A little trip to San Simeon!

 Last week, before the holiday, my wife and I took a little trip to San Simeon, CA.  It is a very small place on the coast about half way between San Francisco and Los Angeles.  It's main claim to fame, of course, is the Hearst Castle.  William Randolph Hearst's parents lived in this area and became quite wealthy when gold was discovered in the area.  Then Hearst managed to make a couple bucks himself and he decided to buy land around the California coast that he loved and to build a little country place.  

These days the Hearst Castle has been turned over to the state of California.  There are various tours you can take and we took the simplest, the Grand Rooms tour.  Most of the tours are 70 minutes long and cost $30.  Our tour started outside then we got to view the swimming pool, a main room, a dining room and a pool room.  The visit starts at the visitor center down at the bottom of the mountain.  You park your car and are loaded into a bus and driven the 5 miles up the mountain.  Then you get out and meet your guide.

You start with a nice little climb up various stairs to get to the front door.  On the way you pass a couple of 2-3,000 square foot guest cabins that have been used for various visitors back in the day.  Here's the front entrance.

Looking the other direction you see they had a pretty fine view of the world!

This is a closer view of the front door.  The photo doesn't do the gold color of the door justice.

We didn't get to try the front door though, we went through a little side entrance.  They don't want people touching things and that door would be getting a lot of handprints if it were used!  We headed directly for a room that was just a 'living room'.

That's our guide on the far right.  There were modern carpets on the floors that we were supposed to stand on and there were a couple of guide helpers to keep an eye on us visitors.  The next photo shows the inside of the front entrance; all gold leaf.

The picture above is of the stone work above the fireplace.  Of course there was a fireplace in every room.  The smallest one we saw was about 6 feet wide by 4 feet tall.  With stone work all around, of course.  

This is the dining room.

I was standing in front of a fireplace and, though you cannot see it, there was another at the other end of the room.  We also got to see the outdoor swimming pool.

There was also an indoor pool for those cold winter days.  So that was our tour of the Castle.  

We were staying in a motel that was right on the beach so that was fun.  It is a dog friendly place and at least 50% of the visitors had a dog!  It was pretty amazing.  The only unfortunate thing was that the shore has about a 10 foot drop to the beach and both of the safe paths to the beach were closed!  So getting beach time was going to be difficult.  There were many stops along the road, CA-1, where you could get a good vista but again no beach access.  

We did eventually find beach access at the William Randolph Hearst Memorial Beach.  My wife even got to walk the dog in the water.  We were told that Chinese Shar-Pei dogs didn't really like water but our guy took it in his stride.  He did kind of hop a bit but he was fine with it.

There is one other thing that is really interesting around San Simeon and that is the Elephant Seal Vista Point.  Apparently the female elephant seals come down here with their young about now to moult.  Apparently they do not eat while moulting.  The males stay up in Alaska eating and getting fatter.  Then they come down and moult.  Anyway, we got to see the females and the young.

Nope, they aren't dead, they are just losing their fur and some skin.  I thought this one posed very nicely.  

And this one shows the moult in process!

So that was our four days in California.  We did go down to Morro Bay mostly to see the Rock!  And we hit Paso Robles for lunch.  We managed to avoid all the wineries though!  This was taken on the road back from Paso Robles to San Simeon; in the distance you can see Morro Rock.  It's an amazing area.

Thanks for stopping by.  Keep washing those hands!

Memorial Day!

 Wow!  Just a couple more days in May and we'll be in June.  This year is really speeding along.  I've got some stuff that we've been doing but first I'd like to talk about veterans in my family.  I'm not big on waving the flag and all that.  But I don't vote for draft dodgers either (you do remember Mr. Trump don't you).  Just so you know.

My grandfather served in the Army during the Spanish-American War.  He is the earliest veteran I know about.  My father served in the Navy during WWII.  He was divorced so even though he was 36 years old he was going to be drafted.  He joined the Navy because they agreed to give him a couple of months to get things arranged.  He started as a helmman, steering the ship, but then went to OCS and eventually was a lieutenant managing chow halls in the San Francisco area.  He ended up serving 5 or 6 years.

My wife's father and her step-father and both her uncles were all senior enlisted men in the Navy.  They all also retired from the Navy after 20+ years.  That was from the Korean War era through early nuclear weapon testing and into the 1960's and 70's.  Her brother went to Annapolis and went on to spend 20+ years roaming the world on various Navy ships before resigning his commission.

I'm the light-weight.  I joined Army ROTC in college and in 1970 graduated with the gold bar of a lieutenant in the Army.  I spent 2 years on active duty at Fort Bliss, TX.  I served as the XO of a unit that kept records for people working at the Air Defense School that is located there.  I went into the reserve but never actually served in a reserve unit.  I requested a discharge in 1984 - I had to look that up just now!  I had no idea it was so late.

This world needs people to work for others.  Doctors and nurses to help the sick.  Police to keep the peace.  Firefighters to help save people and their belongings.  And military folks to keep our society safe from some of the other societies out there.  I feel like I personally have not done enough for others but at least I did serve my country.  I'm hoping to add to that area here soon.  We'll see.

A week or so ago I was out and found some of our local wild ponies having dinner by the side of the road.

And, of course, when the cactus blooms you HAVE to take a photo of it!

Two happy cacti, what more could one want?  Thanks for stopping by.  Take care and keep washing those hands!

Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers. What is wrong with us?

I started reading a Yahoo article on this being the 1 year anniversary of the mass shooting in a Buffalo, NY grocery store.  There were 10 people killed and 3 injured in that shooting.  In the article there is a claim that in this country, this year, 2023, there have been 213 mass shootings.  What the hell?  This is only the 134th day of the year!  

The number of mass shootings comes from the Gun Violence Archive and they define a mass shooting as one in which 4 or more people are shot or killed.  Of course in 2022 they identified 647 mass shootings; so are we simply on track for a normal year?  They also claim 336 mass shootings in all of 2018 so that's quite a change in the past couple of years.  

One of the facts about the Buffalo mass shooting is that 11 of the 13 people were Black.  And the shooter said he was shooting people because they were Black.  Really?  WTF?  I mean I just cannot imagine shooting someone because they were a different color or nationality or couldn't speak English.  If I visit Angola am I going to be shot for being White?  Or not speaking Portuguese?   

I have trouble imagining being a victim in a mass shooting but I do admit that once in a while in the local grocery or casino I wonder how I would react if someone started shooting.  I don't carry a weapon and haven't even applied for a Concealed Weapons Permit so shooting back isn't really in the cards.  And my Swiss Army knife isn't much of a weapon.  It sounds like hide or run away are the options unless you want to become one of those people in the statistics.  

I don't really think that gun control is the answer.  If your plan is to go kill a bunch of people you can certainly find an illegal weapon.  I've read that there are over 400 million guns in the U.S.  That's more guns than there are people!  Of course that includes guns like we have in our household, several of which I was using to shoot tin cans when I was a teen ager half a century ago.  More to the point they claimed there are almost 20 million AR style guns.  Those are way different from the ones we had when I was a kid.  

I sure don't have any answers.  I guess being aware of how people feel and trying to get them some help is about the only way to help.  I mean the kid in the Buffalo shooting was 18 years old!  OK, teenagers often get all hopped up about some idea or another.  But going out and killing people because they are Black is just so wrong.

Thanks for stopping by.  Look out for young people with weapons!

More dull Don.....

We are having a quiet spring out here in the dessert.  We have those horrible weeds that I've been complaining about.  One of these days I'm going to have to hire someone to fix that problem!  We pull a few but are tired out after an hour (and probably 50 lb of weeds).  That isn't getting the work done.  

We do have a couple nice weeds on the side of the road.  I like them because they aren't in our yard.  But they are pretty too.

We had a local guy pass away last week.  His name was Ray "Flagman" Mielzynski.  He was called Flagman because he had a habit of spending quite a bit of time out on the highway that comes from California carrying a US flag.  He also carried a copy of the Constitution and two holstered revolvers.  Folks from California often called 911 thinking he was a danger.  He was far from that.  He just believed in the Constitution and the right to carry arms.  When he wasn't waving the flag he liked to go in and listen to court cases.  I was kind of surprised to learn that he was only 3 years older than myself.  That's too early for a good guy to go!  

We have had some lights on the walk up to our front door since we moved in and, after 10 plus years, they were long gone.  A couple years ago I bought new ones but never installed them.   Lazy bugger, I know.  Anyway, I did finally install them and I'm kind of getting a kick out of the beams they project.  They won't be as helpful as the old ones but we don't get many nighttime visitors anyway.

I'm pretty much afraid that's all the news that fit to print from around here.  Thanks for stopping by.  Keep washing those hands and try to keep healthy!

Just trucking along....

I haven't updated the blog lately because, well, I'm just a dullard these days.  We are having the usual doctor and dentist visits; a trip to Vegas for a few things; nothing much.  I must say that the unusual amount of rain we had did have it's consequence:  weeds!

This is what our back yard looked like in February when it was snowing.

This is what it looks like now.

We are going to have to get someone out here to clean this up!  My wife and I have been working for an hour or so each morning in the front yard but at that rate we still have a couple weeks of work in front not to mention the back yard.  It's time to hire somebody.  It is already getting into the 90's (33C) most days. 

It isn't just our yard though.  This is across the street on the desert lots.

See that green tinge all over the place.  That is just not the usual color we see!  Well, it will go away soon enough.  In the mean time we are transitioning in the house from heat to having the house open at night and, soon a/c all the time.  

Just now we don't have any travel plans though we will probably find somewhere to travel in a month or two.  We have our 39th anniversary this year and my 75th birthday later so something will come up that we just have to go see.

Life in the fast lane.  Thanks for stopping by.  Keep washing those hands and staying safe.

Nope, not dead quite yet!

Ok, it's been a long while since I've managed a post.  Some things have been happening but then again I'm being kind of lazy too.  In early March we managed a 4 balloon morning.  That's always special.

 

Then our daughter was diagnosed with a growth on her liver that needed surgery.  Hmmm, not good huh.  She isn't married so her mom and I headed off to Oklahoma to be with her while she was going through all that.  Our first night was spent in Flagstaff, AZ then a night in Santa Rosa, NM finally ending up in a suburb of Oklahoma City, OK.  There are some really pretty areas along I-40 but we were kind of intent on getting there.

We were going to be there for about a week so our daughter rented us an AirBnB that was in her neighborhood!  That was different!  For example, here were some of the neighbors.

Yep, looking outside there were goats and cattle in fields right by these homes!  The house was really quite nice.  It had a weird flooring but three nice bedrooms, a huge closet and all the comforts of home. 

The other neighbors were a bit more normal but they did have something to celebrate.

Well, as it turns out our daughter's liver was fine and the tumor was benign but they removed her gall bladder just in case.  We stayed there a total of a week to see her through the start of her recovery.  She should be just fine and back to her usual running around in a month or so.  And then we managed three days driving to get home.

 

 

It was a bit cool but we didn't have any nasty weather so that worked out ok.  Then we got home and I've started a new phase in my life.  I've got Invisalign braces on my teeth!

 

 

Do I have to mention that the darned things are expensive?  Jeez!  But I'm at a point now where I cannot eat a chicken sandwich.  I can eat ground meat but I just cannot bite through a piece of meat.  One of the things we liked about these were that an orthodontist is actually overseeing the process.  Some competing braces are 'do it yourself'.  We'll see.  It should be better in a couple of years!  In the mean time I've got these things to wear all the time I'm not actually eating.  Life in the fast lane. 

Thanks for stopping by.  Take care and keep washing those hands.

Well, this is different....

 We've been home for almost a month and have been doing the usual stuff:  visiting our favorite restaurants, visiting doctors, talking about our next trip.  My wife tripped and broke 3 ribs back in December.  She is still having cramps when she makes certain movements so she is going to start physical therapy to see if that helps.  I've been having fun with the dermotologist cutting things off my body.  It's all part of that aging thing.  

On a more fun note, we got snow on the mountains!

It is actually quite unusual for the snow to come down that far.  The elevation in the valley here is at about 2,600 feet and that snow is pretty close to that.  It's funny but the snow can excentuate the cliffs in the mountains and make them look taller.  Then a few days later we had this happen.

Snow in our back yard!  Of course it didn't stick but it was fun to see.  That hummingbird trying to have a meal probably wasn't as thrilled but at least he was getting some food.  We did manage a trip into Las Vegas to pick up a few things.  There was snow on the sides of the road and a few flurys but that was it.  

When I went to see my doctor I happened to see this in the park across the road from his office.  These geese decided to pause for a bite to eat.

That same afternoon this was the sunset.

Then the other day my wife and I were wandering around town and found these wild horses having a bite.

There was even a foal with them but it was napping just past that little rise so you can't see it.  That area is part of an abandoned golf course but I guess it is good horse food.  You can see that the snow has melted from the lower parts of the mountain.  It's back to dirt for us soon enough!

Well, that's about all the news from this part of the world.  Take care and keep washing those hands!

Shees, where does the time go!

Well, last time I was talking about our cruise around the tip of South America and stopped at our visit to Punta Arenas, Chile.  It was a nice little town (with about 125,000 people!) with plenty to see but out tour guide was an idiot.  In fact we turned around and walked back to the ship on our own letting the rest of the group wander around.  My wife's Fitbit was telling her she'd done her 10,000 steps so we were happy enough to relax and sit around!

The next day started out as a sea day in the fjords so we got lots of photos and relaxed.  We were supposed to land in Ushuaia, Argentina about mid-day but the sea gods had a surprise for us.  We got there and the spot at the pier where we were supposed to land was still occupied by another ship.  Well, it wasn't that they were slow but the winds were so strong that they couldn't get off the dock.  They were being blown into the dock and even with a couple tug boats they couldn't get off.  So we got to hang around out in the middle of the bay looking at the other ships.

This ship is one of the new Viking ships built to go to explore the Antartic - I'm thinking this is the Viking Octantis.  This 665 foot ship has room for 378 guests and 256 crew!  That's quite a crew to guest ratio.  By comparison our ship, Viking Jupiter, is 745 feet long and has 930 guests.  The web site didn't cough up the number of crew on our ship but I imagine it is in the 300-350 range.  

Anyway, the bottom line is that this is what we saw of Ushuaia:

We were scheduled to go on a tour to see penguins and sea lions but in the end all tours were canceled.  No tours.  The ship was supposed to get additional supplies in Ushuaia but all they got was a couple small boats coming out to the ship!  Happily they kept on feeding us but I'm sure there were some modifications to the menu.  

Our next view point was to be Cape Horn.  It's funny how I've always heard about Cape Horn and always assumed it was on the South American continent:  wrong!  It is on the southern most island of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago called Hornos Island.  We got to see the lighthouses that are on the island which is part of Chile.  Just to be sure it is Chilean, the navy has some poor lighthouse keeper who spends an entire year at a time on the island.  To be sure he doesn't go crazy, he has to be married and have children AND take his whole family with him!  

In the center of this photo you can see the lighthouse and residence.  That is on the northern part of the island.  The actual horn, in the next photo, is on the southern side.

Having seen the exciting island, now we are headed for the Falkland Islands.  We always like 'at sea' days; nothing to do and all day to do it.  Unfortunately my wife wasn't feeling well; lots of nose blowing was her main symptom but we figured give it a day or so.  At dinner we figured out what we'd missed at Ushuaia:  wine!  We had purchased what they call the Silver Beverage package.  It gives you access to tastier wines and whisky, etc.  Now of the 8 red wines from Chile only 1 was on the Silver Beverage package; the rest were $50-500 a bottle.  Grrr!  But what can you do?  

Anyway, we woke to the sound of the tender boats being lowered in the bay outside Stanley, Falkland Islands.  Stanley, the capital and only real city, has a population of something like 3,500 people.  We had a tour booked and were looking forward to finally seeing penguins!  This tour guide was driving a 14 person van and talked a lot of life on the island.  It is EXTREMELY rocky so most of the farm animals seem to be sheep.  The tour was 2 hours long but only about 20 minutes away so we would have plenty of time to see the birds.  It turned out to be way too much time as it was about 35 degrees with a good 25 mph wind.  The birds were all down by the water just hanging around.  

There are gentoo and king penguins.  About half of them seemed to be sleeping.  Once or twice we got to see an egg which was being kept warm by being under the parent.  There was a little cafe where a coffee and a biscuit were included in the price of the tour.  They also had heat so it was SRO in there!  

When we got back to the ship my wife was feeling worse and worse so we made an appointment to see the ship's medic - in this case a nurse.  He gave my wife the COVID test and sure enough, she tested positive.  So they looked at me and of course I took the test as well, yep, two for two.  What Viking wants you to do then is take the medicine they sell you and quarantine yourself in your cabin for five days.  So there we were.  We got to order room service and it was actually stuff from the restaurant and cafe.  That was ok but I must say I was missing my scotch.  Maybe they would have brought some but I didn't really need it.  I wasn't feeling bad but my wife spent a lot of time sleeping then waking herself coughing.  In the mean time we watched all kinds of old, weird movies on tv.  

Our next port of call was Puerto Madryn, Argentina.  We had a lovely view of the city but that was about it.

We had talked about taking a tour from Puerto Madryn but hadn't really decided on one so we didn't even have to cancel our plans!  Talk about an exciting place.  My wife slept quite a bit and I watched foolish tv.  

The next day was to be at sea heading for Montevideo, Uruguay so we weren't expecting much excitement.  However about mid-morning we noticed ourselves turning into a bay.  I went out on our balcony (it had gotten warm enough to go out) and asked the guy in the next balcony what was going on.  Turns out someone had a medical emergency and the ship came in to off-load the person to a local Coast Guard aid vessel.  How's that for exciting?  As my wife said, at least it wasn't us!  

We managed Montevido the next morning and we are really sorry that we didn't get to go off and visit.  Our quarantine was over so we could have gone but my wife wasn't feeling up to it so we stayed onboard.  At least the steward was allowed into our cabin so we got clean bed linen, fresh towels and a clean carpet!  

One of the weird things on the ship was that they kept our passports during the cruise.  All we had for id was the little room key thing.  Anyway, now that we were headed to our last port of call, we could get the passports.  The city was right on our doorstep!

We had a 4 hour tour of Buenos Aires scheduled.  It was pretty dumb but we got to see some of the tourist stuff.  The cathedral then buildings where all the leaders live.  Not exciting!

The last 'day of our cruise' is one where they want you off the ship by 08:00 but in our case it was 07:00 because of where we were going.  To make it worse, our flight for Houston didn't leave until 10 pm!  Viking had made plans for us though.  They gave us a free tour!  This tour goes out to a river that is used by local folk as kind of a weekend retreat.  

 

There was a tourist trap too!  Anyway, it was a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours and to see a bit more of Brazil.  Then we got to go spend some time in a room in the Hilton.  That was just silly!  It was a huge conference room filled with folks waiting for their trip to the airport.  Anyway, they finally took us to the airport and we were normal passengers again.  Finally our flight took off.

A nice little 9 hour flight back to the states; what's not to like!  We made it to Houston and hopped our next flight to Las Vegas.  It looks more like home already.

So that's the tour.  We've already booked another one but only to Hawaii this time.  It will be a while though.  For now we are going to just hang around home.  Thanks for stopping by.  Keep washing those hands!

Another month absence!

At least this time I kind of have an excuse.  We took a trip!  It was kind of a combination of good and not so good.  But it was certainly interesting.  It was another Viking cruise; this time around southern South America.

We took a flight from Las Vegas to Houston and then to Santiago, Chile.  We got on the plane just before 2 pm local time and it was 08:30 the next day when we landed.  Usually Viking does ok with the airport transition, this time is was AFU!  We got to stand in this huge line of passengers then wander around the parking lot in groups of 30 or so to find a bus to take us to the ship.  That was a 2+ hour bus ride to the port of Valparaizo.  All of that was ok but tiring, of course. The port in Valparaizo isn't small by any stretch so when you got off the bus at the port entrance you got to get on another bus to take you over to the ship.  What a deal.  Anyway, we finally made it on and our luggage arrived only a couple hours behind us.  

Viking ocean ships are all the same so even though we'd never been on the Viking Jupiter, it was exactly like the Viking Sea or any other.  The expedition ships are probably different and, of course, the river ships are very different.  Anyway, we wandered around, got comfortable and had a nice night.  

The next day we had signed up for a visit to Santiago.  At the time we signed up we either didn't realize it was a 2 hour bus ride there and 2 hours back or we didn't realize how dumb we were being.  There are mainly small towns and agriculture between Valparaizo and Santiago; our guide talked about all the grapes that are grown along the route.  That's when he wasn't talking about how the upper classes take total advantage of the poor.  Anyway, let me just say that it takes a lot to make up for 4+ hours on a bus and the Santiago tour didn't provide it!  I don't even have a photo to share that is worth the pixels.

Of course having spent the whole day busing around we didn't see much of Valparaizo.  This would be the view from our balcony.

I think it is really interesting that there are a few high rise buildings down near the water then it turns instantly into much smaller buildings.  Valparaizo is one of several cities around this part of the coast.  We missed out on them as well! 

The map up above shows the route of the ship going out into the Pacific Ocean and, yep, it was fairly rough going.  Especially where you have a whole shipload of people who just got on board.  The crew must get a few laughs at the clumsy old folks who don't have their sea legs yet.  But it didn't last long, only about a day.  Then we were sliding into Puerto Montt.  There wasn't much in the town (well, no tours anyway) so we went up to Puerto Varas where we were supposed to check out the lake and and the volcano on the other side of it.  Happily this bus trip was only 12 miles so it didn't take long at all.  We got to see the lake but the volcano was kind of a no-show.  It was just cloud covered.  The town was kind of cute but small and filled with tourists.  Our guide on this trip was an older lady who thought things were going pretty well in Chile so that was a nice counterpoint to the previous guide.  

We had a good helping of more rough seas the next day but then somehow the ship found calm water heading for the fjords.  The weather started to get a bit gray and moist though and that would follow us the rest of the journey through Chile.  The fjords are amazing though!

We have lots of photos of  this sort of world.  No tours but amazing views.  That photo shows the snow/ice on the mountain tops but there were plenty of places where it was right down to the edge of the fjord.  

The star of the show is supposed to be Amalia Glacier.  And what you could see of it was pretty impressive.  

The ship has a little putt-putt golf area on the top deck and this photo shows people lining the fore area to check out the glacier.  The ship just stayed there for maybe half an hour so people could get some photos.  Then we saw this little boat out there next to us.  It was from the ship!  The guys on the little boat were trying to get some ice that had broken off the glacier so passengers could see it.  Later it was on display in a public room.

Of course the lighting was a little on the dramatic side but I do believe that it was actual glacier ice that we were admiring.  

The next day we were headed for Punta Arenas, Chile.  It is a fairly large city for being so far south!  Here we managed a guide who was an idiot.  He started out walking us around the port so we could admire the bird life.

Yep, the birds like it here.  And, of course they have some statuary to honor those folks who founded the area.

Then the stupidity started.  First he kept getting his centuries wrong; like the city was founded in 1848 and he said 1948.  Then he started crossing streets against the traffic lights!  Jeez!  He started us on a march at top speed up a hill so we could see the entire city.  Nah!  My wife especially wasn't feeling like it so we turned around and found our way back to the ship.  

I'm going to stop for today.  There is plenty more of our trip.  Thanks for stopping by and keep washing those hands!

Grumbling

You know I live in the Mohave Desert (map from Wikipedia).  Pahrump is in the southeastern corner of the darned thing.

Last year we got 1.97" of rain all year.  So what's happening this year?  So far in the first 16 days we've gotten 1.42 inches of rain!  For crying out loud.  Those California mountains aren't keeping us dry this year.  But honestly I shouldn't be complaining.  A nice snow pack and water in the streams and lakes; yeah, that makes a great change.

Of course it being overcast all the time does cut back on the photo ops.  This was a morning just before sunrise.

That sun is just starting to show way down in the southeast.  A day or so later this is what the mountains to our west were looking like.

Tough life but.....  Thanks for stopping by.  Take care & keep being careful!

Happy New Year!!!

 Well, out here in the dessert we entered the new year with total clouds and rain.  Yep, it was probably only a half an inch but it was spread over the night and the day.  I even had to take the dog out in it and dry him off later!  However, I've been working.  One of the blogs I like reading had a year overview last week and it inspired me so here's my attempt at our year.

It's been an interesting year to say the least.  

January started quietly; well, until New Year's Day when we were called by our cruise line to be told that Italy and Turkey were having problems so our cruise that was to go from Turkey to Italy wouldn't be able to go.  It took some time but eventually we found a cruise we could take.  Then on the 2nd we heard that my wife's aunt (who was only 7 years her senior) had passed away.  She had been ill and had dementia so her passing was both sad and a relief.  A few days later we learned that our large heat exchanger is dying.  We have two and since the large one is dying; we had it replaced.  

Then we went on our cruise:  Rome, Naples, Messina, Valletta, Heraklion, Rhodes, Ephesus and Santorini - Wandering around with COVID restrictions; lots of fun!  But except for Rome and Naples all were new places for us.  Home in early February and just in time to replace the smaller heat exchanger on the other side of the house.  In the middle of February we adopted a new dog.  He's a Chinese Char Pei; we named him Gus.  He's been neutered so MAY calm down after a while.  His right foot had a cyst between the toes so we've got medicine for that.  Of course February is when Russia invaded the Ukraine.  God only knows what is going to happen in that mess!

March was when our son started moving from San Diego to a suburb of Little Rock, AR.  It was a slow process!  They even found termites and had to tent the house.

April was highlighted by my wife having surgery on her left foot.  Her little toe has been bending over onto it's side for years; now it is painful.  So she had it straightened out; now she will have a foot brace and bandages for some weeks.  Then later in the month our son, his wife and her sister stayed with us for a week or so until their house in Arkansas was ready.  Interesting times!  The people were great, their dog not so much!  He had to be held on a leash whenever Gus was in the room.  The good news is that selling their California house and buying in Arkansas meant they could buy the house outright!

May was a stay-at-home month.  My wife got to attend physical therapy for her foot.  We started June with a little 3 day trip to Bishop, CA.  It is only a couple hundred miles from here and we got to see bristlecone pine trees; the oldest living things.  It also gave our dog a taste of staying in motels.  Turns out he is mostly ok but you have to be sure he doesn't lift his leg!  One of our local commissioners has accused his wife of stealing $77,000 in cash from him; he decided it was ok to beat her up in return.

June was when our daughter moved from Austin, TX where she had lived for 2 years to a suburb of Oklahoma City, OK.  Again, the house in Texas pretty much paid for the one in OKC.  Late in the month I had a couple episodes of back pain that bothered me enough to go to the doctor.  He took xrays and it is just fine; just aging I guess.  

July got started with fun stuff:  I had Mohs surgery on my forehead to remove a cancer from my forehead.  I've still got a dip in my skin where it was removed.  Then the month calmed down and we just wandered around as usual.  

August started off quietly enough.  We took a quick 3 day trip down to San Diego just to get out of town.  Got to visit the zoo; $65 for old people!  On the way home CA road dept. was fixing a bridge and caused like a 40 minute delay on I-15.  Jeez!  Then, unbeknowst to us, our solar system stopped working for a couple weeks in the hottest part of the year!  And it took another week to get the replacement part.  Good news is that it was under warranty.  

The first couple of weeks of September were quiet but then we hit the road!  We took the truck because of all the things we were taking for Gus.  We took kind of a northerly trip across Arizona and New Mexico then slid down towards Amarillo.  New Mexico surprised us with a drunk check; they must have had a dozen cops covering the two traffic lanes.  It was all done pretty quickly but it was sure a surprise.  We crossed Texas and were surprised at all the wind generators; there were at least 100 of them.  Mobile, Alabama surprised us with the heaviest rain I've ever driven in.  We were only just able to see the car in front of us!  We finally made it to Citrus Springs, Fl to visit my wife's uncle.  He's more of a friend than a relative and it was his wife who just died in January.  He's doing quite well without her.  We spent a couple days with him then headed north to visit our son in his new home just outside Little Rock, AR.  It's a really nice place on a little lake.  A couple days there and we were headed for our daughter's place outside Oklahoma City.  She has a really nice little place; it's small but enough for her and her cat!  And finally home.

Started October with having another squamous cell carcinoma removed; from my back this time.  Gotta be tough to be old!  Turns out we did 4,861 miles and got a bit over 17 mpg on our cross country trip.  I guess I should have been lighter on the throttle!  We've been having trouble with the a/c in the car.  A local repair shop thought they had fixed it but now it isn't working again.  Tough way to figure out who knows what they are doing repairing your vehicle!  I got to be another year older this month; talk about life in the fast lane!  Decided to go up and see some folks in Colorado Springs that we've known for the last 30 years or so.  He worked with my wife and we became friends in the Netherlands.  It was a quick trip but fun.  

November started with wanting to vote!  Everyone has an early voting ballot and we filled ours in and deposited them with the county clerk a day or so early.  No way were we going to stand in a line in the rain (here, raining on voting day!  imagine that!).  Turns out the Ford Escape only managed 25 mpg on our trip to Colorado.  Makes the 17mpg the truck managed to Florida look better!  Had fun with the smaller heat exchanger on the east side of the house:  apparently they didn't load it up with enough liquid so it died when it got cold.  Anyway, had a guy out to fix it.  It only took a week or so for it to die again.  This time the guy decided our circuit breaker wasn't big enough & he replaced it.  Our daughter came to celebrate Thanksgiving with us.  It was just a couple days but it was good to see her.  

So December has been quiet.  We got 2 actual Christmas cards (1 before Christmas and 1 after).  Unfortunately I have converted entirely to email 'cards' so I did not respond in the same manner.  Ok, I'm a lazy ass!  Talked with the American Legion about donating our trailer to the vehicle donation service.  It will be fine; it is a 2010 travel trailer with no major problems so we hope they will get a lot for it.  The actual donation will be late in the month.  I had a weird feeling around the 10th of the month:  it was like I was ill but I wasn't.  Anyway, it went away just like the one back in June.  Charged the batteries for the trailer and pulled it out where it would be easy to hitch up.  We were empting stuff out of it when my wife fell as she was exiting the trailer!  I helped her up and she was clearly in pain but it was a couple of days before she went in to the doctor:  3 broken ribs on her right side!  Well, she's got lots of pain medication but there isn't much else to do about broken ribs.  Finally the guys showed up to take the trailer.  They wanted to pump up the tires and then they took off with our trailer.  I managed to cut the trailer license plate off so we could return it to the state.  And now it is gone.  We are either motel stayers now or I know not what.  We'll see.  Finally our county commissioners took it upon themselves to give the county a Christmas present and select a new Justice of the Peace:  a totally unqualified Trump loving idiot.  We'll see how that works out.

So that's the year from our lives.  Thanks for stopping by.  Keep washing those hands and don't forget all the other COVID precautions!  Take care.