Glad We Missed It

Our children & their families live in Maryland & North Carolina back in the cold.  Son Larry Jr & dau Barbara live in the Charlotte, NC area & missed the heavy snowfall but had ice on the roads.  They both said it was rough driving the 1st day but not so bad after that.

The picture above is from the patio of our son's home.  Looks like he escaped with a dusting of snow.  Barbara had the same amount in her backyard.

Saturday Larry Jr. and Jane celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary by braving the snow and ice to go to a nice brunch.  It's hard to believe it's been 10 years since they were married, but time does go by fast when you are having fun.  Technically it's more than that, however that's another story.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

LARRY AND JANE 

Barbara went in to work on Sunday  & had son Ryan drop her off at work.  Henry picked her up in their Chevy Avalanche & managed to get stuck in their driveway trying to park it.  In his defense, their driveway is steep &  curvy.   You would think someone who grew up in upstate New York could have handled it better.  Just saying.

Their day turned out fine since they are BIG Carolina Panthers fans.  In case you haven't heard they beat the Cardinals bad.  Congrats Panthers. 

It was an even sweeter day for grandson Sean and great grandaughters Hayden & Riley since it was Sean's birthday on Sunday.  Do you think he looks like a proud papa?

  Our daughter Cassie didn't make out as well in Maryland.  It started snowing there early and kept going to the tune of 30 inches plus.  Yikes!  She enjoyed seeing the beauty of the snow & the serenity.   I wonder how long it will be before cabin fever sets in. 

The photos below tell the story better than I can.

Like I said above, we are glad we missed the event.  I hope they have their parking space cleared before we return this summer. 

In the meantime we  suffered through 80F & sunny days.  Life is good.

This was prepared on our Samsung Galaxy Tab A.  Hope it looks ok.

How Low Will They Go

The gas prices continue to fall here in Tucson, much the same as in the rest of the U.S.  I hope these prices hold long enough for us to make the long drive back east in the summer.  Wishful thinking on my part.  Here is what it looks like today:

 The market price for crude oil is falling like a rock and with the introduction of Iranian oil in the near future, it looks like the price will stay down.  OPEC is trying to drive the US oil production out of the market due to low pricing.  Of course, if they do so and raise prices the US will ramp up production once again.  It should be an interesting ride for oil for the next couple years.

So, what have we been up to lately?  Nothing much exciting unless you think looking for a suitcase in thrift stores is fun.  We have a number of suitcases back at the cabin, but only two here with us.  One is too small, so we thought we'd get a large one so both of us can take all the necessary items with us.  We found a nice one at Goodwill the day before they had their 50% Saturday sale.  Gerry hid the suitcase as best as she could but when we went back Saturday morning it was gone.  Too bad since it was only $15 for a nice one.  

We checked 6-7 thrift stores, a couple yard sales and nobody had what we wanted,so we were facing buying a new set for around $150.  Then we would have to find storage space for the set when we returned and haul it around until we got back to the cabin.  Our friend, Ron K heard our story of woe, and dug up a nice suitcase that almost matches our large one.  He was nice enough to loan it to us for our trip.  Thanks Ron.  Now we have to pack the suitcase and keep it below the weight allowance of 50lbs.  

One of our Xmas gifts was gift cards to Cold Stone Creamery.  We decided it was time to use them.  We splurged and ordered two medium portions.  Pecan praline and macadamia nut ice cream is great but we couldn't finish our serving sizes so we had to take them with us.  Now don't they look delicious?

   
In two week to the day we will be heading to Australia.  All we have to do is pack and head for the airport.  Looking forward to visiting Australia, but not looking forward to the 15 hour flight form LA to Australia.  Hopefully, we can sit together and watch some of the tv shows I have on the tablet, plus sleep without having a stranger leaning on us.

So, what have you all been up to lately?  Anything exciting?  Keeping warm?  
 

Coffee, Potluck & Geocaching

Our day started out with the Tuesday morning coffee & donuts at the activity center.  It's  a good way to chat & visit with  friends.  Today the chat was about football & politics.  Our friends Bud & Muriel are Canadians & like to discuss politics.  They are of the same mindset as us so it doesn't get heated.  His birthday is tomorrow and I want to wish him a very happy birthday.  If you see him on Wednesday, make sure you wish him a happy birthday.

Gerry went to her sewing club and worked on quilts for the Linus project and I decided since it was such a nice day out, I would go geocaching in the area.  I wanted to try the smartphone app for geocaching and was very surprised and pleased with it.  It helped me find 5 caches and lead me to a 6th, but I couldn't find it.  The hint was that it was white & gray.  Big help, all the rocks in the area were white and gray.  I will take sharp eye Gerry along with me on Wednesday and go back and find it.

There was a potluck dinner in the evening and Gerry made a nice salad as our contribution.  Of course we didn't have all the ingredients so we had to go shopping for them.  It was worth it since the salad was great.

We wound up sitting with Ron & Dee C and Bud & Muriel again and continued on with the morning conversation.  Our table was called first to the food table and we had our choice of all the goodies there.  There was enough food for seconds but we were full from the first trip and didn't go back.  Bud and I managed to make the facebook page for the park as we were waiting in line.  If you look closely you can see Gerry's hands spooning something out of the pot on the left.

As usual the potluck dinner ended early and everyone went their way.  Since it was the State of The Union speech by the President, we skipped it as usual and went for a ride around the area.  I wanted to check out the tablet for geocaching and found out it won't work very well.  I guess I will be taking my Delorme GPS along with us to Australia and use it there.

That was our day, how was yours?

We Can Still Be Friends

You all dodged a bullet last night regarding staying friends with me.  I know some will think who is this arrogant person, but I am not an arrogant guy at all.  The obvious quest why we can still be friends was revealed about 10pm here in Tucson and it involved the internet.

Rather than keep you in suspense any longer, I have to tell you all that we didn't win the $900M lottery last night.  If we had won, then you wouldn't be in our economic circle and would have to be dropped. After all, how would it look, us having a  $2.5M Prevost towing a Cadillac Escalade sitting next to you in a RV RESORT.  So, we can still be friends.

As you may have figured out by now this is written with tongue in cheek.  I've read where sudden wealth changes a person since their old friends don't feel comfortable around them in the mansions, yachts, airplane and all the other ways to spend huge amounts of money.  I'm lucky in the respect that I know who all my relatives are and wouldn't have new found ones hitting me up for money.  Well, maybe a few of the known ones would contact me, but not that many.

You all are safe for a few more days until the next drawing is held.  I just know the winning ticket will end up in my hands.  The problem then will be how to spend $1.3billion ( yes billion ).  If anyone has a suggestion, send them to me.  Your name on the suggestion is not needed.   I know about charity, yachts, airplanes, free money from Nigeria, etc.  Don't send those suggestions.

We watched a wild football game between the Steelers and Bengals yesterday.  It was obvious from the start that these two teams do not like each other and probably don't exchange Christmas cards.  It was a hard hitting game and progressed into a penalty filled game at the end.  The Bengals had the game won and managed to give it to the Steelers in the last few seconds due to penalties.  Penalties that were deserved since the  infractions were so blatant.  I actually was sort of rooting for the Bengals to win since they haven't won a playoff game since the 1990s, but went back to the Steelers at the end.

The KC-Texans playoff game didn't go the way I wanted since KC won.  I was hoping the Texans could overcome all their injuries and pull the game out.  No such luck.

All I can say about the games today is GO SKINS!

Heading South (way south) in February

While in college I managed to take 36 credit hours of Economic courses since I enjoyed the subject so much. Once you get past the introductory courses big term papers became the norm. For some reason I wrote about economic conditions in Brazil and Australia almost exclusively. Consequently, I learned a great deal about each country while researching them. ( Before google was available ) That meant spending a lot of time in libraries finding enough to write about, plus taking notes by hand that I had to be able to decipher later. Gerry typed these 50+ papers on a manual typewriter and due to her great typing and editing skills I managed to get As on all the papers.

While we lived in Abidjan, Ivory Coast in the mid 1980s we took a trip to Rio de Janeiro and loved what we saw in Brazil. Our hotel room was a block off Ipanema Beach and we enjoyed the sights there. It was a whirlwind week and we were busy going somewhere everyday and seeing all we could take in. We even went on a sailboat cruise to an island one day and Larry Jr & I dove off the boat and swam to shore. It was at the top of our vacations and made us want to return there one day. 

Well, this particular blog is more about Australia so I will get to it.

During our genealogical research on Gerry's family from Croatia we found out that she had family in Australia. I went on the internet and searched for them and found a cousin in Sydney, Australia. She wrote to him and received a nice reply and they have been corresponding for about 17 yrs. We've been invited to visit with them numerous times and last January his oldest daughter and husband stopped by Tucson while on their vacation for a few days. They were a delightful couple and we enjoyed their company for the short time they were here. Since then, we've been corresponding with them and finally was able to plan a visit to Australia and meet the rest of the family.

We had planned on leaving mid November and leaving the motor home at our son's home in Charlotte, NC but family members going through some health problems made it difficult to leave at that time. The decision was made to come back to Tucson and leave the motor home here, then leave from here. We have our plane tickets, health insurance, necessary papers, etc and will be leaving on February 3 for Sydney and returning March 8. Neither of us are looking forward to the long flight out there since it will be 27 hours in transit. Yuk!

There are a number of places we want to visit and it looks like 5 weeks will be cutting it close but since it is so far away we will need some time to recuperate and then hit the road. We hope to be able to rent a small rv for a week while we are there and browse around the country and beaches. Australia is very large and this trip will be in the vicinity of Sydney due to time constraints. We don't like to be tied down to fixed dates so our touring will depend on how we feel and what the weather is like.  If there is time we would like to visit New Zealand for a couple days since it is so close and the airfares there are reasonable.

I bought a Samsung Galaxy Tab A tablet to take along with us rather than taking a laptop. The past few weeks I've been downloading apps for the trip and finally have it working like I want. We will use it for email, blogging, internet searching, Skyping, etc. I also downloaded a number of movies and tv programs to the tablet so we have some entertainment on the long flights. Of course we had to buy a travel adapter and power converter from 240V to 120V so we can charge the tablet, phone (no calls will be made in Australia). Gerry's hairdryer runs on dual voltages so that is a help as we won't need to run it from the adapter.

Gloria, this is what I was referring to when I said we were heading south for the warm weather.

Our original plans were to stop in Hawaii on either the way out or back and visit there for a week.  We ran into difficulties making connections with our flights and stopping there, so we decided to make that another trip.  The airfare was very expensive with the stopover and many flights required us to return to Los Angeles and then continue the flight to Australia  That didn't make sense to us, so it is a direct flight to Sydney and back to Tucson.

I hope you are as excited to hear about our trip as we are to finally make the long journey "down under".  Sometimes dreams do come true.  Now we have to practice saying "good day mate" even though Vivian says they don't actually say that down there.

Rainy Day In Tucson

It started raining early this morning and has been raining on and off all day.  So far we've had an official accumulation of 1.1 inches and it is still coming down at 10pm.  The weather forecast is calling for heavy snow in the surrounding mountains tonight thru Tuesday morning.  The temps will be below freezing at the higher altitude and we should have snow capped mountains to view in the morning.

Rincon Mts -  Feb 2013

 
We had some visitors today and wound up chatting all day with Ron C coming by early and then Judy & Steve A spending the afternoon.  It was nice seeing them and catching up on what they have been up to lately.  We have plans to go out to dinner with them on Wednesday at a local steakhouse.  

Gerry is feeling under the weather like I was a couple days ago, but seems to be recovering slightly.  I fixed her a nice hot green tea with lemon and honey to help with her congestion.  We both need to get well enough to get our flu shots.  We usually get them in October but events prevented that.  

Nothing much else is going on around here.  Most people have been staying inside and avoiding the rain and cool weather. That's about it from here in sunny and warm Tucson,  NOT!  Hope you are enjoying nice days wherever you are.

BTW:   Did I tell you that I am sick of rain.  I don't think we had this much rain when we lived in Costa Rica during the rainy season.  Trust me, it was wet down there.
 

Geocaches, Surf & Turf

I have a Delorme GPS for geoaching and now I can also geocache with my Samsung S5 smartphone.  The other day I was waiting for Gerry to finish some shopping and decided to use the phone to see if there was a cache in the area.  Lo & behold there was one 100ft away from where I was parked.  It was an easy one so I decided to pick it up and log it through the phone.  A day later and another parking lot and I picked up another cache.  Neat!

We were on the phone and computer all afternoon on Saturday and by the time we were finished with our business it was too late to prepare dinner.  Gerry suggested we go to Montgomery's Grill and take advantage of $2 Shocktop beers.  Gerry ordered a prime rib dinner and I had the fish platter.  She said the prime rib was superb and I enjoyed the fish so it was a win win situation for us.  Plus, the beers were cold.

If you like football, then these past few days were full of college, high school and professional games for you to enjoy.  TCU overcame a 31-0 deficit with their 2nd string QB to beat Oregon in overtime.  The game looked more like a flag football game with all the passing.  The two teams racked up over 950 yards passing.  There were a few good college games but most of them were lopsided routs.  What happened to defenses in college?

The Redskins continue to play well and beat the "Boys" in Dallas and made it look easy.  They scored early and often and then pulled a couple starters and the Boys made a small comeback.  Earlier this season the 'Skins were given no chance of getting in the playoffs.  They had a great turnaround and won their division and will be playing the Green Bay Packers next weekend to see who continues playing this year.  I hope the Packers underestimate them and the 'Skins season will be extended even more.   GO 'SKINS!!! 

It's been warmer out here the past couple days and it's been very welcome.  They are calling for some more nice days; however, it's still cooler this year than in the past few years we've been here.  

My niece Jeanie and husband Curt are in the Florida Keys for the next couple months.  I'm sure they are enjoying themselves sitting on the beach and sipping adult beverages.  Maybe next year we can join them down there for a few weeks.

The Russians once again have taken an interest in my blog.  I guess they are trying to crack the password and do something with the blog.  I don't include last names, financial info, emails, etc on the blog so I can't imagine why they have taken an interest in it.  Maybe they are trying to improve their English.  

Well, that's it for us here in sunny Tucson.  Hope everyone is enjoying 2016 so far and having a great time.   

Happy New Year

I've been feeling under the weather lately and didn't feel up to going out and celebrating the arrival of 2016.  2016!!!!!   Where in the world did 2015 go?  We did stay up until midnight and had a drink to bring in the new year. 

We celebrated our first New Year Eve together back in 1956 and every one since then.  I still remember we went out on a triple date with Weye & Marilyn and Marilyn's sister and her husband Roy.  We drove around to a number of taverns, dance halls and wound up finishing the evening at the Worden Y at a bar.  They had cheap beer and dancing so it was a great place to stop.  The bar is still in use and is called Digger's Dugout and looks the same as it did 59 years ago.

For many years we had parties at our home and celebrated the new year coming in.  We had great times at these parties but they became so large that we had to stop having them.  Then our great friends Jim & Loretta started having parties at their home for a few years and later we went to dances in the area for the celebration.

Lots of great times with good friends over the years.  Many have passed on or don't go out anymore so it's been a lot quieter on new year's eve.  At least we have the memories and still look forward to watch the ball drop in Times Square.

We wish everyone a Healthy, Prosperous & Happy New Year.