12 Oakdale

It was cloudy and rainy here most of Wednesday. Our red shouldered hawk was stoic. Hurricane Milton came ashore 8:30 at Siesta Key as a category 3 with winds of 120 mph, then crossed the state below Orlando, exiting into the Atlantic early Thursday morning with winds down to 85 mph. Still a hurricane, but the tornadoes on its front edge seem to have particularly deadly. For us, it meant we got winds from the southeast that pushed rain under our garage door. We mopped and put down towels for a while. I realized we could run them through the washer’s spin cycle to get them ready to sop up more water. Much easier than trying to wring by hand. After doing it for a couple hours, and the water not getting more than about 3’ into the garage, I’d had enough. We made sure everything was up on shelves and called it a night. I read until about 1:30 AM; Grant played his computer game until 2:30. I prefer hurricanes that come during the day like Irma, so I can watch what is happening. I tried using...

We must have the shadiest campsite in the park, A10. Normally good; bad for using our solar panels to charge our Jackery battery. I said, after dealing with ice at Yellowstone last year, I was buying a Dometic camping fridge. Which we did, using an Amazon card for a 5% rebate and having a 20% off coupon. Still about $1500 for the setup. Not having soggy cold food: priceless. Fortunately, the Tacoma has an AC outlet in the bed, so we plug either the fridge or the battery in when we drive. We can also charge phones, iPads, and Grant’s hearing aides from either battery or car. Not exactly camping like my parents did. We have cell service at our site. I suspect this is more a bleed over from all the nearby towns rather than the National Park Service having added towers. This means I can read downloaded library books on my iPad while lying on my cot. Yes, we’ve added cots to our baggage, thank goodness, (even though I find mine pretty uncomfortable), because there is no way I could get up f...

1986 Purgatory, Colorado After living together for about five years and having our first child, we, actually I, decided to get married. Grant had been lobbying for years. But I was still hurting from the loss of my first marriage. He’d been divorced long enough to know hearts heal. I took a while to learn that. Plus alimony was my major source of income. I had to be practical .  We were married on the back patio of my house. With the hope of keeping it simple, my girlfriends Sally and Marjorie made much of the food. Grant cooked chicken Marsala, and, to my dismay, his mother Hazel laboriously peeled all the tomatoes for the salad. I don’t think she ever ate a tomato skin in her life. Our extravagance was a crazily expensive, absolutely delicious raspberry-filled wedding cake from By Word of Mouth, a little restaurant no longer around. July 10, 1988 The Rev. Kit Howell performed the service with vows he’d browbeating us into writing, Larry Bensen played the piano, and b...