On this day, October 1, 2021, we’re celebrating our twelfth year of permanent retirement. I say permanent because this date is actually my second retirement, the first being ten years prior to 2009. To make a long story short, we retired rather than take a layoff in 1999 due to a manpower reduction. I immediately found another job at a competitive company to the one from which I had retired which eventually was acquired by my first company. Thus, I retired from the same company twice and now receive two pensions from them.

IMAGE: Thor Palazzo Motorhome ready to roll. Click on the image to enlarge.

In our retirement post last year, we mentioned hitting the road sometime in 2021, but that has not happened (yet). We did not go anywhere in the spring or summer in the big RV for various reasons, but the thinking now is to at least have a two or three-day excursion semi-local somewhere in Arizona. Since I am still healing up from hernia surgery, we need the surgeon’s go-ahead for that, but plan to get it done before it gets too cold for camping.

As far as keeping the RV ready for our next excursion, we have a routine where the engine gets started up and run for a while every week. We run the 6KW generator about once a month with a load, like both A/C units running. We currently have the black and gray tanks filled with a water-bleach solution which will be purged and prepared for use prior to our next run.

We’re thinking that our destination might be in the high desert north of the Mogollon Rim, perhaps Winslow, Holbrook, Homolovi SP and Petrified Forest NP. More on that when we make final plans.

So, join us in celebrating our twelfth AND twenty-second retirement anniversaries!

Today is the 23rd anniversary of our wedding. We were married in the city of Avalon, on Catalina Island, California.

We both say that we should have gotten married long before we made the decision to do so, but things have a way of happening and it is what it is. We are certainly glad that we are together now and always will be.

For several years, after about our fifth year of being married, we would celebrate by going to Catalina Island the week of our anniversary. We stopped doing that for several reasons, not the least of which was we relocated to Arizona. Avalon was getting too crowded and the crime rate started to be too “marginal” for our safety.

Now, we’re so happy to be on “permanent” vacation in our retirement home in the desert. We take occasional excursions in our Motorhome to let us see some of the rest of our country and will be taking another trip real soon.

Of course, we celebrated this year by getting Verna a trinket featuring an Imperial topaz Gemstone listed for the 23rd Anniversary.

Image: Aerial Photo Map showing the combined properties (green outline)

Way back in 2018, we started the process of combining our two adjacent properties into a single parcel. This process included (1) purchasing the adjacent parcel, (2) obtaining approval from the Town Zoning Administrator and (3) getting a lot survey to provide the legal description for the combined properties. Those three activities were completed.

That left the fourth, and final, approval from the County Assessors office to be done. In May of this year (2021), we finally applied for the lot combo through our attorney. Now, the lots are combined into a single property.

The combined properties are now eligible for us to begin construction of an RV garage in the south part of the lot. Had the lots not been combined, town ordinances required that the first structure would have to be a residence. Now, we have a go-ahead for the RV garage plans to be submitted for approval by the town.

Stay tuned for RV Barn Progress . . .

Eleven years ago, I came to live with my hoomins. We had to wait a couple of months while the little house got finished before we could move in. Meanwhile we lived in the big house and the Super 8. Now we’re always in the little house and maybe gone in the RV sometimes. I like it here.

Today is my thirteenth birthday, but I am not slowing down a bit. I still run and play at top speed and bark at stuff just because.

One of the Palo Verde trees on our property was suffering from root poisoning according to our neighbor, Tim. Apparently, an adjacent cats paw tree was emitting something into the soil that was slowly killing the big tree next to it. If you click on the image to enlarge, you can see one of the crew standing under the diseased tree. Note how some of the green wood on that tree has turned brown.

The tree is now gone, thanks to the landscape guys who took it and the adjacent cats paw down. Click here to see the after photo.

Our first post on VERNABOB.COM was on July 17, 2006. We put up a couple of photos of us taken in our leisure time since we were still reporting to work in those days.

Now, after nearly twelve years of retirement, we’re still going strong in our desert abode. We are currently in a phase of summer weather called “monsoon season” where it isn’t exactly a “dry heat” in the Arizona desert. Even so, we’re mostly indoors where it’s a nice cool 80° with controlled humidity. It’s very comfortable.

As we move further into our retirement years we plan to keep blogging here from time to time. There will be a change in the blog format since we’re being forced to upgrade the WordPress blogging software to the latest version which is compatible with the latest version of PHP on our host servers. We may experience some outages as that conversion takes place.

The image above is of one of our summer saguaro flowers with the Roman numeral fifteen superimposed upon it. To see the flower image full size, click here.

Another 3D photo from Mars: Ingenuity as seen from the Perseverance Rover on about June 21, 2021, Earth time. Click on the image to enlarge.

From NASA Mars Helicopter Pages:

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter is seen here in 3D using images taken June 6, 2021, by the left and right Mastcam-Z cameras aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS

As of June 21, 2021, Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has successfully flown its 8th flight, traveling about 525 feet (160 meters) south-southeast from Airfield D to the new Airfield E! This marks the third flight in the Operations Demonstration Phase of Ingenuity, in which the team will continue to push the flight envelope of the aircraft while learning valuable operational lessons. Flight 8 was also the first flight the vehicle executed since performing an update of its Flight-Controller flight software and all telemetry indicates that the update was a success!

In the event that you do not have your 3D anaglyph red/cyan glasses handy, you can see the 2D photo here.