Home2 with Roger and Susan

Maggie

Our Maggie Mae was about nine months old when we got home from last winter in May. We talked to her Vet about getting her spayed. Their schedule put that out into early July. Just a day or two later she went into heat. We had her in lady doggie diapers for about three weeks. The Vet said Maggie needed to wait until August. We got her on their schedule for then.

In the meantime, she was on a short leash on walks and a close watch when she was out. We wanted no mishaps, there were none.

I was a bit anxious the day of her surgery. There was no real reason to be I guess, just the pre-surgery flutters. Maggie had a big patch of her tummy shaved for surgery.

The stitches were not dainty but functional. Maggie left them alone so no “cone of shame” was needed. We did take an old Tshirt and made a snug tube top for her to cover the stitches. It was all she needed.

In two weeks the stitches were out and Maggie was just fine.

And just up the hill, Maggie has a best friend, Scooter. He is about 3 months older than Maggie, has a curlier coat, and weighs about a pound more then Maggie. They have very similar color coats.

Maggie has a red collar. The two of them have an off-leash play time four or five days a week. They run and wrestle until they are worn out and have to stop for a break and then they do it some more.

Sometimes it is wet and a bit muddy. No matter, they just get dirty.

No problem, Maggie gets an outside bath in her wading pool.

These play dates always wear Maggie out. You can see here that her tummy is back to normal.

Roger

After riding my three-wheeled bike last winter and trying out Susans’s electric one, I decided to add an electric assist to mine. I got it done in early July and then rode about 60 miles a month. I like it a lot.

There is a bike trail that runs near our home and it leads West out to Schaar’s Bluff Park overlooking the Mississippi River and then further to the trailheads at Spring Lake Park. It is about 8 miles one way and if you add up all of the ups and downs, it has about 800 ft of elevation change each way. It is some work to ride but it is a beautiful trail. Near the trailhead, Dakota County has a small but growing bison herd.

There are about a dozen bison now and the herd will grow to about twice that.

Several cows and calves.

And a single bull.

I enjoy riding. This winter in Orange Beach I am hoping to ride perhaps 150 miles a month. We will see.

Good news on the medical front. In the Spring and again in the Fall, lab tests and physical exams show no return of the lymphoma from 20 months ago. Six PSA tests in a row indicating undetectable mean that surgery, 6 months of drug treatments, and 8 weeks of radiation treatments have done what we hoped for, the prostate cancer is in full remission. I am on a 12-month check-up schedule for lymphoma and a six-month (up from three) PSA test schedule. Good news indeed.

Ribs

I like smoking and eating ribs but in a moment of very little grace, I got tangled up in my own feet and fell over into the grass. I landed on my right side and without thinking tucked my arm in tight perhaps to protect my shoulder which had been damaged and repaired about 9 years ago. I don’t know the mechanics of what happened but it hurt quite a bit and when I went to see the Doc the next morning the X-rays showed three broken ribs on the upper right back side.

They gave me enough Rx drugs for about 6 days. Believe me, it was not enough. I had to get by on Tylenol and ibuprofen. I also tried the pain relief patches and cold packs. It all helped some. I slept in a chair for almost a week and then finally got back into bed at night.

By three weeks I was doing some easier tasks. I got back to Habitat in the fifth week. That was a tough day. I was back at it the next week.

The Docs told me six weeks to heal up. Maybe for 30-year-olds. For me, it was longer. I had another broken rib and some other internal damage from a car crash 20 years ago. They seem to be back to haunt me as well. But now most is all well and good. My best advice? Don’t break your ribs. Don’t fall. We are old and much more fragile than we were 40 years ago.

Garden Projects

We refinished the bridge over our front yard dry creek bed. It is a task done every 4-5 years. The bridge is over 20 years old now and holding up well with regular maintenance.

It looks good after a good cleaning and a coat of oil-based finish. Once it was all dried up we replaced the anti-slip runner (which fits over the darker color on the bridge deck).

It was somewhat dry this summer but the gardens looked very nice with Susan’s care.

We added a wooden screen in front of the electrical boxes, switches, and meters next to the garage door.

It looks good and Susan found plant holders that hang on it.

We added roll-up screens to the garden deck on the back side of the shop. They hide the view of the garden bench and equipment from the house and provide some afternoon shade. These were inexpensive and very functional.

We added steel roofing below the solar panels on the garage so that snow will just slide off the panels into the steel roof and off the roof. I think it will work, we hope we won’t be here to see it.

It was a busy summer. We stayed home to get projects done. There were other projects, too many to list them all. We had a great 4th of July Picnic with long-time friends. Busted ribs threw a curve ball at us but we worked through it. Once again Susan’s care and help made all the difference.

Fall is upon us. I am quite sure the number of leaves falling from our forest is in the billions. It sure seems like it blowing them all back into the woods where they belong. We had our big oak trees trimmed as we were getting ready to head south. A final grass mowing and winter fertilizer and seed were laid down. Our lists of get-ready-to-leave tasks came out and are getting checked off, one task at a time.

The time to head south one more time is close.

More Later, Much Love.

Roger, Susan, and Maggie

Back to work at Habitat for Humanity

I missed quite a bit of the last two summers at Habitat for Humanity. I wanted to try to make up for some lost days.

My 3M Retirees Habitat Regular crew worked 4 days a week starting in April through early November and then switched to 2 days a week until next spring. We are building 6 homes, three twin homes, in Saint Paul Park. That is nice for me, just 20 minutes from home. By mid-May the first home was well under way.

Scaffolding follows the building up on each building. It helps with each level and provides a lot of safety for us old folks.

Two of our crew turned 90 this year.

Joe on the left, and Dick on the right, both celebrated their birthdays at the work site. Dick brought cake, I brought ice cream. And Jim Ramberg in the middle, came to join in. These three are all special friends and we are all glad to see Joe and Dick still working one day a week or more.

Many hands make the project forward quickly. The first building is ready for siding. The second building is getting framed up.

Garages too.

The second building had a hip roof. The ends were built on the ground and lifted using a crane.

My job was getting the trusses lined up.

The first building is sided and the interior work is underway.

By late September, the second building was ready for siding and the third building was going up.

Jim Ramberg has retired from construction work but passed on his many skills to everyone he worked with. I learned a lot from him especially about building stairs and framing porches and decks. He always said he learned as much from me as well. It was an honor to build with Jim and every day that I can pass along new skills or methods to another builder reflects back on all that I learned from Jim.

Building stairways is an exercise in careful measuring, paying attention to details, doing the math, marking the lines, and sawing as precisely as you can. After you have done twenty or thirty stairways the process gets easier and faster but the details stay the same. In this summer’s six homes, there are 24 sets of stairs. Lots of practice and opportunities to help others learn new skills.

I also worked at two other HFH homes this summer. One was a rehab of an old home in St Paul and the other was a new home in Minneapolis. They were with the Builder’s Circle Group of financial supporters of Habitat. I work on one or two of these homes each summer, usually one day each. I enjoy working with different people and getting a chance to meet other supporters of Habitat. They come from all walks of life and backgrounds. We all share the vision of safe and affordable homes for families.

I worked on the front porch stairs and handrails on the home in Minneapolis.

This work with Habitat is more than just building homes, it is building a community. We work together for a shared common goal, the fellowship we have with each other, and the friendships that form and grow over time. For a group of older folks, this gets us out of the house, moving, and doing. We call it Senior Day Care. In a way it is, we care for each other. All of us benefit in many ways from the work we do, especially the families that will live in the homes we help build.

More Later, Much Love.

Roger 🔨, Susan 📖, and Maggie 🐾

We arrived home somewhere around May 1 in the late afternoon or early evening. All that seemed to matter was that we got home.

On our way home from Fredericksburg, we stopped at the Winstar Casino just into Oklahoma, then another Casino at Tonkawa, and a third casino at Osceola, IA. Nothing terribly exciting, but spaced out conveniently. From there we pushed home from Albert Lea, MN where we filled up with diesel fuel and arrived home shortly before dark.

When we left last November, Maggie was just 11 weeks old. Now she was almost 9 months old. Quite a difference for all of us. She had gone from a little puppy to a young lady. Still a puppy but a bit more grown up.

We went into the house, turned up the thermostats from 50 to 65, and turned on the water heater and the water pump.

We left the house to warm up overnight, opened the barn, pulled out a big cable, and plugged in the coach. We raised the satellite dish, made some supper, walked the dog, watched something on TV, went to bed, and slept soundly after a long day’s drive.

The next day was the start of several days of moving from the coach back into the house. It doesn’t happen quickly. Like loading in the Fall when we depart, it is a slow process. It happens every year, there is a lot of shared clothes and equipment. And food to move as well. As we empty the coach we try to clean it as we go so it is ready to go next time.

Second Spring

When we left Fredericksburg it was spring. The grass was green, the trees had leaves, and the spring wildflowers were everywhere. The days were warm, the evenings just a bit on the cool side. Perfect enough that it was hard to leave. We said goodbye to our many friends in Fredericksburg and headed North.

Each day turned back the seasonal clock by at least a week. Our second day saw fewer leaves on the trees, and not quite as much green in the fields. On the third day there were only the very early tree buds and now green on the fields was much less than the brown. On our last day heading home, the trees were bare, the fields brown and it looked just like it did in November when we left Minnesota.

It would have been nearly the same if we had returned home at the beginning of April or the end of April. The big difference is suffering through an extra month of the end-of-winter brown. When we get home in early May the grass is waiting for that first warmish day to almost overnight turn green. The trees have been sucking up the juice that makes them do what trees do for some time. The buds are stuffed with it and some plant trigger makes them explode, unfurling themselves to grab as much sunlight as possible.

All of this happens in what seems an impossibly short time, it is a couple of weeks of course, but the time-lapse in our attention span speeds it up.

And those new leaves, just opening to the sun, are an impossibly pale shade of green. This shade of green in the morning sun which is at lower angles than later in the summer, is soft and delicate. And it only lasts for a few days.

And once, maybe twice a year, sometimes never, an overnight or early morning rain wets down the tree trunks, not yet quite sheltered by the tree canopy umbrella. They turn a dark chocolate color to contrast with the soft green of the damp and glistening new leaves. At least in our backyard, if we are looking.

It is a beautiful thing to see when it happens.

More Later, Much Love

Roger, Susan, and Maggie

We left Alabama in late February on our way to Fredericksburg. Houston is home to many friends so we stopped there on our way.

Rudy and Carolyn live near Baytown in the South East part of the Houston area. They have a covered parking space at the corner of a 200-acre plot, part of a much larger dispersed sod farm. The sod farm is owned by a family, Mark runs the business, and he and Rudy are friends.

The sod farm has several thousand acres spread out in this area. The covered RV parking spaces in the corner of this plot are big enough for three RVs. Rudy and Carolyn are under the bigger cover and Mark’s chief mechanic and his family are under the other one. Rudy fixes Aqua Hot RV heating systems and there is plenty of room for visitors (like us) and people bringing their motorhomes in for service.

Having someone living at the field helps prevent unwanted visitors from driving on the grass field. The field is irrigated. While we were there Maggie enjoyed the wide open field, running and chasing her tennis balls.

We went to see Scott and Carol and Bill Blackmon who are all on the far north side of the Houston area. It took almost an hour and a half to get there, all on several interstate segments. Scott smoked ribs for dinner. Carol made salad and side dishes. It was a wonderful dinner and fun to see everyone. Scott and Carol have a dog named Harley. He is smaller than Maggie but weighs about the same, a solid dog. We put down Maggie’s water bowl and she shared it with Harley. But when she tried to get a sip from Harley’s water bowl he was not so willing to share. There was some barking and snarling and snapping. Maggie’s lip was bleeding a bit. She retreated to my lap for first aid. It quickly stopped bleeding and then all was OK again now that boundaries had been set.

After dinner and dessert and some chat time, we headed back to the sod farm. There is a new toll-way around the east side of Houston. We did not have a Texas Toll-Way Pass so they bill you by mail after taking your car’s photo as you drive by. It took the same time but was longer. Very little traffic, very easy. It took two months to get a toll bill in the mail.

On Saturday we went to the Monument Inn in La Porte, Texas. Rudy drove. We followed an unfathomable route (at least to me) down this road and that until things started looking familiar and there it was, right on the Houston Ship Channel, just 45 minutes away, just over there in Texas. We have been here several times. Keith and Jo joined us for dinner.

Dinner was excellent as it always is. I tried their crab-stuffed jalapenos appetizer and a bowl of wonderful seafood gumbo. The stuffed jalapenos are large and very tasty, you get 6 for $10. And the gumbo was $7. And to get rolls and cinnamon buns too. I brought 4 of the stuffed jalapenos home. We always enjoy dinner at the Monument Inn.

After dinner, we all went back to Rudy and Carolyn’s to visit more. Keith and Jo got to meet Maggie. The trip home was across the Ship Channel on the free ferry and then just 20 minutes to home. Go figure.

Rudy is driving the ferry.

We were just along for the ride.

Good friends and a nice visit with all of them.

On Sunday we headed for Fredericksburg. We had to go across the south side of the Houston metro area on I-10. It takes almost an hour and Sunday traffic is not too bad. Half of the route to Fredericksburg is state and US highways which make it a pretty nice 4-5 hr drive.

We go across the far south edges of the Austin metro area. It used to be mostly rural but is quickly changing with new residential, commercial, and industrial development. Tesla’s factory is down there somewhere, just another immense building surrounded by others. Where does the water and power come from to support all of this? This used to be a brief slowdown, but now it takes more and more time. Lots of construction, and eventually a new East-West toll road to speed things up.

Turn left at Johnson City and another half hour or so to Fredericksburg. When we first came here it was all rural ranch land. Cows liked it and someone discovered grapes do too. Ranchlands are now dozens of vineyards and wineries owned and developed by newcomers and investors. It is a huge new industry here and a big tourist attraction.

At home, it has been snowing heavily, then raining, then snowing again.

When we were kids, no one had a snow blower it was just a shovel and the snow went up on the pile next to the driveway, a snow canyon just wide enough for the family car.

It almost looked like this, for a five-year-old the piles sure seemed this high. And some winters they may have been.

We arrived, got settled in, started deploying the accessories, and checked in with Peggy, Norm, Mike, and Jackie. Springtime in Fredericksburg is quite pleasant and we are glad to be here.

The girls snuggle up for a quiet morning.

More Later, Much Love,

Roger and Susan and Maggie

This year in Orange Beach we had visitors. Usually, we are there on our own, we make new friends every year and often they are back when we return. This year we met a couple from North Carolina, Curt and Julia. They had two small dogs so we saw them often while walking Maggie. They were two sites away from us and are returning next winter. Curt and I went to see the new Avatar movie one afternoon. It was a good movie. We enjoyed their company.

This year there were many more electric bicycles and three-wheeled trikes like ours than we have seen in the past. There were many more electric bikes and trikes than non-electric ones. It probably is representative of the age of most of the folks in the park at that time of the year. If an e-bike gets older folks out and moving then they are a great addition.

Surprisingly, the winter is considered the “off-season” in Orange Beach. The condos and the RV Parks and the State Park are full of mostly older snowbirds, not like the crazy summer days with active families having adventures, eating out, and shopping every day. Family time at the beach in the summer is the “high season.”

In January our friends Jeff and Sandy from North Carolina stopped by on their way to Arizona as did Hans and Marjet from South Carolina who were going to Arizona with Jeff and Sandy.

I went to see the USS Alabama Battleship one day with Jeff and Sandy. I followed the tour routes one way, they went a different way. We didn’t have lunch there.

There was a seaplane launching catapult at the stern end of the battleship and a crane to hoist the plane back on board after it landed in the water. It seems like it would have to be pretty calm for this to work.

And way down in the engineering spaces at the bottom of the ship, there were eight boilers each with six burners. The Alabama was able to reach 25 knots on only 4 boilers. The top speed of 27.5 knots took all eight boilers. The fuel capacity of the ship is 2.1 million gallons. That is more than 11,000 times the fuel capacity of our motorhome!

It must have been very hot place to work.

And the boilers needed fresh water. The ship was able to convert 40,000 gallons of seawater to fresh water every day for the boilers and crew. The ship’s water tanks held 118,000 gallons of fresh water.

We had a potluck supper one evening. We made Barbecue Shrimp using a recipe from Pascal’s Manale Restaurant in New Orleans. Jeff and Sandy brought southern gumbo from a local seafood place. Hans and Marjet brought salad. It was fun. Way more food than we needed which is always the case with a potluck. We had enough leftover shrimp for several more meals.

Hans and Marjet have two Goldendoodles, Jazzy and her son, Storm. Storm’s father is Jax and his father was Calhoun. Maggie’s father was also Jax so Storm and Maggie have a common grandfather, Calhoun.

The dogs all got along quite well, especially Maggie and Jazzy. They both piled onto Marjet’s lap one evening when they joined us for a campfire.

Jeff and Sandy and Hans and Marjet left for Arizona. We got back to our everyday routines.

Susan and I drove over to Pensacola, FL about 45 minutes away to get fresh scallops. Our destination was Joe Patti’s. It is a big fish market. They also have a nearby restaurant.

Inside the fresh fish market, there was a very long counter with every kind of fish you might want. You took a number and when a counter person called your number, you told them what you wanted and you moved to the appropriate place on the counter. I was looking for sea scallops for a special dinner (our 47th anniversary). They had just what we wanted. Dinner was wonderful.

In February my cousin Sue and her husband Lloyd came for a visit. They stayed in a nearby condo. They had been spending a couple of winter months in Panama City Beach, Florida for many years. Changes in the condo rental market there had them looking for other options. So they were exploring Orange Beach and Gulf Shores choices.

We went out for lunch at the Sea ‘n Suds restaurant which is on the beach in Gulf Shores. Food is good and you are on the beach. And several other meals as well. We played a couple of Quiddler games too.

There were many condos to check out and it seems there is no easy way to look at and compare several choices at one time. They had to call lots of different sources, most had no units to look at, they were all occupied. So they had their work cut out for them. They found a couple of choices that would work. They are working on what will work for them. One thing is for sure, they want to get away for a good chunk of the Minnesota winter.

We did manage to get to the beach one day while they were here, the very green lawn anyway.

Puzzles

We bought a puzzle for Maggie. Something for her to solve to get treats.

She figured it out quickly. We have two more puzzles for her, more complicated. She seems to like the challenge and figures them out without too much trouble.

After Sue and Lloyd left we had just a couple of weeks left in Orange Beach. The flowers were in bloom at the RV Resort.

We were off to Houston to see friends there and then on to Fredericksburg. But first Maggie needed her second visit to the groomer for a trim.

Still the teddy bear look but all trimmed up. She got a bath, her nails trimmed too. Maggie is 23 weeks old and 25 lbs at this time. Her puppy teeth are getting replace with adult teeth. We managed to find a couple baby teeth and then lost them again.

We made our reservations for next year, got out for dinner with Curt and Julia and started getting ready to leave.

More Later, Much Love.

Roger and Susan and Maggie.

We have been to Orange Beach and the Gulf Shores area before and keep coming back. We have reservations for next year as well. The following link will show other posts from Orange Beach.

https://home2rv.com/?s=“Orange+Beach”

We ask ourselves why and the answer is pretty simple. 1) The weather is much better than at home in Minnesota. 2) The Sun Outdoors Orange Beach RV Park is nice and we like the row against the tall pines. When you stay here for 90 days or more there is no state or city lodging or hospitality taxes. That saves about 16% or so. And the long-term stay discounts are almost 60% off the normal daily rates. 3) The RV park is adjacent to Gulf State Park and has direct bicycle trail links to the State Park’s paved bike trail system. This gives us easy access to about 40 miles of trails in the park and to the trails in Gulf Shores which lead to the beachfront park.

And the Orange Beach/Gulf Shores area is on the gulf side of the Inter-Coastal Waterway making it an island. Gulf Shores bill itself as a “Small Town, Big Beaches”. There is more of each city on the mainland too but it is the small-town aspect of this area that we like. Everyday life on an island means everything you need is close by, ten minutes at most. That part of life here really appeals to us.

Maggie’s First Bike Ride

We brought along a basket that attaches to the rack on the back of the bike. It is about 14” square when opened up and folds flat when not in use.

We put a towel in it and loaded Maggie in it with a tie-down to make sure she didn’t jump out and tried it out in the RV park. It took a few trial runs for her to figure it out. She was close enough that I could reach back with a treat when needed. And we needed to understand her new signals that she wanted to stop for a potty break.

It didn’t take long before she was good at riding. She would stand up in the box on her hind legs and put her front paws on my shoulders and let her ears flap away.

We rode all over the State Park this way. Lots of people would comment that it was cute. We did discover that if Susan rode in front of us Maggie would start whining. If Susan was behind us it was fine. Maybe she wanted to be in the lead or if she saw Susan ahead she thought we were being left behind.

Even if Maggie was just going for a ride she seemed to get very tired. There was always time for a nap. It is interesting to note her color at this point. Much darker than it becomes later.

Maggie was growing quickly. The picture above shows just how much in only a month since she came to us.

A Day at Dauphin Island

One of the things we wanted to do while we were in Alabama this winter was to take the ferry to Dauphin Island and explore a bit. There are two RV parks there that we wanted to look at. And it turns out that the beaches on Dauphin Island are dog friendly.

The ferry across Mobile Bay leaves from Fort Morgan on the far west end of the island. It is 31 miles from Gulf Shores. There really is a Fort there that dates back to the 1830s.

https://ahc.alabama.gov/properties/ftmorgan/ftmorgan.aspx

The Ferry docks are right next to the Fort. We paid for our tickets and got in line.

It didn’t take long and the ferry was coming into the docks. It goes either way, loads, and unloads from either end.

Maggie has graduated from her box in the back seat to just the back seat. She has her own seat belt and usually just sleeps while we are driving.

It was a nice sunny day, the bay was calm. There is ship traffic and oil drilling rigs in the bay.

The ferry ride is about 45 minutes and arrives at the east end of Dauphin Island. Fort Gaines is also at the end of the island. Together with Fort Morgan, the two forts protected the opening to Mobile Bay.

See https://fort-gaines.com

We followed the road around the east end past Fort Gaines to a big beach. We wanted to give Maggie a chance to run.

It was a big beach, with lots of white sand and we were by ourselves so Maggie got to run off-leash and dig holes in the sand, and just play in the sun.

There were two RV parks to check out, one was a pretty full city park. Narrow winding roads connected the close-together sites. Most of the RVs that were there were trailers or fifth wheels. Just a couple of motor homes, maybe one that was 40 ft. Parking for tow vehicles was limited. Probably not a place we would stay at for a couple of months, maybe for a week or so.

The other was a park behind a small convenience store across the street from a beach. It had about 10 spots in the rear parking lot. Ugh.

We went to the Pirate’s Cove Bar and Grill for lunch, a place that said it was dog friendly. There was a line and the person taking names said that the outdoor patio was wet from the rain the night before and they weren’t seating anyone out there. Bummer.

So our next choice was Miguel’s Beach’n Baja, a take-out Southern Mexican place. The food was great, the outdoor picnic tables were dog friendly, and the owner had diet cherry Coke. Something we have never seen before or since. It was good, sort of like a diet Dr Pepper.

Lunch in the sun at a picnic table with Maggie was perfect.

You can drive from one end of Dauphin Island to the other in about 15 minutes. We talked to a couple on the ferry who had left their car at Fort Morgan and brought their bikes to ride around the island. Their fare was about 1/4 of the price for a car and 2 passengers.

The main road runs east and west, much of it is a divided boulevard. A north-south road heads north to a causeway over part of the bay to the mainland.

I was last here on Dauphin Island in 2010 while working on Habitat Homes on the west side of Mobile Bay after Hurricane Katrina. On the weekend, we drove down to Dauphin Island for the Mardi Gras Parade. It went down the main east-west boulevard and it was pouring rain, a hard rain. It stopped nothing, the route was lined with people on both sides of the road, and most were wearing garbage bags with appropriate holes for heads and arms that were handed out by the parade organizers. The parade went on, baubles and beads were tossed, and moon pies bounced across the pavement for anyone brave enough to eat them. The time before that was in 1976 when Susan and I ended up here at a campground on part of the island that is long gone from later hurricanes. It was our first RV trip together. And we are still doing it together.

Dog Park

There is a nice dog park in Orange Beach. We went there a couple of times every week with Maggie. Just like at the beach, she gets to run, chase the ball, and dig holes. Sometimes there are other small dogs there to play with as well.

A Day at the Beach

We liked going to the beach but they are off-limits to pets. But the lawn areas along the beach sidewalks are not. We visited the lawn several times, often bringing lunch.

First Haircut

Goldendoodles have hair that grows and needs to be trimmed regularly. Maggie has a wavy coat that is not as tightly curled as a curly coat. It is easier to brush and can be trimmed a little less frequently. It was time for Maggie’s first trim. It would still be a puppy cut with the teddy bear look, just shorter.

She got a bath, a trim, and some cute bows.

A New Biking Experience

Maggie is getting bigger, she doesn’t fit so well in the box on the back of the bike. So we got a dog cart for her.

We started with several rides around the park to get her used to it. She did pretty well. At first, she didn’t like being further away from us, the cart fits on both of our bikes and just like with the box, she didn’t like it if the other person was in front. We got in a lot of miles with Maggie in the cart. We rode to a nice dog-friendly restaurant in the State Park for a late breakfast one day. We brought Maggie’s breakfast with us. She is curious and wants to check everything out but minds her manners when we are out with her.

There is lots more to come, it seems like it is all about Maggie and it is. We knew we were taking on a big task, a growing puppy traveling in our motorhome. It was all new for all of us.

More Later, Much Love.

Roger and Susan and Maggie

Thanks for sticking with us over what is now coming up on two years while I got behind on posts, I heard from many of you wondering when the next post would arrive. There have been lots of challenges, losses, and new things to learn, and then, finally, it is time to just get on with it.

Thanks are in order.

I have to acknowledge how grateful I am for Susan’s steadfast love and devotion and support through all of my cancer surgery and treatments. She made it possible to work our way through it. I complained and griped, she listened, all she needed to do, and she is good at it. She provided the footholds to climb out of some pretty deep holes.

And to my friend Mike, who reminded me to allow people I care about and trust to know what you are going through. That act of love and trust allows them to return so much more. Care, concern, love, a listening post, and sometimes a gentle (or not so gentle) nudge to make you think about things more clearly. You get so much more in return than you ever thought was possible.

And to Bob, my “Up North” friend that I talk to almost every week, who was my never-ending source of positive reinforcement. And Lou, who always helped me stay on track. It is so easy to stray from the yellow brick road and get lost in every distraction, fear, and worry. Lou held the guiding lantern high. And Richard who has been through this himself, for reminding me that the future is a place we can get to. And finally to my dear friend, Ted, who would have been my biggest cheerleader at the finish line. I made it. Ted, very sadly, didn’t get there with me. I rang the bell as much for Ted and everyone else as I did for myself.

And to many more, all helped in their own way, many had no idea how much.

Off to Alabama

Winter in Minnesota is OK if you have to be there and travel is optional when the weather is bad. For the most part, we have been able to limit travel to the nice days when we are home and are privileged to be able to get away in the winter.

In late November, three weeks after Maggie Mae arrived and two weeks after my last radiation treatment the coach was loaded and ready to go. We took our time loading, a little bit every day. I was starting to feel the fatigue that the radiation oncologist said would set in a week or so after treatment ended and last for 4 to 6 weeks. At two weeks I was already feeling the fatigue, probably because I just didn’t slow down. And we had a puppy to deal with as well.

We have a hard time remembering just how small Maggie was when she came home. Here she is with a toy dog pal who was about 12 inches long.

It surprised us just how much puppy stuff we accumulated and were bringing with us. It includes a large basket of toys. My friend asked if she had toys, I said, “More than I ever had when I was a kid.” Most of the toys we thought would be perfect got ignored for a worn sock or a plastic bottle or just an old tennis ball. She does have a couple of small stuffed dogs that were sleep buddies to make up for the loss of her litter mates. She likes these and treats them well. A small stuffed bear, a chicken, a cow, and a turtle fill out the soft toy zoo.

We brought along a small corral made of short fence pieces and a dog crate. She was over the fence in just a couple of weeks and never really liked the crate. We donated those to the vet she saw in Orange Beach. Better to go to someone who needed them.

Ready, Steady, Go

Our tire pressures had been adjusted on both the F150 and the coach for the temperatures at the time. The weather was still pretty warm so for the first time in 12 years we de-winterized the coach’s water system and added fresh water to the tank before we left. The heat had been on for about a week, set to 40 degrees.

We were ready. The day before we left we increased the temperature in the coach to a more comfortable level. The evening before we left we turned on the engine preheat system. The morning of departure we went through the departure checklist, turning off everything in the house that didn’t need to be on, setting the house temperature to 50 degrees, double-checking everything, and finally locked up the house.

The coach was out in the driveway, the F150 connected for towing, and the barn was locked up. Nothing left to do but depart. So we did.

Maggie had ridden in the coach once before. She was still not quite big enough to jump up on the couch so Susan helped her up and sat with her for an hour or so as she rode in a pet box. She was calm and quiet. We helped her up and down when she wanted. She often slept between the front seats. She just wanted to be close to us.

The little box didn’t last long as Maggie outgrew it quickly. She was OK on the couch with some help up and down. It took a couple of weeks before she was able to jump up on the couch by herself and another month or more before she would get off on her own.

We planned our travel days to be short with several stops each day. I was feeling fatigued from the radiation treatments and we were being careful to let Maggie out frequently. So instead of a three-day trip, we planned for five. Our route changed on the first day. It looked like our second day would have led us right into a significant storm brewing in Texas and heading northeast. So we went a different way from the original plan and arranged to stop west of Saint Louis where our friends Douglas and Amanda were staying for part of November and December.

Amanda was very excited to meet Maggie. Everyone got along well. We had a few hours in the afternoon to visit, ate a pizza that was a St Louis favorite (unlike any pizza we have ever had) and played Quiddler in the early evening. It was quite cold that night and very windy as the storm moved south of us to the northeast. Cold but clear in the morning.

We had been hearing a clunking noise under the front end of the coach and the steering seemed to be getting sloppy. I crawled under the front end and had a look, it was very cold. I didn’t see anything out of order. So we packed up, said our goodbyes, and headed south.

Most of the places we were going to stop for overnights didn’t work anymore after our weather stop so we just figured out where we could get and went there.

We stopped at a rest stop and I just had to look under the front end again. There is a big steering gearbox that had been rebuilt a few years earlier. This time when I looked more closely, I could see a large bolt that was coming loose. When I touched it it fell out.

I got out from under the front end, got some tools and gloves, and crawled back under. I got the bolt started back in and threaded it in as far as I could get it by hand and then with the biggest wrench I had was able to get it as tight as I could. Then with a flashlight, I could see four slightly smaller bolts that were loose as well. A different wrench tightened two of them and a socket wrench got two more. I was pretty dirty, very cold. I hoped it was enough.

We finally got to an odd little campground in Clarksville, TN. Something about the last train rang a bell. Then off towards Nashville and south towards Birmingham. The roads through Birmingham are some of the worst we have ever seen. Many sections of the Interstate were so bad that 40 mph was a practical speed limit. Friends had recommended a campground at the (town of) Hoover Sports Complex south of Birmingham. We called and made a reservation, got there later in the afternoon, and stopped. Our short days and frequent stops plan was not working very well.

The weather was warmer, and I had a better look at the steering gearbox again, it seemed secure. I think when it was replaced they put all the bolts in by hand and never finished tightening them up.

There was plenty of room for Maggie to explore at the end of her leash anyway. The campground was a big parking lot with electrical hookups. There were water and waste connections but we didn’t need them for just an overnight stop.

Maggie was pretty happy on the couch when Susan rode with her.

We left Hoover, headed south towards Mobile on I65 then angled towards I10 east of Mobile. Then 10 miles east to Buc-ee’s. If you haven’t experienced a Buc-ee’s, they are the biggest gas station – convenience store – department store – fast food place you have ever seen. The biggest one is more than 74,000 square feet, bigger than five Trader Joe’s combined! It has the world’s longest car wash with 255 feet of conveyor. And 120 fuel pumps. It is an experience.

This Buc-ee’s even has its own two lanes on the exit ramp from I10. Past Buc-ee’s and south to the Baldwin Beach Express and then the Foley Beach Expressway to the high toll bridge over the Intercoastal Waterway and onto the island where Orange Beach is on the east end and Gulf Shores is on the west end.

Our RV Park used to be called Pandion Ridge. It was purchased a couple of years ago by Sun Outdoors, a big corporate RV park owner/developer. So now it is Sun Outdoors Orange Beach. Pandion Ridge just sounds better to me.

At the bottom of the bridge ramp, we turn right onto Canal Road and then left after 1/4 mile into the RV Park. We were parked in Site 19 at the top of the map. This row is up against rows of tall long-leaf pine trees and all of the sites are pull-in. With the front window facing the forest, the sites seem very private. Our site was about 50 feet wide and about 120 ft deep. It was wider at the end by the woods than at the road.

The driveway was wide enough for two cars, the patio was about 12 ft x 20 ft, plenty of room for our shade room, a picnic table, and an LP gas fire-pit and chairs.

We arrived at the beginning of December, set up our shade room, hung the wreath, and the festive chili pepper lights, and plugged in the awning lights. We rearranged things on the patio after our first go at it. Mostly to get the door of the shade room under the edge of the big awning.

Maggie seemed to be the focus of most of our days. She went for a walk first thing in the morning, another walk later in the morning. An afternoon walk and a couple in the evening. We started just going around one of the loops in the section of the park we were in. As she got a bit older that increased to two sections and then the entire loop. And then we just kept adding in more, especially the section from Canal Road to the office where there was a wide grassy median for Maggie to explore.

We got a few packages from Amazon every week so stops at the office were frequent. The ladies in the office always stopped to greet Maggie, they voted her the cutest dog in the park. Even if we had no package to pick up Maggie always wanted to stop in anyway.

Christmas was coming. Maggie seemed to know something was going to happen, I think she could smell a new bag of treats.

We had our “fireplace” going.

And packages carefully piled.

Maggie was exhausted from the excitement, she actually sleeps about 16-18 hrs a day in any case.

Susan and I enjoy doing jigsaw puzzles and we give each other a new set from Lee Valley Tools every year, one is a garden puzzle and one is a tool-related puzzle.

So we got to the end of December. A month in Albama. A month living with a puppy in the coach. A month of of recovery. A good month.

The weather has been quite nice. Better than we expected, mostly sunny days, some rain usually overnight, and some pretty sunsets.

We have met new folks in the park too. One couple from South Carolina with two nice dogs that get along with Maggie (she gets along with everyone.) Maggie has been to the Vet down here to continue her vaccinations and other puppy treatments. Her first haircut is coming up too.

More Later, Much Love,

Susan and Roger and Maggie Mae

We are getting older. And so are our friends and family. And we are losing some of them, seven in the last few months. We remember all of them fondly.

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My cousin, Sandy died last Fall.

Sandy grew up in MN, got married to Klaus, raised a family, and worked for many years at a Law office. We will miss her at our Senior Cousin’s lunch get-togethers.

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Our friend Ted died in November.

Ted and Karen, were long-time Foretravel friends. They were full-timers for 13 years. They stopped and sold their coach just before Covid-19. We met up with them whenever we could. We played Quiddler (a card game) using ZOOM from wherever we were every couple of weeks. Ted liked to wear silly hats when we played. In Quiddler, you use your cards to spell words and Ted would always try to make a story with his words no matter how little sense it made.

We miss Ted. He was a steady hand for me during cancer treatments, always had a smile, was a bit contrarian at times, and a good and ready friend.

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A dear friend and gracious and gentle lady, Shirl slipped away from us, her husband Norm, and her many friends towards the end of last year.

We had known them from our stays in Fredericksburg, TX where they spent the winters and went home to Colorado for the summers. Norm and Shirl moved to Fredericksburg full-time a few years ago.

Last winter when we were here in Fredericksburg she was feeling good. She was even going to Line Dancing and the Texas Two Step evenings wearing her fancy cowgirl boots.

I talked to her a couple of times, last fall. She kept her spirits up even as she began hospice care, her kids got to come and see her, and then she was gone.

There is an empty spot here in Fredericksburg without our friend Shirl. We still see Norm almost every day and many of her other friends in the RV park too on our daily walks with Maggie. Shirl is missed by everyone who knew her.

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Another Foretravel friend, Brad, lived on a small farm in western Virginia. He liked the retired farmer lifestyle. He raised feeder calves from Spring to Fall. He had a collection of tractors for every job, a Foretravel in the barn, and a big selection of side-by-side and 4-seat ATVs. He had trails that he rode on at the farm but mostly like to take his favorite (usually new) off-road machine to the desert in Arizona in the winter and the sand dunes in Idaho in the summer. He would spend a couple of months at each place. We met Brad and his wife Phyllis at both places when we had our Jeep Wrangler and went off exploring with him. He was really surprised that our Jeep could do as well as it did in the sand dunes. I told him it was just like driving in the snow.

Brad was riding one of his ATVs on a trail on his farm and had an accident that left him with serious injuries. He died shortly after. He was in his 80s doing what he liked most of all.

Brad was quite a character who will be missed by many Foretravel folks, Phyllis, and his standard poodle best buddy, Barney.

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Our friend Rudy was determined to get me to meet Chappell and his wife Mary Elizabeth who lived in Nacogdoches, TX. Chappell was a skilled woodworker because he wanted to be. Before he retired, he repaired and restored antique clocks at his shop in Houston. He brought all of this detail skill with him to Nacogdoches when they retired. Their home in Nacogdoches is like a clock museum. His small woodworking shop out back reminded me of pictures of Andy Rooney’s shop, stuff everywhere, piles of boards, machines pushed into every corner, projects underway here and there, and then emerging out the door with beautiful results. From a small box made from curly maple to a large cherry kitchen table, patience and skills learned over a lifetime were evident.

We shared our projects every time we met. We shared a lifelong passion for learning new skills and improving all the time.

Chappell was dealing with back pain when we last saw him less than a year ago. It didn’t get better and later in the year, they discovered it was because of cancer. He died shortly after this diagnosis.

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Another friend from the Fredericksburg RV Park, Curtis, exemplified (to me as I imagined it) the kinder, gentler side of a Texas gentleman just as Chappell had. Curtis and his dear wife, Peggy, have been here in the same spot in the RV park as long as we have been coming here. They have a home on a lake about 60 miles north but spend most of their time here where friends are closer. Curtis died in early January.

Curtis helped us understand a lot of the personal level of Texas history, what it was like over the past few generations in the Hill Country. And he organized twice-weekly Texas Hold’em card games. What a collection of players, mostly serious and skilled about the game. Many who we’re no longer in the RV Park. It was a $10 buy-in, and the top three at the end of the allotted time shared to pot. Sometimes there was only one or two left.

Like our Quiddler games, everyone was willing to help the new guy learn. I sort of understood the fundamentals but my strategy was weak at best. I never won any money but always enjoyed playing and the players.

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Susan’s cousin, Patsy (Patrica) died in February.

Patsy and her husband, Joe were long-time Florida residents and raised their family there. Patsy and Joe got back to see friends in Minnesota and Wisconsin. We would often see them when they did. Those trips got less frequent and then stopped after Patsy’s mom, Susan’s aunt, Jessie died.

We visited them once in our winter motorhome travels at their home near Orlando. We will miss Patsy too.

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We start seeing this as more real as we get older. When we were younger and a grandparent or maybe later an aunt or uncle would pass away, it was almost surprising. This is what happens to old people, we thought. Wait, we are old people. When my Dad died 25 years ago it hardly seemed real for a long time. And then my Mom died, leaving my generation of cousins waiting for that surprise phone call about something we have now come to expect.

Treasure and celebrate your loved ones, friends, and family. Someday you may be the sole survivor.

More Later, Much Love,

Roger and Susan and Maggie Mae

We left St Ignace and headed south across the Mighty Mac, The Mackinaw Bridge, to the lower part of Michigan. The entire bridge is 26,372 ft long, 28 ft short of 5 miles long. It is the fifth-longest suspension bridge in the world.

There are days when the winds cause the speed limits to be reduced or even close the bridge. This time and the last two times we crossed the bridge the speed limit for semis was 40 mph so that is what we did. And all three times the outside lane was closed for maintenance (painting). Susan was glad we drove on the inside lane away from the edge of the bridge but the inside lane of the main suspension section is also an open grating road surface. Probably for the wind to go through and for rain and snow drainage. In any case, it is a noisy road surface. We are still here, we made it.

East Jordan is 25 miles or so inland from the east shore of Lake Michigan. It is right at the end of the South Arm of Lake Charlevoix and a small river feeds that end of the lake. It is part of the bigger Lake Charlevoix which empties into Lake Michigan at the small city of Charlevoix.

East Jordan is pretty small and its primary claim to fame was the East Jordan Foundry where they recycled almost anything iron or steel and made cast iron manhole covers, street drains, and lots more. The foundry was right on the edge of town on the lake and made quite a racket at times. A few years ago the foundry moved to a new and modern facility several miles from town. The old site is now quiet but the new site makes even more of these cast iron things.

And East Jordan has a nice municipal campground. Perfect for us to visit Amanda and Douglas who spend the summer here in their motorhome. And they have cabins too so Ted and Karen drove up from the Cincinnati area as well. We went sailing on Douglas and Amanda’s boat, walked, played Quiddler, tossed bags of something in a Corn Hole tournament, went out for dinner, made dinners to share, and did a big pancake breakfast. More than anything we had a chance to be together, to share our time, to reinforce the bonds that make us such good friends.

Amanda and Douglas make and sell jewelry at select craft shows, one was the weekend before we arrived at South Haven a couple hours south of East Jordan. It was the International Blueberry Festival. The last time we were there blueberries were plentiful and cheap. Amanda brought us 2-10 lb boxes of fresh giant berries. They cost about $30. We had blueberries with everything including pancakes, a blueberry crumble, and especially oatmeal in the morning. All that was left were spread out on cake pans and frozen. They freeze well. We can hardly get enough blueberries.

Here they are watching an intense Corn Hole match – and making jewelry at the same time. Well, Amanda was busy.

Ted and Karen drove from the Cincinnati area. They stayed in a cabin at the campground. They brought what cooking and coffee-making equipment they needed so they were all set. And Ted brought his growler, filled with local craft beer, necessary for the big match.

We tried the local pizza shop one night for dinner, it was pretty good. We have discovered that local pizza preferences and tastes vary widely across the country. What is popular in one area may not be quite what you like.

We went into Charlevoix one day too for a bit of exploring. Charlevoix is a small town on the east side of Lake Michigan. It was a popular destination for the privileged Chicago wealthy who came to stay in fancy resorts or, as many did,

to build large homes in neighborhoods made up mostly of other wealthy owners. Most of these homes are still there. They came mostly by railroad, much easier than driving. These neighborhoods are primarily on a bay on the west end of Lake Charlevoix where there are now, and likely then as well, large marinas for big boats.

The bay is connected to Lake Michigan by a channel that is crossed by a Chicago-style lift bridge. I am sure it was simply a creek or small river that made the connection long ago and was finally dug out to make a regular channel with a lighthouse to mark the entrance.

There is a small sailing school that we visited on the bay too. People, mostly kids, start in small boats with one per boat and move up to bigger boats with two people on board and then bigger boats. Lake Charlevoix has lots of big and fast power boats but is a very popular sailing lake.

Douglas and Amanda have a 22 ft sailboat. They were hemming and hawing about buying it. It was for sale in Iowa. I told them to buy it or I would, and they did and immersed themselves in sailing jargon, techniques, and best practices. They have become competent sailors now.

Here we are in a calm state. We cannot remember the good ship’s name but we kidding called it the SS Minow. Most of our sail seemed to be at a death-defying angle to one side or the other. I think Douglas was trying for a new world speed record.

We had a great time, maybe I did more than Susan, but fun to share some time with Douglas and Amanda and their new passion for sailing.

We drove around to the east end of Lake Charlevoix for an early supper at a brewery/pub. The food was good, the company was the best.

We sat around the campfire in the evenings spinning yarns (nautical speak) and other tall tales, mostly remembering all of the great times we had shared over the several years we have known one another. None of us “live” near each other so we have to choose to make the effort to get together and share some time.

A couple of years earlier while we were in Fredericksburg, Susan and I went to the Garrison Brothers Distillery in Hye, TX about halfway to Johnson City. They make exceptional Bourbon. Ted and Karen enjoy a glass of bourbon on occasion. My last occasion was in 1984. So I decided to get a bottle to share with them. It was two years later in East Jordan when we first pulled the cork on that Small Batch bottle and began the process of sniffing and sipping and enjoying over a couple of evenings. I was keenly aware it was bourbon, it packed a wallop. Somehow with plenty of help from Ted and Karen, we managed to create an empty bottle memorial for that visit.

None of us knows what the future holds and while this trip ended with the joy of good friends sharing time we will never see Ted again. Just three months later Ted died, his heart just stopped. All of the heroic efforts to get it to restart just weren’t enough. It was shocking news, very hard on our dear friend, Karen. We miss Ted dearly.

Today is the day to renew connections, commit to getting together, call someone when you think of it, dust off memories, and celebrate all we hold most dear, what we are most grateful for. Our loved ones, our family, our friends. These are the people that get us through every day, every situation, every one of life’s challenges.

Ted was a critical foundation stone for me getting through my cancer treatments. He left us before they were complete but with the commitment and determination to see it through.

From a song by Jackson Browne, “For a Dancer” …

Keep a fire burning in your eye
Pay attention to the open sky
You never know what will be coming down

More Later, Much Love,

Roger and Susan and Maggie