Arizona Shopping plus Covid!

Part of the plan for our winter in Alberta included a quick trip (flying) to Arizona to buy supplies for our jewelry & crafting. We headed off on January 10 for a 5 day trip, happy to be warm & excited for some shopping & visiting.

We flew into Phoenix-Mesa, and then drove to Yuma for our stay. We stopped in Quartzsite to visit several old friends & to shop at the outdoor rock & gem booths. We stocked up on gemstone cabochons for my wire wrapping, crystals for suncatchers & fossil shark teeth with display cases for reselling.

We fit in a trip across the border into Algodones, Mexico to see the dentist & for tacos & cervesas. Super easy - you drive 15 minutes from Yuma, Arizona; park your car for $6, still in Arizona; walk across into Mexico where in a small section of town there are hundreds of dentists, optical, pharmacies & souvenir shops. A visit to a very well equipped dental office for a check-up, cleaning & x-rays costs $25US! The border wall has been “improved” from our last visit – coiled barbed wire on top of the old wall with the addition of the 20 ft steel section. A 1-2 hr line up to exit (this is a very busy place) where you can still purchase souvenirs & snacks & you are back at your car.

We must admit that we like our buffet restaurants so a trip to Lin’s was in order – but it wasn’t quite as great as we remembered, but we still left stuffed!

Due to Covid we required a PCR test 72 hrs before we returned to Canada – luckily we found a drugstore that provided free testing vs paying $150 or more –but unfortunately Robin tested positive! He had a bit of a scratchy throat & a mild cough which we had tried to ignore. Panic! Now what – we were due to fly home the next day & needed to return our rental car to Phoenix. I was glad that I had added a roaming package to the cell as I spent a good portion of the day on the phone! We booked a hotel in Phoenix, changed our Covid medical insurance, cancelled our flights, and returned the car. So began a period of sitting on the bed watching way too much TV! I started feeling sick a couple days later & tested positive 4 days after Robin. After much online research we realized that in order to return to Canada we needed to wait till 11 days after the positive test – then we could rebook our flights & now needed to extend our medical insurance. Luckily neither of us got very sick – felt like a bad cold with a lot of aches & a cough. The US quarantine only required 5 days if improving so at least we could get out, go for walks & shop for food.

We did a day trip in another rental car to the Mesa Marketplace (a huge tented area of shopping) - with fun yard art made from tires, & a drive to the Superstition Mountain area, including Goldfield Ghost town. In Phoenix we spotted a small flock of Rosy Faced Lovebirds –a strange sight flying wild – they descended from escaped pets in the 1980’s.

But hanging out a full 14 days in that little hotel room was painful! And rather expensive – we never considered buying insurance to cover a possible quarantine. But we did make a little use of the pool & loved seeing blooming roses. We finally flew home on January 28. We came too close to losing our next trip, to Costa Rica – there was a 14 day change policy which we just caught & were able to push back the departure by 1 month till the end of February.

Despite it being rather chilly & snowy we were glad to return to Edmonton, time to make some jewelry, catch up with our family where we tried out our son's VR goggles, got to watch our granddaughter's gymnastics & walk in the river valley – and begin packing for our next adventure!

Still Living the Dream!