Saguaro Jane.....

 7:52 am - Monday - March 30th - TWW - 57° F, humidity 26%, cloud cover 43%, wind 6 mph out of the south.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 74° F.  On this date in 2014 TLE were riding zip lines.....

....at 'Out of Africa' (near Cottonwood, AZ) a combination African animals zoo, and zip line course.....a very cool day!

Well, once again, I have fallen a day behind my usual routine, and have not yet written about Saturday, March 28th.  We purposely made our dental appointments this Spring to coincide with the annual fund raising event Tom and Darlene hold at their home in Wittmann, AZ each March which raises money for Saguaro Jane, a local charitable 'food bank'.  Saguaro is the name of the well known cactus species which is found all over Arizona.  It is pronounced 'Sawaro'....

....after typing, and publishing my latest blog post I headed out to the Newell House to help Tom set up the tables, chairs and table covers, whilst TLE help Darlene with the final food preparations for the night's festivities.....

.....Darlene had been smoking/cooking a pork butt for about 18 hours at this point, plus making all sorts of desserts.  

The day passed by quickly, and soon it was 5 pm, and the guests began to arrive.....

You can see TLE, Phyllis and Charles sitting at the table on the left

....I think there were well over 100 in attendance.  The Newell House is so large inside you could have tripled the number of attendees, and still had room left over!  Charles and Phyllis arrived a little after 5 pm to join the festivities.  We met a number of new people.  In the bottom picture you can see Tom (left corner) talking with one of the guests.  

We first met Tom and Darlene in Newport Beach, CA in 2008 just after we had bought our 1982 Newell Classic.  At the time they were on an extended (several months) Newell trip in their 1990 Newell, and had stopped off in Newport Beach to visit the first Newell folks we met, Michael and Georgia Day, who are from Texas, but wintered in Newport Beach at Newport Dunes in their 1992 Newell.  In March of 2009 we took or first extended road trip in our Newell to Austin, TX for a Newell Rally, and were reacquainted with Tom and Darlene.  At the end of the rally we were invited to join them on their drive back to Mesa, AZ, where they lived at the time.  We courtesy parked in front of their home in Mesa for a couple of days before continuing our trip back to SoCal.  That was the beginning of a long friendship, which has only grown deeper over the years.

By 7:30 pm the festivities were winding down, and TLE and I bid adieu to Charles and Phyllis until we see them again on Wednesday.  It was a very successful evening, with great food and conversation.

On the 'March Madness' front there were no surprises in the first two games of the 'Elite Eight' Saturday afternoon/evening....#1 seed Arizona defeated #2 Purdue to advance to the 'Final Four', while #1 seed Illinois topped #9 Iowa easily to also advance to the 'Final Four'.  We were in bed by 10 pm.  We are so happy we were able to attend the Saguaro Jane fund raiser after missing it the past few years!

Thanks for stopping by!