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And bye bye to Big House, about 45 miles south of Phoenix off I-10, a suburb, but not without its own growing economy. Jobs have almost doubled in eight years. Major players with manufacturing facilities include Abbott Labs (huge nutrition building looms nearby), Frito-Lays, Daisy Brand, and a Wal-Mart distribution center among others. We’re in Sundance 1 RV Park. On some ways, it is a step down from Caliente Springs. It’s more like a small city and not very dog friendly.

Our trip here included one night at the Ramblin Roads RV Park in Hope, AZ. That place was close to an RV park we stayed in previously in Salome. They are both really nowhere, not the actual ‘Nowhere’, which we passed through last year, just way out in the desert boonies. Look it up on Google maps. Look everything up on Google maps. Good geography lessons.

On that vein, this entry is one of those travelogue types. No philosophy, no politics, no jokes only only funny to me. Just pictures with simple comments. I know, they were more entertaining when I was loopy, though, of course, in the era of alternative facts, everything is, apparently, debateable.

Speaking of the desert, on our drive we noticed something very different about the desert this time – it was green. Not exactly golf course green but enough to give the entire landscape a light green hue. See I-8 photo.

Most of the pics are of the last days of Palm Springs. Sounds like a title for a movie about a volcano. A tiny recess of my brain still has black and white reels from ‘The Last Days of Pompeii’ where the ancient Italians got buried in lava. One of those great old disaster movies, long drawn out stories for adults but all the kids want to see is the big event – people buried in lava. So we spent two months sitting on the San Andreas fault waiting for that movie to come true.

VOR Near Parker. Any pilots out there? That little white upside down ice cream cone on the plate in the middle of the desert is a VOR – Very High Frequency Omni Directional Radio Range. It transmits a signal on a specific frequency in all directions. Pilots with planes that are VOR receiver equipped, and that is just about everyone overhead, tune in to that frequency and aim toward the direction indicated by the signal. Auto pilots use them as well. These cones dot the US landscape. Flying is easier than driving, as long as you figure out that landing thing. That can be fun. Ask Harrison Ford.

Beep-beep: almost daily, this roadrunner would scamper through our site, pause as he approached the fence, then would jump up on it with one wing flap. Luna chased one of these once. She was probably fast enough to run it down but that flying part was disappointing for her.

Last Sunset at Caliente: that was nearly a month ago now. You ever wonder how many of those sunsets you have left to see? Since most of you are no spring chickens, we’ve most likely seen more than we will. Get out and enjoy them when you can.

Joshua Tree: Niece-in-law, Chris, Andrea, and Luna enjoying a perfect February day in Joshua Tree National Park, literally Chris and nephew Sasha’s backyard.

Casa Grande Mountain Park: before the temperatures soared to near 100 earlier in the month, we took a prickly hike among the suagaros in this local park. We wandered off the trail at one point and we’re immediately attacked by jumping Cholla cactus balls, or, if you’re scientifically inclined, cylindropuntia fulgida. The name is a bit misleading. Older pieces of the plant fall off but these parts, containing a dozen or more spikes, are so light that the wind will take them as will a brush with clothing, or, so it is reported, by static electricity. Luna had two on her face which she immediately made worse by trying to swat them off. Andrea and I each attracted one and then got poked again trying to clean up Luna. Lesson learned. Stay on the trail when Cholla cactus present. Those needles are sharp.

Cactus Flowers: that’s right here in Sundance 1 RV Resort. Somebody’s cactus garden bloomed.

Sunset here: that was last Saturday night. I couldn’t get out to the clearing beyond the RV park fast enough to get that last brilliant red so framing the palm tree across the street would have to do. Other than the occasional Arizona sunset, not unique to this park, this place has few redeeming qualities. It’s nice enough, the people are all very nice and welcoming but it has some negatives. The busiest rail line we’ve ever experienced is less than a half mile away. There’s actually a northbound and a southbound set of rails and they cross Thornton Rd, our address, just 500 yards down the street. The train engineers each have their own idea of how to employ their horns. A few minutes ago one hit short toots for at least a minute before the crossing. Some guys just lay on it like their trying to annoy their ex-wives who live nearby. As I said, they come from both directions and there are other crossings east of here, closer to commerce. They’re blasting away also. I hear one coming now, the rumbling a few miles away, horns to sound shortly. This goes on all day and all night long. They wake us up at 3-4-5 in the morning. Enough with the trains. The other annoying sound is the that of the doves. Hooh-hoooh, hooh-hooh-hoooh, hooh-hooh-hoooh,… Over and over, all day long in quadraphonic. And last night the wind came up pretty strong from the southeast, where a field had obviously been recently covered in manure, or some foul, horse-shit smell. Nasty. Casa Grande has been eliminated as a future stay. One of those damn trains from Picacho Peak State Park included.

And the last picture, the Cactus Garden right here in the RV park. Eh!

Kind of odd that we’re here. The NCAA Final Four is just up the road in Glendale tonight. Like I care. Two years ago we were in Mesa when the Super Bowl was in town.

There. I finished a whole entry without some wild ass rant or major vulgarity. Boring.

On to Apache Junction tomorrow. That’s east of Phoenix. We’ll be looking for you, Tom and Vicki, if you haven’t gone back to CO yet, to commiserate Kansas’ loss. After that, we’ll be heading back to Monument. There’s a grand daughter due to make her Earthly debut near the end of April.

Y’all drive safely. Speaking of, here’s a scary fact: 20 people will die on US roads today in accidents in which teenagers were driving. Every day.

One last cheery note to leave you with. We turned on the TV at about dinner time last week and I noticed the 1992 Best Picture was just about over, ‘Unforgiven’. The first word spoken was “Misfire!” and all bloody hell breaks loose. My favorite movie line was about to be spoken by Clint Eastwood’s character, William Munny, a man of notoriously vicious and intemperate disposition. It kind of sums up how I feel about this whole life thing.

Gene Hackman’s character, Sheriff Little Bill, shot, dying, and about to have his head blown off with a Spencer rifle in his face: “I’ll see you in hell William Munny”.

Clint Eastward, finger on the trigger to avenge the savage murder of Ned (Morgan Freeman), his longtime friend, considers that statement and says, “Yeah”.

Boom!

That’s life, and I can’t deny it.

Or, how about this one from ‘Forest Gump’, “I didn’t know I was supposed to be looking for him, sir.” (When asked by Lieutenant Dan if he’d found Jesus yet.)

Of course, ‘My Cousin Vinnie’ is being recorded during this dumb basketball game and how many classic lines are in that one?

(Think Gene Autry)

Happy trails, to you, until we meet again.

First of all, this Groundhog Day is a load of shot. That’s the word I have to use on Yahoo when I comment on news articles that I feel compelled to add my two cents to. I also get censored when I say someone is a member of the same organization that tried to create a master race. And I can’t call a whole group of a people the plural synonym for cats because they fear little brown men with beards rather than teenage drivers who kill 20 Americans every day. And I don’t really have an opinion on such things. The reason I feel compelled to write comments was explained to me recently. Oh, were you expecting some photos from the road? Well sure, go ahead and distract me. I don’t want to talk about that shot anyway.

So we decided that the Palm Springs area is nice enough to hang around another month despite the wind. Just when we made that decision, God said, hold it down. And the wind died down. Since then, you couldn’t ask for better weather. We can sit outside and watch the sun set over the San Jacinto Mountains. I thought the reflection on the back of the Odyssey was cool.

On the last day of January we took a drive to the mountains. We went about 20 miles west on I-10 to Banning, and turned south on CA243. You’re heading through civilization and then all of a sudden the road climbs, twists and turns into inhabitable terrain – and you better have good brakes. Speaking of, we just got new ones on Friday. You can tell on Google maps it’s going to be good road with all the zig-zags. It did not disappoint. In just a few miles there was snow on the roadside. We had to pause on the way up as a road crew moved a massive boulder that had fallen. We stopped at one of the many turnouts for slow traffic. Some have views. Some snow. Luna got a taste.

The Salton Sea has a very interesting history, too long to blab about here. Look it up in Wikipedia.

We came from the warm desert a few hours earlier. Just about 6,000 feet up we stopped at a “Vista Point”. They have these all over California. The vista sucked but the path was interesting.

The better vista was when I came back off the path, seeing the Jeep and knowing it had new brakes. The distant mountains were nice too.

This road led us through the cute little mountain town of Idylwilde. We stopped and Andrea had a croissant – the guy said it was there so long he had no idea what was in it. I had a slice of pizza that was as good as any I’ve had west of the Hudson River. Who’da thunk it?

CA243 connected to CA74 which straightened out on high plains as it ran east back to the Palm Springs area. It was pine trees down to ranchland. At the corner of CA74 and Palm Canyon Dr, we pulled off for a doggie stop. It was also a nice place to see a lovely Yucca Faxoniana up against the white caps of the San Gorgonios.

They actually call this section of CA74 the Palm to Pines Highway, a designated scenic route. However, as the road then turns north back to Palm Desert, a lush community at the southern edge of Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument, it drops dramatically from about 5,000′ to near sea level. Cool road.

Switchbacks:

Palm Desert, the green below:

That was Tuesday.

We’ve been going to the pool almost daily. The thermal springs fed pools are supposed to have benefits for people with bad backs and other bad shot (Yahoo word). With my friggin (you can say that on Yahoo) back going sour again (while the foreign new hip continues to make peace with the home grown muscles and tendons), I made an appointment with my surgeon Wednesday morning to get an x-ray to see if any screws are loose.

Speaking of loose screws, back to those Yahoo comments. I’ve been finding the world a strange place the last few months and have been wondering what’s going on. I found a new shrink here who, I was told, gave advice to Jonathan Winters, Andy Kaufman, and Robin Williams. With streets named Bob Hope, Dinah Shore, and Gene Autrey Drive, you know this place has doctors you can trust. He says I’m having a full blown flashback, like I’m on an LSD trip. Gee, how could that happen? He says you can either check yourself into a nut house, kill yourself, or deal with it. He was making me paranoid so I left. Everything has seemed so bizarre. I go to sleep at night and have weird dreams and then I wake up and it’s just like the dreams. Last night I had a dream within a dream. Well, I always thought that’s what dying was like – dreaming all the time. And then passages from The Tibetan Book of the Dead seem to bang around inside my head when I watch the news so maybe this is dead. Whatever, you’re all in this with me so play along. I’m told flashbacks only last about four years. You kind of wonder, when you’re me now, has it always been like this? Is it in the water supply? I got questions. Hey Richard, is this how it is?

To keep me grounded, after my back doctor advised me not to do anything too strenuous to fork up the back anymore, like hiking, Andrea convinced me to take a hike Wednesday. She came too, as did Luna. We went out the back of the park and north into the hills which become the southwest corner of Joshua Tree National Park. We didn’t get very far when my paranoia started creeping over me. Actually, it was flying overhead. Do you see all those contrails? Now they’re criss-crossing, dropping their mind-altering gases all over the country. You see all that stuff?

We only went a little over a mile and a half, all gently uphill, passing more spent bullet shells than I saw at the firing range in the Army.

More flashbacks. You see, the Army gave me the acid. Or was it my cook buddy? Or was he part of the experiment? Did we really get it into the water tower? Far, forking out! There was also a lot of broken glass out there along with shot up TV’s, mattresses, and hand grenade pins. I guess this is normal now. Anyway, we eventually got past the first hills and into a narrow canyon.

We stopped for lunch in the shade. This is a 180 of our quiet little picnic spot.

Out of the blue, Andrea’s canine-like olfactories sniffed hamburger. We walked ten feet further and around the bend was a tent. How does she do that? See, behind the bush?

I wasn’t messing with somebody with more ammo than God so 1.55 miles turned out to be just enough. Get me out of here.

Downhill is better unless your knees have fewer steps ahead than they’ve taken. But, new views on the return.

On this last shot, or should I say photo, I was trying to capture the glistening hill to the right – it’s covered in broken glass – but the camera revealed the settling fumes of the contrails.

By the time we got back, the RV park looked like a scene from a zombie movie. Old people walking around like they all had arthritis, obviously affected by the mind altering chemicals falling out of the sky. When will it end?

Maybe now. Here comes a whale UFO stirring up a dust storm:

That’s an odd expression. Stays Put. How does “put” suddenly go from being a verb describing ‘movement to a position’, to being in that settled position? I suppose I should say “Odyssey Stays in the Same Place”. Dumb assed language. But I like “stays put”. Hey Anna – how would you say that in Russian? I think perhaps we all might need to pick up that Rosetta Stone.

I was going to say I digress but how can one digress if one has not started? Anyway, we decided that we like it here so much we’re going to stay another month. I think the clincher was finally using the pools Sunday. They are fed by mineral hot springs. Even though it was only 60°F (we’ll start learning Celsius when the new Don negotiates that 562 million he owes to the aforementioned state’s mafia) and winds around 25 (not yet km/h – what is that in knots, Stanley? And how did that happen? A measure of wind and a twisted rope are the same word? Especially in sailing! “Captain, we’re pulling five knots.” “Which ones, Gilligan, bowline, square, clove?”). The big pool is a toasty 92 at one end and about 80 at the other end. The smaller pools are warmer. They’re going to help with the back and hip, still being a pain in the upper ass.

The only negative about this area is the wind. It’s a pretty serious negative but the pros win. I checked temps around the whole southwest and it ain’t much different elsewhere. Monday was great. Occasional wind gusts but mostly mellow, near 70. I rested my aching, phony hip while Andrea hung out at and used the pool, that is, worked hard at laundry detail.

The view from our site is really as good as any we have had, the monthly rate is reasonable, it feels safe, Luna likes it despite the nightly coyote shrieks, and the weather isn’t much better anyplace else, so why not? The only store the area doesn’t have is Ikea. That’s good. Don’t have to make that needle-in-the-eyes choice while here.

The famous Palm Springs International Film festival is in town this week. We went to the movies Friday to see ‘Hidden Figures’ but the 1:45 matinee was sold out – rainy day, so we saw ‘Patriot’s Day’. Another well done movie but we all know the story. Check out the movie theater picture – pretty sure that guy in the white shirt to the right of the entrance is Ryan Reynolds. Or not.

On the way out a load of people with conventioneer-like name tags were heading in, including one guy with a big-ass camera with a serious, old fashioned flash attachment. Must be some Hollywood types lurking. “Hey Jimmie Olsen, Eddie Fisher is in the lobby!” Did you see Eddie Fisher in the ‘recently dead Fishers’ HBO thingie? Geez, if I get anywhere near looking like that, please feed me about a half dozen hits of acid and ten quaaludes. Back to glitterati in Palm Springs. Our neighbor says his wife goes to the jewelry stores on Indian Palm Drive to star gaze. Fuck that. I wake up next to a star everyday. She deserves one for putting up with me. (Yeah, thank you, editors – way better line than ‘waking up next to that mirror’. At least I don’t see Eddie Fisher yet.) OK, Andrea says she sees Clara Bell and Einstein some days. All right, I’ll take that. I was think Dr. Zorba – what was that, the Ben Gazzara tv show?

Geez, where was I? So, expect more pictures of the mountains around here. After the Pickford Theater shot, there’s a decent sunset. At this time of year, the sun goes down directly behind Mt San Jacinto, putting a real crimp on developing my bikini lines. You Colorado Springs and Monument folks and anybody else living on the east side of a mountain know a thing or two about that – the sun going down early.

On the morning of the 4th, I got up at 5am to watch the Quadrantids, a short term meteor shower, like two hours and it’s gone. The experts said the prime viewing was at 5:30. Duh, by then the sun was an hour from rising but already brightening up the eastern sky – where the meteors were said to originate. Total washout. I didn’t see shit. But sunrise against the mountains is always nice.

Next. The next day the wind was out in force and kicked up enough dust to hide the big mountain.

Another shot of that path behind the rv park that heads north. Turns out that all the barren land and hills a mile up the road are in Joshua Tree National Park. We’ll get up there again. I was in lousy shape last year when we visited and the wind was crazy so our touring was very minimal. We’ll go up there again this time around.

Then another shot of the big mountain in sunshine. We were hiking a little closer to it. Turns out we missed the actual trail and ran into barbed wire. Nice 150′ elevation gain in about a quarter mile, but no promised canyon. We’ll find others. I twisted the hip or something a few days ago and the setbacks are pretty damn depressing. Kind of feels like a year ago. Don’t take my Medicare aware you assholes!

Last shot – fire lasted all day. That was directly to our south, which would have put it in Cathedral City, or thereabouts. Palm Springs is like any urban area – lots of adjoining incorporated towns. Never did see anything about the fire in the news.

Finally. Since we’re going to be here so long, I was thinking that perhaps one of you might win the lottery soon and would want to spread the wealth. Please send that check to us at

Caliente Springs Resort

Site 456

70-200 Dillon Rd

Desert Hot Springs, CA 94421

From sunny Desert Hot Springs, CA. Not so hot though. High has been in the fifties, but the wind, which is calm today, has, for a couple of days, been wild. Steady 20-30mph, gusts to 40. I had to throw a rope over the awning on the big slide to keep it from flapping.

Here we are at Caliente Springs Resort, a 55+ community with a fairly even mix of park models (permanent, small homes) and RV’s. Technically, we’re outside the incorporated town of Desert Hot Springs and in Desert’s Edge. It’s all desert. We stayed in this place last year for a week and liked the pools – water from natural hot springs. We had a lousy, transient site near the front of the park near the main road then. That location sucked.

This year we’re staying through the month of January and opted for a step up to a ‘deluxe’ site. #456 is near the back of the park, away from the noisy road, across from the ‘elite’ sites that back up to the golf course, and it backs up to open desert facing west. Nice views of the mountains, several photos attached. The ‘North Back Caliente’ photo shows the dirt road that runs north just outside the gate behind us.

The “golf course” – here’s the word-for-word description from the literature we were given: “The golf course at Caliente Springs is a 9-hole par-3 course with yardage from 62 to 117 yards.” Breaking par (“3”?) apparently requires divine intervention. Since that’s not going to happen in your case, my golfing friend, though I’m sure a 62 yard hole had you drooling, forget about coming down to conquer this monstrous course. I’m hearing that only two people have made par, the infallibly divine Kim Jong Un, of course, and the literally unbelievable president elect who, my people tell me, did it with just one stroke. Lots of people are saying it’s true.

Anyway, we had heavy rain for New Years Eve which ended at around 11 Pacific time, about when some of your hangovers were beginning. We opted out of the New Years party here. Suspicions of Lawrence Welk champagne bubble music, polkas, and line dancing with Kool and the Gang celebrating with visions of The Electric Hairpiece Slide were confirmed by the dynamite Canadian couple in the RV next to us. Larry and Donna, ten years older than us and yearly January visitors to this park, invited us into their beautiful forty-five footer earlier in the day. They said the party was not the ideal situation to meet like minded people. When am I going to be able to wear my sheriff’s badge? Larry’s a corker. If type A personalities could be upgraded he’d be A+++. Classic cocaine caricature or maybe a Black Mollie man. Says he only sleeps three or four days a week. Very nice though.

So did everyone have enough of 2016? I’m sure some of you had some good things happen. Congratulations to those whose Cubbies tipped the scales for their year on the good side. They made most of the country smile, at least for a few days in November. Then, 100 years after the first woman, Jeannette Rankin, Republican Representative from Montana, was elected to Congress, something like divine intervention, I think it’s called the Electoral College, made 62 million voters happy and 65 million wonder what just happened. I just saw a commercial for FarmersOnly.com where their tag line is the story of the election, “City folk just don’t get it.” I guess. More like, city folk only get nine tenths of a vote.

The good news, I haven’t felt so energized to participate in the colonization of earth since the 70’s, when we had causes worth fighting for. While putting away Christmas (yes, Christmas, not Holiday) lights and rearranging our lower storage area, I came across one of my college notebooks – see photo. We got rid of Nixon but it took forty years to legalize pot, almost. You might ask what I’m doing with an old college notebook. Well, the poet laureate of the state of Metahedonism left countless, babbling scribbles in the margins which may or may not contain his extraction coordinates and date. Cryptologists are working on it. Please send the spaceship back now.

Where was I? Somewhere out in the desert with Don Juan and Carlos Castaneda. The two hundred mile drive from Fort Mohave was almost entirely through the Mojave Desert. It seemed that every fifty miles or so, a new mountain range would appear, not very tall but very rough and jagged. I had spotted a place to stop for lunch at about the halfway point, an intersection of California Highways 62 and 177. Really – I looked at the Google Maps route ahead of time, then zoomed in with the satellite view at the approximate mid point and looked for some open space on the side of the road. The mostly narrow shoulder was not an option. The crossroad had about two acres of flattened parking area. With no truck or rest stops out there in the boonies, you can’t just expect a truck sized parking space to appear out of nowhere and if it does, there’s no stopping on a dime or backing up. Gotta plan ahead. See picture for some understanding of the sheer desolation out there. Some might find it boring. I think it’s beautiful.

Arriving here, we were very pleased with our picturesque site. Mt San Jacinto is the largest mountain looming over the entire Palm Springs area. It’s on the south side of I-10 and the other white peak in the distance on the right, to the north, is San Gorgonio Mountain. I don’t know why one is mount something and the other is something mountain. The valley through which I-10 runs, San Gorgonio Pass, is also a funnel for the winds coming from the coast. The fairly constant flow creates one of the more suitable locations for the oldest large wind farm in the US. We discussed this last year.

One picture, to give you an idea of the “neighborhood”, looks down the street right in front of us. Nice place. Quite a mixture of age groups. Someone in the RV or home has to be 55 or older but I’ve seen a lot of people younger than us. Maybe some of those second marriages where you hook up with the young casino dealer? Saw at least one Auntie Mame type with a retired Blue Man Group stud. No, I don’t know that for sure but that blue skin tone is a clue. I don’t think he’s a big NY Giants fan. Maybe that was the guy who died today.

Couple of fun census facts about Palm Springs:

Only 1% list themselves as Asian but 12% are Pacific Islander (no, I don’t know if that includes Hawaiians).

11% of married couples are same-sex, largest of any city in US as of 2010.

OK, did I digress again? Passing on senior sirachi spaghetti, Medicare meatloaf, sparkling grape juice, and the music of Jerome Robinson, the last of the Platters (how about that, Mel?), Andrea made a spectacularly delicious lasagna using sausage meatballs and some leftover eggplant parmesan. You senile old bastards, eat your diseased hearts out. We watched the ball drop in NYC and New Orleans while in between, the New Years party here let out. Really, 9:30? The best moment of the night was Mariah Carey pretending she was at one of our family lip synch contests and cousin Gary mistakenly queuing up a Tina Turner tune. Jack? An idea for this year?

At midnight here, it sounded like the revolution started already. Why isn’t Wolf Blitzer reporting this? I went outside and found that most of Palm Springs was still awake and shooting off fireworks. Was that Freeport’s own Guy Lombardo doing Auld Lang Syne? How did a Scottish song whose first line asks whether we should dump our old friends become such a standard for welcoming the New year and wishing good riddance to the past one? Well, in this year of change, how about a new song, like George Harrison’s ‘All Things Must Pass’, or if you want to lament, ‘Isn’t It a Pity’? Maybe George envisioned 2017 with the lyrics in ‘Beware of Darkness’ – “beware of soft shoe shufflers” (con-men, hmm, who could that be?) and “greedy leaders” (uh, the whole cabinet?). But I digress.

Happy New Year

We just started receiving holiday letters. Thank you. Don’t expect this to be one just cause it says so, like an election promise. But, it is nice to hear that people on this list are alive. Just in case, and I say this because some of us are old fuckers, some reckless people, and some with just bad luck – send me a note when you bite the big one. All cheeriness aside – that son-of-a-bitch error correction tried spelling that as cheesiness, I hate that – some of you may remember our holiday letters of the past, I believe beginning when we moved to Colorado and started sending annual, picture-filled letters of our wonderful new life out west, from frolicking in three feet of snow in March, to throwing up in the throes of altitude sickness on Pikes Peak, and shitting our pants as buffalo charged through our campsite at Yellowstone. Alas, the electronic age with social media exposing our every movement has left the written communication via snail mail to die. Remember opening that magazine to the centerfold upon receipt? Those were the days. In a mind-wandering related way, I think back to my early geek years with new fangled email and internet in the office and found the true use of the internet, porn. But, I digress, with some ugly memories of a woman and a horse. Ooooooh! Get over it. She did. Anyway, the guy in accounting sent it. And the guy monitoring emails was the porn king. Those were the days.

Back to the joyous holiday season. Think sugarplums (what the hell are they anyway? Was she a centerfold or something to hide the pubies?), mistletoe and draedels. Come on, Christians, there is a Chaunaka Harry, and this year he also comes tonight. (Hey, you pornheads, don’t think it.) To the point of this damn thing, wishing you all, not just a happy holiday season – what a narrow timeframe – but happiness and, perhaps more importantly, with possible threats to healthcare on the horizon, good health throughout the year. We’ll revisit next year. I know for many of you, this year sucked. Let me join in that refrain. THIS YEAR SUCKED! We’ll get over it. But don’t lose your focus and do anything stupid. If some asshole at the bar deserves a fist in the nose, think clearly about the possible repercussions. Don’t punch the idiot in the nose. Think about your hand. Ask the bartender for a fresh, frosty mug and use that to break the jerkoff’s nose. Maybe you’ll get his last tooth too.

Sorry. This past year gets me riled up. So much bad shit (why does error correction capitalize Shit? A deity I missed? Thought I dismissed all of them). I think I’m still having alcohol and opioid withdrawals. Some anger issues. Could it be that intoxicants were invented to calm the masses? Well, pot’s going legal, eventually everywhere. Wish I still had a desire for that. Big brother trying to mellow out the rest of us? Think about it, how many stoners will break a face with a beer mug? By the way, a paranoid rumor in my head, and maybe in a few others, had it that when I was sending out 2am, off-the-wall ramblings about whatever stream-of-consciousness was surfacing after ten ounces of alcohol, a couple of pain killers, and a few tokes of hash oil, that I was perhaps “losing it”. Well, let me put that rumor, if there was any truth to it, to rest. I never had “it”! Actually, I lost it a long time ago and had been pretending all those years that I still had it. Do you still have it? Condolences, depending on how you feel about “it”. Get rid of the copy too.

More digression. Sorry. Anyway, you don’t need a holiday letter from us. I sent 17 of these out in the first half of the year, just 5 since – surgeries really fucked up my mood more than expected. So, you know what we did this year. But, here we are, on the road again, there I am, up on the stage. The Metallica version is, in my hard rock opinion, the best cover of any song in history. Talk amongst yourselves on that one. There’s always ‘You Keep Me Hangin On’ by Vanilla Fudge, or, for the season, Trans Siberian Orchestra tearing up (in a good way) any Christmas song. But, hey family (sorry non-family for this digression), on a very similar topic – do you remember the first lipsynch contest at the first annual cousins’ party (1986-7?) at Uncle Bobby’s. I know it wasn’t a cover but I worked hard for weeks while driving back and forth to work getting the words and timing perfect for my ‘Doe A Deer’ presentation. It has audience participation, everybody singing – and I didn’t even get a bowling trophy. Remember, Jill? That was entertainment. Pull out your old camcorder videos. Play that sucker at my funeral. Again, apologies non-attendees.

Ok, back to now. On the road again. We’re in cold, rainy and windy Bullhead City, AZ. It fucking poured last night.This is usually one of the hottest parts of the state but the jet stream, pushed pretty far south by a cold mass, is sucking moisture from the Pacific and spreading it throughout the southwest. I know, you all get it a few days later much worse. It’s just nasty here but at least it’s not freezing.

The pics are just views from the rv park. We’ve been here, in Bullhead City, twice before but not in this park. Our site is on a ridge overlooking the city, the Colorado River, and Laughlin (mini Las Vegas), NV, where they are on Pacific time. My phone gets confused sometimes. Not so smart. I think we’ll go over there this afternoon and join the wheel-chaired, oxygen-tank smokers at the tables. Actually Harrah’s has a non-smoking floor.

So how many Happy Holiday notes did you get like this? One last thing – when the weather sucks, the movies is an option. Our choices were limited yesterday but “Manchester By The Sea” got great reviews so we tried it. If you like character studies and don’t care about feel-good BS, this one’s for you. If you’re depressed, bring several vials of heroin with you and inject anytime it seems appropriate. They’ll be lots of opportunities. Or go with a communicable disease and sneeze all over everyone. Give them a reason to feel sick. But, fantastic writing, directing, and acting, if that’s enough to float your boat.

Wait, one more. We picked up ‘Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot’ on the way home. Eh, or for dreidel spinners, meh. Great line at the end though. That old, personally familiar theme of “adrenaline junky” resonated throughout, culminating in Tina Fey’s character’s reason for leaving after years in Afghanistan, “It’s starting to feel normal”. Like when you stop taking acid. (It’s in the book.) But then it sounded more like an echo from the political campaign. Let’s hope “nuclear winter” doesn’t become part of “normal” conversation. That said, time for Mad Max?

He sees you when you’re sleeping

He knows when you’re awake

He knows if you’ve been bad or good

So be good for NSA’s sake

Dear Santa. How about just showing up?

How can you be near Sedona and not get outside for a hike? Andrea found five easy hikes and had me choose one. So I picked a short one, about a mile and a quarter in total, but a four hundred foot elevation gain. That means lots of switchbacks. It’s rated as easy, so why not?

Who the hell decides what’s an easy hike anyway? Easy for who? Thirty year olds or a sixty-six year old with a new hip? How about a rating for dogs with six inch legs? And who are these nasty people that design hiking trails? Pure evil running in their blood. At least, that’s what my hip is telling me two hours later sitting in a Wal-Mart parking lot with little Luna with the six inch legs. She’s tired too. Where does Andrea get her amphetamines? I have a lot of questions.

The good news, it was sunny, fifties, and the hike was beautiful. It was a bit windy on top, bone chilling even in the sun, but worth it. Hell, it was 18 degrees overnight. Out of here tomorrow.

The pics:

1. The girls, waiting for me, as they would every hundred yards or so.

2. A pano from the top. Once at the top there’s a flat trail to the other side with some cool views. I just wanted a bench.

3. Every step going up I kept thinking that these kinds of hikes are always harder coming back down. When I spotted the helicopter I was hoping that Christmas had come early. Zoom in, upper left. “Over here, over here!”

4. That wasn’t to be. On the way up I didn’t want to stop to take pictures. On the way down, any excuse to stop. Views were nice on that side, too.

5. Here’s proof that somebody with my phone took a picture of the Jeep from up on the trail. Zoom in to the center of the parking lot. The blue Jeep is ours. The bikes on the rear rack might be harder to see. That’s what about 350 feet up looks like. An ‘easy’ hike.

6. No, the F16s didn’t follow us. Andrea took that at Sunflower Resort. You can tell these are F16s. The F16 has a single tail while the F35 has two, widely separated tails with a noticeable gap between the left and right horizontal stabilizers when viewing from below. Glad you asked? Google F35 to see what four hundred billion buys you. Why don’t we just buy countries instead of scaring them with loud planes? Like, wouldn’t Greece be cheap now? Italy’s about to go bankrupt. Or maybe a cool island like Barbados? Just a question.

Six hours after the hike and it feels like the day after the operation. Shit. I picked a bad year to quit booze and pain killers. Anybody got any glue?

Welcome back to the road. It seemed too soon to go, Leo growing up before our eyes. Andrea is vowing to go back in January, to make sure he doesn’t get too old too fast. The really good news, and it’s not a secret anymore, is he’s going to have a little sister in the spring. That event will bring us back to Monument in mid April, a little early at seven thousand feet. Well, we’re getting some cold weather practice now.

After the warmest and driest November on record in Colorado Springs, we left on Dec 1st, just as winter started moving in. We picked up the RV in Apache Junction, an eastern suburb of Phoenix, and stayed there a week. The weather was as expected, low seventies and mild nights. Next stop was in Surprise. Really, it’s a northwestern suburb. The RV Park, Sunflower Resort, is one of those mega parks where a thousand snowbirds gather for the winter. Arriving on Saturday it was very quiet and peaceful.

Monday morning, surprise in Surprise! Pairs of F16’s and the new, billion dollar, F35’s came roaring overhead all day long. Luke Air Force Base is just to the southwest, about 3 miles, almost on a straight line to runway 3/21 (that’s 30 degrees oriented to north, and the other way, when the wind blows from the south or west, 210). Taking off toward us their engines were cranking – quite impressive, all day long. Luke is the largest fighter pilot training base in the US. Now we know.

Later in the week a guy and his buddy stop in front of the RV and, while commenting on what a nice rig it is, he gives us a sales pitch on washing and waxing it. I tell Bobby “no” enough times that his price is finally a bargain. Next day he comes back with his buddy who is 20 years old with 2 kids and a new Dodge Charger packed with a ladder, some hoses and a buffing machine. They’re an hour late and immediately upon unloading their equipment they have to go get buddy some aspirin for his hangover. Add a half hour. Finally, they start working.

Buddy does most of the work while Bobby mostly talks with us, at one point asking if we have any pot to smoke. Bobby gets high. An hour later he needs to go out to get something to drink. They didn’t bring anything. Andrea offers them soft drinks or water. Ok for buddy but Bobby wants his kind of drink, and could he borrow twenty bucks which he’ll take off the bill. Andrea gives him a rum and coke, later a beer – just do some work. As the sun starts going down it is clear they won’t be done that day. Bobby has another beer for the road and promises to be back in the morning. When it rains that night I have to put his equipment under the RV or his electric gear would have been ruined.

He doesn’t show up Thursday. At 5pm Andrea calls him to find out when he’s coming. Oh, his mom is in the hospital. He’s been there all day. Uh-huh. They show up on Friday, along with Bobby’s wife, who is, apparently, there to kick him in the ass to finish. By mid afternoon the ordeal is over. Bye bye Bobby.

The RV does look pretty shiny. At nightfall some more of that rare rain hits and then the wind picks up. Crazy wind for hours. When we wake up Saturday morning, we find that the wind had deposited dust over the drying rain droplets. Fuckin A! Something like that. At least it’s quiet. The flyboys don’t work on Saturdays. With that, we’re out of there.

So here we are in Verde Valley Resort, a secluded place, a few hundred isolated acres near Cottonwood, AZ, 70-80 miles north of Phoenix. It was 26 degrees last night and below 30 now, Sunday night, as Andrea speaks all the parts and sings all the songs in The Sound of Music, for the 39th time in our marriage. I’ll get even later this week when I play It’s A Wonderful Life (my 78th time). But, I digress. The 4000 foot altitude here, some 20 miles or so south of Sedona, is the temperature culprit. Climb every mountain and see.

Photos. Start with the storage facility at Apache Junction. The owner, a very nice man, just wanted a helicopter to decorate his place.

Sunsets – they look remarkably similar at these parks.

We finally got out for a hike, an easy one. The new hip is trying to make nice with the surrounding muscles. We’ll get there.

Lastly, an F35 made like a UFO above the rising moon. You need a real camera for moons and UFO’s.

What the hell are we doing here? It’s 24 friggin degrees Now at 1am. Who knew? Gotta leave a faucet dripping. And we only have 30 amps so one space heater, one gas furnace and the electric hot water heater gets you to the edge, 31. Cross your fingers. One more day, then on to Bullhead City.

Where were we?

We got the RV out of Dodge before the first snow, which was this past Thursday, a day after a record 81 was set in COS. Crazy.

Been a crazy month or so. I had the hernia fixed on October 3rd. On the 12th we flew to NY for a wedding, a reunion and other family and friends thingies for a week. On Saturday, the 22nd, we dropped the Jeep off at the COS airport and drove the RV three days to Apache Junction, east of Phoenix. The photos attached give you an idea of the terrain we went through. Quote pretty. I especially liked AZ87 southbound about 50 miles north of the Phoenix metroplex, mountain driving with saguaros dotting the way. Gotta get that dash cam. Coming next week.

We dropped the RV off at a storage facility in Apache Junction on the 25th, got a Lyft to the airport where we got on a $28 flight back to COS and then drove right to the AirBnB that we’re in now.

Through all of this, Andrea has done all the heavy (and light) lifting. With the arthritic hip showing signs of further deterioration, I was under orders to carry nothing and put no weight on the hip (fear of cracking the socket), so Andrea did everything. There were a few heavy suitcases and cartons of food that probably took a few years off her back.

Next day, the 26th, Andrea picked up Luna (from the DogVaca sitter), and brought me to the hernia surgeon for follow up so he could say I’m ok and charge Medicare for saying so. Shouldn’t you only need to do that follow up if something feels wrong?

Finally, October 27th, the day I’ve been waiting for – for 7 month’s. Total hip replacement surgery. Copy and paste this link into your browser:

http://www.arthritis-health.com/video/hip-replacement-surgery-video

From what I’m told by nurses who have witnessed it, the OR for this surgery looks more like a carpenter’s shop. First thing they do, if the doc isn’t a big guy, and Dr O is big, is bring in someone strong enough to dislocate your hip. Got the picture? Then they get the saws out. Fucking nuts! Today I saw what was billed to Medicare. Holy fucking nuts!

Fun month.

So far so good. They had me up walking the first night, sent me home two days later. Physical therapists came for two weeks. Lot’s of muscles and tendons, unused for six months and apparently beat up on the table, need to get used to working again, but the hip is good. We’re gettin there.

That’s it. I have one more follow up with the surgeon at the end of the month, then we’re out of here on the 1st. Hopefully, the next post will have us hiking around the Superstitious Mountains in Arizona.

Drive safely and a Happy Thanksgiving. Mind your P’s and Q’s, that is, pretend you’re in a bar – no politics and religion. That means you!

PS: Andrea got me a new t-shirt today. Instant favorite.

Last word was we hadn’t done squat all summer and I was about to get my back fixed. Well, the operation was a big success. No lower back pain, no sciatica. That was the objective and that’s the good news, but the arthritic hip just gets worse.

The really good news is that Dr. O has scheduled Oct 27 for hip replacement. Back to bad news, and this is not so bad, just more of a “are you kidding me?” kind of thing – that little hernia detected back in the crazy ER visit has become a big enough problem to warrant repair. Fast. Think ice pick heated over a flame jabbing you just off to the side of your pubic bone. OK, don’t. That surgery would be October 3rd, or, for anyone but the latest of night owls, right about now.

I’ve got some good hospital stories from the back surgery but after writing them down, decided they’re too long. They’re going in the book. If you really want the details, write me. In short, if you decide you’re going to stop drinking after 45 years, don’t try doing it four days before back surgery (unless you’re really hard up for fun dinner stories). And don’t wisecrack when waking from anesthesia. Hope I remember that today.

Got a couple of photos of my back surgeon’s work. Cool huh?

Later folks. I promise we’ll get back to the road in December and these will get better.

This one’s going out very late but it has passed the editorial staff with the only comment that it plagiarizes the editorial staff. Whatever.

We started the run back a week ago Sunday. I-80 in Nevada is really a nice drive. I couldn’t sneak a picture in. Gotta get one of those dash cams. So many times I want to snap a shot of the open road ahead to share. But sometimes you just sit back and enjoy the moment, like for an hour. Western Nevada is magnificent in its enormity and desolation. Beautiful rolling hills but no real jaw dropping sights. Definitely the kind of land you want to fly over if you have limited time. But if you have the time…lots of it, enjoy.

First stop after leaving Tahoe was Winnemucca, NV, about 225 miles to the northeast on I-80. It’s a big enough truck stop to earn a Wal-Mart which we went to before getting to the campground so we could make a 15 day supply of Luna food. Andrea has taken over my cooking job in her own efficient way and probably cuts two hours off the process. She also has added a dab of pure pumpkin and a smattering of olive oil to each meal and it has done wonders for Luna’s digestion. You know what I mean?

Anyway, after Winnemucca, it was 173 miles to the next campground in Wells, NV on the east side of the state. But before Wells, I had planned a stop about 50 some-odd years ago when my father showed me a picture of him posing on I-80 in front of the sign indicating that he was entering Carlin, NV. He was coming home from his WWII service in the Marshall Islands as an Air Traffic Controller. Nice job. They had one plane on the island. He never had a collision. Most of his WWII pictures were with his buddies in bathing suits on beaches showing off their very dark tans. Somebody had to do that job. But, I digress. Next to the truck stop, Carlin, NV today:

Leaving Carlin, the fairly smooth rolling hills drive between some big mountains turned into a bit of a twisting roller coaster ride to Wendover, NV, home of the training grounds for Paul Tibbets, pilot of the B-29 that dropped ‘Little Boy’ on Hiroshima. Eight or nine years ago Andrea and I signed up for one of those super cheap charter flights to the gambling town of Wendover. We were one of the younger couples on the plane. Several oxygen tanks and wheel chairs got off before us, all of them lighting up their Camels as they were wheeled down the ramp. Interesting weekend.

And so, we drove quickly through Wendover. East of Wendover, as the terrain flattens out, you cross over to Utah and suddenly you’re in the Bonneville Salt Flats. Try zooming in on that area in Google Maps. Seemed to be the straightest interstate we’ve ever been on. Rather boring but still interesting.

Next stop Salt Lake City. We had planned to stay two nights but when it kept raining on the third day and on our next planned stop, we decided to stay a third. I was so tired after three days of driving I slept 13 hours that first night. And once I drove from Escondido, CA to Long Island, NY in 69 hours. Where did that energy go?

On to the next two day stay in Flaming Gorge, a big, beautiful reservoir on the Utah-Wyoming border. We’ve been there before on the south shore of the lake where the views arestunning.The north shore is less dramatic but still pretty. Finally, some pics late the first day as the sun dropped under the heavy cloud cover. Flaming Gorge. Appropriate name.

It was cloudy, foggy, cold and rainy the next day. Just plain nasty.

Sunday, we ended up in Rawlins, WY, another I-80 truckstop. You would think that 100 some odd miles on an interstate is a piece of cake. Well, not in a high profile vehicle with 40 mph wind gusts. Seems like all of Wyoming is like that. Those flags at the rest area were at attention and the wind direction was pretty much a direct crosswind making a fairly straight drive a white knuckler.

Looking up on a hill next to the RV park, I was reminded of a scene from 2001 A Space Odyssey. What the heck is that thing?

One more stop in Cheyenne, WY. After Rawlins, we climbed up to about 9000′ where the rolling mountain tops were all snow covered. Gorgeous. Sorry, still don’t have that dash cam. Down to Cheyenne and finally exiting I-80 to I-25 south. Our stop tonight is Terry Bison Ranch, just one mile from the Colorado border. Very interesting place. It’s a working bison ranch on 27000 acres with sort of a kid oriented amusement park feel – train ride out to the bison, camels(?) and ostriches, pony rides and others. Nice western barn atmosphere restaurant – stick with the burgers – and a large gift shop with lots of grandchild size items. Uh-oh. Nice last stop.

Tomorrow back in our home park in Monument. And we get to see walking Leo again. Yay! We saw him in a facetalk encounter the other day and experienced his signing skills. His brilliant parents taught him to use sign language. Loved it. He has plenty of time to learn the expletives deleted.

So, emails will be far and few between until mid September when we expect to head east for an October family event, then down the east coast and eventually spend March in Port St. Lucie, FL, spring training camp for the 2016 baseball world champion NY Mets. Hey, I can dream. We had intended on going up to Glacier NP this summer but scuttled those plans as I’m now focused on getting the back fixed. Wheels are in motion. Maybe we’ll do a chapter on the whole experience. There’s a decent chance a good friend will be in the operating room. A Go-Pro cam on his head would be cool. Wouldn’t it be a trip to see someone put a knife in your back? Sweet dreams everyone.

Drop me a line once in a while. No big whoop. Coffee talk.