Happy New Year, happy news, and a quiet day.....

Our Location: Quartzsite, Arizona

I slept in this morning until about 6:30 am, then finally made it out of bed shortly after 7 am. Took a few pics of the sunrise, talked to my middle daughter Bradey, who became engaged at midnight last night. Congratulations to the happy couple, Bradey and David, though they’ve been together for a number of years, it seems they are going on to the next step. I wish for them the very best in the years to come. The future looks bright and promising! 

Sunrise this morning....

I next called oldest daughter Courtney but only got her answering machine, she and her hubby Matt, are in Winnipeg, Manitoba visiting friends for the New Year’s Eve event. 

Love the colours....

Next I called my brother’s house, talked to SIL Barb for almost an hour. Catching up on all the latest news from back home on the island. We chatted about numerous things and the time slipped past before we realized how long we’d chatted. Glad I have 40 hours talk time a month.

There it is now.....

Next I called my best friend Linda, and chatted with her for about an hour as well. We too caught up on all the latest news. She’s looking forward to the new year. 

My salad today....

After that I cleaned up and decided to walk the garbage to the bins. It was a longer walk than I anticipate and while the garbage wasn’t too heavy at the beginning by the time I made it to the bins it  was extremely heavy. Even cutting cross country I think it was probably about 3 1/2 miles round trip. It took me at least 40 minutes each way and I walk at about 3 mph. I can tell you that I didn’t slow down, nor did I stop to take any pictures during my walk. I was on a mission and I’m very focused at times and today was one of those times.

It was very good....

I chatted with a nice fella named Chris from Colorado while at the dumpsters. We discussed my walking stick, which he mentioned as a snake stick. He informed me that the snakes could indeed be out this time of the year and to keep an eye out, as well as an ear. I told him not to scare me as it’s my first time in the area and I was enjoying it. He chuckled and talked about something else. 

This may be the most beaten up one yet...

Back home I flopped into my chair with my book and spent a great deal of time today reading. In the sun, out of the sun, in the sun, out of the sun. You get the idea right? The temps reached 82F/27C by 2 pm today, it was a gorgeous day and I enjoyed it very much.

This crack in the bark went all the way around and upwards as well ....

A breeze kicked up and we put our awning back in as we don’t want to have any issues with it. We also used the wind break for the Weber due to wind today, not that it was blowing strongly but it was blowing at just such an angle to cause a few issues.

And this was a different break in the bark....

Miss Riley was the chef again today. I however had prepped lunch before my walk and so I enjoyed sitting and reading while she slaved over the Weber today. I enjoyed my salad around noon and we finally had lunch around 3 pm. Lunch was excellent again. I had my salad, Riley passed on one, we then had a mixed veggie medley with Thyme and Parsley (fresh green beans, fresh mushrooms, asparagus, carrots, spaghetti squash, and celery), along with a potato sliced that was brushed with oil and tossed on the grill, and of course our Bourbon Chicken breast. It was all very good, or did I tell you that already? 

And then that black one was another break....

After cleaning up I once again headed outside to read and enjoy the sunshine. I will tell you that I truly didn’t do much else today, after my walk I just kind of ran out of energy. I should have taken a bottle of water with me, but I was already carrying a bag of garbage and anything else would have  been tough to carry. 

Look at the breaks in those 'arms'....

Around 5:30 I headed out to get pics of the sunset. I walked a bit here and there taking pics of various cacti and of course the sunset. Not a lot of colour tonight compared to other nights. Too much cloud cover, or pollution. There was some colour of course but the last gasp wasn’t much of a sizzle, more like a thief  slipping out the door, quietly.

And more breaks in the bark....

Back inside I worked on editing the pics and writing this post. So there you have it, our day. Nothing too exciting but it worked for us. We enjoyed it greatly. We have a number of things  on the agenda for tomorrow and I know we won’t get them all finished but I’d be happy with half. Will see how well we do tomorrow. 

Look at all those breaks....

Thanks for stopping by, feel free to leave a comment. Always enjoying hearing what you think.

Not a great amount of colour but interesting....

Like this pic with the sky behind....

Until next time…take care, be safe,

The last little bit of the sunset.....

Deb

Rainy last day in Hamilton.....

Our Location: Walmart, Hamilton, Ontario

(sorry no pics tonight)

The last couple of nights and days have been similar in many ways and yet different in others. Mornings are cool bordering on cold, wind is a constant and the wet weather makes everything seem colder. Even on a nice day the wind off of Lake Ontario cools things greatly. Tonight is warmer than we've had it for a while, hope we've turned the corner on the cold weather. 

 We took Saturday and Sunday as days of rest with a bit of wandering but not much. Yesterday (Sunday) was so cold, damp and rainy that we stayed in all day and just put in the day. This morning we by passed cleaning day to just a tidy up day, and I left the Igloo about 9:30 am this morning not returning until 4 pm this afternoon. To say it was a long day is an understatement. I arrived at Ozlo's repair shop on Hwy 56 between Elfrida and Binbrook right on time for the boys to pull the Dogsled into the bay for it's safety check. It was nice to see the fellas, Steve, Larry and Patrick, haven't seen them since last fall. Patrick did the safety, Steve was around, and Larry took the money and did the paperwork. It was a slow process and while my appointed hour was 10 am I didn't get out of the shop until 11:30 am. From there I headed off to find someplace to balance my tires, pick up some diesel fuel and grabbed a coffee. A couple of places could do the balance this afternoon with big swings in the price from $85 at the first place to $40 at the next. However since I had a 1 pm appointment at Pyetts for the emissions test some one suggested I get the balance done there as they also do it. 

At 12:40 pm I pulled into the yard at Pyetts for my appointment, went inside gave over the keys and asked about the balance. They didn't know if they had time but they'd see when the emissions test was over. They took the truck right away even though I was early. The truck was back out by about 1:15 pm and I asked about the balancing of the tires. They said they didn't feel any issues when they took it for a ride but Patrick- from Ozlo's (like me) had found a serious issue around the 100km mark. I asked them to do it anyway. At 3:30 pm I finally asked at the window if it would be much longer and was told it would be out shortly. Ten minutes later it came out of the shop. The entire bill for emissions and balancing came to $120. I was pleased. 

 

The rain today was intermittent but very hard at times, we had some thunder, some lightning, some wind and the ditches were running full to the brim in most places. So much water laying in fields everywhere, small rivers running down the middle of many fields as the water tries to escape but with the ditches all full there really isn't anywhere for it to go. 

Everything is good for the next step which is to go to Service Ontario to get my own plates back on the Dogsled, change insurance companies again and I'll be finished. I'm hoping by the end of the week to be all finished. 

Riley spent the day at the Igloo doing whatever it was that struck her fancy. She informed me she had a nap and spent some time just lazing about. She was ready to get out for a bit when I got home. I had a quick bite to eat and we headed out to do a few little things. 

 

Dr. Dube called this afternoon to inform us that we are going to be seeing a Gynecologist in Sudbury by the name of Dr. Wallace. Everything was faxed to this doctor this afternoon and we're waiting to hear more from Dr Dube regarding the appointment date. Dr Dube is certainly giving us her full attention as it was she that spoke to me this afternoon and promised to call me again when they have an appointment date.

First stop in our errands was Princess Auto we needed a few little things and I knew for sure they would have what I wanted and sure enough, they had everything except the inverter I wanted. The ones they had were too big but I'll keep looking. After that it was off to Canadian Tire to check our their inverters and walking sticks. We came home with the walking sticks. After that it was a stop at No Frills for a few little grocery items and I was given a slug that attaches to the key chain so I won't have to hunt for a coin to get a cart any more. From there we headed back to our old neighbourhood to visit Chris and Shaunna MacNeil. They were kind enough to keep a small bistro table and chairs for us over the winter and we picked them up tonight. We brought back a bottle of Mike's Southern Peach Chipotle BBQ sauce for them as a little thank you. Chris looks amazing, he's dropped 50 lbs and looks wonderful. Shaunna is always a pretty lady and hasn't changed though she just turned 40 a few weeks ago. Such nice folks they are, always enjoyed their company. Daughter Ashley was there to greet us and it was wonderful to see her as well. We didn't see son Riley though, not sure where he was tonight. A quick visit with them and we headed back to the Igloo. I dropped Riley off with the groceries and headed back to the storage locker as I remembered we wanted something from there but it was too far back into the locker and I decided not to dig that far. Back home I helped finish up the groceries, we headed into Walmart to get a couple of things, including a chicken for dinner. 

 

After that it was a matter of just hanging out and resting. I had to run a small errand shortly after 9 pm and then headed back into Walmart to return an inverter we had purchased just this afternoon. It didn't have a 12 V plug just the pins to connect to the battery, and that isn't what I wanted. I'll just keep looking. 

 

So that's it, our day in short order.  Tomorrow we are heading north and both of us are looking forward to that. We aren't sure how far we'll make it, perhaps only as far as Parry Sound or maybe we'll push a bit to make it to Lively as we are going to be stopping there for a day at least to visit with Randy and Linda. After that it's a short 3 hour drive to our summer location. We're getting closer and closer. ~!laugh~

 

Thanks for stopping by, until next time....be safe, take care.....