Month: November 2020

Charlie and I watched a “20/20” crime documentary last night about a crafty woman who killed her husband and went to great efforts to cover her tracks.

She was eventually caught lying about several significant things, one of them being her use of contact lenses. When questioned about the discrepancies in her story, the lady prefaced her testimony with this: “My truth is this…”

“My” truth?

How many versions of truth are there? What, in fact, is truth?

The definition of truth is “that which is in accordance with fact or reality”.

Accordingly, a story about something is either factual or fiction. Put another way, it is either real or imagined. There is no non-fiction or imagined truth…except in the mind of a confused or manipulative person.

We hear a lot these days about “fake news”. Politically, particularly since 2016, “fake news” is fact (or fiction) that doesn’t comport with the supposed truth that our President is telling his audience. In most instances, the President’s version of truth has been quickly shown by journalists to be faulty; i.e. lacking a factual basis or an exaggeration meant to drive home a point. Typically, that embarrassment (of lying) results in a response from the President calling the journalist “fake”.

In essence, the President wants us to believe that whatever he says is the gospel truth and whatever critics says is “false”.

As someone once said, “In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true either is or becomes true.”

People believe a lot of things, some of which are not true (i.e. based on facts/reality). For example, our President said of the coronavirus, “It will go away in the Spring”. He wanted to believe that…so he did. It became “his” truth, not because it was based upon facts but, rather, because such an outcome would work for his re-election campaign.

Similarly, Senator Ted Cruz confidently stated in July 2020, “I’ll guarantee you the week after the election suddenly all those Democratic governors, all those Democratic mayors will say everything’s magically better. Go back to work. Go back to school. Suddenly the problems are solved.”

We all wish it had happened that way, Senator.

Speaking of bullshit, President Trump sent out six Tweets between August and October saying that stock markets would “crash” if Joe Biden was elected. On September 2^nd he wrote, “The Dow Jones Industrial just closed above 29,000…With Joe Biden it would crash.”

That’s not what happened.

The S&P notched its best election week since 1932, and the Dow is up nearly 12% in November, on track for its best month since January 1987. As someone once said, “Believing that you have a five dollar bill in your pocket doesn’t put one there.”

Since the economic collapse of 2020 was due to a lame Trump Administration effort against the global pandemic, it is possible that financial analysts believe that there will be a quicker economic recovery with Joe Biden leading the fight against Covid-19.

Just sayin’ (opinion).

Speaking of the pandemic, we’re now almost three weeks past Election Day and health officials are reporting almost 200,000 new cases of Covid-19 per day in the United States, hospitals are at max capacity, and were seeing almost 2,000 people succumbing daily. Business closures and “stay at home” orders are the rule rather than the exception in most States, Red and Blue.

Not exactly the “truth” that Senator Cruz was guaranteeing in July.

In our culture, at this moment in time, belief has become legal tender in social intercourse, outweighing facts, common sense, and things that one can see and touch. To many people, scientists (folks who deal in facts) are pariahs, because the truth that they uncover with scientific research doesn’t match up with their beliefs.

People want to believe that Covid-19 is just “the flu”, i.e. the same annoyance that society deals with each Fall and Winter. Treating this plague dismissively and optimistically, such believers are then justified (in their own mind) for not socially distancing and not wearing facemasks and bitching and moaning that government efforts to flatten the infection curve are “overreactions” and unfair intrusions on their Constitutional rights.

Back when I was a young man, similar knuckleheads moaned and groaned about the new requirement to wear a seatbelt while traveling in an automobile. They believed that car crashes only happened to the “other guy”…while 50,000 people per year perished in auto accidents.

My brother, who is a Trump honk, informed me last week that Democrats had been throwing a “temper tantrum” for the past four years and that, if Joe Biden had lost the election, “Democrats, Socialists, and Antifa would have rioted and burned cities”.

That sounds a whole lot like an opinion (based upon “his” truth/belief) from a sour grapes loser. By the way, the only “temper tantrum” in evidence as we approach the end of November 2020 is the one President Trump is throwing because he lost the election and doesn’t want to concede defeat.

Ballots tallied in all fifty states resulted in Joe Biden beating President Trump by almost 6 million votes and (prospectively) winning the Electoral College with 306 votes. In 2016, Donald Trump amassed 306 Electoral votes and called his victory a “landslide”. This year, he claims, the election was “rigged”.

Accordingly, the President has legally challenged the election results in a half-dozen States, claiming “fraud” and various voting irregularities based upon his belief that victory was “stolen” from him. His attorneys have taken this belief, and not much else, to the courts…where they had their pants pulled down and shown the door. One Federal Appeals Court judge, speaking for a 3-judge panel (all of whom were appointed by Republicans), said, “Calling an election unfair does not make it so”, “Charges require specific allegations and, then, proof. We have neither here.”, and “Voters, not lawyers, choose the President.”

After being admonished by several courts (31 suits, 30 losses), the President yesterday tried a new tack: “Joe Biden needs to prove that he actually got 80 million votes.” Talk about gall! With no proof to back up claims, require the other guy to make your case!

I’m pretty sure that President Trump knows the one and only truth about the election and is just positioning himself for some kind of victorious (in his mind) exit from the White House so that he can continue to be a kingmaker in the Republican Party.

One of the schemes he is using to set himself up financially is the “Official Election Defense Fund”, supposedly a fund-me site that would help pay for all of the (spurious) lawsuits that Trump has filed over the election that was “stolen” from him.

Trump’s post-election fundraising emails – sometimes issued hourly over the last several days – used names such as the Election Defense Task Force and the Official Election Defense Fund.

Contributions to this fund from Trump supporters are unlikely to defray legal costs of those lawsuits, though. In the fine print of the donation pitch (i.e. the actual truth of where the money will go) a prospective donor would find that, unless the contribution is over $8,000, the money is split 60/40 between a Trump Leadership PAC and the Republican National Committee. Both of those organizations can spend the money any way they want. After $8,000, contributions will flow to the “recount account” up to a maximum of $2,800.

Thus, if a Trump supporter wanted to help out on the President’s legal attack against democracy, he would have to contribute more than $8,000. One dollar shy of that amount would put $4,800 in Trump’s pocket to be used for just about any purpose during or after his term in office.

It’s pretty obvious that the legal strategy is just a means to stimulate Trump faithful into forking over money to the President. It reminds me of a televangelist asking their blue collar, Bible-toting parishioners to send their hard-earned money so that the pastor and his wife can upgrade their Gulfstream V to a VI.

In Trump’s own words, his Official Election Defense Fund is “fake”.

After almost four years of this guy doing his best to obliterate truth, what did you expect?

January 20th can’t come soon enough.

Loser Donald J. Trump is pushing a conspiracy theory in the court system that, “If you only count the legal votes, I won.”

(Deja vu: Trump claimed, back in 2016, that if the “illegal votes weren’t counted” he would have won the popular vote for President. Hillary Clinton outpolled him by 3 million votes in that contest.)

According to the President and his attorneys, a vast conspiracy of Democrats and other bad guys engineered his almost 6 million vote loss to Joe Biden earlier in the month, and that heinous and traitorous behavior was most prevalent in urban areas heavily populated by African Americans.\

And to be more specific, only in those areas within key battleground states where Donald Trump prevailed in the 2016 election. That would include Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

And, according to Trump’s attorneys, this skullduggery only affected the contest for President, meaning that the same, tainted elections processes (in-person and mail-in voting, and machine and manual vote counting) in those states were somehow pristine when they involved the elections of twenty-eight Republicans to the House of Representatives on that same day.

(By the way, in most states that I am familiar with, ballot handling and tabulation, when not accomplished by machine, involves election officials of both parties working together to ensure accuracy. The idea that Democrat bad guys in “the back room” were perverting the process doesn’t make sense since their Republican teammates were present at the same time. When someone alleges an illegal count, they are therefore accusing both Democrats and Republicans elections officials of wrongdoing. It doesn’t make a lot of sense because it wouldn’t happen.)

Thus, the President’s claim is that the effort to “steal” the election from him was quite surgical in nature, orchestrated by a variety of evil doers which has included Hillary Clinton, George Soros, Barack Obama, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and Democratic National Committee lackeys burrowed deep in local and state government structures. (And Republican elections officials who went rogue, too, like the Georgia Secretary of State and the City Commissioner in Philadelphia.)

Voting irregularities cited by the Trump team include: ballots cast by children, non-citizens and dead people; voting tabulation errors by hacked machines; inadequate freedom granted to Republican poll watchers; ballot dumping by Democrat Party-affiliated election officials; incompletely filled-out ballot envelopes; votes not counted because a Sharpie was used to mark the ballot; mail-in ballots lacking voter addresses; improperly sealed secrecy envelopes; backdated ballots; and, counting votes after the polls close (!)

(This last one is a doozy. The vote tabulation process in every State never ends on Election Day; in fact, the official results aren’t known for weeks, and they are the only ones that count toward earning Electoral Votes. That’s why the Electoral College meets in December. A reason for Trump’s insistence on Election Day results only is because, in many States, absentee and other mail-in votes are counted last. Trump has stated that he believes that “mail-in voting disadvantages Republicans”. So, if those votes weren’t counted, presumably it would disadvantage his opponent Joe Biden.)

The Trump team’s public allegations of widespread illegal and fraudulent election activity, in those critical battleground states, have gained no traction in the court system. At least 31 suits have been heard thus far and the Trump team has prevailed in but one case…allowing Republican poll watchers to move slightly closer to elections officials as they count the votes.

The reason for the virtual shutout in the court system is due to two related factors: (1) No factual evidence brought by the Trump attorneys; and, (2) The ethical standards of the “bar” (i.e. the authority in each state which grants licenses to attorneys to practice law). Basically, it is unethical for a lawyer to bring a case without factual merit and it is unethical to argue fraudulent behavior without evidence. Trump’s lawyers want to please the client but are unwilling to face disbarment.

Accordingly, most high-profile election attorneys have declined to get involved in Trump’s fight. In desperation, the President is now employing ex-NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who hasn’t argued a case in court in thirty years, to stand sheepishly before judges with little evidence.

When pressed by judges on the allegation of fraud in the election, the Trump team is quick to respond that they are not arguing that fraud occurred. This is critical, because they would then have to prove it with facts…which they do not possess…or possibly be cited for wasting the court’s time on a meritless case.

As one dubious judge admonished a Trump lawyer, the case was “hearsay within hearsay”. No facts, no case.

Thus, it appears that the Trumpian “stolen election” master strategy doesn’t necessarily involve winning a slew of lawsuits filed in those battleground states. Instead, the legal offensive is meant to delay the election outcome certification process to the point that the process would not meet the state legal requirement for certification by a specific date…thereby requiring the state Legislature or Governor to appoint his own slate of electors to the Electoral College in December. In that manner, a Republican could be awarded the victory that a Democrat had earned.

It is a blatant attempt to disenfranchise millions of voters in several states and potentially reverse the outcome of the 2020 election which favored Joe Biden.

Trump spent part of this week attempting bully/influence/extort election certifying officials in Georgia and Michigan to not officially acknowledge Biden’s obvious win in those states.

No President of the United States has ever stooped this low to re-engineer an election outcome. However, Donald J. Trump is not your typical President: he is a man with virtually no ethical scruples who only thinks of himself. So, this grotesque exercise in delegitimizing our democracy in not a surprise considering the many other shameful things that have occurred in the Trump Administration.

Same shit, different day.

What is a surprise, as a matter of fact, was the speed with which President Trump turned on his media supporter Fox News for not doing enough cheerleading for him during the failed 2020 campaign.

“What have you done for me lately?” seems to be the complaint, ignoring the fact that he owes his Presidency and his huge cult following to a bunch of Fox News hitmen who badgered Obama, Clinton, and his 2016 primary opponents. Donald Trump probably benefitted by as much as 100 million dollars in free advertising from the Fox network during the 2016 campaign…his mug was on camera virtually 24 hours per day.

As is typical of Donald Trump, someone must be found to blame for every Presidential misstep. The coronavirus pandemic? The Chinese and the W.H.O. The economic collapse? Democratic governors. Western wildfires? Sloppy forest managers not doing enough raking. Black Lives Matter protests? Socialists, Communists and Antifa.

His 2020 election loss? Fox News not working hard enough for the campaign.

Not surprising to anyone is the President’s failure to concede the election, as he is a stubborn guy used to getting his way. This attitude has filtered down to his head of the General Services Agency who, two weeks after the election results have been known, is refusing to “ascertain” who won and facilitate the transition between the Trump and Biden Administrations.

Just one more example of Donald J. Trump being a total asshole. In this case, by refusing to let Biden and friends get up to speed before January 20th, the President is putting the Nation’s security at risk.

Obviously that is not a concern for this so-called patriot.

The most recent “hearsay within hearsay” is the speculation about what Donald Trump will do after January 20^th. There is rumor that he will get involved with Newsmax, a conservative competitor broadcast media. Other speculation is that he will run for President in 2024 or, at least, stay involved in politics to the point that he could be a kingmaker in 2024 if he so desired. Gossip has it that he will use his celebrity to make some money off of periodic Trump rallies, book deals, speaking engagements, and merchandise.

In essence, Trump’s political shadow will dampen the enthusiasm of Republican 2024 Presidential wannabes like Ted Cruz, Mike Pence, and Nikki Haley and might necessitate them kissing his ring to gain support of his 70 million supporters.

I wonder if I will live long enough that a day will come without the public mention of the monstrosity named Donald J. Trump?

Doubtful.

We’re going through a very strange period right now.

A national election has been held in America, home of the world’s oldest democracy. One candidate got six million votes more than his opponent, and the loser (in fact, the incumbent President) refuses to acknowledge defeat, claiming that the election was “rigged”.

Of course, this President claimed the same thing in 2016 when he won an election that he insisted (on Election Eve) was  “rigged”.

Maybe all elections are “rigged”…if the definition is that the guy with the most votes wins? I can get behind that, as that was the intention of the Founding Fathers.

Evidently, our President has another definition: an election is “rigged” (or fraudulent, or illegal, or stolen) if citizens have the temerity to vote against Donald J. Trump.

Exactly.

The Prez and his minions have launched all manner of lawsuits to challenge vote totals and procedures in a number of States where he didn’t prevail…primarily Democratic-governed States. Thus far, Trump’s legal team has been laughed out of court. Idiot (Savant?) attorney Rudy Giuliani has been retained by the President to save the day. Trump had better hope that he does a better job on this task than he did in the Ukraine: that one got the President impeached!

In some of those statewide races, Republican Congressmen and Senators were elected. Imagine their annoyance and (private) rage at any effort by the Trump Administration to cast doubt on the election that they won!

But, of course, the Prez is only thinking of himself, as usual.

President Trump has thus far stonewalled President-elect Joe Biden’s effort to begin the two-month transition of one administration to another. Traditionally, the “loser” is gracious and helpful, as the outgoing incumbent wants only the best for America. That is not the case right now, as Donald Trump is behaving like a petulant 10 year-old who didn’t get his way.

And the worst part about it is that the Republican Party is going along with the charade…that President Trump was not defeated!

This is what occurs in fascist states, not democracies. It’s no wonder why there’s an “Antifa” movement in America.

By the way, all of the scrutiny of local election processes by Trump legal eagles and partisan agents has yet to uncover any significant voting irregularities in any jurisdiction. Any, as in zero.

(Today, President Trump fired his head of Cybersecurity, Chris Krebs, who publicly stated that the 2020 election was secure and safe from hacking and was the most accurate in history.)

In 2016, Donald Trump won the Presidency by prevailing with razor-thin margins in a half-dozen battleground states. In 2020, the Joe Biden campaign flipped some of those key states with razor-thin to modest margins. That’s all it takes, Folks.

Trump loved the process when he won (the Electoral vote) in 2016 and now hates it when he didn’t prevail. Four years ago, he lost the popular vote by 3 million votes and was elected anyway; this time, he lost by double that amount, just enough to swing the Electoral vote in Biden’s direction. It’s a screwy system but one that Donald Trump swore by…until he lost.

The question is: Where do we go from here?

Seventy million Trump diehards are disheartened: they’ve drunk the Kool Aid, believe that President Trump won the election (!) and, if that election is successfully “stolen” from Trump, are convinced that Joe Biden will turn America into a Communist country or worse.

How did we get to this point in America…where so many people believe absolutely in a Pied Piper who aspires to be a dictator? Is that what our citizenry wants…a leader who doesn’t believe in free speech, thinks peaceful protesters are Communist rabble, plays footsie with the Constitution, ignores the Rule of Law, lies continuously, and refuses to comport himself in accordance with hundreds of years of Presidential “norms”? A leader who has led a lame effort against a pandemic which resulted in grievous harm to the economy. Something which he insists he bears no responsibility for, by the way. A President who doesn’t believe in elections?

Well, at least 70 million voters think he’s totally fit for the job.

“Topsy turvy”: a state of utter confusion. That’s where we’re at, Folks.

It’s as if White is now Black, gravity no longer works, water isn’t wet anymore, and Monday follows Tuesday. Alice in Wonderland experienced something like this: weird shit going on that makes no sense. I mean Republicans lining up behind a fascist strongman-wannabe, for God’s Sake: what would super-patriot Ronald Reagan think?!

Fuck him. The truth on any matter is whatever Donald J. Trump says it is. Period.

We can expect this topsy turvy-ness to continue for at least another month while President Trump exhausts his frivolous legal maneuvers, exacts retribution on Administration officials who weren’t “loyal” enough, appoints a bunch of MAGA agents to civil service positions, considers some spectacular exit event designed to excite the faithful and piss off the incoming Biden Administration, and fills the airwaves with mean-spirited, totally bogus Tweets that will assure 78 million Americans that they voted correctly.

Unfortunately, but predictably, this is what you get when electing a narcissistic egomaniac to lead a democracy. The guy was in over his head from the get-go and, yet, thought that he had “nailed” the job. That’s understandable: he is who he is. (He also thought he was an astute businessman after his father gave him a couple hundred million dollars to play with.)

But, to have 70 million Americans thinking that he’s done a good job in the past four years?

How on earth?!

Within a few days 250,000 citizens will have succumbed to Covid-19, with almost 2,000 additional deaths occurring each day now that the pandemic is in its second phase. Experts are now predicting another 60,000 or more deaths before Joe Biden takes the helm on January 21^st. A vaccine won’t be available to the general public until Spring 2021. Personal protective equipment (PPE) for front line hospital personnel is again in short supply, one-day Covid-19 testing is still unavailable to the public, and a whole bunch of those 70 million MAGA supporters are still refusing to wear facemasks or even acknowledge that the pandemic is real. President Trump hasn’t conferred with this Coronavirus Task Force for several months: he flat out gave up.

Two hundred and fifty thousand citizens dead! If a Muslim terrorist had gunned down ten Americans on U.S. soil, our President would (and has, in the past) have gone beserk with rage and determination to exterminate the perpetrator. A killer virus? No biggee…”We can’t let the cure be worse than the problem!”

My neighbor friend Marcus Kline, a Trump supporter, now believes that the pandemic is not a Democratic hoax: he’s in a Las Vegas hospital ICU fighting for his life. He and his wife caught the virus on a recent trip to Texas, where the Republican leadership (in line with Trump cheerleading to re-open the economy) has done as little possible to contain Covid-19 and is now reaping the whirlwind.

How irresponsible and stupid they were.

Speaking of stupid, all of my neighbors who had the expensive Trump 2020 flags hanging from their houses(like Marcus) have now exchanged them for American flags…as if they are true patriots in mourning who have been done wrong!

We desperately need some dialogue in our country about what made America great in the first place. Ours is a nation of immigrants who worked together to accomplish great things. When things weren’t right, protesters helped re-direct American efforts to do a better job. When threatened by belligerents, our citizens joined hands and defeated the enemy.

There was no Red vs. Blue division then. We accomplished none of this as a divided Nation: we were the United States of America.

And we accomplished all of this under democratic regimes, Republican and Democrat, not via a fascist dictatorship where we were told when to jump and how high.

Good riddance to (wannabe) President-for-Life Donald Trump!

Can we, please, return to normal now?

United we stand, divided we fall.

The American people have spoken and the worst President in the history of our country has been given his pink slip.

The only question left is how much mischief Mr. Trump can get into before he leaves office on January 20^th.

There will be lawsuits, claiming that he was illegally defeated in the election. There will be Trumpian reprisals, against White House and GOP campaign officials for sure, because someone has to be held accountable, and it can’t be the Boss. And, there will be some scorched earth, to hamper incoming President Joe Biden as much as possible, probably in the form of a raft of Executive Orders (that will, of course, be voided as soon as Trump leaves town.)

And there will be Presidential pardons; probably a lot of them. Bill Barr, Rudy Giuliani, Stephen Miller, Brad Wolf, and Jared Kushner will get them, for sure. Trump himself will likely need one for four years of corruption. It remains to be seen if he will have the audacity to pardon himself or will pull a Richard Nixon/Gerald Ford maneuver; i.e. resign so that his successor can pardon him.

Speaking of corruption, illegal acts, extortion, bribery, tax evasion, kickbacks, and horrible things that we don’t yet know about that happened in the Trump Administration and which will come to light when the Don leaves office…the Democratic Party could have a gay time investigating shadowy goings on since 2016. There is a lot of resentment, anger, and bottled up malice just waiting to be released.

For good reason.

However, Joe Biden, the new head of the Democratic Party and a leader who wants to unite the Nation, would be smart to tamper down the reprisals and mud-throwing because he has more important things to do than look in the rear view mirror. He’s got to get the pandemic under control, he’s got to re-ignite the economy, he’s got to start a legitimate national dialogue on racism in the country, and he’s got to seriously address global warming.

It’s time for thinking big, not small.

All of these efforts will require getting buy-in from tens of millions of Republicans who voted against him.

So, spending valuable time taking (well deserved) pot shots at the former President would be counterproductive. The focus needs to be on fixing our country and repairing the damage done by the outgoing Administration.

Seventy million Americans voted for Donald Trump in a losing effort. That fact amazes me and reveals a disturbing reality about my country that I have failed to come to grips with: small-thinking is extremely prevalent throughout the Nation.

Lots of one-issue folks voted for Trump: racists, religious fundamentalists, gun enthusiasts, anti-democratic libertarians, conspiracy theorists, blame throwers, and people who focus on the stock market to the exclusion of everything else.

Essentially, they are people with a small world view. They want to believe that every problem has a simple, easily understood solution. Unfortunately, the world doesn’t work like that.

Most of these voters think that they’re “patriotic Americans” but don’t really understand or respect the system of government that they live under or the economic model that they appear to revere. The fact that this bloc of United States’ citizens voted twice for an anti-democratic, would-be dictator doesn’t seem to faze them. They are unapologetically mesmerized by a Pied Piper whose policy failures and political blunders while in office would humble a normal President.

We can expect narcissist Trump to remain on the public stage, probably as a talking head on some right-wing television news network, assuming Rush Limbaugh’s position when he finally succumbs to cancer, or starting up his own broadcasting network…to continually feed his 70 million followers a diet of lies, exaggerations and conspiracy theories meant to undermine Joe Biden and the American democratic form of government.

America in the 21^st century…it is what it is, thanks to social media and a lot of small-thinking people.

Charlie and I, and friends Sandy and Lloyd, are vacationing in Moab, Utah this week.

We hadn’t used the RV since last December (prior to pandemic), and this was BonBon’s first motorhome outing, so we expected a few glitches.

Our new Norcold refrigerator is working fine, as is the new windshield.

However, we drove over a very rough patch of Interstate 70 near Richfield, Utah and the jostling up and down caused our undermount sink to break loose of its wooden supports and fall about three inches under the countertop. This happened a few years ago to the undermount range. The builders supported these undermount items with wooden strips that were GLUED onto the interior of the cabinetry. After 15 years, the glue failed.

Anyway, we McGyvered a temporary solution which supports the sink until we can get home and have our RV repair guy look at it.

BonBon had a rough ride up from Mesquite. She was nervous, tongue hanging down, panting, and such, just like Baby did when she was young. I think it will pass with experience, just like it did with Baby. Other than that, BonBon seems to like RV camping a lot.

We’re here with Sandy, who has her own cabin, and Lloyd, who is sleeping in our rig. They both like to hike and bike, so this is paradise for them. Lloyd likes the dogs.

Yesterday, Lloyd, Sandy, and I went for a ride up in Arches National Park. They hadn’t been there before and were suitably impressed with all the oddball geology.

I thought we were just going to sightsee, and Sandy was dressed in a skirt.

However, once we got through looking at a bunch of arches and taking photos, we made the impromptu decision to hike up to Delicate Arch. It is marked as a 1-1/2 mile trail (one-way) with about 600’ of elevation gain. I’ve hiked it before, by myself.

Anyway, it was more like 2 miles one-way and we were pretty pooped when we got back to the car. Sandy was miffed because she had to hike in a skirt and looked like a nerd while doing it. But she was a good trooper, did the hike just fine, and we all had some memories together that we could laugh about later.

Sandy and Lloyd rode bikes this morning while Charlie and I kicked back with the dogs. Then, Lloyd and I went up the Colorado about 16 miles to the Red Cliffs Lodge where there is a museum dedicated to the many movies which have been made here in the Moab area.

UPDATE: On Monday, Lloyd and I golfed at the Moab Golf Club. There was no one ahead of us, so we played in about 3 hours. It was my first round of golf since late August, when I had to stop for my right hip replacement surgery. I was rusty as can be expected, particularly with the pitching and chipping. I shot 89 and Lloyd shot 92. It was a beautiful day in a beautiful place.

Sandy and Lloyd are friends but not in a romantic way. Sandy can be annoying, and she has been on this trip. Lloyd is fed up with her antics and drama and is probably dreading driving 300 miles back to Mesquite with her riding shotgun.

We are planning to hike Dark Angel trail in Arches National Park tomorrow.

Tomorrow, November 3^rd, is…mercifully…Election Day. Every American will be happy when it is over, one way or the other. It’s been a long year.

The Dark Angel hike didn’t turn out as planned. Lloyd, Sandy and I got about one mile up the trail, just after Landscape Arch, when we came to a steep, narrow scramble up a rock fin. Lloyd, who has acrophobia, got up onto the fin but then told us that he didn’t want to go any farther. So, he returned to the car while Sandy and I headed up the trail.

We saw all of the sights: Double Arch, Dark Angel, and the Indian petroglyph treasure trove. All in all, we hiked about 6 miles. Sandy really liked this hike.

The next day, Wednesday, Lloyd and I decided to explore a nearby canyon that looked promising. It is called Grandstaff Trail and it turned out to be a beautiful place, with towering sandstone cliffs and a gurgling stream running through the 3 mile length of the hike.

The trail ended in a box canyon featuring a large arch and the source of the stream: water running out of some cracks in the base of the sandstone cliff. It was a very cool place. Lloyd loved this hike.

On our way back from Grandstaff Canyon, we decided to drive a way down Potash Road along the Colorado River to look for “dinosaur tracks”. When we found out that we’d have to scramble up a rock-strewn cliff to see them, we passed. However, on the way back to camp we stopped along the road to view some nice petroglyphs which had evidently been etched on the rock cliff long before the road cut…now, they’re 15′ off the ground.

Sandy was annoyed that we’d hiked without her on Wednesday, despite telling us beforehand that she was going to take the day off. So, we agreed to do some exploratory work on Thursday in the hopes of finding another nice place to hike.

Which we did: Hunter Canyon, a fairly remote trail off of the Colorado River about 5 miles south of Moab. Again, it was a six-mile up-and-back jaunt up several canyons which featured 500′ sandstone walls. There weren’t many people on the trail, which is the way we like it. Another great day of hiking.

Friday was return-to-earth day for us, featuring a long (377 mile) slog down I-70 and I-15.

I learned two things on the return trip: (1) The Norcold refrigerator has a power issue (!!); and, (2) The I-70 stretch between Richfield and Green River (Utah) is a f…ing washboard that I intend never to drive again. It beat the Hell out of the rig for a second time (on the northbound leg it dismounted my undermount sink!).

Fellow RVers: Avoid that stretch of interstate if you can!!

UPDATE: While we were out tempting Covid-19 in north Utah, Joe Biden went out and defeated President Trump. What a nice way to cap off a great vacation week!!!