Ok, we have been home one month now and we have settled into retired life back in the states. This is completely different than being retired on the boat where life was very laid back and casual. Here you move at the speed of traffic or life passes you by. No calling a doctor and getting in the next day here in Bakersfield. You are lucky to even find a doctor willing to take new patients so there goes our plan to get prescriptions refilled! Plan B is of course to visit our doctors back in the Bay Area just one more time.
But what are we doing with all our spare time now that Rog doesn't have to work in sea trials and surveys, well we are playing golf and a bit of tennis. At least Di is just playing a bit, Rog is going out three evenings a week and Saturday morning too! Now we have been invited to play with another couple at 7 am on Monday morning. That is right, 7 am. Never in all my years of working did I ever arrive somewhere at 7 am, you couldn't even get me to open my eyes at that time so the thought of a 7 am tennis game just does not make any sense. Even worse, we are getting golf times no later than 7:30 am and we do that twice at week least.
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| Di prefers working out in the air conditioned gym here at the Solera gym |
Early morning activities are the norm here in Bakersfield and that had never occurred to us in all our previous visits. By noon it is over 95 degrees most days and at 5 pm is when the heat actually peaks so late afternoon activities are limited to the pool. In fact, 7:30pm is when most people start emerging from their homes to take walks or even start small gardening projects.
So what do we do during the middle of the day?? I have been working on a photo book of our journey over the past year trying to distill over 2,000 pictures down to a manageable 250 that would tell our story. This has consumed all of my time and I am glad to say I have finally ordered my book through two different on line publishing programs. I used the Mac program and found it very easy to use except when using photos that had been emailed to me. I also used MY Publisher as it was running a special on no charge for extra pages. With over 50 extra pages their deal really appealed to me. If anyone would like to look at the finished project it can be found at
http://www.mypublisher.com/bookshelf/friendbook
The login name is: M2211998 and the password is: 2414997
Many of the pictures included are the ones I have already used on my blog but there are some new one too. I think the sunset pictures are my most favorite in the book.
We do plan on some traveling this summer including a trip to Carmel to visit Di's father and then a quick run up to the Bay area to play golf with John Estes and back down to Los Gatos for a tennis game with Bruce and Paul Tomlinson.
The following weekend we are off to Canada for Nicholas's Baptism. We can not wait to get our hands on the little guy. By the time of our visit he will have started taking solid food and trying to sip water out of a cup. What fun we will have. Think I better get the sewing machine out quickly and make up some cute bibs to take up with us.
Not sure what caused this look but I think it is my favorite!
