Our Southern Home

We started coming to Arizona in the winter of 2005-06 and staying in what I call a Geezer Camp and Marie calls an "over 55 gated resort". It's one of the 50,000+ such resorts in Mesa -- one of Phoenix's many suburbs. Our particular geezer camp has 1500 sites for RV's, taken by large 5th wheels, motor homes, or park model RV's with an added stick-built room which are called, interesting enough, Arizona Rooms. That first winter, we were in our 34 foot 5th wheel trailer and stayed for a little over 4 months. We also decided we liked it enough to come back and live in something larger than the 5th wheel --- duh! If you have ever spent over 4 months in a trailer, you know the feeling. So, we bought the park model. All in all, the house is almost 900 sq ft which is plenty for the two of us. It has a "sitting room" with windows on 3 sides which Marie uses as her studio ( more about that later ), a small eating area that is used for cards and other games, a kitchen, bath, a master bedroom - queen size, and the large Arizona room where we do our relaxing. The Arizona room, with our comfy chairs, is the library ( one 3 shelf bookshelf jam-packed ), the music room ( a killer Sony CD player and about 50-60 CD's ), the home theater ( large Sony TV with DVD player and a double digital recorder ), and a couch hide-a-bed for company. The back of the Arizona room is partitioned into a second bath, laundry facilities, and a small office/studio/workbench for me.

Follow the link below for some extra pictures of the park and our winter home. The name plate hanging on the front porch was made by me in the pottery craft room. That's Phil in the picture for those of you who haven't met him.

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