February 28, 2007 now to continue my stories of Louisiana and the stories that Randy, Susie, Mark and Sue had told us. Of course sitting with them and since they live in Louisiana we talked about Katrina. We told them about while driving here there were still neighborhoods of FEMA trailers all over Louisiana, they said wait till you go into the out skirts of New Orleans, and they are still there too. When we did go into New Orleans, we had breakfast in the French Quarter which is just fine it’s the neighborhoods outside of the French Quarter that are still messed up. There the houses that were unlivable have trailers either in the front yard or side yard, but the people still haven’t done anything to fix their places up. It was a very poor area anyway, very low income, and these people just want to keep taking the handouts and not do anything to improve the area. It doesn’t help with the Louisiana Government, not just New Orleans Government being corrupt, that’s what Randy told us. So much money has been wasted here and still is. The trailers that FEMA has supplied have been trashed, the people were given a year to get there acts together and not rely on the government but that hasn’t helped to get them motivated, they were never motivated before why should they start now and their own government officials don’t help them but just pocket the money. FEMA wasted so much money at the beginning and it doesn’t help that the outside businesses that were hired by FEMA had taken advantage of FEMA too. It was so hectic here that FEMA kept throwing out money and had no controls of what was going on. People that had no damage at all and still applied for FEMA money where given it and some that needed it were turned down. The trailer park, Yellowstone where we were staying was taken over by FEMA for evacuees from New Orleans; they had put trailers all over the park and paid the park owners for all the spaces. They even had hired a company to come in and dump the trailer tanks of the waste, well after doing that NO EVACUEES ever occupied the trailers. The dumping company came in once or twice a week and pretended to dump the waste tanks and billed FEMA even though all the trailers were empty. The trailer park charged of course which they had a right to do because all of their spaces were taken up by the FEMA trailers. Supposedly in the outskirts of New Orleans, where the trailers still are and it has been over a year, FEMA went in to take the trailers out but of course the news media got wind of it and made the government sound like the bad guys for not doing more to help these people. So needless to say the trailers are staying and the people still don’t plan on doing anything to improve things. Just keep waiting for the handouts is what they plan on doing, poor me the government owes us, boy I sure get sick of hearing that. Some of the neighborhoods a little farther out have been working very hard to cleaning up their areas but it is a slow process but at least they are doing something.
This is a hard topic to write about, so much too say, it’s just easier to talk about and not write about.
This is a long blog so let me cut off now and start another one about Mississippi and the damage Katrina caused here.

February 27, 2007 Boy I'm getting lazy at writing my blog, at least I'm not as bad as my nephew, Spanky, he hasn't updated his blog in over a month.
We are now in Biloxi Mississippi staying at a trailer park called Martin Lake Resort. The park is small, the lake is nice looking but most of the people here live here. This is one of the real trailer trash parks, thank goodness we won't be here long. Let's see, we have been in a few different places since I last wrote so I have some catching up to do.
We left Lake Medina, Lake Hills Texas, on Friday the 23rd and headed for Houston Texas. We stopped in Houston at the Johnson Space Center and took the tour they offer to show you the space shuttle and command center. It was interesting to see and hear about what the astronauts go thru in their training. After that we got back on the road and stopped for the night at the Delta Downs Race Track & Casino in Venton, Louisiana. We parked right outside the race track, which we didn't know at the time that they would leave the bright lights on all night long. Dave and I went in the casino for dinner but what was interesting is that in Louisiana the casinos are blocked off so you have to go thru a security check and prove you are 21 yrs old to go into the gambling part. The Harris Casino in New Orleans has like 10 glass doors in front to enter by but all the handles have been taken off of them except for 2 which when you go in the security check is right there, very interesting. Anyway, we stayed one night at the casino then on Saturday morning we headed for Robert Louisiana for a couple days. We got to Jellystone Park, yes Jellystone, Yogi Bear's Camp-Resort, so needless to say this was a Family/Kids campground. I was hoping to get in the adult section but there wasn't any, oh well. They had lots of lakes, pools, ponds, basketball courts, baseball, horseshoes, volleyball, mini golf, pop hut, yogi's cafe, rec. center and The Yogi Dome. Very large and pretty nice RV park, they even had a section called the Condo Village, which is private property but it's all trailers. I'm talking about 5th wheel trailers with car ports over the top of them. I got some pictures, will post them later, but these people were real trailer trash too. We were only staying in Louisiana until Monday so we could go into New Orleans and see for ourselves the destruction that Katrina caused. Saturday after getting settled into Yogi's camp we met our next door neighbors then there went the rest of the day. Really nice folks and we ended up hanging with them and a couple of their friends until late at night. It was Randy, Suzi and Mark and Sue. I'm going to stop here now and post more tomorrow, it's getting late here and I have a lot more to say.

Monday February 19, 2007 Presidents Day. Still here in Lakehills Texas until this Friday then we will head for New Orleans. Last week, on Valentines Day, we drove into San Antonio to find the Wal-Mart and Costco and get a little shopping done. We thought we would be gone for maybe 2 hours but it ended up being about 5 to 6 hours. In Wal-Mart I ended up getting my nails done, eyes checked and ordered new glasses, Dave had a hair cut and we did grocery shopping. We then headed for PetSmart to return Valley's booties that didn't fit well, then over to Costco for more shopping. Texas is another state where you can't buy hard alcohol in regular stores only beer and wine. The Costco here has a separate alcohol store attached and what's crazy is they give away free samples of booze and wine what ever their specials are that day. We then stopped and had lunch at Macaroni Grill and on the way back to the coach we had to pull over because Dave had a business call. The call kept dropping out because of all the hills that we were driving thru, that's why we had to pull over.
Saturday we drove into San Antonio to see the Alamo and the River Walk, the 2 most popular places to see while your here in San Antonio. When we got to the Alamo we were just in time to get to hear the story of what had occurred back then, very interesting story. After that we walked over to River Walk and walked along the river then we took the Ride the "Rio" San Antonio boat tour. After that we drove around a little checking out the place then headed back to the coach we figured 8 hours of being locked in the coach was long enough for Valley.
Sunday is our breakfast out day so we drove into San Antonio and went to a Mexican Restaurant, which everywhere you turn that's all you see is Mexican Restaurants. Just about every other corner is a "Bill Miller" BBQ fried chicken, drive thru or sit down, haven't had enough guts yet to try that place and probably won't. We stopped and got a GPS System for my car for when we are driving around these crazy cities. Texas has freeways that chris cross all over the place and also frontage roads and turn arounds.
That's it for now, Happy Presidents Day!

Tuesday February 13, 2007 we are now in Lakehills, Texas. We are official “Trailer Trash” now, after leaving Gila Bend, AZ at 6:30 a.m. we finally stopped at Fort Stockton Texas at 8:00 p.m. and spent the night at our 1st Wal-Mart, with about 7 other campers. We did gain an hour so we didn’t really drive for 13 ½ hours just 12 ½. I know we aren’t supposed to do things like this but we were trying to cut down our driving time on Monday because of Dave’s work. I did do some driving maybe 1 ½ hours, if that, it wasn’t much but enough of a break for Dave, he said. The week we were in Gila Bend was almost in the 80 degree range every day, on Sunday, when we left, they were supposed to get rain. At least for a week I got to work on my tan, but now here in Lakehills, which is about 30 miles outside of San Antonio, the weather is suppose to be in the 40’s and 50’s, so there goes that tan. Before I forget I have to tell you driving across Hwy 10, once in Texas, we have never seen so many cars and trucks being pulled by other cars and trucks. Dave came up with, only ½ of the vehicles in Texas run because the other ½ are being pulled. (ha ha)
Anyway, we are at “Thousand Trails” Medina Lake Preserve very large park, 260 acres and we are parked close to the Lake. Big lake but not much water in it, I guess they are hurting here for rain and you can tell by how low the lake is. The park here is a deer sanctuary I think, the place is covered with deer and Valentine could care less. She looks at them and they really stare at her but she is more interested in looking for lizards and squirrels, I’ll get pictures and post on the website later. We haven’t been taking any pictures lately, so it’s about time we get started again, I should have started with the State Signs like New Mexico, Texas, but we drove by too fast oh well.
We will be here for 2 weeks, will write more later.

Thursday, February 8, 2007 still here in Gila Bend, the rally started today. Yesterday was registration all day long, Dave and I worked the check-in table from 3pm to 5pm with 2 other people but most had checked in by then so we only collected $200, the registration is only $10.00 a person, what a deal. Don't understand how they can hold a 3 day rally with so little money, a lot of volunteer's I guess, still they have free hot dog lunch one day, and each morning they have a free continental breakfast. They have over 200 that signed up for this rally, this park we are at is full so people are either at the Elk's lodge, down the street at the Shell Gas Station RV Park or they are dry camping in the back of this RV park we are at. I'd have to say they are more 5th wheels here then RV's but everyone has a satellite dish, plus some of the one's that are dry camping have lots of solar panels that lift up on the top of their rigs and that's how they get their power, needless to say they have all those panels because they do a lot of dry camping, that's not for me. The weather here is sunny and 80 degrees so I'm working on my tan again.
Bye for now.

Monday February 5, 2007 sorry I'm a little behind in posting this. We are in a new location now we got here late Saturday afternoon, so now we are in Gila Bend, Arizona. One thing I want to say before I go on is last Friday morning Valentine got into the shower in the motorhome and took a shower, not by her choice of course. She has a skin rash and the vet gave us some medicated shampo and rinse and said she has to be bathed twice a week and since it was way too cold outside while in Lakeside she got a bath in the motorhome. She did really well too, but now that we are here in Arizona todays weather was 80 degrees so tomorrow she can get bathed outside. Anyway, we are here in Gila Bend for a Mobile Satellite Internet Rally which doesn't start until Wednesday. Very small town, maybe 1900 people, if that, so needless to say they have nothing here. Sunday we drove into town to have breakfast but didn't find anything to stop at so we ended up driving into Goodyear Arizona and stopping at TGI Fridays and having lunch. Goodyear is about 45 miles away and that's the closes town if we really need anything I guess. Hopefully I stocked us up enough so we won't need to do any shopping until after we leave this place which will be next Sunday. The rally is from Wednesday thru Saturday and they have lots of stuff going on everyday. Dave even signed us up to be helpers for the rally, so he just told me tomorrow night we have to go to a meeting to be told what our duties will be. Yesterday was Super Bowl sunday so we sat outside and watched the game and commercials from the TV that Dave got hooked up underneath the motorhome. The screen is my old computer screen and it's all mounted now and we can sit outside from now on and watch TV, pretty neat. Today Dave had a lot of work stuff to do so Valley and I did a lot of walking and laying out in the sun, it was great, I even have a sunburn now yea!

Wednesday January 31, 2007 yesterday we left the 1000 Trails in Soledad Canyon and drove to the 1000 Trails in San Diego but couldn't stay there. It was so far back in the hills, outside of San Diego, that they had NO phone service, well you know that doesn't work for Dave since he needs that phone for work. We found a park in Lakeside, Rancho Los Coches RV Park, and are staying here until Saturday. The reason we came to San Diego is so that Dave could go into the office for work, he needs to show his face at least once every couple years.
Last Sunday, in Canyon Country, Valley and I went walking for 5.5 miles in the early morning then came back and got ready to drive to Simi Valley. We got together with Brad and Diane and went to El Patio for lunch then drove over and visited with Jodi, Riley, and Hutch for a little while. David Jr. had just left for San Diego for work, Jodi had just dropped him off at Amtrack. Monday we had to drive back down to Simi again because Valley had a vet appointment and Dave had an appointment for a blood test. Valley we dropped off then headed for David and Jodi's to hang out there where Dave could work from while we waited for Valley to get done. We were hoping to see more people but it's hard on a Monday while everyone's at work, oh well next time. Valley ended up staying until 4 p.m., a lot later then we thought, then we headed back to the coach to get ready to leave on Tuesday morning.
Will write later about our stay in Lakeside.

Saturday, January 27, 2007 today was a driving day. We left Fort Mohave/Bullhead City this morning and got to Soledad Canyon 1000 Trails this afternoon. Really big park here, could do a lot of walking if we were going to be here long enough, but we aren't going to be so will try and do as much as I can while we are here. Haven't really been doing any walking most of this week because I have been sick, and trying to take it easy so I can get over this. The other day Dave and I did go to the movies at AVI Casino and saw "Dream Girls" boy what a movie, that Jennifer has one hell of a voice. We can see why she has been named and has won some awards already.
Bye for now

Sunday January 21st, 2007. Well, we moved again today after breakfast to our new campsite for the next week. We went from Nevada to Arizona all within 10 min. and from one campsite to another. We are now in Bullhead City/Fort Mohave Arizona staying at Riverside Adventures Trails RV Resort. It's a 55 or older RV park it says on the outside but they have kids here too. It's a hugh park with 350 full hookup sites, it's dirt and gravel but at least we do have a cement slab outside the side of the motor home. We will be here until Saturday then on to Soledad, like I said before. Don't have a lot to talk about these days because it is so cold where we have been so we don't get out much. I'm not a gambler so I haven't really gone to the casinos, Dave has gone a couple times but he isn't much of a gambler either. I think it's about time to start travelling again to other states, we have been around California, Arizona and Neveda for too long now.

Saturday, January 19th, we left Las Vegas yesterday about 1 pm right after we got our rig back from Fenley RV. Dave has been saying the whole time we have had this rig that the batteries were run down but when we were at Monaco last year they said they were fine. Dave has been running some test on them while we have been in Vegas then we took it into Fenley and Dave was right the batteries were low. Fenley called Monaco and they said to give us new ones and they would pay for it, so we got 4 new batteries. We also needed to have a filter changed which they also did but we had to pay for that. Anyway, now we are at AVI Casino in Laughlin, it's an Indian Casino which we didn't know until we got here. All this time coming to Laughlin and passing this place, I just thought it was a regular casino just far away from the other ones, oh well, no big deal. We will leave here tomorrow and go to Bullhead City to the campground there where we have reservations for the next week then we head back to Soledad Canyon. Weather is warming up a little it now gets into the 50's, oh yea!

Sunday January 14, 2007, still here in Las Vegas and freezing to death. Last Friday we had snow flurries for about 1 minute maybe 2, I was out walking Valley around the park so she ended up with little white flakes on her. Last Thursday we went out with a friend of Dave's, Jim Smith who lives here in Vegas. We sat and visited at our coach first then he took us to Red Rock Casino, a new one here, for a buffet dinner, which is one of the better ones I have ever been at. Real nice looking casino inside and out and right in the Red Rocks which were really pretty.
Yesterday, Saturday, we went to the strip again and went to the monster mall there to use my Nordstrom gift card that I have been carrying for ever. After that we went walking around to different casinos, we walked for about 4 hours and went to the Wynn this time. The outsides of the casinos are pretty but once you are inside a casino is a casino.
Las Vegas is not my favorite place, if you can't tell, it would be a lot better if the weather was warm then we could go do things, but right now it's in the 20's, 30's and 40's and that's just to damn cold for me. Oh God, please give me back my sunshine with the warm weather, I'm turning as white as a ghost, I could almost be as white as my daughter Kim soon and boy would that be bad. ha ha
Forgot to mention, we are near a little strip mall where there is a Smart and Final but the big thing is a little casino called "Danny's Casino", didn't Kim's fiance' owned a casino????

January 8, 2007 We are now in Las Vegas where it's just as cold as it was in Bakersfield. We got to Vegas about 3 pm on Saturday, we are staying at the Thousand Trails here on Boulder Highway. We are in walking distance to Boulder Station Casino, Arizona Charlie's and Sam's Town Casino. Saturday night we just set up camp and tried to stay warm, Sunday we went to the Champange Brunch at Boulder Station Casino, boy was that good, then to Camping World to buy a hose stand. Vegas has a law that the sewer hose can not lie on the ground, so we had to go purchase a stand for it. After the afternoon nap, Dave Valley and I went walking for about an hour, that was our exciting day.

January 2, 2007 1st off let me start with HAPPY BIRTHDAY VICKEY ALVIS, 48 yrs young.
Hope everyone had a safe and Happy New Year, Dave and I stayed at the house in Bakersfield and baby sat the dogs, Kim and Danny went to Danny's sisters house for New Years. Dave and I went out to Macaroni Grill for dinner then back to the house had some wine and fell asleep on the couch, me, and chair for Dave. We woke up at 10 min. after midnight and went to bed, very exciting evening. Hope you all had a more exciting evening.
Today, like I said earlier, is Vickey birthday and she, Danielle, and Joann drove up to Bakersfield to see Kim's house and take a tour of Grimmway, where Danny works. Even though Dave and I went on this tour last July, I went again because it is very interesting. Dave drove down to Simi Valley to help Alex get a computer and take Kim's and my jewelery to the Jeweler we know there to have them appraised and pictures taken for insurance purposes, so he wasn't around to hang out with the girls. We (Kim, me, Vickey, Danielle, and Joann) first went out to lunch at BJ's, then I took them by the trailer park that Dave and I are staying at, then on to Grimmway for the carrot factory tour.
This is our last week here, we will pull out on Friday and park in front of Kim's for the night then Saturday head out for Las Vegas. We will be there for 2 weeks then start towards Simi Valley because we have to be at the Golf Course the 1st weekend of February for the bridal faire. Then we hit the road for Arizona again, we have a rally to go to there, after that I'll have to let everyone know when I know. The one thing I do know is we are planning on not coming back to Bakersfield until then end of May for Kim's graduation then I guess we will be staying until after the wedding. I know in April we will be in Oregon again, so Marty watch out.
That's my short update for now, will write again later.

December 23, 2007, 2 more days and it's Christmas then all that shopping, and money spent will be over in as long as it takes you to open up presents, which is only a matter of minutes. Now with gift cards the magic lasts longer, or at least until you get to the store to cash them in.
This Christmas Eve Danny and Kim are having us and Danny's family over for dinner. Danny and his family haven't finished fixing up his parents kitchen yet so Kim and Danny had to host the party, plus, it's good for them to do anyway. Christmas morning we will drive down to David's and have breakfast then drive to Mike's and have Christmas dinner with them, then back to Bakersfield because of the dogs.
It is so cold here in Bakersfield, 32 degrees in the morning, Valley doesn't even what to go out for our morning walk, she would rather stay inside and curl up on the couch and stay warm, I have to drag her out. We don't have clothes for this cold of weather, we even went out and got mittens and caps to wear when we are out walking. I have to say tho, that when I see the sun out I do put on shorts, Dave gets mad, but oh well, he is the one with a cold not me.
Anyway, not much else going on. Will write again next week.
Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to all.

Sunday December 17, 2006 We are here in Bakersfield. We left Lake Havasu on Friday and it was suppose to be 77 degrees that day. Now we are in Bakersfield and while driving back from Simi Valley last night over the grapevine it was snowing. We don't do snow, once off the grapevine it was just cold and rainy, Oh, was Havasu and the sunshine when you need it. Ha Ha
Yesterday, Dave, Kim and I drove down to Simi to visit the place where it was pretty much decided already where the wedding and reception will be for Kim and Danny. Danny didn't come down with us because he drove down Friday night and is staying at his parents for the weekend while he is helping his family redo his mom's kitchen. Kathy and Javier, Danny's parents, are remodeling the whole kitchen. New cabinets, counter tops and flooring. Danny is there to help tile the kitchen floor. He did such a good job in the Bakersfield house with his brother in law, Fernando, that he gets to do it again at his parents house. Anyway, at
3 pm we all met at the golf course where the big day will be. There was Kim, Danny, Dave, David Jr, Jodi, Riley and me all talking to Barbara, the wedding coordinator there, and we believe the place will work for us. So we put an "UN REFUNDABLE" deposit down so there's no backing out now. The place is set and the date is set, Simi Valley, Lost Hills Country Club, August 18, 2007, mark your calendars. Tomorrow Kim and I will go and pick out and pick up the wedding dress. Kim has basically already picked it out she just wants me to see it and pay for it. It looks like Dave is never going to get to retire again. Kim even had the nerve to say to me that I might have to get a job again, NOT if I can help it. Come next August, maybe even July, Kim and Danny have to start making all of the payments that are related too the Bakersfield house since Kim will be out of school and we no longer have to support her. We'll show her, who has to get another job, we will just refinance the Bakersfield house to pay for everything, that way the two of them will have to make the higher house payment, ha ha.

Just a quick note, we are still here in Lake Havasu City, will be leaving here on Friday to head to Bakersfield. Will stay in Bakersfield until about January 5th then we are headed for Las Vegas for a couple weeks. Nothing new going on here, doing a little Christmas shopping, very little because we have nowhere to keep anything. Plus, we are homeless now and we all know homeless people have no money to buy anything anyway.
Will write again next week.
Bye Jeri

I’ll just do a highlight of our trip, don’t want to bore you guys to death with the details.
While in Simi on the 11th and 12th we got to visit with, Brad and Diane, Alex, Jacqui and boys, Vickey and Chris, John, Amy and kids, and last but not least David, Jodi and Riley.
November 11th, night time Kim gets engaged, had to throw that in again.
November 12th, red eye flight to Orlando Florida and stayed there until Friday the 17th. While in Orlando Dave had meetings all week so I did Epcot and Sea World and a lot of driving around and shopping.
November 17th we flew to San Juan and got on the cruise ship and set sail that night.
November 18th we were at sea

November 19th arrived in Aruba Dave went scuba diving and had a great time and I took a “see and sea” tour. The place is beautiful would love to go back there again; water warm and beaches are great.

November 20th we were at sea

November 21st we arrived at the Panama Canal at 5 a.m. and it was raining. Dave had to stand outside in the rain to get pictures he also got pictures from our balcony too. Watching those locks on the canal is a sight to see, it was more interesting to watch the cargo barge beside us to see who those canal locks really work.

It took all day to go thru the canal, once we went thru the other side we stopped off at Puerto Amador in Panama. We had to take the ships boats into the port because the docks weren’t big enough for us. We went to the dock, it was raining, walked around with Lois and Paul, at the shops they had there, bought some booze to take to our room then went back to the ship.
Lois and Paul are the couple we had dinner with every night, very nice, they live in Chandler, Arizona. What’s funny is there were quite a few people we met that were from Sylmar, Ventura, Moorpark, and Arizona.
November 22nd we were at sea

November 23rd arrived at Puntarenas in San Jose, we didn’t have any tours planned so Dave and I got off the ship and started walking around. The dock was covered with street vendors, not a very clean place. We walked around a little then went back to the ship and checked with the tour cruise guy to see if they had any openings on any tours. We got on a rain forest and aerial bridge tour. Once we got on the top of the mountain the views were beautiful, we found the perfect spot for Kim to get married at, the background view was of the ocean, hopefully the pictures came out. After lunch we went for a walk thru the rain forest, very interesting. They have these large ants that carry leaves to their holes where they bury them so the mold grows on them and then that’s what the ants eat. You look down as your walking and all you see is long lines of leaves moving across the road. On the trees were big hives, which looked live bee hives, but were termite hives. Termites only eat dead wood that’s why they don’t bother the trees there.
The bridges where hanging bridges very high up, was OK as long as the people behind me didn’t keep swinging the bridges.
November 24th at sea again, way to many at sea days for me, that’s for sure.
November 25th arrived at Puerto Quetzal in Guatemala at 6 a.m. Dave and I took the 1 ½ hour bus ride into town. When the bus was pulling over in town I almost shit my pants, I said to Dave they aren’t dropping us off here are they? Being on a cruise I expected nice towns you go in, not run down places. We had 5 hours to kill before the bus came back to pick us up so we started walking. All the way into this city all you saw were people living in shacks or on the ground with trees as their covers. As we were walking around almost every where you looked there were cops with bullet proof vests and machine guns. We went to an internet café and checked our emails and sent emails out, we then went and found a place we could make a phone call and called Kim and Danny. They had a farmers market going on so we walked around there then went to the artist corner. It was a fenced in area that had hand made goods live blankets, rugs, clothes ect with everyone there trying to sell you anything you looked at. OK place to see, not a lot of English speaking people, no flushing toilet paper it had to go in the trash cans because the plumbing is so bad. (Sorry had to add that in) Nice place to visit but wouldn’t want to go back for a long or at least if I did I would take a tour, we don’t do very well on our own.
November 26th arrived at Huatulco in Mexico. We went walking around with Lois and Paul and looked at some shops on the dock. It was such a beautiful day we decided we all just wanted to sit on the beach and drink beer, eat ships and watch the ships crew play on the beach. A lot of the staff got to get off here and have what they call a day off, which all that means is after working the breakfast shift they can have the rest of the day off until 5 pm, and that’s what they call a day off. Those people work 7 days a week 8 to 12 hours a day for 6 or 10 months it depends on the contract they sign. No wonder no one that works there is from the U.S. our labor laws wouldn’t allow it.
I think it would be a great place though for Spanky to be on the show side of it, he would do great with the singers and dancers.
Oh, forgot to mention, on one of the tours which was a boat ride to see the different beaches then go for a swim, a women died. She was only about 57 and the tour was almost done when everyone went into the ocean for a swim. We heard she was swimming around then started not feeling good, they got her on the tour boat and started CPR. There was a nurse passenger from our ship that was on the tour and she tried to help, when they got back into port the ambulance didn’t have a defibulator, the tour boat didn’t have one either and by the time our cruise ship doctor got there it was way too late. That was a bummer.
Huatulco anyway is a place to go and see again.
November 27 arrived in Acapulco and got off the ship. While waiting to get off the ship we started talking to another couple, Linda and Alfredo, who we had had breakfast with earlier in the week and they were, like us, staying another day in Acapulco and staying at the same hotel. We joined up to share a taxi ride together to the hotel and while waiting for the taxi another couple asked if they could join us too. That was Jackie and Carlton who now live in Florence Oregon but a year ago they use to live in Ventura. Linda and Alfredo live in Sylmar and lucky for us they speak Spanish which really came in handy. We ended up with a taxi driver with a Suburban which we all could fit in and then he offered to give us a tour of the city once we all got checked into our hotel. The driver was Carlos, and he spoke pretty good English, he really showed us around. We took a tour of the city then went to a great lunch place then he took us to see the cliff divers. We had a great day and the money was well worth it. He only charged us $60.00 a couple and we were with him for about 6 hours, what a deal.
It was much more pleasant to see those cliff divers in their little bathing suits then the ones we saw on the ship. Why is it these old fat men squeeze themselves into these little suits, their bellies stick out farther then their little bulge in front and they are always so hairy. Yck
When we got back to the hotel we, Linda, Al, Dave and I, went to the pool to cool off. Carlton and Jackie weren’t able earlier to get their hotel room so they took off to get all set up, they were staying another 3 days. Later on we just walked all around, had star bucks, went to a place for chips and dip and just talked. Linda found out before the cruise that she is pg with twins, which was great news for them, even better for Linda because she could eat as much as she wanted.
That’s the short recap, we got back to L.A. and Bakersfield on the 28th. We left Kim’s on the 30th and now are back in Lake Havasu City, where it’s freezing. I’m not a happy camper.
Bye for now.

We’re Back, and had a wonderful time.
Before I get started on the highlights of our trip let me get out the GOOD NEWS FIRST! Our daughter, Kim, got engaged on November 11, 2006 with a wonderful man, Danny Gonzalez. The wedding date, last I heard, is August 11, 2007 so mark your calendars for that date. Dave and I are really happy, they have been together for almost 3 ½ years and Danny is really a saint to put up with her. He’s the only room mate she has been able to keep, all the others have left on a bad note.(ha ha) She will also be graduating in May of 2007 so we will all be having a busy year, but very expensive for Dave and I. Once that ring is on her finger though, all the expenses after that fall on Danny’s shoulders. Maybe I shouldn’t be posting this, if Danny reads this he just might back out, TOO LATE DANNY YOUR STUCK NOW, HA HA!!!
Love ya, and welcome to the family.

Quick Update

We are on the ship just left Aruba heading for Panama. Florida was good and the trip so far has been great. Will update when we get to Panama.

Last posting until we get back from Florida and our cruise thru the Panama Canal.

Tuesday, November 7, 2006 still in Havasu and the weather is about 88 degrees today, really warm and not much wind, thank goodness. I did another load of laundry, getting ready to leave on Thursday. God I need a washer and dryer, on the next coach, if there is one, I will have one.

Wednesday, November 8, 2006 today the weather is suppose to be 90 degrees, it’s getting warmer. At 10:30 a.m. I had a hair appointment and got myself a body perm. When Dave picked me up all he said was “did you want your hair that high”? Why doesn’t he just come out and say he doesn’t like it, but I don’t care I like it. We decided we are going to leave tomorrow about 5 a.m. to Bakersfield. There is no way I’m going to do a blog while in Florida or on the curise, will have to do a recap when we get back. So don’t think I’ve quit writing but you won’t hear from me until the beginning of December.