Another fun-filled two weeks with roller coaster weather

The time flies around here and now I’m trying to catch up with two weeks of activities for this post. Generally the weather has been a roller coaster ride, but mostly on the upside. The rainy weather in California is causing us to have some above average rainstorms around here and as I write this on Sunday, Feb. 19, it is pouring out.

One of the planes flying over my head

Yesterday, it was warmer in Michigan than it was here, although it was unusually warm in Michigan and just a little below normal here.

Before I recount our latest fun here, let me bring you up to speed on a dream that Joan recounted to me one morning recently. Her dream, more like a nightmare, was that I had kidnapped a baby. Yes, I kidnapped a baby. She didn’t know who the baby was or why I kidnapped it, but what she was most upset about in her dream was that I didn’t bother to bring any diapers or formula for it.

During the dream she was handed a warrant, but she didn’t know the nature of the warrant or what happened next because she woke up. Somewhere in dreamland I’m probably doing some serious prison time.

When last we met here on Grandma’s Recess we had just visited with our Michigan friends visiting in Phoenix and then on Tuesday (April 7) I went on a pretty serious hike up to the summit of Wasson Peak, the highest point in the Tucson Mountains.

This is the same hike that darned near caused me to faint a few years ago, but not so this year. Because of our new eating plan and my 35-pound weight loss the hike was still pretty tough, but a fun trip nonetheless.

We had lunch on top of Wasson Peak and unlike it usually is up there, it was very pleasant and calm.

Tuesday night we attended the pot luck dinner in the park and Joan brought the jello salad that our grandson Griffen thinks is pretty tasty. So did the folks at the potluck as we came home with exactly none of it.

Wednesday (Feb. 8) was Market Days and we did a quick trip through and bought nothing but a few raffle tickets for some beautiful items that will be auctioned off next month. On Wednesday night the resort concert was “Sons of the Pioneers,” which is the same group that has been touring for more than 80 years. Roy Rogers was one of the original members of the group and there have been many dozens of singers and musicians since, but they stay true to music and sound that started the group. Despite Joan’s dislike for country and western music she enjoyed the cowboy music she heard that night.

On Thursday we headed over for the lecture only to find out that the Internet Security expert from the University of Arizona was home sick with a virus. Not the computer type, but the one that makes you sick to your stomach.

I’m not going to bore you with the volunteer work that we do here other than to say that each week Joan volunteers several hours as a receptionist at the health clinic at the resort and I probably spend a total of 3 hours setting up and taking down tables and chairs with a group of really nice men for various functions, concerts, church, state parties, etc., in the ballroom.

The other things I won’t keep repeating are Joan’s weekly Bible study, polymer clay and aquacize classes. Ditto for my Bible studies and trips to the fitness center. We both also attend church services each Sunday. Highlights only from now on.

Friday, Feb. 10, was a quiet day, filled with exciting things like doing laundry and picking up mail and just enjoying the weather in the Old Pueblo, as they call Tucson here.

I’ve been struggling with a little annoying neck and upper back pain, a result of trying to do much weight work in the gym, so while I headed off to a massage therapist, Joan spent much of the day supporting the local Tohono O’odham Indians at their Casino del Sol.  She came up about even and we had dinner at the little diner before returning home to the resort so we could attend the resort’s talent show.

Because my massage finished earlier than Joan was ready to be met at the casino I drove out by Davis Monthan Air Force Base and spent an enjoyable hour watching some civilian pilots flying vintage war aircraft train with some of the regular fighter pilots at the base.

The casino parking lot was packed, but mostly because the show “Wheel of Fortune” was running a contest to find new contestants for the nationally televised show.

The wheel of fortune bus

By the way, my neck and back pain is greatly reduced since the massage.

The newspaper and television stations said this was a requirement for certification for these civilian pilots if they wanted to perform at or around regular military aircraft at air shows around the country. I had a P-51 fly about 500-feet over my head at one point. What a unique sound they make.

This will surprise exactly nobody, but I did not have a part in the show (other than setting up chairs for it) but we had a really fun time as there are some very talented folks in the park. The acts ranged from comedians to the hula so a pretty wide range of acts.

Because I have been remiss in keeping notes, some things we have done I can’t remember even after just one week. We did got shopping and to the final day of the Tucson Gem Show on Sunday (Feb. 12). The most significant result of that trip was that Joan bought a bunch of cheap beads to use in her jewelry class.

Because the “Easy” hike leader is taking care of a friend recovering from surgery it fell to me to lead the hike on Monday (Feb. 13). I took the group to the Gabe Zimmerman trail a little south of here. It is an easy, but scenic hike on part of the Arizona Trail. The folks seem to enjoy the 4.5-mile trek. I’m hoping that Brad is back tomorrow so he can lead the hike again.

Monday night was again Meet Me at Maynard’s and this time we took an alternate walk which led us to 4^th Street, a hang out for students from the University of Arizona. We found a little kitchen gadget store and purchased a potato chip maker that we wanted to try. It worked so well we are planning on going back and getting a couple more for friends and family who are also on the same diet we are.

When I woke up Tuesday morning for my big hike, I was greeted with cloudy skies and the threat of rain. I met in the hikers’ room and we discussed options as the rain was pouring on the mountain we wanted to hike on. So we headed south to where we thought it might be clear, but found that the rain was so widespread we could not avoid it. Instead we went to the less traveled DD Trail and spent some time together. (DD stands for Dunkin Donuts). I had only decaf tea so I didn’t wreck my diet with a tasty fritter.

Tuesday night again we attended the pot luck and Joan’s watermelon salad was such a big hit that she has to bring several copies of the recipe to next week’s dinner because a few women wanted the recipe.

Wednesday was another quiet day in the park until we headed to Wednesday night’s show which was “Dream Lover,” a tribute to the music of Bobby Darin. The singer, Robert Shaw, is one of our favorite performers who come here.

Although I just said I wasn’t going to mention it, I did lead the Men’s Bible study on Thursday morning. The lecture series continued Thursday with a University of Arizona geologist, who has been working for years on the Mars lander program. He brought with him stunning photos and videos of the Mars surface and a very interesting presentation on what they are finding there. An hour and a half well spent.

A new friend of mine in the park wanted to go on a hike with me on Friday. “Doc,” a retired veterinarian from Iowa is a really nice man and he sometimes hikes with the Tuesday group. He wanted a slightly less challenging hike than we usually do on Tuesday so we went to Sabino Canyon and did a one-way hike on the Telephone Line Trail.

Back at the park I got cleaned up and on Friday night we headed back to the ballroom for the Mardi Gras dinner and a performance by the Wildcat Jazz Band. This is one of the finest groups that comes to the resort and it was a fun evening. We sat with some new people at our table and made some new friends.

On Saturday I again set up the Michigan information table at the coffee and donuts event in the ballroom. We are just letting Michigan folks know about the party that Joan and her friend Marcia are putting together on March 6.

Because the weather was crappy on Saturday afternoon, we decided to go to the movies and we saw “Hidden Figures,” the story of three African-American woman mathematicians who were critical to the success of the Mercury missions and later the Apollo missions. A great movie, if you haven’t see it.

Our time in Tucson is often spent catching up on movies we missed during our busy schedules back home. So far, in addition to “Hidden Figures” we have seen “Allied,” “The Accountant,” “Deep Water Horizon,” and then with weather still bad on Sunday we saw “Patriot’s Day.” All the movies so far have been really good.

I think I mentioned in previous posts that we like to go the Century 12 theater on Kolb Road because the tickets are only $3 ($1.50 on Tuesday). In fact, I already mentioned that we saw “Allied” but that was the movie I took Joan to on Valentine’s Day. So call me cheap but my Valentine’s Day date only cost $3. I’m nothing, if not cheap.

To back up a little, I took Joan to the Valentine’s Day dance on Saturday night (Feb. 18) for a total cost of $12. But we had a great time, sat with our friend Kathy and husband, Ron, from Toronto, Canada and met two couples who were spending their first winter in Tucson.

The couples both said they were having a great time here at Voyager and while they planned on traveling more, they all said they were coming back here next year for a least a month. I told them that Voyager is like a human mousetrap. They bait you into coming here one time and then you are caught and don’t want to leave.

I apologize for the low amount of photos and I'll try and do better. I've been working a lot on my Navy newsletter and have not taken as many photos as I usually do.

From chilly to warm time flies in Arizona

Snow on Mt. Lemmon

With the weather still on the chilly side last Thursday, Jan. 27, we hung around the resort and then decided to  grill steaks outside for dinner. Actually, I grilled the steaks and they were delicious, even if I say so myself. After dinner I went to the Bible study in park and we continued our conversation about Genesis.

I had a pretty open day on Friday, so I offered to prepare dinner while Joan attended her Women’s Bible study and later her polymer clay class. Joan is learning how to make pretty jewelry in the class and she is really enjoying the class on Friday afternoon.

While she was at her jewelry class I helped set up the ballroom for the coffee and donuts on Saturday morning and then went shopping.

This is how I prepare dinner for us. I drove to Walmart with a very short shopping list. I purchased an already cooked chicken in a plastic container, a head of lettuce, a few bananas and eggs for breakfast the next morning.

Tanque Verde Ridge hike

When I arrived home from shopping I realized that I had left my trailer keys (which are on a separate key ring) inside the locked trailer so I had to interrupt Joan in her class to borrow her keys. I did that because I had a chicken that needed to be kept warm and didn’t want to sit out on my patio for another hour.

Joan was supposed to leave me a crock pot to place the chicken in when I got home, but she forgot. I, being the dutiful husband searched the trailer and found a crock pot and stuffed the medium sized already cooked chicken into it and put the temperature on low.

When I say “stuffed” I mean “stuffed.” The crock pot is small and I had to break a few chicken bones to get the dinner to fit, but finally was able to get it squashed enough to fit the lid on to the pot. It was after Joan arrived home that she mentioned we actually have two crock pots in the trailer and I had chosen the junior sized version instead of the larger, ample chicken-sized container. To her credit, she agreed that she had erred in not leaving behind the proper crock pot and actually admired my ability to squeeze a fairly large chicken into a pretty small pot.

More Tanque Verde hike 

For the first time since we arrived her there were no weekend dances at the resort, so I suggested we go to the Tucson Roadrunner’s hockey game Saturday night. First we went shopping and filled out the cupboards an refrigerator.

Joan made a delicious spaghetti sauce with meatballs that we ate without noodles as required by our new diet and it was delicious.

We headed downtown to the Tucson arena about 6:15 p.m. confident that we would be able to buy tickets to the game as they rarely if ever sell out the arena. What I didn’t figure was that this is Gem Show Week, which is a huge draw for the city and it was also Superhero night for the children, who all received free capes as they entered the arena. On top of that it was $1 hot dog and $1 popcorn night.

Me on top of the world (Tanque Verde anyway)

A security guard at the back door told us we probaby were not going to be able to buy a ticket, but we walked around to the box office anyway just in case. After all, we had just paid $10 for parking that I was sure we would not get back. Sure enough, they were turning folks away at the ticket window, but a nice man approached us and indicated he had two tickets he was trying to sell because two of his friends couldn’t make the game.

I quickly snapped up the two tickets and we ended up sitting with the man and his family in Section 201. We learned that he was born in Binghampton(?), New York and later moved and worked in the Boston area. So we had a lot in common.

What we didn’t see was a very good hockey game. The Roadrunners were on a four-game losing streak and they managed to stretch that to five games on Saturday night. They not only didn’t score a goal against the San Diego Gulls they really didn’t come close to scoring a goal. Besides that there were no fights.

About the most entertaining things at the game were the silly hats worn by the Gulls fans, who were at the game in abundance, and a little 19-month-old girl who was sitting behind me and took a liking to my beard. Her parents kept apologizing for her reaching out and grabbing me, but I told them it was OK as it helped soothe my feelings for being away from my own grandchildren. As we left I told little Ava to have a nice life and that I enjoyed meeting her. She never stopped smiling.

Joan and Kathy looking for Sand Hill cranes

I was able to escape my $10 parking space quickly and we were home from the game before 10 p.m..

The weather is slowly warming here although the heater ran much of the night Saturday night and the winds picked up on Sunday. What they describe as “breezy” here could more accurately be thought of as gale force winds anywhere else.

We went to church Sunday morning, which was Unity Sunday here at the resort, and stood with many others when the roll call of states reached Michigan. As you can imagine the largest contingents of folks in the park are from states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois and Indiana, although there are smatterings of folks from nearly every state in the union. Hawaii, predictably, is not represented in the park.

A small group of us went on the “easy” hike Monday. We hiked into Dove Mountain on the same Wild Burro Trail that I did on my first hike this season. The difference was this hike stopped where the other hike really started. But it was nice to be outside in the warm air, which has arrived back here in Tucson.

Believe me, there are flocks of cranes in this photo

Then Monday night brought us to Meet Me at Maynard’s in downtown Tucson. With the better weather there was a much bigger crowd this week than last. On the last turn we noticed that there was a concert at the Rialto Theater across from the Hotel Congress.

A large crowd was gathered outside and we noticed that many of the women and girls were dressed in very skimpy outfits. Apparently they were all going to the “Excision” concert, which according to a google search is a “Rave” group.

After the drawing at Maynard’s we headed to O’Malley’s for dinner. While waiting for our dinner two couples walked in and Joan and I both did a double take because at first glance it appeared that both women were wearing fish net stockings – and very little else. In fact the fish nets left very little below the waist to the imagination.

Then it occurred to us these folks were heading to the concert with the rest of the inappropriately dressed people. While the girls were at the bar it was very difficult not to catch a glance every so often, so I distracted myself by watching the Oklahoma State versus Oklahoma basketball game on the large screen television.  Mostly, it didn’t work.

Sandhill Cranes at Whitewater Draw

After the peep show we headed home.

The Tuesday hiking group was supposed to be heading to Ventana Canyon, but because of the recent snowstorm and subsequent melt the water in the canyon was too great for us to make the several crossings.

The group decided to switch to Tanque Verde Ridge which is a hike that I have missed in the past so this was my first time on this hike. Wow, this was a very difficult hike. Nearly 2,500 feet elevation in five miles and many, many stone steps.

The views are awesome and in some cases 360-degrees. But it has warmed up here and we lost have the group at the 2.5 mile and 1,500 elevation mark. Several folks turned back a little later and only 6 of us made the complete 5-mile trek up the ridge. Actually, you can hike 12-miles to Tanque Verde peak, but that would take longer than we had.

Lots of folks looking at Sandhill Cranes

We found a nice place for lunch and I opened my Epic beef power bar. Joan purchased these because they contain no sugar and are compliant with the Whole 30 diet I am on. Unfortunately, the packaging would probably taste better than the bar. I ate it because I needed the calories for the rest of the hike down, but I told Joan when I got home to just pack my lunch with cardboard next time.

All of us had planned for a 6-mile hike up and down Ventana Canyon so the 10-mile trek up Tanque Verde Ridge left most of us short on water. By the time I got back to our starting point I was parched. We stopped at the visitor’s center at Saguaro East National Park and filled our water bottles for the trip back to the resort.

This is the same hike my friend Mahlon did alone when he was here a couple weeks ago so I’m glad I finally got to do this one.

Because of the length of the hike I arrived back at the resort about 4 p.m., but just in time to get cleaned up and ready for the Tuesday night pot luck. The crowd was down a little this week, but there were still about 50 people there. Joan made a tasty all-beef (and no bean) chili that was very good. So good there were no leftovers to bring home.

While I was gone Joan worked her volunteer shift at the health clinic at the park.

Lunch at Whitewater Draw

On Wednesday we were joined by a Canadian friend in the resort and headed to Whitewater Draw to make our annual pilgrimage to see the Sand Hill cranes. We have seen some pretty amazing displays here, but nothing like we saw on Wednesday, Feb. 1. We arrived about 11 a.m. and within a half hour the waves of birds began flying in.

Like squadrons of airplanes they approached from far off until they would circle overhead and make the graceful glide to the surface. There are reports that more than 20,000 birds are wintering at Whitewater Draw this year. I believe we saw 99 percent of that 20,000 between 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.

We returned to the resort where we enjoyed a Roy Orbison tribute show in the ballroom. As always the concert was good and while Joan headed home I remained behind to help break down the chairs in the ballroom.

Lunch on Wasson Peak

Thursday brought Men’s Bible study in the morning and then a lecture on climate change in the afternoon. A professor from the University of Arizona talked about the recent droughts in the Southwest and what the future portends for this area. It was a very interesting lecture. Thursday night I attended the coed Bible Study.

Joan was the busy one on Friday as she had Bible study and then went to her polymer clay class on Friday afternoon. I grilled beautiful ribeye steaks out on the grill Friday night and we enjoyed a rare, quiet night at home.

Saturday started with a visit to the fitness center for me and then setting up chairs for the Saturday morning coffee and donuts in the ballroom. I also set up a table for the Michigan Party, which Joan and her friend Marcia are running on March 6. So far only a few of the Michigan folks in the park have signed up, but we expect that to pick up over the next couple weeks. In case you are wondering they have wonderful, tasty donuts and bagels for free at the Saturday morning event and because of my diet I ate exactly none of them.

Jim and Jim on Wasson Peak

On Saturday we headed to the nearby Walmart and did our weekly shopping and picked up an already cooked chicken for dinner. I went over to the ballroom at 4 p.m. and helped set up chairs for the Sunday chapel services here at the resort.

Saturday night was another rare night without a dance or activity and we stayed in.

Chapel services were on tap for Sunday morning and then we spent a leisurely afternoon around the trailer waiting for the big game, which turned out to be quite an exciting game for a Superbowl. We were rooting for Atlanta, but who couldn’t be amazed at that Tom Brady comeback effort in the second half.

On Monday, we headed to Phoenix to visit friends there and on the way back in the afternoon we stopped and sampled the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show which is in town for two weeks, and which ends next Sunday. After Joan bought a basketful of beads for her new jewelry endeavors we headed to our usual Meet at Maynard’s Monday night walk and then had dinner at Diablo Burger who accommodated our need for some special preparation so we could stay on our diet.

Climbing down a natural dam from Wasson Peak

Wasson Peak was calling my name Tuesday morning. Two years ago, the last time I did this hike, I barely made it to the summit as I was struggling with my breathing and stamina. Not this year, I climbed up the 2,200 feet to the summit like a champ and enjoyed my time at the top with my hiking buddies in the park.

The hike is about 9-miles and the weather could not have been more perfect. Temperatures in the low 70s and bright sunshine. I did a pose at the top with my friend Jim who has been here the last several years and who is an avid hiker and outdoorsman. He’s trying to convince me to start coming to the morning Yoga classes, but I’m not sure I’m up to that potential humiliation yet.

A recent Tucson sunset

Once home, I found the trailer locked up and Joan gone. I let myself in and had a late lunch and then set out to figure out where she was. I checked the calendar and found that she was not scheduled to work. So then I checked the closet and discovered one of the laundry baskets missing. I went and took my shower and then headed to the laundry where I found Joan. She was surprised to see me and asked how I figured out where she was.

“You know I worked for a police department once don’t you?” I said. “You left enough clues to solve the Hoffa murder, that’s how I know where you were.”

After that we came home and headed to the Tuesday potluck dinner. Joan made our grandson Griffen’s favorite jello salad.