well.

There were some holiday festivities we participated in. Mardi Gras and St. Patty’s day were two of our favorite celebrations at Towerpoint.

There were plenty of happy hours at one of the many Cal-Am parks while listening to some live music. We also snuck off to visit a few Breweries and enjoyed happy hours at old town Gilbert AZ.

We were glad to see that they have cornhole boards at several of the resorts in Arizona as we missed playing this game. When we wintered in Florida this was a very popular activity.

We also visited several locations for some winter and migratory birding. Our very favorite sport was birding at the Gilbert Riparian Preserve. Sharon really enjoyed trying to capture the flitting little birds with her camera and did a great job on several of them, including this Verdin (a very tiny bird) above.

It wasn’t all fun as both Sharon and I caught Covid (omicron) while wintering in Arizona. We both still have a few lingering effects from this encounter. We also had to endure some medical issues after we visited our Dermatologist at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale AZ. Sharon had to do a lip peel for her lower lip as it had some precancerous concerns. I was unfortunate enough to need a couple of Mohs surgeries on two Basel Cell Carcinomas, both were successfully removed.

Despite these setbacks we really have enjoyed our stay here and look forward to returning soon. We went ahead and made reservations for next year but may or may not come here as it is way too far in the future to make any solid plans.

If we do come back we really do look forward to seeing our new friends again!