I want some coffee!

Back in July thru about mid-August of 2023 we replaced our cell phones ("it took 2 months? to change phones?!" What can I say? I'm old!). Cell phones have come a long way since I first started using them in mid-1999. ** C & I have had a range of cell phones over the years including Nokia, Motorola (remember their flip phone?), Blackberry with its typewriter keyboard and trackball, an early iPhone, and more recently a couple different Samsung phones.  The Note 8 was our first Samsung. We got the phones at COSTCO for a bargain price then paid too much for 4 lines of cell service from Verizon when they included 2 free tablets. [ Free? Yeah, right! ] So part of the recent plan was to change providers from Verizon to T-Mobile. That step reduced our monthly bill from about $275/mo for 4 lines unlimited (but throttled after hitting a target amount) down to $100/mo for 2 lines with unlimited and un-throttled . The T-Mobile unlimited service allows us to piggyback our WiFi-...

It's official- summer has arrived! Sort of. We all knew it was just around the corner. Seeing it in writing, however, makes it official: summer is about to hammer Southeast Arizona. The weather forecast above, sourced from my phone via The Weather Channel & Ch 18 TV in Lexington Kentucky (it's a long story!), says 19, 21 & 22 April are going to hit 90° or more. Time for Mrs. B's little boy to start whining! I go thru this every year. I dread the start of summer as - among many things - it severely limits time outside. Folks that are good at dealing with the high summer temps here in Cochise County, AZ simply get up earlier. So instead of getting up at our usual 0700 I should just get up at 0600? or 0500? No &^^%$ way! Clearly you fail to understand that anyone who whines about summer temps also whines about 'getting up early'!  There are folks in this RV park who get up at 0300-0400 when it's time to get on the road. They disconnect their RV from wat...

Not sure why I haven't tackled this one before. It's kind of a no-brainer.  According to Google Maps the town of Tombstone, Arizona is all of 24 miles South of where we live in Benson. Tombstone has been the subject of many movies, most notably Kirk Russel's portrayal of Wyatt Earp which includes the re-enactment of 'the gunfight at the OK Corral'. The story portrayed in that flick was a recount of that famous gunfight which happened on 26 October 1881 at 3:00 PM. The story which underlies the movie is true though I can't begin to guess what liberties the producers took to improve the ratings. Modern re-enactment of the famous gunfight at the OK Corral The city has recreated the famous OK Corral and re-enacts the events of that gunfight to entertain tourists. It happens every day during tourist season. And I'd suggest that season is in the late fall to early spring- cuz you really don't want to visit Tombstone during hot weather! But before you make the ...

 Breakfast of Champions! Breakfast of Champions! Well, ok... maybe not "breakfast of champions" exactly. In my case it's more like "breakfast of survivors". Here's a gut-health message for the day. Note: Much of what follows is my version of how I think I'm alive and well today when by all rights I ought to be dead because of my terrible diet. Definitely not medical advice/diagnosis for anyone else. Just my version of my own personal health. It's been since about Fall of 2013 that I had to make a dramatic dietary change. My gallbladder was removed eleven years earlier about the start of Summer 2002- I was 63 years old. We had cruised S from the Chesapeake via the ICW to Stuart, Florida (shortly after 9/11 as it happens). At Stuart we turned West, passed thru Lake Okeechobee and on to Ft Myers. It was in Ft Myers that a surgeon's bit of knife-wielding magic ended the weird belly aches I'd had periodically since Feb 1984. So, how long wa...

Another of those "Back in the good ol' days" stories... Sometime in the 1980s a group of RVers, who were coincidentally members of Escapees RV Club, a national organization, wanted a place to stay in Southeast Arizona. They found a 40 acre property available in San Pedro Valley inside the southeast city limits of Benson, Arizona. The property is ideally situated to provide stunning views of the San Pedro Valley. They put together a deal to buy it using funds provided by these Escapees members and worked out details based upon preceding groups of Escapees who had successfully done the same thing in other parts of the country. Lots of planning went into it to minimize long-term tax and maintenance costs. Their plan was to operate as a co-operative RV facility meaning the members would own, operate and maintain the enterprise themselves. They named it SKP Saguaro Co-op RV Park .  SKP Saguaro Co-op in Benson, AZ A new corporation was formed and registered with the state of A...

We live in an RV park. The park is located pretty much in the middle of San Pedro Valley, about 50 miles southeast of Tucson, Arizona.  Like most of Southwest Arizona the San Pedro Valley is part of the Sonoran desert and is named for the state of Sonora, Mexico. And why not? This was part of Sonora, Mexico before it was part of the USA. Mostly you'll see wild grasses, mesquite brush, cactus of several varieties even including a few saguaro cactus. The elevation here is about 3,600' which is a little too high for saguaro cactus- they have to be transplanted here. There's very little developed housing here in the valley. The majority of the land is devoted to ranching and, around St David and Pomerene, some farming. Residential housing is primarily found in Benson (a railroad town which our park borders) and Sierra Vista (home to the US Army's Ft. Huachuca). Plus there are a few smaller settlements like St. David & Pomerene (both were settled by Mormons n...

That phrase ought to inspire instantaneous dread. "Oh god... now what?!" Generation of humans have uttered those 4 words of dread every time some old toot starts repeating a familiar event from decades back in their lives. The catalyst on this occasion was "... did your mom ever do any canning or making of jam when you were young?" Well as a matter of fact (not embellished; altered only by faulty recollection)... My mother may have done some canning but I was too young to recall these 85 years later. The good news was she had at least 2 relatives who had a passion for preserving food. My maternal grandmother and my paternal grandfather were into it. Both had access to the raw fruit and veggies and both were the sort of people that were driven to be prepared for the worst. That sort of thinking was no doubt encouraged by having lived through the 'great depression' of the 1930s ( Hmm... is this 'de ja vu' all over again'? ). Here's a tale of 2...