Early November finally brought election day and thankfully the end to a deluge of obnoxious, self righteous campaign/SuperPac commercials. My Obama sign stood proud throughout a tense election night and I would have kept it out in the yard to boast electoral success, however, out of concern for a souvenir seeker, or an angry neighbor, I tucked it away safely with my meager collection of campaign memorabilia. Despite both my and Jonathan's stress, Toby remained pretty laid back for the evening's events and Jackson, who was chilly enough to permit me to put on his skull shirt, seemed to be more focused on a warm place to nest that the hullabaloo that was initial east coast results.
Moving along in the month we spent one weekend working our buns off taking care of some much needed house work. Jonathan, with Jackson's help of course, built Frank's new stand, and I finally got to painting the back room. This was the last room in the house to be painted which now rids us of any original, or rather nasty pre-purchase interior pain. The task was pretty simple but I did run into a patch of wall that, during the initial coat of paint would pool away from its application to form a complex looking spider web on the wall. Not sure how to explain it, and I really don't even want to know what was causing the paint to behave that way, but luckily the second layer stayed put when applied.
We also managed to clean up the back yard a bit, moving the remaining chunks of concrete to the back of the yard, and cutting down the weeds that were steadily taking over. We also worked together to paint the back of the house as well as the roof beams. 1 out of 3 back windows remains its original red, with the other two not yet fully re-painted white, but I'll take the progress as a win, and hope to finish all exterior painting by mid December.
Nearing the end of the month, we enjoyed a lovely thanksgiving with Jonathan's aunt and uncle, cousin and, and family friends in Scottsdale and decided to take a post turkey day adventure to Crown King on Black Friday. Jonathan told me it was about an hour and half drive to Crown King which used to serve as a mining town, but now serves as a bit of an out of the way tourist stop. 
The trip turned out to be a bit longer, and a bit more jostling than expected, but the climb up the bumpy, and sometimes narrow switchbacks was worth the views. Could I have appreciated the sights with a paved road, absolutely, but it was a Jonathan adventure I was happy to go along with. When we reached Crown King we were a little surprised to find what I'd call an ATV/Side by Side haven. I've never seen these types of ATVs in any other state I've lived in, but they appear quite popular in Arizona. These 2 and sometimes 4 seater vehicles are essentially glorified golf cards made for outdoor trail driving adventures. Their price tag averages about $16,000 plus, which is a little mind blowing, but such is the wild west. Once we arrived to the town we enjoyed some tasty burgers at one of two restaurants in the "town". Jackson was allowed to hang out with us while we ate and was sure to use his saddest, hungriest cute eyes to gain a dog treat as well as a little sip of spilled beer from a woman telling me she wished her dogs liked beer like our dog. Hmm, smile and nod, smile and nod.
Jackson was understandably tired on our drive home, and fell asleep earlier than usual that night. I can't say it was my favorite road trip, but an entertaining distraction from sitting at home..
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| Deer holding the gun that shot it, now that's just rude. |
We rounded off the long weekend with a trip to the Bass Pro Shop, which includes a 2 story indoor waterfall, archery and shooting ranges, and custom fly fishing lure crafting room, and of course $42,000 competitive fishing boats, as well as quick trip to the newly designed Ikea on Sunday. Political wins, house work progress, holiday weekends, an outdoor adventure, and a few Swedish meatballs, certainly add up to a darn good November!
