Karen at Fifty Four

I had a beautiful week in Salt Lake City. The lack of humidity was amazing!! The city itself was even a pleasant surprise. There were nice parks and I was able to wonder around inside the state capital (I'm embarrassed to admit that I didn't realize this was the state capital prior to seeing the capital building). Another surprise was that Donna's friends, Rick and Jenny, live here and they took me on a fabulous hike and even treated me to dinner. The only disappointment was that the Mormon Tabernacle was covered in scaffolding so I did get to tour that. Oh well, a good excuse to return. I was so excited to see this area of the country and the neat (oh-so-different-for-me) landscape that my face was glued to the window as we made our approach into KSLC. This picture shows how the city is built right up to the edge of the mountains. These mountains are the western edge of the Rocky's. So dramatic!! On Monday night I did a quick survey of the city close to the hotel and f...

After my hill training I went to a neighborhood in Tavares, a town just north of Howey-in-the-Hills, to pop in on a few open houses. The prices were right, so I wanted to get a feel for the neighborhood. It was a 55+ neighborhood, which is what almost all are around here. To sum it up, no way. This trip did not win any points for the "stay" category. Reason to stay: cycling with El (but how long will that last, she has 12 years on me so I really need to find a cycling friend my age or younger if I want to use this as an excuse to stay). Reason to go: the heat and humidity (we have to risk heat stroke for more than half the year). Lake Harris at 7am and it was already uncomfortably hot! 

El and I have started hill training. She wants to prep for the Horrible Hundred and I want to prep for the next Woman Tours I do with Paula. I don't want to need an e-bike again. I need to get back in shape and am enjoying the challenge. This picture doesn't really show the hills, but they are big for FL (you have to look at the distance and see how the street lights dip then climb back up). The country roads out there are beautiful and we must enjoy them while they last...suburban spread is out of control.

Went with El, Diane, and five of Diane's friends on a kayak trip from Juniper Springs. The current was really moving (we even found a little white water), but it was tight!! Definitely needed paddling skills to get around the logs and branches. We saw three alligators and a bunch of turtles. It was a fun day out even if it was tough staying out of the trees. El said many times, "one and done", and I have to agree with her. There are much better places to paddle in central FL.

For today's assessment of staying verses going I have a picture of the fire sprinkler system alarm. This equipment monitors the fire sprinkler system in the townhouses, which is wonderful that we have a sprinkler system in place in the event of a fire. I have no idea where the sprinklers are since there are none inside my unit. Maybe they are in the attic. Or maybe they are those weird circles on the ceiling that I never questioned what they were. Now that I think of it, that must be what they are. I bet they pop down and spray water if there is a fire. Well, I'm not going to test out my theory 😆. So, there it is. The panel opens to access the controls. The issue is, it goes into alarm state often, making a loud alarm tone that I can hear when I'm on my back patio. If its very quiet in the house, I can also hear it in my kitchen and dinning room.  I can go outside and silence the alarm, but that only quiets it for about an hour and obviously doesn't fix the issue. I...

I need to decide where (and when) to retire. I can't keep putting it off. So I am giving myself a year, 365 days, to make a decision. I used my blog to make the same sort of decision when I was living in Florence, KY... and I ended up in Uganda with the Peace Corps. I doubt I will make such a drastic decision this time, but you never know. So, for this effort, everyday for 365 days (maybe once a week), I will take a picture of my current surrounding and think about a reason to stay and a reason to go. At the end of the year, I'll look back and reflect on what I have and if I'm willing to leave it all for the great unknown. For my first picture on this journey, I went to my courtyard and snapped a shot of my little Florida garden. The fun thing about this garden is where the plants came from... Boston ferns from Dad's garden, Elephant Ears from Donna's garden, and the Ti Plants from Mom's garden. There are others from Mom's garden, but you can't see them ...

Another work trip to a cool town... how exciting!! Of course, I've already been to San Francisco, so I didn't have any interest in battling traffic and hunting for parking in the city. I really didn't think I needed to see the Golden Gate Bridge or Fisherman's Wharf again. This time I went to the beach.   Here is the KSFO airport as seen from a little park across the street from my hotel. It was a beautiful airport and the terminals were spacious and filled with art. It was also very organized and easy to find your way around. I think this is up there on top airports I've been to. The work part of trip was just ok (and that's putting it nicely). The FSR acted as though he already knew everything I was there to show him, and he probably did. He had been to the Oakland TSS to have his playing area updated and get a sneak peak at the new stuff. I suspect he was friends with that FSR and they were both prior RPO's. The KSFO FSR even called himself a "gamer...

Two weeks in Canada, in the middle of the summer, how great could that be!! Ha, joke was on me because it was in the 90's the whole time. Apparently the jet stream was doing something very weird and there was a massive heat wave in progress. Plus, there were wildfires to our NE and WSW. Plus, I had visions of the Canadian Rockies and Edmonton is actually in the "plains". Plus, the town very near the airport where we were working was a dump. So much so, we had to move hotels because I told the PM I could not stay there for two weeks. After the second night, we moved closer to the city of Edmonton and the hotel and neighborhood were nice, but still not exactly nice. This is nowhere I wish to return to, but the work was interesting and I got to know two of my Canadian coworkers a bit better, Feno and Sonia.   Saskatchewan River. I dragged Sonia on a hike in Devon along this river. It was nice, but the air was hazy and hot. We were sweat drenched by the end. I found this plac...

 Never have been a fan of Atlanta, but this was a work trip so I made the most of it and ventured downtown to the aquarium. I think the parking fee was as much as the entrance fee! Before going into the aquarium, I walked around Centennial Olympic Park. There were a bunch of sculptures dedicated to the Olympic athletes... and there were fountains, and splash pads for kids, and nicely maintained gardens. It was a very nice park. Unfortunately, it was in downtown Atlanta, so there were also a lot of "crazies" and the drive in was scary.  They had an octopus!! He was a crowd favorite so I had to elbow my way past a lot of kids to get this shot. The aquarium was insane. There were 10x too many people in there and the layout was chaotic. It was just crowds of people everywhere and there was no flow from one exhibit to the next. I constantly felt like I was fighting my way through the masses to see anything in the tanks. The place could have been impressive, but it was too stressfu...