Author: Rudy

That’s what they call Remembrance Day here in the U.S. I started off the morning working on the MTG website. Then Sue declared that if we’re going to go for a hike today we’d better go now, before it gets too hot. We put on our hiking boots and went up the little hill (Vista Point?) behind our house. There were a few marked paths going up. It’s not a very long climb. But, amazingly, the view from up there is pretty impressive. We can see Sidewinder Golf Course, Peralta, and lots of desert with mountains in the distance.

Well, that was hardly a workout. Let’s go for a bike ride. Our old ‘loop’ around Gold Canyon. Which we did. My new chain and cassette on the bike was a bit of a disappointment as it still clunked with every turn of the pedals. I’ll have to make a return trip to the bike shop.

It was lunch time by the time we got home. After lunch we doddled around — Sue made sauce for the spaghetti supper for tonight, I played on the computer. Then we used the clothes line I’d bought to re-string the old lounger we got on the garage sale. I fixed up the water line from the sink to the fridge and stabbed my finger in the process. Happy hour, with a bit of putting on our putting green. Supper. Skype call from Mom. (Now they’ve got snow and cold at home. My sister Linda from BC is coming for a visit on Thursday.)

What’s on TV? Hey, half the channels we got on Sunday are now ‘unavailable’! What’s with that? How does that work? Finally Sue put one of the DVDs from the collection into the player. It’s Complicated. Well, not really. I fell asleep by halftime, woke up once for part of the news, was in bed just before 10. Oh boy, this is getting ridiculous.

After morning toast and fruit I loaded my bike into the van and we went to the Santan Village Shopping Center in Gilbert, about 25 miles from our place. I took my bike to a bike shop there to have the chain replaced. Then, while the guy repaired my bike, Sue and I went to the Costco nearby. Yikes. A short grocery list doesn’t work at a place like that! Even the shopping carts are so oversized that you feel like a little kid pushing them around the maze of double-wide aisles. So we walked out with huge ‘econo-size’ containers of things. The van was full! After a quick lunch we went back to pick up the bike. Then a stop at Total Wine. More ‘deals’. I loaded up on Pilsner Urquell, the Czech beer we had on our European bike trip. On the way back home we made yet another stop. A ‘Super’ Target store. Sue bought a few more toiletries and I found the extension cords I wanted to get.

Back at home Sue barely had time to carve up the massive hunks of pork from Costco and put away the groceries while I strung our living room wall lamps together with those afore-mentioned extension cords. We had to hurry to get to Mountain Brook for our 3:00 tee time. We needn’t have hurried. We still finished before the shadows were too long to find our ball — although, as you can see from the photo, by the last hole the mountain was looking pretty good.

Back at the ranch Sue got supper ready — our first barbecue — and then I watched Monday Night Football (another blow-out) while Sue visited on the phone. After the news and a bit of late night talk shows (yeah, we’re managing to stay up past 9:00pm) we went to bed.

I got out of bed at around 4:30 and read my blogs and made coffee while Sue snoozed for a few more hours. By 7 we were having our toast and fruit. We had another visit with Max in the morning — he seems quite happy to talk on FaceTime. We drank our coffee and watched CBS Sunday Morning. Sue went to sit outside while I watched some pre-game NFL talk shows. Because we’re an hour ahead of Steinbach, but our Shaw on-screen TV Guide is on ‘Steinbach’ time, I had to try to figure out which NFL games we could watch and when. By 11:00 I was ready for a day of football. We probably should have gone to the Cardinals’ game here in Phoenix — they played the Rams and won, even though they lost their quarterback to a season-ending injury. But my Giants were playing the Seahawks at the same time and although I didn’t have much hope for them — you never know! Well, now I know. Another blowout! Although not as bad as the Bears were blown-out by the Packers in the Sunday night game! By halftime we switched over to 60 Minutes, and by the time the CBC National News was on I had already dozed off a few times.

Bacon and eggs — it must be Saturday. I had my first coffee shortly after 6am while Sue did her best to try to catch a few winks in the morning after not falling asleep until after 3. I watched the sun come up. Sue finally got out of bed and made us bacon and eggs. Then we had a FaceTime call from the kids — which was great! Good connection, and Max seemed quite interested in watching a tour of our place here.

We wanted to get an early start today — it’s ‘garage sale’ day here — but when we finally got all ready to go I noticed a problem with Sue’s bike and had to fix that first. We cycled around Mountain Brook — we were sort of looking for a lounger for Sue to enjoy in the sun in our backyard. We were also looking for some different cutlery — the cutlery here is VERY basic. So we scouted out the garage sales. And, although it seemed that most people were winding things down, having sold stuff yesterday and early this morning, we still managed to find the things we were looking for. Sue bought a serving tray, a lounger, and I bought (another) golf pull-cart. Then we went to an ‘estate sale’ we’d heard about — and there we found some pretty good cutlery and another lounger. So we hurried home and traded our bikes for the van and went back to collect our purchases.

We had lunch at around 1pm. Sue had a bit of a snooze while I sorted out our golf clubs and balls. Then, at 2:30, we headed to Mountain Brook. Not a lot of golfers out today, in spite of the great weather! 30 degrees, sunny. I put some lotion on my schnoss and Sue bought a snazzy new ‘Mountain Brook’ visor. Then off we were. No one ahead of us, no one behind. Started off not so hot. But a crazy feeling of deja vu as we walked the front nine — this is where we first started to golf 4 years ago and it felt eerily familiar.

We were finished in record time; probably a bit TOO early! It was really too early for us to head to the Hitching Post to pick up a pizza. Plus, we really wanted to have a gin and tonic and watch the sun go down, but we didn’t have any gin. So we went to Bashas and bought a bottle and a pre-fab uncooked pizza. Back at the Flint house we had a sundowner and watched the sun paint Superstition Mountain. It was beautiful outside — a coolish breeze blew in from the east just as the sun set. Then I showered and Sue cooked the pizza. After supper we sat ourselves down in front of the TV and watched a movie.

Woke up early (what else is new?) and checked things on my computer. We had a moment of panic when it appeared that an important part of my Aeropress coffee maker had been forgotten at home — but then it ‘appeared’ in the coffee grinder basket. So we enjoyed a great cup of coffee — hadn’t had that for quite a few days. Sue had TWO cups, shakes be damned.

By 10am Sue had reworked her massive grocery list for the seventh time and it was time to get outta here. We headed to the Fresh Fruit Market and checked off most of the fruits and vegetables on our list. Next stop, the Dollar Store, to get a few ‘serving trays’ and other kitchen thingys that were not in the house. And then to Fry’s, the big discount grocer. The van was full by the time we got home for a late 2 o’clock lunch. We took our sandwiches out to the shade on the patio and relaxed.

After lunch Sue continued to pack away groceries. I tried to set up the remotes for the garage door and the security to work with the ‘HomeLink’ buttons in the van. I finally got the garage door to work, but no luck with the security gate. Then I took the van to the car wash. Back at the house I finished the job by scrubbing the bugs off the front bumper and license plate by hand.

At around 4:30 we decided to go for a walk to Mountain Brook Golf Course. The sun was low in the sky — it gets dark really early and really quickly here — and we’d have to hurry to be back before dark. We had some trouble getting out of our gated community — I hadn’t taken the little fob along, and assumed that if we walked up to the exit gate it would open, just like it does for the car. Nope. We danced around and stamped our feet like idiots, but couldn’t open the gate. Just when it looked like we’d have to jump OVER the fence, I tried to squeeze THROUGH the grille. Hmmm, I guess all that cycling this fall has paid off — I fit through the gate.

First stop was the Gold Canyon Golf Resort to pick up the discount passes I’d bought online. All good. Free driving range anytime and one free round at either Sidewinder or Dinosaur included. Great. I’ll be able to take a few clubs, walk from our house across the main drag and be at the driving range for an hour every day if I choose.

The sun was already reflecting gold and red off of Superstition Mountain as we headed down the road to Mountain Brook. It was actually quite a long walk! By the time we got to the golf course the shadows were long and the parking lot was nearly empty. The pro shop looked closed, but there was a guy vacuuming and the door was open. We asked about a twilight 9-hole walking rate. Oh yeah, no problem, $20.00, anytime after 3pm. Do we need to make a booking for tomorrow? No, just show up at around 2:30 and I’ll get you on. Great!

We walked back home in the dark. Looks like lots of folks are having a garage sale tomorrow — we’ll cycle around and look for a lounger for Sue.

Leftover Chinese for supper. Then we spent about an hour going through the thousand channels, Sue writing down where we might find the ones we’ll want to watch so we don’t waste all our time flipping through the guide. Watched the CBC National. Then Bill Maher on HBO, although I missed that — fell asleep on the couch. Went to bed at 10.

Sue actually switched on the A/C last night! We had a leisurely breakfast at the Best Western in GC and then went back to our room. Sue was already making a shopping list while I updated my journal. At around 11 we checked out and walked down the road to the Wells Fargo bank. We opened up an account there and now we each have a debit card that we will use for our stay here. Well, you’d think that all we had to do was hand over a cheque to deposit in the bank and we’d be good to go — oh no, that whole business of ‘opening up an account’ took us nearly 2 hours!

After a quick lunch at the Subway it was 2:00 and time to ‘move in’ to our home on Flint Drive. That took us all afternoon — Sue put away all the clothes, the groceries, the toiletries. I put our bikes together, sorted out the golf clubs and bags, put my ‘office’ chair together and set up the old card table we’d brought along from home to use as my ‘computer desk’. Got all the electronic devices configured and connected — looks like it will work just fine. Our place is quite a bit brighter than our previous place in Gold Canyon and it ‘feels’ warmer.

Sue sent me out to pick up chinese food and some bread and peanut butter for tomorrow’s breakfast (okay, the chinese is for TODAY’S supper!) so I did that. After a ‘great’ supper of spicy shrimp and fried rice I sat down to watch Thursday Night Football. The game was over by halftime so I did my best to find a CBC channel so we could watch The National. Yikes, too many channels — and I had quite a time finding the “At Issue” panel. But I did. And I fell asleep on the couch before it was over. Sue hied me off to bed. First night in our new home — man, it’s quiet, an almost full moon lighting up the dark streetlight-free street. Feels good.

After an almost leisurely breakfast at the Best Western in Albuquerque, we stepped outside into the clean, sunny, almost warm 10 degree air and pointed our van westward. We decided to take a route into Gold Canyon that we’d not done before: We left Interstate 40 just before Grants, New Mexico, and headed south through the El Malpais National Monument and Conservation area. What gorgeous scenery! Almost like Sedona. Once again, simple two-lane highway, virtually no traffic, and interesting sights. Quite a bit of climbing on Hwy 60 up to Show Low and Globe, and then down into the valley towards “home”. And by 4:00 we could see the familiar profile of Superstition Mountain, and, as we got closer to Gold Canyon, Dinosaur and Silly Mountain too. An odd feeling of “home”. We stopped at Bashas to pick up some beer and wine to bring to the Bishops for supper, then checked into the Best Western on King’s Ranch Road. We called the Bishops to confirm — we’d be about 15 minutes late for our 5pm supper. I called Sue’s brother Dave for an update about our sunroom issue back home. I’d received a few photos of the project from one of the Krentz guys, who had called Dave to come take a look as well. Now Dave explained what they found and how they had ‘fixed’ the leak. It sounds like everything went better than expected. That’s a relief.

We changed into shorts and sandals, YES, shorts and sandals! Then we drove around the corner, through the security gate, and parked on the driveway of our ‘new’ Gold Canyon home. The Bishops met us at the door — they were very friendly and greeted us warmly. And the place? Well, for all the ‘what-ifs’ and fears and trepidations we’d worried about in the last couple of weeks, the place was perfect. Exactly what it looked like in the photos. And the Bishops made us feel quite at home.

We toured the outside of the house. The Bishops had spent much of the past two weeks painting the outside, 2 coats, hard work — but they had the tans to show for it. And it looks like new. Inside, the extra bedroom closets are empty, ready for visitors. The Sony TV in the living room has Shaw cable hooked up, lots of sports channels including Jets games. Susan was cooking in the kitchen, and ended up barbecuing the chicken because John was too busy showing me around. We enjoyed a delicious supper, visited a bit, discussed plans for the next 5 months. We left just before 8pm — they gave us the keys to the place, and we’re welcome to move in after they leave tomorrow afternoon at around 2:00.

Back in our room at the Best Western, we opened up the balcony door to let in some cooler Arizona air and shared our last Fort Garry beer from home. Fell asleep early. Tomorrow we’ll wile away the morning after a breakfast in the hotel. Maybe we’ll go to the Fruit and Vegetable Market in Apache Junction before going back to the house and moving in.

Left our hotel at 6:30, heading west toward Denver. Our new Honda GPS wasn’t quite jiving with our old trusty Garmin, so we ignored both of them and turned south at Brush (before Denver) and took a quiet two-lane highway down towards Limon. We continued south, stopping at a Sonic drive-in for a burger in Rocky Ford, Colorado. The road was great. We came into Albuquerque once again fighting the sun in our eyes at around supper time — rush hour. We checked in at the same Best Western we’ve now used for several earlier trips through Albuquerque. Nachos and a cold beer (hey, those Fort Garry beers I put in the cooler before leaving home sure are a nice treat) and then walked across the parking lot to the Village Inn for supper. Back in our hotel room we opted NOT to watch the reporting from the US mid-term elections (Republicans won the Congress and the Senate in an anti-Obama vote), and watched a couple of HBO talk shows instead (John Oliver and Bill Maher). Fell asleep early. One more day of driving ahead.

We left the house by 5:30am. Dragged the garbage to the street — the neighbours will look after our house again this winter. I left the water main on — unfortunately the Krentz boys will be in our house this coming week to fix the water issue under the sunroom, so Nathan will close down the water once they are done.

We have a long day of driving ahead of us: We want to get to Gold Canyon by Wednesday afternoon so we can make it for a planned BBQ with the Bishops at the house we’ve rented in Gold Canyon. The Bishops are leaving for home on Thursday so that is when we will take possession of their house. We’ve pre-booked our hotels for the next 3 nights (something we NEVER do!). We have 13 hours to get to North Platte, Nebraska tonight. Then another 9.5 hours to Albuquerque, New Mexico for night number 2. Then 6.5 hours to the Best Western in Gold Canyon, Arizona.

This whole business of renting a house from the Bishops has a back story as well. We had actually planned to go to Texas for our winter get-away this year. Then Jill approached us and offered her house in Gold Canyon to us for Nov-January. Too good a deal to pass up. So we agreed. Our kids booked Allegiant Air tickets so they could join us here for their 2-week Christmas break. We were all looking forward to it. The Driedgers would be in Gold Canyon in their own rented home for January and February. Ed and Val would be at their Gold Canyon home for a month in mid-November and again in February. We would try to find a second Phoenix-area location for February and March, and we hoped there might even be a possibility of Jill’s house being available for those months. All set. And then we left for a month-long bicycle trip along the Danube with our friends Ed and Millie. We were set to return home on October 9, have 3 weeks to get ready for 5 months in Arizona, beginning November 1.

We were one week into our cycling trip when we got an email from Jill: “Due to our own requirements we will NOT be renting out our home this winter. Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.” What?!? I fired an email right back: “Yes, this is VERY inconvenient! What happened? Any suggestions? Any chance we can at least have your place for November while we try to find an alternative?” No reply. What have we done? What has happened? And now we’re in another timezone, pedalling our bikes all day every day, and sketchy internet access at best in the little ‘gasthauses’ we stay at each night. NINE days later we finally get another email from Jill. “Due to our own requirements we will NOT be renting out our home this winter. No, I do not know of any other rental possibilities for you. Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.” That was it. Well, we could only imagine what circumstances might have changed our relationship so quickly. And now we are screwed. We can’t find anything while we’re on the bike trip, so we’ll have to scramble once we get home — maybe even just drive down to Phoenix and stay in a hotel while we look for something. Our kids have booked their flights to Mesa — we pretty much have to have something in that area that will work for us at Christmas.

And then one night, while searching kijiji using my phone and another poor internet connection in an Austrian hotel, I found the posting for the Bishops’ home in Gold Canyon. I sent an email to them: “Very interested. Two seniors, very neat, like to cycle, golf, and go for walks.” And they responded that they too were currently in Europe, but we should call them when we got home. Which we did. And we met them at their home in Winnipeg!! and made the deal.

So it’s early morning as we leave Steinbach. Well, not as early as we had thought — for the past couple of weeks Sue and I have been waking up at around 3am — the effects of jetlag from our Danube cycling trip. But THIS morning we need our alarm to wake us up at 4:30. Our ‘new’ Honda van was packed to the gills — we’ve NEVER taken this much stuff with us before. But as we headed down Hwy 59 I was pleased to note that there was no clanking and rattling behind me. We were watching our ‘new’ built-in Honda GPS as we took the turnoff to Hwy 23 to Morris. Oh, oh. Detour. Oh no! now had to drive a gravel road back up to Aubigny, then cross the Red River, and back down on the 75 through Morris. An hour wasted and we weren’t even across the border. At the border I expected at least a bit of a wait, enough for me to swap my MTS SIM card out of my phone and put in my new Roam-Mobility ‘Snowbird Plan’ SIM card. But no, there’s no wait. Partially dismantled phone in hand, I pull up to the customs gate. “When is the last time either of you have been arrested?” What? “How much cash do you have? Any fruits or vegetables?” None. “None?” Oh wait, we have a couple of oranges and bananas. Unimpressed look on the agent’s face. “Any rice?” Oh, oh. We’ve been here before. Yes, a small bag of basmati rice. “Pull up to gate number 4. The inspector there will return your passports to you.” I pull into the garage, phone in hand. The inspector tells us to open the tailgate and get out of the van. He looks at me holding my phone in my hand and asks, accusingly, “Are you recording this?” I sheepishly put my phone and open SIM card tray back on the console of the van. So once again, Sue and I are sitting in a small closed-off room while a customs inspector rummages through my carefully-packed (and I mean PACKED) van. Nice way to start off a long day of driving! Finally, rice-less, we continue on our way.

We stopped for gas and a McDonald’s “breakfast” in Fargo. Weather was cold but the roads were great. After breakfast Sue took a turn at the wheel. Good thing, too, because around that time I had a serious nosebleed. Wouldn’t stop. Big wads of blood-soaked paper towel in the empty chip bag on the floor. Don’t know how this will turn out — hopefully I don’t have to go to the doctor and get a blood vessel cauterized. After a late, late lunch, I returned to the driver’s seat. We drove across South Dakota, and turned south, squinting into the setting sun before arriving at our hotel in North Platte after dark. Didn’t even check in — just registered and then headed straight for an Applebee’s to watch Monday Night Football. Saw opening kickoff and ordered our supper. The game was a terrible disappointment — my Giants (3-5) played horribly and lost 40-24 to the Colts (6-3). By halftime we had seen enough and headed back to our hotel. Watched the rest of the game and then fell asleep and slept well. It had been a long and tiring Day One of this trip.