Potlucks, hiking, shows and more

My Tahoe next to the van

When last we talked here Joan and I had returned from a night at the Desert Diamond Hotel and Casino.  We spent a quiet day around the trailer and got ready for a chilly walk around Tucson at Meet Me at Maynard’s.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is the start of the big Jazz Festival here in Tucson and finding a place to park during the festival is always a challenge, but we found a lot that seemed to require a $5 payment, but we, and others parking there couldn’t find anyone, or anything to pay, so we took a chance and left the car there without paying.

We parked next to a van that was covered with stickers. One of them "As of today I have been sober 100 days. (then in small print) Well, not consecutively, but 100 days total in my life."

Another stickers said one of my favorite lines from Saturday Night Live: "Live in a van down by the river."

A van held together by stickers

Not looking for any sympathy from anyone back home, but the weather here has been unseasonably cool and wet for the past few days and promises to remain such for the next week or so. Rain and water is a precious commodity around here so we don’t begrudge the locals a little rainfall even if it is a little damper on our time here.

Temperatures are in the 50s and 60s during the daytime, which has everyone here diving for sweaters, coats and jackets.

While at the Meet Me at Maynard’s event some folks from the Voyager RV resort where we stay invited me to join them on their hike Tuesday instead of the regular hiking club here. The official hiking club was heading to Catalina State Park, which is a very long drive and a hike I have done just about every year so I opted to go with my friends.

On Tuesday morning six of us climbed into my Tahoe and we headed to the Douglas Springs Trailhead at the end of Speedway Boulevard. Being that is was the day after a holiday and a regular school day we didn’t expect a lot of hikers. We were wrong. The parking lot was full and we had to park out on the roadway.

The hike is a beautiful one that climbs about 1,500 feet into the foothills and the destination was Bridal Wreath Falls. I did make this hike a few years ago with the resort hiking group and the falls were more like a little trickle.

Entertainment at Meet Me at Maynard's

With all the rain and snow that has fallen here in the last week we anticipated a much better falls viewing and we were not disappointed. It wasn’t Niagara Falls, but it was pretty large and to get close one had to negotiate a number of boulders across the large pond formed by the falling water.

We had lunch at the falls and then headed back down the trail to the car arriving back about four hours after we began. It was a really good day.

Once back home Joan had made up a crock pot full of my homegrown Butternut Squash which I grew this summer. Joan always brings a basket full of the squash with us and once here she processes and cooks up all the squash and then freezes it for later enjoyment. If I do say so myself this year’s squash crop was particularly sweet and good and none of what she cooked for the potluck made it back home.

This week’s potluck was the most attended of any we have gone to during the past five years with about 75 people on hand for dinner.

There is plenty squash left in the freezer, however.

With my friend Mahlon in town from Michigan I did something on Wednesday I don’t usually do, but I went on another moderately tough hike on Wednesday after the moderately tough hike on Tuesday. Usually I leave a day or two in between hikes to let my legs recover a little.

Bridal Wreath Falls

I’ve taken Mahlon on a few of my favorite hikes during the past couple years, but wanted to show him something a little different this year. So we met at the local Costco store and he jumped in my car and we drove 40 minutes to Madera Canyon for a trip up to Josephine Saddle, the approximate halfway point to the summit of Mt. Wrightson.

Mt. Wrightson, as some of you may recall, is the 9,500 peak where I hiked up to last year to leave my brother’s ashes. With the recent valley rain and mountain snow the trip to the summit is a little too treacherous for my hiking skill level, but I was sure we could make it to Josephine Saddle.

I have been up to the saddle five times, including the three times I made it all the way to the summit of Mt. Wrightson. Mahlon and I took the Super Trail to the saddle and we discovered quite quickly that temperatures at the 5,500-foot trailhead were very below that of Tucson.

Neither of us had gloves and Mahlon was wearing shorts. It took us about two hours to make it to Josephine Saddle, which is the location of a memorial to the 1959 deaths of three boy scouts in a sudden snowstorm.

Only the last parts of the trail had some minor snow and frost, but our hands were pretty frozen by the time we got to the saddle. After a quick snack we started back down the much steeper Old Baldy Trail arriving back at the parking lot and car about 11:30 a.m.

Another view of Bridal Wreath Falls trail

I did get a couple good views of Mt. Wrightson peak and, of course, that brought me great memories of my brother. I’m so glad he’s there on the summit because when I’m here he always feels close.

Back at the resort I cleaned up and got ready for dinner and the regular Wednesday night concert. With the concert being “Your Cheating Heart,” a tribute concert to Hank Williams and Patsy Cline I was expecting Joan’s nail marks in my arm as she clenched me tightly during the twangy music.

Fortunately, the music was very good and the singers were very good and entertaining. Even though this isn’t our favorite music we still very much enjoyed the show. The female lead singer was the 2010 Miss Arizona, so that was pretty good too.

After the show Joan returned back to the trailer and I stayed behind to fulfill my chair clean up duties which only takes about 10 minutes.

On Thursday morning, I led the Men’s Bible study and then  Joan and I went grocery shopping at Walmart and then to Fry’s where we picked up some very nice steaks on sale. Too bad for me though, we are not having them tonight.

Miss Arizona 2010 - our singer at the concert

At 1 p.m. we attended the weekly lecture which featured a local medical doctor, who is also a re-enactor, who discussed the practice of medicine during the time of the Tucson Presidio, which was 1775, the same time as the beginning of the Revolutionary War. The doctor was very interesting and wore an outfit that would have been appropriate to a “barber-doctor” of the late 1700s.

He brought some antique doctor instruments and described in detail how they would have been used to amputate limbs or dig out bullets or other fragments from a wound. He also answered questions about herbal remedies and ancient medicine practices.

With a coming rainstorm the TV stations here are going crazy with dire warnings and Winter Weather Warnings about a potential ¾-inch of rain over the weekend.

Thursday night I attended the coed Bible study.

Friday night we had tickets to the 50s dinner show here at the resort. The group - ?? – is one we have seen before here. It is a family of performers and they mix some corny humor with great musical talent playing many of the great hits from the 1950s. I stayed after to help take down tables and set up for the Saturday morning coffee and donuts.

Snow on Mt. Wrightson

On Saturday our dance card was full, literally. First we went to the movies and saw Deepwater Horizon at the cheap movie theater and then returned home for dinner and then over to the ballroom for the dance. The weather was wet and cool and that seemed to affect the attendance at the dance as there were many empty seats at the tables.

The music was good and it is always fun to dance with my honey.

We went to church on Sunday, but before that I did a workout and then helped set up the ballroom for church. After church we met Mahlon and Colleen, our friends from Michigan, for lunch at Zayna’s Restaurant, which serves Middle Eastern food. I’m not usually a fan of the food buy they had a wonderful lamb plate so it was all good. It also works with our new Whole 30 food plan that Joan and I are on.

After lunch we returned home and tried to watch football games. Tried, because of all days for the Direct TV signal to be down it was. Apparently there was a power outage on Mt. Lemmon, the site of one of the Direct TV signal links which meant that we missed all of the first playoff game between Green Bay and Atlanta. We were able to watch other cable channels but not the channel that had that game.

Lots of water along the Romero Pools trail

Even the local bar and grill, which is on the same system as the rest of the area, was unable to show the game. Power was restored in time for the Pittsburgh an New England game so we did get to see that. There were plenty of unhappy Green Bay fans in the park, but considering the end result probably better for them they couldn’t watch.

 Mahlon and I arranged to meet again on Monday for our final hike together while he was here. I picked Mahlon up at the home he and Colleen rented and then drove to Catalina State Park and he and I hiked up to Romero Pools in the mountains. The hike is a 6-mile round-trip hike that rises 1,500 feet into the mountains. It is a pretty challenging hike and even more so on Monday because there was ankle deep water in the wash that is usually dry.

To cross the first time we used plastic bags supplied by the park over our boots and pants, but even those sprung a couple leaks but not enough to soak us. On the way back we just decided to remove our boots and socks and wade across the 45-degree snow melt. It was quicker and easier than trying to salvage the plastic bag method.

We hiked up just short of the snow line and the pools were running so deep with water that we could not risk trying to jump to the other side.

Back down off the mountain I dropped Mahlon off at his rental, we said our good byes and then I returned home to lean up and get ready for Meet Me at Maynard’s Monday night.

Maynard’s attendance was a little down, probably owing to the cold temperatures an threat of rain (it never rained) but still more than 400 walkers showed up to the event. We ate at Hub’s, a downtown restaurant after the walk.

Our lunch spot at Romero Pools

Some Michigan friends arrived in Phoenix recently and let us know Monday they would like to come and visit us at Voyager on Tuesday, Jan. 24. Of course we said yes,

I took my shower early and when Joan went to get her shower she discovered that between the time that I had my shower and her attempt the park had broken a water main and the system was shut down.

With friends coming that left her worrying that she would not have a chance to clean up before their arrival. We’ve had cold temperatures at night but nothing that would cause a water main to freeze and break so we never found out what happened but the water was restored before our friends arrived.

We spent a delightful late morning and afternoon with our friends touring the resort and then taking a ride through the Air Force boneyard and then a quick trip around Saguaro East National Park.

We always enjoy showing off the park and sights to friends from back home.

The friends left and we still had time to make the Tuesday night pot luck. Joan made a very tasty marshmallow and fruit salad.

Market Days was back for Wednesday morning and my first order of duty was to buy an 8-pound bag of oranges for Joan before they all sold out. After my workout at the fitness center I stopped by the booth with the oranges and purchased them before the event had even started. That made Joan very happy and by extension my life is now good for the next few days at least.

The view of the valley from Romero Pools trail

After Market Days as part of my volunteer job of setting up chairs I was back in the ballroom at 1 p.m. to take down tables and set up chairs for the Wednesday night concert. With all the help it only took about 50 minutes to tear down Market Days and set up 500 chairs for the evening show.

Joan used Wednesday night to have a COR dinner (clean out refrigerator) and we devoured some pork, beef and potatoes that we had left over from previous dinners.

We headed to the “Teen Idols” concert at 6:45 p.m. This was, so far, the best concert of the season and even more so because the performers were actual teenagers. Lots of Dion and the Belmonts, Paul Anka, Frankie Avalon, Connie Francis, Ricky (and Rick) Nelson songs and many other classics from the 50s and 60s. Very talented young people sang in this show.

Very sad to learn today of the passing of  Mary Tyler Moore. As a youngster I remember watching her on the Dick Van Dyke show and later, of course, the Mary Tyler Moore show. A classy lady.

Thursday morning Joan went for training so she can volunteer at the health clinic here at the resort, I went to my Men’s Bible Study and we have a lecture Thursday afternoon call “Blood in the Rincons,” which is an historical account of violence in this area in the olden days.

You would think with all the complaining about the weather here that we were in the deep freeze when in fact we've only had two nights below the freezing mark and just a few days in the 50s for highs. Next week we are supposed to be back in the 70s for highs and 40s for lows.