Some photos from our trip to Ventura, California

We've been on a vacation and have spent the last few days in Ventura, California. It has been nice and relaxing, with no real plans, we have just made up what we have done as each day transpired. For me, this time, not scheduling very much has been better than running around like over-scheduling soccer moms. Most of the days we have spent some time on the beach, though with Ann's disability, it has been mostly me spending time on the beach, and her sitting and watching the people and the waves from a distance. I have tried to park the car in strategic locations so that she can watch people and the waves at the same time, and I have walked up and down the beach, mostly looking for shells to take home to show the grandkids. Not wanting to spend all day by myself walking the beach, nor to leave Ann sitting in the car for too long, has led to my not spending all the time I'd like with the ocean, but that's okay. And she has actually gotten out a time or two and touched the sand, once even using her walker to go out on a point, called "Rehab Point" to get a better view. I think she had a lot of fun that day, watching the waves and having brief conversations from people as they passed her on the walkway.
One night we got together with the Emmons, whom we knew from online communications, but had never met in person. Surprise, we found out they were people, just like us, who have to live with struggles every day, and who have great things happen from time to time. Getting together with them was one of the highlights of our trip.
Another highlight was visiting Serra Cross Park/Grant Park. Grant Park is a place where you can drive that's up higher and has a great view of the city and the ocean and beaches below. Within Grant Park is Serra Cross Park. Serra Cross named for Father Serra who put up the first cross in the area in 1782, down lower, to note the location of the nearby mission. The cross itself had gone through several incarnations and early in the 20th century was moved to its current location. In 2003 it came under fire from those who think it was a violation of separation of church and state, because it was on public land. The city sold the land to a private group who kept the cross there.
Last night, our last night there, I left Ann in our room and went down to the beach, one called Surfer's Knoll or something like that, right by Ventura Harbor, to attempt to take some pics of the waves and the sunset. The sunset itself wasn't spectacular. It was hazy as it has been all week, and the sky didn't have the wide array of hues that one loves to see in a sunset, but I got some pics and they didn't turn out too bad.
Now today, we are homeward bound. We'll spend the next two nights in Las Vegas, and then get home Monday. The trip has been relaxing, if not amazing, and it has been nice to get away from work, but Tuesday I'll be back at the grind. In a way, I'm looking forward to getting back to normal. But in the back of my mind, I'll be waiting for the next big adventure.

This bird on the beach appeared to be injured or sick.

One of the places where Ann got out to take a closer look.

Pelican

Views from Grant Park/Serra Cross Park were amazing

The cross at Serra Cross park. This was lifelike in size.

Sunset at Surfer's Knoll, near Ventura Harbor

Summer vacations rock!

We had planned our destination months ago. This is the first time we have tried renting one of the properties listed on VRBO, and it worked out fairly well. Here's the full story.

We lost our list of things to bring when we were just about ready to leave on Monday morning. I racked my brain to think of the rest of the things we hadn't gathered. I had already turned off the computer and so I didn't want to turn it back on again to print another list off. We surmised we had everything and took off.

Our drive down was uneventful.  I have driver's license on my list of things to bring, but I had my wallet and had no reason to suspect my license was missing from it, so I had crossed it off the list. I didn't find out about it until I went to purchase my Colorado fishing license in Cortez. I thought my chances of fishing in Colorado had been dashed at that point, and I was a little upset. More upset about not fishing than the missing license itself, but still upset about that too. More about my missing license in my previous post.

We arrived at the cabin near Navajo Lake early in the evening—probably about 5:15. I had told the manager we'd likely arrive between 6-7 and he was still there dusting and stuff. His name was Terry and after a while he finished up and was ready to leave. He was a nice man, full of information about places to fish and eating establishments. He also told us about some roads we could travel to see sites and waterfalls and things like that.

The cabin where we stayed

The rest of the evening was spent trying to get Ann comfortable. The recliner that was in the bedroom was pretty much non-functional for her. It was hard even for me to put the bottom part back in once it had been extended, so you can imagine the difficulty she would have with her RA. We were able to move some stuff around and creatively use pillows to make it work. It was then that we found  we found out that the only significant thing we didn't bring from the list was shoes. The shoes Ann walks in (she only had her flip flops), and my running shoes and hiking shoes. I wouldn't be able to run in the shoes I brought, but I could hike. I stayed up trying to figure out how to photograph the moon. I finally figured it out.

I got the moon with some detail after 20-25 tries. Now if I can get both the moon and the clouds highlighted by the moon, I'll be doing great.

Tuesday we drove up to Pagosa Springs. We stopped at a bakery called the Pagosa Springs Baking Company. I really liked it. Ann didn't. Ann is really the Mikey (remember those old Life Cereal commercials?) of our family, so I wasn't surprised that she didn't like it. She was hungry though so I drove her to McDonalds where she could get something she liked. We then went to Walmart where I was able to convince the sporting goods clerk to sell me a license by showing him my Utah fishing license (which had my DL number on it) and my Concealed Carry permit as I.D. I found out that the clerk there had lived in Price, Utah. I was set for going fishing that afternoon. I had been offered a chance by one of the locals--we'll call him Joe--to go fishing out on his boat that afternoon.

When we got back to the cabin, I made sure that Ann had what she needed for the time I was going to be gone (estimated 3-9pm), took a nap, then left for Joe's house which was just a short drive away.

Out on the boat, we caught some bass. I caught about five to his fifteen or more, but then again, I haven't been bass fishing in about forty years and I was learning a new skill. I watched the way he did it, trying to learn something from an expert. It was great. I had fun both fishing and talking with Joe. I offered to pay for the gas or something, but he wouldn't take it. When we got done fishing, as darkness fell, he asked me if I would drive his boat onto the trailer. I told him that I wouldn't trust me with it, but he did anyway and I handled it fine, though I was a bit nervous about hurting his boat. It was a nice boat and I didn't want to make a wrong move with it.

On Wednesday we made some sandwiches and headed back up through Pagosa to do some dirt road driving and sight seeing. There was a waterfall up there called Piedra Falls. It was a short hike of ½ mile, but by the time we got to the trailhead, Ann needed to use the restroom and there wasn't one. I asked her if she could survive waiting while I hurried up to check out the falls and she said that yes, she could. The sign at the trailhead estimated 15-30 minutes each way. I jogged most of the trail, but especially the downhill portions and it took me 20-25 minutes total. It was raining and I was pretty wet by the time I got back. For that reason, I had left the camera in the 4runner and have no pics of Piedra Falls. We drove down to the nearest campground where she there was a restroom and it was okay. Then we checked out the other fork in the road that went up to Williams Reservoir. That was a nice lake that looked like it would be great fishing, but I was thinking that Ann had had enough and it was time to get back. Those fish will have to wait for another day.

Williams Reservoir

When we got back that night, I made tacos, spanish rice, and some squash for dinner (the only dinner I'd actually end up cooking), then we played Boggle for a while.

Thursday morning was when I went fishing from the shore. I caught no fish, but I know I was getting bites, because I saw the tip of my pole go down and before I could react, my worm was gone. This happened a couple of times and when I reeled in my worms were gone. My worm was gone a third time too, so I got another bite that didn't even rattle the pole. The wind was blowing slightly so it was tough to tell. I got back and made a great breakfast of bacon, fried potatoes, and french toast—the only breakfast I would actually cook. The rest of the day was four-wheeling up to another waterfall called “Silver Falls”. That waterfall was really cool. I had to hike up to it too, and Ann had her Kindle, so she just read. Afterward, our plan was to go up to Elwood Pass as it was supposed to be spectacular, but the weather wasn't cooperating, so with Ann in the car I didn't want to risk getting high centered by slipping into the deep ruts we saw at the beginning of the road. I probably could have made it, but that wasn't the time to try. We had a lot of fun though, Ann included, driving through all the puddles on the road from the night before. She had her window open and I was trying to get a little bit to come in through the windows and hit her and it did. Not enough to soak her, but just to splash her on the arm. I actually had her laughing with delight which is a very good sign. The puddles were plentiful and if we hit them with a little speed, the muddy water would wash over the windshield. We ended up driving up into a place called Quartz Meadow and checking that out because the road was much better than the one to Elwood Pass. We purchased our dinner that night. I got mine from a BBQ joint called “Smoken Moe's” and Ann got hers from a Mexican place called “Ramons”--two of the places that Terry had suggested. They were both good. Later, we played Scrabble.

Silver Falls

Silver Falls closer view

The quakies looked awesome near Quartz Meadows

Friday we cleaned up, packed up, and left. We left some of our home grown tomatoes for Terry along with a note of some possible improvements for future tenants, such as explanations as to how to work the oven (I could never figure out how to turn it on and ended up making some brownies on the BBQ instead), and how to run the DVD players etc. Heading through Pagosa for the last time, we saw another bakery and decided to try it. I had already purchased a McGriddle for Ann from McDonald's, but I didn't want McDonald's so I thought I'd get me something at the bakery. It was called "Two Chicks and a Hippie Bakery and Restaurant" or something like that. My mouth was watering as I narrowed my choices...the cinnamon rolls that were loaded with oozing melting frosting, or a sticky bun. I ended up getting a delicious looking sticky bun plastered with pecans. I decided I couldn't eat that for breakfast though, so I saved it for later (I pieced at it all day and ended up sharing it with Ann. It was fabulous), and bought a burrito at the gas station for breakfast.

We left town and headed up our route home, up toward Wolf Creek Pass. Along the way we stopped at our final waterfall, Treasure Falls. I left Ann parked in the shade while I did the 1/4 mile hike to the falls, but when I got back the shade had deserted her like a sketchy date.

Treasure Falls

We drove up through Creede and Lake City, which was a departure from our original plan, but I really wanted to see both of them and it was a more scenic route. Ann said she hated Creede and then I reminded her of how years ago we used to like to walk the streets of such towns and go into the gift and antique shops and look around at all the stuff. She said that she kind of remembered it, but now that she can't really walk, she hates the towns where you have to do it. I told her "it's not the town's fault you have RA" and that I still would like to walk through towns, but that I feel guilty and rush through them because she's waiting in the car. We were eating lunch at a picnic table during this conversation and a woman by herself sat down  at the picnic table beside ours. Ann told me to go and take my time and look around at the town because I had finished my lunch and she was still eating hers. She said to check with her when I got to the other side of the street opposite her. She ended up striking up a conversation with the woman who was by herself and ended up enjoying herself more than she thought she would. I enjoyed my walk through Creede as well, talking to several shop owners as I made my way through.

Lake City was interesting because a couple of years ago we had wanted to drive there on a four-wheel drive road from Animas Fork, but it started snowing while we were up on top and again, I hadn't wanted to risk it, and for mostly the same kind of reasons why we hadn't gone on up to Elwood Pass. It was interesting to see where we would have arrived. It was amazing seeing how many of the evergreens in that area have been killed by pine bark beetles up in that area. Tragic really.

We liked this different take on the carved bear statues. This was in Lake City.

We arrived at the Rodeway Inn in Gunnison in the early evening, maybe around 6:30, and ordered salad and pizza for dinner. The rest of the night we just hung out. I needed to get Ann as comfortable as possible and you never know what you're going to find in a motel room. The arm chairs weren't high-backed enough. We added some pillows to the top and that helped. We had reserved the room for disabled people and it had one of those stools that you put in the tub to sit down on, and she tried that for the first time, but ended up not being able to stand up. I had to help her, which was fine. I told her that if she ever wanted one of those things, they do make them with adjustable legs. In the middle of the night she was having trouble with her arms and needed something to rest them on so I made some platforms with some of the room furnishings, stacked a suitcase on one and a pillow on the other and that gave her some relief.

Ann's set up at the Rodeway Inn

I got up early on Saturday and went for a walk. I wanted to capture some pics of the sunrise if it was good. I climbed to the top of the highest hill nearby, I saw an Assembly of God church building. I felt good and grateful to God for his Grace and guidance and blessings in my life.  Walking further up the hill I found a spot where a dirt road took off and I had a clear view of the east and down below, the town. I got some fairly nice pics of the sunrise. Here are  some of them.

The first touch of orange on the clouds

The cloud colors get more subtle as the sun comes closer to rising

And, the sun finally comes up.

We ate the free motel breakfast. It was less than stellar, but there was one funny moment. I wanted a waffle and they have one of those waffle makers that you commonly see at motel breakfasts. I cooked a waffle and started looking for the butter. I found a bin with two kinds of things in it. One was called “spread” and the other, I thought was called “margerine”. I decided that margerine was less of an unknown than spread so I got out a package of that and began trying to spread it on my waffle. It wouldn't spread and I thought that they had kept it too cold, so I threw the waffle with the “margerine” on it into the microwave for 15 seconds. It still had a hard time spreading so finally I just poured some syrup on it and began eating it. It was horrible! I ended up throwing it away. Later, Ann wanted some butter for her toast and asked me where it was I showed her and told her not to use the “margerine” because it was too hard to spread. She looked in there and said, “that's because it's cream cheese, not margerine”.  I looked at the cursive writing on the packaging that I thought had said "margerine". Upon closer examination, it said, "regular". We were laughing the rest of the day over that one.

Then we drove home, stopping in Fruita for lunch (at a place called "Munchies" which was recommended by the local mail carrier we stopped on the street. It was pretty good.), buying some peaches in Delta where I also went into an estate sale (the other guy I met from Price). We arrived home at around 7:30 safe and sound. It was an eventful and fun trip all around. Now, to the task of finding my license.

I've been out of touch

I expect every place I visit to have wifi connections these days. Well, not if I go out in the wilderness somewhere. But if I stay in a cabin or rental property that has cable tv, yeah, I expect them to also have wifi. I like to keep up on my blog, and touch bases with certain individuals while on vacation. And I don't always want to make a phone call. Sometimes, I'm even in places that don't have a cell signal.

All that being said, I'm back in a motel with a connection that allows me to connect, even if it's not the most secure. I certainly won't be doing my banking from this room. We will be on the road and home tomorrow--Lord willing and the creek don't rise. In a way, I'll be glad to get home to the normal routine. I mean, when I was at home, I still had a driver's license. Or maybe I didn't. When I pulled out my wallet to show my license to the sporting goods clerk in Walmart in Cortez, so I could purchase a Colorado fishing license, well, that's when I noticed I didn't have my driver's license. I racked my brain trying to think of where I used it last, texted my son-in-law, Justin about it and he graciously volunteered to call the three places I thought of and check to see if they had it. None of them did.

We have been continuing our trip, hoping .we don't run into a cop wanting to just pull me over and check my license. I will have to deal with this when I get home, and I hope no one who's up to no good has it and that it soon arrives in the mail from some kind soul who has found it. This has been complicated by my cruise control going out on this trip, so I have to rely on my own control of the gas pedal through long stretches. I tend to have a lead foot on flat highways. Thankfully, in Colorado, I'm doing a lot of uphill driving and my 4runner, especially loaded down with all the rocks Ann wanted me to bring home, cannot climb hills at a fast rate of speed. Although climb hills it can, in four wheel drive, and when those hills are dirt, mud, or rocky. We mostly tested the 4runner on this trip by driving through and extensively large number of puddles on dirt roads, at high rates of speed, so that the muddy water would fly all over our windshield and elsewhere on the 'yota. Yeah, we had some fun too. I have mentioned how much I like adventure, haven't I?

A full report will be coming in the near future.

Thoughts on vacationing

Now, here's my first post vacation blog entry. I think that overall the vacation did both of us a lot of good and we did some fun things, ate too much rich food, and had a lot of time to talk to each other, which is always a plus. We were actually sad to come back to real life, and I'm having a hard time getting back into working...laziness breeds laziness.

On the other hand, I'd have much rather spent a lot more time hiking on my trip than driving. Driving is hard on Ann, but hiking is much harder. Because of the severity of her rheumatoid arthritis, she can't really hike at all, but she still enjoys seeing the beauty of nature. Long rides though are not good for her either. It's really best if we can get to a place where she can stay put, go out for short drives, have something to do when she sends me out to do my thing, and be comfortable. Cheap motels are generally not possible anymore, because the chairs just don't work. When we went to Kingman, Arizona last year, we ended up having to switch hotels after the first night because the one we had scheduled just didn't cut it for her comfort. Thank goodness that the original motel was willing to give us a refund. Ofcourse, I promised to give them a good review on Trip Advisor. On that trip we moved to a Best Western and it was plush, more expensive, but worth it to make sure she was okay.

We have another vacation scheduled down in southern Colorado in August and I'm hoping that their furniture is good enough that she can be comfortable. This usually requires an arm chair that has a high back, or a recliner that is higher off the ground than some of them are, so that she can get out of it if her knees are flaring up. I will check into this as far as possible before we go so that we can take measures to ensure she has something comfortable to sit in.

That's what we really have to look for in vacation planning now. If she's going to be miserable, it just isn't worth going, for her, or for me.

Day 9

Sometimes there are unexpected adventures in life. Day nine of our trip, our journey home, included one such journey. But first, we got up and kind of leisurely got ready to leave our motel in Kanab. We stayed at the Victorian Inn as I had mentioned in an earlier post, and when we left, our first stop was to go and collect some large slabs of sandstone for future use in yard decorating. I had collected two earlier in the week and Ann wanted two more, so we drove down into Arizona, past Freedonia, turning off highway 89A and onto highway 22, back to approximately where I had collected the previous slabs. We found a couple more and headed on our way. Our plan was to take a scenic route, up Johnson Canyon that we had driven up the previous day, and then take a 31 mile dirt road called Skutumpah Road. Skutumpah was rated a 1 on the easiness scale for dirt road travel, and that's as easy as it gets. Two-thirds of the way in, we were in for an unexpected surprise when suddenly the road was wet--mud, then snow and ice. It looked dangerous as the road rounded a hairpin turn and headed down a shelf, covered in snow. We didn't want to turn back at that point as that would add hours to our travel time. This part of the drive takes people into breathtaking vistas on mountainsides. On the downhill side of the road in many cases there was a foot-wide berm, also made of mud, that if we happened to slide into wasn't going to stop us from going off the edge. But in many cases, going to close to the uphill side would create a situation where we might slide into a ditch and get high centered. It was a bit nerve-wracking, especially once we were on the ice. Fun though. It's the kind of road that shows you what your vehicle and tires are made of, and if you have the skills necessary to complete the drive. What a rush!

The snow on the road got to be at least six inches deep in places. This photo shows a bit of the snow and mud.

This steep section included an ice flow. I nearly fell on my head trying to get to the back of the Yota to take the shot.

Once we negotiated the last ten miles, we were treated to vistas like this one:

Looking north from Stutumpah Road

The book had rated the scenic beauty as a 9 out of 10, but until we dared to drive that last third of the road, we didn't see anything like this. Since I'm writing this, we obviously made it. There were no further surprises on the trip, and we pulled into the driveway at around 6:45pm. All told, it was a pretty good trip.

Day 8

This was our last full day of our vacation. Tomorrow we will be heading home. We had decided to schedule an extra day in Kanab so that we could relax and do some things around that area that are fun and interesting to do. Ann wasn't feeling well in the morning so she said she'd be fine if I just took off and did some four-wheeling, which I did. I chose a route called John R. Flat Road, which was supposed to have a rating of 5 in difficulty if I started from the west, and if I started from the east it would be a 4. I decided to start from the east, and then if that went well, to try and climb the hill from the west--that had a 5 rating. Fives require high clearance four wheel drive vehicles, and usually have some rocks that are at least 9 inches high in the road that need to be negotiated. The rest of the road was driving through sand, so I had to take some air out of my tires. Though there were some nice views along the way (this route is near the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument), most of it was sandy roads through junipers.

Most of the way was a sandy road through sagebrush and junipers.

After driving through the sand for nine miles, with no problems, I finally got to the west end where the hard part was. Going down it was a piece of cake. There were two routes, both were supposed to be equally hard, but the route on the right looked easier, so I tried that first. There were some ledges, but I easily negotiated this road and made it to the bottom without trouble. I went back up the same route with no trouble. Then I decided to try the left route that looked tougher. It was tougher, with a couple of ledges that were pretty high that I needed to drop from, one right after the other. When I tried to go back up, I got stuck in the deep sand at the bottom of the ledges and had to back up. I found that I had accidentally shifted back into two-wheel drive. No wonder I bogged down! I shifted into low-range four-wheel drive, second gear, and made it up without a problem. I came down the same way once again. It sure was fun!
After that, Ann and I went to lunch, then went on a drive up Johnson Canyon Road, which skirted the western edge of the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. It was pretty along that edge for a few miles, and then we left the Monument area and were once again driving through junipers.
We went back, played backgammon (which we were both relearning because it had been years since we'd played), then I took a nap. We each had a salad for dinner.
When dinner was done, I went out into the darkness and experimented with taking some pics of the stars. Here is my best one:

That's it. I didn't have my best tripod, so I was wedging the camera with a jacket trying to get pics of the Milky Way. It didn't turn out as good as I'd hoped, but for my first real attempt, I was fairly pleased. They say also that the best time to take pics of the Milky Way is in the summer, because it "rises" in the wee hours of the morning in the winter. I will give it another try in the summer for sure.

Day 7...

It was time to be on the road and headed home. Since we had stayed up so late the night before, we got off to a late start and didn't leave Tom's until after nine. We had been seeing this little restaurant called "Hoosiers Cafe" and yesterday when Ann was going to Great Clips to get her hair cut, I noticed that Hoosiers had a sign that said "voted best breakfast in Mesa". I told Ann that we should try that on our way out of town and she agreed. So this morning we stopped there. It was as good as they claimed. I had the shrimp omelet and it came with fried potatoes and a biscuit with gravy. The omelet was amazing and came with fresh salsa. I gave it a 9 out of 10. The rest of the food was good too, and we ordered a couple of their cinnamon rolls for eating later on the road. I actually gave them lower marks at 5 out of 10.

We actually didn't get out on the road until almost 11 and our first stop would be at Jerome, which is a small mining town that has become an artsy, touristy, restauranty place. We had been there years ago with the kids and I wanted to see it again. I made the mistake of stopping in the museum...Ann stayed in the car and wrote in her journal. The museum had a $5 charge to get in and was pretty much a typical mining history museum. I would have enjoyed it if Ann would have felt like coming in, but as it was, I worried about her waiting outside the entire time I was in there, and so I just rushed through it, certainly not getting my five bucks worth. Another thing is, if you've seen one mining museum, you've pretty much seen them all, except the names of the mine owners change. For what it's worth, it's better to read up about a place you intend on visiting before you go, and then spend the extra time actually walking the streets. Ann couldn't walk the streets either, so I walked up and down both sides of the street, quickly, looking through windows, wishing I could spend more time--I think I could've spent at least three hours there--and then after I ran up a flight of thirty or so concrete stairs, bought some fudge and we headed out of town. I'll say this, Jerome is certainly worth a visit and I will try and go back some day.

We decided to take the route north that would take us through Sedona. We'd been through there years ago, but I had forgotten how beautiful it was. We stopped and took a few pictures and headed on our way. We would be stopping at Kanab for the night and knew that if we didn't get moving, we'd get to our motel after check-in hours were over. We made it at a little after nine to our motel, the Victorian Inn in Kanab. And finally, daily internet access!

Day 6...

On the sixth day of our vacation, we had a hang around Mesa kind of day. We got up late, ate some breakfast at the house where we were staying (cereal and toast for me). Then went out to do some book shopping. There's a new/used book store in Mesa called "Bookman's", and that's the first place we went. They not only had used books, but used cds, dvds, blu-ray, musical instruments, assorted knick knacks (including some wooden boxes) and various other things for sale. I ended up buying myself a book/dvd combo on learning to ski, and a jar of old marbles. Ann bought a few dodads and whatchamacallits and some alphabet books (she has well over 100 ABC books in her collections, and she's quite selective at this point).

We were ready for lunch at this point which was about 12:30 and with an early dinner date planned with Debi and Morris, we wanted to eat a bit lighter during the noon hour, and we did so. After lunch we headed to the Goodwill store and I ended up buying some little computer speakers for the laptop. We headed home after that as Ann wanted to change clothing and rest for a while. I fell asleep on the couch sitting up (I'd woken up in the middle of the night and been unable to sleep), and Ann talked with her brother Tom. At about 2:50 I woke up and said to Ann that if we were going to make the 4:00 appointment with Debi and Morris, we'd better head over to our final bookstore ASAP. We got going, Ann bought a few more alphabet books, I bought a krav maga book.

We were fifteen minutes late to Debi and Morris' house and we drove in separate vehicles to Oregano's, an Italian place that they highly recommended. The portions were large and the food was quite good. I got the garlic chicken lasagna and after the appetizer, salad, and garlic bread, I only ate half of it and took the rest back to our lodgings and threw it in the fridge. Before we went home, however, we visited with Debi, Morris, their daughter Alyson and Ann's mother, Rosalee. It was going to be our last night to visit, so we stayed until almost ten. We said our good-byes, I took a pic of Ann with her mom and we headed home. I stayed up reading, while Ann watched American Idol which she likes and which Tom had recorded for her. I think we actually got to bed at 12:45.

Day five...

Today we got up early and I took Ann to visit with her sister, Debi. Then my brother-in-law, Morris took off to the Superstition Mountains do a little driving around on his Ranger, up to a trailhead to a place called "Rogers Trough". This trail is an 8 mile round trip and leads to some cliff dwellings. It starts out by going downhill. We made good time and  got there around noon. Here are some pics of the area.

Shane at cliff dwelling in Rogers Canyon

Morris at cliff dwelling in Rogers Canyon

This sign was posted in front of the cliff dwellings

I tried to climb into the upper cave, but the way was slick and I had only my running shoes...I had not brought my hiking shoes because that would have necessitated me bringing four pairs of shoes on the trip. Little did I know that I would actually need the hiking shoes.

After viewing the caves and the dwellings, we ate lunch, then started the uphill hike back to the Ranger. It was tougher going up than coming down, but we made it. We drove back down to the trailer (passing by some of the coolest mountains ever, strewn with saguaro cacti), loaded up the Ranger, drove to town, showered and Debi and Morris went with me and Ann out to dinner to Casa Reynosa. It's a place that Debi and Morris frequent and is very good.

Day Four...

Day 4 (Monday): No internet access today, so I'll probably be posting this some time on Tuesday. Today was a day that we just kind of played it by ear. I got up and went running. Being rather unfamiliar with the neighborhood, I wound my way up through the streets of the subdivision thinking that there was no way I could ever live in this 55 plus neighborhood. I really don't like places that only have old people. Kids are for the most part, fun to have around. It has gotten up into the seventies as far as temperature goes, and will be getting up near 80 later on in the week. However, the morning lows are quite cool--in the forties. I first went outside with just a t-shirt and basketball shorts, then decided I needed something under the t-shirt--something long-sleeved.

When I got back from the run, I showered and then made breakfast for Ann and I. Tom is on diet restrictions because of bariatric stomach reduction surgery, and he stays up way late, then gets up way late as well. He takes care of his own food. Ann and I had scrambled eggs, toast, and we each had half an orange. Since Tom cannot eat salt at all, he has none around the house and the eggs were quite bland. I added some of the Missus Dash no-salt seasonings, but that didn't do the trick, so we ended up putting ketchup on our eggs--something I frequently do anyway, but that Ann rarely does.

After that we went on a drive. Our goal was to find a used book store that I had been to in the past. I couldn't quite remember where it was, but I thought it was in downtown Mesa. We found out that because it was Martin Luther King Day, they were having a parade and we couldn't get to that part of town, at least in the morning. So we drove on down the road to see if the book store was not in the middle of downtown, but couldn't find it. I have no smart phone so I used my basic tracphone and called Rebecca and asked her to look up on the internet some locations of used book stores in the Mesa area. We found out that we were fairly close to one of them where we stopped to make the call, so we headed to that store. It was in Tempe and we found it, looked around for a while, didn't find anything we wanted to buy, so we decided we needed to head back to our lodgings, mainly because Ann wasn't doing well with her RA and needed to stay off her feet. We found a deli called Fudgeworks to pick up some lunch. They had sandwiches, soups, salads, and of course, fudge and some other dessert kind of treats. It looked like a dive and I like to find dives that have great food. This place had some really good sandwiches--certainly worth a return trip. I had the reuben (I found out that I like sauer kraut after all), and Ann had a ham and swiss. We got a small piece of fudge to try and some coconut pecan cookies. The fudge was the kind of sugary fudge and I didn't really like it. I like a smooth fudge way better. The cookies were excellent.

After lunch, I took Ann back to our abode and I went out to Wal-Mart (for some food supplies, and some yarn that Ann needed), and then to one of the other bookstores on our list. I will be going back there. I picked up a couple of books. I hope to be able to find the other book store on Wednesday, our last full day here. That one is called Bookmunds.

We picked up a pizza from Bellagio's Pizzeria. It was pretty good. I'm still feeling my back from the skiing crash, but it's getting better every day.

Vacation Day 2

Day 2 Saturday: Let me begin by finishing day 1...we ended up eating at The Three Bears instead of Escobar's in Kanab. The reason being that we had eaten Mexican food the night before. Ann ate healthier than I did. She had an oriental salad. I had linguine alfredo and garlic bread. The linguine was my third choice because they were out of the other two choices I had selected ahead of it.

We went back later and got some shakes. They were fairly good, but not enough hot fudge in my hot fudge shake. I had a hard time sleeping because I forgot to bring my own pillow and the ones the motel provided were uncomfortable to say the least.

So on to day two. We left Kanab at around 8:20 after eating a fairly decent breakfast at the motel. As I'd been loading the 4runner, I'd seen the early morning sun just touching the nearby red mesa tops. Beautiful. I figured that on the way home I could keep this in mind and get up early to take some pictures.

We headed down the road. In Page, Arizona, we took the temporary diversion road 89T down to Gap. We had been on the old highway 89 a couple of years ago, just a day or two before a sinkhole/landslide had appeared in the road and it had been demolished by the slide and had to be closed. It hasn't yet reopened. The new road, 89T, goes mostly across the "Res", and the top speed is 55. This seems so slow when crossing this vast desert landscape and needing to travel hundreds of miles. It was nice when we finally got to Gap where the replacement road met up once again with the old road. I found myself wishing I'd have waited to get gas at Gap because it was 25 cents cheaper per gallon than the gas I'd bought in Page (thinking that the gas at Gap would be more expensive). We made it to Flagstaff at around lunch time and looked for a good place to eat. I knew about the Dog Haus where I'd eaten some of their good hot dogs in previous years, so that's where I wanted to go. Ann wanted something different so I picked up my food from the Dog Haus--it was good, by the way, though not good for me. Ann had something from McDonald's.

We got on the road again and made it down to Mesa. We are staying with Ann's brother, Tom in a house owned by their mother. This house doesn't have any kind of internet connection, so I'm having to wait until I'm at a place with wifi in order to post. We will be at Debi and Morris' house (Ann's sister and her husband) on Sunday. So I will be posting from there, if all goes according to plan. I think I'm going to be in withdrawal on this trip, but what the heck, life's an adventure, right?
 Dinner...we ate at Jack in the Box, but we went to the grocery store to buy some things so that we can make some more nutritious meals.

Traveling is interesting and you have some things happen that you'd never expect. It's best to be prepared, but you can't prepare for every possible contingency--so you have to be able to roll with whatever happens. That's a mental thing.

  I'm tired. I'll be going to bed soon.

Our vacation: Day 1

Our estimated time to leave for our trip was 8 am, and we ended up hitting the road at about 8:23. Our destination for the day would be Kanab, Utah, roughly half way between the Salt Lake Valley and the Phoenix, Arizona area. The driving was fairly uneventful and we found ourselves in Panguitch at around 12:30 where we stopped for lunch at the Flying M Coffee Shop. This place has a small gift shop near the entrance and then further back in was the eating area. There was an oldies station playing on speakers from an old compact stereo system, complete with 8-track tape--state of the art, I know.

I ordered the special, which was a garlic/mushroom stuffed burger and fries. Ann ordered the club sandwich with bacon. I thought the burger wasn't bad, but not great. Ann's club was fantastic, she said. The fries were good, but there were too many--and generally that's a compliment. However, I left a few on the plate that I just couldn't finish.

After lunch we continued on to Kanab, winding our way through some amazing country with red rock peaks dusted with snow. We arrived in Kanab at about 2:30, drove around assessing the town because the info we got said check-in time for our motel was 3 pm, and then about ten to, we stopped at the motel--the Victorian Inn--and were able to check in.

We will be going out for dinner later--probably at a place called Escobar's--provided it isn't closed. One thing we're finding in these smaller southern Utah towns is that a lot of the businesses, including restaurants, are seasonal and winter isn't their peak season. For example, in Panguitch, there were only three choices for lunch, Subway, a convenience store pizza place, and the Flying M where we ended up. Just like when we went through Moab in the winter a few years ago.