Monday, October 23 through Friday, November 17, 2023: Flagstaff Appointments, San Diego Rendezvous, Halloween, and Geocaching

Monday, Tom and I drove to Flagstaff. I had an appointment to order new glasses. Last month, I filled my new eyeglass prescription for my dark glasses. So, I decided to use the updated prescription for my regular glasses. I went to SmartSpecsOptical at Dr. Mahanti's office. Suzi and her associate Ryan helped me.

The last time I had glasses made here was several years ago. Suzi is an excellent optician! That afternoon, Tom had an appointment with Dr. Wani's nurse practitioner, Amy Taylor. 

She had excellent news! Tom's stress test was excellent. His heart is in great shape. His lab work was good as well. Yes!!!! 😊😊😊😊

Thursday, I had a morning appointment with my chiropractor, Dr. Moseng. In the afternoon, I also had a facial appointment with Amy Aranda. So, I decided to look for some nearby caches. One cache I found was "Great Walks Start Here." It was a red bison tube. 

Another cache I found was "Griffin pot."

That evening, Tom and I enjoyed a beautiful sunset.

Friday, I dropped the dogs off at Grand Canyon Railway Hotel Kennel. Tom and I started a four-day trek to San Diego and back. We decided to breakup the trip. We stayed Friday night in Blythe. We had adult beverages by the Day's Inn pool.  

We watched the full moon coming up.

 We had dinner at Garcia's Mexican Restaurant. TripAdvisor had it ranked #1. 

 

We started with twelve oysters in shells. The pricing was exceptional --- $12.95! We then shared a stuffed chili relleno and some carne asada tacos. The margaritas were very good. I concur that this is an excellent place.

The next morning, we drove 3 1/2 hours to San Diego. The main reason for our visit was to see Francesco Gigante. When Francesco was 16 years old, he stayed with me and Richard in Pasadena for several months. He was part of a church foreign exchange program. The last time I saw Francesco was December, 2019. He and his now spouse, Thomas, were in California and Nevada for the holidays. We were able to check-in to the Bahia Resort Hotel at 12:30 p.m. The front desk agent, Timothy, upgraded our two rooms. What a view from our 4th floor balcony!

Tom joined me for a walk to a nearby hidden cache "You Can Du It." 

 

Tom and I had a light late lunch at the hotel's air stream trailer.

 

Francesco contacted us. He plans to get to the hotel by 4:00 p.m. His radiology retreat was in Carlsbad. Francesco is a radiology doctor. Before reuniting with Francesco, I took a photo of Tom on our balcony.

 

When Francesco arrived at the hotel, he took a shower in his room and met us for some Malbec wine.

It was great seeing him! We had dinner reservations in La Jolla at Duke's. Francesco took the first photo of the three of us driving to dinner. 

The setting, drinks and food was outstanding. 

 

 

 

Sunday morning, we had breakfast reservations at the hotel's restaurant, Dockside1953. On our way to the restaurant, we had several fun photos taken.

  

 

 

 

 

The restaurant had a weekend buffet, but we just ordered off the menu.

After breakfast, I invited Francesco to go geocaching with me. We drove the truck to a nearby parking lot on one of the bays. Nearby was Belmont Park and an old fashion wooden roller coaster.

 

Francesco and I found four caches along Mission Beach.

 

 

 

After our geocaching, Francesco and I met up with Tom. We showed Francesco the two seals. 

The three of us had a nice photo opportunity at the resort, before taking Francesco to the airport. He has a 7:00 p.m. flight to London/Geneva.

 

That evening, Tom and I had dinner at Dockside 1953. We sat at a nice fire table. The sunset was very nice too.

 

 

 

Tom and I splurged for dinner with a large seafood tower.

 

The next morning, I walked to the hotel lobby. The paddle wheel boat was very handsome in the still of the bay water. 

 The beach shoreline was also very nice. 

 At about 10:00 a.m., we checked out of the hotel and headed to Parker, Arizona. We spent the night at the Quality Inn there. On TripAdvisor, the restaurant next door is the #1 ranked dining place . We enjoyed our Crossroads Cafe dinner. The next morning, we headed toward home. We had breakfast in Lake Havasu City. Tom and I stopped by the London Bridge to find "The View London Bridge" cache.

My total of found caches is now 230.

We arrived home around 2:30 p.m. We unpacked and went to pick up Kelsey and Jamie at Grand Canyon Railway Hotel Kennel. Both dogs were asleep when I first entered the kennel.

 

That evening was Halloween. My niece Katelyn's daughter Lily was a Unicorn.

 

My granddaughter, Meghan, and her dog, Carl, were honey bees.

My friend Becky Boyer has been in Napal hiking to the Mount Everest base camp and beyond. Here is her at the Kala Pattar summit with Mount Everest in the background.

That afternoon, I had Tom drop me off at Dry Holden Lake. It was a nice fall day to walk back home.

On Thursday, I walked the east side of Cataract Lake and across the dam. 

Tom and I had a Flagstaff appointment with Dr. Figueroa on Friday. I finally was able to snap a photo of Dr. Figueroa.

 

Pam Goldsbro, from Brisbane, Australia, was in the United State for travel agency business. Before heading home, she was able to visit my sisters Carrie and Wendy in Bend, Oregon.

Saturday morning, I walked the dogs to Cataract Lake. Tom drove to the lake. We met up and walked Kelsey and Jamie together.

 

That evening, Tom grilled the prime tri-tip steaks that I bought at Sam'e Club.

 

On Sunday, I took a path from Highland Meadows --- into the woods --- and back to Highland Meadows. 

Later in the afternoon, the mule deer were active. 

 

That evening, we enjoyed a very pretty sunset.

Our neighbor Gus in back in Williams for a few days. Tom and I had dinner with Gus at Pine Country Restaurant. Gus has some health issues and needs to use a cane for balance when walking. 

 

That afternoon, I went geocaching. I walked .7 miles from Highway 64 to find "Gnarly Nellie Log." 

I also found "Pronghorn Way."

On Tuesday, Tom joined me for some geocaching in and around Williams. The first cache was "Yoda's First Adventure." It was a cache container that looked like a rock. 

 

We then found five other caches. In celebration of my friend Salli's November 6 birthday, I found "Posted Coordinates" cache and dedicated it to her.

One cache was "love." 

Another cache was "Skiing fence on Route 66." 

 

Wednesday was the usual visit of Colleen Hatton. She is so wonderful in cleaning our house. I saw thatshe was wearing some Van tennis shoes. I had a pair of Van tennis shoes that I never wear. So, I gave them to Colleen.

For lunch, I joined the Highland Meadows ladies group at the Elephant Rocks Golf Course Club House.

Nine of the golf course holes are now closed. So, I walked home along the cart path.

In the afternoon, Kelsey and Jamie had their nails clipped at Elsa Marie's home.

On Thursday, Tom had an appointment with the audiologist, Jen Lee. He had a hearing test and then Jen fitted him for a demo pair of hearing devices. 

While Tom was under Jen's care, I walked down the hill to pick up my new glasses.

That afternoon, two brothers, Fritz and Jake Plecas, knocked on our front door. They are roofers doing work in the neighborhood. Fritz and Jake asked if they could go up on our roof and check its condition. Many of the roofs in Highland Meadows have sustained hail damage.

Homeowner's Insurance covers the replacement of roof shingles with hail damage. Of course, my roof is 22 years old and has hail damage. The next course is to have an insurance adjuster visit the house and review the hail damage.

 

Barbara Coad headed off to Dubai on November 9. She was joining a British friend, Liz, for a twelve day cruise from Dubai to Singapore. This was Barbara's first time on Celebrity's Edge ship.

On Friday, The Grand Canyon Railway Hotel began "The Polar Express." It will run daily until December 30.

Saturday was Veterans Day. The niece of my friend Alan Buckelew posted a photo of Alan at age 21. He was in Vietnam during the late 1960s.

Sunday, I did a geocaching driving marathon. I drove to White Horse Lake. There was one cache on the way. Several months ago, Tom and I were not able to "Sherwood Forest Cache" But, I was lucky this time!

I found that White Horse Lake was closed for the season. I parked my truck on the forest road and I walked to the lake for a photo. The two caches there will have to wait until next year.

On my way home on Perkinsville Road, I found one cache "Loggers Way."

On Monday, Tom and I went to Williams Memorial Park. There was a multi-cache "Old Bill Williams" that began at the park. A geocacher who solved the puzzle in July gave me a nice clue. Tom and I found the metal label that had the coordinates for the cache container at the top of Bill Williams Mountain. So, off we went! It took 45 minutes to get up the mountain --- elevation 9,250.

There are some wonderful views from Bill Williams Lookout. I found the cache that was hidden near the bathroom.

Several weeks ago, I bought canvas covers for my two air conditioners. In all these years, I never covered the units. I thought that ten years was a nice time to start.

On Wednesday, I secured an appointment with Jerry from Appliance Service Today to look at my Wolf gas range. Last week, it became evident that the broiler is no longer working.

Unfortunately, Jerry said the repair would cost more than buying a nice new range --- other than a high-end Wolf. Never mind. We'll live without a broiler for now.

 

For four days, Tom has been in pain. The pain emanates from his lower back, circles around to his groin area, and then down to his knee. I felt that it was time for Tom to get checked out. We first went to the Williams Urgent Care. The PA Tim was not able to determine the cause.

Of course, the next move was Flagstaff Medical Center Emergency Room. We checked in at about 1:00 p.m. Destiny, the triage nurse, took Tom's vitals. She warned us that the hospital was very short staffed and the wait would be long. 

Tom was finally seen by Dr. Lotz after almost three hours. The doctor ordered a cat scan to rule out kidney stones. Blood work and urine samples were also taken. An hour or two later, Tom was taken to an ER bed in Room 17.

Dr. Lotz finally came back to see Tom. Hesaid that everything was normal. Dr. Lotz prescribed steroids for five days and 300 mg of Gabapentin. 

We left the hospital at 7:30 p.m. I had already picked up dinner at Panda Express. So, we drove home to Williams and enjoyed the food.

 

Friday, Tom and I drove to Flagstaff. I had an 11:30 a.m. appointment with my chiropractor, Dr. Brent Moseng. Dr. Moseng is quite tall!

Tom and I had an 1:00 p.m. appointment with Dr. Figueroa. Then, we drove home for cocktails and a roasted pork tenderloin.