As with much of the world, we are required to stay home except for essential travel and to maintain "social distancing" when we are out of our homes. Most NAU students have gone home, so our neighborhood has been very quiet and walking the streets and trails have led to few encounters with others. It has been very easy to avoid getting close to passersby.
On one of my walks, I revisited Sawmill Multicultural Art and Nature County Park. In a previous blog post, I included a photo of this wall from the other side - I did not realize it had artwork on both sides.
Before the lock down, my usual Tuesday was spent at the Desert Botanical Garden as a volunteer Docent. DBG Docents give tours and man stations to share information about desert plants. Because of the lock down, the DBG is closed, but I felt a need for us to get together. So each Tuesday, I host a Zoom session at lunchtime. It is great to see and hear my fellow docents. Here is a screen shot from Tuesday April 7.
On one of our walks, Patty and I went to the Duck Pond near the Arizona and Sinclair Wash Trails. On the way back, we stopped for a photo of one of the signs. Just as there are adopt-a-road programs, Flagstaff has an Adopt-A-FUTS program - Flagstaff Urban Trail System. We thought that Virtuous Pagans was an interesting name for a group.
Upon returning from one of our hikes, Paulie was very excited to see us.
At 70 years old, I am one of the younger Tuesday Docents at the DBG. To help some of the other docents with the technology of Zoom, I have held private sessions with them. Here is one with Beckie.
Whenever I am in Madrid, I join the Friday Night English Speaking Group, a.k.a. La Tienda de las Lanas. They typically meet in a bar or cafe and a local person has activities for part of the evening, and then people just chat for the rest of the evening - all in English, all with the purpose of helping people practice and improve their spoken English. They have continued to meet virtually since the lock down, and have tried a variety of online tools. On Friday April 10, the group celebrated Richard's 70th birthday - Richard is a retired British seismologist who lives in Madrid and does private classes teaching English. The used Cisco Webex for the online platform. At one point, there were 26 people involved. David was the emcee and had a quiz where we had to try to identify different works of art and different buildings. The software produced really weird mutations of the art work - the second one is supposed to be the Mona Lisa.
The buildings were easier, as I could identify about half of them - the Eiffel Tower, Sydney Opera House, Empire State Building, etc.
On Saturday April 11, my morning walk took me where I had a great view of Mount Humphries and the adjacent San Francisco Mountains, as well as the stormy skies.
I figured out how to put virtual backgrounds into the picture when I am using Zoom.
On our Sunday walk, Patty and I saw this butterfly hanging on for dear life - I am sure the wind would have smashed him into something if he let go.
Although we were on the Sinclair Wash FUTS trail, the trail goes through the NAU campus, which is hilly and has many different styles of student housing.
We passed by this flowering tree on another walk, but could not identify it.
On Monday morning the 13th, Megan was out early for her walk and for 45 minutes we talked as she walked in sunny Phoenix and I walked in chilly Flagstaff with Paulie. On Tuesday morning, it started snowing when I was out walking Paulie, big wet flakes falling on us - but it melted once it hit the ground.
Strangely, I even saw many earthworms out on the sidewalk - not as fat as the ones we used to see in Vermont, but they were about six inches long.
Later on Tuesday, I again hosted the Tuesday DBG Docents on Zoom - this time we had 17 people.
And so life continues with only going to the grocery store once per week. We did have pizza delivered once and we did go to the Starbucks drive through once for lattes - but that is life under the stay at home, lock down rules. It is our new normal since March 20, 2020.
On one of my walks, I revisited Sawmill Multicultural Art and Nature County Park. In a previous blog post, I included a photo of this wall from the other side - I did not realize it had artwork on both sides.
Upon returning from one of our hikes, Paulie was very excited to see us.
At 70 years old, I am one of the younger Tuesday Docents at the DBG. To help some of the other docents with the technology of Zoom, I have held private sessions with them. Here is one with Beckie.
Whenever I am in Madrid, I join the Friday Night English Speaking Group, a.k.a. La Tienda de las Lanas. They typically meet in a bar or cafe and a local person has activities for part of the evening, and then people just chat for the rest of the evening - all in English, all with the purpose of helping people practice and improve their spoken English. They have continued to meet virtually since the lock down, and have tried a variety of online tools. On Friday April 10, the group celebrated Richard's 70th birthday - Richard is a retired British seismologist who lives in Madrid and does private classes teaching English. The used Cisco Webex for the online platform. At one point, there were 26 people involved. David was the emcee and had a quiz where we had to try to identify different works of art and different buildings. The software produced really weird mutations of the art work - the second one is supposed to be the Mona Lisa.
The buildings were easier, as I could identify about half of them - the Eiffel Tower, Sydney Opera House, Empire State Building, etc.
On Saturday April 11, my morning walk took me where I had a great view of Mount Humphries and the adjacent San Francisco Mountains, as well as the stormy skies.
I figured out how to put virtual backgrounds into the picture when I am using Zoom.
On our Sunday walk, Patty and I saw this butterfly hanging on for dear life - I am sure the wind would have smashed him into something if he let go.
Although we were on the Sinclair Wash FUTS trail, the trail goes through the NAU campus, which is hilly and has many different styles of student housing.
We passed by this flowering tree on another walk, but could not identify it.
On Monday morning the 13th, Megan was out early for her walk and for 45 minutes we talked as she walked in sunny Phoenix and I walked in chilly Flagstaff with Paulie. On Tuesday morning, it started snowing when I was out walking Paulie, big wet flakes falling on us - but it melted once it hit the ground.
Strangely, I even saw many earthworms out on the sidewalk - not as fat as the ones we used to see in Vermont, but they were about six inches long.
When I got back to the house, it was really snowing hard.
Later on Tuesday, I again hosted the Tuesday DBG Docents on Zoom - this time we had 17 people.
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