This morning we woke up in Benson AZ after a lovely visit with Ellen and Lon, lunch at a mediocre restaurant in Benson, I’m being kind, but it had the benefit of being open, and a long time over ice cream and on our coach. Catching up is always good. We figured we were two four hour days out from Jojoba Hills, but decided to stretch to to about 6 hours, because as Carol said, “our rule is made to be broken on occasion.”
After fueling in Yuma we decided to make a stop along the road in Anza Borrego State Park, or any other open space not marked “no camping” along S 2. Somehow six hours became almost eight before we settled into a lovely spot with a sign “Jojoba Wash” Really! we didn’t even know it existed until after we started to set up. We are about 90 minutes out from Jojoba Hills, so we will take our time getting underway in the morning.
The drive was totally uneventful, a wonderful thing, and Obama’s book “A Promised Land” continues to carry us down the road. I am not sure I could sit and listen for the many hours it takes, nor am I sure I could read it, but for hours on the road it is a wonderful companion.
After leaving 395 we drove to Shiprock NM. The place name is a reflection of the huge “rock” that stands above the plain, visible for miles. Here is our new Jeep in its first introduction to back roads.
In Shiprock we stayed with a Boondockers Welcome host whose name and location we have promised not to disclose. It was a church parking lot and on our arrival John greeted us and told us we would be there for a local food distribution the following day.
First thing we did the next day was drive out to Shiprock to see it up close for ourselves. We were back in time to help unload the truck and set up the distribution which started promptly at 2. By 3 Pm over 100 families had received staples and fresh product to help them eat for the coming week and there was not a morsel left on the driveway. We were tired, but glad to have been able to pitch in, we also made a gift to the church.
To any member of Boondockers Welcome heading into the 4 Corners area consider a stop in Shiprock and say “Hi” to John for us.
From Shiprock we headed down to I 40 and a turn East to find our way to American RV in Albuquerque. Once we set up we relaxed for a bit until it was time to go to the airport to pick up Erica.
After a night’s rest we took a long drive heading for Santa Fe via the Turquoise Highway. Our first stop was at Tinkertown Museum where we spent almost 2 hours admiring the work and the effort to create this museum.
We continued up the Sandia Crest Highway to the peak where we paused to look out over the plains and the “sky islands”.
Erica
From there we descended back to the trail and made our way to Madrid where where are galleries, restaurants and entertainment. We had lunch in the Mine Shaft Tavern before touring several of the galleries and shops. We proceeded up to Santa Fe where the traffic was dense and Erica expressed little interest in fighting the crowds and the wind so we returned to the coach for a light supper and continued talking.
The next day we set out for Basque del Apache National Wildlife Reserve. The visitor center was closed and traffic was minimal since the main attraction, the migratory Sand Hill Cranes and Snow Geese had already passed through on their way north. We did see many water fowl and a coyote and a Road Runner as well as many unidentified birds. We stopped in Socorro at the Owl Bar and Grill which has been in business at the same location for many years. The Green Chili Bowl with extra meat was delicious and brought tears to my eyes – as well as getting my nose running. Back to the coach and then out the next day to Petroglyph National Monument and some scrambling among the boulders – staying on the trail – to see many petroglyphs, actually just a few of 23,000 recorded.
Sunday night we had taken a Ghost Walk Tour with tour leader Charlie. It was a pleasant evening and his story telling as we stopped at various sites in old Town, even the name of Old Town, was wonderful. we really enjoyed the tour and Charlie made a point of mentioning Carol as he discussed various small women in his stories.
After the Petroglyph tour and a break we drove back to Old Town for ice cream or lunch or ice cream or. . . as we searched for an open restaurant we came across Charlie resting after having done two Historical Old Town Tours. As we chatted he suggested we ought to take the tour, we initially demurred since Erica would be leaving the next day. He offered to give us a private tour on the spot. We agreed! Although we did not cover a lot of geographic territory we got a thorough tour of the history of Old Town and how it came to be. By the time we finished it was time for ice cream! We decided “life is uncertain, eat dessert first”. Steve’s was serving mostly Blue Belle ice cream from Texas. It is wonderful even if not locally made.
Back at the coach we eventually had some snacks and turned in knowing that Erica would be leaving the next day.
After taking her to the airport, we returned to the coach to clean up and put things in travel mode to head for our next stop, Las Cruces NM where I am now finishing this post.
We have been overwhelmed by the caring, loving response to Carol’s injuries. Neither she nor I will be able to respond individually accept our gratitude from the depths of our hearts for your love and well wishes. Note; the hospital has no volunteers moving about the floors to deliver flowers or even cards. As our Rving community knows there is no space whatsoever for flowers in the motorhome. Cards may be mailed to me at my son’s home, please email for the address, this is far to public a place for that information. If you like you could send a gift in Carol’s honor to Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra (rpo.org) Temple B’rith Kodesh (tbk.org) or any other place of your choice. Or read a good book and pass it on!
Since my last post Carol has been moved from ICU to a “Step Down Unit” and just now we are told that she will be moving to a general medical unit as soon as a bed opens. Progress indeed. I’ll stop before I get into TMI.
We are looking into rehab facilities for post discharge. I fear that unlike the freedom I have had here to visit regularly, I will not be able to spend much time with her because of Covid 19 restrictions.
I am struggling a bit with the limited time for visitation, once a week for an hour “socially” distanced and no contact, only two people . But as a great wit said, “it is what it is”. Maybe by the time she makes that move things will have lightened up some. For now we are marking time waiting for healing and a bed in the next unit.
If men in unmarked vehicles with no marking on their clothes are snatching people off the street, that is called kidnapping. Why aren’t the Portland Police arresting them and charging them?
If my wearing a mask protects YOU then my NOT wearing a mask would be an assault. Why aren’t we arresting people for assault when they are in places where distancing is not happening and they are not masked ?
Why is science and data ignored for the sake of political or financial gain?
Why are campgrounds closed to me? I can keep my distance and isolate while traveling in my self contained RV. I do not need any services. I can pay electronically and I will go out of my RV to connect up the fittings while wearing my mask. I do not want any contact with staff or other RVers.
I feel like a three year old repeatedly asking WHY. But unlike a three year old I get no answers, not even “because.”
Enough questions. I have been chairing a committee at Jojoba Hills SKP Resort to decide what to do with our aging phone system. Since March we have been seeking resources to repair/rebuild the old system or to replace it with new system. Without going into detail, this past week we settled on a new system and have negotiated a price we think is sustainable. In true Jojoba character, we needed a really tough negotiator and a new member of the park joined our team and announced that he was negotiating contracts almost daily and he would be glad to take on this negotiation.
In other news we took the car to Wilmington NC to visit cousin Mimi who lives in the house she grew up in and has rehabbed to her taste after her father and brother both lived out their lives there. We had a wonderful two nights and renewed acquaintance with dog Diesel who is now 17 years old and a bit slow. In the past we visited Mimi on her farm about 30 miles out of town staying in our motorhome near the house. We are good at staying on farms.
As I write the temperature can only be described as HOT. The AC ‘s are running continuously and holding the indoor temperature to 82! I have ventured out for some minor maintenance and to check in with Dan. It is better than freezing and snow, but only just barely. We did have our family zoom at noon today and had a chance to chat with Toronto, Los Angeles California and Madison Wisconsin as well as Vermont. It is always interesting to see who will show up. Mixing Carol’s cousins and my cousin’s creates new relationships.
My coming week will be spent presenting our telephone proposal to the Finance Committee so they can prepare for the changes to the budget. Then to the entire park before taking it to the Board. Funny, that actually sounds like someone’s work week. For me it is still a volunteer gig that I am enjoying doing.
It has been exciting around here, some of the excitement I would happily do without. But one source of excitement and joy was a birthday present to Alexander on his 21st birthday. He is working on his degree in Computer Science Gaming and Dan (his Dad) and I thought that a powerful computer capable of at least keeping up in the gaming world would be an appropriate gift. The parts of this custom designed and locally assembled computer arrived over several days. Finally on Sunday, Alexander was around and Dan had some free time and I brought back memories from too many years ago delving into the guts of large tower computer chassis.
We started putting pieces in the chassis at around 10 AM. Somehow we forgot one important ingredient. We had the manuals with checkoff lifts in sequence for the parts on hand, but no one thought to read ahead. The water cooling system for the powerful CPU includes a radiator and two fans. We very carefully installed it on the wrong wall of the chassis. The motherboard wouldn’t fit. While Dan was busy setting up a Return and ordering a replacement, I started reading. There was an alternate location for the radiator which we had not noted. This required getting at the back of the motherboard, again. This time one of us noticed a “door’ on the bottom of the chassis which we could open to get at the area under the CPU. Another big cheer as we had just saved 30 minutes uninstalling reinstalling the motherboard.
Once we had the radiator, motherboard, power supply and video card installed it was just a matter of running what seemed like an endless number of wires to ittybitty pins all over the place. By 5 or 6 we were ready to turn on the power – NOTHING – oops there are 3 power switches and each one needed to be tweaked. It came up with pretty lights and fans starting and stopping as needed. I left for dinner and 90 minutes later returned to find that Windows had installed and the machine was ready to be setup for use.
On another front Carol has pictures of legs extending out from under the front of the coach while I worked on latches to keep the generator slide closed. I had only tinkered with this slide as a place to locate a wifi router at the end of a long cable from the house . I was removing it after Corey and I had run 120 feet of wire from the far side of the house to the coach with a DSL (internet) signal so we could have our own internet connection in the coach. Dan and I completed the wiring and it worked, and continues to work, on the first try!
One more project involves the new water heater which stopped working and displayed a code meaning “feed me new parts.” The new part will be here tonight, but in the mean time the water heater decided to resume working after being off for 48 hours. ???? Carol doesn’t trust it and continued to shower in the house.
While we are at it. The front heat pump also returned from the defunct and has been providing both heat and cooling as required. I have done nothing to make that happen other than try it from time to time. I have a mobile tech coming, someday when the rain stops to diagnose what can be diagnosed and repair what he can. I have had enough crawling under the coach and I won’t go on the roof to work. I am too wise to do what I can hire done and choose to transfer the money from my pockets to eliminate the physical risk to this older body.
And we keep rethinking and changing our minds. Actually there has been little else to do besides listen to reasoned and not so reasoned discussions about how to loosen the restrictions, when to loosen them which ones to loosen. Most of this in Zoom meetings followed up by endless discussions on Facebook.
In the midst of this our daughter-in-law in Virginia posted a picture of a wonderful desert she had made and the description of the meal she had prepared caused me to post “That sound you hear is a large diesel engine warming up” the response from our son was “your site on our driveway is open” Pause for two days to let it sink in.
Our next dinner conversation was “should we or shouldn’t we.? Can we or can’t we”? We thought about it and decided maybe by mid summer we could drive across the country to a safe haven in Virginia. Next call was to Dan to see if he really meant it and when would be a good time. Two hours later he called back to remind us that their eldest was celebrating his 21st birthday on May 31. My first reaction was “no way” replaced by “why not.”
Initial plans are in place to leave Jojoba Hills on May 10 to get the coach serviced then drive across I 40 or some semblance thereof. I have begun looking into places to stay every 300 to 400 miles along the route and it seems really doable. So set in jello is our plan to leave Jojoba Hills on May 10 to set up camp at Redlands Truck and RV Service so they can begin work at 7 AM on Monday. We should be able to get on the road by Tuesday.
We are not taking this lightly. We do understand we will be passing though areas that are having a bad time with the virus and places that don’t want to see “tourists” because their resources are strained. We plan to avoid being tourists and places like Gallup NM where they are closing local roads to prevent tourism are definitely off the list for a stop. The Interstate does pass through, we do not plan to exit.
We will maintain separation even with family to prevent the virus from impacting any of us, to the extent possible.
I worry what the country will look like a year from now. Will all our communication rely on Zoom or what ever comes next that is better, slicker, easier to use? Will we be able to hug our friends in greeting? Has the handshake already become history? Will travel return to being routine? We have lots of credits for air travel and tours, how will we get to redeem them? There are so many places we still want to see and a few we would like to visit again. For now the big travel adventure is driving across the country on an Interstate. A crossing we have made most years since 2002.
I promise to post a lot of pictures when I have high speed internet. For now , words
As we cruised the Nile for 5 days we mostly moved with a tow boat pulling the Asyia which is mostly a barge with two masts, one in the bow and the other in the stern. Altogether a strange looking craft. The days generally started no earlier than 8:30 or 9 following a sumptuous breakfast buffet. WE would make a landing or debark from where we had landed the previous night and visit a village, or a site that seldom sees any visitors since there is no landing stage for the big boats. Often we would be met with a smaller boat to convey us to shore or walk a plank from Asyia to the shore. Each day had several hours of cruising, time to read, converse, watch the shore go by. The activities ashore usually required that we shower upon return to the boat, the heat has been in the 40 C range except for evening when it drops into the high 20’s ( 40 C= 104 F 25 = 77 F). We are content to sit out the midday sun in the shade of the boat or even in the air conditioned lounge. One day they put up the sails and we boarded the tow boat to get pictures of Asyia under sail. This link should get you those pictures.
Upon landing in Aswan we debarked early with our luggage, underway by 7 AM. This gives the crew the time to ready the boat for the down river cruise boarding later that day, and gets us under way to Abu Simbel, a 3 hour drive, in time to see it before the worst heat of the day. The usual tour is a a 2 or 3 AM departure, maybe 2 hours at the site and immediate return to Aswan. We stayed over at an Eco lodge, Esakel, And were able to return to Abu Simbel at sunset for the sound and light show.
A word about accommodations. The Cairo Marriott is a grand old hotel with new wings and clearly isThe among the top hotels we have stayed at. The Winter Palace in Luxor is a reminder of the era of travelling English Lords and Ladies. The corridors are wide, the rooms most pleasant the lifts are old fashioned but the grand staircase makes up for them. The public rooms have sign admonishing that proper dress is required, no casual wear, certainly not shorts. We avoided them! The boat was far more comfortable than I expected, of course having opted for the “Suite” we had plenty of space and were able to entertain our entire entourage on our aft deck. We all agreed that the stay at Esakel of one night was enough. It was at the primitive end of the spectrum with only 10 rooms and limited resources. We do hope they succeed and continue to provide a fine service permitting groups to stay over in Abu Simbel. Our current hotel, The Old Cataract in Aswan is in a class by itself. When t, incdluding Agatha Christyhe y renovated the building we are in they converted three rooms into one. The basic plan is approximately 35×40 feet and incorporates 5 rooms! plus q split bathroom, one is just double sinks with room to dance and the other houses a large tub, a shower room and a separate room for the toilet. This is about the square footage of our apartment in Rochester. The grand halls in the main building amagnificent and later today we a invited to a private tour of the antique rooms where the greats stayed including Agatha Christy.
I seem to have run on a bit, but locomotion has also been varied. The common has been boats, buses and planes. We have also traveled by Tuk-Tuk (three wheel motorcycles with a cab for 2 -4 passengers) Pickup truck, horse drawn cart, and just today camel back. All that remains is the train from Alexandria to Cairo at the end of our trip.
We flew in from NYC on a direct flight on Egypt Air. Maybe the roughest first couple of hours I can remember on any flight in many years. The next 9 hours were just fine. Got a reasonable nights sleep and decent food. On landing it took almost an hour for our luggage to come down the carousel. Then our first venture into Cairo traffic. Our transfer guide suggested that any painted line markings were strictly for decoration.It proved so, even our driver was straddling lines most of the way. We arrived safely at the Cairo Marriott and found a nice room waiting for us.
We wandered around and met Caroline Fayez , our OAT Tour Leader, who gave us some suggestions of places to wander if we felt up to it. Our first challenge was finding our way out of the hotel onto the street we wanted to see “26th of July” the day Mubarak was turned out of office in the beginning of the revolution in 2011. Later we joined up with 12 of the remaining 14 of our group for an orientation walk in the area. On the way back Carol and I stopped at Thomases Pizza, a highly recommended pizza place not more than 5 minutes walk from the hotel.
In the morning we did our first touring at the Egyptian Museum. This was a 2 1/2 hour guided tour by Caroline that really covered the highlights of the collection. We had another hour to explore on our own and get into the King Tut Room and the Jewelry Room as well as the Mummy Room. Clearly no pictures allowed in any of these and pictures in the main galleries, while permitted are poor as the lighting is inadequate to show any more than you can find on the web. The repeated comment on the museum is that the collection is incredible, wonderful, priceless and enormous. The museum is in lousy condition, the lightning is poor and the labeling approaches nonexistent, so it requires a knowledgeable guide to help understand what you are seeing. The new museum will open in 2020 plus unknown extensions. In the mean time they are putting nothing into the old even though they plan on keeping it open.
In our rest time we walked to a nearby (?) garden where met several locals and then took a walk to the Cairo Tower. Someday I must write a blog about using Google Maps in a foreign city with no wifi and a tired brain trying to get around. We hired a taxi for the last lap to the garden and then Google maps took us to the closest point of the grounds of the Tower while failing to note there was no access from that spot. We had to walk around 3 blocks to get to the entrance. It was worth it. The pictures from the top – some 62 stories above ground – would be magnificent if the sky were not cloudy with vapor and pollution.
In the morning we head fro Giza and the Great Pyramid, the first we will see on this trip.
I still have more to rant about, but will attempt to refrain as I move on to more pleasant subjects. We have been so busy that I have not taken the time to write. I’m not sure anyone really cares how many dinners lunches and brunches we have had this month. Besides, I would have to get out the calendar and would be bored trying to get that all into print.
The major event was a trip to Hamilton where we had a wonderful small cousins gathering to celebrate Aunt Dorothy’s birthday. 96 is wonderful age to reach with sharp mind, and the great beauty she has carried with her as long as I have known her. We had lunch at cousin Marilyn’s home, Al is gone, with Harvey and Leslie and Arnie and Peggy. It was a fun gathering with plenty of reminiscing and sharing of pictures.
After staying the night at Marilyn’s place , we set out for Niagara on the Lake and the Shaw Festival Theater for a performance of GBShaw’s “Man and Superman” with the 3rd act “Don Juan in Hell” included. This started at 11 AM broke for lunch after the 2nd act and resumed at 2:30 finally concluding at about 5:15. It is indeed a long day of theater. And Shaw being Shaw the number of words would have filled two plays of the same duration. The soliloquys in Act 3 were so long that Shaw even had one character comment that the length of Don Juan’s speeches were very long, twice! It is amazing that that the actors were able to deliver these lengthy lines almost flawlessly. The program notes reference the nature of this play as a marathon or grand opera. It takes stamina on the part of the performers AND the audience. We were thrilled with the performance and delighted to have had the rare opportunity to see this production in full. It was the first of 17 scheduled performances. After a light dinner in town we had a pleasant drive home.
My major time sink this month has been Ancestry.com. Carol and I did DNA testing a couple of years ago and neither of us has taken the time to do anything about it other than to look to see that we are indeed where we thought we were from with no real surprises. I have spent endless hours building the family tree on both the maternal and paternal sides of my family and assisting Carol in starting to build her tree. From my grandparents “down” it has been pretty easy although I have found a couple of cousins I did not know about and the links to many more at the 3rd cousin level who I do not have names or lineage for. Tackling the pedigree side of the tree is more difficult as there are few people around with any memory and much memory cannot be trusted without some documentation. I will need to upgrade my database access to see documents from out of the US and have been putting that off until I have a couple of months in the US to do the work.
My only comment on the political scene is that I am sick to my stomach with the hate speech from all sides and I fear for future generations of non-white non-European stock in this country. In all my life I have never seen such raw antisemitism expressed by public figures in public venues. If the blame for whatever failures are fantasized, is placed today on Latinos, Asians, nonwhite immigrants, how long before the Jews join the ranks of scapegoats?
I promised not to rant. . . . . . . . promise broken, so sorry!!!!
We had a visit from our friends from Jojoba Hills, Greg and Mary Beth. They arrived late afternoon and we picked them up at their hotel to visit our apartment and go out to dinner. Somehow I immediately slipped into tour guide mode and had to take the long way around to the apartment. Since the actual route was a straight line, it was a a bit of a meander along River Road though Genesee Valley Park and Mt Hope Cemetary (or was that Tueday?) We finally decided on dinner at The Dinosaur Barbecue, rated by most sources as the #1 restaurant in Rochester. I would argue the rating, but
not that it is the very best barbecue in the state and one of my favorites. Someday I’ll have to order something besides the brisket plate. Tuesday we I picked them up while first dropping Carol off to an unavoidable appointment. We went to Lock 32, one of several Erie Canal locks near Rochester. After watching a couple of boats lock though upstream (west bound), we picked Carol up and headed up toward Charlotte at Lake Ontario. By now I was in full flow, spouting history and stories of Rochester like one of the seasoned tour leaders we enjoy so much in our travels. I kept surprising myself as I took turns that even i had forgotten I knew, like Boxart Street off Lake Ave to get to Turning Point Park where we walked down to the board walk along the river. Carol made it down and back up just fine.
Turning Point Park on the Genesee River. Carol, Greg, Mary Beth
Lunch was at The Port of Rochester Terminal building at Bill Gray’s. We were shocked at how high the water is, overflowing in places where it seemed least likely. We have been hearing the lake shore people complaining and are certainly aware of how high the lake is, but to see it was another thing. The east pier on the river is almost completely submerged. Our path took us though Durand Eastman Park, up to Empire Boulevard and down into the neck of land where Irondequoit Bay meets Irondequoit creek that is flowing from Ellison Park. I was defeated in finding parking as the public lot was underwater. From there we returnied to the apartment with some digressions to rest up for dinner. After an hour break we headed out to Wegman’s where they needed to do some minor shopping. While we were in the store, Carol booked a table at TRATA (The Restaurant At The Armory). We avoided expressways and took some residential roads that eventually brought us into yet another park, Cobbs Hill, which was teaming with baseball players of all sizes and abilities. After dinner, which was very nice, it was collapse time for all, but first we drove around the Cobbs Hill Reservoir which was crowded with people enjoying the pleasant evening and the view of the city skyline before dropping them back at the hotel and going home to sleep.
The remaining must see on the list was the George Eastman Museum. We met in the parking lot and entered in time to join a wonderful docent lead tour. I have often said I could give the mansion tour having been in and around it most of my life, but Shari brought some fresh insights and I found myself enjoying the tour. After lunch in the cafe, we went through the galleries rather quickly and said our goodbyes as Greg and Mary Beth went out the door to the parking lot.
I finally stopped talking and thinking about where to next. this guiding shtick would be a lot easier if I had a planned and timed route, but it would not have been as much fun for me. If any of you readers from out o f town want to tour the places I have described, come and visit, but you had better hurry as we will be gone early September.
