Steve and Judy's Travels!

      A special kind of blonde.       An Arizona tarantula.       Right out there in the dark last night.   Henry found it first.   We haven’t meant to be looking for tarantulas, but this has turned out to be a good tarantula year for us.  Now we’ve seen three in the last couple months.   Our picture in the dark isn’t very good.  Here is a better picture: (Not my photo.)   Maybe we should go on a tarantula-quest.  At least one tarantula in every state!  Oh.  Wait.  Judy says maybe not.   Here is where the Arizona Blonde lives  

    In WWII, the military ate K Rations.  When I was in the Army in the 60s, we ate C Rations when we were in the field.  Today, Judy and I decided to try the current version of military field-food, MREs, Meals Ready to Eat.  (Actually, I decided and inflicted my decision on Judy.)   The first problem with an MRE is that it packs 1,250 calories for one meal.  That’s more than either of us needs for a single meal, so we split one.   Tonight’s fare, beef brisket (warmed up with the included heating pouch), Au gratin potatoes (that’s the yellow/orange food on the plate), bread, peanut butter, jelly, cranberries, irish cappuchino, and a tootsie roll for dessert. That’s a lot of stuff.  Yum!   Or maybe not.  A few hours later, this effort doesn’t seem like such a good idea.  We could use a little help.  Maybe each MRE should include Alka Seltzer as well…  

  2018 December Arizona Trip   Hanging out with brother Tom and Kathy in Yuma for a couple days. They’ve moved on from South Texas.  They’re back in their bus.  Yuma is now their winter home base, so it was good to come see them in their new surroundings.   Checked to see where Janis from our Denver office is, and she’s in Yuma too!  She is a wandering digital worker like I am.  Had a nice lunch with Brian and Janis; good to catch up.  (Totally forgot to take a picture, darn it.)  If we follow the same schedule for our next visit, we should see them again about 2028!   This is our farthest foray away from Matt and Lindsay for this trip.  We’ll get back to the Phoenix area and probably stay within a couple hours of them until after the baby is born.  So tomorrow, Cave Creek Regional Park out north of Scottsdale.    

  Remember that song from 1982?  “I bless the rains down in Africa.”  Catchy tune.  I heard it again recently in a restaurant and went and found it on YouTube.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTQbiNvZqaY   That sounded pretty good, so I listened to it again.   Then I didn’t have to listen to it anymore because it was still playing in my head.   Then it wouldn’t stop!  I can only remember a few of the words, but they keep going around and around.  Make it stop!  “I bless the rains down in Africa.”  What the hell does that even mean anyway!?!?  “There’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do?”  What?  I hate this song!!!!!!!   It’s like that America song Horse With No Name.  “In the desert you can remember your name, ‘Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain.”  THAT DOESN’T EVEN MEAN ANYTHING!   Oh well, it’s not really all that bad.  It could be worse.  It could be Hotel California stuck in my head.  “Plenty of room at the Hotel California.  Any time of year (any time of year) you can find it here.”   What?  Hotel California?  OH NOOOOOOO……..  

  The kids are expecting us in Phoenix in time for the new baby arriving in December.  We decided to leave early and get there for the baby shower today and surprise them, so we made this entire trip in stealth mode, talking in our nightly trip reports and phone calls about anything except being on the road, until after the big surprise moment.   Finally, after a thousand miles and a week on the road, we showed up for the shower…. But the only ones surprised were us.  We had the time wrong.  We arrived at two and the shower was at eleven.  They’d all just left!   Darn.  That was a bit of a letdown.  We had to call and find out where they were going to be next.  We all met up at their house and had a nice afternoon together with them and the kids.   Then Alex babysat while the four of us went out for dinner.  It would have been nice to surprise Matt and Lindsay at the shower, but we’d have spent the next two hours in a large group, not being able to hear each other in a noisy restaurant.  This way we got a nice long quiet dinner on an outside patio, at a restaurant where we could all hear the conversation.   A very nice end to the day of course.