I got out of bed before J and did some computer work until she was up. Then I had my regular breakfast before doing my taxes. I usually do them in March, but we were so busy in Arizona that I put them off until we got back. I used TurboTax, and was able to finish everything in about 3.5 hours.

As I was working on my taxes, my mother called to let us know that my stepfather, ELG, had gone into the hospital on Monday with a possible stroke. He returned to the nursing center on Tuesday, and this morning he was unresponsive. She was expecting him to die soon because he had been saying he was ready.

Let me introduce you to my stepfather, ELG. He had fallen on some black ice, maybe 15-20 years ago, and suffered some severe brain trauma. After a long time in the hospital and then some special rehabilitation, he moved into the nursing area of a retirement community where my mother's parents were, at the time, in an independent-living apartment. First my maternal grandfather, then my maternal grandmother moved into the assisted-living area of that retirement community. When my mother went to visit her parents in the assisted living area, she would also go around and visit with the other residents there and also in the nursing area. Very quickly, she got to know ELG whose wife had died of pancreatic cancer just like my father. My mother kept visiting him on her "rounds," and one day ELG told her that he wished he could take her out on a date. Eventually they started talking about marriage, and she was shocked to find out that he was so old — 18 years older than her. He was very well preserved and had a full head of hair, so unless you knew better, you'd think they were about the same age. They got married in May 2000, my mother moved into an independent-living apartment at the retirement community, and ELG continued to get better. His right side was very weak, but he was able to walk on his own with with the help of a cane. After a few years, he started to have some minor strokes and started losing more strength and control of his right side. Beginning about three years ago, he has been mostly confined to a wheel chair with ever-worsening strength. For the last few months, he's been requiring oxygen almost full time, and for the last month he has been really weak. So, the news that he wanted to die and that my mother was expecting him to do so soon was almost a relief. While my mother is a great caregiver, I think she had been getting quite worn down over the last two or three years.

Now, back to the day's activities ...

I had lunch around 12:15, then started prepping the RV to move. J left in the Jeep around 1:40 to take care of some things and I left in the RV at 1:53.

I went to SJ&DilK's (J's Son J and Daughter-in-law K's) to dump using our Flojet Macerator Pump. It didn't take too long to dump, then I took on fresh water for the RV. J arrived around 3:10 as I was finishing up. We went online through a neighbor's WiFi network.

We returned to our friend K's around 4:05, then left again in the Jeep around 4:30.

We went to the Parker Academy of Martial Arts to watch GJ (grandson J, age 4.5) have a Taekwondo lesson. The kids started out more or less focussed, but after about 10 minutes, most of the kids were only loosely following instructions. Neither J nor I could imagine being the instructor for such a class — we were exhausted just watching the instructor try to corral the kids! The instructor was upbeat and didn't seem to mind that the kids were "out of control" from our perspective — amazing!

We went to Cheddar's Casual Café around 5:35 to have dinner with some photographer friends of ours: J&D and their friend J. It was the first time J and I had ever been to a Cheddar's, and we were very impressed. The food was great and the prices were reasonable. I had the New Orleans Pasta (generous portions of shrimp, chicken, smoked sausage and penne pasta are tossed in our homemade creamy Cajun Alfredo sauce and served with freshly toasted garlic bread) and J had the Grilled Chicken Pecan Salad (slices of savory grilled chicken breast top a mix of fresh salad greens, tomatoes and carrots with cheddar cheese and sweet honey roasted pecans).

We went to The Wildlife Experience for the Mile High Wildlife Photography Club (MHWPC) meeting at 7:00. The big event for the evening was to select images for a special exhibit of images by the club's members at The Wildlife Experience to be called Ecosystems — Where the Wild Things Live. The theme was selected to mesh with other exhibits at The Wildlife Experience, and the idea was to include landscapes, which I interpreted to be "animals in their environment" — something I find hard to do well. Selecting the images is a tedious process where we first select the best image of the three that each photographer can submit, then we select the 24 images to be in the exhibit. Both J and I had images selected for the exhibit. Mine (below left) was taken on my first visit to Samburu National Reserve, Kenya, and is of a line of African elephants walking down to the river to drink and bathe. J's (below right) was taken on our visit to the San Jacinto Wildlife Area in California this March.


We returned to the RV around 9:55 and I did some computer work before going to bed.