Written on 6-29-2020.
B, Kody, and I are camping at Willard Bay State Park in Utah, and we will be on our way to Boise later this afternoon to go see Danielle. We just took Kody for a walk out on the North Eagle Beach, and we will leave close to the 1:00 checkout time here. He was so funny, because he had never seen little waves coming in at the shore, and he didn’t know what to make of them. He jumped back when some of them lapped up to the shore, and he bit at them, too. It was funny to see him react to those for the first time.
Yesterday was my one of my birthdays, the brain tumor one. I now have three birthdays, since I had a stroke on September 8th. So, the dates for all of my birthdays are 1-29-67 (birth), 6-28-11 (survived brain surgery), and 9-8-19 (survived a stroke). Hopefully, I won’t have any more. That’s enough. No more, please.
Today is Matt Frings’ 26th birthday, too. That’s just past the quarter life crisis age, according to James. I am sure he will survive it. That is soooo young.
I will write more later during this trip, I am certain. It is 3 minutes past 12:00, so we are going to pack up. I am so excited! We get to see our daughter today!
Until later…
Written on 7-3-2020.
I am sitting at the dining room table in Baker Street, and it’s on the cusp of dusk here (8:42 PM) at the Green River State Park. Just like in Canada at the Algonquin Provincial Park, we had to move over to a different site today. Belinda looked for a place where we could camp somewhere on the way back home, and she found this place. Linda Crone also recommended it.
We managed to snag last night’s spot online a couple of nights ago, #32, but it was reserved by someone else tonight (a Bambi Airstream with a matching silver Toyota truck), but we were able to get spot #22 tonight. Somebody had cancelled their...
three nights at this spot, so we were grabbed the first night. B and I decided we would remain on vacation for at least one more day, a day for the just the three of us to rest and enjoy summer and the holiday. We will head back home tomorrow, but it’s been an amazing trip. It’s been amazing, but we will be ready to return. We’ve been gone since Sunday, and tomorrow is Saturday, the 4th of July. That’s a long time to be away from home. Life is great!We got plenty of one-on-one time with Danielle, and we made some new friends, too. Jean Luke, a friend and co-worker invited us over for dinner one night, and then we went river rafting the following day. We felt young and adventurous hanging out with these people.
It was a rare experience to river raft, something we had never done before, and it was so exciting and nerve racking. This was no easy, slow-going, river trip; we experienced some pretty serious rapids. How serious? Well, we were never dumped, but two of the others from our group got tossed from a tandem canoe, and our own guide, Jean Luke, was thrown overboard at the second to last wild ride, the one before Howard’s, the wild end of our journey.
The two in the tandem were okay, but one of them, Abe, hit his bum on a rock. Ouch! Jean Luke managed to grab a strap on our raft. Thank goodness, because the last bit of whitewater was the wildest of them all (Howard’s), and we didn’t want to face it alone. Belinda heard him say quietly, “Oh no,” just before going over the edge. We didn’t see him at first, but that’s because he was just behind us and below the raft. We were so relieved he was okay, and so happy they invited us.
I’m really glad we came on this trip, and this camper has been great for us. It stretches us both to be uncomfortable at times, and that’s good. Where will be stay? How do we best set up and take down the camper? For today’s lesson, we wanted to know how to maximize the air conditioner’s effect. It was hot here, a balmy 94º. Turns out closing everything up works best. Close the windows. Seal up the cupboards and trap the cold air inside. Lesson learned, but it was learned later in the evening when it was 91º, but hey, it really helped. We could be in the back of the camper on the bed well away from the air conditioner after we figured it out.
On to golf…
I will write about the golf tomorrow. We are going to get ready for bed now and watch a movie. Happy 4th of July weekend!
7-4-2020
Happy 4th of July! We are on our way home now, and we plan on stopping in Mancos to see Kyle and Kameron at the new brew pub there for lunch. They chose to come here to get out of the heat in Phoenix, escape the coronavirus for a few days, and have a vacation for the 4th of July weekend. It’s wonderful we’ll be able to see them for a little while on the way home, and it was a fluke that we are headed through Mancos today on our way home.
We ended up getting takeout from Chavolo’s and eating in the park directly behind the gas station. Eric and Amanda joined us, and it was super to see them.
Back to the golf…
I played 9 holes two separate times at the Green River Golf Course yesterday. I played nine holes in the morning from 8:30 to 10:30, and then I went back at 1:00 for the second time. Tiny mosquitos and horse flies were prevalent, but I sprayed Repel to help fight them off, and it helped. The mosquitos weren’t as bad in the afternoon, but the horse flies were still biting every few holes. It was bad, but it was manageable.
This was the first round with the new swing, and it showed me that I have a lot of work ahead of me. I was glad I was all alone, because it would have been embarrassing to make some of the swings I did with playing partners watching. Absolute shanks, slices, and pull hooks. Not pretty.
I had seven balls in my golf bag, plus an extra last resort ball I keep in the same pocket as my range finder. I started from the blues (I figured I would end up playing from them once I figure this all out, so might as well start now), and with no warm-up at all, swung four of them over the road and/or into the little creek that runs along the right side of the hole. I lost the next two after dropping on the fairway. One careened right and into a thick marsh (lost forever), and the other went left into the tall grass and the thick trees. Gone. They didn’t have a range, so I couldn’t find my swing before getting started. I was now really worried about not being able to finish. I was down to one ball left and the last resort ball, and I was on hole #1!
I managed to find some golf balls along the way, and I didn’t end up using my last resort ball until hole #7. It was a Bridgestone with my orange PS on the side, and I think I had kept it because of some incredible shot I had made with it. Sadly, I pulled the 9-iron shot with that ball and lost it forever. How I could pull a 9-iron shot so badly, I’ll never understand, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. Thankfully, after walking along the right side of the hole for a while (slicer’s paradise), I managed to find another golf ball and continue on my journey.
I am just thinking that golf resembles life in that way. Life is going along fine, and you’re making good swings (or not so good), and then all of a sudden Wham! One shot goes wayward, and you are thinking, “Oh no! How did that happen? Why?”
That’s why I am making this swing change, and that’s what I’m going to stick with it. More predictability. Less whammies. In a way, it’s like taking Eliquis. That stroke hit us both like a baseball bat to the head. I never want to experience that again, and I can say the same for Belinda. Taking a blood thinner is one of the best ways to prevent another stroke. This new swing will be my Eliquis for golf.
Here are some of the high points of this round. I putted extremely well. My short game was on point. All of that practice paid off in a big way.
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