Alhama de Aragon with Vaughan Town, October 2026

We retrieved the area rugs from the cleaners and put them back into place.  We continued to find things and places where the Norway rat had been, causing more cleaning and/or tossing of things in the trash.  I donated platelets at the Red Cross on Sunday Oct. 4 and did my regular Tuesday at the Desert Botanical Garden on Oct. 6.  Patty's vegetable garden is starting out strong. 

 

 

 

On Oct. 7, I flew from Phoenix to IAD in Washington, D.C., then over night to Madrid.  Friday afternoon I did an Assessment of Prior Learning meeting from 3:00 until 7:00, then went to Cafeteria Via22 for the meeting of the English Speaking Group, a.k.a La Tienda de las Lanos.  In addition to chatting in English, we had this activity to get us to use more English words.

 

Then on Sunday morning, it was time to meet at the offices of Grupo Vaughan on Calle Orense for the bus ride to Alhama de Aragon, about two hours northeast of Madrid.  In the interest of increasing tourism them, there are new signs in both Spanish and English that tell about the history of the town.

 

 

As usual, Vaughan had a busy schedule for us, posted for four hours each morning and afternoon.

One day we had a photo scavenger hunt, with each team assigned different tasks.  Here are the photos from the Alhama Explorers, the name we adopted for our team.

 

We had to replicate a famous Velasquez painting, and we chose the Triumph of Bacchus.

 

Then we needed to replicate something from the 15th century and chose Columbus' Discovery.

 

We needed a famous advertisement, so we chose this one for Dior perfume.

 

 

 

Then we needed an action scene from a famous movie, so we chose this scene from Pulp Fiction.

 

And finally, we had to do a team photo of the Alhama Explorers.  The team was Francisco, Danny, Maria C., Jenny and me.

One day during free time after lunch, I tried to access the tower, but could not find a foot path to reach it.

 

 

The hotel advertises itself for the thermal waters.   The felkekur allows you to sit on the bench and soak your feet in the thermal waters and then walk on the rocks.  While I did use the outdoors pool each afternoon, walking bare foot on rocks did not appeal to me.

 

 

In the past, I have done short presentations about building homes with the Fuller Center for Housing and about plants and food from the desert.  This time, I did a presentation about donating blood.  It was a big hit and led to many people deciding to donate blood and to organize a blood drive where they worked.

 

Someone caught me in this candid scene, contemplating unknown thoughts.

All good things must come to an end, so we had to have a group photo after the certificate ceremony.

 

Then on Friday, it was back to Madrid, one more visit to Cafeteria Via22 for the English Speaking Group and then flying back home on Saturday Oct. 17.

Portland, OR, & Munds Park, AZ, August and September 2026

After our two months in Rockaway Beach, we decamped to Portland, OR.  We stayed at our kids homes and took care of their dogs, and any chores or errands they had for us.  We would send photos of the dogs to them so they knew that all was well.  While not as active as before, Mr. Stowe enjoyed time outside.

 

The garden was growing, one of my jobs was to water the flowers and vegetables that were not connected to the irrigation system.

 

 I had time with both Ms. Piper and Mr. Stowe.

 

I took the train up to Olympia, WA, where my friend Ken met me.  I went to see the houses he and his family built.  One was for himself, his wife and his mother-in-law - I stayed at their house.  Next door was the one for his son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren.

 

 

Ken and I hiked for several miles at the Nisqually Reach Aquatic Reserve, where we saw many birds and native plants.

 

At the end of August, Patty returned to Phoenix while I stayed a few more days to take care of Ms. Piper while Megan was off flying.  Patty did a lot of cleaning that was needed because of the Norway Rat that entered our unit while we were gone.  The rat came up through the toilet but could not climb back into the toilet to escape, so it roamed the house looking for food and water.  It peed and pooped in many places, until it finally died on the kitchen floor.  This caused us to take all the area rugs to be cleaned and to throw away many items that had been contaminated.

 

We eventually left for Munds Park for our September rental there.  A nice home with two bedrooms and one bathroom on the ground floor, plus more bedrooms and another bath up a circular staircase to the upper lever of the A Frame home.  The one thing that was lacking was a dishwasher, so we regularly got back into the habit of washing and drying dishes by hand.  Munds Park is about 6,600 feet elevation, so it was much cooler than Phoenix.  While we used the air conditioner at the start of the month for a couple of days, it soon switched to turning on the heat.  We had rain and I saw this rainbow one day.

 

I went back to Phoenix once per week.  This allowed me to check on the house, water the inside plants and get the mail.  I also gave platelets at the Red Cross on two trips, and had medical appointments on other trips.  Patty and I both got Moderna Covid vaccine and flu vaccine at the Safe-Way in Flagstaff - that gave us four 10% off coupons for future shopping trips.  The night of Sept. 28/29, two inches of snow fell on Mount Humphreys in Flagstaff (about 20 miles northwest of Munds Park) and we returned to Phoenix on the 29th.  Our summer escape from the heat of Phoenix got us back to record heat for early October.  Such is life in Arizona.