It Rained Today.

Its still summer

Hot and desperately dry, our temperatures are still hovering in the 100+ degree area. A few areas in the valley got some showers yesterday, Leisure World was not among them. But, even as distressed as it is, with the help of irrigation water, our home is still predominately green. With the help of gardeners such as Bob Clark and Lupe Leal, the lush beauty of the Valley comes through. This morning, tipped off by Lupe, I visited the garden area back of the Napier's mobile. Among other things I found there was a papaya tree more loaded with fruit than I have ever before seen, and the glorious exuberant accent of beauty in a Frangipani blossom. I just had to share them with you.

More Health Tidings

The Sunshine Lady's report is short this time.
Marlene Beach has had knee surgery. She is doing well in rehab, and will be home in a day or two. I plan to take her a little plant and her card when she gets home.
Gordon Ruonavaara died recently. He was Thelma Watkins' brother and Lucille Ruonavaara's brother-in-law. There is a card at the office for people here to sign, and I will send it soon.
If any of you know someone who should have a card for some purpose, please let me know. Carol Slater

reunion

We had 44 for the reunion in Fort Dodge today. Two couples cancelled due to health and the third couple I think got lost in the construction projects and never made it to the church. Hope they found their way home. I had a good time and hope everyone else did too. Many people said they enjoyed it. The highlight was the Sonshine singers. Don't think I top them for next year.
All evening we get dark clouds, a cloudburst of rain for a few minutes then sunshine and a repeat of it all. The weather radio hasn't gone off which surprises me as dark as it got a couple times. Certainly cooled off.
Now if I just knew how to put pictures on here you could see the good time we had. I have enough trouble getting this far. Maybe someone else took pictures and can share them. Time to take this laptop somewhere and get it straightened out again.

Nine ladies enjoyed a good Ladies Luncheon today at Mimi's. The food and service were both good and all there agreed that it was one of our best luncheons yet.

Guess who came to dinner?

Just a short note from Kansas. Charlie Green was our guest for dinner yesterday. We had a good dinner and lot's of good conversation. We will soon be thinking about returning to Leisure World to be with family and friends. We hope everyone is having a fanstatic summer. See you soon.

Wally & Lorna Motorcycle East

We are on our summer excursion to places east this year instead of our usual Washington State trip. Oshkosh, WI has often beckoned us to come to the fantastic EAA air show. I tell everyone that it is the largest air show with the smallest airplanes as fly-in attendees. Many of these are home built and kit built planes. However an unusual attendee this year will be the huge Airbus A380 double decker passenger plane.

Of course we will be traveling by motorcycle and following the show we will spend a week in Cable, WI at a timeshare. We have along friends Ernie and Brenda. Ernie was to Leisure World on his motorcycle in 2006. So the itinerary was planned so that we could see Peter and Janet Doerksen and Ray and Denise Burnell. We traveled to Saskatoon and Regina, SK to visit Lorna’s relatives. And then on to Steinbach, MB where we would spend two days golfing with Peter and Janet. Ray and Denise would be on their own little golfing excursion so we will have to see them on our return trip. Peter and Janet have a lovely home that they built. It is secluded in a dense grove of trees just a couple of blocks from the GirouxSalem golf course. The first day we golfed 27 holes and Janet got in the house and collapsed on the floor.

The second day we did the very nice and challenging Steinbach course that has water on 15 of the 18 holes. Then Peter, Janet and Lorna did 9 more holes at GirouxSalem that evening but Wally opted out. Ernie and Brenda joined us that evening for the rest of the trip on their ST1300 sport-touring bike.

Before leaving we wanted to purchase some items from a New York mail order and so reviewed our route to see who we could have the items sent to along the way. Terry and Jeff Caywood live outside Duluth so we contacted them. They said yes we could do that but insisted that we stay overnight with them. We said we could do that only if we could buy them dinner at a restaurant of their choosing. And so we plugged the address of the Blue Max restaurant into our GPS’s and started out on our 370 mile trek. It was overcast and quite cloudy but we stayed dry. We called Jeff when we arrived at the Blue Max at 5pm and shortly after they arrived. A few minutes later we were delighted to have Cyrilla Collard, Terri’s sister Nan and husband Rick, and Rick’s dad Howard join us. And so we had a wonderful dinner for ten overlooking Fish Lake. Following dinner we all came back to Jeff an Terry’s home and had good conversations until late in the evening. They have a fabulous beachfront home overlooking Island Lake. It was so nice to see Cyrilla and her family. She is doing fine and looking forward to her winter in Leisure World again.

The next morning we were on our way to Sheboygan, WI on Lake Michigan’s shores. That was the closest reasonably priced motel we could get to the Air show. We thought we would take it easy the next morning and leave around 9:30 for the Air show. Big Mistake! We got to about 4 miles from the exit when traffic came to a standstill. It took an hour an 40 minutes to get into the grounds and parked. One would think that after all these years of doing this that they mightfinally have things figured out. And then there were line-ups for tickets and lineups for lunch.

We strolled down Celebration Way and seen kiosks, tents and hangers of small and medium plane manufacturers from Cessna to Piper and many more. The trend is definitely toward composites and away from aluminum, and cockpits have moved from dials and gauges to computer screens and LCD displays. One new name was ‘Icon’ who were taking orders for 2011 delivery of a composite 2/4-seater plane that can land on water. Very neat indeed and only $139,000.

At the end of our stroll sat the A380 airbus. It had been on static display with tours through the interior but it wasn’t in passenger configuration. So then they shut the lineups down before we could get in so they could prepare for a 3pm departure. We wandered around the huge beast in total awe. 22 huge wheels with tires by Michelin, 4 engines with 77,000lbs of thrust each, economy configuration of 853 passengers. Wow! And then it took off heading back to France! Wow, Wow! It was very quiet even under full power. It did several passes in front of the crowd lasting over 7 minutes. Impressive indeed! And there are 4 airlines already flying 11 of these beasts.

Another very interesting thing was the Virgin White Knight II. It did several passes. It will take a space ship to 50,000 feet for launch of civilian passengers who will then go to 360,000 feet. They are taking reservations only for your trip now at only $200,000 each.

It was ladies day, so most of the acrobatic planes were flown by ladies, and they were very, very good! Then more USAF biggies arrived. The C130 Hercules, C17 Globemaster and then the huge C5M Galaxy. The new M designation means it has been refitted with new avionics and more powerful, fuel efficient and quieter engines. There are only 3 of the fleet converted to this new configuration that will make them last to 2040. Then there were more ladies in aerobatic planes including 2 wing walkers. They closed the show off with over 40 WWII era planes doing mock battles and bombing runs complete with fire and smoke followed by modern era jets doing the same.

We had scheduled 2 days for the air show however we had seen enough and with all the lineups and crowds we decided to take the next day to tour around Sheboygan. The waterfront is being rejuvenated and it is a pretty little city.

Next we’re off to Cable, WI and a timeshare that we exchanged for ours in Hawaii. Cable is in a wilderness area with tall oak and white pine trees and is surrounded by many lakes and golf courses. The locals call this area the ‘North Woods’ probably without realizing that we have woods in Canada a lot further north still. Riding in this area, one has to be really alert as the forests are teaming with wildlife. The resort is called Telemark and has a small mountain behind it that at one time had a downhill ski area. It is still busy in winter with cross-country skiing and hosts the Birkebeiner race.

Our first golf game was on the Telemark course. It is a well-maintained course that has some drastic doglegs and big side-hills. Bring lots of extra balls because the fairways are narrow and the woods are dense. Our next two golf games would be to Hayward Golf and Tennis Club south of here about 20 miles. This course is gorgeous beyond belief with soft, plush, green, fairways lined with white pines and a very reasonable seniors green fee of only $30. Following golf we headed to West’s Hayward Dairy for scrumptulicious homemade ice cream. Hayward is home to the world record 67.5 pound Muskellunge fish. That record fish is stuffed and hangs in a bar called the Moccasin.

Poor Brenda has to be back at work on Monday so Ernie and her headed back home on Friday.

On Friday night it rained and into Saturday morning. By noon it had stopped and so Lorna and I did the Hayward National golf course. This is no where near as nice a course as the other. The temperatures got into the mid eighties and stayed overcast and the humidity was a million percent. I have to say that is the hottest I have ever been in my life, so I opted out of doing the last three holes. My shirt was totally soaked with sweat. Lorna was determined to finish though.

Sunday it is time to head back and so we stopped to see the Blue Ox and Paul in Bemidji, MN before getting back to Steinbach. Monday was another golf day but this time we got to golf with Denise and Ray Burnell. We would do nine in the morning and then have lunch at Burnell’s. Then took us for a tour around the big town of Richer in his Royal Blue 72 Buick Convertible. Then we finished the day with another mosquito infested nine holes in the evening.

Tuesday and Wednesday were motorcycle travel days back to home. All in all a wonderful trip with enjoyable friends along the way. We covered 4,000 miles and only had one day of rain.

Looking forward to seeing all our Leisure World friends in early November.

Adios

Lorna and Wally Bentt

new on blog

Hi, Leisureworld friends.
This is my first time to write anything. We are having a lot of storms here in Okla lately but the weather has been pretty good considering how hot you have been having it. I have been pretty busy as of late with Harold's surprise 80th birthday. He is doing pretty good with his demintia It is in the first stages and It can take years before it gets to where he can't know anyone. We just take one day at a time. My cancer is still in remission and I am doing good. We hope to see you all in Oct. Harold and Rosella

DAY #47

Tuesday, August 11, 2009, 5:45 PM

47th Day 100 degrees or over

In Weslaco, TX

Notes from the Sunshine Lady

We have had several requests to put information on the blog when we sign and send cards to various people, so here is a summary of the latest events.
Al and Linda Decock spent some time here during July, then went home so that Linda could go back to take care of her sister. The sister died not long ago, and we sent Linda a sympathy card.
We received a note from Anna Freidel the first part of August, and she gave us more sad news. Don W. Freidel died June 28. He and Ilene used to live at unit #250 in the park. If you wish to send a condolence to Ilene, her address is:Haacks Tender Care, 1249 School Street, Sun Prairie, WI 53590.
We received a letter from Mary Jaegle: "Frank fell the 29th of June and was in terrible pain for a week befroe they found he had a vertebra compressed fracture, was in hospital for 10 days, is slowly getting strength back. The surgery they do now for this is great." If you would like to send him a card, their address is 4502 Wheatland St., Enid OK 73703.
I will try to keep you updated as we hear other news.

Scott & Rita On The Road

Hello Friends!

Here is the beginning of our trip to Alaska. Yes, there still was room in the car for Scott & I. We took 3 weeks to get to Anchorage and you will be receiving our pictures and comments along the way. Look for more cool emails with lots of pictures in the very near future. I think I've finally figured out how to send large files. Please email us back, we love to get emails from home. We've put 4000 miles on the truck so far and we've just begun to explore Alaska. Our new address is 1930 Congress Circle Unit # 2 Anchorage, AK 99507. It's a cozy 2 bedroom 4-plex so there's plenty of room for you to stay with us when you get here. We're looking forward to lots of visitors. We are using our cell phones so the numbers are 651-269-1623 (Rita) or 651-269-1630 (Scott) Hope to hear from you all soon. Rita starts working on August 13th so call Scott during the day, it will help keep him out of trouble. Hope you all enjoy the pictures.

Rita & Scott

The truck is packed!

All the school stuff on bottom - sleep on top

We're ready to go!

The first night - a motel!!!

Spot Scott at the motel

Shelby, Montana

The pond at Shelby

Another view of Shelby

The Shelby, Mt hillside

rain

Well I think that was rain but not much of it. Mostly wind. Happy for any amount we get.
You would never know math was my favorite subject in school. I wish we were having 75 people at our reunion but it is more like 45 right now. Don't ask me what I did wrong. I have been mentally figuring how to get enough tables in the room I rented but I could. won't be quite as crowded as I was thinking. So I definitely have room for more people if you still want to come. Just send me a check.
We were fortunate to not have any damage from this storm. Other friends did have damage but most like me slept thru it. And my husband says he never sleeps good and he didn't hear it.
See you the 20th

I just knew there had to be a name for that wet stuff that ruined the 4th of July in Missouri. I had just forgotten what it was.

WHAT'S RAIN?

rain

We got some rain last night but don't know how much yet. A storm apparently went thru but I didn't hear anything. the weather radio did go off and woke me. This morning when I got the paper there were leaves from the tree all over the lawn and my big iron flower pot holder was tipped over and one pot of flowers out in the lawn. First time that has ever blown over. I slept thru whatever went thru.

reunion

Almost 75 have signed up for the reunion in Fort Dodge, Ia. you can still get your reservation in this week just send me a check for $15.00 each. Dale Sloth called today and 2 more want to come that used to go to Leisure world. the more the merrier. Have you had any rain down there. We need rain. My cousin south of Fort Worth said they had about 2" the last two days but need more but another cousin in Kerrville is bone dry and rationing water. If it doesn't rain down your way I doubt the grass is growing so no mowing. Right.