Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument

Sunday we drove 160 miles from Gilbert Ray Campground at Tucson to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. What a wonderful place! The campground has no hookups, but the sites are level concrete pads. It is so quiet and at night it is dark, except for the lights in the restrooms and the glow of the Lukeville/Sonoyta border crossing five miles to the south.

I think of a desert as dry and barren, but right now it is green here and anything but barren. We drove the 21-mile Ajo Mountain Loop road and were amazed at the carpet of green plants on the ground, larger concentrations of Saguaro cactus than we saw at Saguaro National Park, large numbers of Organ Pipe cactus, as well as Teddy Bear Cholla and Hanging Fruit (or Jumping) Cholla. All of these are growing on the slopes of volcanic hills (or mountains). It is beautiful.

Since I can't figure out how to put a slideshow in this blog, you can see some of the Ajo Mountain Drive by clicking on this link.

http://picasaweb.google.com/JohnandCarol43/SaguaroToOrganPipe?feat=directlink

Since we are over the age of 62, we have National Park passes for seniors. That gives us free admission to the parks and monuments and half-price camping there and on National Forest and BLM land. That means we pay only $6 a night here. That is great. The campground has 208 spaces but it hasn't been near full any night so far. This is a place we can relax and it is warm enough we can be outside all day and into the evening. That is why we are in Arizona in February.

Twice a day we can run our generators for two hours—8 to 10 am and 4 to 6 pm—to charge our batteries. The majority of trailers (like us) have Honda 2000 watt generators, which are very quiet. So, though we can hear them, it is not annoying. And everyone seems to really honor the generator hours. The generator does not give us the power to use our air conditioning or microwave, but it does charge the batteries, as well as our computers and cell phones, and we can use fans during the afternoon charging time. We also have lights and heat overnight.

At Gilbert Ray, we spent five nights with electric but no water hookup. Here we have neither. We are getting really good at conserving water. We think we will be able to go eight days on our 66 gallon fresh water tank. We use the water in the tank only for showers and dishwashing—anything we need hot water for. We fill jugs of water to flush the toilet and fill the coffee pot, wash our hands, etc. At times I feel like an old-time farm woman, going to the well for water. But it really works well. And we don't have to pull in the slides and drive to the fresh water hook-up to refill the tank. We are becoming good boondockers.

A Great Way to Live!

Since Tuesday we have been parked in the Gilbert Ray Campground in the Tucson Mountain Park. We are just outside of the western section of Saguaro National Park. We are living right in the desert. Most of the cactus has not been cleared off. Everywhere we look we see saguaro, prickley pear, ocotillo, palo verde and creosote bush. And we see and hear birds from morning to night--black chinned hummingbirds, road runners, gila woodpeckers, curved billed thrashers. For the first time a saw a verdin--a very small bird with a yellow head. It is about the size of a hummingbird. Today we saw a coyote crossing the road as we drove through the campground.

This is the kind of campground we most enjoy, so I don't know why it took us three weeks to move here. It is quiet, even tonight, Friday, on the edge of Tucson. Most of the people are about our age, snowbirds, a good number of them full-timers. This campground is obviously a favorite with Canadians. Many of the campers are from British Columbia. One neighbor is from Manitoba and others from Alberta and Ontario. The majority have a hummingbird feeder out, like we do.

Spring is coming to the desert here. Some creosote bushes are sprouting yellow flowers. The Ocotillo are developing leaves and some have small red flowers at their tips. It has warmed up and we are able to wear shorts. Yesterday was the first day since we arrived in Arizona that is was warm enough and the wind calm enough we could be comfortable sitting outside.

Wednesday we biked to the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum, just up the road. It is a wonderful facility with marvelous exhibits about the beginning of the world, animals of the desert, plants of the grasslands and mountains of the desert, butterflies, hummingbirds, and on and on. We could easily have spent all day there, except that is just too much to absorb all at once. If we lived here, we would return many times. We even saw one of their herd of javelinas. In the hummingbird exhibit, we watched one of the tiny birds sitting on a nest!

When we are somewhere with a better internet signal, I will add photos to this post.

Saguaro National Park

Saguaro National Park covers 91,327 acres on the east and west sides of Tucson.We have taken two great hikes in the park this week.
First we hiked four and one-half miles round trip on the King Canyon trail in the western part of the park. We left our car in the parking lot of the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, located in the Tucson Mountain County Park, just outside of Saguaro. It was a pretty hike with some uphill sections. We got a good work out on our first hike of the season. We were on the trail by 9 am and by 10 there were many hikers out. The landscape is open desert with only some cacti.

Yesterday we hiked three miles on the Loma VerdePink Hill-Squeeze Pen trail through the Cactus Forest in the eastern section of Saguaro. We truly felt we were in a forest--though not like any we have been in before. Saguaro, Prickly Pear and Cholla cactus plants were everywhere. The trees and shrubs are beginning to turn green, but the cactus and other wildflowers have not begun to bloom. We are so glad we are here at this time of year to see spring come.

I tried to take pictures of the biggest Saguaro with the most arms.

I finally decided showing lots of them would be better.

We realized that the skeleton of the Saguaro is made up of thin ribs. Here is a dead cactus that looks like it is wearing a shawl--really it is some of the covering that has not rotted away yet. The dead ones kind of reminded us of Kansas scarecrows without clothes.

This photos gives you an idea of what the forest looks like.

The ability to come live in places like this for a while, places that are so different from where we have lived for years, is one of the real benefits of our life style.

Snowbird Sights in Tucson

Why do snowbirds come to southern Arizona or go to Florida or south Texas? We left barren trees and brown ground or extreme cold and snow drifts and headed where we can see green trees, grass turning green, and palm trees.

As we drive around during the first week in February, we marvel at these sights. As we walk around our RV park, we mainly see folks from Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, Colorado and Kansas. In all of these places it is still cold, barren and often snowy. After years of enjoying (or tolerating) such weather, we now enjoy the mild southern winters, then flee north when the 100 degree days of summer arrive.

As we made our way around Tucson Friday we saw acres and acres of really old airplanes. The map describes the area as an airplane bone yard. In this dry climate, aging planes can be stored. They don't deteriorate, so in the future they could be put back in service or raided for parts to repair other airplanes. They look a little like blind animals or machines with band aides over their boo-boos.

Saturday we made our first visit to Trader Joes. We have read about the grocery chain in RV blog and saw one in California last fall, but we had never shopped there. Were we impressed. We have been eating a yummy crusty whole wheat loaf of pain au levain (I wish I knew what that means). I bought an individual frozen quiche for Sunday breakfast, which I enjoyed, and we will definitely return for some great meat and frozen entrees for a good Sunday meal. If you live in the center of the country, you may not have heard of Trader Joes. But they have stores on both sides of the continent and we will visit them whenever we can.

Today we visited the Mission of San Francisco Xavier del Bac. We are staying at the Mission View RV Park, near this church. We have toured many old Spanish churches. This is perhaps the most impressive. Franciscan priest Fr. Kino established the San Xavier Mission in 1692. The church building was occupied in 1798 and has been in use since then. In the 20 years beginning in 1978, intense restoration of the structure and its many paintings, bultos and statues was carried out.

The exterior is now repaired with mortar made from a mixture of lime, sand and cactus mucilage after they discovered that modern cement actually hastens the deterioration.

Inside, the building is quite ornate.

A side chapel is beautiful and the many candles send up the prayers of faithful pilgrims who come and go all day long. We were amazed at how busy the church was.

We're in Arizona

After four days of driving--with overnight stops at Lathrop State Park in Walsenburg, CO, Isleta Lakes RV near Albuquerque, and Dream Catcher RV in Deming, NM, we reached Mission View RV in Tucson today. We will stay for a least a week. Two years ago in the fall we spent a few days here. We love the extra-wide sites and the friendly people.

Would you believe, after waking up to 26 degrees this morning, the high today in Tucson was 84? There are storms coming in with some rain, so it will cool down. But not like we have experienced in the last few nights. We won't have to disconnect the hose to keep it from freezing. Our weather while packing, moving and driving has been great--no snow or rain. But we have been looking forward to warm weather. We put on our shorts as soon as we arrived in Tucson.

This is a shot of tonight's sunset from our RV park. At the house we just moved out of, it was difficult to see a morning sunrise. And, since we spent most of our time in the family room on the east side of the house, we almost never saw sunsets. Our patio home didn't have many windows or good views--in part to provide privacy on our small lot. One of the things we enjoy in our house on wheels is the number of windows and the good views of outside.

Finally!

Since mid-December, we have focused on packing, sorting, deciding what to sell, pricing for a garage sale, arranging the garage sale, holding the garage sale, finding a mover who could store our stuff, packing boxes, selling items to antique dealers, etc., etc., etc.
This is the garage sale before anyone arrived.

This is the same room after the movers took everything to storage.

Finally, we have moved into our Montana 5th wheel trailer. This is the sunrise we saw this morning.

This is our trailer at Chatfield State Park southwest of Denver, where we are spending four nights as we get organized for our new life--full-time on the road.

The past month and a half have been exhausting. Every single day we have worked toward this new life. We have delivered 14 boxes of books to the library and churches, we have given massive amounts of stuff to ARC and Goodwill, we have sold more stuff--some of it good antiques, some of it used junk--to antiques dealers, folks who saw our ads on Craigslist, consignment shops and garage sale addicts. We also have left maybe 30 sacks of trash for the trash trucks and taken many bags and boxes to recycle and to a shredder. What we couldn't part with, we have packed for storage. And the things we can't part with that we think we might want to use in the next few years, we have stored in a unit we can access whenever we want.

It has been very hard work--more than we imagined. And that is because we owned more stuff than we knew we had and we had to decide--item by item--whether it was important or not, and if it wasn't important what we would do with it. "Build it and they will come." No, for us it was build the space and we will fill it with stuff.

By last fall we decided we wanted a different life. So in December, as soon as we finished decorating and shopping for Christmas, we worked to clear the decks and get ready to be full-time RVers. Just look at the sunrise above, as well as where we are parked and you can appreciate the life we want to live year-round. We are so glad the work is done and now we can enjoy our new life.

So, we are off to Arizona for three months!

A Trip Into the Old West

Monday we took part in a Denver tradition dating back over 100 years--the National Western Stock Show. Ranchers and farmers--both commerical and youth in 4H and FFA--from all over the country take part in the exhibition of the best cattle, pigs, sheep, rabbits and fowl in the country. Cowboys from around the country also compete in the rodeo--including regular competition, several days of a Mexican Rodeo and the Martin Luther King rodeo for Black cowboys on MLK Day.

On our way in, our grandchildren, Kylie, 9, and John, 3, had a staring contest with a Bramha bull. I think John was afraid the bull might eat his hat--or knock it off.

Here's our whole group (I'm missing. Someone had to take the picture.) John, Liz, Kylie, John and Eric.

John wanted to see some cows, so we checked out the cattle judging arena. Kylie used the camera she received for Christmas to take some pictures.

John really studied the cattle.

It looks like the pigs like to cuddle a little as they nap in the pig barn. Aren't they sweet?

As the rodeo begins there is a lot a very loud music and a laser light show. I really enjoy the lights as I cover my ears to muffle the sound.

What would a rodeo be without some cotton candy? Nana likes it almost as much as John, but she was careful not to eat too much.

I couldn't take photos of the rodeo events, like bronc riding, calf roping or bull riding, but I could get some of the entertainment events, like this stage coach with a six-horse team.

We also saw monkeys riding dogs, herding sheep. It was quite a sight.

Family time is what we value most about our time here in Colorado. But after a fun afternoon with our son and his family, we were soon back hard at work sorting, storing, selling, getting rid of and packing everything we own so we can go on the road full time in another week.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

        We've relived lots of memories over the past couple of weeks as we have sorted and packed and thrown out things so we can go on the road full time.

 

        I reread some of my mother's letters written while I was in college.  She talked about how she and Daddy quoted poetry to each other as they washed dishes.  When she was writing to me about my upcoming marriage to John, she talked about the depth and importance of her relationship with my dad.

 

        I found something I had written two days after our second son was born and remembered what a tremendous event that was for John and me to share.

 

        We have met two of the nicest people as we worked at selling some of our antiques.  We walked into an antique co-op in Denver and the man at the front desk welcomed us, showed us around, and discussed how to put a value on some of our things.  He suggested we email some photos to Judy, one of the women who is part of the co-op.  Days later she came to our house and we instantly made friends.  She bought some things, agreed to share our photos with another member of the co-op and gave us the name of another dealer who might consign some newer furniture.  As it turned out, the other co-op member was Steve, the first man we met.  He, too, has come to our house and bought some things.  Both people gave us advice on how to price what we want to sell at our moving sale.  And they are both wonderful people. We feel very blessed.

 

        John fought tears as he dismantled his HO train layout.  He was thinking of all the time he has spent playing with the train with our grandchildren.  And how they play with the train and remember him when they come with their parents to check on our empty house.  Now it will be rented out.  We hope the train set can make it to heir house, but it will be different.  The more we are gone, the more we miss out on knowing our grandchildren.  That is the only real downside we have found to traveling the country in our RV.

 

        The ugly part of all this is the total mess in the house, the growing emptiness and the huge piles of trash.  All of this brings us closer to being on the road.  But it certainly has its ups and downs.  And it is a lot of work.

 

Getting Ready to Go Full-time

Since 2003 we have been traveling in our 5^th-wheel trailer for five or more months a year. This fall, as we were returning to Colorado, we decided we would put our furniture and other stuff in storage, rent our house, and go on the road full-time for a couple of years. For the past few years we have felt it wasn't good stewardship of our largest asset to pay for it all year and only use it a few months. The current state of the stock market makes it an even better idea to use that asset to bring in income.

We returned to the house on November 4 and since then, except for the time we spent decorating for Christmas and celebrating the Christmas season, we have been packing boxes, sorting through files and trinkets and selling furniture and the other "stuff" we don't need. We are keeping family dining room and bedroom sets and our living room furniture. But we are trying to get rid of a lot of the rest.

We knew we had a lot of work ahead of us. But I guess I didn't realize how much time it would take. We have to work on the project every day. We will have a moving sale in about a week and a half. Our basement floor is covered with all sorts of things—mainly small things—we don't need any more and haven't used for years. We had a lot of clothes we hadn't worn since we retired. After sorting through them, we gave about 15 bags of clothing, three upholstered chairs, several lamps and probably 20 coffee cups to the Association of Retarded Citizens (ARC) Thrift Shop.

We have sold a futon, two printers and a scanner on Craigslist. We have sold furniture and silverware to antique dealers and have another antique dealer coming by Sunday to look at some old oak furniture we would like to sell. We hope to consign some other things. Then there is our 1993 Buick sedan we hope to sell.

Since 1975, when we moved from Boulder to Castle Rock, we have been carting around boxes of files and memorabilia—Boulder to Castle Rock to Oconomowoc to Granby to Grand Lake to Denver to Centennial. Finally we are going through those files. And, are you surprised?, we are throwing away most of it.

Most of this has not been too hard for me. For the past two years I have looked at all our "stuff" as an albatross, tying us down and demanding care and concern. Sometimes, I find it difficult—even impossible—to get rid of some things. Our son and his family are probably getting more than they wanted from our house. But on the whole, except that it is a lot of work, it hasn't been too hard.

It has been more difficult for John. He has always been a collector. If he found something he liked, he wanted two, just to be safe. He didn't want to throw anything away. He might need it some day. The last few years have made it more apparent to him he doesn't need it. But it was still hard to start giving things away or selling them. But the more he does that, the more he reports feeling liberated. Tonight he said, "Why should I be controlled by all this stuff?"

We hope to have movers put our furniture in storage and have the carpets cleaned before February 1, so renters can move in—if we find a renter by then. But since our son is handling the rental of the house, we want to be on our way to Arizona on or about Feb. 1. And as soon as we get somewhere warm, we will sit and do nothing for a few days to recover from all this work.

Don't let anyone tell you it easy to become a full-time RVer. Good, exciting, yes. Not easy.

Overview of 2008

After eating and sleeping, there are three constants in our lives--daily Bible reading and prayer, travel and physical exercise. Today I looked back over 2008 to see what we had done in the last two areas. In our travels from March 23 through November 4, we drove the truck 10,700 miles. The last time I read a statistic, the average driver puts 15,000 miles a year on a vehicle. Before retirement, we probably put on about that many miles in a year and most of mine were driving to and from work. It is much more fun to drive those miles exploring New Mexico, Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington and Nevada, as well as a little bit of Colorado.

For most of my adult life I have walked for exercise, but I really wasn't fit and after quitting smoking I put on 25-30 pounds. In 2002 medical research showed that older women should not take hormone replacement therapy. My mother had osteoporosis and I was a devout believer in HRT to keep my bones strong. But studies showed the medication increased the chances of heart problems. So I quite taking the hormones and started doing weight training to keep my bones strong. That new focus on fitness helped me loose 35 pounds. John resumed his weight training and he lost 40 pounds. Then two years ago we began jogging three times a week, usually running 3 miles.

Today I checked and I ran 436 miles in 2008. I'm really impressed with myself. Last week and today we did 4-mile runs. Unless you are a runner, you can't understand how good that feels.We have been back at an alititue of about 6000 feet above sea level for over two months and it is getting easier and easier to run. My cardio-vascular conditioning has really improved. Our physical exercise has helped us feel better, helped us enjoy each day more, and prepared us for many of the workamper positions we have held. We hope it helps us to live longer. It certainly helps us live each day better.

2009 Looks Good

The economy may be bad, but 2009 is looking good, as far as we are concerned. We have arranged two volunteer positions, one here in Colorado and one in Montana. We are excited about both of them.

From May 1 through July 15 we will be doing maintenance and operating the camp store at Lathrop State Park in Walsenburg, Colorado. We decided to spend time in Colorado this summer. Since we began spending long periods in our Montana trailer, we have seldom camped in Colorado. We wanted to enjoy our home state. Lathrop is a park we have stayed in often, especially early and late when we are leaving Colorado or returning home. We love it, and in addition it is near the area where my great grandparents homesteaded and we can do some genealogy research when we are off duty.

When we leave Lathrop we will go to Montana. We had posted our resume on the Workamper Awesome Applicants site and Saturday received a call from one of the owners of 7^th Ranch RV Camp in Garryowen, asking if we could come work for them. We agreed on a time and responsibilities and will work there from July 20 till about October 15. The RV park is near the Big Horn Battlefield National Park—where Custer made his last stand. Last summer we volunteered in ranch and farm country in eastern Oregon. We enjoyed that location and think we will enjoy exploring southeastern Montana.

In addition to all this good news, we have decided to rent our house and RV fulltime for at least a year or two. Our son will manage the rental, but we have to arrange to box and store everything we want to keep. We have lived in this house for 16 and one-half years and filled every nook and cranny. Sorting, deciding what to give away and what to sell and what to store, is keeping us very busy. We hope to rent the house beginning February 1 and we have to keep on task to be ready, should we find someone to lease it beginning then.

We arrived back at the house November 4 and we are already getting hitch itch. We can't wait to get on the road again and we are excited to be able to do that full-time.

On another note, on Christmas Eve in the afternoon I looked out the back window at our patio and found this hawk sitting on our fence. We live in the middle of a suburban housing development, certainly not in the country. We have seen hawks in the sky and on light posts, but never in our yard. What a treat.

Santa's Helpers

This week we were among Santa's helpers at one of the Salvation Army Christmas food and toy distribution centers in the Denver area. The New Heights Church is a Salvation Army facility not far from our house. We had gone on-line to find some place to volunteer over the Christmas season. We were routed to Volunteer Match and found this opportunity. We signed up to work from 8 am to 1 pm.

After things got organized, I was assigned to work with bags of Christmas gifts. That means I joined about 15-20 other women who gathered in an upper room filled with black trash bags full of gifts. Earlier in the week other volunteers had wrapped gifts collected through giving trees and put them in bags for each family. Some families received on bag, some two. You can see that some of the bags were quite large, and let me tell you, they were sometimes heavy, too. And often very awkward to pick up.

Downstairs, families lined up--20 families were assigned arrival times every 10 minutes. One worker would check with the family to find out their name, locate that name on a list, and radio a worker in the gift area with the family's number. She would call out the number and one of us would go find the bag or bags for that family. When we started, there were bags for 300 families arranged in order in this room.

We walked down three flights of stairs, then stood in line while the proper family showed their ID and signed for their food and gifts. Then we followed the individual or group that had come to pick up the Christmas gifts as they showed us to their cars. Many families were given two food boxes to help them over the holiday week. It was cold in Denver this week and all of us were bundled up for the trips outdoors. When we wished each family "Merry Christmas", we were given heartfelt "thank you"s.

Here is John, carrying only one box of food this time.

Many of the families had children who wanted bikes for Christmas. This is the supply of bikes before we started working.

Western Union allows its employees to spend one working day a year doing some sort of volunteer service. This group of voluteers all came from a local Western Union office.

I always wear a pedometer, making sure I walk at least 10,000 steps (5 miles) almost every day of the week. It helps me keep my weight under control. I walked 13,000 steps this day--most of it up and down stairs. I was glad for the exercise, but even more for the opportunity to help others have a better Christmas. We are so blessed by God in our lives and we want to help spread His blessings to others.

Santa Train

One weekend each December the Colorado Railroad Museum welcomes Mr. and Mrs. Claus and gives children (and their parents and grandparents, of course) rides on a steam train. Sometimes the weather is very cold--we are in Colorado, after all, and it will soon be winter. As we have done for several years, on Saturday we met our son and daughter-in-law and their children at the museum. After we spent some time watching the trains in the garden railroad, we lined up to ride the steam train.

Here I am with our oldest granddaughter, Kylie, and our daughter-in-law, Liz.

After taking our picture, the conductor turned the camera toward John, grandson John and our son, Eric.

Our next stop was the hot dog stand. We ate lunch about 10:30 in the morning. Then we spent some time watching the HO model railroad in the basement of the museum. Kylie always wants to go look at that layout. There are so many details to take in. They have a machine where you can put in a quarter and the train runs for a few minutes. None of could find a quarter in our pockets or purses. But we were delighted to find that one of the members of the railroad club was there, operating the trains. It was so fun to watch them.

After checking out some of the full-size trains at the museum, we joined the line to talk to Santa. Grandson John first said he didn't want to talk to Santa, since he had seen him the night before at a party. But when we reached the caboose where Santa was talking to children, he was eager to tell Santa about the dinosaurs he wanted for Christmas. Kylie also told the Man in Red what she wanted--but I couldn't hear what she said.

We all gathered on the cow catcher of a steam train for a family portrait. No snow in sight, it was a beautiful day to spend time together outside.

John is three and Kylie is nine years old. He is always following her and trying to do the same things she does. He isn't tall enough to make this move, however.

Two Grandchildren Come to Visit

Friday night Kylie and John II came to spend the night with their Nana and Papa. We all had such a great time! While I got dinner on the table, John I and the two children played with the garden train that runs around our Christmas tree.


After dinner John and grandson John read Thomas the Tank books.



Then they started wrestling in the chair. In a few minutes, John II said, “Come on Papa, let’s wrestle on the floor.” The whole point is for one person to pin the other, then the one on the bottom has to say “uncle” to get free. But first I would hear “brother,” “sister,” or “dad” before the loser finally said “uncle.” John II is always saying, “I’m a son of a gun.” The response from John I is, “and I’m the father of the gun.”

While all this noise was going on, Kylie and I went to the basement to my sewing room. Two weeks ago we took Kylie to Joann’s Fabrics to pick out the material for a pair of pajamas. We bought an easy-to-sew pattern, then Kylie selected the fabric—pink with pictures of Tweetie Pie. The plan was for me to teach her how to sew on the sewing machine and she would make a pair of pajama bottoms. Then I agreed to make the top. The sleeves on the top are a contrasting color and she chose blue fabric with pictures of Winnie the Poo. That day we came home and she pinned the pattern on the fabric and cut out the pieces.

Kylie learned so fast how to sew on the machine! I was really impressed. Within about 1½ hours the bottoms were put together, the waist casing sewn and the elastic inserted. She started to sew on the lace that adorns the hem when the machine stopped working. After watching me try to fix it for maybe 10 minutes, she asked if she could go upstairs. I sent her up to join the wrestling while I kept working on the repair.

Saturday morning I finally got the machine working again and before her mother came at 10 am to pick the children, Kylie had finished the PJs and was able to model them for us.

John and I have two sons. So I have not been able, until now, to pass on my love of sewing. I am so glad Kylie wanted to learn how. She was so excited about what she learned this weekend. We will definitely make something else in the future.

The time we have with our children and grandchildren is the most positive part of the time we spend in Colorado. We also get to touch base with friends that we don’t see during the months we spend traveling.

This week we also received a call from our older son, a master sergeant in the Marines. He told us he has put in his paperwork to retire next year. Boy does that make us feel old!