2010 Travel Report 2
A Thumb, and Highpoints To Come
Greetings from Las Cruces, New Mexico where summer is arriving and it’s getting hot! Time to hit the road for the summer. There are no pictures for this report, but there will be next time!
We had 9 solar panels installed on the house in mid March, and they have been generating around 12 or 13 kilowatt-hours of electricity most every day since – over 930KWH so far. That’s more than we have used, so we are looking forward to getting paid by the electric company, but so far, more than two months after the installation was completed, we have not received a statement. I understand they are still trying to get their “Net metering” software working.
Dinah had surgery on her right thumb to relieve pain from a bone-on-bone problem at the joint, and she is not yet back to using her right hand normally. I’ve been helping her out by fastening and unfastening her bra – tough work, but someone’s got to do it. She is anticipating having the same thing done on her left hand after we return home in the fall.
We have continued to volunteer with the Red Cross and have helped several families who have lost their homes to fire, as well doing a bunch of administrative things. Dinah was recently honored as a Red Cross “Champion” for raising more than $1,000 for our chapter.
Last Thursday the Las Cruces mayor hosted the annual “Mayor’s Gala”, a fund raising event for the chapter, and this year they honored five local heroes, nominated from the community by the public, and selected by a panel of community leaders. It was to be six heroes but as soon as the names were announced, it was learned that one of them has had some problems with the law. A front page item in the local paper was headlined, “Man selected as Red Cross hero has criminal record”. Just the kind of publicity our struggling chapter does not need. He was dropped and the remaining five were honored during a very successful evening that raised a large amount of money for our chapter.
I have been busy planning to complete my goal of reaching the high point of each of the states (except Alaska). I have six more to complete and five of them are scheduled for this summer - Hawaii will come later. I will do the first one (Boundary Peak, NV) solo, but will be guided on Mt Hood, OR, Mt Rainier, WA, Granite Pk, MT, and finally Gannett Pk, WY. With luck, by the middle of August I will have stood on the highest point of each of the lower 48 states.
We hope you all have a wonderful summer
Dinah & Allen
Lily & Noodle
Obie, Cricket, & Tiggy
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06/26/2011