Author: daveleu

After such an eventful day yesterday, including being “mauled” twice at the zoo, Mary Margaret and I decided to take a day off and rest up. We worked on polishing up our imitations of being slugs during the morning and well into the afternoon. Satisfied with our progress on this matter, we rolled out of the RV around 1500, hopped into our little Fiat, and putt-putted down the road over to Christina’s and Michael’s house.

We then spent the remaining afternoon playing basketball with the grandkids, as Isaac and even little Wyatt beating poor ol’ Grandpa. Wyatt is so cute as an 18-month-old. He picks up the ball, walks over to the basketball hoop, which is positioned about two feet off of the ground, and slam-dunks the ball through the hoop…Score! Seldom does he miss a shot. Poor ol’ Grandpa only hits about 60% of his shots from 10 or 15 feet away. Meanwhile, Isaac was running around, waltzing in and out and through the sieve of a defense that Grandpa was putting up and then he scored at will. Watch out NBA, here they come!

Soon Stella finished playing by herself as a princess and joined with Michael to play baseball. She would smack the baseball a mile with a hearty swing. Homerun! Since there were no bases to run to, she would just run all around the backyard with a big smile on her face. With Grandpa now in retirement, Isaac joined in the baseball game as he, too, belted the ball a mile.

While all of this excitement was going on, Mary Margaret and Christina were discussing Christmas gifts options and mapped out their strategies for the upcoming holiday. We will have to go Christmas shopping next week while we are here in Tucson to get this list of goodies taken care of.

After a dinner of BBQ ribs, ravioli stuffed with chicken, and a wonderful crunchy salad, it was time to go back outside to look at the Christmas lights that Christina has put out. Along with the bushes and archway leading to their front door being covered with glittering lights, she had added a rotating laser light show that danced little dots of colored light across the front of the house. It was pretty neat!

By now it was getting close to bedtime so after kisses and hugs we hopped back into our little Fiat and putt-putted back to LeuC. Tomorrow, the traditional post-Thanksgiving diet starts up so the time of endless goodies and ice cream is sadly over… at least until Christmas!

During our travels we have been fortunate enough to explore parts of Africa and go on safari. In 2015, while parking our boat in South Africa we flew to Botswana and spent about two weeks on safari. During that adventure, we saw so many amazing animals in their natural habitat, many times getting within a few feet of them. This experience was truly one of the highlights of our lives and if you ever get a chance to do this, grab that opportunity as it is worth the effort and costs. You will not be disappointed!

Today, we joined another safari. This one was led by our grandkids: Isaac, Stella and Wyatt. Christina and Michael had organized a trip to the Tucson Zoo but once we all met there, the kids took over and led the way around the zoo with us adults trying to keep up. It is rare to see such unbridled excitement as the kids ran from one area to another, shouting out the names of the various animals they discovered.

HERE IS WYATT LEADING THE WAY INTO THE PEACOCKS

The Tucson Zoo is one of the better zoos we have gone to as it is laid out with the animals in mind. Each area is large and strives to keep with the natural environment and habitat within which that animal is found in the wild. Most of the animals are within enclosures but the enclosures are large with diverse areas for the animals to explore and move between. For example, there is a grizzly bear enclosure with two large grizzlies. They have two separate areas they can roam around in with a “cave” that connects the two areas. Each has running water but one has a large pool with a rugged, rocky wall that allows them to climb around on and to jump into the pool to cool off. Other examples include large, separate “savannahs” each for the rhinos, elephants, giraffes, and zebras.

THE RHINO SAVANNAH

THE ELEPHANT SAVANNAH

THE GIRAFFE SAVANNAH WITH A HERD OF BOYLESSES IN THE FRONT

THE ZEBRA SAVANNAH

Some animals are allowed to roam outside of the enclosures. An example of this is the colorful peacocks that strut around the paths the visitors take when exploring the zoo. These large, beautiful birds are use to people and you are able to walk right up to them before they move away. The down side of this openness is that you have to be careful where you walk as peacock droppings dot the sidewalks.

During our numerous trips to various zoos around the world, our African safari, our trekking through the Amazon Jungle and even during the many overnight hikes we have taken through the wilds of the Cascade Mountains in the Pacific Northwest, the Sierra Mountains in California and the Rocky Mountains of the mountain states of the US, we have never been threatened nor attacked by any animals. We have always taken caution and given a wide berth to them whenever we knew or suspected they were in our area. However, today we were “mauled” twice while at the Tucson Zoo.

The first time we were mauled, it was by the notorious, killer peacocks, who are renown for picking up people by their claws and carrying them away to their faraway nest to slowly devour their prey.

OK, OK, I will admit that my imagination is running away from me at bit, but that was the thought that ran through my head as the grandkids spooked two of the large birds. In response to the grandkids running up to the birds, shouting with excitement, two peacocks jumped into the air, bouncing into each other, and then flew around 20 feet, right over my head. In an attempt to avoid being crushed by the large birds, I had to duck down low. Even that was not successful as one the wings smacked me on the head. I swear, after being mauled like this, I will never be the same again…

MOMENTS BEFORE BEING MAULED BY THE PEACOCKS

If that was not enough, I was “mauled” a second time, this time by a large female lion! We were all in a “cave” looking through a large floor to ceiling sized plate of glass at a pride of lions. There was a male strutting around and three full size lionesses. Two of the lionesses were feeding and one, the largest of the three, was slowing walking toward us. To capture the moment, I raised my camera and as I did, the lionesses roared and leaped up at me, striking the glass pane with her outstretched paws and body. Yikes! We all screamed and it is only with remarkable intestinal fortitude that I did not crap in my pants! Whew! That was scary.

I would like to say it was my nerves of steel which allowed me to capture with my camera the wild beast mauling me through the glass but the truth of the matter is that it was just a nervous reaction or twitch that allowed my finger to press the shutter button to get this shot of the “mauling”.

Boy, this Tucson Zoo sure is a dangerous place!

THE SURVIVORS FROM OUR TRIP TO THE TUCSON ZOO

 

 

 

You know that everyone is having a great time when we all forget to take a picture to capture the memory. A great time was had and no pictures were taken…sigh! Fortunately, our son, David Paul, and his wife, Allison, had the foresight to take and send a picture of their new daughter, Molly. Thus, it is their picture of her that I have posted to this blog!
Mary Margaret and I, along with Michael’s parents, Peggy and Jim, and Michael’s younger brother, Mark, all joined Christina, Michael, Isaac, Stella and Wyatt at their house today to share and celebrate Thanksgiving. Everyone pitched in and made various tasty dishes which included a 20-pound turkey, baked to golden perfection, two types of sausage stuffing, cranberries, whipped garlic potatoes, sweet potatoes, pomegranate salad, corn, home made bread, a platter of raw veggies, all followed up with cranberry pecan pie, pumpkin pie, and vanilla ice cream. And if that wasn’t enough, we preceded that feast with three types of chips, dips and salsa, humus and veggies, turkey and chicken gizzards cooked in butter and Worchester sauce.  Needless to say, with mounds of dirty pots and pans and dishes stacked to a teetering height, we all agreed that we were stuffed!

Of course, to make the holiday complete, football games on the TV played throughout the day and after dinner, the decks of cards were brought out and we all played a roaring game of 3-13. Only modesty on my part prevents me from announcing who won! Whoo Hoo!

All in all, it was a pretty traditional Leu/Boyless family Thanksgiving. Great food, great fun, and most importantly, great family. We are so thankful for our family, health and being able to share in the bounty.

We hope you and yours had an equally wonderful Thanksgiving.

If we are lucky, we all reach this milestone one day in our lives. Today was Michael’s turn. Since Michael’s main 40th birthday present will not be experienced until February (when he is whisked away to the frost snow tops of Tahoe for an adults-only week, filled with shenanigans), he decided he wanted to celebrate tonight with family, sports, beer, and buffalo wings. We all drove over to Buffalo Wild Wings to enjoy dinner and watch the U of Arizona basketball game. Christina and Michael, as graduates of that University, are big fans. As co-owners of that University (at least that is the way Mary Margaret and I feel since we paid for both Christina and David Paul to attend there), we too are big fans.

Alas, it was not to be. While Arizona was playing another big name in college basketball (UNC) in a preseason tournament (Battle 4 Atlantis), the game was not being televised. Go figure! Instead, we watched our alma mater, U of Michigan, beat VCU in the Maui Classic. Michael did attend his first year of university at U of M, so he also loves U of M.

We had a rip-roaring party, shared by Michael’s immediate family, his parents, his younger brother and us. We decided after dinner to save the birthday cake that his mom, Peggy, made until we returned to Michael’s and Christina’s house because we were just too full from the various goodies we had wolfed down.

Once home, the balloons broke out, a BIG candle was put on Michael’s cake and a husky rendition of “Happy Birthday To You” was presented to the birthday boy. Paired with presents and hot coffee, a good time was had by all!

As the grandkids were getting ready for bed, Michael’s parents and brother said their goodbyes. Mary Margaret and I are spending the next couple of nights at Michael’s and Christina’s house so we waited around until the little ones had visions of dancing fairies under their closed eyes. Then we settled down to some serious cards. Everyone won a game of cards except yours truly. In fact, my luck/skill was so bad tonight that for the first time in 55 years of playing Washington Pitch (also known as High, Low, Jack, Joker, Game), I never scored a point and was skunked, ending up with a big, fat zero. Oh well, it is only a game and I had a chance to show off how good of a looser I am….NOT!

The big turkey day feast is just around the corner. Yum! It is our favorite meal of the year. A juicy turkey, sausage stuffing, mashed potatoes swimming in gravy, sweet potatoes, a killer salad, more sausage stuffing, more juicy turkey, then…pecan pie, pumpkin pie; each with a little whipped cream or ice cream sitting on top. My mouth is watering just writing about it!

Today was a little warm up for us. Instead of baking a turkey, we decided to rotisserie a huge chicken, basting it with a special salt, vinegar, egg and oil baste that Mary Margaret has made for over 45 years.

When we arrived at Christina’s house, I immediately went to work rounding up the rotisserie skewer and motor, readied the chicken and fired up the BBQ. Soon the bird was turning on the rotisserie with the flames licking up, tickling the bird.

After a few minutes, it was time to put in the drip pan, filled with water so the bird would not be torched by the flames and burnt to a crisp. Once the bird was turning a nice golden color, I started basting, basting and basting some more. It took about 1 ½ hours but with a few glasses of wine, the time flew by.
While I was doing this, Mary Margaret, Christina and Wyatt were playing on the backyard’s lawn and then moved inside to prepare the rest of the dinner. This included white rice and baked cauliflower, dusted with bread crumbs.
By the time the bird was done, Michael had arrived, armed with the Isaac and Stella. Each were readying and anxious to enjoy a good meal.
A good meal it was as by the time we were done, there was nothing but bread crumbs and a few scrimpy pieces of meat left. I think we are now fully warmed up and ready to go for the true fowl test that will start in just a couple days. Can’t wait!

 

This morning we woke up, got dressed and did not have breakfast or our usually morning coffee.  We do this routine once a year, each year.  Today was our day for our annual physicals and with our physicals, we have our blood drawn to be tested.  This means we have to fast with not eating or drinking until the blood is drawn.  I hate days without my morning coffee!  Needless to say, I was not my normal chipper self.

By late morning we had been weighed in, our physicals completed, the blood was drawn and we were back in our car.  To celebrate the completion of our physicals, I was looking forward to plunging into a big bowl of ice cream covered with chocolate sauce and cashews.  Yum!  Mary Margaret, however, was much more practical and suggested that we first have lunch and remembered that Beyond Bread, our favorite deli in Tucson, was just a few blocks away.  Who could resist such a wonderful idea?

An hour later I was wiping the bread crumbs and thousand island dressing from my huge Rubin sandwich from my mouth, temporarily hiding the large smile that had crept over my face.  Yep, Mary Margaret certainly comes up with a great idea every now and again!

After lunch, we spent the next couple of hours doing errands which included buying my container of Breyers Natural Vanilla ice cream and a large squeeze bottle of Hersey’s chocolate sauce.  We already had a large container of cashews back in the RV.  Pig heaven was just around the corner.

Once we returned to LeuC, I whipped out a bowl and filled it up with the delicious naughtiness that I have been dreaming about for weeks.  Like a little kid, I plunged in and enjoyed every last morsel of goodness.  Yum, yum!

I guess one could say that day was a training day for the big Thanksgiving Day feast that is just around the corner!

Yesterday (I am writing this blog a day late), we spent the day shopping and then went to our daughter’s house to spend Sunday with her family. Michael’s parents and youngest brother also came over to spend the day. We love them dearly and were glad we all could get together.

Christina had previously warned me that she had an electrical project waiting for me. Thus, I had brought my tools and electrical multi-meter with me. As it turned out, the project should have been a simple one of just replacing two switches in the garage with two, new light switch timers. Christina had hopes of using the timers to control the outdoor Christmas Tree lights that they put up each season. Unfortunately, the project ended up being a discovery of bad wiring.

I asked Michael’s dad, Jim, to work with me on this project. I am no fool and knowing that Jim has an electrical engineering background, I knew I was teamed with an expert. As it turns out, we were lucky to have Jim’s involvement.

I took the first timer and opened up the switch panel. There were three switches within the panel with the first two controlling the circuits for the outdoor lights. The wiring to my switch looked as expected and was color coded: red, white, black and green. The wiring of the new timer was similar, with red, white, black and green wires. The replacement of the old switch to the new timer was going to be easy-peasy with just connecting the red to red, white to white, black to black and green to green. With my task done, I turned the project over to Jim who discovered that the second switch was just a switched circuit with only three wires: black, white and green. However, this presented no problem for him as he quickly wired the new timer to control this circuit. We then tested our handiwork, confident that we could button this up once the testing was completed.

Ah, er, um, well…the two outdoor circuits did not work. Oops. We scratched our heads, re-inspected our handiwork and came to the conclusion that we did everything correctly. Then we discovered that the garage GFCI (ground fault circuit interrupter) button had popped out indicating a fault in one of the circuits. Hmmm.

I maintained that my switch was properly wired and Jim agreed with me. Thus, the problem had to be with Jim’s switch and circuit. Since Jim is more knowledgeable on this subject than I, I excused myself so that he and Christina could deal with this issue and I retired with a beer to play with the three grandkids.

To make a very long story short, after spending almost three hours on this simple project, Jim concluded his circuit was fine but that the house wiring of my circuit was not to code and that the house wires were color coded incorrectly. Thus, my switch as I had wired it, was blowing the GFCI in the garage. In addition to this, a second GFCI was connected to this same circuit and it too was blown. The problem was compounded by that fact that none of us could find this second blown GFCI receptacle. Christina shared with us that they had had a similar problem with finding the various GFCI receptacles throughout the house. To make matters worse, this particular circuit is shared with the thermostat that controls one of the air conditioners for the house. Thus, until the blown GFCI receptacle can be found, a portion of the house is without air conditioning. Ugh! What a mess we have made!

To solve the problem, we all agreed that it would be best for Christina and Michael to call an electrician to discover the blow GFI receptacle and to properly color code the wiring for this circuit. What a day!

The dust is starting to settle down after our 4 day journey from Sacramento to Tucson. Now that we are here, we can breathe easy and spend the next two weeks relaxing. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, that laid back and easy dream is still a few more days away. We have a busy Monday and Tuesday ahead of us with doctor visits scheduled, annual blood work scheduled, shopping for the upcoming Thanksgiving feast, running around to getting miscellaneous errands done and spending as much time as we can with Christina and her family. Then comes Wednesday and with that day we celebrate our son-in-law’s birthday, and start cooking and prepping for Thanksgiving, then comes Thursday with lots more cooking and then…eating, eating and eating, mixed with family, family and family, all topped off with football, football and more football. Man, it just doesn’t get better than that, does it?

Thanksgiving, along with Christmas is all about family for us. It is a time we get together and catch up on what has gone on in our lives and share the bounty of the year with each other. It is a time to be thankful for our family and friends and pinch ourselves for being so lucky having such a wealth of love.

To start this 6 weeks of lovefest, we ran over to Christina and Michael’s house to spend the afternoon and evening. The three grandkids, Isaac (5), Stella (3), and Wyatt (1) all ran up to us as we entered their house and surrounded us with hugs and kisses. It was very special. These three munchkins are growing up so fast and the older two have become quite the conversationalists. Wyatt is all smiles and giggles and communicates in a 1-year old’s special way.

We went out for dinner and all three of the kids behaved themselves very nicely as we all enjoyed a great meal. Once we returned to their house, Michael started a fire in their chiminea, outside next to their pool. Enjoying the warmth of the fire and the warmth of family was a great ending to a great day.

We were expecting a long but easy last leg to our journey from Sacramento to Tucson today. As it turned out, that was a pipe dream. It first started out with us running into 10 miles of freeway construction. It pinched our side of the road down to 1 very narrow lane with no shoulder and miles and miles of orange safety cones placed way into our lane. Ugh, it took lots of concentration to keep LeuC within the narrow lane and not knock over any of the cones.

Once we were through that mess, we watched with horror as two trucks right in front of us almost knocked into each other as they passed each other going 65 mph. The truck that was in our lane swerved unexpectedly into the passing lane while another truck was passing him. Fortunately, the passing truck driver was very alert and swerved onto the shoulder to avoid an accident.

While that was stressful enough, our hellacious day was just beginning. As we approached Phoenix, we decided to stop at a Pilot truck stop and fill up our fuel tank and empty our grey and black water tanks. All of the fuel pumps were full, so we got behind one of the trucks to wait our turn. We waited, waited and waited some more while all of the trucks in the lanes around us came, filled up, and then left. We could not move to one of the opened lanes because as soon as a lane opened, a new truck would pull in and take it. Also, we really cannot back up because our tow bar would push down on the Fiat’s front wheels and raise up her back wheels. Thus, we just had to wait…sigh. After about 30 minutes of waiting, the truck in front of us finally, finally, pulled out.

We filled up our diesel and DEF tanks and then drove to where the cashier told me the sewer dump was located. Unfortunately, she was wrong. We weaved in and out of the truck stop’s large, mostly filled parking lot, trying to find the dumb place. That doesn’t sound too difficult but remember we were driving a 40 foot bus and towing a 13 foot long car. Also, the other vehicles we were negotiating around were all 53 foot long truck trailers and the gaps between them were very narrow and the turns were very sharp. Double ugh!

Finally, I just stopped LeuC, parked her and return to the cashier. This time I talked to a cashier who really knew where the dump was located, and I then walked to where it was, just to make sure. Its location was in a horrible spot as we would be very close to the entrance to the truck stop and would be impacting trucks who would be entering to get fuel.

Since we really needed to empty our tanks, we decided to give it a go. Soon we were hooked up to the sewer and then the fun began. One truck after another started to come in to the truck stop and pulled up to the pumps and then the waiting lanes. In one time we were totally blocked in and wedged up next to two large concrete pillars. Mary Margaret had to go out and talk to some of the truckers to let us get out.

When one of the trucks pulled out from the pump lane next to us, I edged LeuC’s nose right up to the cab of the truck waiting in line so I could then make a hard cut to the left to get around the concrete pillars. Mary Margaret guided me slowly around the pillars, with LeuC coming just two inches from scraping against them. It was a nightmarish situation as visons of a long gashing down LeuC’s side danced in my head.

Fortunately, with Mary Margaret’s expert guidance, we were able to just barely squeeze through the maze of concrete pillars, trucks and fuel pumps. Whew!

Once we escaped from that nightmare, we immediately drove into another one. This nightmare was called Friday afternoon Phoenix Traffic. We thought LA traffic was bad, but this was much worse and we watched with horror as little cars zipped in and out of lanes around and in front of us, trying to claw their way through traffic. One car jumped right into our lane, missing LeuC by just inches and then had to slam on his brakes to avoid hitting the car in front of him. It was Ugly, with a capital U.
An hour later, after much cursing and even more disbelief of the antics these crazy drivers pulled, we finally escaped Phoenix and continued down the freeway. 6.5 hours after we started out this morning, our 250 mile leg came to an end.

We are now safe and snug at our boondockers host site in Tucson. Richard, our host, was not home when we arrived but he had told us to just plug in and setup. We had stayed with him for almost three weeks last September, when we had just started out after buying LeuC, so we felt comfortable doing this. We are looking forward to seeing him again and enjoying his wonderful hospitality for the next two weeks.

We continued our journey back to Tucson this morning by driving the 189 miles to the BLM land just outside of Quartzsite, AZ.  It was through some of the most desolate land we have seen.  Our route was taking the I-40 freeway east to Needles, CA which is on the Colorado River.  The river marks the border between the two states.  As we entered Needles, we then took US 95 South.  This is a two-lane road that winds its way through two ancient volcanoes.  The ground was covered with a mantel of ejecta, which the volcanoes had spewed into the air eons ago.  Ejecta is basically molten lava which has exploded out of the volcano and then rapidly cools as it flies in the air and lands on the ground.  It is usually filled with vesicles of trapped gases which escape as the ejecta cools and cracks.  This leaves a rock that is pocked marked and sharp.  We were almost spattered with ejecta back in 2010 when we climbed a tall active Mount Yasur volcano on the island of Tanna, in the South Pacific, and oohed and aahed as the molten lava fell before us with each volcanic explosion.  It was quite a show!

We then turned onto CA 60 and crossed the Colorado River into Parker, AZ.  We then turned south and followed AZ 95 until we were about 5 miles north of Quartzsite.  This is where Plomosa Rd tees into Route 95 and is on BLM land.  We pulled off the road onto one of the many flat areas where RVs are allowed to park and camp.  We were here about two weeks ago and wanted to return so we could drive up Plomosa Rd to where the ancient geoglyph known as the Bouse Fisherman is located.

This geoglyph was created generations ago by the indigenous people.  Similar in concept to the famous drawings on the Nazca Plains of Peru, there are a few of such drawings here near the Colorado River.

The Bouse Fisherman is located just 7 or so miles up Plomosa Road so once we had settled LeuC into her spot for the night, we hopped into our little Fiat and drove up the road.  Once we reached the dirt pullout, we then walked about a ¼ miles along a 4-wheel drive, rutted path.  We spied a barbed wire fence that had a marker inside the fencing.  The rutted path continued into the fenced area for a little ways further where we saw another fenced area.  Not to be denied, I squeezed through the first fence and continued on.  Mary Margaret was a better person than I as she refused to trespass and stayed put.  The second fenced area contained the geoglyph of the fisherman.  I took a number of pictures and post them below.

The geoglyph was rather small, covering an area of about 100 x 100 feet.  It was nowhere as large as the geoglyphs on the Nazca Plains in Peru, but was still rather neat to behold.  Armed with photos, I returned to where Mary Margaret was patiently waiting and then we both returned to our car and finally our campsite.

Tomorrow, we press on and should arrive in Tucson in the afternoon.  We will be staying with our kind boondocking host, Richard, once more.  We will be there for two weeks as we share the Thanksgiving holiday with our daughter, Christina, and her family.