3/22/08 The Jump (Part 2)

NOTE: I"m using a new program for publishing this blog. You can now click on each picture to enlarge it. A drop box will appear, click on open and the picture will enlarge.

Today I did the most courageous thing I've ever done in my life. I skydived. This is something I've wanted to do for the past 30 years.

In my early twenties, when I was in the Army National Guard, I had joined a jump club that had been formed by Guardsmen with jump experience. I had attended several meetings and our first jump was scheduled. Just a few days before it was to happen we had gotten word from the powers to be that since this wasn't a Guard sanctioned event there was no insurance so it had to be scrapped.

Though I didn't pursue it with a civilian outfit the thought of doing it never left me. This is one of those that made my, "Things I Want To Do Before I'm Too Old or Die" list or what is more commonly known today as my Bucket List -- short for "Thing I Want To Do Before I Kick the Bucket" list.

This past Thursday I woke up and decided it was now or never. Though we hadn't been there we had heard of Skydive Arizona in the town of Eloy less than 10 miles away.

Most everyone here has been there to watch the first time jumpers and the teams practice or competing for title in formation skydiving.

Skydive Arizona is recognized as best facility in the nation. Skydivers from all over the world come to this field.

So on Thursday I said to Bob, "Hey hon, what would you say if I told you I wanted to go skydiving?" He replied, "I'm not doing it with you." Within a few hours I had my reservation made for 11 a.m. on Saturday.

Word went through the park pretty fast and the number of winter residents who wanted to go to watch grew quickly.

Thursday evening as I walked home from the Carnaval Room I had a queasy feeling in my stomach. My first thought was that I had was that I was coming down with a 48 hour bug that was racing through the park. If it was I'd be out of commission come Saturday.

I didn't feel nervous at all Thursday, Friday or Saturday morning but yet the queasiness still came at irregular intervals. I didn't see this as related to the jump,,,,maybe I should have.

I slept well on Friday night.

Saturday brought us a perfect day, sunny and warm.

I had to be at the field by eleven and shortly after we arrived our friends started arriving too. I would guess there were about fifty from the park. Little did know how long a day it would become.

I let the office know I was there and twenty minutes later I was called in to watch a video and sign my life away and fill out documents that wouldn't give Bob a snowballs chance of collecting anything in the case of my demise.

Then the wait began. I was given one of those round discs that you get in restaurants when they are busy. It has red lights and it vibrates to let you know they have a table ready for you.

They told me it would be about 30 minutes before it was my time to get ready but that time was to be extended several times. They start jumping at 7 a.m. and had 84 jumps scheduled. That doesn't mean 84 individuals that means 84 jumps and there could be several people or a lot of people in each scheduled time slot.

So we waited and waited and waited some more. I walked from group to group of

Quail Run friends to pass the time.

To pass the time we watched the formation teams do ground practice.

Finally, two hours later it was time for me to go. That buzzer thing I was holding went off and the butterflies started!

It was time for hugs and wishes for luck. Here's me and my good friend Don, you may know him as the Peacock of the Park, but to me he's my good buddy!

I met Wes, the guy who would film my video.

Next I met Mateo, the man whose hands my life was in. Thank heavens it is a requirement of all tandem instructors that they have at least 500 jumps under their belt and Mateo has much more than that.

Next it was time to put on some hot, tight, nylon suit that someone had gotten grass stains on, oops, I mean it was time to suit up.

Next came the harness that would secure me to Mateo.

I didn't know this was on the back of my harness, if I had I may be writing about something entirely different! I still don't know what its about because I couldn't get past the word DANGER!

Here's Mateo giving me instructions about the altimeter I have to keep looking at when we're freefalling so I know when to open the chute.

Me and Mateo are now best friends. We should be, after he had to tighten all the straps he got shall we say, pretty familiar.

I'm all suited up and thinking I'm one stupid idiot for doing this ready to go!

Stay tuned for Part 3

3/22/08 WHAT WAS I THINKING????

Yep, that's the question I have for myself today!

About 50 park residents joined me and Bob at Eloy Airport at the Arizona Skydiving place and I jumped out of a perfectly good plane!

It was a thrill of a lifetime and I'll never do it again!

I have tons and tons of pictures to upload from today and the story to go with it. I will also put a link to the video of my jump on here tomorrow.

Just had to let you all know what I did today. There's lots more to come.

3/21/08 A Trip to the Dump and a Farewell BBQ

What a beautiful day we had here today.


This afternoon Bob and I made a trip to the Casa Grande City Dump to get rid of our old fridge and new doors off the new one. What a shame to just take them to the dump but we didn't know what else to do with them.


Done there, we made a trip to Walmart for a few groceries and things like printer paper, paper clips and sheets of business cards so that we can make our own.


The park is abuzz with the activities planned for this weekend and BIG one I'm taking part in.


This afternoon we attended a farewell BBQ with about 30 or so others.

As usual, we had lots of food and all of it was very good!

Make sure you read tomorrow's post!

3/20/07 Something Special in the Plans

Today I made a decision. I can't tell you what it is yet, you'll have to wait a few days before I let the cat out of the bag. But its B I G! Very B I G!

Today our food came home. As soon as the word got out that the fridge was at 40 degrees and the freezer at zero our dear friends started bringing our food they stored in their freezers back. Once again, thanks to all of you! By the way, does anyone have a half a bag of meatballs? I seem to have misplaced them.

This is going to be a busy weekend coming up. Lots of farewell parties going on and we're scheduled for three on top of the BIG event!

We're in the mid eighties now everyday and we're all enjoying this weather. Somehow I've got to make time to spend a few days at the pool, I've got a heck of a farmers tan going on.

3/19/08 We've Got a Fridge Again

Today was install the fridge day!

I went to work today but there wasn't much to do once again other than take inventory of the cabinet where all the tablecloths and cloth napkins are stored. That done, we were pretty much at a standstill. It made for a long afternoon.

When I got home Danny the RV repair guy was just getting started replacing our refridgerator. The old one was already out. Not a very big space is it? Well, our fridge isn't very big, half the size of what we had at home.

The old one, kicked to the curb!

Danny preparing the refrigerator for the move inside.

On three......LIFT!

This can't be a comfortable maneuver for either one of them!

Easy, easy, don't hit the door jambs. Watch out for the desk!

It's almost in!

It didn't take Danny and Bob long at all to get it all hooked up and running. It will take 24 hours before its cool enough for us to put food into it. Just think, soon our peas will be home!

It's done! Danny, thanks for all your help! Dave, thanks for picking up the fridge in Tucson. You guys are just the best! Neighbors, thanks for the use of your freezer space!

3/18/08 Who's Got My Peas????

Started this morning with our final line dance class. Unfortunately, Sandy, our instructor, was struck down with a nasty bug that is making its way rapidly through the park. Carl, her husband who plays the music for us, told us that Sandy wanted to be at the last class so badly but just couldn't drag herself away from the bucket beside her bed house to be there. We were all sorry to hear this as we had a surprise planned for Sandy. Do you remember a few months ago when a fellow in NYC had a large group of people "freeze" in Grand Central Station at an appointed time? Well, we were going to do that with Sandy. Carl was in on it and I was going to give a signal and we were all going to freeze and just wait for her to turn around and look at us. All the dance class participants were in on it and we were so disappointed to find out she wasn't going to be there. We missed out on a good laugh with the dance instructor we all care so much about.

A new three day work session for me started today and after dance class I went over to the Oasis. There just isn't much of anything to do since the season is all but over. The Red Hat Ladies were having their High Tea this afternoon so we did have to set up for that. I made sure to come back when it was going on to take some pictures.

Tables all set up in the Red Hat colors of red and purple.

Lots of goodies to have with their tea.

A group picture of our Red Hat ladies.

This lovely lady is Carol Bowman, a fellow Activities Staff member.

Bob went to Tucson to get our new refrigerator. He had plans of driving our truck to get it but that would have meant taking our hitch out and also a large, filled to the brim tool box. Our friend and neighbor, Dave, said he would drive and would be happy to do so. It sure saved Bob a lot of work not having to empty our pick up bed. Dave you are just the best!

When I got home around 2:30 Bob was having a heck of a time getting the decorative wood panels off the old fridge door. Our owner's manual says unscrew the screws and the panels should just slide out. This isn't working. Bob then notices that the panels are GLUED in place. I got on the phone to the manufacturer to find out what we should do and I was told that the builder of the rig is the one who glued them in and we should call them. We could see a wild goose chase in our future so we sat back and thought about our alternatives. The problem is the new fridge has a black frame, black trim and black handles and our old one had gray frame, trim and handles. We decided to make a color statement and have a two toned fridge! We used the doors off the old fridge. Works for us!

It was a work day for Danny here in the park so having him install the new appliance today was not an option.

Remember our food is in coolers and in freezers around the neighborhood. Come dinnertime I wanted to make peas as our veggie. I went to LaVon's, nope she didn't have our peas. Neither did Billie or Darlene. Who's got my peas???? I couldn't remember. Luckily, I had some fresh broccoli in the cooler so we had that instead.

You don't realize how much you depend on your appliances until they aren't there!

3/17/08 St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Day is in full swing here in Quail Run. It was an all work day for the Activities Staff as decorating had to be done, tables and chairs set up, a ton of potatoes and carrots had to be peeled and cut, corned beef had to be cooked and head after head of cabbage had to be quartered. Believe me, it takes a ton of potatoes and cabbage to feed over 130 people!

Everything is in the roasters cooking, its time for a rest.

Decorating is all done.

The cake is in place.

Park manager, Jeannie Budd, watches on as Buddy Wright mixes the punch in the fountain.Time for the taste test.

Since we were done for a few hours while the corned beef and cabbage cooked we had time to go home. When I got home Bob was working on the caulking project and he came in and said that he smelled ammonia. He asked me to come out to see if I could smell it too. I had just washed my hair and could only smell shampoo so I was no help there. However, we could hear something leaking. Upon further investigation he discovered that the ammonia was coming out of the refrigerator! Oh no! Our fridge has died! We had a pretty full freezer so I went across the street to Don and Billie's to see if they had any room in their freezer. The word got out pretty fast that we had a problem and before I knew it our neighbors were lined up at the door telling us they had room in their freezers if we needed it. Frozen food was just flying out the door.

Thankfully, we have a plan with Good Sam that covers our appliances. I got on the phone right away with them and found out that yes, we were in fact covered for a failed fridge.

Our next call went out to our neighbor Danny King. Danny is a certified RV repairman. He came over and made arrangements with Camping World in Tucson for a new refrigerator. Yes, we could have gotten just the failed part replaced but by the time the labor charges, shipping, and part cost came into play it was only a hundred dollars more to just replace the whole thing. We opted to do that. Besides, the freezer needed defrosting anyway.

Bob will drive to Tucson tomorrow to pick up the new appliance.

Everything is ready for our guests to arrive and arrive they did in the spirit of Saint Patrick's Day. This is our next door neighbor, Wilf. He really dressed the part of a Christmas elf , leprechaun.

With dinner out of the way it was time for Cactus Carl to start the music. Here's fellow Delawareans, Bob & Bobbi Timpko dancing the night away.

We had a surprise guest during the dance. This park's version of a "chicken" that led us in the "chicken dance". I took a picture of the front view but unfortunately my finger somehow got in the way of the lens and it just didn't turn out.

Acting Activities Directors, Buddy and Shelley Wright taking a spin around the dance floor.

Now I'm not sure Wilf is doing here but he sure seemed to be having a great time!

Once again, the Activities Staff put on a good party for the Quail Run winter residents. We all heard rave reviews of the dinner and dance. Its so worth it when the people you work so hard for, to insure they have a good time, let you know your efforts were well worth it.