TooBusyForWork

Catchup addendum

Oops, I forgot some things! I wanted to post some pictures of the scenery we have seen along the trails. So here you go!

A bit of yellow in the aspen and birches

This was more mining history in Babbitt, one of our stops

I love the mosses, and they are abundant here. I’m not 100% sure these are real mosses – they might be some type of lichen – but I like them.

There weren’t too many flowers left, and a lot of the ones that remained were pretty beat up. I got a few pictures though.

This flower was still abundant, and the bees loved it.

And hopefully that is all I forgot! We are in Silver Bay Municipal Campground now, and I can see the lake and Wisconsin from our site. Not too well, but I will take what I can get! Oh, and if you have a choice about how get to Hwy 61, don’t take MN Hwy 1! The surface was awful, and we kept activating the collision warning on the dash cam!

Catchup Part 2

We have done so many things here and ridden so many trails that it doesn’t make sense to do a day by day summary. We road pretty all of the Prospector Trail, a good chunk of the Taconite Trail, and a small section of the David Dill trail, so I just grouped things together, and I think it works.

First we haven’t seen many animals. That is as expected because the RZR is so noisy! We did see a few though, and I even got pictures of some. We saw more deer, squirrels, and various ground squirrels of course plus a few eagles and hawks – no pictures of those

A different kind of animal I can’t get away from!

There were a few wood carvings along the trail to Ely. A few had cancer ribbons also carved. I didn’t look into the back story.

Couldn’t decide between “animal” and “quirky”

And then there was this fabulous laundromat in Ely! First, it was clean. Second, it was reasonably priced. Third, the names! This is just four; all of the ones in the entire place had this type of label. We walked around laughing at them.

Ely laundromat had all their washers and dryers named!

Yesterday we went to Voyageurs National Park. We had lunch at Arrowhead Resort, a respectable tenderloin. It wasn’t quite up to real Iowa standards (though it was labeled “Iowa style”), but the onion strings along with it were great. Here’s a bit of photo dump from that trip.

The only eagle I got a picture of. We saw a number of others.

First stop – guy lived here for about 50 years

Second stop – Hoist Bay with its logging history

One way to “camp” in the park. Note the hot tub on top!

The way I would prefer. All the sites we saw had a dock for the powerboat

And a sunset picture with a loon – classic Minnesota

Today we go to a campground in Silver Bay on the shore of Lake Superior.

Catchup in two parts

I have been delinquent in posting because the keyboard case for my iPad broke! I absolutely despise typing anything but the minimum on a display keyboard, and I delay it outrageously. I tried to get one from Amazon, but because it has a lithium battery the options are limited. Sigh. We finally bit the bullet and had it delivered to Duluth yesterday, the closest pickup spot that would accept lithium batteries. Kevin needed a repair kit for the toilet too, so two birds with one stone! So there are lots of things to post. I will do it in two phases.

I ended the last post before we took the dinner train in Duluth. It has a museum, so we planned a 45 minute tour. That was NOT enough. What an absolutely fabulous place. Much of the rolling stock was under cover so it would be fine to even visit this location in the winter. Here is just a smattering.

Mr. Crooks was the owner of the rail line. This was a reproduction of the first engine.

We only got partway through! Then it was time to get the tickets for our dinner train. There were 4 person tables, and we shared with a couple from Fargo, ND. He was a rail fan that retired from the track maintenance crew of one of the big railroads, though I have forgotten which one! The ride was very nice, and the food was great. I thought I took a picture, but I didn’t, so you will have to imagine a fabulous salad, the beef rib, perfectly roasted potatoes, roasted carrots, and a crème de pot for dessert. Yum. Everything was perfectly cooked. I wish the trip was closer to the lake, but I guess the railroad wanted some space between it and that sometimes very story place!

We have driven the little Bronco all over the place. Not a fan. It took quite a while to turn off all the nanny features, but I managed. If I ever reach a point where I need car automation to stay in my own lane, I will give up my license! It wasn’t even very good at it, disconnecting whenever the side markers on the roads moved away from the lane or were just hard to read. And it could not stay well centered on curves, moving left then right before the road straightened out. Ugh. But it took FOREVER for the truck to get repaired!!! The one week we were promised turned into 3 weeks and 6 days. And even then the only reason it happened is because I have a friend who shall remain nameless that is high enough up in the state government they could put pressure on the dealer. They had asked earlier if they could help, and I said we were going to wait on the dealer a bit longer, but I finally gave up. Shockingly the truck was ready at 1:00 pm the day they took them to task. The holdup had supposedly been that they didn’t have a replacement driveshaft and couldn’t get one. Umm, guess there was one in the store room somewhere! I am still grumbling.

The lack of a vehicle to carry to RZR led to Kevin having some interesting rides between campgrounds. We stayed at the West Forty Campground until Monday 13 September. We then moved to back to the Lake Vermillion OHV campground. It meant a 45 mile drive on the trails for Kevin, but they were well marked and not too rough. We stayed at one site here until Thursday, 17 September when we had to move to another site. We are staying here until Monday morning now. Here was our view this morning.

Not bad, hey? However this lovely quiet campground is now getting full of some big groups that are much noisier than the ones here last weekend. Sigh. We have just been amazingly lucky, but it had to run out sooner or later.

We have taken some great rides in the RZR, but I am going to put that info in the next post. This is long enough as it is!

Soudan, Ely, and nearby locations

The appropriate sign you are in northern Minnesota in late August, early September is that sandals with socks is perfectly acceptable!

We moved to the DNR State OHV Campground near Soudan on Sunday, 30 August. The sites are HUGE, 60-80’ long pull throughs with picnic tables, and fire rings. There are pit toilets one each of the three loops plus a central flush toilet/shower facility. It even has a OHV wash area. Absolutely no trees, but hopefully they plant some next year.

Once we got settled, we drove the truck to Hibbing on Monday because we had a leak in the differential. Oops! Bad drive train, and the dealer said it was unsafe to drive. Big ouchie. They have to order parts, and it will be a week, so they gave us a loaner car. It is a brand new Ford Bronco, and it is a dog. I admit it is the lowest level of trim, but it is not comfortable at all. Hopefully we only have it a bit over a week.

We visited an historic Finnish homestead, the Wirtanen Pioneer Homestead. It is an original homestead site begun by a single bachelor farmer/logger in 1904. The first thing built was a sauna, of course, but the house and other outbuildings are impressive. It has an obviously loving historic association taking care of it.

While we were in the Soudan area we took one long RZR RIDE, 90+ miles, on the Prospector Trail. The most notable site in my opinion were the boardwalks over bogs. There were a number of them, but the longest was a full half mile in length! They are controlled by gates that enforce the 65” maximum width of the trail. Lots of those along the boardwalks and bridges.

The trail itself is jointly maintained by DNR and local clubs. This is one of the nicest trail stops I have ever seen. There is also a fire pit and a large collection of split firewood in a covered area. Oh, and a spotless two hole outhouse!

Nice facilities on the Prospector’s Trail

We also spent a day just sightseeing around Ely. Back when I could move better, we did a number of wilderness canoe trips out of the town, and we re-visited the area. The trees are just starting to turn, and it was generally beautiful. Wednesday was Kevin!s birthday, and we had an absolutely fabulous dinner at Insula Restaurant in Ely. Good food, good service, and a great rye whiskey Old Fashioned! What can be more Minnesotan than walleye and wild rice?

On Thursday, 3 September, we moved to the West Forty RV Park in Gilbert. Sites are crowded, but FHU and we met friends here. We have been camping with the Lopers occasionally for 25 years or more, and it was great to catch up. We are now planning on staying here through Thursday night. We need to be in Duluth on Friday for a train trip, so I sure hope the truck is fixed by then!

Shell Lake and surroundings

We ended up driving to Iowa for Kevin’s hearing aids on Wednesday 18 August. It was a long drive down to Iowa City, but he really likes the hearing aids. The technician made five separate programs for him, and two were for music! One is for crowded spaces like restaurants, and another is for normal conversation. I do t remember what the fifth one is! We spent the night at home in Cedar Falls, then drove back on Thursday. The cats survived us being gone a day, though Luna followed Kevin everywhere he went for a few days!

On Friday we drove into northern Minneapolis to get n alignment done on the motorhome only to find out they couldn’t work on it because of the SafeTSteer! I was pissed! I drove the MH over 200 miles round trip for nothing. They recommended another shop, and we made an appointment there for the next week. I am really glad we decided to stay in Shell Lake more days since it gave us time to do a bunch of sightseeing and get un-pissed. Kevin’s last day of arm movement and weight restrictions expired, so we spent a couple of days running around in the RZR. One day we took the Wild Rivers Trail which is an old Chicago Northwestern rail line bed. Wisconsin has totally embraced UTVs, and this trail is one example. Very well maintained with good signage and surface. It is an old rail bed though so not a lot of curves or ups and downs! It was beautiful though – so very lush and green.

Surprisingly we saw very little wildlife. I am guessing the habitat is so rich they don’t have to be around people to find food and shelter. The deer and sandhills were about all we saw.

Another day we wandered north and spent time in the Washburn County Forest. Much more interesting riding, mostly on fire roads. Lots of ups and down and curves along with a more varied scenery.

We even took a train ride just north of Spooner in Trego. A scenic train runs over old Chicago Northwestern tracks a a very slow speed, but they had a dinner train reservation available so we took it. Dinner was actually very nice with white table cloths and napkins plus good service. The steaks was nice, but the carrots and potatoes were fabulous!

We left Shell Lake on Wednesday, 27 August and spent the next two nights at the Grand Casino RV Park there. Very nice place, and under $50 with tax! Great laundry room too. We were here to be closer to Blaine’s TruckAlign shop where I had a Thursday morning appointment. The MH has been pulling to the right, so I got it aligned front and rear, swapped the weird wear tires on front for a pair in the back, and got the SafeTSteer perfectly set. It took 6 hours, and the bill was only a bit over $700. I commented to the guy it was rare to pay less than $1000 for anything MH related, and he said they hear that a lot. Today we left Hinckley and drove to Whiteface Reservoir campground. It is so rural I can’t even give the name of a nearby town! Awfully pretty though. The white bucket is where Kevin stores our potable water hose which is doubling as a stand for the Starlink dish. We even have electricity!

However we weren’t aware we can’t use the RZR here, and even if we could there aren’t enough trails to make it worthwhile. So we will be checking out of her on Sunday and heading to Tower and the Soudan Underground Mine ATV campground. The sites look nice, and there are a lot more trails up there.

Ukein’ away

The appointment with the cardio PA (I had mentioned I thought it was an NP last post) went really well. I just cannot say enough good things about Mayo! She had an entire hour allocated to the appointment, something unheard of in today’s medicine. She explained the next steps (yearly TAVR appointments), answered all our questions including what was the anatomic reasons the pacemaker was needed after the initial discharge, and generally reassured us. I think Kevin has decided to continue his cardio follow ups in Rochester rather than find a cardiologist locally, and I thought it was a very good idea too. It turns out she was the person assigned as triage when his ECGs first were sent to Mayo, and she said she immediately got the senior folks. I guess it was really, really bad! She said she had worked in EDs for 20 years and a few years in the Mayo cardiology department, and his PR delay numbers were the worst she had ever seen! Medical things are NOT what you want to be remembered for LOL! But he is still recovering well. He walked 4 miles today (two separate 2 mile trips), and his blood pressure, pulse ox, and heart rate are all good. Here is the cool X-ray taken this time. You can see the pacemaker, the valve mesh, and the pacemaker leads.

We left Rochester and headed to Twin Harbors. It was an easy ride except for a mess of construction in Duluth, but Duluth always has construction! Our campsite was boarding x a spot in a parking lot next to the small fairgrounds buildings, but we did have a 15 amp electrical connection to keep things charged. The forecast had called for rain, but we sure didn’t have much which was a good thing.

The Silver Creek International Ukulele Carnival was enjoyable for me, not so much for Kevin. Lots of nice people, but he was very disappointed in the beginning class instructor. He was very much in the “you can’t do anything until you know all of this stuff” mentality, and that is pretty unusual. Most instructors are getting students playing simple songs after the first 2 chords! I was very challenged in my classes, mostly because I had trouble translating the GCEA tuning instruction to my DGBE tuning. In the group of maybe 300 ukes, there were only 5-6 other baritones! I still learned some new stuff, and I came back with sore hands and back! I am definitely not used to playing that much! I also learned I didn’t practice the mass ukulele pieces at a fast enough tempo – lesson learned. Three hundred ukuleles playing together did sound pretty cool though.

There were some excellent performers, but I forgot to get pictures of most of them. I did of this duo on Friday night, because how often do you see a ukulele and an accordion together? They were really good though. The carnival began Thursday afternoon and lasted until Sunday morning when it ended with a gospel strum.

Sunday morning we headed back south through Duluth again and into Wisconsin, continuing south. Our campground in Shell Lake is gorgeous! I didn’t have high expectations for a campground specifically for UTVs, but our site looks more like a USFS or NPS site than anything else. Excellent separation between sites with lots of trees and understory hiding other campers. Our site (#6) is a 60’+ site with full hook ups. We looked at the municipal campground by the lake, and it is very crowded. We also visited a private campground nearby, the Red Barn Park. It was also very crowded though it was loaded with activities for kids including a lovely sand swimming hole. We much prefer where we are.

We only put out the firepit when we are enjoying the outdoors, and we are definitely doing that here. Lots of birds, insects make a loud hum, and little critters running through the leaf litter adds up to a great location.

Tomorrow we are heading back in the truck to Iowa. Kevin has some hearing aids at Costco. Hoping they let him hear his ukulele better! He says a number of chords sound the same because he can’t hear the higher pitches. Kind of hard to learn that way!

And we are off (after more Mayo excitement)

We are now in the motorhome beginning our long-delayed adventures! It was not without some more drama though. Kevin attended his first cardiac rehab appointment on Tuesday, 21 July. The nurses weren’t happy with the 3 lead cardiac monitor results. Luckily he already had an appointment scheduled with a local family practice NP for a post-TAVR checkup. Mayo had told FP to do a full 12 lead ECG, and it looked bad too. Lots of phone calls between Mayo and NP resulted in us going to the local emergency department where yet another ECG was performed by the ED doc. It looked even worse. Phone calls back and forth this time resulted in an ambulance ride to Mayo! I ran home, picked up clothes and supplies for both of us then followed in the car. He spent the night of Wednesday on a monitor, and he had a pacemaker installed on Thursday morning, sigh. We knew it was a possibility after TAVR, but the timing was odd. When he left Mayo the week before, the ECG was perfectly normal. He is recovering well, but he couldn’t drive for 10 days, and he still wears a sling to remind him not to raise his arm higher than his shoulder and to pick up no more than 10 pounds with that arm. Those restrictions end on 20 August, and is ready for it!

Since we had to cancel a planned RZR expedition to northeast Iowa, we were able to attend a mini-family reunion held every year at our son’s and DIL’s lake cabin. The weather was cold and rainy, and it was still great fun. We didn’t have all the kids there, but we had most of the grandkids. Here is my son and Kevin contemplating the state of the world.

We spent yesterday at a local campground getting the rig in shape and moving in. After one trip for the stuff we forgot (!!!) I drove north of Rochester to a nice campground – Hidden Meadows. Nice place. Kevin has a slew of imaging and ECG appointments tomorrow, then we see the cardiology staff (I think it is an NP) early on Thursday morning. We will then come back to the motorhome and head to Two Harbors, MN for their ukulele festival which begins that afternoon. I’ll let you know how it goes!

Fireworks, new planting bed, and the Mayo Clinic experience

Kevin and I are kind of past the age of lighting fireworks, but we do like looking at them. Turns out my neighbors brought some friends over and obviously spent hundreds and hundreds on fireworks! This is just a tiny sampling of what we saw sitting on the deck. There were actually lots of fireworks going off all around us, but we chose to just take pictures of these. Pretty, aren’t they?

I was also astonished and pleased that the fireworks really did stop by 10 or 11! Last year they were still going off at 2. This year the police department had put signs up at many intersections in town providing the rules for times the fireworks were allowed (two nights) and the penalties if you violated the rules ($250 fine!). I think a lot of people in past years just didn’t know. For whatever reason, the notices were very effective.

Another big thing was I got some backyard renovation done. The poor honey locust tree on the left is the second tree planted in this location that has done poorly. I blame the nasty clay dirt that surely came from digging the basement, so when the landscapers I hired recommended a drainage system they used on a lot of commercial properties I was all for it.

Poor sad honey locust (left) and the very healthy elm (right)

The drainage project begin with digging a hole twice as big and twice as deep as the tree would be planted. It was filled with some gravel and then weep tile was installed. You can see a bit of it below. The old clay nastiness was taken away, and the tree was planted in compost.

They staked the tree, put trunk wrap on, and installed the new garden bed. That job included removing all the sod, edging with new bullnose edgers, and putting down 4” of mulch. They also removed the old edgers around the elm and put down new mulch for consistency. To maintain the bed, the relocated some sprinklers and installed probably 250-300’ of soaker hose before they put the mulch down. It will be fabulous!

Now on to the transcather aortic valve replacement Kevin had at Mayo in Rochester. We drove up on Sunday (it is only 2 hours), and spent the night at the Even Hotel, 5 minutes or less from St. Mary’s Hospital area where the surgery would be. The room was nice, the bed not quite soft enough, and the recliner didn’t recline enough! Oh, and then they closed the restaurant that night because the cook didn’t show up! We ended up eating out of the vending machine. Add in parking being another $20/night, and I don’t think we will return.

Monday morning bright and early we dropped the car with the valet parking folks and made it to check in before the scheduled 6:30 appointment. They took us to the room Kevin would be staying in before and after the procedure; handy to not have to move around. His surgery was later than planned, and he didn’t leave for that until after 10:00 at which time I went to get some breakfast in the hospital visitor cafeteria. Nice omlette with fruit for $12! It was not quite 2 hours before he came back from the anesthesia recovery area. He was a bit sore because of the HUGE removal pokes they make to push the catheter to the right spot in his heart, but otherwise he was just tired and groggy. We had dinner around 5:00, and the food was great! Pot roast, carrots, bread, drink, and sherbet for him. Salmon, asparagus, roasted potatoes, strawberry shortcake, drink, and a fruit cup for me. I saved the fruit cup for my morning breakfast while Kevin had eggs and turkey sausage. We were cleared to leave a little after 10, 28 hours from when we showed up. We decided we would prefer spending Tuesday night at home instead of the hotel, so we checked out and headed home. I was exhausted, but it was worth it to be home. We both took a well-deserved nap, and I slept like a baby last night!

Mayo Clinic scheduling has actually been pretty good. He goes back middle of August for a bunch of follow-up tests and an appointment with a cardiac NP. He is also scheduled to start cardiac rehab when we get back from our fall trip around Halloween (got to be back to vote in person on 2 November!!!!!). He is just supposed to take it very easy for this week, and then gradually resume activities beginning next week. He feels pretty good, or so he says. Hope everything stays that way.

The Mayo Clinic experience and fun printing stuff

We have discovered we will be able to salvage at least some of our summer. The Mayo trip went as well as good be expected. There was lots of testing, lots of doctors, and lots of waiting. At the end of the 2 days, Kevin was set up for a Transcather Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) to replace his faulty aortic valve with an animal valve. It should be good for 10 years or so, and then they can add a new one with the same approach. The really good news was that his heart is actually remarkably healthy for someone with his degree of aortic stenosis! We did catch it in time. So in two weeks we will be in Rochester for his surgery. I went ahead and made reservations in a hotel for 3 nights, since that is the worst case they contemplated. If he has zero complications, he might be released the same day. If they just want to do additional monitoring, it will be one night, but if they have to put in a pacemaker (15% chance), it will be two nights. No matter what we need to stay within 100 miles of Mayo for 24 hours after surgery, so we will just relax in a nice hotel room. My news was also good. My bone density is strong (as expected), and the surgeon said she thought any additional surgery would not be helpful. That’s what I had read too, but it was nice to have it confirmed.

I do want to talk about the entire “Mayo Clinic Experience” though. It is really a production! First, the entire Rochester downtown surrounding the main clinics is under construction. We very intelligently chose to use valet parking which only costs $7 more than the parking garage costs. Best decision ever! Monday’s first appointment was a 7:00 am and we stayed until almost 5:00. There would be an appointment for something, then an hour or two wait, then another appointment, then some more wait, repeat. All but one of the appointments our first day was in either the Mayo Building or the Gonda Building, both huge modern high rises connected to each other. Easy to navigation, and there are people to help you find you way. The only thing that was complicated was finding the main cafe (first floor) and the multitude of other eating establishments in the “subway.” This is just a set of walking tunnels connecting all the main buildings in the downtown area. They had a Bruegger’s Bagel, so we split a bagel sandwich a couple of times. I LOVE Bruegger’s Bagel – real boiled and baked bagels, not those sweet silly not-boiled things you get at Einstein’s or Panera’s. The last appointments on Tuesday were at St. Mary’s Hospital campus a few blocks away from the downtown area. It seemed further because of all the construction detours! But St. Mary’s is where the heart surgeons stay and where Kevin will have his surgery. We have already had the patient education too, so pretty prepared. He will need to have an echocardiogram 30 days or so after his surgery, and then he is discharged either to an Iowa cardiologist or the Mayo valve clinic. He hasn’t decided which.

Right after that echo we are headed to west central Wisconsin for a ukulele festival and a bunch of RZR riding! We will wander around Minnesota and Wisconsin until we need to head to Red Bay, AL for some work on the rig. It will probably be the last time to Red Bay. It wasn’t dreadfully out of the way coming back from Arizona in the winter, but I think we will start using Redland RV in California. It is closer to where we travel.

And Kevin got his long-anticipated 4 color 3D printer! He is in love. This picture is o his first “Benchie,” the standard initial 3D print that all printers have set up. Ignore the weird colors. Those are just the sample filament that came with the printer.

The new printer prints so much faster than his old one, even if it is just printing one color. The advantage of the new drying cabinet for the filament is that he no longer gets filament breaks even on long prints. Being in an Iowa basement has a tendency to get the moisture too high, even though he runs a dehumidifier right outside the printer room. He has already made a number of useful things including an adjustable table-top music stand holder for me and some just miscellaneous storage things. He is currently printing a movable dragon for our youngest granddaughter!

Probably not much more to say until we get back from Rochester.

Kevin’s been busy

I have accomplished almost nothing in the last few weeks. Not feeling guilty about it at all, well maybe a little. I did get almost all the binding applied to the motorhome quilt, but I need about 12 more inches. Of course that means searching for the fabric remnants and getting around to cutting them. I have found the remnants, but there are just a few shorter pieces left which means a lot of joining. Oh well, today or tomorrow I will get that done and finish the first step of the binding. Then I have to rearrange the sewing area to lay the quilt flatter so it doesn’t distort the last stitching. Sigh.

Kevin, however, has been amazingly busy! He has mounted the Navajo rug. That required making a frame with internal supports, stapling 2” wide Velcro to the supports and frame, then getting it securely on the wall.

He also replaced the mount on the outside TV in the motorhome. We hardly ever use it because it was flat mounted too high to easily view. He installed a rotating/tipping mount that should be much more usable. We probably still won’t often, but it might come in handy for movie nights with others. He also spent time on the phone with the Vroom slide guy, diagnosing our slide out issues. It wasn’t just as simple as replacing cables, since it still didn’t work when he did that. A motor or two might be dead, so we just gave up and set up an appointment with the guy in Red Bay to get it worked on. I am still pretty pissed at Velocity Truck Center in North Las Vegas for being the root cause of all this. If they had been more careful with tying back the wiring they untied, the slide would still be working. I know they won’t do anything about it though, so I plan on just doing some complaining on social media.

Kevin is also getting his new 3D printer on Tuesday! He ordered it months ago, but it was a brand new 4 color model, and it took a while to make and ship to the US (from China of course). He already acquired a 4 spool filament dryer, and says it works so well on his single spool printer that he is going to buy a single spool dryer for the motorhome. It is easier since we will be having full hookups most of the winter. Yes, he does take his single spool printer with him in the motorhome!

He has replaced the CVT belt on the RZR and got it all greased up. Since new belts need some gentle driving to break them in, we went to Wisconsin to ride the Cheese Country Trail. We have done it before, and it is a nice ride on an old railroad bed. We tried to start at Mineral Point, the northern terminus, but there was so much construction we couldn’t find the trail! We then drove to Darlington, the next major entry point. From there we ride to Monroe, had lunch at the Suisse Haus (fabulous Wisconsin buttermilk blue cheese burger!), then road back. The only complication was there were three big detours due to bridges being out on the trail. They added about 12 miles to the trip, a not insignificant amount! But I did take some videos.

Here are two of what most of the trail was like. Lovely country. The second one shows where the trail was dug into a hill leading to a pretty solid tree covered route.

http://Cheese Country Trail, 19 June 2026 https://youtu.be/9wMl0nDlJA0

http://Cheese Country Trail canopy 19 June 2026 https://youtu.be/8EkzJmttOok

And here is what the detour looked like. Still nice rolling countryside, but I missed the trees.

http://Cheese Country Trail detour through farm country https://youtu.be/OEqLOBY6hns

I also had fun at a ukulele seminar by Ukester Brown. The Des Moines Ukulele Society sponsored it, and he went over some strumming techniques and even how he memorizes songs (a real issue for me!). I brought my Kala baritone that I wanted to sell, though I played my new Pono. I think I have a buyer for the Kala! I am holding it for her.

That’s about it. In a week from now we will head to Whitewater State Park where we will stay while Kevin gets his heart testing done. I have a bone density test (super easy) and a surgery consultation during the same time. This trip will determine if we blow the entire summer or just some of it! Of course health is more important, but the older I get the more I realize we just don’t have that much time left to really get out. So time becomes even more precious.