Still Hot and Leaving for Spokane

Our work here in the Hot Pueblo is done.  We're out of here tomorrow at oh:dark:thirty for the north.  First, however, there will be even hotter places on the route.  The west is just getting baked.  Our monsoon seems to have shut off.  We have clouds, but no rain.  

I have a couple of paltry photos.  These are the kind of clouds that get your hopes up.  See the big puffy part off to the right, and how it's dark at the bottom.  It's all hat and no cattle.

We almost managed a sunset last night.

The drive segments are: Boulder City, Nevada, Provo, Utah, Butte, Montana and then Spokane.  Boulder City was built to house workers for the construction of the Hoover Dam.  Now, it's a cute little artsy fartsy community; best of all, they do not allow gambling in their fair city.  Butte is hosting a folk festival starting the 12th, but all of the hotels have already doubled or tripled their room rates, which is kind of a major pisser.  We're so ready to be out of here, even though Spokane will be 104F (40C) when we get there.  The nice man who cuts our grass reprogrammed our irrigation system to water more often, so hopefully the grass will not be dead when we arrive.

We had a new Kevin for dinner last night.  I've previously discussed Kevin's paleo dinners, and how they're pretty good.  This one is in the Thai style of cooking, there is curry in there.  It's not overly spiced, and we liked it.  If you see it in the store, give it a try.  Just don't look at the chicken when it comes out of the package for too long.  The sauce is good over rice. 

Other than this, I have not too much to say about the orange menace, or how much I hate the Washington Post and New York Times for focusing on Biden's age, and not the fact that the the orange one is a rapist and serial liar.

Hot, Really Hot and Media Bias

We have been head down moving stuff to the house. Yesterday, since we had the trailer, we helped our realtor take a queen mattress set over to a lady who is down on her luck, living out in the desert in an area called Critterville.  Poverty like that is just depressing, her kids will never escape it.  The AZ Superintendent of Education is currently focused on bankrupting public schools with bogus voucher schemes.  Wealthy people benefit from that, ski trips, Lego museums, why not?  They will spend tax payer dollars and keep the poor ignorant.  Blame it on the Democrats!  It was astonishingly hot out there.  For some reason, mattress manufacturers no longer put handles on the mattresses.  It's like carrying a dead body.

We're had some sunsets.

The annual trimming of the palm trees is underway in the RV park.  We first heard them at 6:45 am.  They have noisy equipment.

Look at the debris on the ground, left side of the photo.  They pick that up and feed it through a chipper shredder.  Very noisy.  It has to be murder working in these temperatures.  They are all wearing hats, long sleeves and carrying very large containers of water on the gators they're driving.

It's hotter than hot here.  We were contemplating a new route between here and Spokane that would avoid Phoenix and Kingman; two of our least favorite places to drive through.  We're leaving for Spokane on Sunday.  It is predicted to be 121F (49.44C) in Needles that day.  That's pretty hot.  We would have to unload a bunch of heat intolerant stuff out of the car, instead of just taking in the bare essentials.  The other thing that's filling me with dread is the thought of driving across Nevada, where it is also hot, where there is no cell service.  It's one thing to wait for help in temperate climes, and another when it's hotter than hot.  So, we may end up going through Salt Lake City, another unpopular place, but there is cell service.

We need to get this worked.  One of the things that has happened to us is an unawareness of holidays.  Today is July 4, people celebrate this holiday.  They travel.  I'm hoping that hotels on our route will still have available rooms, and that we haven't left this too late.  I really and truly need to go back to Spokane, where it will be 105F the day of our arrival.  Good thing there is no climate change.

There has long been a suspicion that the 45th President is a pedophile.  The recent release of the grand jury proceedings in Jeffrey Epstein's prosecution prove that he is.  Additionally these transcripts show how the prosecution tried to portray the children, and yes they were children, as the guilty parties in the whole sordid mess.  It was a long time ago, but the fact remains, the republican candidate for president is a pedophile.  One wonders, why does this not receive more attention in the main stream media?  Is this person morally fit to lead the nation and the world?  I think not. I found one recent article in WAPO discussing the documents release, but there's nothing on page one of the papers in 14 point type.

This screen scrape contains hideous images and objectionable language, so read it knowing that.

This would ruin any other candidate, but the press is helping to bury the story by ignoring it.  Remember Gary Hart?  In 1988 a picture of him on a boat with Donna Rice sitting on his lap on a boat named Monkey Business, completely and totally derailed his political career.  Today - raping little girls, no big deal.

I keep thinking that if the content of Project 2025 was made accessible to the MAGATS, that they might turn away from the orange menace.  Surely, the thought of losing Medicare and Social Security might redirect their thinking about things.  If mass deportations of the people who pick your food, staff your nursing homes, clean your homes, tend the wine fields doesn't give you pause, perhaps finishing out your Golden Years in ill health and poverty might encourage you to vote for the old guy.  Biden is not stepping down, I truly hope he can pull this off.  Maybe the hamberders will have their way with the orange one.

Welp, time to do route planning and calling of hotels for reservations.  Have whatever sort of July 4 you engage in.  

I just saw this.  This is how the subject should be handled.

 

SCOTUS Destroys the US

I have to say, I'm pretty close to the edge of the slough of despond.   The decision by SCOTUS today has upended what our country has been for 200 plus years.  Now the courts decide what was an official act vs. what wasn't.  Prosecuting the orange menace will turn into a round robin of appeals.  He's already appealing convictions for things he did when he wasn't president.  Not wasting any time here.  It's becoming evident that Clarence Thomas has been pulling the strings behind Aileen Cannon.  It looks like stealing official secrets and showing them to foreign powers after you leave office, is an official duty.  I can't stand it.

Ruth Marcus did a good opinion piece on the decision.  This is a gift article, so you should not hit a paywall.

This is from Sotomeyer's dissent.  

"When [the president] uses his official powers in any way, under the majority's reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy's Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune. Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority's message today. Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law."

So, that was today.

Blooming

 The trichocereus bloomed.  We were fortunate enough to be there to see it.  

The white ones are still my favorite, but this is also lovely.

First World Problems and Foliage

Yesterday was trying, one of those days when you end up having dinner at 10 pm.  Yes, I know, these are first world problems.

The Arizona room has three outlets on a 20 amp circuit.  They all died on Friday, late in the after noon.  The washer/dryer in the Arizona room was still working, but it is on its own circuit breaker.  So, we deduced (wrongly, as it turned out) that the breaker must have died.  If you open the door on the microwave in Spokane without hitting the cancel button, it not only flips the breaker, it kills it.  We're down the curve on replacing breakers. Off to Lowes, buy the breaker, get it home and installed, and we discover that the screw that holds down the wire will not turn.  Back to Lowe's with a screw driver in my purse so Jim can go through the lot of breakers and verify the screw will turn.  Installed the second breaker, the power is still out. Called Bonnie, the woman who will sell the park model, asked if she knew an electrician, nope, they are all gone for the summer.  This was a low spot in the day.  Then she called back and asked if it could be a Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter.  At that point it hit us, there is a GCFI outlet on the outside of the Arizona room that powers the shed.  The cover over it is ancient, it's been raining pigs and chickens and it's likely that water got in.  Jim is off to Lowe's for a new outlet cover.   Good thing they are close to the park model.  If this doesn't work, step 2 will be to replace the outlet itself.

No one has ever given us static over masking, until yesterday at Lowes.  We asked where the Preen was.  The Lowes employee told Jim he couldn't understand him.  This is bullshit.  Jim used to fly, he has a very clear and precise pilot on the radio voice and he was using it.  Then he said he didn't know what Preen was.  I spelled it for him, and Jim said it was a pre-emergent herbicide.  So then employee waved vaguely to the right, turned on his heel, and yelled "you're welcome" at us.  The hostility on display was astounding.  He's an employee, his personal views are his own, but he shouldn't be inflicting them on paying customers.

At 5:30 pm we headed out to the house to wait for Costco to bring furniture.  The delivery window was between 6 and 8.  At 8:01 they called to say they were on their way.  It took them awhile to reach us, having them deliver was the best decision we ever made.  No way were we getting it in the house.  Anyway, we left the house at about 9.  I had forgotten how dark it is out there.  It's pitch dark.

Fortunately we had a frozen pizza that cooks in 14 minutes, so there was dinner in a hurry.

It was a long day.  When I was a project manager, my mantra was "everything takes longer than you think it will" and that is as true today as it was then.  

Here is a view of the street.  Notice the cloud cover.

This is the back yard.  There is more foliage than I thought there would be.

I am really hoping this blooms before we leave.  We will not be here to see it again.  Too hot!

Another tree, I think it's a mesquite.  I am very happy it's far from the house. 

Time to pack, it's amazing how much stuff we amassed in one winter, all of which must now be transported.

The House Closed and a Terrible Debate

The house closed today, it's ours.  Sadly, the previous owner took everything with her except two beds.  She even took the paper towel holder down from the kitchen cabinet underside.  That was an attached to the house item, you're supposed to leave those.  It's her stuff, I can't say much about it, except for I really wanted that china hutch.  Quelle domage. We have furniture ordered, and arriving this Saturday and next.  Job one was to have somewhere to sit in place before leaving here for Spokane.  The house is in good shape with the exception of the roof.  She paid for that, we'll get it done in November. 

Being down here in June has been instructive.  It's very monsoonish, and it's hot and humid.  We've not experienced this level of heat with humidity in Tucson.  When we had the other house, the monsoons failed, so it was just hot.

Jim's got the debate up on his laptop.  It's not going well.  CNN is not fact checking, the orange menace is standing there telling lies looking very robust.  He just took credit for lowering the price of insulin, which he did not do.  Biden's voice sounds terrible, I think maybe he talked too much during debate prep.  He looks old.  I can not believe they're letting the orange one stand up there and tell lies.  This is bad.  We may indeed get four more years of this guy.  I am feeling sick to my stomach.  I think Biden may be ill, he's swaying a little and he looks terrible.  The orange guy is wearing a lot of bronzer and looks healthy.  Holy crap, I can't believe how bad this is.  

Here is a tile plaque on the house, and two of the bougainvilleas in the yard.

 

Well, I'm completely depressed now.  So, I'm going to sign off and ponder the future under a dictator.