The Mind is 25 but the hurting body is 50

Wednesday morning, Dave and I were sore, but I managed to get in about a 7 mile walk, Valley went with me for about 3 miles, and Dave joined us and walked about 2 miles. Dave and I then went over to play pickle ball with the better players about 9:45am. There was another couple, Rick and Shirreen, that showed up at 11am for lessons. After their lessons, we, meaning, Lee, Audrey, Dave and I asked them if they wanted to get together at 4pm to practice playing, which they did. But before any of us left we played another 6 games and didn’t leave the courts until almost 1pm, and we were going back at 4pm, we must be crazy. We got back to the coach, had a little lunch then for me it was lay out in the sun and nap, and Dave just snoozed away in the coach. When we all showed up at 4pm, since there were 6 people, and it’s only 4 on a court, Linda and Rick (yes, another Rick) said they would play with us too. We didn’t get back to the RV until 6pm. Boy, were we exhausted, and sore. I told Dave when we go tomorrow there is no way I am staying and playing that long, we are leaving soon and I have things to do in the coach, like rest. Don’t get me wrong, I love doing this and Dave is pretty good at this sport, but I have a problem, I keep running and trying not to miss any of the balls, when everyone else says “if you have to take more than 2 steps you just let it go” I just don’t follow that saying. In my mind I am still 25 but the body says “No Way in Hell”. I feel kind of bad for Valentine, she has to hear us moan in pain all night long, no wonder she sleeps all day long.

Thursday, I got in about an 8 mile walk before we left for pickle ball. We got to the courts and played for 2 hours and said that was enough for now. The other 2 couples that were beginners with us, Audrey, Lee, Rick and Shirreen , didn’t show up at all. I know Audrey and Lee the night before had caught colds, so I kind of knew they wouldn’t show, but the other couple are in their early 50’s so they should have shown up, must have been too sore. Anyway, Dave and I went back at 4pm, and no one was there, so we played 2 games by ourselves then came back to the coach.
Our next door neighbors, here in 1000 Trails, stopped by and told us they had just gotten back from town and diesel fuel was selling for $4.29 a gallon. What the hell? This is getting ridicules, now because of the fuel prices, plus the way the stock market is going, we are thinking about maybe we should stop travelling around and just settling down in one of the houses in Arizona. We can put the RV in storage and just use it when we have put enough money away from the part time jobs we will need to get. (Just kidding, hopefully, but then maybe not)
This fuel stuff is really putting a damper on our future short term plans, after New Mexico, then Bakersfield we had thought we would travel to Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Redding, Sacramento, Oakland, all to see family but now we have to rethink everything. We might only make it to Oakland and Sacramento then just park our butts in Bakersfield, Yuk, because of the heat, until next October when we go to the balloon festival in New Mexico. We just don’t know, and we may even have to cancel our Louis and Clark trip next May 2009 if the fuel prices don’t improve.
OK enough wining, tomorrow morning after my walk we will go for pickle ball again then we have an appointment at 2pm to do an inspection of our rental units, need the write off for our taxes. Saturday we head to Tucson Arizona for 2 nights then on to Las Cruces New Mexico for the Holiday Rambler Rally.

PickleBall

Went tonight and met up with Lee and Audrey and played 3 games of pickleball, and Dave and I won all 3 by a long shot. We said we would go down tomorrow at 9:30am and hope the pros are tired by then and maybe we can play against them. You need to play against better people if you want to get better, but it sure is good exercise.

Back to Cottonwood, AZ

Time to get caught up again; it’s been a week since I last wrote.
I forgot to mention in my “Welcome back to Bakersfield” blog besides the other good news I wrote about, Kim in hospital, Valley with heart murmur, and having to take Chelsea in to have her put to sleep, I had forgotten to mention that we got a notice that they are thinking about putting in a Freeway right where are house is in Bakersfield. They were having a neighborhood meeting Tuesday night and we couldn’t go to it, so someone that Danny works with lives in the neighborhood and was going to keep us informed on the outcome. The meeting turned out to be nothing so far, so we didn’t miss anything yet, Kim and Danny will just have to keep their eyes and ears open for what is going on.
Last Tuesday, late afternoon, Dave and I drove to Ontario to stay at a hotel so we would be near the church for my brother’s funeral the next day. David Jr. drove in late that night and stayed in our room too. Kim had called earlier and said she was feeling better and was done with the IV’s at the hospital and asked if she could come to the funeral and we told her NO she had to stay home and rest.
Wednesday was totally amazing to us, my brother had over 1,000 people who attended his funeral. There were fire engines, fire trucks, fire service trucks, hotshot trucks, you name it and it was there. Governor Arnold couldn’t make it but he sent a representative to come and speak on his behalf. They had so many Fire Chiefs speaking and everyone else that spoke, the church was packed. The service itself was over 2 hours long then the family had to wait for all the service personal to leave the church so they could all line up and we then walked single file thru that line, very interesting. They had another small service outside, with bagpipes playing, then a service guy playing the trumpet, and then they did a helicopter fly by, where one veers off for a fallen firefighter. The highway patrol blocked off the streets and closed the 10 freeway for the funeral procession, which was probably 3 miles long. Once we got to the cemetery the family lined up and they had every fire engine, trucks ect. Drive by for us to see. I am just so very sorry I didn’t know how important my brother was to the community, it’s too bad our communication was basically cut off years ago, but we all still did love each other even though we weren’t close. He is a lucky man now because he gets to be with our parents now.
Because they listed his death as a stroke, work comp is now not going to pay the hospital bill, which is about 235,000.00. They pay for everything else just not a stroke, so the fire department top guns have drafted up a bill which was being presented to Governor Arnold last week to have the Work Comp wording changed so strokes are covered, the bill is called the “Tomaselli Bill”. Let’s hope everything goes well with that, after all he was driving to a fire when the stroke happened, it work didn’t cause it I don’t know what else would. After the funeral on Wednesday, Dave and I went to my nephew’s house, Jimmy, to eat then we headed back up to Bakersfield. Once we got to Bakersfield my brother, Mike, called and said my 94 year old uncle, who had just gotten out of the hospital the day before, he had a pace maker put in, had fallen and broken his hip, great more good news. Then Mike called again on Thursday and said that my brother, Vance’s, house was broken into probably the police said when the funeral was going on, please can’t this family get a break. Speaking of break, my niece’s husband, Shawn, was playing soccer and broke his ankle right before they were moving to Colorado. Enough of the bad news.
Dave, Valley and I drove back to Cottonwood on Friday morning; it took another 8 hours to drive it. Saturday, we went walking in the morning, played a little pickle ball then went to Costco. That afternoon we did bike riding for awhile, it just feels so good to be able to get out and exercise again. Sunday was cleaning the rig again, this time Dave emptied out the underneath and vacuumed and I emptied out the inside cupboards and cleaned them all up. Finally getting all the dirt from Mexico out of the RV, what a mess it had gotten. Monday, Valley and I walked our 5 miles, I think it was a bit long for her, and Dave took the car to the dealership because the “Service Engine Soon” light starting coming on again. Well it was due for 90,000 mile check-up, the car has 98,000 miles on it, plus they said the warning light means the fan clutch is bad. We had to have that fan clutch replaced while we were in Canada last September, and the work was done by a GM Dealer in Canada but Canada’s computer doesn’t talk to the US computer so it doesn’t show the work being done. I couldn’t find our receipt from Canada so Dave called the dealership there and they faxed the work order over. Thank goodness too because now the new fan clutch they put in is under warranty, so it only cost us $450 for the rest of the work that needed to be done. When the car was done Dave and I decided to walk over and pick up the car, which was only about 2 1/2 miles away, the only bad thing was it was all uphill to get out of the 1000 Trails RV park, then at 3pm we rode out bikes over and played pickle ball again.
This morning Dave had cramps in his legs, his sides are sore, shoulder hurts, me, my legs are sore because I must have walked 10 miles yesterday and my sides are a little sore. I did take Valley out for a 5 mile walk then I dropped her off and walked another few miles, no pain no gain, right? At 11am Dave and I went over and got pickle ball lessons, at 4pm tonight another couple that is learning how to play we will meet them and practice together.
Go to Goggle and put in Vance Tomaselli and all the articles should show up
or go to www.vancetomaselli.blogspot.com and watch the video

House boat trip

We took a house boat trip while on our Mexico trip




Everyone on board
Not much water

Welcome back to Bakersfield

We drove 544 miles yesterday and got to Bakersfield about 2pm and Kim wasn't feeling good. She said she was going to call in sick on Tuesday so she could come down with us to Riverside on Tuesday afternoon for Vance's funeral on Wednesday. You shouldn't plan on calling in sick because you sometimes jinx yourself and you really do get sick. Well, it happened, Kim was sick, she ended up calling into work sick on Monday night, she couldn't hold anything down. All night long she was sick so 1st thing this morning she called the doctor and they told her to get to the hospital. Dave went with her to the hospital, Valley had a vet appointment so I took her there, better me then Dave. They mainly wanted Kim in to get an IV in her for fluid and Dave could handle that one. Anyway, Valley had ear infections and now they found a heart mermer (can't spell). Danny left school and met Dave and Kim at the hospital where she is now on her second IV, but doing fine. Today Dave was going to take Kim and Danny's dog, Chelsea, in to have her put to sleep, but guess who's shoulders it falls on now.
Boy, this is turning out to be a great week for all of us, welcome back to Bakersfield.

All Alone

Yesterday we got going from Amado, Arizona and headed for Cottonwood, Arizona and the drive was about 5 hours long. We got to 1000 Trails and while just starting to drive around and look for a campsite Dave cut a corner too sharp and we hit a bolder and wood post, oh well another dent. Luckily I spotted the post in time or else we might have really done some damage, as it was we hadn’t finished the turn yet. We had to get out and unhook the car, then I got behind the wheel of the RV and Dave guided me on how to get the RV out of that situation. Most of the dents, so far knock on wood, have been to this one panel on the RV so it looks like we will just have to replace the one panel, but we will hold out for a while just in case. We got all set up then had to make a run to Wal-Mart, remember we had just about eaten everything that was in our refrig and freezer except all the seafood we had brought back. We just got enough for Saturday night’s dinner and for Sunday. Will restock everything next week when we get back from Bakersfield.
While sitting around it had donned on us that this was the 1st time since January 13th that we were alone. Since January 14th, we have either been with family, friends or our new friends from our Mexico Caravan. I guess we should get use to it since we really don’t have any friends, or at least that’s what our daughter tells us. When we stop motor homing and move into a house in Arizona then she can say we really don’t have friends, because the only person we know in Cottonwood is the real estate agent, who I do keep in touch with.
Today we are alone too, so I’m doing laundry, emails, pictures and blogging and Dave is shopping at Home Depot, things are back to normal, god we are exciting people. We do have TV back so at least we don’t have to stare at each other, and I must say I sure didn’t miss those stupid commercials. Plus, we have phone service back too, we are so use to not using a phone that every time we leave now we forget our phones, or at least Dave does, I had no problem hooking that to my side again.
I must say it is nice being back in the U.S. and being able to go walking around with Valley again, there aren’t tons of lose dogs running around like there were in Mexico. I must say though the people in Mexico are a hell of a lot friendlier then they are back in the states. In Mexico everyone says Ola(Hi) you need any kind of help they stop and help you no questions asked. We get back here and walking around the park and say Hi to someone and they ignore you or a void eye contact, weird how that works. That’s alright; I’ll take the U S of A any old day.
This is the last blog for a week, not taking my computer down to California with us, will get all caught up when I get back.

Back in the USA

We made it back safe and sound, and that's a miracle in itself. The road to get to the border was horrible, I have never seen so many holes in both sides of the roads before. Nancy and Dan had emailed Bob before we left and they had popped 2 tires when they left a couple days earlier, now we know why. Thank goodness none of us had any problems but it really was a nightmare. We were thinking about going back to San Carlos next October but if we have to go on that road again, forget it.
It took us 1 hour and 25 minutes to get thru the border, heck of a long line. They did come in and take the ham lunch meat, salami, and frozen turkey lunch meat, they never asked where we had been, what we purchased or anything, weird. All but 2 RVs stopped at De Anza Trails RV Resort to spend the night, it had been a long day. We had left at 7:20am and got all set up by 5pm, just in time for 1 more happy hour then dinner. We head out today for Cottonwood, Arizona where we will leave the RV and drive the car to Bakersfield on Monday.

Farewell to Mexico

This is it, we head out today for the border, boy I sure hope things go smoothly. We have listed everything that we have in our freezer and everything we have purchased. If we are lucky we will get right thru but we have heard stories where you can be held there for hours. We are hoping that if we all show up at the same time they will not want to mess with all of us, will have our fingers crossed.
We really did have a fun group of people, except, one couple but luckily they left us a couple weeks ago. It did go by pretty fast, I can't say we would do this again, it was some hard roads and dirty campsites but at least we can say we've been there and done that.
We have made some great friends on this trip and plan to get together again. There are about 5 of us that will be going to the balloon festival next October so that should be fun.

RV and Car are Clean Again in San Carlos

Monday morning I cleaned this RV for 4 ½ hours, I can’t believe all the dirt and sand that was all over. By 12:30 I had had enough, while I was cleaning Dave was washing Valley, visiting with people then decided to shave Valley. What a mess Valley turned into, she had high patches, bald patches, she looked like she was dying a slow death, and she looked like some of the Mexican dogs we had seen that needed to be put out of their misery. The only difference was Valley has meat on her bones, lots of meat compared to them, anyway, next thing I know Dave takes off in the car to look for a groomer to try and fix Valley’s strange shave. He didn’t find one so we hid Valley inside the RV so no one could see her plus so she wouldn’t get sunburned on the bald spots. When the rest of our group showed up from Alamos Dave went over and asked Dan and Nancy, who use to own a dog grooming business, if they could possibly try and fix Valley up so she at least looked a little presentable. They did their best, they would have kept going but after 1 ½ hours I said that was enough, they were killing their backs and knees, but we sure to appreciate what they did for us.
Dave had washed the car with the power washer when we first got here, but then had the guys in the park wash the motor home again. They did a great job, it almost looks like they waxed it again, but since we had it waxed in Guadalajara, it didn’t need to be done again. They only charged a $1.00 a foot, not a bad deal.
Yesterday morning we went on a nature boat tour for a couple hours, we saw lots of birds, sea lions and dolphins. We drove around town with Jackie and Bob and went condo hunting, such a deal a new 2 bedroom condo, that will be finished next year right on the water, for only $407,000.00, they even supply a rental company that will rent it for you the months that you aren’t there, amazing. It is beautiful here so we are thinking about coming back after the balloon festival in New Mexico next October but the RV Park is about our limit on what we can afford around here.
Oh, Dave never went diving, but today he is off playing golf with Lee, Larry, and Bob so the girls are going to have a play day, we leave at 10. Will write more later.

Fixed the Power We Stay

Well I played with the surge protector and convinced it that 133 volts was 130 volts so it would let us connect to the shore power...and it worked....we have shore power. So I guess we will stay till Feb 29. The view out the window is great lots of boats and then the Sea of Cortez. As Jeri said the weather is fine about 80 degrees and a nice brezze. We are getting everything clean there must be dirt everywhere. Now back to Jeri and her funny stories.

San Carlos

We made it safely to San Carlos, we only hit one low hanging tree branch right before we got to the RV Park. Nice looking park, paved roads, patio outside the rig door then rocks. It also has a pool and a restaurant and great views but still couldn't get TV or electric. There is electric but it puts out too high of voltage, over 130, so we are hoping that once everyone gets here today and they hook up that will be enough to make the voltage even out, if not Dave said we are out of here. He doesn't want to be here running the generator the whole time for AC and power, will see. Today its cleaning day, try and get all the dirt out of the inside of the rig, hopefully get Valley washed, just generally clean everything and everybody.
Temps here in the 80's and we were able to get 3 channels on cable and the weather in the states sounds terrible, we better enjoy this while we can.

Leaving Alamos and headed to San Carlos

The walking tour yesterday was another bust. The guide told us a lot of history about Alamos, which was interesting, then we car pooled to a Casa that was for sale, so I think on the side he is a real estate agent. The house was nice reduced from 410,000 to 340,000 5 bedrooms, 5 baths, 2 outside BBQ areas, it was nice but you would have to stick another 200K to bring it up to our standards. It would make a hell of a Bed and Breakfast, great viewing area, and you could get a maid/cook for about 3K a year. After that we drove into town and we walked around looking at the outsides of mansions. These mansions take up just about a whole city block, outsides only we saw, then to the church. Thank goodness it only lasted 2 hours. We then went back to camp and relaxed and read, later on Dave and I walked back into town and walked around then stopped and had lunch.
We had another dinner last night with the group at Casa La Aduana, very nice place and my dinner was great, Dave's was just OK.
That's it for now, we are leaving the group and going ahead to San Carlos where they will all meet up with us tomorrow afternoon.
Wish us luck on getting out of this small campsite, will let you know once we get to San Carlos how many more dents we get.

Alamos - 7 Days Left

There are things I forget to mention when I get behind in writing, so here are a few.

I did mention that Dave hit the tree trunk when he was pulling out in Mazatlan. I don’t believe I mentioned, and I’m not going back to look, but George and Patricia had hit a retaining wall when we left Guadalajara. Then once we got to Guasave, Roger, our new acting Wagon Master, was helping Carl back up his Motor Home and Carl back right into another Motor Home. They took out the front mirror and windshield. The motor home they hit was another Adventure Caravaner, not in our group, but was leaving the next day to Mazatlan. That group was doing the same tour we were doing only they left from Nogales instead of Presidio, and ours ends in Nogales. George got his 5th wheel fixed in Mazatlan so I’m sure that other caravan guy will be able to get his fixed there too. I have no idea if we will or Carl will be able to get our rigs fixed before we leave this country.
We are in Alamos now, a very small RV Park, more dirt and trees that Dave had to cut the limbs so we could even open our slides. Charlie and Gayle went ahead to San Carlos, they were smart, Charlie had said he was tired of all these small camp sites, and we know that San Carlos is paved and large; we might leave Sunday instead of waiting until Monday. That’s if we can get out of the site we are in, it took forever to even get into the spot, thank goodness Lee was here to help Dave, Roger too but we don’t trust his parking ability, especially after Carl’s incident. (Just kidding, shit happens)

At 4:30 we had a little gathering with snacks then the street vendors showed up, selling belts, dresses, shirts, purses ect. At around 8pm a group of us drove into town with the Wagon Master and his wife to check out the town, we drove around a little then parked and went into a bar and listened to 3 guys on their guitars, an almost Mariachi Band, got back about 10pm.
Today it’s a walking tour of Alamos then tonight dinner. You know when we leave this place I sure won't miss these damn lose roosters and chickens not to mention all the lose dogs around here making noises starting at 4:30 in the morning.

Mazatlan-San Blas and all caught up

While in Mazatlan Dave and I went into town to buy new front tires for our car. Dave had noticed that our front bumper was kind of hanging off so when he went to put it back on he noticed the front inside of the tires were bald. We went to Wal-Mart, they sold tires but they didn’t mount them, we went to Sam’s Club, they didn’t have our size tires. We went to a tire store and they were going to have to order them and that would take 2 days, but they said if we wanted a little bit smaller tire we could be out in a ½ hour, and pay 560. Dave said we would keep looking and right down the street was another tire place that had the right size delivered to them while we waited and it only cost us 350.00, good thing we kept looking.
The next day we drove into town, found a parking place then grabbed a taxi to take us to the seafood market place, then on to the market place. No parking around there that’s why you take a taxi all around, we loaded up on shrimp and scallops then in the market place we got Danny’s family soccer shirts, which they had asked for and Kim a handmade Mexican dress.
The rest of the tours we had in Mazatlan were OK, should have stayed home and laid out but we didn’t we hung with the group.
In San Blas, I didn’t really mention that place but when we arrived, because of all the tough Topas our front grill was hanging off. It seems the screws came out of the right hand side, so I got pictures of all the guys working on our coach. When we were getting ready to leave the place to head out for Mazatlan, the Wagon Master could get one of his jacks up, Lee’s electrical wasn’t working and John’s trailer hitch was almost off, so that was a very tough road.
While leaving Mazatlan, Dave tried to go around a tree stump, and the stump won, oh well, another new dent in the RV. As long as no one looks at the right side of the rig we will be OK. We have now been in Guasave for 3 days and we leave this morning for Alamos. We have been parked on the beach these 3 days and the rigs are all full of sand and dirt. Not even going to bother cleaning it until we get on solid ground again. We will be in Alamos for 3 nights then onto San Carlos where we will finally be parked on solid ground. This adventure ends in 8 more days, but we have signed up for 2 more adventures, next October back to Albuquerque for the Balloon Festival, then next May we are doing a 43 day Lewis & Clark Trail adventure.
One more thing, our Wagon Master didn't make it to Guasave, with us, he has been so sick that his wife took him right back into the states to get him to a hospital. We also left Art and Mary behind, because Mary ended up so sick that she was admitted into the hospital in Mazatlan. There have been so many people sick and it wasn't from the water either.

Very Sad Day

Let me start out with it is a very sad day, my oldest brother, Vance, passed away yesterday of a massive stroke. He was 4 months shy of his 61st birthday, way too young, I am so sorry for my niece, Caryn, and her family and my nephew, Jimmy, to lose both parents at such a young age. It really doesn’t matter at any age; it is always hard to lose anybody. We are still here in Mexico so I can’t be with the rest of the family, but everyone is in my thoughts. I had a good long cry on the beach the other day and now I know he is not suffering anymore and he will be with Jan, our parents and other family members.

Mazatlan Now- Natives are getting restless

I am so far behind in writing that it's not even funny. We have been staying pretty busy and when we get back I don't feel like writing.
I do have to tell one story though. We have one couple in our group that really rubs the rest of the group the wrong way, even the staff have had problems with them. They are the 1st ones at every meal, every potluck we have they go up and get thirds, fourths and sometimes even 5ths even before everyone has eaten. They won't stick with a pod, they try and beat everyone else to the campsites ect. ect. Well, the last night before we left San Blas the staff cooked us all dinner and of course you knew who was 1st in line, when it was desert time they were frying up sopas, fried dough with either chocolate sauce, powder sugar or what else they had out. This couple got there desert then the man went back again, the staff told him he would have to wait until everyone had gotten desert and he bitched that he had paid his money and he could eat as much as he wanted. They made him wait and everyone else watched this and those that didn’t hear him say that, passed it around to the rest of the group very fast. The next morning we were to leave at 9am at 7:30am this couple was gone, people were getting madder and madder, but they had at least told the Staff that they were going on their own. Our drive down in our pod was bitching about this couple and that everyone had had enough of them. We get to Mazatlan and all sitting around for happy hour when it was brought up that 3 couples were staying behind when we leave here because they are going on with another caravan, we all said we thought 4 couples were leaving and he said no this couple, that no one can stand, stay with us 3 more days then they take off. One guy said “oh, shit” then the fight began, names were being said, there was threats of taking it out back and fighting it out, it just started getting nasty. You see the natives are getting restless because we haven’t had TV since January 23rd and I believe everyone is feeling it.
Anyway, wanted to get that out before or if I ever get the rest of the blog caught up. The next day we all got on the bus for a city tour, which turned out to be a bust again, but at least there was no fighting going on.

San Blas

We have arrived at San Blas Mexico and parked with the ocean right in front of our rig, what a beautiful site. We have chairs out and enjoying the sites, Dave even went swimming in the ocean, the temp is 74 degrees.
I have catching up to do on Feb. 9th thru the 11th, plus today, will probably have to do it once we get to Mazatlan because we can't get internet service here with our dish so we are using Bob's service right now. There happens to be a big tree right in front of us and that's where the dish needs to point at. We are all packed in here pretty tight so we don't dare ask to be moved, we can manage for 2 days.

Guadalajara Touring and Catch Up on Blog

Sorry got behind again.
The last I wrote we had a free day and we did have our rig washed but Dave got the price down to $60.00, and they got a lot of the scratches off. The guy that came in and did Charlie's rig did an excellent job; he even matched the paint to a “T”. As a matter of fact, other people in our group that have any kind of damaged spots on their rigs are having him fix them up too. We walked to Wal-Mart with Glenn and Helena spent way too much money and just kind of kicked around all day.
On Thursday, we had our Guadalajara City Tour which turned out to be another bust. Jessie never found us a guide, as we were driving into town he tried to answer the questions we had but he wasn’t a tour guide. Hell we could have taken a regular bus into town instead of the company paying for a tour bus that didn’t tour us. We told Jessie to just drop us off and we would go to the Mercado (shopping) by ourselves. When we were close to town the streets were blocked off and there were police everywhere, the bus dropped us off and we watched the demonstration that was going on. The school age students were protesting because of the school conditions, overcrowded rooms, not enough school supplies, and the teacher’s low pay. The police had their armor out, as if the students were going to start shooting, very interesting to see. We walked over and viewed another Cathedral then Jessie arranged for us to see the Government Building, it was closed because of the protest. The Government Building was a bust; they wanted money to have a tour so we all said forget it we are going to the Mercado. We walked 5 blocks to the Mercado and then some of us stopped and had lunch, others started shopping. At 3pm the bus would pick us up and take us back to the RV Park. Dave and I got a leather jacket for me; we got a Mexican Blanket, really nice, for the baby’s room to hang on the wall and also a sombrero to hang on the wall with the blanket.
Friday, was the Tequila Factory Tour, yea, it wasn’t a bust. At first we thought it might be but in the end it turned out really good. We were suppose to have a tour of a tequila ranch, but all we saw was a video, no tour or tour guide to help us. The tour bus then took us to the Tequila Factory, which there was a guide there, Luis, who was very informative. Just around the plant, which by the way is in the town of Tequila, there are over 40 million agave plants, plus the agave is everywhere growing, pretty neat to see. Luis told us the process of making the tequila, there is 2 kinds, 100% agave tequila and then there is just tequila, which is 51% agave and 49% corn alcohol, then of course there is the ageing of it. In the Sauza Tequila Factory alone they make 90 thousand bottles an hour, 30% stays in Mexico, 40% is shipped to the United States and the other 30% is exported. Forgot to mention the Sauza Tequila Factory is now owned by the Jim Beam Corporation. The only tequila that is still family owned is Jose Cuervo . During the tour they had 3 bottles out that you could smell and taste, so the group was passing around these bottles taking sips from them, I didn’t get to taste them but Barbara took a big gulp and her eyes started watering. On another part of the tour, Luis took us to where the barrels were of the ageing tequilas and he passed around a sample of it, that one I got to taste, and it was pretty good. After the tour we walked thru their garden area and went to the bar and had a free sample with lime juice, then of course went to the store they had there to purchase any tequila if you wanted any. We purchased one of the 100% Agave one’s and stashed it under our bed to bring back for trying later.

We made it to Guadalajara by the skins of our teeth

The drive from Zacatecas to just before we came into Guadalajara was just beautiful. It was a lot of hills, ups and downs, lots of curves, cute and clean little towns we drove thru, we even saw a beautiful water fall. Then we drove into Guadalajara, graffiti, trashy, dirty, that’s what you get when you come to a big city. On the drive here we were in a new pod and Dave and I were the leaders, it was because of the parking situation when we had to leave the tight quarters of Zacatecas. We could have stopped 72 miles up the road and reassembled but most people just decided to stick with what we left with. It was a good thing too because if Lee and Vicki would have been in our pod, Vicki would have gone crazy with all the talking going on. All our driving days the guys like to talk back and forth about different things and she said the guys are worst then the girls with all of their chattering. The pod we were just in yesterday it was none stop talking, we have Art and Mary and they are volunteer Archeological diggers, so they were very knowledgeable about all the mountains and rock formations, so we were getting lessons on the drive, it was very nice. Back to Guadalajara, we made it to the Pemex 8 miles from camp to stop for gas and when we left the directions were not making any sense, but somehow we made it here. We had left at 8:30am and arrived at 4 pm. This RV park is about a mile in and on cobble roads with the biggest damn holes , at one point we thought we were going to tip over the hole was so deep. There were tree branches sticking out and they got the whole side of our coach, the turn was so bad Dave just couldn’t miss it. The next group showed up at 5 and some of them were missing out of their pod because they took wrong turns. When Charlie went around the corner, that Dave hit the tree branches; he hit the light post and damaged the side of his rig. Needless to say all but one of the caravaners made it by 6pm, and they were all pissed off about the directions or damage to the rigs. The Tail Gunner had to unhitch his car and go out looking for our one missing 5th wheel. He found them about 7pm; we all sat outside and had appetizers, drank, and bitched our heads off.
Today is suppose to be in the 80’s and it’s a really pretty campsite it’s just the roads suck. The work crew, Wagon Master and Tail Gunners, made pancakes and sausages for everyone this morning. Jessie our guide while we are here has arranged for guys to come in and wash/wax our rigs, it we want them done $70.00 bucks, American money, can’t beat that, so our rig is getting done 1st, and they are going to try and buff out the tree limb scratches. The RV Park has agreed to split the cost of the repair on Charlie’s rig, they are bringing someone in today I think. Jessie is bringing in fruits, vegetables, people to cut our hair, and people to do manicures and pedicures if anyone is interested. He is also, if you need it, will go and get the peso you need exchanged, amazing guy. He has been contracted with Adventure Caravans for over 10 years now, so I think he is pretty safe. This afternoon a big group of us are going to walk to Wal-Mart, you know by now we are having withdrawals after all it has been way before even getting to Presidio since any of us has seen a Wal-Mart. Anyway, we are walking to Wal-Mart, about a mile away, and if we buy too much we will take taxis back. Sounds like a very exciting free day in Guadalajara.

2 things I forgot to mention

Forgot to mention that we have been having some problems opening the door on our rig. When we got here to Zacatecas, and watching everyone trying to squeeze into their parking places, we went back to our rig and the door wouldn't open. A few guys helped with it and we finally got it open. Dave and Bob ended up taking off one panel of the door and worked on the latch for a couple hours, and they finally got it fixed. They had at one point talked about cutting the whole panel off, because they had dropped a piece down it, but they managed to fish it out.

Larry, who had his airbags deflate and shocks mess up, ended up at a freightliner shop, they let them spend the night there and then worked on his coach for 5 hours and charged him $130.00, what a deal he had gotten. Bob and Jackie, who had a tire leak, ended up having to buy a new tire and were charged $530.00, what a rip off. That's the difference when the Mexicans work on your rig, that's what Larry had, and Bob had the Mennonite's.

Quick Update on Dinner and Light Show

Taxi cabs came and picked us all up for dinner at 4:20 and dropped us off at the restaurant, but dinner wasn't until 6pm. Cheryl said we could do some shopping around before dinner but all the shops were closed. We ended up sitting on the patio outside and having drinks, since there was nothing else to do. The restaurant was beautiful, it use to be a bull fighting ring in the old days. Dinner was excellent, at least the salmon was, the ones that got beef wellington had mixed answers, some say it was great but more said it was tuff. The chicken cordon bleu was pretty good most said, the salad before dinner was tasteless but those that got the soup raved about it. I think all in all in was pretty good food and a beautiful presentation. At 7pm the "Dancing Water" light show was suppose to begin, we got over there by 7:30 and no light show. Come to find out today is a Mexican Holiday, it's the anniversary of the Mexican Constitution. That's why the shops were closed and no light show. When the taxi cabs got back we headed back to the RV's. Oh well, another bust on an adventure, remember we are suppose to be fexible.

Zacatecas - and blog finally caught up

Our drive from Jimenez to Zacatecas was 374.5 miles; it was a very long day. We went from Mountain time, into Central Standard Time once we left the state of Chihuahua and entered into the state of Durango, state of Zacatecas is in central time too. We went thru 7 tollbooths and you have to watch them very carefully because they rip you off. Lee at the beginning was being charged 2x's more then what Charlie and we were paying, they also would short change you when you went thru. Can you believe that, the Mexican's being dishonest by over charging and under paying? They were doing it to the people with the trailers and 5th wheels too, can't imagine that. After the 4th tollbooth who ever went 1st got on the CB's and said what they were charged, they think they are so smart, of course it only took us 4 tolls to catch on, stupid Americans.
We are staying at the Hotel Hacienda del Bosque RV Park, in other words we are in the parking lot of the hotel, in the front of the hotel no less. We are parked so close together that there is maybe an inch between our slide and Al and Barbara's slide.
Yesterday, the bus was supposed to be here at 9am to take us touring around, it showed up about 9:30. The driver of the bus, had on his mirror, a kid taking a dump on the word "American" It was like that drawing you see of a kid taking a pee, needless to say we were not happy campers. Barbara said something to him, when we got off the bus, and he tried to say it meant they didn't like American football, yea right. Our guide, Moses, didn't speak good English and had the flu, so it wasn't a good tour. We went on a mine tour and at the end, no bus. Moses didn't know where the bus was so we ended up walking 6 blocks to lunch; Cheryl the wagon master was pissed. I guess Barbara shouldn't had made a remark about the shit. After lunch, still no bus, so we walked 2 more blocks to a old time theatre, and waited and waited for the bus. Lee, Vicki, Dave and I decided to leave; Lee needed to find a grocery store so we were just going to take a taxi back to the rigs. After we left the bus showed up about 10 min. later. We never did find a store but we did get a taxi and went back to the rigs.
At 5:30 the hotel let us have their game room so we could have a Super Bowl Party. Vicki, Nancy and I were in charge of appetizers and the hotel provided margaritas. We watched the game in Spanish and had fun taking and watching and just relaxing.
Today the bus didn't show up until 10am and took us to a Mask Museum, which we were suppose to do yesterday but ran out of time, since we had no bus. The mask museum was really interesting, we only had an hour and it just wasn't enough time for a lot of people. Cheryl said they could go back later if they wanted to or just stay and take a taxi back, no one took her up on that offer though. We got back to the RV's at noon, and everyone is just hanging around, washing rigs and cars, posting pictures, writing blogs. Tonight we go out to "La Quinta Real" for dinner then to a "Dancing Waters" Light Show. That's it, all caught up now, tomorrow we go to Guadalajara.

Cuauhtemoc

We left Creel on January 30th and headed for Cuauhtemoc, we were staying at Loewen's RV Park which is owned by the Mennonites. The 1st night we had a Mennonite "Family Style" Dinner. The next day we went on a tour of a Mannonite School, the kids sang for us and read from their books, but everything is in High German. At home they speak Low German, you would think they would teach the kids spanish too, since they are in Mexico, but they don't. We gave all the kids candy, then headed for a Mennonite Church. For lunch we were invited to a Mennonite house for lunch, low and behold, they sell stuff there too, who would have thunk. Well, it was a good thing tho because I got a quilt for the baby, all hand stitched for only $45. When we looked at that kind of stuff at the Omish places in Pennsylvania the cost were a few hundred dollars, so I just couldn't pass that up. Now for the baby we have a quilt, rattle like thing, and leather sandals. After lunch we went to a Mennonite Museum and watched a movie and looked at old farm equipment, nothing really exciting.
Then Dave, Lee, Vicki and I went into the town of Cuauhtemoc and walked around, while driving into town this guy on a motorcycle, he was almost next to us, he hit the curb and we all watched him and his bike tumble down the street. He got up limping so we guess he was OK but there was no way we could or would stop and help him. Asshole shouldn't have been driving so fast and cutting to the inside.

CREEL RECAP

Let me start out with Larry and Linda got their coach fixed, and have made it back with us. We are back to 19 coaches and parked lot in Zacatocas, Mexico in a Hotel Parking area.

Back to the recap of our tour of Creel while the other group was down at the bottom of the canyon. We left on Sunday morning for our tour which ended up being kind of a bust. We went to the Tarahumara Indian land to see the school, but it was Sunday and the school was closed. Then we went to see the San Ignacio Mission, it was closed, but Denise, our guide, found someone to open it up so we got to take a quick look. We saw the "Valley of the Mushrooms" which was rocks that looked like mushrooms, we then went to a Mission Store, and everything you buy from it goes to the hospital, next door. We were supposed to have a tour of the hospital but they are having a TB or something out break so they cancelled the tour. This is Adventure Caravan, we could use some adventure, what the hell are they thinking, just kidding, since we didn't get the tour of the hospital we went to their museum. That was a quick tour because it was closing; everything on Sunday closes at 1pm. After the quick tour we had lunch then back to the RV Park, stupid of them to plan a tour for a Sunday, because everything here in Mexico closes early.
Monday, it started raining during the night, and it rained all day too. It was another touring day, which was a bigger bust. We were supposed to do a Guided Bus Tour of Divisadero, Canyon Rim Walking Tour and seeing the Balancing Rock, everyone was too cold to do anything. The bus leaked like crazy, the guide, Denise, offered to get us 3 vans to split up in but we are one crazy group and we wanted to all stay together. We road in the bus with plastic bags covering things to try and keep the rain out, plus umbrellas. We got to the 1st stop and got out and looked around in the rain and fog, froze our asses off and ran back to the wet bus. After that we just kept asking her to find a hotel with a bar and fire place that we could sit at. Monday was a really lost day.
Tuesday, our free day, the sun was out and it was beautiful, so Dave and I decided we were going to do the drive to all the sites we missed the day before on our tour. I kept asking people if they wanted to go but everyone kept turning me down, they had laundry to do and wanted to get it done. Well, Dave was smart, the hotel we stopped at for lunch the day before, which was close to the campground, does laundry, so Dave had run over and dropped our laundry off on Monday afternoon.
As we were leaving Linda, Larry, Bob and Jackie decided to join us, actually following in Linda's car and we went on our own adventure. As we were climbing the roads we saw a tour bus ahead of us so we followed it. Dave and I figured that all the tour buses stop at the same place, which they do and it was great. We made all the stops we were suppose to, the day before with Denise, and boy were they great. Mexico is really beautiful, or at least some parts of it. The pictures we got were great, we are so glad we went out on our own, and saw the things we missed the day before. We even stopped at a street vendor, who was cooking Gorditas, in the lid of a 55 gallon drum and it was great. The day turned out great and we didn't get back till almost 3pm, we wanted to get back by 1pm, oh well.
The second group was coming back from the bottom of the Copper Canyon and we had to cook them dinner, that's why we wanted to get back early. Remember we left the bottom of the canyon at 8:30am and got back at 2:30pm. The next thing we know it’s almost 4pm and no second group, I'm a little pissed off because I know they are having an adventure we didn't get to have. They finally showed up at 5pm, dinner was for 5:30pm so we got everything ready for them and then found out what the Hell took them so long.
They had a lot of rain too, and when they got to the construction site that we had had problems with, they had a truck stuck and there was no way to go around it. They ended up with one of their fellow passengers, Hank, getting out of the van and driving one of the earth movers there and clearing the roads for them. They were stuck there for 2 1/2 hours and that's why they were so late.
That's the recap of Creel, when we were getting ready to leave the next day there were some boys hanging around, and now we know why.
On one of the stops we made to rest, with our pod, Dave walked around the coach and tow vehicle and found out back bike tires hanging. So it seems the boys, that I had chased away from Gene and Carl's car, with the bikes on the back like ours, came after our bikes. They had the tires off but because everything is tied down, they couldn't figure out how to untie the strap Dave had done. Now we have cables wrapped around the tires so there is no way anyone can steal our tires.

DROPPING LIKE FLIES

We started this trip with 20 couples, 20 rigs, and now we are down to 18 couples. Yesterday when leaving Cuauhtemoc, I'll recap on that one later, Troy and Maryann had to go back to Presidio, where we started this adventure from. They had only signed up for a 14 day adventure, so there time was up with us, Roger, our Tailgunner followed them in his car back to the border then caught up with us last night in Jimenez. Or forgot to say, we are in a Pemex Station (gas station) dry camping in Jimenez, they have no campgrounds here. OK one couple gone, then before we could pull out Bob and Jackie had a leak in one of their tires. So our new Tailgunner, in training, Bob and Pat, took them to a tire place down the street, and their friends Larry and Linda stayed with them too. Anyway the rest of us took off, on the road we got separated so Lee and Vicki were leading 4 of us and took a wrong turn. After a few miles we relized it and had to make U-turns and once we got thru one of the Toll Booths there everyone was waiting for us. Needless to say our Wagon Master was happy to see us, so everyone got back on the road again. After driving thru Chihuahua we all stopped at a Pemex for lunch. After lunch we broke off into our pods again, this time we had 3 more join our pod, which was great, because they are big talkers on the CB Radio, we did a lot of laughing. We left at 9am and got to Jimenez about 4, here we are with all our chairs outside in a circle having soup and tortills for dinner and having our next driving meeting. As soon as we were breaking up here comes 2 more rigs and it's Bob and Jackie, tire fixed, and Bob and Pat, the Tailgunners. Where the hell is Larry and Linda? What they said was that one of the many big holes in Chihuahua that Larry hit deflated their airbags in the back of their coach, which dropped their back end down. So they are still in Chihuahua trying to get there airbags fixed, what confuses me is that I thought the Tail gunner can never leave someone behind? Someone said that if a repair is going to take more then 24 hours they don't have to wait, and Jackie said that Larry might be there all weekend. So that's the second one that dropped, will see who's next.
Today we have a 374.5 mile drive to Zacatecas, it's going to be a really long day.

Part 3 Final Recap of The Trip down the Canyon

The next morning coffee was at 7am and breakfast was ready at 7:30, pancakes, fried eggs, and bacon, for 20 people, and the eggs were cooked perfect. I forgot to mention it is a husband and wife that run the hotel, she does all the cooking and he helps serve but his main job is to take and serve the drink orders and keep track of what you owe, they don’t want to be paid until you check out because they never have much change. I did see a lady come in and help with dishes and at night there was a young boy that came in and helped serve dinner, amazing. We got back on the road by 9am the weather was clear so we got to see all of the canyons that we didn’t get to see on the way down and boy it was beautiful. We also saw the roads we had driven on the day before and the drops that were there were very scary. I believe it was Jackie that said she would have had a heart attack it she had seen these roads on the way down; she would have wanted a helicopter to lift her out of the canyon. We stopped again at the ranch we had lunch at on the way down for a potty break (outhouse break) and to purchase some of his fruit, no lunch this time there.
The road was so muddy, with all the rain we had had, that once we hit the construction part, where they are trying to improve the roads, ha ha, we almost got stuck. At one point on a curve a bus was coming down the road so we had to back up to a wide spot to let it by, which means the van behind us had to back up too, we were not happy campers having to back up on such steep grades. Anyway, the bus made it by then 2 more trucks were right behind the bus, which we hadn’t seen, very scary. We finally made it off the dirt road and got on the paved highway and stopped at the Pemex, gas station, and they had no fuel. Cesar said for us to all get out of the vans and have lunch, which the hotel had fixed for us, while he and the 2 vans went to the next town to get gas. Too funny, 20 white folks sitting around gas pumps, that are empty, eating burritos and ham sandwiches. The cars that drove by thought “What the Hell is going on”. We then decided the next car that drove by we were all going to put our hands out and ask for peso’s just like they do.
When Cesar and the vans got back we piled in again and got back to our RV park at 2:30,a hell of a lot better time than going down the canyon, makes a big difference in the rain and a sunny day. Once back we were told we couldn’t tell the second group what went on with our group, after all it is an adventure, and they needed to experience their own. We were all so tired, so it was great to hear that the second group had fixed a potluck dinner for us, which we all really enjoyed. Then it was hit the beds early again. Our adventure was over, the next day was the second groups adventure.

Part 2 The Trip down the Canyon

The next morning coffee wasn’t ready until 7:30am so you know Dave and I had to wait a long time, since we get up so early. Breakfast was ready for everyone at 8am, we had scrambled eggs w/ham, fresh fruit, toast, and tortillas, it was unbelievable. After that we got back into the vans and started site seeing again. We went to the “Lost Cathedral of Satevo”, to find the place was amazing, now we know why it is lost, and really should stay that way, just kidding. To get there we had to do more dirt roads, holes, ups and downs, and then if another car came by, forget about it. After that we went and visited the Tarahumara (Indians) Family , this was a mother with 7 girls and 8 boys. The 13 year old that played the harmonica had 2 kids already, and her 14 year old sister, who lived next door, had 4 kids. Their husbands where 14 and 15 years old, can you imagine. That’s the way these Indians live down there and they are happy, during the winter months they live in “kind of houses” but in the summer, when it gets to 115 degrees they move into the caves that surround them. The mother and 13 yr old took turns dancing for us, which to me was horrible, it was like watching animals in a zoo. All these babies standing around watching their mom and grandma performing for the crowd I just didn’t like. But I must say when they were done they were more than happy to except the peso’s from us. When we left the place we all decided to chip in and have Cesar, our guide, stop at a store before he brought the next group down and bring them beans and corn, they needed food more than money. We ended up giving Cesar 1,350 peso’s, so he was able to buy a lot for them. Then we headed back to the hotel for lunch, god help us if we should miss a meal, thank goodness this was all included in the cost that we had already paid to our caravan company. After lunch we got back in the vans and did more driving around and stopped at the “Old Mining Shepherd’s Hacienda”. It’s just a shell of a Hacienda now but it was something in those days, with all the mining of gold and silver they did. We did get a chance to walk around the town of Batopilas, we visited a girls private school, and brought them some candy and school supplies. Then Dave found a street vendor that made, by hand, leather sandals that lace up the legs, the bottoms are made of tires then leather on top of that, so that was the new grandbabies 1st present. Unisex present since we don’t know the sex yet.
Then it was back to the hotel for a “Welcome to Batopilas” margarita party, then Cesar surprised us with organic tequila and wanted to teach us how to do shooters. What does he think we are armatures, well one of the girls in the group had a surprise for him, and boy did Linda surprise him. She taught him how to do a body slam, and he was not willing at first, but we cheered him on and he did it. I didn’t know what it was but sure found out. Linda wet her neck, then put salt on it and then put a lime between her teeth, Cesar was suppose to lick her neck, drink the tequila, then get the lime from here teeth, that’s the short version of the body slam and boy he was a trooper and did it. We all were laughing so hard and Bob and I were trying to take pictures, I got about 3 hopefully Bob was able to get better ones. After the drinking Cesar brought out a Mariachi Band and they sang for us, Cesar then sang and then Larry, Linda’s husband, you know the body slam lady, sang for us, what a wonderful voice he has. Cesar and the band were very good too. After dinner, which by the way was goat, I thought it was chicken in a gravy and was very good, we all went back to our rooms again, very tired. The Mariachi Band was still outside, drinking more organic tequila, and singing songs so a few of us went out to listen to them. We were having fun listening to them then Linda and Larry came out on their balcony, so Cesar had the Mariachi Band sing to them. Since Linda did the body slam with Cesar and Larry sang with Cesar it seemed the right thing to do. After the singing was done everyone headed back to their rooms, what a great night.

Part 1 The trip down the Canyon

Two vans and 20 people heading out for an Adventure to Batopilas.
Let me start off with I was wrong when I said it was 40 miles to the bottom of the canyon, it was 40 miles on paved road then 40 miles on dirt roads, very winding roads. We started off at 7500 feet and drop down to 1900 feet once we reach the bottom of the canyon, and it was raining cats and dogs, we didn’t get to our destination until 5pm and we had left at 9am, so it was a very long day. We had a hell of a good group on our bus too, we laughed so much, the driver, Martine, and the guide, Cesar, thought we were all crazy. We had fog and rain on the way down so we really couldn’t see the canyons but we still stopped and tried to get some pictures. We stopped for lunch at some friend of Cesar’s about 2pm and they all made us a surprise lunch. They, meaning, Cesar, our 2 drivers, the owner and someone else. The owner’s land was great, he had orange, papaya, tangerine, and mango trees all around, and it was raining so we had to stand under the trees or sit in the vans because of the surprise lunch they were fixing. They set up tables, with table cloths, napkins, real plates and glasses, bottles of wine or soda, it was amazing. Of course they had to set up tarps because it was pouring rain, and as usual it started raining even harder when we sat down under the tarps, which were leaking badly. They cooked everything outside; we had cheese quesadilla, homemade guacamole, which was great, and a mystery meat dish. It was Mexican sausage, chorizo, and I swear it was chopped up hotdog, it tasted like it anyway. I picked at mine; I don’t like mystery stuff, so I mainly ate the cheese quesadillas and guacamole. After lunch they cleaned up everything while everyone made one last outhouse break, then back on the road again. Like I said we got to the hotel at 5pm, just in time for everyone to take their stuff to their rooms and get together for happy hour.
The hotel was very nice just about all the rooms had 2 beds in them, either 2 twins, a twin and a double, 2 doubles, every room was different. They also either had a tub with a shower or tub and shower separate, or just a monster shower that 2 or more could fit in, it was a really nice place. The only thing in Mexico is you can’t flush the toilet paper, well I guess you could, but then you would probably have a back up in your bathroom, if you know what I mean. That was one other thing we were told, anywhere you go carry your on toilet paper with you, not all places supply the stuff. Anyway, when dinner was done about 8pm everyone just went back to their rooms and crashed, no TV’s in any of the rooms, oh yea, Dean and Cheryl had one but it didn’t get any stations. I read for a while then that was it, just listen to the rain and fall asleep I was very tired after that long ride and Dave was already asleep.

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.

New Year's Eve, and I'm writing my last blog of the year. We had a great Christmas with the family, a lot of running around. Hope every one's Christmas was great.
We left Bakersfield on the 26th, Danny didn't even want to go out to breakfast for his birthday, he wanted John's Burger, so Kim went and picked up breakfast. After I finished laundry Dave packed up everything and we hit the road for Simi Valley. Dave left his leather jacket at David Jr's so we had to go pick that up, then we went to "The Hat" for pastrami sandwiches. Best pastrami in the world, we got 3 sandwiches, we split one for lunch, then headed for our hotel near LAX. We then split another one for dinner, and the 3rd one I packed in the suitcase. Our plane was late leaving on the 27th, which was no big deal to us because we had a 3 hour lay over in Denver, and it was snowing, we were stuck on the plane for 40 min. once we landed because they had no open gates that we could pull in to. We really started to worry about if we were going to be able to fly out of Denver anyway, but we did and it was only 1 hour late. We got to our hotel in Florida about 11:30pm as we headed for our room the fire alarm went off. Everyone was coming out of their rooms and we all headed to the parking lot, we put our suitcases in the car and headed for TGI Fridays. We sat at the bar until about 1am, after the fire department left the hotel, we headed for our room, and that's when we split the 3rd sandwich, I was so happy the bag handlers at the airport didn't steal my sandwich.
Anyway, Friday we picked up Valley and went and got the coach then drove back to 1000 Trails, where we will stay until 1/2/08 then it's back on the road again, headed for Texas. Yesterday we went to breakfast with Lee and Vicki then headed for the Disney Animal Park, the place was sooo crowded, it was a nightmare, we didn't stay long. Tonight we are walking over to Gene and Bobbie's coach and will BBQ and visit with them, that's our big New Years plans, I know we won't make it to midnight so will have to record the dropping of the ball.
Hope you have a nice and safe New Years.

It's Christmas Morning and I'm up at 3am, stayed in bed to 4 but that's it, just can't sleep. It's now 5am and Kim and Dave just got up, Dave's normal time but not Kim's, unless it's Xmas day. Don't expect to see Danny for a while, he is not a morning person, but he better learn to be with a baby on the way.
Sunday morning I was in our shed looking for some pictures and paperwork that Dave needed and I lifted a box, while standing sideways, that was very heavy and pulled the muscle in my side. Dave said I should have waited for help, I'm 50 now and can't lift that shit anymore, at 49 yes, but not a 50 year old grandma. Needless to say I have been hobbling around for the last 2 days. Danny brought some stuff home from work, Bio freeze, which is a pain relieving gel, and it really helped last night. This morning it isn't as sore.
Busy day today, will go to David Jr's for breakfast, Danny's parents for a snack, then to my Brother Mike's for the big Christmas dinner, my once a year prime rib fix.
Tomorrow, December 26th is Danny's 26th birthday, we will take him to breakfast then he has to work. In the afternoon Dave and I head off for LAX and will spend the night there and catch our flight Thursday morning back to Orlando.
The 26th is also my nephew Jimmy's 40th Birthday, So Happy Birthday to Jimmy and Danny.
Merry Christmas to all, will write when we get back to Orlando.

We are here in Bakersfield, got in last Monday, and the weather is cold, I need my Florida weather.Haven't even been here a week and already my tan is gone. We have just been hanging out all week, finishing up Christmas shopping and visiting with Kim and Danny.
Yesterday was my surprise birthday party but it wasn't a surprise, of course I found out, they just don't know how to surprise me. All though, I must say, Kim and Danny did give Dave and I a BIG surprise when we got here, Kim is pregnant 10 weeks now. They told us Monday night, right before she left for her 1st night shift,7pm to 7am. I think my jaw was still hanging to the ground when she left, she thought we were mad, no just in shock. Not only was I turning 50 the next day, now I was going to be 50 and a grandma, no I'm too young for this, boy talk about getting old, all in one day. We are very happy for them, and us, and everyone else involved in this, Danny's parents, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, ect. It is going to be a great addition to the family.
Then Dave and I started thinking and talking about how does this effect our travels? We both agreed our travels will be put on hold for the next couple years, we want to be here to help out with what we can. We started looking around at houses but we are leaning towards a mobile home, double wide, like what my parents lived in. We are looking for very cheap, but in a nice area, we don't plan on staying in Bakersfield we still plan on going to Arizona but just not right now.
Back to my surprise party, once the family was all here we then had to manage to get them all in one room so we could tell them the news. Dave and I were not allowed to tell anyone until the majority of the family was told. Anyway, the only way to get the family or just anyone at a party together in one room is to start the food line, that always works. Once everyone was in the kitchen/dining room Kim and Danny wanted me to tell everyone, I started off with a little story, boy was I nervous, and when I got to the part about Danny wanting me to talk to Kim's belly, everyone knew, and the tears starting rolling down faces, I didn't even get to finish my story. Everyone was hugging them and congratulating them, the party really started going then. It was a lot of fun having everyone together and sharing the news with them, Kim and Danny were at first going to wait until Christmas Day to tell everyone, but none of us could hold in that good news any longer.
Danny's sister, Bibiana, had made me a birthday cake with a motor home decorated on it, cute picture and great tasting cake, I swear she should go into the baking business. When the cake was brought out we all then remembered it was my birthday party, not the Kim and Danny baby party, just kidding.
Caught up on my blog again, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.

From Dave
Since I have even more time on my hands being in Bakersfield I am going to add Feeds to the Blog. Since I have no idea how these feeds work I don't know what will happen. Just have to wait and see. Hope to see many of you while we are in California over the next 10 days.

Well today is Jeri's 50th birthday.

Happy Birthday Jeri

Sunday morning and nothing exciting to report. We are having tornado warnings around here but it missed us. Just lots of rain with thunder and lighting, I forgot to close the window by the couch so it got a little wet.
Dropped Valley off on Friday morning so I was a little depressed that day, just hope everything goes well with her. They took our coach again on Saturday and finished putting in our back camera, this time they put in a whole new system, will see if this one works.
That's it for now, after going to breakfast with Lee and Vicki this morning we will head out to the hotel, got all packed yesterday.
Don't know if I'll update the blog while we are gone, if not I'll write again when we get back.
Merry Christmas to all

It's Wednesday night and still here at Camp Monaco hanging out. Yesterday and today didn't get in much walking Valley is just worn out. Dave is either on his computer or checking on the RV so I have Valley all the time. Today he left for Wal-Mart and was gone almost 3 hours, it's against the law in Florida to leave your animal in the car so we both couldn't go. He ended up going to Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Staples ect. who the hell knows, but that's why he was gone so long. Sorry, I get a little stir crazy when I can't get away from Valley, 24 hours a day gets on my nerves.
We found out today our coach won't be done by Friday so we'll leave it here while we fly back to California. Something under the top step wasn't welded right and broke, that's why our step has been sinking in when you step on it. They ended up today taking out the steps that fold out when you open the door and they had to build us steps, which they did out of wood, so we would be able to get in and out of the coach, nice steps too, I'll get pictures. Valley likes them better then the ones we have, much easier for her to get in and out of the coach. The only good thing with the coach not being done is now we don't have to pay for a storage place to keep it while we are gone, Camp Monaco does it for free. With the way the stock market is going, anything we can get for free is great.
Lee and Vicki are going to Epcot tomorrow and leaving their dog, Fleetwood,at a kennel all day and over night they wanted us to go with them but since we are taking Valley to the hospital/kennel on Friday for the next 2 weeks there was no way I could take her to a kennel tomorrow. I know she is just a dog, but I can't do that to my Grand dog. The pet hotel that Lee and Vicki are using is really neat, the dogs have their own room, complete with a bed and I mean a real bed, head board and foot board, the cost is $32.00 a night, would love to leave Valley there the next two weeks but a bit to high for our budget. Anyway, that's it for now, will write again before we leave Camp Monaco on Sunday and go to the hotel so we can be at the airport bright and early on Monday.

It's Monday night and I thought I better do a little updating.
Saturday once we got to the Monaco plant we met a really nice couple, John and Barb who are full timing now too. They have an Endeavor, a little older then ours, and when John saw us pull in he was really liking our rig. They came over and Dave gave them a tour of the place, they were really interested in the new tile we had put in. They have 2 cats that travel with them and tile is something that really interest them and they would like to do. Barb went back home to finishing cleaning and John and Dave started talking computers, John then brought his computer over and Dave was trying to fix the sound on it but it didn't work. Then they started drinking wine, Barb was still cleaning and I was laying out then Vicki and Lee got here, the friends we travelled with in Canada. We all ended up getting together and sitting outside having a good time and talking, at 5:30, dusk, the mosquitoes came out and we were covered in no time, everyone went running for their coaches. That was the end of that get together, here at the repair facility is a really big pond, unkept, and has signs of warning about the alligators so I guess that's why all the bugs.
Sunday, we went out to breakfast with Lee and Vicki and drove around town, came back and hung around a little bit then drove over to "The Villages", which is a retirement community, or I should say an over 55 community, you have to have seen the commercials on TV. They talk about golfing free for the rest of your life on the Arnold Palmer and Nancy Lopez golf courses and parties and activities every day. Well it is all of that, we went and saw one of their real estate agents who took us around and showed us some of The Village. 10 years ago it only have 16,000 people there, it has now grown to 68,000 and they are still building. Just about everyone there drives golf carts, and they have some pretty fancy ones too. I would like somewhere like that to live, I think, because of all the sports stuff and activities, but I would like it to be a smaller community. Dave, I don't think, would like anything like that, he's not really into sports, walking hurts his knees, he does OK on bike riding, OK, lets face it, Dave doesn't like to work out. I told myself when I hit 60 I'm done too, not that all this walking is keeping me in good shape, my legs maybe, but wait, isn't Round a shape???
Today, Monday, they came and took the coach at 7:20am and we didn't get it back until almost 4pm, long damn day. This is the 1st time that we have been at a repair shop and Dave isn't working, now he is finding out how boring it is sitting around all day. There is no place to walk to, these places are always in the middle of nowhere, only large highways that you don't want to walk on or ride your bike on, plus you have your dog the whole time so it's not like you can go places, its a law in Florida that you can't leave pets in your car, but somehow I managed to walk 23,664 steps today, When I told Dave he said "Jeri" you are constantly walking around with the dog, you never relax. That probably explains why Valley was not walking around with me anymore after 3pm and she was very happy that we all went out to dinner tonight and she got alone time. We went out for Thai food in the "The Villages" and after walking around a little bit and seeing some of the entertainment, Vicki made a comment that it reminded her of being in a Stephen King Movie, just a weird feeling, and she hit the nail on the head. Before dinner we had stopped and talked to a couple that live in "The Villages" and they raved about the place, kind of sounded like the Stepford Wife's, Stephen King like Vicki said.
That's it for now, I've rambled on long enough.

It's Saturday now and we are at a new location, we now are at the Monaco Repair Facility in Wildwood, Fl. We came a day early because Dave started worrying about getting an RV site to camp in. This place isn't like the one in Oregon we normally go to, this one doesn't have assigned sites. Some people where we were staying said you better not wait until Sunday because that's when the people with the Monday appointments show up, some said we would have no problems waiting until Sunday. We didn't want to take a chance so we came today, and there are plenty of spots open, will see how it is tomorrow. We only have water and electric here so it's almost like dry camping.
Wednesday we did go to MGM and boy was it crowded. The place was OK mainly eating places and shops everywhere, the rides they did, which wasn't many, were OK one that was great we went on twice. The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror was the one we went on twice. The Rock 'n' Roller Coaster with Aerosmith was great too. The Drew Carey Show was stupid, anyway, we hung out there until around 3 then headed back to Disneyland to ride the stuff we missed. It's a small world, 3D Movie and the Hall of Presidents. We didn't stick around for the fireworks again, we wanted to beat the crowd out of the park.
Thursday we cleaned the outside of the coach and shopped. We were going to go see the Space Shuttle off but they keep having problems with it, I believe tomorrow is the last day they can try and get it off or else they have to wait for January.
Friday Dave finished the outside of the coach and we got it ready for today's travels. Last night we got together with some people we met a year ago last March at the Monaco Repair place in Oregon. Gene and Bobbie, great people, we are going to spend New Years with them at the Thousand Trails park we were just at. They have been full time RV'ers for 12 years now, so I want to talk to them about it, how they stay busy ect. Dave is having a hard time with not having anything to do so maybe they will have some tips for him.
That's it for now.

Its Tuesday night and I'm finally getting to relax. Today was clean day, since it didn't get done on Saturday or Sunday. Sunday, we went to check out the town of Clermont, we went to breakfast then did the Farmer's Market, got a few things, not much. Drove around town a little bit then came back home, jumped on our bikes and went checking out the new neighborhoods that are being built around here. One section is called Motor Home Houses, wait till you see the pictures, when Dave gets them posted. They are houses with very large carport things attached and that's where you park your RV, they have sewer, water and electric hookups and you can even open your slides, very neat.
Like I said earlier, today was cleaning day and I started out with defrosting the freezer. I'm standing there with the hair dryer, for heat, and chipping away at the ice build up in the freezer and I look over at Dave and he is ironing. I started laughing and he says "what?" I said here I am in the freezer chipping away and you are ironing? He said don't even put that in the blog, yea right, not me. Then I went out changed the oil in the car and Dave was sewing. Just kidding!!! couldn't resist.
We did work together and cleaned the inside of the coach, Thursday we will start on the outside.
Yesterday we did the touring thing again and went back to the Kennedy Space Center. we went and saw all the things we missed, the Imax movie was great. After leaving we hit the Astronaut Hall of Fame Museum which was very interesting to see. We even went on 2 rides they have there, the "G" forces you hit were something I've never done before.
Tomorrow, we are hitting MGM, will let you know how it all turns out.

Today is my sister-in-laws birthday, Happy Birthday Trini, 63 I believe, and you don't look a day older then 50. (do I get bonus points now)
Today is Saturday and yesterday we did go to Epcot all day, we got there when it opened at 9am and got back to the coach at 2pm. We stayed home for 2 hours, had a snack, I walked Valley around then we got back to Epcot at 4:30pm. We walked really fast to the Candlelight Processional and Massed Choir Program, which is in the American Gardens Theatre. They have a guest performer every 3 days to narrate the story of the Nativity, which we got to see Neil Patrick Harris, (Doogie Howser, M.D., or the show How I met your Mother" Very good show. They had over 400 performers including band members, the show was amazing. The fireworks show was on at 9:30pm which was very good and then we got home about 10:30 pm.
SORRY MIKE, I'M EMBARRASSING YOU BY BEING A TOURIST, we will be stopping this. We are spending a lot more money each month then want we are getting in. So needless to say, this Xmas is going to be small. The stock market isn't helping either, it's killing us right now.
Today was kick back day, was planning on cleaning but it just so happened it was garage sale day at 1000 trails. So Dave and I went walking around looking at stuff, got golf balls and a flag to hang outside the coach. Then we went bike riding around the park to look at the other people trying to get rid of their junk, met some folks that told us about a car show in Kissimmee. We went there this afternoon and had a good time, Dave will post pictures later, but they had some really neat cars, plus old town Kissimmee was kool to see.