We are back in Rochester for some extended time now. Reunions are behind us and Jazz Fest is just around the corner (did I really say that?) 

Brown Reunion, my 55th, was a great weekend. The class had two dinners and a lovely luncheon. Given our advancing age the parties seemed to peter out by 9:30. I don’t think anyone went to the Campus Dance on Friday night. It is 9 PM to 1 AM and it is outdoors on the College Green – chilly. There were many forums on Saturday. We went to a presentation on 50 Years of Dance at Brown. That started 5 years after I graduated. It was wonderful hearing how a dance program started in the English Department! I took time out to get fitted in my cutaway for my role as a Class Marshal for the Commencement the next day. Later Carol and I went to the Jabberwoks 70th Reunion presentation. this has been the longest standing acapella  group. They had performances by members from each decade since the 50’s. 

Commencement is a walk through the Van Wickle gate which opens in at the beginning of the academic year and opens out for the graduates to leave at the close of the year. After the Corporate and Academic procession, before the graduating class, the Alumni march through the gate, the eldest first. This year the eldest was back for her 80th reunion. she was alone at 102 years old.

Here I am ready to join the other three Class Marshals for 1964 in the Commencement Parade. Each class peels off to the curb eldest to youngest down College Hill. The last class through was the 2019 graduates.  Once they were past us we inverted the parade and passed through all the younger classes to great roaring and high fives as we passed each group.  It is always exciting to participate. It is also tiring as we were standing in the heat for over 2 hours and the cutaway outfit certainly was not designed in a hot weather area. 

We had a lovely dinner with the Londons that evening and prepared to drive to Boston for the day on Monday. We visited the MFA for a few hours – barely time to scratch the surface – and then went on the nephew Ross, Kristin and kids for another kind of reunion before returning to Providence for one more night in the lovely VRBO apartment we had rented. We rose in the morning and began the drive to Rochester with a planned stop to visit my Uncle Josh in Syracuse just a couple of days before his 94th birthday. We had a lovely lunch he made from food he ordered from Wegmans and then proceeded back to Rochester, finally abandoning the Interstate and taking US 20 from Skaneatles to Canandaigua before resuming the Thuway and Interstates for the last few miles. 

We got back in time for Carol to attend the 50th anniversary of Visual Studies Workshop where she got her MFA in 1991. It was another walk into the past and the photographers there and represented there were among the greatest names in photography. The late Nathan Lyons, founder of the Workshop, was feted and honored and the weekend concluded, for us, with a visit to the George Eastman Museum which has a massive retrospective of Nathan’s work including his last works where he started working in digital color!

Since then we have been catching up with reorganizing the apartment and letting Carol have rest time to aid her healing. 

Carol moved from the hospital to Highlands Rehabilitation Hospital about ten days ago. Her planned discharge date is Wednesday the 8th. In brief she is doing everything she can to restore her ability to walk and climb steps. The facility is providing her with all the therapy she can tolerate and reasonable food and comfort. In appearance it is more like a nice hotel with large private rooms and sunny spaces. The courtyard of the Highlands Rehabilitation Hospital

I have been dividing my time between keeping the coach clean and ready to move, a little bit of sight seeing and one grand concert and spending hours with Carol when the therapists are giving her a rest.

Since our arrival in El Paso Roadrunner RV Park I have had two repairs completed and one that remains to be dealt with. The awning over the door has been restored with a new motor and reinstalled. I discovered a leak in our water pump and had a new improved pump installed, the old one was original equipment installed in 2011. The tech took apart the controller for the main awning and determined that the wait for the part was at least 10 days so I have put that off for the time being. At least he was able to diagnose exactly what had failed. Once I get the part I can handle the installation, plug and pray . . . er . . . play.

Dan is flying out on Tuesday to co drive with me so Carol does not need to take the wheel unless she is really determined. Someplace along the way we will decide whether to continue directly to Rochester or take a side trip to Charlottesville VA to be present for Alexander’s graduation from Piedmont Valley Community College. That will save Dan a flight from Rochester to C’ville and reduce the time stress on our cross country run. 

During this time in El Paso I lost one of my long time jobs, member of the WMT Publications’s (former owner of City Newspaper) Board of Directors. Happily, City Newspaper is now the property of WXXI and good friends Mary Anna and Bill no longer have the burden of keeping the paper afloat, while they continue to work as consultants for the time being. 

March and April have been rough. Carol has mostly recovered from her fall and subsequent medical problems. Her doctors gave her the go ahead to get back on the road, so we did. 

I wanted to get going as soon as practical, Carol said she had a package arriving on the 16th so I figured we could roll out early afternoon on the 16th – Wednesday in my head. On Sunday, as we were discussing departure timing Carol reminded me that the 16th was Tuesday not Wednesday. Then her package arrived on Monday. She was still convinced we couldn’t be ready to leave on Tuesday. Somehow by mid afternoon on Monday it became clear we were ready to leave Tuesday morning.

Tuesday afternoon after about 5 hours of driving we pulled into Hi Jolly Short Term Visitor Area in Quartzite. A stop in town filled our fuel tank (mini mortgage – it was ONLY $3.26/gal ) and our propane tank was also full.  I set up the grill for a steak I had and while it warmed it started to rain and hail. It stopped in time for me to grill and I no sooner had the grill shut down , cooled and stored than the rain, wind and hail resumed for about 30 minutes. We eased out of there mid morning and spent 6 hours on I 10 through Phoenix and Tucson, no significant traffic! to Wilcox AZ. This is a reasonably large middle of no place. Our reason for stopping here is it was 6 hours from Quartzite and 4 hours from Las Cruces NM where we have plans for Seder Friday night. Since we had driven for two days to get here, we stopped for two nights. Today we explored Chiricahua National Monument.

I just can’t resist these birds that were posing for us, well actually they were cadging meals from some picnickers

Spotted Towhee

Mexican Jay – Illegal Alien! Jumped the border.

The drive is wonderful. We did this many years ago actually March 2004 when there was snow on the rocks.

We returned to the RV Park and Saloon and joined in the line dancing program – every Thursday night year round. Her Physical Therapist would be proud of her.  

The campground is small, 14 sites, but the saloon is a blast. they have a very long shuffle board and Wednesday night is shuffle board tournament  which we watched for while. the people are friendly and come from all around the area. As we got to talk to several both Wednesday and Thursday night we found that they are from all over the country, several from as far away as Maine. We will stop there again as we pass by on our cross country jaunts.

It took some time, it took some doing, but after less than 2 weeks that seemed at times like months, Carol is back on the coach with me. She is not fully recovered but she is well on the road. 

While Carol worked to heal and to get the best care she could from Murrietta Health and Rehab I was deeply  involved in my committee work here at Jojoba Hills. We encourage members to volunteer in areas  that are of interest to them. For some this means working in landscaping and for others it may mean rehanging shed doors that have warped and sagged (Shed Angels). The opportunities are as varied as any jobs you could imagine to be needed to keep a small city operating. I have never been a gardener nor does cooking for groups of 150 appeal to me. I serve on committees, Finance, Marketing, Infrastructure (don’t ask how a retired Financial Planner gets to chair a committee that oversees water, electric, sewer etc). I always enjoyed working on committees so this is my contribution to the welfare of the locals community. 

The “Committee Season” starts right after the Annual Meeting” in early February and extends until the masses depart for cooler parts. Finance picks up in early September to get the budget ready and the others resume as chair people and other key players return to wrap up their work by the end of December.

The big excitement in SoCal has been the “Super Bloom” Every flower in the desert has had enough water and cool to burst into flower. Some stretches of freeway have become impassable on weekends as the banks flame in yellow, orange and purple. Borrego Springs is swarmed by locals and people who have flown in from everyplace to see the fields in bloom. With Carol tied down in recovery and the traffic impossible I have stayed closer to home.  Here is a link to some pictures taken within a 5 minute walk of the coach: https://photos.app.goo.gl/QEiVn45GgreT2hXN8 

We have been busy getting things in order and I have not been awake enough to even write about our activities and my thoughts until now.

The trip home was a bit of a trial. With great help from airport personnel and airline personnel we were able to get Carol situated  in seat 1 B, as close to the door as possible. In the process I learned some things about air crews, if you give them a chance they are helpful, friendly and will go to the limit of there protocol and maybe a bit beyond to make travel under difficult conditions better then just possible,  this is a shout out to the crew of the Copa flight from Panama City to LAX  on the 8th of March. 

After a night on the coach it was clear Carol needed more care then I could provide and there were plenty of medical questions that would not wait until Monday. Saturday morning, with some help from neighbors, I transferred Carol to the Jeep and headed in to Temecula Valley Hospital. They took over when we got there. In summary, Carol was xrayed and CT scanned until she glowed. We waited for everything to settle out and then transferred her to Murietta Health and Rehab where she is getting excellent care and therapy and mediocre food. It is too early say how long her stay will be, but when she can climb 5 steps into the motorhome she will be coming back to complete her recovery in the comfort of home surrounded by the most marvelous RV community in the country.

I am not detailing her injuries here, there is no need, they will all heal and she will be good to go for Jazz Fest in Rochester come June!

I am practicing living alone, sort of. I spend several hours a day with Carol – probably less now during the week as she will be busy with OT and PT. Today as I settled in for some work time I had friends see my open door and drop in, occupying me from 4 until 6. This ended with a phone call from friends from Rochester on vacation in Hawaii.

We are blessed.

I am the first to admit it isn’t easy getting a camera lens on a bird under most circumstances unless, like the owl they stay still in one place. Walking through the woods presents another challenge altogether. We left the hotel at 6:30 AM again as planned for a birding walk n the woods into a national park. As we set out it was cool and the birds were not yet very active since the sun had not reached the area and it was cool and dewy. We saw many smaller birds and Raul, our wonderful guide, called out the identifications. I  chose not to carry a pad and write down every bird spotted. The new birding routine involves the use of a laser pointer spotted near but not on the bird. This makes it really easy to find the identified bird. 

Our goal was to see a Resplendent Quetzal. This is a gorgeous bird which we last saw in Costa Rica more than a dozen years ago. It is found at higher altitudes where a particular small avocado grows. We hiked into the area and Raul pointed out a nest

This was very nice, but no bird. Further up the trail, about another kilometer, we came to a place where he found a male near another nest. As we moved into position to spot the bird it flew overhead and lit right over head. This view is not ideal, but it is also fairly rare:

After we scrambled back some to get a better view it moved again and I got this back lit  shot of it

We were able to glimpse he female in the nest hole, no photo and later watch the male work at enlarging the nest site, again no photo. We used Raul’s scope on a tripod to see this activity. We were delighted to begin our return trek to the van to get back to the hotel to get on our flight back to Panama City.

A word about Air Panama, DON’T. The plane, a twin engine turboprop, was a flying sauna. There was no cool air coming from the vents for the duration of the. flight, about 45 minutes. When they opened the door in Panama City we were refreshed by the cool 95 degree air blowing through. This was the 2nd flight in 3 days that was almost intolerable. The plane should not be allowed to be in  service. The Captain was wringing wet when he exited the flight deck.  On the other hand we did arrive safely with our luggage.