And then came fall...

Maples in Friendship
It would appear that I've been saving the eyesight of our blog readers over the past few months, by not posting anything. It's true, when we are in Maine we're generally not traveling, and sharing our secrets seems less important. And I make no guarantees as to how many posts will appear in the future. But for now, here's one.

Summer faded from our Maine home several weeks ago. The autumn leaves are in full swing, glorious in their color. We've enjoyed watching them this year, along with a few late guests who stopped by and collected their fair ration of lobster. That's late, as in "late in the season", not formerly living. We expect to further enjoy the foliage season as we venture south soon.

Rose hips

Our garden was a qualified success this year. Snails and horn worms did significant amounts of damage, but we had good crops of yellow squash, basil, broccoli, cabbage and Brussels sprouts. We had some crops of pumpkins, and tomatoes. We had some eggplant, which surprised some folks who said you can't grow eggplant in Maine. But this year was exceptionally warm, and though they started late, they did produce.

Our tomatoes started out well enough, but horn worms arrive while we were away for a week and defoliated many of the plants. We got them under control, but much of the fruit was chewed, though usable. More vigilance next year.

Autumn barberries
We did process about 15 pounds of tomatoes into sauce to take with us when we travel. We also
made some pesto as a way to store basil and spice up our lives.

We put the pontoon on a mooring as I noted in an earlier post. This made it much easier to get out for solo trips to go fishing, but had problems, too. First, the right pontoon is not sealed, and in fact a small amount of water in the boat drains into it. There is no way to pump or drain this while the boat is in the water. It wasn't full, but it did take on a couple hundred pounds of dead weight as the season went on and rains fell. Second, the depthfinder transducer got knocked off its mount early in the season, and we couldn't figure out how to remount it without pulling the boat. So we went without it. Third, when we pulled the boat (ahead of a pending hurricane that didn't materialize), we found the bottom fouled with weeds and barnacles. I spent hours cleaning it as far as I got, and I'll have to do more in the spring. Since the trailer covers most of the bottom of the pontoons, I have to jack the boat up on the trailer to get to the junk to clean it. No fun.

Housetop ornaments

We had lots of company this summer. Kids and grandkids, Minnesota visitors, RV friends and long lot cousins graced us with their presence. John and Deb came by in July and John and I added a deck to the back of the house. We've enjoyed that addition greatly, at least until it got chilly in the past few weeks. We took most visitors to Camden or Rockland.

We had 2 of our grandkids for a week. We found a great free puppet show in Rockland to take them to. And Pepaw took them to a 3D version of Dogs and Cats movie solo, everybody came home singing the theme song and wearing our 3D glasses to surprise Abuela. Add swimming in cool Maine waters on 88 degree days for wet fun.

Friendship Harbor

We volunteered to help with the local association events planning and scheduling. It turned out to be a very minimal amount of work, and we had fun.

The house got some upgrades. We replaced our 40 year old refirgerator, and got an icemaker in the bargain, very nice on hot summer days. I goofed up the installation, and suffered an 80 dollar repair bill to un-kink the water hose. Duh! We also installed a dishwasher in the kitchen (where else would you put it?) and I messed up the plumbing there, too, but finally got it right.

Our barn is aging faster than we are. The sills are rotting into the ground. I've added a couple jacks to try to hold up the worst area for a few more years, but much more serious work is needed to make it last much longer.

The heat of summer

A sign at the harbor

Independence Day has passed. The heat of summer is upon us. Temps up here in Friendship have been in the 80s most every day. For about 10 days, rain was scarce, but we've caught up again. My guess is that this is a 'normal' summer, although we have had more days with the temp above normal than below.

Sticky has been with us, too. The dew points have been in the high 60s, meaning that fog rolls in just about every night, and the humidity stays high all day long. Under these conditions, it's guaranteed that you can work up a sweat just walking across the lawn. Pushing a lawn mower, as I did yesterday, multiplies the effect. The lobster men are out working on their boats in the evening, right around sunset because it's a bit cooler then.


So much for the weather. We've been polishing the house in preparation for company from Florida. The gang of 6+1 from Consuelo's family arrive tonight. Both of Consuelo's sisters are coming. A niece and nephew and their spouses are coming. And the baby. We'll have a houseful for a few days. I applaud the preparation and energy required on their part to get all the way up here. We're just about ready for them. Since they're "company", I'll be baking another cake. And we'll have a lobster dinner, too.

Our 20' pontoon is safely moored in Muscongus Bay. I put together the necessary cahin, a 100 lb anchor, and a float for our own mooring, acauired the proper permit, and placed it in Hatchet Cove. It was reasonably convenient to get to, requiring a 5 minute row in our old beat up dinghy. But the same day we put it in, another member of the Association told Consuelo that she had an unused mooring we could used. She has a dock, it's a 2 minute row, and that much farther out into the Bay. So we moved the boat to that location. So far so good.

Friendship Harbor

My garden is coming along well. The heat and rain have provided perfect growing conditions. If the tomatoes all bear fruit prodigiously, we'll have to rent another barn to hold the crop! Actually, we're planning to harvest and make sauce to can or freeze for the road this winter, along with whatever we get to eat as they ripen. The bugs are getting to the brussel sprouts, despite my efforts to protect them using pepper spray. My hope is that those bugs are going to devour the sprouts and leave the cabbage, broccoli and eggplants alone. That's what seems to be happening so far. We should have a good crop of squash and pumpkin later on, too.

The only downside of the warm, humid weather is that it's also perfect for silversfish, and we have a bumper crop of those pests, too. They're outside the house in huge numbers, hiding in any shady spot (like behind the knobs on our grill) and a bunch have found a way into the house. They won't hurt us, but they can do damage to fabrics.

Almost Summer

Martin Point Sunset

Maine bills itself as "Vacationland" on license plates and signs at the border. While it suggests that there's extraordinary places to go and see in the state, it also suggests that if you don't live here already, you probably would never want to. In other words, it's good for visiting, but not for staying.

So in the summer, when the kids (and teachers) are out of school and the big factories (you remember those, right?) close for 2 week shutdowns, people come to Maine to enjoy the cooler weather, abundant forests, fresh air, wonderful coastline, and great seafood. Southern Maine has long, sandy beaches, fine for attracting presidential families.Western and central Maine offers trails, lakes and rivers for fishing, and some pretty golf courses. The midcoast and Down East have ocean adventures, sailing trips, the remarkable scenery of Acadia National Park, quaint little villages, and world class art.

In the modern world, the visitors come by car and plane, and a few thousand on cruise ships. A hundred years ago, the primary mode of transportation was the sea. Thus the coast was populated with ports and a healthy fishing industry. When the roads were built, and cars became commonplace, little villages like Friendship became geographically distant from the action, too far out of the way for people passing through to the rest of Vacationland.

But we still have visitors here, the ones that are smart enough to come to see us and make our house a destination. And our visitor season starts real soon now. So we've been busy getting ready. Putting finishing touches on our house like moving furniture, painting, and upgrading the kitchen with a new refrigerator and dishwasher. Adding some bookcases to hold our books and treasures. And getting ready to build a deck to enjoy the sun in comfortable surroundings.

Getting the lobster traps out

Then there's the boats. Paul's boat stayed here last year, and needed some attention to get ready for the water. The steering gear needed replacing, some wiring was moldy, and a good cleanup. Our pontoon ("The only one in Friendship") had been covered for 20 months, but still needed to be power washed and readied for the water. This year we're going to put it out on a mooring, as it needs a lot of water to launch, and the only ramp with deep enough water has no place to park. We've filed our mooring permit, acquired the needed parts, and should get it out there soon. Meanwhile, to get to the mooring, we have an old dingy which my brother gave us. It will work just fine, but still needs some repairs and a coat of paint. So there's plenty to do.

Then there's the garden. The few things that we planted there already are doing OK, except for the carrots. That includes cabbage, brussel sprouts, and pumpkins. The seedlings are up and ready to plant, the garden is tilled and covered with weed preventive (or maybe "limiter"). All that's needed now is time and energy, both of which are in short supply.

But the first visitors have been here. Last weekend my brother and his wife stayed a few days with us, playing rough and ready games of Taboo, and munching excellent lobsters. This week Paul and Amelia came up, so that Paul could take his boat home. And we're ready for 'em. More or less.

So, if you're on the visitor's list for this year, Come on Down! If not, well, Why Not!

Late Maine Spring

Lupine in Hatchet Cove

Last year while we were traveling in Alaska, we got reports from our Maine friends as to how bad the summer was here. It was a cold, we summer. Gardens failed to produce much of anything useful. Pumpkins only made it to 6 inches in diameter. Some said that it rained every day in June.

I'm of the opinion that we bring good weather with us where ever we go. Of course, it's never perfect, we've seen some nasty stuff. When we leave somewhere, it often gets really bad where we've been. Like when we left Pincher Creek, Alberta at the end of May last year. They got 8" of snow, while we had wonderful summer weather farther north in Banff and Jasper.

So, since we're the good weather omens, it stands to reason that Maine would have great weather since we're back here now. So far, so good. We've been here for two weeks, and we've had 1 day of rain. It's mostly been sunny, with crystal clear skies. Yesterday Portland recorded a record high temperature of 86 degrees. In Friendship, it was in the mid 70s. And the forecast calls for a "hat trick" Memorial Day weekend of three beautiful days. So, if the weather is a marker of happiness, we should be delighted.

Spring is abundantly obvious everywhere here. The dandelions are very healthy, the lawns are growing impressively fast, and tulips and lilacs are most colorful and fragrant. Of the wild flowers growing here, I like the lupine the most. We have a patch growing next to our house, and they are peaking right now. My photos show other patches down near Hatchet Cove, near the water's edge.

The trees are in bloom, too. Our apple trees in the back yard are blossomed and looking very healthy, as much as old, old apples trees can look. I expect that we'll have another bumper crop of apples to pick up in the yard this fall.

We've been busy trying to capture all this weather by working toward a fairly large vegetable garden this summer. We arranged to have George Simmons stop by with his tractor and till a plot that's about 22' x 35'... not huge, but most likely more than we'll want to tend later. Seeds have been started indoors for broccoli, tomatoes, eggplant, and more. We also tilled flower beds next to the sunroom, and we've been planting hostas, nasturtiums, and will have lettuce and spinach growing there, and a few herbs.

Meanwhile, we've been making repairs where needed, and working to finish the 3rd bedroom upstairs. It was used for storage for our personal junk while we tripped off to Alaska last summer, so we had to empty it out first. Now the junk is scattered all over the house, but most of it is still upstairs. We've patched and started painting, and expect to start moving back into that room in the next few days.

We decided to make the large bedroom into a sewing room for Consuelo. She had considered making the attic more accessible and sewing up there. But I think that would have been a poor choice, since there's no ventilation and it gets pretty hot or cold, depending on the weather. We'll sleep in the now-being-finished 3rd bedroom, which should be fine, as we don't spend a lot of time upstairs otherwise.

We also found a new refrigerator at Lowes and had it delivered. Since it's a bit larger than the old one, it lives in the expanded kitchen area for now. We'll have ice on demand here, something that we've missed. And we'll save some money on electricity, too.

In another money-saving move, we signed up for cable TV and Internet. We get HD now, more channels and really high speed Internet. Most of the savings comes from dropping Starband satellite Internet service. They were really nasty when we called to cancel our service, wanting to charge us a cancellation fee. We had not signed a contract beyond our original 2 year commitment, and we stood our ground, and they relented.

Our Maine vehicles and boat have been registered. We tried to take our Ford Explorer on a 100 mile trip last week, but it had been stored in the barn in our absence, and we lost the power steering about 1/2 way there. We took it into a repair shop and hope to have it back today. No money saving there, I'm afraid.

Major summer projects include building a deck off the back of the house. The small deck that's there is pretty rotten. Consuelo fell of the back of it while hanging laundry and got a pretty bad bruise. We have the plan ready to go to the town office today for a building permit.

Chestnut blossoms

Similarly, the barn is pretty rotten, too. The south side has developed a bulge where the wooden foundation has completely failed. I've had some discussions with folks who know better than I that we might jack it up and keep it in place for a while, but a good heavy snowstorm might bring it tumbling down. More thought needed there. We do use the square footage for projects and storage, and losing it would be problematic.

We're enjoying our house here. Summer will bring boating days, events and visitors from near and far. This will be fun!

Go East, Old Man!

Spring Robin in Elk Horn

Our home has been rolling down the road toward Maine. After leaving Lincoln, NE, we headed north to Pender, NE, to the Blue Ox factory where we had our tow bar, the part that connects our car to our motor home, checked and repaired. It was still in pretty good shape after 5 years of traveling.

We developed a problem with our slide awning, designed to cover the main slide to keep it clean. It failed to unroll when the slide extended, requiring a ladder and some muscle to open it and extend it before the slide went out. The awning is made by Carefree, and a call to one vendor in Lincoln resulted in a report of "No we don't want to deal with Carefree". Camping World in Council Bluffs said they might be able to fix it, so we went there after Pender. But Camping World really didn't want to help either, saying that they might replace it, but it would likely take a couple weeks. We decided that getting it fixed in Maine would be our best course of action.

Danish Windmill in Elk Horn

From Council Bluffs, we roamed along I80 to Elk Horn, IA, listed as an "overnight stop" on one of our RV lists. We found a wonderful Danish Windmill and Danish Immigrant Museum there, and a tiny campground which offered us electric. In the morning, we toured the sights, anso found a nice quilting store on Main Street.

We could have made one more stop on our way to Rochester, but made the trip in one day. We arrived at the Silver Lake Campground around 5:30 PM, got ourselves parked and set up, and began contacting our friends there. We had planned most of our appointments for the following week, so we called Mayo and asked that they reschedule. We managed to moev up everything, including our dentist appointments.

I made plans with Curt Kraft to play golf on the next day. Now that Curt is retired, that was no problem for him. It was the first of 6 golf outings in 1-1/2 weeks, interrupted only by Clinic visits and weather one day. That was a load of fun.

The time in Rochester was wrapped up by a get together with my former work mates at Jon Camp's new house in Stewartville. It was good to see everybody and chat for a while. I showed a boatload of pictures and ate altogether too much. Thanks, Jon.

Immigrant Museum in Elk Horn

On Saturday, May 1, we moved the house to Lake City, MN. They were having their annual 100 mile garage sale along the Mississippi River, and we toured a few garages. We bought little... a few hostas to plant in our yet to be built Maine landscaping. Saturday night, we had dinner with John and Deb Wilkinson at the relaxing river condo. Good food and good company. We'll see them again in late summer when they come to Maine.

Sunday began our trek east. We stopped at a Flying J in Beloit, IL for an overnight. We ate at a greasy spoon in a truck stop, and the next day, I developed serious diarrhea and a low fever. We kept moving though, and arrived later in the day at the Elkhart Red Cross, our home chapter for our volunteer activities. We got our paperwork up to date, and they found a couple tasks for us to do while we were there. We also did some shopping at the RV places. I managed to find a pair of awning arms which may effect a repair for the awning.

I was thoroughly embarrassed that night when I set off the alarm in the Red Cross building. I had unlocked a door while going back and forth to repair an Ez Up shelter for them, looking up info on the Ez Up web pages. At 9:30 PM I realized that I had not re-locked the door, and apparently nobody from the Chapter had caught that fact. So I opened it and locked it, setting off the alarm. I went back into the motor home and said to Consuelo, "the cops will be here soon." And they were. I reported my actions, he said fine, then somebody from the Red Cross came out and turned off the alarm. Embarrassing, but had to be done. Turns out that the Exec Director was the one that was supposed to check the locks, so she was embarrassed, too.

On leaving Elkhart, our main slide failed to retract. After trying several things, I relented and gained access to the manual gear to roll the slide in. Fortunately, a little elbow grease was enough to get the slide moving up a ramp it needs to climb, after wich it retraced the rest of the way on its own. One more thing to fix in Maine.

We stopped for overnights in Hubbard, Ohio and near Scranton, PA, before finally arriving at Croton Point Park in Croton, NY.

Lost a Friend

A friend of ours passed on today
We feel the loss severely
She graced our life with joy and love.

She never earned a show award
Nor fought the fiercest bear
Instead she won our hearts and minds.
We walked the woods and climbed the hills
She'd look for squirrels and rabbits
The home again to watch our door.

When young, she'd wander miles away
Seeking kinship and adventure
Usually to come home again, tired and muddy.

We took her to obedience school
So she could teach us how it's done
We learned a lot from her

She'd jump, and dance, and shake both paws
But couldn't do roll-over
And then she tell us that she loved us.

Fourteen years makes a dog quite old
The last were not so nimble
Her legs gave out, she'd not complain

We took her to her ancestral home
In Alaska, then around the west
She loved the snow, the desert, the woods.

Thumper, we knew the end was near
We held you in our hearts
We will go on, never the same, missing you... loving you.

NOW we're over the hill

Before we left Provo, we got tickets to the BYU Ballroom Dance exhibition held in the Marriott Center on the university campus. This program has produces internationally acclaimed ballroom dancers, having won competitions in Europe many times. And we now know why. They are terrific, and we were amazed at the presentation of various dance steps with up to some 80 dancers on the stage at one time. Really impressive.

The Rim in Moab

We left Provo and headed southeast to Moab, an small tourist town situated between Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. Our campground was at the south end of town, situated under the cliff hundreds of feet high called "The Rim". Remnants of the active mining history around Moab lie scattered at this end of town, not the prettiest part. But we had views of not only the Rim, but also the 11,000 foot La Sal Mountains.

Lizard in Canyonlands

But the jewels in the region are Canyonlands and Arches. We decided to go to Canyonlands first, given that we had maybe one and a half days of good weather, and there was farther to travel up to Canyonlands. This huge park was created in the 1960s, is divided into 3 parts: Island in the Sky, the northern part where we went, the Needles, some 65 miles south of Moab, and the Maze, across the Colorado from the other parts, and inaccessible to mere mortals. Island in the Sky is a large mesa, about 12 miles across. The canyons are some 600-2000 feet below the edge. Jeep roads provide access to the lower canyon, following the White Rim Trail around the lower mesa above the Green and Colorado Rivers, which join in the park.

South Window Arch

The next morning, I cruised up to Arches, much older and more developed for tourism (more signs, parking, sites, etc. Arches is home to some 2000 natural arches, formed by unique geological processes. Some of the standing rock formations are just as impressive as the arches. I spent 3 hours and several rolls of film (just kidding) wandering around in the park. By the time I got to Delicate Arch, the icon on the other Utah license plate (the one that doesn't say, "Best Snow on Earth"), the sky was overcast and the light was completely flat and the rocks were more or less one dimensional. So I skipped the 1-1/2 mile hike up to Delicate Arch and took the long shot from the lower (read: Far Away) viewpoint, where a ranger intern was trying to impress us with facts about kangaroo rats (they drink no water...). I took one last drive inward to "Fiery Furnace", but given the opaque sky, the fire had gone out, so I went home.

Balanced Rock in Arches

We considered staying another day in Moab, but the weather forecast was not kind, so we decided to pack it in and head for Colorado. We tangled with a balky slide awning, which is still attached but not playing nice, requiring a manual roll up and down whenever we want to put our main slide in or out.

We decided to take Utah 128, know to the Moab locals as "The River Road" and to the state as a Scenic Byway. And it was very scenic, following the Colorado River for some 40 miles surrounded by towering red rock cliff walls, canyons of infinite depth, and angry rapids here and there. We began to understand how awed Powell must have been when he made the first boat trip down through these waters some 150 years ago.

In the ghost town of Cisco, we turned right onto a road marked "Not State Maintained" for a 10 mile trip up to I70. The road was OK, but I did have second thoughts, and though it would turn to dirt around the next bend. We stopped at the I70 interchange for lunch, then headed into the Colorado hills.

White Rim Trail and the Green River, Canyonlands

Coming in from the west, I70 is relatively flat until Glenwood Springs. Then the speed limit drops to 50 mph as the road winds through Glenwood Canyon for some 15 miles. After that, it works its way up along the Colorado River, then ascends up to 10,600 feet at Vail Pass. Our 360 HP Cat diesel took this in stride, if slowly.

Now we've been doing this RV thing for well over 5 years, and we've never been shut out at finding someplace to stay for the night. Consuelo uses Delorme Street Atlas, and we have several add on files with locations of Walmarts, Elks Clubs, Flying J Truck Stops, repair shops and the like. We had looked up a couple Walmarts which we figured would be OK for the night. The first one was in Vail. We looked, and looked, and looked, but there was no (visible) Walmart in Vail. The next one was at Copper Mountain, and likewise, invisible. Darkness was falling along with the temperatures. We were getting desperate. We finally cruised through downtown Frisco, and noted a Public Parking lot, which even had a sign stating "Over Night Parking Permitted". To soothe our worried souls, we had a great dinned in a good restaurant, Vinny's, and slept well that night, though our little furnace ran for much of the night keeping us warm. Due to our slide awning problem, we kept the big slide in, which reduce the heat loss. The morning low was 19 degrees.

We rolled back onto I70, climbing to the entrance of the Eisenhower Tunnel at 11,150 feet, admiring the snow covered peaks above us and the snow covered hemlocks below us on the hillsides.We then started the 60 mile descent into Denver. Down, down, down. We are definitely over the hill now.

Sunset at the Flying J in North Platte

After the red cliffs in Moab, Glenwood Canyons, the foamy Colorado, the white peaks of the Colorado 14s, getting out onto the prairie east of Denver to North Platte, Nebraska was, ummm, boring. But it was warmer, and the fuel economy was much better. We stopped the night at a Flying J truck stop there, then rolled today to Lincoln, NE for a few nights.

The bad news as of the moment, our constant companion for 14 years, our faithful puppy Thumper, is in serious pain an almost unable to walk, and not eating fresh cooked chicken and rice. We're concerned.

Utah!

Us and Rich and Shana Robb at Temple Square

We finally left Arizona on April 3rd, bound for Utah. The plan included spending a couple nights at Bryce Canyon National Park, but the weatherman was forecasting snow, so we skipped southern Utah and headed straight into American Fork, where we (thought) we had reservations for a few days. When we called the campground from I15, not only did they not have our reservation, but they said that they don't allow RVs over 36 feet. They suggested another park in Provo, which was nearly full, but found us a space. Other RVers who might be reading this blog should stay away from American Campground in American Fork.

Lakeside RV in Provo is just a hop skip and jump away from Utah Lake State Park, which was not really open when we got there. Utah Lake is the largest freshwater lake in Utah, receiving mountain runoff from the Provo River, American Fork and Spanish Fork rivers.

The Mormon Temple on a snowy day

We woke un Sunday morning to an inch of snow on everything. Normally we would just stay out of snow's way, but we had made arrangements to meet up with my former boss from Mayo, Dr. Richard Robb and his wife Shana, as they have a second home here, and would show us around Utah. They only had Monday and Tuesday available, and the weather again turned foul, with a smattering of rain and hail pelting us on Monday. But we did get to see the Mormon Temple Square and had lunch high above the Mormon Temple. The Tabernacle, home of the famous choir, had unusually excellent acoustics, and a very impressive pipe organ. Rich and Shana also shared details about the church and their beliefs with us. On Tuesday, we went to their house in Highland, where Consuelo taught SHana and their daughter Rachelle to knit, and Rich and I played pool and watched the Red Sox. Turns out that Rachelle's husband Kevin is a rabid Red Sox fan.

On Wednesday, the weather cleared. We got some house work done, did a little walking around the campground.

On Thursday, I took off for the hills while Consuelo stayed home to work on her marketing project. I ventured into historic Provo, then up US 189 into the Wasatch Mountains. Fishermen were out testing the streams and Deer Creek Reservoir to see if the fish had thawed out enough to be hungry. Of those that I spoke with, only one had caught anything.

Park City skiers enjoying a fine spring day

After, I drove into Park City, a tourist trap at 7100 feet elevation. Park City was the home to the Nordic events for the 2002 Winter Olympics. I stopped to watch the skiers and snowboarders having their fun on the slopes. The same storm that kept us housebound on Tuesday had dropped two to four feet of fine powder on the slopes, and the valley folks had come up for some fine spring skiing.

Downtown Park City

After the slopes, I found the shopping district on historic Main Street, built in the style of a mining town, which it was, but far more colorful now. Art galleries, jewelry shops and clothing boutiques lined the narrow sidewalks. A few interesting sculptures brightened up the town. One sculpture of two boys sliding on their tubes, had snow piled up around it so it almost looked like they were in their design environment.

The Utah State Capitol in Salt Lake City

I left Park City, wandered down to I80, and thence down the hill into the valley in Salt Lake City. I located the Utah State Capitol building and took an hour or so to wander around it and explore the inside. The government was not in session, so only me and a few other tourists occupied the building. I was impressed with the grandiose design and execution of the capitol building. And it sat high on a hill offering a view of Salt Lake City.

Canyoneering

On the edge of the Grand Canyon

Another long span has developed since I last posted, and a lot of water passed over the dam. We got Bill and Pat moved into their new house in Mesa, with relatively few incidents. The moving company dis most of the work, but we helped some. They're having a great time finishing the move, putting up photos, fixing odds and ends. Just like newlyweds!

We cruised back to Tucson once we finished our time in Tempe. Our Pincher Creek friends Art and Sharon had moved there, and we wanted to visit, play golf, and eat some more. Art and I got our 3 times to play golf. Two of the courses were tough, but we kept under 100. The third course was a par 3, which I finally got into the hang of by about the 15th hole. We also worked on finishing their shed update.

Hummingbird in Saguaro National Park, Tucson

On our last night there, Consuelo and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary, a few days ahead of schedule, but we wanted to dine with friends. We had a great meal at Olive Garden, topped off with Asti Spumante.

We then left for northern Arizona, with a fast oil change for our motor home on the way out of town. We slipped through Phoenix and made our way to a casino in Camp Verde, AZ for an overnight stop.

Montezuma Castle National Monument

The next morning we explored Montezuma Castle, one of the Sinagua cliff dwellings along the Verde River. The site was misnamed by early settlers who thought that Montezuma had a summer home here in the hills, but history assures us that Montezuma never got this far north.

Leaving there, we rolled up through Flagstaff, headed NW to Tusayan, AZ, just outside the Grand Canyon National Park. We spent 3 nights there, wandering around the park, taking the free shuttle buses to and fro. I went out one night to try for sunset photos, but the sunset was blah. We tried to celebrate our real anniversary at El Tovar Lodge, but they were booked up.

Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon is quite a place. My photos are but a suggestion of the immense size of the canyon, and the beautiful colors of the canyon walls. The canyon width is about 8-10 miles from the south rim area. It's about 4500 feet down to the river from Hopi Point (elevation 7008) on the south rim. The mules were making their journeys down to the river, but we didn't even consider trying it.

It was cold there, especially compared to Phoenix and points south. Overnight lows were down to the low 20s. We had all of our heating devices running, and we were cozy.

Red Rock mountain on US 89

On Tuesday, 3/30, we hooked up our bug and traveled out the East entrance to the Canyon, connecting with US 89 up to Page, AZ. This route traveled through wonderful scenery, close up views of the various layers that appeared in the Canyon, reds, pinks, greens, tans. There is so much of this stuff out here. I suppose that the locals don't notice it anymore, but it's quite a change from Maine!

We passed by Page, crossed the Glen Canyon Bridge and found our reserved campsite in the Wahweap Campground, inside the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. We have a great view of Lake Powell to the north from our campsite, just a mile or so south of the Utah border.

Glen Canyon Bridge and Dam

Today we visited the Visitor Center, located at the dam. Currently the water in Lake Powell is down about 80 feet, somewhat lower than normal for this time of year. Also, the snowpack is somewhat less than average, meaning that the lake won't be filling this year. Unusual, considering all the rain that fell in Arizona this winter (but not here).

We were surprised by the warmth when we arrived here. I knew that the temperatures at the Colorado River were higher at the Grand Canyon (by 20-30 degrees!) but that was conceptual. When we left the south rim, it was a relatively warm day, with temps around 60 degrees. But when we arrived in Page, it was 82, with an overnight low last night of 57. Back to shorts!

Today has been quite windy, with gusts up into the 45 mph range. Sand and dust have been blowing into everything... our car, my camera, our hair and Thumper's fur. Rain and perhaps snow are coming this way, and cooler temperatures. Such is the environment for travelers like us.

The Ides of March

Us and the Canadians in Yuma

Consuelo and I search all through our motor home for our togas to celebrate the Ides, but alas, they were not to be found. Instead, we'll wear our jeans and shorts to celebrate this famous Roman feast day. Not that we need another feast day. We've feasted enough of late. It always seems that when we get together with our rowdy friends, we add a few pounds onto the frame. It seems that we've been doing so since the first of January.

Arts and Crafts in Tubac

February was a short month. It usually is, but our faster than ever activities cut it to what seemed 12 days. We spent the first week in Yuma, playing some golf and wrapping up our activities there. Our campsite benefactors, Rusty and Mary Ann returned from Mexico, and we partied with them a bit. Then we cruised over to Tucson for a very brief week playing with Curt and Beth Kraft, who escape Rochester every year to SE Arizona. Curt and I played golf for 3 days, we tripped to Tubac for the Art Festival, and we had a wonderful Valentines day dinner with other friends of theirs.

The sewing sisters

We then journeyed up to Fountain Hills where Consuelo and the sewing sisters had their annual sewing camp in Arizona. Lots of cutting, stitching, patterning, and fitting was done, along with comfy food. The ladies did an outing to the Art Museum to celebrate Deb Wilkinson's birthday (how many years is that, Deb?) and Denny Robertson and I hiked out to the Dixie Mine, a round trip of some 6 miles. One night everybody came to our little house for dinner, where I served up salmon stuffed with bleu cheese, bacon and pears, and Ming's pork fried rice.

Consuelo selling garlic graters

After the sewing camp ended, we walked through "The Great Fair", another art event in Fountain Hills with Denny and Andrea. At one point, Denny decided to buy some garlic graters from a man who was alone in his booth. While the man wrote up Denny's order, Consuelo took over pitching the product to the folks walking by. She was pretty good at it, too.

Four Peaks from McDowell Mountain Park

We parked our house in McDowell Mountain Regional Park while we visited Fountain Hills. This large Maricopa County park (actually in Scottsdale) hosts about 95 large wonderful campsites, miles of trails for hikers, trail bikes, or horses. Coyote bands roam the area, yelling to each other at night. We might have extended our stay there, but they have a 2 week limit unless they are full, and they had folks waiting in overflow every night soon after we arrived.

Bill and Pat's new house

Soon after we arrived in Fountain Hills, my brother Bill began moving from their modular home in Apache Junction to a real house in Mesa. He and Pat have decided to abandon Massachusetts as a summer retreat and spend full time in Arizona. Prior to the move, after they got the keys to the new house, I helped them get some things ready to move and packed a load of things over to the new house. Logistics required scheduling, as they needed to have the ceilings painted and tile laid in the kitchen before they could completely move in. I helped some by rehanging the ceiling fans, installing a new stove and oven, repairing one miswired outlet, and odds and ends that I could help with. The final move was completed on March 10th, the evening of which we celebrated with pizza in the new house. I think they'll be very happy there, except perhaps for the days when they need to vacuum and realize how much more square footage they have.
We had departed McDowell Park on March 1st, arriving at the Elks Lodge in Tempe. It is a handy location to get to places in the city. For example, one of our sling chairs broke and it was a short haul over to Phoenix to get it repaired. Shopping is all around us.

In the midst of this, we've been refinancing our house in Maine, a long distance event that is proceeding quite nicely. Consuelo has been doing marketing for Oregon Woodworkers online, also proceeding quite nicely. And lately I've been fighting with a nasty bug my computer has of just hanging in the middle of a project, with no clear success yet. Very annoying.

We've started to fill in the blank spaces in the calendar between now and when we arrive back in Maine in mid May. Stops along the way include Tucson for another week, Grand Canyon, Salt Lake City, Arches National Park, Rochester, Croton Point NY, and Ipswich. And of course, a bunch of gas stations and Walmarts.

Cruising through January

Consuelo's Gourd Project

January has been a busy month for us in Yuma. Our friends from Pincher Creek Canada arrived, and that alone added to our calendar, including occasional bike rides, some golf, dinners out with a movie (It's Complicated), happy hours, progressive dinners, Mary's good cookin', and various projects.

The friends are Ken and Mary Clinton and Art and Sharon Bonertz. Sharon and Mary are sisters. We've also gotten to know some other Pincher Cretians who are staying here, Leslie and Gerry Musa, and met folks from all over.

Consuelo, Sharon and Mary participated in a gourd decorating project. Consuelo's is shown above. It came out pretty nice, I think.

The bicycle rack that Art built in Canada for Consuelo's bike developed a list, and Art wanted to correct it. We pulled the trailer hitch off the motorhome, got some heavier bolts and reattached it. It's now straight. That took most of a day.

Art Bonertz strumming

Music has been touched as a topic. Art Bonertz brought his guitar along, and Ken Clinton is practicing steadily on his new electric guitar. I got my old buzzing ukulele out and rediscovered a few standard chords, but my memory is a sieve with regard to song lyrics. None of us has felt comfortable enough to get together and play at the same time, so maybe we'll skate by some bad music. Consuelo was encourage to enter the Karaoke Contest (with a $1000 prize to the winner) but the contest ends long after we depart Yuma, so that was sufficient for her to say no.

Classy slippers

Besides, Consuelo has been busy enough with other projects. She generated a slipper knitting class with 9 students, and they all made their way through to the felting process. Some students only managed to get one slipper made, and they are now out searching for Cinderella, or hopping around on cold mornings.

Speaking of cold mornings, the weather has been pretty good here. We did have a couple days of rain and hefty winds, highly unusual for this area. Record rainfalls were recorded, close to 2 inches on one day, which is 1/2 of Yuma's average annual amount. Many folks reported minor leaks, including us, and a slide awning or two was damaged, and some lighter than air plastic lawn chairs departed for places unknown. We're now waiting to see if the desert blossoms, as often occurs after a rain.

Tissues and Bananas Still Life

Meanwhile, I've been pursuing my photographic hobby. I acquired a new strobe flash for my camera, and have been experimenting (or, studying) its use and operation. Various objects have found themselves exposed on our tabletop, then subjected to bright lights. Some of the pictures, like the red gourd, look pretty nice. Bananas and a tissue box weren't so pleasing, but they were well lit. I'll be moving into portrait work next.

Flashy golf tees

I've also been leading two meetings a week for other campers in the park. One is a computer group, where we mostly help newbies learn how to use email and web browsers. The second is a photo discussion group, which led to a request for a presentation from a neighboring RV park. I expect this can develop into a photo seminar for amateurs in the future.

Does a Ford moo?

Ken Clinton's truck got horny one morning, as Art decorated his hood with some real Texas flair. Ken declined to take up the spurs, though, and de-horned the big hauler.

On to February!