Monday 3/10
Regular Monday morning meeting, we were debating about going with the bike group, but they are riding from here to Ryan Field which is all on local roads rather than trails - not our idea of a fun ride so we did not go.
A couple stopped by asking if we could dog sit for them. They came in last night and Andrea in the office told them we were willing. People always expect to pay, but we tell them we do it because we like dogs and to just make a donation to a pet shelter.
They had two cute little dogs, both very sweet. We took them out twice, but they were not big walkers so they were short trips.
Last of the lecture series on the Evolving Brain this evening at the University. We stopped at Beyond Bread and then went over to Centennial Hall. Headed for the Tyndall Ave parking garage we usually use and found one of the streets closed. There has been construction around there all winter. We decided that would make it a real mess getting out after the lecture so we went South to the Main Gate garage. Turns out this garage is closer to the hall AND it was much quicker getting out after the lecture! Able to turn South and get to 6th St which has less traffic than Speedway heading West towards the mountains.
Tuesday 3/11
Nice hike this morning, then a relaxing day. Nancy did some Spanish studying and went to he Spanish study group.
Otherwise, not much to talk about today other than the beautiful weather here and the 4 to 8 inches of snow forecast at home tonight! We have been starting to look at plans for heading North, probably heading to Denver around the first of the month if the weather looks doable. Thinking of targeting arriving home the week before Easter.
Wednesday 3/12
Dog sitting day, we took the two little ones for two walks today and then Margo came over at 2 PM so we could watch her while Karen and Gary went to a show.
Nancy had her Spanish class this AM, I did some cleaning. Had a new book pop up on Distributed Proofreading today about crossbows, been waiting for it to get to the P2 round so I could work on it, so I spent a fair amount of time proofreading today. Interesting books have been few and far between this winter. Most of what I have tried has been doggerel.
Well, if the Blackhawks end up facing Colorado anytime in the playoffs they are dead meat! The Avalanche have their number, won four out of five this season and last night was not as close as the score indicates. As has been the case since the beginning of the year, the Hawks just cannot seem to get the puck in the net with any consistency in spite of great scoring chances.
Thursday 3/13
Tucson Yoga first thing in the morning and our regular stop at Food Conspiracy. Back home we relaxed, took a short bike ride around the park and next door at Justin’s in the afternoon.
Quick trip to BK Tacos for dinner.
Formula One is back for a new season that promises to be pretty eventful with all new cars, unproven technology and a lot of drivers shuffling between teams. Watch a season preview and the Practice One from Australia.
Friday 3/14
Headed off to the Desert Museum first thing this morning and had a nice walk around. Stopped at hardware store and then Rodriguez Seafood to pick up some fish for dinner.
Back home we watched F1 Practice 2. Early afternoon it suddenly cooled off and clouded over a bit, then it rained! Had a couple of light showers and then it rained hard for about five minutes. Very unusual! It had been warm in the morning, well into the 70’s, but dropped back into the 60’s in the afternoon and actually felt chilly - we will be freezing when we head for Denver in a couple of weeks!
Saturday 3/15
Nice long hike in the desert this morning, actually just a bit longer than our normal walk. Nancy spent some time studying her Spanish and I putter around a bit. Time to start getting things ready for hitting the road in a couple of weeks.
Sat down to listen to Prairie Home Companion - which is now on at 3 PM here since we are still on Mountain Standard time - then Karen and Gary stopped by for a visit, with Margo of course - it’s her fourth birthday. One of the nice features of having the Sirius radio is that it can be paused and picked up later, so I paused it and we listened to the show later after they left.
Nancy made fish tacos for dinner using the leftovers from the fish we had grilled last night. Our little Weber Q grille has worked out real well this winter, a big improvement over the little one we have used for about ten years.
Off to bed fairly early as we have to get going early tomorrow.
Sunday 3/16
Up early as we had to be at the University by 8:30 to sign in for our volunteer assignments at the Tucson Festival of Books. We were assigned to a room together, just the two of us plus our “line wrangler” who took care of controlling the line for people waiting to enter.
We had two sessions and the job was really easy, just get the room ready, check microphones, authors chairs and water. After we got the audience in we were able to sit and enjoy the presentations. The first one was “Chillers and Thrillers” with three authors who wrote “thrillers”, although they did not quite all agree with the definition. A very interesting presentation. We only had about 40 people in the audience.
The half hour break between presentations went quickly and when we opened the door for the next one the room filled up quickly, we had about 140 in a room set up for a 150. This one was a historic non-fiction with three authors who were all former journalists, one a Pulitzer prize winner. Once again a very interesting presentation.
We were finished at 12:30 and then we took a short stroll around the festival - answering questions along the way since we still had out “volunteer” tee-shirts on!
We then headed up to Beyond Bread for lunch, stopped at the hardware store and grocery store on the way home.
Back at the park we made a quick stop over at Karen and Gary’s as they were having a new trailer open house/happy hour/yard sale. We did not stay too long as we were a bit tired and had a lot of TV to catch up on! Yeah, that sounds bad, but first we had the first Formula One race of the season on the DVR from last night; by the time we finished that the Blackhawks game was well underway and we chased that on the DVR; followed by a quick look at the NASCAR race from Bristol - rain delay there, so we skipped that. We have pretty much lost interest in NASCAR in the last two years.
THEN ... we had or regular Sunday morning viewing to catch up on: CBS Sunday Morning an Fareed Zakaria.
So that prety much killed the evening - second half of our Beyond Bread sandwiches for dinner while we were watching the hockey game. Blackhawks looked a lot better tonight, although they still are not getting the breaks their work deserves when it comes to actually scoring goals. At least the won tonight, hopefully regaining their work ethic will result in regaining their scoring touch as the season winds down.
Monday 3/17
Wow, the weather guys on the TV have been talking about the high pollen counts for weeks and I have been just fine (I do take Claritin daily year round), but last evening something that has obviously just started blooming set me to sneezing. Nothing as bad as my hay fever was years ago before effective drugs, but worse than I have been in a long time.
I skipped the meeting this AM, but Nancy went. Then we went off with the bicycle group to a part of the Santa Cruz river trail we had not been on before. Rode about 12 miles and then had lunch with the group at Peter Piper Pizza.
Back home in mid-afternoon and relaxed.
Tuesday 3/18
Morning walk in the desert and then Nancy studied her Spanish while I did some prep work for hitting the road in a couple of weeks. Checked tire pressures on the west side of the trailer while there was shade in the morning, did east side in the afternoon. Then I went and had a propane tank filled.
Headed off to BK Tacos for lunch, then planned on stopping at the bank and grocery store when Nancy suddenly remembered that I had an appointment with Angel for a massage at 1:30 - it was now 1:34! So while she called Angel I head back to the park at a rather high rate of speed. Got back there in about ten minutes.
Later Nancy had her Spanish study group and THEN we went to the bank and the grocery store.
Had pizza at home for dinner while watching the Blackhawks lose in overtime. They started out good, but let a sloppy, lucky goal by Philadelphia take the wind out of their sails. They played a pretty sloppy game again and were lucky to come away with a tie.
Wednesday 3/19
Nancy had her Spanish class this morning and I practiced our Brown Bag presentation on the Fabyan Windmill - too short, I need to add more material.
Then we went with Karen and Gary to the Steward Observatory Mirror Lab at the university for a very interesting tour. They make large (8 meter) parabolic mirrors for telescopes and the processes they use were very interesting. One unique aspect is that the "mirrors" do not actually have any reflective characteristics when they leave here! They are actually glass structures with a highly polished surface. Once the mirror structure is installed in the telescope a very thin aluminum coating is applied which creates the actual reflective surface, one which can be periodically renewed.
The four of us stopped at Beyond Bread for a late lunch and then back home.
Blackhawks looked like their old selves tonight, beating St. Louis four to zip! BAd news was they lost Patrick Kane to what looked like a knee injury, early word was at least two weeks - bummer. Hopefully the rest of the team will use his absence as an incentive to pick up their game.
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