An Interview Where? Where’s My Slime? “Do Not Enter!” Golf on Two Worlds Apart; Squirrels!

This morning Suzanne was interviewed by Temple Hayes for her “From Good to Amazing” Unity Radio (Internet) show. Suzanne’s preparations were a bit unusual, as we are traveling in The Bus with cell phones, but the interview had to be conducted on a land line. My ever-resourceful bride figured this one out several days in advance - she looked ahead to where we would be and called the Fitness Director at the Hill AFB gym and asked whether she could use a land line telephone in an unused office this morning for an hour. Mo, the Fitness Director, graciously agreed, so this morning Suzanne set up bright and early and was interviewed as professionally as if she were in the actual studio. The interview was recorded and will be broadcast on Monday, August 27, at 5:00 PM EDT at www.unity.fm (please note the .fm in that address; it is not on a .com or .org site).  

We rode our bikes around the perimeter of Hill Air Force Base today. Well, Suzanne rode all the way; I got a flat tire 7 miles out and walked for 2 miles back toward our campground until Suzanne found me with the car still 4 miles out and picked up me and the bike. (Yes, I know I had written on our blog about the virtues of Slime, but this was my new bike, which I had not yet treated with that magic anti-puncture concoction... My Bad! At least I looked cool in my Chateau St Jean Cinq Cepages bike jersey from our Sonoma Valley wine country visit... as some of you French linguists may know, cinq in French is pronounced sank, which is how I felt when my rear tire went flat, watching Suzanne pedal off into the distance.

This morning we stopped to pick up groceries at the Air Force commissary (grocery store). This warning sign for Air Force male personnel was posted in the men’s room on “a wall fixture”. Now, I can only say that in the US Navy, we never had to tell a sailor not to enter one of those things... they were smarter than that! 

On the way we passed the Air Force’s golf course... compare it with the photo of the Navy driving range at Fallon posted the other day, as well as the underlying philosophies and priorities of the two services, and well, you can understand why Navy often loses golf tournaments to the Air Force...  ;-)   I should send apologies for any unintended slights to my Air Force friends and brother-in-law, a retired USAF LtCol. (I think that I will not apologize for any intended slights.)

This evening after Suzanne created a delicious dinner we went for a walk with Rudy and Gretchen, our dachshunds, also known as “the eternal puppies”. They are virtually untrainable, particularly Rudy; we call him Elvis, because he thinks he’s The King. But there is one thing that will really get their attention: SQUIRRELS!!!!! In this case, they are the burrowing type. Suzanne spotted one walking between two oak trees, so she said to the dogs, “Let’s go see if we can find squirrels!” Instantly they went on alert, and shot ahead to the full extent of their six foot long leads, noses in the air, almost pulling Suzanne’s arm out of the socket. When they caught the squirrels’ scent, the last sentry squirrel had just dived into his burrow 50 feet ahead, and Rudy and Gretchen’s instincts as hunters were in full bloom. Here they are sniffing at the mouth of the burrow. I think Rudy’s words were, “Holy cow, that little rodent was here just 30 seconds ago. Let me down that burrow, Dad!”  We’ve been told that a dachshund’s sense of smell is 10,000 times greater than ours, so we figure that this must be like us sticking our noses in a pizza oven. 

After the pups had their fun, here’s Suzanne getting “grounded” and enjoying the feel of this well-manicured lawn after days of dry, rocky, dusty, hot desert out in Nevada.