Hi silversquirrel, I envy you going to Scotland and I can understand stressing about what to bring with you but don't they do your laundry on river cruises like they do on ocean cruises ? if so then I'ld mainly pack things that you can layer and just switch out which layer is on the outside, nobody will know you wore it two days in a row :)

Hope you have a nice trip !

Hi everyone.   Just checking in to see who is still here.  Homely, we leave for our river cruise on November 13.  I'm already stressed about the packing and the welfare of our three cats, one of whom is a senior with diabetes.   We have excellent cat sitters, but I still worry.  Hope everyone is doing well.  Hello N Q and Stargzr.   

I had a friend who lived in Hawaii for a while too and he said the same about it as your husband, it's a nice place to vacation but not to live. He also said that Hawaii had the highest suicide rate of all the states, in part because most people there don't have the money to travel so they are stuck on an island with no place to go.

When one of my sister & husband built their house, they chose the land because it was on a hill and it had a great view, luckily they hadn't tarred the driveway before the first winter, they found out that the only way they could make it up their drive in the winter was with a gravel driveway, something the tires could dig into, though they do have quite a few winter days that they have to leave their cars at the bottom of the driveway.

We have the same extra seasons as you except I'll add another one to it and that's road construction that lasts from early spring into the beginning of winter !

N Q - It seems our cam here has failed. Hoping it comes back! Agree with you on the seasons. DH lived in Hawaii for a few years and he said that you can only take so much of paradise. Lack of change of seasons nearly drove him mad! Vermont has more than four seasons, per DS... in addition to the usual four they also have stick season, when all the leaves are down and the days are gray and all you can see of the trees are sticks, and in the early spring it's mud season. I think there are more but I cannot keep track. I adore winter but we have a very long, very steep driveway and that alone has turned me off of the season!

We still don't have much color here but we are suppose to have our first frost tonight--brrrrrrr

which means the colors should be popping soon.

I was reading a blog from a Texan who is headed to Vermont this week for a wedding and will rent a car for part of the trip and he was told by the rental agency to be aware that parts of Vermont will be loaded this week with tourists looking at the Fall colors.

I can't imagine living places that don't have the 4 seasons, I love Fall and love snow, just can't stand the bitter cold but this year I won't have to go out in it daily !

Hi, Everyone! Sue, so good to see you back... you must be actively on the countdown for your cruise by now! Have you started to pack? Whenever we travel, I get started early because I'm a terrible over packer unless I think through things carefully :-)  I'm coming off of a beastly month of things for work. Today is the first day in which I feel myself again, so I wanted to check in and say hello just to give my best to all of you. N Q, we will not have time to get back up to Vermont, but DS called this weekend to report that the trees had popped all of a sudden and they are more glorious than he has seen in a few years. Wish I were there!

H

siversquirrel, it sounds like you're going to have a very active Nov ! I know a few people who have taken the Rhine cruise and really enjoyed it. I envy your trip to Scotland, that's on my bucket lists of things that I'll never do but want to do. Enjoy it and let us know how your trips went.

Hi Homely and NQ.  Thanks for your response!  Hubby and I are taking our next river cruise in November on the Rhine and then a couple of days in Scotland to see our friends.   Two days in London and then back to AZ on Thanksgiving Day. I'm glad that you are both keeping things going here on Opentopia.  Hope you are both doing well.  I e replaced both knees now, so I'm ready to climb a mountain.   Just kidding--about the mountain.  Lol

Hi, silversquirrel - Have been thinking of you lately as the Arizona weather must surely be starting to cool! Not sure if you are planning any travels this fall, but hope you are getting out and enjoying the world in any way you gan. Grateful to see you again! N Q and I have been keeping the home fires burning here so that folks have a place to come home to when OT crosses their minds again :-)

Cheers!

Hi silversquirrel, it seems that MD is still alive, you'll find her on page 2 and I think 3 of this cam where you can read her explanation for not replying to any of yours and others posts about whether she's alive or not. Not much of an explanation.

Today we're getting back into the heat with temps in the 80s and dewpoints in the 70s. Temps in the 80s is OK, but once the dewpoint gets into the 70s it feels oppressive.

I hope everything has been ok with you and that you're enjoying your slightly cooler temps !

Hi NQ, Homely, Stargzr et al.   Just checking in to see who is still posting here since the demise of MD.  I'm silversquirrel/Arizona Sue.   The weather here in the northwest suburbs of Phoenix have cooled slightly.  We're hoping that the triple digits are few by the end of September.  

Our maple trees are turning orange/red but that's about it for now. The cool weather last week really was nice but now we're back in the 80s and high dewpoints, I'm glad I didn't put the cover back on my air conditioner because I will be using it this week. Hopefully my weather won't be heading your way !

I bet it was nice seeing your son and Vermont. Will you have a chance to visit Vermont when it's in full Fall colors, from the pictures I've seen, it looks like the state to see the best Fall colors.

Hi, N Q - Fun to hear about the roots of your technical background! Hope your weather is holding, since it's been a minute since I have been on. Went to Vermont last weekend to visit DS and it was fabulous - trees are just starting to get some color at their tops. Hoping for a beautiful fall!

Homely the Minn state fair wrapped up yesterday with record attendance, which was probably because we had great weather this year, cool instead of hot. Right now we have a cool front going through with rain which is suppose to drop us down into the 40s at night and low 60s during the day for the next 7 days---I LOVE THESE TEMPS ! 

I wish I could find a state to live in that had those temps year round :)

Your firepit meal sounds nice and I've never thought of baking potaoes in one, may have to try that next time I'm at one of my sisters and they have a fire going. 

The only reason I know a little about servers and domains is back in the early 2000s I had a domain and a website where I hosted family pictures. I rented space on a small server, whose owner kept reminding me and the few others that rented space from him, to not add videos to our collections because they used up to much data/bandwidth and he didn't want to pay his internet carrier more because of them.

N Q, you're always better with the technological analysis than am I! And the weather is nothing short of incredible here this weekend. We *did* do a fire pit Saturday evening! My brother in law and his wife came over and we threw some baking potatoes in the embers and roasted hot dogs on sticks for dinner. It was absolutely perfect - hope you're enjoying it and sleeping well! Is your fair all wrapped up for the season? DS went to his county fair - he worked the USAF recruiting tent with their base recruiter - and he had a blast. He loved talking to all the people and he especially loved getting to see all the animals. He is ready to go back!

Homely it could be that the webmaster of Opentopia isn't making enough money off from his "adult" ads that only show up when you're not signed in that he decided to take away the ability to join Opentopia, there's a chance that more people who happen onto this site will click onto the ads as long as they can't join BUT what I really think is that he just gave up on maintaining this site, it could be that he doesn't plan on renewing his opentopia.com domain, domain prices have gone up as has server space and the cost of hosting webcams on a server tends to be high because of amount of data they use.

My temps have continued going down, it's now in the 50s at night, perfect sleeping weather and if you're into it, perfect fire pit temps :)

Well, folks, I've figured out how OT ends after all of these years. I noticed two things a bit ago: the complete absence of the bots and that I can no longer save cams to my favorites. Today I decided to test the theory that the saving features of creating an account have been turned off. I used an alternate email to set up a new account and, though one can go through the process, it terminates in a page that says "Forbidden". Well, you can't leave comments without setting up an account, so that solves the bots, but it also kills the community because only those who already have accounts can leave comments. So, we are effectively stalled and there is no chance for anyone to come in and comment any more unless they are already a registered user. And I do not really know how anyone finds us on the internet, anyway, given the way the algorhythms go these days. It's been a lovely run for about fifteen or so years, though. I'll turn out the lights before I go. I'll keep checking in from time to time and hope to see some of you :-)

Per DH, your weather will be here just in time for the Labor Day weekend. I hope you are able to enjoy the state fair! We still have a few county fairs around here. My kids used to love to go to them when they were in high school - there are also  a couple of pretty famous "haunted forest" places that fire up every year for Halloween and that's a big hit, too. Getting excited for fall here now! Will head up to Vermont to visit DS soon and I'm hoping to see a few early trees :-)

Cheers!

Hi Homely, we've gone from really hot to cool temps out, which is perfect because the Minn state fair is going on and we normally have extremely hot temps for it. Yes I live in Wis but their state fair is only about 30 minutes from me as compared to the Wis state fair which is 5+ hours from me.

My 50° evenings and 60° afternoons is probably headed your way. This is my kind of weather, great sleeping temps, so nice not to have to turn on the air. 

Take care and don't work too hard :)

Well, it's been cool and hot both since I was last on. Got super busy for a few weeks but thought I would check back in on you, N Q, and anyone else who cares to drop in. One complaint about bullying and the place has cleared out, apparently. Glad we still have each other! Or not, if you don't ever come back and respond to this message, LOL

Hello to anyone who is still lurking around out there!