Six months out from open heart surgery....I swim a mile!

We went swimming early this morning, to get it completed before my cardiology appointment.

We had planned on swimming 1 1/2 hours.

I am the world's slowest swimmer, mostly because I don't care how fast I am or how I look.  I can't do any stroke where my head is in the water because I am too susceptible to ear infections.  Consequently, most of the time I do the dog paddle, which is the world's most inefficient stroke.  Sometimes I do a "backstroke," but only use my arms, not my legs, so I work really hard at it.  Sometimes I do what Vicky calls my jellyfish stroke, where my legs hang down and I use only my arms to propel myself.  I am not an olympic swimmer.

These strokes are slow, but are very high in movement and effort.  And that's what I am interested in.  I don't care about speed--I care about movement and effort.

After about an hour today I started calculating my distance.  I realized that if I swam for 108 minutes I would swim a mile.  I told Vicky, and she said "go for it," and was encouraging me the whole way by swimming next to me. 

So I did.  For the first time in my life, actually. 

I "swam" a mile, six months after open heart surgery.  Then we went to my cardiology appointment.  I have to admit I did a little bragging when he asked me how I have been doing.

But without Vicky?  Nothing like this.

After the appointment we cycled for 15 miles.

Take home point:  If anybody reads this or cares:  If you know you have a heart problem, get in shape in the same way you would if you knew you were going to run a marathon.  Heart surgery is a marathon.  It is brutal.

Second take home point:  Be married to someone who wants you to get well as much as you do.

Third take home point:  Be married to someone who wants you to get well as much as you do. 

The first cactus flowers in our new garden

Bulldog Canyon: A rugged road in our Rat

We took our new Rat out for a test drive in Bulldog Canyon.  It is a road for OHVs, not really for SUVs, but our Rat performed very well.  We actually didn't even see any other passenger vehicles on the road--only a few off-road OHVs. 

We learned that it can take us anyplace we would want to go.  We aren't interested in testing out remote areas for off-road driving, but only for finding places to camp.  Then, we'll hike on the remote roads.  We can now go almost anywhere a vehicle that carries camping supplies can go.

It was actually kind of a gas.

p.s.  We figured out what the tonal "noise" was.  The bouncing of the Rat kept disconnecting and reconnecting our connection to our IPad.

Camping with our new Toyota 4Runner Rat

We were very excited to try out our new "Rat" (our nickname for our new Toyota 4Runner).

So off we headed in it to the Eastern Arizona Mountains.

It got its first challenge right away--we ran into a huge swamped portion of the road.  We had been told that this vehicle has a water clearance of 36 inches, so we just headed right for it.

                             

What can't be seen in the video is how slick the road was underneath, yet the Rat held its line exceptionally well.

We were able to reach a quite remote area, which was our objective, and set up camp.

The next three photos give you an idea of how remote we were:

See us?

We were there 5 days and nights.  In that time we saw only one vehicle on our road.....and they were lost.  Thankfully for them, they encountered Vicky who is the map queen.  She got them turned around and headed to where they actually wanted to go.

We saw one other vehicle in the distance, and then ran into two groups on our hiking expeditions.  One was a mountain climber who stopped 50 feet in front of us because he was so surprised to see hikers in the area.  He said we were the first people he had seen in 4 days.

We really encountered the desert.  We hiked 5 days, and accumulated 28 miles.

 

The camping was more primitive than what we had been used to in the camper.  

For one, we used outdoor "toilets."  

Here is me heading off to the reading room with my trusty portable toilet seat and the shovel I had given Vicky for Valentine's Day (I'm quite the romantic).

Vicky cooking. The toilet seat also doubles, in a pinch, as a chair.

Vicky cooking in the morning:

 Does this breakfast look good or what?

 You're right!  It is delicious.  Prepared with love, just for me.  Vicky has her own breakfast--her homemade granola, fruit, and yogurt. 

A solid breakfast is necessary for us before we head off for 3 hours on a hike.  That's a lot of work for two old people (well, maybe for one "old people" and Vicky).

While Vicky is heating the coffee water outside and preparing breakfast, my "job" is to warm the coffee containers using the new tent propane heater we purchased.  We all have our strengths:

This is the first time we have tent camped except in campgrounds.  It went pretty well. We had purchased the tent we needed, the stove we needed, the pad we needed, and the tent heater we needed.  We found out we will need some other supplies, so are obtaining those.

But it all achieved our objective.  We can take 5-day camping trips to very remote and difficult-to-reach places to hike.  We will take our camper when we drive farther from Mesa and plan to stay two weeks or so.

From late afternoon to late morning there was no one on the planet except us.

Our days consist of chilly mornings drinking coffee and having breakfast in "bed" in the tent, hiking, and then sitting outside and just staring at the beauty of the desert.  What a life.

Our first (mis)adventure with our Rat

I can't believe I did this.  We are planning on taking this vehicle to remote areas of the desert where only something like it, or a Jeep, can go.  Rocky, steep, unmaintained roads.

Our first adventure was to the grocery store, and it proved to be a disaster.  If we can't go to the grocery store, how can we go on unmaintained steep mountain roads?

What happened is that we both forgot we had the top carrier on, and to unload the groceries we thought we'd just pull into the garage.

Well, you can guess the rest.  The garage door got destroyed.    Fortunately, the Rat ended up without a scratch, but one of us, in particular (the one driving the Rat), felt awfully stupid.  Fortunately, his wife is the understanding sort and was comforting to him.

So now we have a ton of confidence.  We can't even get out of Leisure World without having a mini-disaster.

Our new Toyota 4Runner, off road TRD

I am five months out of open heart surgery.  It has been a life-changing experience for both of us.

In preparation for my surgery I had a procedure called an  angiogram, where a doctor inserted a tube into my heart that enabled him to actually look at the aneurysm in my aorta.   He told us it was bad.   He was clearly worried.  And when we said we already had surgery scheduled for it, he emphatically stated:  "Good!"  He also said that the first symptom I would have had that indicated I had a heart problem would have been to die.

I feel very fortunate. 

We have learned that life is short, and when you are old as we are, it is even shorter.

Although we both "knew" this, we didn't really "know" it until we were staring at the inevitable full in the face, which is what this open heart surgery did for us.

We know that we can't count on years of easy living, of good health, of being pain-free.

We both feel our age.  My right foot, on which I have had three major surgeries, is probably in need of another.  Vicky's back, which was broken 20 years ago when her car was rear ended, gives her pain on a regular basis. 

We both have recently had our high school 50th reunions.  Of significance, 20% of our classmates did not live to be able to go to them.

The word "crisis" comes from the Greek word for "change."  My heart surgery was a crisis, and as a result we have regrouped and made some significant life changes.  These changes come from a recognition of how few years we have left.

One major change was that we decided to sell our Whidbey Island home.  Although we love it,  that home requires a lot of on-going effort to maintain.    We no longer have the endurance needed to cut trees, split wood, etc., and to maintain an acre of yard and gardens.  In addition, the "outdoor" season there is too short for us.

We will be moving to Nuestra Casa, our home in Mesa, Arizona.  The major advantage of this home is that we can maintain our love of the outdoors much more easily.  While in Nuestra Casa we swim for an hour every day.  We cycle for another hour.  We have beautiful walks, and regular dances we can attend.   And we are only a few hours' drive from the deserts which we love, and which provide us with the wonderful hiking that sustains us.

Which leads us to our second major change:  We purchased a Toyota 4Runner, off road, TRD.

 

This thing is a beast, just as the Ford 350 Dually that our camper sits on is a beast.  

But this beast serves a different purpose.  It will be a vehicle we can use to get to the most remote areas of the desert.   With our camper we can get out onto many roads to camp, roads that typical family cars cannot reach.    However, it has its limits--because of its size, width, length, and weight.

There are so many areas we have seen that we have looked at, longingly, wanting to be able to access but the roads were too rough, steep, or rocky that we couldn't.

Now we can.  With this vehicle we can literally go anywhere.  It is designed for this.  It looks like a typical SUV, but it isn't.  It is a body on frame vehicle, basically a pickup with an SUV body.  It is what is called a "rock crawler," which means it can go almost anywhere.  Almost the entire undercarriage consists of skid plates, which means that sharp rocks won't damage the engine, transmission, etc.  It is like a Jeep Wrangler, except it has Toyota, not Jeep, quality.  

This vehicle opens an entirely new chapter in our ability to access the deserts we love and to hike in remote and virtually inaccessible places.  When we go for long trips (i.e, 2-3 weeks) we will take our camper.  When we go for 5-day trips, we will take the 4Runner, and do tent camping. 

We are leaving in 3-4 days for our first excursion in the 4Runner.  We couldn't be more excited.  We can't wait to show our grandchildren this type of adventure. 

Live while you can.   Life's short.

Move your body in a serious fashion every day.  Makes life longer.

Out in the desert: Flowers are really blooming

We found a camping/hiking spot only three hours away from Nuestra Casa, with almost complete isolation.  Nobody camped within miles of us, and only one vehicle per day came close enough that we could see it.  Lots of good hiking.

And the desert flowers this time of year are beautiful.

Here is our spot.  It really is as isolated as it appears.  So quiet.  All we hear is the wind and birds.

One night I woke up to the sound of a pack of coyotes yelping.  If you haven't heard this, be sure to hear it some time in your life.  I woke Vicky up so she could hear it.  

 

 Ocatillo cactus in bloom.  Wow:

 Some type of yellow flowers.  We are trying to find out the type.  Inside the bunch of flowers is a miniature cactus.  We haven't seen that before:

This is the skeleton of a Saguaro cactus.  We have never seen one stripped so cleanly and still standing.

Vicky in a Cholla cactus garden

Purple flowers.  Type unknown.

A hillside of Cholla cacti:

Lupine.  We didn't know they grew in the desert.

 

One morning we hiked three miles to KOFA, a wildlife refuge.  We followed, then lost, then found an old road that led there.  

The white sign that said we were at the boundary of the wildlife refuge was so old that it had almost completely faded.

Years ago a road had run into this area, but it had been closed, limiting access to the wildlife refuge.  The 'No Vehicle" sign was very old---the automobile pictured looked like a 1957 Studebaker.   Because of age and the weather, it also looked like it was in the shop on a hydraulic lift getting an oil change.

Early morning in the desert.

Another early morning.  See why we love the desert?