Visited our airplane happy place and broke the Internet

Hiking at Empire Ranch

One of the things that soaks in when you are here at Voyager is how old you are. Even though Joan and I are in the shallow end of the age pool here at the resort when you look around you do see a lot of grey hair.

Some of that grey hair is located on my head. Even Joan has a little.

But as I looked around the dance last night and then again at church on Sunday it struck me that we have entered that part of our life that qualifies us as senior citizens, which is a nice way of saying we are getting old.

That in itself is not a bad thing, but it can be sobering. I remember visiting my grandparents when they were the age I am now. As fond as I was of them I recall being amazed at how “mature” they were. They had wrinkles, spots and light colored hair that I didn’t have.

A hiking buddy standing next to our new winter home

Now I can only imagine that my own grandchildren look at me with that same wonder and questioning about my silver hair, wrinkles and spots. That said I wouldn’t go back one day. As the song says, “regrets, I have a few, but then again, too few to mention.”

At my age I think you earn the right to be bold, to be frank and yet you learn a certain sense of proportion that lowers the importance of things that aren’t as critical as you once thought and make you realize those things are truly important. Joan and I realize there is nothing more important than family.

Somewhere out here I punctured my tire

 We make nearly all of our monetary decisions based on what is best for our family. If we can spend money and bring our family closer together or help them, that’s what we try to do whenever possible.

Our travels and visits (even coming to Tucson puts us closer to our California children, grandchildren and cousins) are 90 percent centered on family. We know there will come a time when the children and grandchildren will have more important pursuits than being with parents and grandparents, but until that time we want to be as close as we can for as long as we can.

Didn’t mean to get all sniffly on y’all, but we are blessed that we have the means and health to do all the travel that we do.

A quilt made here at the resort

Now, to lighten the mood a little, there was a cute couple at last night’s dance. We have seen them at every weekly dance we have attended here at the resort. They are in their 80s and they really love to cut a rug. (For younger folks “cut a rug” was a term than meant dance)

Last night when they played Chubby Checker’s “The Twist” the two of them were on the floor twisting like there was no tomorrow (which in their case could be true) and I said to Joan: “Their grandchildren have no idea what grandma and grandpa are really like.”  Joan thought it was very funny.

The truth is our grandchildren probably will never imagine that we have a lot of fun dancing and laughing in ways that would probably embarrass the heck out of them.

We were excited to hear and see that our daughter Elin had a big story written about her in the local paper. She has taken a new job with The Family Literacy Center organizing child tutoring programs and keeping track of our annual auction and she is really doing a great job.

More of the beautiful quilts made by resort residents

Previously I’ve mentioned meeting a lot of nice folks here. With this being our third trip to the resort (the first was only two weeks) we have started to form some fond relationships with the regular visits to the park.

The part of the secret to this place are the activities and amenities of the park as well as the seasonable weather, but we’ve figured out the real draw is the many nice people we have met and formed friendships with here. As our Pastor Dave says back home, “It’s all about relationship.” That is so true.

A decision to come or not come back here is heavily influenced by the thought that if you don’t come back, you will not see some nice people that you have met and gotten to know. 

My favorite sign in downtown Tucson

The ‘easy’ hike Monday was to the Empire Ranch. This is the second time I have hiked at the 42,000-acre ranch. The ranch, which once covered 1 million acres is probably best known as the setting of several Hollywood western movies, including ‘Red River’ with John Wayne and “The Last Train to Gun Hill” with Anthony Quinn back in the 1950s.

The ranch house is in a long range process of renovation and is open for self-guided tours, which we did following our 5-mile hike along a dirt road/wash. Only six hikers showed up but we had a very good time.

When I arrived home from the hike I picked up the mail which included a packet of tax information from our accountant and a very nice tax refund. We did the “happy dance” all afternoon.

After doing some very minimal grocery shopping we headed downtown to the Congress Hotel where we made our virgin hike at the “Meet Me At Maynard’s” Monday downtown exercise hike. We pre-registered online and joined about 300 fellow walkers for the trek downtown.

Meet Me at Maynard's walking route in Tucson

You can do 2 miles, 3 miles or 4 mile hikes and you get your hand stamped for nice discounts for dinner at local restaurants. They also have live music and $2 beer, which is wasted on me because I don’t drink.

We met up with several new friends from the Voyager Resort and had dinner at a place call “World of Beer” which again makes no sense for me because I am a non-drinker. Joan and I had soup and salad for dinner and then spoiled all the good we did with the walk by stopping at Dairy Queen on the way home for a Blizzard.

The hard hike on Tuesday was one of my favorites – The Telephone Line – up Sabino Canyon. Last year I did this hike alone so I was looking forward to doing it with the group. Last year I started in the parking lot at the Sabino Canyon Recreation Area and headed up the trail. At the end of the trail I hiked down the paved tram road.

Riding to the trailhead

This year the group took the tram to the upper trailhead and we marched back to the parking lot. So now I have done this trail in both directions.

What I particularly like about this hike is that it is on a narrow trail that winds high above the canyon floor. I have always been one who has been afraid of heights. The more I hike in the mountains the less fear I have of high places.

Today for the first time I got up the nerve to dangle my legs over the edge of a rock high above the canyon floor. Now, to be honest, I was very, very careful in moving my legs over the edge but it was a really nice perch and I took a picture of my boots hanging over the rock.

The folks on a narrow trail (right-center)

This is a hike that I will do every year that we come here for as long as I can. The trail has steep sides and if this makes any sense feels like a real hike.

Last night as we were coming home from the event in downtown Tucson – “Meet Me at Maynard’s” – I got a warning light telling me that my right rear (driver’s side) tire was dangerously low on air. When I arrived at the park I used the free air station at the resort to inflate the tire, but by morning it had dropped a significant amount of pressure.

I decided not to drive the car on the hike and take care of the tire problem in the afternoon. When I arrived home from the hike I filled the tire up again and headed to a local Goodyear dealer to have them check the tire. This is the same tire I have had to put plugs in before when I picked up a nail or two.

My knees hanging over the cliff

This time the injury to the tire was not circular and very close to one of the previous repairs which means I’ll have to replace the tire. I’m currently driving on the full-sized spare and the dealer is having a replacement tire delivered tomorrow. Unfortunately I’m about 10,000-miles from needing a complete new set of tires (which ain’t cheap with the SUV) so my plan is to get home with the one new tire and the three old ones and then get a complete new set and use the new tire as the new spare.

Anyway, that’s the plan now, a rock, a nail or some other road hazard could change those plans before they come to fruition.

Our lunch rock perched on a cliff

I got home from Goodyear in time to attend our regular Tuesday night potluck. Joan made a delicious crockpot dinner called Tortellini Florentine. Florentine, as it turns out, means it has spinach in it which I usually don’t like but in this case was OK.

For the first time in the two months we have been here there is a real chance for rain here. That would be good as they are in a moderate drought and so far Joan and my reputation for bringing torrential rains has not worked out.

The funny thing is that the weather forecasters are near giddy over the prospect of a quarter inch of rain. The ooh and aah about the possibility of the coming storm. Considering what is going on back east it seems a little over the top.

Heading back down

One of the funnier things that happens at least once a week is that Joan will recognize a woman who shares the same aquacise class with her and she’ll say “Hi, Shirley.” In almost every case “Shirley” or whoever the person is will look with puzzlement at Joan and say, “I’m sorry, I don’t remember how I know you.”

“We’re in the aquacise class together,” Joan will answer.

Then “Shirley” or whoever will say, “Oh, of course, I don’t recognize you without your bonnet.”  How anyone would recognize her without the bonnet is a mystery as the bonnet covers her entire face.

Joan admiring an airplane

Boy did I wish I had my camera this morning when I went to get our new tire put on the Tahoe. On the way home I saw the best sign spinner I have ever seen. The guy was spinning a sign for a glass business in a strip mall along Kolb Road.

This guy put on a show. Not only did he spin the sign, he threw it in the air, caught it, threw it in the air again and caught it behind his back but then did kind of a crazy dance all the while pointing at the business and encouraging all of us to stop by.

Heck, I don’t need glass, but I was tempted to stop in and buy some. Love to see a guy who loves his work. As I drove by him I gave him a “thumb’s up” and he gave me a big smile and a deep bow.

Me standing by a "Super Guppy"

After arriving home from the tire excursion we went to “Market Daze” in the resort and again purchased a few trinkets for the folks back home. Didn’t bother to take any new photos as it is pretty much the same vendors each week.

Of course the trip through Market Daze was filled again with people admiring Joan's bonnet. 

With my membership to the Pima Air and Space Museum about to expire we headed to the museum for the afternoon to walk around. I have two free passes, one to the museum and one to the Titan Missile Launch Site, which we will use Friday on the day the passes expire.

The museum is pretty much as I last saw it although they have spruced up a few exhibits and it looks like they have more docents than they had last year. My father is a docent at the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum at Dulles in Virginia, so once you’ve seen that it is tough to compare other museums.

Pres. Kennedy and Johnson used this "Air Force One"

One of the airplanes - a Super Guppy - was a one-of-a-kind aircraft that may have been at an airshow at Edwards Air Force Base and which makes a cameo appearance in one of our family's home movies. I'm going to watch the film closely when I get home and see if I can determine if this is the exact airplane in our home movies.

We did have a nice docent in one of the hangars who gave us some insight on a couple aircraft there and while he was good, he was not my Dad. Took a few photos and you can see some of them here.

With several partial meals in the fridge, Joan decided this was the night to clean out some space so we had a COR dinner (Clean Out Refrigerator) and we finished up the chicken salad, the potato salad, the green salad, etc. Joan finished up the Tortellini dish from the potluck and we have lots of room in the fridge now.

On loan from my Dad's museum

Initially we hadn’t planned on going to the Wednesday concert as it was advertised as a Marimba band, but at the last minute we decided we would give it a try. How happy we were that we did. Paul McDermand put on quite a performance and we left singing and dancing from the place.

In addition to the wonderful music, Paul told us the history of the steel drums and how they were a leftover from World War II. Natives in Trinidad were poor and found a way to conform waste oil barrels into these unique instruments.

For his part, McDermand has played with Tony Bennett and a host of others. If you Google him you can see more about him and even hear his music.

One of my Dad's favorite aircraft

Unfortunately, our home Internet in the trailer has failed. In talking with the technician (always a good time) on the phone he now tells me that you are not supposed to leave the device plugged in more than four hours.

 Well, ours has been plugged in since January, which in doing the math, is much more than four hours.

Told him it might be a good suggestion for the company to add that to the instruction book so others might not also make that same mistake. Anyway, after a negotiations, party in English and partly in whatever language the technician spoke we agreed that he would send us a new one for free and that I would return the bad one in a pre-paid envelope.

Joan poses with a nuclear bomb (not a real one)

The long and short of this is that our Internet access will be somewhat limited over the next week. We’ve been staying more off line anyway so not a big deal.

On Thursday morning I led the Bible study and will be leading it again next week.