Friday
morning, I headed to Southern California. There was a baby shower for
my niece Katelyn on Saturday morning. Her baby girl has a due date of
August 24. That is my mother's date of birth. Fun!
I
made arrangements to stay at the home of my brother Peter and his wife
Terry in San Gabriel. This is the first time I have stayed with them for
over a year. They recently finished a remodel of their kitchen and
second bathroom.
Friday afternoon, Terry and I went back to the two caches we couldn't find in December. The cache owner, TheLiuCrew, as been receptive to providing us with hints. We struck out again. So, I sent him a message that evening. He got back to me in an hour or so. Tomorrow is another day.
Terry and Peter are growing grape tomatoes in their back yard.
For dinner, Terry made an excellent pasta dish with home-grown tomatoes, pesto, and turkey sausage. Yummy! That evening, we watched TV with some of the LA Dodgers vs Texas Rangers baseball game and the FIFA Women's World Cup soccer --- the USA against Vietnam.
Saturday morning, Terry and I readied ourselves for the 10:30 a.m. baby shower in South Pasadena. We picked up Terry's mother Dudley at her home a few minutes away. The shower for my niece Katelyn Kuwata Wallace was at the home of Mimi Butler. It was a beautiful setting.
Katelyn's baby is going to be named Lily. Katelyn's paternal grandmother was Lilly --- but spelled differently. So sweet.
That afternoon, Terry had to host a real estate open house in Pasadena. Before Peter got home, I dropped by Dudley's home to see Molly and Sophie enjoy the pool. Sophie recently turned 3 years old.
The cache was the sign PRIVATE PROPERTY NO TRESPASSING. An earlier cache person stated the "Orange is the new Black." Because of this statement, Peter found the cache. After my signature, the cache log was full. I gave this information to the cache owner.
Peter and I went to look for a third cache, before heading home. I found the "What's Your Sign?" It was another TheLiuCrew cache.
Since this cache owner has 37 hidden caches in the nearby area, I decided that he must live near my brother and sister-in-law. It turns out the TheLiuCrew lives a few doors from Terry's brother Howdy on Gerona. What a small world!
Mexican food was in the cards for dinner that evening. Terry was able to get a 6:00 p.m. reservation at El Portal Mexican Restaurant in Pasadena. Dudley, Molly, and Sophie joined us there. El Portal was a favorite restaurant Richard and I used to frequent when we lived in Pasadena or we were visiting the area.
The drive back to Williams was uneventful. It took me a little over six hours. It was a clear highway all the way home. That evening, we did get some monsoon activity.
When I last played pickleball on the Manley Racquet courts, my sunglasses fell off the bench and got scratched. It was in my left eye vision site. I had a hair appointment in Flagstaff on Monday. I left a little early and stopped by Flagstaff Vision. They take my "eyemed" insurance.
Even using my existing frames, the replacement lenses were $420.00. Ouch!
On Tuesday, I made the decision to contact KC HiLite and see if they were willing to authorize the placement of my cache on their private property. I stopped by the KC HiLite building. The representative suggested that I come back Wednesday morning when the general manager, Ron Pryczynski, was there. I checked the cache. All was good.
There is another cache nearby. I did not find it last year as well. But, it is rated a 4.0 in difficulty. This rating means that it is a very difficult cache and may take special knowledge or multiple trips to find. I once again did not find "Be Nice To Your Sister!" cache.
At about 10:00 a.m., I stopped by to meet with the KC HiLite General Manager. Ron had no problem allowing me to place a cache on their property. So, I wrote up a revised cache "Let There Be Light" and submitted it for review. Within an hour, the cache was published.
The Highland Meadows ladies lunch was at the Grand Canyon Brewery.
It was a big group with two large tables.
Later that day, I used my new Maverik Nitro debit card to get 10 cents off the published gas prices.
It is time for the Day Lilies to bloom. Very nice!
On Thursday, I went to my final Physical Therapy session with Ethan. For the past three years, Ethan wore a face mask. He finally stopped wearing the mask and I saw his face. It was a nice ending to the two months of PT.
Before heading home, I went by my newest cache and checked on the GPS coordinates. I made a 10 foot adjustment.
There is one mule deer doe that roams the Highland Meadows neighborhood. For some reason, she is all by herself.
We even danced to a few songs. Yes! At 2:30p.m., there was a bird and critter show on the lawn to our left. I had seen some of this show before, but it was a first for Tom.
Roland Manahan is looking after our trailer at Palm Creek in Casa Grande. He texted me several photos. All is good.
On Saturday, I went back to Dogtown Lake to pick up some more caches that were placed around the lake. I found eight of them.
On Sunday afternoon, we had a very strong monsoon storm --- thunder, lightening, rain, and hail.
On Monday, I made another trip out to Dogtown Lake. This time, I picked up six cache finds. There was "33 Below."
On one of my bathroom visits early Tuesday morning, I saw the brightness of the first full moon of August. The Sturgeon Supermoon was in its glory.
My friend Barbara Coad is in Texas visiting her sister and her sister's family. Barbara's grand nephews love to geocache. One of the caches they wanted to find was solving a sudoku puzzle. The puzzle held the key to the cache location and GPS coordinates. Barbara knew that I liked doing sudoku puzzles and she asked me to solve the puzzle. On Friday morning, I solved the puzzle.
Tuesday morning, Tom charged both of our e-bikes.
We decided to ride the bikes around our Highland Meadows neighborhood.
Tuesday night, Tom and I met Carolyn and David Cole for dinner at El Comedor Cardenas Mexican Restaurant. The last time we saw them was over five years ago. The record heat in the Phoenix valley brought them to Williams for an evening.
Friday morning, Tom and I got our e-bikes out again and rode to Cataract Lake and up to the north forty section of Highland Meadows.
Later in the afternoon, I went back to Dogtown Lake. There was a cache I missed when I walked around the lake on July 27. I found "Christopher's Cache." It was a two mile hike to get to the hidden container.
I did startle a small herd of Mule deer. I walked back toward where my truck was parked and I found one more cache. I had attempted to find this one twice --- but monsoon weather made me abort the "Spillway Meadow" hunt.
This made my total number of caches found a good 190! 😊😊😊
Sunday morning, I drove to Kaibab Lake. I parked the truck and walked around the lake. It was the first time this year. The kayakers were abundant on the lake.
I had an appetizer of boneless buffalo wings and a glass of chardonnay. The two musicians of Equipata are from Casa Grande.
Monday morning brought a nice sunrise.
Later in the afternoon, I drove to Flagstaff for a facial appointment with Amy Aranda. I stopped by Summit Spa and spoke to Heather. I was ready to purchase a new spa. They had a Summer Special on a Vita four-person spa that was on the showroom floor. I had Heather write-up the order. This new hot tub was going to cost $8,000. It is a lot of money, but I love to soak. And, I am worth it! 💕💕💕
Tuesday morning, five of us met at 10:00 a.m. on the outdoor courts for several hours of pickleball. Nancy, from Sun City West, is in Williams for several weeks. She is a 4.0-4.5 player. Fun!
Kelly and Sivert Fogerlie are back in Williams for several months. They are a great couple to play pickleball with. Kelly really has improved since last year. She attributes her better playing to playing more often and performing drilling exercises.
At 12:15 p.m., I had a telemed appointment with Dr. El-Harakeh. He is the cardiologist associated with my C-PAP therapy. It was a quick visit on my personal computer, as Dr. El-Harakeh is very pleased with my 6-month results. I have a follow-up in February next year.
Later in the afternoon, Tom and I drove up to the Santa Fe Reservoir.
I had not checked on the Santa Fe cache that I placed 3 1/2 weeks ago. Unfortunately, the cache container was gone! Some muggles take caches when found. They are geocache enemies.
I went home and temporarily disabled the cache. Then, I made a new container --- a camouflaged prescription bottle. The next morning, I placed the new cache container and reactivated the cache on geocaching.com.
Wednesday morning, I decided to take my last soak in our old hot tub.
At 9:00 a.m, Colleen came to service our house. She does an excellent job!
That afternoon, we had monsoon weather. It was rain and hail.
After the monsoon, we enjoyed a beautiful sunset.
Thursday morning, our entire neighborhood basked in the beauty of a double rainbow.
Thursday evening, we met neighbor Gus Beatty and his girlfriend, Julie Gaines, at Western View Steakhouse. Gus has been having some health challenges, so he had been spending a lot of time with Julie in Bakersfield. It was a nice "catch-up" and Gus picked up the tab. Thank-you, Gus!
Friday morning, I drove to Flagstaff for a 90 minute massage appointment with Emily Johnson. I've been going to Emily for three or four years. She told me that this is her last month at Northern Arizona Massage Therapy. She recommended another massage therapist, Karol. Emily is remaining in Flagstaff, but is going in a new direction. Good luck, Emily!
August 11th is the 39th birthday of my Italian son, Francesco. He and his married partner, Thomas, were celebrating in Italy --- near where Thomas grew up. Happy Birthday, Francesco!!!
Friday night, I made Oysters Rockefeller. Barbi, one of the Safeway butchers, orders oysters for me on request. The Naked Oysters Rockefeller is wonderful recipe!
We had a rib-eye steak from Jake's Butcher Shop. It was delicious. 💕💕💕 I opened a bottle of Chateau Tumbleweed Montepulciano that we bought in March of last year in Cottonwood. Yummy, yummy!!!
Saturday morning, I donated blood to Vitalant. The donation bus was parked in Sherwood Forest.
Drew, Sarah, and three other fellows came back to retrieve the old hot tub at about 2:00 p.m. I left to go play pickleball with Jon, Sivert, and Kelly.
Robbie and Steve joined us an hour later. It had been raining earlier in the day, but Jon and I used towels and mats to clear the courts. When I arrived home, the old spa was gone. Hooray!
Dr. Wani ordered four procedures for Tom: a stress test, a thyroid panel, a renal artery scanning, and an echo cardiogram.. He also changed one of Tom's medications. Dr. Wani told Tom that his diet needed to be NO SALT. This means no processed food and no canned food or soups. Dr. Wani also referred Tom to a sleep cardiologist. Dr. Wani said that there are no sleep doctors in Flagstaff --- only in Prescott. So, Tom will see my doctor, Dr. Mohamed El-Harakeh in Prescott.
On Tuesday, I had a ninety-minute massage appointment with Emily Johnson in Flagstaff. Emily told me that this is her last month at Northern Arizona Massage Therapy. Darn!
But, Emily suggested that I book my next appointment with Karol. She thought that Karol would be a good fit for me.
I contacted an electrician. My new spa is being delivered on Thursday and a certified electrician needs to wire the new spa to my electric box. JT, of JT Electrical, was very helpful and receptive.
My neighbor, Jim Ramsey, told me that that doe regularly eats the red maple tree leaves in his front yard.
My new hot tub was delivered Thursday, July 17.
