Well, looking back, I see I have posted in August yet….so bad of me…and really no good excuses why…LOL…so what has August been like so far?
First, COVID, or as I like to call it from one of the YouTubers we subscribe to, “Roni Rona”, has hit our family. Jenny, Jen and Erin were all tested positive….Emily did not seem to be impacted. Luckily they were not too bad and didn’t have bad respiratory issues, but just flu like symptoms. They were definitely down and out for a few days, but now seem to be doing better. One of the guys from David’s Book Club got hit much worse with Roni Rona and spent 3 days on a ventilator, and is now in rehab trying to get back the use of his legs. He actually collapsed on his apartment floor and laid there for 3 days before his daughter actually found him. So much worse symptoms, and very lucky to be alive. He, Bill, and David’s brother, Dick, came to visit us in Arizona to do some nerdy explorations! Hopefully Bill will recover fully!
Yesterday Jason and Jen borrowed our travel trailer to camp out for a few days up at Woodsong (where we were full time campers before we moved to Carefree). As Jason and David were getting the camper ready, David just happened to take the cover off of the propane tanks (2 big 30 pounders), because the cover seemed loose and discovered both tanks were stolen!!! WHAT???!!!!
Those Dirty Dogs for stealing these!!! Found out we were not the only trailer that was hit in the storage area. Once we replace them we will have to figure out how to secure them, or keep them in the garage until we leave in a few weeks. Luckily we had some small tanks that Jason and Jen could use for their camping trip!!
Last couple of weeks have made for some interesting/crazy weather. It was pretty hot and humid many days and then we got storms. One evening the sirens went off here. We have 2 choices for shelter that are available for residents in the basement of 2 of the community buildings. But instead of making a bee line for the buildings, we were out with our neighbors trying to decide what we should do. LOL
None of us were sure we really wanted to go to one of the shelters, and have people around without masks and not social distancing!! (We had learned earlier in the week that we have a couple that have tested positive for Roni Rona — husband in hospital, wife at home, but still going around the park until she got positive results, even though her husband tested positive). So you can see why some of us were hesitant to go to the shelters. One of our neighbors, Jackie, already told her kids that she would go in the drawers under her bed — she told her kids so they would know where to look for her if something happened, or she got stuck under there! 🙂 Another neighbor already had the couch pillows in her bathroom. Well, shortly after the above picture, it poured and the wind was crazy and that was all we saw here.
Meanwhile down in the cities there was a lot of hail — up to baseball size. Jackie got up the next morning (lives in St. Louis Park) and noticed a wet mark in the kitchen, so kind of panicked and called Jermar to come home and look in the attic. He got home and went up in to the attic and said it was really hard to even see what was going on and he really did not want to climb up there. So they called the professionals, who came out pretty quickly. Turns out they have extensive hail damage on the house roof, garage roof, gutters, downspouts, one of the electrical boxes and their AC. After he inspected it, Jackie called Jake from State Farm and got the ball rolling for a claim. The professionals came back later in the day and put a tarp up on the house so they would not get more damage on the kitchen ceiling!
Looks like the supervisor approved of the tarp work! 🙂
Apparently they are calling the area a catastrophe and will have teams come out and do the estimation for the insurance company — probably not Jake since he is busy on the phone. So would assume it may take some time to get the ball rolling…but hopefully before any winter weather!
A couple of months ago, Jermar discovered that they had a good size tote of matchbox cars up in their garage attic. They were Jason’s and Jason had them store the box for him when he was in his condo, and had not claimed them yet. So Jaxen has not inherited a great large amount of matchbox cars that he just LOVES. I sometimes think Jason misses his cars….Jason and Jen bought this for Jaxen and not sure whom was having more fun playing with it!!
It is fun to see those cars used again, and enjoyed by young and old both!!! 🙂
Speaking of the Larkins family — they found out this past week that they will be having another boy!!
I told Jackie she is getting outnumbered over there!! So far all looks good with the extra tests she has had (since she is “advanced maternal age”) and additional ultrasounds, so that is great news!!
We still have not decided on a return date to AZ. We did find out that our AC is broken there, so it would be nice if that was fixed before we get back!! It has been so HOT in northern AZ, which is pretty unusual! There is a Carefree Board meeting on 9/12 and David has been coordinating the Zoom calls for that, so we have to be here that day. And then he has his Book Club on 9/15 so we may wait until after that. We should decide on a specific date so we can get our reservation in to have our place winterized. They will do it after we are gone, as they have done in the past and they will winterize all the way up to October 15th so we should have a good amount of days to chose from for the schedule. I have been looking at some routes to take back, so I have options, just need to plug in some of the dates. We would like to spend a couple of nights at the Lewis and Clark Recreation Area in South Dakota like we did a couple of years ago, so that would definitely be on the route. Then to decide if we keep going west or head down towards Colorado and maybe drive through Rocky Mountain National Park. Right now you have to make a reservation to go in to Rocky Mountain so they can keep the crowds at a number that is doable for the CDC guidelines, so we probably need to plan that part in advance.
Bylaws work is still going…..LOL….there have been so many conflicts this year in the park, I am sure whatever draft we come up with will be scrutinized by a few individuals here — we can only do what we can do!
Hope everyone if staying healthy!
TIFN
Dandy Ventures 