Call it a rain delay, but Grandma's Recess is back

A Tucson sunset

(Editor’s note: I have heard from three of you that you miss the more frequent Grandmas Recess. It’s nice to know that people care and I’m sorry that I have been a little lax in the posting department.)

There’s a lot of complaining in the Old Pueblo this week. And for once it is about the weather. As I mentioned in the previous post, weather guessers predicted that temperatures would “plunge” into the low 60s. They were right.

With winds blowing at 30 mph the wind chill was somewhere around 49 degrees which puts people around here in a really bad mood. Coming from Michigan we are not among those complaining. In southern Arizona temporary put the “temp” in temperatures. We may even have rain tomorrow, but it is sorely needed here so you won’t hear us complaining about that either.

Pickleball, a cross between tennis and ping pong, is huge here and the Pickleballers rule. When the wind is blowing they have trouble playing and that makes for unhappy campers.

A one-cent check

Joan and I have been wearing light jackets, but we should be out of them by Tuesday afternoon.

First I promised a photo in my last post of a 1-cent check and then failed to deliver, so it is in this post. Sorry.

The Irving Berlin concert was great and included a female singer – Rebecca Carlson – who we saw in another concert here last year. With 1,500 songs to his credit, the duo could only hit just the tip of the Berlin musical iceberg but it was a very enjoyable 90 minutes of music.

Thursday morning began with me leading the 8 a.m. Men’s Bible Study and after that there was a request that we go and visit one of our members who is laid up in his house in The Cove – a residential development that is part of the resort – with a bone infection.

Joan relaxing in the trailer on a rainy afternoon

We spent a couple hours with him and hopefully cheered him up a little.

In the afternoon we went to the 1 p.m. lecture, which turned out to be a presentation of the efforts to make this area of Arizona a federally recognized historical region.

After the lecture we headed to the barber shop for me and the nail salon for Joan to do a little personal maintenance, we also picked up some supplies for the car and trailer. We also found a 99-cent store that had a little bit of everything and we left the store with a little bit of everything. We also picked up a Red Box Movie – Noah. There is another Bible study that is on Thursday night at 7 p.m. so I went to check it out and then we watched the movie when I got home.

Joan's "Addisen" page in her scrapbook

Friday sent me to the fitness center, Joan to the computer center and later me to my wood carving class. At some point this week, the exact date and time we can’t remember now, Joan got her nails done and I got a haircut. I also returned the Red Box Movie Friday morning while Joan was waiting for her shot.

At some point this week Joan went to the clinic to get her shot. When I arrived back at the trailer she wasn’t there so I headed to the clinic to tell her I was going to be missing in action for a while. I walked into the clinic and there were a number of folks in the waiting room (remember this is a 55+ resort) and started my search for her.

I scanned the room carefully and then walked around the corner to see if she was hiding in the row of seats that I couldn’t see from the front door. She was not around the corner and I turned to leave the room and I hear this very annoyed voice calling to my back “I’m right here!”

Homeless boxes in a downtown Tucson park

And there she was, sitting in the very center of the room with a magazine in her lap. I think the rest of the folks got a chuckle out of my error, but Joan wasn’t particularly amused.

In my defense, she wasn’t wearing her bonnet and she had her head buried in her magazine while I was scanning the room. Trust me, I’m still digging myself out of that hole.

On Friday night we headed to the ballroom for a really cool concert called “Beachfront Property” which is the name of the Southern California group that performed. The two couples performed popular songs from the 40s – 50s and 60s. Some of the songs they sang without music and they all had beautiful voices.

The new Battle of Bulge Memorial in Tucson

Saturday dawned with the brisk winds I already talked about. I went to the fitness center, Joan washed the sheets and I reinstalled them on the bed (which is not as easy as it sounds because to make our bed in the trailer you have to be on the bed to do it). It finally warmed up enough in the afternoon to sit outside in the sunshine which we did for two hours until it was dinner time.

Spaghetti (my favorite) was on the menu for our rolling chateau Saturday night and then we headed to the ballroom again for the Albert Galli dance. Albert Galli lives in the park, but performs a variety of music, which he plays along to with his saxophone and clarinet as well as sings. It was a very enjoyable evening.

Sunday brought cloudy skies, warmer temperatures and church.  Sunday afternoon we went shopping  to Michael’s for some more scrapbooking supplies for Joan and then went to Walmart to do a little grocery shopping. The real reason we did all the afternoon shopping was to miss the NFL Pro Bowl which I believe is the most pointless of all sporting contests. Unfortunately, due to the time change the Pro Bowl was just starting when we arrived home. We found something else to watch.

Dillinger poster left over from the weekend festivities

 Monday brought another visit to the fitness center for me and Joan went to her aquacize class. In the afternoon we headed to the cheap movie theater and saw “Fury” with Brad Pitt. A really gory World War II movie that we both liked.

Monday night we headed to Meet Me at Maynard’s and we are just one MMM away from our free t-shirt. That will have to wait until we return from a quick trip to California to visit the boys and our two oldest granddaughters next week.

During the hike we noticed new "homeless" containers located in the main downtown park and square. One of them looked like a postal box, but some resembled coffins. I guess it is better than sleeping outside, but homeless advocates pull them to the sidewalks every night so the homeless can sleep in them. I guess that's compassion.

Also the signs were still up for the last weekend "Dillinger Days." Infamous gangster John Dillinger was arrested for bank robbery in Tucson and it has become a wild annual jazz celebration with reenactments and other events. We haven't gone yet.

No mountain photos so you're stuck with this

The hard hike on Tuesday was to Wasson Peak. I missed this hike last year, but really enjoyed it the year before. Wasson Peak is the highest mountain in the Tucson range of mountains and presents a pretty good climb. In just about 4 miles you climb up about 1,900 feet. Unfortunately I forgot my camera so no new photos. Erosion hasn’t done too much damage so feel free to search “Wasson Peak” in the search bar above and go back and review the photos from 2013.

It always takes me a few weeks to get acclimated to the altitude and this hike came along a little quicker than my lungs would have liked. By the time I was up to about 4,200-feet (we started at about 2,800-feet) I was feeling really poor. I was gasping for air and feeling pretty nauseous. A couple people turned around about halfway up the mountain and a small group of about 10 people stopped at the last saddle before the final ascent to the mountain top, but even as badly as I felt, I was just too close to the top to give up on making the summit.

On the summit I was wishing I had stayed behind as I was very lightheaded (I spent my time on the summit with my head between my knees). My appetite was gone and I had to force myself to eat something so that I would have some energy for the 4.5-mile descent back to the trailhead.

A field full of Sand Hill cranes

I thought I had taken enough fluid with me, but I was about two bottles of water short and when I arrived home to the trailer I quickly downed a bottle of water and a can of diet 7-UP.

A shower perked me up a little and Joan and I headed to Casino Del Sol to cash in on a free night’s stay she “earned” at the beautiful hotel there. Of course, we played a little in the casino so that night wasn’t all that free. I did go back to the room for two hours to watch the finale episode of the History Channel series “Sons of Liberty,” so that saved us a few bucks.

On Wednesday we left the casino and returned to our campsite at the resort and went to Market Days to see if the “grapefruit” lady was back, but sadly she and her grapefruit stayed home. We went home empty-handed and grapefruit-less.

I went to the clinic and got my allergy shot. Joan had been there the week before and apparently made sure that the nurse on duty would know me when I arrived. Part of the deal with the allergy shots is that you are supposed to wait a full 30 minutes in the doctor’s office after the shot to make sure you don’t have a reaction.

At home, I will admit to having short cutted that time at my doctor’s office, which on one occasion prompted a stern letter from the doctor warning me that if I continued to leave the office before the prescribed 30-minute wait time my shots would be curtailed. When I called the doctor on it the next time I saw him he referred to it as a “nasty gram.”

Whitewater Draw sign

So when I got to the clinic for my shot the nurse informed me that Joan, the sweet wife that she is, tattled on me and told the nurse to make sure I stayed for the full 30 minutes. I had two pair of eyes on me the whole time until the clock slowly ticked off 1,800 seconds until I could leave.

Later went to the wood carving shop and spent a little time on my project. On Wednesday night we went to the Abba Fab concert which was really, really good. If you go to You Tube you can search for Abba Fab and see some of their work. They are on a pretty extensive tour right now and have played a number of cruise dates as well.

The news is going crazy here with an approaching rainstorm, but you would think a major disaster was approaching from the south. They are expecting rain from Thursday night through Saturday evening. They are in a moderate drought so they are glad it is coming.

Self-explanatory

Because of the weather we moved up by a day our annual visit to Whitewater Draw – a natural bird refuge – that is home to about 30,000 Sand Hill cranes for the winter. The cranes are usually like clockwork, but today they were on a little different schedule. We left right after I returned from leading the Bible study class in the morning.

We arrived about noon expecting to see the birds returning from their morning flights north to feed from area agricultural fields. But when we arrived only a few of the birds were on hand, mostly in a dry field some distance from the ponds where they usually reside.

About 1 p.m. the Sand Hills began returning to the area in waves, but for a reason known only to the bird brains, they landed in a dry field where the first birds we spotted were resting. With some invisible communication the waves and waves of birds returned not to the usual ponds, but to that open field east of the ponds.

Joan checking her bird book

It was still fun to watch them coast in from high up and gracefully land in the field until a huge area of the field was filled with the birds. There was a group of school children from Bisbee on hand for a field trip but they left quickly after all the birds had landed in the field. Maybe the birds have some sixth sense about the approaching weather and decided it was not necessary to stand in a pond when by tomorrow they dry land they were standing on would probably be a pond as well.

One of the wild attractions at the Whitewater Draw bird refuge is a very large Great Horned Owl who lives in the picnic shelter at the site.

The Whitewater Draw is in a remote area of southern Arizona that is near no place. I mean as far as you can see there are only occasional signs of human habitation. So imagine my surprise when I followed for nearly 30 miles down a two lane country road a large Walmart truck. I simply couldn’t imagine the marketing study that showed the need for a Walmart store in the middle of nowhere.

Great-Horned owl

After seeing the one large Walmart semi, I told Joan that I would eat my hat if I saw another truck heading in the area, and yes, you guessed it, on the way out we were passed in the opposite direction by another Walmart truck. And not too long after that we spotted a taxicab making its way down the same road.

So either I was in an episode of the Twilight Zone or somewhere out in the middle of the desert there is a metropolis so busy it needs a delivery from not one, but two, Walmart semi-trucks and trailers and a very expensive cab ride for someone else.

On our way home we stopped at a Safeway store to pick up a few supplies and then headed to the Dollar Store to look for postcards. Inside the dollar store Joan and I were quickly drawn to a woman walking the aisles of the Dollar General store with her blue Walmart work jacket.

So I guess even with an employee discount at Walmart, it was still cheaper to shop at the Dollar General Store in Benson, Arizona.

Walmart Truck in the middle of nowhere

We returned home to Joan’s homemade crockpot beef and peppercini peppers which was terrific. It was a menu she got from our daughter Elin. It is very high on my list of favorite meals.

After dinner I headed to another Bible study taught by a man I have met through the Men’s Bible study and enjoyed it very much.  As I write this Friday morning (Jan . 30) it is raining steadily outside and I think Joan and I will head to the opening day of the Gem Show here in Tucson for something to do this afternoon.

And here’s a fact of really no consequence: Our indoor/outdoor thermometer was reading a strange combination of numbers (and no, I have not yet found the “outdoor” sending part yet) when I got up recently.  I was looking at the device and it read 25 and 19 degrees for the temperatures. Well, I knew that wasn’t right so I turned the device around and it read 61 and 52. More news you can’t use.