The Year of Maybe

 The Year of Maybe - that's what my granddaughter Madeline is calling 2020. Daughter Jill told us about this the other night, and the phrase really resonated with me. "Maybe grandma can come visit us." "Maybe we can go to the park, if it's not too crowded." 

Jill, who like Madeline is wise beyond her years, says that this shows the grit and resilience of youth. It's a phrase that even those of us who are no longer chronologically young but are maybe still a little bit young at heart, can adopt for ourselves. 

We are going to get through this mess - maybe a little battered and suffering some losses, but we are going to get through this. 

The circumstances behind Madeline's profound statement exemplify this. It was in response to us throwing our Christmas plans out the window. We had made plans to get together in a house in Cambria, a little town on the coast maybe 50 miles from here. All the adults had agreed to get COVID tested in advance. Christmas has always been a big deal for our family; most years all of us are together for at least part of the day. 

California's recent lockdown requirements shot down those plans. It would have been very difficult, if not impossible, for the kids in Seattle to drive down here. Additionally, even if we could have gotten away with this, it's just not morally right to flout commonsense regulations designed to save lives.

So, we'll just get through it. Maybe next year we'll gather together. Maybe we'll sneak down to SoCal to see the kids there; it's just barely technically OK to do so. Right now, we are all in the same Southern California region; we're going to at least talk over gathering at Christmas with Sherry and Jill.

What keeps me going is that we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. With vaccines on the horizon, and adopting the onerous, restrictive but necessary lockdown regulations, I know we'll get through this in a few more months. 

What's going on with the new house? Not much. The building permit was submitted in late October. We are told that they are currently running 8-10 weeks on review, so we are hopeful to hear something this month. We have signed contracts with the well drilling company, a grading contractor and the general contractor who will do the foundation work and build the porch and the garage. Once the permit is approved, we expect everything to start happening. 

In the interim, we're basically hanging out. Although I just counseled following the lockdown regulations, I must confess that Cathy and I and the dogs drove to Seattle for a week at Thanksgiving. We took a bunch of precautions, including COVID testing (negative!). We had a great visit, including babysitting with the adorable Parker for three days while mom Heather started a new job! Here's a shot of this little angel:

Progress!

 Although I haven't posted in over a month, a lot has been happening. Here's what's new...

End of an Era

As I mentioned in my last post, our condo went on the market shortly after Labor Day. We ended up accepting an offer on the place the first weekend it was on the market! The family that bought it lives in the same condo complex, in a unit identical to ours. They are currently renting, but like the condo and the area so much that they wanted to buy. It turns out that they have boys about Madeline's age, and Jill knows the lady and was aware of their interest.

Long story short, escrow closed on October 20. The proceeds from the sale will almost, but not quite, cover all of the costs of our new home. 

This brings to a close our time in San Clemente. Except for a few months in 2006 when Cathy lived there before moving to Ohio, we never lived in the place. However, daughter Jill lived there just about the entire time, mostly with husband Joe and, later, their two children. Because of that, we spent a lot of time, especially around the holidays, in the lovely beach city of San Clemente during our sojourn in Ohio. 

Road Trip

Speaking of Ohio, we made a lightning-quick roundtrip to Ohio and back. We left Newport Beach (where we left the dogs with Sherry) on Sunday 10/4 and got back to Paso Robles on Tuesday 10/13. We drove The Beast to Ohio, rented a U-Haul trailer there, filled it up with the keepsakes we had left in storage, and headed back to California. We did the drive east in four days, averaging about 550 miles per day, which is a lot of driving. Coming back, we took five days, for two reasons: 1) we were whipped by all that daily mileage; 2) we wanted to stop at brother Brian's new place on the Colorado River, across the river from Needles, CA. Doing the trip in five days let us make day four a fairly short one so we could spend the afternoon and evening seeing Brian and his place; more on that below.

The Beast had little trouble with this itty-bitty trailer!

We spent a lot of time planning this trip. The key item: how much time would we spend in Ohio, and what would we do with it. We both left lots of friends in Ohio. After a lot of discussion, we made the tough decision not to see anybody. We simply felt it was too much of a risk; in pre-pandemic times, we'd have spent several days, or more, stopping by work, going to lunch, or dinner, or drinks, with everyone. We're both 67, I've got diabetes and Cathy has a history of pneumonia. We didn't particularly like our decision, but we both felt it was the right one. 

That's not entirely true that we saw no one; we stayed two nights with our good friends Dennis and Leah. Even doing that turned out to pose a risk: the day we left them, Friday 10/9, Dennis started displaying COVID-19 symptoms. Several days later, so did Leah; they both tested positive. Thankfully, they are both well on the road to recovery.

Leah notified us as soon as they got their positive test results. We self-quarantined for 14 days from our last date of exposure. We both managed to dodge that COVID bullet: no symptoms whatsoever.

One of the keepsakes that we moved was a piano. Pianos weigh a ton. They are also somewhat top-heavy, and the front legs can be easily damaged. We knew we couldn't move it ourselves, so we arranged, through U-Haul, to have a crew come out and help. Although we really only needed help with the piano, these guys were amazing. They did a world-class job on securing everything in that trailer. Nothing moved on the entire trip!

Here in CA, we had made prior arrangements with one of the guys who works at the storage place to meet us and help us move the piano from the trailer into storage. After a lot of head-scratching and discussing options, the three of us managed to get it off the trailer and into the storage unit, sans scratches and hernias.

River Ranch

Brian's named his new place River Ranch. It's just about perfect for him. He's got about 75' of beachfront on the Colorado River, on the east (Arizona) side of the river across from Needles, CA. Although his house is in and perfectly liveable, a lot of the outside is still a work in progress. He's got plans for building a launch ramp for his jetski, a garage, firepit and a bunch of other stuff. Since he's recently retired, he chugs away at all of these projects, always allowing sufficient time to sit on the beach, drink silver bullets, and watch the river roll by. It's a pretty nice life.

Dusk on the River

The House

The good news for us is that the entire permit package is supposed to be delivered to the county planning department this Thursday; in pandemic times, one needs to actually schedule an appointment to deliver building permit applications!

With our condo money now in hand, we pushed to get our house ordered. The main reason: avoiding price increases. During these months that all of the planning was going on, we endured two price increases, with another one scheduled to go into effect the end of this month. This is all driven by lumber pricing, which has simply gone through the roof. With the permit nearly completed, the home people were more than amenable. So, on Friday (10/23) we placed the order. Kelli, our agent, tells us that the home should be built and on the road by the end of February!

With the permitting underway, a lot of other things are now, or will be soon, underway. We've got PG&E working on the plans to deliver electricity, we're delivering a deposit to the well-drilling company this coming week, and we've had our first walk-through with the contractor that's handling building the garage and porch, as well as building the foundation. All of these things, except the garage and porch, need to be completed before the house arrives onsite. 

Homesteading - an Update

I've been wanting to get an update published for the last week or so. There's a lot going on, but it's kind of a mishmash, as you'll see.

For the last several weeks, we've been busy down in SoCal. Daughter Jill and her family, who were living in our condo in San Clemente, bought a place of their own. They are now the proud owners of a cute little condo in Trabuco Canyon. They are now only about two miles from Joe's work, and probably half the previous distance to Jill's and Madeline's schools. Two weekends ago, during a record-breaking heat wave, we helped them move. 

Since they were moving out, we found a realtor to sell the condo. Actually, we are using the realtor that Jill and Joe used to find their condo. She did a great job for them and, so far, is doing a great job for us. She arranged for painters, new carpeting and cleaning; this saved us a bunch of time and work.

The condo listing went live yesterday. Raina, our realtor, tells us that they've got five showings scheduled through the weekend. We are hopeful that we can get it sold fairly quickly.

Getting our own house moving has been an exercise in patience. Right now, we are still waiting on finalization of the building permit to submit to the county. The key part of this is the Site Plan which, as its name suggests, shows where all the pieces are placed on the property. There's a lot of items that need to come together for the Site Plan.

From our perspective, it appears that little has happened in the last month or so. Our pleas for timing and progress are met with assurances that the work is progressing steadily. We can't tell if that's truly the case, or if the rate of progress is typical, or if there's a little bit of a "small-town" attitude toward getting things done in a timely manner. Just yesterday we did receive a draft Grading Plan, which shows the house and driveway sited on the lot. This is a big part and is, hopefully, indicative that they are getting close.

Here's the key part of the Grading Plan...

Why the frustration on our part? Timing. We've been told that the county is now taking 60-90 days to review and approve building permits. Additionally, the manufactured home people are now backlogged 90-120 days on building homes! The good news - we'll order the home as soon as the permit is submitted, so these times run concurrently. 

After the home is built and transported to the site, it'll take an additional 45-60 days to assemble. So, do the math: worst case, we won't be in the house until 180 days from now... March 20th! ANYTHING we can do to speed things along will - just possibly - get us in the house before next spring.

Both of us are used to making things happen and getting things done. This inactivity is killing us, as is the dependence on getting others to do their job. Intellectually, we both know that we can wait. We're in a nice RV park that is very inexpensive for this area. We're only four hours away from two of our children...and in one of the most beautiful locations in California. 

We can't just sit here for the next six months; we'll either go crazy or kill each other - or both! So, what are we going to do?

For starters, we've got some travelin' planned. 

First, we're going to head to Ohio. When we left Ohio in 2018, we left a few keepsakes in a storage unit there. Our original plan was to go get that stuff after we got in our new house. Now, with all this time to kill, we think we'll go now. The weather's still good. Assuming we got in our house sometime around March 1, that's still a little early to reliably cross the Rockies; better to go now. Also, once we get in the new place we're going to be really busy... too busy to take a couple of weeks off to go to Ohio.

So, we're leaving here in early October, after leaving the dogs with Sherry, and booking to Ohio. We'll be in Cincinnati a couple of days and then load up a U-Haul trailer and haul the stuff out west. 

After that, we're making plans to drive up to Seattle for a week or so at Thanksgiving. Heather and Dan just moved into a large four-bedroom house. We can stay there so we won't take the trailer. That'll save us quite a bit in diesel costs, plus we can drive so much faster we'll do it in two days instead of three.

We'd like to get over to Lassen National Park, here in California, and go on up to Crater Lake NP, which is just over the border into Oregon. Crater Lake gets snowed in pretty early, though, so that might not happen this year. 

Scottsgiving

 September 1 is an important date in our family. Four years ago today, our son Scott had successful surgery to remove a brain tumor. After radiation therapy and a grueling round of chemotherapy, Scott was able to resume his life. Every year since, September is noted around here as Gratitude Day or Scottsgiving. 

 Hearing the news that a child has been diagnosed with cancer is THE most devastating news any parent can hear. Even the word is ugly; there's nothing pretty at all about "oligodendroglioma". 

All of us celebrate his life. Since treatment, Scott and Sara have been busy putting their lives back together. He continues to work for Tesla; that work takes him regularly to Tesla's manufacturing sites around the US. A little over a year ago, Scott and Sara relocated from the San Francisco Bay area to Seattle. They love living there, and are now just a couple of hours away from their beloved cabin on Orcas Island. 

Scott regularly undergoes a brain MRI, and will do so for the rest of his life. He just had one last week - the results were completely uneventful, which is what we both expected and were, as always, thrilled to hear. One of the really tough things with all brain cancers is the likelihood of recurrence; no one is ever completely "cured" - hence the regular MRIs. 

Meanwhile they, and the rest of us, celebrate his life!

Here's some pics...

Here's the family, just before surgery.

A couple of days after surgery.

Of course, he doesn't look like that today. Here he is, with us at the cabin on Orcas.

Homesteading

Here's what's going on... 

We've started escrow on a one-acre parcel of land about ten miles east of the city of Paso Robles. It is sited in an area that is surrounded by one- and two-acre homes. Escrow is scheduled to close on 7/31, although we are pushing to get it done before then. After escrow closes, we will start in earnest to get all of the utilities onsite and will have a manufactured home installed on the lot. 

How did we get here? When we arrived here in Paso, we had sort of targeted buying "something" in the one-acre size. We wanted to be able to stretch out a little bit - obviously! Cathy wants to put in a big garden. We both want to put in some fruit trees, and a big outdoor space, and a garage and, ideally, a separate shop building for me to hang out in. We looked at a few homes that we thought might be suitable. In all cases, they were just above what we wanted to pay; furthermore, most of them needed some serious upgrading, usually to the kitchens and bathrooms - the two most expensive places in a house to remodel. 

We were open to either buying an existing house or having a manufactured home put on a piece of raw land. My brother Brian just did that; he and a buddy bought a big piece of land fronting the Colorado River across from Needles, CA. They each put a manufactured home on the land. Listening to Brian talk about it, he saved a lot of money by going the manufactured home route. 

So, we dug into the whole manufactured home thing a little bit more. Fortuitously, there's a manufactured home dealer right here in Paso. Also fortuitously, they had a model home on their lot that checked ALL the boxes for us. The size, layout and cost were all very impressive. The house we settled on is just under 1800 square feet, three bedrooms and a den (which can be used as a fourth bedroom), two bathrooms and we're going to have a two-car attached garage built onsite. We looked at the manufacturing specs on this thing, and they were equally impressive. This home has 2 x 6 exterior walls, excellent insulation in the attic and walls, etc. They have some flexibility on options - but not as much as you might imagine. Here's a link to what we're talking about:

https://www.manufacturedhomes.com/manufacturer/home/226119/Clayton-Built/Sacramento/Coronado/2462A

 (NOTE: We're actually buying a slightly larger version of this basic plan. Ours is 27' x 66'; the plan in the link is 24' x 62'. The basic floorplan is the same, however.)

We started looking in earnest at buying a lot of land and having a manufacturing home put on it. We quickly learned three things: 1) we can save a lot of money over buying an existing home; 2) it's complicated to put all of the infrastructure into a piece of bare dirt to get it ready to occupy; 3) all of this takes a lot of time. 

Depending on exactly how one defines a complete project, we think we can save somewhere between $75K and $100K and have a brand-new house. That, of course, has its own set of pluses and minuses. 

How complicated is all of this? Quite a bit, if you've never done this before. We have to have a well drilled and a septic tank installed. Both of these require testing and permits up front. The house itself needs a permit, of course. Part of the house permitting includes complying with fire department regulations regarding access; our proposed house site is some 150 feet back from the road, up a 13° slope. Electricity needs to be brought onsite. we need to arrange for a propane tank to be installed. Lastly, and we haven't even begun to figure this out, we need to do something about internet access. 

Here's a photo taken from the top of the lot, which is relatively flat, looking toward the street. The left-hand property line is where the white post is just off the street. The right-hand property line is on the same line as the white fence line across the street. The lot is 100' wide.

 All in all, there are a lot of moving pieces here. For us, right now, the challenge is in simply getting started. These are basic project management kind of questions: What has to happen first? What's the longest lead time items? Fortunately, the manufactured home people both know most of this and have access to local contractors and contacts to ensure all of this can happen. 

How long will all this take? We were told to expect this to take 4-6 months. About half of that is time for permitting and half of that to have the house built, delivered and set up onsite.

Although at times this seems a little overwhelming, we are excited to begin this next chapter in our lives. Now that things are just starting to happen, we are already looking ahead to getting in the place and starting to turn it into our next home! 

Stay tuned for updates!

El Paso de Robles

"El Paso de Robles" is the official name of what we hope to be our new home town; it is commonly known as Paso Robles or simply "Paso". For you non-Spanish speakers, "El Paso de Robles" literally means "the pass of the oaks." I'm not sure where the "El Paso" part comes from; the pass over the Santa Lucia mountains is some 20 miles south of here. The "Robles" part is obvious: the hillsides are dotted with California live oak trees. At this time of year, with all of the native grasses now a golden yellow color, the verdant green, stately shapes of oak trees serves as a never-ending accent wherever you go. 

The images below are actually from a lot that we looked at, but eventually decided we weren't interested in.

Paso is a city of about 30,000 people, situated in the upper Salinas River valley, roughly halfway between LA and San Francisco. It's 25 miles or so inland, sitting astride US 101, which is as a much more scenic alternate to I-5, which runs some 50 miles or so farther inland. Paso is one of the premier wine-growing areas in California; I wouldn't care to make a careful guess, but I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't a hundred wineries in the area. 

We're fairly familiar with the area. At one time, both of my sisters and their respective spouses owned vacation homes at Lake Nacimiento, which is in the hills about 25 miles northwest of Paso. We spent a lot of summer weekends passing through Paso on the way to the lake. 

The county we are in, San Luis Obispo County, contains about 250,000 people. Most of the population is contained in a number of small cities and communities strung along 101. The county seat and largest city, San Luis Obispo (SLO), has a population of 50,000 and is about 30 miles south; it is the site of California State Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo campus, universally known as Cal Poly. Daughter Jill is an alumnus of Cal Poly, so we are very familiar with the SLO area. 

What are WE doing right now? We are moving full speed ahead with buying a one-acre parcel of land and having a manufactured house put on it. We've identified an undeveloped lot that we really like. Being undeveloped, there are a lot of moving pieces that we need to get sorted out before we put in an offer. We need to worry about power, a well, a septic tank, and fire department access. Additionally, the manufactured home people need to ensure that access to the property is adequate for their needs. Our original plan was to sell our condo in SoCal and use the proceeds from that sale to buy all of this. Since we are now planning on doing all this now - instead of 4-6 months from now as originally planned - we need to work out some interim financing, too. 

Once most of that stuff is sorted out, hopefully in the next week or so, we're ready to pull the trigger on buying the land. Once we own the land, most of the other things can start to happen. We'll be writing this up as things happen... stay tuned!

Farewell to Flagstaff

We're set to leave Flagstaff tomorrow. We're headed to Paso Robles, CA, which is some 600 miles away. We'll take two days to get there, spending a night on the road in the desert crossroads of Barstow, which is roughly halfway.

We've had a great time here in Flagstaff.  This is a beautiful little city, nestled in the pines underneath towering mountains. The weather has been absolutely stellar. When we arrived the nights were cool enough that we needed to throw on a fleece for our morning walks with the dogs. Daytime temps have typically been in the 80's, usually under bright blue cloudless skies. The last few days, while the rest of Arizona baked in 100+°F temperatures, we've been in the high 80's. Delightful.

Flagstaff is surrounded by National Forest land. There are hiking trails everywhere. We've done our best to hit a good portion of them, taking long walks with the dogs every day. 

One of the thousands of Pondersosa pines we walked by. 

We had a couple of enjoyable sidebars here. Although many outdoor amenities are still transitioning to reopening, the other day we drove  up to Sunset Crater National Monument, which is maybe 15 miles up the road from us. This prominent volcanic cinder cone was named by none other than John Wesley Powell his own bad self, naming it for the prominent red color particularly visible at sunset. Although the visitor center and campground were closed, the roads and trails - which were all that we needed - were open. Most enjoyable.

The aptly named Sunset Crater.

Additionally, yesterday we took a little drive out to the east of here. On the way home, we saw the signs for Walnut Canyon National Monument, which sits just three miles south of I-40. Although it was still largely closed, a short trail along the rim was open. This magnificent canyon, which must be 1,000 feet deep, was home to a large group of Pueblo Indians some 900 years ago. Their cliff dwellings dot the canyon walls. Although the trail down into the canyon was closed to us today, even seeing the sights from the rim was spectacular. 

If you follow either Cathy or I on social media you surely know that Sherry and Jill and their families visited us over the Memorial Day weekend. Words fail me to describe both how much we were looking forward to their visit, and how much we enjoyed their company over the weekend. 

Madeline would have taken Copper home with her if we'd let her.

Madeline beating aunt Sherry in chess. I carved the chess pieces for Madeline for her birthday present.

Cathy doing what she does best. Teddy loves giraffes.

End of the Road

This is a tough post to write. As I alluded to in the last post, we have decided to stop full-timing and settle down. It'll be two years the end of next month (June) that we hit the road.  Our original target when we retired was to full-time for two years and reassess our desire to continue.

I mentioned our plans for 2020 upon leaving south Texas in March included a trip along the Gulf Coast to Florida, up the Atlantic Coast to Maine and then along the northern tier of states all the way to Washington. COVID-19 forced us to abandon - or at least postpone to some time in the indefinite future - all of those plans.

Prior to our departure from Texas, we had already been talking in general terms about what we wanted when we settled down. Once the current reality set in, we started looking at our ability to accomplish any or all of our plans in any kind of reasonable timeframe.

After a lot of talking it through, we decided now is the time to stop full-timing. Why? We want to be able to do things that we can't do in our current home. Cathy loves to garden and wants some land to be able to do so; she also wants some space to indulge in sewing and other crafts. I would love to have a workshop, or at least some shop space in a garage, to build things and tinker. In addition, we want to be part of a community again; since we are essentially tourists everywhere we go now, we feel rootless. We miss having opportunities to contribute and build a community. Also, and perhaps most importantly, we miss being so disconnected from family.

I've struggled a lot with the feelings that we somehow "failed" or we're "giving up". Rationally, I am sure this is the right decision; I won't have any regrets once we're in a place. I think some of the struggle in my mind is that there's so much stuff to see and do and I don't want to miss out on any of it. I do know that we'll be so busy with fun projects that we won't have time for regrets; Cathy has no problem generating projects and tasks for five Ricks to handle. I also know that the places we want to visit aren't going anywhere; we've got lots of time to visit them in the future.

We've long thought we'd like to settle in the Paso Robles area. The area has several small cities stretched along US 101 in the central coast area of California. It offers a wide variety of housing types from urban to suburban to rural. Cathy's already reached out to a realtor in the area. We're hoping to buy a small house on an acre or so of land and our initial investigations suggest we can find something that meets our needs within our budget. We'll be exploring both buying an existing house and buying land and putting a house on it.

Once we've settled into a place, we will sell our current home and buy a smaller one. Our current home is just about perfect for living in, but it is, quite frankly, a little large for taking shorter trips - which we WILL continue to do. Buying a smaller trailer will allow us greater freedom to get into smaller campgrounds and will be more economical to tow.

Will all of this happen just as we've planned? Of course not. That's OK. Both of us are planners from way back, and we've long since learned it's far easier to change an existing plan than it is to simply wander through life.

We are planning on leaving Flagstaff - a place we have come to love - next week. If the NPS opens up the North Rim of the Grand Canyon we'll head there first and take a rather roundabout way to California. Otherwise, as seems likely right now, we'll simply chug westward on I-40 to the next chapter of our life.

Flagstaff

On Monday 5/11 we left Tucson and drove up to Flagstaff, about 275 miles away. Flagstaff is a nice little city of some 75,000, situated in a large Ponderosa pine forest. It is surrounded by the Kaibab and Coconino National Forests, and offers a huge assortment of hiking trails and destinations.

Flagstaff is a LOT cooler than Tucson. As much as we enjoyed Tucson, we were ready to leave. It got hot early in Tucson: we "enjoyed" a hot spell with ten or so straight days with high temperatures all above 95°F. Here in Flagstaff, daily highs so far have been in the low 70's, with nighttime temperatures down below 50°F. That's largely a function of elevation: Flagstaff sits right at 7,000 feet of elevation.

We're scheduled here for three weeks, departing in early June. Sherry and Jill (and their related attachments) are going to visit here over the Memorial Day weekend. As you might imagine, we are greatly looking forward to their visit!

From here, our plans are slightly up in the air. If the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park is open, we're going to head north and visit it. We're cautiously optimistic that it'll be open. The South Rim is opening up (today?) with a lot of restrictions.

If not, we're heading directly to Paso Robles, CA... we've decided it's time to buy a place and settle down. More on that, and our thoughts on making that decision, in a separate post.

Meanwhile, here's a couple of pics from some dayhikes in the last couple of days...

MORE Springtime in the Desert

So, we've noticed on our drives around town that in the last week or so the saguaro are starting to bloom. Somewhat to our surprise, some - but not all, apparently - saguaro show twenty or more buds at the tops of their stalks. The buds have been visible since we hit town nearly a month ago, but are now starting to open up. The saguaro flower is the state flower of Arizona.

A couple of days ago, Cathy suggested we hit the National Park and look for blooms. We went this afternoon, and weren't disappointed. Looking for saguaro blooms at this time of year is like looking for bison in Yellowstone: you won't be disappointed.

Also to our pleasant surprise, the park was largely deserted. Of course, the visitor center is closed, but the scenic drive and all the trails are open. We went in the early afternoon, but the temperature hit 100°F while we were there - not a lot of hikers present.

We continue to be blown away by the beauty of this desert. It seemed like everything we saw was in bloom. Here's just a few photos...

We'd never seen a prickly pear with orange blossoms like this.

I think this is a staghorn cholla, but don't quote me on that.

There's something like 30 separate buds here.

Springtime in the Desert

Spring here in Tucson is short and evanescent. When we arrived here on 4/9, daytime highs were in the mid-70's, with nightime temperatures in the low 50's, even dipping down into the high 40's. This was just about perfect weather.

Now, barely two weeks later, spring is just about gone. As I write this on Wednesday 4/22, tomorrow's high is predicted to be 92; if that forecast is accurate, tomorrow will be the first day in the 90's in Tucson in 2020.

But wait: the temperature is predicted to continue to rise, with next Tuesday's high forecast to be 100! One of the local TV stations actually runs a contest for viewers to guess the date and time when the temperature first breaks 100!

A high temperature of 90 we can deal with; not surprisingly, it's very dry here, with dew points typically around 20 or so. We usually have a breeze, especially in the afternoon. Afternoons here, in the shade of our olive tree, with a dry gentle breeze and a temperature in the low- to mid-80's, are absolutely delightful. Also, as soon as the sun sets the temperature drops rapidly; by 7 or 8PM it's very pleasant outside. How 100 is going to be... we'll see.

Meanwhile, we continue to enjoy walks with the dogs. Every day it seems like we see more and more blooms; the saguaro, of course, continue to amaze us, too...

This is the bloom found at the end of an ocotillo.

See the bloom at the top of this saguaro? They usually bloom in May-June.

Of course, the desert is also home to some less-than-pleasant critters. We ran across (not literally!) this little rattler the other day....

Back in Tucson

We're back in Tucson - a place that we didn't expect to see so soon. As all of us know, 2020 has been a time of greatly changed expectations.

Driving here from Ardmore, OK, we found ourselves taking some extra precautions. As is our custom when we're not pressed for time, we sought out some back roads instead of just chugging down the interstate; we ended up taking four days to cover just under 1000 miles. As usual, we found it very rewarding.

I won't bore you with the specific route, but from Ardmore we headed south and west on various US and state highways. We drove through Wichita Falls, TX and spent the first night in Lubbock. The next day, we crossed the Llano Estacado, a geographic feature I had heard of but never visited. That took us to Roswell, which still makes a big deal out of an alleged alien landing... in 1947! From there, we drove through the Lincoln National Forest and past White Sands National Park to Las Cruces. Our last day was a boring drive over I-10 to Tucson.

We took extra pains to stay safe on this trip. Ordinarily, we stop for fuel at a truck stop and both visit the facilities. On this trip, we mostly visited smaller, rural fuel stations; it's not uncommon for fuel stations in small towns to have a couple of diesel pumps for trucks off to one side or in the back. The advantage for these over the large truck stops is that one can usually pay at the pump; not so at your typical Pilot or TA truck stop. Immediately upon returning to the truck after handling the fuel nozzle I use the hand sanitizer we keep in the truck. Additionally, we used the bathroom in the trailer instead of going inside. Because of all of that, we ended up with only one of us (me) making only one trip inside a truck stop building the entire trip.

Additionally, RV parks have usually adopted special procedures. Once, we simply handled everything over the phone; they told us what site we were in, we pulled in that night and left the next morning and never talked to a soul. Other times, the paper work would be left outside on a table for us to complete and stick in a mail slot. Even when we had to deal with a person, they typically had a table in front of the registration counter to effect a safe social distance.

We arrived here on Thursday 4/9. We are staying for a month, at least, at the Tucson KOA. Our original plans were to stay at the Voyager RV Park, where we spent the month of January. Unfortunately, a week before we were scheduled to arrive they shut the place down to all new arrivals.

This really threw us for a loop. We know from our prior time here that there are several hundred permanent residents in the park; they're surely not being evicted. Rather, what we suspect happened was that they simply decided to protect the permanent residents and staff by not allowing anyone else in. Voyager is a 55+ park. Additionally, it's owned by the Thousand Trails organization. We suspect both of these factors weighed into their decision.

We quickly found a place to stay at the KOA in Tucson. Although this is costing a few bucks more, this place far surpasses Voyager. This is one of the nicest, cleanest RV parks we have ever stayed in. Furthermore, we've got a quiet, spacious, shady site in the very back of the park, away from just about all of the noise and traffic.

The iPhone camera distorts the perspective, but the shaded area under the olive tree in the background is very spacious.

Not surprisingly, we quickly settled into some old routines here. We already know where "stuff" is. We've had the dogs out to some of their old stomping grounds in the surrounding desert.

This is the best time of the year to visit the desert. All of the vegetation is green and growing rapidly. There are flowers blooming literally everywhere you look...

Lockdown!

I hope all of you are weathering these tough times in good spirits and good health. We WILL get through this!

As I had previously posted, we are in Ardmore, Oklahoma. Ardmore is a small city of some 25,000 population, roughly halfway between Dallas and Oklahoma City on I-35. We are staying in one of the nicest RV parks we have ever been in. It is new, spacious, clean... and barely occupied. We were walking around the park the other day, and of the 128 sites here, only 30 were occupied.

Here's the park, looking south...

...and looking north. All those units in the distance are people living here full-time. 

We are also maybe a mile from Lake Murray State Park, which is the oldest and largest state park in OK. Surprisingly, the state park is largely open. There are people in the campgrounds and on the lake.  We’ve taken advantage of the numerous hiking trails and enjoyed several nice long walks there with the dogs.

What’s next for us? We’re headed for Tucson. We’re leaving here tomorrow (4/6) and arriving there on Thursday 4/9. We’ll take the scenic route, dropping back into Texas and passing through Wichita Falls and Lubbock before crossing into New Mexico. We’ll head through Roswell, White Sands and Las Cruces before jumping onto I-10 for Tucson.

We've got reservations to stay a month in Tucson. Will we extend that? Right now, we have no idea.

Why Tucson? We've been there before, a couple of times, and know and love the area. The weather is still surprisingly moderate in April. It also places us quite a bit closer to the kids living in SoCal... just in case.

This all represents a significant change for us. Our original plan upon leaving Mercedes was to head up to north Texas (which we did) and then on to New Orleans, Gulf Shores, AL (both essentially shut down right now) and then into Atlanta.

In Atlanta, we were going to park the trailer for two weeks, board the dogs in a kennel and head to Hawaii, belatedly celebrating our 45th wedding anniversary. That's now out: a couple of weeks ago the state of Hawaii initiated a 14-day quarantine on everyone entering the state. There's obviously no sense in going on a 14-day vacation if you have to spend the whole time in quarantine!

From Atlanta, our next destination was central Florida; we've got several friends and relatives in that general area. From there, we were going to wander up through the Carolinas, mid-Atlantic states and on up into New England, ending up in Maine. From there, we intended to head west along the northern tier of states all the way to Washington; we've got a granddaughter there that needs some spoiling!

None of that is going to happen, at least right now. We're like the rest of you: our future is a little uncertain right now.

We still feel very blessed. We are safe and healthy, as are all of our children and their families. All of the kids are still employed, at least right now. Aside from being a little bored, transitioning into a self-isolation life isn't too big a change for us.

Social Distancing for Full-Time RVers

Please don't let any of this sound like we are calling for sympathy for us; far from it. We are healthy and secure.

It's really pretty easy for us to adapt to live with life with COVID-19. We don't have jobs, nor school-age children that are suddenly at home and in need of education. We rarely go out to eat. Shopping for the sake of shopping is something that we both avoid whenever possible. Our primary contacts with outsiders have been at fuel stops and grocery stores.

The biggest adjustment for us has been not being able to do a lot of sightseeing. Things are closed everywhere: museums and parks and beaches - all the things we like to see. Like everyone, we've been making adjustments. Insofar as sightseeing goes, we've been doing a lot of driving rather than walking.

In what follows below you'll get an inkling of what we've been facing for the last couple of weeks.

Mercedes: On Monday 3/16 the RV park we were staying in shut things down. They cancelled all activities and amenities for the season. We originally were focused on the activities: Cathy's water aerobics class, Tuesday night bingo, Thursday night fish fry, etc. We quickly discovered that the amenities being closed was also a big impact. The park's got a golf course, four pools, two fitness centers, a bar and grill and numerous smaller places. They were all shut down. We found this out in a rather embarrassing way.

One afternoon Cathy, Leah and Dennis decided to go to the small pool just down the street from us to do a water aerobics session on their own. I usually go to the fitness center when they do this, but it was a hot day and I thought I'd just go swim some laps in the pool. While we were in the pool, everyone going by seemed to stop and stare at us. We soon found out why: the pool was supposed to be closed! After about 20 minutes a maintenance guy came by and politely threw us out. He also locked the gate behind us - something that obviously should have been done beforehand.

So, the place was basically closed down for our last week there. On top of everything else, it was hot and muggy the whole week. Quite frankly, we were glad to leave.

Shiner: Our plan on leaving Mercedes was to head north to Shiner, Texas and then on to Waco. What's in Shiner, you ask? Shiner is home to the Spoetzl Brewery, the oldest independent brewer in Texas and purveyors of the heavenly Shiner Bock beer. It was roughly on our way and also roughly halfway between Mercedes and Waco.

Not being complete idiots, I had checked the brewery website ahead of time; there was no mention of hours or brewery tours being changed. When we pulled into the RV park we happened to run into a brewery employee and immediately found out otherwise: no tours and no gift shop. We were disappointed but not completely surprised. We still wandered around this quiet, lovely little town and snapped a couple of photos of the brewery.

The RV park we stayed in was next to this bucolic scene.

Waco: Waco is currently known as the hometown of Chip and Joanna Gaines, creators of the hit HGTV show Fixer Upper. They have parlayed this show's success into a commercial empire under the umbrella name of Magnolia. Watchers of the show know that Magnolia runs a coffee house, cupcake shop, gardens and gift shop arrayed around two 120-ft-tall silos just south of downtown Waco. We knew in advance that all this stuff was shut down, but decided it was still probably worth a stop and a looksee.

It was. There were precisely zero people outside their complex; one guy was inside doing some gardening. We walked around the blocks, taking in the sights. While we missed seeing inside, not having to fight the crowds and tour buses almost made up for it.

The Fixer Upper website gives locations and addresses for the homes that they renovated on the three seasons of the show. We picked out 8-10 of them in a route fairly close to downtown and did a driveby. It was kind of fun.

If you ever find yourself in the area, be aware that Waco has an In-N-Out burgers. It is easy walking distance, maybe 4-5 blocks, from the Magnolia complex. This was an unexpected bonus for us.

Dallas (Pilot Point): Our goal upon leaving Mercedes was to get up here to visit our good friend Martha. The three of us went to high school together. Cathy and Martha were best friends; I dated Martha briefly. Martha is in the process of beating ovarian cancer; she's roughly halfway through  chemotherapy. It was great to spend a couple of hours with her... from a social distance, of course! She and one of her daughters moved to Texas early this year, ten days before she was diagnosed with cancer. Like I said above: she's beating cancer. She looks great and has a very positive attitude about all this.

What's Next: Our original plan when leaving Mercedes was to get to Dallas, then head back south and east to New Orleans and then on to Gulf Shores, AL for a couple of weeks. A few days ago we heard that New Orleans is not a good place to be right now - so that's off the books. Yesterday or the day before we heard that the beaches in Gulf Shores were closed. Today we got a call from the RV park we were planning on staying at. They are still open, but all of their amenities - pool, restrooms(!), dog park, etc. - are all shut down. They also told us that the beaches in Pensacola, FL are also now closed. So... we're not heading to Alabama.

So, what is next? Right now, we really don't know. We are heading a few miles north of here to Ardmore, OK. We're going to settle in there for a week - at least - and make some plans. There's no sense in going anywhere if anywhere is closed. The park we're going to be staying at is one of the top-rated parks in the state; we might hunker down there for the duration. We are also considering heading back to Tucson; we like the area, and its quite a bit closer to family without being in the chaos of California right now. Keep posted for updates!

Lastly, I hope that all of you are weathering these uncertain times as well as we are. Although we are frustrated and a little bit bored, we are safe and healthy. I hope you are, too.

Boca Chica

We took a drive to Boca Chica State Park a few days ago; this state park is at the mouth of the Rio Grande, where it dumps into the Gulf of Mexico. We went with Dennis and Leah, who stayed in Llano Grande last winter and visited the place.

The road out deadends at the beach. In casual Texas fashion, there is absolutely nothing, except common sense, from stopping one from simply driving out on the beach. Since common sense is in short supply in the Shook household, and we had a four-wheel-drive pickup truck, and Dennis said he'd done it last year with no problems, we drove onto the sand and headed south a couple of miles to the actual mouth of the river.

 

Me and Cathy and The Beast, on the beach. 

The Rio Grande is largely consumed by agricultural demands on both sides of the river in the Rio Grande valley. What enters the Gulf of Mexico is, I am sure, only a shadow of its true self. Nevertheless, it was a really cool thing to see.

That white SUV is on the Mexican side of the border.

Caught a nice shot of a brown pelican fleeing from the old folks.

By far, though, the coolest things we saw were the SpaceX facilities that are just a mile or so from the coast, right on the main road in. There's a tracking facility on one side and the Starship Launch Pad facility on the other side. Both sites are humming with activity. We were followed up the road in by a semi-truck hauling something or other in. I counted three cement trucks heading out from the site; obviously, there was a good-sized pour going on the day we were there.

SpaceX is a big deal in Brownsville; there's pretty regularly something on the local news about activities and expansions going on here. Dennis and Leah said that almost everything that we saw here wasn't there a year ago when they visited.

Like the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, there is absolutely nothing to the east of the launch site that would be endangered by a launch gone wrong. SpaceX is apparently intent on turning this site into its own base of operations, presumably breaking away from NASA's control over the Florida facility.

South Padre Island

Last week we took a drive over to South Padre Island, which is about an hour away. South Padre Island is the name for both the geographical feature - the island - and the small city that sits on its south end. The island is a long, narrow low-lying barrier island situated a mile or so off the coast, just north of Brownsville.

South Padre Island is well-known to Texans and others as party central during spring breaks. Fortunately for us, since we didn't want to dodge drunken college students careening down the street on golf carts, we were there the week before the spring break season started. The place was dead. We had lunch in one of the numerous restaurants and bars in town; we wandered in at 12:30 and were the only customers in the place!

One of the fun things for non-college-students to do is to visit Sea Turtle, Inc. This is a small turtle rescue organization located on the north side of town. They of course do a lot of educational and service stuff, too. They are deeply involved in establishing a breeding beach on South Padre for the Kemp's ridley turtle, a gravely endangered species.

We spent a few bucks to get in the place and had a very pleasant hour or two wandering around the place. They have a number of rescued turtles that will be released back to the wild. They also have several turtles that have been injured or are otherwise unable to be safely released.

Some of their resident turtles remain resident because they've lost a limb. Turtles apparently aren't smart enough to do anything but swim in circles if they've lost a forelimb. The people at Sea Turtle, Inc. have rigged up a carbon fiber fin that attaches to a turtles shell that counteracts the lopsided thrust from only one forelimb and allows the turtle to swim in a relatively straight line. Very cool!

I took a number of pictures of turtles. Don't ask me the species; I knew them at the time but have long since forgotten!

This little guy is destined for release in a couple of months. 

This guy is missing his left forelimb. I missed the explanation, but Cathy says he only wears his harness occasionally. 

That spidery-looking thing on his back is the harness for the fin, which sticks off the back. 

After our visit to Sea Turtles and lunch we drove to the north end of the island. The northern 2/3 or so of the island is a wildlife preserve and is closed to auto traffic. We drove to the end of the road and walked out to the beach for a brief photo op. The wind was blowing 30 miles an hour or so, so conditions were less than pleasant.

Cathy and Leah on the beach. 

All in all, South Padre Island was well worth the day trip.