Monday evening Nina and I went to the Mystique Theater in Chubbuck (neighboring town to Pocatello) to their production of Les Misérables. The production runs through November 8th with performances on Friday, Saturday, and Monday evenings. The Friday and Saturday evening performance can include dinner.

We thoroughly enjoyed the production. All of the cast and supporting folks are amateurs and local residents. My goodness, what marvelous talent lives here in southeastern Idaho! Many years ago when we were living in Pleasant View, Utah, we went to a production of Les Misérables put on by a Broadway touring company, a professional company. The performance was moving, incredibly well done, exactly what one would expect from a professional touring company. Well, our local amateurs did an incredibly moving performance as well. I was particularly impressed with the acting and singing of the young woman who played Eponine. Nina was also very impressed with the actor who portrayed Javert, the merciless inspector, who’s suicide scene was, well just delicious, it was so well done.

If you live in the Pocatello / Chubbuck area, take the time, spend the money, and go see the production. It’s well worth it.

Why do days always go so differently than originally planned?? That’s the curiosity for me today. Other than breakfast and the start of a walk, nothing else happened as planned.

The walk is probably the main culprit. We’ve been trying to take walk every day for the past couple of weeks. Usually they’re between a half-hour and an hour and something around or less than two miles. Today we started and Nina said I was in charge of figuring out the route. So, we started along a new route. I was ready to turn around at the one mile mark, but Nina thought we were doing well and we were in a pretty area. At 45 minutes I suggested turning around, but since we hadn’t ever been in this area before, it was possible to make the walk a big loop, and neither of us knew how long the big loop would be, we continued.

Clicking on the image will show a full-sized map of the route … it turned out to be a long, long, long walk that included a fairly serious uphill at the end.

The “grey” marks on the map are where we stopped, sat down on a bench, and recuperated. The Runkeeper app allows me to “pause” the walk when we were not actually walking, so the two-hour time doesn’t count the half an hour we spent on a bench somewhere along the route.

We got back to the motor home about 11:30am; the day was close to half over and we were both somewhat beyond exhausted, sore, sweating, and even a bit grumpy. Showers helped, but as I write this, I have both feet up as I don’t want any weight on them at all. The day wasn’t completely downhill from there, but at times felt like it!

Life remains good!

Mondays now have turned into the day when we take care of a whole bunch of little things. Take, for instance, cleaning the motor home. Four small rugs to shake outside, the kitchen and bathroom floors to mop, and the living area to sweep. If it takes more than twenty minutes, then we’ve been slacking.

Errands take quite a bit longer, however. Since we’re very limited in storage, refrigerator, and freezer space, Nina has to go shopping once a week and then usually pick up one or two small things during the week. We’ve enough clothes for a week, so laundry is quite imperative on Mondays. The campground has four washers and four dryers. We usually have a load of whites and a load of dark colors, both of which can go into one dryer. Four bucks later, we’ve got clean clothes.

My errands today included checking on the status of my motorcycle, checking on the status of the window replacements, and checking on the status of my glasses. I essentially struck out on all three.

I took the motorcycle into the dealership on Friday afternoon because I didn’t think it was idling right and the exhaust smelled like it was running very rich (this after having had the gas tank drained and the carburetors flushed). I hadn’t heard back from them, so I went over this morning to find the place all closed up. Noon and no one there at all.  That was very strange. Me phone call went unanswered and eventually the system said the mailbox was full. Very discomforting.

The glass shop said that the side window glass would probably take 3-5 weeks, but he’d check on the status. If it was going to take more than another week I told him we needed to cancel the order. The glass across the front, however, might be able to be cut here in town, and he was going to check on that and call me back. Haven’t heard back.

The glasses are the worst story. Flandro Optical here in Pocatello is a well-respected and highly rated company and Dr. Flandro is an excellent optician. However, in my current case, their customer service has absolutely sucked. We’ve used his services since we arrived in Pocatello ten years ago. My mother and dad have both been his patients. Since I was retiring and my optical insurance would expire at the end of September, I decided to get my prescription updated and get new glasses.

So, on August 8th, my Friday off, I went in to get the eyes checked and new optics ordered (just the optics, I didn’t need new frames). Ten days they said. Three weeks later when I called, they said the lab was having problems and I needed to come in again to have the current frames “traced”. I reminded her that she had done that already. She checked, sure enough they had been traced, she just hadn’t sent the tracing to the lab. Finally, after several more reminders, the eyepieces for one of the glasses had arrived.

I have two sets of glasses. One for normal, everyday wear, and a second set specifically for using at the computer and at the organ. This second set hadn’t arrived yet, but supposedly the first set had. I went in, and the glasses had been made incorrectly. The lenses were sized for the computer frames, but with trifocal lenses. That didn’t work. It’s now four weeks later. I went in this morning. The person who would know is out to lunch, but she’ll call me “for sure” immediately after lunch. It’s now four hours later. She must be taking a very long lunch. Nine weeks … almost ten … just for lenses. And, of course, no insurance any more. I’m also on hold. Again.

I correspond with a good friend who has also stayed in a motor home at the Cowboy RV Park in Pocatello, Idaho. In his last letter he referred to our accommodations as a “shoebox on wheels”. What an accurate description! While we’re getting pretty settled in, we’ve had to make quite a few trips to the storage unit to swap things out. We’ve pretty much decided on our schedule, however. We’ll be driving away from here on Friday, October 17th and make our way to Green River, Wyoming to spend the weekend with my favorite brother and his family. That weekend is their Stake Conference, which will be great for all of us. We enjoy Stake Conferences and this one is also a broadcast from Salt Lake, rumored to be presided over by Elder Bednar. That will be especially delightful.

I’ve got to get some inoculations … including Hepatitis A and B as well as a flu shot. Nina also needs her flu shot. She’s going to have her last craft class at the Pocatello Women/s Correctional Center on the 16th. We’re trying to get a couple of windows replaced in the motor home. We’ve got the motor cycle to finish getting sold (it’s sold pending a final checkup by the Kawasaki dealer’s service department). Nina and I need to make a visit to Nina’s cousin-in-law in Boise. There are a few other minor things. That’s what’s dictating the departure date. By then we should have everything where it belongs to make the break for the east coast.

Tomorrow and Sunday are General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Life is great!