Father's Day

Neither of my kids were around today during waking hours, but both made their presence known.  Allie left for San Francisco early this morning, but woke me up before leaving at 4 a.m. to wish me a Father's Day.  Justin called at 5:15 a.m., hoping to beat Allie to be first.  

Justin sent this memory pic today

 

From this week's visit

I enjoyed both of their presents.  Justin gave me two four packs of Dollar Shave Club razors that he found on sale for 80% off or $1.25 each.  Good shopping, Justin. I'm glad some of my frugal habits stuck to you.

Allie gave me a souvenir that she brought back from Scotland:  a glass for Scotch with a mini-bottle of Chivas Regal.  Thanks, Allie.

 

Justin's Struggles and a Meh Brewpub

We don't get too many "great weather" weekends in Wisconsin but this weekend is one of them.  As soon as Allie finished up work yesterday afternoon, we took off for a road trip to see Justin in Whitewater.

I tell you this next story just to give an idea of Justin's struggles.  When we picked  Justin up at his summer dorm room, he was angry.  Earlier that day, he called me with the good news that he was going to get to live in suite-style dorm housing this fall (individual rooms with a shared living room, kitchen, bath), along with three roommates who invited him to be the fourth roommate.  The university sent Justin an email confirming the the change from his single room where he feels isolated. 

Just before we arrived, Justin got an email from one of the roommates stating that they didn't want Justin anymore because Justin was in a power wheelchair and that caregivers would be in the suite to assist Justin in his daily living activities.   They wanted to know why Justin hadn't told them about the caregivers.  Justin replied that he hadn't been asked and didn't know that it made any difference.  They said it did and best of luck.

In truth, you don't want Justin to have roommates with that kind of mindset.  On the other hand, it's clearly discrimination based upon Justin's disability.  Requiring them to be Justin's roommate as a remedy is not going to work out for anyone.  But it sucks.  And it's not uncommon for disabled people to suffer that type of close-mindedness and social ostracism.  Justin said that this is the fourth time that the roommate situation has fallen apart in his efforts to live in the university's suite housing. 

Obviously, it wasn't going to fix anything, but one thing that cheers Justin up is food.  Off we went to Second Salem Brewing Company.  We've been there twice before when the food was pretty good, and the beer was decent.  Unfortunately, the food and beer this time left something to be desired.  Lot of restaurants are struggling with staffing during Covid.  Our table server was  good.   The food highlight was probably the fried cheese curds, which are tough to screw up.

I ordered the Black Mass Stout.  Most of the beers here have names related to witchcraft, which was supposedly a thing in Whitewater's historic past.  My beer could have used a better spell.  It was thin and grainy tasting.  My fried fish was limp and greasy.  All I can say is that something had gone wrong with the coleslaw, which I couldn't eat.  And the tap water.  It just wasn't right.  Allie described the water as "thick".  I thought it had a chemical aftertaste.  Maybe the witches got to the water. 

We still managed to have a good time.

Road to New Mexico: Long Driving Day

 From February 2022

The plan was to take three days to get to New Mexico from Cameron, Missouri.  After all, we weren't in any hurry, and our first Airbnb reservations weren't until February 3rd.  

We hit the road at 6 a.m. on February 1st, hoping to avoid rush hour around Kansas City.  That strategy worked pretty well. Traffic was heavy, but no slow-downs.  Listening to the morning news on the car radio, the weather forecast did not sound good.  A winter storm was approaching and was going to hit the Great Plains that evening.  Spending the next couple of days slogging through wintry conditions in Kansas, the Oklahoma panhandle, and Texas just didn't sound fun.

Early in the day, we started considering other options.  Julia first tried to see if we could get into our Airbnb in Albuquerque early.  No go.  Then she tried Santa Fe.  There was a possibility at a small, adobe casita, but it required a two day minimum and was just a studio. Could we make it to Santa Fe before the storm hit?   Julia booked it.  

I settled into driving, listening to an audio book that Julia downloaded.

During the early afternoon, we heard back from the owner of the Airbnb.   There was a problem getting our small casita ready, due to staffing and the winter storm coming.  Would we mind an upgrade at no extra charge to the larger family adobe casita, which had a fireplace and access to a hot tub?   Yeah, that would work.

We pulled into Trader Joe's in Santa Fe after dark and picked up groceries for a few days.  Our Airbnb was actually a few miles north of Pojoaque, and it was starting to snow.  The gravel driveway going steeply up from the main road was snow covered but still easily passable with the Subaru's AWD. 

It had been a really long day.  But two days after leaving Wisconsin, we were in New Mexico already, relaxing and enjoying ourselves.  Firewood was stacked in the covered porch.   A bottle of wine was opened. Sleep wasn't far away.

Wisconsin Winter: Let's Get Out of Here

 From late January 2022

With Justin safely moved back into his dorm room in mid-January, we started looking for ways to escape the Wisconsin winter.  

January 2022

Typical Wisconsin getaways are to Florida or the Phoenix area, but we weren't interested in either of those locations.  I wanted to do some hiking in the mountains, but didn't want to deal with a lot of snow.  We were seeking warmer temperatures but not necessarily the warmest temperatures.  Spring-like during Wisconsin's January would suffice.

We ended up making Airbnb reservations for two locations in New Mexico (Albuquerque and Las Cruces) and one location in Arizona (Bisbee).  Las Cruces has long been on our list of "retire-to" cities, and we wanted a week to explore it.  We chose Albuquerque and Bisbee because I knew they would be good bases to explore trails.  We would make adjustments and additions along the way.

We got up early on the morning of January 31st and drove to Cedar Rapids, Iowa for a lunchtime stop at my parents' condo.  It was good to talk to them in person and see how they were surviving the pandemic.  My dad is turning 90 next month.

My parents spent their early retirement years with an ocean view condo in San Diego.  They eventually returned to my dad's hometown in Cedar Rapids and seem content with the Iowa lifestyle, lower cost of living, and down-to-earth people.  

After lunch, Julia and I drove to a small town just north of Kansas City, Missouri, where we had reservations at our favorite dog-friendly (no added fee) Red Roof Inn.

Red Roof fangirl

Heat

It's been unusually hot here for the last couple of days.  Today's activities were limited to taking Callie for a 5:15 a.m. four-mile walk and then pickleball from 9 a.m. to noon.  

 

Hiding in the cool of the basement this afternoon.  Allie is working from home this week, so we have to stay off the internet.

The next set of posts will be from our trip to New Mexico and Arizona in February.

Puerto Vallarta: Lowlights and Wrapping Up

 

From December 2021

I've covered the highlights of our trip to Puerto Vallarta over the last few weeks.  So were all aspects of Puerta Vallarta a picture post card?  No, not everything, although I liked it well enough that it would be high on the list of places to relocate, if I was going to relocate, which isn't happening in the short term.  

Mexico has a very different social safety net than the United States.  I would argue that it isn't necessarily worse--just different.  Over the last several decades, the United States has experienced a widening gap between the very wealthy and the rest of us.  We have a lot of poor people living on the edge.

In Puerto Vallarta, there seems to be a strong middle class, and people in the working class seem happy with less.  But it hasn't escaped the problems of many other cities.  Drugs and alcohol abuse is evident. There are drunks/addicts doing their thing and getting sick in public and bathing in the fountains.  There is petty crime, but I did not hear of violent crime.  We felt safer here than we do in U.S. cities of comparable size.  People look out for each other. 

For the severely disabled, there is free medical care via a second tier health care system.  Waits are long, and not everything is available.  

Perhaps one of the most initially disturbing sights to me were disabled children on the Malecon, begging throughout the day with the parents standing behind the wheelchair. Young children are also put to work to help support the family.  The most visible example of that  are the dozens of kids selling trinkets at the beach to tourists eating dinner.  Those are things you don't often see in the U.S., but different is not necessarily worse.

There is urban sprawl here, especially to the north of the city--developments and gated properties catering to Americans and Canadians.  Puerto Vallarta is getting to be more expensive with growing tourism and the influx of dollars.  We come for the beauty at cheaper prices, and end up driving the prices up for everyone. 

We are already planning our next trip to Mexico sometime in the next couple of years.  While we loved Puerto Vallarta, we're going to explore a new destination and hopefully stay for a longer time (months instead of weeks).