Where in the World are Mike and Debby?

Saturday, August 5, 2023

Road Trip ‘23, Part 2

Grand Canyon - Brice & Zion Road trip – part II

It was nearly mid-morning on Wednesday , June 14, when we drove away from Bob and Ann’s to continue our road trip back to NW Arkansas. Aaron was driving as we left Bakersfield and headed towards Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. Before our arrival in Bryce, we just had to stop and take a few photos of the beautiful Red Rock Canyon. It was such a sharp contrast to the miles of brown desert country we went through in Nevada. This part of Utah is very scenic.

Bryce Canyon did not disappoint us. I suppose it will always amaze tourists who have never seen it before. Aaron and Melody had never been here and they were quite taken with this scenic wonder. The canyon is, of course, colorful and majestic. The awesome part is the in-canyon rock formations called “Hoodoos” These rocks appear as columns of rocks as if standing at attention. It is said that these columns are formed by pieces of rock breaking away from the main cliff whenever winter ice forms. These columns are also pushed around by the winter weather and erosion. Anyway, it is a gorgeous and unusual sight. The entire

canyon can be seen from different lookout vistas along the rim. We stopped at the visitors center before driving to the overlook. The sign suggested we take the tour bus as the parking lot on top was full. We decided to take our chances and upon arrival, found 8 or so parking places available.

From Bryce, we headed for Zion National Park. In our minds we were headed for the main entrance but in reality, we were on the road to the north end entrance, which is much less populated and busy. It took a while but soon we pulled off road onto the canyon entrance and a stop at the visitor’s center. The sign said the canyon entrance road has been closed due to a sink hole forming in the middle of the road at about the two-mile mark. So, we drove on to that point just to see what we could see. We were able to get out of the car and take a couple of photos of the entrance canyon. The small part we could see was very scenic. We could have walked in as only the road was closed but our tired old bones had no desire to do that. The grandkids were also of the same mind. So, we drove back out and headed towards the same way we came to find our motel. We stopped for a little dinner at a crowded food trailer and then headed to our motel. Aaron quickly headed down the hallway to the hot tub to soak away the stiffness. He struck up a conversation with a man who had just taken his family to the main entrance. He suggested that Aaron get there at 6:00 AM to avoid a long line. Considering that the park did not open until 8:00 and the part about “crowds”,which sounded like a long wait anyway, so we opted to continue on towards the Grand Canyon. So we did. We passed alongside the canyon rim, stopping a couple of times to take photos and look over into the deep canyon. It was awesome, as usual. We drove on out and pulled into the Red Feather Lodge, where we had motel reservations for one night. We found some dinner just across the street and had a nice sit-down meal followed by some relaxing time in the motel. The next morning, we took advantage of their free breakfast and coffee. I was not hungry but Aaron took advantage. I did grab a cup of hot coffee and sit outside at one of the picnic tables. After we packed our car and checked out, we drove over to one of the small airports where we would board a helicopter for a Grand Canyon tour. Debby did not go with Aaron, Melody and me, but remained behind with Toronto while we were gone. The Chopper had room for six. We sat in the front seat, side by side while two other passengers sat in the seats behind us. Melody sat next to the pilot. She had been apprehensive about this ride for a while but I kept reassuring her we were safe enough. She actually did really well and enjoyed our scenic flight. As the GC is a National Park, aircraft have elevation restrictions. We were not able to fly down inside the GC but were able to see quite well anyway. The mighty canyon was even more amazing from our vantage point. The Colorado River was quite visible. We could even see kayaks on the water. The pilot showed us the Little Colorado, a smaller tributary off the main river, looking very pristine. He said the water is turquois because of the mineral deposits in the creek bed. With the water crystal clear, it appears to have colors of turquois and purple. It was a most enjoyable flight with a great pilot. Our flight lasted less than an hour. It wasn’t cheap but it was well worth the cost. Debby and Toronto were on deck waiting for us to land. We made our way through the visitor’s center and out to the Sienna. We soon merged onto the Interstate and headed east towards home. We stopped for the night in Tucumcari. The next morning, we got an early start for a long drive back to Springdale. We stopped for lunch and a short visit in Oklahoma City at our son, Matt’s house. He and Brent fed us some great sandwiches! After resting up a while, we continued traveling. We had a great trip but were happy to sleep in our own bed tonight. We had a great week spending time with Aaron and Melody. We enjoyed much time around the pool and in the hot tub. We enjoyed looking over our photographs and laughing over the helicopter ride. “Ethyl”, our Sienna, was a trooper! We were blessed to have a van that gave us absolutely no trouble. We put about 5,000 miles on her and she never complained. With nearly 200,000 miles of cross-country road trips, she may need to think about retiring. I’m not sure Debby and I have long road trips in us anymore. Sitting for so many hours is hard on the old bones. It’s either hang it up or get new bones! Mike

Oregon ‘23

Oregon ‘23 June 11, 2023 OREGON

Our week in Portland was busy with events and people. Sunday morning services at church brought back a lot of good memories. It was great seeing our friends and fellow Christians once again. It was good to hug our grandkids and see how they had grown. We drove down to Newberg and spent the night with Rick and Mona, Debby’s brother and family. We were proud to see that Violet, our Niece was also graduating from high school. Unfortunately, her graduation party and actual graduation ceremony was at the exact same time as Dawson’s event. We love Violet but would have to participate in Dawson’s graduation, as that is the reason for our road trip. We have been active in the life of Dawson since the day he was born when we held him at the hospital. It has been fun watching him grow up into a wonderful young man. We have been with him through the days of growing up that included soccer, baseball, basketball, camping, hiking and fire building. I taught him how to build his first fire when he was three. I would have liked to have taken him hiking and backpacking more, but he was more interested in just staying home or playing sports. But he was so much fun as a little tyke and we have so many good memories of him and his three brothers. We also did things with them; especially enjoying camping and taking trips to the beach. All the boys loved playing basketball and playing in the state championship playoffs. Dawson had a great graduation party. We arrived in Portland early enough for Debby to organize and help with that event. Dawson asked for several dozen Little Smokies dogs for his friends. I helped Debby by helping prepare the tiny hot dogs. I think I made nearly 100. We had a lot of other snacks, too. We tried to take photos of all the guests. Hopefully, we were successful. Dawson said he wasn’t going to college this year. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do. Perhaps he will work part time and attend nearby Clackamas Junior College, until he decides what to do. In the meantime, we were busy visiting everyone and enjoying our vacation. It was great seeing Dan and Ami once again. She has been like a daughter to me. I love her like my own. Our Great-Granddaughter, Melody, is the love of our life. She is so smart, beautiful and has a great sense of humor. Her personality is independent, having a strong will and a mind of her own. She and our grandson, Aaron, will be driving back to Arkansas with us. We have some adventures planned for them. The week went by rather quickly. Sunday morning came and Debby dropped me off at the airport. I would be flying to Bakersfield, California to spend a couple of days with my cousin, Ann Wood and her husband, Bobby. Ann has Macular Degeneration like me. Her’s might be a little worse than mine and it’s certainly different. She has had no organized training on how to better use her remaining vision and I thought I might could help her. My reason for this visit was to try to help her with her mobility and to use magnification and OCR (Optical Character Recognition). I brought an OCR device with me to loan her and see if it will work for her. She will need to practice a lot but I believe it will help her with seeing pill bottles, paperwork and photos. I also want to work with her as she uses the cane. The blind cane is very helpful with checking the space in front of one walking for any obstacles or hazards. With practice, confidence increases as the blind becomes more and more self-reliance Bob and Ann picked me up at the airport about noon and we drove to their home. Bakersfield appears to have grown a lot since my last visit here to see my grandmother in 1967. They have a beautiful home with an amazing backyard. There are so many plants and flowers surrounding a well-manicured grass lawn that looks more like a putting green on a golf course than a backyard. We spend the next couple of days getting reacquainted as we had not seen each other for more than 60 years. She was a lot of fun to talk to and get to know. She is in her 80’s but very sharp and spry. It was a lot of fun reminiscing about common stories and things we still remember. I had never met her husband, Bob. He was also fun to get to know. We went out to eat a couple of times. For the most part, I worked with Ann learning to use the OCR reader, the cane and her iPhone As planned, Debby, Aaron and Melody showed up Tuesday afternoon. They left Portland Sunday afternoon and drove to Bakersfield via Yosemite National Park, where they spent some time checking out that beautiful place. Aaron was our designated driver. Debby is not too keen on driving busy roads. But even worse, she isn’t too keen on letting me drive, either! Mike

Road Trip , May 27, 2023

Road Trip 2023

May 27, 2023 Towards the end of May, we began final preparation to pack our 2012 Sienna for another cross-country trip to Oregon. Our good friends, Greg and Dottie Woods have been spending the past few weeks with their grandchildren in Oklahoma. They would be taking the road trip back to Portland with us. Our grandson, Dawson is graduating from high school and we certainly want to be there. We were there the day he was born and have watched him grow up into a nice young man and all the way to graduation. Our traveling companions, the Pinkertons, will not be making this trip with us as they have other plans with their own family. But Greg and Dottie are excited to be taking this adventure with us once again. It will be like old times as we have taken this trip with them before. Not to mention that Greg and I drove our car from Portland to Oklahoma City in 2020 when we moved to Arkansas. Ron Pinkerton was kind enough to drive me to the Oklahoma City area to rendezvous with Greg at a famous Route 66 iconic stop called “Pop’s”, a gas station and burger joint boasting selling over 600 varieties of soda pop. I always like going there because it’s one place where you can buy sodas that are nearly extinct; like Big Red, Orange Crush, Nehi Grape, Grapette, Jolt Cola and many, many others. Greg and Dottie arrived on time with his daughter-in-law and two grandkids. After a few hugs and tears with the kids we headed back home to Arkansas. We spent the next two days relaxing and driving to Branson to see Silver Dollar City. It was a short trip but long enough for us Codgers. On Friday we relaxed around the house and began packing our Sienna. Saturday morning, we finished the loading and said goodbye to our Pinkerton friends. Nancy would be busy the next few weeks watering and taking care of things around our house. I had rigged up an automatic watering system for my garden so she would not have to worry about that. We drove away a

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little after 10:00 and stopped in Tulsa for lunch. From there we made our way to the home of Mark and Dawn Doberenz to participate in an afternoon BBQ with some Pacific Northwest friends, many of whom now live in the OKC area. It was a great gathering of about 32 friends. There’s no way I can remember all their names, as I’m old and often can’t remember my own! But it was great seeing Paul and Bonnie Howard, their son, Seth (I think) and his little boy; a good surprise was seeing Kevin Lawrence. We got to see the now grown up Meaders kids Ben and Katie and their spouses, Bill Goad, Coby Poole and spouse, Jake Doberenz, and of course Mark and Dawn, as well as Brian and Sharon Simmons, Greg and Dottie Woods and me and Debby. There were others plus a few newbies I had not met before. There was of course plenty of conversation and much food. We had a great reunion and vowed to do it again sometime. We spent the night with Brian and Sharon, long time friends and fellow Christians from Oregon. Sunday morning, we packed the car before leaving the Simmons house for church services. Brian, our former preacher at the Metro Church of Christ in Gresham, Oregon, in addition to his full time teaching position at Oklahoma Christian University, is now preaching part-time at the Oakridge Church of Christ and we wanted to hear him today. It was his usual great sermon and it brought back some old memories. After church we said our goodbyes to Brian and Sharon and headed west for New Mexico. We grabbed a quick burger somewhere along the way as we had a long way to go to get to our motel in Tucumcari. We had loaded the car with cold drinks in the cooler and quite a few snacks. Debby also had managed to make a few sandwich items like egg salad and chicken salad. We would not be going hungry on this trip, what with all the chips, peanuts granola bars and fruit! Greg was a talented driver and we wanted to keep the talent happy! The miles clipped by in good succession as we headed west. We pulled into a no name motel on old Route 66 and checked into our rooms. As it was past dinner time we thought about eating. Debby and Dottie opted to remain in their rooms so Greg and I ventured out. We passed a few closed doors before we pulled up to a burger joint. Greg was staring at the big sign and remembered that he might have been here before. At that, he backed out of the Parking slot and drove away. I looked over at him and he looked at me. He said, “I still remember it was not good!” After seeing a few more closed places we found Pizza Hut still open. So that’s what we did. The next morning, we left early to make Tucson before dark. We pointed out some of the old iconic Route 66 gas stations with 1950’s vintage cars and old motels to the girls before we left the area. Greg and Dottie would be meeting some old college friends outside of Tucson and would stay with them a couple of days. Debby and I had reservations at a Worldmark Resort in Oro Valley, a nice place we have stayed at before. We had no plans for sight seeing because we have already seen it. We wanted to take a rest and vege out. The evening of our second night we invited long-time friends, Phil and Patti Amburn, over for a Beef Stroganoff dinner. They were in college when Debby and I were there in Emporia, Kansas. I had known Phil’s family since we moved there when I was just 13. They went to church where we did. We had a great time talking about the good ‘old days and family and reminiscing. Phil and Patti live in Oro Valley. Deb and I were tempted to move there when we left Oregon but the Ozarks were calling louder. From Tucson we headed North to Las Vegas where we spent two nights in another Worldmark. We got there early enough to take the shuttle downtown after dinner. The problem was that the bus turned around a couple of miles from where we thought we would be. We wanted to see the laser light show off the outdoor water fountain at the Bellagio Casino. With nothing else near us worth seeing and knowing the shuttle would be returning soon, we just waited outside for its return. Back to the resort and soon into bed. Debby made breakfast for us the next morning. It was about 10:00 when we walked over to the far side of the resort grounds to catch the shuttle to downtown. From the drop-off point, we hoped to catch a bus or Uber to get to the Bellagio. We sat down on a bench and waited for the shuttle for quite some time. Soon a friendly staffer came by and struck up a conversation. During the course of our discourse, he caught on that we were waiting for the shuttle. He told us the shuttle would not be running until this afternoon. No wonder we were the only ones waiting in line! After discussing Uber or not, we decided to take our own car to downtown “Lost Wages”, park it in paid parking and figure out public transportation along the strip. The public transportation part didn’t work out too well but we managed to see the sights we wanted to see. We ate lunch at Señor Frog's Mexican Restaurant. The hamburger wasn’t too bad; expensive but large portions. I didn’t find out until much later that this was THE place to see the famous Drag Brunch. Google that if you have no idea what I’m talking about. We did not spend a lot of time walking around. Crossing the strip’s 4-lane road was difficult. There were cross-over bridges for pedestrians, which meant a lot of stairs for us old timers. There were elevators and escalators but most of the elevators were being used by the homeless as toilets. Pretty gross. Toronto doesn’t do escalators unless he is wearing his boots. Dogs are more likely to have toenails pulled out by escalators than any other way. It was a hot day and the black pavement was getting too hot for Toronto. I failed to bring his Nike’s to protect his feet so we cut our trip short and headed back to the car. The next day we left early and headed North. We stopped along the highway where the Pacific Crest Trail crossed State Highway 395 in northern California. At this point, a through-hiker, going north, has hiked 1,373.4 miles since he started at the Mexico/California border. Greg and I took a Trail Codger photo op and pretended we had walked all the way from the Mexico border. For those who believe that, well, you might be a Redneck. We spent our last night in a motel in Susanville, California. From here we would be only a day’s drive into Oregon and on into Portland. That last day of driving tired Codger Greg and fried his brain, but not so;s you could tell. But he was a trooper and made the best of it. By evening we arrived in Portland. We dropped off our friends and then headed to our former Son-in-law’s place where we would be staying for the next week. It was great seeing our Great-Granddaughter, Melody again. It was a great week traveling with Greg and Dottie. It will probably be our last road trip of this nature. The many hours sitting inside a car takes its toll on old bodies. Air travel is much faster! Mike

Friday, March 17, 2023

Back Home

Arkansas

After the cruise we called an UBER. In a short time we were loaded up and headed for Miami International. We had a waiting time of about 8 hours before our flight to Tulsa, Oklahoma, via Houston . Once in Houston we had a layover of a couple of hours before takeoff.

There were reports of storms in Western Oklahoma that even mentioned tornadoes. All went pretty well with the exception of a rough flight and even rougher landing. We were great full to have landed bottom side down. Most of the passengers applauded. While Nancy and Ron went out to find her minivan, Debby and I picked up all the luggage. Nancy soon pulled up and we got it loaded up.

It would still be 2 or 3 hours before Steve and Rhonda would land. Their flight was on another airline out of Fort Lauderdale at a later time than ours out of Miami. In the meantime we drove over to Denny’s for a late burger and fries. With their takeoff delayed by bad weather out of Dallas, we had plenty of time. After dinner our eyes were droopy enough that we decided to go wait for their plane at the Tulsa Airport cell phone waiting area and catch a nap. So we did.

They landed well after 1:00 in the morning. It was a tight fit cramming all that luggage and 6 people in that Honda minivan but with luggage in our laps and a 90 minute drive we were glad to arrive home. It’s a good thing we didn’t have Toronto with us! I don’t know where he would sit!

Matthew had already driven to our house and was waiting for us. He had been caring for Toronto the past couple of weeks. Toronto was glad to see us. We were happy to see him, as well.

We slept in for an hour or two. Matt had already made coffee and fed Toronto and he was ready to socialize. He stuck pretty close to me all day; for the next few days for that matter! I think he was afraid I might abandon him again!

It has been a little over two weeks since we got back. Things are becoming routine and normal again.

We stay near the warm fire and out of the cold. We aren’t used to this cold. We are still dreaming of warm tropics and sunshine. Here, it’s dipped down into the teens with cold rain coming down as soon as it jumps back up into the 40’s and 50’s!

It was good to get back to church and see all of our friends. We are thoroughly enjoying normal food, especially the southern style with southern flavors. Ron and I have already enjoyed Arkansas BBQ a few times!

A cool thing happened while we were away. Forty 32 Animal Clinic, Toronto’s veterinarian, had a drawing for company thank you gift for their clients. Toronto and I won! The prize was a large, free-standing outdoor BBQ tool, a Blackstone 28” Cast Iron propane Griddle that now stands proudly next to my BBQ grille on the back deck! Very nice! This will add to my ability to burn chicken even more!

With the approach of Spring and the last Daylight Savings time change we will have to experience, we patiently await warm weather! In a couple of weeks I will pull the cover off my bird house and let the nesting begin! The Purple Martins begin arriving in NW Arkansas about April First looking for a place to build their nests and lay eggs. Right now the local Sparrows are picking out the prime building nooks, cranny’s, trees, bushes and hanging plants for their nests. The baby Martins from last year’s crop should come back to what they know and look for a place in my Purple Martin condo. I would like to give them a sporting chance to fight over their claim this real estate with other birds.

I am preparing to start the seedlings for my garden. I am making plans to buy some good raised bed garden soil mixture and plan the layout of this year’s garden. I figured it will cost me more than it’s worth in vegetables but, what can I say? It’s a hobby. I will do this in Lou of planning for a big Moose hunting trip to Alaska or buying a new bass boat to go fishing. Even a blind Codger needs a hobby! But, It will be much better than last year where battling with the Bermuda grass and contending with a bunny rabbit invasion pert near wiped out my crop of young plants. Raised beds should do the trick this year.

In a couple of weeks I will also pull the winter cover off my swimming pool and get it sparkling clean and warm for the summer. I’m looking forward to laying around our pool this year. Why, between the sweet smell of BBQ and the cool of the pool, we might even entice a few of our friends to come visit us in NW Arkansas to relax at the Thomas Resort. I promise I’ll not make you take my little John Deere out and mow the grass………much. 😎

Tuesday, February 28, 2023

Traveling? Do your homework.

Truth in Advertising

There’s no doubt that traveling this world costs a lot of money. And in this economy, we like to know what we are getting for our money before we commit, not after. To do that we usually jump on the Internet and do a Google search for the places we want to go. We look at travel brochures, travel videos, or, in the old days, make a trip to the library. The Internet can give you whatever you want to know. That App like Google earth will give you birds-eye view photographs, providing you have the address or coordinates. When we rented our condo on Luquillo, Beach, Puerto Rico, we did not have the address. it was FlipKey‘s policy to not provide details, until after one paid the fee. Even communication with the owner was monitored by FlipKe and the owner was not allowed to send private emails to potential renters who might ask for current photos. FlipKey provided their own photographs and property descriptions, which usually helped promote their facility.

The photographs in this blog shows the difference between what was advertised and what was actually there. The first photograph shows a nice beachfront beyond the property fence, teaming with tourists enjoying the sand and surf. We rented this condo for 30 days. Never once was there a sandy beach with tourists and sunshine. Yes, we had the sunshine but that was all. The other photograph shows the coastline towards yonder trees with sand and surf all the way. The truth is, there was no beachfront for the entire month we were there. The beach in front of our condo property would’ve been impossible to walk in the pounding surf that continually crashed into the concrete seawall protecting the backyard. Access to the beach was farther down on both sides. The closest access was to walk out the front door to the street, turn right and walk about a block to a basketball court. One could walk across the court and out onto the sandy beach. The other direction was much farther to walk .

Had we known there was no beach access as depicted in these photographs before we rented, would we still have rented? Perhaps. But it was disappointing to know that we could not step out our back door onto the beach as it appeared in the FlipKey photograph. As you travel this world, you are at the mercy of the advertising department. Sometimes, what they claim and what is real, May often be different.

Monday, February 27, 2023

Grand Cayman

Grand Cayman was our final stop in the Caribbean before heading back to Florida. We arrived just after 7:00 Friday morning. Debby, Nancy and Rhonda had arranged to go on a dolphin encounter, stingray encounter and a sea turtle encounter. Steve, Ron and I had no specific plans. We got off ship and winged it. We decided to take the 7-mile Beach tour. It was $35 each. We thought that would be a good thing to do, giving us an overview of the island.

The tour was in a nice air conditioned 12 passenger van. It was nice and roomy, not cramped up or hard to see out of like the other vans we had. I didn’t think there was much to see in Grand Cayman. The island is virtually flat, so there are no vistas or high points except on the occasional overpass. Am exception would be the debris mounds at the land fill.

A couple of the highlights the locals thought we should see were the Governor’s mansion and a little community called Hell. One of our stops included the dolphin encounter pool where the girls were having fun. We got to stay there about 30 minutes before heading back to the boat. That was about it. Grand Cayman is noted for its banking business. There are no taxes here, thus a good place to do business. This island has about 600 banks you can choose from.

Grand Cayman is a British island. Many moons ago about nine British vessels ran aground on a sandbar and destroyed their ships. The locals went out in their boats and rescued everyone to the last man. In appreciation, the King of England declared this island would no longer be required to pay taxes to Great Britain. That promise is still going on to this day. Everything seems to be financed by Britain.

Even though there was little to do here, there was always shopping. We had a good time, but failed to see anything that would draw us back.

Thursday, February 23, 2023

Jamaica

Jamaica.

We finally made it to Jamaica. I have thought about coming here for so many years it’s not even funny! Many years ago when one of my best friends got married here, I knew I needed to come check it out. So here we are! To e honest, it’s not quite like hoe I imagined it to be. It’s nice and all but in a different way. I thought of Jamaica as the land of steel drums, you know, those they hammered out of the tops of old oil drums that made a unique sound. They do have steel drums here, more professionally made but mostly played in clubs or hotels or even aboard a cruise ship.

I was surprised by the heavy traffic and left side driving, although the British were here long ago running slave operations in the sugar industry. We saw the town square in Montgomery Bay where they used to hang slaves and even white folks trying to help the slaves. The old sugar mill still stands but has since been abandoned.

Monet go Bay was a bustling city with a huge International Airport. There are many shops and places to eat. It has most of the fast food burger joints like Wendy’s and Burger King. Didn’t see any McDonald’s, however. We did see Starbucks and a Margaritaville, near the beach.Our tour driver, Ian Morris, said Jamaica has more churches per square mile than any other place. The Chinese have their footprint imbedded here, as they do in many other islands in this part of the world. They are buying up property, opening businesses and taking over properties. China seems to be growing in population and must go somewhere, I guess.

Ian said there are no mean, wild animals on the island. Also no snakes. At one time, the Mongoose was imported to keep down the snake danger in the sugar cane fields, probably by the British. When the snakes were all eaten, the Mongoose went to work on the chickens!

We got off the Regal Princes land entered the city. There was no one checking passports or id anywhere. We bought and shopped using American currency. I think Jamaica has their own currency but we didn’t see any of it in circulation. This place is dependent upon tourism and many Americans come here to vacation or cruise.

W enjoyed our short stay. We were here for about 8 hours today. We sail away about 5:00.