Thursday March 2nd 2017

Today started in the 40s but climbed into the 70s by mid afternoon. My focus for the day was getting familiar with the area and replenishing the refrigerator. I didn’t stop for groceries on my week long cross country trip, so I was low on everything.

I’m located in a valley south of the intersection of Interstate 10 and Interstate 8. Most of the valley floor is natural desert, but some of it has been cultivated. The only crop I recognized was the abundant area of Pecan trees. It was a bit of a surprise to learn that the desert areas of the south west are prime territory for Pecan growing. When I think of Pecans, I think of Georgia, but I’ve been passing Pecan groves starting in West Texas, through New Mexico and into this area of Arizona. The trees are kind of naked right now. They should start leafing out soon.

Saguaro Cactus on the side of the road. All the arms indicate it’s a senior citizen.

The natural desert plant life in this area is different from the desert areas in Nevada and eastern Arizona that I am more familiar with. This area has saguaro cacti. In this area there are a few out in the undeveloped desert land beside the roads. One of the places I plan to visit, is the Saguaro National Park in the Tucson area which features these tall treasures.

For grocery shopping I found a Super Walmart in Casa Grande about nine miles to the north. I take comfort in the similarities between Walmarts. There are several standard layouts that most of the locations adhere to. Even so, there are subtle differences that stand out. Most of these differences are driven by the local area. At this Walmart all of the signs describing the departments are in English and Spanish. Another difference is the first display rack in the produce department is filled with a selection of hot peppers complete with a chart describing their heat level. The ones they were selling weren’t that hot, but considering my tastes, I kept walking.

Visitor to my neighbor’s bird feeder. It was noisy like a rooster.

My refrigerator is now full of food. I clearly over compensated for being out of fresh food. I now have a weeks worth of meals waiting to be cooked and that doesn’t count the frozen dinners I added to the freezer. This is very unusual for me. I usually only buy for a couple of days at a time. The trick will be using the supplies before they go bad.