Fountain Hills, Pueblo El Mirage, Sun City West

We  welcomed another day of sun with a walk around the infamous fountain of Fountain Hills. It blasts off on the hour every hour for 15 minutes. We can see it from our campground and from all over town. It was a pretty cool idea back in the 70's to give the little town a piece of notoriety.

It's 1.25miles around the pond/lake.

There are a zillion ducks all around the lake. I know because I counted the turds along the way.

On one side of the park there is a nice Veterans Memorial.

The memorial runs right out to the edge of the water.

And pieces of art are scattered around the park. This giraffe has a couple of flywheels for it's body.

In addition to the bronze statues around town, there are several around the lake.

 We ventured out and about one day in search of some screws, some water heater parts and some groceries. During our visit to ACE is the Place we found an assortment of Monkey Butt products. We had been wondering where you could attain them in Arizona. (Holly had never heard of them and she cracked up; hence the pictures :-)

ACE also had quite the assortment of springs on display and for sale.  Holly thought this was a cool "art" picture :-)

After we finished up with our shopping we went to the western Valley for a look around. We checked out the Pueblo El Mirage RV Resort as a destination for future trips. It is a real nice park with lots of activities and beautiful grounds.

The entrance had huge gate/guardhouse with a nice lady giving us directions.

There is a golf course winding through the park.

And a huge clubhouse.

There are several buildings with craft rooms for woodworking, metal smithing, quilting etc. etc.

 There is a store in the clubhouse that is operated by people staying here. It offers a spot for guests to showcase and sell their crafts.

There's a wide range of transportation choices around here.

A spot to put your golf balls if you think they need to be watered.

The craft building.

Not far from the RV park is the town of Surprise. It's really quite a nice town and as an added bonus it's home to spring training camps for the Texas Rangers and the Kansas City Royals. The town built a huge complex for the teams and it seems to be paying off. The Cactus league generates an enormous amount of revenue for the town and the entire area. Our Texas friends, Kenny and Tena, came out last year for some Ranger action. Right now they are just running batting and pitching practice. The games start up next week.

 

The main drag of Surprise is lined with Palm Trees.

After checking out Surprise and the ball parks we went for a look at Sun City, Sun City Grand and Sun City West. Since this is the only picture we took I guess that sums up our opinion of the area. It really isn't too bad but it is clogged with traffic. One nice feature though was the fact that they allow and encourage people to drive golf carts around town. Have to admit that would be a hoot.

Now here's a sign we didn't expect to see. Just a couple of miles from our camping spot and the sign says "CHAINS REQUIRED."  What? Yes indeed. Snow in the Valley of the Sun. There was even enough snow in Tucson to cancel the PGA golf tournament on Wednesday. 

The Verde River. The river is right behind our motorhome. Can't see it too well but that's us camped in the distance.

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Tonto National Forest. Didn't see any trees but who am I to make waves? 



The snow was down low into the foothills.

And the tops of the mountains between us and Phoenix. Only about 2500'

The snow comes right down to meet the valley floor.

Don't know what to say about this but it was pretty cool.  We thought it was one of those car wraps but it was all done with duct tape!

A Rainbow to end the day of rain and snow. (Taken thru the window)