Author Archives: Jerrie Cate

Day 59 – Tuesday – Saguaro National Park, East & West

Posted on by

The calendar today suggests we visit Saguaro National Park. Seeing the entire park requires that visitors travel to two locations, on either side of Tucson, to accomplish that goal. So, that’s what we plan to do. Max is going with us, but we haven’t told him the magnitude of the ride he must endure. I’m sure he won’t mind. He has yet to decline a ride.

It’s 0907 and we just finished breakfast so as soon as Diane gets the dishes all cleaned up (her chosen task), we’ll be on our way.

It got cold last night. When I got up the first time, around 0100-ish, it was 63 degrees, and the wind was blowing pretty hard. What woke us was the awning flapping around so I put it away so we can use it again someday.

About the park with two locations . . . I did a little research about that and came up with the understanding that when it was originally established in 1933 it was a Monument. Then, in 1961 the west section was added. Not until 1994 were both sections declared to be a National Park. So, this place is pretty new in that regard. Still, it’s been around long enough for most of the shiny parts to be dulled just a little. Even so, the magnificent Saguaro Cactus is the draw, and they are magnificent. Check the link and you, too, can be astounded.

Now I will stop and resume this when we return from our journey.

You may nap while we’re gone, if you wish.

It’s 1423 and I’m back, obviously. We’ve actually been back for a little while, long enough for Diane to fill up 5 washers in the laundry room which is a world record for her. She normally only uses 2 or 3.

The trip to Saguaro wasn’t a long one because we wound up at the section near the Rincon Mountains which is only about 9-10 miles away. The hard part, once we got through the gate, was the grueling 8-mile trip around a very small portion of the park. What makes it grueling is that only bicycles are allowed in the park. Fortunately, they have them for rent at the entrance, so I got each of us a bike and away we went.

I kept Max with me so he wouldn’t get all tangled up in Diane’s spokes, causing her to tumble. The added benefit for me by doing that was Max is a strong little guy, and he helped pull me up the hills. I could hear Diane huffing and puffing behind me so knew she was having difficulty. When I stopped at one of the turnouts, it took her about 15 minutes to catch up. Since Max was such a help to me, and he didn’t get tangled up, I decided to take a chance and hooked him up to Diane’s bike. I let her lead so I could be prepared to run to her rescue if he went nuts on her. But he didn’t. He was good as gold and led her the remaining way around that 8-mile loop without mishap. There were times when I thought they were going to outrun me. I kept up, but it wasn’t easy.

Here are some photos I took on that trip.

I should quit trying to get selfies because with these sunglasses I can’t see what I’m taking a picture of. It’s a crapshoot and sometimes OK.

The bike trail was entirely paved and easy on the buttocks for which we were both thankful. Max didn’t care.

I don’t know when we’ll get to visit the other half of this national park. Tomorrow, I see three thrift stores on the calendar, so we won’t be headed west. I must take Max to the dog wash, also. There will be a day free that we can pencil in Saguaro. Hopefully we’ll be able to drive through the other half, of maybe just perch ourselves on a high spot and just look around.

Tonight, we watched game 4 of the World Series. It started off nicely when Freddie hit his 4th homerun in 4 games for the Dodgers. Then the Yankees got busy. At the end of the 8th, the Yankees led 11-4. To get there they hit two (2) grand slam home runs. Quite impressive. I didn’t watch the 9th inning. Call me a fair-weather fan if you wish. I don’t mind.

Oh, ya. All that baloney about Max pulling Diane around the park was pure fiction. Some of you may have figured that out already, but I had to come clean. Max was ensconced in his throne, next to me, while Diane drove us around the park. That’s true.

See you tomorrow.

Day 58 – Monday – Max Gets a Bath

Posted on by

In our shower is a large skylight and on the inside of the bathroom door there is a large mirror. Normally we keep the bathroom door open at night to ensure one of doesn’t wander into the living area in the middle of the night to urinate. That’s never happened, but there’s always that chance.

During the night, having the door open isn’t a problem but when the sun comes up it gets pretty bright in the bathroom. The light is magnified by the mirror on the bathroom door and shines right into my bride’s eyes.

The logical thing to do is shut it in the morning, right? Well, doing that doesn’t work because I’m always the first one up and doing what I have to do in the morning results in kitchen noises that are annoying.

So, it’s either leave the door shut and not make a sound or leave it open and let the mirror shine in Diane’s eyes. I’m toast either way, so I opt to leave it open because there’s absolutely no way I can get the coffee going or make my breakfast without making noise.

So, to remedy the problem I figured I can cover the skylight with a precision-cut piece of foam that can be removed when we want light to shine in. Looked good in my head, and Diane agreed, so we toddled Walmart so see about that foam.

But first, I broke out the vacuum cleaner hair device and used the roto zip attachment to grind down Max’s toenails. He didn’t mind at all which surprised us.

Before you knew what was happening, it was done.

Walmart didn’t have any foam.

So, we stopped at Arby’s because it was time for lunch, and we were hungry. Since we had Max with us, we chose to eat in the car, in a shady parking lot. I suppose we could have taken Max in but eating in the car seemed to be the more prudent choice. Max always gets treats from strangers when he tags along so we weren’t worried about him being hungry.

After lunch, we wandered over to Lowe’s and they had the foam I was looking for. We got it and headed back home.

Diane dropped me and Max at our front door then took another trip to the commissary to make sure we wouldn’t go hungry during the week. She always likes to stay a little ahead of the game when it comes to food because you never know when famine will strike.

Now all that’s left on the list is to give Max his bath. He’s about 1.5 weeks late on that event.

I have to report that my little arms and back are beat up and sore after the contortions I put them through installing that new faucet the other day. I have a couple of new hematomas and a variety of nicks and dings in addition to muscle fatigue. But, I can still kneel down and get back up. It hurts a bit, but I can do it.

The day ran out while watching the Dodgers win the 3rd game against the Yankees. One more to go. Because of that, Max didn’t get his bath tonight as planned. I did, however, get rid of his eye boogers. He seemed to be happy about that.

Now I must take my shower and retire for the evening.

Day 56 – Saturday – Nothing Scheduled

Posted on by

Nothing scheduled but we had things to do so we did them.

The big item was to visit Camping World to get a new faucet for the kitchen sink. The old one leaks, and it irritate me immensely. A car trip was right up Max’s alley. He loves going anywhere because he always gets to meet new friends. He’s like a dog ambassador.

We got the proper faucet that looks exactly like the one that leaks so that was a plus. All I had to do was turn the water off, disconnect the old faucet and bolt up the new one. Easy-peasy, right. During this process we learned that Jerrie can still get on the floor and insert himself into some pretty small places. I had to get myself under the kitchen sink because his arms weren’t long enough to do it otherwise.

Surprisingly, he managed to get it all done without wounding himself and none of the four water lines he touched leaked once he declared the task complete. And the faucet worked.

Since we were already out and about, we stopped by our favorite Freddy’s Steakburger joint. It’s our favorite because . This time Diane had a patty melt and really liked it. I had double steak sandwich. It was good, too. Max liked getting inside out of the heat.

I forgot to share this photo from our trip to the RV show at the fairgrounds a couple or three days ago. This is as class C that Diane said, “I can drive this.” Then she pointed at the logo in the middle of the steering wheel, “but it’s a Ford.” I presumed that was a deal killer. Looks pretty comfy, though, don’t you think?

Once the overwhelming task of replacing the faucet was satisfactorily completed, Jerrie called it a day, took a shower, and went to bed. He took the shower under duress, but he should have done it willingly because it was Saturday. That’s his shower day. Actually, that’s only one of his shower days.

See you later

Day 55 – Friday – Stew & the MLB World Series

Posted on by

Lydia sent us a box of mail on Day 51. The mailbox folks sent it USPS instead of UPS. Usually that wouldn’t matter, but USPS mail is not delivered to the RV site. They hold it for a week then send it back. It’s up to us to go pick it up. I learned that today when I took a trip to pick up the box.

The heat has returned and is going to ascend into triple digits once more. But the temp drops drastically at night into the 60’s and will sometimes drop into the 40’s range. Thank goodness our A/C units work properly. So far.

Diane took a trip to the BX to get an electric razor for her legs. I told her she needs legs like mine. Mine have no hair. I’ve enjoyed that kind of hairlessness for many years. For some reason the little I had was either absorbed by my body or it just fell off when I wasn’t looking. Lucky me, right?

When she returned, Max and I were sitting on the patio enjoying the dissipating heat after a long walk. After sitting with us for a bit, she declared it time for supper, so we went in to eat her stew that’s been cooking for a couple of days. I didn’t take a picture of it, but I did get a shot of the meat while I was cooking it yesterday.

There just isn’t anything better than homemade stew.

This evening Diane and I had the honor of watching the LA Dodgers win the first game of the 2024 World Series 6-3 in extra innings against the NY Yankees. We didn’t start watching the game until the top of the 9th with the score tied 2-2. No one scored in the 9th so it went to extra innings. NY was batting first and managed to score 1 run so to keep it going the Dodgers had to score at least 1 run. With 1 out they got a hit, and the next batter walked. Next up was Ohtani, the Dodgers heavy hitter. He hit a long ball that was caught by the left fielder who promptly fell over a wall out of bounds. That was out 2 and it’s my understanding that because the left fielder fell out of bounds with the ball, the runners got to advance so runners were on 2nd and 3rd.

Then the Freddie Freeman came up to bat and the bases were loaded. I didn’t understand how a runner wound up on 1st base because I never saw a batter get a hit or get walked. But there he was. Freddie took the first pitch and drove it out for a grand slam walk off. That was significant for two reasons. 1) In all my life I’ve never witnessed a grand slam that won a game; and 2) That was the first walk off grand slam in World Series history.

What fun.

Then I went to bed.

Day 54 – Thursday – Pima County Fairgrounds

Posted on by

Nope, it’s not fair time right now. We just went there to take a walk through a bunch of Tiffen RVs. In case you don’t’ know, they are pretty classy rigs. Like over the top, classy. The best one cost $700,000.00. That isn’t a typo. Though it would be nice to have one, something like that just isn’t practical for folks like us. Seeing all those fancy rigs caused us to lean more in the direction of moving back to a trailer instead of upgrading the Bus. This is still a work in progress.

We didn’t take Max on this trip, but I doubt if anyone would have objected had he tagged along. For being such a good puppy, we took him to the off-leash dog park just a couple blocks away. When we got to the park, we saw this making its way across the sky …

When I first saw this, I thought it was just the contrail of a speeding aircraft. Diane said “no. It’s the comet!” I was easily convinced because the contrail didn’t linger like they usually do and seeing a comet is way cooler than seeing a high-flying aircraft. I mean, we’re living on an Air Force Base so high-flying aircraft are no big deal. According to the local info I could find this is the 80,000-year-old C/2023 Ag Tsuchinshan-ATLAS comet. That’s quite a name. I suspect it’s meaningful to astronomers but why couldn’t they just call it Henry, or Alvin? Something simple? It’s supposed to be visible until the 26th so I’ll be looking for it again the next couple of days.

Once the comet was over the horizon we concentrated on Max, trying to get him to run, or chase his ball. He needs the exercise. But since this was his first time in this facility, he was more obsessed with sniffing pretty much every place where a dog could have marked his spot. That means he had to sniff, for a long time, anything that was vertical to the ground. The one exception was a pretty large hole that a previous dog had enlarged.

He maintained this position for about 3 minutes, waiting for something to happen, or for something to crawl up his nose, I’m not sure which. Apparently, nothing happened so he extracted himself and calmly resumed sniffing his surroundings. It must be difficult to be able to smell such an amazing variety of stuff and catalog it for future reference. Wears me out just thinking about it.

He finally gave up his quest to smell everything within the boundaries of the park and decided that we should go home. First, however, there was a playground nearby that Diane had to visit. It had slides.

I just knew there was still a little girl in there somewhere.

Then we went back to the bus for the rest of the evening.

Now it’s time for bed.

Sweet dreams.

Day 53 – Wednesday – Didn’t do anything

Posted on by

Nope. Just laid around all day except for taking Max out to walk 5-6 times.

Three walks ago the sun had just set so I took you a photo.

Diane got to go out and visit the Base thrift store today, she also went to the commissary. We seem to keep running out of food.

The temps went back up today to 98. It’s interesting because when it’s that hot and you’re out standing in the direct sunshine, it feels just like a sauna. There is immediate relief as soon as you step into the shade of a tree. It’s actually cool. I did that for a while, just walking from one tree to the next, walking into and out of shadows. What fun.

That’s all I’ve got.

G’night.

Day 52 – Tuesday – San Xavier del Bac Mission

Posted on by

Today was devoted to only two events. First, fill the car with gas. Second, visit San Xavier del Bac Mission in South Tucson. This was a “must see” Diane chose early in this trip.

The mission is located on the west side of I-19 as you head south from Tucson. Interstate 19 is interesting in itself and falls into the category of I-1, I-2, and I-3 on Oahu. None of them cross state boundaries. So, how can they be Interstate highways? Interesting, right?

When you take exit at W San Xavier Rd and signs guide you to the Mission. The signs really aren’t necessary because the Mission can be seen easily to the right as you transit the road. This is because the Mission is surrounded by homes that are pretty much all single-story dwellings. The Mission is much taller. Here’s a sequence as you drive up the road.

The interior is stunning. One of the visitors told me they brought artists from Spain to help refurbish the interior. I don’t know if that made the difference, but I assure you it’s worth the trip.

The areas to the right …

And to the left …

… of the main altar are every bit as stunning.

Even looking back to the entrance is awesome …

Then you tip your head back a little and notice the ceilings are also amazing.

No matter where you look, it’s beautiful. The music playing in the background added to the experience. Even the ceiling …

There’s not much I can add to this without ruining the mood, so I’ll share one last thing, and check out.

The are no Speed Bumps in Arizona.

This is true. We’ve not seen even one warning about Speed Bumps.

Ciao

Day 51 – Monday – VA Hospital Tucson

Posted on by

Today was relatively calm. It started out with me visiting Emily at the BX Toenail Boutique to have my toenails fixed. Diane got hers done last week and really liked her. Emily likes to talk so Diane thought we’d get along famously. We did. Emily is Laotian, she’s 5’2″, and probably weighs about 70 lbs. She has two children with whom she shares her native language. She’s also from North Carolina. I think I got most of that correct. Anyway, she did a marvelous job on my Troll Toes, and we talked about a lot of stuff. It was good therapy.

When I returned to the RV it was almost time for lunch, but Diane wanted to go shopping at two local thrift stores, then swing by the commissary. I’ve previously covered Diane’s dislike of me going shopping with her so she went alone while Max and I stayed home and watched a movie about golfing and racism. Max would have rather gone outside, I’m sure.

When Diane was gone, I experienced a dizzy spell that took a while to dissipate. When she returned, I was compelled to tell her about it, so we had a discussion about all aspects of probabilities, First, I located and resurrected the blood pressure cuff the VA gave me about 8 years ago. All it needed was new batteries. It just so happens; we have lots of those.

The first run was 86/56 which isn’t very close to what we thought it should be, so we waited a bit and did it again. Second run was something like 107/60. Really different from normal.

Considering those results Diane and I decided to bite the bullet and see what the Tucson VA Hospital is like at 1600 on a Monday afternoon. All I really wanted was a professional to take my BP and reassure me that it’s normal. Turns out they are pretty proficient, up to a point.

I was quickly registered upon arrival, and a nurse took my BP right away. The only number I saw was 144 so I figured that was pretty good and took my seat in the waiting room as directed. A short time later I was called into the back room where a medical person took 5 vials of blood. He wasn’t the best phlebotomist I’ve ever had, but he wasn’t the worst, either.

Then I was directed back to the waiting room with the butterfly thing hanging from my arm. Seems like everyone in the waiting room was decorated in the same manner. I can only presume that the blood guy was new, and he was tasked with practicing his newly acquired skills on everyone who visit the emergency room at 1600 on a Monday afternoon.

I hadn’t been sitting long before I was summoned to the back again where I was rigged with little snap pads for an EKG. It was all digital, so I was unable to watch the needles twitch like we did in the good old days.

An hour or so into this last waiting period I was summoned by a nurse and escorted through the locked doors that separate the first waiting room to the area where the REAL waiting rooms live. There are individual rooms for each patient. I don’t know how many rooms are back there, but I was in #19 at the end of a passageway. There must have been another room, #20, that I couldn’t see because I’m pretty sure there’s a universal law about using odd numbers of individual waiting rooms. That law might be incorporated with the hotel industry rule that 13th floors are not identified on elevator choices. The reason for the hotel thing is triskaidekaphobia.

Upon arrival to room 19, my nurse hooked me to a captive oximeter and a BP cuff both of which were connected to an automatic unit that took my BP about once every few minutes. I called the oximeter “captive” because instead of the normal little clippie thing commonly used, this one had the sending unit built into a big band aid that once properly applied is very difficult to remove.

I sat there for a while waiting to see what was going to happen, then asked a nurse if Diane could come back. She said yes and went to get her.

Before Diane arrived at my personal waiting room, I was planted in a wheelchair and pushed to the imaging section of the hospital to have a CT scan of my head. I suspect they were looking for something bleeding in my brain that might have caused the dizzy spell. We learned later that the reason listed for my visit was due to “dizziness and giddiness.” No one ever told us that, but it was listed on my discharge paperwork which we didn’t see until much later. Huh! I was diagnosed for giddiness.

gid·di·ness
[ˈɡidēnəs]
noun

  1. a sensation of whirling and a tendency to fall or stagger; dizziness: “symptoms include nausea, vomiting, and giddiness “Similar: dizziness, light-headedness, faintness, unsteadiness.
  2. a state of excitable frivolity: “the fans can be forgiven their giddiness”.

Who knew? I’ve always identified giddiness with the #2 choice. How about you?

Once the CT was done the real waiting began, and it was cold in that tiny room. I mentioned that before Diane arrived and the nurse, Randy, brought me a warm blanket. I gave it to Diane so she wouldn’t shiver. Randy told me it could take up to an hour for the CT and labs to be read and suggested we hunker down, which we did.

Finally, around 2130, the doctor returned and reported that neither the CT scan nor the blood work revealed anything unusual. So, he suggested a referral to a neurologist and a cardiologist to follow up and see what they can find, if anything. That should be fun.

While waiting for Randy to return with our checkout paperwork, I disconnected myself from the machine. No one seemed to care. I’d actually removed myself from the machines more than once to see what would happen. One of those times I took a walk around past all the other waiting rooms looking for a bathroom and no one questioned me. Interesting, eh?

Finally, at 2200, we were released from their custody and set the GPS to take us back to the RV. Max had been alone there for at least 6 hours, the longest he’s ever been alone. Like normal, he was happy to see us and we’re pretty sure he spent every second of that time in the driver’s seat on his favorite pillow. It’s white, fuzzy and holds all the hair that falls off him. He got a long walk for being such a good puppy.

This is his “Aw shucks” move.

Then we went to bed,

Day 50 – Sunday – Sightseeing Tucson

Posted on by

We fiddled around this morning until 1100 or so then headed across town to visit the Humane Society Thrift Store. When we got there, I discovered that we didn’t have Max’s leash so he couldn’t go in. To rectify this Diane gave me permission to go all the way back to the RV and get it, all by myself. First time for me driving off base. I admit it was a little scary, but I managed to get there and back, with the leash, without either falling down, or running into someone.

When I took Max into the facility, he was immediately accosted by all the women gathered near the front door. Apparently, they knew he was on his way. He was thoroughly pampered by the time I pried him loose and set off in search of Diane.

I told Max to “find Mom,” and he dutifully dropped his nose to the floor as if searching for her and led me off across the store. I actually thought he was on her trail until we passed the row she was in. I called him back and he when he saw her, he just melted and ran to her like he hadn’t seen her for days. It was quite a moving sight.

We walked around the store for a while, running into a few ladies who didn’t meet him at the front door.

After leaving the store, we headed way across town to have lunch at Freddy’s. They have custard and steak burgers. That caught Diane’s eye.

We parked in front, and I entered the facility to see if it would be OK if Max came in also. The gentleman at the count emphasized that “service dogs” are welcome. After a little talk about that he made it clear that I didn’t have to certify that he was a service dog. It took a bit for me to understand what he was really saying. essentially, he was OK with Max if I called him a service dog, which I did. He was under our booth, keeping an eye on the people coming and going, and they even brought him a bowl filled with custard topped with peanut butter sauce. He actually ate it slowly as if to savor this treat.

I had a chicken sandwich and got Diane a double patty steak burger for Diane.

After lunch Diane wanted to investigate the Elks Lodges in the area. There were three of them. She’s looking for a place to have Thanksgiving dinner. The area where the lodges live are a little bit scary. All the yards are surrounded by unfriendly fences making one wonder about the reason for a need for such fences. I think she crossed the Elks off her list for Thanksgiving.

She plotted our course for home and about halfway there I unplugged her phone and put mine on with directions to the only Eagles Aerie in the area. It turned out to be pretty nice and might be a perfect replacement for the Elks Lodge. Think she wishes to try out a Monday night Bingo session and give this place the “sniff” test, checking to see if the folks are friendly.

Another feasible solution is the base mess hall. It’s called a dining facility, but it’s really a Mess Hall. I have no doubt they would provide a really nice Thanksgiving meal. We’ll see how that works out and you can be sure I’ll tell all.

From there we went home for real. Once we got on base Diane made Max and me get out of the car so we could walk the last mile or so. Max needed to walk so it was really OK. Diane even had me keep the front door keys saying she would just sit on the patio and wait for us.

Here are some of the planes we could see from the RV park as we walked home …

I wish there was a way we could get in and visit the rows of fighter jets. There is no apparent access to common folks to this area of the base.

When we got home, she was waiting for us.

As always, no matter where home is, it’s always good to be there. Don’t you agree?

Cheers.