Tuesday, October 24, 2006 Laughlin, Nevada, arrived here on Saturday afternoon. We are staying at Riverside RV Resort, this place has over 700 sites, it's hugh. We are parked at the very top with a view of the whole casino seen; it's just too bad we had to back in instead of pulling in forward with the coach because we would have really had a view out our front window. I guess if we had that view out our front window we wouldn't have to sit outside like we are doing now, so just as well. The weather is in the mid 80's and the RV Park has a good share of 5th wheels and coaches here, plus, Riverside casino has a shuttle that comes by every 20 min. to pick you up and take you to the casino, they'll do anything to get your money.
Before I forget, Saturday morning before we left Cottonwood we had gone out to breakfast at Georgie’s Café, very popular place in Cottonwood and only open for breakfast and lunch, anyway, sitting there having breakfast were people we had met at Camp Monaco in Harrisburg Oregon. John, is ex-president of Monaco Int. group and his wife Susann, we think that’s her name, live in Cottonwood, small world. They were headed for Laughlin too with a few of their friends and their coaches.
After getting here and getting set-up I walked Valley around then hopped on my bike and rode for a little bit. Dave and I then caught the shuttle and went to the casino and walked around there and registered for the casino points card. We then went walking on the boardwalk to another casino to check it out, but guess what, if you’ve seen one casino you have seen them all. We came back to the coach to relax and decide what we wanted to do for dinner. We hadn’t had Italian for awhile so we decided to go to the River Palms to Pasta Cucina which for $7.99 you can have unlimited pasta and sauce plus unlimited salad and soup bar. Well you know how that goes, you hit the salad and soup 1st then with the bread and then the pasta comes you are already stuffed. These restaurants know they really make out when they have set-ups like this. To get to the River Palms, we walked this time to the Riverside Casino and caught the boat taxi to the River Palms, which was $4.00 a person, which from now on we will either walk to the other casinos or drive, price a bit steep for me. When we got back to the Riverside casino we sat down at some nickel machines and played for probably an hour and a half, which was good for me I was entertained. After leaving our money, we came back to the coach and kicked back. The wind was blowing so hard that we didn’t even chance putting our awning out. All night long that wind was blowing so hard that you just couldn’t sleep.
Sunday, I took Valley for a long walk all around the park then when we got back, Dave and I took the bikes and rode all around the park. Being at the top of the park we decided to come back in stages, we would ride up a level then cruise around then do the next climb to the next level. You can get a pretty good workout doing that, and boy do we need the workout. When we got back and showered and changed we drove into Bullhead City for the Super Wal-Mart shopping trip. We needed groceries for the week, plus, on the drive from Cottonwood to Laughlin I had broken one of my nails off so I needed to make an appointment for Monday morning. When we got back we went over to the Riverside casino and went to the Sunday Champagne brunch, so much for our workout earlier. After that we walked back to the coach, turned on the football game and took a nap. Sunday night we took Valley and walked into town a little bit then brought her back to the coach and walked over to the casino to donate our money again on the slot machines.
Monday, I went to Wal-Mart at 9am to have my nails done, then shopped a little bit, got some new tank tops so when I got back I had to throw away tank tops. You see the rule is, if you buy some clothing you have to come back to the coach and throw some clothing out, we only have so much room. One time I came back and didn’t want to throw anything of mine away so I went into Dave’s drawer and threw something of his away. (ha ha)
Dave was pretty much done with work when I got back from Wal-Mart so we got into the car and drove over to Lake Mohave to check it out. After that we brought Valley back and drove into Bullhead City again and went to K-Mart to purchase some “Off spray” and candles to keep the bugs away, because in Cottonwood I had been eaten alive, and I didn’t want it to happen here in Laughlin. On the drive back we heard a radio ad talking about the new houses that were going up and they had RV access, so of course we had to stop and check it out. The builder is Brookfield, which is who we bought from in Cottonwood. We went thru the models and talked to the sales guy, then we drove over to see the one house that was already built with an RV garage, very impressive. This garage cost this guy 65K and he doesn’t even own an RV, he said some day he might that’s why he wanted it built. We would have loved to see the inside of the garage and the house too because this guy had just spent a fortune on all of it the salesman said, the landscaping alone was over 30K, must be nice to have so much money to spend. Anyway, we don’t need to buy a new house again until we are ready to move into it, besides when Dave heard that last year the temp. got up to 134 degrees he said this place is way too hot for him. After we got back to the coach we fixed dinner and stayed in for the night, not in the mood to lose more money, this way we can double up for tomorrow, ha ha.
Today, Tuesday morning, and it’s raining. What’s up here, we are suppose to be following the sun and every time we do the rain shows up. Not happy about this, but at least the coach and car keep getting washed down.
That’s the recap so far, bye for now.

Saturday, October 21, 2006 leaving Cottonwood this morning and heading for Laughlin, Nevada to stay there for a week. We couldn’t find a house we wanted to buy in our price range, we did really like one but it was a bit more then what we wanted to pay. Anyway, I’ll try and recap the last few days.
Wed. Oct. 18 I took Valley for a long walk then at 9am we met a rep. from the Rental Place to do a walk thru of our rentals. The renters are really nice and they are doing a good job at keeping up the places. Dave had to get back because of work, so Valley and I walked around then I relaxed in the sun reading my book. Before meeting Gail, the real estate person, I went for a bike ride while Dave was working. I was riding all around the park then on the way back there was a big snake in the road. My guess is it was about 3 feet long and that is way to long for me. This car was coming down the road and I thought dead snake now, but I couldn’t do it, I told the driver to watch out and he went partially off the road to go around the snake. At 3 we went with Gail and looked at about 7 different houses. There were 2 we liked but 1 we were really interested in, it was perfect for parking an RV in. The 2 houses were almost identical and were 10 years apart in age, funny, so Dave looked it up and it was the same builder who had just made a few changes on the newer one. One of the houses was set in the middle of the property and the other one was set on one side. We were interested in the house on the side of the lot that way there was plenty of room to build a garage for the RV.

Thursday Oct. 19th after walking Valley and Dave getting his morning phone calls done we went to the City of Cottonwood to get the zoning rules for Zeptic Tanks and the plans on the house we were interested in. We then went back out to the house with Gail to do some measuring of the property. We then came back to the coach and Dave started making phone calls to see if we could make this work if we purchased the house. While he was doing that I went bike riding and on the way back I saw another snake, this one was only about a foot long and was headed into the camp host site. When I got back Dave and I sat outside and discussed all the stuff he had found out and we came to the conclusion that we would be too negative in the monthly income to do this right now. Rents are only going between 900 and 1000 and if we purchased the house the payment would be a lot more and we just feel we shouldn’t get into this now. Dave called Gail and told her that this one was a no go but keep her eyes open for something that is more in the price range that we wanted to stay in.

Friday Oct. 20th after walking Valley Dave and I went on a bike ride together. Dave wanted to try the mountain bike trail that Ranger Randy had told him about. Now for me I prefer to stay on the roads but for Dave I agreed to go on the dirt and rock mountain trail. I’ll tell you right now, I hate mountain biking, the tires slip on the rocks I was sure I was going to go flying off the bike. We made it to the end of the trail, about a mile in I guess, and we parked the bikes and walked around. While Dave was scraping the mud off his tires I saw a stick on my tire and went to wipe if off and kaboom. That stick fell off and the gel or goo that was put in my tire blew out on my fingers and the air just kept coming out of my tire. So needless to say I had to walk my bike back to the coach. If I remember right I believe that was what Randy Ranger said would happen, if we didn’t get that gel stuff for my tires. We did get the gel and I still ended up with a flat tire, no more mountain biking for me. So after we got showered and changed Dave, Valley and I drove back to Sedona to get my tire fixed. I stayed outside with Valley while Dave took the bike in and the guy said I had a big foreign object in my tire which could have been a stick so there was no way the gel could have held that. When we got back Dave and I took off for “Out of Africa Wildlife Park” in Camp Verde. That was pretty neat, much better then any zoo, because the animals come right up to the fences or even stick their heads into the buses. The lions, tigers, bears, wolves ect all come to the fence and you are only about 4 ft away from them. When we went on the bus ride the giraffes put their head in the bus to get the carrots from you that the bus driver had given us, pretty neat.
That was our exciting last 3 days so now it’s Saturday morning and we need to now pack up things and get ready to leave.
Bye for now

October 17, 2006 Cottonwood Arizona still here and plan on staying here for another 9 days. Today is Alex Meisel's Birthday so want to say "Happy Birthday" Alex. I can tell right now that when we are parked in one place for awhile I won't be writing everyday, unless we are at some kind of festival, like the Balloon Fiesta, because no one wants to here about our boring days. What I'll do is just give highlights of what is going on, so if you don't see a posting all the time that's why.
Sunday, October 15, we drove to Cliff Castle Casino for breakfast, Dave thought they had a brunch there but we didn't find it, but breakfast was OK a little slow though. We didn't do any gambling, sorry Danny no chips for you, we just left and came back to the coach. One thing we noticed in Cottonwood on a Sunday, no one is around. A lot of the shops weren't open and there was hardly any traffic, the only busy place was Walmart. I had made a menu and shopping list for this weeks meals. I haven't made a menu since I left Simi Valley, boy I sure didn't miss doing that. When we got back to the coach, we walked Valley around then went on a bike ride.
Monday, October 16, at 9 am I had a nail appointment, at Walmart, do like those Super Centers, these Walmarts are a one stop and shop place, sure saves time. After getting back Dave, Valley and I walked down to the Ranger's Station to pay for another 10 days here at Dead Horse. While on the walk I spotted a baby tarantula walking across the street, just what I needed to see. Snakes, tarantulas, what the hell next. While at the Rangers Station Dave got to talking to one of the Rangers who is a big mountain and street biker and he offered to come up to our campsite and show us how to use our bikes right. So Randy Ranger showed up about 12:45 pm and hung around showing us stuff till about 1:30pm. He is very passionate about bike riding, he hasn't owned a car since 1979 he said, he rides his bike or uses the Ranger truck that he is provided with. He also teaches bike classes when he isn't being a Ranger, it was very nice of him to come by and give us tips. When he left we drove down to Century 21 to meet up with Gail and see what she had for us to see. She had a bunch of print outs for us to look over and if we are interested in any of them give her a call and she will show us the homes. After leaving there we found the Valley Verde Animal Hospital because Valley was out of her special food, which Dave had called them earlier and they did have some on hand. We got signed up with Banfield, which is the medical part for animals, at either PetSmart or PetCo, so we could get the food anytime, but when we called the places in Prescott those stores don't have any medical care but once a month, they have a vet come in and give shots that are needed. Luckily for us the animal hospitals have her kind of dog food and Banfield had given us a card that said we need the prescription stuff, so they have no problem selling us the stuff. After that we went back to Walmart because Randy, the Ranger, had told us to get this gel stuff for our bike tires, which Dave knew about because when he went and got his tire fixed or replaced in Sedona the bike shop had put that stuff in both of his tires. Dave had told Randy he was going to wait till I had gotten a flat tire then he would have had the stuff put in my tires. Randy said go to Walmart and get the stuff because he said I guarantee she will get a flat tire and will be walking her bike, and she won't be a happy camper. So that's why we went back to Walmart but of course, they were out of the stuff, so I guess tomorrow we will check with the bike shop to see if we can purchase some from them.
Back to October 17, in between Dave's phone calls we drove into town to pick up our mail that Kim had sent us then went to find a paralegal about helping us with putting the one house into the trust and updating our living trust. She said it was $50 for the deed and $400.00 for redoing our living trust. You see the thing is back when we were packing up everything in Simi to move into the coach Dave thought he had lost our original trust, he called the attorney and had him send us a copy, but we know if anything happens the original is needed. Well, after hearing the $400.00 charge, which we were not going to pay, Dave called the attorneys office again and the receptionist said the attorneys keep the original we never had the original. That made Dave really happy, all this time and hunting and we never did have the original. After that we came back to the coach and picked up Valley and my bike and drove to Bike and Bean in the village of Oak Creek to get that gel stuff put in my tires. Oak Creek is about 5 miles from Sedona, and on the way there I saw the biggest tarantula crossing the street, damn I should have run it over, I'm hoping that one of the two trucks behind me got him. Driving back we decided to drive thru Sedona, we thought it would be quicker to get back, wrong, they were doing road construction and it took a lot longer. When we got back we closed up the coach because we had to drive into town to buy propane and coming back into the campsite we had to dump, it had been 6 days so it was time. Hooking back up Dave had problems with the satellite for the computers and was on the phone for hours getting it repaired. After that we sat and went thru all the mail we had received, our cruise stuff was there so that was fun to go thru and get everything done for boarding and stuff on the computer.

October 14, 2006, Saturday night, well like I said in the last blog, I thought the rain was following us and it was. Last night the thunder was loud and the rain hard at times. It wasn’t like Albuquerque’s storm where I thought we were going to be picked up and tossed away, it was just really hard rain but not the winds. When we got up in the morning, right after Valley got to go outside and do her thing, the rain really started coming down and wasn’t stopping. Our satellite dish couldn’t even keep the signal for the TV, so I ended up putting a video on, “Transamerica” which I’ve had for a long time and never watched. Dave wasn’t too happy; he said he wanted to catch up on his reading anyway, just don’t understand why guys don’t like to watch other guys have sex change operations, ha ha, just kidding. About 10 or 11 a.m. the rain was finished, Dave kept tracking it on his computer so that was pretty neat, we knew where it was headed and knew it had blown over us finally. Forgot to mention when we got up in the morning we had no water, I guess the State Park hadn’t paid its bill. We just turned on our pump and were OK. About 8 in the morning, between the rain falls, the camp host had come by and told Dave that one of the lines had broken and when they tried to fix it, it had some how jammed the pump and they had to turn the water off.
No big deal like I said when I finished watching the movie I got ready and took Valley for a walk. Dave called Gail, at Century 21, and she said she would meet with us Monday afternoon to go over the listings that were available, since she just got back from Italy we weren’t in any hurry so Monday was fine with us. Dave had done his own research on the web, so when Valley and I got back we took off to go see some of the area on our own. What we would really like to find is some land that already has all the utilities there maybe a small house that is rentable for now but when we are done traveling we could either add on to or tear down the small house and build something that would also accommodate the RV as a guest house. We also don’t want to spend say over $250,000; I know that’s not asking too much.
After looking around we then went to Thousand Trails Resort to check them out to see if we were interested in joining up with them. Does anyone know of anyone that has joined them and if so was it worth the big chuck of money it costs? The park looked fantastic, gated with security, restaurant, store, 2 pools, club house, miniature golf, tennis courts, lots of activities to do, ect. There are 59 parks around the U.S. and the one we were looking at was one of the smaller parks, some have 4 pools, adult pools and the kids’ pools. They are also part of a bunch of other RV parks that you can go to if Thousand Trails isn’t in the area and the nightly rate is like $8.00, which is really dirt cheap. If you know anything please let us know.
After that we came back to the coach, walked Valley around, and then looked through all the paperwork we had picked up all day long.
That was our exciting Saturday, oh by the way, when we got back the water was good to hook up again.

October 13, 2006 Friday the 13th, oh no!! Thank goodness nothing bad happened to us today, although, it's Friday the 13th at 5 pm and the day isn't over yet, knock on wood that nothing happens. Let's see, the last blog ended on Wednesday morning and we were in Winslow, at Meteor Crater RV Park. After writing the blog I took Valley for a walk then came back to the coach and showered and got ready to leave. Dave, Valley, and I then walked to the office to find out if the visitor center had parking for RV's, which they did so we decided to stay hooked up and drive there, that way we could just hit the road when we were done. When we left the time was too close for a phone meeting that Dave had to be on so luckily no one was behind us when he just stopped on the road and I took over driving. Well needless to say, I can't drive the RV with those spring tennis shoes on, they add a few inches to your height, plus I'm not use to them yet, so when I started driving I kept stepping on the brake instead of the gas, I kept saying that this just doesn't feel right and Dave was yelling and I was yelling then Dave figured out I was stepping on the brake instead of the gas. I know, I know, it's hard to believe we didn't figure it out right away, but the damn thing goes on its own just like a car and I was barely touching the brake because I couldn't feel anything in those shoes. I kept thinking the damn emergency brake was left on in the tow car, by Dave, wrong, just couldn't feel the gas petal. It was pretty funny, but I guess you had to be there. Back to the viewing of the Meteor Crater, what an amazing thing to see, you don't realize the size of the hole until you get there. One thing they say about the crater size is "imagine 20 football games being played simultaneously on its floor, while more than 2 million spectators observe from its sloping sides." also "the crater is over 4,000 feet across and 2.4 miles in circumference." It's pretty damn big and like I said really amazing to see. I think the cost was a bit much, which we over heard some other people saying but oh well, what doesn't cost these days. After leaving we drove to Cottonwood, Arizona, we arrived about 11:30 and parked in Fry's grocery store and unhooked the car. We thought it better to drive around to the different RV Parks and check them out first before we just drove to one, like we have been doing, and not being to happy with the place. The RV parks in Cottonwood are shit in our opinion, so we ended up at "Dead Horse State Park" in Cottonwood which is really nice except it only has electric and water. They have a dump station when you first enter so Dave will have to drive there every 5 days or so and dump, that's one thing that is not my job, but I know someday I will have to learn. I can tell you one thing, I will put this off as long as possible, I'm afraid if it comes to the day I have to do it, my RVing is over. October 12, Thursday morning, Dave had phone conferences so I took Valley for a walk. The weather was really nice but we had heard rain was on the way. I'm beginning to believe that the rain is following us now, damn it. When Valley and I got back from walking I decided to go and do laundry, Dave was finishing up his phone calls and wanted us to wait for him. Once we started the laundry we drove over to Century 21 where Gail, the agent we use here, works, Gail is in Italy until the 14th but the girl in the office gave Dave some printouts of properties to look at that we might be interested in purchasing. After the laundry we drove over to get copies of our tax bills and see what we need to do to get them put in the ‘Trust Name” One of the houses is in the trust but the other one isn’t, don’t ask me why. Dave called the rental company that handles the houses for us and told them we wanted to do a walk thru, it just so happens they had planned on doing a walk thru the following week anyway. Next Wednesday we will go with them and get to check out the inside of the houses to make sure they are being kept up. We drove around Cottonwood, and boy this place is really growing, they say the population is 9,000 plus but I think it is more then that. It’s good that it’s growing because that means the house values are going up.

Friday the 13th
I took Valley for a long walk around the 2 lakes they have here, Dave joined us at the end on his bike. When we got back we got ready to go, we planned on driving by our 2 rentals then go driving around looking at the properties Century 21 had given us. We first checked out the house in Cottonwood, which the neighborhood is still really nice and the front of the house looked great. Then we drove to Cornville and while driving around checking out the houses that are up for sale, this man waves us over. Can’t blame him, we had driven up the street 3 times, and it is a dead end street, so we stopped to talk to him. He is in real estate and wanted to know it we needed help, or were we interested in buying something. We told him we owned the house next door to him already and we were just driving by checking out the neighborhood. We ended up talking to him for about an hour, hearing about the real estate market and talking about the area. He gave us some areas to look at for buying more land, so we took off to check those out too. The rain had started; it would start and stop but thank goodness nothing heavy so we drove around for a couple hours checking out areas. When we got back we had lunch then Dave drove to Sedona to get his tire fixed. Forgot to mention that when Dave rode his bike to catch up to Valley and I he had rode on some dirt trails too and when we were leaving to check out the rentals we noticed that the front tire on his bike was flat. All the bike shops in Cottonwood have closed down and that’s why he had to drive to Sedona. I started this blog by saying nothing bad had happened so far on this Friday the 13th, but the flat tire was one think that did happen.
I think that’s it for the last 3 days, will write more later.

October 11, 2006 It's 6am Wednesday morning and we are now in Winslow Arizona, staying at Meteor Crater R.V. Park. Why are we here and not in Albuquerque, I guess I should go back to the last blog where I left off, it was Sunday afternoon and the Raider's and 49er's game was on.
About 5:30pm everyone started going to the balloon park, Dave said the balloons were out so we needed to go. We went over to where all the pilots gather to hear from the officials if everything is a go or not. The officials said it was a go at 6:45 pm for a balloon glow and fireworks show. Dave and I went back to the coach, no need in standing around for the next hour, we had seen everything the vendors have and didn't need to spend anymore money. Although, we did go to the Johnson worlds largest BBQ grill and get a sausage for later on to eat. While back at the coach Dave had called Eldon, he is Bill's head crew chief for the balloon that Dave has been helping with, and asked if they were going to show up, Eldon said "no". At least now we knew not to go looking for them, and Dave could watch the show instead of helping with it. We went back at 6:30 and the wind was really blowing, then about 7 the officials said "No balloon Glow" to windy but asked the balloon people that were there if they would do a "candle light glow" which is they just light the burners on the balloons all at the same time. That was pretty neat to watch, balloons would have been better but oh well, that's how our luck has been running. Dave got pictures and will post later to the website. At 8pm the fireworks show started and it was really good.
Sunday night the rain really came down, it was a good down pour. Monday morning the grounds were soaked and we needed to pack up and get going by 9am. Of course once again, the grounds were to wet so there was no dawn patrol lift off, another event cancelled and later on we heard everything was cancelled for the day. We said "bye" to the Ozark gang and I believe everyone was gone by 8am, we left about 8:30 and headed over to the "Sandia Casino" where we planned on dry camping for the night. Lots of RV's, 5th wheels and trailers camping out there in the parking lot. The casino said they didn't care as long as you cleaned up after yourself, they even offered to come pick you up when you wanted to come down to the casino, you see everyone was parked way in the back and if you were to lazy to walk to it. Once we got set-up we left Valley in the coach and took off to do laundry and find a petsmart because Valley needed her "heart/worm pills. We found the Petsmart but the vet part is closed on Holidays, forgot it was Columbus Day, so would need to come back tomorrow. We then went to Staples, Home Depot then on to the laundry mat. Once the laundry started Dave took off to go get a hair cut, I had my book with me so I just sat and read. Dave came back because the hair place was packed, again forgot it was a holiday. Lots of people at the laundry mat, besides the people that lived in the area there were quite a few from out of town for the balloon festival. When the laundry was done, Dave had seen a vet hospital, so we went by there to see if they would fill Valley's prescription for the pills she needed, that way we wouldn't have to go back to Petsmart. They called our vet, back in Simi, then they filled the prescription for us. When we got back to the coach Valley got her pill and Dave also put her "tick and flea" liquid stuff on her back. Valley and I went walking around with my new spring shoes and Dave had some work to do. While Valley and I were walking you could start feeling sprinkles so we headed back to the coach. Within a half hour after we got back it started pouring, and pouring, and pouring. I looked up on the computer for the weather and it said it was suppose to rain until 2am in the morning. For dinner Dave and I drove to the casino, yes drove, it wouldn't quit raining, Dave dropped me off in front then went to their underground parking. We went to 1 slot machine and lost our money right away so we went to dinner. After dinner we went straight back to the coach, wasn't in the mood to lose anymore money, but damn it, we forgot to get a $1.00 chip for Danny, Kim's boyfriend, he is collecting them down, oh well. Dave had gone to bed and when I was going to go the rain had let up a little so Valley could go outside, as soon as she came back in it started pouring again. When I got in bed all of a sudden the rain stopped and the wind hit, honest to god I thought it was a tornado, I kept looking out the window expecting us to be lifted up into the sky, of course if we had been in a trailer park we might have, you know that always happens to trailer trash. When we got up Tuesday morning the sky was clear and the balloons were out, it figures, the dawn patrol got going and we got to watch it on the local news. We had to be at American RV at 8:30 for our air conditioning repair, so as we were leaving the sky was full of Hot Air Balloons, luckily the freeway was moving slowly so we could watch the balloons. Didn't get any pictures because I was driving the car and Dave was driving the coach, we didn't have that far to drive so we didn't bother hooking up.
When we got to American RV they had lost our appointment, figures, they said they could look it at about noon. At 10 one of the reps came by listened to what the problem was then called Holiday Rambler. I took off for Walmart and did some shopping. Dave called me and said as soon as I got back we could leave, they did something with the themostat and hopefully that fixed the problem. So when I got back Dave said lets just leave, get headed for Arizona, which was fine with me, Albuquerque hadn't been good for us, with the trailer parks and weather. On Friday the 13th, remember we had gotten tickets to see "Last comic standing" Josh Blue, I ended up giving the tickets to a mailman that was delivering mail to the RV park next to American RV.
So that's our story, and that's how we ended up at Meteor Crater RV Park, we figure we will go see the crater then head for Cottonwood, AZ to check up on our rental properties. This way maybe we can write off some of our travels because we are checking our rentals.
That's it for now.

October 8, 2006 Sunday afternoon. So far today all balloon festivities have been cancelled. It was again rainy and windy this morning. They said they haven't given up yet on the Gas Balloon Race but things are not looking good, they even said today was free and parking was free to everyone today. To me that means they don't really think anything is going to go today but who knows they have till Wednesday to get the gas balloons to go or else the race will be cancelled, that's the festival rules. You see the gas balloons are up for days and who ever flies the farthest is the winner. They are up for like 3 or 4 days and since the Balloon Fiesta ends next Sunday I guess that's why Wednesday is the cutoff. It's 2:30 pm now and it's not raining but boy is the wind blowing so I'm sure the gas balloons and the hot air balloons will be cancelled for the rest of the day. From 9am to noon they had a car show, you know, the old cars and the new ones all decked out. We walked around that for a little while this morning then went to the near by casino and went to brunch. Right now the Raiders and 49er's game is on and I'm writing in my blog. Exciting right?
I'll finish up the events from yesterday. After leaving the people from the hot air balloon Dave and I just walked around all the vendor's tents and checked things out. In the afternoon we went to the "Fiesta del Vino Wine Festival", it was $10.00 for each of us and you just walked around to all the booths and tasted as many wines as each winery was offering. If you wanted to you could purchase a full glass and those prices varied from $3.00 to $8.00. They had like 10 different wineries there, so by the time you got done tasting all of them who needed a full glass of wine. When we started getting close to the end of the tasting booths we were talking to a bunch of people. I had on my badge that has my name on it and says homeless that people were asking what that meant so I was telling them and we all just kept on talking. Dave even made the comment to everyone that didn't you notice that the people at the end of the wine booths were a lot more friendlier then the people at the beginning of the wine tasting. Too Funny!
If you don't understand what that means it is "the people at the end were a lot more relaxed and a little tipsy after tasting all the wines" and the people at the beginning hadn't started drinking yet. Now I hope you get it. Sorry, but I know some people that read the blog wouldn't have understood what I was saying.
After the wine tasting we came back to the coach and took a nap, after getting up early then the wine it was time for a nap. Later in the afternoon Dick's wife, Ardith, came by and invited us to the dinner get together at 6pm, I told her we would be there if we weren't helping Bill with his balloon at 5pm. At 4 we went down to the park and they announced that the 5 pm Fiesta Challenge was cancelled, so at 6 we went to the BBQ next door. The group had been a lot friendlier yesterday, one of the guys Dave had been talking to at the bar Friday night had even invited us to lunch with them but we had already made other plans. I guess I just thought they weren't that friendly, I shouldn't have blamed them, we are the new ones here and most of them all know each other. What we need to do is keep going over and visiting with the new groups we meet but for me it's hard to do, but not for Dave he can talk about any topic that they may be talking about. I'm shy and that's all there is to it. Anyway, after dinner they had us introduce ourselves to everyone and there were some other people that had guests with them and they introduced themselves and the group welcomed all of us, it was nice. They asked if we wanted to join their group, but we told them we were just too far away, they said it was alright but if we ever change our minds just give them a call. When it all broke up we walked out to see Beatlemania, we only stayed a little while, it wasn't that great. On the way back to the coach we stopped by this shoe vendor that was one of the vendors at the festival. We had seen some people at Camp Monaco wearing these shoes and they swear by them, they said they really helped with their backs and knees. With all the long walks lately my knees have really been hurting, so I purchased a pair of tennis shoes, the only thing is the shoes are really weird looking. They are called Z-Coil, www.zcoil.com is the website, they are springs on the heels of the shoes which is suppose to help the impact on the knees and help you walk straighter too. They are really comfortable, so will see if they help at all, for the cost they better. That was the end of yesterday, when we leave tomorrow, Monday, we decided to dry camp at the casino for the night. It doesn't make sense to go all the way back to the campground we were at because we have to take the coach in 1st thing Tuesday morning to have the air conditioning fixed and the repair place is at the opposite end of town to where the campground is. After the repair work then we will go back to the campsite by then I will have plenty of laundry to do that's for sure.
P.S. keep forgetting to mention, Valley's diaper rash or what ever it was has cleared up but still doesn't seem like she wants to walk a lot. Although just about a 1/2 hour ago when I took her she spotted a lizard then she was all excited and wanted to keep looking for more, so who knows what's up with her.
Bye

October 7, 2006 We got to the Balloon Campgrounds around 9:30 am yesterday and met the couple that were in charge of the Ozark Schooners get together, Dick & Ardith Wilkerson. They seemed to be a pretty nice couple and welcomed us to the group, and told us about the dinner that we were all suppose to go to tonight. Them and another couple showed up on Thursday and the rest of their group was showing up later in the morning. Dave had work to do so I went walking around the balloon grounds, watching them setting up all the food and vendor booths. When I had gotten back more of the Ozarks had shown up and were gathering outside of Dick's coach. Dave was making us name badges so I walked over to the group to meet them, Dick said this is Jeri and everyone can introduce themselves. A few of them said "Welcome and it's nice to meet you" but only a couple of them even said their names. Right after that they kind of turned their backs and went back to talking among themselves. I just took off and started walking Valley around, I didn't go to far because Valley still doesn't seem like she wants to walk, Dave said she is probably sore from yesterday, hard to believe that but who knows. Later Dave and I went walking around the field again, then came back and played on the computer and watched TV.
At 3:30 everyone in the Ozark group were to meet outside and drive to the Sandia Mountains to take the tram up to the restaurant, at least that's what Dick had told us. We got ready and went outside at 3:25 and the last car was pulling out of the camping area. Dave yelled at me to back up the car and lets get going, they were leaving without us and not one person came by to say anything to us. We managed to follow the last car but the van they were following just ditched them it seemed like. That van ran the 1st left hand turn light onto the freeway, but we had caught them. Then the 2nd time the light had turned red before the van had even gotten to the crosswalk and he still ran that red light. Thank goodness we weren't in that car, anyway, we all managed to make it to the tram at almost the same time but the winds were blowing too fast and the tram wasn't running. They said give it an hour then they would know if the tram would open back up. In the tram waiting area is a Mexican restaurant so Dave and I went to the bar to get a drink and there were 4 men from our group already in there. We sat down at the bar with them and talked, they were nice enough. About 45 min. later the tram opened up and it took up 1/2 of the group the other 1/2 to follow. The view was unbelievable, we went from 6000 elevation up to 10,000 elevation. The weather was about 20 degrees difference too, I was so glad that I had worn long pants. Dinner was good we had sat down with 2 other couples and had nice dinner conversation, they all still worked and were heading back after the fiesta. When we were leaving one of the guys, Ronny, mentioned that Dick and Ardith were having BBQ sandwiches tomorrow night at their place, incase no one had mentioned it to us, which of course they hadn't. This group sure isn't the friendliest, we sure do miss the Monaco Group, Dave and I will probably be to busy to join them, even though Dick is 1 coach away. Most of this group is from Oklahoma, maybe they just aren't friendly people, who knows.
At about 8:30 pm the fireworks show started, you could tell it was far away because you would see the stuff in the sky and the sounds you wouldn't hear for another 5 seconds it seemed like. Real weird to watch a fireworks show like that.
This morning we got up at 5:00 am to watch the Dawn Patrol Show, which didn't happen. It was drizzly and windy, but when you turned on the local news they were showing the balloons glowing so Dave's like hurry we have to go. We went out to the field, in the dark, 5:30 in the morning and there were no balloons. Assholes on the news were showing the day before we guess, but to you believe the place was getting packed with people already, in the dark the booths were starting to open up already and the freeways were backed up for miles. Thank god all we have to do is walk across this small bridge and we are on the field, and we are in the 2nd row from the bridge. As a matter of fact we are one rig from the road where everyone in the VIP parking drives by, so we get to view all the rigs coming in. Of course yesterday it was a nonstop line of cars and rigs, someone even brought in their boat, one that was big enough that it had a bedroom and bathroom in the hull, who would have thought.
Back to the air show, since the Dawn Patrol didn't fly we came back to the coach to get coffee and listen to more of the local news. At 7 am they had the opening ceremonies, which was the Albuquerque hot air balloon that lifted up with the American Flag and then Lynn Anderson sang the National Anthem then the balloons starting getting set-up. We finally found the people we had met in Albany and Dave started helping them get their balloon set-up. I was the picture taker, so I didn't help out, plus, they had enough people. The wind started picking up again so Bill Woodhead, the pilot, decided not to take the balloon up, you could see there were a lot of balloons having problems, better safe then sorry. Bill said they would try again tonight at 5 pm for the Fiesta Challenge. Dave helped them pack up everything, then we said we would see each other tonight at 5. Bill said he was hoping we would stay at least until Thursday for the Special shape balloons. He flies one that is called "ARKY" which is Noahs Ark, he said we could follow them in and act like their chase vehicle that way we wouldn't have to wait in the miles of traffic like everyone else does.
That's it so far for today, the next event is at 2pm which is the America's Challenge Gas Balloon Race inflation, tonight for entertainment is "BEATLEMANIA" which is suppose to be a 2 hour show. That's it for now, check out the website, altonsystems.com, because Dave has posted pictures already. (hope they are good, I haven't seen them yet, and god knows I'm not a good picture taker)
Bye

October 6, 2006 Friday morning, early, today we leave for the festival, will finally see if this was all worth it. Dave has a 9 am meeting then we plan on leaving after that, the group we are meeting said to just get there before 3:30, don't want to miss out on the tram ride and dinner with our new friends.
Yesterday, I told you that Dave and I had taken Valley for a long walk, then after that Dave had work and I played on the computer for a while. After showering and getting dressed I decided to take Valley for a walk again. I started walking down the highway towards town to see how the road was and to see if I would be able to ride my bike into town, I hadn't really planned on walking all the way into town, but we did. It was about 2 miles into town and we only ran into 1 snake in the road, it was a small one but it was a snake. Of course because I hadn't planned on walking all the way I didn't bring any water or money with me. On the way back at a little shopping center Valley said "that's enough" and how she says that is she finds a shady spot and she lays down. I should have called Dave then to pick us up but I knew he had a conference call at that time, so I let Valley rest until she was really to go again. I kept looking around for water for her but never found any and since I had no money I couldn't buy any either. When we got back Dave was still on the phone and Valley went straight for the water. She drank a full bowl then laid down, then she would get up again and drink more water, lay down, up more water over and over again. I finally said lets go outside it's cooler outside, I got her water and we went out. She would lay down, get up, lay down, get up Dave came outside and started rubbing her muscles. She laid down got up and started crying, I then sat there for a half hour rubbing her leg muscles, I guess I walked her too much and she had cramps. It was up hill all the way back to camp and I just have to remember that she is old. Her crying scared me, I had never seen anything like it before, Dave said that's it, you can't walk her that far anymore without water. The rest of the day we just stuck around, Dave worked on replacing our server for our computers and I worked on putting all the chairs and things away, doing my word search, reading my book and watching TV. Dave didn't feel like cooking on the BBQ so we ended up getting a pizza and I made a salad for dinner.
That's it for yesterday, will see what today brings.
See ya

October 5, 2006 We are now at Turquoise Trail Campground and RV Park we got here on the 4th in the afternoon. We will only be here for 2 days then we head for the field on the Balloon Festival. Dave said we would just dry camp for the two days but I was beginning to wonder if we were going to find a spot to dry camp in because we couldn't find any level site. They first put us in front of the cabins that they rent out, no good. We backed up with the slides open and tried to get level, not. Then we asked if they had any other spots and they said just one more. It's in front of the park in the bus parking spot. It took us forever to get level, one spot the back tires were off the ground, another spot I thought we were going to tip over, then we finally found a spot but then the satellite dish didn't work, one damn tree on the space and we finally get level and the dish points right at the tree. We finally had the back of the RV almost back on the road when we got level and satellite dishes to work. They have this Museum here in front of the park and schools will bring the kids here for outings, but it's still a gravel road and not level. It is a Museum of Archaeology & material culture, sounds fun, right? They even advertise-visit a 12,000 year time-line from North America's earliest inhabitants through The Battle of Wounded Knee. That still doesn't strike my interest. This place is dirt and gravel the driveway from the highway was all dirt and gravel. The people that work here are very friendly and helpful they are going out of their way to accommodate us. The spot they saved for us for the 10th, spot 22, has a tree there that they need to trim and they said the owner of the park won't let them cut or trim any trees. We told them that spot 24 would work so they said they will ask the people in spot 24 to move to spot 22 on the 10th. The RV park also has a petting zoo, with a goat, pigeons, and a llama, everything that I would like to pet. Anyway, it will do for the rest of the Balloon Festival because we only have Friday thru Monday that we are actually on the festival grounds. We won't be staying past the 16th, we had planned on being in Albuquerque for the whole month of October but now we don't think so. We decided we would head to Cottonwood Arizona and check out our rental units there before ending up in Lake Havasu.
This morning so far Dave and I took Valley for a long walk then Dave had conference calls to make. Haven't decided what to do the rest of the day yet. Will let you know next time on the blog update.
BYE

October 4, 2006 Wednesday and we just got back from the continental breakfast that this rv park has every morning if you aren't on a monthly rate. Since we were planning on being here for a month we didn't go the last two days. You see Dave managed to get us kicked out of the park yesterday so they switched us to a daily rate and refunded us for the monthly rate we had already paid. We have to be out by noon today. It wasn't all Dave's fault this place was really being unreasonable. You see because of the balloon festival we were going to have to move to electrical only, which was OK, then on the 15th we could move back to full hookup again. In my walking around the park I told Dave that the place we have to move to is gated in so we needed to see where we keep our car at because I didn't see the rv park open the gates until 8 am. So in the afternoon yesterday Dave was on his way to Home Depot but stopped by the office first. Next thing I know he is calling me on the phone and telling me to get out the Trailer Life book and find us another campground to go to. Sure enough the electrical spots don't open up until 8 am and close at 8 pm so you are stuck in there between those times. Dave said that's bullshit because the Festival starts at 5:45 am every morning but yet we are trapped in. The manager said that's the rules and he isn't changing them for anyone, so I guess that's when they decided to give us back our money, they have a NO REFUND rule but Dave bitched enough that they made an exception and said "see ya" He drove back and started calling campsites, which of course are full because of the up coming festival. We ended up finding one that could give us water and electrical hookup only until 10/9 then give us full hookup after that. So that was our excitement in the early afternoon. In the evening the couple next door to us that are in a 5th wheel said they had a spot for camping in the Balloon Festival with a group called "Ozark Schooners" and they had to cancel because they can't dry camp. They didn't know that dry camping was with no hookups at all, they thought there would be at least electrical. Their 5th wheel isn't set up at all for dry camping. So they contacted the Ozark group and asked if they could sell us their spot and they said no problem. So on the 6th we will meet the other 30 coaches that are with the Ozark group and go park inside the Balloon Festival campground. We even get to go with them to the Friday night dinner they have planned. I'm looking at the schedule now and at 3:30 Friday 10/6 we depart for the tram to the top of the Sandia Mountains. At 5 we have dinner at High Finance Restaurant(spectacular view up and down with lights of Albuquerque) I'm copying this from the schedule. Every morning they have a continental breakfast too. Not to shabby I guess, plus we get to meet people that belong to another RV group. That was our exciting evening.
Now for me, yesterday morning Valley and I walked around the park for an hour. Then at 10:30 I went for a bike ride, a long bike ride. It was probably about 5 or 6 miles, I know it doesn't sound like much but my private parts aren't used to that bike seat yet. The ride started out pretty easy, I rode up and down the rows in the RV Park then went out on the street. I took this road that seemed pretty easy until I turned around to come back. I hadn't realized that the road was gradually headed down hill, so needless to say on the way back it was up hill. ( My legs are OK this morning but my back muscles hurt.) When I got back Dave and Valley were sitting outside because our carpet was being cleaned inside the coach. The guy said it would be about 2 hours for the carpet to dry so we sat outside and read our books, at about 2 is when Dave was headed for Home Depot and the rest is history. Dave did finally make it to Home Depot to buy us runner rugs for the coach now that we had the carpets cleaned.
That's it for now

October 3, 2006 Albuquerque New Mexico we got here Sunday Oct. 1st in the late afternoon. It had been another long day of driving. We got all set-up then tried the satellite dishes, for the computer and TV and luckily they both worked. We did this backward we should try out the dishes first before we hook up because if we can't get a signal we can't stay. It's another RV Park that is rocks and dirt. On the corner spots are grass but of course those spots are taken. Valley is getting used to doing her business where ever she can now, but she does still look for grass.
Sunday night we went to dinner at "Route 66 Casino" about 9 miles from the RV Park, to tell the truth there is nothing near this RV park, everything is miles away except Camping World, lucky us. While we were at the casino we purchased tickets to see Josh Blue, he is the winner of "Last Comic Standing" along with Ty Barnett and Chris Porter all with the Last Comic Standing if any of you saw the show. The shows on October 13th, that should be fun. Anyway, after dinner we came straight back to the RV, too tired to even gamble, will have to do that another time.
On Monday, Oct. 2, I did laundry and while that was going Valley and I walked around the rv park about 4 times, up and down the rows of rigs. It's a good size park, so that was nice we got a lot of walking in. Dave and I then went to Costco, haven't been since Elkton so we did need a bunch of stuff, it's so nice to see alcohol being sold in a store again instead of State liquor stores. I don't think I mentioned it but in Moab Utah you couldn't even buy wine in the grocery store only beer, weird. After costco we had to come back to the rig so Dave could work on work stuff so Valley and I walked around again then watched some TV. Late afternoon Dave and I went to Camping World and got some stuff then went next door to American RV. It seems our rear air conditioning isn't working again, like in Bakersfield, so Monaco told us to take it to American RV and have them fix it under warranty of course, so we went there and made an appointment for next Tuesday. On the way back we went to a "Super Wallyworld", many miles away, and shopped there, so now we have well stocked the coach, won't need any food for awhile.
We also finalized our trip plans for Thanksgiving, we will be going on a cruise thru the Panama
Canal. It's a 10 day cruise and we figured we better do it now while Dave still has a job because next June he plans of retiring again.
That's it for now, it's early morning here so don't know what my plans are yet besides walking Valley.
Bye for now. P.S. Dave has added our September pictures to our website, check it out.

Saturday, September 30, 2006 8:40 pm
Tomorrow morning we leave for Albuquerque New Mexico, we have been in Moab for 7 days now and it just flew by. There is so much to do here but because Dave was working the whole time we just couldn't even scratch the surface. We went Thursday morning to see the skydivers but there wasn't to much going on which I believe I mentioned in the other blog. Yesterday, Friday, we left Valley in the RV and went back to Arches National Park to check it out closer and go hiking. It was perfect weather and we must have hiked about 7 miles, Dave took a lot of pictures, which I believe he has posted on our website. After hiking we came back and walked Valley around, later we drove into town and checked out the shops there.
Today we just hung around most of the day, cleaned the inside of the RV and Dave worked on the outside too. Just getting ready to leave tomorrow. In the afternoon we went into town and got a Welcome Sign for our RV then drove route 128 which is just a great drive for seeing all the beautiful views to see here.
That's about it for now, will write again when we get to New Mexico.
Bye

Rally Day 2+ -We all met at 8 for breakfast, it was in the Jackman Long Dining Hall, which was big enough to hold all the people that came to the Rally. Everything was buffet style for breakfast and dinner all in the same hall everytime. They had all meals catered and they did a very good job. Every breakfast was scrambled eggs (different versions) with toppings like melted cheese and salsa, breakfast meat, pancakes or waffles, potatoes, cereal, fruit, juices, milk ect. it would very every morning with bacon or sausage, pancakes or waffles the only thing was they never had toast or biscuits, which I missed. Dinners were always salad bar, different kinds of vegetables each night, rolls, beans, potatoes (various kinds each night) and a couple different meats to choose from, everything was very good.
After breakfast at 9:15 they had a First Timer's Meeting which Vicki, Lee and I went to, Dave had to go back to the coach for conference calls. The meeting was just explaining what rallies are and about the seminars they have and just to tell you if you didn't have a good time it was your own fault. This was the biggest First Timer's meeting that they ever had. The seminars last from 1 1/2 hours to 2 hours. In the Columbia Hall is were all the vendors that had tons of stuff to sell you, you know things you can't live without if you live in an RV or in a home. We only spent about $4,800 over the 3 days while we were there, some people spent over 300,000 (they bought a new coach) see so we got out cheap. The one big thing that we did purchase was the new satellite dish on top of the RV. Dave now doesn't have to set up the tri-pod satellite dish everytime we park so that we are able to use our computers. This one is mounted on the RV and he can use his computer to tell it to lift up and find a signal when we park. The only thing now is we are stuck hauling this other satellite around with us for now until we can get it sold. We got some shirts, jackets, vests, cleaning materials, cups, cover catcher (for our bed cover) and also a plaque that is now in our window that has our names "Dave and Jeri Alton" Homeless, USA with a picture of a dog that has Valentine's name underneath it. We were going to wait until Christmas and ask the kids for it but we couldn't wait that long. But we still need new lounge chairs, the ones we have are from when we used to go camping with Vickey and Jim Alvis, so you know how old those are. 10 or 15 years and the material is really tearing now, but I still use them, we might just find a place to recover them, who knows. We also need one of those foot/feet scratch pads for when we walk back into the coach. Boy, did I get off coarse, back to the Rally.
Later in the morning Dave did get to the seminar about the Importance of Tire pressure with Lee, another device to sell you to monitor your tire pressure from inside the rig, which Lee purchased which was over 800.00. In the afternoon Vicki, Dave and I made it to the "Cleaning with a pro" with MARY MOPPINS. Then at 3:45 to 5pm was the "Wine Reception" come meet your new friends and enjoy our wine and cheese social. Then 5pm to 6pm was Cocktail Hour then dinner at 6:30. At 7:30 pm they had different entertainment every night. The 1st night was New Odyssey, didn't stay for that.
Rally Day 3-Breakfast then to the Seminar with Ginger, Vicki and Mary (new friend, who Ginger knew and lives in Somas, Ventura county) for "Microwave/Convection Oven Demonstration" which of course I needed, I have no idea how to use the convection oven. I had one in Simi and never used it, only the oven part. In the afternoon Dave, Vicki and I made it to the Corian-Care & Maintenance Seminar. At 3:45 was the Keg Party with accordion playing by Bob Vreegen then again cocktail party 5-6 dinner at 6:30 then the entertainment was a comedian named Mickey Dean, very funny.
Rally Day 4, last day-Breakfast but didn't make it to any seminars. All of us had repair workers at our coaches each day so we had to keep running back and forth to check on them. We had our batteries being checked then the satellite dish installed of course the whole time Dave had to keep working. Lee and Vicki had electrical problems and satellite TV problems, Ginger and Stan was step and door problems. Monaco provides the repair employees for all the coaches there that need repairs free of charge, so we would use them as much as possible. One of the guys there was the one that worked on our coach at Camp Monaco so he knew our rig which was nice. At 2pm they had a pet parade, Valley and I went and checked it out but she said she would kill me if I dressed her up and put her in it. What some of these people dressed their dogs and cats in were just crazy. Lucy and Ethel rottweilers and of course poodle's in totos ect. Valley didn't want to hang around because people kept asking me if we were going to walk thru, not. At 3:45 was a champagne social then after dinner for entertainment were 'The Drifters".
Friday morning we got going about 7 am, we would be traveling with Lee and Vicki for the next 2 days because we were both headed the same direction. I mentioned it before that we split up on Sunday when we were coming to Moab them to Colorado. Anyway, we left the fairgrounds then hooked up the cars and as we were driving to the freeway Lee got on the walkie talkie to us and said he had to stop because his leveling lights were flashing. We stopped in a satellite college parking lot where we sat for the next 2 hours. Dave and Lee tried to figure out what was wrong, Lee was calling the Monaco help line which of course you have to wait for a call back. Luckily where we stopped they had a little cafe so Vicki and I went in a ordered coffee and breakfast to go, little did we know we would be there that long. Vicki got hold of Camp Monaco and found out that the repair guy that they knew was still at the fairgrounds, he called her back and told us to drive back to the fairgrounds and they would take a look. Lee and Vicki told us we didn't have to wait for them but we weren't in any hurry so we stuck it out with them. The repair guy had no xtra panels for their coach and told them they would have to order it and it takes 3 days to come in. They were on a time schedule so they couldn't wait, so he suggested that when they get to Colorado to go to a dealership there order the part and have it installed, it was all under warranty so it would not cost them anything. So needless to say we got on the road about 11:30am them with no leveling system kind of like what happened to Dave and I the time we went to Sacramento and our leveling system went out on us. We drove to Baker Oregon and stopped there after a long day of driving. The next day, Saturday, September 23rd we left for Springville Utah, which I did drive for about an hour, it was a long straight highway and Dave put it on cruise control and we changed seats, which we know we shouldn't have done. He kind of enjoyed it after I wasn't so tense and relaxed. After a short rest stop the guys took over driving into Springville but while on the way, there was a big hole in the road and Lee hit it just right I guess because he told us his step light was flashing now and needed to pull over. Dave was leading so as soon as there was an exit we got off. Lee's step wasn't out but he couldn't get the light to go out, poor guy, now he has his leveling lights and step lights flashing at him, they were not happy campers. They have a 2007 Monaco Dynasty that they ordered last January received in March and moved into June 1st, and have had a lot of electrical problems plus some other problems. You spend 311,000.00 that damn thing better work, so needless to say they are really pissed off. I need to write to them to see if they got their coach fixed yet, if not I feel sorry for Monaco because Vicki is one you don't want to mess with.
Well I think I finally got caught up on the Rally news, I'll try and get back to writing again either everyday or at least every other day.
Bye for now

Again September 28, 2006 but now it's early evening, 6:45 pm. Dave is feeling better after a long nap, so thank goodness it isn't the flu. We did go and have our pedicures, came back and sat outside and read our books a little bit. We are now inside and Dave is starting on getting dinner ready, BBQ stuff has to get ready first, my job is only salad and setting the table tonight. Before I forget, don't know if you know but Moab is very popular for bike riding, off roading, motorcycles, ATV's ect. and the ambulance must go by twice a day. Just now a fire truck, police car, rescue truck, and an ambulance went by, this accident must be big, normally it's just the ambulance we see.
RALLY NEWS, RALLY NEWS!!! FINALLY
It was fun but would have been better if Dave didn't have to work the whole time, and I believe I said that before. We arrived on Monday afternoon and we met up with Ginger and Stan, we meaning Dave, Jeri, Valley, Lee, Vicki and Fleetwood. We met at the Salem Fairgrounds and a parking rep. had us follow him to our camping site. After we all got settled in we had a mini happy hour and talked about all the seminars that were going on and which ones everyone wanted to go to. At 4 pm we walked over to the Information Booth and got our 1st time rally badges, that we had to wear the whole time. Stan and Ginger have been Rving for awhile so they already had name badges that looked professtional that they always wear at rally's. Monaco, Beaver, Holiday Rambler, and Safari had new coaches there for everyone to go thru and trying to get you to buy a new one. After going thru most of the coaches we grabbed a table because at 5 pm was the "Welcome to the Rally" Cocktail Party. They had cheese, chicken wings, crackers, vegetables, dips ect for snacking on besides the drinks. There were almost 900 RV's there so you can imagine the place was a little crowded. We stayed for about 45 min. then headed back to our rigs. We sat around again and talked and us ladies walked the dogs around and checked out the rigs that were around. We had all taken out either steaks or chicken for dinner but we had so much in snacks that there was no way we could eat. The rest of the week we were being fed breakfast and dinner by the Rally so we all decided to cook the meat everyone had taken out and having it for lunch the next day. At about 9 pm everyone was pretty cold so we all decided to turn in to our own coaches and relax the rest of the evening. DAY 1 DONE
Finally got 1 day done of the Rally, the rest I'll start tomorrow.
Bye

Thursday afternoon, September 28, 2006. This morning I took Valley for a long walk while Dave had his business calls. About 10:30 he was done so we drove out to the Moab Airport to watch the Skydivers. We got to see a few but since today is the 1st day of the festival not many people have gotten here yet. They said we should probably come back tomorrow and remember to bring chairs with us to sit on because it's out on the dirt where you have to watch from. We decided that was a good idea so we left and drove to Canyonlands National Park. When we stopped at the Rangers office we finally find out the rules for "National Parks" "NO DOGS" in National Parks, State Parks, National forests ect. dogs are aloud at. We drove thru the park anyway and got out at Mesa Arch to take some pictures. It was only a mile round trip walk so we just left Valley in the car with the windows down and a bowl of water. When we had left the Rangers station Dave had mentioned he didn't feel good but he still wanted to go on. Well after that mile walk he was burning up and freezing so it sounds to me like the flu. We ended up driving back to the coach and he went straight to bed. Me I'm now sitting here writing my blog. Today at 4:45 we are suppose to have a pedicure, I hope he is feeling better by then.
Anyway, yesterday I wrote in the blog and made a nail appointment for me. Then I got on the phone and made reservations for the "Canyonlands by Night" dinner and boat cruise. After my nails Valley and I walked around, Dave was still working either on work stuff or website stuff. Before we left for the dinner show we laid around outside and read books. The weather here is just perfect like I mentioned before, it's been between 80 and 86 degrees.
The dinner was great, we got to talking to the people around us so that was nice, the boat ride was very interesting. Thank goodness they had told me on the phone to wear long pants and bring a jacket because it was freezing. It might be 86 during the day but once 7:30 pm hits and the sun goes behind the hills it cools down in a hurry. The boat ride is about 2 hrs long, a bit to long for us when it's that cold, they put on a tape with music that explains the history and light up the sides of the hills, it was very pretty. We got back a little after 9 pm. and that damn Valley hadn't turned on the heat for us, Dave was not a happy camper. ha ha
enough of this blog, time to start on the Rally and this time I mean it!!

September 27, 2006 Boy am I bad or what? Thought I better write something before you all think I have dropped off the face of the earth.
After we left Baker Oregon the next stop was Springville Utah which is right outside of Provo. We were still traveling with our friends Lee, Vicki and their dog Fleetwood, we would be leaving each other the next day, us on to Moab and they were on their way to Colorado. We had breakfast together on Sunday morning then followed each other for the next 100 or so miles then stopped and said our good byes. We plan on keeping in touch and they may make it to New Mexico before we leave at the end of October. Vicki, Lee, Stan and Ginger are the people we met at Camp Monaco and came up to Marty's while we were there. Vicki grew up in Simi Valley, and Stan and Ginger live in Camarillo, what a small world.
Anyway, we are in Moab Utah, what a beautiful place and the weather is perfect. We thought it wouldn't be crowded here, wrong. October is the end of the season, the weather is in the 80's and starting tomorrow there is a skydiving festival here. So the place is pretty crowded around here. When we came here Sunday we hadn't made reservations, the 1st place where we wanted to stay was all booked up. We then got on the phone and started looking around, on the 3rd or 4th place we called they had an opening and we jumped on it. We are at Moab Valley RV Resort, it's a nice place but again dirt and gravel. It has one small patch of grass, which you share with your neighbor, if you have a neighbor, which we do. The people around here are kind of friendly a lot better then the other campgrounds we have been too.
Sunday after we got here we had to go grocery shopping, after being in Salem for the Rally and they kept feeding us we had no groceries. So we did that and now it's back to cooking again.
Monday was cleaning and laundry, we ended up going into town to do the laundry. When the washer was running we walked around town, with Valley, and checked things out. We called and made a vet appointment for Valley, she has been scratching and dragging herself around a lot. The vet was a real country vet, he wore coveralls and his office was on a farm surrounded by cattle, dogs, horses ect. They put Valley on the table and he started checking her out, it's here allergies again, and she has something like diaper rash. He gave her a shot of cortisone and told us to keep spraying her with the stuff that our vet had given us before we left Simi. After the vet we went back to the coach and finished cleaning, boy it sure had gotten dirty at the RV Rally. Tuesday we drove up to Arches National Park, great views but they don't let any animals out on the hiking trails, only on the roads and parking lots. We stopped and got a few pictures and decided if we wanted to go hiking we would have to leave Valley in the RV. On the way back Dave got a few calls and had to go back to work in the coach. Valley and I drove into town, parked the car and started walking around. We walked for almost 3 hours, it was getting hot and Valley had had enough so we came back to the coach. Dave was still working on conference calls so I grabbed my book and lounge chair and read and napped outside of the coach with Valley.
The people next to us told us they had been at Deadhorse Point State Park and they let dogs on the paths, so we might have to check it out the only thing is it is 30 miles away from Moab. We might also try and do this thing called "Canyonlands By Night and Day". It's dinner then a boat ride down the Colorado River with lighting up the canyon walls, with music and a guide explaining things to you. It looks great to do so will let you know if we do the tour.
I'm going to cut off now, on this blog, and start another one telling you all about the Rally in Salem.

Saturday September 23, 2006, I am going to have a hard time to get caught up on the blog updates since it has been a week since I last wrote. Right now we are in Baker Oregon we got here about 5:20 pm last night. We are staying at the Mountain View RV Park, seems like a nice enough place but we head out 1st thing this morning so won't really get to check out the place. Dave wants to make it to Provo Utah today then tomorrow finish the drive to Moab Utah where we will stay for about a week.
As you all know last Monday thru Friday we were at the Monaco Rally in Salem Oregon, there were about 900 rigs.
Got to go now, will either write more tonight but more likely tomorrow in Moab

Saturday night 9pm September 16th 2006, well tomorrow we leave Elkton, I'm really sad. It has been so great to see Marty, Dayna and the Kids it's been way too long. Marty kept saying while we've been here "don't tell anyone your my sister" but every time I turned around people would say to me "You're Marty's Sister, we know all about you because he just told us" Marty acts like he doesn't want people to know about the rest of his family but when you get here he is like showing us off, if you think about it maybe it's like showing off zoo animals. I guess if they meet us he seems more normal, what do you think Mike?
Anyway, last night, Friday night was Marty's Friday night special which was prawns and carne asada with beans chips and quesadillas. Jenni came up, so for dinner it was Dayna, Marty, Jenni, Dave and I , and of course the dinner was great. One of Marty's waitresses is running for town mayor, she is only 23 I think, anyway I had a talk with her about that deer being shot, she said she would look into it. After dinner the winery across the street had and entertainer, Steve Poltz. We all went there to listen to him play, Marty has heard him before and said he is really good. The show started at 8 pm $10.00 cover charge and standing room only, that's because there were hardly any chairs, Dave and I made it until 10 pm when he took a break then we walked back to the rig. Very strange singer, he made up a bunch of songs on his own and right before the break he sang a song about a dish washer or washing machine, I can't remember, very strange.
Today we just hung around and read books and played on the computer. We walked around and took more pictures of Marty's Restaurant and of the town so Dave can post on the website. Around 5:30 pm Marty came by to visit, Dayna was up at the restaurant, so Marty called her and she came down. Dayna was working on buying a new computer so Dave helped her search and find the one she wanted. When they left we said we would see them in the morning for breakfast.

Friday, September 15, 2006 7am Let me start off telling Kelli Miller "Happy Birthday" We hope you have a great day. If those of you that read this blog, don't remember, we visited Robert, Kelli, Alex and Rosie in Ferndale Washington.
Yesterday we hung around town all day, Dave had some work in the morning, then we went walking around with Valley. I showed Dave the spot where we could walk down the Umpqua River, which we did, then walking where Valley and I had found the snake that one day. It was where the Elkton Festival was held. While walking back on the highway we saw a deer, but, the deer was laying down right outside the tennis court of the high school. Valley wanted to run down the hill but with the deer not getting up, but it was looking at us, we knew something was wrong. I thought maybe it was on the road and a vehicle came by and it leaped and broke it's leg on landing because it is a high hill. We walked by the restaurant and I asked Marty if there was a vet in town, he said he wasn't paying for a vet and it was probably hit and crawled down there, not to worry it happens all the time. I told Dave I would check later to see if the deer was still there.
We had lunch at Marty's, which was great and tonight we will have dinner with him. After lunch we walked over to the winery that's across the street to do wine tasting. While there another couple came in and asked if I was Marty's sister, they said they saw us at the Elkton Festival and they thought I looked like him, which Marty won't be happy to hear. After the wine tasting we came back to the rig and Dave worked on the website and I took Valley for a walk. We walked to the High School and went to the tennis court and sure enough the deer was there but was dead. The deer's leg was broke but what upsets me is it had been shot in the neck. I called Marty on his cell, which he never remembers to carry with him, and left him a message that someone had shot the deer and he should be worried because what happens if they had hit a kid instead of the deer. I didn't hear back from Marty so he probably didn't even hear the message, I'll check with him this morning.
Dave got to concentrating so much on Marty's website that it got to late to BBQ dinner so I ended up going up to Marty's Restaurant and ordered a pizza for us. While walking up there with Valley it finally started to rain. Dave could hear the rain and drove up to the restaurant to pick us up, he said he hates the smell of a wet dog ( I hope he was talking about Valley). We had the Marty Special Pizza which once the website is done you can looked up the menus and see what's on the pizza, and of course it was great. We stay here much longer and keep eating at Marty's we will be broke in no time. Tonight I'll let him buy dinner for us for payment of the website.
Anyway, it's suppose to rain again today but so far it's just overcast and cool, but the ugh Boots sure are nice having now.
Bye for now

Thursday, September 14, 2006 So far it isn't raining yet, some parts of the sky are dark but then there is some blue sky showing, I'm crossing my fingers for no rain.
Tuesday evening Dave and I went out by the fire ring by our coach and had a fire, the weather was still warm the river was running and it was very relaxing. Do you think anyone else in this campsite would join us, hell no. They just hide in the trailers, more trailers came in yesterday will see if they are friendly. Miss Camp Monaco.
Yesterday, Wednesday, we went up and had breakfast at Marty's and Dave and him talked about the website. Dave had a busy morning with meetings so had to work on the website in between phone calls. After breakfast Valley and I walked around for almost 2 hours, walked around Elkton followed the Umpqua river, when Valley starts laying down I know she has had enough for awhile. Of course I forgot to bring water for her and it was another warm day, we got back to the rig and she drank for 5 min. In the afternoon Dave and I went to check out the farmers market that they have here every Wednesday, Marty and Dayna didn't even know they had one, we got some veg. and fruit. We picked Marty up at 4pm and drove into Eugene to meet up with the rest of the family. (Dayna, Christina, Jake and Jenni) We were early so we went shopping around. Costco, supplies for Salem, GI Joe's ugh boots for Jeri, Burch's sandals for Jeri, what a combination. Then we all gathered at Christina and Jake's house to decide on what everyone wanted for dinner. We ended up going to "Cafe Lucky Noodle" it's a Thai/Italian restaurant, good mixture. The food was great, we had an appetizer of Antipasto (salami, olives, roasted tomatoes and peppers, roasted whole garlic, cheeses ect) and stuffed seafood dumplings with dipping sauce, like I said Thai and Italian. The drinks were amazing too, everyone would get something different then pass it around so everyone could try it. Marty and I had a Chili Margarita, boy was it spicy and had a chili in it. Dayna had a Key Lime Martini and that was really good too. For dinner we all, except Jenni and Dave, ordered something different and we passed around our plates for everyone to try, Jake is still trying to get used to the Tomaselli way of sharing each others food. Marty's dinner, a seafood mixture with noodles, didn't show up until we were almost all done eating. We were not happy about that, they ended up taking Marty's drink off the bill, it should have been a free meal in my book. We didn't get back to the coach until 11pm, it took 1 hour from Eugene and boy are those roads dark. Valley was very happy to see us and be able to walk a little bit outside, if you know what I mean.
We had a nice visit at dinner with everyone and it was great to see the kids again, Dave got pictures and will post them on the website soon.
I think that's it for now.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006 no exciting things going on today. Dave, Valley and I went walking around Elkton, they have a lot of new houses being built here. While walking we saw 3 deer running around, it was neat watching them hop like rabbits. I had no idea that's how they run around, I thought they galloped, wrong. Valley didn't see them but when we got to where they had been she sure could smell them. Marty called while we were walking and since today is his day off Dave and him got together to start working on his website. They are also working on trying to sell it on Craig's list and Ebay. Dave took pictures of the restaurant inside and out, and pictures of the menu. After we left the restaurant Dave came back and started working on the website, Valley and I laid out in the sun. It is hot here, it's in the 90's and it's suppose to be raining here on Thursday thru Saturday, can't believe it because there isn't a cloud in the sky.
Tomorrow night we will be driving into Eugene and having dinner with Christina, Jake, Jenni, Dayna and Marty.
Yesterday I did have my nails done and we ran into Marty in Cottage Grove, he was in town having new tires put on his truck and he had brought his bike with him and rode over to where we were. We then went to Wallyworld again because Valley's leash had broken and we had to get a new one. When we got back I went on a long walk with Valley on the river, Dave went back to painting his satellite box plus he had some work to do too. There is an older couple that come into Marty's restaurant, and he is friends with, Jerri and Dick, we saw them there on Sunday morning and they wanted to see our motor home. Well, yesterday in the afternoon Jerri had called me on my cell and asked if she could come over, Dick was out so he wasn't with her. She came over and we gave her a tour, she just loved it. She said they were thinking about getting a motor home years ago and traveling around, but the one they had been talking about was only a 21 footer. After seeing ours she said there was no way they could have lived in that 21 footer.
That's about it for now, just a relaxing day.
Bye

Monday morning 9/11/06, watching Fox News and seeing all the ceremonies going on for the 5 year anniversary of 9/11. We just need to keep our guard up because they will strike again.
Sunday morning our new friends from Camp Monaco showed up about 10 a.m. It was Vicki, Lee, Ginger and Stan we meet at Marty's and had a great breakfast. Sat and laughted a lot and Marty came out and visited with them. We then hit the road for Coos Bay, we had to take 2 cars because we all took our dogs with us. Vicki has Fleetwood, and Ginger has Katie and of course Valley was the big sister because their dogs are smaller. We stopped on the way out at the Elk viewing and there were only 3 bulls but to far away to take pictures.
Don't know if you ever watch the Food Network but Rachel Ray does a couple different shows on there. One that was shown back in August was about Coos Bay, North Bend and Charleston places to go to either shop at or eat at. I had written down some of them so Lee put it in his GPS and we were on our way. We stopped at the Myrtlewood Factory, which is all kinds of stuff made from myrtlewood boy they had some great looking stuff. Then it was on to Cranberry Sweets, what a place, they have samples of most of the candies that they sale, out for you to taste. Stuff was not cheap either, some were like $18.95 a pound! 4 little pieces of peanut butter fudge cost $4.19, but boy is it great fudge. Stan said he wouldn't mind buying some stuff since he had already tried just about every sample they had out which would have cost a forture if he had had to buy it. Then it was on to Oyster Cove, which Rachel said if you haven't been there before that the owner comes out and does a oyster shooter with you for Free, the restaurant was closed we were too early, not that I would have done an oyster shooter, but I might of. As Grandpa Knowles you to say it's just like eating snot, oh yum, not.
We went by the casino in Coos Bay but didn't stop, it is right on the water and had a big camp ground, will have to remember that one for future visits. Of course with all the driving we were doing we kept stopping along the way to walk the dogs around. This place is just beautiful and peaceful, just like what we saw in Washington when visiting Kelli and Rob.
Just remembered, forgot to tell you that Dave and I weren't really sore at all after the bike ride the night before. Thought maybe it would hit us this morning but still doing OK, maybe we can go farther next time?
Anyway, on the way back to Elkton we stopped in Winchester Bay, they have a fabulous campsite there that we had to check out, we will have to try and stay there some time. We went to a Seafood Restaurant there right on the water, it ended up being the same one that we had taken Marty, Dayna and Mom to years ago, I believe it was Jenny and Dayna's graduation. We had dinner there then back on the road. When we went by the Elk viewing area again this time the one bull was really close, so we stopped. We got pictures and will post on the web later, Dave and I drove on and Lee said if we would have stayed we could have seen the other two bulls come out of the woods and they came close too. Oh Well. We stopped at Marty's restaurant to waive bye to them when they drove by but they called before they got there and wanted to stop at Marty's and have pie and coffee. They got back on the road for Camp Monaco at 7 pm and Dave, Valley and I came back to our coach. The weather was still warm so Dave finished painting his satellite dish box then we sat outside and watched the river flow, so peaceful. Most of our neighbors, Oregon River Ramblers, had left so the campsite is pretty empty. On our end of the park now no one blocks our view of the river.
Got to go now, I have a nail appointment at 10:30 in Cottage Grove so need to start getting ready
Bye

Saturday night, September 9 2006, sorry I keep putting the date and day down but it is a journal for us too. Friday night after the last blog Marty came by and wanted to know if we were coming to dinner and of course we said "yes". Anyway the group in the pavilon, that I had mentioned in the last blog were sitting down for dinner. Marty walks over and asked "what's for dinner" and NO ONE REPLYED TO HIM. Boy was he shocked and so was I, with his bubbling personality he couldn't even penatrate these people, I told you trailer trash. A lady finally got up and started talking to us, didn't have a whole lot to say except they were there with an RV group called "Oregon River Rambers". We left right away for dinner at Marty's, which Dayna and Marty joined us, which was really nice, the special was Tuna. The dinner was great so was the company and the wine too. We got to visit with Marty and Dayna and tell them the mishaps that we keep having, or causing, with our rig and our GPS system, which Mike likes to hear and now there are more that he hasn't heard yet. Dayna and Marty were in tears hearing all of our tells, just like Mike has been, they said we should write a book so no one else does the stupid things we have done.
OK so I kind of recaped last night but right now is Saturday night, early. Today we drove to Cottage Grove to buy the cable we needed for TV service, we also went to Wally World, which is what we have learned Walmart is called by all the RVer's. I guess since we are considered trailer trash we might as well shop with our equals.
When we got back in the afternoon we had lunch then took Valley for a long walk thru the umpqua river, it gets pretty hard hiking thru the rocks. When we got back Dave started painting his wood box that holds our satelite dish, Valley and I cooled off in the coach. It was a little cool this morning but it sure heats up in the afternoon. After taking it easy for a little while I decided to take Valley for a long walk, Dave was busy so he didn't go. We walked to the park where the Elkton Festival was and walked around there. Valley kept searching around this brush so I walked over and you could hear the brook of water but couldn't see it. Then we heard something in the bushes a little bit away and there it was, a big old snake. That's all I needed to see Valley and I got the hell out of there. When we got back to the rig Marty called and asked if we wanted to go on a bike ride, we said yes. Dayna and Marty came by about 6 pm and we took off on a 10 mile bike ride, up roads, down roads, snakes on roads, and as Marty said, Dave bitched the whole time. Just kidding, it wasn't the whole time. I think we both did pretty good for our true 1st ride since we got the bikes, Dave has to take it easy because of his knees and work up to the harder rides, but so do I too. It was fun, will see how we feel tomorrow. When we got back that one lady from Oregon River Ramblers started talking to us again, mainly me because Dave walks away, asking if we would like to join their group we were more than welcome. We told her we weren't going to be hanging around Oregon so it was kind of silly to join their club.
We got a call from friends from Harrisburg, that are still stuck at Camp Monaco, and they are going to drive up tomorrow morning and we will all have breakfast at Marty's then head out to Coos Bay for the day, should be fun.
Bye for now

Friday early evening now, 5:45 pm September 9, 2006 we are here in Elkton now. Elkton RV Park among the trailer trash again, I shouldn't say that because some of the rigs that pulled in the campsite behind us had some Monaco products too. OK, some were older rigs and not as nice, but come to find out they only pulled in to get together with the ones that live here. Boy, we sure do miss the Monaco Campsite already. A couple of the people we hung with at Monaco that are close to our age are still there and said they just might drive up to Elkton to hang with us then we could all drive to the coast and check it out. Marty came by this afternoon to say Hi and see the coach, but was on the run, I told him we will see him tonight for dinner. When we had gotten here I called him and the girls had just left so will have to see them some time this week before we leave. Want to here the stories from Jenny about France since she just got back last Wednesday.
I have to stop and say, we are right in front of the pavilion here in the rv park and there is some kind of get together and they are now holding hands in a circle and praying, it is very hard to write and watch. As a matter of fact Dave just got up from the dining room table, where he is working on his computer, and wanted to scratch his balls, as he said, and can't do it because our front window isn't covered with shades and everyone can see him. I told him he was stupid to say something like that because I was in the middle of my blog and I would include it, which I did. Right now he is closing the shades on the windows, "bye" to our new neightbors. Oh forgot to say being here in Elkton RV Park is great but the trees are a bitch. After moving two times we finally got computer service but we have no TV. We even have a separate dish to set up manually, if the one on top of the RV doesn't work, and to make that work we need 100 more feet of cable, which we will go and buy tomorrow. I guess tonight we will have to watch the DVD's we have and haven't watched yet. Or maybe when we get back from dinner we can hang with the group in the Pavilion, who knows.

Friday 5 am in the morning September 9, 2006 boy I am so far behind in this blog writing, I'll try and get all caught up. Let's see I left off about seeing Marty in his Playbill, which I said was corny but fun. While Dave was taking pictures I was talking to the Judge and watching the play with him. Marty said, I don't care what the judge says to you I'm still not voting for him. I don't know if I mentioned in the last blog, and I'm to lazy to look it up but before we had gotten to Marty's there was the Elkton Umpqua parade. I heard there were 45 people in the parade and 35 of them were politicians and they had booths there too along with the crafts ect. By the way, Dave posted some pictures of the play on our website, just go to photo album and click on September pictures, I believe. www.altonsystems.com
After the play they had a band there to listen to and dance to, which a lot of people did dance. Hanging around with the winery people kept the wine flowing, it was fun. Sunday morning we went by Marty's restaraunt for breakfast before heading out back to Harrisburg. Damn, Marty is a great cook, the Marty omelet was fabulous. After we left we stopped at Costco for gas $2.79 boy has it gone down, we made a few more stops got back to the coach in the afternoon. At happy hour that night we found out that everyone decided to have a potluck on Monday because of the Holiday. One couple, Pat and Don, were going to leave on Monday but decided they wanted to be there for the party. We ended up using the big tent Monaco has set-up here and used there big BBQ. Everyone brought their own meat they wanted to eat and they all took turns cooking we had a big variety of salads and baked beans, it was fun.
Tuesday, we called over to the shop and they said only 1 part came in so don't bother bringing the rig over call back tomorrow and see if the other parts came in. Since the yearly maintenance work needed to be done Dave, Valley and I drove over to Coburg to a TA Station to have all the work done. After 3 hours and $600.00 we finally got to go back to camp Monaco, we had the maintenance done, refueled and got propane. I made lunch in the coach for us because we couldn't afford to go out after that.
Wednesday we called and ended up taking the coach over about 10 a.m. but of course all the parts weren't in yet but they could work on what they did have. Monaco had another potluck for all of us at Camp Monaco again, I guess they do this every Wednesday. Wednesday night after happy hour we went out to dinner, mexican food, with a new couple that had shown up a few days earlier. Lee and Vicki, another young couple, Lee is 57 and Vicki is 49 and they went fulltime in June too but a couple days before us. I almost lost my youngest status, that was close. Thursday morning after they took Lee's rig, he and Vicki came over to our coach to visit and check their emails from my computer. While there we got to talking about the Rally that is being held this month in Salem Oregon, it's the 18th thru the 21st. Everyone keeps saying if you haven't been you should really go, so I decided that we should, Dave was easy to talk into it. So our trip plans have changed again, we will be at Marty's for a week then go to the Rally and after that we will start our drive to New Mexico. Our reservations in New Mexico isn't until October 1st so we will have a week and a half to kill so will be looking into where we will be staying, will let you all know when we know. That's one good thing about being homeless, you can just pick up and leave or change your plans at a drop of a pin.
Thursday they finished fixing the awning over the passenger door and one more part will be here on Friday morning, will see since this is Friday morning. Either way we are out of here, they said they will have repair guys at the Rally so if the part isn't here this A.M. they will bring it to the Rally and fix it there.
I think that's about it for now, I believe I'm all caught up. If I think of something that I left out I will post it on the next blog.

Wednesday morning, August 6, 2006, guess what, we are still here at camp Monaco. One part came in yesterday morning, and more in the afternoon I guess, because we just called to see if we should bring the rig over and the repair guy said to bring it over at 10 a.m. We didn't actually get to talk to him so don't really know. Even if it gets done, which I doubt, we didn't plan on leaving until Friday because of Dave's work plus that's when we told the Elkton RV park we would be there.
After my last blog, I mentioned it was early Friday evening, after that our fellow RVer's got together for Happy Hour. There was an open spot between us and Clark so that ended up being the Happy Hour spot. It actually started Thursday night but it was just all the guys, Friday night I looked out the window and a lady was sitting with the guys. I walked out and asked her how she got to join the boys group, she said Bullshit to the boys group, she was joining so then so did I. Her name is Bobbie, her husband is Gene and they have been full timers for 11 years. Next thing you know there were about 20 of us and then we all started bringing appetizers and just had a real good time, we all went back to our rigs about 8 pm.
Saturday we drove up to Elkton stopped at Marty's restaurant for a few minutes then walked over to the Elkton RV Park to check out the spots. While there a big rig was just pulling in and we wanted to watch and see if that size rig would really fit, because the spaces didn't look that big. They pulled in a the lady got out and Dave started talking to her and asking if she thought their satelite dish would work. She said it would because they come there all the time then she asked him why we were there Dave said my wife's brother owns a restaurant here and we were visiting. She asked who my brother was and Dave said Marty Tomaselli and she came running over to me to meet Marty's sister. She then went in her coach and next thing I know her husband comes running out because he just had to meet Marty's sister. He was Judge Garrison and he said he didn't know Marty had a sister. We went back to the restaurant and Marty says "Don't tell anyone your my sister, I don't want anyone to know" asshole, but boy did I keep using his name, of course everyone knows Marty and we seem to get card blanch everyone we mentioned his name to and who I was. We drove up to the house to visit with Dayna which was real nice Dave and her got to talk a lot about diving. Marty came home for a little while to rest before he had to get all set up for the Luau and Playbill he was in. I left after him to go to their little festival and Dave stayed with Dayna to help with the problem they had with their water pressure and flood in their pump house. Anyway, not much there a couple craft booths, fresh vegetable booth, food places and the winery booths. I think they have about 3 winerys there so I stopped there just to ask if they have tours, they said when they aren't busy then I mentioned Marty. It worked again, everyone just had to meet me, they said they didn't know Marty even had family, just kidding I think, but they did seem to know about Mike, so they thought he only had a brother. At 5 the Play started and it was called "Echoes of the Umpqua, 2006: A Year in the Life of Fort Umpqua" Marty was playing a Hawaii harvester I guess, corny play but fun, I wish Mike would have been there, he would have torn Marty apart. Marty even sang a christmas song in Hawaiian, very funny. Dave got it on video, we hope, he is trying to publish now.
Got to cut off now, we have to take the coach in, will write more later.

Friday early evening September 1, 2006 well we are still here at the Monaco Campgrounds. Some of the parts came in at 10 a.m. the others we were hoping would show up at 2, no such luck. They should show up on Tuesday, it's only the cameras, lights and something else, can't remember, don't understand why we need that stuff, ha ha.
We will, tomorrow, drive to Marty's and spend the night at his house. Elkton has some kind of fair there all weekend and then a play at night that Marty is in. Kelli, Kim and a bunch of other people want pictures, which hopefully I can then post on the blog.
Today we didn't do anything, Dave worked on some work stuff, I hung around and worked on puzzles, we drove to Eugene to go to some parts store. That is about it, nothing to really report on today.
See ya