Author: Rudy

Bacon and eggs. Read the latest news on SteinbachOnline and the National Post. Read my ebook. Sue was on the phone for most of the morning. I went across the road to the driving range and worked on my hybrid 4. It’s coming.

After lunch I tuned in the Arnold Palmer Invitational golf tournament on TV. And promptly fell asleep on the couch. I woke up at 2, just in time to hurry off to the golf course at Apache Creek. We have a 2:45 tee time. What if there’s lots of Renaissance Festival traffic…

Got there in time, no problem. We’re on right after the threesome that’s on the tee right now. Cool. Just the two of us. Not a lot of waiting at each tee. And I parred the 376-yard par 4 first hole, with a wicked drive that must have had a bit of help from the cart path and ended up about 50 yards short of the hole. Three pars on the front 9, and by the time we finished (which was about 6:35) I’d shot 3 pars on the front nine, and a final score of 93. Not great, but not bad — and lots of fun. Sue’s putting wasn’t quite what she’s used to, but she still shot a 102.

After golf we drove to the Gold Canyon Golf Resort for supper. Out on the patio. Sunset in the west. Lanterns lit, the big fireplace burning too. A beautiful Saturday here in Gold Canyon. We ordered one of those big salads and a fish and shrimp taco dish. Very nice.

We were back at the house by around 8. Another glass of wine, and some rice krispy squares, while we watched another episode of Hinterland on Netflix.

It’s 8:30 and already we’ve had two exciting events today: garbage day, and scrambled eggs for breakfast! I turn on my computer and my handy-dandy calendar app tells me today is the first day of Spring! Well how about that? How shall we celebrate?

Sue had a bike ride on today’s activity list. So be it.

Before we left I scouted out route options on Google Maps. How about if we go up towards the Mining Camp Restaurant, near the entrance to the Lost Dutchman State Park? I figure it’s about a 16km trip each way. Okay, let’s do that.

I pumped up the front tires on both bikes and off we were. It was about 10:30 — if all goes according to plan we should be there in time for lunch!

Well, that shortcut through the Silly Mountain parking lot was okay, but after about an hour of cycling we were stuck. Google Maps — on my CRACKED! iPhone screen — didn’t notice the two big cracks until this morning; that must have happened yesterday when I dropped it on the cart path at the golf course. Shoot! But I digress — says there’s a road where now we find a rough gravel driveway with lots of ‘No Trespassing’ signs posted all around it. We won’t be easily put off, especially when the sun is high in the sky, we’re hot and sweaty and thirsty, and there’s supposed to be a lunch just a few kilometers from where we are! We cycle back and forth, try various ‘dead ends’, end up CYCLING halfway up Superstition, only to have to turn around and come back down. Finally we flag down one of the few vehicles we meet on this gravel road and ask the old lady driver for directions. Oh no, that road that Google is showing us so clearly was shut down quite a few years ago, and she should know — she’s lived here for 43 years. She feels bad for us, but the only way to get to the restaurant is to cycle back a bit, and then a long way around on a TERRIBLE road, up to the highway, and then back down to the restaurant. Really? Do we want to do that? Or should we just cycle back home? Sue says we’ve already cycled 25 kms.

I make the call — we’re going to the Mining Camp Restaurant. So we do. And yes, that road really is TERRIBLE. Serious washboard, especially on the downhills, where our teeth do a drumroll. And then a kilometre on the highway — lots of traffic and the road has no shoulder and a chewed up edge that forces us to share the lane with motorhomes and over-sized 4×4 trucks towing trailers loaded with ATVs. Not fun. We arrive at the turnoff with only our nerves a little worse for wear. Another kilometre to the restaurant.

There’s hardly anyone at the restaurant. The large parking lot is empty. It’s dark inside, a couple of big rooms with long tables. It’s rustic. It smells like smoke. The posters on the wall advertise upcoming ‘tribute’ shows and ‘past-their-prime’ entertainers. Sue is NOT impressed.

But the local dark IPA was tasty and refreshing, and so was the pulled-pork sandwich and sweet potato fries lunch. And the soft booth bench was a welcome relief to our tired and ‘shook-up’ biking-butts.

But we were only halfway on our adventure — we still had a long ride back. We bypassed the washboard and took the slightly longer but quite-a-bit smoother road back to our house. It was 2:30 when we got home. Total trip: 46kms. Whew!

After a brief refreshment break and a shower, Sue went grocery shopping and picked up a couple of movies at Walgreens. We read until it was time for happy hour. Max skyped us with an update from the home front: he’s putting puzzles together faster than Oma Helga can find replacements from the Thrift Store. The sky here got REALLY dark, and thunder rolled for about an hour. Only a small series of showers, but we saw quite a few flashes of lightning and for a while there was a very cool rainbow over Superstition Mountain.

Since we’d had chips and salsa for happy hour we decided to defer supper until AFTER one of our movies. We watched “The Drop” first. Sue called in our pizza order to Rosati’s, the pizza place on Hwy 60. We’d actually NEVER ordered from there before, and this was likely our last time. After our movie I drove down there to pick up our order — and waited another 25 minutes for our little pizza.

After pizza I put in the other Redbox rental: St Vincent, with Bill Murray. Not bad. It was almost eleven by the time we were “movied out”. A bit of news and then to bed.

Made some nice coffees again this morning. I got the new Van Morrison (Duets) album and we listened to that on our ‘stereo’. After breakfast Sue and I went for a long walk. I mean L-O-N-G. Through some of the neighbourhoods out behind our place where we’ve rarely, if ever, been before. We got back to the house at noon — just in time for lunch.

Sue read outside for a while, then came inside because “it’s too hot in the sun and too cool in the shade.” Day one of the Arnold Palmer Invitational golf tournament in Florida was on the Golf Channel all afternoon. At around 2pm I went to the driving range again. I had a great time. I used to hate the driving range; thought it was a complete waste of time. Now I can easily spend an hour and even two hours there — just hitting the ball. I could have hit my driver all afternoon, but I also worked on my #4 hybrid, and it felt like I made some progress there. Then I went to the chipping green and practiced short shots with my lob wedge. When I got back to the house Sue was sitting there, all ready to go. Yikes! I’m almost late!

We got to Mountain Brook, hoping we might once again get to play the back nine. No, not today. The course is too busy. Okay, we’ll just play the front nine then. There were two ladies ahead — they were okay golfers, but they had to wait for the foursome ahead of them. So we waited at most tees. And we played ‘okay’ — but only ‘okay’. But we had fun. And the day was fantastic. We again had a little FaceTime call from Max while we were waiting to tee off at the fifth hole. Cool.

Back at home, we had a delicious supper after G&Ts on the patio (what else is new?). And at around 7:30 we were all set to see what’s on TV tonight. We started one of the movies on my Netflix list — but soon realized we’d seen that movie before. So we switched to one of the series on the list — “Hinterland”, an English mini-series. We watched the first of 4 parts. We need popcorn to help us stay awake for the 90 minutes. When the episode was over we switched to CBC The National and the At Issue panel. Tired, we went to bed.

What a shock when we opened the blinds to our patio this morning! Oh, oh, I hope they don’t cancel Easter because of this — there on our putting green was what little was left of the Easter bunny. Maybe that explains the commotion I thought I heard last night when I went to bed. After I made Sue and me a good cup of coffee, I sat down and considered my options. I had to clean up that mess. My first thought was to spray the remains with some of Sue’s hair spray. (It claims to restore life to dead hair.) But all that was left for us to work with were a couple of ears, two little legs, a clump of bloody intestines, and what looked like the brain. By the time we’d eaten breakfast part of the clean-up was done for me: a bird had made off with the brain, and a cat (a cat? where did she come from?) ambled across the yard, stopping to pick at the bunny guts. I put the rest in a plastic bag and threw it in the trash bin.

Cloudy and a bit cooler today — that was good for a hike up and down Silly Mountain. Wow, it’s just SO green and colorful! We don’t recall it ever looking so alive.

When we got home it was time for lunch. Watched “Holmes on Homes” while we ate our sandwich and oatmeal today — that was our routine in November and December, and it felt like ‘old times’.

After lunch Sue went to sit at the pool and read. I watched another home renovation project on TV, did a bit of work on the computer, and went to the driving range. The wind was picking up, and there was the odd raindrop. Cool. Great for me — and great for the few golfers who were enjoying no wait times at each tee.

Back at home, Sue was reading. We had happy hour and watched some of the Arnold Palmer specials on TV. Then we barbecued pork tenderloin for supper. By now there was a very gentle rain outside.

After supper we watched TV — some news, a special celebrating the 50th anniversary of the movie “The Sound of Music”, and then switched to a couple of Netflix movies. We started, but did not finish, the movie “Frank”; then we watched “Thanks for Sharing”. A little pie and ice cream for snack. The end of (another) perfect day in paradise.

Happy St Patty’s Day. Another hot one here in Gold Canyon; at least the desert vegetation is ‘playing the game’ and wearing the right color for this holiday. We’ve NEVER seen it so lush and green and blooming and alive.

 We got on our bicycles this morning at around 9 o’clock — hoping to get at least 20kms in before it got too hot to ride. All along our ‘loop’, I couldn’t help but notice how green everything is. And I don’t mean only the blooming desert — no, even the walkers and cyclists and golfers were all wearing green today. We almost had to stop at the bridge overlooking holes 3, 4, and 5 on Sidewinder to watch green golfers making putts on green greens.

When we got back to the house Sue headed out to the pool for an hour of reading before lunch. I took a look at a couple of posts I made here exactly 3 years ago. Wow! what a boring life we live! It’s almost creepy how similar things were here in 2012 (and at home — the temperature in Steinbach for March 17, 2012 was 17 degrees!). (Here’s what we did March 14 (Pi Day), 15 (Ides of March), 17 (St. Patrick’s Day) — but NOT 18! in 2012).

After lunch I took the leaf-blower to our putting green. We both showered and got into our finest GREEN clothes. A few clouds rolled across the sky. We decided to high-tail it out to Apache Creek for some cheap golf (and a cart to ride in so we’d be in the shade).

We got there just before 3pm. No, they would not guarantee that we’d get in 18 holes; we’d have to have the cart back by 6:30. No problem. We’ll see how far we get.

We won’t get very far if that first hole is any indication: two shots into the water! I marked down a NINE. But I parred the next hole. And the scattered clouds kept the heat manageable. We watched the pair ahead of us — grandpa and his young grand-daughter, who only hit the ball a few times, despite at least a hundred swings at it.

The back nine was better than the front; the young lady had plum-tuckered herself out swinging that club. A cool Amber Bock helped quench our thirst. And we started to hit the ball better too.

We caught up with an annoying foursome ahead and things slowed down a bit again. But the sun setting and coloring Superstition Mountain as it went down made the waits at each tee box okay. And we actually finished 18 holes, although the last chip shot was onto a green where the flag had already been taken away. I finished with 3 pars and 9 bogeys — not a great score, but a work in progress.

After throwing our clubs back into the van, we zipped over to the In-N-Out Burger on Signal Butte. Is this St Patty’s Day turning into a ‘red-letter’ day, or what? Yum!

Back at the ranch a little after eight. We check our email and then back in front of the TV. We finished watching the last 3 episodes of “The Honorable Woman”. Good show. No problem staying awake today! It’s almost midnight and we’re both still awake. Now if only I had a cold Guinness in the fridge, I’d drink one more toast to St. Patrick. Until next year…

Literally. It’s too hot to go for a bike ride. It’s too hot to go for a hike up Silly Mountain. It’s too hot to walk nine holes at Mountain Brook. It’s too hot to sit at the pool and read (okay, I wouldn’t do that anyway).

After breakfast we went for a walk in the morning, along the #60 and back through Mountain Brook. When we got back I was starving. I made myself a HUGE vegetable platter and washed that down with a cold IPA, while Sue was on the phone with Angie.

In the afternoon I stayed inside. Sue read and worked on a crossword puzzle outside for a bit, but then came in and joined me in front of the TV. And we (finally!) turned on the AC. We watched an episode of Frontline, and then started watching the 8-part series we’ve seen pieces of on CBC, “The Honorable Woman”. In between episodes we had a lovely salmon and rice supper and we skyped with Max.

The weather forecast says it’s going to continue to be hot like this for the foreseeable future. I guess we shouldn’t complain; in two weeks we’re heading back to the Great White North.

Beware the Ides of March. So said the soothsayer to Julius Caesar on this day 2059 years ago today. Not a good day for JC.

Our Sunday morning routine is back on track. We watched the CBS Sunday Morning show and had french toast with fruit for breakfast. We even watched Fareed — who had a special on futuristic endeavours in science and technology. So it was a lazy morning here, just the way I like it. We had the Valspar golf tournament (which we went to watch live last year when we were in Florida) on TV. We had a late lunch. After lunch we skyped with Tim and Carmen. At 2 o’clock we were out the door, heading to the Painted Mountain Golf Course.

We were early for our tee time — the traffic on the #60 was no issue today! — so we chipped and putted for a while. We could have started earlier, but they were out of carts! When enough carts had come in we were off. We were paired with an older couple, but the lady claimed that she was just learning how to golf and would just as soon let us play ahead, so we were off as a twosome. We’d played this course once before. The first hole is a par 5 dogleg right, with water along the right side. Last time my first shot went into the water, and my second shot went into a bunker on the left. I think both Sue and I had a TEN  on that hole last time. Today we both shot our tee shots toward the bunker, and then had some good shots down the fairway. First hole, first par!

Ah, but golf isn’t that easy. For all the putting practice I’d had before the game, I still can’t sink a 3-foot putt when it counts. So at the end of nine holes, in spite of 3 pars and 3 birdies, I was 10 over par.

The threesome ahead of us lost a player at the turn, and the couple invited us to join them on the back nine. They were very good golfers, originally from Minnesota, now living in Watertown, SD. I played the back nine from the blue tees with Ron; Sue and Sharon played from the reds. I think our level of play improved too. But we ran out of daylight, and did not play the last two holes.

Ron and Sharon invited us to join them for a beer after the game. We sat on the outdoor patio at the clubhouse and had supper together. Some interesting talk — Ron is an enthusiastic hunter and fisher. He’s fished in Grand Rapids, Manitoba every year for the last 35 years. He also has an amazing collection of African trophies hanging in his ‘Africa’ room from his four years of going to hunt there.

When we got home it was around 9. We were going to finish watching “House of Cards” tonight — but I couldn’t find episode 40. I was sure we had 8 shows left, but after a bit of investigation I discovered that there are 13 episodes each season, and we had in fact watched to the end of Season 3 last night! Yikes! So now we have to wait until next year to find out what happens next.

So we watched a bit of a TV special about the tsunami of 2004. Then at around 10pm we watched “Labor Day”, a movie on Netflix. It was around midnight when we finally went to bed. We not only survived the Ides of March this year — we’d had a GREAT day.

It was another special day here in Gold Canyon — Pi Day! We started our day with some round eggs fried in a round pan. Of course, we added bacon, toast, and peanut butter to make it even better.

After breakfast we visited with Max and Alex via Facetime. They’re enjoying some REALLY nice weather in Steinbach. Well, so are we. Sue and I went for a walk after that. We got a little side-tracked because there were garage sales advertised in the Fairway Views development. It’s a gated community that is normally not accessible to non-residents, but today the gates were wide open. So we walked around the community, not looking at the garage sales, but sure looking at the properties. Very nice homes in there!

After we got back to the house Sue read and talked on the phone with Alex. When she got off the phone we had lunch outside in the back patio. It was getting pretty hot in the sun. I sat inside at my computer and downloaded a new album by Mark Knopfler and listened to that. Then I went to the driving range and smacked about an hour’s worth of balls with my fairway wood.

Meanwhile, Sue went to Bashas to pick up some groceries. Then she went for a haircut. When I got back from the driving range I showered and we had happy hour at around 5 o’clock. We watched another “House of Cards” episode before supper. Sue warmed up some spring rolls and the leftover Chinese from Thursday and once again we cleared out our sinuses with some ‘eksa spysee’ kung pao shrimp. After supper we were back to our “House of Cards” marathon.

We took a little break from all the White House shenanigans with some PIE, in honor of Pi Day. Sue had picked up a nice peach pie at Bashas. She cut across the diameter of said pie, and then made plate-sized wedges by cutting from the center to the edge, creating a radius. We squared that radius and multiplied that by today’s date in order to accurately calculate how many scoops of vanilla ice cream we needed to make it a SUPER dessert. And then we ate it. Happy Pi Day.

This morning we went for a long walk. We hadn’t done that for a while. We went to Mountain Brook Golf, and then did a little extra loop through the neighbourhood before coming back home for lunch. The drive to Yuma yesterday left my van window and grille full of dead bugs — so I cleaned that off (new trick: I used a wet Bounce dryer sheet to scrub off the bugs.) Sue went to the pool to read for an hour. I trimmed a few dead branches off the Bougainvillea plant in the front yard.

After lunch I went to the driving range for a bit of a warm-up. It still amazes me that everything goes far and straight at the driving range but not so when it really counts. When I got back it was time to head out to Apache Creek Golf Course for our 2:52 tee time. Another hot day today. We teed off right behind 4 old guys, and had no one behind us for most of the afternoon. In fact, the guys ahead let us play through on hole 11, probably because they were getting tired of hearing my drives bounce on the fairway not too far behind them. So of course I hit two tee shots off to the right, into the water, while the four of them watched. But we had a lovely afternoon, in spite of our poor scoring (101 for me, 104 for Sue).

We went home, had a nice tall G&T to cool off, showered and changed. It was about 7:30 when we walked across the road to the Gold Canyon Golf Course for supper. We sat outside on the patio. The evening was still warm, especially when they lit the patio heaters and the big fireplace. We ordered drinks and shared a pizza.

Back home, we felt a bit of pressure to keep going on our “House of Cards” schedule. We watched 3 more episodes, although I only saw about one and a half. I’ll need to re-watch them tomorrow sometime. Too much fun for one day — Sue admitted that she too had drifted off for most of the last show. Off to bed.

We woke up early again today. No plans. A ‘day off’. What should we do? Maybe we should take a drive to Yuma. It’s supposed to be hot, but cloudy — might be a good day to drive. Okay, let’s do that. Sue suggests that we be gone by 9am.

And so the day begins. I quickly shower, put on one of my golf shirts, throw my golf shoes into the van with our clubs. Maybe we’ll find a nice golf course in Yuma and get a bit of golf in. I also look up the address for that humungous feedlot in Maricopa, and the “Milky Way” dairy operation that my friend Ed Peters said was even bigger than the big feedlot.

We drive down to Maricopa first. We can smell the dairy farm long before we see it, thanks to a strong west wind. Of course, we can’t really drive IN to the farm — so we stop on the road and I try to take a couple of photos. The photos don’t really put the size of this operation into perspective.

We continued our drive to the southwest corner of Arizona. We passed acres of solar mirrors at Gina Bend. Around 2000 acres! Sue grabbed the camera to take a photo. Click, click, click, click. Stop it! One photo is enough. I’ll have to delete about 20 of those…

I kept ‘the best’ photos — you may be able to make out the solar farm in one of those photos. I’m not sure how many pictures of the armrest and Sue’s right knee I need to keep.

As we neared our destination, signs for services appeared along the road. It was 12 noon, time for lunch. Hey, how about we stop at McDonalds and make this into a ‘real’ road trip? Oh no, we should go to one of the golf courses Sue listed on her notepaper and eat at the clubhouse. Okay. So it was probably 12:45 when we stopped at the first course on our way into Zuma. Apparently it was a course designed by Arnold Palmer. Really? We park in the parking lot. There are golf carts lined up waiting for golfers. The clubhouse has a few people sitting at tables. I check with the pro behind the counter. Yes, you can golf here. How about at 1:30? $35 for 18 holes, $25 for 9. Well, how about that? I’ll check with Sue when she gets back from using the washroom. Sue says we should eat first.

When the lady working in the ‘kitchen’ makes her appearance, Sue asks if they have anything to eat. Well, we have hotdogs or I can make you a sandwich. Rudy: I’ll have a hotdog and one of those Amber Bocks on tap. Sue, who is becoming a bit of a food snob and will not eat ‘processed’ pig parts, doesn’t want a sandwich now either, and opts for a more ‘healthy’ choice. We sit down at one of the tables and eat our lunch. Sue explains to me what the purpose of this trip is. We didn’t come here to golf! We want to get an ‘overview’ of Yuma — go to all the golf courses, get a scorecard from each, maybe look at holes one and eighteen, just to get an impression. No golf. I finish my hotdog. Sue’s finished her Snickers bar. On our way out Sue stops to talk to the golf pro to find out where we might find other courses. And she picks up a scorecard.

And so we’re right back in the van. Driving into Yuma. Hundreds upon hundreds of RV and Trailer parks, separated by the occasional RV parts store. Oh, and big baptist mega-churches and Navajo casinos — and it’s not always easy to tell the two apart. Our GPS leads us from one golf course to the next. At each one Sue goes in for a scorecard while I look at the parking lot. The rates are very affordable, but the courses all look a bit tired. Few trees, fairways flat and boring, not very green. And all of them can get us a tee time ‘right now’! But we didn’t come here to golf.

We check off each course on our list (and one extra one, when the GPS leads us down almost into Mexico to a dilapidated nine-hole course) and then it’s time to head back home. We got what we came for. Yuma is one giant trailer park with about half a dozen ‘cheap’ golf courses!

It’s close to 6:30 by the time we stop at our corner Chinese restaurant, The Great Wall, to pick up the supper we ordered enroute. We ordered ‘extra spicy’ — and today it is EXTRA spicy. But good.

After supper we begin yet another of our TV series we have in ‘our list’ — the third season of “House of Cards” is now on Netflix. We begin watching Chapter One. It’s a little confusing — Sue notes that two of the characters in the show ‘died’ last season — what are they doing back in the show? Eventually we realize that we’re watching the ORIGINAL chapter 1 from Season One! Click, click, click, the remote. Back to the main menu. Select other seasons > Season 3. The first chapter is now Chapter 27. Okay, this makes more sense. We watch a couple of chapters and then Sue wants to switch to the “At Issue” panel on the CBC News. So that’s what we do.

After another “Daily Show”, Sue is off to bed. I’ll join her after I’ve written my journal.