Nice, damned nice to be precise. After suffering through the long hot summer with doors and windows closed up tight, is there anything better than waking early and throwing open every door in the house? And yikes it's awesome to crack the windows and let those 60 and 70 degree temps flood the house with gentle desert breezes. Of course with that comes the plethora of motor homes pouring back into the community, endless garage sales/estate sales and the onslaught of daily shoppers at Fry's and Safeway. It's the season of plenty, some good, some bad, but all part of the Sun City experience. On a brighter note, I popped on Facebook this morning and saw a friend had posted a picture of his backyard in Ontario Canada. Yuk, a light dusting of snow and the promise of way more to come. Looks like he'll be headed down the end of November and I suspect he can't wait. Most of my Canadian friends and lawn bowlers will be arriving any day now. The end of October and the first weeks of November are prime time for our Northern visitors to begin returning back to the Valley of the Sun. Gotta love how that sounds, when thinking in terms of wind chill factors, gray days that never end and snow up to your backside. Bet you hate you had to leave eh 4n6?
I shopped at the nearby CVS and the checker mentioned to me that it had been a stressful two weeks for the store personnel. I asked why and she said "our business has doubled and its hard to make the change after the quiet of summer" I'm sure businesses are happy for the increase in sales but they feel the pain too.
As noted in previous threads, retail is really all about feast or famine in Sun City. The summers always weed out those who are on the bubble while those who survive it, can be in pig heaven when the winter visitors come back. Hopefully the smart store managers schedule more help as folks flood back home, as it is painful to stand in line watching the old folks dig through their coin purse for 97 cents rather than giving them another dollar bill. Just another day in the life of those of us who have made Sun City home.
it's all relative, but our guests always ask "where are the people?". I spend ~15 weeks each winter in SC and find it very uncrowded. We use the facilities daily, most of the 60 rounds of golf I play each winter in SC take four hours or less, I cycle through SC to get to and from the New River bike trail, rarely see any traffic, other than Bell. Not being contrary but I come to SC to get away from crowds.
I walked to the CVS several times and saw many people walking their dogs. But its the case is every neighborhood I've lived in...if you walk a dog you meet your neighbors. And in SC everyone says hello.
Bet you hate you had to leave eh 4n6?[/QUOTE] Still have a few weeks left then heading back. Thanks for reminding me there BPearson!! Give me a couple more months and yes, I will be shovelling the dreaded white stuff.
Enjoy it while you can 4n6, it's gonna be a long cold winter up there if they're seeing snow already. Sun City is a friendly community C and one of my favorite blog columns from days gone by was this one entitled The Finger. Enjoy.
Recall saying good bye in Minnesota to my Aunt and Uncle about 1967. They were both in their fifties. They told me they bought a house in Sun City Arizona, paid $12k. I asked them what they were going to do, they just laughed......Aunt Mary lived past 101 years old, 46 years in SC. They figured it out early in life and loved every minute of their time in SC.
Great story fj; what's cool is there are a million of them; another one of the reasons the Del Webb Sun Cities Museum is such an awesome place. There's a couple of hundred interviews of the early "pioneers" and Webb folks who built this community. They are priceless and need to be told and retold. Years back on another site I was attached to, one of the regulars argued "we need to tell our stories." I never quite got it, but as time has marched on, I do now. History always favors those who make it big; but frankly I have no interest in reading about Donald Trump or the other hundreds of books out there by the politicians telling us how great they are. The personal stories we all hear about how people came to Sun City are far more interesting to me. And while I know some love to prattle on about their working years, I'm far more curious about why and what brought them to Sun City. It's inspiring to hear, and for those struggling to leave the past behind, it's often the catalyst to get them to do just that.
It was winter 1962 when I went on a road trip from MN to Sun City and Tucson with my paternal grandparents. Big old Chevy Impala. Roads and highways not freeways. Small motels not chains. We met up with my maternal grandparents who were shopping for a home in Sun City. We were doing some mini trips and my grampa decided to drive across the border into Nogales. We parked on the street and some young boys offered to "watch" the car but my frugal grandparents refused. We ate at Pancho Villa's Cave Restaurant and I remember I had turtle soup for the first time. When we came back to the car the boys were there and we drove away with a loud clattering noise. They had detached the muffler part way and it was dragging. A valuable lesson was learned as my grandparents had to pay the boys to hook it back up! Never again did they drive across the border. My maternal grandparents did buy a home in 1964 and it is still family owned.
The story I recall is they stayed in an apartment or condo on the South Course. Bob Hope and Bing Crosby were in SC helping DW promote it. And the pros who missed the cut at the Phoenix Open played a weekend event on the South Course. They were sold.
