Catching Up

I've been off and running for months now and want to catch up those that follow this saga of mine. August had us taking several day trips to the coast and mountains. September was the start of new volunteer activities and MaryLou had to be hospitalized for a week. She then had to return overnight. Lastly we took our longest trip so far: 11 days down the California coast with a latest trailer. While traveling we visited Ann and Jan who's recovering from knee replacement surgery.

Here's a photo journal of sorts. Glacier Point trip: Wawona hotel, Glacier Pt. gift shop; Half Dome and Falls

San Simeon Trip: saw a buffalo ranch on the way and with stop at Mission San Antonio de Padua plus zebras from Hearst Castle's ranch:

Wishon Trip: Wishon store, Wishon Lake, MaryLou's favorite place and Courtwright lake.

I've been volunteering at Saint Agnes Medical Center for 4 yrs now and recently new areas of volunteering have opened up: Our Lady of Victory home visiting (one of the ladies I see) and Children's Hospital of Central California.

I am a volunteer chaplain and Eucharistic Minister in each area. I really enjoy this work as I can nourish others and be nourished.

Coast trips new stops: Refugio SP, Carpinteria and Ann with MaryLou

It's been a busy time with family and friends; hope I can posted more currently for you who continue to support this saga in ways mostly unknown. Love to you all.

The Latest

Our yard and it's new paint, plants and arrangements is looking good. Bev sent ML some day lilies and they're already blooming.

Since it's getting hotter now, I've been taking the dogs to run either early in the morning or after sunset. The local holding pond serves as a dog park so I took my camera along one evening.

The Fresno Cycling Club hold 2 major races each year and I've volunteered to help the lunch stop. The Climb to Kaiser is a 155 miles with 14,000'+ of climbing. http://www.climbtokaiser.com/Here's the winner: he's 55 miles ahead of the pack. Lunch is at Huntington Lake and almost to the top of their climb. I met a women from last year; she's a cancer researcher from Stanford. The oldest was 73 yo and in the top 10 finishers; unbelieveable. I made them laugh when I touched them saying I wanted to see what they were really made of.

Bev & Bob invited us to send the 4th of July with them in Las Vegas. We flew over and spent nearly a week in that wonderful place. Besides getting to know Bob for the first time and enjoying Bev, we had a wonderful lunch at Desser Springs including black swans. We visited the Red Rock park, Blue Diamond historic town with it's burros, Bonnie Springs' western village, Charleston ski area and Lee Canyon ski area. The bigest highlight for me was a helicopter tour of Hoover dam and new bridge. Lake Mead Marina

Several nights we went to the strip to see the new casinos and their attractions: Paris with it's Eiffel tower, the Venician with St. Mark's square complete with gondolas and the Stratosphere with bungee jumping and roller coaster. The 4th was spent at Brendan's home and watching all the firework displays around; the city had lots of fireworks. Brendan's home is a show place which we enjoyed alot. There didn't seem time to do it all or see any shows. Flying certainly isn't any fun any more; although the flight was only an hour; 2 hrs added on each way for security plus hour and half to get a rental car made the trip exhausing. We could have driven over in 5 hrs. Ugh. Oh well live and learn.

We are healthy as can be: ML has some dental work being done and some more rule out type labs. I continue to lose weight; thank God. The air quality isn't good so I had to get my asthma meds renewed last night but am ok otherwise. I've signed up for the Tour of Fresno bike event in midSeptmember and hope to be able to do the metric century. http://www.tourdefresno.com/