Moving on to Mesa

After spending a very enjoyable 5 weeks in Tucson, I was a little leery of heading to Mesa.  Mesa was on the itinerary because I had been there twice in the past and enjoyed it, though I new the traffic would be heavier and the golf more expensive.  I would have gone there first, but a person I had met at Loyola who lives in Tucson said they like the weather there best in December, so I decided to go there first and then go to Mesa afterwards.  I had expected to meet up with this person, but they cancelled our plan of 10 days, two hours before we were scheduled to meet up and then never contacted me to re-schedule despite promising to do so.  I should have clued in, when I had asked if they could check out the park for me before I made my reservation, despite it only being 2 miles from their home (a pleasant coincidence) they didn't go by to check it out at all, given a week to do so.  (One less Face book friend on my list.)

My reservation at Orangewood Shadows is for 6 weeks, from January 2nd to February 15th.  I found the park randomly online, but it looked good, and had won best park of the year in 2015.  I was attracted to it because of the location (central Mesa), being pet free, and allowing the residents to pick and consume fruit from the citrus trees on the property.  It was the only park I came across that would didn't require a two month stay if you wanted any part of February.  It is also on the smaller side as compared to the mega RV parks in the area.

The check in process was easy, however getting situated on the site was a bit difficult, though a little easier than in Tucson.  The fellow supposedly helping to direct me in wasn't the best at it, but with patience we got the job done.

As I was still setting up, I met a friend of my future next door neighbors, a fellow golfer from Edmonton.  He filled me in on one of the golf discount cards available in the area, however, I decided that it wasn't for me as the courses didn't have very good ratings and most were quite some distance from the park. 

I arrived on a Tuesday night, which in this park is Bingo Night so I decided to go and see how they would play and meet some people.  I sat with 5 ladies.  They play with the cards with the sliding windows, instead of paper and dabbers.  Cards are $0.50 each for about 12 games.  Prizes are in the range from $15 - $35.  I took 6 cards.  They have a flip chart that shows what the current game is.  They play some interesting patterns.  At intermission they sell ice cream treats (drum sticks, sandwiches, Klondike bars) for $1 each.  Unfortunately all of them have chocolate, so I couldn't have any due to my caffeine intolerance.  There were about 100 players that evening.  I didn't come close to winning anything.

That was the end of day one in Mesa.