Back to the future

Well, now that Milepost 500 is behind us, let's move back to the future, eh? Yesterday was a great day. Judy and Doug Mayne and their daughter and 3 grand-babies came to visit us. We met at Hilda's Garden. Two of the little tykes romped on the horse bench and the goose benches and it was one of those Golden Moments with the bright colorful flowers and the falls murmuring as a backdrop. Judy and Doug and ourselves go way back--our connections began in Sedona--it's one of those long stories too long to tell here. They live in Mountain Home, Idaho about 45 minutes east of Boise. We enjoy them very much and look forward to our paths crossing more in the future.

The remainder of the day yielded yet more vehicle maintenance. We're getting close to having both vehicles in tip top shape for the Arizona Trip. Luckily, Oswald's prevented a real disaster on the big truck. We took it in for a fuel filter swap and Tim discovered our anti-freeze was shot--not even good to freezing! Now it's good to -55 which we will hopefully never experience. However, winter temps at our Arizona Home can get into the single digits and we could have wound up with a cracked 454 cubic inch engine block this winter. Yikes!

Susun's digital camera died yesterday. That makes two dead cameras in recent weeks. So we bought her a new one at Sam's--it's not the bestest and the brightest one but it's got an an all important feature in the "bells & whistles" category. It has a front LCD screen so she can further refine those self-portraits she's famous for. It wasn't all that long ago such gee-gaws cost a LOT of money. Stasea told us hers costs more than $300. Sam's had a real nice one for $109. Today's the day we get it all checked out and transferred into Susun's eager hands.

Speaking of Susun and photos and such--she undertook a real big job yesterday--changing all the Refrigerator Pictures. Almost all humans put photos on their refrigerator. Who knows why? It's just what people do. Most of the time, such photos never get refreshed. They sit there for years and years sometimes even generations. Maybe they are a modern form of ancient petroglyphs. Anyway, I started gently hinting it owuld be real nice to put up fresh photos on the fridge and, after a few months of hinting, the photos got refreshed yesterday. I guess that's kind of a historic moment in the Chronology of our Household. Susun enshrined the old photos by taking "before" and "after" photos of the fridge. Maybe we will post them here later.

I spent time tinkering with golf stuff late in the afternoon. We're each now going to have our own cart and bag and we're switching to the Nissan to carry it all. The Goatherder suggested we start looking for polyester clothing at the t-stores. We haven't started that search yet but we're considering it. Hopefully, I can find some really garish plaid pants and get an equally garish mis-matching plaid polo shirt, too. That's for the suggestion, GH.

We "discovered" a new burger joint in Flagstaff, Arizona, yesterday. It's called Diablo Burger and you can read about it on the Snowbirds blog by clicking here. It's interesting that neither Maggie, Nancy nor Wayne mentioned this place to us. We are really smitten with the place and plan on spending some real quality time there. Much to our surprise, a stranger actually commented on the Snowbird blog post about the burger joint.

Once again we baked something out in the cook shack. We haven't mentioned the little shack much lately but it's been going quite well. We've baked something in there every night since the remodel was completed. It's working out perfectly and far exceeds our expectations. We've even converted the Patio Caddie into an oven instead of a traditional grill. The cook shack is easily the best outdoor cooking set up I've ever had in my life.

The morning temps continue to edge down each day. It's 33 here on 12th Street as I write this and "officially," it's 31 over at the airport. We can see a noticeable difference in the tint of the neighborhood leaves already from this week's freezing temperatures. Leaf Season--here we COME!

We joined countless other millions of World Residents last night watching the final miners rise to the earth's surface. We both watched the arrival of the 33rd miner and all the hoopla that ensued. What a wonderful story! It's certainly one for the world history books.

Today we plan to play the short course again. Our days are numbered for enjoying that $3.25 delight. We might as well enjoy it while we can. It's also time to start buckling down to put our noses back on the grindstone of the porch project. The concrete will have mostly cured by tomorrow so we need to pick up the pace and get crackin' on that one ASAP. The sands of time are draining through the sparkling hourglass of this crystalline Indian Summer. High winds, Cold rain, sleet and heavy wet snow lurk in the not too distant future. Gives me the shivers just typing those words.

Well, that's about it for now. Enjoy Every day with Life's Best Cheers! jp