I'M BACK!!!

It’s been quite a while since I’ve done any blogging, but I’m going to try and get back to it and let everyone in on our mostly boring life.  I am always on Face Book, but my page is set to private and the only way anyone can friend me is send me a message and ask to be my friend.  I do not friend anyone unless I have personally met them, so this blog is the only site that will remain public.  I haven’t been on Twitter for ages and even though I have an Instagram account, I haven’t posted anything on it.

Anyhow, I was last on here in September of 2015, so have a few things to catch everyone up on.  In October, 2015, we once again drove our motorhome back to Arizona then flew home in December to have Christmas with our kids.  After Christmas, we drove our Grand Cherokee back to Arizona where we settled in for the season.  Lots of activities take place during the months of January, February, and March.  Ken is heavily involved in the workings of the Rock (Lapidary) Shop and we do a lot of off roading in our little Wrangler.  The resort puts on a lot of activities (dances, dinners, and shows) so we are kept very busy!

This was an unusual year for us and on March 26, 2016, we flew from Phoenix, AZ to Fort Lauderdale. FL for the night then the next day boarded a Holland America Ship for a 14 day cruise to Barcelona, Spain.  Our first 8 days were at sea then we had stops at Funchal Portugal, Cadiz Spain, Malaga Spain, and Cartagena Spain before arriving Barcelona Spain on April 10.  It was a wonderful crossing, smooth and storm free….There was another couple with us and our rooms were side by side on the 5th deck verandah where we opened the partition between our two verandahs and had a huge area to enjoy the sea view and spend our happy hours.  

Once in Barcelona, the four of us spent 3 wonderful days touring area and enjoying the food & drink.  The city is so big we didn’t get to see all of it, but by taking the hop on hop off bus, we were able to get to a lot of it.  The highlight of Barcelona was the Sagrada Familia.  This famous Basilica is still under construction (since 1883) and isn’t expected to be finished for many more years.  It was an awesome sight to behold….inside and outside!!!

On April 13 we all got on a plane for Rome where we stayed in old Rome for 5 days.  We had a great B&B ran by a mother & daughter.  They were great and we were treated wonderfully.  It was so fun to enjoy the different flavors of Rome.  The food and wine were fantastic.  There were many days that the two couples split and went to different sights.  What an amazing place old Rome is.  There was so much to see and do there.  Of course, we spent time at the Vatican, the Museum & Sistine Chapel, St Peters Basilica, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, Coliseum, and so much more.  We all rode the hop on hop off bus, took the subway, and rode the train to many different sites… way too many to list here.  This is one area we would like to come back to sometime.

On April 18, we all took a limo to the city of Civitavecchia where we got on another Holland America ship for a 12 day cruise to Venice Italy.  That was one awesome cruise as we all had upgraded to the Signature Suites on Deck 8 where we had huge patios (verandahs).  It also was a very busy cruise with many port stops.  We ended up at Naples Italy, Crete Greece, Santorini Greece, Kusadasi Turkey, Piraeus Greece, Katakolon Greece, Corfu Greece, Dubrovnik Croatia, Split Croatia, and finally Venice Italy.  There were many, many hours of walking and sight-seeing that we all were totally pooped by the time we got to Venice.  However, Venice has no motorized transports, so once again that first day there, we spent a lot of time walking around and getting our bearings before going back to ship for the night (we were docked there overnight before disembarking on the second day).

April 30, 2016, everyone disembarked the ship and we toted our luggage to the water taxi transport where we were taken to our stops in Venice to spend the next 5 days.  Our friends were taken to one stop because they stayed at a hotel near St Marks in San Marcos, and we were taken to another stop also in San Marcos where we had an apartment rented (we were only 5 minutes apart). The assistant to the manager of our apartment met us and walked us about 1/4 mile back to our room…..Like I said, there is nothing motorized in Venice, so we had to roll and carry our luggage to our room….that meant rolling over cobblestone and up and over the canal bridges.  The assistant toted my luggage and Ken had to tote his.  Needless-to-say, we were on the 4th floor, so that meant walking up and toting all we had with us (so fun)…  No matter where we went in Venice, it was by foot or boat.  It was an awesome time and we literally walked the whole island.  Saw so much art and history along with churches and so much more.  Took a water taxi out to the island of Murano where there are some fabulous glass factories (yes, ended  up buying some).

Our friends spent three days in Venice before heading back to the states, but Ken & I spent 5 days there.  The food was incredible and we all ate so much, but the walking wore it all off.  That was a huge plus.

On May 5, we took a water taxi across the canal to the airport where we caught a plane to London for the night.  Oh, we ended up flying business class and had the use of the British Air Lounge to enjoy ourselves before the flight took off…..so nice!!!  The next day (May 6) we got on a British Airways Air Bus in Business Class and flew just over 9 hours to Seattle Washington where we went thru customs.  Our flight was a very comfy and even going thru customs was a snap.  We had a couple hours to wait for our flight on Alaska Air back to Phoenix and arrived very late afternoon where friends from Apache Junction picked us up.  It was a long 40 days that we were gone and so nice to be back to our motorhome.  We didn’t stay long in AZ before we were on our way back to Salem.

Once again, we spent 12 days in Prineville Oregon camping over the July 4 holiday with family and friends (always a fun time).

Labor Day, we were back in Seattle for a flight to Yakutat Alaska and our yearly Salmon fishing trip.  As usual, we brought home a lot of Salmon filets.

Once again, we loaded up the motorhome and were back in Arizona mid-October.  This time instead of flying home for Christmas, we flew home for Thanksgiving and had the pleasure of spending that holiday with our daughter and her family, but were totally surprised when our son’s family came in from Idaho and one grandson came in from Alaska.  We had a wonderful time and loved being with all the family.  Another huge surprise was an announcement that our youngest granddaughter was pregnant and due in May of 2017…. That will bring the total to 10 great grandchildren when that baby is born….WOW!!

So, once Thanksgiving was over, we drove our Grand Cherokee back to Arizona and have been here since then.  As always the park is nice and quiet until just after Christmas when all the residents return and our activities begin.  It becomes a very busy Jan, Feb, and March then in April the majority of residents tend to head back to their homes.  We are one of the few that tend to hang out until Mid to late May and sometimes June…

So here it is the end of April and we are working towards getting coach ready to move by May 10.  We would usually be here longer, but late February, Ken pulled something in his lower back and some of the Jeeping we did in March hurt him even more.  So after a few chiropractor visits, an urgent care visit, and finally an X-Ray in ER has us deciding to get him home and have his doctor take a look at the x-ray results to see if he needs an MRI for further analysis….his pain is not going away!!  I also have a couple upcoming appointments (dental and eye) in May & June, so it’s just as well that we get home fairly soon.  We still have plans for July camping and September fishing, but so much is going to depend on how much Ken is up to doing.

Hopefully, I will get back on here after we are home with some good results.  More later!

SEPTEMBER, OCTOBER

So far so good on my eye treatments!!  My vision has not gotten any worse, but do still get headaches which I am sure is from the old glasses that haven’t yet been corrected.  They say that they don’t want to prescribe a new pair of glasses until they get my vision settled down.  I do have one more appointment this month before we head to Arizona.  At that time, I will have more tests and the doctor will tell me how often I will have to continue the treatments.  I will then know whether he will have me get new glasses (or not).  With all of that said, I had no problem with my vision in Alaska fishing this year.

We spent September 8-16 in Yakutat, Alaska, and I wore my glasses the whole time….usually, I wear contacts, but with having treatments in the left eye, I didn’t want to compromise it.  Yes, we had rain, but with my rain cap and rain jacket hood on, I kept the rain off of my face and glasses.  It really was not that bad because on 3 of the 5 days we were out on the river, we were done fishing before the heavy rains hit.  We were quite surprised at the warmer than usual temps (mid 50s) while out on the river.  There was one day that I got a little cold (and damp), but again we were done before 1 pm so it wasn’t that bad.  This was an unusual year because in the mornings as the tide was out, we drug the boat down to the river’s edge, but when we came back in after fishing, the tide was high, so all we had to do was float the boat up to where we tied it off and left it for the next morning.   That was great because normally, we would have to pull it back up the hill to tie it off.  In the picture below, the boat is near where we keep it and the tide is at mid point.  We had to drag it a lot further down than what this is showing.

Our fishing license was for 7 days, but we ended up only fishing 5 of those 7.  We honestly should have quit after 4, but this year the fish were smaller than last year and we weren’t keeping track of how full the boxes were getting.  After the 5th day, we weighed the boxes and discovered we had more than they would hold, so had to get a 4th box and put about 20 lbs of fish filets in it.

On one of days that we didn’t fish, we decided to drive out to a day use area and find a geocache.  On the way out there (on a gravel road) we almost hit a huge Bull Moose (actually, he almost hit us).  The sides of the road are mostly brush with some hidden side roads and this Moose came running out onto our road from one of those side roads.  After Ken slammed on the brakes and I managed to pick my purse up off the floor and find my phone (camera), I did get a couple pictures of the Moose.  Thankfully, he saw us and veered on up the road and we followed him for a hundred yards or more…. He did not even slow down!!!  Yes, we found the geocache too and no one was hurt!!

         

         
After we got back to Salem, our time was spent getting stuff done on the coach in preparation of heading to Arizona at the end of October.  Ken had several projects going on inside and outside of the coach, then the final step was the annual service and new batteries.  We also had to finish up on getting the rest of our Europe trip taken care of and figuring out all we are going to need.  We will mostly have the stuff with us in Arizona, but will have one last time to pick stuff up from home when we are back during Christmas.

As I write this, we don’t have a date for heading to Arizona, but do hope to be there by the end of October.  We have airline tickets to fly back to Salem on Dec 14 and will stay through the holidays and drive our Grand Cherokee back to Arizona around the first of the year.

Oregon for the Summer

After our fantastic time Australia and New Zealand, life in AZ seemed kinda mild.  The weather was even mild, somewhat cooler than we normally have and even wetter than normal.  Again the time flew by so fast it was hard to keep up with what day it was.  We did the usual park things: dinners, pot lucks, games with friends, happy hours, evenings out to various entertaining venues, and even found a lot of time to do just nothing!  Every Monday, we had a morning coffee gathering to catch up with the weekly events and past happenings.  Ken would spend Monday afternoon monitoring in the Lapidary Shop while I got my weeks worth of reading done.  Ken would also work in Lapidary Shop on Wednesday's and Thursdays getting his own stuff done and then later work on his jewely line.  Every Friday we took off with the park's Jeep group (Rough Riders) for a fun day Jeeping out in the desert.

Alas, the winter quickly wound down and it was time for us to head back to Oregon.  Just as we were packing up and planning our departure, I was notified that my sister passed away.  She was 13 plus years older than me and had been in a care facility for a couple years with severe dementia.  I was so thankful that we were ready to head home and would be able to make her memorial service on June 2nd.  It was a sad, but joyous, occasion knowing that she was finally at peace and in the arms of our Lord and her dear departed husband.  Rest in peace sister, I will always love you and miss you!!

The month of June is our month to get all of our medical stuff done before embarking upon any other adventures and this June is no different.  While in Arizona, I started having vision problems in my left eye.  Once back home I saw my eye doctor and was informed I have a Retinal Pigment Epithelial Detachment in my left eye (right eye is fine).  This is a form of "wet" Macular Degenration.  I was also told that this is a fast moving degeneration and that if left untreated, I would lose vision in that eye in one year.  So, after that appointment, I then had another appointment to have Fluorescein Angiogram to see where the leaks were coming from.  After that test, I had another appointment to start treatment (Intravitreal Injection).  The injection is in the lower left part of the left eye and will need to be done every 4-6 weeks up to three times before rechecking (so not fun).  I was told that these treatments have been successful when eye problem is caught early and will maintain and sometimes make better the vision in the affected eye.  Since having the first treatment and catching up on all of our other medical and dental appointments, it looks like we will be in Oregon till very late in October.....even that is up in the air because I may need more treatments up into November.  After that, we have no idea what will happen.

We still have our Alaska Salmon fishing trip scheduled for September and talking with the eye doctor he said he can work around most all of what we have scheduled including our next cruise(s) in late March to May 5 of 2016.  As it stands right now, we are scheduled to leave Fort Lauderdale March 27 on a ship for 14 days that ends in Barcelona.  Once in Barcelona, we will stay 3 nights, then fly to Rome where we will stay 5 nights.  On April 18, we board another ship out of Rome for 12 nights ending in Venice on April 30.  Our plans are to stay on in Venice till May 5 then fly back to Phoenix.  After that, it will be up to what I have to get done for my eye as to how long we will stay on in Arizona.

Hopefully, I will be better at keeping this up in the future!!  I know, I have said that before and usually end up forgetting.....but I really hope I will be back soon with more news on what we are up to.