CAVE PEOPLE DO MARDIS GRAS ..IN THE DESERT

  Last year we spent our Mardi Gras in Why, Arizona..Why?, you ask…Yes, Why.  Why is the name of a teeny itsy bitsy little wide spot in the road…an unincorporated town…  It borders the Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation, is due North of Organ Pipe National Monument, and 30 miles North of the Arizona/Mexico border.  This is “Why” we love it..It’s in the middle of BFE..NOWHERE!!

  We were staying in Why, at Hickiwan Trails RV Park and actually we stayed there longer than any place else we have ever stayed.  We stayed 2 months…January and February of last year.…And we stayed through Mardi Gras..WHEW..WHAT A TIME!

 

Here comes the parade!!!!                                       There GOES the parade!!!

 

Some parade watchers just do NOT know when it’s time to “step away from the camera”….

  After the “parade”, all of the revelers were invited to Ray and Marcia’s place (they own the park) for a huge feed…

We had muffaletta sandwiches, and all the fixins to go with it…..It was a beautiful day in the desert….and we played hard.

Neither McGuyver nor I could win the Hula Hoop Contest…..But I almost threw my hip out trying…

SOME OF US WERE REALLY GETTING INTO THE SPIRIT OF THE DAY…

(I SWEAR THAT NO LIQUOR WAS CONSUMED AT THIS CELEBRATION…NO, REALLY!!)

  I know, I have said we are not group joiners…but it was hard NOT to join in with this party!! 

Did I mention that I am married to a “party animal”??…OK, if you are wondering what the heck Dennis is doing in that second picture..They had a relay contest…You tied panty hose around your waist with a ball dropped down one leg…then you had to roll an orange along by swinging the ball and hitting it down the road….(You can imagine the strange hip movements involved in this activity)….SOOOOOO EMBARASSING…And yes, I did participate, but McGuvyer was too busy laughing to get photos of me…THANK GOD!!

On the left is the King and Queen of Mardis Gras…On the right are the two Illinois people who made absolute fools of themselves…and had a GREAT time doing it…

THANK YOU HICKIWAN RAY AND HIS WIFE, MARCIA,  FOR SUCH WONDERFUL MEMORIES!!!!

THESE CAVE PEOPLE HAD THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES!!!

Pretty Nice Day Yesterday, But NOT 60 Degrees…LIARS!

  I had my lawn chair all ready to go yesterday….suntan lotion, book, sunglasses….just waiting to get out on the back deck…NOT HAPPENING…Old Sol was busy somewhere else and never showed up here in Sandwich, Illinois, so our top temp yesterday was 56 degrees…Oh, well.  I do know it’s on the way, but alas, not today.   Patience is NOT my virtue!!

  Cindy is doing fine after her surgery…She actually said that when this thing heals, she could even plug an I-Pod into it..now THAT is pretty amazing!…Kelly took her bandage off today and is keeping it clean…Just the idea of anyone drilling into my skull makes me faint.

 

 

  That gauze and the disc will both be removed shortly, and she will just have a small little screw behind her ear…YOWZA!

Today was a pretty non eventful day here at the Cave Dwellings.  McGuyver has been working on installing a new garage door opener in our garage. 

We also had to get new grates for our Weber gas grill on the deck.   He hadn’t been able to do it until now, because there was 2 ft. of snow on the deck…Well, the snow finally melted…

…..and McGuyver got the grates installed. HMMMMMM… I’m thinking baby back ribs this Sunday…

  Seems that there is always some project Dennis is helping with…..Den and his buddies are now working on an aluminum can crusher, making it easier to save the beer beverage cans that they acquire…They all hang out at Conveyor Eddie’s shop on the East edge of town.  Eddie owns two of those huge concrete conveyors and has his own business, E & S Conveyor, hence his nickname “Conveyor Eddie.”  In the late afternoon, after work, a few of the “boys” end up at his shop to solve the world’s problems…and toss a few down…I think Dennis is the oldest of the group, so they call him “Uncle Dennie”…whatever.

Goose Island State Park, Fulton Texas….February, 2006…..Right is The Goose Island Oak….1000 years old…almost as old as the old babe who is standing in front of it…they even have the same wrinkly skin…

  Above photos are also from Fulton, TX, 2006.  Those guys on the left are unloading fresh caught oysters from the boat…I LOVE fresh oysters!!!!  Chris came to visit us that year….and on the right is McGuyver …enjoying Oyster fest.

YOU’VE PROBABLY FIGURED OUT BY NOW THAT WE LOVE GOOSE ISLAND STATE PARK…LOVE IT!!!!

 

Parking the Hiker amongst the Live Oaks is a challenge at that state park, but McGuyver “got ‘er done!”..That spider web in the photo above rode on the outside of our Hiker window all the way from Falcon Lake State Park in Roma, TX, to Goose Island in Fulton…undisturbed. 

The sun is really gorgeous today, but that wind is cold…brrrrr.  They are predicting an icy mix of precipitation for Sunday and some snow on Monday.  McGuyver may be grilling my ribs in the sleet…..Re-enter Winter, stage left…

  …Trying out my new Krupps Panini maker for lunch this afternoon.  I used Focaccia bread, chicken breast, pepper cheese, grilled onions, Italian dressing and Chipotle Mayonnaise.   They were wonderful.  This could be habit forming…

  Well, this has been another bipolar blog…jumping from one topic to another without pausing….Actually, this makes perfect sense,  considering my brain pretty much does the same thing.  Update on my Plantar’s Peanuts disease….I tried to walk 2 days in a row and the pain was just tooooo much…I guess that means I don’t get to take my walks for a while…another reason for me to re-create Maxine…I AM THE CRABBY OLD BROAD THAT SHE PORTRAYS!!! ….OK, time to throttle this thing down…I’m nodding off at my own blog….

AL QUEDA SQUIRRELS…THEY’RE BACK!

 

Boy, oh boy, spring is in the air!  Did I mention that we saw Robins in Indianapolis last weekend?  Either they were lost, or they know something we don’t.  Though we haven’t seen any here yet,  I’m hoping they have some insider info about the upcoming weather.  

Today my daughter-in-law, Cindy, is having out patient surgery at Loyola Hospital in Chicago to implant a bone anchored Cochlear Stimulator…also known as an abutment, and a small titanium implant, which is put into her skull behind her ear.  Sounds like fun, right?  Actually, Cindy had sudden onset hearing loss in one of her ears.(SSD, single sided deafness, for short)….no warning, no reason..she just lost her hearing and is now deaf in that ear.  Being a nurse, she has researched this new surgery that will give her back her hearing in that ear..Somehow, this implant goes under a flap of skin.  After it heals, (about 3 months), she gets a sound processor that she can attach to it and she will hear via bone conduction…AMAZING STUFF!  “The Bionic Woman” so to speak…There are several different sound processors.  I am not sure which one she is getting, but one is called the Baha…That link is really informative…MUCH more so than MY feeble attempt at explaining it.

The main thing with this surgery is to keep any infection from appearing at the surgical site, because of it’s close proximity to the brain..Luckily, our son, Kelly, is a skilled paramedic, so he will keep a close watch on this…Obviously, she cannot see behind her ear!!

I wanted to make them dinner for tonight, and since the weather is actually “grillable”, McGuyver is making his famous grilled whole chickens for them, and I have whipped up some macaroni salad.  The Jolly Green Giant is providing some nukable ear corn, and Wally Mart made some warm turtle brownies and ice cream….

 

 

…A few random pix from my gallery….

 

…Left is myself and Aunt Jeanette a couple years ago at the baby shower Terrie had for Chris…That glass of wine in her hand is exactly why I love her…At this picture time she was 93…ya just gotta love her spunk!

 

 

 

 

 

This morning we did our first battle with the Al Queda squirrels here in our backyard…We have a bird feeder right outside our kitchen window full of sunflower seed for the Cardinals and Chickadees…Well….the renegade squirrels sent out their stealthy spies and found it …

 

…That little #@!*#*##@!!!!

McGuyver immediately took the feeder down.  He will empty the sunflower seed out and replace it with safflower seed this afternoon..Supposedly squirrels don’t like the safflower seed…Key word here is supposedly!

“WHO TOOK MY FREE LUNCH???”

Thanks for checking my meandering blog….See ya on Friday!!

OUR WEEKEND TO GET AN “AIDEN” FIX….

   This last weekend McGuyver and I drove to just North of Motor City, (Indy), to visit our youngest daughter, Christie and family.  They were in need of someone with plumbing talent… that didn’t charge an arm and a leg..That would be McGuyver…He works for beer.

  Chris and John aka ,the Wolff Clan, are temporarily living in an apartment in Carmel, Indiana, while they are renovating their newly purchased home in Zionsville.  The boy’s bathroom needed some serious over  hauling, and Dennis’s soldering and pipe fitting skills were tapped..

Now there’s a bathroom full of  “studs” …some older than others.

The home they bought is 1970’s vintage interior, and in need of a facelift.  The outside is mostly stone, in fine shape, and is in a beautiful neighborhood called Raintree in Zionsville, Indiana.  This is not a new subdivision, and the kids new home is on a large .6 acre corner lot….

I know some of you will remember the fabulous dark paneling we all glued up in our homes at that period in time.  The above photo is featuring their great room stone fireplace, which they are not touching…It is the centerpiece of the room.  This home is typical of that era, with a separate formal dining room, kitchen and entryway.  Some of the walls are being removed to open it up into one large great room.  The jury is still out on exactly HOW much of the weight bearing wall can be removed without collapsing the roof…that would not be good.  All in all, this house has great “bones” and will make them a lovely home….Hopefully they can get moved in before the littlest Wolff “cub” is born..He is due April 10th.  Suffice to say, we will be making a couple more runs to Indiana in the very near future!

While the men were plumbing, Chris and I did some damage to Grandpa’s credit card.  I am not used to living so close to all of the big box stores, where you can drive about 3-4 miles and be in shopper’s Heaven.  We hit Lowe’s, Home Depot, Super Target, Babies R’ US…and there is a Meijer 1 block from their apartment..SCORE!

  Chris made us a wonderful breakfast casserole Saturday morning…

..and made some ham salad and crackers for snacks when the “plumbers” got home at 6PM…By the time a few cocktails were enjoyed, KFC cooked us up some fried chicken..

Sunday morning Dunkin’ Donuts made breakfast…The plumbers worked all day Sunday again and got the plumbing in for the vanity and the tub and shower…McGuyver’s knees are feeling like The Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz ..

 

Last evening Chris made an appetizer of warm crab dip, a wonderful Italian sausage minestrone soup in her crock pot and some corn bread..We ate like we had been starving, which we hadn’t. 

Aiden is growing like a weed and talks up a storm.  In the photo on right, he is showing off his new “Cars” P.J.’s that Mimi bought him..(Mimi is ME, just so ya know)…

McGuyver and I had a beautiful room at the Hilton Garden Inn just 5 minutes from their apartment.  We aren’t fond of hotels since we got our RV…I like to know exactly WHO  has slept in my bed, showered in my shower and ….well, you know…However, this place was very clean and quite lovely…

 

 

We even had a king bed with a down comforter and pillows, coffee maker and microwave, HD TV, and lots of toiletries, which I brought home with me…Hey, we paid for them, right?? I forgot to mention that  I booked it at hotels.com online for $62.00 a night…SCORE AGAIN!!!

 

 

 

What a fun weekend….Of course all I did was spoil Aiden and shop…McGuyver and John Wolff were working their little plumber’s butts off at the new house…But Dennis and I both managed to get our “fix” of our 2 1/2 year old grandson….Sooooo much fun…..

IN LESS THAN 8 WEEKS THIS LITTLE BOY’S WORLD IS GOING TO BE “ROCKED” ….AND HE WILL BE A …..

BIG BROTHER!!!