Dani and Gayle came down to visit with Mom for a few days. They were a tremendous help for Mom. Flying out of Bangor, ME is a mess. They had three flights both coming and going. I had to get up a 4:00 AM Thursday to get them to the airport on time. It was somewhat less than a terrific that I didn’t turn off the alarm. It announced it’s presence again at 4:00 AM Friday. Danita had a heck of a time getting me to wake up and turn off the alarm.

Friday we got Mom’s rug back from the rug cleaners. It came out looking fantastic. I put the rug in the kitchen and taped it to the floor. I was just putting the kitchen table on the rug when the Occupational Therapist came in. She suggested we tape the rug to the floor. Bang! ALREADY DONE! Woo.

Danita and I plan to attend a play at Howard College tomorrow. It sounds like fun.

The big news is coming soon. Danita and I are taking a tour of Portugal. We leave May 10 and return May 30. We’re traveling with Road Scholar. We take a land tour from Lisbon to Porto, then a river boat cruise down the Douro river.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Goodwill accepts donations on Wednesday. First thing Wednesday I took several of Mom’s donations. Danita offered to help, but there was no room for her in the car. I was dreading this because Goodwill wants us to sort donated items in some scheme that only they understand. But this visit was a breeze. They’ve made donating a lot easier. They have empty shopping carts. Just fill one up, roll it to the door, rinse and repeat.

Yesterday, Ed and Lynne came down. After enjoying a very nice lunch salad they took away the last of the donation items.

Having reclaimed the garage bay, I went to park the car in the garage. It was covered with small sticky balls of sap from the trees. A quick trip to the car wash took care of that. I also cleaned the deck and porch yesterday. Speaking of “rinse and repeat”, this is the heaviest pollen I recall. For the first time ever, I had to do a pre-wash before washing. The good news is that the spring chores are “Done done done done” (to the tune of Dragnet, coolest TV song ever).

There’s nothing on the calendar today. What will I do? Unfortunately, it’s rain and showers today, so no bike rides. My back is sore. That limits choring. I guess I’ll just have to take a day off.

Dani and Gayle are coming tomorrow to spend some time with Mom. Danita will pick them up from the airport because It’s my turn to help count the take. Tomorrow afternoon we plan to attend Motus. It sounds intriguing.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We’ve been eating food and listening to music. The big news is that Mom in her new apartment in assisted living. There’s lots of changes that require adapting. My “2do” is still growing. One car is parked in the driveway while we sort through the smaller items, temporarily in a variety of piles in the garage bay. Our goal is to get all this sorted by the end of the week. We’ll see…

We’re having Easter dinner at Ed and Lynne’s this afternoon. Happy Easter to all.

These are busy days. We are in the final push to get Mom ready for her move to assisted living. It’s a lot of work, but we are also doing fun things. We took Mom out to eat for her 95th birthday. We went to a luncheon at UMBC. The speaker was the founder of the American Visionary Art Museum. The event included tasty appetizers and a nice lunch before the talk. The guest speaker has a world view similar to many other artists, which is to say it is totally foreign to me. We went to a concert for a string duo — violin and double bass. The musical offerings were eclectic but good. We had a good time.

I hope everybody is doing well.

We had a decent Greek food truck this week. As we often do, we had dinner with the Jones’s.

Ed & Lynne gave us our Christmas / Birthday / Anniversary present. Saturday, we drove up to their place, then they drove us up to Lancaster. We had a very nice dinner followed by a concert. They put us up overnight. This morning we went to church with them, followed by a church-sponsored continental breakfast. It was a lot of fun and almost perfect. I had meatloaf leftovers, which makes for a terrific lunch-time meatloaf sandwich. The meatloaf is in Ed & Lynne’s refrigerator. I hope you two like meatloaf!

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

It feels like the weather is a big tease this year. We’ve had some very nice days, but lately it’s been cloudy/misty/drizzly/cool. It’s hard to get out on the bike.

We wanted to have dinner with the Jones’s, but the food truck was marginal. We decided to go to the Corner Stable, a sure-fire winner.

Danita is busy being the pool coordinator. The community decided to re-plaster the pool, replace tiles, and replace coping stones. Of course, when the pool company started the work, they found surprises. And of course, they weren’t pleasant surprises. We have jets in the pool, which are a big hit with some, especially when the grandkids are around. But the plumbing for the jets no longer meets national standards. If I understand correctly, somewhere in the US a child died after getting a limb stuck in the water intake for jets. Bringing the pool up to modern standards would mean digging a hole in the structural part of the pool. Digging out the structural part of the pool is tricky because it could cause cracks, which would mean major repairs. Undoubtedly there will be plenty of discussion over the next few weeks. Sometimes these kinds of things can take months to decide. The good news is that everybody wants to open the pool as early as practical. That should keep a lid on excessive discussion.

I had my standard eye checkup with my ophthalmologist this week. He said I have macular degeneration (gasp!). It sounds bad, but it this is basically the same as saying I am over 70. It’s common for people in the 70+ population have some level of macular degeneration. About 10% of those have it affect their vision. For now, I should eat my greens and visit the doctor twice a year. Lettuce on the hamburger counts as greens, doesn’t it?

That’s plenty of excitement for one week. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We got home Saturday afternoon (March 1). It was an easy flight. It took us all week to catch up. Laundry — food — cleaning — chores — The list goes on.

I started on the 2024 taxes. All the forms are in hand. Now “all” I have to do is copy endless numbers from a paper form to a computer program. And make sure to note whether the IRA/SEP/SIMPLE box is checked. Ugh. Surely there must be an easier way. Maybe I’ll procrastinate and do it later.

I’ve had two short bike rides. It’s pretty obvious I didn’t exercise for two months.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Besides the coolest minigolf ever, we are going to a magician show this evening. Woo-Hoo!

It’s a 2 hour drive from Death Valley to Los Vegas, but yesterday it took us the better part of the day to get in and settled. We’re at one of the most iconic casinos, the Strat. It being a casino, there is continuous noise from “upbeat” music and one-armed bandits. I expected that. But there’s also continuous noise in the Ihop, the sidewalk outside a small diner, and every other place we have visited in the last two days. The only exception so far is our room, which is pleasantly quiet.

Today we went to the Mob Museum. The locals have renovated the original court house and government building. They have exhibits about crime not just in Nevada but throughout the US. A major portion of the museum covers the 20s to 50s with emphasis on the famous mobsters during prohibition. One of the exhibits is a reconstructed electric chair. They have a huge knife switch to put on the power. It was out in the open. I had to try it out. Making contact turned on the sound of a large electricity surge. It gave me quite a jump. After lunch, I petered out and waited while Danita finished the museum. Here’s our mugshots. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We had a good time at Death Valley today. To help celebrate “Dark Sky”, they brought scientists from NASA Goddard, JPL, and other places to give talks. I learned why there are parts of the Moon that never receive sunlight. I’ve read that many times. It always seemed a little off. I just assumed the scientists have been thinking of this a lot more than I. Actually, the answer is quite simple. The Earth’s declination is about 25 degrees, Moon’s is less than 2. So the sun doesn’t change its path with seasonal changes. We also learned a lot about the mission to look for life in Europa. We even learned that last year’s Dark Sky was a bust. They had the heaviest rain ever recorded. Water couldn’t be absorbed quickly so a temporary lake was formed. There was mud everywhere. Then high winds came in and moved the lake about 2 miles downwind. Needless to say, nobody wanted to put up their expensive telescopes.

Besides the interesting talks, we visited interesting sites. “Artists Palette” highlights all the colors provided by the minerals in rock formations.

Natural Bridge is distinctive enough that Danita and I had our lunch there. We think it was a bit of a bust. Access requires driving 1.5 miles on a rough gravel road, then walking 2,000 feet uphill in loose gravel. When we got there, we found the formation just isn’t very exciting.

“Badwater Basin” got its name when somebody’s mules refused to drink the extremely salty water around the salt flats. This is the lowest point in the US.

Here’s a site we in the eastern US don’t see. Salt in the foreground; snow in the background.

Our last challenge in Death Valley is to get dinner. Dark Sky pulled a few extra visitors this weekend. Park attendance was about the same as on the 3-day President’s weekend. Food facilities are inadequate to the task of feeding all the visitors. Breakfast is easy for us, we’re up early. Lunch is even easier — crackers at extraordinary sites. Dinner is not easy. The restaurants that accept reservations are booked up to 8:30 in the evening. Informal restaurants are slammed with people. I can’t imagine what the crowds must be like in the summer. (Actually, I can’t imagine why anybody would come in the summer. But they do. In droves.) There is one dinner place that opens at 5:00. We will try arriving at 4:50 so we can be near the head of the line. We’ll see how well that works. If it’s too outrageous, we have a few crackers left.

I hope this finds everyone doing well.