Saturday morning came bright and clear. And warm. We have had a few days of 80+ degree weather, and we're promised several more. Just delightful. It's one of the advantages of the 7,000 foot elevation. (Phoenix has been getting 100+ degree weather.) At 11:00, we took a one-hour ride on a special train run by the Grand Canyon Railway people.
It takes the same route as the one going to the canyon, but just makes a 16-mile round trip in the vintage "Harriman" cars, drawn by the steam locomotive.
It's no big deal in reality, but we love the old train equipment and the ride through the Coconino National Forest is very pleasant.
After that, we stopped in at an open house in our neighborhood. The home for sale was built nine years ago by Andy Worthington, the husband of our realtor, Danielle Worthington. It's truly beautiful and looks hardly lived-in at all.
We had a pizza from The Pizza Factory for dinner. When I called to order it, John pulled up my phone number on the computer and noticed that we had called several previous times. He volunteered that the odd area code would not usually suggest to one of the clerks that we were locals, but the frequency of the calls suggested that we were, and he offered that we were therefore entitled to the local 10% discount. It's not a lot, but I was impressed that John volunteered that information. The pizza was delicious, of course, with or without the discount.
Sunday was Fathers' Day and the day was wonderful. Becky brought me two apple fritters for breakfast, and Ramsey and Kelsey gave me a nice card. (Kelsey's handwriting is very bad.) Both of my human kids gave me the appropriate wishes, and Becky let me tackle a job I have been avoiding---cleaning the barbecue.
I'm sure most parts of it have not been touched in the nine years it has been here. It took most of the day, but the thing now looks pretty damn good. The only bad part is two drawers are rusted shut. (Well, one of them can be opened but it's not pretty.) I need to get new drawer-slide mechanisms and drill out the old ones to fix them. That's a project for another day (or so).
We celebrated with a dip in the spa. Aaaaaaah.
Monday was back to the normal routine, including the daily trip to Flagstaff for radiation, and shopping, of course. On the way to Flagstaff, we got slowed down by an accident on I-40. A travel trailer and its pickup truck had somehow jackknifed and turned over in the middle of the road. It was a spooky reminder of some of the accidents we have seen on our RV adventures.
We are expecting several groups of visitors in July, so we're taking care of last-minute planning so our guest rooms will be ready. We're even clearing out the second stall in our garage so people can park away from the sap dripping from the pine tree in the middle of our driveway.
On Tuesday, my day started with a pedicure in Williams and a little more cleaning of the barbecue. My afternoon trip to Flagstaff involved two stops at Home Depot, a haircut, a truck wash, a stop at PetCo to return some overpriced doggie treats, and a stop at the diesel repair guy who determined that what looks like the small the leak we now have is probably just air conditioning moisture washing past old oil buildups on the engine. Whew.
Tuesday night, the redbox movie was Wild Tales, seven short stories from Argentina. Strange, but interesting.
When the electrician was here a few weeks ago to install the traclight in our bedroom, I had him attack a few other things, as well. One of them was to try to determine what a switch near the patio door was for. He was stumped. By sheer accident the other day, I found a heretofore unknown electrical receptacle in the roof over the barbecue, which turned out to be controlled by the mystery switch. Armed with that knowledge it became imperative, of course, to attach a small light to that plug. Which I did Wednesday morning. Damn clever installation, I think.
That effort tired me out, though, and I did little else on Wednesday but make the trip to Flagstaff for my radiation treatment. Before we left Flagstaff, we stopped at Whole Foods to pick up sushi for dinner, which it turned out Becky had been craving for a few weeks. Yum.
On Thursday, I returned to the dreaded barbecue to deal with the two drawers that were rusted shut. My earlier efforts at cleaning the damn thing had no effect on those two drawers. I loaded up on tools and parts at the hardware store and dove in. It took two days, but I finished the project Friday afternoon. Success!
I still need to finish a final touch-up cleaning, but the barbecue is now fully functional except for the built-in igniter which is well above my pay grade to fix, but Becky tells me that's why matches were invented. (I found the motor for the spit in one of the drawers that had been rusted shut.) I am a happy man. I'm ready for my 77th birthday Saturday.
I awoke to two apple fritters on Saturday, a fitting start to my birthday. I spent much of the day puttering around, taking brief naps. I did attack two small projects, and the four of us went on a field trip to Dogtown Lake, about a half hour out of town. It was a nice lake with a lot of people fishing and hanging out.
There were any number of RVs boon docking near the road leading to the lake, and a large number in the campground at the lake.
In mid-afternoon, we watched Survivor, with Pierce Brosnan, a freebie from redbox owing to my birthday. The critics and the general public apparently hated the movie but we thought it was quite entertaining.
For dinner we went to Kicks on Route 66, which is fast becoming a favorite of ours. I intended to order Mandarin Beef Stir-fry, one of their dishes I like a lot, but they had a blackened Filet Mignon as a special and we both just had to have it. It was fabulous! Chris, our server, is only going to be there another week.
Due to his wife's pregnancy, she needs extra help at night, so he has to exist with just his day job at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. We will miss him; he's very good. Thus ended a very nice birthday.
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