When I got up this morning, (0600) it was 46 degrees. It’s not the first time that’s happened since we’ve been here. That puts a different spin on my understanding of what “snowbird” means. The weather people even had long talks about 6-8″ of snow on Mt. Lemmon yesterday. That caused me to do a little research that revealed Mt. Lemmon is only 20 miles from us. It’s even on Diane’s hit list of places to visit. I think she changed her mind yesterday.
This isn’t the Arizona we heard about while shivering next to the fireplace in Oregon at this time of year. Instead, here we sit in the middle of a valley where the sun shines 300 days of the year shivering in our booties. There’s hope for a change in the weather, though, because looking out the window I see that all the clouds are gone, and the sun is shining brightly. When Max wakes up, we’re going to go stand in it.
IN all fairness, Mr. Lemmon is 9,159 feet high, and they have a ski resort up there. So, I suspect they expect the snow. I just wish they’d let me know so I could have packed a few parkas.
It’s 0707 now and I’ve managed to make enough noise to wake Diane which was a good thing. She knows where the electric heaters are. I looked but didn’t want to make too much noise which turns out to be a waste of time. She knew what I was doing. Now we have a little electric fireplace up and running and it’s getting warm inside. I may survive.
I had to drag Max off the bed, away from his cozy spot. The heaters were under the bed so it was necessary that he get up. Now he’s making his alternate cozy spot on his fuzzy pillow in the driver’s chair while he waits for me to finish breakfast. I envy his ability to go for many hours without having to urinate. I think 2 hours is my limit. He can last for 8.
Here’s something you may like. It’s a 46+ minute video taken by someone who took the Bus Tour Through the Bone Yard in 2016. Sadly, they don’t do this any more.
After the day warmed up, we cleaned our house. All the windows were opened, we vacuumed, and scrubbed carpets. The results are very satisfying. We figure we should probably do this at least once a month. We’ll see how that works out.
I have no photos taken today so I’ll share an old one with you as I depart.
After breakfast Diane drove us back to the Last Outpost in Old Tucson to swap the shirt I mentioned yesterday. While she bartered with the store manager, Max and I wandered around the parking lot. The last time we were here I found a crisp $5 bill just lying there on the ground. That’s almost as good as finding a heads-up penny. We didn’t find any more during our walk. We were about halfway across the parking lot when Diane came out of the store. Since we were the only ones in the parking lot, I turned Max loose and told him to go get Mom.
He took off like the wind and got to her just in time for Diane to open the car door. He didn’t hesitate about jumping in. There was no way he was going to be left behind. That, and he loves to ride in the car.
Next, we drove to Mission San Xavier to get a refrigerator magnet, something we forgot to do during our last visit. I walked around the mountain adjacent to the mission while Diane bought me a tiny saguaro cactus. We hope it grows from its tiny state to a magnificent remembrance of this area.
Max and I climbed the hill adjacent to the Mission proper. It’s not very tall but gives one a nice view of the valley in all directions. This was the best view. The mission is like a massive jewel in the wilderness.
Looking the other way, you can see the “mountain” Max and I climbed.
Diane needs to print the AAA Trip Tiks she’s working on for our return trip to civilization, so we decided to get a small printer so she can study the routes. The first likely place to get one was the Base Exchange (BX). So, that’s where we went first. They had slim pickings and didn’t have the one I thought would be best. So, we drove to Costco and found just the right one.
I’m so happy Diane likes doing that because I’m much better at traveling as a silent observer instead of all that front end stuff necessary to make the trip pleasant. She’s a stellar planner and makes the trip easy on me since I’m the bus driver. We no longer feel the need to get from Point A to Point B the quickest way possible. Now we go from Point A to Point Z and visit all the places in between. It’s much more relaxing.
After Costco, we drove home in time for supper. Max didn’t care that he’d been home alone after lunch. He spied on our neighbors and ran to them and was rewarded with treats. Those are way better than supper. Our neighbors are Patricia and Laurie, Mother and Daughter. They dressed up for Halloween.
Awesome neighbors and they love Max, too.
We watched a little Dish TV then streamed “White Collar” on Netflix, but it wasn’t buffering well. Lots of pauses at night so we discussed, again, getting our own hotspot. I know I can get one from Verizon, but I’d like to do it through AT&T since we already have service with them. Should get a break because of that. Perhaps you remember I tried doing that in California, but it didn’t work out. I’m going to try again. I’m sure you will be holding your breath waiting for the results so I’ll report back as quickly as I can.
Guess what! As you may have guessed, Saguaro NP West looks a lot like Saguaro NP East. So, they are essentially the same but different. The West version seems to have way more saguaro cacti sprouting on it’s portion of the Sonoran Desert. I think that’s true. Yeah, pretty sure. If someone determines that I’m wrong, I’ll deny it. I can do that because I’ve decided to be a politician in the near future, and it seems to be OK if they are not completely accurate when they speak.
We drove through entire forests of incredible saguaros on the way to our destination, but we stopped by Old Tucson first, which is a few miles before the park. Turns out that Old Tucson was closed, except for the Last Outpost. So, while I walked Max around the enormous, empty, parking lot, Diane bought us each T-shirts to commemorate the event. Later, when we got home, Diane discovered that she got an XL for me. She meant to get an M, but the XL was on the hangar. So, we need to go back tomorrow to trade the XL for an M.
From the trinket store we drove straight to the park without mishap. The park visitor’s center is surrounded by millions of saguaros, so it was a good place to put this national park. The variety of shapes is amazing, and they are all unique.
Even Max was interested.
There are many hiking trails throughout the park but those are not for us. We limit our walking from the car to a bathroom and perhaps a gift shop. The exception on this trip was our stop at the Desert Museum.
Museums interest us and we try to visit them when we can, so we stopped at this one. Diane didn’t want to go in so she found a parking spot in the shade, which was amazing, where she and Max could wait for my return.
I went to the entry to see what it was all about and found these brass figures of javelinas.
They stand mostly in the sun all day long so that pink piece of paper you can see on the big one is a warning that says “HOT”. I wanted to make sure that was true, so I touched it. It was.
Then I got to the entrance and saw this sign:
That’s when I turned and went back to the car. Diane and Max were surprised to see me so soon but understood when I explained that there’s no way I was paying $29.95 to enter a museum that was going to close in about 30 minutes. I wouldn’t pay it even if it was going to be open for the next 30 hours. They were on my side. So, we left.
As Diane was pulling out of the parking lot I spied this beauty and convinced her to stop and let me out for a few seconds. We had seen pictures of this kind of saguaro but could not see any in all the fields we viewed. Then there was this one right in plain view.
You have to admit that this is a very stunning cactus. Now one I talked with could explain to me what causes some of them to grow like this. That’s OK. I can live with the mystery. Our stop here was amazing even though neither of us went into the museum.
Then we went home. That’s part of Tucson in the distance.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Max liked them, too …
Temporary Sanity ... 