Tag Archives: travel

Day 60 – Thrift Storing

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It was chilly this morning. Like 48 degrees! That is legitimately chilly. Actually, it was cold. So, I got to wear long socks, long pants, and two hoodies when I took Max for his morning walk. That was at 0730. Couldn’t quite see my breath so I was bummed.

Ok, it was 48.7 degrees. Picky, picky.

Walking briskly warmed us up a little, but it was still cold.

I did my normal morning routine to get my breakfast which is mainly to be quiet like a mouse, but that never works out. Something always makes a racket which Diane can easily hear. Thankfully, she doesn’t complain about it. Honestly, I think she’s OK that I make a little noise because by doing so she is reassured that I’m alive and moving. Even then I think in the back of her mind she’s prepared to hear the heavy thud I’ll make when I land on the floor for any reason. So far, that hasn’t happened. I practice that move when Max and I are home alone. Yes, I practice falling in the RV as quietly as possible. That’s kind of lame, I know, but what the heck. Gives me something to do. What will most likely happen is I’ll fall off the stairs leaving the rig and I’ll land on the gravel. I doubt if she would hear that so now I need to train Max to start barking when I fall to get attention. I tried to teach him to run back in the RV to the bedroom to bark, but he wanted to stay with me. Teaching him to bark is a challenge because when he does it voluntarily, he gets scolded a little. So, the best bet is for me to just lay where I land and wait for someone to show up.

You know, I’ve fallen a few times walking Max and I’ve never been concerned about getting back up but after writing it out like that, it’s suddenly something that kind of bothers me. Like, how long would I have to lay there until someone shows up and rolls me over to get my face out of the rocks.

OK. Enough of that.

The 1st thrift store Diane found was really nice. Max got to in and look around too. He loves to shop, and he gets lots of attention.

While Diane was visiting the 2nd store Max, and I stayed in the car and did some research about lunch. The one I found, Frank’s, was right up our alley. Here’s his reader board out front:

Here’re the t-shirts worn by the waiters and cooks:

I totally understand the T-shirt because it’s a pretty small place so they don’t want folks hanging around too long after they’re done eating.

Here’s what we ate. Diane had taquitos and I had a chicken fried steak:

After lunch we travelled to the 3rd stop on Diane’s list, but it wasn’t there. We took that as a hint that we’d apparently hit our thrift store limit for the day. So, we went back home. On the way, we stopped for this photo op that we’d seen on the way to lunch.

Kind of difficult to fathom that one, isn’t it? Makes one wonder a little about the history of Jerrie Blvd, right?

As soon as we got home, I immediately took Max for a well-earned walk. On the way back we saw a new neighbor pull in.

That’s the biggest Class C rig I’ve ever seen. It’s a Newmar from Alaska. He was parking the trailer that he apparently carries his car on. I’ll be curious to see what it is.

Now I’m going to rest before watching game 5 of the World Series.

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

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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 51 – Monday – VA Hospital Tucson

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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 35 – Diane Shopped, I Didn’t

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Today was another lazy one. For me. Diane left the park to do more shopping, and I stayed back to watch football. She insisted, and I know why. I shop a lot faster than she does and when I’m done, I follow her around. She’s not a fan of hovering. So, we’re both just fine with her shopping, and me not shopping.

I watched the U of Oregon beat Michigan State yesterday then this morning I got to watch UCLA get beat by Penn State. I’m kinda following the Pac 12 deserters to see how they fare in the Big 10. So far they seem to be doing pretty good. Oregon 5-0 on the season so far and were ranked 6th in the nation. They should improve on the next reset.

I’m sure all of you are hanging on my every word about this, aren’t you? I can’t help myself once something gets in my head. So, sorry about that.

The past week here in the park has been extremely foggy every morning. Too foggy to see across the bay and sometimes too foggy to see the sailboats anchored just offshore. Really thick stuff. It was clearing off in the afternoons leaving us with very pleasant evenings, except for the last two days. To make it worse, the fog seems to help funnel noise all the way across the bay right into our RV. Somewhere over there is someone over there with a drum set and a very loud bass guitar. I don’t think one person plays both of them and there may even be other instruments involved, but we can’t hear them. All we hear is the drums and the bass. They play late into the night, too. A real bummer when trying to go to sleep. Eventually, they stop. I just pretend it’s like tinnitus and I can almost ignore it. Almost. Not quite totally.

At this moment, the time is 1820 on this Saturday evening so, if you’re a Oregon Beaver fan, you know I’m watching them play Colorado State. 4th quarter just started and Beavs are up 21-10. So far so good. I’ve been watching the game on what I thought was a failing Dish receiver because the channels were stuttering and stopping for long periods of time. Made it difficult to keep track of things. So, instead of calling Dish, I unplugged everything and reset the receiver 3 times, just like I would have if I’d made that call. On the last reboot, I took Max for a walk. When we got back it was working just fine. So now I’m not sure if the reboots took care of the problem, or if all I had to do was take Max for a walk. Or maybe it was a combination of both, and they had to be done in the right sequence. Life is so full of mysteries that I’m prone to go with the latter solution. Doing that makes me wonder just what force of nature keeps track of things like that. How are decisions made? Does this entity have favorites? Does prayer help? You know, the standard questions one must ask when dealing with the unknown.

Diane and I are ready to move on down the road. Our visit to Fiddler’s Cove is the longest we’ve ever spent in one spot in the RV. We both find it interesting how easy it is to acclimate to this kind of new reality. The projected noise helps with that desire. Two days and a nitenite left. We leave on Tuesday morning.

Now I’m going to see about getting photos in a spot where I can use them for you enjoy.

I took this one while crossing the Coronado Bay Bridge. That’s downtown San Diego.

For fun, here’s a photo from 2014 of our cat Breezie. She loves Tillamook yogurt.

This is me getting a root canal in 2014.

That should do it for now.

Day 33 – San Diego Zoo

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A few days we went to the MWR office on the 32nd Street Naval Base and purchased two tickets for the zoo. Having gone to the zoo many times in the past when we lived here, it was a huge shock to me when the bill wound up costing $120. Amazing. But it included a bus tour of the entire zoo, and a trip on the aerial tram, whether or not you want to do those things.

This is us going over the Bay Bridge on our way to the zoo. The fog has become the morning event lately.

Our memories involved a slow walk around the zoo with the kids, looking at all the displays on the way. It was a lot of fun. A quick look at the zillions of people who were wandering all over the place. Really! Zillions of them! This prompted us to take the bus tour right away and see what was changed. Turns out the hills are steeper and the canyons deeper so walking anywhere in the zoo was not optimal for us old folks.

Amy was our driver and tour guide, full of information about anything you might want to know about the displays. It was very informative and validated our choice to ride vs. walk.

But we wanted to see the panda bears before going home and the bus ride ended where it started – at the top of the hill. We know Max would want to know about the panda bears because he’s seen them on the news, so there was no way we could NOT go back down that hill. That was going to require a lot of walking, mostly downhill. Fortunately, one end of the tram was near the panda exhibit, so we had a way to get back to the entrance without walking all the way back up. Knowing Diane’s knees wouldn’t last for that trip down, I parked her on the edge of a planter and went to get her a wheelchair. Fortunately, I remembered where I left her and was able to get her situated for the ride.

Going down was pretty easy except for a couple spots where it got very steep. There was danger of my feet slipping but I was wearing a grippy pair of sneakers so that didn’t happen. I was concerned that if I slipped, she was pretty much on her own, at the mercy of whoever got in her way. In my defense, I asked her specifically if she could stop it by herself if necessary and she said yes. That gave me a little relief, but it was still a concern. All the way down. We made it just fine, by the way. In all, I walked just under 4 miles today. Diane had a nice ride and was very grateful for my help. I was totally honored to be able to help her without mishap. That’s my job and I take it seriously.

Here’s the best photo I got of one of the pandas. The other options for photos were through a glass barrier that mainly showed the reflection of whoever was taking the photo and all the people around them. But I’ll put them in anyway.

Diane got nuzzled by a leopard.

On the tram.

On the way out.

On the way home we stopped at a small theater in downtown Coronado to pick up tickets for a play we’ll be seeing at a matinée on next Sunday afternoon. Diane saw it advertised and thought it would be fun. I’m sure it will be and I’ll be sure to recap it for you. Or, at least, to let you know how much we enjoyed it. I hope they have popcorn.

This is Max poised on the stairs to pounce as soon as someone opens the screen door.

Now it’s getting late, and Max is asking for another walk before it gets dark. He’s bored and a bit depressed due to lack of activity, so we have to fix that.

Twenty-Third Day – Monday

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Today there is a definite change in the weather with fog all over the place. It was pretty dense until noon when it warmed up and lifted so we could actually see all the way across the harbor. I should have taken a photo, I know, but I forgot to stuff my phone in my pocket before taking Max out on a marathon walk down the beach. It wasn’t really on the beach but it’s a path through the sand next to the water so that counts. We walked 1.67 miles. I know that’s true because I counted my steps. There were 4200 of them and I measured my step at about 2 feet. Close enough. Max took many more steps than I did mainly because he doesn’t walk in a straight line. He’s very much a zig-zag walker.

As I sit here, the breeze is blowing gently, and Diane spied the USS Michael Monsoor (DD-1001) returning to port. She missed it last week when it went out and was bummed.

She enjoys watching the ships come and go without having to be concerned that I’m on one of them. It does, however, conjure up many memories of days gone by.

Diane is the only one who worked today. She did the laundry. I helped a little, but I’m not allowed to do laundry unsupervised because of previous infractions involving one of Diane’s favorite sweaters. It was pretty bad. I had no idea an entire sweater would fit in the lint trap of a dryer. Lesson learned.

She also vacuumed up a mess of Max hair that he isn’t shy about sharing. I think we should save it and make him a pillow, or four. From the amount of hair, he loses one has to wonder how he isn’t bald.

The day ended with me watching the Monday Night Football game between Cincinatti and Washington and Diane watching The Voice. Now I know why we have 2 TV’s. I heard her laughing in the bedroom so The Voice must have been pretty good. I probably should have watched that, but I couldn’t change the channel. Diane took my remote with her.

Actually, that’s a blatant lie. I had the remote. I just don’t know how to use it. Diane always changes the channels. I just call out the numbers.

Time to quit.

Seventeenth Day – Point Loma

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This Cabrillo National Monument is located on Point Loma, one of the most iconic pieces of real estate for anyone who served in the Navy and sailed in or out of San Diego. Point Loma is the last land we saw when leaving port, and the first we saw when returning home. It’s an emotional thing. Some cruises when we returned, we’d get here too soon and would have to stand off Point Loma until daylight. Coming home had to be in the light of day. Sitting a mile offshore all night, sometimes, was tough knowing liberty was right there in front of us.

That’s the monument and behind it, in the distance, is Coronado which is located at the north end of the Silver Strand that begins at Imperial Beach.

This shows a little more of the Silver Strand. That spear sticking up is, I think, a yucca plant. I lined it up as best I could to point at the location of the RV park where we are currently living. If you can blow up the photo a little, you’ll actually see some multi-storied buildings.

Just north of the city of Coronado is, oddly enough, North Island Naval Air Station. It’s a large base and pretty handy for keeping track of aircraft for the aircraft carriers that tie up there on the bay side of the island. We’ve seen as many as 4 carriers tied up there. Today there are only 2 of them. I don’t know if they have changed home ports, or if they are working somewhere in the mid-east. While we were at the monument, 4 or 6 fighter jets took off from the airfield giving us a little more taste of the sound of freedom. Diane loves the jets. She swoons sometimes.

Max liked them, too …

A more somber aspect of Point Loma is the National Cemetery. It covers many, many acres of this prime real estate and the residents are heroes.

After leaving Point Loma Diane drove us to the Ocean Beach Dog Park where we spent a shaky few minutes watching Max run free amidst many strange dogs, totally ignoring us, wondering if he’s decided to just take off and not return. He wouldn’t come to me because I had the leash, but he finally found Diane and went to her. Good for him. Because of his good choice to stick with us I took him on an extra-long walk once we returned ‘home’.

Now, going back to Max’s dog fight, one of my injuries turned into an interesting profile of a swan. Or a long-necked duck. Either way, it’s an interesting shape for a scab, don’t you think.

For supper today we had pot roast that has been stewing in the crock pot pretty much all day. Diane assembled it before we left on our rare trip into the more populated areas of the San Diego area, and it kept cooking until 5 pm when she deemed it was done. Since I didn’t cook it, I thought it was way better than what I could have turned out. Delicious.

Diane has been waiting patiently for some of the ships across the harbor to be pulled away from their piers so they could hurry out to sea and today her vigilance paid off. Though watching them depart from Point Loma is better, it wasn’t until we were crossing the Bay Bridge that I spied the first ship out beyond the jetties. Better than nothing. Then, when we got ‘home’ she watch a couple of orange tugs launch 3 more ships and send then on their way, one every hour. Made her day.

Now I will quit. “Dancing With The Stars” is on. See you tomorrow.

Twelfth Day – Dish Debacle at Fiddler’s Cove

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This morning, I woke up with an optimistic feeling about my chances of defeating the Dish Gremlins that have plagued us since our arrival here. It’s very perplexing to have such difficulty with a system that has functioned perfectly for us all up and down the west coast, into Montana & Utah, and pretty much ever where else. Then we started this adventure, and we’re currently parked in probably one of the best areas in the world for complete access to every satellite ever launched in the last 150 years. There must be something about going south that Dish just doesn’t like. Making matters worse (for me) the Dish support folk’s solution for everything is to rescan the channels, over and over. I’m really tired of doing that.

I guess I’m just being a whiner, aren’t I? But that doesn’t really matter because I’m the customer which makes me always right. Right? Now I must pause and plan the rest of my day. It’s only 0930 but I’m sure I need a nap.

No, no nap. Not yet, anyway. Instead, we put Max in the car and headed to Imperial Beach so Diane could get her toes done. She does that once in a while. Max and I dropped her at the nail place and continued on to the Veteran’s Dog Park so Max could run free. He hasn’t done that in a while.

When we got to the park there were 3 big dogs who greeted to him, and everything seemed to be Ok. Then, all the sudden one of the big guys got a little pushy and Max objected with a growl, then the fight was on. The big dog grabbed Max by the neck and shook him like a dishrag and I was sure he was going to die. It was pretty horrible. Ignoring all the things about getting into the middle of a dog fight, I got into the middle of it because no one else seemed to be doing anything.

I succeeded in getting Max away from the big dog and he seemed to be OK and I was amazed. I later found one puncture wound on the back of Max’s neck and that was all. Me? My right arm and hand were well used in the extraction and I’m OK with that. Max survived. Had I not intervened when I did, I have no doubt he would have died.

The owner of the attack dog helped clean up my wounds using some supplies provided by a gentleman who apparently lives in his car in the parking lot. Then I went back to the toenail place to get Diane. She was a little surprised to find me with my right arm all bandaged up and, after hearing the story, took Max back to the RV and took me to the Sharp Coronado Hospital Emergency Department. It’s interesting because they appear to be working in the parking lot and that’s where patients wait until the doc can see them. I asked the nurse about that, and she said they’ve been working that way for the last two years. Seems to work OK because from the time I checked in, saw the doctor, got cleaned up, got my tetanus shot, drove to Walgreen’s for my prescription, then back to the RV was about 1.5 hours. That would never happen at home.

The wounds were much more impressive while they were bleeding and lost their splendor once they were cleaned up and bandaged.

Now it’s all wrapped up. And they hurt, especially the one on my forearm. I’m looking forward to seeing how colorful my arm is tomorrow.

Other damage is to both shoulders and my left shoulder was almost normal again. I guess I am destined to have sore shoulders forever. That sounds like a complaint, I know, but I’d do it again to save our little dog.

The dog that gnarled on us is the one on the left. The more I think about the attack, the more I’m convinced that Max was the instigator. We know how touchy he is to be bumped by a foot and I’m pretty sure he threw the first punch. So, perhaps he learned a lesson. Doubt it, but you never can tell.

We’re sitting outside on our patio digesting our supper and thankful that Max appears to be back to his normal, loveable self.

What a day.

Eleventeenth Day – Relaxing in Space #45

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Today we did pretty much nothing. That’s right, nothing. Well, nothing other than eat every once in a while, walk Max, try to make the Dish system work, visit with neighbors, and walk Max. Eating was sporadic, walking Max three times was mandatory (he insists), and visiting with neighbors just happens.

Then, there was all the gunfire going on up and down Coronado Beach for 5 hours, 4-9 pm. Everyone knows it’s the Navy Seal training, so I just look at it as the sound of freedom. The weapons being used were semi-automatic but I’m not sure of caliber. I’ll ask my new friend, Ray, a retired Gunners Mate Chief from Arkansas, who just happens to be driving an almost exact replica of our RV. Yes, he and his wife and 3 dogs also has a Holiday Rambler Neptune XL, but his is a 2008. He and I had a nice visit and will we’ll be getting together again. Fun guy. Much younger, be he’s a fellow chief so we understand each other.

The last walk of the day for Max was just as it was getting dark. The RV Park is situated on the water side of a housing area where houses are no doubt very expensive even though most of them do not have a water view. At the end of the park the asphalt turns to and brush, a good place to walk a dog. There’s a path through the brush that goes toward the homes and circles back around to the park, but going that direction, at that time, had us walking directly toward the gunfire. We couldn’t see what was going on because of housing and sand dunes, but we could definitely hear them. Max didn’t want to have anything to do with going that direction and made it clear he wanted to walk aways from the noise. I let him choose the direction and he led me right back to the RV which was about 1/2 a mile away. That tells me a little about what he may have been subjected to while running the streets in California before we got him. He was not a happy camper out there.

Back at the RV we watched a documentary on 9/11 that showed us a great deal about what happened before, during, and after the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City. Both Diane and I remember that day vividly, as I’m sure most of you do also.

Today was much cooler than yesterday. The next few days are supposed to cool even further. It’s nice to not having your clothes stick to you all the time and to have the A/C units running nonstop to cool things down. It was nice on our ears. We don’t know how long the cooling spell will last, but it’s OK. Today was beautiful and comfortable. We’ll take it that way any day.

Seems like there was something else I wanted to share but all I can think of is that Diane pointed out that I misspelled “presidential” on my last entry so once this is done, I’ll correct that.

Be safe.

Ninth Day – Fiddler’s Cove Marina

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Another beautiful day in Southern California. The high temperature was 97 degrees but there was a nice breeze off the water making it pretty nice to sit and watch the activities around us. We did take one trip into Coronado to replace the steak that turned rancid for some reason. I mean, we planned to eat it a week or so ago but one thing and another delayed it to the point where it was 3 weeks old by the time we decided cook it. It was pretty gnarly. I personally didn’t see a problem, but Diane did. Left alone, I would have cooked it and probably got sick so that’s one more reason I plan to keep her around. I actually don’t need any more reasons for that, I’ve got plenty of them.

The trip to downtown Coronado was very pleasant. Very reminiscent of driving around in Palm Springs. Lots of tourists. What makes it really interesting to us is that it’s surrounded by Naval bases. They have NAS Coronado on the north end, COMPHIBPAC to the south, 32nd Street Naval Base on the east across the bay, and wide-open ocean all the way to China on the west. What makes that OK is that Navy Seals train on Coronado Beach on the section that is wide open to China. We’re all safe.

We had a real meal, our first one on this trip, on that steak and the asparagus and corn on the cob Diane bought many days ago to go with the steak that went bad on us. Thankfully, the veggies were just fine. Diane doesn’t eat corn on the cob, so I got to eat all three of them and it was wonderful. Between the corn and the asparagus, we used almost an entire stick of butter. Oh, and we shared a very large baked potato, too. That used part of the butter.

After the meal we sat outside in the nice breeze, enjoying the view

… birds diving in the water for stuff … no photos for that …

… and things, or people, that float past us on the water …

This lady is in the first space in the park with whom she shares a gentleman who has one entire half of his face tattooed with so much ink that half his face is blue. I’m pretty sure it’s OK that I took the photo since she was, like, right there on the water, but I’d prefer it if you didn’t tell him you saw this photo. He might take it the wrong way.

Later, when the sun was almost gone, Max took a notion to object something out back on the water. He was barking at it which is totally unlike him. He generally only barks at dogs that bark at him first. So, we had to look.

Turns out, it was just a magnificent sunset that he wanted us to see.

What a good puppy, right?

Good night.