ummm pie!

Good morning.
I've returned from my walk, cleaned the kitchen, and now I thought I'd do a post.
Here's the cherry pie I made Wed.

I had nearly too many cherries, but made them fit.   :-)
I make a crumb topping for my pies. It saves some calories over using 2 pastry crusts. Made it with fresh cherries that I bought for $.99 lb and froze, back before our road trip. It turned out pretty good!
And now with my medicare and supplemental insurance starting Oct. 1st. I went online and cancelled my Obama care policy. Got our new car insurance ready to start new the end of the month, along with canceling our Sirius radio subscription. We enjoyed having listening options on our road trip, but seldom listen to the radio around town. Plus, they give you really cheap prices when you want to start service, but not so great to continue. If we drive back again next year, I'll just sign up again for 6 months.
Here's a pic of the golf course in the middle of over seeding for winter. The course is closed for 2 weeks.

They thatch the center of the fairways, overseed with an annual rye I think, and water for 2 weeks to get the new grass growing. Apparently, they coordinate this with other area courses so golfers still have someplace to play. The outside areas of the fairway will go dormant as it gets colder.
Well today is haircut day again. Nice we can get it done here instead of having to go some place.   :-)

just another project

Good morning.
Got back from my morning walk, and went right into a project I've been working on for several days now.
I periodically check our drip system maybe once a month, to make sure all the dripper heads are functioning.  Occasionally a head will quit working for whatever reason and will need to be replaced.
Well, my last check several days ago turned up a couple of bushes in the front yard that weren't hardly getting any water, so upon checking the rest of the plants in the front yard, I discovered a small puddle among some rock. If this post sounds familiar, last spring I had almost the same problem, but in a different spot. Well sure enough, as I pulled away the stones and dirt, water came bubbling up from below.
Well, long story short, I had another root growing between the main line and several feeder lines as you can see in the pic below.....

So, as the root grows and gets fatter, it puts pressure on the feeder line until it is pulled off.

So I had to cut out the root, and reattach the feeder line. And even though I blew out the line with water before I reattached it, I still had 2 bushes and a plant that weren't getting any water....So...I had to run new drip lines to them.

The new feeder lines are on the left of the original ones.

And the yard put back together. I think they ran the main line and feeder lines too close to the tree. But builders do whatever they can to do things cheaper and easier. The leak last spring was about 2 feet to the right of this one.
In other news.......
We picked out excursions we thought we'd like to do on our next cruise. Getting together with the neighbors that are going with us to see if any of our choices match up.
And we went to the Salted Lime again yesterday for Taco Tuesday with some different neighbors. They just returned from a coastal train trip from LA to Seattle and back. Sounds like a nice trip we might want to do sometime.
I think today is haircut time and I'm also going to bake a cherry pie from the cherries I bought before our road trip.
That's it for now...

a busy week.

Good morning.
I've just returned from my morning walk. It takes me about 40-45 minutes to do my usual loop around our community.

The above pic is an aerial shot of our community, the golf club, and the casino. Our house is where the black dot is. The red dots represent the route I take on my morning walks. Now sometimes, I alter the walk and will use different streets, but this route is a nice big 'circle'.
And here's a few pics of my walks this week....

There was a full moon and it was just next to the mountain above the trees near the right side of the pic.

And the sun playing on the clouds in the morning. We tend to have some clouds in the morning, but usually the dissipate during the day.
I've also been busy online looking for new auto insurance. We currently have The Hartford for the house and 2 cars, and this year, our premium went up over $300 for the year. So I've been looking around, and think we'll go with Esurance for nearly $600 less. They say you should look around every 3 years or so, and I'm finding that to be true. Companies are always changing rates up and down.
Yesterday, we took our cars in for a smog check. Have to do this every year when we renew the registration. Only takes about 5 minutes. They have these little stand alone kiosk places that do the approx. 5 minute test. You then get a form that you mail in with the registration.  So we got that taken care of yesterday.
We also went to Taco Tuesday at Salted Lime in our casino with a neighbor. Good food and good prices! $4 jumbo Margaritas, $1.50 Street tacos, and .80 wings.
Well that's it for now....

trip details

Good afternoon.
More on our trip......
After 4 days on the road, we arrived in Muskegon on the 5th. I cut Mom's hair, then we went to Red Lobster for lunch. Mom likes the stuffed mushrooms and the biscuits.  I like everything, so I was happy too!   :-)
After that, we headed over to the VFW for a drink and pull-tabs. We never seem to do very good with them.

It was great seeing Mom again after a year!.
She looked good. She seemed to be handling Lupus okay.
After dropping her off at her apartment, we headed to Lansing where we spent 4 nights at a Ramada near the highway on the side of town where were worked. Got real good rates. Since I'm a Wyndham member, and stay almost exclusively at Wyndham hotels, I had enough points to offset our room rates. With points, it only cost us $45 per night.
While in Lansing, we saw friends and former co-workers.

Had way too much rain while we were there, just reinforcing our decision for moving to Las Vegas.
After our stay in Lansing, we drove back to Muskegon for another visit with Mom. This time taking her to Whitlows for a perch dinner.  Then back to the VFW for a drink and more pull-tabs again.... no luck.
After that, we drove down to Benton harbor for the night.
The next day took us to Normal Illinois, where one of our neighbors lives in the summer.

Had a very nice visit with them and spent the night at a local hotel.
Then it was back to Vegas, stopping at each town we hit coming out.

We enjoyed the scenery on the trip. Although it was a l-o-n-g drive there and back.
And not a lot of pics either.
But, as I always say, we got there safe, back safe, no issues........It was a good trip!

a 14 day road trip

Good morning.
We've just returned from a 14 day road trip that took us from Las Vegas all the way back to Michigan.
 Here's a few pics of our drive through Utah and Colorado.

Sure is some pretty scenery!
We decided to do a shorter trip this year compared to the 19 day road trip we took last year. We decided 19 days in hotels and on the road was a little too much!
So we broke the days into mostly 6-7 hour drives. And that was a much nicer way to go. Had plenty of time each day after we got to our hotel to relax and eat.
So our itinerary was as such.....
Las Vegas to Grand Junction Co. Then to Ogallala Neb. Then on to Des Moines Iowa. To Stevensville Michigan, and after a day stop in Muskegon to see my Mom, we spent 4 nights in Lansing.  Leaving Lansing, we again stopped in Muskegon before spending the night in Benton Harbor MI. Then it was on to Normal Illinois, back to Des Moines Iowa and the rest of the trip in reverse. I'll post more pics of the trip maybe tomorrow. Have a lot to catch up on at the moment.