Desert View - Day 29 - Friday, or Monday?

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7:15 am - Saturday - December 9th - Grand Canyon - 28º F, humidity 23%, wind 5 mph out of the east by southeast.....forecast for today is sunny with a high of 51º F in the offing.....in fact we have a string of 50+ days coming over the next two weeks......

.......so we will be getting out there on our days off work to do some more hiking.

Now that the daily temperatures have dipped consistently into the 50's we are having to adjust our idea of what ideal hiking weather is.  When we were in Yellowstone we loved days that were slightly cloudy with highs in the 60's, or 70's.  Now we look for sunny days in the 40's, or 50's as ideal days to go hiking.  I guess it's all a matter of perspective, and what you are willing to tolerate weather-wise.  It looks like this coming Wednesday and Thursday will see temps in the 53-54 range with sunny skies.....perfect!

I had the 'open' shift Friday.  Now that we are settling into having the same days off work each week I find myself thinking Friday is Monday, and that happened Friday.  I made a comment to the assistant manager, Wayne, that it was Monday and we needed to have a visit from our sandwich guy as all of our 'Grab and Go' sandwiches were expiring.  Wayne reminded me it was really Friday and the sandwich guy would be coming later in the day......lol....he comes every Friday.....😏

I look forward to the 'open' shift because they seem to go faster to me, even though they are the same exact length as the 'close' shift.......5.5 hours.  Now the 'open shift used to run from 7:30 am to 12:30 pm, or 5 hours, but our manager, Dakota, recently equalized all the shifts so they were all the same length.....5.5 hours, so the 'open' shift now runs to 1 pm.  Anyway, there are a lot of opening responsibilities which take about 90 minutes to finish, and keep me steadily busy for that period of time.  The store does not tend to get busy until early afternoon, usually after the 'open' shift ends.

I was home by 1:15 and settling in to read my book (Dark Tower, book 7).  I'm about 83% through the book now and getting to the conclusion rapidly.  My Kindle does tell me what 'page' I'm on, but just what percentage I've read.  If I remember correctly, book 7 was around 800 pages.  I've enjoyed reading this 7 book series much more slowly than I did the first time, and it seems like I am getting more out of it this time around.  I read the 7 book series the first time about 10 years ago, and plowed through it in just a few weeks.  I began rereading the series back in the spring, and have been taking about a month per book.

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By 3:30 I decided I needed to spend some time riding my stationary bike.  Usually I spend about 30 minutes 'riding' it, but I have been steadily increasing my time in the saddle and recently 'rode' for about 45 minutes.....my goal was to do it for 60 minutes.  When I actually ride my bike outside I usually ride for a minimum of an hour which usually means 10-15 miles of riding.  I've been having some trouble with my stationary bike stand (I call it my bike trainer) lately......it has kind of been slowly breaking down over the past few weeks, and Friday it finally gave up the ghost just as I was within a minute of my hour goal.  Thankfully I ordered a new bike trainer, which is much more expensive and it arrived at the General Store about 5:30 pm Friday just as TLE was about to leave for home after her shift.  It's a good thing because the old one is now sitting outside the trailer ready to be hauled to the dumpster.  It's just another case of 'you get what you pay for' and I only paid about $40 for this one.....that it lasted this long (got it back in April just after we arrived at SLT) is a minor miracle.....my new one purchased on Amazon Prime cost just over $100....I'm looking forward to un-boxing it1

TLE was home from work about 5:40 pm, and we settled in for the evening.  We had pans to watch the final episodes of Longmire, season 6......the final season.  I am always concerned how the writers will end a series.  I mentioned we were a little disappointed in how 'Mad Men' ended, so we were on pins and needles as we began watching 'Longmire' wondering how the writers would end the series.  We were not disappointed, and that is all I will say because I know a few of you are also into that series, and if you haven't watched season 6 I don't want to spoil it for you.  If you haven't watched this series it is a great one to 'binge watch'....check it out!

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Desert View - Day 28 - Adapting to the cold

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5:44 am - Friday - December 8th - Grand Canyon - 17º F, humidity 40%, wind  - CALM.....forecast is clear skies with a high of 49º F.  In spite of the very low morning temps we have not had our water line freeze again.

It was nice to wake up to the sun once again!  I was up about 7:20, and enjoyed the front salon by myself until well after 8 am....wish I could sleep in like TLE.  Even at that time the temps had not made it into the 30's yet.  By the time I went outside just after 10 am the sun was shinning into our site nicely, and in spite of the temps being in the mid 30's was able to stand in the windless sunshine feeling quite comfortable.  My purpose for being outside in that temperature was to dump our black tank as it had been about 8 days since the last dump.  All went well until I went to hookup the hose I use to flush the black tank to the hose bib on the passenger side of the coach.....apparently I had left too much water in the hose when I disconnected it the previous time and it was now full of ice, and no water would flow through it......hmmmm.  The only choice was to disconnect it from both sides and lay it in the sun until it thawed out enough to force the ice out under pressure.  Within about 20 minutes I was able to flush the ice out, and get back to flushing our black tank.  That took just a few minutes, and I was finally able to go back inside the coach and get warm again.  This time when I turned the water off I made sure all the water was drained out of the flushing hose to avoid a repeat performance.

Even though the daytime high temperature was only supposed to get to 38º F, we had planned to take a hike sometime in the afternoon down the old fire road I rode my MTB on last week.  By 2 pm it seemed it would get no warmer than the 37º F at the time so we set off on our hike.  We planned to hike just 50 minutes down the trail which I figured would amount to about 2 miles down and then 2 miles back up the hill......the skies were crystal clear and you could see a long, long way........

.....after about 25 minutes of hiking (about 1 mile) we came to a place where we could see into the Grand Canyon, and also caught a view of the Watchtower (see two pictures just above)......by the time we hit our 50 minute mark we had covered exactly 2 miles.  I forgot to turn on my Strava program at the beginning, but had it on for the return hike back to the Newell.....apparently we dropped 633' in elevation to our turn around point.  The hike back confirmed the two mile distance, and showed we had gained 633' in elevation by the time we reached the Newell.  In all we hiked 4 miles (I'm doubling the one way distance), and burned somewhere just over 700 caloric units, and our one way moving time was 45 minutes and 40 seconds.....just under 3 mph for the return hike.......

......we were home by 3:40 pm.....while we were a little cold going downhill, the hike back up the hill warmed us up completely and there was no immediate rush to get back inside the Newell......within a few minutes after we did go back inside I looked out the window to see 4 mule deer foraging right next to our picnic table.  You can tell mule deer by their long mule like ears......

......while there are a lot of mule deer in this area, this is the first time I have seen them in our site.

We watched the news for the first time in quite a while to see what was happening with the possible government shutdown and found out quickly that a 'Continuing Resolution' had been passed by both houses of congress extending the deadline to come up with a budget until December 22nd, so we will be working at least two more weeks before the next deadline.

By 5 pm it was getting quite cold again outside, and I was grateful I would be sleeping inside and not outside with the mule deer.  Since I had the 'open' shift Friday I was in bed just before 10 pm, and slept like a baby all night.

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Desert View - Day 27 - Orientation and more exploring

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7:43 am - Thursday - December 7th - Grand Canyon - 24º F, humdity 31%, wind 8 mph out of the east.....sunny today with wind up 16 mph, and a forecast high of 38º F.

Wednesday was our 'Saturday', but we had to devote 4 hours of our off day at our Delaware North orientation meeting held at the Grand Canyon Recreation Center near the Village.  In order to be at the Rec Center before 8:30 we decided to leave Desert View no later than 7:30 to make the 27 mile drive.  We've been through a similar DNC orientation just prior to starting our summer jobs at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone NP.  I know the presenters do their best to make essentially boring material interesting, but there is only so much one can do.  Our friend, Art Young, was there also.  I've written about Art a few times....we first met him at Amazon in Fernley Nevada back in 2014, and then began this past summer working with him at Tahoe Valley Campground.....all three of us ended up quitting TVC in early June for essentially the same reasons to move up to Yellowstone NP to work out the summer.  We worked at different stores in Yellowstone, but kept in touch throughout the summer, and he eventually decided to transfer to the Grand Canyon to work at the Marketplace store in Grand Canyon Village.

Our orientation session was over about 12:15 at which time TLE and I headed out in the VW to do some more exploring.  The air temp was in the low 40's when we exited the Rec Center and never really got out the 40's the rest of the day.....thankfully it was not breezy, or windy.  We had not yet done any exploring west of the Village, so our first stop was Powell Point which is on the road out to Hermit's Rest......

......Powell Point juts way out into the GC so the view is spectacular.....

 Powell Point

.......our primary destination was Hermit's Rest located at the extreme western end of GCNP.  Hermit's rest was also designed by the architect Mary Colter who designed at least 5 other  landmark structures at the Grand Canyon including Desert View Watchtower, Hopi House, Bright Angel Lodge, etc......

 

Hermit's Rest is at the end of the road on the west end of the South Rim

......like the Desert View Watchtower, Mary Colter designed Hermit's Rest to appear that it had been there for decades, and have the appearance that it had been carved out of the landscape by a 'mountain man'.  Hermit's Rest is also the trailhead for the Hermit's Rest trail which takes you down into the Canyon......

After visiting Hermit's Rest we made our way back to the Village stopping at several additional vista points along the Hermit's Rest Road (Pima Point, Mohave Point, Hopi Point, Maricopa Point, etc.).  

We arrived back at the parking lot for the El Tovar Hotel around 2:15 pm.......the El Tovar hotel is at the end of the Grand Canyon Railroad tracks, and sits just feet from the rim of the Grand Canyon....

 Hopi (pronounced hōpē) House, also designed and built by Mary Colter

 The El Tovar Hotel

Grand Canyon Railroad train awaiting passengers for its return trip to Williams, AZ

......by the time we finished our brief tours of The Hopi House and the El Tovar Hotel it was closing in on 3 pm and we were getting hungry, so we made our way over to the Yavapai Tavern (run by Delaware North) located at the Marketplace Center.....they have a number of craft beers on tap, and have a great pub food menu.  We arrived just as they were opening and took seats at the bar.  We both ordered their Piehole Porter (Historic Brewing Company, Flagstaff, AZ).....

Yavapai Tavern

.......we then ordered a plate of their potato skins, and a plate of their Bison Sliders, which we split......two potato skins for each, and one Bison Slider each.  We thoroughly enjoyed talking with the bartender, Masha, who is a 20 something lady from the Ukraine.  Yelp gives them 3 stars on 6 reviews, and Tripadvisor gives them 3.5 stars on 143 reviews.....we would rate them somewhere between 3.5-4 stars.....great ambiance, service and food!

Just across the large parking lot from the Yavapai Tavern is the General Store where we headed next to do a small shopping before heading back to Desert View.  We were back home just before 5 pm.  We had a staff meeting at 6 pm at the Desert View store so we put our groceries away, changed clothes and headed over to the store.  Apparently there is a possibility of a Federal Government shutdown due to a lack of a budget, which would happen as soon as this weekend, so we may find ourselves on an unexpected vacation by Monday......hmmmmm.....what to do?

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Desert View - Day 26 - Life below freezing

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5:33 am - Wednesday - December 6th - Grand Canyon - 27º F, humidity 18%, wind 3 mph out of the south by southeast......forecast high for today is 43º F with sunny skies....it won't get above freezing until 10 am today.

So, Tuesday has become our Friday here at the Desert View Watchtower, and now that we have adjusted to our schedule it is beginning to feel like 'Friday'.  TLE had the 'open' shift, so that means I had the 'close' shift.  I saw TLE off to work about 7:20 am....I was still typing my blog entry for the day.  The daily temp didn't get above freezing until after 11 am, and as a result our water line froze to the point where very little water was coming out of the faucet.  The freeze point must either be where my heated hose connects to the heated hose bib, or where my heated hose connects to the Newell.....I'll have to work on getting more insulation on those connections and see if that makes a difference......  

......at any rate, at 9:12 am it was still only 29º F, which means it must have been below freezing for 5-6 hours for it to freeze. So, what do you do when your water source freezes?  Well, if you planned in advance for this possibility your fresh water tank in your heated water bay would be full of fresh water so all you have to do is turn on your water pump to have water pressure once again.  Thankfully, within 30 minutes the sun was high enough in the sky to hit the water spigot and unfreeze it.  I have no doubt that as the winter progresses this will happen more often, so I will need to be sure my fresh water tank stays topped off for the rest of our stay here at 7,400' elevation.

As we continue to edge toward true winter and sub freezing temperatures here at Desert View I get private messages periodically from friends and family wondering why we have chosen to deliberately spend the winter in a cold place when we have wheels on our home and are able to literally move our home to virtually any location we desire....why not spend the winter on the Gulf Coast, or in the SoCal desert, or in Florida for that matter?  Well, we've spent the winter in all those places and thought it would be interesting to spend the winter at altitude in a place where it would be cold, but there would not be a lot of snow.  We have spent time in cold places over the past 6 years, but not entire winters.....maybe just 7-11 weeks at a time like we did back in 2012 when we worked at Amazon in Campbellsville, KY, or in 2014 when we worked at Amazon in Fernley, NV.  We are not new to extended stays in cold climates, or sub freezing temperatures day after day, and our Newell is certainly equipped to flourish in all four seasons, which includes winter.  The great thing is we don't have to do this year after year, but only when we choose, and only for the length of time we choose.  Over the past years we have acquired and retained proper cold weather clothing and footwear, so we are prepared in that regard, also.  I don't think we are  being naive about what we face this winter, and to a certain degree we are looking forward to the challenge.  Now, there is the off chance we will regret our decision.....but it is 'our' joint decision.....if, for some reason, we decide we have made a mistake we will face up to it and change our view, but I'm pretty confident we are prepared.

I was at work by 12 noon, and TLE was on her way home shortly thereafter.  It had been slow all morning and that trend continued most of the afternoon.  Except for a few flurries of customer activity I spent most of my time straightening display racks, reading my book, dry mopping, cleaning windows, and talking with fellow employees.  The time seemed to pass quickly, and I was on my way home by 5:25 pm walking briskly in the already sub freezing temperatures once again.

Since we are in the holiday TV programming void known as the 'holiday season'all the series we watch are on hiatus, so we decided to begin watching season 6 of 'Longmire'. This is the last season of this Netflix Original Series show, and the much awaited, and much delayed season 6 is finally ready to watch.  We managed to watch 4 episodes before we headed off to dreamland....we have to get up early to drive over to Grand Canyon Village for our oft delayed Delaware North orientation meeting which begins at 8:30 am.  We will leave Desert View at 7:30 am  Wednesday to make the 40-45 minute drive over.  The meeting should only last about 4-5 hours, so we'll do a little more exploring of the west side of the park after our meeting.

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Desert View - Day 25 - Tree trimming

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6:23 am - Tuesday - December 5th - Grand Canyon - 27º F, humidity 33%, wind 12 mph out of the east......another windy forecast with a miniscule high of 37º F.......now that worth a 'BRRRRR!!!'......clear skies though.

I had my second 'open' shift this week, whilst TLE had her 3rd.....we will flip/flop next week with me having 3 and she 2, and that is the way we roll here at the Desert View Watchtower.  Since it has been a week since Thanksgiving management thought it was high time the annual Christmas tree be erected, and trimmed......since I had the 'open' shift it fell to me to do the initial tree trimming.....when she came on at Noon I had begun to hang the multi-colored ornaments.....

......by the time we finished I think Ian, our floor manager, thought we did a good job.....mainly because he said "You did a good job!"

Other than the Christmas tree trimming exercise the morning was quite slow......my total cash sales were just over $43.  TLE reported on her return home that she did just over $100 in cash sales.

I headed home just before 1 pm not sure what I would be doing that afternoon, but my first issue was to rest my right shoulder which had been hurting since Sunday afternoon.  Over the course of my life I have managed to break both my shoulders in sporting accidents.  In 1968 I broke my right shoulder (actually broke the ball inside the socket when I landed outside the foam rubber pit on my right elbow jamming my shoulder severely resulting in the ball breaking exactly in half) while high jumping, and in 1999 I broke my left collarbone in a bad mountain bike crash at 35 mph.  Periodically......maybe every 2, or 3 months........my right shoulder will begin to get stiff, and then pain will radiate up my neck.  Usually a day, or two of Ibupropen (anti-inflammatory), and a deep shoulder muscle massage does the trick and the pain begins to subside, and goes away in about 24 hours, but when it is hurting it really hurts!  Anyway, upon my arrival back at the Newell I decided to just take the afternoon off and relax in my recliner, which involved a long nap.....pain can make one tired, right?

TLE was home by 5:30 offering to give me a shoulder massage, which I gladly accepted.....by the time I went to bed I could feel the soreness beginning to dissipate.

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Desert View - Day 24 - Loving it!

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5:45 am - Monday - December 4th - Grand Canyon - 27º F, humidity 36%, wind 3 mph out of the northeast......forecast high for today is 49º F with partly cloudy skies.

So, here we are 24 days into our stay here at the Grand Canyon....what's the early verdict?  Well, we're getting acclimated to the area, to the weather, to the job, and to the people with whom we work.  We love working just 5.5 hours per day while getting paid $10.10/hour.  In reality, we net slightly more than we did each week working 7.5 hours per day at Yellowstone, plus it is not nearly as busy this time of year as it was during the summer months at Yellowstone.  Every time we visit Grand Canyon Village and see how busy the store is there we are grateful to be at the Desert View General Store......VERY grateful!  It still feels like we have been here longer than just over 3 weeks.

I had the 'close' shift Sunday.....I was up around 6:30 am, and bid adieu to TLE around 7:20 am as she left for work in the VW......she doesn't like walking to and from work by herself as far as I can tell, especially through the woods, so she drives.  I love walking to and from work, so it all works out well for each of us.  The wind had come up around 5 am, and by 7:30 am it was blowing pretty good.  I have no doubt the wind gusts might have reached into the 30's a few times during the day, but I am also pretty sure it never got into the 40's as forecast.  Generally the wind was pretty steady all day long, and into the evening.

Initially the store was not too busy when I arrived at 12 pm, but by 1:30 the foot traffic had picked up, and by the end of my shift I tallied almost $400 in cash sales.  If you would have asked me to guess I would have said somewhere in the $200's, so it was busier than it seemed.

It is gradually getting darker earlier each day as the winter solstice is still 17 days off, which means the sun will continue to set earlier and earlier each day until then.  I had to wear my Teka headlamp to walk home through the woods.  I was home by 5:40, and changed into more comfortable clothing a few minutes later.  TLE made pollo asado taco salad for dinner.....one of my favorites!

The wind continued to bluster until after I went to bed at 9:30 pm, but eventually it abated.....just a little later than originally forecast by the weather guessers.  In closing, TLE captured the following two pictures of our local elk bull while grazing on juniper berries just a few feet from the VW in the General Store employee parking lot behind the store.......

.....certainly not as grand as 'Touchdown' of Mammoth Hot Springs fame, but impressive nonetheless.  There are also a lot of mule deer, and regular deer (whatever 'regular' means).....amazingly there do not seem to be very many squirrels.

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Desert View - Day 23 - All we had hoped for and more

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6:48 am - Sunday - December 3rd - Grand Canyon - 39º F, humidity 55%, wind 3 mph out of the west by southwest.....seems to be over 10 mph to me and rising.  Forecast for today is windy (30-40 mph gusts) with a high of 64º F.

Saturday was a beautiful day in our neighborhood......crystal blue clear skies with temps in the mid 60's in the afternoon.....very unwinterlike here at 7,400' in early December, 2017.  I've mentioned how I have been enjoying flipping 'open' and 'close' days with TLE, but there is one thing that is troublesome in a way.....when you change start times every single day from 7:30 am to 12 pm it is hard to get into a pattern, and patterns are what I prefer.  One night I'm going to bed early (9:30 pm), and the next I'm up until after 11 pm.....one morning I get up at 5:30 am and the next I get up after 7.  Okay, it's a small inconvenience, and I'm almost a little embarrassed to be fussing about it, but there it is.

I had the 'open' shift Saturday, which meant I would be home by 1 pm and able to watch some of the NCAA football playoff games on TV....I already wrote about the first one being Friday night between Stanford and USC, but Saturday had a real lineup.....most of the games involved teams which are in the top four playing to stay there and, therefore, be in NCAA football playoffs for the National Title.....but I get ahead of myself.

TLE had not gotten up yet when I left for work around 7:15 am, but I woke her briefly to give her a kiss, and tell her I loved her.....you never know when a given day may be your last, and you don't want to leave anything left unsaid.  It was cold, but no wind, so my walk over to the General Store was pleasant.  I arrived just before our manager did, so I stood on the loading dock a the rear of the store watching the colors in the GC change, and the sun rise higher in the sky.  Within a minute, or two my manager arrived and my work day began.

After I 'clock in' each day I run through my opening duties which involve turning on the all the store lights, as well as those in the coolers and freezers, checking and recording the temperatures of all the coolers and freezers in the store.....I think there are about 9 or 10, pulling my cash drawer and putting it in register #2, flipping the OPEN/CLOSED sign to 'OPEN', making sure the manager unlocks the front doors, policing the store for trash, putting products back where they belong (why do people not return unwanted things to their proper place?), dry mopping if necessary, vacuuming if necessary, cleaning the glass on the entry doors, refolding sweatshirts and t-shirts.....and on it goes.  On this particular Saturday that was the busiest I was all day.....our customers were few and far in between, but as the hands on the clock moved inexorably around to 12 noon, and TLE's arrival time business picked up a tad.  I did about $169 in cash sales (not counting credit card sales, which are usually more).  I counted out my cash drawer, and was on my way home by 12:56 pm.

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As I walked along the paved street leading to our site I thought I should take a short video to show you what some of the residential area at Desert View looks like.....

.....I was home just after 1 pm, had a quick snack which TLE had left for me (yogurt with peaches) and then decided to finally install the new 12 volt 'cigarette lighter' type receptacle on the console between the driver's and passenger seats.  Shortly after we bought the Newell back in 2008 I decided we needed more 12 volt plugs to run the XM Radio receiver, my small HP Netbook on which I run our Delorme GPS mapping program, and finally where we plug our cell phones in to recharge them while driving, or dry camping.  All these years we have used a three outlet 12 volt receptacle, but it had begun to have issues, so I decided a month, or two ago to upgrade it.  The new one has two 12 volt receptacles, and two USB ports for recharging our phones.....it takes up less space, and is more practical.

......I purchased the two components about a month ago, but needed a 1/8" hole saw to cut the hole....I finally ordered one from Amazon and received it recently.  In all this project took less than an hour, and there were no hitches whatsoever.......very un-Hockwald like.

Next I spent about an hour putting up some more Christmas lights, and by 4 pm I was finished, so I went inside to watch some NCAA football playoff games.  By 5 pm I decided to get the outdoor fireplace ready for an evening fire......no wind, and warmish temperatures made it a perfect evening to sit outside for a while......

.....TLE was home about 5:20, just after I had lit the Sea-B-Que so I could grill one of the filets we purchased at Safeway in Flagstaff on Thursday.....TLE changed clothes, and joined me by the fireplace for about 20 minutes. Whilst she retired inside to prepare a couple of sides to go with the steak I finished my cigar, and then began to grill the filet....it took about 13 minutes to get her up to medium rare (mejum rare as my Dad used to quip), and we were sitting down to a wonderful steak dinner a little after 6 pm.

Life is good, and Desert View is all that we had hoped, and much more......thanks for stopping by!

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Desert View - Day 22 - 1x

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6:02 am - Saturday - December 2nd - Grand Canyon - 27º F, humidity 70%, wind 1 mph out of the south by southwest....forecast is sunny with a high of 60º F.  Today I have the 'open' shift....got up a little later than I usually do.

Friday saw TLE and I back at work after our 'weekend'......she had the 'open' shift, and I the 'close' shift, which meant I didn't have to be at work until Noon.  I was up shortly after 7 am in time to see TLE off to work.  Shortly before she left I discovered that, for whatever reason, I was getting no LTE broadband coverage, no 3G coverage, and barely 1x coverage, which is not really good for anything except making a phone call.....then that disappeared.  Very strange.  It wasn't until 8:30 that I had LTE coverage back, and was able to compose my blog entry describing Thursday's happenings.  Up until Friday we have had pretty decent LTE coverage here at the Newell.  About all I can get at the store is two bars of 3G, but that works.

While I awaited the return of the illusive LTE coverage (much better for uploading pictures) I read my book......I'm about half way through book 7 of the Dark Tower series by Stephen King and things are really heating up!  Once the LTE returned I was able to compose my blog pretty quickly, then got dressed to go outside and do some more work on my Christmas lights, and that kept me busy until after 11 am at which time I began to get ready for work, which included having some breakfast.

I was off on my 1/2 mile walk to the General Store by 11:45 am, and there by 11:55 am to find a deserted store.....no customers.  TLE said she did just $23 in cash sales all morning.....that is really slow!  She would normally have been there until 1 pm, but since there were no customers she began to 'count down' as soon as I had counted in my cash drawer.  With the exception of a few flurries of customers throughout the afternoon it was stone cold quiet in the store.  I spent time reading my book on my Android phone Kindle application to pass the time.  To be fair I also spent time dry mopping the entire store, vacuuming the entry throw rugs, 'fronting' store product, folding sweatshirts and t-shirts, etc.  There is always something to do in any store, and this one is no exception.

Finally 5 pm came around and we locked the doors, turned off the lights, and I counted down my drawer.  I was on my way walking home in the twilight by 5:26......

.....I managed to snap this picture of the almost full moon peaking out from behind the clouds in the eastern sky.  Within another minute I was home......just in time for the PAC-12 (college football) championship game between Stanford and USC.....of course you know I am going to be glued to the TV for this game.  It was a very good game marred by too much interference from the referee team, but in the end USC prevailed in a closely fought game 31-28.

By the time the game finished at 9:45 pm it was past time for me to be in bed, but within minutes I was......I've got the 'open' shift on Saturday so I'll be getting up before 6 am again.....I really hate waking up before it's light outside...what about you?

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