To Everything There Is A Season

My Uncle Bob died this evening.  He was at home, I assume.  I had called my Aunt earlier today and learned he started going downhill on Monday.  He made it through Father’s Day able to walk with his walker and sit at the table and enjoy the meal with the family who came to see him.  On Monday he started the quick slide down.  Earlier my Aunt was going over the signs of impending death with me from the list given to her this week by hospice, and said he had most of them.  This isn’t the surprise it would have been if I hadn’t made the call earlier.

I don’t know if I’m going back to Missouri for the funeral.  The point of going when I did was to see him while he was still alive.  I’ll play it by ear.  If I think my Aunt wants me there I’ll go.

Those who watch my side bar see that Doug Begley, the author of Strolling Amok died this week as well.  He went lying in his bed in his truck camper.  His son went to check on him when he wasn’t returning phone calls.  He had just made it back to the area where his kids are.  I never met him in person but I had made notes to check out some of the places he camped.  He put a lot of detail about the places in his blog which makes them seem findable.  I’ll leave Doug’s blog up on my side bar for quite awhile.  I think I left Rod Ivers’ blog up at least a year after he passed.

I have no words of wisdom.  This is the season of my life, when I’m losing the folks who have been a part of my life.  It isn’t easy.

It was a.good trip

As a shakedown trip it went very well. The North Rim is beautiful but very different than the South Rim. The Canyon is pretty much the same, but the infrastructure is different. I only spent one night in the area, so that may be part of my opinion. I do like that dispersed (read free) camping is available closer to the Park. I also like that due to the higher elevation there are trees around the outside of the park which makes the camping much more enjoyable. I'll go back at some point.

The car works well for camping. I can sleep in it just fine. I do need to tweak a few things, but they are minor. All things considered, I hope to do more traveling in the car now.

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Made it

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On the road again

Taking the car out camping to see how I do. Off to new places. Just an overnight this time.

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Another city park

I am again killing time between shuttles. I'm at another of the city parks here. A frustration with this job, if you call it that, is that I don't feel like I can walk around the lake now as I need to head out for the next appointment soon.

Weather has been nice up here. Sweatshirt temps in the mornings, but I run the air conditioning for a few hours in the afternoon. It is still dry as there has been no rain.

My Uncle is back home from the hospital. I fly back to Missouri for a couple of days next week to see him. Told him he needs to get stronger so we can go out dancing while there. Part of the joke is he doesn't dance, ever.

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Some things don't change.

I'm sitting parked in the shade in one of the town parks. I have dropped off one ride and I'm waiting to pick up the next appointment. That raised area with a fence is the town swimming pool. I can hear the music playing and it is pretty much the stuff we listened to at our town pool in the summers growing up. I've even heard YMCA. They still play that some places, apparently. I just heard some mumbled talking, so it seems to be a local radio station. Given the average age in this town, I guess they know their audience.

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New places

My part time shuttle job, if you can call it that, has me learning about new spots. Typically I'm seeing parts of town I had no idea existed. This past week a guy who was camping out in the forests came in to town for supplies and his truck threw a rod. He called for a shuttle back to his campsite and Jerry had me do the run. I ended up finding out about a while new area of cping spots that is right on the rim. I probably won't take the motorhome up there but I may run up and camp overnight sometime to get out of town. Living in the trees now makes that not as important, but I want to get a car camping setup that I'm comfortable with for future trips back East.

So far I've talked myself down from the addi knitting needles. I found a set the right size and length (100 cm) to finish the shawl in my sets of bamboo needles. For some reason I had given up on the bamboo sets and gone back to the metal ones, but for now it is working ok. I'm 2 skeins of yarn in out of 5, so it won't be finished for awhile. This project is to relax between the baby caps.

I will do laundry today and start packing and getting sorted for my quick trip back to Missouri to see my Uncle. He is back in the hospital again as they try to get his medicines sorted out. I fly out on the 12th. I had told him I'd come out every couple of months to see him.

I'm settled into my summer.

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Work In Progress Wednesday

This odd picture is the shawl, or whatever it ends up being when I run out of yarn, that is frustrating me right now. I really like the yarn and colors. I decided on size 11 needles and garter stitch to give it a lighter weight and drape. That part is working. It is much wider than it will be long before I run out of the thrift store skeins. I think I got 5 and am 1.5 in currently.

The frustration is that the needle I was using is an interchangeable set that I have had for years. The set has been showing it's age and I've had my eye on a really nice set on Amazon. In the past 2 days I managed to break 2 of the connecting cables. There were dropped stitches each time, and a scurrying to get the stitches on to a smaller needle to use as a stitch holder. I don't know if in my collection of circular needles I have any long enough in a size 11. If I do, they are in the storage unit.

Excuse me while I head to town to the storage unit before it gets dark. Then I will sit down and pull out the credit card and buy the new shiny set of addi needles I really want. That is if they come up as far as a size 11.

Thrift store yarn is not always as inexpensive as it seems at first...

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Changes

I found a nice out of the way park on the edge of Payson to move the motor home and set up with full hookups.  There are also trees for shade. I feel more at home here than I have any place else for the past few years.  For now that means that I am going to get my patio chairs out of the storage unit and put them on the patio.  That feels settled for me.

I had a nightmare this morning.  It was time to get up, but I almost involuntarily fell back asleep.  The content of the nightmare isn’t too important, but it tells me that I have some parts of myself to confront.  I want to get out more and do more and tie up loose ends.  It is hazy in my mind the details, but I know there are a few areas I need to pay attention to.  My body is one of them, my mind another.  Diet and exercise and maybe some more supplements so I don’t hurt as much.  Learning and  off-loading some stuff that doesn’t serve me anymore are on the agenda.

I’m out in the country-ish, and saw elk bedding down for the night as I drove home in the early evening this week.  The area is good for walking.  I have time.  It is time to change gears in many ways.

Part of seeing so many elk even in town is that it is extremely dry.  The forest roads and campgrounds are closed, and more will be closed as we go along until there is a substantial amount of rain.  Driving back from Mesa yesterday I saw that the northbound side of 87 at the brake check area at Mt Ord had burned recently.  More and more spots are turning to ash as the small (and larger!) wildfires start burning.  No one is even supposed to smoke cigarettes or pipes or anything outside of a building or vehicle.  Of course out of towners think the rules don’t apply to them, so we have the burnt areas that are increasing.  Last year it was the end of July before the monsoon rains arrived.

Part of my changes are to attempt to do stuff that I can blog about.  Maybe I’ll post a bit more often.

Yeah, I’m still alive

I started a part time job this week driving for a local shuttle.  He calls, I go pick someone up and take them where they are going, usually go pick them up again after awhile.  I couldn’t live off this if I had to, but it keeps me out of trouble.  I’m probably saving more by not spending because I’m bored than I am making in money.  It is almost a service for folks here as there is little or no public transportation here.  Just a couple of these small shuttle services.

I had new tires put on the motor home, so some things are progressing.  I’m still putting things back in place from moving the motor home to get tires.  If I was moving around more I’d have to come up with a better plan for things to not move around while traveling.  Right now I just dismantle the table and move the computers someplace safe.  I’d do built-ins if I had to do this every day.

Trips away are on hold while I take advantage of making some small amount of money.  Mom is doing well.  We have our evacuation plan in place where she drives to the motor home and I drive it while she follows me driving her car in whatever direction we are told to go.  This is important as just this morning I heard bunches of fire trucks headed up the Rim.  It is wildfire season from now until the monsoons come.  I hope those rains do show up.  We didn’t get the winter or spring rains and it is very dry.  This is another reason for not leaving the area right now.  Mom can drive and follow me while I drive the motor home but she doesn’t want to drive outside of town by herself.

Summer up in the pines.