Busted

I wanted to post a few new photos of Davis Monthan Air Force Base where we’re staying in our motor home.  We’d been told picture taking was OK anywhere except the base entrance -- which seems odd, since you can clearly see the entrance from off the base.   But we've followed that rule.

We'd noticed some big cargo planes that I thought would make a great picture.  So Jim dropped me off and drove around the block while I took photos.  I got only a few shots when three guys in uniform approached and asked why I was taking photos.  I told them I did a travel blog and wanted to post them on it.  They said the planes were being used for an exercise and that I couldn't take photos for security reasons.

As I was deleting the photos, I saw Jim driving up and I told the airmen the guy in the approaching Honda was my husband.  Realizing there might be a problem with my picture taking, Jim pulled up next to us, rolled down the window -- and said "I've never seen that women in my life".  Ha Ha.  After the airmen explained why I couldn't take photos, Jim asked if I could get a shot of them instead  -- and they said yes.  A photo of the three very professional and very nice servicemen is below.

Back at the Base

Jim and I have been back together in Tucson for about a week and a half.  Even Cooper the dog, seemed happy to see me when I returned from a visit to Ohio -- he leaned against me and sat on my feet, which in his world is high affection. Didn't last long, but it was nice for the moment.

For a few days after I returned, it was cloudy, a little rainy and more than a little cool.  So we went on a Downton Abbey marathon and watched the last third of season two and all of season three.  Since we’d rented DVDs, we also had the “special features” -- so we watched how the weddings were filmed and heard Julian Fellowes discuss being a villain for the way he ended season three.  We’re all caught up with the Crawleys, the Granthams, that big old castle, and the main characters who are dropping like flies.

We’ve also been going to the Davis Monthan Air Force Base gym. We haven’t missed a day at the gym unless we're hiking.  If it weren’t for beer and cookies (Jim) and everything-else-that-isn’t-nailed-down (Bev), we might be very thin.

Along that last thought:  I heard about a product that extends the life of an open bottle of wine.  It’s a spray can containing a type of gas; you spray the gas into the partially used bottle, put in a stopper, and the wine supposedly taste just as good a few days later.  I told Jim that when we open a bottle of wine I tend to drink too much because I don’t want to waste it, and maybe getting the wine preservative would be a good idea.  Jim responded with something along the lines of “Maybe you ought to look for something that does the same with an open bag of chips.”  I laughed. He's lucky I was in a good mood.

One of my must-dos when in Wellington, Ohio with my Mom is to go to the Wellington Diner to get Lake Erie perch.  Here is Mom and our meals.  Side note:  the Wellington Diner no longer goes by that name.  But then again, I still call the Wellington High School the “new school” and it’s been there for 40 years.

Flying over a partially frozen Lake Erie on my way to Tucson, via Cleveland and Chicago.

The Air Force Base fitness facility we've been going to.

From Russia with(out) love

Our blog is set up on a common blog publishing-service called “Blogger” owned by Google.  When I log in to my account, I can look at a section called “statistics” which tells me how many hits my blog gets each day, week, month, year and in total.  I don’t know who looks at our blog, but I can tell what web addresses viewers use to get to it -- for example, our blog address of jimandbev.blogspot. com or maybe a link to our blog I have on Facebook.  

The statistics section also tells me what countries hits come from.  After a couple of months of blogging, I started seeing views from Russia and Germany.  Since there is a “Next Blog” tab at the top of Blogger that anyone can click to see the next random website, I thought maybe people stumbled on my blog that way.   But once it got to over a hundred hits from Russia ... plus views from Malaysia, Pakistan, Latvia, and a dozen other countries ... well, probably not.  As of today, my statistics page says I’ve had 854 hits from Russia. Who knew former Soviets love the RV lifestyle?

I found out those hits are “referrer spam.”  Referrer spammers put information on statistics pages to make it look like someone has a link to your blog and you are getting visits from that link -- but it’s bogus.  They do this in hopes the blog author will get curious and click on the link.  If the blogger clicks, he/she usually gets an ad (if lucky), porn or a virus. 

Referrer spam messes up my statistics, is kind of irritating, and for reasons unknown, we're seeing a lot of it right now -- even though I do not click on the links, which supposedly encourages it.   The good news is referrer spam does not impact anyone reading our blog. 

In the meantime, here's our message to spammers: Получить от моего газона. That's the universal old guy "leave me alone" phrase which,  loosely translated from Russian to English, means: "Get off my lawn."

Meanwhile, back at the rig: A celebrity sighting

While I’m in northeastern Ohio with my Mom, Jim is with the rig at the Davis Monthan Air Force Base Fam Camp.  Jim’s been hiking, reading, working out at the base’s rec center and enjoying some guy time with his dog, Cooper.  Photos of a couple of places they’ve hiked are below.

Plus: Today I got a text from from Jim saying he’d spotted the rig of someone who, in our RV world, is a celebrity.  The motor home Jim saw belongs to Andy B., a Lazy Daze RV owner whose web site we poured over before buying our Lazy Daze.  After owning our rig for three years, we still search a Lazy Daze Yahoo group Andy moderates when our rig leave us thinking “What the?” 

While Andy wasn’t home, Jim knew whose rig it was because 1) It’s a Lazy Daze and you don’t see many beyond California where they are made.  Heck, you don't see that many of them even in California, so when we run across another Lazy Daze we notice.  And 2) Andy’s rig is emblazoned with its name: Skylark. 

Out of respect for Andy’s privacy, I won’t say where Jim spotted Andy’s Lazy Daze.  But I think it’s OK to pass along a link to Andy's web page.  It’s a wealth of well-written, entertaining information about living full time in a motor home.

Photo taken by Jim while hiking south of Tucson: Mt. Wrightson from Dutch John Spring trail, Madera Canyon Recreation Area, Sahuarita AZ.

Another hiking spot, this time north: Snow on the Catalina Mts., Bug Springs trail, Tucson AZ.

And, the celebrity rig Jim saw today.

Orchids and ice

From L to R: SIL Suzie, brother Bob, Mom and orchids at 
the Cleveland Botanical Garden's "Orchid Mania" show 
where we saw chocolate-scented Oncidiums and more in 
settings duplicating climates of Costa Rica and Madagascar.  
Also saw two very cool panther chameleons.

In older news, these are Mom's east-facing windows that normally have a clear and beautiful view of farm fields and woods ... but one morning last week looked like man-made privacy windows.  The frosting, however, was courtesy of Mother Nature.  That same day, a jet slid off the just-as icy-runway at Cleveland Hopkins Airport.  Mom's own orchid/amaryllis garden (courtesy of Bob and Suzie and my other brother Don and SIL Trudy, plus my nephew/Mom's grandson Ben) can be seen in the shadows.