For many summers,  Serene (not me) has had a clothing tent at the flea market south of Cascade.  We stopped and met her a few years ago.   We decided to stop again and took the opportunity to chat.

Serene and Serene – That sure is strange!

Serene remembered us stopping before and said she has met one other Serene in addition to me.  Randy and I saw a Serene on TV as a Jeopardy contestant years ago but it wasn’t the same one this Serene met.  So there are at least four of us.

In the last blog post, the Serene you know (me) was not impressed with our new tankless water heater.  Randy tried a few things and the change that made the best impact was increasing the temperature to 120 degrees.  The water going by the heater gets hotter so even when added to more water at higher pressure the end result is a stronger, hotter flow.   One positive of this water heater is that, once we get it set, there really is unlimited hot water.  The second person doesn’t have to wait for the water to re-heat which was normal operating procedure before.

All that being said, if we had it to do over again I’d vote against the tankless water heater.  We have found a way to make it work for now, but it is unclear whether it will be easily manageable with varying water pressures and filters as we travel.   The current plan is to live with it through the summer in Cascade and see how it goes during our travels in the fall.

If we decide to replace it, Randy will do that during our extended volunteer stay in Arizona this winter.  We’ll be at Kartchner Caverns State Park near Benson from late December to the end of April.  We visited Kartchner Caverns State Park last year and thought it might be a good place to volunteer.  (Here is the link to that visit.) Randy really likes the idea of driving the tram and we’d like to support the caverns.  It will also give us the opportunity to further explore that part of Arizona.    

Getting back to our Cascade activities,  I have been taking ukelele lessons.   We’ve been carting around my ukelele for years and this is the first place we’ve stayed long enough to seek out lessons.

This is my teacher Steve (left) and fellow student George.  George is not a beginner and they were providing music for Alpha Nursery’s Open House.   Randy and I went to enjoy the music, the free food, and to get my ukelele re-strung.

Steve had suggested my instrument might stay tuned better if I upgraded my tuners.  Of course that meant if Randy upgraded my tuners!    Things went fine on Randy’s end of the project but when I tried to re-string it, I broke one.   And of course it happened on a late Friday afternoon in a small town in central Idaho.  No music store here.
Steve to the rescue!  He brought strings to the nursery and got my ukelele back into practicing condition.

Beginner student and patient teacher!  And the teacher’s wife (also patient).

We go down the road to Boise now and then.  A couple weeks ago I was happy to join my church choir friends one more time.  Singing at church was a joy when we lived in Boise and the worship pastor, Adrianne,  welcomed me back anytime we were in town.    She invited all past choir members to join her for her final Sunday leading worship before retirement.   Adrianne is well loved by the worship team and people came from all over.   

On another trek to Boise Randy volunteered to drive one of the park trucks to take another of their trucks to the body shop.  The park’s newest truck, a 2018 model with only 6300 miles, was hit by an elk.  The ranger was fine, the truck needs a lot of work and the elk perished. 

Elk hair embedded in the tire.

There seems to be a lot of road kill on these curvy mountain roads.   Roadkill salvage is legal in Idaho and people are able to take animals that are accidentally killed by collision and use the meat and/or body parts.   Recently it became legal to put injured animals out of their misery.  It is a sad tale but good that some use be made of the poor animals.

Missing Cindy – she took the picture!  Thanks for dinner John!

We enjoy seeing friends on our trips to Boise.  This was a wonderful evening spent with friends John, Deb, Darrell and Cindy.   It is nice to be near the old home town.