The Day After......

Here we sit, well fed and well entertained after all the festivities of a family (large family) Christmas celebration. It's nice and quiet in our RV this AM. It's also probably quiet at the Hernadez's as the boys went over to a cousins house last night. Christmas was a most pleasurable experience with all of Eddie's extended family in San Antonio. Seeing Eddie's Grand-parents again (the last time was at the wedding reception in San Antonio some 15 years ago) was one of the highlights of our visit. They add a new dimension to "graciousness and hospitality". The gathering at Al's parents house was full of energy and love. And food, I might add. Nobody goes hungry at a Hernandez or Ramirez gathering:) The family gatherings fill the houses with noise, love, laughter and, always, music. Grandpa Tony, Cecelia's father, is 97 and still very active and engaging. He played the guitar and sang with gusto as we sang the traditional Christmas carols. Later he & Eddie played some of the Mariachi songs & Grandpa Tony & Grandma Amy sang to them. Grandma Amy is also very engaging and makes a wonderful Pecan praline. An added bonus was getting to meet Cecelia's brother & his wife from Mountain Home, ID who are not usually present at these gatherings.
Today we'll take a breather and a ride out to the country and tour one of the recommended scenic routes from a National Geographic book that Cyndi and Eddie gave us for Christmas. We always enjoy those rides.
The picture is of Grandpa Tony, Aaron and Eddie playing the guitars and singing to lead the group in song.

Happy Holidays to all

Still here in Texas and following the weather reports back home with mixed feelings. We're glad we are not there but feel badly for those that are having to shovel in the very cold temps and drive in the snow. On the other hand, we will miss the beauty of a white Christmas (at least so say the local weather prognosticators). Another cold front hit us at 4 AM today with colder temps and high winds (low 40's and 30-50 MPH Gusts). I won't even try to calculate "wind chill" as it would still pale by comparison to the temps in Detroit, Spokane, Rockton and even the Portland/Seattle areas "actual" temperatures.
We have had a great time in San Antonio visiting with Al and Cecelia (Eddies folks) and touring the downtown Riverwalk. It was beautiful at night last week with Al & Cecelia and again yesterday AM when Lou and I went to see it before the weather system came to town. Pics attached.
Al and Cecelia have made our visit very pleasant. Lou has learned to heat tortillas for the lunch fajitas and Al showed me around the garden (that is a better term for what he calls his yard). He has a marvelous variety of plants, bushes and flowers in addition to the 3 pecan trees in the back yard. He has managed to collect some interesting plants like milkweed which is the favorite of the Monarch butterflies. One even came with a caterpillar that turned out to be a Monarch. Their graciousness and hospitality have made our visit to San Antonio a real pleasure.
We are now awaiting the arrival of Cyndi, Eddie and the kids from Detroit. They are scheduled to come in this afternoon and we are "patiently" waiting to see them. It will be a great Christmas here and we hope that it will be for you all also.
It was a bit warm in the RV when we returned from the Riverwalk yesterday so Lou took her sewing machine outside to do a little quilting work. No outside quilting today as it's very windy and the RV is rocking from the gusts.

Still Standing in San Antonio

We are now in San Antonio at a nice RV park just south of SA. We had a delightful visit and dinner with Al & Cecelia, Eddie's parents, at the Riverwalk downtown. The Riverwalk is lit up like a Christmas tree and looks beautiful. Our meal was very good and the company was even better.
We are seriously considering just staying here until after the first of the year although the weather system that came through last night indicated it wanted to move us further south. Steady winds of almost 30 MPH broadsided us with some really serious gusts that really "rocked the boat" kept us moving all night. And, it was a cold wind at that! It was in the mid-30s this AM and will be colder tomorrow AM. At least we didn't get any of the "white stuff" they had in the hill country north of SA.
We attempted to have some BBQ at the "Texas Pride BBQ" last night. It supposedly has "to die for" ribs. After driving 17 miles to get there, it was closed! They are closed Mon & Tues. So, we ate at Bill Miller's BBQ which is the local equivalent of Sonny's BBQ but not anywhere near as good. Oh well, we'll try again in a few days. I also want to try some of the Mexican restaurants here of which there seem to be LOTS of them around the area. I'm sure that Al & Cecelia can give us some good direction there.
Oh! And I've added some new stuff to the RV. We are now the proud owners of an RV with brand new spark plug wires. I'm so proud! It seems to have cured the latest ignition problem. Time will tell:) I'm also the proud owner of a new Mass Air Sensor in the Toyota truck as well. Oh Joy!
No pics today as I forgot to take the camera with me to Riverwalk. Next time for sure.
This looks to be a good day to spend in a shopping mall doing Christmas shopping (if there is a good day for that). It must be done, however.

Seminoles, Shamans and petroglyphs

We are at the Seminole Canyon State Park near Del Rio, TX. It's also close to Mexico but we won't be going any closer. The canyon is named after the Seminole Negros brought from Florida to aid in the battles against the indians. They were apparently excellant warriors.

The canyon has petroglyphs from the "Pecos Man" ancients that go back over 3500 years. There were many sites like this around the area until they flooded the Amistad Reservoir and inundated over 300 of the sites. In this area, water is more precious than history. The large caves where the petroglyphs survived are natural amphitheaters for the religious ceremonies.

The campground here is blissfully quiet. Very nice spot with a grand view of the desert and, in the distance, the mountain ranges in Mexico. Plus electricity, free WiFi and palatable water. Makes for some great sunsets!

On the road again tomorrow. We can't stay another night hear because the park is closing on Sunday for the deer hunt that begins Monday. Judging from all of the "deer blinds" I see all over the area, the deer won't stand a chance. The hunters apparently climb up into these "boxes on stilts" and shoot through narrow openings when they see a deer... or cow, or whatever. Doesn't seem sportsmanlike to me but based on the number of road kill deer I saw today, the deer population is in no danger of extinction.

Pics for yesterdays blog

Top Left - P-38 at War Eagles

Top Right - Texas 54 on the way to Carlsbad from Van Horn. The mountains are the Red rock mountains.

Lower Left - Mt. El Capitan, the highest point in New Mexico. This is in the Guadalupe mountains near Carlsbad.

Lower Right - Lions Tail stalactite formations in Carlsbad Caverns. I took a lot more pics but lighting and flash doesnt work well in a cavern that large.

Now, we're on the road again......

Trucks, Trains, Airplanes, Cattle and Caverns

We had a good day yesterday sharing Interstate 10 with every truck in the world. Traveling from Las Cruces to Van Horn, TX I had a pleasant interlude (for me) at the War Eagles Air museum in Santa Teresa, NM. It is a really nice museum with many of my favorite planes from WWII and Korea. The P-38 that was there had been a Reno Air Racer and was still glossy black with chrome props. It was very menacing in appearance. They intend to reconfigure it back to the original military color/markings when they come up with $10K for the paint job.
We then journyed through El Paso and all the cattle feed lots (whew!) and on to Van Horn, with a 200 mile long truck convoy just past the Time Zone change. We picked an RV Park that was convenient but was not well thought out on our part. It was next to I-10 and a railroad track. Instead of counting sheep, I counted trucks going by. I lost count at 65,128:) That was in addition to "many" trains that were too difficult to count as they all sort of blended into one giant train. It was sort of like disco music. Once you hit the floor, the songs were just continous without a break.
This morning we decided to go north to Carlsbad Caverns. A really beautiful drive up by the Red Rock mountains and views of El Capitan in the Quadalupe mountain range in our windshield . And no truck traffic or trains! Carlsbad Caverns was quite spectacular although we were both surprised as to how dry it was inside. The 10 year drought and the addition of an elevator and lighting has contributed to less moisture in the caverns. They said that years ago water was added to the pools to improve the effects of the caverns. Still very pretty, however.
I'll add some pics on the next blog. The WiFi here is not very cooperative:(

Boulders, Flowers, Thorns & Sunsets

We have exited the State of Arizona and have arrived in New Mexico. We saw a lot of desert and then came through what is called the "Texas Canyon" still in Arizona. The transition from desert to lots of very large boulders was quite dramatic. After we passed the Texas Canyon, it was all desert again. Shortly after that we crossed the Continental Divide. Still lots of desert and even more to go I'm sure.

We are now at a beautiful park, Leasburg Dam State Park, just north of Las Cruces. Really pretty in a desert setting. This is where the pics of the flowers, thorns and sunsets were taken. It was very quiet until a train came by (only one so far and NO horns).

Tomorrow I'll visit the War Eagles Air Museum in Santa Teresa, NM to see some WWII & Korean War era aircraft (always my favorites) on the way to Texas. Since we don't have a schedule of getting out of here and I don't know how long I'll spend at the air museum, we have no idea where we'll settle tomorrow night. Oh Well! I'm retired and we're not scheduled to get into San Antonio until Dec 20th, or so. Routing is variable also so we land where we land. Hopefully it will be in a somewhat civilized spot.

Big Ugly Hole in the Ground

Today we drove down to Tombstone and Bisbee. We didn't stop in Tombstone as it was early and very "tacky touristy" looking. Very predictable, unfortunately. We continued on to Bisbee, AZ which is known for a very large open pit copper mine. It doesn't appear to be larger than the one in Butte, MT but still big... and ugly looking. The color of the water in the bottom of the pit is a little scary looking. Downtown is built in a canyon and everything is up and down, including the houses. Bisbee is a very interesting town full of artsy shops showing gems, indian art, sculptures of all types, lots of antiques and a few coffee shops.

After touring around Bisbee we drove back via Sierra Vista and Ft. Huachuca. The desert scenery is really beautiful and stark as the pics show. We stopped to visit the Historic Fairbank Town and took a picture of the school building. It is pretty much what's left of the ghost town.

Tomorrow is our last day here with power so Lou will get busy with the sewing machine and work on some of her projects. I may do some really important stuff like check fluid levels, air pressures and count the tires. Then, I may go fishing in one of the "lakes" they have here since a license is not required. Supposedly there are bass, catfish and bream in the lakes. We'll see:)

Cactus, Airplanes and Tombstones

After a delightful visit with Lou's 2 nephews, Mike and Kevin, in Chandler, we are on the road again towards Texas. We had a great Thanksgiving (Thank you Kevin and Cindy for including us). Since we took a lot of street space at Mike's, we felt that we needed to get moving. An added impetus was an offer for 5 days and 4 nights FREE at an RV Resort in St. David, AZ. Of course, we'll have to listen to a sales pitch in the AM as an accomodation. But with full hookups, it's still an offer hard to refuse. St. David is between Tucson and Tombstone so the location will allow us to check out the area and revisit the gunfights at the Tombstone OK Corral:)

On the way here, we stopped at the Pima Air & Space Museum so I could go drool over all the neat airplanes there. The collection is very large and diverse including the SR-71 Blackbird and the Super Guppy. Don't laugh, that's what they called it. I was surprised that there was not a P-51, P-38 or F4U Corsair. It turns out that they are being built in a different hangar and not open to the public as yet.

After that, we stopped at the Saguaro National Park and took the drive through tour. Saguaros are a very interesting (and slow growing) species taking 50 years to attain a height of 7 feet. By 100 years the saguaro may have reached 25 feet.

The attached pics should be self explanatory as to airplane or cactus:)

Thanksgiving in Chandler

The turkey is officially dead and consumed. We joined Kevin Burns and his girlfriend's family for dinner today and enjoyed getting to talk with him. Our visit to Chandler has given us the opportunity to visit with Mike and Kevin both. The gathering in Spokane for Grandma Marie's memorial was nice but there was too much going on to actually talk much with either one.
It's actually raining in the Phoenix area! The clouds look like those in the Orlando summer sky. Large cumulonimbus and rain clouds with lightning are really pretty. We'll wait for the weather system to pass on before we hit the road again.
And, yes, I forgot to take the camera with me today - so no pix.
Tomorrow, we'll plan our next destination point to begin the rest of the journey towards San Antonio. We plan to arrive in the San Antonio area around Dec. 20th. Along the way I want to see the Pima Air and Space Museum near Tucson. Perhaps we'll check out one of the "Free 5 Day/4Night offers at one of the resorts along the way. Perhaps not:) We'll know after we call them to see what it's all about.
It's raining again. A really pleasant sound on the RV's roof. Time to sign off for tonight.
We hope that everybody had a great Thanksgiving!

Safe and sound in Chandler, AZ

We have arrived in Chandler to visit with Mike and Eva Burns. We are parked in front of their house and may be here through Thanksgiving before moving on again. We had our mail forwarded here so we can get caught up with the bills and late political stuff:)

The trip from Blythe was uneventful, YEAH!, through a lot of beautiful desert country. I'll worry about pictures on the return from San Antonio. We bought gas at Costco for $1.83/gal. Love the direction that the prices for gas are going:)

Brain is fried so that's all for now. More later.

In the desert oasis

Here we are, at last, on the edge of the CA/AZ border outside of beautiful(?) downtown Blythe, CA. What a great place to spend our anniversary, huh? Friday, we had a delayed departure from Lompoc because we both wanted to go see Solvang before we left. The delayed departure put us in the middle of Friday rush hour traffic in the LA area. It's a REALLY BIG area for traffic. It slowed our travel significantly with stop and stop and go (a little bit) and stop. Well, all the "stops" did a number on the brakes. They got hot and started to disappear. Finally made it across 24 lanes of traffic (actually 4) and got off in Irwindale to check them out. We have now joined the legions of RV'rs that have stayed at a Walmart! whoopee.... It was noisy but allowed me to verify the brakes were still OK after they cooled. Hit the road again in the AM.

Made it to Beaumont and stayed in a very nice County Park up on a hillside Saturday and Sunday nights. Price was nice also. With the Passport America discount, it was only $6 per night. (Paul's idea of "nice" is almost empty:) The stop there also allowed us to catch up on our laundry and for me to get a much need haircut.

On the way here we visited a Costco in Coachella for provisions and Gas for the RV. $1.84/Gal!! Then we visited Love's Truck Stop to dump the tanks and T/A America for propane. 3 hours later, we have full gas, water tank and empty holding tanks. Not many miles covered today but great progress in maintaining our valuable resources.

Tomorrow, we may make it all the way to the Phoenix area, or not. We will see the Mike Burns family while there and spend Thanksgiving somewhere yet to be determined. We need to find a spot for a week or 2 to rest up for the final dash to San Antonio for Christmas. At 150 to 200 miles per day, we need to monitor our progress and plan accordingly as to where we'll be staying between Phoenix and San Antonio as well as in the San Antonio area. It is a 5-6 day run with the RV and do not want to be late!

More new parts!

Slowly rebuilding the old motorhome on this trip. First was the transmission. Today, we added a new distributor cap and rotor. Much less expensive than a transmission. Anyway, the engine is purring smoothly once again and the transmission is shifting as it should. We got lucky again with a competent and honest truck mechanic that diagnosed our problem starting with the simple things (spark plug wires, etc) and then the distributor. He didn't even try to sell us a new distributor! I'm still tired of meeting the mechanics on our journey but it seems to be inevitible these days, even for those with much newer rigs than ours.

We enjoyed our visit to San Simeon and Cambria. Saw the Hearst Castle (from a distance) and some more beautiful beaches and cliffs. We stopped at the Elephant Seal Viewing at Piedras Blancas where the elephant seals come to rest and procreate. They keep the beach pretty busy with a diversified schedule.

Sept-Oct is the time for the young-of-the-year and juveniles to haul out to rest.

November is when the subadults males haul out. Mature males begin arriving at the end of the month.

December - The bulls continue to return. Females arrive. The first birth is usually mid-month.

January - Females continue to arrive. Peak of births usually last half of month.

February - Births continue. the peak of the mating is around Valentines Day. More females leave.

March - Last adults leave. Weaned pups teach themselves to swim.

April - Females and juveniles return to molt.

May - Females and juveniles molt.

June - Subadult males molt.

August - Last of males molt

Then, it start all over again.

When you first see them on the beach, it looks like a lot of driftwood laying around... until they move.

We are now in a county park in Lompoc, CA, just south of Vandenberg AFB. Tomorrow we journey Eastward which means we will avoid LA and miss seeing family in the San Diego Area.

We are getting a little travel weary of spending 1,2 or 3 nights in different places and are looking forward to being able to stay put for a week or 2 or 3 or 4 at a time. So, it's onward to Arizona where there are no beaches.

This trip has very pleasantly provided beautiful weather with the exception of 3 days of rain in Redding which was really quite enjoyable, however. Otherwise, it has been splendid. While most here are wishing for rain (it's very much needed) it has been great for traveling. The reservoirs are all very depleted and boating activity has been greatly restricted.

We've seen lots of wine country, strawberry, lettuce, cabbage, artichoke and other farms that are struggling with the reduced water supplies. While they need the water, we have enjoyed what we have had.

Yes, It's that pretty!

At last, a wireless signal for the computer! Time to update the blog. Caught up with our mail in San Jose. Thank you Marty for your asistance there.

From the Coyote Lake County Campground in Gilroy, we took a drive down the coast from Monterrey to Lucia. It was beautiful, sunny, clear and warm. Traffic was light and much more pleasant to drive than I remembered it to be since it was a Monday. Previously (40+ years ago, it was a weekend trip with the rest of the population on the road) it was a real parking lot.

Today is Wednesday, the 19th and we are at the San Simeon State Park. Yesterday was in the high 70's, today will be high 60's but still sunny and bright. We'll journey up the coast towards Lucia (to complete that coast highway section) but will skip the Hearst Castle tour ($20/person) and enjoy the day. Very nice town close by, Cambria, where we'll do a little running around.

The pix are of the campground area in Gilroy and, obviously, the coast highway and beaches plus an interesting roadside erosion area.

Can you smell the Eucalyptus??

Here we are nestled in among the eucalyptus trees in the Anthony Chabot Regional Park. It's 6 miles North of Castro Valley and 10 miles East of Oakland.

At the moment, there is only 1 other RV in the area but that will change this evening when the rest arrive. It will still be nice as there is plenty of space between the sites.

We will try to see Kelly Burns (if she can get back from Rhode Island), Marty Burns and Jon, Kirsten & Amalia while in the area the next 2 days before we head further South. We also hope to get connected with our mail which we had forwarded to Marty:)

The weather is absolutely beautiful. Sunny, 70's and a nice breeze (could "breeze" up to 40 MPH this evening) which is very fragrant with the smell of the eucalyptus trees. We had a very nice time at the Rancho Seco Reg. Park and visited Angels Camp and Columbia. We stopped by and saw what was a "recreation" of Mark Twains cabin where he wrote about the jumping frogs of Calaveras County. Didn't see any frogs, however.

I'll try to update any success of meeting up with the relatives tomorrow. For now, it's relax time.

Know the way to San Jose??

We're not there yet. We are now at the Rancho Seco Recreation Area nestled nicely by a beautiful lake and 2 monstrous cooling towers from a deactivated nuclear power plant. Quite a skyline here in the mostly flat cattle country near Ione, CA.

Last night we stayed at the Indian Grinding Stone State Park not too far from here at Volcano, CA. Very interesting place. There is a very large granite stone with lots of indentations where the Miwok indians ground the acorns and other nuts they gathered. Lots of history in the Gold rush area.

Today we took a drive up to Placerville, one of the first gold rush towns. Unfortunately, it's turning into a yuppie tourist haven like many of the other gold rush towns. We'll visit Angels Camp tomorrow and take a ride up toward the Sierra Mountains unless it snows:)

We'll be here 1 more night then head down to the San Jose area to see more family. I'll update again tomorrow after our jaunt to Angels Camp.

AH!! In Vino, Veritas

We had a great time yesterday visiting some (many?) wineries in the rolling hills of the local wine country. Tasted some very fine wines and munchies plus a few wines that were not exactly stellar at least to our individual pallets. We could get used to this part of Central California but certainly NOT the traffic! There appears to be an over abundance of people, all of whom are driving their car in singular mode.

We'll spend the next couple of days here enjoying the company of our parking hosts and doing some more touring of the area. There is much to see here with the history of the gold rush and railroad days. We won't see all of it on this trip. Maybe on the next one:)

Sunshine and Wines

A beautiful day in Roseville, CA. Yesterday, we traveled from Bidwell Canyon near Lake Oroville to Roseville, via Marysville, to visit with Lou's cousin. The camp sites at Bidwell are "Yellowstone Level" as Adam and Aaron may remember from our trip there this past summer. We almost had enough leveling blocks to level the rig but were able to sleep without sliding out of the bed.

We are currently parked in front of their house (WAHOO, Free Camp Spot). Today, we will enjoy the sunshine (low 70's) and visit the wine country. Many think that all of California is wine country but our trip yesterday proved that wrong. We passed through walnut, pistachio and olive orchards plus many other crops like strawberries and unknown veggies. The route took us down a number of connecting farm roads, narrow and unmarked but our GPS got us here with no problems. At least 1 more night here in Roseville before we continue our journey toward the Gold Rush country of Angels camp.. or thereabouts.

Did I mention the wines? We had a glass of Double Dog Dare, Cab Sauvignon last nite. For $1.67 / bottle, it was really good. Not Rosemount or Arbor Crest, for sure, but a good table wine. May even get a couple of bottles for the trip to enjoy down the road.

Still here in Whiskeytown

Whiskeytown Lake looking West




Remnant of Town of Whiskeytown


The rains have quit for now so construction on the arks has slowed. Today was a really exciting day. We did laundry at a laundromat! Interesting experience indeed.


Weather very pleasant today, cool but pleasant. On our way back from town we noticed the mountain directly behind us had a significant accumulation of the "white stuff" on it. Time to move on southward.


A couple of pictures attached to show the area when it isn't raining. The lake and surrounding area is really pretty. The General Store picture shows all that is left of the town of Whiskeytown.

Tomorrow, we'll move on and head toward Roseville, just NE of Sacramento. We'll spend the night somewhere between here and there. Thursday, Fri & Sat nights we'll be parked in front of relatives house. After that, who knows just where we'll land. We'll worry about that on Saturday or Sunday.

Welcome to Whiskeytown

A couple days of R&R in beautiful downtown Whiskeytown. Actually, we are outside of Redding , CA at the Whiskeytown National Recreation Area on Whiskeytown Lake. Whiskeytown was an actual town during the gold rush days until the dam was built forming the lake. Since the town was inundated with water, they named the lake Whiskeytown. It's a really pretty area, just a little damp with the rains from the Pacific storms. We'll probably just be here 1 more night before heading down towards Sacramento. At $3.50 per nite the price isn't too bad at all:)

The new tranny is performing as expected, nice and smooth. We discovered a small leak around the kitchen window that I'll work on when we hit a dry spell. Not sure yet just where the water is getting in.

While the stew is cooking in the slow cooker, we'll take a drive over to Weaverville (a little West of here) and look around. I've still got to get used to being a "tourist". Too many years living in Orlando, I guess. Enough for now, I'm going to read my book and listen to the pitter patter of rain drops on the roof for a while.

Our best to all!

On the Road..... Again

After contributing mightly to the local economy of Bend, OR we are once more on our way south. The transmission was indeed quite ill. We lucked out with a really good (best in town, possibly state) transmission repair shop, Scott's Performance. He happened to have a new tranny in stock that he had been saving for his own RV. The options were to get the new one and be out the same day or have our old one rebuilt and be on our way in 4 days. The cost was equivalent so we now have a brand new transmission with which to continue our journey. We are quite a bit poorer but in good spirits just the same.

After spending the night in a repair shops parking lot at no charge, we are now in Redding, CA where it is raining with vigor. In fact, it has been raining pretty much all day so we passed on going to Crater Lake as we wouldn't have been able to see much and we may have encountered some of that white stuff. We are not prepared for that white stuff!

Tomorrow we are expecting more rain from the Pacific storm that is working it's way across the state but will head south anyway as it may be a little warmer rain:) We'll work out where and how to get there this evening but it will be around Angels Camp or Sacramento or ??????

Our best to all who are trying to follow this ramble.

Paul & Lou

A Little Speed Bump in the Road

After a great evening in Plymouth, we hit the road on the way to Bend, OR to get a small water leak repaired. Approaching Redmond, I noticed that I no longer had Overdrive (transmission issue). Stopped to check the Trans fluid level. When we resumed, we only had Low Gear. No shifting. AAA to the "rescue". Got towed down to Bend to a transmission repair place. We are now "camped" in the parking lot awaiting the word on the status of our transmission tomorrow AM. We had considered spending a couple of days in Bend anyway, just not in a repair shop parking lot:( At least they provided a electrical connection for us.

Otherwise, we have had a great trip through the high desert of Oregon. Tomorrow will be even better, we hope.

Day 1 on the road:

Made it all the way to Plymouth.......WA. Left after lunch and hit the road at last! Found a really great US Army Corps of Engineers campground with Electric and water for only $9/nite. You gotta love the 50% discount with the Golden Age Passport. There has to be some advantages to growing older.

Weather nice but cool, so far. Rain forecast for the weekend. Oh well, it's been some time since we had rain. We'll probably go as far as La Pine, OR tomorrow. Not much to see or do between here and there to slow us down, we think. Who knows? We are retired and could get mesmerized by some totally unusual desert or cactus formation and spend a couple of days pondering why we are sitting here staring at a cactus.

Enough for now, more tomorrow perhaps.

Paul

On the road again.......

Almost all packed and ready to go. Need to shut off electric to some appliances, secure from shore poser, crank up the beast, attach Toyota pickup and GO! After we eat lunch, that is. No idea how far we get this afternoon but it doesn't really matter does it? I'm retired and no specific schedule to follow other than Christmas in San Antonio with a bunch of really great people.

More to follow as we progress from the peak of fall colors in Spokane to the WA and OR desert climate. Supposed to get some rain Friday and Saturday so it may affect our plans to visit Crater Lake. We'll worry about that when we get there.

Ready, Set, Go!

The Bounder is being packed (stuffed) and is certainly approaching the Gross Vehicle Weight allowed with the provisions. We'll work the consumables off soon enough. Still waiting for some last minute items coming via snail mail. Then it's getting the AirCard for the computer, haircut, get rid of aluminum cans, disconnect Comcast, etc, etc. Might take a few days to get it all done but it will get done!