Monday February 23 2009

Today Debbie fixed us a little breakfast and she drove Bonnie and I out to Hoover Dam. We went over Sunrise Mountain and along the shore of (Lake Mead). It's been years since I've seen all that country. The lake is so low that some small islands that I often swam next to when I was a kid were entirely out of the water and looking like small buttes or mesas. I always wondered how tall they were when they were nearly covered with water, and after all these years now I know.

We stopped at the Lake Mead Visitor Center, and went on up to Boulder City where I used to live with my girls. It has grown some, and the old parts of town seem kind of old and run down. Debbie found the two houses we used to live in. They sure look tiny. We ate lunch at a pizza hut there and then went on down to the dam. One of the main purposes of going was to see the new bridge they are building across Black Canyon just downstream of the dam. The highway into Arizona will go across the bridge. They have begun constructing the arch now. When I was last there they had some of the towers up, but an 80 mph windstorm blew two of them down and set the whole project back several years. It will be quite awesome when it's finished. It costs to get in everywhere any more. So there were entry fees to go into the exhibits. Debbie treated us to that. My National Parks Pass got us into the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

Debbie was very patient stopping wherever we wanted along the way and doing whatever we wanted to see. We spent all day going out there and back and arrived home just in time to tidy up and go to dinner with all the family at a Mexican restaurant. There were supposed to be twelve of us, but Justin, Stephanie and Bryan didn't show up. The meal was enjoyable. Got to see great grandson Sammy again. He is such a good baby. He grew a lot since I saw him yesterday. And got cuter too. We just got home and I'm about ready to hit the hay. Tomorrow we're going out to visit Betty at Mesquite and don't know what all else we'll find to do. We're having dinner at Beverly's house tomorrow night. I talked to Joe, and the TV is still giving him problems, but everything else seems o.k.

Here are a couple of links that will get you started if you want to know more about the dam and the bridge. Then it looks like there's PLENTY to look at from there. Look for the link for the bridge history with bunches of photos with captions they have from the beginning of construction though the present.

hoover dam bridge project,
hoover dam bridge collapse

Sunday February 21 and 22 2009

Today we went on an outing to the Springs Preserve Park in Las Vegas. I took a ton of photos, but this is the day I lost all the photos I took on the trip up to this point so these are a few lifted off the Internet. It is owned by the Las Vegas Valley Water District, the place where most of the water for the city came in the early days. There were springs and meadows here and the aquifer was drilled for the water, hence the water well derricks of different kinds. Bonnie sent me some of the photos she took, which are above. The ones at the bottom I lifted off the internet.

Bonnie and I are still here in Vegas. Having a pretty good time. You can send me a note on the blog and I'll see it and can answer if you want. I can't do email, because I can't remember the passwords for either centurytel.net or hughes.net. Guess I should write those down and put them in my purse for times like this. Anyway thank you for the messages you've sent on the blog, I've read those and read everyone's blog keeping up with you too.

The weather has been mostly cloudy but so much warmer than in WYo that it is pretty pleasant - we've done some sitting by the pool and been out and about without jackets.

At the moment about three helicopters - the cops - are buzzing over and over the neighborhood in circles apparently looking for someone on the run. Debbie said last time this happened the guy jumped their fence and was hiding under the next door neighbor's boat. They caught him there. Curtis says the cops are down the street and that it wouldn't be wise to be outside unless we want to be on the news. So much for life in the city.

Bonnie has gone off with her friend who lives near here for the day. They were next door neighbors in Utah 20 years ago or so. And this evening all the family will be here at Debbie's for spaghetti dinner. Debbie has been sick with a cold since before we got here so she is going beyond the call of duty, cooking, entertaining and making us comfortable, etc. There will be about twelve of us. I made a couple of pies for the dessert this morning and she is doing the rest. Everyone will be over in a few hours for the get together. I'll see little Sammy, my first great grandson. And the grandkids Justin (and Stephanie) and Shane, (Andrea and Sammy), and the rest of the family.

Yesterday Debbie stayed at home and Beverly took us to the Springs Preserve which is a kind of desert museum focused on history and "green" living and conserving the water. We did quite a bit of walking to see a good part of it. The site is the original springs that drew people to this spot in the early days. Las Vegas means The Meadows and that is the site where the first settlement was, because of the water. Before John Fremont or the mountain men, the Spanish Trail between Mexico and California went north of here and one of the Mexican expeditions sent a young man out looking for water by himself. He located the springs here and the trail changed, the railroad eventually came through here because of the water, and then Las Vegas was born about the turn of the 20th century.

On the way home we stopped at Whole Foods, a huge health food store and grocery, and I stocked up on the Bach's Rescue Remedy there that has been on my list for a very long time. It's for stress and anxiety, and I use it for relaxing to go to sleep. It does help. Originally I bought it for Sparky during lightning storms - it works for that too. We also stopped at old friend's Millie and Ned for a visit for about an hour or so. So great to see them, and they seem to be doing fine. She has had back surgery and he recently had rotor cuff surgery so is still doing therapy.

Last night we had a barbecue here and Beverly stayed for dinner. Clayton was home doing homework for school, and Brent went with friends to the BYU and UNLV basketball game at Thomas and Mack Center (UNLV).

Spent about an hour and a half this morning on the phone with Dish Network. They had turned off the TV at home, so Joe had no TV. At least this time got clear to the bottom of the situation. The payments I've been making had been going on to the Boulder account, which is put on "pause" until we go back to the ranch, instead of the Arrowhead Drive Pinedale account. So they had my account being two months behind with no payments. I had spent time on the phone with them last week and thought that was fixed, and had emailed about the messages still coming up on the screen with no response. I knew when I left I'd probably have to get on the phone here or Joe would be without TV.

Finally the support person transferred the money from Boulder to Pinedale and I had $0 balance. He really didn't want to bother transferring the money and just wanted me to throw more money at it. Very frustrating and exhausting way to spend a Sunday morning. It better be fixed or we may cancel the whole works. Guess Craig and Cheyenne went over in the afternoon to see if they could help and get it working. Need to call Joe back and see if the TV is back on now. The whole problem was that when we went to Pinedale they SAID they set both houses up as one account, but it turned out being two accounts with two account numbers, and I had identified the account with the Boulder address on my online banking payee list.

Had a little relaxing nap after lunch. I've been sleeping good at night and am feeling good. Keep trying to watch a movie on the DVD but don't get past the first few lines before I'm asleep. We don't know when or how we'll get back home yet, but in the meantime are enjoying every possible minute. Debbie might take me to Best Buy tomorrow and I'll get that new camera. We'll also vacuum shop!! Can't take much of anything back on the plane but Debbie can bring the big things when they come to Pinedale in six weeks or so.

Friday February 20 2009

Sammy and Grandma Beverly

So..... Guess where I am. No, you have to guess. We'll you're never going to figure it out, so I'll tell you. It's a kind of long and round about story. Sometime last week Bonnie said her brother was flying down to Vegas and if she could get him to take us along, would I like to go. I was kind of flabergasted and finally after trying to think through all the probabilities, said "Yes". He has a couple of planes and we would fly, probably for overnight or maybe two nights. She needed to talk to him some more to know we were actually going to do it. So I decided not to say anything to you in case it didn't happen. We talked another time or two during the week and she still didn't know anything for certain. I had mentioned to Debbie that we might come down just overnight, but didn't get to tell Beverly. Then I began to think positive about it, and deciding if this opportunity is presenting itself, YES, we should do it. Then Bonnie asked if we went could I could stay a week? More Uh ..... Uh ,,,,, Uh?

Finally at 5 p.m. last night, she called and said she had just talked to her brother and he would send his pilot to Pinedale to pick us up at 8 a.m. in the morning. I dashed down to the clinic to get the blood tests I had scheduled for Friday and went to the courthouse and got that mystery paperwork filed - that was easy. Got some groceries so Joe would have stuff to eat. And started packing.

Joe and I went to dinner at the brew pub and that took another couple of hours. Came home and I made his 10 day buttermilk sourdough pancake mix and got a pork roast ready for him to cook that would last him a few days. He also has some leftover tacos. Tried to get serious about the packing and what to take, trying to make pants and tops match, etc. Made a phone call to Debbie to tell her Bonnie and I were coming to stay with her for a week. Tried to call Beverly and she wasn't home so left a message that I would be there tomorrow. She hadn't heard anything about this yet, and had just been reading how I was going to the art meeting today and making her pink cookie recipe for Mixed Media. When they got back from their meetinglate in the evening she wrote me an email asking if she was confused and what did I mean I would see her tomorrow?? So call her back about 11:30 and filled her in.

Set the alarm for 5:30 because Bonnie was going to be at my house about 7:30 a.m. and we'd meet the plane at the Pinedale airport at 8 a.m. Hardly slept all night when I finally got into bed. We met the plane on time. We picked up Bonnie's brother and a friend of his in Spanish Fork UT where the plane lives in a very nice hanger with an apartment. Pretty much followed I-15 south and landed to pick up another friend in St. George. Then on to Vegas. Hard to believe even with getting us loaded in Pinedale and with the two stops, we arrived in Las Vegas in two and a half hours. And had a wonderful smooth flight in spite of the wind blowing way up there about 50 mph or so. I loved looking down on the landscape from the plane window and picking out the landmarks along the way.

The airport is in our old neighborhood, and it has grown larger and the buildings have been really nicely remodeled. Joe used to fly from there when he had his pilot's license. Neither of the girls lives far from the airport. Debbie had an appointment at Lowes about some stuff for the new house they are building. So Beverly came and picked us up, and after a stop at Debbie's house, where I called Joe to let him know we got here o.k. we met Debbie for lunch at Red Lobster. Then we all drove out to Red Rock Canyon for a sightseeing tour. There were more people out there than I've ever seen, all the parking lots and pullovers packed with cars, people hiking and climbing like ants all over the landscape. The sky was kind of hazy, as it had been all the way on our plane trip, but it was great to see our old back yard again. Back to Debbie's for a while and later we had dinner with Curtis at Olive Garden and am I stuffed. Tomorrow we're going to a new museum with Beverly. I'll write about what that is like in Saturday's blog.

Tonight I tried to remember my ID and password for the new email and cannot remember it, so won't be able to look at email for a while. Also may not post any pictures for a while since I didn't bring the laptop, but am taking photos like crazy. So will fill in with them later.

We have lots of plans and count on us having a bunch of fun. On Sunday Debbie will have a family dinner and I'll get to see my first great grandson. The second one will be born at the end of March, and hope to come back to see him/her too. Called Betty and surprised her!! and we will probably drive out to Mesquite to see her on Tuesday. I'll fill you in on other things as we do them.

Thursday February 19 2009

Fremont Lake from the Overlook

Two couples with dogs meet on the

x-c ski trail, click it to see them better

"The Boys" on the groomed ski trail.

It's pretty nice to walk on.

Another gorgeous day out so far. Perhaps the dogs would like to walk before the wind starts to blow. Yesterday I typed up a list of our more frequently called phone numbers. It will be a lot easier than looking them up. My address book is soooo out of date, so desperately need a new one of those. It's over 30 years old now and numbers called have changed a lot, most listings are obsolete. Today have vacuumed and got laundry done and beds changed.

I'm going to make some "Pink" cookies for our meeting tomorrow in celebration of Valentine's month, if not day. Beverly gave me the recipe. She made it when she had one of her young women's meetngs and said they are really good. Looks like about a dozen members will be coming and that's a good turnout. I haven't seen the cleaned-out art room yet, but hope it made it roomy enough for this larger group. We usually have 6, 7 or 8. It will be nice to see everyone.

Got Sparky brushed, a long ordeal for us both. He has a lot of dry shedding dander too, so hope the upcoming bath will help it. Then Raven had her turn. They really understand "taking turns". Then they get a treat and know how to demand that too, since they know they were so good. Joe went down to work on a project at Tom's. The ring he bought to lift the cover in his closet floor to go down to the crawl space doesn't work so he's going to reconfigure it. Soon I'll go on downtown to the courthouse to get that paper taken care of and get some groceries.

Not much happening to write about, but if it does I'll come back and report later.

It looks like John Updike knew how it felt not to sleep too.

Tossing and Turning
by John Updike

The spirit has infinite facets,
but the body
confiningly few sides.
There is the left,
the right, the back, the belly,
and tempting in-betweens,
northeasts and northwests,
that tip the heart and soon pinch circulation
in one or another arm. Yet we turn each time
with fresh hope, believing that sleep
will visit us here, descending like an angel
down the angle our flesh's sextant sets,
tilted toward that unreachable star
hung in the night between our eyebrows,
whence dreams and good luck flow.
Uncross your ankles. Unclench your philosophy.
This bed was invented by others;
know we go to sleep less to rest than to participate
in the twists of another world.
This churning is our journey.
It ends, can only end, around a corner
we do not know
we are turning.

Another Maxine - this certainly applies here!

Wednesday February 18 2009

Another Scenery Shot Looking Toward the Mountains

View of Peaks From the Lake Shore

The Lake is All Frozen Now

Not Good for Ice Skating Though

Personally, I'm uncomfortable being out on

the ice, kind of like being on a sailboat on the

ocean and knowing all that deep water

is beneath you and you will probably never come up.

Dogs at Boat Ramp

Snowmachine Trail Goes Out On the

Lake for Ice Fishing

Or Whatever Else They Do Out There.

Would sure be flat for skiing.

.

Not one thing going on with me today. I wrote enough yesterday for a week anyway. So guess I'll just stick some more photos on and let that be good. Might have a surprise for this weekend, but don't know details yet so will wait to tell you. Also I'm feeling better now than the last 3 or 4 days. Just have to keep after my feet and fingers all the time with manicure/pedicures and slathering on ointments and creams. Am getting them in pretty good shape compared to what they were. I'm so tired of all these health or medical rituals and pill taking. This would have been a chemo day until learning about the 3 months off, and Charm and I were going together. She had a dr. appt. so went on alone today.

The sun is shining brilliantly off the snow today, and the wind is blowing about 20 mph. The neighbor's flag is flying straight out. The weather gidget there on the blog says its snowing lightly but it's not snowing here now. We had perhaps less than 2" in the night. Sheral called and said they had a foot in Layton and 18" higher up on the benches. I-80 has been closed.

Joe had his root canal this morning and says he's doing o.k. He looks a little worn out, but guess the tooth isn't hurting or anything. He's taking a nap now. He's been doing that more often lately. I printed out the schedule for the swimming pool earlier and might try going there soon. I worry about the germs in a public place though (i.e. my immune system is supposed to be down during the chemo.) They have a lot of other activities besides just swimming. Another thing I'd like to try is tai chi twice a week at Rendezvous Pointe. That's if I can get myself up out of bed in the mornings.

Tuesday February 17 2008

Young Moose

The photos start No. 1 at the bottom, etc.

He was standing nibbling the willows,

then laid down, got cozy and started a nap.

Didn't disturb him a bit.

Been snowing lightly since sometime in the night. Probably not amounting to but an inch or two so far. It's warm enough to be melting off as it falls and about 30 degrees as I'm writing. Stayed overcast and snowing all day. Joe went to coffee and picked up the mail. Got the contract and copy of the inventory from the Museum of the Mountain Man for my donation of all my slides in the mail today.

Have been in slow mode since I woke up at almost 9:30. The days sure go fast getting such a late start. So nothing interesting going on today. I worked for a while this morning on trying to find the photo in the computer and send a picture of one of Kay's paintings to her buyer, but cannot find the originals. Bummer. She needs to bring her photo card back and I will start over, but it is only one photo this time. Before was about thirty.

I spent a couple hours finally programing the new phone we got a month or so ago. Its clear the brochure will need to be handy, it's kind of complicated, but surely I'll get used to which buttons to push. This is the first time we've had all the features, call waiting, caller ID etc. The answering machine is now on anyway. And I got Beverly and Debbie put into speed dialing. That especially might help Joe when he needs to call them.

I have a call in to get the dogs an appointment for a bath. And they will need to go to the vet for their check up early next month. Perhaps we can do it on the same day. Also contacted Land's End and they don't repair their products so I have to have someone here locally put the new zipper in that coat. This is a few things taken off "the list".

People are calling in with their RSVPs for the Mixed Media meeting and lunch at Rendezvous Pointe on Friday. Looks like at least a dozen of us will meet and do artwork. A couple of the members are having serious surgery and can't attend. A speedy recovery to them.

So ..... yesterday afternoon. Well, went to the clinic for protime. Now it’s 1.2. Too thick now and not good for clots. So they changed the dose of Coumadin again and I’ll go back to be tested on Friday. I suppose I can get in there in the morning before our meeting and not have to worry about it later. Today I got a letter from Dr. Kappenman acting on last fall's blood fair results (which you probably don't remember I tried to leave with the receptionist when we received them and they wouldn't put them in our files without a doctor appointment. I was so mad - like I needed another doctor appointment. The letter says my thyroid is quite high (I already take synthroid), so he wants me to be tested again. If he had seen it back then my medication would have been adjusted six months ago. Maybe that's why I'm having some times not feeling so great. I'll get the thyroid test with the protime test Friday morning. BTW - While those other health issues were going on over the weekend my blood pressure was also high the last several times it was taken, and yesterday its very good. My face had been all puffed up then too, bags under the eyes and all. Don’t know what it was all about but weird.

So then I went to the courthouse to see if it was open, and it wasn’t because of President's Day. Have a paper to fill out about the house taxes and I can’t quite figure out what they want on it, so was going for help. I’ll have to go back there. Was supposed to go to the accountant to sign the tax papers and I FORGOT TO GO THERE.

In the meantime I drove around, saw a couple moose, took pictures, drove up to the lake and came to the places where they have the nicely groomed x-c ski trails You can walk on them too, and there were dogs with the skiers, so took the dogs for a little walk there. Makes me want to try my skis there, but they are at the ranch.

I measured the distance from the head of the lake to our house and it's just over a mile in a straight line - driving its probably three times as far by the road. Got back home to put the barbecued spareribs and potatoes in the oven, and got the artichokes going. Debbie called and we talked - their new house building is going slowly, and then I went back down to sign the paper at the accountant's office. Wish my mind would just get better with this forgetfulness. Got to bed about 11 p.m.

This day in February is Fornacalia--no NO, it is the Festival of Bread— an ancient Roman festival that honors the oven goddess, the giver of bread. Today is also World Cabbage Day, celebrating that nutritious and versatile vegetable.

Monday February 16 2009

Hey Duene, When I saw your photo of Gypsum? Mtn. I remembered that I had done a painting of it from a slightly different view. So went looking for it on the external hard drive. We were on a trip over Union Pass and stopped up above Mosquito Lake looking across to it. It's done plein aire. Not sure I ever put this one on the blog. I had named it Big Sheep Mt., but Jonita who knows everything said it was Gypsum.

Another old one I came across. This is the Big Sandy River done plein aire at the Muddy Ridge bridge near Leickies. The grandkids were fishing and I painted there. The photograph is very poor because it was taken in a dark room at the buyer's home. I'll have to photograph it again one of these days.

Here's another old one I came across when looking for Gypsum Mt. The title is Un Kicija, which translates to "We two share between each other". The painting is actually in color, but I made this black and white photo for advertising with years ago. I like it pretty well in black and white. It's interesting that I went to the library and looked in a Sioux dictionary for a title and opened the book about halfway and there on that page was the perfect name. I was prepared to spend an hour or two finding something appropriate and was done in about 3 minutes.The painting is supposed to represent what the buffalo meant to the tribes. This man used to portray the Indian chief in the Rendezvous pagent here years ago.

Woke up realy early (look at those two words they have the same letters maybe one of them is spelled wrong) - about 3:30 -and my nose was very stuffy so used the neti pot. By then was wide awake so decided to sit at the computer for a while. Got some of my emails taken care of, so you'll all get a wad of forwards this morning. Decided I was hungry so got some grapenuts and a cup of tea. Not sure if going back to bed is going to happen or not. Is this boring or what???

Our taxes are finished so we need to go sign some papers at the accountant. And back to the clinic for another protime test. Hope it comes out good today. I guess I've been eating too many green vegetables. It's minus two degrees. When I let the dogs out in the middle of the night the stars were awesome. Maybe I'll go back to bed.