TooBusyForWork

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.

Gonna be home most of the summer :-(

We did get home on Friday, 29 May. We were able to put the motorhome in its new outdoor storage location easily. It is at the end of a row, and is one of the few spots that is long enough for us! Being on the end, we can put a slide out if we need to do things inside which is awfully handy. Then began the long, tedious task of getting it ready for storage. Everything came out of the refrigerator and freezer, toiletries, clothes, etc. I drove the truck home and came back with the new Subaru, and we got it all home in one load! Kevin didn’t unload the RZR until Saturday, but it all went pretty smoothly.

Remember the Navajo rug I bought? I opened it up for a picture. Isn’t it gorgeous?

Sunday was a big day at church. Our pastor is semi-retiring back to his home state of South Carolina, and there was a special service and a big potluck afterwards. The choir got to sing a fabulous spiritual with a soloist, a former member, who came back specifically for this service. I love blues-y spirituals! Pot luck was fabulous as pretty much all Protestant church potlucks are. (Side note: The only potlucks I think I have ever been to that were awful were in Utah. Limited amount and style of food, lots more people bringing chips and dip. My grandmother would have been horrified!)

On Monday we took my poor hail damaged Subaru into the repair shop. It was fixed (mostly) on Thursday and I got to bring it home. They had ordered 3 small pieces of trim incorrectly, so I will have to go back later and get those replaced. That said that would be a quick job. It was nice to get an easy to drive car back instead of the hard to park truck. We also got our new roof on Thursday which was a particularly nice thing. It was a good crew. They were respectful, only broke one plan 🙁 , and cleaned up the site extremely well. We still don’t know when the siding will be repaired, probably a couple of weeks.

I am also still waiting on when the siding will be repaired. It will probably be in the next couple of weeks, but no specific date yet.

And of course there were doctor appointments which will be a continuing theme all summer I am afraid. I was diagnosed with atypical ductal and atypical lobular hyperplasia (ADH/ALH) in the breast I had the lumpectomy for my ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). Not cancer, not even a pre-cancer like the DCIS, but it does up my risk significantly. We decided to go to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. It is only a couple of hours away, and I lost confidence in the folks I used last time. I had my appointment on Friday, and I really liked the doctor. Explained everything, listened well, described alternatives, etc. I am starting tamoxifen and will be having a surgical consult at the end of the month. The doctor said the surgeon might not be recommending surgery since the spot was so small – crossing my fingers! If I do end up deciding to get surgery, I think I will wait until fall. It isn’t an emergency, and that would fit my schedule better.

And the reason to wait until fall? Kevin’s heart murmur turned out to be aortic stenosis. He has 3 days scheduled at Mayo himself at the end of the month for testing and decision making. But it is looking like they will recommend a Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR). It probably can’t take place before mid-July, and it might be later. With the recovery from that, we will be lucky to be able to get to the ukulele festival on 22 August let alone the late July planned RZR 3 day ride. Sigh. Getting older sucks.

We have had lots of rain over the last 2 weeks, and the landscaper says he needs about 10 days of dry weather to bring the equipment in the yard without damaging the lawn or irrigation system. I doubt I will get much planted this year since it is so hard on plants to get started in a hot Iowa summer. But I can start planning! Or at least, my beloved DIL can start planning. She has a tentative plan already, but it will need to be modified. Due to the new tree’s location, the landscaper decided it needed to be included in the bed as the picture shows. My backyard is really pretty small though my front yard is huge (pie shaped lot). The landscaper is going to pull out the current tree that is dead, add drainage and soil improvements, plant the new tree, dig out all the sod, edge the new bed with landscape blocks, and put 4” of mulch down. Big job! But I think I am going to really like it.

Almost home

We are at the Elks Lodge in Cameron, MO for the night, and we will be back in Cedar Falls tomorrow in the early afternoon. A lot of driving in 2 weeks!

But first I am going to add some pictures of the trip on I-70 heading to Las Vegas that I forgot about last time. I finally got irritated enough with my iPhone camera that I pulled out my nice Canon point and shoot. That’s where these photos come from. Note I-70 starts in Denver, CO and runs until I-25 in Utah. It goes through spectacular country in both states. In Colorado it is not completely rural, but in Iowa it goes for over 150 miles with only one spot for services. It is VERY remote there.

Note this is not a road I would want to do in the motorhome. Not only does it have a lot of steep grades up and down, but the section in Utah has waves in the pavement that would cause the motorhome to porpoise enough to make me seasick! But it is an absolutely beautiful trip for someone in a passenger vehicle, and I highly recommend it.

Now back to more information about our way home. We spent two nights in Gallup, NM. The first night we arrived late in the afternoon, and we quickly got to Richardson’s Trading Post, an historic trading post started in 1913. It is located in downtown Gallup, and I was on the hunt for an authentic Navajo rug. Richardson’s has a huge rug room with all styles of rugs in lots of sizes. We found one we both really like, and it is packaged up in paper until we get home. More pictures when that happens.

The second day in Gallup (Sunday of Memorial Day weekend), we visited the Hubbell Trading Post National Monument. It is about an hour out of Gallup, and I have been wanted to visit for a number of years. Fabulous place. Comments with each picture.

The trading post was built over a number of years as the stonework shows

I like the water spouts and the stone work here

We did buy some things at the store for future birthdays, so no more details there. I didn’t go into their rug room either because after one rug and the ukulele and the HUGE motorhome bill, my pockets were empty.. Kevin said it was smaller than Richardson’s, but that may have been to salve my feelings.

There are other historic sites nearby. The town of Ganado was built up due to the trading post. Hubbell invited the Presbyterian Church Mission Society to set up shop here in the early 1900s. The Presbyterian Church here is lovely.

There is also a nearby mission of the Catholic Church, the historic St. Anne’s. It is still an active parish, so we didn’t do anything but look at the interesting exterior.

So that is pretty much it until we get home tomorrow. We will unpack and I will make a sweet potato casserole on Saturday for a potluck at church on Sunday. Our current pastor is leaving, so there is a big party planned. Next week has some dentist and doctor appointments plus we are taking the Subaru in to get the hail damage repaired. We are also getting our roof replaced! Busy week.

Sorry if you are getting tired of “oops, no posts”

Yeah, I just got rather tied up and distracted about bunches of things. Sadly it wasn’t as warm in Iowa as it was in California and Nevada, so the sandals had to come off for a while.

We did make it to “The Lutherie” in the Des Moines area to get the ukulele crack repaired. He did a fabulous job. I am now religious about case humidifiers. I have even gotten a hard shell case which will keep the moisture inside better. The luthier recommended the sound hole humidifier shown at the bottom of the uke, so I got one of those too. No More Cracks!

Once we got home we were quickly engulfed in grandkids’s end of year activities. All three of the local grandkids had music concerts, and most had two of them! And then came a severe but luckily pretty isolated hail storm.

It came straight from the west and put holes in our siding on that side. We also need a new roof since it was damaged too. We spent quite a bit of time contacting roofers and getting estimates for the roofing and the siding. We definitely weren’t alone either. The roofing company signs were going up the next day, and some roofs are already repaired. Ours will be later in June.

Pella is a small town that was settled by Dutch immigrants. It has a strong Dutch heritage still, and the Pella Tulip Festival is usually the weekend after Mother’s Day. We had friends who visited it earlier, and they warned us the tulips were in full bloom two weeks early. We chose to take a day trip, and I am glad we did. My FB page has a full dump of the pictures , but here is a sample. The windmill is an authentic re-creation, and it is the home of a local museum. The tulips were magical. There are thousands and thousands just in the town square, and more thousands in the parking strips nearby.

For Mother’s Day I told Kevin I wanted a roasted chicken and sweet potatoes. I made the spatchcocked chicken and he did the potatoes. He also bought an adorable little tiny cake. Since I started the Mounjaro for my diabetes, I have very little appetite and small meals are the rule. We ate the chicken for 3 days LOL!

One of the things I am now determined to add to the house are window well covers. In our community, deep window wells are used as access alternatives for the basement living spaces. We have occasionally discovered mice who fell in, but sadly we are discovering baby bunnies now. We found two in the last few weeks. Both were rescued and placed back in the flower garden where they have a hole.

Oh, and I live in a very manicured suburban area without any mature trees. We were one of the first houses here, and ours is just 8 years old. We have planted trees, and neighbors have also as the other homes were built and purchased, but it will be a long time before we get any significant number of big trees. But we do get wildlife! The first year we were here, our cameras picked up a wandering mink, and we have seen possums, raccoons, rabbits, and at least 3 different cats. The deer was a first for us though.

All kind of other things are happening too. A heart murmur was discovered at Kevin’s annual physical, so he has appointments scheduled at Mayo Clinic in Rochester to further characterize the aortic stenosis the caused the murmur. He might need surgery, he might not, but we both felt more comfortable going to Mayo for a significant issue like that. I had my annual MRI to follow up on the DCIS breast cancer and lumpectomy, and a biopsy resulted showing a small area of hyperplasia. Not cancer, but it moves me into an even high risk status of future cancer. So I have an appointment at Mayo too! Lucky it is only a couple of hours away, and it is a common option for people from my small city (50,000). Sigh.

We did finally get news the motorhome was fixed, and we went to Vegas to pick it up after all the initial medical appointments. We spent one night in Fort Morgan, CO and the next night in Cedar City, UT. This is what we woke up to in Cedar City.

We were better prepared than most of the motel customers, but Kevin did go buy us some lightweight jackets the night before.

I am not thrilled with Velocity Truck Center in North Las Vegas. They did fix the engine issue, but they knocked an electrical wire out of its socket that I had to pay to get repaired (hard to prove it was all working before, but it was!). As usual with electrical issues, it took a lot more time to isolate the problem than to fix it. Then after a couple of nights at the North Las Vegas Elks Lodge again, we headed to Needles, CA for a night on our way to south of Williams, AZ where we boondocked last night and tonight. This area is full of OHV trails! We had a great ride today.

Here is a video of the smoother part of the area.

http://May 22, 2026 https://youtu.be/3bBrOCMV-zI

And another one of a bit rougher OHV section.

http://A bit rougher trail south of Williams, AZ https://youtu.be/lWPNxrN1fNw

We are gradually heading back to Iowa. We will be staying in Gallup, NM the next 2 nights hopefully to look at some Navajo rugs.

I did already make one big purchase though. I bought a new super nice Pono ukulele. It is all acacia wood with the standard goodies upscale ukuleles have – geared tuners, ebony fretboard, bone saddle and bridge. It sounds divine, and I am not yet worthy! I am an advanced beginner, and this is at least an intermediate instrument, so now I have to buckle down to be worth of it. It will be fun!

I forgot to post!

We did make it home, and I guess I was so excited I forgot to post anything! We only spent two nights on the road (La Quinta in Fruita, CO and Comfort Inn in Lexington, NE). Both motels were ok, but we are limited in where we can stay with two cats. The La Quinta was much more expensive, but there isn’t much to choose from in the area, and I guess they knew it. Oh, and just after we got home on 28 March we got a call from Velocity that we needed not just the VGT manifold, but the entire VGT plus the manifold. That is a huge ouch, but you gotta do what you gotta do. I was wrong in reading the estimate last time. Originally they didn’t think we needed the entire VGT, but now we do. Again, it isn’t unheard of for this engine, and I did look at a number of truck fleet sites to see if I had done something wrong. Looks like I didn’t; it was just bad luck. Sigh.

After we got back I got serious about finding a luthier who could fix my ukulele crack. I finally decided on The Lutherie in Urbandale, IA (suburban Des Moines). I had a personal recommendation for him from someone I know, and I always prefer that to generic internet referrals. So my uke is in for repair (since last Thursday), and I am in withdrawal. I have been looking for a relatively inexpensive laminate baritone uke that I could leave outside a case. I asked online for recommendations, and they all pretty much said the same thing – use a humidifier in the room instead. So I am now looking for a small room sized humidifier that is easier to fill and maintain than our old one in the motorhome. I did get a new humidifier for the uke that stays in the sound hole at the recommendation of the luthier. Hopefully that works well too.

I have joined a gym too! The Gentle Gym is associated with the PT I used most recently, and they are really into restorative fitness. I have already started a Chair Yoga class, and I will get a complete fitness routine using the bikes and weights beginning tomorrow. I am looking forward to it! I have lost a bit over 20 pounds on the Mounjaro, and I just feel better all over with it. I never getting diagnosed with diabetes would improve my health and fitness LOL!

Kevin put up the little bird feeder/camera I got for Christmas. It now sits on the deck railing, and we have lots of little house finches combing to visit. We live in a very vacant and manicured lawn area with few trees, so there just aren’t a lot of birds. We have had one visit by a grackle and one by a red winged blackbird, but that’s about it.

In music information other than the ukulele, I am fully back in choir. We sang on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, and it was so nice. Easter was, of course, full of brass and organ. You could hardly hear the choir, but that’s pretty normal. It was very uplifting until I read the outrageous Truth Social post from the man who was somehow elected the President of the US. If he was a grandpa down the street, we would all be patting him on the hand and saying, “There there, no reason to get riled,” and giving each other knowing looks over his head. Instead this demented and dementia-riddled man holds our nuclear codes. Happy Easter!

The area around Death Valley

We stayed at The Pads until 17 March. The heat wave that hit the Western US hit us hard, so there was limited sitting outside and a lot more car trips. One took us Oatman, home of the (very tame) wild donkeys. They are famous for just walking up to people looking for some of the alfalfa pellets the stores sell. The community supports them through veterinary care and just generally spoils them. This time there were more donkeys on the road into town than in the town proper.

Oatman is a fun little tourist trap. We were there during the week, and it was still so crowded we couldn’t find a place to park. Here’s a video I took of most of one side of the street. The other side is equally crowded. Sorry for the portrait mode.

https://youtu.be/p6asGj36EtI?si=NFXKj76qf8aMSi6t

We also took a trip to the China Ranch Date Farm. It is a working date farm that is pretty impressive. Their date shakes are famous, and are the best we have ever had. In addition to the farm, they have a lovely desert landscaping. They also protect part of the Amargosa River that comes above ground for a while, disappears below ground, and then comes back above ground. Fascinating biology all around it too. We bought a bunch of dates to take home.

One of the interesting views is the wash you drive through to get to the ranch. Here’s a video of that to give you just a feel. There are a number of small mine diggings all around plus a few larger tunnels that are fenced off.

https://youtu.be/tllv9mf88dU?si=Vem-iwdO-_k34t3G

We also visited Shoshone again. Obviously we ate at the Crowbar, but we also visited the old mining dugouts. Shoshone is at the southern end of Death Valley, and the summer temps are brutal. The miners in the area discovered they could dig into the soft rock for a temperature-controlled dwelling. These are mostly protected as historic structures. Note the smokestacks sticking up.

After such an enjoyable sojourn in the Death Valley area, we decided to head out before the temps got unbearable. We took the south route to Baker, CA then up the long grade to Nipton, CA on our way to Needles where we planned to spend the night. But for only the second time in 106,00 miles, I got a check engine light on the motorhome. After some investigation, we decided we should head to Las Vegas and Velocity Freightliner service. They have done work for us before, and, while expensive, they have a good reputation. We stayed at the North Las Vegas Elks Lodge until our appointment on Monday, 23 March. It was one of those good news/bad news things. What was wrong (low pressure at the turbo) was easily fixable, but parts are on a 60 day lead time! We need a new VGT and the manifold needs new gaskets and such (leaking). Sigh. Parts aren’t awful for a diesel (just under $4000), but labor brings the total to over $10K. Ouch! But no one ever said a diesel Class A is an inexpensive hobby. We thought about it overnight, staying in Velocity’s RV spot, and decided to leave the motorhome with them and just drive home in a couple of days. We are now at the Clark County Shooting Range with FHUs and a nice view of the city lights. We got a storage unit for the RZR so we can use the pickup bed for boxes. It is a good thing we decided to get it fixed here. Even driving the 15 miles to the campground put enough stress on the engine that the AC turned off! We plan on leaving Thursday after dropping the MH off at Velocity. They have a very secure storage area surrounded by a high voltage electric fence!