Oh, the crowds!

Ready for the next installment of my non-sightseeing blog?  Of course you are, you know you are missing them.

We are still here in Apache Junction, Arizona which is what prompts this blog posting.  Arizona has always been known as one of the retirement and snowbird destinations as is Florida.  Being my young age (ha, ha) I have not really experienced either of these areas where the seniors congregate and had not really given it a thought.

Living in Naperville and being retired had some great benefits.  One was being able to go to a store, a movie or whatever during the week, during the day, which usually meant less people.  I got really spoiled being able to go to Costco and actually walk around the store leisurely not worried about getting hit by a shopping cart as you do on the weekends.

Ok, back to Apache Junction.  I don’t know the numbers but there are a lot of people here that are not from Arizona.  That means driving skills are all over the place and nobody works, so everyone is out at all times of the day.  Going to the supermarket at 10 in the morning means a packed parking lot.  Driving anywhere on the surface streets means traffic and required patience to make it to your destination in one piece.

Which leads me to the why I wrote this posting (actually it is a rant), Costco.  Today, Monday, we went to the Costco nearest our park.  Now we did go just as lunchtime was ending, but the crowds were enormous.  Because our truck is so huge we always park a distance away, but once in the store you could barely move with your shopping cart and you had to be on high alert or you would get hit.  Thankfully we had only come to get a few items and were able to use the back roads (aisles near the edge of the building) to get to what we needed.  I will give Costco credit in that they did have every register lane open and were moving the people out quickly.  This could be because people do not buy as much here as they did in Naperville.  Instead of carts overflowing with merchandise, most only had a few items.  So, less things bought but more people in the store.

Good to know if you come during the winter months to Arizona.