Assimilating

Life is slowing down a tad.  We are assimilating.  Kinda.

When Denny turns over in bed, I wait for the oh-so-slight rocking of The Beast.  The bed is still.

I still occasionally reach for the foot pedal to flush the toilet.

Twice now the wood laminate flooring of the bedroom has gotten soaked because we can't hear the sound of rain on the roof so we sleep through the rain with the window wide open. 
Stick and brick homes have roofs that don't sound like drums being beaten when it rains.  There is no sound at all and that is strange to us after all these years.  It's not better, it's just different.

I have opened the front door and tried to step down onto the set of four steps that don't exist here.  That can be a jarring experience.

Making the bed is a pleasure because I can walk around all three sides and the mattress isn't jammed up against a wall on one side and a built in cupboard on the other so that Denny and I would have to pull the mattress down towards us to be able to change the sheets.  

We have found ourselves a sparkling red convertible and have ordered our "mystic teal" colored golf cart.  Denny and I both have to learn how to gracefully exit the new car; Black Beauty allowed me to simply slide out and step down on the running board to make an exit.  Denny of course could simply step right out with his much longer legs.  At this point, with the convertible it's more a matter of clawing our way out of it.  But we both agree that after all these years without, we still look good in a convertible. *wink*

Here at The Villages, the primary mode of transportation is the golf cart and we've already had our maiden voyage in our loaner golf cart and gotten ourselves turned around and lost using the rather rudimentary maps provided to us.  Fortunately, what Denny and I had been told is true; if you sit there in your cart looking confused and/or frustrated another person in a golf cart will stop and either tell you which way you need to go or as in our case, the nice ladies actually led us to the store we were trying to find.  I'm sure it won't be the last time we'll need assistance.  

One perk has been filling up the gas tank--sixteen gallons of regular gas opposed to eighty-eight gallons of diesel fuel.  That savings will allow us to go out to dinner a couple more times a month!

Next up will be trying to find and schedule the various instructional classes on local plants and flowers, how to maintain our irrigation system, how to work with the system to make tee times at one of the 30+ executive courses and just what recreation center has what class at what time and how long will it take me to get from here to there? 

The house still echos a bit; we're still without our living room furniture other than the loaner couch given to us by the furniture store but we did get our dining room set so we're no longer eating on the lanai at our folding table except by choice.  The lanai is turning out to be my favorite place because I can enjoy the breeze and people watch.  The cat enjoys it more because the floor is carpeted; she's not fond of the fact that the rest of the house is wood flooring.  Strangely enough, the garage is carpeted so that's the cat's second go-to place.  And no, I have no idea why someone would carpet the garage and I didn't ask the previous owners.  I guess I was almost afraid of the answer.  

Is it weird to be waking up in a house instead of the RV?  Yes, it is.  Are we enjoying the house?  Yes we are.   Will we travel again sometime?  You betcha.  

But for right now, life is pretty darned good.  
 

Living on Beach Time

 Once we left Myrtle Beach, Denny and I made a brief stopover in the Savannah, Georgia area to visit River Street near old Savannah.  The roadways in the photo below show the rock that paves the roads here; the rock itself was the rock used for ballast in sailing ships that brought cargo and goods to Savannah.

 Cargo ships still travel the river in Savannah, bringing stack after stack of containers full of goods to the port.

 After a couple of days of adjusting to the lack of the sound of surf outside our bedroom windows we moved on to the Flagler Beach area.  Here we're three miles from the beach instead of 50 feet.  *Insert sad face emoticon.*

But it's a lovely beach of cinnamon colored sand created from crushed coquina shell.  Not only does it line the beaches, but it can be found in large formations guarding the tee boxes and along some of the fairways at the Halifax Plantation Golf Course.  Plus coquina was used to build the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, Florida which is about 45 minutes up the road.

Denny and I have been wandering around the general area here checking out houses, townhouses and condos.  Upon reflection, we feel we would be comfortable here because it's a bit less touristy than most beach towns.  But once again as we started making plans to look seriously at homes we backed off once we got to talking about the places we still wanted to see out west.  Thus we're going to tuck this area in the back of our minds and prepare ourselves to head out in a few days.  We have some friends to visit here in Florida and a couple more beaches to visit not only here in Florida but in Alabama and Mississippi as well before we head north to visit kids and take care of medical/dental check ups before turning Black Beauty's nose to the northwest.  A vague checklist of things to see/places to go includes Banff National Park in Canada, the Tetons, the Oregon coastline and, well, who knows?  For now, all we know is that we're going to give this lifestyle until the end of the year before we start looking at houses again.  That is, once we've done a "are we really ready to settle down?" check again.

Blogging Blahs

I was tempted to entitle this post "Nothing Amiss, Simply Remiss" but I may have used that one already.  Certainly I was a bit surprised and also a bit appalled to see that I hadn't posted anything since we left Wilmington, Ohio around the 27th of September.  I guess it's simply a case of the blogging blahs.  I am nearing 2,000 posts and it's been seven and a half years that I've been posting here and I think I just got a little burned out.

It certainly doesn't help that we have been maintaining a lower profile because my back hasn't gotten any better since my slip and fall and quite honestly that is beginning to concern me.  If nothing else, it's keeping me from playing golf and that, to quote my mother, "p*sses me off".  Kind of a private joke and it needs to be said with extreme emphasis on the "P".

Since Denny and I pulled out of the Thousand Trails park in Wilmington we have visited with our youngest son Darby and his wife in central Ohio where we celebrated Net's birthday along with her parents.

Next we headed up into New York where we visited with our oldest son, his wife and our granddaughters.  I make sure the girls help out with whatever meal I cook there, simply to teach them how to read and follow recipes.  Despite the faces I think they enjoy it.

Of course there has to be a little goofiness and showing off for the camera by the youngest granddaughter.

Upon leaving Denny and I took the red road route down to Myrtle Beach, staying one night in a beautiful campground in Bedford, Pennsylvania.  We agreed that we'll have to come back here when we can stay longer to do some exploring and just kick back and enjoy the scenery.

Once we arrived in Myrtle Beach we had just the one day to get set up and the chairs pulled out before Darb and Net arrived to stay a week in Myrtle Beach with us.  Of course we yanked out the hide-a-bed sofa soon after we purchased The Beast, so Denny and I rented a park model trailer for the kids.  Since I'm a "get up at the crack of dawn or earlier" kind of person and the kids....well, not so much, this works out better.

Fortunately we had good weather for the most part while they were here so campfires were enjoyed, along with the occasional adult beverage.

For physical therapy purposes I talked Denny into allowing me to buy a folding bicycle.  There are one thousand campsites in this campground so a bike makes it easier to get to the office, the camp store and the indoor swimming pool.  I love this little thing, and we also picked up a carrying case for it so we can put the bicycle in the back of the truck or inside the trailer when we move and not worry about scratching anything up.

There haven't been a lot of spectacular sunrises this year, although I've taken several shots of the state park pier/south Myrtle Beach skyline under a variety of weather conditions and at different hours that could be an entire series of photographs on their own.  When we first arrived there were a lot of military planes including cargo planes and fighter jets that were practicing "touch and go" landings and take offs from the airport just up the road from us so we've been seeing a lot of planes up close and personal here.

This year I managed to take over a thousand photographs of the American Heart Association Heart Ride on the Beach that occurs at the end of October/first of November.  This year there were 1,200 horses from 22 states and even a few from Canada.  There were supposed to be horses from 34 states but apparently a lot of folks cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy.  Not surprising although it didn't hit us here. 

I have taken a lot of photographs of the brown pelicans here, trying to get the perfect shot of a group of them skimming the waves like flying surfers.  I'm still working on it.

And of course, I spend a lot of time walking Patches, or rather I spend a lot of time standing around while she investigates every bush, hole and waving stand of grass.  And yes, I'm as bored as I look.  Denny caught me.  I'm also trying to be good about going to water aerobics for the stretching it provides my back.  If nothing else, it feels good to be in the warm water on cool mornings (it's an indoor pool because nights get much too cool here to keep the outdoor pool open). 

So we've pretty much been living on beach time; not doing much of anything and enjoying that just fine.  My back still isn't up to playing golf so we just do a little walking around the campground.  I did ride along with Denny when he played golf this week and it made me a bit anxious to get back out on the golf course but I'm just not ready yet.  The back still grabs me if I move to quickly or twist suddenly so winding up to swing a golf club just doesn't get it yet.  

Tomorrow our RVing friends Don and Vicki arrive.  They will be staying a couple-three months so we'll overlap a month if all goes as planned.  Plenty of time for some fun.  And maybe a blog post or two.

A Few Weeks of Firsts

This part of our travels has garnered several firsts for us; the first time we've been three weeks in a row without cell phone service, the first time we've gone two weeks without Internet service, the first time we've been this far north into the heart of California.  I have to admit we found the no cell phone/no Internet tough since at times we were far from towns and medical services--something we've become more aware of since we're much older now than when we started our travels.

We've had some interesting firsts:  while sitting outside enjoying the sunshine one day I was tossing bits of crackers to this scrub jay and that's when we discovered that scrub jays eat their fill and then take the extra food and "bury" it in shallow holes in the ground or thick tufts of grass and then the birds find a small rock or pebble and cover over the area where they've place the food, much like a squirrel buries a nut.

Our campground in the Napa Valley area ended at the base of the dam at the southern end of Lake Berryessa, which was ultimately why we left early.  Denny had visions of an earthquake occurring and the dam letting go which would have washed the entire campground away.  Our first time of running from a campground.  But it was a beautiful setting on Putah Creek.

That same campground provided another first; a handicap accessible swimming pool.  This seat apparently swivels and lowers into the pool.  Hey Penny--ya see this?

This was our first visit to the St. Helena/Napa Valley area.  A stop at the Sutter Home tasting area was mandatory as trying Sutter Home wines was my first venture into something more sophisticated than Annie Greensprings.  We also discovered the palacial wineries of the area were as much art form and garden displays as makers of fine wines.

We saw our first tiny grapes on the vine and talked to our first self-taught vintner, enjoying a very educational wine tasting at the Van der Heyden Winery.

We discovered that like so many states, California is a land of contrasts and beauty.  And that lakes come in all colors including this gorgeous teal blue of Lake Berryessa.

For the first time we watched remote controlled boats race on a lake on the grounds of our campground in Nicolaus, California.  Men and their toys! RC boats sound a lot like lawnmowers.  A lot of lawnmowers.

While in the area Denny and I stopped to visit one of his cousins who moved to Calfornia from St. Louis several years ago.  We discovered he had trained (no pun intended) to become an engineer and now had a route that passed through Sparks, Nevada. New(s) to us!

Denny and I drove on Interstate 80 for the first time, going up and up and down and then up and up again as we headed east towards Nevada.  The closer we got to the Donner Pass area the higher the snowbanks were that lined the roadway but fortunately the day was sunny and the roads were clear.  Because we do not carry chains since it is not our intent to be where there is snow on the roads while towing The Beast.  Ever.

Our first time in the area of Donner Pass--when your ears are popping and the speed of the truck drops down to 45 mph going up the steep inclines of the well paved interstate highway it's amazing to think of the hearty breed of people who traveled thousands of miles from the east with their covered wagons and oxen or horses in the extreme temperatures and rugged terrain.  Denny and I agreed that we wouldn't have one tenth the fortitude of those folks.

Our first time in Reno, Nevada.  It's not Las Vegas but it's an interesting little town. There's another one of the Diner's, Drive Ins and Dives restaurants here that Denny and I will sample after playing some golf this week.

And our final "first" for this segment of our journey is that this is our first campground where the primary mode of transportation is that of electric scooters.  It seems that one of the residents (most everyone in this campground/trailer park seems to be permanently ensconced here) who was injured in an automobile accident received a large insurance settlement which he promptly used to buy himself and eleven other people in the park who have disabilities electric scooters. The place is pretty ticky-tacky but the people who live here are friendly and have big hearts.  Plus they have a great view from the western edge of the property where the owners have created a little BBQ pit and seating area for watching the Truckee River.

From here we'll head to Vegas and then on to visit friends and family in a more familiar route but towards the end of summer we'll venture into northern Minnesota and Wisconsin for some new scenery before turning the nose of the truck towards New York and Ohio to see our kids.  I'm hoping there are still a lot of "firsts" out there for us.

Rollin’ Down the Rivah

This is the view from our dining room table for the next two weeks.  In the morning it’s bright and vivid and in the afternoon the mountains turn red and the light softens the edges of everything around.

Although we are on the California side of the river the campground uses Arizona’s Mountain Time Zone because there are no towns near us on this side of the border so they align with the time zone of the town of Parker which is across from us.  Weird, but time is relative, right? 

This is a wonderful area to relax because there really isn’t a lot to do otherwise.  There is a golf course nearby, but they have raised their prices so much that Denny and I refuse to play there.  We have explored the monument at Poston dedicated to the Japanese-Americans who were placed in the relocation camp in the area, as well as hit a few geocaches, drove out by the Nellie Saloon (although it was closed during the week) wandered up and down Hwy. 95 and squeezed our way illegally across the Parker Dam which is no longer wide enough to drive a dual wheeled truck across since they’ve put concrete barriers along the edges of the road after September of 2001.  Therefore this week we have made appointments to be worked on by a local chiropractor (who is wonderful) and will install the final window treatments in the bedroom, I’ve taken down our Hughes.net satellite modem and router due to frustration with tech support and have followed the suggestions of a RVing friend and switched to an air card with a fairly large data plan.  I don’t think it will support two people playing computer games so I’m weaning myself from the various F*cebook games online and downloading more library books to my Kindle.  The weather is still not as warm as we’d like, but it’s certainly better than the craziness that’s going on in the Midwest right now with the snow and rain storms and tornadoes.  All of which makes eventually settling in the western portion of the States a little more sensible.  Maybe.  Not there yet.

In the meantime, the morning sunlight has dropped a giant fistful of glitter on the river and I feel the pull of its siren song.  Catch ya later.

 

 

 

Wandering Around Willcox

If you follow Interstate 10 across New Mexico into Arizona driving towards Tucson or Phoenix you're going to pass the town of Willcox.  In the past, Denny and I have driven to the Cider Mill in Willcox from St. David, Arizona to purchase frozen apple cider but we never really looked around the town while we were here.

This year I decided to arrange a stay of a week's time so we could play golf in Sunsites and check out the Rex Allen Museum and get some cider.  Well, two out of three is not bad.

It seems the town of Willcox has been hard hit by the recession and a lot of the local restaurants and motels have closed down.  The Cider Mill was victim to the economy also, shutting down after selling locally grown apples and apple products for twenty-plus years.  When you ask folks where to eat they recommend the Big Tex BBQ place or "The Plaza" which is a little restaurant at the truck stop along the interstate.  Driving through downtown there are almost as many empty storefronts as there are those still in business and there's not much traffic on the roadways.  It only takes a few minutes to navigate most of the town, so after driving around a bit one day we stopped at the Rex Allen Museum.  


Growing up in the 50s and 60s my heroes were cowboys: Roy Rogers, the Lone Ranger, Gene Autry, the Rifleman, Sugarfoot, Sky King and more.  Rex Allen wasn't a name I was familiar with but I figured he was a contemporary of Roy Rogers and that was good enough for me.

Located on N. Railroad Avenue near the middle of town, when you pull up to park across the street you discover a statue of Rex Allen himself as well as a separate memorial to his horse, Koko.  Once Denny and I went inside the museum, we were immediately informed by one of the staff there that Rex had been cremated upon his death and part of his ashes were scattered by Koko's memorial at his request while the other half were scattered at Rex's parents' gravesites. 

 

It will cost a couple all of $3 to tour the museum; $2 if you are a single.  On the day Denny and I visited we were met at the door by two employees who had obviously worked together a long time; like an old married couple they finished each others statements and bantered back and forth like an amateur comedy team.   It turns out that one of the men was from Ohio originally while the other was a native of Willcox.  Denny and I chatted with them almost as long as we spent wandering the small museum.

Real cowboys wear spangles.  Most of Rex's outfits were created by Nudie, while his boots were by Tony Lama.   In addition to being in movies, Rex Allen had a long recording career and worked in radio, making many public appearances, usually with his beloved horse Koko (nicknamed the Miracle Horse of the Movies.)

The minimum requirements to be a cowboy, as posted in the museum.

 

The museum is divided into several sections dealing with Rex Allen's various careers, family and life growing up in Willcox, but the room I found impressive was the one dedicate to the local cowboys--those ranchers and farmers of Willcox.  Most of the portraits here have been painted by very talented local artists and show the determination and true grit it takes to carve out a life here in the high desert.

It's not going to take you a long time to cover the entire museum, but it was an interesting way to spend the morning and bring back memories of sitting in front of the TV on a Saturday morning enthralled by the cowboys racing across the small screen.  And that was certainly worth the $3.  

A Silly Way to Spend the Day

sTuesday I found out I had dodged the skin cancer bullet so I decided to celebrate my "over the hill plus ten" (or twenty depending on what you consider to be over the hill) birthday by hiking up Silly Mountain in Apache Junction, Arizona. Silly Mountain is its official name and now it even has it's own Botanical Trail, picnic benches and doggie water fountain. It is officially a destination park instead of a place where people brought their off road vehicles to tear up the side of the mountain. And yes, I'm a bit anti-ATV when it comes to the damage they do to the desert. Anyway, when Denny and I first walked up Silly Mountain back in 2002 you could pretty much just walk straight up the hill from the parking lot. The park service has now closed off that wide pathway created by misuse and a staff of volunteers has created a series of narrow walking/trail biking pathways around the mountain that create 360 degree vistas and varying amounts of difficulty to walk. On a good day you can see for miles; there was a haze in the air when Denny and I were attempting our walk. I assume there are still some geocaches around the mountain too, although I haven't checked that.I think the sum total of the paths I took was about one mile, but that was a lot of ups, downs and turns. Denny and I stopped a couple of times to chat with people on the path; once with a Mennonite couple from Kansas who were taking a brief winter break before heading back to Kansas to haul hay (I was awed by the fact the woman was walking the trail in a long and billowing dress) and a second time with a Native American gentleman with a big gentle yellow Lab who told us of other trails in the area that lead to petroglyphs and areas where folks still search for the Lost Dutchman Mine. He entertained us for quite some time and then it was time for me to move on. Denny found himself a comfortable rock with a view of the Superstition Mountain itself and waited for me to wave to him from the top.
If you double click on the photo below, Denny is the tiny little bright blue spot below the red arrow. I took this from the high point of Silly Mountain.
This time of year the rattlesnakes are a bit dormant so I didn't worry about running into critters on my walk, although this little fellow thought I was pretty scary with all my huffing and puffing on Huff and Puff Trail.It was an ideal day for hiking the mountain thanks to bright sunshine but cool temperatures. The scenery was fabulous as always.
In the photograph above you can see where the old off-road vehicle path is. The parks department has fenced that off and is hoping Mother Nature will do her thing by scattering the seed of native plants and reclaim this part of the mountain.

And another item is checked off the bucket list.

Complacency

As you can see from the photograph above, we were having a pleasant evening around the campfire Friday night. It was the last night of our son and daughter-in-law's week long visit with us and our MB group was in fine spirits as usual. One of our group was trying to take our picture and her flash wouldn't work on her camera so she asked me to get my camera from our rig to take some pictures. Our rig was just a few paces away, located catty-corner to the empty site we were sitting at with our fire, with the back/street side exposed to us and the front/side door facing the beach road away from us.

As I approached the door I noticed the screen door was open and my thought was that the kids (sorry, Darb and Net) had not secured the door latch well when they came out after us. I grabbed the camera, called for the cat and went back to the group to give them the camera and tell Denny that I thought Patches had gotten out the door. Some of the group saw Patches under the fifth wheel that was parked in the adjacent site and we were able to chase her back into our trailer and close the screen door again. We sat and talked for a couple more hours and then the party broke up for the evening. Denny went into our bedroom and asked me if I had put his shorts away. He had been wearing shorts during the day, but the evening hours had gotten cold so he changed into jeans, leaving his wallet in his shorts. The shorts were no longer on the bed, so I searched the laundry basket, the drawers, the closet, on the floor--all over. Hmm. I went back into the living room and called the kids to see if they had accidentally picked up Denny's shorts with their stuff and they answered "no." So I searched again. And again. And finally we considered the possibility of theft, so I called our credit card company to see if any charges had been made on the card and indeed there had been, so we then called the local police department to make a report.

Now understand; our living room and dining room lights were on, there was a huge security light at the edge of the road next to our site and eight of us were sitting 30 feet away on the far back side of the trailer out of site but certainly in a position to come back to the trailer at any moment, plus there were two cars parked on our site. These people apparently waltzed in off the beach (the campground has security at the entrance) or were people camping here who had been watching us and our routine and knew we weren't in the trailer. Regardless, it was brazen and ballsy. The good news is that they only grabbed the shorts and didn't look around for my purse or any jewelry, my iPhone that was sitting on the counter, etc.

And now the fun begins; two separate police reports from two separate jurisdictions since the theft was in one jurisdiction and the credit cards were used in another (they do things differently down here), having both our credit union and credit card company fax affidavits to the police department so the officer would take a report, arrange to have a new Medicare card sent by mail, arrange to have a new Texas driver's license mailed to us, change credit cards for those companies that auto bill our account, blah, blah, blah. All of which is much harder to do when you are on the road.

So now after coming to this campground for 18 years without any thought or concern to our security we will be locking our doors whenever we leave the trailer. And that s*cks.

An Up and Down Week

 It's been an odd week here in Virginia.  We arrived with the intention of meeting a fellow blogger, but continuing health issues on her end put the kibosh on that.  We were saddened by the fact because we had been talking about meeting for the past two years, but certainly Denny and I didn't want to use up her meager energy resources.


We're parked backed up to the north fork of the Shenandoah River just a few miles north of the Shenandoah National Park, so naturally a trip to the park was on our agenda.  Which means that the weather absolutely refused to cooperate and it rained for most of the week.  On Monday the skies cleared in the morning so Denny and I hopped into the truck for a brief foray into the park, knowing we had to keep it fairly short since we had a 2 PM tee time in the afternoon.  The views from the various overlooks within the first five miles of the park were wonderful and while the air wasn't fall-crisp the humidity was low enough to get some decent photos.

We bumped into a man that had stopped in the middle of the road, finally pulling off so we could go by and asked if perhaps he had seen a bear to cause him to stop like that.  Indeed he had, but his camera wasn't ready so he missed his shot.  And we were that close to having seen the bear also.

It was shortly after that that our luck ran out and we ran into rain clouds at the 2400 foot level of the hills and there were to be no more photographs or magnificent views from the scenic overlooks--the fog/clouds totally obliterated the roadway and we crept along for another twenty miles before exiting the park to return to the campground.

 

We did get to see a waterfall in our travels--it's just that it happened to be on the eighteenth green of the Blue Ridge Shadows Golf Course where we played later that afternoon. Oh well, beggars can't be chosers!

 

Another disappointment this week was in the fact that I had to cancel our reservations to camp on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  Hurricane Irene destroyed large sections of Highway 12 on the Outer Banks and we wouldn't be able to get to our campground as the road repairs have not yet been completed.  So there's another item to put on our "someday" list.

What we have gotten accomplished are minor "honey do" jobs and routine maintenance on Black Beauty  so we're hoping our fuel mileage will increase once more with the new fuel filters and oil change.  The tires on the truck and the rig have both been checked because we're pulling out today, heading for Williamsburg.  The last time we were in the Williamsburg area we stayed at a campground that was located right next to the railroad tracks and at 2:30 in the morning we were awakened by the blast of a train whistle and thought we were going to get run down it sounded so close!  Even closer was a poor young couple in a tent literally right next to the tracks (which were actually hidden by a thick line of trees and bushes)--when we spoke to them the next morning they truly thought they were going to die because it sounded to them like the train was right on top of them!  Memories!

And I guess Denny and I will have to eat the entire apple/blueberry pie he baked for Skippy all by ourselves.  The sacrifices we make, sometimes!