We're Back

We are back from the bottom of the canyon, safe and sound, just can't post anything right now. The second group goes down tomorrow and they are suppose to have an adventure like we did, after all it is called Adventure Caravan, some of them read the blog so I can't say anything right now. Just wanted to let everyone know we made it back and had a great time.

NO BLOG FOR A COUPLE DAYS

Forgot to mention, since we head down the canyon tomorrow we are not going to bring our computers. We come back on Saturday night, so if I'm not to tired I'll write then. It's going to be fun to watch Dave, to see how he handles the withdrawals, wonder if he will go thru seizures or something, will let you all know.
No TV in Creel, our satellites don't work here, so it is going to be a quiet 7 days.

WE ARE HERE IN CREEL

We have made it to Creel and staying at the Hotel Villa Mexicana & Trailer Park, it's a lovely place, yea right. Rocks, dirt, Horse crap all over and no running water, just great. No, they are in the process of finishing the water faucets so the water should be back on in a couple hours, not that we plan on hooking up to it anyway, at least that's what Dave said. We will be here for 7 days, 3 will be down the copper canyon, so Dave thinks we can survive with the water that is in our holding tank, will see. Even if we do hook up it would only be for washing, showering and washing dishes, Huh, sorry no dishes I got paper plates and bowls for that stuff. When we got here the 1st sign you see is "Don't feed the dogs" great there are all kinds of lose dogs running around, mostly male so I'll have to be careful with Valley. Plus, it is raining, so now we have mud and horseshit soaking wet all around us, sorry have to remember the motto of this trip is to be flexible, so I'll just look at this as a new way to trash the inside of the motor home, ha ha. The drive here was interesting, some people here have a suicide wish, they were passing us on roads with lots of turns and doing it whether we were climbing hills or going down them. The drive went pretty smooth, after a rest stop our tail gunner in our pod forgot to turn his CB back on. When we got to a small town and got stopped by a traffic light, I jumped out of the RV and ran back 6 cars to tell him to turn it back on, I got back in time before the light changed. We left this morning at 8:30 and got to our destination at 1:30, wasn't that long of a drive but it was a tough one because of all the hills and curves. Tonight we had a buffet dinner, it was just OK, you would think being here in Mexico you could get good Mexican food, but nothing better then El Patio, in Simi, so far.
Tomorrow Dave and I are in the 1st group that goes down the copper canyon, to go 40 miles it is going to take us about 6 hours, doesn't make sense to me, I guess it is straight down on curves all the way. NO BANOS on the way either.

Chihuahua sight seeing day

We caught our sight seeing bus tour today at 8:30 a.m. We did a city tour of Chihuahua by our tour guide Eduardo, he was very informative and spoke good English. A couple of the things he told us was Chihuahua City has one of the lowest crime rates, unemployment is at 3.5% and their main industry is Gold. He also told us that Mexico City has one of the largest population, 23 million, boy that's a lot of people. Just some facts which I'm sure don't interest you but oh well. Like I said we had the city tour, which the city is very clean, we also visited Pancho Villa's home, the Government palace, a Cathedral and an Exotic Pottery and Basket place. We then had a buffet lunch then back to the RV park by 3pm. At 3:30 was the next days driving meeting and we will all be splitting up in 5 groups, leaving 15 minutes apart. This way so many coaches aren't grouped together, which we really weren't group up before that how most of us thought we were lost, but whatever. We have 4 in our group and we leave at 8:45am, we only drive a little over 150 miles so it should be a short day driving. At 6pm we caught the tour bus again and went out to dinner and before dinner the local college put on a Mexican Folk Dance showing us some of the local custom dances, that was a good show, the students were really good. That's it for now, will write when we get to Creel tomorrow.

DEL FRESNO PARADOR RV PARK

Hell of a day, Hell of a day. We are all here safe and sound at the RV park about 6 miles outside of Chihuahua. The driving had some really tough roads at first, but once we got to the toll roads it wasn't too bad. Some parts had some dips in them back to back that I thought our RV was going to break in halff. Going thru the border somce got pulled over some were waved thru, then there was the Customs Inspection, again some got pulled over but most got waved thru. Then 3 miles later we had to go thru the Military Checkpoint, there they waved everyone thru. The worst part of the drive was going thru parts of Chihuahua to the RV Park, we all got separated and believe me once we found the RV Park everyone wanted a drink. Construction everywhere, plus they drive crazy, but anyway we made it. Now it is 4pm we have been here an hour and it's time for a margarita party, which everyone needs. Will write tomorrow night again.

Sunday night and it's the last blog before heading into Mexico. Vicki decided to stick it out with the bad back, they had until 9:59am to cancel and get back all their money except $500, 250 would have been put as a credit for another caravan and the other 250 the company would pay for. She will just have to take it easy, but we all should have a good time. Lee, Dave and I went out for the Sunday morning breakfast then did some shopping. This afternoon we had a pizza social with the whole group and everyone introduced themselves again. After lunch we went over all our precautions for Mexico, not drinking the water, how to treat our water so we can take showers and do dishes, washing fruits and vegetables before eating, ect. ect. It was all sounding very scary so I made the comment that I guess for the next 41 days we don't eat or take showers, and Helena came back with, that we will be mean, lean machines when we come back. Then we did an orientation on the driving we will be doing tomorrow, rules, speeds, lights ect. Then we had an ice cream social after that, then everyone went back to their coaches, trailers, or 5th wheels and started getting ready. Dumping the black, dumping the grey, filling the fresh water tank to the limit it can hold, and showering for a long time for the last time for a while. I believe the next couple days we won't be hooking up to the water system, so our 100gallons is going to have to last us, I feel for the trailers and 5th wheels because they can't hold that much.
No more phone service, so everything will be done by email or blog.
P.S. I'm very proud of Mike for figuring out how to make comments on my blog. I'll try and drop a line everyday if not it will be every other.

Presidio Texas, what a hell hole
Talk about a place that is in the middle of no where, that's where we are. We arrived Thursday around 3:30pm, as soon as we parked the Tail gunners came over and wanted to talk to us. We weren't too happy about that because we needed to get set up 1st before we could stop and talk.
Happy hour was at 4 and all who had arrived so far got up and introduced themselves then we sat around and talked to about 5:30 then the weather was starting to go to freezing again. Friday morning the Tail gunner's wife, and the Wagon master's wife and the wife of the Tail gunner in training came by to give us all our paperwork for the trip. After they left the Tail gunner, Roger, and the in training Tail gunner, Bob, came by to do an inspection of the coach.
At 1pm a group of us left to go to the border to get our visa's and holograms. We were there for over 3 hours, Dave and I took about 45 min. then we had to wait for everyone else to finish their paperwork. You would think those people could speak some English, but hell no. Another thing is you would think our Wagon master could speak some Spanish to help with all the paperwork, hell no. He had pictures of Motorhomes, Trailers and 5th Wheels for us to show the border people.
After everyone was done with the paperwork, now we know why the Mexicans sneak over the border, paperwork takes too long, we headed for the bank in town to get Pecos. We got back to camp a 5pm and happy hour was going strong, I had to walk the dogs so Dave went over to happy hour. Forgot to mention Vicki yesterday morning threw her back out so around 11am they left for the emergency room because she couldn't move. Of course there is no hospital in Presidio so they had to drive 90 miles back to Alpine, TX so that's why I had to walk the dogs, I was watching Fleetwood their dog. After happy hour the group carpooled over to El Patio for dinner.

Marisa and Shawn you can have the cold weather.
Let me 1st say I'm sorry Marisa and Kelli, you guys had comments on my blog but I never got an email informing me of it, so they are published now. 12/23, 1/2 and 1/8 were the comment dates.

Anyway, back to the cold, here in Ozona it is 25 degrees and it's suppose to be this cold in Mexico too, at least for the 1st week. I am not made for cold weather, although you would think that the xtra insulation I carry around would keep me warm, NOT! Boy, Marisa please please please get lots of warm clothes, Shawn use to live there so he knows all about the warm clothes you need.

Ozona Texas and headed to Presidio Texas
Lee and Vicki made it to the RV Park a little after 5pm and about 6:30 we went to dinner. We went to Hitchin' Post Steakhouse, cute little restaurant, the drinks we ordered from the bar the bartender had to pull out her book to see how to make them. It's a small little hick town, we should have known better then to order something other then beer or wine.
Vicki and Lee got bad news yesterday, bummer on Lee's birthday, but their son is going to Iraq in March. He is in the marines and is a helicopter pilot, he will be stationed there for 7 months then gets to come back home, he will be flying at night so at least that's kind of good, they don't do ground firing at night. He is going to fly out for a week while we are in Mazatlan and stay with Vicki and Lee so we will get to meet him. God, I wish we could get out of Iraq, let's hope so in the near future, our prayers are for all those brave men and women over there and who will be going over in the future.
Later this morning we are headed for Presidio, but we do have to make a Wal-Mart stop in Fort Stockton on the way.

Ozona, Texas
We left Granbury Texas this morning and now have landed in Ozona Texas, waiting for our friends Lee, Vicki and Fleetwood to show up. By the way it is Lee's Birthday today so Happy Birthday Lee. Ozona is a hole in the wall place, it is David Crockett country, they even have a big statue of him, somewhere in town. We are actually staying about 6 miles from town at an RV Park right off the Freeway. But we will go into town tonight to take Lee out to dinner, oh boy, hope we can find a decent restaurant, I think they only have 3 main ones. The next thing they are famous for is their Deerfest, which they have the 1st Saturday of December, every year, and there you get wild game fest. Bear, crocodile, venison, turkey ect. ect. sounds like everything I wouldn't touch, well maybe the turkey I would.
We are just here for 1 night, tomorrow we head out for Presidio Texas to meet up with our fellow caravaners for our Mexico trip.

Tuesday night, 10pm, we had a great two days with Butch and Sharon. We got here Monday about 2:30pm, Dave said it would take us 3 hours to get to Granbury more like 4 1/2 hours. Butch and Sharon live in a gated community called Pecan Plantation, and this place is hugh. It has a couple golf courses, tennis courts, camp grounds, beaches, 2400 acres of Pecan Trees, deer everywhere, believe me it is really big. When we first got close to the plantation, the police had the road blocked off making everyone take a detour, we don't know where the hell we are and our GPS's aren't happy with us taking a turn that they didn't tell us to take, well it ended up there was a big rig that had turned over in the road. Of course the detour is on small roads and we had to wait for the cars coming at us to clear before we could go, needless to say the cars behind us were not happy campers. We finally got to Butch's and we got all settled in at the campsite, walked Valley around then headed to their house. They have a really nice house, the window coverings are great, split packing boxes, their curtains will be in next week. Have to give them a break, they just moved in 2 weeks ago, the house is really great tho. Butch BBQ'd for dinner, we had a couple of bottles of wine and did a lot of talking, very nice evening.
Today, we all went to Costco, us, getting ready for Mexico, them just some things they needed, then we went to lunch. Lunch was at Fundruckers, haven't been to one of those places in years, boy, it was a great hamburger. Butch loaded his up so much that he had to eat it with a knife and fork, the cheese he put on the bun just soaked the bun so you couldn't pick it up, we had a lot of fun.
When we got back we dropped Butch and Sharon off at their house then Dave and I came back to the coach. We put all of the Costco stuff away, then I took Valley walking and Dave went to hit golf balls at the driving range. Which, I did get my walk with Valley in, but Dave didn't get to hit balls at the driving range, something about tokens and no one had any so he ended up hitting the golf balls we have in the campground.
We then went back to Butch and Sharon's for dinner, another great meal, a couple bottles of wine and great conversation. We talked about my mom, Butch's dad, Uncle Jay, uncle Bob, Aunt Ann, Evelyn and Auntie Bee, it was great memories. We left a little after 9pm, had to get back to Valley, plus finish getting really to hit the road again tomorrow.
Texas has good house prices, this place where Butch and Sharon live is pretty nice, I could see it turning into a place like in Florida call "The Villages" my kind of place to live.

Monday morning and it's 30 degrees, the car is frozen, our red car looks white. The other day while walking around with Valley, one of the rangers here stopped me and asked if I was from Alaska, because he was freezing and I was walking around in shorts with my sweat shirt wrapped around my stomach, little did he know I was having a hot flash then. Today we are headed out to Granbury Texas to spend a couple days with my cousins Butch and Sharon, they just moved here to Texas a couple weeks ago. Looking at the weather forecast it's even colder there and just as cold in Presidio Texas, which is the place we all get together before we head out into Mexico for our caravan for 41 days. 41 days, boy that's a long time, the more I think about it, hope we have a good group to hang out with or else the 41 days is going to feel like a life time.

OK, the body is a little sore today, mainly the lower back. Dave's shoulders, knees, and back are hurting him. Yesterday afternoon Dave went on a bike ride with me and it was a little over a mile but up hill all the way. Just getting over the hill in 1000 trails he just about quit on me, believe me it was a tough ride. I had done the ride the day before and I thought for sure he wouldn't make it, but he did. He knows all about switching the gears on the bikes and he had gone down to the lowest ones, but I'm stupid and hadn't known that the lower gears make it easier to peddle, so needless to say I was really working the 1st day. At least it was down hill all the way back, then we stopped and checked out pickle ball equipment, which is 2 paddles and a waffle ball. We watched them play in Orlando so we decided to try and play it, Woody, a guy who was sitting in the lodge said he would teach us how to play. It's like tennis but you play with paddles and a plastic ball. Woody went home to get his paddle so Dave and I went out and started hitting the ball. One time Dave went running for the ball, swung and missed then stepped on the ball by accident, game done, crushed ball. Then he remembered that if you put the plastic ball in hot water it regains it shape again. Woody came back and started teaching us, then it was Woody and Dave against me, then Dave's knee and shoulder were hurting so he said that Woody and I should play a game. Before we started and were just practicing I couldn't get a serve in, if my life depended on it, but once Woody and I started playing, game on. I ended up winning the game 11 to 7, it was fun, Woody and his friend travel around and get in competitions when ever they can so I felt pretty good that I beat him.
I also got over 9 miles of walking in, pretty good day, so I don't mind being sore.

Dave called me a liar this morning after reading my last blog. I said I would write once we got to our destination in Texas and I didn't. We are here in Thousand Trails Lake Conroe in Willis Texas we got here on January 9th.
January 9th was my Nephew Spanky's 30th B/day, so happy belated birthday.
Beautiful weather the 1st morning, 60 degrees, this morning is was 33 degrees, had to get out the warm stuff again to walk Valley around. It's a nice big RV Park, a couple ponds but one hugh lake, which is Lake Conroe but of course, it's not the season so we can't go out on the boats they have here. At least I get to do a lot of walking around and biking too.

We are in Lake Charles, Louisiana in the parking lot of a casino. They were having some break ins to the trailers in Jellystone RV Park, and I was tired of walking thru the place so we decided to cut our driving in half and leave today and finish the drive to Texas tomorrow. Nothing exciting to report, didn't make it to New Orleans because of the football game. New Orleans LSU was playing Ohio State and all the streets were blocked off and tons of partying and people decided it wasn't worth the hassle.
No power so can't stay on the blog long. will write when we get in tomorrow

Boy, am I bad at writing my blog lately. Well it's Sunday night and we are at a new place, we actually got here on Friday afternoon. We are now at Yogi Bear's Jellystone Park Camp and Resort in Robert Louisiana. We were actually here last year in February or March 2007. Of course again, we are here the wrong time of year so nothing here is open, pool, boats for going out on lake, beach area stuff, ect. The only good thing is that means there are no kids here either, well there were some on the weekend but after walking Valley around late this afternoon the kids are all gone now. With a grandchild on the way, we are going to have to get use to being around little ones again, family ones are OK, it's just the trailer trash ones we see on our travels that are monsters, not all just some.
Yesterday afternoon, while Dave and I were walking around the park, we saw a coach pull in that looked exactly like ours. They ended up parking right next to us and it was like looking at a mirror image of our coach. When we went and talked to the guy setting up it ended up being a guy Dave has been talking to on the Monaco forum for the last year. The only difference is they have 3 windows on the front slide where we have 2 big windows. It was fun seeing the changes they have made and they enjoyed seeing the upgrades we have done. They have taken out the dining room dinner table completely and just put in a small computer desk, so basically their whole slide out is empty, which gives their big German Shepard a lot of room to run and play. They have a small table they use to eat meals at that they put in front of the couch, it was interesting to see.
That's about all that's new with us, tomorrow we are going into New Orleans, so will write about that later.

We got back on the road again and now we are in Pine Lake RV Park in Fountain, Florida. We are back in the Central time zone so now we are only 2 hours ahead of you in California. We will stay here for 2 nights then head out to Louisiana again and will stay there for 5 nights.
Dave caught David Jr's cold while we were down at Christmas time and he is still sick. I ended up driving for a few hours today so he could nap, straight highway and I'm good but I hate it when I run into so much construction, driving next to those cement blocks makes me a nervous wreck. We made it with no incidents and didn't even get lost getting here, amazing. Nothing really to report except it is freezing here, high today was 40 degrees and tonight it is going to only be 18 degrees, will have to unhook our water hose so it doesn't freeze. This morning before we left Clermont we had ice on our slides, this damn cold front. I don't have clothes for this cold of weather. That's it for now.
Today was Vickey Alvis's birthday, Happy Birthday.