Flying J Ranch with the Huffs

We had a great evening with the Huffs.  Each year with go to the Flying J with them for an evening of good food and good country music.

They were buying tickets from Randy, a friend of our neighbor, Frank. He is a tremendous musician. 

The evening starts out with a gunfight in Old Bonita.

Sherman and Andy watching the gunfight!

After the gunfight we found our tables and dinner was served. Chicken or Brisket, red beans, baked potato, biscuit, chunky applesauce, & spice cake.

Good Biscuits!!!!!

This is how much we had left on our plates, nothing. It is always so good. Sherman and Don went back for seconds.

After dinner the music was great.

I walked 8 miles today. After I got home and looked at my training schedule I realized that I only needed to have walked 6 miles. I guess I am ahead of the schedule.

I won about $14 at the casino today. Better than losing.

I sent in the application for Mom to have the EMSA ambulance service($45 a year). For emergency ambulance calls it will not cost her anything(her insurance will pay it)for non-emergency ambulance transportation(she pays 60% of bill). Non-emergency is hospital to hospital, emergency to home, or a call that EMSA decides isn't an emergency.
I also reordered the call alert button for her to wear. She was ready for it again.

Ruidoso on Dwellable

Grindstone Lake

This is our favorite fishing lake in Ruidoso. We haven't gone fishing here in two years, I hope we can do some fishing before we leave this year. We neither one want to be in the hot sun during the day so we will have to have a cloudy day to go out.

We decided to hike around the lake and do some cache maintenance a few days ago and I got these pictures.

We like to fish where that boat is. It is about a quarter mile from the parking but we have caught a lot of trout here.

On my 10 mile walk this morning a saw this entrance to one of the new housing additions. Loved it!

Andy and Sherman Huff came into town yesterday and came up to see us tonight. They will be staying for two weeks. We are going to the Flying J Ranch with them tomorrow night to hear some good music and eat some good food. Glad they are in town.We also had our neighbors to the west of us come in for the summer, Fred and Janie Mosley. He has had some medical problems and it delayed their coming this summer.

We will be busy this week preparing to go to Montana to see my cousin, Marilyn and sightseeing at Yellowstone. We will be heading our early Friday morning to catch a plane in Albuquerque to Bozeman, Montana.

I have been on track with my training for the walk and am now playing pickleball 4 days a week from 8:00 to 12:00. I started practicing a backhand serve that the coach was showing me. Hard to do but it puts a lot of spin on the ball and doesn't come up. More and more people are coming each day to try it. I think about 45 have joined the Ruidoso/Alto pickleball club this year. There were maybe 8 last summer.

Mother has been having several spells with hypoglycemia this past week. Kenna went home to check on her and set up a doctor's appointment for her on the 10th of Aug. and got a sugar kit for her to start recording her sugar levels. Mom has been researching it and has decided she needs to eat small meals more often. Her wrist is doing better but she still as pain on the top of the hand & not much strength in it. She sounded better when I talked to her. We are going to sign up for the EMSA ambulance service at $45 for the year so she will call an ambulance when she need to. She also wants to get the alert call button back in her room which I will get set back up. It is really hard for her when I am gone. Making decisions are hard for her and her emotions are on edge right now. Hopefully if she gets to feeling better her emotions will calm down. I'm really glad Kenna has been able to go up and check on her and take care of some problems this summer.

It was 72 degrees today, cloudy but no rain.

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Ruidoso Art Festival

I haven't posted in a week so these are some of the things that have happened in that week.

• I turned 58 (I thought I was already 58 but I must have miscalculated)
• Played pickleball 3 days 
• Garage sales 2 days
• Walked 27 miles
• Didn't win any at casino on Monday
• Played Rummikub with Paula & Raymond 2 night (Don won both nights)
• Swept and mopped the floors today (need to dust now)
• Sanded a chest of drawers that Thena wanted me to paint for her (will paint in a day or two)
• Don trapped a skunk
• Found a new cache in Ruidoso and helped reset a cache for another cacher on Perk Trail
• Went to Ruidoso Art Festival with Paula (that's what this post will be about)

They is the view of the main road into Ruidoso from the east. Click on the picture to enlarge it.

This bear trap was next to some condos where I took the picture above of Ruidoso. They must have been having problems with a bear that was a nuisance.

Paula and I went to the Arts Festival at the Convention Center. We do this each year. I don't usually by anything because the art is so expensive, but we enjoy looking at everything.

The town of Carrizozo for the past 4 years has commissioned artist in the area to paint and decorate the Burros. Then they are sold for around $2,000. Here are a few pictures of them this year.

I love the metal cachi. These were some of the booths they had outside. First year for these. They are more affordable, I guess. The high priced stuff is inside. It started raining right after we got through these booths.

The lady with the baskets was from Ponca City. A good ole Okie!
It was raining when we left about 5:30 pm and it is still raining at 10:00 looks like it could rain all night.

Ruidoso on Dwellable

Sante Fe Trip

We went to Sante Fe from the 12th-16th and stayed at our Worldmark Timeshare. We dropped Abby off at Jan's about noon and headed out. The room was great but the complex is pretty small with no pool or workout facility. The good part was that it was very close to the plaza, within walking distance.

We walked down to the rail yard district & ate at Cowgirls. OK but not great!

The forecast for the week was to be hot and not much chance of rain. We decided to take out walking early in the morning and get back before it got too hot. We started out with gps loaded and hunted caches and a Subway until 3:00 in the afternoon. 9 1/2 miles, 19 caches, and a sandwich later we got back to the room. We stayed out too long in the heat and we were really tired and hot. Took showers and naps and we were ready to go again. Took a short walk to plaza after dinner.

The next day we started out early again. We found a biking and walking path across town that had a lot of caches so we headed there. We found 10 caches, walked about 4 1/2 miles, went to Sam's and got back to the room about 12:30. I showered and went shopping. Don took a nap and watched movies. Marilyn had recommended Maria's for Mexican food and it was great. Thanks Marilyn. We had enough left over that we had it again on Thursday night.

Thursday we did the same routine except starting on the other end of the path and found 9 more caches. I went shopping again. That evening we walked down to the plaza again. They had bands playing each night for entertaining the tourist. Good music and people watching. WE didn't do any dancing!

It did cool down a little bit both Wed and Thurs evening because a cloud blew in and had a few sprinkles of rain. That was nice.

We got up on Friday, packed and checked out! Ready to get back to the cooler weather and Abby.

We saw lots of Sante Fe during the week, found a total of 42 caches & ate some good Mexican food.

On the way home we found a cache at the old Nogal Mercantile and ate a really good chili burger in Carrizozo. Abby was glad to see us but she had a great time at Jan & Charlie's.

Other happenings in my life last week:
Kenna took Mom back to OKC after 3 wks and Mom got her cast off. She will be wearing a soft cast for a while. Kenna took her shopping and ran errands before she went back home. Mom will be having home health care come in for rehab and helping her with her bathes for 3 or 4 wks. Some of the pain went away when they removed the cast. That's good.

Played pickelball today. Played a guy a couple of games of singles after the doubles play and got really hot. I guess I didn't drink enough. Felt tired, chills and a few craps. Recovered quickly after a nap, banana, & a coke. Can't wait to play on Tuesday.

At Home in the Mountains

It seems like a slower life in Ruidoso. We are on a regular routine where we walk or run in the morning from 8 to 10. On Tuesday and Thursday I play pickleball instead of walking. Don just runs everyday.

Thursday seems to be my hardest day. Wednesday is my longest walk(7 miles) but Thursday is my next longest walk(6 miles) and also pickleball. I am really tired after pickleball and walking. I don't seem to get much else done except on the computer. I am doing laundry tonight but that doesn't take a lot of energy.

Important Note: Big Brother started tonight on TV!!! Garage sales in the morning.

Paula and Raymond got back from AZ and will be here about a wk. Don & I are going to Sante Fe on Mon-Fri. Abby is going to stay with Jan.

Cloudy and cool today. High was about 73 degrees.

Don't have the energy or creativity tonight for this to be to interesting, so goodnight!!

July 4th

We woke up to a sunny day for celebrating Independence Day.  We did our usual workout at the fitness trail and got in 4 miles.  On the way home we checked on two caches. We had gotten info that one was missing and the other one was wet.  Skeletal Remains in the cemetery was not missing, it just hadn't been found by the last 3 cachers. We replaced the wet log in Periscope.

We got home and after a rest and snack we headed to Subway for a sandwich to take to Alto lake for a picnic, hike and replacing a cache that is missing there.  It was indeed missing.

Then we took a short hike along Eagle Creek.

We went by Jan's on the way home to survey her lumber-jacking skills.  She had cut down about 16 Ponderosa pines out of her front yard.  She had made a big difference in her yard and after she finishes her racking and mulching of the pine needles she will be ready for her city inspection.

After grilling burgers for our 4th of July dinner we walked Abby up the hill and I stopped by Thena's for our evening visit.  BIG SURPRISE   She has a boyfriend and is ready to marry yesterday.  I bet she will be wed by next weekend.  I'm not kidding!

Rainy Day

Most days are sunny when we get up and then about 10:00 the clouds begin to build and it rains in the afternoon. The last few days it has been cloudy when we've gotten up.

This morning was pickleball and it couldn't possibly rain me out. I wanted to play. We headed out on the scooter, got half way there and it started raining. Of course we hadn't planned on rain. When we got to the court, several were there so I decided I was going to stay. Don went back home. It continued to sprinkle for a while and the courts got a little wet. We just did some drills and didn't run much because it was slippery. Finally it quit and the sun came out. We had a fun day and I played some singles with Marshall at the end. I WON!!

Don hadn't gone to run because of the rain so we decided to go in the afternoon. I had 5 miles that I needed to log for training.

We headed out about 2 pm. Once again half way there and it started to really rain. We decided to go on because I thought it would quit. It did quit, off and on, but mostly on. Walking 5 miles in the rain is not fun, but I got it in.

I'm so wet!!