Future Ciggies and the $11 fuse

Well it is the middle of August.   The middle of August !!!!!! Hope you are all having a great summer cause you know as well as I do it is fixin to be fall ready or not.  

Funny, just opened a chocolate--yum paper it was wrapped in says be spontaneous.  Well my friends we are or try to be the best we can.    We have not been on one our "trips" for a while so thought ok lets pack up and off we went.   A lot of times we don't know where we are going and how long we will be.  This time we thought at least two weeks.  

  Steel stallion loaded with whatever we take on a trip, tires rotated, oil changed  and suitcases saying where are we going now?   In our heads we were going to put about 5,000 miles in the stallion.  Yep we love the driving trips and just seeing what God has created, not the man made attractions but pretty things and country sides.  So to start the trip we went to Sedona Arizona.   Such a peaceful and calming place.  With Red Rocks and way to many tourists.   We went to our favorite place Poco Diablo with lots of ducks which I love to feed and by the time we leave I have named each little group.   To Limpy, whose foot was hurt, to the loner, who fly's in every time I fed them.   We had Momma and baby.  Well it was 3 babies but the Heron, a protected bird ate two of them.    Now I think it was last year it was 10 or 13 babies when we got there and I saw the culprit Heron eat several of them and when we left there were 3.   Poor little ducks.    We had the trio of ducks and I wondered if they were the babies from last year.   I really got excited when this pig of a bird was eating the babies.   Hubby said that is just the food chain.   But he didn't have to eat them in front of me.  Just my thought.  

 

 

Now here is loner and the trio waddling off after I fed them   We were almost ready to hit the road when I took these.  I thought I would take more but didn't.   Next time.  Some of them are aggressive little things and would jump up and say, or I think they say, hurry Annette you are dilly dallying to much.  

 

 

 

 

Quick pic of some of the ducks.  There is also a little 9 hole golf course there, we don't kill the golfs but it is peaceful there.    Now that is what I say golfers do, kill the golfs ( hit the golf balls) and I asked grandson yet has he figured out to cook the golfs?  Just one of my goofy things I guess.   I only had to step outside on the patio throw one piece of bread up and here they came.  Oh they wouldn't eat strawberries at least these wouldn't eat them.  

It is so peaceful at Poco Diablo  except for the Heron and you can get your head on straight there and just chill out or do as much as you want to.  Sometimes we are tourists and other times just chillers.   Now this time there were three weddings at the resort while we were there.  One had 80 something guests, one had about 35 and the other one was Bride, Groom, one attendant each and a flower girl.  That is it.  We got to see different photographers at work.  We watched from our patio and being as we did that combat photography for a few years were interested in the photographer.   Now they all three had different styles and it was interesting to watch.

 

 

I took lots of photos but thought naw this is just a nibbling of what we watched.  There is a gazebo behind the trees also. 

 

 

After three restful nights off we went to Yellowstone here we come.   Now we are kind of like boy scouts and try to be prepared and carry things with us that we might need.  In our wanderings we will go miles and miles without seeing a town or even another car.   We pranced out to the steel stallion like kings of the hill.   Put the key in the ignition and click, click, click.   Ok most people know what that sound is- battery problems.  Never had one iota of a problem.  We carry a self powered little thing and hooked it up to the battery and got it started and thought ok off we go.   Well on the way  to the interstate things started happening.     Have you ever seen the Stephen King movie   Christine?  Well Christine over took our steel stallion or we were on and Indian burial ground or something.   Our thinking was Phoenix is further but the road is level, to Flagstaff it is hilly or had mountains.   Why did this matter?  Fixin to tell you-gotta make another paragraph so you don't get exhausted. 

 

Sedona did not have a dealership there to check on the steel stallion.   The windows were going up and down, the air conditioner off and on and surging, all the electrical displays looked like a motion picture going thru everything it ever thought of.  The air bag displays OMG went nuts o .  The transmission clunked and we could go 70 or 40.  Gotta say an Escalade is tough.    We had maybe a string of a couple of minutes that things worked.   Talk about tense.   Nothing electrical worked, on star no cell Christine was taking over.   

 

We saw a high way patrolman, whew, he had some pulled over so we parked behind him and waited.  Well, he saw us and coming over to us, casually put his hand on his pistol, flipped the safety strap with his thumb and hand on pistol.   I thought oh no, Christine first and then the mad police officer.  We didn't kill the car just in case it wouldn't start.  

 

He was so nice and said let me think a minute.  There was a dealership within 10 miles so we thanked him and off we went.   Jerking car and all.   We drove into the dealership  and  parked the car and it was then dead as a door nail.   No clicks or nothing.  After 6 short hours at the dealership it was an $11 fuse.  They had not even heard of the car doing that.   But things happen for a reason.    They found a dead cell in the battery, they had had a factory recall on a transmission dip stick tube and it was cracked and our little jaunt of jerking down the road we had some burnt transmission fluid.  So with a new $11 fuse, a new battery and clean new transmission fluid we were of our way.   

 

Now being older and wiser we thought lets go back to Sedona.  Did that and got a room at our resort and thought ok, we are going back home and making sure the steel stallion is well.   So that is what we did, only 1650 miles on this leg of our trip.   We figure Yellowstone will not close and we have been there several times.   We made it home safe and sound and onward and upward we will go.  

 

Now it wasn't a total loss at all  we enjoyed ourselves and I did do lots of sketching.   Here are 3 that I did, while take their pics I had done a whole lot more.  I guess my muse was on overtime in Sedona.  So now we  will paint them and see where they go. 

 

  

 



 We had beautiful clouds on the way home and even saw RAIN--yes Rain while we were gone.  Well it did hail one night but RAIN.  That is such a treat for us.  No complaining here. 

 

 

 

I was busy looking at the clouds and was seeing lots of teddy bears on their backs wanting to have their tummy's scratched then forgot to take pics.  But did get around to  taking a few. 

 

1/3 of the trip but will attempt again.   

 

Thanks for stopping by and seeing what is going on in my world today. 

 

xoxoxo

Annette    

Happy Accident Project Finished

Here we go and welcome August.  It has been so cool for summer here, really cool.   Kind of scarey.  Our weatherman Ron Roberts even said he wouldn't be surprised if we got the S word in October.  We will see.   I mean I am not complaining but we don't mind the 100 plus days, I am not joking.  Well if we worked outside during the heat of the day we might but we try to get our doings one in the morning and then inside projects in the afternoon.

Now being Relaxed Retired should mean more relaxing and less projects, not sure where we messed up here.   I keep saying well next year we won't have many projects.   This would be true I guess if Miz Busy Person here wouldn't think of any projects or Mr. getting to be an engineer type person thinks of some also.  So right now Libby, our furbaby is the only one taking the Relaxed Retired to heart

Miss Libby and her Relaxing and sleeping.  Now the only time she gets out of her"Dog House" is when the rest of her human pack comes out.  She gets bored very easily because we are not giving treats or petting constantly.   She does enjoy the coolness of the rocks we put in the flower bed.   I am thinking next year we are going to do the same rock treatment to the giant cut out in the front.  It houses 3 large oak trees, lots of feather grass and 5 or 7, can't remember red blooming yuccas.    That will be a next spring project I think, here we go already planning new projects for next year.   Yikes Annette and Eldon you are Relaxed Retired.  

 

 

Now as I promised some pics of an accidental project.   The lawn /patio chairs we finished and working on the patio led to this project.    Hubby had set up his saw horses, yes horses in Texas : ), and put some boards on them so the painting would be easier and not so hard on the back.   Ouch.  

 

He had been experimenting with some old cedar fencing and came up with some shutters.   Well after using spray paint on them he said look at this.  Master pieces of art in my mind.   So he took some cross boards off of the one and I said this is perfect.  Could you make another one and I could paint on it and we could hang on the back windows of the patio? 

 

Off Hubby went and made another shutter and we were delighted at what we had created.   Now mind you these are not for the faint of heart or for beigh loving dears.   We would not put these on the front of the house, I think the HOA here would tar and feather us and run us out of the neighborhood.  This is for our enjoyment and our back patio.   Only Libby and us will ever see it.    Talk about a pop of color to go along with the rest of our patio.   Yahoooooo. 

 

 

Hubby and co-worker of our doings and projects.  

 

 

Here they are.  We love them I said you know some flowers would be pretty underneath them.   He said how about a flower box?   Hummmm maybe another project?   Not sure.   We could not have planned these any better if we tried.  You can see where we had arms and legs  ( of chairs) scattered around   Like I said not for the faint of heart but we love them and they give lots of personality to our patio.     Oh did you notice the cushion on the left?  I thought why not spray paint the cushions.  They are still good and let's just change the color?  Tada,  presto changeo.    

 

 

Grandson was here a few weeks back and he said it is beginning to look like Nana now.  Best compliment ever.    Thanks Grandson.

 

 

 



Just a little reminder of what the patio looks like.   We are thinking about what to put on the concrete now.  Dang that is another project isn't it?  See what I mean?   It is never ending.  Guess that is what keeps us young. 

 



 

 

 

Well thanks for stopping by and seeing what is going on in our world today.

 

 

 

XOXOXO

Annette