2016 year- end review: Part 3/ mid-October through December

Soon after our trip was over, Sam decided that the automotive school wasn’t really for him after all and he decided to return home and go back to the job that he held before he left. The manager there was very happy to have Sam back, so he started back to work right away. (It was a good thing we got rid of all the stuff in his room!) About a week after that, we were overjoyed to learn that we had a new grand-daughter. Olya and Adam announced the birth of Yael Kiva just a few days before Vladi’s birthday. We wanted to see her as soon as we could, but we knew that it would take some time for Olya to recover from the birth and for the baby to get settled in at home. So, we made plans to see them when the baby was a few weeks old. For Vladi’s birthday we decided to use a gift card we had hung on to for quite some time.

It was for a place called The Pearl District in a fancy part of town. We shared everything that we ordered and savored all the exquisite flavors.

The following weekend we attended the annual Halloween party hosted by our friends, the Bass family. This year we dressed as post-fight hockey players with jerseys provided by my cousin after a play-off rivalry bet during hockey season.

The party was great fun as it always is.

Early November brought a surprising and distressing close to a very nasty presidential campaign. Vladi and I did get a glimpse of the support Donald Trump was gathering as we travelled around the mid-west on our RV trip. I never saw any signs in support of the Clinton/Kaine ticket there, and there were plenty of Trump/Pence posters, bumper stickers and lawn signs in evidence. Even so, we didn’t think Donald Trump would win. And I know I have a few friends that think he’s what this country needs, but personally, I am worried about what the next four years will look like under his leadership. And I’m really distressed about the growing chasm between Democrats and Republicans. The political climate in our country feels so increasingly turbulent it scares me. But, in light of all that, a friend of my son named Jared said something on Facebook right after the election that really stuck with me. He said, “Tomorrow the sky will still look blue. The grass will keep growing. The moon will be relatively the same distance that it always is from the earth. Our bodies will instinctively keep breathing while we sleep. You don't have to be racist, or sexist, liberal, conservative, progressive, independent, American, Christian, Muslim, purple, idealistic, or practical. The only thing that matters is that you keep doing the next right thing.” I just love this. So, I take a deep breath and focus on my own actions and try to just keep doing the next right thing. That is really all that we can control.

About a week after the election we were given the green light for a visit to Olya, Adam, Gideon and little miss Yael. We decided to take the RV but not the dogs (and it was nice that Sammy was home to take care of them) so I did a Google search for a campground that was close to their home. I found one that was 6.5 miles away from them called The Anthony Chabot Regional Campground, in Oakland. We had a pleasant drive up. Our GPS again misdirected us to a building (which may have been the headquarters of the regional parks or something) but we tried typing in the address a little differently and were re-directed to where we saw a sign pointing up a hill that had the name of the campground we were looking for. We started up the hill just beyond a neighborhood of homes and office buildings and once we were out of sight of the street lights, the area next to the road started to look pretty densely forested. We kept going up and up into this forest and finally came to where we needed to turn and then had to go another mile or so. It was very much off the beaten path. The campground itself didn’t have much in the way of facilities, (rustic bathrooms with 1 toilet for each gender— and showers so far away we never saw them) but if one were seeking to “get away from it all” this would be a great place to go. It was very quiet except for the late-night screams of some wild animal probably being killed by some other wild animal, the hoots of owls and the cackle of some wild turkeys. Later in the week we counted at least seven deer at different times grazing along the side of the road. And we were warned that if they were in the road, they were never in a hurry to get out of the way. We didn’t want to have to drive the RV up and down the hill for our visits and we knew it would be difficult to find parking in the neighborhood, so we decided to rent a car for the 4 days of our stay. Then there was the question of getting to the rental car place. We decided to try one of the ride-sharing services although I was doubtful that someone would be able to find us way out in the boonies where we were. We signed up for Uber and Lyft. We had a problem with the signal for Uber, but Lyft seemed to be able to find us right away. When we called for a ride, a driver was on his way within minutes. We gathered up our stuff and waited. A nice young man was there within ten minutes and we loaded into the car and headed down the hill. He was a very pleasant young man and we had a lovely conversation with him as we drove to our destination. He told us that he had lived in Oakland for many years and never knew the campground that he picked us up from existed! We were pleasantly surprised at the reasonable cost of our ride, and with the whole experience of our virgin ride and decided that Lyft was a very worthwhile service. So, we rented a car and got on our way.

There’s nothing like a newborn to brighten one’s outlook and when that newborn is your grandchild, they are that “simple gift” that can make everything come ‘round where it ought to be. Yael looks just like her mom. We fell in love with this little doll immediately and were more than happy to give mom and dad a little break from holding her. Vladi is a natural with babies and little kids. He loves them and they love him. Yael isn’t big enough to show a preference, but Gideon definitely prefers his grandpa. He played with me, too, but if given his choice, it was grandpa all the way. Vladi and I especially enjoyed taking Gideon for a walk in his stroller along the walkway next to the bay where they live and asking him what color things were, and finding things with interesting textures for him to touch and having him jabber away about everything he was seeing, even if we didn’t understand half of it. He has a fascination with all trucks and construction vehicles and he got so excited when we came upon an off-duty construction site where all the trucks were parked. He named them all off and we just nodded and agreed that he was very smart.

We visited for a couple of days, enjoyed the kids, took some pictures and ordered takeout food. It was a lovely visit.

After we got home, it was time to start thinking about Thanksgiving. Christy and I talked about the possibility of finding a place to help serve food to the homeless or some similar charitable service. Not that we tried very hard, but we didn’t have much luck finding a place. Then Christy told me that she really wanted to learn how to cook a Thanksgiving dinner and asked if I’d be willing to teach her. Now, the thing about this is that I had not cooked a Thanksgiving dinner for yeeears. Our usual celebration of Thanksgiving has been to go to our friends, the Heatons, and bring a contributory dish or two and help out with setting the table and cleaning up afterward. I don’t even remember the last time I cooked Thanksgiving dinner, although I know I have. I told Christy that I could teach her but I wasn’t exactly excited about the idea. I always get nervous cooking for people other than my family and I realized that she wanted to invite the Heatons to our house. In a twist of fate, about 10 days before the holiday, we got news that Richard (the Heaton patriarch and main holiday cook) fell off a ladder and broke his hip and femur. He was taken to a hospital that is about 2 blocks from our house. As Christy and I sat in the surgical waiting room with his family, we came up with a plan to make Thanksgiving dinner and bring it to the Heatons in the hospital or wherever Richard might be on Thanksgiving Day. And my nervousness evaporated when I realized that I could make the dinner at my comfort level and did not have to try to make it to some level of perfection that I thought was expected. It felt good to be able to take a burden off Richard’s wife and my dear friend, Cher, at such a stressful time. It’s a little tricky cooking for Richard and Cher because they have some dietary restrictions (gluten/dairy/etc.) but their daughter, Lael, was quick to volunteer to make the gluten-free stuffing (since she is doesn’t tolerate gluten either) and mashed potatoes and later, their other daughter, Jovia, who was going to drive down to join us from Riverside, volunteered to make a pomegranate jello dish that I didn’t know how to make, so I actually looked forward to taking on the challenge. As the days passed and it looked more and more likely that Richard was going to be in that same hospital on Thanksgiving Day, we had to think through the logistics of how we were going to make it happen. Cher and I looked around the room and saw that the windowsill ran all the way along one wall and it was fairly wide so I figured if I purchased some foil pans of the right width, we could probably serve most of the food from there. Then we had to figure out how to fit chairs for 8 people in the room along with the bed and all the medical equipment and leave enough room for the nurses to be able to do their job. We ended up putting 4 chairs on one side of the bed and 4 on the other and when nurses came in, we just shifted around as needed. All the food came out great and we had it spread out on the windowsill, on the sink and wherever there was a flat surface that would hold it. For some reason, we didn’t think to take pictures of how it all came together, but it was pretty awesome how it did. Although the circumstances weren’t great that created the necessity to do something different, it was a great adventure to figure out how to continue our tradition.

This is a picture of Richard and Cher and their 3 daughters. Shana, on the left was not with us on Thanksgiving but she joined us from Portland through face time on the phone. A friend of theirs was able to provide a plane ticket for her to come down and see her dad a few days after Thanksgiving.


In early December, Vladi and I received the new license plate we had ordered for the RV.

Besides the obvious meaning, we have our initials in there, including Z for Zaretsky plus the R and Z can stand for Roscoe and Zuli. We were quite pleased with ourselves. We also got our first picture of the pups with Santa when we went to a big sale at our favorite pet store.

My dear friend, Cathy, whose career has paralleled mine, arranged a gathering of a group of people we have both worked with over our 35 years, at a local Mexican restaurant in the interest of both socializing and doing something for a good cause for the holidays. We chose a charity called Janet’s stockings that was founded in the name of another employee of the company we worked for who had recently been a fatal victim of domestic violence. We proffered a good number of donations and we had a wonderful time seeing people we hadn’t seen in many years. Cathy is the type of person that keeps in touch with everyone and can readily gather a group together with a few text messages. It was really fun and I hope we do it again.

In the interest of continuing to put the RV to good use, Vladi and I scheduled another 5-day trip in mid-December. We wanted to use one of the campgrounds we had purchased a membership for so we chose one near Palm Springs in a place called Desert Hot Springs. The info in the membership catalogue described it in glowing terms. It said there were 2 pools (heated because they were fed by the hot springs), 2 jacuzzis, a clubhouse with pool tables, a dog park, activities, and a meal service. We thought it sounded great. We planned to be there from a Monday to a Friday. So, we packed up the dogs and set out on the 5-hour drive. We found the place without too much difficulty but when we arrived they said they didn’t have a record of our reservation. The place was nowhere near full so it wasn’t a problem but it was the first indication of other problems that would soon occur. We were told to find a spot we liked and come back to tell them where we were. We settled in one spot and got set up only to realize that we were about 5 campsites away from an active construction zone. One of the 2 pool/spa/clubhouse areas was being completely gutted and re-done. We found out later that the campground had changed hands within a couple of weeks of our arrival and the new owners were doing all kinds of maintenance and upgrades. As a result, the dog park was closed and the pool tables were inaccessible. We moved from that campsite to one that was closer to the other pool and that was much quieter.

We scoped out a couple of areas where we could let the dogs run off-leash and we visited the pool and spa every day.

We found a little “game room” that offered books and puzzles and board games and we spent a couple of pleasant afternoons working on puzzles, and because no one else was in the room when we got there the dogs slept on the floor next to us. We passed a very pleasant week until Thursday night when the wind picked up. We had gone to have dinner in the clubhouse and Vladi decided to leave the awning open, even though I suggested that it might not be a good idea. When we got back to the RV an hour later, the awning arms were sticking out with no awning attached.

Vladi felt terrible for not listening to me, but I realized that I didn’t voice my concern strongly enough. The next morning, we asked around about what to do and found out about a mobile service that could fix it for us. When we called, the guy was booked up through the weekend but we scheduled an appt. on Monday. We enjoyed a few more days at the campground and when the guy came on Monday, he said that the damage wasn’t too bad. The awning arms had to be replaced, but the motor and the awning were intact. It ended up costing us about $1000 but it was a lesson we won’t forget!

When we got home, it was time to start thinking about a plan for Christmas. This year the first night of Hanukah was also Christmas Eve, a rare occurrence and probably the only time it will happen in our lifetime. Christy wanted to celebrate the convergence of holidays and honor Vladi and Sammy’s Jewish heritage so she suggested that we prepare a traditional Hanukah meal. I told her that I had no idea what that would be and Vladi and Sammy weren’t much help so Christy decided to text Olya for suggestions. Olya sent her recipes for matzo ball soup,

latkes,

and kugel.

She and I had a good time cooking together and the meal came out pretty well. The flavorful and comforting matzo ball soup was very similar to another of my favorites, chicken and dumplings, and the latkes were easy and delicious potato pancakes. The kugel was a little bland and not something we would typically think of as a dessert. It was sort of a noodle pudding. I probably will not make that particular recipe again, but we still marked the meal as a success. And lighting the candles on Vladi’s beautiful menorah was fun, too.

Our usual Christmas tradition involves a breakfast of eggs benedict with the Heaton family (the same family we usually have Thanksgiving with). Because of Richard’s injury, we decided to try something a little different, because, again, he has been the main cook of this feast. Along with the eggs benedict, there has usually been a mountain of bacon, another mountain of potatoes and nothing much in the way of fruits or vegetables. (although we introduced tomatoes and avocados into the eggs benedict fairly recently.) I offered to cook the breakfast if I could do something a little different. I had found a recipe for and open-faced ham and egg breakfast sandwich (that incorporates mixed baby greens with a light balsamic dressing) earlier this year that I’ve been making for my family pretty regularly.

Because I feel I’ve mastered it and everyone I make it for likes it, I asked if I could make it for Christmas. I offered to make some hollandaise to go with it so that it would not even be too far off from our usual meal. We decided to make some bacon, although not the usual mountain, and in place of potatoes, we decided to get some jelly donuts—in honor of Hanukah.

So, I don’t know how successful we were in healthying up our meal, but I was happy that I felt confident to be able to prepare it. As usual, the best part of it all was talking and laughing and enjoying each other’s company. We also got introduced to a new game by Tom and Lael. It’s called “Escape Room” and it’s usually set up somewhere in an actual room that you have to escape. But they have a board game version of it and we gave it a try. I did not do very well at my first exposure to it but it is a very interesting game in which you have to figure out clues in a certain amount of time. I’d like to give it another try sometime but for now, I’ll stick to playing Settlers of Catan. So that was our year, and I have to say, a very good one at that!

Year in review 2016: Part 2/August to mid-October THE RV TRIP

August 1, we took possession of our new RV. Vladi's first experience driving the rig, other than a short test drive at the dealership, was driving it 300 miles home from Gilroy. He did great, other than one little time when he was crawling back on the freeway from a rest stop and a monster big rig was barreling up behind him so fast that I thought for sure I was going to witness a horrible crash. The truck driver managed to avoid hitting him, but I was pretty sure I could feel the reverberations of the expletives that exploded inside that trucker's cab. And Vladi never even noticed him. After that, the trip went smoothly and we made it safely home. 
The rest of the month was spent purchasing the many items we needed to outfit the new rig and getting our driveway widened so we would be able to park it easily. 
Ben came down from Portland to spend a couple of days camping with his sister and to visit with us. We had a lovely dinner with him and Christy in Santa Barbara for our 6th anniversary.

In the beginning of September, we got a neighborhood garage sale organized with our neighbors and got rid of a lot of the stuff we had been setting aside in Sam's bedroom. It was great to make a little cash just before our first big trip, which we planned for mid-September to mid-October. I planned our first trip around making sure I got to see my sister Elizabeth in Kansas City, Missouri, my niece Jessica in Chanhassen, Minnesota and my niece Jocelyn in Mason City, Iowa, who have all moved into their new homes since the last time I was back there to see them. Having those destinations in mind, we planned a route to see a few other people on the way there and a few others on the way back. We had to strategize how to avoid getting caught in snow, because there was the possibility of snow starting to fall in several of the more northern places that we were going to visit. 

When all was said and done, we visited 14 states and put 6000 miles on the RV. Our first stop was to visit Sam in Wyoming.

He was very happy to see us and he was especially happy to see the puppies. We got to see where he lived and where he went to school and one evening, we drove up into the hills to a dog-friendly restaurant that he found for us.

The drive up was quite beautiful although on the way back it was very dark! The GPS took us past the restaurant on the first try but when we got to where it said it was, there was nothing there and we realized we had to go back. The place was in a tiny town called Centennial, WY. It was very rustic looking and the restaurant was actually a tavern. There happened to be a wedding rehearsal dinner going on there that night so the place was busy. The area that was dog-friendly was out on a back patio where there was a nice fire pit with a great fire burning. By that time, the sun had gone down and the air was quite chilly. We were hungry but we had to wait quite a while for our food because of the big party going on. As we sat waiting, a couple of men came out to enjoy the fire. I noticed that one of them had on the white collar of a priest/preacher, and the other had the weathered features, the hat, boots and jeans that marked him as a cowboy. The cowboy had a medium-sized, scruffy looking dog that wore a bandanna and was running around free but dragging a blue rope that was supposedly it’s leash. This dog kept coming up to Roscoe and Zuli, sort of teasing them and Roscoe let it be known that he did not like him. But the guy paid no attention to the ruckus being created until Vladi asked him to please get his dog away from ours. The guy would yell “Spud!” and the dog would go away for about 2 seconds and come right back. This went on several times. It was rather exasperating. At one point this cowboy started a conversation with the preacher and looking around to us, presumably to find his audience, launched into a poem about Wyoming and how it was like Heaven, with just a few minor adjustments. It was actually a pretty entertaining poem and he had it memorized. But I kept thinking it was coming to a close and he’d start on another verse. And then another one, and then one more. When he was finally done, the preacher asked “So you wrote that in jail?” (I guess we missed that part of the conversation.) And the guy said “yep.” Sammy was pretty convinced that the guy was quite drunk, but I didn’t see any stagger in his walk. I’m really not sure if he was, although he sort of had that manner about him, but he sure wasn’t paying attention to his dog!

Sammy did say “Well, that’s Wyoming for you!” And I thought, yep, we were regaled with a poem at a campfire by a genuine cowboy with a bandanna wearing dog, and with a preacher in attendance.

We finally got our food, after a very long wait, but we were so hungry by then that it tasted really good. 

We made another stop in Wyoming to see my childhood friend, Sharon, her husband, Dave and her mom, Joanne in Casper. After we sat and chatted and got caught up on each other's lives

Sharon made us a beautiful meal of chicken marsala, asparagus and roasted red potatoes, with a dessert of pumpkin crunch. Everything was truly delicious. My friend has always been a great cook.

Our dogs were happy to be able to run around in Sharon’s yard, but only if one of us was out there with them. They never wanted to be too far from us. They would get rowdy in the house and we would kick them outside and then they would sit right outside the door and look longingly in at us. Silly puppies. But Sharon was so kind. She kept telling us that they were wonderful and that we could relax. But she had some beautiful things displayed that we were afraid our big clumsy monsters would knock over. She said that even though they didn’t currently have a dog, they were used to big dogs and had no problem with ours. At one point, when she was showing us her (beautiful) yard, Zuli came upon her fountain.

It’s a big ceramic pot with water burbling out the top which Zuli took as an invitation for a drink. You can barely see her in this picture because she blends right into the plants but she's there, right next to her sidekick, Roscoe. It was pretty cute and of course, we had to take pictures.

Sharon invited us to spend the night in the house as she has lots of room and when we realized that the slide outs on the RV would be sticking out into the street, and she told us that the dogs were welcome to sleep in the room with us, we decided to take her up on the offer. As we were bringing our things in from the RV, I managed to twist my ankle and fall down the RV steps and tumble to the ground. Vladi was sure for a moment that our trip was over but I’m not sure if I have an instinct for falling right or that my vitamins are super on the job or I have a guardian angel but I got up with only a scratch on my arm and a sore knee (which felt fine after about three days.) Sharon had told us at dinner that many people have heard the footsteps of a ghost in her house and after my fall I told her that her ghost must not like me. She assured me that it could not be her ghost that caused my fall because the fall happened outside and the ghost is in the house.

From there we visited Devil's Tower, Mt. Rushmore, and Rapid City, South Dakota, where we had a great time.

Everywhere we went, the dogs were the center of attention. I can't even tell you how many times we were told how beautiful they are. It worked to our advantage when people offered to take our picture for us after admiring our dogs. In Rapid City there are bronze statues of all the presidents on the street corners of several city blocks . We found a scavenger hunt at the information center and spent a very pleasant day finding different things on the statues. This was another place that should have had an Adventurequest.

We hit rain once we got to Minnesota and we saw first hand why it's called the land of 10,000 lakes. It seemed like there was water everywhere! Of course that also meant that everything was lush and green and sparkling with raindrops. But it became pretty hopeless to keep mud from getting tracked into the RV because the dogs continued to require several daily walks.

I got to see my cousin Tom in Minneapolis and we had a fun visit with him. He found us a dog park so that our dogs could get out and run around off leash. After we spent a short time in a rather small fenced area we were surprised to realize we were in the area for dogs 25 lbs or less (of which there were none at the time) and that the "big" dog park was further up the hill and not fenced in, but was rather a large open area with patches of old fake turf surrounded by marshes. There were a bunch of dogs running around and playing and having a blast getting muddy and they never went too far out of sight. Our dogs joined in with enthusiasm. 

We ordered some thai food to take back to the RV and then we introduced Tom to our favorite game, Settlers of Catan, which he promptly won! We had fun with him.

Next was our visit to Jessica and her family, where we discovered that we could leave the dogs alone in the RV for several hours as long as they were tired enough.

Jessica has cats so the dogs were not able to come in the house with us. Also, her little boy, Jack, is allergic to dog saliva, which fortunately, Jessica was prepared for when the first thing Roscoe did to say hi was lick Jack's face and leave a nice red tongue mark. Jess quickly gave Jack the remedy to counteract the effect and no harm was done but we were more careful to keep dogs and baby separated after that.
As ambassadors of Catan, we had to introduce the game to the Roemer family, and Rylee (age 9) almost kicked our butts. She would have, too, if her dad hadn't stolen the game away from her at the last minute. We had a blast.

Jess wanted so much to be able to show us all the cool things to see in her area but we realized that most of them were places that we couldn't take the dogs, so we found and visited another dog park, took the kids to a kid park and hung out at the house and ate tacos one night and ravioli lasagne another night. Contrary to what she thought, we had a great time.

From there, we went on an unplanned side trip to visit my Aunt Dean and cousin Joe in Rockford, Illinois. When we visited Tom, he mentioned that his mom lived a mere 5 hours away and since we did not have to meet any deadlines, he suggested that we might make a trip to see her. She is the only one of my dad's 11 siblings still alive, and she has always held a very special place in my heart, so we decided that it was definitely a trip worth making. So we found a campground near Rockford and made arrangements to stay a couple of days and contacted Joe and his wife to have lunch with them and Aunt Dean. It was absolutely lovely. I was happy to see that my aunt is as beautiful and stylish as ever with her alabaster skin and hair looking lovely against her cobalt blue coat and multicolored scarf. And the sparkle in her eye is as bright as ever. I loved that she ordered the most decadent dish on the menu (waffles with strawberries and nutella) and enjoyed it thoroughly.

That was the furthest east that this trip took us and from there, we headed back to the west to Iowa and a visit with my niece Jocelyn and her husband, Dan. We timed it so we could be there October 1 for a Suicide Prevention Walk that we all participated in to honor my nephew Caleb and others that we've known and loved that have succumbed to this abominable tragedy.

Of course, it was also important for us to introduce Dan and Jocelyn to Catan. And we got them hooked. Hehe.

Jocelyn & Dan proudly showed us their cute little town and we had dinner at their favorite restaurant and breakfast at the only fully restored Frank Lloyd Wright hotel in the U.S. Both meals were top notch. And the hotel was very interesting! (Very low ceilings--made me wonder how short everyone must have been when it was built.)

From there we went to Kansas City, Missouri, to visit my sister Elizabeth and her husband Rick. 

I was so happy to finally get to see their house and to spend some time with some of my favorite people. They have a nice big back yard, which Rick had spent some time making secure for the dogs, so one evening we decided leave the dogs in the yard and take a trip into the city and have dinner at one of their favorite places that serves the BBQ that Kansas City is known for. 

Along with going to dinner, we took a little driving tour to see the sights. When we were heading back to their house, a neighbor called Rick to ask if he knew anything about the two dogs that were running around the neighborhood. My heart just about dropped through the floor as I heard him having the conversation. When he told the caller that, yes, the dogs belonged to us and asked if they were okay, I guess the caller said that they had been able to round them up and they would hold them for us until we got back. We got back as quickly as we could and boy, were those dogs happy to see us. We thanked the neighbors profusely and were assured that Roscoe and Zuli had been very friendly, but I felt like such a rotten dog mom that it took the rest of the evening for the knot in my stomach to subside. 

We enjoyed visiting for a couple of days doing ordinary things like going to breakfast at First Watch (twice!), watching movies (we tried to watch one on our outdoor TV but we couldn't get the sound loud enough.) But we got a kick out of watching "So I Married and Axe Murderer" for the first time.

and celebrating Taco Tuesday with some bomb margaritas

and Vladi was even able to help Rick out with one of his projects. For some time, he had wanted to get a lamppost in his front yard working but did not have the electrical expertise necessary to complete the job. He was really happy to have Vladi there to help him. 

 
We ended up leaving a day earlier than we expected to because we were hearing ominous reports about the weather and we didn't want to get caught in a storm. 

This picture was taken on the I-70 in Kansas. We heard that a pretty good storm hit right after we left Kansas City and even though the sky looks ominous here, we only had very light rain fall on us.

When we had visited Aunt Dean, we considered one more added side trip. We realized that one more cousin was somewhat close to the route that we would be taking home, and that was Cathy, in Colorado Springs. Cathy is Aunt Dean's daughter and Tom and Joe's sister. If we saw Cathy, we would have missed only one member of Aunt Dean's family, Sue, whom we'd have to try to catch on another trip. 
We got to Colorado Springs in a couple of days and met Cathy and her husband Gerry for lunch. We talked and did a lot of laughing. It was great to see them.

Our next stop was Albuquerque, New Mexico. We wanted to make it there before the (hot-air) balloon festival was over and we managed to get there on the Friday evening just before the final weekend. We stayed at one place Friday night and then moved to a campground closer to the festival on Saturday. We enjoyed our Saturday in the wonderful hot tub at our KOA campground.

We asked the nice people at the KOA if they knew where the best vantage point would be to see the balloons in the air, since we wouldn't be able to actually attend the festival with the dogs. Our best hope was to see them go up on the final day from a parking lot up in the hills above the city. 
Because the weather was touch and go, there was a question about whether the balloons would even go up, and when there was lightning and thunder on Saturday night, we thought for sure we would not get to see any balloons.
But we woke up at 5:30 a.m. and made our way to the suggested place, hoping that we would get to see something.

As we drank our coffee and ate our muffins we ended up having a spectacular view. And we were in the parking lot of a huge church that had a gorgeous adjacent park where we walked the dogs and shared the view with just a few other people. Very serene. But if I ever visit the balloon festival again, I really would like to see the balloons close up.
When we got directions, we were told about a couple of other fun things to do and since we had the rest of the day to fill, we checked out the "Singing Highway," which is a portion of road that has grooves over which you place your tires and you can hear the tune of "America the Beautiful" as you drive. It was really cool. We went up as far as 10,000 ft into the Sandia Mountains where it was really beautiful but cold! 

From there, we headed to the Grand Canyon, with a stop at another KOA in Flagstaff, Arizona along the way. We spent a day walking along the South Rim trail and marveling at the breathtaking beauty of this awe-inspiring, magnificent place.

Our pictures cannot possibly do it justice. I'm so glad we got to see it. And on a spectacularly beautiful day. 
We made one more stop in Lake Havasu on the way home, where it was actually really hot and we weren't too impressed with the campground there. We were ready to go home. 
As we got close, Roscoe seemed to sense it and eagerly looked out the window in anticipation.

We thoroughly enjoyed our first big trip. We got to see and do pretty much everything we wanted to and then some. We had no problems with the RV. And we look forward to planning our next big tour. But there's nothing like Home Sweet Home.

To be continued . . .

Our year in Review: 2016 Part 1/January thru July

Although a lot of newsworthy events occurred this year I really want to record what it has meant for me personally. As 2016 wound down, I have to say I thought of it as a very good year for me and Vladi. We can mark it as the year we were able to retire at virtually the same time and begin the adventure of enjoyable leisure travel in fairly good health. We had so many adventures, that I have to break my review into 2 parts because otherwise it would just be too long. So please enjoy part 1 as I work to finish part 2.  We feel truly fortunate. 

Let’s start this story in January.

On January 19, I celebrated my 57th birthday with a trip to Las Vegas.

One of the items on my bucket list is to see as many of the different Cirque du Soleil performances that I can. The show that I most wanted to see, “Ka” as recommended by Vladi’s daughter, Olya, was on a break in January so we got tickets to see “Zumanity,” which was recommended by my friend Tracy. She described it as funny and sexy, which we thought would be right up our alley.

We booked our stay at the Four Queens on Fremont St. where we have stayed before because it is not as expensive as the hotels on the strip. The first time we stayed at the Four Queens was when we were first dating and the accommodations were not the most important thing on our minds. This time, we found ourselves kept awake at night by the noise of Fremont Street, which has entertainment going on into the wee hours of the morning. We keep saying that someday we will splurge and stay at one of the fancier places, but I really don’t know if that is ever going to happen. I think Las Vegas just doesn’t hold that great of an appeal for us anymore.

Unfortunately, right before our trip, the germs were running rampant at my job and just before we left I was beginning to feel a tickle in my throat. By the time we got to Vegas, I had a full-blown cold and it was cold and rainy for most of our stay. We tried to make the best of it. Vladi was very solicitous of my health, but darn it, I wanted to have fun. We had a great Prime Rib dinner the first night we were there, and felt like we’d hit a kind of jackpot when the bill only came to $30 for both our dinners of prime rib, baked potato, vegetables, wine and beer.

We had an UrbanAdventurequest to do while we were there and we had fun with that, but I’m sure I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t been feeling under the weather. I got really tired and cranky. We saw the Cirque du Soleil and it was funny and sexy just as Tracy said, but it probably wouldn’t have been what I’d choose if I had done more research.

Neither Vladi nor I get much pleasure out of losing money gambling, so we didn’t do too much of that, although we did play a little bit. And I particularly sought out the Ellen slot machines which took everything I fed into them very cheerfully. When I sat down to play at a roulette table I was actually winning for a little while, but I made the mistake of continuing to play and as they always do, the table turned against me.

I love food. And one of my favorite things we did on this trip was during the adventurequest when we stopped to have lunch at a little place that was recommended in the game. It was a little French Bistro in the Bally’s Hotel & Casino and the food was out of this world. The bistro didn't serve any alcohol and I thought that a nice glass of asti spumante would be the perfect accompaniment for the meal (besides making it LOOK really pretty) and Vladi was my hero by finding a nearby place where he was able to get it. Yum!

On the first day of February, Vladi, Christy, my friend Janeen and I got to attend the Ellen Show with standby tickets that Vladi was able to obtain by diligently requesting them online. 

We had to show up early and wait until all the confirmed ticket holders were checked in and then on a first come, first serve basis, the rest of the seats for the show were filled in. Vladi and I got to sit together, and Christy and Janeen sat together but on the opposite side of the audience. It was great fun. The guests were Judge Judy and Sia (the girl that hides her face behind her bangs) and we got a free CD at the end of the show. I hope we get tickets again sometime (but confirmed ones, so we can all sit together.)Later in the month, Jessica visited California to take pictures for one of her friends and came to spend a day looking for sea glass at the beach with me and Vladi and Christy. It is always fun to spend time with Jessica. We had such a good time.

In March, Christy turned 30 and I spent most of the month gathering letters and pictures for a birthday book that I made for her. “30+ letters of love for your 30^th birthday.” Pretty much all the family and friends that I asked came through with a great letter for her and I searched through my pictures and facebook and wherever I could think of to find pictures to accompany the letters. I love doing stuff like that.

April was rather uneventful other than trips to the beach with the dogs.

Which we always enjoy.

In May, I was struggling with the stress of my job and at one point, Vladi told me I should look into how much more time I needed to put in before I could retire. He had not been working for almost a year and a half after he injured his hand and all efforts at surgery and physical therapy had been exhausted with no significant improvement. He was awaiting word on whether he was eligible for social security disability, which he had been told by other friends who had applied, was almost always denied the first time around. So, I made an appointment with the person in charge of retirement at my union and found out that I was eligible to retire under the Rule of 85 (a formula of age plus time of service). I was cautioned that if the Trust Fund ever got into real financial trouble, anyone who had retired by this rule before they were 60 was in jeopardy of having their pension payment reduced. I decided it was worth the risk. I really wanted to stop working. So I put in my notice and within another week or so, Vladi was notified that he was eligible for social security. We were ectatic! It took a little time to get all our papers filled out and notarized and sent off, but step by step, it all came together.

May 20 was my official last day of work and I had the most wonderful send-off from my co-workers.

They made me feel very loved and special. 

It felt surreal to not have to get up at 4 a.m. everyday anymore but I got used to it pretty quick.

In June we received the social security back pay that Vladi was owed for the 18 months since he had been unable to work, so we decided to do some much needed work on our house. I have lived in this house for 24 years and have never painted the outside. It was in desperate need. So over the next few months, we took our house from looking like this:

To looking like this:

We still have a lot of work to do on the inside, but at least the outside looks pretty good. Although we haven't decided yet what to do with the lawn. 
It was around this time that we started thinking about renting or purchasing an RV. One of my dreams has always been to visit the many friends and relatives I have in all parts of the country. Vladi wanted to get out and explore, too, so we thought an RV would be an ideal way to do all that and take our dogs along for the adventure. So we started looking around and doing some research.

Also in June, Vladi's son, Sam, left with his friend Chase to go to an automotive school in Wyoming. 

We were empty nesters for the first time. Sam's program was supposed to take about 9 months to a year to complete and we were pretty sure he would come back to live with us for awhile when he was done, so we decided to hold off on doing anything with his room. Instead, we used it as a storage for items we planned to sell at a future garage sale.

In the beginning of July, Olya and Adam came down to attend the wedding of Olya's cousin, Dima. We took them out to dinner at our favorite Mediterranean restaurant to celebrate Gideon's 2nd birthday.

  
It was wonderful to have the freedom to go places and do the things we wanted without having to worry about having to get up and go to work. 
We are always on the lookout for dog-friendly restaurants and we found one in Santa Barbara that we visited with Christy a couple of times.

We also visited the Ventura Pier (and we're trying to learn how to take decent selfies.)

At the end of the month, we had our first big retirement adventure. I had made reservations many months in advance for a trip to the Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California. I had wanted to visit this event ever since I had passed through the area years before and missed it by a few weeks. So we headed to Gilroy in the hottest part of the summer. It was also fire season. It felt like the whole 300 mile drive, there was smoke hanging in the air from various fires that were burning throughout the state.

Thankfully, the air conditioning in the Prius is quite good, so we were very comfortable even though it was 108 degrees outside.

But the blazing temperature made it a little difficult to enjoy the festival itself. On the day that we attended, we got there when it opened and started walking around to all the booths. It was already quite warm and the temperature climbed to nearly intolerable within an hour. We stuck it out for another hour, but even with sunhats and a water mister that we purchased, we were pretty miserable. We bought a few things and tasted all the garlic flavored items that we wanted to (including garlic ice cream which is not nearly as disgusting as it sounds) and after a total of about 3 hours, we left.

We had to park some distance away and were shuttled to and from our car by buses. When we tried to get out of the parking area, we were directed away from the direction we needed to go and were required to make a big circle to get back to our hotel. One part of the circle took us on the freeway past an RV dealer. We happened to see that they carried the Thor brand RV that we had narrowed our search to so we decided to stop and take a look. Lo and behold, the very first Thor RV we saw was the exact one that met all the criteria we were hoping to find. It was less than 30 feet, it had a king size bed, it had the bathroom all in one compartment, and it had light colored wood interior. We were so excited. We had not gone into the dealership with the intention of buying anything, but they had what we wanted and they were offering it at a good price.

So, yep, we bought it! We arranged to pick it up on the day that we would be heading home from our trip, which was the following week.
We had a couple of other things planned before we would be ready to go home.
One day we made a trip to Paso Robles to do another Adventurequest. We have a lot of fun with those. They are similar to a scavenger hunt in which you follow clues and solve puzzles based on items in a particular location. You learn about the city/town as well as see details of a place that you might otherwise overlook. They are all a lot of fun. 

While we were in Paso Robles, we visited a couple of their famous wineries and I picked up a few bottles of very nice wine.
Another day, we visited a Municipal Rose Garden in San Jose.

And on yet another day, we went to a Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA which is in the "Silicon Valley." 

We passed the headquarters of businesses like Google, Twitter, and NASA. It was pretty cool. 
We also decided to check out Jack London Square in Oakland and found it ripe with possibilities for another Adventurequest--although one has not been designed for it yet. It was a beautiful day.

And since we were so close, we paid a visit to Olya and Adam and spent a little more time with Gideon.

To be continued . . .