Leaving Again 9-8-24 to 9-14-24

 Retired Life. Sunday.

The alarm went off way too early so we could make it to church on time. But, we looked at the below Jesus Picture, remembered why church makes us happy, and got up and got going. (And made a note to ourselves that we really should stop ending our vacation trips on a Saturday so we're not so tired...)

Sacrament Meeting. Men's Meeting. Back home for lunch and some reading. Took Sacrament to Hanna's Mom. Got in a real short nap while Hanna harvested veggies from the garden. A ton of veggies.

Then we drove to Elk to visit with Del and Ella and let them feed us Chicken Enchiladas. We are grateful for that since we were too tired to cook, had no food in the house, and they are also catsitting our cat. Although that is one of THEIR cats in the picture below.

No worries. We'll go grocery shopping tomorrow.

Retired Life. Monday.

To keep from dying from starvation, we made today a grocery day. Plan out the next three weeks (we are home most of this week, then leave on our annual pilgrimage to Mayo Clinic for Hanna's annual cancer exam, which will take up two weeks to get there and back.)(we drive slow and take our time because we are retired and can do just that), Make menus, create shopping lists, drive to the Casino, play Rummy and eat salads at Red Tail, drive on to Plummer, buy groceries, drive home, unload, unpack.

Those groceries will last us until we arrive in Rochester at which time we will pick up our order there for the rest of the trip. I placed that order today so I won't have to worry about it.

Note that the Hyvee in Rochester is the only store I know of that sells Mountain Dew Code Red Zero. We stocked up last year, but not nearly enough. I included 20 12-packs of the delicious stuff in the grocery order. We'll see how they handle that.

Retired Life. Tuesday.

It was Revlimid Delivery Day. The day when Hanna's poisonous and expensive chemotherapy drug arrives and someone must be here to personally sign for it. So we didn't leave the house, which given our recent adventures, felt like a good thing.

I spent most of my day getting caught up on paying bills, reconciling medical statements, and entering transactions into QuickBooks so I can officially present Hanna with official Financial Statements so she can see where all the money went last month. Hint: most of it got left in Alaska. Beautiful state though and we were happy to stimulate its economy.

AI drew a cool picture of me trying to pay bills without looking like I'm working...

Retired Life. Wednesday.

The plan was to hang around the house, relax a bit, and do a few small projects. And my turn to cook breakfast and dinner.

Ham omelettes for breakfast. Ribs for dinner.

The project plan went haywire real quick. I decided today was a good day to fill up the water storage tanks we bought that are sitting in the basement. I had a plan that would keep me from flooding the basement...check the process after an hour and make sure they don't overfill. At the first check, the basement was flooded. The valves on the tank had been left open by the manufacturer. So, Hanna and I spent a lot of time moving wet boxes, mopping, sweeping, and shopvaccing. Note that the valves now were closed and the filling was still going on now that we are right in the basement to watch it. But that was a fail. After a bit, we noticed the water was going up, not down. And then noticed the tank was overflowing. We didn't even notice it. Too busy with that mop...Drain the basement round 2. We finally got that cleaned up when we saw a torrent of more water. Hanna had accidentally knocked the hose and it was no longer flowing into the tank. Drain the basement, round 3. We finally got that cleaned up when we noticed the upper tank had a pin hole leak and water was squirting out. I hooked the hose up to the valve and drained the tank. And then, drain the basement, round 4. See folks? This is why we had to retire. No one would ever trust us around their finances at this point in our lives.

Good news is the basement floor, for the first time since we moved in during July of 2020, is spottlessly clean.

Retired Life. Thursday.

First, the war. I will talk about the war. While I was battling a four-time flooded basement yesterday (we seriously broke the record for most times flooding a basement in a single day. I have a call in to the Guinness Book of World Records...) I was attacked by angry YELLOWJACKETS!!! I was under the belief that these pests only sting or attack if they or their nest feels threatened. Yet, I got attacked! And stung on my ankle! War! I spent some time searching for their nest and finally located it, underground, next to the foundation, about six feet from where they had attacked me and about ten feet from our almost full YELLOWJACKET trap. I waited until nightfall when those angry buggers were gently asleep and then I sprayed a can of hornet spray down their hole, then plugged it. My careful inspection this morning indicated that there were no survivors. War!

This is actually the third time that I have been attacked by underground yellowjackets, which I understand are more aggressive than most other wasps. The other two times I poured gasoline down their hole, then threw a match in. It made this cool KAWUMP sound as it exploded underground. No survivors then either. I was going to do the same yesterday since that method had been so successful in the past, but changed my mind since the nest was literally right next to the house. Flooding my own basement is one thing. Burning down my own house is yet another.

The sting has now migrated from intense pain to annoying itching. Trying not to scratch...

Today started our Cancer Pilgrimage. Infusion day at the Cancer Clinic in Post Falls. Huge blood draw. Wait for results. Answer some questions of the Nurse Practitioner because it appears Hanna's immune system is still crippled. (They tell her to stay away from sick people...) Determine she is healthy enough for treatment. Shot of Immunotherapy in the stomach. Yikes! But if it kills cancer cells, it isn't that painful.

We had time to burn, so went into a furniture store and bought a new love seat and bar stools. We had been talking about, budgeting, and planning on this purchase for a long time. Since last year in fact. Finally had time to do it.

Then we worshipped in our temple. Always a nice experience. And our temple will now be closed for a month, so we will get to travel and worship in other temples. Some far, and some near.

Finally, we met up with Hanna's sister from Utah for a catch up dinner at Red Tail. It's always fun to catch up with family.

The pilgrimage continues tomorrow as we begin our Trek to Mayo Clinic for Hanna's annual testing and checkup. She's confident. I'm a bit nervous. She's doing well though I think.

AI drew me a picture of yesterday's horrible attack. War! And that truly is about the perceived size of the yellowjacket too. Has to be. It's AI and it never messes up.

Retired life. Friday.

First thing this morning, I went down to the basement to get some boxes and.......I noticed a fresh YELLOWJACKET in my trap. Weird. I thought I had killed them all. So I carefully approached their nest hole. And there were tons of them. Angry! And swarming the hole! Yikes. I decided to let them be. They will take care of any intruders that approach our home while we're gone. And I'll go back to war with them when we are back in a couple weeks.

Then a really exciting thing happened! See the text message below I got from the Hyvee in Rochester. Great service! I really didn't think they would handle it. They'd give me what was on their shelf and that would be it. But no. 20 boxes. So, I did the math. That's 240 cans of deliciousness. I drink about three a week. So that would mean 80 weeks. About a year and a half. Not a bad supply. It should last through the apparent upcoming civil war. Water and Dew. I will survive.

Today we packed up and drove to Butte. Not much interesting happened. Have a picture of Frivvy really nervous about why we are packing. And then him again at our AirBnB being really excited for the new home. He loves to travel. Tomorrow, we will pretty much drive across the rest of Montana.

Retired Life. Saturday.

We traveled practically all the way across Montana, to Miles City, the half-way mark. This included logging several caches along the way (we have a system, we stop and find a cache in every third county we drive through...), walking around the pond at Riverfront Park in Billings, and listening to a couple of football games live.

The day in pictures:

1. Our game day paraphonelia. We typically cheer for BYU, WSU and ISU. See the hat. See Hanna's shirt. Go Cougs!!

2. And see my lucky Bengal socks. They needed all the luck and help they could muster today and it still wasn't enough.

3. We had a long discussion on how we could possibly fit 20 cases of delicious Dew into our truck. Looks impossible. But Hanna, who has part of a degree in Engineering (before she came to her senses and changed her major to accounting) has an idea and a plan. Also, funny, I was thinking of abstaining from caffeine as soon as we finish this trip. Gonna have to rethink that one now with my basement full of delicious Dew.

4. We drove all over Alaska trying to get some elevation and really never did. One trip to Butte fixed that. Our AirBnB came in high at 6300 feet.

5. For the first time, we managed to get dirt on the hitch on the truck. While turning around on a trail.

6. We nicely asked Google Maps GPS to take us from Walmart to I-90 and this is the route it took us on. The road eventually became rough enough that we turned back. Beautiful waste of about 40 minutes. Technology is great.

7. Very fun Geocache in Whitehall.

8. Another one near a cemetery near Miles City in the middle of nowhere. Frivvy does enjoy getting a break from riding in the truck.