Saturday, February 6, 2016
I'm trying some new software on my iPad for this post, so if it looks a little different, that may be why..
It's been a fun last few weeks here in the desert. As my previous posts alluded to, El Nino beat us up here pretty hard for a couple of weeks – rain and cold weather was quite depressing, but we were treated to periodic peaks at the sun.
Fred and Ginger may be disappointed but - we did throw in the towel on the dance classes they had here. Neither of us were getting anythng out of it other than frustration as the instructor was just simply moving too fast for us. We would both like to dance however, so we will be looking into classes again some time down the road..
We've made a number of trips out into the desert - actually, to this point, we've logged over 500 miles in our exploration of the local Sonoran desert and surrounding mountains. Our health is actually better than it has been in a very long time. Dar is getting much stronger and today she managed to navigate about 100 yards in an upslope hike over rocks and around cactus.. We're both still trying to get used to being retired and believe me, that is a challenge. I feel guilty for enjoying myself during the normal work-week and think about my team and friends at work a LOT. I hope I am not repeating myself too much from previous blog posts.
In the picture below, if you look at the two mountains on the horizon, we live just to the right of those... 
Be careful when lifting rocks up in the desert. You may wake up something that was napping!
As you may know or have surmised, I'm not just a car nut, but an airplane nut as well. I'm also a licensed pilot... Many years ago, I tried flying remote control airplanes and failed miserably - this failure resulted in the transformation of a couple thousand dollars into a very expensive lawn dart in about thirty seconds. Well, that was back in 1983. Fast forward to a month ago, and we purchased an RC Flight Simulator and a couple weeks later, a battery powered trainer plane.. The technology has changed dramatically since my first shot at it. Now you would think that since I can fly a full sized airplane that a little model airplane would be a snap! While aeronautics theory is helpful, those piloting skills mean very little in flying models and actually I think it works against you to some degree. Long story made short - I found it difficult to NOT transpose myself to flying in the cockpit when actually I need to maintain control perspectives hundreds of feet away while standing on the ground and sometimes those controls are reversed..
I'm happy to report that While I've had a couple of rough landings, so far I have not managed to crash this little plane. There are reports of special magnets that are in tall cactus though and they attract little planes like bugs to blue-lights in the summer!
On Thursday, January 23rd, we managed to check off one of Dar's bucket list items and we went to the Barrett-Jackson Auto Auction in Scottsdale AZ. I had been there back in 2010 and it was a similar experience. Many hundreds of special cars and trucks of all types.. We had a great time and wonderful mid-70's weather. Along with many muscle cars and street rods, We got to see the new Porsche 918 Spyder and the new Ford GT!
By the way, I have finally cratered after years of being prodded and have opened up a Facebook account. It is a different way of interacting with friends and I've gotten connection requests from people I've not heard from in many years - even requests from people I don't even know.. I'm taking it slowly though..
We want to post a special thanks to those that are watching our place back home in Kenyon.. We think about you all often and look forward to seeing you again soon!
That's our update for today.. I will try to update more frequently...
