Well, here it is time again to write the next blog and as you can tell, I still haven't fixed the problem. It seems google has made some changes and messed up some other things. Anyway, we will continue on. November was the month to recognize our veterans. The park had their own parade for Veterans Day. It started out with a color guard of young Marines and was followed by a band.
Unlike the parades back home where we had dance groups, baton twirlers, Semi trucks and old cars we had golf carts with old people. Lots of golf carts. Followed by more golf carts.
At the end was a little red convertible.
After the parade the park had a nice luncheon for the veterans and their spouses. They played all of the different service songs. As the song for your branch of service was played you were asked to stand up. Much to my surprise when the song for the Coast Guard was played there were two of us who stood up. Normally I am the only one standing, especially out west where you don't find a lot of shore line.
We took a trip into Scottsdale and went to the Hall Of Flame. It is a museum of fire fighting equipment. They have a fire cart back to 1735. They have equipment that used manpower to pull them to horse-drawn carts to the modern engines.
This is a fire sled from Nagaunee Michigan. It was interesting to see how fire fighting has evolved over the years.
This is a hose cart that was horse drawn. It is really fancy for a hose cart but back then each fire dept. tried to have fancier equipment then the others.
This unit has the water pumping equipment mounted on the front of the engine. All of the equipment has been restored back to its original condition. Notice how clean this unit looks and how shiny the chrome is. That's how it looked when it was in use. Just like the fire departments now days, the people took pride in their equipment.
This engine was the first one bought that started the collection for the museum. It is in working condition and is used in local parades.
The gold leaf designs used on these engines was amazing.
Holly was able to cross another thing off her bucket list. Here she is driving a fire truck. Cool helmet sweetie.
They had several cases filled with patches from fire departments from all over, They were all donated to the museum. If you are a fire fighter or know one, they are always looking for patches. They have all been cataloged and you can see if your local department is there. We found this one from Hudsonville Michigan, and we also found them from Grand Rapids and Bay City.
In our traveling around we have seen that there is more to Arizona then desert. There are plenty of mountains and beautiful sunsets.
We went to the Phoenix Zoo and talked to the animals. Don't worry they didn't talk back.
It was a nice day to go to the zoo and they have a large assortment of animals in large and well kept areas.
This is an African Elephant. They have two but only one is out at a time while they other one is inside resting. They had camel rides and I thought Holly might like to cross something else off her bucket list but she thought two things in one month might be a bit much. Below is a tooth from an African Elephant. They only have four teeth but from the size of this one four should be enough.
Well that's it for now. Hope you are all enjoying the weather up north. We had a cold spell run thru here but it's now sunny and warm during the days and cool at night. We have found our summer location. We will be in Southport Maine at Gray Homestead Oceanfront Camping. We wish a Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.
