End of March

This month is about to March into the history books.  What's been happening?  What lies ahead? Must be time once again for a rambling, meandering wrapup. We'll start with today and then go backwards and forwards in no particular order.

About an hour from now we will be visiting Wes & Nancy's Place in Camp Verde for breakfast.  We love getting together over breakfast--much more so than dinner.  Lunch holds a close second to breakfast.  Everything and everybody is always so bright and fresh for breakfast.  The whole day lies ahead.  Back eons ago when we lived in Flagstaff, we went often to breakfast with our friends there.  Having dinner out in those days was almost unheard of and lunch was pretty uncommon, too.  Breakfast was the "IT" meal for meeting with friends to discuss river trips, road trips and all the doings of a mountain college town perched astride Route 66.  Names like Choi's, Kathy's and The Weatherford hold special memories.  We miss those warm and fuzzy breakfasts "back in the day" of the quaint 1980's Flagstaff era.

We don't generally do restaurant breakfasts any more.  Most all restaurant breakfast menus are so boring and so identical to each other.  Generally, they buy their ingredients from the same vendors.  Generally, the eggs are always swimming in grease and the toast is lackluster and the hash browns are limp, lifeless, lukewarm unappetizing shadows of The Noble Potato.  The coffee?  It always tastes the same in a restaurant.  We've never really found places to rival those Flagstaff eateries of yesteryear.  That's why a home-made breakfast is so far superior to a restaurant breakfast these days.  It's a chance to show off all sorts of culinary creativity while enjoying the fresh-faced new dawn smiles and spirits of close friends gathered around a happy table brim full of tasty goodies.  So, yes, to sum up all of the above--we sure are looking forward to visiting Wes & Nancy for breakfast today!

We'll be back home for a few hours doing the typical this and that on a hot spring Saturday.  Temps here have been running in the mid-80's and we think that's hot.  HA!  That would be a cold front here in mid-summer when the typical temps are well over 100 for weeks and weeks on end.  We're hard at work on prepping for our Monday Match. Along about Happy Hour we will be heading to Chip & Kathy's Place on the Verde River near the Salt Mine.  It's time for their famous All Fool's Party. Fools from far and wide gather to celebrate general foolishness in all forms.  Last year there were about 50-60 people who showed up in full fool finery.  We're really happy Chip & Kathy have the foolish fortitude to put up with all the foolery sure to unfold this evening.  We may or may not take the pop top over.

We took the pop top to The Goatherder's Place last Saturday and what a fun time was had by all.  Goatherder and Son Josh built a genuine, honest campfire in their back yard.  GH slaved all day over prepping a sinfully rich, made-from-scratch macaroni and cheese dish that was utterly divine.  Due to GH's goat herder chores each evening, he and Kate are never able to come over to our campfire here.  It sure was a delight to have the whole evening with our Dear Friends.  And, yep, you guess it, we were able to enjoy a righteous Sunday morning with them, too.  HG served up scrumptious omelets.  Um...yum.  What were we saying about breakfast?

While Susun and Kate were noshing away, they cooked up a plan to go hiking that day.  Pretty soon, Susun was working the phones like a pro and lined up a spur-of-the-moment All Star Girls' hike up Woods Canyon.  The creek up there was running as full as it's going to get this spring, barely off its peak from the previous day's copious snow melt.  What a wonderful time they all had.  Meanwhile Little Yonni spent hours finalizing preparations for the Monday Match.

Each Monday Match takes perhaps 15 or more hours in preparation, set-up, match conduct, tear down, storage, scoring, etc.  The match are very time consuming but very much fun so it's worth all the effort. By the end of Monday, we're bushed.  Tomorrow, though, we're going to have to rally up because we're heading to Dex & Jodi's Place for dinner.  Kate and Brock B. will be joining us so it's going to be a Camp Verde hootenanny on April 2nd, that's for sure. 

This will be the first time to take my new hearing aids to Dex & Jodi's Place.  It's always been a struggle for me to hear them there.  No more!  We've finally decided that spending $2000 on hearing aids was a really good idea.  They work great.  We went over to Prescott last Tuesday to have them tuned once again.  The devices are basically tiny computers that can be attached to regular computers and then tuned like a precision musical instrument.  It's so fun to watch how the technician can manipulate the sounds waves and frequencies specifically for my very own ears.  We've reached the point now where we can comfortably wear them all day long and easily change back and forth between their four onboard programs to adjust for whatever "hearing environment" we are in.  remarkable things have been happening in the hearing aid industry in recent years.  It wasn't all that long ago when hearing aids such as these were astronomically expensive.  Yes, $2000 is still expensive but it's a great price to pay for such a welcome new chapter in our life.  We are very pleased with them.

This upcoming Wednesday is going to be very interesting.  Wayne Ranney is coming down to have a Play Day.  We might go hike a rugged portion of the Crook Trail or we might decide to traverse the backside of Mingus Mountain from Cherry to Potato Patch.  Whatever we do, it's going to be a Dear Diary Day.  Thanks, Wayne!

Next weekend, we finally getting together with Maggie & Steve for lunch.  Talk about long overdue.  YIKES!  How could we be here all winter long and not have met with our Dear Friends.  Amazing.

Most of the stuff on our bucket list here is done and tomorrow our countdown officially begins.  We're already under three weeks until we head north once again.

Well, we better get going.  Time is short and breakfast awaits.

Have a great day & Many Cheers!  jp