Around the Neighborhood Desert Hills IV

Come tour the neighborhood with me.  The complex winds around a big circle with town homes terraced on different levels.  Lots of residents walk the sidewalks.everybody says "hello" and cars that pass wave- very friendly!  There's the basic cactus landscape but some interesting yard decorations.

Gotta love this debonair golfer.  He's almost life size.

These two children are so cute in their Arizona cold weather head ware.

Here they are all decked out in Valentine's Day outfits

The Social Center is Green Valley's version of a park district recreation center, swimming pool, exercise equipment, shuffleboard and classes in arts and crafts (for example sculpting, drawing & painting,textiles, jewelry- silversmithing, copper, beads,) health and fitness, language arts and writing, nature and gardening,and special interests.  The catalog has 61 pages of offerings.  

So far we've just been swimming and using the exercise equipment.

This church is next to Desert IV.  It is a beautiful southwestern "mission" type building

Beautiful fountain

Sanctuary

The next few pictures show the different trees in the neighborhood.  Just in case you thought ONLY cactus and desert prickly stuff grows here.

Must have orange, lemon, grapefruit trees. 

Coming to Green Valley January 2017

2017   
We left Kenosha on a cold and gray day on January 8.

This is a snowy road side in Missouri.  The plains got more snow that we did in Kenosha.  Fortunately the roads were clear and the weather was good for our trip to Green Valley.






























Moon over the Capitan Mountains, Alamagordo, NM.  Lovely sunset sky.

Here we are in Desert Hills IV, one of six sections in Green Valley.  January 11, 2017.

1513 West Placita Travis ( Travis Park )

Our front yard, a chubby saguaro cactus, newbie prickly pear and  several agave surrounded by those rocky landscapes that help to vary the desert gravel.

Front patio

Front door with colorful Mexican pottery in the kitchen window

Front door entrance, foyer leads to quest bedroom, bath kitchen, master bed room and living room

Dining room table

Comfy couch with recliners on each end

Two easy chairs

This is the patio view from the living room

We love to watch the clouds roll in over the Santa Rita Mountains.  We can see this from the living room and the master bedroom.

 Kitchen.  Two skylights makes this a nice bright area.

Kitchen table.  Washer and dryer behind the white doors

Master bedroom, attached bath to the right


Quest bed room

Sunrise January 12.  Wow!!

U of AZ Humanities Class "What is Politics"

All days start with a magnificent sunrise

Off to Tucson and the University of Arizona.  I've walked around the campus a bit

A forest of palm trees

I am fascinated by the rocks in Arizona.  Not sure what these are.  It is a seriously strong "fence" around a lovely shaded park.

This is one of the buildings for the Arizona State Museum.

Women's Pavilion

Inside each arch is dedicated to someone or some group.

 The bluish circles are glass mosaic titles

The plague below says "Waiting for Grandfather."

 “Every detail has meaning to me because every piece begins deep inside me,” Suazo is quoted in the release commenting about the work. “The young woman is waiting anxiously to see grandfather, to show her baby to him because he has not yet seen the child. The belt around her skirt is like the one my grandmother used to wear. The stair step design at the bottom of the woman’s skirt represents the steps we take in life.”
Of the stair step design, Suazo, a former student of New Mexico sculptor Allan Houser, explains, “A few designs have special meaning to me and so I use them over and over.” The stair step design is one.


:

Old Main" a beautiful building

This U of AZ building is called the "Canyon." The undulating walls resemble the sides of a mountain canyon.  The vines that are hanging down are actually butterfly incubators.  The larvae feed on the leaves and come spring, the "canyon: will be full of butterflies.  I'm not sure if we will get to see that.  Our classroom is on the first floor to the right.

This is one half of the classroom. We met a very nice couple from Canada. Chris and Bob.  Chris was a social worker originally from England, with a delightful accent.  Bob  was born in Milwaukee and was an aerospace engineer with Bombardier.  We sit together and discuss what we've read and wonder how we missed all the history presented in class.  We plan to celebrate the end of the class with a dinner somewhere.




















We signed up for this "What is Politics" class because we had such a wonderful class last year (Ever
Changing Brain) from the Humanities organization at U of AZ.  And because we heard a lecture by Professor Noam Chomskey in 2013.  He and Professor Marv Waterstone lead Tuesday and Thursday lectures on the history of democracy and the current challenges.  The class is 250 undergrad students and 250 "older" students in a large classroom with very comfortable seats.  There is a vigorous load of required reading for the students and optional for us.  But it is very interesting reading, very thought provoking.  It keeps us busy keeping up the chapters and articles.  Most valuable was a tape of Eisenhower's Farewell speech warning of a military industrial complex. It is a speech by a great statesman.  It's been a while since we've heard a speech that sounded like a real dedicated leader for our country.