The cards you are dealt....

 6:55 am - Thursday - November 2nd - GNHS - 51° F, humidity 48%, wind 4 mph out of the southeast.....crystal clear, blue sunny skies today with a forecast high of 83° F.  Up early as we are heading to Poway, CA today for our annual dermatological appointments.  On this date in 2013 TLE and I were in Park City, UT with my brother, Dwyer, and sister-in-law, Lori for dinner at the Stein Erickson Lodge.....one of my favorite pictures......↴

We haven't had a game night for quite a long time, and I was hopeful we would Wednesday night, so I was determined to get those Edison lights hung under the dining canopy before the end of the day to make that happen, but I get ahead of myself.

To begin our morning (after I finished my latest missive) TLE and I took our coffees outdoors to the 'fire deck'.  It's been a while since we sat in those Adirondack chairs for morning coffee, and soon we will be sitting in them enjoying a sunset fire as it is getting cool enough in the evenings to do just that!  

While we sat there I decided to begin setting appointments for our annual teeth cleaning/checkup, annual visit to our dermatologist, and my cardiologist.  Amazingly, we were able to set all three appointments pretty quickly.  Our dental appointment is Monday, November 13th.  We'll drive to Yuma, AZ Sunday afternoon, spend the night, and see our good friends Rich and Marnie (worked for them at Ramona Oaks RV Resort back in 2019), then go to the dentist Monday morning.  

Next up was our dermatologist.  Initially the appointments lady said they had nothing available until February (too long), but then said they had a cancellation for tomorrow, November 2nd....after a brief hesitation we accepted the offer.  It is for 1:45 pm Thursday afternoon, so we'll leave here around 10 am Thursday morning to make the drive to Poway (near San Diego), do some shopping on the way, keep our appointment, and then head back home.  We should be back before sunset.  We'll even stop off in Borrego Springs for an early taco dinner at Los Jilbertos, our favorite taqueria in Borrego Springs, and pick up some firewood for our future sunset fires.

The last appointment was with my cardiologist, Dr. Mulvehill.  He has been my heart doctor since my heart attack back in May of 2019.  The earliest date they had open was December 7th, another Thursday, so we took that.  We'll drive to Borrego Springs on the 6th, spend the night at our favorite mid century modern hotel, The Palms at Indian Head, have dinner in their world class restaurant, then drive the final hour to Poway Thursday morning for the appointment.

Once all that was settled I got busy installing the Edison lights under the dining canopy.  I've done this a few times now, and it takes about 30 minutes, beginning to end.....

....the lights are on, and game night is just an hour, or so away.  

We headed out to the 'viewing deck' around 5:15 pm to enjoy the view of the Chocolate Mountains as the setting sun lit them up once again.....

....headed inside around 6 pm for dinner, then back out to the 'dining/game night deck' for a rousing game of 'Phase 10'.....

.....the game went back and forth, and we both found ourselves on the final Phase (#10) with me having a slim 5 point margin in total points (155 for moi, and 160 for TLE...it is like golf...you want the lowest point total possible).  We both had one card left as I drew my final card, which is what I needed to 'phase out' and beat TLE not only in the head to head, but in points.  She is tough to beat in 'Phase 10', but the cards just fell my way.  We had forgotten how much we missed our game nights, so this was a good beginning to our stay here at GNHS.

Thanks for stopping by!