'Casa Grande' in Coolidge, AZ

Almost three weeks here already .. yeah, yeah .. time flies when you're having fun, and so on and so fort ..  I'm still a little disoriented at times but am slowly getting a feel for the neighborhood as well as the layout of the house and everything in it.

I've started to walk the neighborhood and map out various loops I can do. All roads have sidewalks which is very nice, and safe, and there many different areas to choose from. 

The houses are all beautiful, very southern/dessert-y, mainly stucco and all have beautiful landscaped yards, like this:

                                                                                             

I even came across a community garden center!

The people are all very friendly and I am constantly waving and calling out hello's and good-mornings.

One of my walks brings me by the Parkside Community Park:

 

Which has baseball-and football fields and a dog park ..

          

And several ponds, with lots of different species of nice looking ducks ..

 

And some Slider Turtles ..

Another walk brings me by the Sun City Community Center, where there is a pool, as well as pickle-ball, horseshoe and shuffle-board fields.            

People sure are active out here, despite being almost all seniors! Yes, this is a 55+ neighborhood, I didn't even know those existed ..

We went for a drive to check out the nearby town of Coolidge and took the time to visit the Casa Grande National Monument.

 

This is an Ancestral Sonoran Desert People's (the Hohokam) farming community, right in the desert, comprising a 4-story "Great House", ball court & irrigation canals, dating to the Classic Period (1300s-era).

There's not much left to see and the exhibits/museum is closed but it was still interesting enough for a short visit.

           

 I liked these cute posters to remind you to wear a mask!

While we were in town we picked up some groceries at Walmart. Yes, we have a Walmart only 6 miles from us! Yoo-hoo! It's been a while!

I love the way they created these nice covered parking spots! They serve a double purpose; they create shade and they are covered with solar panels! How cool is that?             

See?

Let's see, what else did we do? Oh, work, yeah! How about this? The safe, which was parked in the garage for the time being, was moved to the master bedroom.

 

 

Doug had arranged some special, heavy duty movers to handle this, which we were very happy about since that thing weighs a ton .. well, 1300 pounds to be precise!

 

It took them a while, they were very careful, but they got it done!

                                           

And James installed a small wine-fridge in the kitchen. He removed one of the kitchen cabinets under the counter ..

Out with the old, in with the new! He also took care of a leak at the dishwasher while he was in there.

It's already filled to the rim with (white) wine. I'm glad because it created a lot more room in the 'normal' fridge!

Other than that James is working of and on (when he has some time between golfing), on various small electric projects, changing out switches etc.

Oh, and the tiles for the bathrooms and the living-room wall have arrived! James drove to Mesa to pick them up, after which it was a hell of a (heavy) job to get the truck unloaded between just the two of us, but they're all sitting in the rooms they need to go in, ready to be installed!

Also, we've managed to find a few high-school kids who are going to help us out (on Saturdays) in the coming months, so we will leave the heavy work to the young and able! 

Seems like a plan!