Author: Rudy

Some of our electronic clocks automatically adjust the time. They needn’t have. There is no Daylight Savings Time in Arizona. So I actually had to put our alarm clock and the clock in the van into a different timezone today, just to make them show the correct time.

We had French toast today while we watched Fareed on CNN. We switched to golf on the Golf Channel after that. I went to the driving range for a while, and when I got home it was time for lunch. And then we headed into Mesa. First we went to Van’s Golf shop to look at putters. We looked, but didn’t buy. Then we went across Hwy #60 to the Superstition Springs Golf Club. We’d been there once before. This morning I got an email blast from them, advertising cheap golf, so I’d booked us a 3 o’clock tee time for $25 each. We got there a little early and were able to head to the first tee early, just the two of us. Cool! Well, actually we had to wait for the foursome ahead. At every hole. So we only got about 14 holes in before it got too dark to continue.

We were on the ninth hole when my phone started buzzing. It was Alex and Max, FaceTiming us. Max got to see us golfing, and chasing some ducks and geese around on the course. That was great.

We stopped at a Fry’s grocery store to pick up bread and eggs before heading home. Lots of traffic on the #60 again — it had been a slow crawl out of Gold Canyon on the way TO the course, and there was a long stream of headlights coming from the Renaissance Festival again when we were on our way home. When we got home I barbecued a couple of cheeseburgers and Sue made a salad. We watched the last 2 episodes of “Suits” — at least THAT’S an accomplishment!

Well, that extra hour of sleep that we may or may not have had last night doesn’t mean we’re going to bed any later than usual today.

Saturday morning. Oh, all you faithful readers, you know what that means — bacon and eggs! Speaking of faithful readers, I can’t wait to stop writing this drivel! I started this when we first headed south, partly as a way to document what we are doing FOR OURSELVES and partly as a way to stay in touch with family. And I know that others are reading this, and sometimes it’s fun to write for that audience too. I also know that I need to do this every day, and that if I miss a day I will soon miss several days and then I’ll stop doing this altogether. (It’s a bit like my stint on the treadmill was — either do it daily or don’t even start.) But really! MOST of the time we don’t DO anything. Reading about how lazy we are, or how great the weather is, or how bad my golfing is, has got to be the most UNINTERESTING reading in the world! Pain and suffering makes for interesting reading; living the good life in a sunshiny country club does not.

Now that we are on our own here, I’m once again playing music from my humungous iTunes library all day every day. Today’s ‘genius playlist’ is based on Steve Earle’s “Remember Me”. What a great playlist! Speaking of Steve Earle, if you really want to read good writing, listen to Steve Earle’s music. He’s been in jail for heroin possession, and he just divorced his seventh wife. Hello! Talk about pain and suffering! And he’s got a new album out, Terrapin, and it’s a blues album, and it’s good. Steve Earle can tell a GREAT story in a 3-minute song.

While Sue read I worked on my computer. Sue was feeling a bit better today, although not a hundred percent yet. So for lunch she made noodle soup and grilled ham and cheese sandwiches. That’s what we have when one of us feels poorly. Yum! almost makes you wanna be sick.

It was HOT here today (oh boy, now he’s going to talk about the nice weather again!). I called Mountain Brook Golf Club and booked a 3:45 tee time — hoping it might have cooled off a bit by then. But it was still quite warm when we pulled into the parking lot. And as Sue went in to pay I put together our pull carts and loaded our clubs. Oh no! I forgot my driver and all my hybrids in the garage after my last visit to the driving range. What now? Okay, I’ll golf with what I’ve brought. So no nice long drives today, right? Wrong. I reverted to my old fairway wood and was pleasantly surprised when I smacked that ball almost as far as I can hit my driver. Okay, maybe it wasn’t that cool when I dinged the ball off the roof of a house on the eighth hole, but I quickly pounded a second ball straight down the fairway and was careful NOT to look at the homeowner as I made my way down to the green.

After golf we decided to (finally!) check out the Fairway Grille, out on Highway 60. We’d not been there yet this winter — and every time we go by the parking lot is packed. So we waited for a break in the parade of cars coming back from the Renaissance Festival just down the road and then crawled the quarter mile to the restaurant. Parking lot was full again. Upon entering the crowded restaurant we were immediately bathed in the overwhelming aroma of deep-fried everything. The restaurant reminded me of the Hitching Post and the smell reminded me of the good old Pioneer Inn in Steinbach. We got a table for two. All around us, enormous old people were overflowing their chairs while stuffing their faces with the broasted chicken and fried fish dinner special. We ordered a couple of draft beers. (I could go on about the joys of American “Lite” beer here, but this is already too long an entry.) I ordered the fish, Sue had sweet potato fries. The big fat guy sitting behind his laptop in the corner was entertaining the crowd by singing along with Waylon and Willie karaoke soundtracks. How is this considered ‘live’ music? At one point he was singing a chorus that sounded like “I don’t want to get older” — I was considering helping him achieve that! The highlight was when a drunk Mexican guy got up and started dancing along with the soundtrack for a couple of songs. While the huge people all around us were chomping on their greasy drumsticks and texting their grandchildren all about it, Sue picked at her fries. Not that good. Neither was the fish fry, but I gave it my best shot. When we were done we had to get out of that parking lot, back onto the 60, to get back home. I edged the van into the solid lanes of traffic kind of like how we crossed the motorcycle-clogged roads in Vietnam years ago — just close your eyes and start moving into the traffic and the sea of cars will part for you. Made it.

Back at home, we opened all the doors and cranked up the ceiling fan to help cool down the place (and to air out our greasy clothes). The internet was working again — and we made one more push to finish watching the final season of ‘Suits’. We didn’t quite finish — I think we have 3 episodes left. By eleven o’clock we were in bed. Thank goodness we won’t lose any sleep to Daylight Savings Time like people at home will — they don’t do that here in Arizona.

Well, Sue is still on the road to recovery. She doesn’t feel like eating, she doesn’t trust herself to go for a ride, we don’t even go for a walk. It was a quiet Friday at home today.

I worked on some web stuff all morning. Sue copied all the numbers from our ‘budget’ app on our phone and ipad into her little scribbler and added things up with her calculator. Huh? That just hurts a computer guy like me to see that. After lunch Sue went to sit at the pool and read. I forgot to mention that she finished reading her massive book yesterday — “The Time In Between” by Maria Duenas. So now she’s on to her next bookclub book. My big book sits here on the coffee table, undisturbed. I spent a couple of hours going through our Danube photos, deleting about a quarter of them. Then I went to the driving range and hit balls for an hour. Wow, I’m sure getting a lot of distance on my drives — or maybe it was that huge tailwind I had today.

When we got home I made a couple of G&Ts and Sue cut up some sausage and cheese and we had happy hour while we watched a few episodes of ‘Suits’. Then at around 6pm the wind let up and we decided to go up our hill to watch the sunset. Good move.

Sue made a stir-fry for supper. No ‘Friday Night Pizza’ tonight — Sue took inventory of our fridge today. Holy cow! we have enough meat stockpiled in there to last us until mid-June! And no more visitors until we leave at the end of this month. We had a FaceTime call with the kids and a Skype call with the parents. At around 7:30 we were all settled back at our stations, ready for another marathon night of ‘Suits’. Oh, oh, what’s with that spinning beachball on our AppleTV? No internet. Shoot! Can’t watch ‘Suits’ tonight. Can’t even watch any of the queued up shows on “my list” on Netflix. Whoa! Can’t even check to see if anyone wants to be ‘friends’ with us on ‘our’ Facebook. What can we do? I unplugged all devices, restarted, and restarted again, all to no avail. Hmmm… I guess we’ll have to watch curling on TV. We did that for a while, finally switched to Anthony Bourdain on CNN. Sue took one of those Gravol pills and went to bed. I woke up on the couch at midnight and dragged my weary ass there too. All this doing nothing all day plumb tuckers a guy out.

After breakfast my financial advisor had me do a bit of housekeeping with our banking. And since it seems that I’m also in charge of remembering all the usernames and passwords for the online banking sites she sometimes likes to visit, I spent quite some time reorganizing the bookmarks on her iPad browser and resetting various passwords. So that basically shot the morning.

After lunch I took the van into Apache Junction for service. I had to get rid of that ‘Service Engine’ warning light. I noticed that there was a big strip of goop on the windshield, and some eggshell next to the van — either someone is trying to send us a message or one of those excited birds lost part of her load as she flew over our driveway. In any case, it was time to take the van to the carwash. Twice. The first time through didn’t wash the baked-on egg off the van. Neither did the second go round. So, after hitting a thousand balls at the driving range I parked on the driveway, got a big pail of warm soapy water, and ‘scoured’ that crap off the windshield and the top of the van.

So it took no time at all to have wasted away a whole day and read NOT ONE WORD in the big book I’m reading or CAPTION ONE PHOTO in my Danube photos project. Good thing I’m retired and have all the time in the world.

Sue got supper going (even though she’s not at all hungry — that flu bug isn’t quite done with her yet) and we watched a few more episodes of ‘Suits’. Quite a few more episodes. We took a break to watch the CBC News but then got right back to it. We’ve got 8 episodes left — and then we can switch to one of the other series on our list. It’s becoming quite clear that we will not finish all the books, tv shows, movies, golf games, hikes, excursions, etc that we thought we’d get to during this winter. Less than a month to go. Gotta get busy.

And just like that, it’s time to say goodbye. We’re about to be abandoned here in G.C.

I got up and made a coffee. JP was up for a while already. I poured my coffee into my handy travel mug and Jim and I took his Honda out to the car wash across the road for a rinse before breakfast. Breakfast for me, not for JP. Jim and Bonny left us this morning at 9:30. They were heading out to the Good Wife Trailer Park to go for breakfast with half the Grace Church from Steinbach (they’ll see the other half when they get to Palm Springs later this afternoon). Sue, who had a better night than last night but was still a little nervous about eating, cut up some fruit and made toast.

I listened to some music and Sue read. I was going to work on sorting out our Danube photos but then I got another idea. The sun was shining and the forecast was for slightly warmer temperatures. I hadn’t golfed since last Saturday — not even gone to the driving range. I sent Ed Peters a text asking if he was golfing today. Yep. Ed called the Gold Canyon golf course and changed his tee time to 12:15 for the two of us. So I aborted my plans and hurried out to the course. Sue was happy to stay home and play with her iPad and recuperate.

I had a hotdog at the course and took a few swings on the driving range — and then we were off. Sidewinder course. Just the two of us. We’ll hit from the blue tees. We had to wait a few minutes for the group ahead, but overall, the pace of play was today was right on. Unfortunately for me, the 4 or 5 long straight drives I took on the driving range did NOT translate to good shots on the course (but what else is new!). Ed had golfed this course yesterday as well, but today would be his last round until sometime this spring or summer back in Manitoba — he and Val are leaving Gold Canyon tomorrow.

We had some good shots and some not as good. The temperature seemed to get warmer in the late afternoon; at least the cool wind let up a bit. The dreaded Hole #15 (which ‘features’ water with ‘ball magnets’ in it) once again reared its ugly head at me, and on the final hole I had to invoke the mercy rule (not marking more than a ’10’). But it will take more than that for Sidewinder to ‘beat me’ — I’ll be back.

When I got home from golfing Sue was skyping with Max. Ed Peters brought a ‘care package’ of assorted leftover libations to our place and said goodbye. And then it was time for Sue and me to get back into our routine. I queued up a few episodes of ‘Suits’ while Sue warmed up supper. We took our positions in front of the TV and watched a few episodes of Suits until 10 o’clock. Then we switched to PBS for a pretty good musical special and at eleven it was time for the CBC National. And that was it for Wednesday, March 4, here in Gold Canyon.

Well at least it wasn’t raining when we got up this morning. In fact, the sun was shining through the clouds. And while it certainly wasn’t warm outside, it wasn’t as cold as yesterday either.

We had breakfast with Jim and Bonny and discussed options for the day. We’d pretty much decided on a hike in the Boyce Thompson park but when Jim and I drove to Bashas to pick up bread and sandwich meat and saw the L-O-N-G lineup of busses heading east on the 60 — well, we changed our mind. Why sit in bumper to bumper traffic when we can just go for a little hike up Silly Mountain right here. So that’s what we did.

As long as the clouds didn’t hide the sun it was nice and warm outside. We made a quick circuit on our little ‘silly’ hill and then went back home for lunch. Sue was feeling really crappy (literally) and so she went for a nap after lunch. The rest of us sat around, eventually finding a spot in the sun in our backyard. We were going to go out for supper, but because Sue didn’t really feel well and not at all hungry, we decided to go pick something up and have supper here at the house. We were watching curling on TV and when that was over we changed our mind once again — Jim and Bonny and I would go across the road to the Hitching Post for supper while Sue would stay back and have another snooze. So that’s what we did.

Jim and Bonny had a chance to enjoy the fine ‘live’ entertainment offered nightly at the Hitching Post — a ‘real’ taste of life in Gold Canyon. When we’d finished our meal and the singer was finished singing along with Side A of his karaoke tape we headed back to our house (well, by ‘we’ I mean Jim, Bonny, and I — not the ‘singer’). We watched some more curling and at some point Sue came back out from her hibernation and joined us. Around 10:30 that was done and now the rest of us did like Sue and went to bed.

It’s a grey rainy Monday morning in Gold Canyon. Perfect for sleeping in. When I finally rolled out of bed at around eight o’clock and put the coffee on, Sue had already sorted the laundry into several big piles on the bedroom floor.

After reading the Steinbach news online just to make sure the universe was still unfolding as it should, it was time to start up the vacuum cleaner. While I dragged the Dirt Devil around Sue followed with the wet mop. It’s cleaning day at the Nikkel’s’ today. Well, why not? Can’t go golfing in this weather!

Once we had the house clean it was time to take care of our personal appearance — haircut time. Sue exchanged her maid outfit for comb and scissors and soon had me looking presentable.

After lunch Sue got busy in the kitchen, preparing tonight’s supper and baking a blackberry crisp. I stretched out on the couch and started reading the big book Ed H left here for us to read. I may have drifted off a bit as well.

At 4 o’clock our guests arrived. Jim and Bonny left Albuquerque this morning and drove “cross country” through Show-Low to get to our place. They are on their way to Palm Springs for a couple of weeks, and will stay with us for a few days before continuing on to California.

We had a little snack and sat around the table and talked for a while. Then Sue got supper going and we moved to the living room. After we’d eaten we tuned in the curling game on TSN and watched TV and visited. Sue served that crisp she’d made earlier with a scoop of ice cream.

A little after 10 we retired to bed.

We are waking up later and later every morning. Today it was after eight when we finally dragged ourselves out of bed. Ed was already sitting and reading in the living room. I made coffee and soon Sue was busy making crepes.

After breakfast we watched some curling on TV. Sue and I went for a quick walk. It looked like the day would be a warm one — not the cool miserable day forecast for today. I checked the mail and got the ‘parcel’ Marylou Driedger was waiting for — her long-lost camera. I sent Dave a text to let them know — and got an update back: they left for home this morning and were just having breakfast in Gallup, NM. We’ll bring them the camera when we get home in a month.

Today is the Hildebrands’ last day here with us. After they got back from their walk we sat around and watched a little more TV. They packed their suitcases and loaded them into the van. They have booked a hotel in Phoenix for themselves where they will stay for the next few days. On the way there we made a pitstop at the fruit and vegetable market where Sue bought more groceries. Then we headed down to the mall at Santan Village. We had a nice lunch together there. Then, at around three o’clock, we headed to midtown Phoenix. We dropped off our visitors at their hotel, said our goodbyes, and headed back to Gold Canyon.

Before arriving at our house, we stopped at Bashas to get more groceries. I picked up a burger at Jack-in-the-Box for my supper. At home, we watched 60 Minutes and then drove over to Ed and Val’s. We visited and had ice cream. We got back home by ten o’clock, in time to watch the CBC National. The forecast for tomorrow is for rain and cooler temperatures. We’ll see.

Saturday morning: bacon & eggs. I did a bit of computer work in the morning. Max and Alex skyped. Sandwiches for lunch. And now we get to the good part:

We left for our 2:15 tee time at Poston Butte Golf Course (down in Florence) a bit before one o’clock, thinking we’d probably be caught in the traffic between our place and the Renaissance Festival south on Hwy 60. But no, no delays at all. I guess the cooler (17 degrees) weather and the clouds (that looked like they might rain on us) scared off the hundreds of visitors that clog up our highway most weekends. So we actually arrived at the golf course about half an hour early. No problem. We’ll go putt a bit and drive a few balls on the driving range, and then tee off a bit early (because some golfers may not show up due to the weather). And even though we had about 17 drops of rain on our windshield on the way down, that was it for the rain today. Though the temperature wasn’t really at all cold, the wind was blowing pretty hard and made it feel cooler than it was.

After shooting my tee shot on hole #1 left onto the driving range, most of my subsequent drives were much better. I managed to score a 44 on the front nine, with 3 pars. Not bad for a windy day like today. Ed and Jessie both played well too, while Sue had a few issues with the big sand traps. My pars changed to bogeys on the back nine, and I finished the day with a 92 (to Ed’s 90). The wind died down quite a bit and on the final hole the sun came out and lit up the 18th green. Not that I was ON the green. No, sadly I was in the bunker and was lucky to shoot another bogey on the final par 5. Sue also redeemed what had been a less than stellar day golf-wise, and shot a TWO on the 17th hole, which is an island green! All-in-all it had been a very good day, considering that all week the forecast had been for rain and cold. We’d had to wait for the groups ahead of us at every tee box, so although we’d played a fairly steady pace, we finished our game 4 and a quarter hours after our 2:15 start. The sun was down. We drove the 30 miles back to our house in the dark.

Sue warmed up the leftovers (Chinese and pasta) for supper. We played a few hands of bridge, and (for a change) the ladies won most of the hands tonight. The guys tried to mount a comeback, but fell a bit short when we called it a night at around 10 o’clock. The Hildebrands watched the final ends of a dramatic curling game on TSN and then we switched to the news. Everyone was in bed by eleven.

Poor Jess! She’s been fighting a cold all week — and just when it looks like she’s getting better, she feels worse again.

We had a visit from the Driedgers this morning — they are getting ready to leave. They have to be out of their rented home by tomorrow noon, and will probably be on the road heading for home this Sunday. So they cleaned out their fridge and brought over a big laundry basket of food things. We’ve enjoyed their company here for the last couple of months and we’ll miss them.

After breakfast Ed and Jessie went for a walk in the neighbourhood. They were just back when Sue and I got on our bikes and cycled over to Bashas to buy some bread. We got back at noon — just in time to have sandwiches with that ‘new’ bread.

After lunch Sue went to the pool and I went to the driving range. Jessie had a nap, trying once again to ‘sleep off’ her cold.

I skyped with Alex a bit when I got back from hitting balls, and then Ed and I headed to Mountain Brook for 9 holes of golf at 3:30.

So on the first hole we both hit our drives to within about 140 yards of the pin. Ed takes out his nine iron and lines up his shot. He swings his club and the ball sails up in the air, straight for the pin. Good shot. Ed turns and puts his club back in the bag, then looks back at the green just in time to watch that ball land, roll forward, and drop into the cup just in front of the flagstick. Are you kidding me? That’s a TWO on the par four first hole! Wow!

But he’s not done yet. On the fourth hole he hits his tee shot, lands on the left fringe of the green, then chips it to within a couple of INCHES from the cup. Nearly a second TWO! Hole number 7 is another par 3 — and again he JUST MISSES with his first putt. Ed finishes the round with a 38, which includes a pair of sixes. Not too bad.

And I shot a 45. Too bad all that work on the driving range didn’t help my with my 6 hybrid, but at least my putting seemed a bit better today.

We came back to the house for happy hour. Jessie had had TWO naps this afternoon — let’s hope she’s feeling better for tomorrow afternoon’s golf game. We played a few hands of bridge and then Sue warmed up the leftover spaghetti that Dave brought us this morning. And the spaghetti sauces was DELICIOUS! Coffee and peanut-butter chocolate ice cream for dessert.

The boys won their share of bridge games tonight (what else is new?). We played bridge until the 10 o’clock news. Nothing really ‘new’ on there tonight. Then to bed.