Sunday, April 15, 2012

Mid April update

Sunday Greetings!  As usual for April, things have been pretty crazy around these parts.  Susun is off in San Diego.  Last night was Gage's 4th birthday party.  About three dozen adults and a dozen kids were expected to attend.  She will be coming back to Arizona Tuesday afternoon.

As for the blog author?  Well, we are currently at a very low energy ebb.  Here's our story for the first half of April.


We don't nap. Susun naps.  She's a Pro Napper.  We're a Non Napper.  Naps R Not Us.  In spite of our No Nap Policy, something odd happened today: we had a 3.5 hour nap!  That's a personal new World Record Nap for us.  We can't remember when we have taken a nap that long in our modern life on earth.  Sure, we've slept a lot when we've been sick.  Everyone does.  That's not napping.  That's what doctors call "bed rest."  The Docs don't say do home and take your medicine and get a good nap.  No, The Docs say, "get plenty of bed rest."  So, even though we've slept for hours during days when we've been ill, we can't recall a nap as long as this one.  We didn't even know we could nap for 3.5 hours in a row.

So what happened that caused this epic nap?  In a nutshell: total exhaustion.  We've been running hard, long, far and fast for days and days and our pace finally took its toll in the form of going comatose during the precious daytime.  It all started early last week, prior to the JTCAZ river trip.  We were on the fast track Monday, April 2, when we spent 7 am-4:30 pm on shooting match stuff  Then we had to be at Jodi and Dex's Place by 5 pm and returned here at 9 pm.  Tuesday was yet another fast-paced day that continued without letup well into the dark.  Ditto Wednesday & Thursday.  We had to get up at 5 am Friday in order to be driving by 7 am to make the JTCAZ river trip assembly by 7:30 pm. Each of the days that followed began no later than 6 am and finished well after dark.  Each day was a thoroughly physical workout in the rock-studded, low water of the Verde River.  The final day was a tiring paddle across the mudflats and remnant lake of Horseshoe Reservoir.  The trip really wore us out. After our arrival home about 5 pm Tuesday, we barely got unpacked before bedtime.

The following day, Wednesday, April 11th, we had to be up and at 'em again by 6 am because we had to rush out of here to get to Mesa as early as possible.  We left at 9:20 AM and kept up such a fast pace all day I finally fell asleep with a newspaper in my hands.  Thursday, we had to get going at 4:45 am in order to get packed up and have Susun at the airport by 6:30 am.  Thence began a very long day that involved all sorts of errands in Phoenix and a very busy afternoon prepping our place for a visitor.

Dear Friend Meg L. arrived at 6 pm and we stayed up talking until almost 10 pm.  We hadn't visited with Meg in person since perhaps 1984 or 1985.  Friday was yet another busy day.  We arose at 5 am to tidy up the house the Thursday dinner and were off on the tourist loop by early morning.  We visited Sedona, Oak Creek Canyon, Montezuma Well Nat'l Monument, V Bar V petroglyphs, Montezuma Castle, Fort Verde and the Verde River.  Then we fixed another dinner and had a break in the weather and squeezed in a campfire, too.

We got back up at 6 am Saturday morning to clean up the house and fix breakfast.  Meg took off not long after 9 am.  It was a great visit, THANKS, Meg! Our hike with Wayne was cancelled due to weather so we went into Camp Verde to listen to Marshall Trimble tell stories at Fort Verde.  We finally arrived back here a little after noon-ish Saturday.  About  1 pm, we fell flat onto the bed and logged an amazingly long nap.  Trust me, a three and a half hour nap for this guy is definitely a New World Record!

Whew, we might not be totally caught up on our rest but that nap sure did make a dent in our sleep and energy deficit.

Hopefully, we will soon post up a big backlog of photos.

Have a great day & Many Cheers, jp

1 comment:

Marti Spudboater said...

Well, just reading that made me want to go take a nap and it's only 10 a.m. My good news is I found what I believe to be a rather old Coleman stove at the Youth Ranch. There is no consistency in pricing. This one was $20 but it was half off founders day so I got it for $10. It's the two burner variety with what appears to be a copper fuel tank and it has legs that fold into it to close the lid. Can't wait to get it rigged for propane use.