Yes, we are still alive, but wet in Tucson

A Tucson sunrise over our trailer

A lot has happened in the ten days since we last visited here and I apologize for the long absence, but we’ve been very busy. I do appreciate the folks who have left messages for me on Facebook and in emails wondering what happened to the blog. I will try to be more consistent in the future.

When we last visited I had just given myself the shins of an 8-year-old boy by tripping on the non-moving treadmill here at the resort. The wounds are healing nicely, but still continue to be the topic of conversation whenever I wear shorts, which is all the time.

We’ve had some mail issues at this end as the forwarding paperwork we did with the USPS as they neglected to include our space number on our forwarded mail. For most folks here that’s not a problem, but when your name is Jim Smith – it’s a problem. Currently there are three Jim Smiths staying here (that’s actually down one from last year) so the three of us end up sorting each other’s mail when it comes without our space number.

The Postal Service is working on correcting the issue, but for the next week or so it’s going to be fun.

OK, going back to Friday, January 6, Joan attended her first Women’s Bible Study and met with a number of folks she knew from last year. Because of the advanced ages at the resort we are often met with sad news about old friends and new who have either passed or who are struggling with major medical issues. We pray a lot here.

Our lunch spot in the Catalina Mountains

Then on Saturday, January 7, Joan attended aquacize “boot camp” which was much more intense than what she is used to at home. But she seemed to appreciate the workout and plans to continue that and two other days of aquacize while we are here.

Last year I talked to the man who coordinates the volunteers who set up tables and chairs for the many events here. Carl welcomed me to the team and while I initially volunteered only for set up for church on Sunday, I quickly got whirled into helping out with concert set-up on Wednesday and table and chair set-up for Donuts and Coffee on Saturday morning.

One thing I am qualified to do is set up tables and folding chairs. With the size of the set up team it rarely takes more than 45 minutes to set up the ballroom, even when it involves 600 chairs for the Wednesday concerts.

I began that last Saturday and then continued during the week during a couple set ups. I’ve met a lot of new friends doing this so that is a plus as well.

The rest of Saturday was used up reading outside in the sun and watching NFL football.

More from the hike

Sunday was church and just about every day, except for days that I hike in the morning I visit the fitness center. I’m not going to bore you with each of those visits unless I decide to mutilate myself by falling, dropping a weight on my face or other stupid injury there. More NFL in the afternoon rounded out the day.

Not sure I’ve mentioned our new eating plan on the blog, but Joan and since early October have been following the Whole 30 food plan. We used to use the “Cookie Diet” but Dr. Siegel went out of business and so we switched over to this plan, which has succeeded beyond all our expectations. Our daughter-in-law has had great success with it and after seeing her results we heartily embraced it.

It does involve a lot more cooking than we are used to doing and so Joan spends a lot of time prepping meals for us to make sure we don’t violate the tenets of the plan. Basically (and it is a lot more complicated than this) involves eliminating sugar, bread and dairy from your diet. I’ve shed nearly 30 pounds since I’ve started and Joan has shrunk her waistline, but mostly we just feel much, much better than before we started.

A crane in Tucson decorated for Christmas

I had to learn that many things that I never suspected would contain sugar, does. Bacon, for gosh sakes, most bacon for sale at the grocery store has sugar in it. We have found the rare brands that don’t include sugar and so now we can have bacon, eggs and hash browns for breakfast, so that’s good.

For butter, Joan processes regular butter and filters it through cheese cloth to get rid of the dairy in the butter. Tastes the same so not a problem for me. We’ll keep you posted on the progress of this. Our daughter is also on the same plan and reports good early results.

So where were we?  OK, it’s now Monday and I was off to hike with the easy hikers. I haven’t been doing as many of these in recent years because they are not very challenging and sometimes fairly simple. But I received new hiking boots for Christmas and wanted to give them a few miles before I hit the heights on the Tuesday hike.

My hiking gear - notice no water

On Monday I did a level hike – more like a leisurely walk – along part of the paved loop hike/bike trail that surrounds Tucson. We walked a three mile stretch between Irvington and Valencia roads which totaled six miles by the time we finished. The boots were comfortable and I felt ready for Tuesday.

That night we went for our first Meet at Maynard's walks around Tucson and then had dinner at Thunder Canyon Brewery and watched the College Football Championship. Glad to see Alabama get beaten.

Tuesday morning brought my first chance to head out on a real hike this time a moderately difficult hike in the Dove Mountain area of the Catalina Mountains. There were 23 people on this hike and we broke into two groups and just to push myself I went with the first group and did really well. This was an 8-mile loop hike and I got to see a lot of my friends from previous years.

I should not admit this, but for the first time ever I forgot to take water on the hike. It was such a rookie mistake that I was embarrassed to the point I didn't mention it to anyone. Fortunately, it wasn't so hot that it resulted in me getting cramps, but a mistake I will not make again.

A walk on a level bike path

Once back at the trailer, Joan and I headed to the Tuesday potluck dinner in the ballroom and again the turnout was incredible, one of the largest potlucks we have attended in all the years we’ve been here.

Because of the Whole 30 food plan we had to be a little more selective on what we took, but by avoiding the dessert table we left full, but mostly in compliance with the diet.

After working out Wednesday I headed back to the resort courtyard early on a mission to snag a bag of the most delicious oranges we have ever tasted. We first started buying them last year from a vendor at “Market Days” but as they caught on they were selling out earlier and earlier each week. So I got over to the booth as he was setting up and bought my $4 bag of oranges.

When we came back a couple hours later to actually do all of the Market Days the booth had already sold out of oranges. The vendor had at least 100 bags when I bought my oranges earlier than morning, so apparently, the secret is already out this year.

Sunset over downtown Tuesday at Meet Me at Maynard's

Spent the rest of Wednesday helping to take down Market Days tables and helping to set up 600-plus chairs for the evening concert and doing my Bible study work and reading and Joan was busy paying bills. After dinner, we headed back to the ballroom for the “Motown Magic” concert which was really good, as are most of the concerts that come here.

At my Thursday morning Men’s Bible study I had to be prepared to teach lesson 2, but we barely finished lesson one so I’m on deck next week, with all my preparation already done. So that’s good.

One of the nagging issues at this end is that we have a lot of trash (bills, statements, etc.) that come here that need to be shredded. At home, we have a pretty good sized shredder, but we don’t bring it with us to Arizona as it would take up a lot of space.

The only shredders we could find locally with pretty large ones that we didn’t want to put in the trailer. I found a $8 small shredder on sale at Best Buy online that you use over a trash can. So last week I ordered that and it was delivered to a local Best Buy and Thursday morning about my Bible study and Joan’s aquasize we went to pick it up.

Weather forecast for our first week here

While we were out we stopped at Payless Shoes so Joan could pick up a new pair of loafers to wear around the park. Trust me this took way, way longer than I could imagine. When I go to pick out a pair of shoes, it takes me longer to park the car and go into the store than it does for me to find my shoes. After Joan tried on at least 1,000 pairs of shoes (I only slightly exaggerate here) she claimed a cheap pair of shoes and we headed to Food City to pick up a dish to take to a party Friday night.

Our friends Barry and Darcel (these are the folks we go wine tasting with each year) invited us to their beautiful home in the Cove along with 10 other folks, mostly from the hiking group, for dinner and a game of “Name that Tune.”

For a bunch of old folks we had a raucous good time, that included dancing, singing and generally acting like teenagers. We barely got home in time for the 10 p.m. news, so a relatively late night for us out. If our grandchildren could see us partying like this they would likely be mortified. But it is good to kick back and enjoy life a little.

A resort sunset

Earlier on Friday I met a Flint friend of mine, Mahlon, who is in Tucson for two weeks with his wife Colleen for some more hiking. Mahlon is a former marathon runner who is in really good shape and likes to do some serious hiking while he is here. He had never been to Seven Falls in Sabino Canyon so we decided to get that hike in before some predicted rain this weekend. (That Pineapple Express that has been drowning California is making a brief but welcome visit here this weekend.) I picked Mahlon up at 8:30 a.m. at his Air BandB and we were off to the Sabino Canyon Recreation Area.

The weather could not have been better, it was cool and dry and the trail was not heavily traveled on Friday so it was a great time. This trail has seven creek crossings and the water was as high as I have ever seen it, but we made all the crossings (14 in all) up and back without getting wet, always a plus.

We spent nearly a half hour at the falls which were particularly beautiful this year. Because of the hike I did have to miss the table and chair set up for the donuts and coffee event Saturday morning. I did make it over to the ballroom to help them clean up the tables and chairs after the donuts and coffee was over.

I picked up our mail, which included a beautiful Hawaiian shirt with aircraft carriers on it that was a belated birthday present from my Dad. He had put the correct address on the envelope, but the postal service somewhere along the line changed the zip code for him which delayed the package for more than a week. But the shirt looks and fits great so there’s that.

As if dancing with our friends at their house on Friday night wasn’t enough, we headed to the resort dance Saturday night to dance the night away in the ballroom. We met up with our friends from Canada, Ron and Kathy and also met another Canadian couple. During my conversation with the older gentleman he asked if I had heard of NHL player Chris Chelios.  “Heard of him,” I said. “He autographed my Chelios jersey a few years back.”

“Well, I coached him as a junior player on my traveling team many, many years ago,” he said. So you can just guess that I had a very interesting time talking to this man.

Joan and I still danced the night away, but what great fun to talk to a man who coached one of my all-time favorite hockey players. Life is soooo good sometimes.

Sunday morning means church, but now for me it means getting up really early to head to the ballroom to help with setting up 500 chairs for the chapel service. I’m enjoying getting to know the men and women who set up the church and the more friends we make here the more our experiences are enhanced here.

After church we headed to Desert Diamond Casino in Sahuarita to take advantage of a free night’s stay in the hotel that we were offered. Unfortunately, we forgot to check which Desert Diamond facility the hotel was in and we went to the wrong one. We already had dinner reservations at the Sahuarita restaurant so Joan stayed there and played until after dinner and then we drove the 15 miles to the right facility for our night’s stay.

The weather took a sudden, but hopefully brief turn for the worse yesterday as that Pineapple Express that has been drenching California has finally moved into southern Arizona. It doesn’t rain much here, but when it rains, it comes down in buckets. It was even cool enough this morning that I wore a sweater and jacket to church, which is extremely unusual.

Joan made her contribution to the Tohono O’odham Indians and we enjoyed a nice night in the fancy hotel.

This week we are expecting our friends from Michigan, Pam and Greg, to fly into Phoenix and we will no doubt be catching up with them and later some other Michigan friends, Barb and Dave who fly in a couple days after Pam and Greg. More on that later. You are now officially caught up.