Sunday April 29, 2007 Haven't written for a week so I've got some catching up to do.
Monday morning we drove the coach over to Davis Cabinets and they got started on the work they needed to do. We drove back over, in the car, to Camp Monaco and hung out in the lounge where Dave could hook up his computer and work. Around noon we were suppose to go back over and check out the coach and see if they had any questions, but before we left Lee had told me to watch out for Brian's butt crack, and that when they had their coach worked on Vicki had gotten sick of seeing that thing. (Brian is the main guy that was doing the woodwork on our coach) Anyway, when we got back Brian was just going into the coach to install the new sliding drawers when I walked in behind Dave, OMG there must have been a good 3 inches of butt crack, too funny. I stayed outside after that, when possible, when we got back to Camp Monaco I had a good laugh with Lee and Vicki. We picked up the coach Monday night, and Davis Cabinets had 80% of the work done already, but we did need to bring it back on Tuesday morning at 8 a.m. Monday night, the gang, Stan, Ginger, Lee, Vicki, Dave and I went out to dinner at P.F. Changs for dinner and it was great.
Tuesday, we got the coach back that night and all the work was done with Davis and it looks great, now all I need is the washer/dryer combo and that work will be done.
Wednesday we just hung out at Camp Monaco and Dave worked on hooking up the computer system again.
Thursday morning we drove the coach over to the tile/carpet place, they were going to begin gutting it and removing the old carpet and some of the tile. Around noon we drove up to Marty's to move in with him and Dayna for a week. It ends up that Friday night Dayna and Marty were driving to Washington to be assistants to scuba diving students so really we will be house sitting for them. Late Thursday afternoon one of Valley's trips, by herself, outside looking for the cats, she came hopping back into the house on 3 legs, she was holding her right back leg up in the air. Oh no I thought not torn ligaments again, I hope, so we waited until the morning and took her to Marty's vet because she was still holding her leg up. Sure enough torn ligaments but this time in her right leg, it was like 5 or 6 years ago when Chelsea jumped on Valley and tore the ligaments in her left knee. Valley is almost 11 yrs old so we told the vet NO SURGERY, so she ended up wrapping up the leg and for the next 6 weeks I have to towel walk her. The vet is going to try a series of shots once a week to try and help the leg heal itself, will see. Yesterday, after Marty had called me and told me he had lost my car keys, Dayna and him had taken my car to Washington, Dave drove down to Junction City to the coach to see if we had the serial number for the keys for the locksmith. No such luck on finding it but on the way back Dave stopped at Pet Smart and picked up a vest for Valley to put on with handles on top so I can walk her around. Boy, that vest is much easier to hold on too then using a towel. Anyway, this morning we went to Marty's for breakfast and as of this posting I haven't heard from Marty so don't know yet if he got a key made. He had told me the locksmith said he could do it without the serial number so I guess I'll find out later. As soon as Dave shows me how to post pictures to my blog, I'll post pictures of Valley with her leg all wrapped up. That's about it for now, all we are doing is hanging around Marty's doing laundry, cleaning his house, watering his plants and garden, and making sure Valley stays still.

Sunday, April 22, 2007 Lee and Vicki left this morning to go visit with a few of Vicki's relatives and Dave and I took off for Elkton to have breakfast at Marty's. Boy, it sure seems like that drive to Elkton from Harrisburg gets longer and longer. We did stop on the way and drove thru a campground where Valley and I will probably be staying at when Dave flies to Norfolk Virginia for a week. There are two campgrounds at the same exit, one to the left and one to the right. The only problem is the one to the left is $43.00 a night and the other one is $24.00, so can you guess where we are staying, it's a no brainer, I'm cheap. If it doesn't work out for Valley and I we can always go stay with Marty and Dayna, or at least that's what he told me.
I'm just hoping now that we get the coach all done so we can do a quick run up to Washington to see Rob, Kelli, Alex, Rosie and Bob. I was hoping to stay in Washington while Dave was in Virginia but to change his flight out of Eugene was going to cost us $500 and there is no way we are going to pay that. When we got back this afternoon we started cleaning out the file cabinet, that Dave had put in for his work, and the closet so Davis Cabinets can start their work tomorrow. We threw away so much stuff, shoes we haven't worn for a year and misc. stuff we haven't touched in a year. (we should have had a garage sale, one of the Monaco campers said to me) Anyway, that's about it for now, will update more later.

Thursday, April 19, 2007 we are still here at "Camp Monaco". Today we got to keep the coach no work could be done until the parts show up and hopefully that will be tomorrow. The new bathroom door won't be here for 2 more weeks but the stuff for our back-up camera and new motor for our door sliding should be in tomorrow. Stan, Ginger and Katie left this morning for Seattle, Ginger has a sister there and since their coach is stuck in the paint shop they figured they might as well drive to Seattle and visit with her sister and stay for the weekend. Monaco put them up in a motel but because of the dog they have to stay in a smoking room, which they said smells really bad so they plan on coming back on Monday and I think that's when they get their coach back. All of us up until then have just been hanging out, driving into Eugene, going out to lunch and dinner or just hanging out in each others coaches. Oh by the way, last Sunday we went to Marty's for dinner then the show across the street at the winery. This guy use to open for Jewel, and Dave and I saw him last September when we were staying at the camp ground in Elkton. We left after the 1st half last September and we left after the 1st half on Sunday too. Stan, Ginger, Lee and Vicki said he was pretty good but they didn't want to stay for the 2nd half either. For one thing we had an 1 1/2 hour drive back to "Camp Monaco" plus I don't think they could take another hour of him either. Marty had left too because he said it was the same old stuff he has always done but when I talked to him the next day he said we should have stayed because the 2Ned half was all new and really good. I don't know if I can believe that, Marty has a weird sense of humor. (still love you bro) Sunday, Lee and Vicki are going to go visit some of Vicki's aunts, it's about 100 miles away so they might be back late of even spend the night. Dave, Valley and I will either hang out or go visit Marty. Don't want to bug Marty too much because when we have the carpet and tile replaced we want to stay at his place and that will be for about 4 or 5 nights and he might get sick of seeing us.
Monday the cabinet, and desk work is suppose to get started, the other day we went and ordered the washer/dryer combo. The wood work should take about 3 days, then on Thursday we take the coach to the carpet/tile place where they will start to gut the RV and replace with the new stuff, I believe they need it for about 5 days. It will look really beautiful when the work is done, thank goodness we had Vicki with us to help pick out the tile and carpet, we all know I have no taste for that stuff. Don't get me wrong, I think our coach is really nice as it is but having carpet just really sucks, with us living in it full time there is just no way to keep it clean.
I just can't seem to teach Dave and Valley to wipe their feet before coming into the place, then spilling the wine doesn't help either. (Dave with his hands and Valley with her tail, ha ha) We ended up picking a little darker tile for the entry way and up to the kitchen tile(which will stay the same as it is) the new carpet will be on the slide and bedroom. We did add a border between the 2 different tiles to break up the rooms, so to speak. We will have the living room, (one type of tile) the dining room, (carpeted) kitchen the original tile when we purchased the coach. We will post pictures when it's all done. All the work being done, plus the new washer/dryer will run us about 12k and that's a lot cheaper then buying that new coach, which would have cost us 100k. I just hate spending money with Kim's graduation and wedding coming up, but we do live in this thing and we have to have it fit our needs, plus who wants to leave any money for the kids, let them earn their own. ( Sorry, love you kids) Better cut off for now, see you on the next blog.

April 14, 2007 we are here in Harrisburg Oregon at the Monaco Facility, as everyone who has a Monaco product calls it, "Camp Monaco". Stan and Ginger plus their dog, Katie, will be arriving here in a couple hours. We met all these folks, Lee, Vicki, Stan and Ginger last year when we were all here at Camp Monaco last August/Sept. time frame and have just kept contact with each other. We all still needed warranty work done so when one of us scheduled it the others decided to go at the same time so we could meet up again. Stan and Ginger are just arriving because they had other commitments when we joined Lee and Vicki in Susanville. Stan and Ginger live in Camarillo, and Vicki grew up in Simi Valley, what a small world.
Enough of the recap, we are here and tomorrow night we will all drive up to Marty's, again, and have dinner then go to the Winery across the street for a show they are putting on. Monday we will get together with the repair people and start the warranty work. Don't have any idea how long we will be here, Stan and Ginger are getting a new paint job besides what ever else so they will be here the longest, I believe. Vicki and Lee have minor stuff and need to be back to Susanville the beginning of May. Us, we have the somewhat minor warranty work but then afterwards we are having the carpet taken out and everything replaced with either tile or wood, new desk for Dave then the cabinet being fixed for a washer and dryer. (I'm sure I've mentioned all of this before in one of the other blogs, but, oh well) Dave also has to go back to D.C. again the 2nd week of May so I have No idea where he is going to leave Valley and I. I know for sure we will be back in Bakersfield by the beginning of June because of Kim's graduation.
That's enough for now, you can tell when nothing is going on because I just keep writing and writing.

April 14, 2007 we are still here in Winchester Bay until about 11 a.m. then we hit the road for Harrisburg Oregon to Camp Monaco. I left off with Dave flying out on Tuesday, Tuesday night Lee, Vicki and I went out to dinner at Griff's, which is a seafood restaurant right across the bay from us. Wednesday it rained just about all day, we just hung around the coaches all day, Lee fixed breakfast for all of us then for lunch we went to Griff's again, love that place. For dinner we just had crackers, salami, turkey, crackers and cheese, Dave got back to the coach about midnight. On Thursday morning Dave and I did some running around, post office, bank, grocery store while Vicki was having her hair done. For lunch we went to Griff's, again, Dave hadn't gotten to go, then we drove to Coos Bay and just did some site seeing. For dinner we did shrimp and scallops, some of Marty's bread, rice and squash, great dinner.
Friday we left at 9 a.m. and headed for Newport, Oregon to go to the aquarium there, what a really nice place, and a hell of a drive to get there. We didn't get back to the coaches until 5 pm, our poor dogs were stuck in the coaches all day. When we got back we walked them around a little bit, fed them dinner then headed for Elkton Oregon to have a Mexican Dinner at Marty's, which was great and way too much to eat. We then got back to the coaches at 9:30 pm and it started raining, Valley doesn't like getting wet so she just ran out real fast did her thing and ran back into the coach.

April 10, 2007 Winchester Bay, Oregon
I left off on the last blog that we were going to Vicki's Dads house for Easter dinner, which we did had a great dinner and fun conversations. What a really nice family she has, I mainly stayed in the kitchen talking to Vicki's sister and Step mom.
We got going on Monday morning about 9 am and stopped in Grants Pass, Oregon at Rogue Valley Overniters. Dave and I got going this morning at 6 am because we needed to get to Winchester Bay RV Resort to get set-up before Dave had to drive to Eugene to catch his flight to D.C. I don't know how to set-up the rig yet for camping plus I sure as hell wasn't going to drive these Oregon winding roads. We were really a head of time so we did stop in Elkton and see my brother, Marty. His restaurant wasn't open but he came down with his computer so Dave could help him a little and visit before we got back on the road again. While there, of course, we got some pastries from him and some wheat sour dough bread, yum. Winchester Bay RV Resort is great, Lee got us reservations facing the harbor, the sun is out and I've already gone bike riding and walking Valley around. Lee and Vicki arrived around 2pm, they saw a herd of Elk (around 60 of them) and stopped to watch them in the field. We heard the weather has been really bad here and today was the first nice day they have had in the last couple weeks, let's hope it stays that way, but this is Oregon. Dave just called, and his flight was just getting really to take off, he flies back into Eugene late tomorrow night and should spend the night there and drive back Thursday morning. That's about it for now.

April 8, 2007 HAPPY EASTER.
Yesterday we went driving around with Lee and Vicki, we drove around one of the lakes here and saw the devastation the resent fires have done, what a shame. We then stopped at the new rest area here and had a picnic lunch and looked over another lake that is really a mud hole. After that we drove back in town and they dropped me off so I could get my nails done. Dave came in later, while I was still there, and had a pedicure. That night we went out for a real nice dinner and just had a great relaxing day.
Today we went out for breakfast then Vicki went on to church. Lee and Dave started getting the coaches ready for hitting the road tomorrow morning. I got all my laundry done and cleaned the inside of the coach. Tonight we will be going to Vicki's Dad's for Easter Dinner then tomorrow we head out for Oregon. That's about it, it was really a nice relaxing couple days of rest for Dave, Valley and I. Susanville is a nice small town, great for visiting but couldn't stay here for more then 2 weeks I think for me, anyway.

April 7, 2007 1st let me start out with saying "Happy Birthday" to my brother, Marty.
We got to Susanville Calif. yesterday and are now staying at Mountain View RV Park, what a nice place. We are parked next to our friends Lee and Vicki and their dog Fleetwood. Yesterday they took us around town and showed us the sites, small town, they say the population is 17,500 but that number includes the 5,000 inmates at the prison. Lee BBQ'd chicken for dinner for all of us, they figured we were tired from all the driving we had been doing, and boy were they right. It was so nice to get up this morning have coffee relax then take Valley on a 6 mile walk. We will all leave here on Monday morning headed for Oregon, we plan on being in Winchester Bay Oregon on Tuesday mid morning and staying there until Saturday morning. After that we will be headed for Harrisburg Oregon to the Monaco plate so we all can have our coaches worked on, Stan and Ginger plan on meeting us there.
We are going to be leaving soon to do more site seeing so let me tell the slide story.
The other day when we parked one of the back slides would only come out a little bit then stop, Dave pulled it back in and tried it again. It would go a little bit then stop, so Dave then decided to help it slide all the way out. This is the slide at the foot of our bed, anyway, as he was pushing the button for the slide he used his other arm to help push out the slide. Next thing we heard this loud sound, the slide jerked and slide out. Dave stopped pushing the button and we ran outside to see what damage had been done. We couldn't see anything wrong with the outside of the slide so Dave came back in and started the slide again when I heard him say "Oh Shit". What had happened is one of the doors on the cabinet had opened up in the slide while we were driving, and you can't see it because it is in the slide. The slide was being stopped by the door, so when Dave helped by pushing it shattered the door and bent the hinges. Luckily we were able to get the busted door out of the way then we could open the slide back up. So it's a lesson to all, if the slide doesn't open check very carefully before you help force it open.

April 5, 2007 Let me start off with saying "Happy Birthday" to Dave's son Jeff. We have now landed in Sparks Nevada and are staying in the parking lot at the Nugget Casino. I did at least half of the driving today, it's getting easier and easier, still not up for trying to drive the busy city streets yet. I said in my last blog that I was going to tell you a story about our one slide but that's going to have to wait because since we are parked in the parking lot we have no hook-ups so we have to keep down on the power we use. So we will leave in the morning for Susanville and will be at a campsite there with full hook-up I'll have to wait and write more there.
Bye for now.

April 4, 2007 we are now in Ogden Utah staying at the Century RV Park, not a bad looking place, there are a lot of people that live here but at least the place is kept up. The bad thing is it is right next to the Freeway and the Freeway is all torn up with construction work so it was fun getting here. We will get headed out about 6 am tomorrow morning and try and beat some of the traffic, but I don't think that will happen.
We went out to dinner with my Uncle Renzo and his son and daughter-in-law to this great place called Timberline. I'm telling you all now, you must stop and eat at this place, it's not cheap but the amount they feed you is well worth the money. When I say the amount they feed you I'm just talking about the meat portion of your meal. My T-bone was an inch thick and covered just about the whole plate, Dave's prime rib was just about the biggest I've seen. Along with the meal you get bread, dinner salad and a choice of one item with the meat, chicken, ribs, or seafood you choose for dinner. n Valentine was in seventh heaven when she saw the T-bone bone they I gave her when we got back, she was outside the RV for half an hour chewing on it. Once she had it pretty clean I let her bring it in the RV and she chewed for another 1/2 hour.
Enough of that, will write tomorrow when we get to Reno. Plus, I have a story to tell about our one slide on our RV that wouldn't open.

Still April 3, and we just arrived in a KOA Kampground in Laramie, Wyoming. Dave did all the driving today, while he was doing his phone calls and emails. He has gotten really good at working on his computer while driving, I don't really care for it, I can do some of the driving, but I really believe he likes doing it. He likes to brag to the other guys about it, which I know this will piss him off that I said it, but oh well. After not feeling 100% yesterday and taking over the driving, my attitude now is I can drive it's no big deal. The only thing is when it comes to city driving I might have a heart attack or cause one hell of an accident but if it comes up, oh well.
With Dave's work meetings today we just found out that he has to go to Washington DC next week while we are at Winchester Bay Oregon with our friends from Susanville, Vicki and Lee. He just got done booking his flight information which is flying out of Eugene Oregon on the 10th at 5pm then flies back on the 11th from DC at 6pm and gets back to Eugene at 10pm, boy is he going to be tired.
Anyway, the drive thru Colorado was pretty, there is snow covered mountains to look at, when stopping for fuel the wind was really blowing and cold, needless to say, Valley didn't get a lot of time to walk around and do her thing. Tomorrow we head out for Ogden Utah and will see my Uncle Renzo and have dinner together hopefully, that's it for now.

April 3, 2007 what a rough night in Kansas. The wind really started blowing at 2am and didn't let up. All I kept thinking was tornado and at 4am when I heard a horn blowing I thought for sure it was a warning signal, but it was only a train whistle. We hit the road pretty soon and plan the next stop in Wyoming where we hope we don't hit snow, there is a cold front coming today. I did drive for 2 hours yesterday and I guess I'll drive some more today, don't like to but I can do it, just don't want Dave getting used to me driving all the time. (just kidding)
Will write later. By the way, isn't it a bummer that Donald Trump didn't get his head shaved?

April 2, 2007 sorry I haven't written for a while, but while in Branson we seemed to stay busy and I never got the chance to write my blog. Anyway, right now we are in Russell Kansas staying at Triple J Campground. Very small campground but we are only staying one night then on the road again tomorrow.
We got to Branson Missouri on March 30 and stayed at Plantation at Fall Creek Resort, what a great place, I highly recommend it. They have the campsite, apartments, time shares and so much more. In the morning they have a breakfast buffet for only $3.99 and a lunch buffet for $5.99. Saturday morning we did go to the breakfast buffet once and it was very nice. They have activities all day long, swimming pools indoors, games, golf ect. I really liked the place. Another place I highly recommend is Branson Missouri, what a great place to visit, but you need about a month to see everything. What a party, place all family orientated, entertainment during the day and night, and they must have 7 miniature golf courses in town. Check it out on their website. Saturday at 2pm we went to #1 hits of the 60's show, my nephew Spanky should have been on that stage, just a bunch of young and a little bit older singers singing all the #1 hits from the 60's. They sang over 100 songs in the 1hr and 45 min. they were on the stage. My nephew had a better singing voice then some of them. I shouldn't say that, this was only the 7th performance they had done together. Dave got to talk to one of the ladies there and she said they hire by the singing voices and worry about their dancing abilities later. My nephew can do both, sing and dance, he really should look into trying out his stage performance there.
Back to what we did, we did the afternoon show at 2 then at 8pm we went to the Shanghai Circus, good show but I'm telling you peoples bodies should not bend in those positions. On Sunday, April 1st, it was our 29th wedding anniversary, not a good day. I woke up at 2am freezing to death, I guess I got some kind of flu bug. I managed to go out to breakfast and got some oatmeal and toast down then went back to the coach and just was sleeping all day. Dave did a little running around, then about 4 I got up and got dressed and tried to act normal but wasn't feeling that great but better then what I had felt in the morning. We had show tickets to the Dick Clark's American Bandstand Theater at 8pm and had planned on a nice dinner before hand so at 6 we left for Landry's Seafood House. We had a little appetizer, which we hardly touched before our salad was delivered, I had 2 small bites of my salad then I broke out into a sweat and told Dave I was going to faint, next thing I knew I was surrounded by people asking me if I knew my name, if I was alright, I was saying what the hell is going on? Dave told me I had a seizure and we were going to emergency. We went to the hospital were there 3 hours and it was the best I felt all day. The doctor said all my vitals were good, no fever, blood looked good except low on potassium, I think what had happened was my fever finally broke. We got back to the coach at 10:30 pm, with our Wendy's take out food, what a great anniversay.
Oh well enough for now, I think I'm all caught up.

March 29, 2007 we left Lebanon Tennessee this morning and at 4:45 pm we arrived in Duck Creek RV Park in Paducah Kentucky. We just heard we are going to be running into some nasty storms when we head out tomorrow for Branson Missouri.
I forgot to write in my last blog, but while we were at the Grand Ole Opry show one of the tour groups there, that was mentioned, was a group of High School kids on a music tour from "Mayfair High School" from Lakewood California. That was neat to hear.
When we left this morning we back tracked before coming to Kentucky because we went to the "George Dickel Distillery" in Cascade Hollow in Tullahoma Tennessee. It was an interesting tour in a Dry County. George Dickel said his whiskey is so smooth that's why he spelled it "George Dickel Tennessee Whisky" without the "e" keeping with the Scotch whisky tradition. We bought a bottle but haven't tried it yet.
Anyway, Branson tomorrow, will write later.

March 28, 2007 well it rained just about all day today. It was a good day to do house cleaning and laundry right after I did my morning workout. Last night we went to the Grand Ole Opry, before the show we walked around the Opry Mill Mall, one of the biggest I think I have been in, then had dinner at Tony Roma's, haven't been to one of them for years. The Lebanon policeman that was at our coach today said that Opry Mill Mall use to be were the Opry amusement park was, so I guess that's why the area is so big. The reason the police where here is because to get the RV registration changed to Florida the vin. number needed to be verified by either a police officer or a Dealership if we weren't going to drive back to Florida. Dave called and they said they would come by and verify the number and sign the document for us. Anyway, back to the Grand Ole Opry, we walked thru the museum which was neat to see, then we went thru the Opry store and Tracy Lawrence was there signing his new CD. Before the show started at 7 pm Eddie Stubbs came out and explained that every show is live on the Radio so please do a lot of clapping and live commercials are being done too between singers. We didn't know any of the singers but the music was "OK" but it was very interesting to watch them do the live commercials and change the stage for the next singer or singing group coming up. It lasted 2 hours and we saw 8 different singing groups. The best thing about the whole thing is that Country Musician's biggest thrill is to sing at the Grand Ole Opry. Sorry but its hard to explain, as big as they get and tour all over the biggest thing to them is to appear at one spot, where things began. The music groups today, meaning rock and roll ect., they don't have 1 place that all the legends have crossed, which the Country Music has, which I/we think is really neat.
Enough of that, tomorrow we are headed out, 1 day ahead of time, and will stop in Kentucky, we want to get another marker on our placker. Will write later.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007 didn't mention that we are staying at Timberline Campground Resort. When we went into Wal-Mart after we got here, it's another small town with a bunch of inbreds. I told Dave that some of these people really scare me, he said him too, then when we got back to the campsite I went walking around and found out a lot of these inbreds live right here. I would say that about 75 % of the people here, live here and their trailers have seen better days. Last night while we were sitting outside watching TV I just started laughing, and Dave asked what was so funny. I told him we left a 7 hundred thousand dollar house to come stay in places like this, what the hell were we thinking. We can see how sheltered we were and not really seeing what is out there in the U.S.A., it's been fun and interesting though, and we have met some nice people which we would have never met if we just stayed in Simi. These parks are a part of the Coast to Coast program we bought into and we stay without paying that's why we stick it out, we are cheap. Well you know how it goes, you get what you pay for.
Yesterday we went into Nashville, it's about 30 miles away, and walked around. We had lunch at Rippy's Smokin' Bar & Grill then went into Legends Corner and had a beer and listened to the guitar player. During lunch Dave made reservations to go to the Grand Ole Opry on Tuesday night, tonight. Now don't be jealous but we are going to be seeing Tracy Lawrence, The Crabb Family, Porter Wagoner, The Isaacs, Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver and Jason Michael Carroll. Will write later and let you all know how it was. That's it for now.

March 26, 2006 First thing we want to wish Kimberly Diane Alton a BIG HAPPY 25TH BIRTHDAY, as she says "she is half way to 30" that's our college grad. ha ha
Just a quick update on us. After leaving Florida our next stop was at Camping World right outside of Atlanta Georgia. We got one of those sleep number beds, they didn't have anyone to install it so Dave and I did it ourselves in their parking lot. Then got on the road again for a little while then stopped off at a KOA in Casterville Georgia. Sunday morning after a good nights sleep, the new mattress is really nice, we had breakfast then got back on the road.
We arrived in Lebanon Tennessee in the early afternoon and now we are back to Central Time Zone. Oh for got to mention that while we were at the Camping World we also purchased a CB Radio so Dave tore out the dashboard on the RV and installed the CB radio. My handle might be "Dog Grandma" will see once we start playing with it.
The weather has been perfect so far but we heard a storm is coming our way, will see. Will try and see Nashville and the surrounding area in between Dave's work calls.

March 23, 2007 we are here in Lake City, Florida. The 1st thing we did when we got here, after hooking up, we went to DMV and got our Florida Driver Licenses, opened up a bank account here, and did the laundry. We are now residents of Florida because they don't have personal income tax, which will save us money on Dave's retirement. Now they do have other ways to get your money like if you owned property, but we don't so we are OK there. It's basically too expensive to keep Calif. as our main residents. Will see if this all works, I hated giving up my Calif. drivers license though. Anyway, like I said in the other blog, we had a good time at the rally, the last day we booked a Piggyback Train thru Copper Canyon Tour. It's 29 days long, we start off at Presidio Texas and end up in Nogales Arizona. It's not until next January 24, 2008 so the cruise that we had booked for December will definitely be cancelled. Other then that expensive reservation we really didn't buy too much. New sensor for our tanks, mat for outside the coach, went to some seminars, some stuff we knew other stuff was informative. Hated to say Goodbye to the new friends that we had met at the pre-rally they were really great people. Shirley and Fred, Joe and Lucinda, Bobby and Louise, Rosemarie and Bob, Fran and Bond, Janice and Dewayne, Linda and Joe (also from Calif) and the others. The last day too of the rally we saw two couples that we had met at the Monaco repair place in Oregon last August.
The Oak Ridge Boys concert was pretty good, I hadn't heard any songs that I had known, Dave was napping thru part of it so we left early. We did so much walking and riding our bikes the 6 days that we were there that we were really very tired. It was nice to get back to the coach early and relax since we were hitting the road at 6 a.m.
Tomorrow we head out for Lebanon Tennessee will write again from there.

Thursday March 22, 2007 today is the last day of the FMCA Rally and we have had a really good time. The final count on the fair grounds was 3,820 family coaches, 260 exhibitor live-in coaches, 556 display coaches and 194 demo units to drive. Don't know how many vendors stayed in motels but I know it was a lot. They did sell a aerial photo, which we purchased, of all the rigs parked, hopefully Dave can scan it and we can post the picture on our website. It's the last day, I'm really tired, I have walked so much that I'll write more later. We head out for Florida tomorrow morning, we have appointments at one of the DMV's for new driver licenses, and I'll explain that more on my next blog. Need dinner now before the Oak Ridge Boys concert, will write later.

Tuesday March 20, 2007 today the FMCA Rally really begins. The drive over here on Saturday morning was fun, having the police blocking the traffic getting on the freeway and off was neat. Our caravan was only 35 rigs, the Monaco one that came in right behind us was 150 rigs. Boy I wouldn't be a happy camper if I was on my way somewhere and had to wait until all those rigs went thru. They are so well organized here, that have everyone parked right away and leave enough room between rigs, it was really nice. There wasn't the turn out they were hoping for there are only 3,800 rigs. I went to the 1st timers seminar yesterday and they told us that Perry, the town we are in, has only 9,000 population, with all of us in our rigs plus the vendors that are here we total over 11,000, more then Perry's population. They said the mayor of Perry is really happy to have us here. They have 550 new rigs to view here and 175 rigs out in the demo driving area. They did have some seminars yesterday that we went to. We went to Knee-Hip-Ankle Health, boring, then we split up because the seminars went on at the same time, that's when I went to the 1st timers and Dave went to RVing to Alaska. At 3 pm they opened up the gates to where all the 550 rigs are, boy you should have seen all the people lined up to get in there, we waited until the crowd cleared the gates before we went over. Today all the vendors open up, so now the spending begins. Now we will see all the stuff we just can't live without.

Friday, March 16, 2007, today is the last day of the pre-rally. We have had a lot of fun meeting new people either at happy hour, ice cream socials, breakfast or dinner. One of the local RV Dealerships have had new models of Holiday Ramblers here on display for all of us, Dave and I were thinking about trading in our 2006 Endeaver for a 2007 Scepter 42 footer, want to wait and see all the different kinds of other models on display at the Perry Rally. Probably won't do it because we don't want to have house payments again, plus ours only has 11,000 miles on it, it's fun to think about though. This afternoon we played bean bag baseball and the team I was on won, I had never played that before it was fun.
It started raining here yesterday and this afternoon the spring on our awning for our slide broke. Dave had to drive down to the Monaco rally and find the awning company to come to where our rig is to fix it. The guy got here but doesn't have the stuff to fix it here so hopefully when we are at the Perry rally he can do the work there. He had to remove the awning so we can pull our slide in for the caravan tomorrow. We were told at the caravan meeting this morning that we will have a police escort to get us all on the freeway together then we have to leave about a 2 motorhome gap between each motorhome for on coming cars on the on ramps. I guess when we get to the other end we will get some other kind of escort to loop us all around the outside of town so we don't mess up the middle of town with the thousands of motorhomes showing up. Our time to go into the fairgrounds is 8:30 a.m., everyone has time slots and it goes on all day and night, it should be fun to see.
Tonight is the last happy hour and cowboy meal, and it's western wear contest. Dave and I went and got cowboy shirts, and hats. I also got a levi skort and western belt, we never did have any luck finding cheap cowboy boots. You know cowboy shit is expense, especially boots, so luckily we found cheap hats and clothes.
That's it for now, will write again once we are at the FMCA Rally.

March 14, 2007 we are still here in Macon Georgia at the Rally. So far we have had an enjoyable time. There are only about 58 coaches and really nothing of any seminars but we are having a good time. Dave is too in between his business phone calls. Monday we met with people that are parked in our area and at 5:30 it turned into Happy hour and munchies then a group of us went out to dinner to a place called "Pig in a Pit". Not that great of dinner but afterward we stopped at Dairy Queen for desert, it was fun. Tuesday was registration day and hang around watching all the coaches arriving, I took off to Wal-mart to have my nails done. Tuesday night at 5 the rally had Happy hour then they had hot dogs and all the fixins for dinner. Today was breakfast between 8 and 9 then a seminar on holding tanks, motor home insurance, and cleaning supplies for the motor homes. 1:30 was ice cream floats then game time, today was washer toss tournament. At 5 it was margarita party then they served a Cajun dinner. After dinner they had a 50/50 drawing and Dave won, $104.00. After that was bingo but we didn't stick around, we went back to the coach, took Valley walking around and visited with people.
We have met a lot of really nice people here and Valley is having fun meeting all of their dogs. These rallies are so much nicer then going in trailer parks, it seems to me that these people have decent animals, not the attack and barking dogs, just really friendly with all the other dogs. I could probably live the rest of my life in a motor home if we kept going to rallies.

March 12, 2007 We left Stone Mountain yesterday morning and are now parked in Shrine Park Macon, Georgia. This is the Holiday Rambler International 15th FMCA Pre-Rally, next Saturday we will leave here at 7:30 a.m. and caravan to Perry, Georgia where the FMCA rally begins, at that rally there are suppose to be 7,000 rigs. I guess at this pre-rally we are only suppose to have 60 or so rigs. 2 years ago when they had the pre-rally here I guess it rained a lot and a bunch of the rigs got stuck here in the park, so people are too afraid to come back here again. At that time I think they had a few hundred and even the tow trucks that showed up to pull the rigs out got stuck too. We are suppose to have rain here Thursday, so will see what happens. Monaco is having a pre-rally, and Dave said we probably should have gone to that, but too late now, who knows we may end up having a good time with fewer rigs and people.
Bye for now

March 9, 2007 as you know, if you read the other blog, we are in Stone Mountain Georgia and I had said we are here the wrong time of year and only 3 things are open now. Well, we did the 3 open attractions yesterday, in between Dave's business calls. All 3 things we did were fun/interesting meaning "Ride the Ducks" was kind of fun and informative, the Museum and Plantation tour were very interesting.
We have had great weather but it says the rain is coming, bummer.

March 7, 2007 haven't written for 5 days, boy time flies by fast, now I have catching up to do again. I mentioned before that we were in Montgomery Alabama, while there we drove into town and took a trolley ride around which showed the highlights of what is there that they are famous for. We didn't get into town until 4 so we couldn't get off the trolley and go see anything because it was too late. Normally what you do is pay your $1.00 and you can get on and off the trolley all day long. (yes that was one dollar) We went by the State Capitol, Rosa Parks Library and Museum, Hank Williams Museum, Alabama Dept. of Archives and History, Civil Rights Memorial ect. next time in town we will have to do the all day thing.
Saturday morning, March 3 we got headed for Stone Mountain, Georgia which is a beautiful place right outside of Atlanta. If you get a chance look up their website stonemountainpark.com/campground you should see all the stuff they have to do here, the only thing is come the right time of year. Of course we aren't and all but 3 things are closed until near the end of March and we will be long gone by then. Valley and I are doing a lot of walking and stocking squirrels. We arrived on Saturday and once all set-up we drove into Atlanta and went shopping at Costco. On Sunday we drove back into Atlanta and did a tour of the "World of Coca'Cola" what a waste of money on that one. Then we walked thru the "Underground" in Atlanta which is a bunch of shops right underneath the highway then under that is Kenny's Alley which is the entertainment district at night. We were there during the day, David Jr. said we should really go at night because it is really the happening place but knowing us I know we won't make it. After that we walked over and did a tour of CNN, now that was worth the money. Monday, we hung around drove into Stone Mountain, the city, and did laundry. Last night we drove into Atlanta and had dinner with Dave's second cousin, Randy and his family. We had a very nice dinner and it was a great visit, the only thing is while driving back home I hit a dog, we don't know how bad because it took off running. I was only driving 20 mph, we had just left their house and I hit the brakes so hopefully it wasn't hurt too bad. Damn people that don't train their dogs not to run once they get out of the house, that dog ran so fast in front of the car, I was just sick over it and still am. When we got back to the coach all I did was hold onto Valley and thanked god that I had taken the time to train her.
Enough bad news, today it is 71 degrees and beautiful, and now I'm all caught up on my blog, so see ya!

March 2, 2007, we are now in Montgomery Alabama, we got lucky and didn't get hit by the tornado, but we did get hit with severe thunder storms in Mississippi. We just pulled in all our awnings and pulled in our slides and stuck it out. It maybe lasted 35 min. then we had heavy winds after that. Whene it stopped I went walking around with Valley and the trailer park from hell, that we were staying in was mostly under water. We were on a cement slab so we were OK but the ones that weren't, lets just say I'm sure glad I wouldn't have to walk up to their trailers and try and get in or out of the door. They would have been up to their ankles in water, I took some pictures.
The tornado did hit one place in Alabama but not in Montgomery, and right now it's almost 3 in the afternoon and the sky is nice and blue, clouds are spread out and only covers the sun once in a while. The new camp ground we are at is "The Woods RV Park and Campground", it's rocks and gravel and patches of grass but mostly the grass area is under water because of yesterday. So much better then the last park though, not a lot of people that live here and do inbreeding. Very large area, a lot of open sites, right now, and it has a lake but not too nice of one, but that's OK because we are away from Martin Lake.
Tomorrow we are headed for Stone Mountain Georgia, we will be in Georgia for about 3 weeks I think, then will have to let you know where we go after that.
Bye for now.

I just went and looked at the pictures Dave posted in our website and noticed all the comments I had written on the pictures weren't carried over to the website. Just to let you know the last pictures of the trailers with all the trash around them is where we are at right now, I took the pictures while I was walking Valley around and holding the camera to my side so no one would see me take them. I must say right now the sky is booming very loudly and rain is really starting to come down, not a happy camper. I don't think I've ever heard thunder this loud before in my life.

March 1, 2007 part 3, and final chapter of the Katrina blog. Well, like I said earlier, we are here in Biloxi Mississippi and they had a lot of destruction here too. We drove to where the casinos are, which are right on the water, and that area has really been wiped out. Now in New Orleans what destroyed those areas where the levies, but in Biloxi it was the actual hurricane that destroyed it because it is right on the water
Anyway, the casinos, businesses, and houses were really destroyed here. The one good thing here though is everyone is working on rebuilding everything. Neighborhoods, businesses and the casinos are all under construction, they aren’t sitting around waiting for the government to rebuild. We got pictures posted on our website now, take a look see altonsystems.com
Right now we are under tornado watch, which isn’t making us too happy. I wanted out of this trailer park we are in because the people that live here I swear are all inbred, they really give me the creeps. Needless to say we are stuck here until tomorrow; they say the tornado should be gone by then. Just heard on the news that the tornado hit down in Alabama and that’s where we were headed, good thing we didn’t leave yet.
I’ll write later and let you know if we survive this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

November 20th we were at sea

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

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

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

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

Quick Update

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

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

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

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

Tuesday, November 7, 2006, oh yea election day, and just think folks right after this we get to hear for the next 2 years who is running for president. If we only had someone like Robin Williams running "Man of the Year" then something would get done. Here's Mondays recap.

Monday, November 6, 2006 It’s like 88 degrees here today in Havasu, god you have to love the weather. I went and had my nails done today, and made an appointment for a hair body perm for Wednesday. We got out the clothes we will need for Florida and our cruise and I then had to take them to the cleaners because they were really wrinkled. Then this afternoon we went to the movies and saw “Man of the Year” with Robin Williams, it was OK it did have some funny parts but don’t waste the money at the movies just rent it. We also had a change of plans for this weekend, we were suppose to go to Kim’s, in Bakersfield, on Friday, stay until Sunday morning then drive to David Jr.’s and spend the day with them. We were then catching a flight out on Sunday night; Dave’s boss just changed our plans for us. Since most of the employees that work for Falconwood, that’s who Dave works for, are going to this meeting in Florida his boss has decided to hold a meeting on Sunday so now we need to fly out Saturday night. Most of Falconwood’s employees live all over the U.S. and this will be the 1st opportunity that the whole company has been together in a long time, oh well. So those of you that we had planned on seeing on Sunday, sorry but we will have to do it at another time. I will also email you and let you know, sorry Brad, Diane, Alex, Jacqui and the boys. If we can arrange it we will try and see you on Saturday. That was our exciting Monday.

Monday morning, November 6, 2006 Here's a recap of our exciting weekend.

Saturday, November 4, 2006, mid morning we drove out to Quartzsite which is about 65 miles away, to check out the area, the place is like one giant swap meet everywhere you look. They have 70 different RV Parks and the motor homes are already showing up and the place looks like it will be a nightmare come January for the RV show. When we got back to Lake Havasu we stopped off at London Bridge because they were having a Greek Festival under London Bridge. The weather was 83 degrees and there were so many boats in the lake, it was just beautiful. We found out why so many boats were together, they were doing a food donation for the homeless. Actually all around town there were lots of things going on, a couple car shows, Greek Festival ect. When we had gotten back to the coach the wind had really picked up so the outside lights and awning had to be put away.

Sunday, November 5th, we went out to a Mexican Restaurant for breakfast then as we were leaving we saw a monster swap meet going on so we walked thru it. I got new sun glasses and Dave got more gloves, for working around the motor home. We got back and sat outside and read our books. Dave then decided to ride his bike to Lowe’s, it’s now open, and I took Valley for a walk. You know I haven’t seen the coyote for a few days now only the jack rabbits and I keep my eye on Valley no more falls for me. My shoulder and left wrist are still sore.
Today is David Jr. and Jodi’s 1st Anniversary, Happy Anniversary you two.

Saturday, October 28, 2006 thank goodness the winds weren't as bad last night like the night before. We leave here tomorrow and head for Lake Havasu where we are suppose to spend the winter, but who knows, we haven't stuck with any of our plans so far. Here is a recap of the last few days. Boring, I'm warning you now.

Tuesday, October 24th, we had rain in the morning so while Dave had phone calls I watched TV and read my book. The rain quit about 10:30 a.m. so I took Valley for a walk around the park. When I got back I dropped Valley off and I walked to the mall that is near by. I checked out the mall for about an hour then walked back to the coach. Dave finished work about 1 p.m. then decided to defrost the freezer; it has really been building up lately. He took the stuff out of the freezer and got a towel and my hair dryer and proceeded to defrost the freezer. It worked pretty good and fast, now no more ice/frost build-up in the freezer. Tuesday night we went out to dinner to the Prime Rib Room at the Riverside Casino. What they have is a salad and potato bar then they come around and slice the prime rib or chicken cordon bleu right at your table. Not bad and the price was alright too. After dinner we went gambling again, we played some slots, then I decided to go back, while I still had some money, Dave went to the tables to play some Black Jack. I walked back to the coach got Valley and started walking her around and next thing I know I see the shuttle bus in front of our coach dropping Dave off. He said the dealer took his $40.00 in a wink of an eye. That was our Tuesday.

Wednesday, October 25th, Dave took off for a bike ride at 6:30 a.m. and I left a few min. later to walk Valley. Valley and I walked the whole block that the campsite, employee parking and mall are on. We were gone about an hour and when we got back Dave was showering. We drove the route that Dave had taken the bike on and he rode about 8 miles or a little more. In the early afternoon I laid out in the sun and read my book, napped too, then about 2 it started raining again, what is up with this weather. The rain lasted about an hour then the winds hit again, damn it’s windy here. After dinner we walked over to the casino again, gluttons for punishment, and played slots again. Then we went to the Losers Lounge for a while to listen to the group playing there, pretty good band with a good mix of music. Then we walked back to the coach.

Thursday, October 26th, the sky is perfectly clear and the wind is blowing but not as hard as it has been blowing. Dave had work to do early so he couldn’t go riding his bike, I took off and took Valley on her hour walk. In the afternoon Dave and I decided to go walking the river walk again and visit all the casinos and see what kind of games they had. Some of the other casinos have $1, $2, and $3.00 Black Jack tables so Dave decided that he wants to start going to those casinos if he is going to go gambling because the Riverside Casino has been taking all of his money. Thursday the wind really started picking up again and it sure makes it hard to sleep.

Friday, October 27th, the wind was blowing so hard I kept thinking it was going to push us right off the hill we are on. In the morning we drove to Wal-Mart and had a pedicure. When we got back Dave started polishing the rig and I did laundry and cleaned the inside. In the afternoon when Dave turned the TV on we had sound but no picture. Dave called the manufacturer they said it was out of warranty so then he called Holiday Rambler and they said take the TV out and take it to a store and have it checked out. So come next Monday we need to find out where to take it to, luckily we have my old computer screen which is a TV too so that’s what we have mounted now and the screen is a lot smaller, looks a little funny but it works. Friday night we went to Colorado Bell Casino and had the Seafood Buffet then did our gambling there. Dave played black jack on a $1.00 table then went to craps, when we left a few hours later he had the money he had come in with, so he was a happy camper. I just played slot machines and left my money behind but I did have a good time doing it.