Tag Archives: nature

Letters to Diane – 33 – January 3, 2026

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Good evening, My Love,

The only things I can remember about yesterday are a couple of trips around the block with Max, lots of TV, and I went to the bathroom a couple of times. Oh, and I ate lunch. That’s about it. Oh, and Lydia returned safely from her trip out of the country around midnight. I believe I mentioned that she and Jered went to North Carolina to meet an old school friend of his. It was a spontaneous trip, and they had a great time. I think Lydia’s favorite thing about the trip was visiting BB-55, the USS North Carolina. They got to go all over the ship and she took a bunch of photos. She also got me a Mini Lego kit of the ship. The pieces are incredibly tiny and really hard to pick up. I took the pieces out of their packages today so I have to work on it continually to get them all in the proper places so they won’t get lost.

Lydia didn’t get up until noon today due to yesterday being a travel day. Doug came over for a visit while she slept so we had to talk softly to keep from waking her. We had a nice visit anyway, the first one we’ve had in a long time. He doesn’t come down from his mountain very often, so it was great to see him.

I forgot to share with you that when Jennie came over to watch the Ducks the smoke alarm in the hallway by our bedroom was chirping for randomly for a while so I changed the battery. Then it chirped some more then sounded the alarm. Not seeing, or smelling any smoke we agreed that the smoke alarm must be failing so I just took the battery out of it. A little while later Jennie went into the kitchen and discovered that one of the stoves burners was on low and had melted the silicon mat. That had to have been the source of burning the alarm detected. I must have bumped the burner control when I was busy sweeping fir needles up. Those things are everywhere. Arter that little episode, and previous ones we had, I think I might have to get a different stove with controls either on top, or toward the back of the stove. As it is, we have a hazard in the house. A simpler solution would be to not put anything over the burners. Kind of a scary situation, don’t you think?

You’re probably wondering how I could forget to share this with you right after it happened. Me too. We may never know how lucky we are to have a smoke alarm that works even when there’s no smoke even though the source of the alarm’s distress was discovered by the good observational abilities of your daughter.

I promise to be more careful in the kitchen going forward. I suppose I could simply turn off the stove breaker and just use the micro from now on. That would work.

Now I’m stopping. Max is asking for permission to go to bed. It’s 2230 and time to follow Max’s lead. Probably a good idea. I’ll leave you with a fun memory we made in Orlando once upon a time.

I love your smile.

G’nite.

Me.

Prairie City

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We left John Day at the stroke of noonish and made the “grueling” drive to Paradise City where we will spend just one night. The drive was 13 miles, but it was on our list, so we stopped. It’s a really nice facility but right off hand I cannot remember much about it. My mind doesn’t seem to retain anything for a useful amount of time. It’s there, then it’s gone.

So, I’m just going to share what’s in my head right now.

First, we mad it to Farewell Bend State Recreation camp ground located a few miles from where Cliff’s Grandpa used to live. It’s a small town of 450 residents and has no gas stations. While he and Susie toured the town, Diane drove us to Nampa for a visit with Jim, Donna, Steffani, and Bob. Diane was excited about the drive because once you cross the border into Idaho, the speed limit rises to 80 MPH. It gave her an opportunity to burn out the carbon she’s been accumulating in the engine.

It was a nice visit. Short, but nice, and we got lunch!

Before leaving Nampa for our return trip “home”, we stopped at Costco to fuel up. The last time we didn’t do that and ran over 125 miles on an empty tank in the motor home. True story. We drove all the way to La Grande. The next morning was our checkout day so I had the pleasure of emptying our holding tanks on that way out of the park. It took a while and I’m happy to report that I didn’t spill even one little drop, then we went up the side road to Huntington to visit a museum.

There was a lot of interesting things inside, most interesting the curator who grew up in Huntington and knew where Cliff’s Grandpa lived (2 blocks from the museum). I think she remembered the color of the house, too. She knows the history of Huntington.

The railroad was something that touched everyone’s lives in some way, as did river traffic on the Snake River. There’s information about the time a steamboat captain sails his way through Hell’s Canyon.

The rest of the items are typical for a small town, except for this guy.

It’s not often that you run across a gun-toting preacher.

The next stop was at the “A Frame RV Park” in Baker City. It was a fairly easy drive. Actually, it was very easy for me because Diane is doing all of the driving. The only thing I do is park the truck and trailer on arrival, and hook it all back up when it’s time to leave. Easy peasy, right?

We checked in for a 2-day stay so relaxed after getting things connected then the next morning we took a trip to the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center that resides on a hill just outside of Baker City. Actually, it was just 4-5 miles from our current residence.

This was an excellent stop. The displays and stories are awesome. We stayed long enough to be the last wagon remaining in the parking lot. If you’re ever in Baker City, this is a must to visit.

On the way back to the ‘ranch’, we were assaulted with a rock hitting the windshield thrown by a little car going the other way, The glass chipped and cracked and will require replacement. We decided to celebrate this assault by eating dinner out at the Latitude Forty Five restaurant. Great people, excellent food.

Bsck at the A Frame Park, I took Max for a walk in the 9-acre dog park they have. He really liked the freedom and he met many congenial dogs.

I got the TV working by searching local channels. It’s almost as good as Dish TV but there are only 66 channels. We did, however, get to watch AGT for the first time on this trip.

This day, our last one here in BC, we spent looking around town for thrift stores and cheap places to shop.

Tomorrow we leave for Elgin hoping they can accommodate the two of us for a couple of days. From there we’ll be going to Hell’s Canyon.

Various and Sundry ‘Stuff’

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It’s been a while since I’ve ventured forth with a new post. I have to admit that I’ve started new ones a few times but for some reason my heart just wasn’t in it. Today is apparently different because I feel like sharing something. What that may be has yet to emerge but I’m confident something will reveal itself during the course of this episode.

It’s almost noon and I’ve actually accomplished a few things, unlike what’s been normal for me lately. It was easy to just lay around, reading my books, or just taking an afternoon nap with Max keeping my legs warm. That may still happen but I’m seriously going to see how long I can hold off nap time.

Diane is gone to see her doctor at Good Sam, leaving me all alone with various sharp instruments that have previously been responsible for emergency room trips. The worst one isn’t here at the Cricket House. It’s still residing peacefully at the Hill House, out of my reach. That would be my table saw. I’d love to have it close to me, but so far it isn’t one of Diane’s favorite tools for me to have handy for two reasons: 1) There’s no room in the garage for it, and 2) She doesn’t trust me alone with it. So, I’ll just have to earn her trust doing other things.

Like today. I walked around the north side of the house and found a really tall rose bush (tree) with beautiful, fragrant blooms. Though I’m not a gardener by any stretch of the imagination, I felt confident in my ability to cut the flowers and plant them in a bud vase without harming myself. Considering that bud vases have very narrow openings, I took it outside to fill it with plant soil so I could keep the kitchen counter clean. There was bound to be spillage. Thankfully, I couldn’t find any appropriate soil so I just filled the vase with water and called it good.

Yesterday, I think, Jeff stopped by to help me remove a dangerous bird house from our patio. It wasn’t dangerous until a bunch of wasps decided it would make a great home.

Most of the critters were hiding inside, doing a serious makeover, while a few of those remaining worked on covering the exterior, one thin layer at a time. I thought it was unique and didn’t want to disturb their efforts, but it was hanging about 7 feet from our patio door, hanging from a hangar, under the patio cover. I’d been walking past it for a few days without harm before Diane told me about it. The worker bees were kind of friendly, actually, and didn’t bother me at all until I was made aware of their proximity to the door. That’s when I started exuding fear pheromones which the bees detected right away. That made it difficult to walk past the nest, so I revised me exit strategy from the house. It didn’t work. No matter which door I used to access the back yard they new I was there and immediately attacked. It didn’t take long for them to figure out that 1 or 2 bees could make me run leaving the remaining 6-700 bees to keep working.

Not being able to leave the house made walking Max difficult. The bees didn’t bother him so I just let Max out on his own, hoping he’d get safely back in a reasonable amount of time. He did really well until the deer showed up. It turns out he can almost outrun deer, especially the little ones. What he can’t do is jump fences like they can. But he can run around them via the creek.

By now I’m sure that you’ve figured out that I’m lying about most of that. Some of it’s true but I’m not sure which parts.

Last week we spent a few days in our trailer at Ocean Shores, WA with our Winnebago friends. Cliff brought his scooter which pleased Max because he’s been begging me to take mine out so he could have a ride. I guess he’s tired of walking around the block and would rather ride from one pee-spot to another. I didn’t think that was a good idea. When he saw Cliff in the parking lot, he took advantage of us both and just jumped on for a ride. Since he was so insistent, and Cliff was willing, I took his leash off and turned them loose.

Turns out he’s a pretty good little scooter rider. Who knew?

While I’m out here on the back yard patio, near the previous home of the bird house bees, a different Jeff (not our son) has been working hard to clean up the RV. His business is Cascade Auto Detailing (503) 476-2311, and he works out of his SUV. Being mobile is necessary since someone demolished his brick-and-mortar facility which is why we had to call him. The building was just gone.

He’s got pretty much everything he needs to do a great job. It’s great because I don’t have to do it. I’m sure our Jeff would have done it, but I value his safety above the other Jeff.

I just noticed that Diane’s on the move so her visit with the doctor is apparently done. Looks like she’s stopped at a McDonald’s near the Hillsboro COSTCO so I’ll have a little time to clean up the house before she gets back.

Hope all is well with all of you. Stay safe.

Sherwood, Oregon and Seaside, OR

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Before I start this one, please forgive me if the dates are wrong but I have no sense of time anymore. Every day’s Saturday, or Sunday, but never Monday. Anyway, Diane and I took our trailer to the Sherwood Elks Lodge for a few days. We did a lot of visiting, watched the crews behind us put a bridge together, visited the local thrift stores, and gave Max a lot of walks around the parking lot. It rained pretty good during this visit.

Before the trip started, I took the trailer around the block and did my best to scrape the passenger side of the trailer off as I left first stop sign I encountered. It wasn’t pretty, but there was mainly a transfer of creosote from the pole to various parts of the trailer. I did manage to scrape the handy dandy assist handle into oblivion and had to buy a new one. Thankfully, I was able to remove most of the creosote. All that remains to make everything OK is to figure out how to bend the door back into shape so it’s easier to close. There is a solution. I just haven’t had time to deal with it.

This is the crew we mingle with. A great bunch of humans.

After spending many days at home after that trip, Diane wanted to visit Seaside to see the King Low Tide. Diane said that isn’t a proper description of the tide tables but I’m going to “King” anyway. Even though it’s just a really low tide. This morning was the first day and it’s supposed to do the same tomorrow morning. That would be Monday, not something I usually talk about. The only problem is it happens before 0900 in the morning. That’s early for me. The deal breaker for tomorrow is the rain. I will walk Max in the rain but I won’t walk a mile to see a low tide in it. Maybe when I was younger.

Diane has decided to use her Mom’s walker since it was still brand new. It was about 10 years old but her Mom refused to use it, so it was still new. We brought it to the beach with us to help Diane with her “failing get around bones” and it did. We took some long walks. It was a good time and will something we can continue through the summer at home. I’m looking forward to that. Here’s proof of low tide.

Tomorrow we go back home for a while. Maybe we’ll be able to clean up the garage a little. Also, maybe someone will drop by and make an offer on our RV. We no longer need it. Any takers?

Day 162 – Sunday – Elks RV Park Florence, OR

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We drove to Florence with no mishaps the, following the GPS, we drove a few miles beyond the city to the RV Park located in the country somewhere. It was one of those moments where you feel like you’ve accomplished your goal, then you pass it by, looking over your shoulder as it fades away into the distance. You want to reach back and grab it so it won’t get away. But it does, and you must move on down the road.

Eventually, we made it to Mercer Lake Road, and were rewarded with a sign leading to the elks park. It’s like a surprise because just when you think it’s never going to reveal itself, there it is. We pulled into the area, stopped to check in, and Hayden came to meet us and get it done so we could park.

The park has nearly 50 sites and there were very few in use so getting a spot wasn’t a problem. That’s good because it’s first come first served. As it turned out, #19 was open and it was about 50 feet across the parking lot from the office. An added benefit was it has sewer. Not many of them do. That was a good thing because we needed to dump.

Hayden is a character, and we got along great. He’s a retired Army Sgt Major. He said the job of managing the park was his first trip off the mountain in the last 20 years where he lived on a farm with his wife. He said he didn’t have to leave the ranch because his wife did all the shopping. With his new job for the elks, he said dealing with people is a newly acquired skill since he sold the ranch and moved down to sea level. He’s a great guy and reminds me a lot of our friend Larry, right down to the mustache.

Another added benefit it space #19 is that it has a southern exposure which means we have access to the Dish satellites. That’s very good because it was out intention to watch the super bowl this afternoon. So, the first thing I did, after getting the bus hooked up, was dial up the satellite and get it connected. It did all that and the reception was excellent.

Diane chose to cook since I’ve been driving a lot lately and she figured it would be a nice break for me. It was indeed. She made us ham, sweet potatoes, green beans, and cherry turnovers. It was pretty awesome.

Just before we sat down to eat, Diane paused the Dish just as the pre-game festivities started. That way we could sit and watch it together. It was paused for about 30 minutes and was working really well through the festivities, and through most of the 1st quarter of the game before it just froze. It was very perplexing. None of the remote buttons worked and I eventually had to restart the Dish receiver. That was the only way to get it going again. Start over.

Thankfully, the picture came back and we had missed about one quarter. When it froze the Eagles were up 7-0. When it came back it was 17-0. All we missed was another TD and a FG by the Eagles. We were surprised that KC hadn’t scored yet. Then, after watching their offense get pushed around by the Eagles it was evident why they hadn’t.

In the end, we were happy the Eagles won. It was more fun to watch than many of the previous SB games because there was a lot of scoring. Most of the old games were all about defense and kinda got boring when no one scored. Since we were rooting for the Eagles, this game was right up our ally.

After the game I took Max for a long walk in the woods. He was very appreciative. We walked all over the place until my feet got cold enough that I couldn’t feel them. I suspect Max’s feet were numb, too, so we went back to the bus.

That was the day. It was a good one. We will be here for two nights to recover from all the arduous driving we’ve been doing. Jennifer, our daughter, has been following us and sent a text that “… we’re only 2 hours away so why is it taking so long to get home?” She added that”…we could have driven down and had dinner with you.” Funny girl.

Everybody back home has been concerned about the knock I took on my noggin and questioned my ability to drive safely since the accident. But I’m doing just fine. Diane has confidence in me to get us home safely, so that’s what I plan to do,

That’s the spot!

Day 146 – Friday – Route 66

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Diane took Max and me a little bit southwest of Barstow to visit a couple of places that caught her eye. Both are on iconic Route 66. Before going to those places, however, it was unanimous that we stop for lunch. Diane pulled off the road so we could search for a likely place to eat. The only place to pull off the road was to the left because to the right are railroad tracks, lots of them, where trains whiz by going 100’s of mph. Some of the places were within a few miles of us but the one that caught her eye was the Cross Eyed Cow Pizza in Oro Grande. She looked up from her search and saw a sign for that restaurant about 100 feet ahead of us, pointing to the buildings directly in front of us. To get there she had to pull onto Route 66, drive about 50 feet, then turn left into the parking lot behind the buildings.

From the parking area we entered through the back door.

Once inside, the young lady behind the counter told us to take a menu and sit anywhere we wanted. So we did, and studied the menu.

The menu was interesting, with lots of choices, and the area on the right (black on white) was a list of everything that’s on the menu. Interesting. We ordered a 12″ pepperoni pizza and 2 root beer floats. Though the place wasn’t full, it took a long time to get our order. Sadly, I failed to take a picture. The pizza was one of the best we’ve had in years, and we ate it all. The floats were pretty awesome, too.

The booth dividers are adorned with butter knives.

Max watched me take every bite and managed to get a number of little bites for being such a good boy. He spent most of his time laying under the table watching everyone else.

After finishing lunch, we went back to the parking lot where I got these photos.

This was actually the highlight of the day because it was so unexpected. Then we proceeded to the locations Diane had on the calendar.

The first place was called Antique Station. From outside the building looks like a strip mall of sorts where there are numerous individual stores, side by side. But. no matter which entrance you choose, you wind up in one huge store that’s full of an amazing amount of stuff and it’s all well-organized.

The second stop was Elmer Long’s Bottle Tree Ranch. Somehow, Elmer either inherited an unlimited supply of bottles he had no use for, or he drinks a lot and needed to misdirect observers away from that thought, he had a momentary flash of insanity and decided to make a device on which he could stick his various bottles to make them look like trees. These might also be what’s left over from when Elmer built the bottle house in Calico. I doubt it, but who knows? I’m pretty sure Elmer didn’t build that house.

Elmer spent a lot of time building his trees and adding the bottles.

And he has a stockpile of jars and bottles to keep him going for a while.

As we were pulling out of the parking lot Diane spied a white box laying in the gravel that was totally out of place. so she stopped and I retrieved it. Turns out it was an unopened pack of Japanese cigarettes unlike anything I’ve ever seen for sale here in the good old USA. Of man interest to us was the warnings they put on the package. All the writing is in Japanese, but they make it very clear that smoking isn’t good for you. They use pictures.

Kind makes you want to light up, sit back, and relax, right? I’ve done a bunch of research trying to find photos of the pack we found but they just aren’t out there. They do, however, have these.

Very graphic, huh?

Moving on, we joined the crowds on Route 66 and headed east back to Barstow. There actually wasn’t very much traffic, so the trip was very pleasant. We stopped at the Walmart Superstore about a mile from the base so Diane could get some essentials, then got back home in time for this.

Drilling in on this photo reveals what appears to be an airborne tornado. That, or it’s an alien elevator created on demand so they can get from one cloud to another. Isn’t nature interesting?

That’s it.

Day 140 – Saturday – Twentynine Palms

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I’ve been enlightened. Until recently, like two days ago, I plodded down a path where I believed that the base we are currently living on is a Marine Corps Air Station. I believed that in spite of the signage displayed at the base entrance was specifically Not MCAS but is MAGTFTC/MCAGCC. Digging a little deeper revealed that this base is the largest marine corps base in the world. Although I cannot find any information that this was, at one time, a MCAS, I will probably go to my grave believing I’m right.

Now, about Marines and integrity in general … it is our belief that pretty much everyone allowed on a military base (including us) are good people. I base this claim on one simple observation. At the base exchange, there are no shopping carts littering the parking lot. When the patrons are done with them, they put them in their proper place. I made it a point to look. As for including ourselves in with these stellar humans, we always put our carts away. Sometimes, off base, I put the carts near me away, also. It’s not difficult, and it’s the right thing to do.

OK. Enough of that.

Today we drove up Adobe Ave from the main gate to visit the 29 Palms Farmer’s Market.

It wasn’t hard to find because that’s where the traffic led us. We were able to find a parking spot close to the market so we wouldn’t have to carry our purchases very far.

In addition to many vegetable and fruit stands, there were also many craft displays. This one caught my eye. They are 3-D printed dragons mostly. The vendor said it takes 6-8 hours to print each one.

It’s like going to the fair in St. Helens where everyone brings out their best stuff for the public once a year. Here they do it every Saturday. How handy is that? We got some radishes, carrots, and beets. We also ate lunch at one of the many food vendors available. Sadly, I did not take any photos of what we ate but you can trust me when I tell you it was really good. We had a teriyaki chicken rice bowl. The rice was wrapped and cooked in seaweed which I tried, but I don’t recommend it. The chicken was awesome. Max got a taste, too. It was fun and all the people were very nice. That’s a plus.

After leaving the market, we wandered around town to see some of the murals painted on the buildings. There are a bunch of them, but I’ll only share a few of them with you. If you want to see them all, you’ll just have to plan a trip to 29 Palms.

Here is the description that you can see on the far fight of this one.

I think you get the idea. The artwork is amazing and many of the murals share historical information.

On the way back to the base, we took the road to the main gate and drove eight by Twighlight Dunes RV Park.

That’s our bus on the left.

This is the Marine who deemed us worthy of entering the base.

There’s no laundry facilities in the park, but there is a laundromat in the building where we gassed up Diane’s car. We peeked in and discovered it’s a popular place for Marines stationed here. Diane figured it won’t be so during the week. It’s convenient, too, because the machines accept credit cards, instead of quarters.

I was tasked to wash the bus windows. so I got busy at one point in time and did 3 of them. That means I’ll probably be done with all of them in a couple of weeks. Oh, wait! We’ll be traveling so it will take a lot longer. I suppose I should have washed them in Tucson. I suspect It was suggested, more than once, that I do that, but the timing was never right. Besides, it was dusty down there, so why bother. They will get done eventually.

Diane went to the commissary and exchange when we got back but Max and I stayed home and didn’t do anything. We just hung out. I sat in a chair in front of the bus where the breeze wasn’t blowing so I could stay a little bit warm, and Max could watch folks who happened to be walking past. He’s a real dog watcher.

That’s it.

Day 139 – Friday – Palm Springs

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Today we took a trip off the base to visit Palm Springs. We stayed there for a couple of weeks years ago and found that we really like the city and the people. So, we were looking forward to visiting again.

We were concerned about smoke blowing in from the LA area and as we started down the road into the Palm Springs area, we could see it. Diane’s health was our primary concern for this trip, and we monitored each other as we got lower into the valley where Palm Springs lives. Good so far. No sign of smoke yet.

The closer we got, the more evident it was that the smoke had indeed made it to the city. At this point, however, we could not smell it, so we kept going.

The road took us north of the hundreds of wind turbines that cover a lot of acreage west of town, then took us down the middle of the array to the main road into town. All of the turbines were turning full blast, faster than we’ve seen them turn at other wind farms. You can see where the strong winds created havoc along the foothills which isn’t a good thing because much of Palm Springs is in that area.

We almost made it to the center of town before the smoke became heavy enough that we decided to turn around and head back “home”. The above photo looks OK, but the smell was in the air and Diane’s lungs started objecting. It was time to vacate the area. We stopped first, however, to let Max leave his markers. It was the right thing to do. It was a 3-hour round trip so we couldn’t just turn around and leave without doing something in town. No photos, of course because although he’s not shy about PIP*, he’s very concerned about his on-line image. I honor that as best as I can.

Going back up to Twentynine Palms was a relief as the air cleared quickly, but we could see the smoke being blown over the mountains to the west. The wind was blowing very hard from the west, just like the news folks said it would.

Heading for the hills the air looked much better.

We thought about stopping for a sandwich somewhere but decided to just go back to the bus and cook something. Then we got routed to the main gate which meant we would have to drive right by Carl’s Jr. on our way to Twilight Dunes. Stopping for another hamburger just seemed like the right thing to do, so we stopped. Turns out we really like their food.

We took our food home and had a good late lunch. Max had his, too. Before eating mine, I diced about 1/2 a pound of his new favorite refrigerator food. He still did his prairie dog trick for a couple of French fries, but he finished off all his food.

It was good to be back in the clean air but there was a moment when we were reminded that maybe we should have left Diane at home. Thankfully, she got past a coughing spell quickly.

Now I must quit before I get in trouble. Again.

*Poop In Public

Day 102 – Wednesday – Biosphere 2

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Today Diane drove me north to visit the University of Arizona Biosphere 2, a giant 3+ acre terrarium. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. Eight people entered the facility in 1991 and stayed there 2 years and 20 minutes. during that time, they had no contact with the outside world. They ate what they grew and recycled everything. I’m guessing the food they ate had a head start so they wouldn’t have to wait for something to grow so they could eat.

I thought the additional 20 minutes was a little odd but after careful consideration I figured it had something to do with skepticism about how accurate the clocks were in 1993. Adding 20 minutes might have been a cushion to ensure they had indeed spent 2 years locked up.

Or, it might have been because one of the detainees had to use the facilities one more time before exiting. It could also have been because the second to last person to use the facilities used the last few strips of toilet paper and couldn’t reach the Kleenexes.

With Diane’s blessing I was allowed to take the 90-minute walking tour and learn all about Biosphere 2. By the way, after a little research, I learned that Biosphere 1 is actually planet earth. Biosphere 2 is a miniature earth because is encompasses most of the various environments found on earth.

Max was allowed to accompany me because he’s a good dog. That was true right up until the moment we got through the gate, and he saw the turkeys. Three of them. He did his best to yank my arm off and it took a while to convince him that Thanksgiving is behind us, so he had to leave the turkeys alone. Finally, he saw something else move and we detached from the turkeys to follow the RED arrows.

I took a lot of photos after Max decided we were OK, and he didn’t need to protect me from anything. He was, however, very curious about everything. I mean that literally. He is curious about everything and what he was seeing was totally foreign to him.

The walking tour is accompanied by an app you download to your phone that leads you to 23 locations throughout the complex. At each stop you can watch a video on your phone of someone explaining what you’re looking at. Pretty cool. It worked just fine until I missed a turn somewhere and missed #7 so had to go back and find it. That involved going down 3 levels of stairs then finally asking a handy docent where #7 was. He looked at me, leaned to his left a little and point over my shoulder at the #7 hanging in the window behind me.

Apparently I missed #1, too.

Max paused here and I’m sure he was thinking, “that’s a lot of stairs.” But, he skipped the ramp and dragged me to the bottom.

Proof of life. Made it in one piece.

That tall portion of the structure is the library that was reportedly not used a lot because getting to it involved lots of stairs like those below.

The skylight in the center is the top of the library from the inside. I think I would not have gone up there very often, either.

Next is one of the three sections where the atmosphere is controlled so they can study how water flows through soil – like how much water hits the ground and how much of it makes it to the bottom of the hill.

This tree apparently fell down, broke it’s hip and was doomed to use crutches for the rest of its life.

Finally got back outside.

This dome structure is called the “Lung” of the facility. I’s purpose is to ensure the air pressure of the enclosed buildings is maintained as the air heats and cools. Had the lung not been included, the hot air inside would have caused the big buildings to explode. That’s a lot of glass that would have littered the dessert. There’re roughly a bazillion glass panels in this place. It’s true. I’m sure I heard that on one of the videos I watched. Amazing.

Inside the next structure are a stunning variety of trees and plants.

There’s even an ocean with a coral reef. Sadly, we learned, the reef did not survive but it served it’s purpose to allow people to study the effects of various temps of ocean water.

Some of the trees in the rain forest section are 90 feet tall. This is a big terrarium.

Heading for the exit.

Back up the stairs makes a full circle.

Another aspect of the facility is the many casitas they built to accommodate scientists who come to study. I believe I heard that the casitas had 3 to 5 bedrooms for a total of 200. They are very nice, too. They won’t let riffraff wander through them. Seems like they could probably make a few bucks on the side if they rented them out to common folks.

Somewhere not far down the road to home we stopped for lunch. When I did a search for a likely location, Max spied the Grain River Asian Bistro so that’s where we went. I think it was a lucky call on his part because it just happened to be the first one on the map and we were hungry. How handy.

While waiting he thought maybe he could sit at the table with Mom.

I convinced him that dogs eat while standing on the floor. When I told him I’d order some chicken for him, he readily agreed.

Thanks, Dad

Day 66 – Tuesday – Mt. Lemmon

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Yes, that’s a real mountain. I looked it up and know it’s true. To prove it, we packed a couple of sandwiches and took a drive in that direction. It’s only about 20 miles away and we can see it from our home in space 261.

That’s it. the one with the snow on it. The news told us that during the rainstorm we had a couple days ago the mountain got 5-8″ of snow. Yup. Right here in Tucson. Well, not in, but nearby.

Diane had the mountain on our list of places to go and today seemed like the one, so we went. On our way out of the back gate, we saw a meeting of the minds warming their tiny little feet on the powerlines.

Since today is Get Out and Vote Day, we thought perhaps they were discussing what life might be like with a new president. Then I saw the lone bird below the others and thought maybe this was choir practice and the loner was the leader. Perhaps he was tutoring the alto/tenor section when we drove by. We didn’t have time to stop and listen because we had a destination.

On the way up the very curvy road, we were fascinated by the rock formations.

As we neared the top, around the 8,000′ level, we encountered snow. We got out to investigate and to see what Max thought about it.

He wasn’t sure about it at first, then he did some zoomies as far as his leash would allow. He had fun and seemed to be fascinated with the white stuff but got over it quickly.

Diane was attempting to get Max still for his photo op.

Just below this area is a village of many cabins and a cabin hotel. The cabins were quite impressive as was the hotel that lined the street.

This next photo is looking out into the valley to where all the Tucsonians live.

Here’s a snap of the information provided for one of the stops. It came out pretty good, showing the very crooked road we took today.

On the way down we ran into a little bit of snow, and I asked Max if he’d like to stop and take a walk. This is what he gave us …

I took that as a “nope”.

When we got back to the saguaro cactus fields, we were amazed at how these guys can grow in such desolate conditions. Pretty amazing.

As soon as we got back to the RV, I took Max for his walk, because he was such a good little guy, and took another photo of the airplanes that live on the other side of the fence from the RV park.

Now it’s time for Max’s evening walk. I’ll see you tomorrow.