Author: Rudy

We got up early and were on the road by 7am. Our hotel was on the east side of Colorado Springs, near the airport, so I thought we’d have a quick escape and not get caught up in the morning rush hour. And, for the most part, that worked. Still, it wasn’t exactly ‘easy’ getting back on track. The morning sun more or less blinded me as I headed out on the east side. No problem, I’ll just close my eyes and listen to instructions from the GPS. Well, that won’t work either — our Honda GPS was DETERMINED to point me back west, up to Denver, and then come back east on the big interstate. I thought I might ‘test’ the GPS and see for how long it would prompt me to ‘make a U-turn’ and try to lead me back to where I’d come from. Well, I blinked first. That GPS didn’t realize my intentions for at least half an hour. Finally, Sue plugged in our old Garmin — and then we had TWO naggers trying to convince me to take the LONGER route. We even played with the “easier, faster, shorter” settings to see if that would straighten things out — but no-sir-ee.

When that GPS finally shut up and started to cooperate, we hit road construction! A quick way to cancel whatever time advantage we’d had by taking this ‘back road’. Once we were through that it was more or less clear sailing. Not a lot of traffic (I guess all the locals knew the perils of taking this route at this time) and by now the sun was high enough in the sky that our sun visors actually proved to be useful.

So what do you do when you’re sitting side by side in a packed van for the second long driving day in a row? Well, as I believe I’ve opined before, you grow closer to your travelling companion. You ‘TALK’. Really, there’s not much else you CAN do. Can’t be busy in the kitchen, can’t be sitting at your computer, can’t check up on Margaret Daley’s Facebook status, can’t even pretend to be busy in the other room — so you’re stuck with your loved one, ‘talking’ — mostly complaining about what the other person is doing wrong. And all that monkeying around with the GPS resulted in a frank discussion about something that was bugging Sue: Why do I (Rudy) always tell other people that Sue is USELESS at navigating? And I today I learned that Sue feels that I’m saying that in a demeaning way. Well, okay, point taken. And if our two GPS units can’t even agree on how to get home from here, maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on someone who is “navigationally challenged” (new, politically-correct way to say USELESS — just kidding). So I take it back: Sue is a GREAT travelling companion and I’m happy sitting this close to her for the entire day.

Speaking of which, once again Sue took the wheel and drove the second half of today’s trip. And once we got close to our destination (Sioux Falls), things were going so well (and the sun was still shining in the west) that we decided to add another 45 minutes to the trip and flitz right on by Sioux Falls and go up to Brookings, thereby missing tomorrow morning’s rush hour traffic and cutting down tomorrow’s driving time to about 6 hours.

Sue did her best to find a “pet-free” room — Man, that is just SO discouraging — the whole world revolves around PETS these days. We settled for a ‘mostly’ pet free room on the second floor of the Super 8. Before we even peeked into the room we headed across the street to the Applebee’s for some “fine dining”. That double-cheeseburger at McDonald’s only took me so far — it was pretty close to 8 o’clock and we were HUNGRY. We ran into some Steinbachers in the booth across the aisle from us and said hello and swapped ‘vacation’ stories. Then we walked back to our room, had a chocolate bar from the vending machine to go with our second glass of wine. Sue got her iPad Scrabble fix in, I wrote this ‘bericht‘, we watched some late night TV, and waited for one last driving day to begin.

The alarm (yes, ALARM) went off early this morning. Sue’s stated goal was for us to be on the road by 6am and she first had to wash and dry the sheets. Actual departure time was 6:30. The van was ‘level full’ from the back to the front. But no squeaks and rattles as we turned east down Hwy #60. We took the same gorgeous road out as we did coming here five months ago — through Globe and Show Low, then through the Gila and El Malpais National Forests of New Mexico on the way to Albuquerque. The plan was to get to Colorado Springs, a 12-hour drive according to Google Maps.

The first half of the drive was absolutely a joy — NO traffic, and great scenery, lots of twists and turns, a cloudy sky that kept the morning sun out of my eyes.

We got to Albuquerque at around 1pm, time for more fuel and lunch. Double filet-o-fish and a strawberry milkshake. And after refuelling the van, Sue got into the driver’s seat. I tuned in the ipod to play some old favorites and even had a little snooze while Sue headed north on the I-25. The scenery was behind us — now all we saw was big fancy casinos. Lots of them. New Mexico is just one big Indian reservation with massive casinos at regular intervals.

But it gets worse. When I awoke from my nap I looked out the window and saw — gray fields with an occasional plastic bag to break the monotony, stark bare trees, junky farmyards, dirty salted potholed roads, and even filthier cars and trucks driving on that road. We passed (another!) for sale sign and Sue asked, “Who would WANT to live here?” Right.

But the driving was great, especially when I think about the ride home from Florida last year. The eastern state highways were bumper to bumper all the way home. The road here was way less busy. When we hit the Colorado border things looked a bit better again — at least there were the Rockies in the west to distract us from the greyness in the east.

We’d listened to Steve Earle, a pretty good Elton John album, and a good smattering of Dire Straits, when Sue asked whatever happened to “those really nice Leonard Cohen and Adam Cohen CDs we listened to on our drive down to Arizona.” I clicked around on the ipod to find that playlist. When a familiar Leonard Cohen song started playing, Sue leans forward and looks at the radio and says, “Hi Leonard” in a loving voice that I’ve only heard from her on those rare ‘special’ Friday nights! And with Leonard crooning and croaking away on the stereo, Sue was able to stay in the driver’s seat all the way to our hotel!

We checked in, then zipped around to the gas station to fill-up so we’re ready for tomorrow, had a little happy hour in the room, and then walked over to the Hilton next door for supper. It was after 8pm.

Back in the room I looked over our possible routes for tomorrow and wrote my journal. By 11 it was lights out. And THAT’s how I spent my birthday!

French toast for breakfast. A long facetime call from Max — who wanted to see a cactus and hear about how I touched a pokey one. We watched our shows — CBS Sunday Morning, Fareed, and then switched to the Golf Channel for the final day of the Valero tournament from San Antonio.

Without much ado, we started packing and cleaning, big time. I took the bikes apart and started loading the van. Sue was packing kitchen stuff and clothing. We vacuumed. We dusted. We leaf-blowered the putting green. We swept out the garage. We took apart my computer corner and my TV sound system. We had lunch somewhere in there.

After the end of the golf tournament I decided to head on out to Mountain Brook Golf Course for one last walk around the front nine. And I did. Gregg was back behind the counter — we said goodbye. I kept thinking about what the other pro, Alex, had said to me a couple of days ago. Turn your hips, and you’ll get more distance. So that’s what I did. And it worked! I though I was hitting the ball well, but now I was getting another 10 or 20 yards out of my drives. I was on the par 4 greens with my second shot, and on the par 5s with my third. So that’s what I’ll take away from our winter of golfing in Gold Canyon: my drives are WAY better, my long irons are getting better, my short irons continue to work well for me, and my putting is WORSE THAN EVER! That’ll be my project this summer.

I got home from the course and Sue was all ready to finish packing the van. So now I could put MY clubs in there too, and a couple of crappy $5.00 pull carts and even that  cheap useless stroller we hauled down here for when Max came. And it all fits. Amazing. Okay, it looks like we’re the Beverly Hillbillies, but at least we won’t feel bad about not picking up any hitchhikers along the way.

After we’d packed the van I showered and Sue threw one last load of clothes into the laundry. I sat and watched 60 Minutes and had a couple of G&Ts and listened to the dryer clanking away.

And then it was time for supper. So at around 7:30 we headed out with our packed-to-the-roof van to the Outback Steakhouse on Power Road. It’s going to be my ‘birthday supper’. Tomorrow I’ll be turning 59! That’s pretty old for a young guy like me. And I’ll be on the road all day, trying to make it to somewhere around Colorado Springs. (So, if you want to wish me a happy birthday, why not wait until I get home and you can buy me one of those great Canadian beers that they serve on tap at Smitty’s.)

When we got home we finished up the little bit of packing left to do — and watched a bit of TV, and left some notes for the Bishops (who are arriving here Tuesday night).

It’s been a great 5 months here. We’ve really come to appreciate the house and the location. Lots of positives. And the weather and the vegetation here is about as good as it can get right now — we’ll miss that a lot.

Woke up at 6. Rolled out of bed at 7. Made coffee. Checked email. Read the news. Had bacon and eggs for breakfast.

Sue cleaned the fridge and started ‘organizing’ the kitchen, getting ready for Monday’s departure. I watched some golf on TV and fussed around the house. Then Suzy Homemaker started REALLY cleaning up — and I had no choice but to get caught up in the tornado. Cleaning bathrooms, cleaning outdoor furniture, disassembling bikes so they’re ready to load into the van, sorting through closets, cleaning up the garage. Whew! (What are we going to do tomorrow?)

After lunch we got ourselves ready for an afternoon of golf. We drove across the road to the Gold Canyon Resort — had a tee time for 1:36 at Sidewinder. As soon as I’d paid the starter offered that we could start right away — just the two of us. Well, now we didn’t even have any time on the driving range, but how could we say no. It looked like we’d have a great afternoon, the course to ourselves!

How wrong! The group ahead was slow because the group ahead of them was slow. The marshall came around and warned us: this would be a very long and frustrating afternoon. Oh no! Well, how bad could it be? The sun was shining, a gentle breeze was blowing, the scenery was spectacular. What’s to complain about?

But it got worse. A couple of times on the front nine the marshall came and offered that we might want to jump to hole 11 or 12 — because there were 5 groups, all of them incredibly slow, ahead of us. But we declined.

Suffice to say that today’s “game” took just over FIVE HOURS. And I won’t say what our score was because Sue said I didn’t have to. So I won’t.

Back at our house, we had our happy hour — chips and salsa, G&Ts — sat outside and looked at the sunset changing the color of Superstition Mountain. It almost took away the sting of today’s round. But not quite.

Wouldn’t you know it, our internet is down. Now what? The final few Netflix movies I had on “My List” will just stay there. I guess we could watch Curling, or an NHL hockey game, or worse, a ‘final four’ basketball game, or — hey isn’t that Lloyd Robertson? I thought he was dead! Is this an old W5 or is that show still being made? Let’s watch it.

Supper was a ‘concoction’ of leftover stuff from the fridge that Sue declared included wieners, although I was hard-pressed to find them in all those onions and peppers mixed in with the pork and beans… Really? Really?

We tuned in a replay of this afternoon’s golf tournament on TV. The fridge is more or less empty. The kitchen counters are lined up with jars and appliances that will need to find a place in the van for the ride home. It looks like we’re having an “estate sale” here. Sue and I took turns drifting off. At around 10:30 I had some chocolate pudding with ice cream. An hour later we’d decided that we’d pretended to be watching TV long enough — time for bed.

Scrambled eggs for breakfast again! What have I been doing right?

Rick and Irene, our neighbours across the road, are leaving today. I said goodbye this morning and arranged to push their trash bin back to the garage after today. Then it was time to get our hiking boots on and head out for our morning’s adventure. One of the guys I golfed with yesterday mentioned an interesting hike he’d done in the morning, out in the Superstition Wilderness. I forgot the name of the trail he’d followed, but I looked some of the trails up online today and decided we’d tackle the Second Water Trail. It was rated as a ‘moderate’ 7.2 mile hike on one of the websites. That should be manageable.

We drove out to just north of Lost Dutchman State Park entrance, and then followed a gravel road for about 2 and a half miles to a small parking lot at the First Water Trailhead. We parked the van, took a bottle of water and a walking stick, and set out on the trail. The trail started out quite wide and flat — an easy walk. But it soon got a bit more rugged as it narrowed and twisted its way across a wash and then up a short, rugged climb through a canyon that led into Garden Valley. The vegetation included teddy bear cholla, ocotillo and barrel cactus. In fact, I got a bit too close to those jumping cholla — and we had to stop for a while and carefully poke away at them with the walking stick to keep the needles from working their way deeper into my leg. But that’s about as exciting as it got on this walk — we saw birds, squirrels, gophers, and lots of lizards, but we did not see the coyotes or the rattlesnakes we were looking for. (Okay, we HEARD lots of rattlesnakes, but whenever we stopped to look for them in the bushes beside the trail all we saw were gophers and lizards.) We passed a couple of hikers, but otherwise were on our own all the way to the floor of Boulder Canyon. At points along the walk we saw the famous Four Peaks to the northeast, and Weaver’s Needle (we’d hiked the Peralta Trail with Dave and Marylou earlier this year, and got a better view of Weaver’s Needle on that hike) poking a hole in the horizon to the southeast.

It took us nearly 2 hours to hike the 6.4kms to the floor of Boulder Canyon. The trail was longer, more up-and-down, and narrower than we expected. The temperature was 32 degrees, but felt a bit cooler when we got a breeze near the top of the hills, and quite a bit hotter when we were down in the black rocks in the valleys. Our one bottle of water was nearly empty, and we had to climb back up the way we came! Maybe we’d bitten off more than we could handle?

But we made it. Fewer photo stops on the way back resulted in a 1.5 hour return hike to the parking lot. We were HOT, thirsty, and tired when we got into the bake oven that was our ride home.

Major rehydration and showers when we got home. Sue made lunch. We turned on the TV to the golf channel.

Sue read for a while. She did two loads of laundry and then cycled to the bank to close our account. So that’s the end of our debit card — it’ll be U.S. dollars for the rest of this ‘trip’. Meanwhile, I got my Oak Leaf hat on and drove the van to Mountain Brook. Gotta get another 9-holes in, even if my feet are killing me.

I’m on right away. Playing yellow ball vs white ball again. This is great! No waiting. It’s still mighty hot, but I can get used to this. My drives are mostly long and straight. If only my putting…

By the time I’m at the ninth tee the new golf pro (Alex) has caught up with me. So now I get a ‘free’ playing lesson. We spend extra time on the tees, extra time in the bunker, extra balls on the fringe and on the green. Alex is very helpful (and he’s a great golfer — he shot par on the front nine, even as he was demonstrating how to draw and how to fade an iron shot!).

When I got home (my yellow ball shot a 41) Sue was sitting outside, having a glass of wine. Then we had a Facetime call with the kids — had to show Max how ‘Opa’ got attacked by another jumping cholla cactus! All good. We got Tim’s computer all fixed up, too.

Then it was time to head across the road to the Kokopelli Restaurant — it’s ‘Friday Night Pizza’ one last time on the patio. The sunset was almost done for the day — just a bit of orange and navy out in the west. But the blues guitarist was still playing, the bartender was still pouring, and the pizza was just what we needed after a long hot day of walking, walking walking. We were back at our stations in front of the TV by 8:45, tired and happy. Two days left here in paradise.

Yeah, that’s what popped up on my calendar this morning. Happy birthday, Robert. Time keeps on ticking, ticking, ticking, into the future…

After breakfast I worked on a web project for a bit. Then I went outside and weeded the yard. I booked a tee time for myself for the afternoon. Sue and I did a bit of personal hygiene — Sue now has stunning toenails and my facial hair is trimmed so I look neat and tidy.

Sue made a spectacular (the usual) lunch. I watched Holmes on Holmes ‘do it right’ to an old house on TV. Sue tied up the phone for most of the day, trying to get MTS to schedule reconnects at our house for when we get home in a week from today. Dealing with MTS — that is an opportunity to practice patience and grace.

Around 2:10 Sue woke me up — I’d had a little snooze while Mike Holmes had completely redone the electrical, plumbing, and heating system in some poor lady’s house! And now it was high time for me to get to my golf tee time at Apache Creek. Sue was going to stay home and clean out the kitchen cupboards while I went golfing ‘by myself’.

I got the course at about quarter to three. Went to putt a bit, but quickly joined a couple of ‘Minne-sodans’ who were set to tee off. Mark and Lee were both pretty good golfers. Lee teed off from the blue tees. Mark, who had had his knee replaced just before Christmas, joined me at the white tees.

Hole #1: I drive the ball straight and far (a good combination) but fail to capitalize and finish the hole with 3 putts — a six. Hole #2: Second shot into the bunker, from where I bash at it 3 times in a row before it finally jumps out onto the green — a seven. Hole #3: 3 putts for a seven. Hole #4: under bushes and over trees — a seven! At this rate I’ll shoot a 63 on the front nine!

But I bear down and get things under control. I finish the front nine with a par and a birdie, for a score of 47. Not good, but not horrible.

I improve on the back nine. I par the first two holes, bogey the next two. I finish the back nine with FIVE PARS! for a score of 41. Total score is 88! That’s GREAT for me! (Anytime I break a hundred is good for me.)

I’m home by 6:45. The sun is setting — it’s all pink and purple on Superstition Mountain. Sue is sitting outside on the patio, Skyping with Alex.

After (another super delicious!) supper, it’s time to watch a bit more TV — tonight we’ll make sure to watch the ‘At Issue’ panel on the CBC National. We’ve got to get all caught up for our imminent re-entry into the Canadian lifestyle.

My mother sent us an email this morning, encouraging us to trade in our ‘boring’ life in Arizona for the exciting change of seasons in Manitoba. Boring? I must be giving the wrong impression. So, after a breakfast of scrambled eggs (what?!?) and toast and fruit, I asked Sue what we had planned for today. Anything fun? All she had in our schedule was a bike ride. Well, I guess that’s SOMETHING. But first, I checked my handy-dandy weather app on my phone just to see the forecast. And then, just for comparison sake, I checked the forecast for Steinbach.

Hmmm… Then I looked at SteinbachOnline.com to see how they were celebrating the first week of Spring. Oh boy!

Yikes! You’d need quite the sense of humour to think that’s ‘fun’. I’ll take our ‘boring’ life here any day.

Back to OUR bike ride:

By now we know that the desert is NOT just sand dunes and cacti, and so I took a few (what?!?) photos of some of the flora we see here in Gold Canyon. Wow! If you thought the desert is just brown and grey and hot and boring, take a look at these photos. Okay, if you’re too busy shovelling snow or waiting for the tow truck, you can come back to these later. Or maybe you’re so used to winter white-outs that all that colour is too hard on your eyes. If so, you don’t have to look at them all in one sitting — go and shovel for a while.

After lunch I posted the photos from our morning bike ride. Sue got out the chicken that we want to BBQ (NOT kidding!) for supper tonight. Then I went to the driving range to enjoy a bit of exercise in the sunshine. After I’d hit about a hundred good shots I decided I might as well take it to the golf course. I drove down to Mountain Brook and asked if I could walk 9 holes. Hmm… there’s a few groups ahead of you. Okay, how about the back nine? There’s no one on eight, no one on nine. Hmm… let me see. Sure! Go ahead. Yes!

So I walked the back nine, all by myself. I even had to take my own photos! It was 3:45 when I started. No waiting. No one ahead. Also, no one to help me spot the ball — so I’d better hit it straight. Which I did. I played two balls, a yellow one for me, and a white one for Sue. And we both played very well. It was close all the way, but lucky for me the yellow ball won, beating white 45 to 48. I walked back to the van at 5:30. Still lots of daylight left.

When I got home Sue was sitting in the back, typing away on her little iPad. I made myself a G&T and tried hard not to give Sue the whole play-by-play of my golf game. Then it was time for supper. Sue had everything ready to go. I barbecued chicken breasts while Sue fried vegetables and cooked pasta. Yum. By 7 o’clock we were done — dishes cleaned up, ready for some TV.

Went for our daily walk in the morning — Sue stopped at ‘our bank’ to put in a few more of those lousy Canadian dollars so we can keep on buy things with our American debit card. It was quite warm even though it was still early morning, and when I suggested we check out a ‘shortcut’ from the road, going over Vista Point hill by way of a ‘path’ that soon disappeared and left us picking our way over cacti and prickly bushes up one side and down the other — well, that only got us ‘warmer’.

Sue was on the phone for part of the morning — and I took a few clubs, including my new putter, across the road to the driving range. Man, everything just plain ‘works’ at the driving range, and I just can’t wait to head out to the golf course and make every shot. So, after lunch we did just that. Back out to Apache Creek, where we got on the course at around 2:40 for the $29 twilight rate. We joined a single, a guy from here in Mesa who could really hit the ball and was playing from the black tees. We had to wait for the group ahead at every tee, but I guess that’s just ‘par for the course’ at this time of year. And although I was playing ‘okay’, it wasn’t quite the same as I had envisioned it earlier on the driving range. But, as I keep saying (especially when my score isn’t very good), we were having fun. I finished the front nine with a 47.

At the turn we were joined by one of the guys from the group behind us — the rest of his group had quit for the day. So now we were four. And we had a great time. This guy was from Alberta, had just retired and bought a home right here in Apache Junction, and really enjoyed playing golf. He maintained that although his game wasn’t what it used to be, in large part because of the damage years of playing almost pro hockey had done to his hips, he just loved to play golf. Over the years he’d been partnered up with many golfers and he had never met a golfer who wasn’t a good person. So here we were, golfing with one guy who was incredibly skilled at golf, and another who was an example of how to be gracious and positive even when the game wasn’t going that well. And, just because it is GOLF, I finished the back nine with an 8, a couple of 7s, and a final score of 99. BUT, I parred the final hole, and Sue shot a 43 on the back nine! And we had a marvellous afternoon. And we’ll go golfing again!

The sun was setting and we actually played the final two holes with the flags already taken away. We drove home and Sue got supper ready while I skyped with Ed P. After supper we were going to watch our shows, but got a little sidetracked by what was on TV. First, an ‘Independent Lens’ special on PBS, and then a CNN special. I guess all the sunshine and exercise caught up with me and I missed the conclusion of the CNN show. But I revived and watched a couple of late night talk shows over the noise of the dishwasher while I wrote my journal.

It’s our last week here. You’d think that would mean we’d try to pack as much fun as possible into our remaining days. Not quite!

We went for a walk in the morning. After lunch we went into town, first to Van’s Golf shop to buy me a new putter (we’ll see if that makes any difference to my game), and then to the Santan Village Shopping Center. Sue bought a bunch of stuff. I did too. Mostly I ran around in the stores, looking for Sue. We really know better than to go shopping together, but every once in a while we need a little ‘refresher course’ just to get us back on track.

We barbecued cheeseburgers for supper and watched TV after that. No photos today. No lengthy play-by-play write-up about my golf game. But it’s snowing at home, and at least it’s NOT snowing here.

We woke up early today — just after 6. We started watching ‘our Sunday shows’ — Fareed and CBS Sunday Morning, etc. Suzette made crepes. We went for a walk to Walgreens to return the 2 DVDs that we forgot to return yesterday. It was 9am and already quite warm outside. When we got home I started watching the Arnold Palmer golf tournament on TV. We watched it right to the end — but because it was in Florida the time difference meant it was over by 2 o’clock our time.It was an exciting finish: Matt Every won it for the second straight year, making an 18-foot birdie putt on the final hole to beat Henrik Stenson.

I was downloading another TV series and spent a bit of time ‘cleaning’ up my files for iTunes. I went to the driving range for an hour in the afternoon — not very many golfers there by 3 o’clock. When I got back we had a plate of crackers and cheese with our happy hour drinks. We started watching more of our queued up list of TV shows. We took a break to watch 60 Minutes. Sue made a delicious supper. More of our series, then at 9pm we switched to The National followed by the Fifth Estate. And THAT was our Sunday!