We went riding today and headed south towards the big lake and since we were in the area we thought we'd stop and visit a friend of ours, Rachel, but she wasn't at home....booo hooo. Rachel was still in church, but after talking with her later we told her that we'd stop in to visit another time when we were in the area again.

It was a beautiful day today but very hot, so hot that we stopped for an ice cream cone and ran into Helen at Dairy Queen waiting for a cab. We would have offered her a ride home if she could have climbed onto my bike but it's just too difficult for her, and besides that, she's afraid of motorcycles :( Helen asked about Dennis as she always does and wanted to know when we had seen him last. She said she'd like to see him again if he ever comes to our town. Helen told me that she was going to be 70 years old next month. She's having a difficult time walking but anyone who knows Helen knows that you can't keep her down nor home. Helen has to make her daily rounds around town just as she's always done for most of her life. Helen is my father's widow.

When we got home from our ride Jimmy paid a visit to the hardware store to get some heat deflector tape for his new saddlebags, to put on the bottom. He's afraid that they might get to hot because one of them is very close, but not touching the exhaust pipes. Hope this works but if not I'm sure there is a better solution out there.

It is such a hot day. We have three outdoor thermometers and each have a different temp on them. One reads 100 degrees, another 94 and the last one in the shade is at 88 degrees. I'm inside where it's 74 with a nice cool breeze hitting the side of my face. I'm going back outside but I just wanted to stop what I was doing and say, "Hi."

Surprise, Surprise...

Last Friday evening, as I walked outside I noticed that my giant hibiscus had made some beautiful seed pods that were beginning to break open. Last year they failed to make any usable seeds, so I was very excited and asked Jimmy to go get us a bag, while I retrieved the scissors. My plan was to gather the seeds and run them over to Motherkitty & Tomas, but Jimmy said that it was too late in the day to start on the journey to their home across our very long state, so he suggested we start early the next morning while it was cool.

We gathered the deep dark pink and some light pink seeds, but when we went to the white hibiscus bush we discovered that those seeds weren't any good. Tomas had mentioned in his blog that since he was as old as he was, that he was going to celebrate his birthday for the entire month of August so the wheels in my brain began to turn and I decided to surprise him for his birthday...which he now had opened to any day in August.

Of course when you surprise someone there is always the possibility that they won't be home when you come to call. That had happened to us once before, so I made a plan just for that occasion. I found some of my hibiscus pictures after much searching and made an 8 x 10 collage of pictures with planting instructions. I stapled shut the brown paper bag with the seeds in it. My plan was to slide the paper bag with instructions into their kitty door and then head back towards home, leaving no note. As I did before, I would have taken a picture of us in front of their home, this time holding the brown paper sack and emailed it to them later.
This was not a good day to be on a motorcycle, it was much tooooo HOT, but we were over halfway there before I realized this and it was closer to keep on going than to turn around and go back home. Thankfully they were home and you should have seen the surprised look on Tomas' face when he answered the door. Motherkitty was either napping or changing out of her bathing suit...I really don't know, but she was also very surprised to see us. And boy was it nice to be in their air-conditioned home. I needed about an hour to recover from the hot ride. Their thermometer said it was 104ºF and I felt like a baked potato when I arrived. Once Motherkitty made me a nice cold drink, followed by another and another I felt much better, so then Motherkitty & I went for a swim in their refreshing pool. The swirling water felt very soothing to my aching shoulder muscles. I must have really looked over-cooked & in distress when I first arrived, because Tomas even came rushing to me with a glass of ice cold water. I had a drink in each hand.

After our nice swim and catching up on all the news, Motherkitty fixed us one of her wonderful meals. I've only seen one other person who could whip-up a delicious meal in an instant and that was grandma H. Motherkitty surprises the heck out of me with her quickness at getting a meal together on such short notice. That's another reason we don't call before we come because she'll go out and shop and spend lots of money on groceries. Another thing she apologized for was the house...she said it wasn't clean, but I've never seen it dirty and I tell her that we don't come to see her house anyway, but to see them. I think we all react the same way when someone just drops in...right away we think we should apologize if there is a dust bunny floating about or a newspaper laying on the couch out of place. It must be a woman thing, because the men never apologize for anything that might be out of place...and I'm not saying that anything was out of place in their home, I was just speaking in general.
Jimmy & I spent the night with them and on Sunday morning we all went out to eat for breakfast and said our goodbye's. The ride home was hot, but thank God it was overcast and cloudy. I was wishing for rain to wet us and cool us off, but no such luck. We stopped often to soak a cooling cloth into the ice cold water of our cooler which I draped around my neck and back to keep me cool as I rode my motorcycle. And to be honest with you, I was wishing that we were riding in our air-conditioned car, but once we left that half of the state the weather seemed to get a little cooler. The heat doesn't bother Jimmy at all...the hotter it is the better he likes it.

We had a wonderful visit but I can't say the same for the ride. I only wish the weather would cool down a bit or that Jimmy would consent to riding in a car once in a while on trips. But until he does we will continue to ride for as long as we can, but next time we are taking both of the cooling cloths with us, not just mine and I'll use them both at the same time. Of course...if Jimmy gets too hot, I'll share.

On another note....We have some sprinkling of rain as I write, YIPEE! I can't remember the last time it rained...I'd have to look it up in my archives, hehehe. It's just a light sprinkling but a light sprinkling is better than none at all. Rachel of Sliding Through Life is on her way here for a visit, so I think she is bringing the rain with her as she usually gets more rain than we do. Thank you Rachel and you are welcomed here anytime. I'm only kidding...you can come to visit any time even if you don't bring any rain with you.

a correction, a visit and a visit

Do you remember the nice cool refreshing drink I told you about called the "GEORGE?" My daughter who makes these drinks told me that I posted the wrong ingredient amounts and if you made one, in all probability you hated it!!! Here's the corrected recipe:
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The George

1/3 part orange juice

2/3 parts Sprite

1 tsp (or a drizzle) of marachino cherry juice to taste

Serve chilled over ice

Top with cherry

(The ingredients can also be adjusted to your own tastes)

Where's the water????

(Click the sign for a larger picture.)

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Sunday afternoon Jimmy & I rode over to visit Rachel and she took us on a grand tour of the city which included the lake. We were exploring back roads and discovered this sign next to what used to be a boat ramp before the lake was lowered in order to repair the dam. The water level will remain down for approximately 7 years which is the time it will take to finish all the dam repairs...oops, there goes my GP Blog Rating. Now there is plenty of parking around the lake which was always in great demand, but now most of the boaters have gone to other nearby lakes.

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The lake is very large and still has plenty of water in it, but just not here at this spot. Rachel took us around to the many lakeside homes that are now up for sale at bargain prices, but they were still out of range for me...way out! Jimmy & I got to peek into windows and dream of what it would be like to live beside this beautiful lake...well it will be beautiful again in 7 more years and if I had the money I would go ahead and purchase one of the beautiful homes that we saw.

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One of the homes that was overlooking the lake, the part that still had water in it, and without any obstructions like trees and a clear view of the lake was selling for $269,000 which I thought was a steal. We have homes here where I live that cost more and don't overlook anything but the neighbors yard. This home had cathedral ceilings with a wall of windows overlooking the lake, decks on three levels, 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, hardwood floors, attached garage, large laundry room, 3 full levels of living space, a loft walkway over the garage...It was beautiful , but it didn't have much of a yard. It had a no maintenance yard and this was one of the smaller homes....there were many much, much larger homes with decks that spanned out at least 60 feet from the house and just as wide. They weren't empty or we would have been looking into their windows too. It was an afternoon of exploration, good conversation, great company and followed by a good meal at one of the harbor restaurants. When we finished our meal Rachel drove us to the water's edge at the marina and she pointed up to the house I just described to you.Back at Rachel's we were surprised by a thunderstorm. It threatened to rain all day, but what else is new? We never get any and when we do we can count the drops on our windshield. We could have danced with joy, out in the rain, but Rachel's neighbors were watching. In fact one of them from across and down the street shouted to Jimmy and told him that he could move his bikes over to his garage until after the rain stopped. Now wasn't that nice? The bikes were already wet so Jimmy didn't see any point in moving them and just thanked the neighbor for his kindness. I bet he was out dancing in the rain, hehehe. After the rain stopped we said our goodbyes to Rachel and started our trek back home. Two miles from her house, it hadn't rained a drop.

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When almost home we were pleasantly surprised by the site of Zac on his bike, who followed us home. He fixed some settings on my new cell phone for me and created a myspace site for me and invited all the grandchildren who already had sites to be my friends. I was very reluctant about the site telling him that I was too old for a myspace site, that it was only for the young people, but he insisted that it would be a great way for me to communicate with my grandchildren on a daily basis. I told him that they probably wouldn't want me to be on their sites daily, but he insisted that they would all love to hear from me daily. To this I say, hahaha and I'm thinking that it won't be long before some of them change their URL's. But in the meantime I have posted some pictures for my grandchildren to see on my new space and have sent out a notice about a 4th of July cookout at Peanut & Laura's which we are all looking forward to. I'll just have to see how the site goes, but if you are reading this Zac, I need you to fix the space that says I'm SINGLE...I tried to do it myself but can't figure out how to change it to HAPPILY MARRIED.

Riding/Sliding Through Life

This morning I was pleasantly surprised by a phone call from Rachel. You all know that beautiful, fun loving Rachel of Sliding Through Life...Well I'm fortunate enough to get to spend time with her every now and then.
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We were first going to meet at noon at one of my favorite restaurants, but it was so crowded and I took the last parking space a block away and proceeded to walk and stand in front of the restaurant waiting for Rachel to come along. After a few minutes, I'm being nice here hehehe, she called to tell me that she was running a little late. This turned out to be the perfect moment to ask her to meet me somewhere else...like the Mexican restaurant near the interstate highway at the WallyWorld exit. There I was sure that we would find plenty of parking spaces and being that it was just across the street from where my daughter Sharon works, I called and invited Sharon to join us. And as it turned out, Bobby Sox, the owner of Sharon's shop also found his way to our table.
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After our lunch, the workers (Sharon & Bobby Sox) went back to work to pay in more social security taxes so that Rachel & I could enjoy our afternoon without worrying about gas prices. Well somebody has to work to keep those direct deposit checks coming in steadily...and on time. Rachel and I went to the house to get the bike and we were off. Jimmy was barely recovering from two days of fever & chills, but insisted on coming along. He said the ride would make him feel better...better than staying at home alone. I tried to take a picture of us on the bike when we got to the gas station. Take my word for it, the bike is under us and see my hair....it's all messed up. That Rachel!!!! her hair always looked nice no matter how fast I went!

Rachel had asked about the waterfalls in one of my recent posts, so that's where we headed. At the falls there were plenty of young girls in bikinis and if you enlarge the picture you can see one of them on the right. The place was fairly crowded, for a Thursday afternoon, but I managed to get a picture of Rachel almost by herself...believe me it wasn't easy. I almost had to laugh out loud when I saw what looked like a college student trying to skip rocks across the water. I didn't want to burst her bubble, but she was trying to skip HUGE rocks that sank immediately. I had to give her an "A" for effort.

I wanted Jimmy to take a picture of both of us on the bike, but I never asked him to...I meant to but something always came up. This is the best I could do...Rachel on the bike by herself. Jimmy was quieter than usual today because he didn't feel well, so we didn't ride too far.

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Since Rachel isn't able to get down this way much, we asked her if she would like to visit some of her family while she was in the neighborhood. You know...just for shock value...they don't know that Rachel has become a motorcycle mama. (giggle) I think Rachel loved the ride and we'll be taking my bike instead of her car from now on...that is unless it's raining, cause we don't want to get our hair wet.

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All in all we had a nice day....I would say wonderful, but Jimmy didn't feel well although he tried to pretend that he did, I could tell that he wasn't himself. Tomorrow he is going to see a doctor or get some antibiotics and I know that I will have to take him in kicking and screaming, but I'm not going through the weekend without any medication. The Ty*lenol is only controlling the fever, but isn't curing the cause...whatever that might be. Why are some men so stubborn when it comes to seeking medical attention?