December 11, 2005

December 11, 2005

Yuma, Arizona

YEAR 2 DAY 177

 

Today was sunny and warm, with a high thin layer of cloud, so the sunshine wasn't as intense as usual.

This morning after preventive maintenance I phoned MTS to pay the phone bill, but bill payment by phone isn't possible on Sunday mornings. Hmph ! I started work on my project to replace the pine quarter round on the stairs with oak cove moulding. I removed the pine quarter round, measured the oak cove moulding, cut it, filed it where it needed to be filed to fit around the stair nosing and vertical trim on the side, and installed it. That was a time consuming job, and took up the entire morning.

We had lunch, then I phoned MTS again, and paid the phone bill. Joanne went outside to continue working on cleaning and waxing the trailer. I read for awhile, then napped. Teddy and Bo joined me. They love napping with me in the afternoon. When I woke, Joanne asked for help cleaning and waxing the highest parts of the trailer. She is afraid to go as high on the ladder as I do. I cleaned and waxed the top of the front of the trailer, then applied the first coat of varnish to the moulding I had installed this morning. I took Bo for an obedience session. We worked while walking to the fenced dog run area. I took Bo inside the fenced dog run and took him off leash. I had never attempted off leash obedience training before. Bo is usually quite unruly when off leash. Today he actually stayed calm, focussed, and obedient while off leash. Amazing ! Good dog, Bo, very good dog ! We returned to the trailer, and I began to work on today's journal entry.

Late in the afternoon we went for a dip in the hot tub. It was nice. We haven't been in a hot tub in a year and a half. I also went into the swimming pool. They keep the pool here heated to 86 degrees, and the hot tub to 101 degrees. I like my hot tub to be hotter than that, but I guess hotter than that would be risky for the older residents here. These Escapee parks are populated by a pretty old crowd. We quite often find when talking to people in Escapee parks that they have children older than us.

We went to the regular Sunday evening ice cream social. At 6:30 P.M. it's designed to be "after dinner", but for us it's before dinner. We're still a couple of hours out of synch with everybody else, I guess. Yesterday we were asked twice why we didn't attend the 7:30 A.M communal breakfast. The people asking the question seemed quite surprised that our response was that 7:30 was too early for us to be up and about. At the ice cream social, newcomers to the park were introduced. Besides us, there was an elderly couple who met on September 26, got married on October 26, bought a motorhome, and hit the road on November 26. WOW ... I wonder if they have a big encore planned for the day after Christmas ?

After the ice cream social, we returned to the trailer to have supper and watch the 3 hour finale of Survivor. We made nachos for supper. I bought all the necessary ingredients the other day, including nacho cheese sauce, which I've never seen in a grocery store before. Hey ... when in Rome ... ! I'm going to the clubhouse now, to send and retrieve e-mail, and update my blog, before going to bed.

DSK