TooBusyForWork

I forgot to post!

We did make it home, and I guess I was so excited I forgot to post anything! We only spent two nights on the road (La Quinta in Fruita, CO and Comfort Inn in Lexington, NE). Both motels were ok, but we are limited in where we can stay with two cats. The La Quinta was much more expensive, but there isn’t much to choose from in the area, and I guess they knew it. Oh, and just after we got home on 28 March we got a call from Velocity that we needed not just the VGT manifold, but the entire VGT plus the manifold. That is a huge ouch, but you gotta do what you gotta do. I was wrong in reading the estimate last time. Originally they didn’t think we needed the entire VGT, but now we do. Again, it isn’t unheard of for this engine, and I did look at a number of truck fleet sites to see if I had done something wrong. Looks like I didn’t; it was just bad luck. Sigh.

After we got back I got serious about finding a luthier who could fix my ukulele crack. I finally decided on The Lutherie in Urbandale, IA (suburban Des Moines). I had a personal recommendation for him from someone I know, and I always prefer that to generic internet referrals. So my uke is in for repair (since last Thursday), and I am in withdrawal. I have been looking for a relatively inexpensive laminate baritone uke that I could leave outside a case. I asked online for recommendations, and they all pretty much said the same thing – use a humidifier in the room instead. So I am now looking for a small room sized humidifier that is easier to fill and maintain than our old one in the motorhome. I did get a new humidifier for the uke that stays in the sound hole at the recommendation of the luthier. Hopefully that works well too.

I have joined a gym too! The Gentle Gym is associated with the PT I used most recently, and they are really into restorative fitness. I have already started a Chair Yoga class, and I will get a complete fitness routine using the bikes and weights beginning tomorrow. I am looking forward to it! I have lost a bit over 20 pounds on the Mounjaro, and I just feel better all over with it. I never getting diagnosed with diabetes would improve my health and fitness LOL!

Kevin put up the little bird feeder/camera I got for Christmas. It now sits on the deck railing, and we have lots of little house finches combing to visit. We live in a very vacant and manicured lawn area with few trees, so there just aren’t a lot of birds. We have had one visit by a grackle and one by a red winged blackbird, but that’s about it.

In music information other than the ukulele, I am fully back in choir. We sang on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, and it was so nice. Easter was, of course, full of brass and organ. You could hardly hear the choir, but that’s pretty normal. It was very uplifting until I read the outrageous Truth Social post from the man who was somehow elected the President of the US. If he was a grandpa down the street, we would all be patting him on the hand and saying, “There there, no reason to get riled,” and giving each other knowing looks over his head. Instead this demented and dementia-riddled man holds our nuclear codes. Happy Easter!

The area around Death Valley

We stayed at The Pads until 17 March. The heat wave that hit the Western US hit us hard, so there was limited sitting outside and a lot more car trips. One took us Oatman, home of the (very tame) wild donkeys. They are famous for just walking up to people looking for some of the alfalfa pellets the stores sell. The community supports them through veterinary care and just generally spoils them. This time there were more donkeys on the road into town than in the town proper.

Oatman is a fun little tourist trap. We were there during the week, and it was still so crowded we couldn’t find a place to park. Here’s a video I took of most of one side of the street. The other side is equally crowded. Sorry for the portrait mode.

https://youtu.be/p6asGj36EtI?si=NFXKj76qf8aMSi6t

We also took a trip to the China Ranch Date Farm. It is a working date farm that is pretty impressive. Their date shakes are famous, and are the best we have ever had. In addition to the farm, they have a lovely desert landscaping. They also protect part of the Amargosa River that comes above ground for a while, disappears below ground, and then comes back above ground. Fascinating biology all around it too. We bought a bunch of dates to take home.

One of the interesting views is the wash you drive through to get to the ranch. Here’s a video of that to give you just a feel. There are a number of small mine diggings all around plus a few larger tunnels that are fenced off.

https://youtu.be/tllv9mf88dU?si=Vem-iwdO-_k34t3G

We also visited Shoshone again. Obviously we ate at the Crowbar, but we also visited the old mining dugouts. Shoshone is at the southern end of Death Valley, and the summer temps are brutal. The miners in the area discovered they could dig into the soft rock for a temperature-controlled dwelling. These are mostly protected as historic structures. Note the smokestacks sticking up.

After such an enjoyable sojourn in the Death Valley area, we decided to head out before the temps got unbearable. We took the south route to Baker, CA then up the long grade to Nipton, CA on our way to Needles where we planned to spend the night. But for only the second time in 106,00 miles, I got a check engine light on the motorhome. After some investigation, we decided we should head to Las Vegas and Velocity Freightliner service. They have done work for us before, and, while expensive, they have a good reputation. We stayed at the North Las Vegas Elks Lodge until our appointment on Monday, 23 March. It was one of those good news/bad news things. What was wrong (low pressure at the turbo) was easily fixable, but parts are on a 60 day lead time! We need a new VGT and the manifold needs new gaskets and such (leaking). Sigh. Parts aren’t awful for a diesel (just under $4000), but labor brings the total to over $10K. Ouch! But no one ever said a diesel Class A is an inexpensive hobby. We thought about it overnight, staying in Velocity’s RV spot, and decided to leave the motorhome with them and just drive home in a couple of days. We are now at the Clark County Shooting Range with FHUs and a nice view of the city lights. We got a storage unit for the RZR so we can use the pickup bed for boxes. It is a good thing we decided to get it fixed here. Even driving the 15 miles to the campground put enough stress on the engine that the AC turned off! We plan on leaving Thursday after dropping the MH off at Velocity. They have a very secure storage area surrounded by a high voltage electric fence!

On to Death Valley!

We left Quartzsite on Sunday, 8 March. We spent a night at the Elks Lodge in Needles as usual to get the laundry done and tanks cleared out. We took the route through Searchlight, NV and the Avi Kwa Ame National Monument. It has the most amazing Joshua Trees we have ever seen. They are a different species/subspecies than the ones in January Tree National Park – more branches. They look much more like trees! Of course the issue is the road is a narrow 2 lane and we had a very big motorhome towing a pickup – couldn’t take pictures. I did get one picture of a multi-branched yucca that was blooming though. The Joshua Tree blooms were very similar and very abundant.

We arrived at Death Valley and got a nice spot in Sunset Campground. It wasn’t one of our favorites (the ones on the east end of the campground), but it wasn’t too far from the end. Lots and lots of people in Death Valley for the flowers! It isn’t as big a super bloom as it was 10 years ago, but it is a really nice bloom, more than we have ever seen for sure. Tuesday we drove north towards Stovepipe Wells with a detour to Beatty. Wednesday we drove south towards Badwater Basin. Today we drove south all the way to Ashford Mill ruins. The best flowers were seen today! I am just going to dump a bunch of pictures on you though to give a feel of the area.

Badwater Basin and Lake Manley with the tiny people for scale

Telescope Peak and just a hint of the salt pan

Death Valley pictures are not complete with a view from Artist’s Drive

Swaths of colors, mostly yellow, were everywhere

Yellow, but don’t ignore the mountain colors either!

And we even spotted the lovely Desert Five Spot!

Low to the ground. There is a tiny insect inside if you look carefully

Yesterday we decided it was getting too hot in the Furnace Creek area, so we moved to “The Pads,” a boondock area just outside the park on the way to Pahrump. It contains the concrete pads used for worker housing at the nearby Billy Mine. The housing itself is all gone, but the pads remain. It is a beautiful spot and 3000’ higher than Furnace Creek. That means temperatures a good 10 degree cooler. We actually had to turn the heat on for a short while this morning, mostly because I am a wimp.

I will end with sunset this evening from our campsite.

Quartzsite still

We are still in Quartzsite, but we will be leaving soon. The last Greater Quartzsite Ukulele Orchestra concert will be on Saturday, 7 March. We will either leave on the next day or we will wait a couple of days. I will decide when we find out if there will be a party for the ukulele group.

It got really hot in Quartzsite last week, so we chickened out of boondocking in the desert and went to a campground. This time of year places are really clearing out, but there were also a number of folks like us who came in from the heat. While we absolutely can run our AC when needed using the generator, I really dislike doing it for hours on end. But I kind of stop feeling comfortable when the temps get much over 85, so in to town we went! We stayed at Rice Ranch again, the place we will be staying seasonally next year. The temps were only high for 4-5 days, but we stayed a week on a discounted rate (7 days for the price of 6). We got all the laundry done, enjoyed having power available, ran the AC as needed, and we were able to heat the rig with the built in electric fireplace heater. Even when the desert gets to 90 degrees in the summer, it can be in the 50s at night so a bit of extra heat is needed for this temperature sensitive gal. I think I could get used to just how easy it is to stay in a real campground!

We took a side by side ride of course, even with the heat. We went out on just a semi-local around the Dome Rock area. There is still an awful lot of gold mining going on around Quartzsite, and here are some pictures of some of it.

This is actually six active claims. You can rent If you want

We also took our yearly trip to Cibola National Wildlife Refuge. We usually go in late January or very early February, so it was interesting to see the differences 5-6 weeks can make. There were a lot fewer birds for sure! In a good year we can see hundreds of duck and geese of many species plus another few hundred sandhill cranes. These time of the year, not nearly as many.

Pond has 1/2 or less the number of birds

Great White Egret in foreground with some sandhill cranes behind

We took a trip to the more remote Island section of the refuge that is located between the current Colorado River and the historic Colorado. I love the mountains contrasted with the flooded ponds.

Island section of refuge shows how important water is in the desert

And of course I will end with sunsets, these from Rice Ranch.

Quartzsite then Havasu then Quartzsite

I am sorry my links didn’t work in the last post. Here they are for another try. Click on the highlighted link, then click again on the small text link. First, the Greater Quartzsite Ukulele Orchestra: “Under the Boardwalk” 29 January 2026
https://youtu.be/KjdSw8vy4N4

And what the Desert Bar looks like on a random Saturday. https://youtu.be/6OTLGvKubn8

Now on to new stuff. We were so busy with everyone visiting that we took it easy for a few days. I tried a new ukulele jam group on Sunday, 1 February, but it wasn’t quite my thing. Very churchy with praise music I didn’t know. It was nice to be able to do more than just listen though I probably won’t repeat it. One Tuesday, 3 February, we took a ride with the SunRiders that was just a half day ride. We wandered around to the Quartzsite letters, a big guzzler we hadn’t seen before, and we noted a number of military-related locations from WWII. It was nice to have a relaxing ride instead of full-speed ahead!

We then headed to an Anasazi Chapter of the FRVA rally in Benson, AZ on Wednesday, 4 February going to Gila Bend the first night. The rally began on Thursday. It was really busy, but enjoyable. One of the highlights was a visit to the Mescal Movie Site. They made a lot of old Westerns there, and it is a smaller version of Old Tucson movie set. Not in great shape, but it is now being run by a non-profit with volunteer docents who give you a great tour. They are trying to keep it from further decay plus improving it where they can.

The “hotel” was in the best shape because it was brick on a real foundation

We headed back to Quartzsite on Sunday morning early. I wanted to get back to Quartzsite to join another ukulele virtual group. This one is run by a guy in Melbourne, Australia! It is a 3:00pm MST on Sunday in the US but 9:00am on Monday in Australia. Nice group, and I am definitely going to continue with them.

On Tuesday, 10 February we drove to Phoenix to visit Costco for a hearing aid test for Kevin. Turns out that even though he has significant high frequency hearing loss, it isn’t bad enough for a hearing aid to really help. Good to hear that from a professional who was paid to sell hearing aids! We also went to the Guitar Center to look for a ukulele for Kevin. I have been having so much fun, he decided he needed to get one too. They had a very limited selection, and we didn’t end up buying one there. But he was able to try the difference between a tenor and a concert, and he decided the larger tenor worked best for him. We eventually found a barely used one in Quartzsite at a good price, so he has joined my new obsession. He is still working on getting his fingers limbered up though.

On Thursday, 12 February, we took a tough ride with the SunRiders. It was labeled “moderate, 3/5” and it probably was for wider rigs than ours. For our little 50” it was difficult. Then again, this is why you can safely ride harder trails when you are with a group; if something happens, you have a set of experienced folks who can get you out of trouble. One spot we visited is called the “Movie Set.” This isn’t a real movie set, but is a tourist spot built by the nearby town of Bouse.

https://youtu.be/tTjurF7sscA

I also liked this one looking at the volcanic cores
https://youtu.be/NTfKzsSRU8Q

On Sunday, 15 Feb, we went to Lake Havasu for a SewCation with their quilt guild (I’m a member). Had a fun time as usual. I finally finished my 2025 Kona Block of the Month with the last two blocks, sashing, cornerstones and borders. Originally I was going to add another piano key boarder, but this thing is big enough already!

I had so many of the Kona charm squares left! I cut a bunch of triangle blocks for another donation a quilt, and I started sewing the piano keys I cut into strips for the binding of the BOM. This is going to be a massive lap quilt for Kevin. He always says he is cold, and the other quilts are too small. He will be able to wrap up in this one pretty well!

We are now back in Quartzsite in a wind strong enough to keep us settled inside the MH. Minnie seems to be quite happy to cuddle on my lap. One last video of the laziest playing by a pair of cats. Silly kids. It’s a long one, so if cat videos aren’t your thing, feel free to skip it.

Lazy cats
https://youtu.be/ApOV–KTu0E

Miscellaneous around Quartzsite

We are mostly just hanging around Quartzsite. I was rally master for a small rally of the RVForum.net folks, and the last ones just left today. It was a small group, and I don’t think we will continue next year. Kevin and I have decided we will look for a seasonal RV site in town, leaving the motorhome and RZR in Arizona for October through December without us (no winterizing!), the coming back down after the Christmas holidays. It will be a lot faster drive in the truck than the motorhome even though I will have to stay in a hotel a couple of nights each way (boo).

I did get a picture of both of my quilt tops that went to the long arm quilter for basting when we did show and tell at the Quartzsite Quilt Guild meeting. Pretty proud of them actually. The jewel tone one will be for our bed at home, and the green/brown one will be for the bed in the motorhome. Note the green/brown one doesn’t have the same number of borders all around; the bed is a big odd sized.

Mystery quilt with a lot of added borders

The ukulele concert was fun. It definitely wasn’t professional, but the audience and the performers (including me) had a great time. I am going to experiment with using YouTube to post the video instead of directly on the blog. If you hold the cursor at the end of the URL, you should be able to follow the link. This is (most) of the song I led – “Under the Boardwalk.”http://“Under the Boardwalk” Greater Quartzsite Ukulele Orchestra, 29 January 2026 https://youtu.be/KjdSw8vy4N4

The crack in the ukulele is getting much better. I ordered a sponge-style humidifier and hygrometer to keep in the sound hole, and it is staying at about 50% relative humidity. The crack is mostly closed, so I am going to wait until I get back to Iowa to get it repaired. That gives me a lot more time to find a good luthier.

We had some more friends show up for their first trip to Quartzsite, and, of course, we had to go to the Desert Bar (aka Nellie E Saloon) north of Parker, AZ. It is only 4-5 miles off the highway on a rough grave/dirt road, but it feels a lot farther than that. The place is completely off-grid with no cell service and no electricity except what is generated by the huge number of solar panels. There are backup generators just in case, but they aren’t used much. They have really good food, but only a so-so bar. They also have live music each weekend. They are only open Saturdays and Sundays from October through April. Here’s another YouTube video to give you an idea of the inside. There is also a LOT of seating outside in the sun.

http://Desert Bar outside Parker, AZ on 31 January, 2026 https://youtu.be/6OTLGvKubn8

And since I love pictures of my kitties being adorable, here you are.

Hanging around Quartzsite

[I somehow didn’t publish this on, just left it in draft. Not sure why, but here it is.]

We have just been doing normal Quartzsite stuff. Kevin has been doing some 3D printing too. I now have a nice setup to keep my new jewelry box on the shelf while traveling instead of having to put it on the bed. He’s also made a some small fit samples for some more things he wants to print. He really loves his printer!! And the one we have with us is just his original Ender 3 printer, not one of his newer and nice ones which are at home.

After the “design choices” I made in the October Block of the Month (code name for “mistakes”), I figured it couldn’t get much worse. It did. First, I seem to have lost the pattern for November. I cut pieces for it a week ago and sewed a few components, but now I can’t find the card with the design. Oh well, I’ll just work on December. December did not like me! I can’t tell you how many components I sewed wrong. I ended up putting the block into time out for a couple of days before finally finishing it. I’ll get a picture of it and the November one together later. I have arranged for my two king sized quilt tops to be based with water soluble thread by the quilt shop in Havasu I like, Fabrics Unlimited. She is going to use a wool batting for them. One is for our bed at home and the other is for the bed in the motorhome. I have them carefully folded up, so no pictures of those either.

And for yet more disasters, the surface of my ukulele had a rather rough feel, and I realized it was getting really dry. Duh! Humidity has been running around 15-20%, so of course it is dry! I put the humidifiers I bought at the guitar shop before we left Iowa in the case, but they are really too big to fit in the sound hole. I ordered a new one which shows temperature and relative humidity too. But it was too late! The day after I added the humidifiers I found I had a tiny crack in the front of the ukulele! It runs from the bottom of the guitar to the bridge. I am heart broken. I am looking up luthiers now, and I will be calling one in Yuma tomorrow morning. The ukulele orchestra is going well, and I am even going to lead one song – “Down on the Boardwalk>” Turns out the leader didn’t know it very well, and I started singing out on it. That was enough to get me to lead that song LOL! Our concert is in 9 days, and I am hoping to get the ukulele fixed right after that.

One of the interesting things that we have seen here is a Vandenberg AFB satellite launch. Interesting views of the first stage coming back into the lower atmosphere for recovery. It took a 2 second capture to get this view, but wow! There are two other launches this week. I am hoping they have a better launch angle.

Kevin and I took a ride northeast of Quartzsite to a mining area north of I-10 that was quite nice. I prefer mountains to dust, and this trip delivered.

A saguaro being very classically “saguaro!”

Cabin ruins. Note the little side rooms on the right.

We went on a UTV ride the SunRiders today after I went to quilt guild. We took a very round about route to the Cyprus Mine then drove around it. It is a big mostly open pit gold mine that is still actively being worked. It was HUGE! It was 2-3 miles to drive around the pile of overburden they had piled up. Sadly you can’t see the pit; that would have been nice. There were a few nice flowers like the sand verbena below, but it was mostly driving on sand/dust that wasn’t my favorite locale. Oh well, the mine was nice.

Water is pumped from the tunnels to here.

And I will end with a classic Arizona sunrise. Absolutely stunning.

In the Southwest again thank goodness

I left off on 29 December in New Mexico. We spent the night of 30 December in another Elks Lodge parking lot, this time in Gila Bend, AZ.

Oh, and just outside Gila Bend the motorhome hit 100,000 miles! Not bad for 7.5 years almost exactly. I got a quick picture from the passenger seat, so excuse the quality of the picture.

We made it to Quartzsite on New Year’s Eve, and we decided to stay at Rice Ranch, a full service campground right across the road from the legendary “Big Tent.” The price was just under $40 with tax since we still got December rates; I think the rates double in January! It is just a huge gravel lot with a few palm trees, but it is clean and relatively quiet this time of year. We asked for, and got, a spot as far from the road noise as possible which was nice. We got our laundry all done, our tanks cleaned out, our power at 100%, and we went into the LTVA area ready to boondock for quite a while. One of our RVing friends was already there.

We had a tiny spot of rain that first day, so we got a lovely rainbow.

That first evening in in the LTVA we were treated to one of Arizona’s truly spectacular sunsets. The colors are real, not touched up. The skies are this color frequently.

We were also treated to a rocket launch from Vandenberg. All day long it was relatively clear, but the clouds came in an hour or so before sunset. Since I didn’t take a video, you will have to trust me that the bright spot the arrow points to is the rocket flare.

It might seem as it if is “all sky all the time,” particularly after the next picture, but we really do get beautiful skies in Arizona in the winter. In the summer, there is frequently a lot of smoke from fires which makes the colors intense but adds a haze. The sky was clear for this photo of the Goodyear blimp on its way to the Fiesta Bowl this weekend.

We did try to go on a UTV ride with our club, the Arizona SunRiders, but the office where we needed to pick up our Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT) permit was closed on Friday, 2 January, for the holiday. Sure would be nice if the CRIT ever published this information! But we did drive around the area some, just wandering through the various LTVAs. They are busier than they were last year at this time, and there are more and more tents, cars campers, and van campers than I have seen. I think housing prices are just so outrageous for renting or purchasing that a lot of people adopt a nomad lifestyle out of need, not desire. Lots of people obviously down on their luck. The local food pantry is trying desperately to handle the influx, but it just isn’t big enough.

Monday I went to my first meeting of the Greater Quartzsite Ukulele Orchestra, and it was great fun. Not at all professional, a bit on the uneven rhythm side, but enjoyable. I knew all but a few of the chords, and I caught up on those with my handy dandy chord chart. The vast majority of the players use standard ukulele tuning and chords, but my baritone ukulele uses guitar-like chords. I am enough of a musician I can handle playing with just the chord names, and I don’t require the tabs to be written on each song. Good thing, because they weren’t there LOL! Our next concert is 29 January, and I think I will be ready for it.

I did get to go to the Quartzsite Quilters sewing day on Tuesday though. I had cut all the pieces for the last three months of the Kona Block of the Month I still had to finish, and at the quilting group I pieced the October block. I also got part of November done, but by the time I had taken out the third poorly sewn seam, I decided it was time to stop for the day! October isn’t my best work either, but it is good enough for me. It will also look better when pressed.

Wednesday, 7 January, we went to the SunRiders monthly meeting before packing up the motorhome for the short trip to Indio, CA and the Western Region FRVA rally. So far I am not impressed. There were not directions for which gate to use to enter the fairgrounds, and there were no signs directing us either. We got lucky and found our way. The organization is really quite poor at communication. I found out one of the sessions I wanted to attend had moved to a new location quite a bit away from the one in the program, and it was only know through word of mouth, not anything from the organizers. I could go on, but I won’t. I will say this isn’t a rally we will return to!

We are getting decent solar and we have enough water, so we are going to do at least one load of laundry tomorrow, probably just shirts. If I have enough water, we will also do towels, but that is quite tentative. But it is also nice to go into a boondock situation that anticipates weather swings knowing you have lots of both short sleeved and long sleeved tops. You never know in Quartzsite!

The things I forget each time we start a trip

I know I said I didn’t plan on posting again, but I thought this topic would be a good one to write down so I can look at it before our summer trip. Of course, I’ll probably forget, but I will attempt it anyway.

1. The clothes hangers in the close need to be hung backwards. If I hand them normally they fall off with the first big bump. I am not sure why the direction is important, but it is. Maybe my physicist son could tell me, but I sure can’t figure it out.

2. The things you think should stay on the counter won’t stay, but the things that seem movable will stay exactly put. This is another thing I don’t understand at all. I will put two items on the bathroom counter, one of the most stable spots in the motorhome because it is over the back wheels. One of them will stay exactly where I put it, and the other one will be on the floor. Can’t figure this one out either.

3. It takes a lot, lot, lot longer than you think to rinse the RV antifreeze out of the water lines. Kevin tried to do it at home before we left, and he swears he left each faucet on at least 5 minutes. They all still taste like antifreeze! Luckily RV antifreeze isn’t harmful, but it sure doesn’t taste good. We really do need to plan on staying in a full hookup campground the first night so we can get the lines really flushed.

4. Don’t be in so much of a hurry to start on your trip that you say “I’ll put that up when we get to our first overnight spot.” No, no you won’t. You will be tired and thinking about those water lines. Put things in their place first.

I am sure I will think of even more things soon, but this is a good start.

Oh, and I re-sized the pictures I got of the cats that I didn’t have available for the last post.

Look at the pouch on Luna! She is 11.5 pounds

Minnie loves her treats. She is just 7.5 pounds.

As for where we have spent the nights, we spent Boxing Day (26 December) at the Elks Lodge in Cameron, MO. The advertised electric sites were no where to be found, and the two other rigs there had obviously be there a long time. Not a fan. The second night we spent at the Elks Lodge in Chickasha, OK. It was a long day since there was a big storm coming in behind us. This was another dry camp, but the parking lot was big enough we didn’t have to unhitch. No drinks at the lodge because they allow smoking – ugh. Tonight we made a 400+ mile drive to get to Monahan, TX, staying at SJ Family RV Park. It looks like we outran the storm at least. We wanted to spend the night at the Monahan Sand Dunes State park, but they were full. This place is a real dump, but it is also only $25/night. I would gladly have spent twice the amount for a nicer place, but Kevin had already arranged this one. It is the first time in a long time that we have locked everything up tight! Tomorrow’s plan is to be at the Elks Lodge in Las Cruces, FHU hopefully. We want to do laundry before arriving in Quartzsite, so I am hoping we can get that done tomorrow.

Now back to practicing the ukulele. I still have trouble transitioning to an F chord.

And we’re off!

We had a lovely Christmas get-together with most of the Iowa family. Lots of good food and lots of fun. After all the practicing I did with the ukulele and Christmas songs, I lost the book of the songs! So not really much music which was disappointing. We did have a really lovely Lessons and Carols Christmas Eve service at church, so I got to sing a bunch there.

But let me back up. I finally recovered from my sinus surgery only to find out my pre-diabetes diagnosis got moved to real, true, gotta take medicine-type of diabetes. Sigh. Since this was just a few days before Christmas and our snowbird trip, it was a real hassle getting things with my PCP and the pharmacy. My PCP gave me a choice between Metformin, a pill, and Mounjaro, a GLP-1 injection. Since my A1C has always been related to my weight, I chose Mounjaro because I should lose weight on it in addition to being good for the diabetes. I took my first shot on Monday evening, and my fasting blood glucose went from 160ish (pretty high) to today’s reading of 102 (normal!). No side effects so far, so I am hopeful.

Back to getting out of Iowa… We packed yesterday, Christmas Day, after pulling the motorhome in front of the house. Our town allows such parking only for 48 hours, but that wasn’t going to be an issue. Our weird weather patterns continued, and we were above freezing the entire day so Kevin was even able to fill up the water tank and flush all the lines free of antifreeze. We then went to Camping World and used their dump station to get rid of the gray water from flushing. Took the rig back home and re-filled the water tank. We finished packing everything except toiletries yesterday, and we were on the road by 9:00 this morning. We are spending this first night in an Elks Lodge parking lot in Cameron, MO. We still have quite a few things to put in their correct locations, but everything did fit LOL! Tomorrow we will have a long day trying to get well southwest of Oklahoma City to miss a storm coming in on Sunday. No matter where we end up, we will still need to be on the road by 6:00-6:30 in order to not get held up by wind gusts. If we make it past the wind, we should be good to get to Quartzsite by New Year’s Eve.

The cats are doing great! Shy, hesitant, anxious Minnie is happily exploring everywhere. She even sat on my lap for a while, and she is demanding lots of cuddles. I think Minnie thinks the small quarters are less frightening. Luna is Luna; nothing much bothers her, and she is behaving quite normally. I took a couple of cute pictures of the two of them with my iPhone, but the photos aren’t syncing quickly for some reason. Here is at least one of them.

Ignore the mess and look at the kitties!

See how they are both just strutting around?

I probably won’t post again until we get to Quartzsite unless something weird happens. Let’s hope 2026 is a LOT better than 2025.