Boise, Idaho

We’ve been “house shopping” or, as our wise real estate agent corrected me, we’ve been “house looking” since we got into Boise on Wednesday afternoon.

That’s two and a half days that poor Sophie has been stuck in the Jeep while we drive and discuss and look and discuss and whine because it’s hard to find the best fit to meet our needs.

Sophie’s been a trooper and hasn’t complained. She’s whined a bit along with us, but she’s been really quite agreeable as we muddle through the ‘house looking’.

I didn’t take any pictures of her forlornly looking at us from inside the Jeep. She just looked too sad…

Instead, I’ll honor her today by showing some pictures of Sophie over the last few years!

Taking a Nap

Taking a Lawn Bath

Tending a New Friend

On Homer Dash Patrol

Munching the Pet Grass

Welcoming Richie

On Local News

Stand Up Paddleboarding

On Squirrel Patrol

Chipmunk Teasing

Napping with Rich

“You Looking at Me?”

Looking for “My People”

Swimming

I LOVE MY DOG! (And she loves me ALMOST as much as she loves Rich!)

El Mirage, Arizona

There is a lot of “round robin” pickleball play at this resort.

What that means is that we are all assigned a number and then paired off with different partners to play different teams for each game.

Round robins are a great way to get lots of varied play, but they can get a bit confusing because we have to match up with our different playing partners and opponents.

We are continually asking each other, “What number are you?”

That reminds me of a true story of when Melissa was babysitting our friends’ child Teddy…

Teddy grew up on a dairy ranch and loved everything to do with the cows and ranching, so much so that it was hard for him to go school. He’d rather have been at home with the cows than wasting time at school.

Teddy hated kindergarten so much that he ran to the chain link fence, clung to it, and screamed, “Don’t leave me here!” after his mother dropped him off each morning.

When Melissa was babysitting him, they were talking about school.

Teddy asked Melissa, “What number are you?”

“What?” Melissa asked, unsure what he meant.

“What number are you?” Teddy repeated. “You know, I’m a zero. Next year, I’ll be a one. What number are you?”

Finally Melissa realized that Teddy was asking what grade she was in.

“Oh,” she said, “I’m a ten,” indicating that she was a sophomore in tenth grade. “Next year, I’ll be an eleven, and then the year after I’ll finally be a twelve.”

Teddy looked at Melissa with a horrified look and wailed, “You mean it goes ALL the way to TWELVE?”

PS I’m happy to report that Teddy not only made it through twelve, he also complete college and is working with his beloved cows as a dairy farmer. 🙂

Gold Canyon, Arizona

We’ve heard some great stories over the last month, so I need to get the best ones down on paper before I forget…

What’s That?

Mike and Carol were lying in bed. Mike was watching TV while Carol was surfing on her iPad.

Mike tooted.

Carol said nothing.

About five minutes later, Mike tooted again.

Carol asked, “What’s that?” like she didn’t understand what he was trying to say.

Mike said, “I already told you twice, and I’m not going to tell you a third time.”

Get the Bird

Mike, our neighbor at Gold Canyon RV Resort, grew up near Buffalo, New York. Every Thanksgiving, his dad went out hunting for pheasant while his mother prepared and cooked the entire Thanksgiving meal.

Dad would leave early in the morning, hunt most of the day, and return empty handed.

One year, Mike’s mom had to make a last minute run to the store to get a few things. As she was driving home, a pheasant literally dropped onto her car. It apparently had been shot by someone nearby and died. She got out and picked it up.

When Mike’s dad got home, she asked him if he got any birds. He said, “No.”

She said, “Well, it looks like I have to do everything around here.” She calmly handed him the pheasant and said, “The least you can do is clean it.”

Boise, Idaho

Carol and I had to unexpectedly fly home yesterday. Flights were quickly changed, activities canceled, and Carol and I hugged goodbye, several times…

This brought back memories of our trip to Europe to see Richie.

We were set to fly from Dublin, Ireland, to London, England. Once there we would split up. Richie would fly back to Hamburg and grad school.

Carol and I would fly to Munich and start hiking through Bavaria.

But, there was huge computer glitch that disabled the majority of air travel in western Europe. Long story short, it was a mess.

We finally got to Heathrow and hoped to make our connecting flights.

Richie and I hugged quickly and said our goodbyes. I was crying because I wouldn’t see him for at least a year…

Alas, our connecting flights were canceled. I think we set up a rendezvous spot just in case that happened. So we met again.

We got in line to try to find a hotel room for the night. The cheapest we could find was over $300; way too much for maybe six hours of sleep…

Richie called his friend Simon who lives in London. Simon said we could all crash at his place, but I was too worried about making our morning flight. So Carol and I decided to spend the night at the airport along with oodles of other stranded passengers.

Once again I said a tearful goodbye to Richie…

After a rather sleepless night, I mistakenly walked into the men’s restroom to brush my teeth. 🙂

As I was walking back to join Carol, guess who I ran into? Yep, Richie, looking fresh and relaxed after a wonderful night’s sleep in Simon’s flat.

So for the third and final time, I bade Richie a tearful farewell. It was excruciatingly bittersweet.

Yesterday, Carol and I went through goodbyes two times.

Richie called me while Carol and I were saying our second goodbyes when he was on a layover in Chicago on a business trip.

Carol told him it was like Heathrow all over again…

Boise, Idaho

While we were in eastern Idaho last week, Rich and I took a drive to tour Driggs, Idaho.

We hadn’t been there in almost 14 years. Wow, has it changed.

We were there for a long Thanksgiving weekend in November of 2000.

Richie was a senior at Montana State University. Melissa was a freshman at Boise State University. And I was a junior at University of Nevada, Reno.

This was the second Thanking we were going to spend on our own, not with any other family, since Rich and I married in 1977.

Rich and I drove from Fallon up to Boise and picked Melissa up. Richie drove down from Bozeman.

We rented a log house on a working cattle  ranch just outside of Driggs. Located at the base of the Grand Tetons, Driggs is the cheap Idaho side of the Tetons, not the expensive Wyoming side.

It was a very special holiday. For lots of reasons…

I went for run once we unpacked. The ranch was so close to the state line that I literally ran to Wyoming. That’s the first time I ran across a state line. 🙂

George W. Bush and Al Gore were in the middle of battling over hanging chads.

We had no television at all; radio reception was very spotty because the ranch was so remote and the weather was bad. In 2000 there was no Internet available other than dial up, and the house didn’t have any connectivity. We drove miles and miles to try to find a newspaper with current national news, but we never did find one.

Richie and I were going crazy because we wanted to know what was happening. Rich and Melissa could have cared less…

It was freezing cold. Rich was in heaven stoking the fire in the huge masonry fireplace.

It snowed a little on Thanksgiving night, adding the perfect ambiance to the weekend.

Have you ever seen the Chevy Chase movie “Funny Farm”? It’s a great comedy about a young couple that moved from New York City to a farm in Connecticut.

One of our favorite scenes involves sending a deer across their yard when prospective buyers are looking at the farm. The deer is released with the now infamous line, “Cue the deer.”

While we were there, someone kept cueing the fox because it ran across the yard multiple times. (Not my photo…)

That was our best Thanksgiving ever, and driving to Driggs brought all those happy memories back.