2024: 17-Verde Valley April and May

April 22nd thru May 8th

The springtime stop in the Verde Valley with our kids and grandkids is always full to the brim with activities. From baseball to fairtime where they show and auction their animals off, there is not a shortage of things to do. The weather this time of year typically is in the high 80's to low 90's make it a pleasant time to hang out with the family. We enjoyed the time spent here, but as with all things in life, they come to an end and its time to move forward.

April 22: Today was moving day. Dad appears to be doing well and is wanting his space again. It is actually awesome to see how well he is doing. Perhaps at some time we will need to be there full time to help him but right now it is not that time. Cindy started the day with a headache and that is making moving day very tough for her. Strong lady who is very caring. We got things closed up and ready to go by 8:30am and we were on our way after saying our goodbyes to dad. Our route to the Verde took us across the Phoenix metro area, making for a lot of distance with a large amount of traffic to deal with. Things went well considering how aggressive drivers are now. Loop 101 North is currently under construction and makes for a tough drive. We had a driver in the lane next to us clip our mirror on the driver side, fortunately nothing broke. I would have to say that there are a large number of drivers who are unable to keep their vehicle in their lane.

Reached I17 and when we got to the area under construction we had a semi that could not stay in his lane that forced us over onto the barricades. I truly believe that there are not any professional drivers in trucks anymore. We stopped for lunch at Arby’s in Cordes Lakes. Yet another fast food chain that has horrible food. We arrived at Joe and Mel’s place and got the trailer parked and setup, called dad and let him know we had landed. Visited with Joe Mel and Maylyn till Joe had to get back to work. Ben and Missy had us over for cabbage buns for dinner which were delicious. Visited with them till time to get home for bed.

April 23: Today dawned sunny yet cool. I am using Flonase in an attempt to get ahead of allergies. It seems to be helping out a little bit. I spent a decent portion of today working on getting articles put together for our website.

Did get a chance to chat with Mel and Maylyn before Maylyn had to get busy with her schoolwork. Joe and myself chatted for a while prior to his having to get to work. We ran out of water this morning, so I had to add water, which the new hose that Cindy purchased made much simpler, making it so I didn’t have to carry the water.

Mel made dinner for everyone before we all needed to go to Maylyn’s softball game. Her team did a good job and won the game. When we got back to the house we went in and visited with Joe’s family till it was time to go to bed as we’re all somewhat tired.

April 24: Caught up the daily journal this morning while listening to a podcast. Looks like it is going to be another nice day weather wise. We will be going into Cottonwood this evening for Chase’s baseball game plus I imagine Cindy will want to stop for groceries while we are in town.

Spent most of the day working on 2022 pages for our personal website. Elizabeth got into town this afternoon so we went over to Linda’s rig at Thousand trails around 4pm to visit with the 2 sisters. After visiting with the sisters we all went in and watched Chase’s baseball game. Chase did fairly decent for a little guy. After Chase’s game we stopped at Fry’s for a few groceries and then came back to the trailer and called it a night.

April 25: No notes for today in the journal

April 26: Started off my day by getting Chloe outside for morning duties. Continued work on attempting to get all of my records of our travels properly sorted out.

We were going to go into Tyce’s soccer game this morning, and went out to start the truck and the battery was dead. Joe gave us a jump start and we began looking for a new battery. We found out that in order to change the battery it has to come into a Dodge dealership to have it done. Guess it requires special software in order to accomplish this simple maneuver. So we are sitting at Oxendales waiting for the new battery to be installed for the price tag of $426.00. What an eye opener on how the auto manufacturers are making sure that the dealerships make money at the expense of the customer.

After getting the truck finished and paid for we went over and saw Linda and dropped off some medicine that Cindy had picked up for her from Mexico. Then we went to Tyce’s soccer match which his team won. Next stop was Walmart for a few items and then back to the house. Cindy made her salsa for Teagan’s birthday party and I hung out with Joe chatting. Teagan’s birthday party was good, however I consumed to much beer and didn’t get to bed until 1am.

We got to get to Tyce’s second game and watch it which they won, which was fun to do after having gotten the truck back up and running. After the game, we went by Walmart and got more fixings for Cindy‘s pico de gallo to celebrate at Teagan‘s birthday party. After getting back to the house, Cindy made the pico de gallo and I just visited with Joe and Mel, and then we enjoyed Teagan‘s birthday party with all the folks and finallyfinally got back to the trailer about 11:53 PM. Time to get to bed and get ready to possibly go to Tyce’s soccer game tomorrow morning at 8 AM.

April 27: Sluggish start to the day with a lack of sleep and a late breakfast at around 11am. Hung out with Joe while he was working on his chicken coop. Alicia and Ava stopped by this afternoon and we had a great time with them. Stopped for dinner at Sonic with Alicia and then went and watched the end of Maylyn’s softball game. Cindy and Alicia had a great time taking Ava over to the playground equipment and letting her play on the slide and swings. After game got Alicia headed home and we came home watched some tv before going to bed.

April 28: Spent a lot of the day hanging out with Joe while he was working on his chicken coop, or was relaxing in the house not doing anything, had a good time hanging out with him. We did a bit more work on his chicken house, getting some of the siding on it plus the trusses. Enjoyed dinner with Mel, Joe and the kids and had dinner with them.

April 29: Kids were off to school today, so I was able to work on our website as well as get started on posts for 2021. I am attempting to get all my articles created and ready to upload for all the way up to current travel adventures, at which time I will upload them. Then I will begin work on getting all of the videos and slideshows created and uploaded to YouTube and Rumble and inserted into the website posts that they go with.

We also went into Cottonwood after dinner and watched Chase’s baseball game. Chase played first base tonight and pitched in the final inning.

April 30: So today was the day that the kids had to take their animals in for the fair. I continued working on articles for 2021, attempting to get caught up using google docs on my google drive, and then will just have to create them to be able to upload to our website. We had Mississippi roast for dinner tonight with the kids that Mel cooked today. Cindy went grocery shopping this morning getting some more veggies for us. We took our tv box into the kids house after dinner and we watched another movie.

May 1: Today is the first day of the fair so we will be going in this afternoon to watch Tyce show his rabbit and pygmy goat. Tomorrow will be the pig show so will see all the grandkids showing pigs except for Rylie. Rylie will be showing her lamb later in the day. We will also pickup dog food for Chloe on our way to the fair.

May 2: So we started the morning off by watching the swine show. Today was confirmation so it was fun to see what the livestock judge had to say about the animals. All of the kids did a good job with their animals. It was interesting to see what the judge felt was a good pig, and as it appears to me, he does not judge the carcass that will be getting off the pig, but rather how pretty the pig is as if it was in a Miss America pageant. Chase did place first in his class for his pig , Tyce placed second in his weight class. Maylyn did not place in her class, but she did get a blue ribbon. For our evening entertainment, we got to watch the Steer show which Landen was showing in. Landen had a good looking steer however it still needed to have some weight added to it to actually fill it out. So he ended up getting a red ribbon. Overall, it was a good day but a long day.

May 3: Today was the showmanship portion of the swine show. All of the kids did a great job, but unfortunately, not good enough to place. After the show was complete Cindy and I headed home and relaxed here at the house for the rest of the day. Tomorrow is the auction day so we will run in to see a bit of the auction.

May 4: Auction day at the fair today. Cindy and I went in about noon, checked in with the kids and then went and got our seats and watched the auction until about 5 PM. At 5 PM Landen and Teagan still had to take their animals across the sales block. All of the kids are getting enough money on the auction to at least make a little bit on their project. Cindy and I arrive back at the trailer, sat down and watched pay-per-view event within the MMA world. At the completion of that we went to bed.

May 5: With the fair event all done for the year, Cindy and I hung out with Mel and Joe for a little bit this morning. Joe worked on his chicken house for a little bit today, which was a challenge because of the wind. I put the ham and pork roast on his smoker for supper around 1 p.m. During the smoke every hour, I would spray the meat down with apple juice and Yoshida. About an hour before the ham was done I put a spread on it that was brown sugar and some spices. When it was completely cooked I took it out around 6 PM, and brought it into the house and covered it. When we sliced it up, it was all good and juicy everybody enjoyed dinner. Everybody is extremely tired tonight so it was an early evening with all of us heading off to go to bed.

May 6: We hung out with Joe and Mel most of the morning just chatting and not doing much. Joe was trying to get materials gathered up for jobs he has to do this week so we got out of his hair and went over to see Ben.

Hung out with Ben, letting him use our macerator to dump his trailer. He has decided that he actually likes the macerator and would like to buy one. Cindy will send him a link so that he can purchase it. We had a few beers, Cindy help Ben clean some house, chatted and then headed out. Cindy and I were hungry when we left his place so we ran over to Dairy Queen and had a hamburger before coming back to the house. When we got back to the house, we visited with Mel and Joe while they were eating dinner, and everybody was a bit tired so we called it a night at around 8 PM.

May 7: Joe got himself off to work after 8:30 AM so I was able to chat with him a bit before he took off. Chatted a bit with Mel, and then she and Cindy headed out on a walk for the morning. I spent that time catching up the Journal . We are going to over to Ben’s house today for an early supper.

Prior to going over to Ben‘s house we swung over to the vets and got the supplement for Chloe‘s hips. We stopped by Circle K and grab some more of my Zen. Upon arriving at Ben’s house, we chatted and watched some baseball, then created supper which was smash burgers. We all enjoyed them, unfortunately, Missy and Tyce were not there to join us as they are in California on Tyce’s eighth grade graduation trip. Upon completion of supper, we all ran over and watched Marlyns game, which her team won. We came home and off to bed we went.

May 8: I started my day off at around 6 AM having to clean up poop in the house that Chloe had laid everywhere. This morning I have been working on getting all of my photos into albums on Google Photos. Also, I have been working on articles for our website for the year 2021.

For more details about our adventures click on the links at the top of the page.