Verna and Bob's Weblog

Retirement

Charity Car Wash

Yesterday, the 6th and 7th graders who attend the Wickenburg Christian Academy (WCA) participated in a car wash event to raise funds for a trip to Catalina Island. I spoke with one of the teachers who said they were going to learn about ocean biology when they get there. Of course, there is much else to see and do on the island.

Verna and I were married over 20 years ago in Avalon. We’ve been there many times together, and visited the island in our earlier lives as well, so that sort of makes us SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) on Catalina. We celebrated our anniversary by going back to the island for several years, but the combination of increased expenses (transportation, lodging, souvenirs and food) and an uptick in crime in the area eased us out of our annual pilgrimage.

As for the car wash, the kids and their teachers did a very good job on the truck (clickable image above); we made a reasonable donation to their cause. We support WCH and make annual contributions to their scholarship fund, which is adequate as a federal write-off and gets us out of Arizona Income Tax altogether.

October 30, 2022 by Religion Retirement Something Shiny

Retirement Throwback

This coming Saturday, 10/01/2022, will be the thirteenth anniversary of my retirement from full-time employment. In the days following that event, Verna and I took some weekday trips to some of our local attractions. Verna took this photo of a Seagull in the Harbor of Los Angeles (San Pedro).

We visited the garden department of a Lowe’s and saw this hummingbird browsing the flowers on display there.

Finally, we visited the South Coast Botanic Garden on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. This is us relaxing on a park bench for a few minutes after walking through the acres and acres of garden displays.

All the above activity took place the first week of October, 2009. It was such a pleasure to visit these places on weekdays when they were less crowded than on the weekends. Click on any image to enlarge.

September 28, 2022 by California Leisure Nostalgia Photography Retirement

Old Tombstone Wagon in 3D

I found myself rummaging through some old photos in the archives today and found an image pair that I took in Tombstone, AZ back in 2009. This is a very old buckboard wagon from the 19th century that was sitting along one of the Tombstone side streets. I found the image pair I took back then and today merged them into the anaglyph image above (click to enlarge).

If you don’t happen to have a pair of red/cyan glasses handy, you can view the 2D version of the image here.

September 17, 2022 by Bob's 3D Stuff Classics Retirement Vacation

Our 24th Wedding Anniversary

Cutting the Wedding Cake

Today we’re celebrating the twenty-fourth anniversary of our wedding. This is a photo taken at our wedding reception which was held in Avalon, on Catalina Island, at the Blue Parrot Restaurant and Bar adjacent to the Hotel Metropole on Crescent Avenue, the main drag along the shore of Avalon Harbor. The Blue Parrot is now gone, having been converted to additional hotel spaces for the Metropole. We revisited the island for several years around the time of our anniversaries and finally, as we mentioned last year, we stopped going back.

This year was the year of Tanzanite and Verna got several small, but pretty, jewelry items made from it. Next year, we will be having our quadranscentennial anniversary, and we look ahead to celebrating the Silver Jubilee.

September 12, 2022 by Family Nostalgia Retirement

Compass Cactus Flower

I happened to be up in the “outback” (the hill behind the RV drive) yesterday to take photos of our recently recovered RV slide-out toppers when I noticed a flower opened on our Compass Cactus (Ferocactus cylindraceus). These flowers open generally in May and June, but as has been the case this year, many cacti around town have had late blooming flowers here in mid to late July. Click on the image to enlarge.

From LLIFLE (Edited for brevity):

Origin and Habitat: The various variety of Ferocactus cylindraceus (= Ferocactus acanthodes) are spread in the southern of United States (central and western Arizona, southeastern California Nevada, and Utah) and southwards into Mexico (Baja California and Sonora).

Altitude range: From sea level to 1750 meters.

Habitat: This cactus is locally abundant in arid gravelly or rocky foothills, canyon walls, fans and wash margins, sometimes on the plains among creosote bush scrub, it also utilizes slopes and acid igneous rock lands. The species is limited in its northwards range by frost conditions. To reduce the damage by frost the plant is found on south facing slopes and it leans to the south to protect the sensitive growing tip by placing it for best exposure to the sun.

Common Names include:
Spiny Barrel Cactus, Le Conte Barrel Cactus, Barrel Cactus, Golden-spined Barrel Cactus, Desert Barrel Cactus, Cliff Barrel Cactus, Compass Barrel Cactus, Golden-Spined Barrel, Desert Barrel, California Barrel Cactus, Cliff Barrel, Compass Barrel, Compass Cactus

July 20, 2022 by Arizona Flowers Photography Retirement

Sweet Sixteenth Blogiversary

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 thirteen 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.

July 17, 2022 by Blogosphere Entertainment Retirement

Avalon 1998

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