Winter 2025-2026 (5/20/26)

 Winter is typically not a time when we do a ton of exploring. That was even true when we were full time RVers, but its more true now that we have houses.

Highlights of the fall and winter include the following:

Paul’s close friend Kirk turned 70 and had a blow out party at his cabin near Shaver Lake in California.

The weather was perfect. and the live band was awesome.

In October we joined our daughter Jess for a weekend in Palm Springs. We hadn’t seen her in months, and it was a destination we could all easily get to.

The rest of the month was pretty much spent packing up some stuff from the house in Lake Havasu.

We were supposed to close on our new house in Green Valley at the end of October, but it was delayed a week. Not too bad though.  We aren’t selling the Havasu house at this point, so in addition to packing some stuff, there was some shopping going on.

We are lucky enough to have very good friends. Once we closed on the house, Liz and Randy came to Green Valley with us and helped us move stuff into the house and install a bunch of things like light fixtures.

Of course, it wasn’t all work and no play!

Thanksgiving was in Havasu- a pretty quiet one for us, with Liz and Randy and my brother Ray and his wife Dawn.

Most of the winter was spent going back and forth between the two houses, with the holidays being in Havasu.

Christmas was also more quiet than usual with just a few friends. What was different was that Liz and Randy’s daughter and granddaughter flew in for the holiday, which added to the festivities for sure.

January and February brought more back and forth between the two houses, and also some prep for a big party in Havasu.  Paul turned 70 in February, and wanted a birthday bash. So he got one.

Friends came from all over the country- and even though quite a few couldn’t make it, we had a blast!

Along with the invited guests, we had some UNinvited guests. A swarm of bees decided to plop themselves down on our bougainvillea bush for the afternoon. And they did NOT like the band warming up. Might have been the bass.

The fire department was called, but of course they couldn’t do anything about them.  I was getting nervous because all bees in AZ are Africanized and usually aggressive. I was hoping we weren’t going to have to move the entire party inside. It turns out they settled down, much to my relief.

So the party moved forward, with much eating, drinking, and dancing….

Because most people came from such a distance, we actually partied for several days before saying goodbye to most of the guests- but not all of them. We sort of just moved a smaller party down to the new house in Green Valley so we could show the house to our friends Mike and Julie, who had flown in from Florida.

We hadn’t been there very long when I got a devastating phone call from my brother Ray, who has a winter place in Mesa AZ and was at our party.

 

Our younger brother Richie had gone into cardiac arrest and we initially got no more details. Richie lives in Massachusetts and was born with intellectual disabilities, so Ray and I are his guardians.  We both got the first flights out that we could. We went straight to the hospital and met up with our sister.

Unfortunately the news was not good. After determining that there was no brain activity, we made the only decision that felt right. We decided to donate his organs so that others could live longer and healthier lives.

 

That is the only reason I really shared that personal story. I have been amazed at how many people realize of course that organ donation is a thing, but never really thought about it in terms of themselves or other close family members. Although the decision was an easy one, it was not an easy thing to go through. However.....

Thinking about the people he helped, helped all of us cope with our loss. His kidneys went to two different people in their 50s, and his liver went to a woman in her early 20s. His heart was used for researching valve transplantation.

So, anyway, if there is anyone out there who has thought about organ donation but hasn’t done anything about it per se, it would be a great idea to let your immediate family know what your wishes are, and to find out what Their wishes are.

After spending a couple of weeks in Massachusetts, we all returned to Arizona.

Everything Lincoln (8/1/25)

 

Plotting our trip back west, of course with it being the height of summer, we were trying to stay north ish and find things to do that were along our route. Given the weather, hiking is pretty much out. It’s been over 90 almost every day and the humidity has been soaring.

That had us looking for indoor things to do and since presidential libraries seem to be sort of a theme this summer, we looked to see which ones were at least semi along our path.

Lincoln was one of them.

Although Lincoln was born in Kentucky, he lived much of his pre-presidential adult life in Springfield Illinois.

Growing up very poor, in a one room cabin, he had very little access to formal education. Nonetheless he taught himself to read and write well enough that he was able to secure an apprenticeship to an attorney and was himself admitted to the Illinois Bar in 1836.

 

As a young man he arrived in Springfield with his brand new law degree, no money, and no place to live.

Luckily he immediately made friends and soon flourished in town, beginning a job as a lawyer in a law firm. He met his wife Mary, and after a courtship, they married, and had 4 children. Before leaving Springfield he had become quite successful as an attorney, and had served as both a state legislator and a member of the U.S House of Representatives.

Slavery was of course one of the biggest issues of his time and Lincoln was 100% against it. Southern states allowed it, northern states did not. 

Of course, the situation was much more complicated than I would want to get into but in 1854 the Missouri Compromise, which prohibited slavery in all remaining territories was essentially overturned, opening all territories to slavery. He was so outraged, he made the decision to run for president. So, he arrived in Springfield a pauper, and 25 years later he left as the president elect.

The museum was clear to point out that from the moment of his assassination, Americans have not seen Lincoln clearly. He wasn’t a popular candidate for president….he ran against 3 other people and only received 39%  of the popular vote- but he did secure the majority of the electoral college votes and became the first Republican president.

One of the displays is a TV news show starring Tim Russert, reporting on the election as if it was taking place in modern times. Very entertaining.

 Many Americans were upset that Lincoln won, in fact, before he even took office, several states had seceded from the union, with South Carolina leading the way.

Lincoln vowed that the “Union” would not be an aggressor in a conflict and that if the southern states wanted a war, they were going to have to fire the first shot. And so they did.

What followed was 4 years of intense conflict and bloody battles, resulting in over 750,000 casualties. In 1865 it was finally over and the country started the process of rebuilding.  

But they did it without Lincoln. He was assassinated just 5 days after the end of the war. 

 One of his most famous acts as president took place January 1 1863, during the height of the war, when he signed the Emancipation proclamation which declared that all persons held as slaves within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free”. So, technically, no slaves were actually freed at the time of its writing because it only referred to slaves in the states that formed the confederacy and of course, they didn’t recognize his authority.

 

The house where Lincoln lived with his wife and children, and the only house he ever owned,  is now part of the national park service. In fact, the whole neighborhood is, which gives you a good sense of what the area would have looked like in the 1800s.

 

Lincoln is also buried in Springfield, along with his wife and three of his children….the three that did not survive to adulthood. His oldest son Robert is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

We actually visited the tomb twice- once during their usual daytime operating hours, and once in the evening. 

Although the tomb closes at 5 pm, every Tuesday in the summer, at 7 pm there is a flag lowering ceremony, complete with with musket firing and period music. Usually. 

Only lightning causes cancelation, and wouldn’t you know it, in the 2 hours before the ceremony we got over 2.5 inches of rain. With the occasional flash of lightning we debated going, but decided to bundle up and check it out.  

The only thing that was canceled was the musket firing- the music-provided by the 114th Illinois volunteer infantry-still took place and luckily the rain had stopped. Once the flag lowering ceremony is complete, the flag that has been flown for the past week is given to one of the audience members. I had my fingers crossed, but the flag went to someone else. Oh well.

For the 3-4 people who still read this blog, you may have noticed that this post is a year late. My bad. I only posted it because I wrote the basics a year ago, in real time, so it was easy enough to throw it up here. 

We also went to the Eisenhauer Presidential Library, in Abilene KS, which was fantastic, but I didn't do a draft of a post back then and it's too much to try and put it together now.

 

This man was so talented in so many ways, it is beyond amazing to me. 

We needed to be back in Green Valley AZ to do a walk through of the new house in August of 2025. Not a great time to be in that area of AZ, for sure.  More on that later.

So, even though not many people still read this, I am catching up on what we are doing because as we get older I realize that I  use it a lot to remember where we have gone and what we have done. So in order to continue doing that for this summer, I will do a few posts about our winter adventures. 

A Month in Massachusetts (7/12/25)

 I grew up in Massachusetts, and spent much of my adult life there. It’s where Paul and I met, and where my kids grew up. All of my siblings are still here, and most of my childhood friends.

These days when we visit, its usually for a week or so, and many times I fly in on my own. Although our daughter lives in L.A., our son still lives here in MA. We booked a month in an RV park near him with several thoughts in mind, mostly some leisurely visits with family, and also the opportunity to see more people than we usually have time to see. We succeeded on both fronts.

Basically our time there can be divided into two: visits with friends and family, and outings with Stephen, our son. The highlights from some of our more notable outings-

Our first day trip was to the historic town of New Bedford MA, an old coastal fishing town. By the mid 1800s, New Bedford was considered to be one of the richest cities in the country, in large part due to the whaling industry.

Two types of whales were hunted the most frequently on the east coast- the Right Whale and the Sperm whale. In fact the Right whale got its name because it was the “right” whale to hunt. It moved slowly and floated after it was killed.  Interestingly, species such as Humpbacks were not sought after because when they died, they sank, making it virtually impossible to harvest them. By the late 1800s, the Right Whale had been hunted almost to extinction. Now the biggest threat to the Right Whale is entanglement in fishing gear. Estimates say that 83% of all Right Whales have been entangled at least once.

The Blue Whale is the largest mammal on the planet and can grow to be 100 feet long. Their tongue weighs as much as an elephant.

In keeping with our whale theme, another of our outings was a whale watch that we took from Boston.  Any excuse to be on the ocean is probably what went through our minds. Stellwagen Bank is a marine sanctuary off the coast of Massachusetts.

Paul and I made several trips there many years ago, on our own boat  and were enthralled with the whales. We had a family of 3 circling around our boat for a short while, actually rolling to look at us. The thought “we need a bigger boat” went through our minds.

This trip was not a disappointment either, with plenty of opportunity to enjoy the humpback whales.

In and amongst our trips to the beach, shopping, etc. we took another day trip up to the town of Lowell, where the Lowell National Historic Park is located.

Lowell was a planned industrial city, which made use of a canal system to generate power for the mills. We booked a tour of the Pawtucket Canal by boat, getting a different take on the whole system.

The canal system diverts some of  the water from the Merrimac River to the Pawtucket Canal and into the town of Lowell.

One of the problems with re-routing a river to come through town via canals is that when there is a serious flood-the town will be what floods.

 

Until 1850 there was no flood protection for the town, but that year, an engineer named James Francis built a massive flood gate. Many townspeople thought he was crazy, and they called it Francis’s Folly.  The wooden gate was 25’ x 27’ and at least a foot thick.

It was held up by a shackle. Well, on April 22, 1852, the call went out to drop the gate. the only way to drop it was to take a hammer and chisel to the shackle- which they did, and the gate worked exactly as it was supposed to, holding back the flood waters.

Thereafter it was called the Great Gate.

The rest of our time was spent visiting family and friends, although we did find a lighting store that was going out of business and we bought some light fixtures and fans for the new house. Our rig is packed to the gills.

So…

We saw my brothers and sisters several times..

We met up with Rich, one of Paul’s fraternity brothers….

We had dinner with long time boating friends Peter and Susan, on their boat…

And we saw our good friend Maryellen a couple of times- once with her daughter and her family. Maryellen was our next door neighbor for years… “Best neighbor Evah”.

We actually saw quite a few more people but I am terrible at taking pictures when I am with friends and family. Guess I am having too much fun to think of it!

The house is now starting to look like a house: