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Retirement One Year – Friday July 3, 2015

Today is one year of retirement for me and a year and a week for Jean.

It is truly amazing that a year has gone by.   Here are some of our accomplishments:

Participated in Tanya and Mike’s wedding

Don’t wear a watch anymore, took it off on the afternoon of July 3, 2014
Hiked into a number of places in Crystal Mountain Valley several times.
Fitbit says
Last year 3,075,341 steps
1,435.53 miles
This week 37.9 miles 81.802 steps

Turned 65, got medicare

Two long trips:  August to November – May and June
149 nights in the motor home
9720 miles driven in the motor home
Oregon
Nevada
California
Arizona
New Mexico ( over a month )
Utah
Idaho

Purchased 2010 Ford Ranger 4X4 (retirement goal was to replace my pickup)
Boat, Dad and I purchased in 1977 is back up and fishing, set in the garage from about 1979 to retirement.

Wrote 122 blog posts

weight:
231 to 214
Then 226 to 219

I don’t yawn all the time. For at least the last 20 years I would yawn a lot during the day. I don’t yawn at all during the day and very seldom in the evenings. I say 20 year because it was a problem while at Walt’s Radiator and Muffler, folks thought I was bored during the afternoon staff meetings. I think it might be because I actually get to sleep all night and not worrying about the next day etc. Don’t know for sure why, I just know I don’t yawn much anymore.

Jean has read over 70 books

 

Crystal Mt. – Thursday July 2, 2015

It is time to move on.
The construction activity is getting closer and closer to our motor home.  They are moving dirt into the parking lot within 40 feet of where we are camped and the dust they are creating is becoming a problem.   I thought I’d walk up to the construction shack and find out if they are working a 4 or 5 day work week.  Since no one from this project has actually walked down to this end of the parking lot I thought I’d also point out they were about to start dumping dirt into the stream which comes under and along the road.
The dump truck driver fly’s into the parking lot backs up and dumps, never looking to see where the stuff he is dumping is actually going.  To the right of this picture the dirt goes all the way back to where the stream is along the road way.

It is not a big stream however it does run all year around so blocking it off would create a problem for them.

The guy ( I think Carl ) in the construction shack was not the most personable person I’ve ever talked too.  He said they are going to be working Monday – Friday all summer.  He was not happy when I told him about the small stream and all he really wanted to do was argue about how there wasn’t a stream at that end of the parking lot.   He was even more unpleasant when I showed him were the stream is located.  Oh well, I guess being nice and friendly with other people is not a priority in our current way of communicating, I should of sent him a Facebook IM.

Crystal Mt. – Wednesday July 1, 2015

Our quiet Crystal Mountain campsite:
Has become a construction site:
A construction company from Bellingham just stated a project to reconstruct the 6 mile road into Crystal Mt.  The bid from Pierce County says the majority of the work will be done during the summers of 2015 and 2016.
I think our days of quiet and elk walking through camp are numbered if not over.
Saturday and Sunday night I could hear elk just before sundown however I didn’t hear a thing last night.   We’ll see how it goes, they may not be working on the weekends and we could go to Silver Springs or someplace up road 70 during the week.   The skiers will be happy.

Crystal Mt. Sunday June 28, 2015

Hank and I got out this morning for a hike up the right side of the valley.  My Fitbit says we went 7.35 miles, 15792 steps, the gps on my InReach says we got to 5608 feet up the mountain. We turned back because I cannot tell how tired Hank is when we are hiking.  He goes as fast as he can until he has nothing left.  We were at about 4 miles and my guess was another 1 to 2 miles to the top.  That would add 2 to 4 miles to our outing and I decided 7 to 8 miles on our first day out was enough.  I also have to watch out for his feet. The trails up the right side of the valley are all  roads and I’m always concerned about  the amount of time he has to walk on small crushed rock and larger rocks.
I marked a waypoint where we turned around.

We did the right thing turning around, Hank has been sleeping since we got back.  He’ll lift his head when I go outside to make sure I don’t leave without him.