The Wandering Bruces: From Desert to Wine Country

This is a wall mosaic near the River Walk

Shortly after our birthday cruise with Carl we spent a lovely two days with our good friends Fred and Janet, visiting us from Nebraska. Especially nice for Roger as it gave him one more chance to tell the story of the Alamo and San Jacinto and our Republic!

Then it was on to Arizona and Roger's annual teaching spot at the Arizona School of Health Sciences. Besides the opportunity of meeting and training some of the best physician assistant students in the country, our Arizona trips allow us some great hiking and geocaching experiences.

A visit to Tonto National Monument was another "First" for us, courtesy of our good friends Bob and Amy, co-workers at the school.

After Arizona we moved on to California and a visit with Sabrina.

We attended the MAPS Southwestern Regional meeting held here at the Teen Challenge "Castle" in Riverside, California.

It was a lovely weekend of fellowship with the new friends we've met in MAPS. Sabrina surprised us with a great evening at The Magic Castle, a Hollywood icon devoted exclusively to love of the magical entertainment arts.

California spells "wine country" in everybody's book, and we spent a couple of beautiful days in Temecula, and Santa Ynez with several of our good friends.

Here are Sabrina and Heidi

Christi's parents live in the Santa Ynez area and graciously allowed Christi to host the party at her home

Our lovely Daughter Sabrina

Close friends are a joy forever!

Enjoying the music at one of the wineries

Most of these friends work, play and worship together all through the week, and STILL enjoy each other's company. (Must be a God-thing!)

Christi's apparently explaining something to us

Rhonda really enjoys the music as well!

Joshin' around with Sabrina

We went by the grocery, pooled our efforts and money, and then cooked up together a fantastic meal of steaks, quinoa and salad! (Did I mention the wine?) Better than anything we could have done in a restaurant! Thanks to all for a fun day!

While in SoCal we danced again with the Eagle Rock group, and attended the St Patrick's Day Dance and the Scottish Country dancing workshop and ball in San Diego with Ron Wallace in charge.

We love the outdoors and nature, in general, and really enjoy specifically birding (or "twitching", as our English friends call it.) The Southwest and Southern Cal gave us some of the more interesting and beautiful animals/birds we've met this year. So, we've decided to close this edition with some of the more beautiful: (remember to double-click the picture to see a large version)

I've marked them with A(rizona),C(alifornia) and T(exas).

Cactus Wren (A)