A New Adventure

Good Music, New Freezer, Visit From Joan

2012-01-26T19:35:00.000-08:00

Forgot to mention in the last post that we went over to the Rec Hall Tuesday night for a performance by Mariachi de Atzlan - the 2nd best in the USA. They came in second in a competition at Disney World. Anyway, it was a group of local high school students and they were very good.

Thursday 1/19

Regular class at Tucson Yoga this AM, stopped back home long enough to change clothes and have a snack, then we went back into the city to the El Con theatre to see Hugo. A pretty good movie, if a bit predictable, the visuals were really well done. After the movie, since we were in the area, we stopped by the Tucson Botanical Gardens, took a stroll around and relaxed for a while before dinner.

Late in the afternoon we stopped at El Charro for dinner, our first visit there this winter, and frankly we were a bit disappointed. I ordered their signature dish, the Carne Seca Platter and it arrived cold on a cold plate. After sending it back and getting a second one I was still disappointed as it was only warm, not hot, and the meat was really dry. Maybe we need to try La Fuente again.

Nancy had an appointment for a facial at the Aveda Institute this evening, so we wandered over to 4th Ave and spent some time browsing at Antigone Books. After I dropped her off at the institute I went out to Bookman’s book store and spent an hour and a half just reading.

Friday 1/20

According to their tracking info Fed Ex was supposed to deliver our freezer today, so after our morning walk in the desert we pretty much stuck around waiting for the delivery. As is usually the case with Fed Ex they failed to show up. The tracking website showed all day that the shipment was on the truck for delivery, then at 4:30 they posted that they were unable to find the address!! What a bunch of BS! The RV park has a sign 15 feet high with the address on it. So I called and Fed Ex and the automated system said they would deliver the package tomorrow - how are the going to do that if they can’t find the address? So I talk to a representative, who contacted the distributions center, but when they tried to contact the driver he was not answering his phone - what a surprise! As Nancy said, it is a nice Friday afternoon, he did not feel like driving all the way out here, put in a bogus excuse, turned off his phone and went home.

This is exactly the same thing that happened on our last Fed Ex delivery here, only that time they said there was no one to sign for it. I try to avoid Fed Ex at all costs, but sometimes the shippers give no choice. I let the seller know that I was disappointed in their customer service since they picked the shipper who did not live up to their standards.

Tonight the was an excellent show at the Rec Hall, a group of three young women, The Silverthread Trio, who were outstanding folk singers. A really enjoyable show.

Saturday 1/21

Up early this morning to check the flight tracking to see if Nancy’s sister Joan was able to get out of Chicago on her way here. The snow in Chicago on Friday resulted in a lot of cancelled flights. Turns out she made it, albeit 45 minutes late.

Took our morning walk in the desert then did some puttering around home. We decided that putting the new freezer in the truck was not the most practical solution - visions of one of us falling on our kiester climbing in and out with things in our hands. So after some measuring I determined that it would fit in the front compartment of the trailer. That required doing some shuffling around of stuff we have stared in the various compartments. Finally after owning the trailer for five years we have pretty much filled up all of our available storage space! Time to do some weeding out!

Joan got in a little before noon and we went and met her at the place she is renting for the week in Rincon West. We zipped over to In N’ Out Burger for lunch and then Joan and Nancy went to do some shopping and I came back home and cleaned out our storage compartments and reshuffled everything in order to open up the front for the freezer - which finally arrived around three-thirty this afternoon.

The freezer fits perfectly on the front compartment. I did need to use the boards we put under our jacks on soft ground in order to lift the freezer high enough to allow the door to clear the lip of the compartment. I will need to pick up some 2x8s and redo the setup so it is secure for traveling, but I have more than a month to do that.

We went over to Coyote Pause for dinner and much like a few weeks ago on Friday evening they were way, way understaffed - people waiting to be be seated with numerous empty tables waiting to be cleaned. Unfortunate as they may be shooting themselves in the foot.

Sunday 1/22

Had to cut our morning walk a bit short today as I seem to have developed tendonitis in my foot again. May have been walking around without my orthopedic shoe inserts to much!

Joan came over this afternoon for a hot rocks massage from Angel, a lady here in the park who is a massage therapist. Nancy, Joan, and I gave each other hand made gift certificates for the massages since we all enjoyed them so much last year.

Tried a new place for dinner, recommended by a lady here in the RV park - Fred’s Arena and Steakhouse. Out west of the city on Ajo Highway the other side of Ryan Field, a mile off the highway on a paved road and then another mile on a dirt road brings you to Fred’s Arena. A big pole barn with the atmosphere limited to beer signs and televisions, with a fire pit in the middle and and some of the biggest and best steaks we had ever see! My NY Strip was probably 6” by 4” and a full inch thick, cooked to perfection. That, along with a big baked potato, salad, and garlic toast for $14.95! Nancy and Joan each had top sirloins that were equally large and equally good. We will definitely be going back!

Monday 1/23

Skipped the Monday AM meeting today and took a short walk, foot is improving. Then we went over and picked up Joan and went to H F Coors, a company that makes pottery style dish ware primarily for the restaurant industry. The dishes are handmade here in Tucson and they have an outlet store. Really interesting products and we picked up a few things, will probably go back the first Saturday in February when they have their seconds and rejects sale.

After H F Coors we went way across on West Broadway to See’s Candy - a place Joan always needs to visit when she is here. Then up to Beyond Bread on North Campbell for lunch. Nancy and Joan had appointments at the Aveda institute for make-up lessons. I stopped at Trader Joe’s and Walmart to pick up a few things and then back home.

Leftovers from Beyond Bread for dinner and a quiet evening at home tonight.

Tuesday 1/24

Off to the Desert Museum first thing in the morning. This was the coolest day of the week with a high in the low 60‘s, but sunny. Lunch at Ocotillo Grille at the Desert Museum, then back to Desert Trails where Joan and Nancy had massages scheduled. We went to Perfecto’s for dinner this evening.

Wednesday 1/25

Nancy and Joan drove up to Casa Grande to meet a couple of friend’s who drove down from Phoenix to meet them. I took the truck up to Casa Grande as well and stopped at Speedco for an oil change and lube, a local CB shop to have the broken antenna wire on the CB fixed, and also bought a couple of “stinger” antennas. They look more like an automobile antenna rather than the fiberglass antennas I had before. The guy at the CB shop said part of my CB issue was mismatched antennas and the spring-mount bases I was using. These antennas should avoid the breakage issues I had encountered with the fiberglass ones. On the way back I stopped at the Flying J in Eloy to top off the tanks - 150 gallons! So between the maintenance and the fuel it was a pretty pricey trip!

After we all got back we drove up to Thunder Canyon Brewery in Foothills Mall, which was a fair drive away, but pretty good. We would go back if we found ourselves in the area at mealtime, but more of a hike from here than it is worth.

Thursday 1/26

Our regular class at Tucson Yoga this morning, along with a stop at the Food Conspiracy, which is right down the street on Fourth Ave. Joan went to take a look at Old Tucson. We had told her it should not be to crowded during the week - turns out this was Ted Walker Youth Day at Old Tucson! That means there were 3,000 third, fourth, and fifth graders! On the bright side she got in for a discounted price and all of the shows and demonstrations were in full swing.

We met at Coyote Pause for lunch and then went over to the Saguaro National Park visitors center for a couple of ranger talks. The first one was the talk on the geology of the Tucson Mountains, which Nancy & I had been to before, but it was well worth hearing again. Nancy and Joan went to another talk, which was a short walk in the desert to look for evidence of animal life. I skipped that one as slow walking and standing around is real hard on my sore foot, which is improving. After cocktails at home we drove back out to Fred’s Arena & Steakhouse to try their pizza which had been highly touted. Not bad, but nothing to write home about either.

The Desert Loves Rain! And a Fallen Giant.

2012-01-18T13:06:00.000-08:00

Take a look at the post for the 18th to see the effect of the rain in the desert and a picture of a fallen saguaro.

Wednesday 1/11

Regular morning walk, then off to do some shopping. While we were out walking yesterday there were some fire trucks coming into the area from the two local stations and they really set off the coyotes out in the desert! Usually we here them howling late at night, but this morning there were at least two packs off in different directions howling in time with the fire sirens.

Speaking of being close to nature, we are hearing owls hoo-hooing in the palms trees behind our trailer almost every evening at and just after sunset. Apparently it is mating season. The shortage of hummingbirds also continues. Last year, and in December, Nancy was filling the feeder at least twice a week. Now it has been a week and a half since she filled it and it has only gone down about a third. Very puzzling, we used to see hummingbirds there all day long, now just one once in a while.

We stopped by Home Depot late in the morning to see if they had restocked the small rack that we bought for our shoes by the door. We picked one up last week and have room for two of them. They did, so now we have a nice arrangement for our shoes instead of having them scattered all over the floor. We went on over to 12th St since we were in the area and stopped at Perfecto’s for lunch. First time there this year and the food was as good as ever.

Stopped at Food City and Target on the way back home.

Thursday 1/12

Tucson Yoga for our “gentle yoga” class in the morning. In the afternoon we went over to Saguaro National Park for a patio talk on the geology of the Tucson Mountains. The volunteer ranger who made the presentation was one of the guides on a moonlight hike we took last season. The talk was outstanding with a lot of really interesting information about the geologic history of the area and the development of the mountain and valley formations typical of the southwest.

Friday 1/13

Skipped our morning walk and headed straight off to the Desert Museum, figured we would get enough walking there, and we were right. We ended up spending the whole morning there, did not leave until 2 PM.

We started out with one of the guided walks, but we were not to impressed with the docent, first one we have run into that we did not like. They were trying, and doing a fair job, but most of the info was about things we already knew.

So we dropped off, went to the hummingbird exhibit and watched the birds for quite a while, no one else in there this early in the morning. One of the birds took an inexplicable liking to Nancy’s powder blue fleece jacket, hovering around her and actually nibbling on the jacket with it’s beak!

We then wandered over to the Coyote Ramada where a docent had a presentation about coyotes, which was very interesting. Turns out that the coyotes travel in pairs or threes, when we hear all the howling in the desert that we take for a “pack”, it is probably only two or three animals. When we got there one of the coyotes was sunning on rock right near the trail, actually looked like it was posing. We sat in the sun and relaxed until the docent arrived to make the presentation.

We decided to have lunch at the museum as there was another talk at the Saguaro National Park that we wanted to go to and it is just a few miles down the road from the Desert Museum. We had eaten at the cafeteria style restaurant a few times, but we decided to try the Ocotillo Cafe, billed as a “fine dining” restaurant since we had plenty of time. Turned out to be a pretty nice place, the food was very good and added to that was the fact that members get 10% off, same as the cafeteria.

After lunch we stumbled across a group being guided by the same docent that did the coyote talk, he was very knowledgeable and articulate, so we tagged along with that group until it was time to head over to Saguaro National Forest.

Most of the talks here are at the Red Hills Visitors Center, some of the walks meet at other trail heads. We always check in at the ranger station at the Visitors Center as their funding is based on numbers and it costs us nothing since we use my America The Beautiful Senior Pass. The pass gets us free admission at all National Parks.

The talk today was on the history of the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) and specifically the camp that was located here in the Tucson Mountains. Most of the roads and all of trails in the parks here were built by the CCC. Traveling around the country we have seen many, many places where amenities in parks were built by the CCC - Starved Rock State park in Illinois and various places in Smokey Mountain National Park jump to mind.

Seeing all these things consolidated in one presentation really brings your attention to the great recreational opportunities we enjoy today because of the efforts of the CCC and the tremendous help it was to families during the depression. The unemployed young men (18 to 25 and unmarried) who joined the CCC earned $30 per month for six months, and $25 of that was sent back to their families each month! There were camps all over the country, with 250,000 men in 1,300 camps between 1933 and 1941.

The CCC camps were organized and managed by the US Army and one little noted benefit of the operation was the large group of men who learned discipline and working as teams. This provided the US with a competent group of young men when we entered WWII.

Saturday 1/14

Blackhawks game on TV today - at 10:30 AM! Being an afternoon game in Detroit accounted for the strange starting time. The Blackhawks stunk up the place in the first period, but they got better once Nancy put on her Blackhawks Jersey and they managed to salvage one point for a tie.

After lunch we ran into the Walmart so restock - have to shop fairly often here since we have limited refrigerator space and a REALLY small freezer. Usually don’t buy our pizza for Sunday afternoon until Saturday. We have been thinking about buying a small freezer and putting it in the truck (we have a 120 electric connection in the truck). So far we have not found anything satisfactory.

Back home we watched part of the Denver/New England game and some shows we recorded on the DVR.

Sunday 1/15

A little cloudy this morning, we have seen more partly cloudy days this year than we did in our entire stay the last two years. December and January are actually the secondary rainy season here - although with an annual total just under 12” “rain” is a relative term. The rain we got in December helped break the multi-year drought in Southern Arizona and the experts at places like the Desert Museum and on TV say if we get some rain in January it should be a really good wildflower season in the spring.

We some of the rain did come today, it started to sprinkle off an on late this afternoon and has continued off and on into the evening, good news for people in this part of the country.

Quiet day at home today, Nancy went over to the dog play area this afternoon with her friend Karen and her dog Margo. They go over there quite often in the afternoon.

Monday 1/16

After the Monday morning meeting we went over to Saguaro National Park for a talk on the food and medicinal use of desert plants by Native American women. Another very interesting talk. On the way home we stopped at Coyote Pause for a large enough lunch that we skipped dinner that evening. It was a bit cool and cloudy so I took advantage when we got back home and did some cleaning of the decals on the outside of the trailer. Making progress on the areas where the Red Max Pro sealer is peeling a bit.

Tuesday 1/17

We needed a few things from Walmart and Trader Joe’s so we decided to take advantage of their proximity to the Beyond Bread on East Speedway. As usual the sandwiches were large enough to take half home for dinner.

We have decided to purchase a small freezer and put it in the truck cab for additional frozen storage. The freezer in the trailer is rather small, so we cannot stock up - we have to get out and buy our pizza for Sunday afternoon either that day or Saturday.

I had been looking for a small freezer that would fit in the truck between the passenger seat and the bunk. Last night I found an EdgeStar freezer on sale that will do the trick. It will also function as a refrigerator if needed, although we leave our cooler just outside the door and under the slide for an auxiliary refrigerator. Easy to do since the RV park supplies free ice.

The truck has an outside connection for 120V, but I had taken the female plug off the end of the cable when I had the fairings off a while back, so when we returned home I re-threaded the cable back into the passenger seat and installed the connector. Freezer should be here Saturday.

Wednesday 1/18

The desert loves rain! After Sunday and Monday’s rain the desert has come alive. Tuesday morning we noticed blankets of grasses growing in open areas where there had only been gravel the previous week.

This morning we noticed tiny little flower like growths right along the trails. Hopefully you can see the pictures. All of the Saguaro are expanded to maximum, having pumped themselves up with stored water. The desert is green and alive this week.

Here you can see the size compared to my foot:

On Sunday we took a different trail that we have not been on this year and came a cross a large saguaro that had fallen, obviously when it was still alive. Maybe a windstorm or damage at the root? There was still fresh growth on top of the main trunk and the arm and it was very green. I did not have the camera with me Sunday, but this morning we went back the same way and took some pictures.

This is usually what a dying saguaro looks like:

This beautiful specimen seems to have fallen in the prime of life:

If you look closely you can see the indentation it made on the desert floor when it fell. This is hard ground - those saguaros are heavy! It appears that this saguaro fell quite recently, when we saw it on Sunday it was still very green and this morning it has already lost a noticeable amount of color. Kind of sad to see this magnificent “giant of the desert” laying on the desert floor.

Stuck around home today, dog sitting with Margo. I took a quick trip to the bank and an optometrist, Desert Optical, to have my glasses straightened - I stood up with them on my lap last evening and stepped on them!

A beautiful, sunny day in the 60’s today. Weather has been nice all along, in spite of a couple of days with some clouds and light rain. Last year they were still in a drought here and we only had one day of rain, this year is much more normal as December and January are a secondary rainy season. Of course with 12’ of annual rainfall, a rainy day is a relative thing!

Walking, Shopping, & Ranger Talks

2012-01-11T14:32:00.000-08:00

Wednesday 1/4

After our usual morning walk in the desert we did some house cleaning and then made a run to the grocery store. Instead of going to the Walmart Neighborhood Market as we usually do, we went to a Fry’s Grocery as Nancy needed something they carry. When we got there I commented on the parking lot being more crowded than usual at this store. It was also busy inside. As we were checking out the clerk said “Oh, wait, let me make sure you got your discount.” We asked “what discount”, she said “it’s Senior Wednesday and you get 10% off your purchases.” Who knew!? Seems the first Wednesday of the month is Senior Wednesday and we just stumbled into it.

Thursday 1/5

Off to Tucson Yoga first thing in the morning for our Gentle Yoga class, then a stop at Food Conspiracy. In the afternoon we went to the visitors center at Saguaro National Park for a talk about the Hohokam Indians who lived in this area from around 300 AD to the thirteen hundreds and then vanished. Loosely translated Hohokam is a Pima Indian word meaning “vanished ones” or “those who went away”. A pretty interesting talk. They offer a regular series of talks and short hikes in the National Forest and the are several more that we want to take advantage of in the next couple of months.

Friday 1/6

Friends from the last two winters are arriving today. They left their trailer here at Desert Trails last winter and are not bringing their truck, so they asked if I would move their trailer from the storage area to their site. So when they arrived I took the tire covers off the truck and went to start it - it fired once and died! Well, last week I had decided to drain the water out of the fuel/water separator as I had not done it in a while. So I opened the petcock to drain it and could not get it closed! Drained the whole filter before I could get it shut off. I started it and let it run for a while, but apparently not enough. Fortunately Reed, the guy who’s trailer I am moving, has fairly extensive truck knowledge and he was able to show me where the hand pump is for priming the fuel system and we got it started with a very judicious application of starting fluid. So then I moved their trailer into position.

Needed to refill one of the propane tanks, so I strapped it onto the back of the truck and we went over to Costco with the truck and stopped for propane on the way back home.

Had dinner at Todd’s Restaurant at Ryan Field, the nearby small airport. Just so-so, they are better choice for breakfast and lunch.

Saturday 1/7

In the paper this morning the was an ad from Worldly Soles, a shoe store, promoting a storewide sale and showing so slip-ons that Nancy though would be prefect for me. It is a real pain to keep putting shoes on everytime I need to go outside to get something out of the cooler or one of the compartments, to pick up the newspaper, or whatever. Last year I bought a pair of sandals for that purpose and I can’t even walk in the silly things! The ad said they were located across the street from Beyond Bread, so that was reason enough to stop by.

After a stop at Trader Joe’s we hit the shoe store. Turned out we both found shoes that we liked at 30 and 40 percent off! After that we stopped at Beyond Bread for lunch and, as usual, the sandwiches were big enough to take half home for dinner.

Sunday 1/8

Not much going on today. Other than our usual morning walk in the desert we were pretty much couch potatoes watching football games and the rare Blackhawks game that we get on TV here. Nancy did go over in mid-afternoon and get a dog fix at the dog park and then a hot rocks massage from Angel - she received coupons for five massages in Christmas gifts from her sister Joan and I, so she can be a spendthrift.

After the Hawks game we watched the new episode of Downton Abbey. We had the first series on our DVR so we re-watched those in the last week getting back into the swing of the show.

Monday 1/9

Regular morning meeting at the RV Park, temps have turned a bit cooler, around 60 yesterday and in the 60’s today. Bright sunshine though. After the meeting we ran down to the Home Depot to pick up some light bulbs and look at small grilles. Found the bulbs we wanted and a small rack for shoes beside our door, but no luck on a small grille. We have a small propane grille, but had heard about a nicer one on a great sale at Home Depot, but as I said, no luck.

Tuesday 1/10

After our morning walk in the desert, we took our friend Karen’s dog, Margo, out for a walk since we are puppy sitting today. Later in the morning we went over to the Saguaro National Park for a talk about the life cycle of the Saguaro. Turned out to be an excellent talk about the desert in general as well as the Saguaro, very enjoyable. As usual we ended up spending money in the gift shop. They have the best selection of postcards in the area and one of the best gift shops we have seen in a National Park.

On the way back home we stopped at Coyote Pause for lunch, then a relaxing afternoon at home, along with a romp in the dog play area with Margo.

We have both been getting in plenty of reading time, I just finished my fourth or fifth book since we arrived in December.

Back to Tucson and Warm Weather!

2012-01-04T18:32:00.000-08:00

Friday 12/30/11

Up early this AM and headed to Midway Airport. 35 degrees and raining, but at least it was not ice and snow. Traffic was light due to the holiday weekend, the check-in line was fast, the security line was short and they started boarding as we walked up to the gate. Dennis was the third or fourth person on and grabbed an exit row, so it could not have gone smoother

Arrived in Tucson a half hour early! 75 degrees and sunny. Stopped at In N’ Out Burger for lunch, dropped our luggage at the trailer and made a grocery run in the afternoon.

Saturday 12/31

Out for our morning walk in the desert this morning, ran a few errands and relaxed. Did a bit of maintenance, cleaned the shady side of the Volvo in the afternoon. Weather now is much more to our liking than it was in early December, sunny and mid-70’s.

The RV Park had a New Years Dinner and Dance this evening. We had paid for the dinner, but were not interested in the dance. Had a nice dinner, steak for Dennis, ribs for Nancy, with pleasant dinner companions, then back home and watched TV shows we had DVR’ed while we were away. Did not make it to Midnight!

Sunday 1/1/12

Happy New Year to all. Took our usual walk in the desert this morning, watched the Sun AM news shows and cleaned the other side of the truck this morning. Realized we left two of our Clean Bottles at the dinner Saturday night, checked in the Rec Hall, but not there. Afraid they got tossed - bummer! Have to order some more.

Sat outside in the shade and read most of the afternoon. Just relaxing and enjoying life. We are puzzled about the lack of humming birds since we returned. Our feeder was empty of course, and Nancy refilled both of the feeders as soon as we returned. Last month there were birds on the feeders very regularly, but we have not seen one hummer since we go back! At dusk though there were two owls sitting in the palm tree right behind our trailer and hooting to each other.

Monday 1/2

Regular Monday morning RV park meeting this morning, than we went up to the Desert Museum and took a nice walk around the desert habitat loop. The only coyotes and Javalinas we saw were sleeping. Stopped at the Saguaro National Forest visitors center and picked up the guided tour and walks schedule for January. Looks like a number of interesting things going on. Back home for lunch.

Watched some of the Winter Classic hockey game, then continued with our second time around watching the first Downton Abbey series in preparation for the second season starting next week.

Tuesday 1/3

We decided to skip the morning walk today and take a hike in Sabino Canyon, on the theory that it would be a good day to go up in the mountains considering the warm temperatures. Of course we had to drive clear across Tucson to get there since we are on the SW side and Sabino Canyon is to the NE. Arrived there about 10:30 AM, when I went to pay the $5 entrance fee the ranger asked my age and said I could get the senior pass - well duh! I already have one! So we saved five bucks.

Of course my pass did not cover the $8 each for the tram up the canyon, but it was well worth the price. The trip up the canyon was very pretty with spectacular cliffs on both sides. At the top we left the tram and hiked 1/2 mile up to the upper part of the canyon to the junction with the Sabino Canyon Trail and the Phoneline Trail. The Tram makes nine stops along the canyon and you can rejoin at any of the stops, so we decided to go a half mile down the Phoneline Trail and then 0.7 miles down to tram stop 7.

It turned out to be a bit tougher going than we expected! We left the tram at 11:45 and got back down to stop 7 in time to catch the down bound tram at 2 PM. The seven tenths of a mile down to the road was pretty steep and tough going for both of us. Of course there was also a family going along the trail that consisted of grandparents, parents, a young boy - oh, and the mom was carrying a baby! They passed us, we passed them, etc. Finished about together. We were exhausted.

The scenery however was spectacular and well worth the effort. We were much higher than we would have been able to climb on our own. Surprisingly looking down the canyon we could see out across the valley and the city of Tucson, over the Tucson Mountains, and, on the far horizon, all the way to Baboquivari Peak, 50 miles the other side of Tucson!

After the tram ride back to the visitors center we headed back to town for a late lunch at Beyond Bread. As usual the sandwiches were big enough to take half of each of them home for dinner.

Back home and relaxed, watched TV and just vegetated. As I write this there is an owl hoo, hooing away in the tree right outside our window.

2011-12-19T12:33:00.000-08:00

Monday 12/19

I had planned on posting this on Friday evening before we left Tucson, but did not get it done. Gives me a chance to tell a funny story. Our flight home on Saturday was uneventful and Sunday we celebrated Nancy's birthday at her sister's house. Sunday evening there was a Hawks game on WGN. Since our Dish Network account now has us in Tucson we do not get the local channels on the other Dish receiver here at home, so we have to use rabbit ears (remember those?) to get a couple local channels. After some experimentation I found we could get channel 9 if I sat at the kitchen table and held the rabbit ears on my head! Well thAt won't work for long, so we put a stepladder next to the table with the antenna on it. Now we can get ABC and WGN and were able to watch the game. Of course now we have an aluminum stepladder with the antenna on it in the kitchen for the next two weeks - actually quite elegant!

Now back to your regular program, already in progress:

As I mentioned in the last post we went to Coyote Pause for dinner Friday evening, it turned out to be a bit of a disappointment as the place was busy and there were only two waitresses working - and they were working their butts off, serving, bussing tables, manning the cash register, etc. As a result our meals were excruciatingly slow and luke warm when they arrived. We let them know what we thought, and if this had been our first time there it would have been our last. We will be giving them another chance.

Saturday 12/10

Finally got out for a morning walk in the desert. Between our colds and the less than ideal weather we had not been walking much so far. Good to get out in the desert in the early morning to see and appreciate the beauty of the desert plants in the early morning light - not to mention getting some good exercise.

After our walk we decided it was time to get to work and clean the road grime from the outside of the trailer. With the two of us working it took about an hour and a half, but it was worth the effort as it really looks a lot better.

Other than that we just relaxed and enjoyed the day and the weather.

Sunday 12/11

Got out for a bit longer walk in the desert this morning, another gorgeous day. After watching Sunday Morning on CBS we drove over Gates Pass and up the road to the overlook on Sentinel Mountain (“A” Mountain - so named for the large stone “A” which is painted each year by the University of Arizona freshman class and visible from throughout the city). Really nice views of the city, and the Tucson Valley, along with the Santa Catalina and RIncon Mountains on the other side of the valley. To the north Tucson spreads out almost as far as the eye can see.

Then we dropped down to the south side to stop at Wal-Mart to pick up another humming bird feeder and a few other things. The palce was jammed as one would expect for a Saturday two weeks before Christmas. What recession?

After shopping we went over to 12th St and hit BK Carne Asada & Hot Dogs for lunch.

Back home and relaxed, our regular Sunday evening pizza for dinner. We used to get pizza delivered everyday at home, but last winter we discovered that Wal-Mart (and other store brand) frozen pizza are pretty goos, especially if we add out own Italian sausage to a cheese pizza. So much so that we now eat those pizzas back home in Illinois as well. Just as good and a lot cheaper than delivered pizza.

Monday 12/12

Rain and then more rain! It started raining about four AM this morning, not a heavy rain, but steady. Very unusual for this part of the country from what we have seen. Got ourselves moving first thing and got to the Campground Monday morning meeting.

We thought about taking in a movie this afternoon as it was raining fairly steady all day, but then we recalled that the wine we ordered from Wine Insiders was scheduled for delivery today. So we just took it easy and waited for the delivery - which never came! During the day we checked the FedEx tracking website several times and it showed that our package was loaded on the truck Saturday morning as was out for delivery today. Then, about 5:30 PM it suddenly said “delivery delay” and showed it scheduled for tomorrow! Needless to say we were seriously PO’ed since we specifically stayed home to receive it.

A call to FedEx revealed that their records showed “Office Closed”. Turns out it was no exactly FedEx’s fault as Wine Insiders had failed to put our site number OR our phone number on the shipping label! Never received a reply to the e-mail we sent them complaining about the poor service.

Tuesday 12/13

Still raining! The people here are quite happy about the rain, as it seems to have broken the multi-year drought. Tucson received over 1-1/2 inches of rain this week! Quite a bit actually since the average annual rainfall is just under 12”! Interesting for us since we saw nothing more than a sprinkle or two in the last two winters here. The campground and the desert are full of puddles, not a lot of runoff around here.

We went out to a movie this afternoon and avoided Bopp Rd., which would have been our usual route, as there are a number of washes along that road with signs that say “Do Not Enter When Flooded”. There still were five or six place along San Joaquin Rd where we had to slow to a crawl to drive through shallow water flowing across the road. We went to see “The Descendants” an excellent movie, if a bit of a tear jerker.

Back home for dinner and the rain continued through the evening, although quite obviously tapering off. The local news was full of info about closed roads and there is considerable snow accumulation on all of the local mountain ranges from 3,500 feet on up, with a foot or more above 5,000 feet. We are about 2,500 feet here at Desert Trails, so nothing but liquid precipitation here.

Wednesday 12/14

Out into the desert for our morning walk and it is rather amazing how all of that water from yesterday has just vanished. There are spots where the desert is covered in bright green vegetation that was not there before and the saguaro are obviously swollen with moisture, some of them looking absolutely bloated! We can see snow on the mountains off to the southwest, something we had not seen before. Very pretty. None of the Tucson Mountains to the north and east of us are tall enough to have had any accumulation.

Went to Coyote Pause for lunch and as expected the service and quality was much better than it had been Friday evening. Blackhawks game late this afternoon on Versus. We don’t get a lot of them as we lost our Chicago Comcast Sports Net channel when we changed our Dish Network location to Tucson, necessary to get the local stations since over the air reception is pretty much non-existent here. So the only Blackhawk games we get to see are the ones on Versus, NHL Network, or NBC. I had looked at getting the NHL out-of-market games package but it is pricier than I can justify. We can keep track of the games with my NHL i-Pod apps, or even listen to them with the WGN Radio app.

Thursday 12/15

Weather continues to be unusual here (at least from our experience the last two winters). This morning we headed out to Tucson Yoga for our weekly class and it was quite foggy! Yes, fog! Now think about it, fog requires excess moisture in the air right? And what is it that Tucson does not have? Right - excess moisture! But this morning they had it in spades. Poking up above the fog, the mountains to the east and north of the city were showing their snow capped peaks quite spectacularly.

After the Yoga class we drove over to the far east side and stopped at See’s Candies for some Christmas goodies, stopped and picked up a new watchband for Nancy, and then went a bit farther east on Speedway Rd. to Beyond Bread for lunch. Before lunch we visited Annabelle’s Attic and Bookman’s used bookstore, where we did some substantial damage. Good thing this store is quite a distance away from where we are staying!

The afternoon turned out to be quite nice and sunny, more typical Tucson weather.

Friday 12/16

Out for our regular walk in the desert this morning, there is a good mix of trails available in the open land before we even get out into Tucson Mountain park, so we can walk a mile or more before crossing into the park, and so far we have taken a different trail each morning. That along with the variations in the scenery in different lighting conditions means that we are never really looking at the same things each time we go out.

This morning we could see a dusting of snow around Kitt Peak and Baba-Q-Vari Peak off to the Southwest. The Tucson Mountains close to us are not quite high enough to have picked up snow cover. Wasson Peak just NE of us is a bit lees than 3,500 feet and most of the snow accumulation has been above 4,000 feet in the last week.

Getting ready to head back to Chicago tomorrow morning. We will be returning to Tucson on December 30th, so I will resume the blog then.

Better Weather is Here

2011-12-09T20:54:00.002-08:00

A bit late with this post due to computer issues, but it's back in business now!

Thursday 12/1/11

A very unusual day for Tucson, cloudy and spitting rain most of the day, became a light rain late in the afternoon. High temperature was still around 60 degrees though, so not to bad really. Nancy has come down with a cold so she pretty much took it easy today. Dennis took a run to the Walgreens in the AM to pick up some cold medicines for her. The afternoon was spent relaxing and reading.

Dennis finished one book and took a walk over to the campground library to leave the old book and find a new one. The library has really shaped up well, we helped in the planning and initial construction in January 2010, and it has turned out to be a very nice amenity - well maintained and well stocked.

Friday 12/2

Still cloudy and cool. We pretty much stayed home and relaxed. Dennis went into Tucson to Beyond Bread to pick up lunch. Dennis’ laptop has conked out! It has been acting up for a couple of days and this morning it refused to turn on. No appointments available at the Apple store today, so we made one for Saturday.

Saturday 12/3

Still very cool weather, 30’s at night and low 50’s during the day. Nancy is still feeling punk, but we went into the Apple store, which of course is way over on the NE side of the city. Turns out the laptop needs a new video card and there is a campaign on those. So, even though they also have to replace the logic board, there will be no charge for the repair! Would have cost over $500 if not for the campaign! Nice to get lucky once in a while. After Apple we stopped at Schlomo’s & Vito’s NY Deli for lunch. Our reward for going all the way to the NE side. Good sandwiches that are large enough to take half home for dinner.

Sunday 12/4

Relaxing around home and a short walk around the campground. Nancy is recovering from her cold, but now Dennis has caught it, so not much going on!

Monday 12/5

Nancy went to the Monday morning campground meeting while Dennis slept late. The RV park has “adopted” a stretch of Bopp Rd. just south of here to keep it clean. We had signed up for the team to go out and pick up trash this AM, but Dennis wimped out and Nancy went and fulfilled our obligation. She spent about an hour with the crew.

Tuesday 12/6

Shopping day today, we stopped at Target and then over to the east side to the new Costco store, which coincidentally is right up the street from the In N’ Out Burger! Which we naturally took advantage of.

Wednesday 12/7

Now Dennis is down with the cold! Nancy is recovering, but we pretty much stuck around home and relaxed. As cold as it has been at night, we have run through a tank of propane, so we switched over to the other tank and Dennis took the truck and ran in to get the empty one refilled. Barnetts Propane is just the other side of the Tucson Mountains, so it is one of the places we can get to easily.

Thursday 12/8

We are both recovered well enough to get out first thing this morning and head off to Tucson Yoga for regular class. We both felt great afterwards, we needed that - to much sitting around for the last week. After class we stopped at the Food Conspiracy on Fourth St to stock up on healthy food. Weather has improved, bright sunny day without a cloud in the sky! Looks like highs in the sixties all this week.

Friday 12/9

Both feeling better so we are able to get out and get with the program. Nancy went over to the activities room first thing this AM for the campground craft show. Picked up a few items. The we went over to the Fourth St Winter Street Fair, which is a huge arts and crafts fair. We spent several hours there and walked the full length of both side a of the booths, which are back to back in the center of the street. Also had lunch at a couple of the food booths and listened to the Tucson HS Steel Drum Band while we were eating.

Dennis called the Apple store and his computer is ready, so we headed up that way. Along the way we stopped at Sarnoff Art to pick up some ink for Nancy’s pen. She had sent her mother’s Waterman pen off to an antique pen specialist in New Hampshire to have refurbished after much searching for someone who could repair it. Now the question was, where do you buy ink these days? Well Sarnoff Art had a great selection.

The we stopped at Beyond Bread and picked up a couple of loaves for sandwiches before we got to the Apple store. After picking up the laptop we stopped at Trader Joe’s, which is right down the street from the shopping center with the Apple store - what a coincidence.

Went to Coyote Pause for dinner, our first visit there this year.

2011-11-30T19:22:00.000-08:00

Saturday 11/26/11

On the road again! Headed out in a light rain Saturday morning on our way to our third winter in Arizona. Drove in light rain most of the way through St Louis and stopped for the night at the Country Hearth Hotel and RV Park in St. Roberts, MO.

Sunday 11/27

Got a fairly early start and hit the Cracker Barrel down the road for Breakfast. We had three options for Sunday night, eastern OK, OK City, or western OK. We stopped at the Flying J in Joplin, MO and filled up the truck and then headed across Oklahoma.

We stopped at the Cracker Barrel in OK City for a late lunch and decided to go to western OK, so we calledDouble D RV Park in Texola, OK to confirm that they had space tonight. They said they did, but when we got there at 7 PM they were full! And rude! They said “we told you it was first come, first served.” which was a lie. If they had said that we would have looked for a more definite place. So here we were, seven PM on Sunday evening and no place to stay. Tried calling campgrounds along I-40 to the west but no answers (big surprise). So we ended up driving on to Amarillo and spent the night at the Cracker Barrel - after getting there in time for a light dinner! So we had breakfast, lunch and dinner in three different Cracker Barrels today!

On the bright side we got two hours ahead of schedule and saved $12 in the process.

Monday 11/28

Had an early breakfast at the Amarillo CB and headed for Roswell, good weather and good roads. Go toTrailer Village in Roswell at 11 AM Mountain Time. Just in time to catch the end of the Formula One race from Sunday that they repeated on Monday.

In the afternoon we took a walk around downtown Roswell and picked up a few souvenirs, stopped at Target and then back home and relaxed for a few hours. Went to Pepper’s Restaurant for an excellent dinner (as usual), this make a nice relaxing interlude in the trip.

Tuesday 11/29

On the road by 8:30. Took a detour from our regular route on AZ 70 to make a stop at the Smokey Bear Park in Capitan, NM where the real Smokey Bear is buried, not to far away from where he was found as a cub clinging to a charred tree in Capitan Gap, NE of town. An interesting place with excellent exhibits on forest preservation and ecology and of course Smoky’s story and his gravesite.

Instead of backtracking, or going south to Ruidoso through the mountains, we went on west on NM 380 and picked up US 54 southbound, which connected back up with AZ 70.

Stopped at the CB in Las Cruces for lunch and continued on to Ft Wilcox RV Park in Wilcox, AZ.

Wednesday 11/30

On the road at 9 AM, just a short trip to Desert Trails from here. Stopped in Tucson and filled a propane tank and arrived at 11 AM. Excellent trip overall with good roads, good weather other than the rain on Saturday, and no problems with the truck or the trailer.

Got ourselves settled into our new space, M10 instead of M9, which is a lot more roomy and we do not block a walkway with our truck. A beautiful day today, 77 degrees and not a cloud in the sky! Supposed to turn cold and rainy by the end of the week - of course “cold and rainy” being relative terms, they are talking about 55 to 60 degrees for highs and maybe a 1/4 inch of rain over three days! Sounds good to me!

Got the trailer set up and the smart unloaded. We replaced our 2005 smart with a light metallic blue 2011 smart two weeks ago. Had to make a couple of minor mods to ramps and hitch placement to accommodate the slightly larger smart. We like the new one, it rides and handles a bit better and now we have a car with US dealer support and a warranty, that will be a new experience!

Made a quick run into town in the afternoon and picked up sandwiches from Beyond Bread for dinner - one of our favorite places.

Just relaxing in our home on wheels tonight.

2011-08-08T16:13:00.000-07:00

Well we’ve got a really long post this time, covering an entire month in one shot! Between limited WiFi access, lack of a laptop at times, and general laziness I never got any of our latest trip posted until we got back home. Anyyhoo...here it is.

Wednesday 6/29/11

Back on the road again! We’re headed east to Upstate NY for the 4th of July with Dennis’ cousins in Canton, NY.

The trailer looks fantastic after our spring shine-up project. We cleaned the entire outside of the fifth wheel with Barkeepers Friend - that was a pretty substantial project, 37 feet long and 12 feet high! We were very pleased as the trailer cleaned up much better than we expected and looked really good. We followed up the cleaning with an application of Red Max 3. This is actually a wood floor sealer that a number of people have used on their fiberglass boats andf trailers with really good results. There is a commercial product specifically sold for the purpose, but it is much more expensive and the same basic product as Red Max. The Red Max goes on as a thin, watery liquid, spread with a micro-fiber cloth. After several coats, it copme up very shiney. We ended up with five or six coats on the entire rig. It looked really good in the barn, but we were not sure how it would look in the sunlight - well it looks great! Better than is was when we bought is and I would venture to say better than it looked when it was new!

After loading up on Monday and Tuesday we headed out mid-morning on Wednesday. Uneventful trip across Northern Indiana on the toll road into Ohio. We dropped down south of Toledo to Bowling Green. Stayed at Fire Lake Campground (Who wants to ride that chrome three wheeler...) a nice, small campground just south of Bowling Green. Mostly semi-permanent summer places, pretty empty on a weeknight, but probably hopping on the weekends. We had dinner at Reverend’s, a tavern in downtown Bowling Green.

Thursday 6/30

Headed out early and stopped up the road at a Cracker Barrel (surprise!) for breakfast and then on to LeRoy, NY, east of Buffalo. Another nice campground with a 50/50 mix of seasonal and weekend campers. They are expecting a full house for the holiday weekend. Uneventful day, traffic a bit heavier but not too bad. Passed a couple of serious traffic jams in the westbound lanes of I-90, but we had clear sailing all the way. Dinner at home.

Friday 7/1/11

On the road at a reasonable time, stopped at the Camping World in Syracuse to pick up a new TV antenna batwing. We had added a Wingman booster to the old batwing, but the wingman had a couple of protruding extensions which caught on a tree branch some where and broke the antenna mounting bracket. Off I-90 in Syracuse and north on I-81 to Watertown. Stopped at the Cracker Barrel; for lunch and picked up US 11 which took us through Canton, where Dennis’ cousins live, and Potsdam, where Dennis was born, and on to Sanfordville and the St Regis Campground. A nice campground where we stayed when we were here last summer. About twenty space, seven with full hook-ups. All of the sites back right up to the St. Regis river, so looking out our back window all we see is the gently flowing river and trees on the other side, a very pretty spot. We also have a clear view of the southern sky for Winegard Trav’ler. Got in late in the afternoon and after getting set up we drove over to Dennis’ cousin Lee’s house and had a delightful dinner.

Saturday 7/2

Settling in this AM, did some grocery shopping and ran a few errands. Dennis installed the new batwing so we can get local TV reception as well as Dish Network with the satellite dish. In the afternoon we went to the movies to see Larry Crowne, a pretty good, lightweight, romantic comedy. Dinner at home.

Sunday 7/3

After watching the SUNDAY AM news shows we headed over to Edwards, NY, up into the Adirondacks where Dennis’ cousin Mike and his wife Peggy have a very nice cabin on the Oswegatchie river. A really beautiful spot, very secluded. The entire family, nine of us, spent the afternoon sitting by the river and the only boats we saw were ours! Only activity was a couple of beavers slapping their tails. Most excitement of the day was when Dennis managed to fall into the river after tipping over a kayak! Would not have been to bad except that he had his cell phone and I-pod in his pockets - killed both of them!

Peggy had a delicious bar-b-que for the group and we had a really great afternoon just enjoying each others company. Got back home about 9 PM, in time to watch Masterpiece Theatre, over-the-air digital TV is great.

Monday 7/4

Went into Potsdam to the Village Diner for breakfast and Nancy did some laundry. Checked with the local Walmart and they were out of stock on the 32G I-pod, so we drove over to Massena and picked one up at the Walmart their. Fortunately I had backed up my I-pod just a week ago. On the way back we stopped in the Village of Norwood and watched their 4th of July parade. It was pretty substantial for a small town, lasted about an hour and included fire departments from all over the area and the world famous Norwood FD Band.

Back home in the afternoon we just relaxed. As I write this we are sitting on the bank of the river. It is about eighty degree, warm and sunny with a nice breeze and we are watching a flotilla of Canada Geese (the small, migratory kind) working their way upstream along the opposite bank. This far north and in the Eastern Time zone, the daylight lasts quite late, not really dusk until after 9 PM.

Tuesday 7/5

Off to Alexandria Bay in the Thousand Islands this AM. Stopped by Dennis’ family’s old cottage at Point Vivian. Still looks pretty much the same and kept up well, my parents sold the cottage in the late 50’s when we moved to NJ, but I spent a fair amount of time there as a child. It was kind of emotional to see it again. Unfortunately the present owner was not there so we did not get to see the inside. The water in the St Lawrence river was just as cold as I remembered it!

Then we went back into the village of Alexandria Bay, which has not changed much from what I remember as a kid. We took a 2-1/2 hour tour of the Thousand Islands with Uncle Sam Boat Tours. A very pleasant trip as it was in the high eighties inland but really nice out on the water.

Back in Potsdam we stopped at Northern Music, a Verizon dealer, and replaced Dennis’ dead cell phone. Then we met Dennis’ cousin Mike and his wife Peggy for a nice dinner at Maxfield’s in Potsdam.

Wednesday 7/6

Spent the day getting packed for our cruise to Montreal. I wanted to move the fiver out of the campsite to open up space since it is such a small campground. I planned on paying the owners something for storage, but they refused to accept anything and told us where to park the truck and fiver. They said the ground was hard and it seemed to be when I walked it, but since it had rained during the night we sunk in quite a bit when we backed in! Oh well, I’ll worry about getting out when we return.

We were plugged into 20 amp service for the night, but we have not needed our AC since we got here, very pleasant at night.

Thursday 7/7

Up early and left at 6:30 AM, Dennis’ cousin drove us to the train station in Syracuse, we left earlier than necessary as we knew there were lanes closed for construction on I-81 at Oneida Lake. No problems though, and we were at the station by 9:30 for an 11:30 train - just in time for the announcement that the train was going to be an hour to an hour and half late due to a freight train derailment! Turns out that was optimistic - the train finally left at 2:30 PM!!

AMTRAK was very comfortable and roomy, if a bit slow. Finally arrived in Boston at 11:30 PM. One nice thing was electrical outlets at the seats so we could plug in Nancy’s phone and activate the hotspot for internet access on Dennis’ iPod. We were glad ot get to the Seaport Hotel after a long day of mostly sitting an waiting!

Friday 7/8 - Boston

Used a couple of Charlie Cards to make our way around the Boston transit system, a pretty good set up. Visited Paul Revere’s house and walked around North Boston a bit, then visited Brattle Book Store and spent an hour or so browsing the used book racks, it was raining lightly so we were disappointed that the out door racks were not open.

Back at our hotel we met Nancy’s sister Joan, our niece Emily, and her husband for dinner at Legal Seafood. Excellent dinner.

Saturday 7/9 - Boston

Not able to board our ship until 11AM, so Nancy and I walked back into the city center and visited Brattle Books again. This time the outside racks were open. We had to restrain ourselves as all the books we bought had to be lugged along on our cruise.

Boarded the MS Maasdam around noon, we were able to time our arrival between the busses coming from the hotels (we had elected to get there on our own via taxi, cheaper an easier than using the tour company arraignments) so we got through the boarding procedure very quickly.

A Prairie Home Companion show in the main showroom tonight and then late dinner. As usual the food was excellent throughout the cruise.

Sunday 7/10 - Bar Harbor

Ship anchored in Bar Harbor this morning. Uo early and had breakfast in our room as we had to be on the tender at 7:30 for our tour. We took a tender in to the pier and immediately boarded a tour bus to take us to Cadillac Mountain Park. Our guide took us on a two hour walking tour along the coast with great views all along the way. Weather was perfect, 70 degrees and sunny with a nice breeze. Back in Bar Harbor we had lunch at the Thirsty Whale, purported to be the best lobster rolls in the area. Nancy and Joan report they were excellent, Dennis had a good burger.

Shows as usual were excellent. We usually had a drink in the Ocean bar every afternoon before the main show and then dinner after the show. Did not make it to any of the evening entertainment in the various lounges though. Lose and hour tonight going into the Atlantic Time Zone.

Monday 7/11 - Halifax, NS

Another beautiful day, sunny and 75 degrees. Ship at pier in Halifax. Nancy and Dennis took a bus tour to Peggy’s Cove and Titanic Cemetery. Peggy’s Cove was very picturesque with a lighthouse set on a rocky promontory jutting out into the Atlantic.

On the way the bus stopped at the Fairview Lawn Cemetery where 121 of the victims from the Titanic are buried, one third of them never identified. More moving than we had expected. Joan took a bus tour of Halifax and stopped at the cemetery as well. We were all struck by the apparent prosperity of the area, flourishing businesses and no empty store front like you might see in a medium sized city in the US.

We returned to the MS Maasdam for lunch and then walked along the harbor boardwalk to the Maritime Museum which had a very good display on the other Halifax disaster - that of December 19, 1917. That morning two ships preparing to sail for the European Theatre collided in the inner harbor of Halifax. One of them we loaded with munitions and explosives. The resulting blast was the biggest man made explosion prior to the nuclear bomb! Over 1,900 people were killed immediately; within a year the figure climbed well over 2,000. About 9,000 more were injured, many permanently (especially with eye damage from shattered glass); 325 acres, almost all of the north-end of Halifax, were destroyed. Windows shattered 50 miles away, and the shock wave was felt as far as Sydney, Cape Breton, 270 miles away.

One of the naturalists on our cruise is the Director of the Maritime Museum and he gave several interesting talks during the week. We returned to the ship and relaxed, Nancy went to her daily knitting group while Dennis went to the lecture “I want Your Job” with Fred Newman, Sue Scott and Tim Russell.

We all had dinner in the Lido instead of the main dining room, then relaxed in our cabins as we wanted to go to the late show. Skipped the main show this evening. At 10:30 we went to “Vice Match” with Sue Scott, Tim, Russell, and Vern Sutton.

Tuesday 7/12 - Sydney, NS. Cape Breton Island.

This is a pic of Nancy and Joan with Sydney, he is from Sydney, Australia so we thought it appropriate to get his picture in Sydney, NS.

Grey and overcast this AM, only rainy day of the trip. It was supposed to get to the mid 70’s but never got out of the 60’s. Did not matter to us though as the three of us were taking a boat tour to the Bird Islands. The ship docked at 9 AM, just after breakfast and we went straight off the ship and onto a bus for the tour. After about an hours ride we arrived at Big Bras d’Or lake, a huge lake in the center of Cape Breton Island, which is actually an arm of the sea. The tour started at a small (and I mean small!) private dock on an estuary. The boat was small and there were 30 people and the water looked rough! We were beginning to doubt the wisdom of this adventure! The trip out to the Bird Islands took about 40 minutes and it was smoother than expected. In fact the vibrations from the boats motor were great for my feet and back - like a 40 minute massage!

The islands were covered with a massive variety of birds, mostly seabirds, but we also saw 47 bald eagles, a lot of Gray seals and a few Harp seals. Turned out to be a great tour - perfect for a gray, rainy day!

Back at the ship we had a quick lunch and I went to a lecture on Earthquakes and Tsunamis, followed by one about the history of pirates in the Maritimes. Nancy went to her knitting group and Joan relaxed. Later we went to the Ocean Bar and sat with a couple we had met on a previous APHC cruise, John & Sandy.

The APHC show was especially good this evening and then after dinner we went the late show with Fred Newman.

Wednesday 7/13 - Cruising the Gulf of St Lawrence

Back in the Eastern time zone this morning and another bright, sunny day. GArrison and Roy Blount, Jr. did a show in the main showroom in the morning and there were naturalist lectures all day. I went to Volcanos & Earthquakes, History of the Newfoundland Cod Fishery, and one on Sailing Ships. Nancy and Joan went to one on Whales and thenNancy went to the knitting group while Joan did a charity walk on the promenade deck.

Very good musical show this evening with two Canadian groups LeVent du Nord (or as Garrison called the “Big Wind from Norway”!) and Genticord. After dinner we sat in the library and played a couple of games.

Thursday 7/14 - Quebec City

Sunny and about 75 degrees. Quebec City is very picturesque, especially from the pier where our ship is tied. Quebec City's skyline is dominated by the massive Château Frontenac Hotel, perched on top of Cap-Diamant. They are doing repairs to the roof and the scaffolding is hidden behind netting that has been painted to look like the roof line of the hotel, so at first glance nothing seems out of place. The whole city has a very French flavor and seems very much like a European city.

We turned on our telephones this morning and found text messages that Emily had the baby Tuesday evening about 8:30. Mile Lawrence and his mom were doing well. Nancy and Joan were very excited. At lunch we found a really good deli/bakery/sandwich shop which had good WiFi so we were able to look at pictures of the baby on my iPod.

Speaking of the iPod, the new one I bought in NY has a camera, which the old one does not. It is actually very good and I used it throughout the trip instead of luggin along our digital camera, worked very well.

This Morning we all took a bus tour to Isle d’Orleans and Mount Morancy Falls, stopping at a maple sugar bush. A very pretty and scenic area and once again very prosperous looking. After the tour we walked through the lower town and then took the funicular up to the upper town where we had lunch at Pillard.

Another perfect weather day, a brief shower in the afternoon kept the temperatures reasonable as it had been quite hot here. Back on the ship we had drinks in the Ocean Bar and dinner. No shows scheduled this evening as many people are dining in Quebec City, quiet on the ship. We were surprised to see the sun set behind the ramparts of the city! Seems the river is flowing north here, so the city is actually on the west bank.

Friday 7/15 - Quebec City

Sunny and a bit warmer today. After breakfast we went out and found a cash station to replenish funds. Joan returned to the ship while Nancy and I went up the funicular again and walked along the boardwalk in front of the city, around the ramparts up and around the Citadel. 310 steps to an observation deck that turned out to be pretty much surrounded by trees! The Plains of Abraham were covered by the stages and setups for a music festival. instead of going back down the steps we walked around the back of the Citadel and back through the upper city on Rue St Louis. We had hoped to come across another bakery for lunch, but were to walked out to go searching for one. Ended up back on then ship for lunch. In the afternoon we went to a really good Fred Newman show “Unfinished Stories”. Relaxed the rest of the afternoon.

The final show of the cruise was this evening, very good, as were all of them. We skipped the final night party in the Crow’s Nest Lounge as we had done that on a previous APHC cruise and it was a mob scene!

Saturday 7/16 - Montreal

Another nice day, but hotter than we would like. We really lucked out on the weather this trip as it was almost ideal every day. It was a very pretty evening coming up the river last night, there were several downbound freighters passing while we had dinner and afterwards I went out on deck and watched an upbound freighter pass us. There was a full moon shining over the river.

In the morning we left the ship and dropped out bags at Auberge Les Passants du Sans Soucy, a very nice small (nine rooms) hotel in the old city. We took the Metro and went into the city center and did some gift shopping in the underground shopping area to stay out of the heat. Then we had lunch at 3 Brewers. Back at the hotel in mid-afternoon, a very, very nice room. Later we walked a few blocks and had an excellent dinner at La Gargote.

Sunday 7/17 - Montreal

Nancy and Joan when to mass at Notre Dame, I read the paper. We then took a leisurely stroll through the old city to the tent where Circ du Solei performs. Fortunately the tents were well air conditioned as it was getting pretty hot. Enjoyed an excellent show. On the way back we stopped for beer and Putine (french fries with cheese and gravy), then relaxed at hotel and packed for the trip home. Had dinner at another very good French restaurant.

Monday 7/18 Potsdam, NY

Joan headed for the airport and we took a taxi to the central train station to catch an AMTRAK train back to NY. Garrison was standing in line beside us when we were waiting for the train. Once again the AMTRAK ride was very nice, but slow. A fairly long wait at the border. Lee and Peggy met us at the station in Plattsburgh, where we had lunch and then we returned to Potsdam.

As I mentioned before we left on the cruise, we were a bit concerned about the soft ground where we had parked the truck and trailer. Well it had rained for a couple of days and just as we got back to the campground the skies opened up again and it poured! We had to sit in the car for about 20 minutes waiting for the rain to let up and then wade through standing water to get to the trailer. It was almost 6 PM by then so I opted to wait until morning to try to move the truck and trailer. I had unhitched when we parked there and I knew it would be difficult to back under the trailer on the soft ground.

Looking around the campground I saw that one of our neighbors had a four wheel drive truck and a fifth wheel, so I walked over and asked him is he would be willing to pull the fiver out of the soft ground in the AM. He said “sure” he would be willing to give it try.

Tuesday 7/19

First thing in the morning I fired up the truck and was able to get it off the soft grass without to much fuss or damage to the turf. Our neighbor came over and hitched up his truck - it really sunk down on the springs with the pin weight of our fiver, but he was able to pull it out of the soft ground with no wheel spin! Thank goodness for 4WD! The Volvo is great on the highway, but not so good on soft ground.

After we got parked we went and did laundry and then went to the cemetery in Canton to visit my parent’s and brother’s graves (a lot of other relatives are buried there as well - aunts, uncles, grandparents, and my niece).

Later we had dinner with my cousin.

Wednesday 7/20

Getting ready to hit the road, a last visit with my cousins and then we started getting things ready for the next leg. We have decided to go back to Boston to see the new baby instead of heading straight back home.

Thursday 7/21

Hit the road about 9:30 AM. We decided to swing around to the north of Lake Champlain and down through Vermont and New Hampshire into Massachusetts. Better options for campgrounds and hopefully less traffic. Pretty uneventful trip, although we had difficulty finding a place we could get into with the truck and trailer for lunch - our rig is a bit large for traveling easily around New England! Ended up skipping lunch and eating an early dinner.

We stopped at Limehurst Lake Campground in Williamstown, VT. A nice campground with a lake. Roads on the way in were a bit tight, bt we had a good pull through site that was a straight shot out to the rear gate of the campground in the morning. Went into Williamstown to a little restaurant call Soups and Greens in Barre for an early dinner.

Friday 7/22

We did this trip in a couple of short legs because we were not able to get into the campground in Salem, MA until Saturday morning. So today we had a relatively short trip and stopped at Cozy Pond Campground in Webster, NH. Dinner in the trailer as there were no nearby towns that would be easy to get to. This is an old campground back in the woods that has recently been reopened under new ownership and they are fixing it up very nice. Got a great rate as they are offering a 50% discount to first time campers!

Saturday 7/23

On into Salem, MA this morning. Traffic was not bad until we got on I-95 head NE around Boston where it was stop and go for about 10 miles. We found out later that there had been a gas tanker fire on Rt 1 earlier that morning, so all the traffic was over on I-95. Directions into Winter Island Park in Salem were a bit convoluted, but Nancy did a great job navigating and figuring out the somewhat confusing directions from Map Quest. At one point the directions (published by the park!) sent us down a street with a 2-1/2 ton weight limit! HELLO! We weigh 19 tons! 2-1/2 is barely enough for a car!

One thing we did learn - Salem, MA has, without question, the worst roads we have ever driven one, not just narrow and twisty, but rough and seriously bumpy. We had stuff tossed all over inside the fiver by the time we got to the park.

In spite of the difficulty getting there, we ended up with a very nice spot looking out over Salem harbor from our back and side windows. The park is basically just spots around the perimeter of the the marina parking lot.

We were the just about noon, so after getting settled we found our way to the train station and took the train into Boston and then the MTA to our niece’s condo right near Tuft’s Medical Center in Chinatown. Got to meet the new baby and Nancy’s sister Connie and her husband (new grandparents) were there as well. so we had a nice family dinner.

Miles Lawrence Britt

Arriving back at the campground we found the gate was locked! Seems we had missed the signs about making arraignments for late return! I called the Salem police and the harbormaster came out and let us in. The next morning I put down a deposit for a gate key!

Sunday 7/24

After breakfast I dropped Nancy off at the train station and went back to the trailer to relax for a while. I was going to stop at Brattle Books on the in later, but a phone call revealed that they were no longer open on Sunday. So I just relaxed and then drove into the city around noon. Stopped along the way and had an excellent roast beef sandwich, one thing I do love about New England is delis!

Another nice afternoon visiting with Nancy’s family and take out pizza for dinner. Greg and took Emily’s dad to the baseball game. At one point Nancy, Connie, and Emily decided to go out and get something for lunch - leaving me with a 12 day old baby in my arms! All I could think of was “Just keep breathing!” This was the first time Emily had left the baby with anyone other than her mother! Miles and I both survived though with no crisis.

Monday 7/25

Drove back into Boston today and then we walked over to Brattle Books to peruse the $!, $3, and $5 racks. Filled a good sized cloth tote bag with a stack of books and lugged them back to Emily and Greg’s condo. In the evening we all went out to dinner at a really good German restaurant near their place which had excellent burgers. Said our goodbyes to everyone as we will be back on the road in the morning.

Tuesday 7/26

Loaded up and headed out fairly early as we wanted to get into PA this evening. Wound our way out of Salem, MA the we went across I-90 and then down I-84 through CT, Nancy navigated us around Hartford and on into NY where we picked up I-81 into PA and onto I-80.

We stopped at Little Mexico Campground in Winfield, PA. A bit out of the way on fairly narrow country roads, but a nice, quiet place with plenty of room. Once again Nancy made dinner as there was no likely place to eat anywhere nearby.

Wednesday 7/27

Back up on I-80 and on across PA and OH. Stopped at Fire Lake Campground in Bowling Green, OH again. Convenient spot for us with plenty of room.

Thursday 7/28

Finally back home today. Uneventful trip across Indiana, Cracker Barrel in Elkhart for lunch. Almost exactly a month for this trip. We will heading out to Bristol in a little over three weeks!

Another Repair Delay and Then Home

2011-04-05T16:11:00.000-07:00

Monday 3/28

Short drive to Charlottesville today, arrived just before lunchtime. Stayed at Charlottesville KOA. We usually do not do KOA as they tend to have a lot of amities that we don’t use and prices to match, but this one is close to Monticello (this has kind of turned into a Thomas Jefferson tour!) and there are not many good campgrounds in the area. Went over to Monticello in the afternoon, they have a very nice new visitors center since we were last here, with a large gift shop. We walked up to the mansion from the visitors center, only 3/4 of a mile but it was mostly uphill! Toured the house and walked around the grounds, a bit cool, but a pleasant afternoon. A little early for spring flowers here, but the fruit trees are starting to blossom. We found out they have a new “behind the scenes” tour that is usually booked up in advance. We may do that when we are back in the area in August. Dinner back home and watched the Blackhawks beat Detroit, but they are still barely squeaking into the playoffs.

Tuesday 3/29

We were in the mountains last night and it was 22 degrees here this morning! Used the trick we learned in Tucson of keeping a trickle of water flowing in the kitchen sink to keep our water hose from freezing, worked like a charm. Up early and on the road by 8:30, fairly long drive today across most of West Virginia headed for Lexington, KY. Lunch at Cracker Barrel again, and made it to FoxFire KOA near Huntington late in the afternoon. Getting ready to set up I discovered that the back axle has shifted again! Got ahold of a local RV tech who came and took a look. Turns out that the left rear spring eye is actually broken (something I suspected when we had the bushing failure in Virginia!) So we need a new spring - which actually means replacing all four in order to maintain a level ride and for safeties sake. So we are sitting again waiting for parts! At least we are in a nice, full hook-up campground again. We had thought about stopping in a small town about 20 miles back to the east that offers free camping in a small park - that would have been a bad place to be stuck with the broken spring! Plus we once again avoided a breakdown on the road, so I guess we are lucky even though we will be delayed again, no place we really need to be anyway and no one waiting for us.

Headed for a local burger joint, Fat Patties, for dinner but it was jammed - at least an hour’s wait! (We found out latter it was due to “Two for Tuesdays”) Ended up having a less than satisfactory dinner at Pannera Bread.

Too much trouble this trip!

Sleeting here in WV tonight!

And the Blackhawks lost!

Things have to look up tomorrow!

Wednesday 3/30

Puttered around in the AM, Nancy did laundry, I unloaded the car since we will be sitting here a few days. I did some research on things to see and do around here, but it turns out most of them are closed on Wednesdays! Went to a health food store nearby called the Drug Emporium to look for a specific cream Nancy wanted. What we found was the the strangest store we have ever seen - it is a cross between a health food store, an organic market, a Dollar Store, and I don’t know what else. They had a wide variety of organic and regular groceries, hardware items, health food type items, pharmaceuticals, wine, clothing, greeting cards, decorative items, garden furniture, and a surprisingly good collection of imported beer!

After a quick stop at Walmart we went into Barboursville to West Virginia Quilt. Nancy had spotted a brochure at the WV Visitors Center on the way into the state and it turned out to be a really nice quilt shop.

Then we stopped back at Fat Patties for a late lunch/early supper, pretty good burgers. Still raining this afternoon, fortunately our campground is substantially above the nearby river! Back home and relaxed, reading and watching TV. They do have WiFI here in the RV park, but it is not working! At least we have our Verizon hot spot to check our e-mail. No word on our parts, so we are here for a few more days I guess - bummer.

Thursday 3/31

Went into the village of Milton this morning and visited the Blenko Glass Factory, which is only a few miles from our campground. Very interesting watching them hand blowing glass vases and they had a small museum of their collectible glass. Interesting place to stop if you are in the area.

Also spent some time browsing through a fairly large antique mall in downtown Milton. The WiFi at the campground is back up and working very well.

Friday 4/1

The fellow working on our spring issue was finally able to get a correct ID on the springs from Dexter Axle and they are on the way, scheduled for Saturday delivery.

Crummy weather today, rain and sleet. In the morning we checked out a flea market in Milton, only about half the booths were open, but there was a good used book booth and we spent the better part of an hour browsing and picked up a few books. Decided to go to the movies in the afternoon. After looking around we found a theatre in Huntington the was showing an interesting animated feature called “The Illusionist”. They had a 3:30 PM show, so we located a few possibilities for dinner and headed into Huntington. Got there early enough to check out the restaurants and picked one out. Went to the movie theatre and it was closed! Great! Turns out the matinée is only on Tuesday, Saturday, and Sunday! Oh well, back home and relaxed and watched the hockey game - Blackhawks won!

Saturday 4/2

New springs arrived at 10:30 AM!! Yeah! Jason arrived about noon and got to work installing them, finished about 2:30. Weather is holding but it looks threatening Sunday evening and into Monday so we want to get home before then.

Loaded the car, packed up the trailer and left the campground around 3 PM and headed for home, I-64 to Lexington, KY; then North on I-75 to Cincinnati, with a stop at the Flying J in Walton, KY ( 187 gallons @ $3.939 per gallon!); then a stop for lunch at the Cracker Barrel just west of Cincinnati, I-74 to Indianapolis and I-65 towards Chicago. Spent the night at the Cracker Barrel in Lafayette, IN.

Sunday 4/3

Finally home! Stopped briefly in Tinley Park for a quick visit with Nancy’s sister Joan, and got home just after noon.

Overall a great winter trip, but we could have done without the spring problems at the end, kind of soured things when we had to sit and wait for parts. Actually it was a lot of fun and we saw and did a lot of interesting things. Travel was pretty good as well, over the last four months, from Chicago to Tucson, to Yuma, back across the country to Bristol, TN and on to Virginia, then back home to Geneva (just over 6,000 miles) and we never hit any bad weather on the road! Not only no snow, but we never even drove in the rain, the truck and trailer are still pretty clean.

Good to be home though. We will be heading for upstate New York in late June, spending the 4th of July with my cousins and then we will take a train from Syracuse, NY to Boston for the Prairie Home Companion week long cruise to Montreal. After the cruise we will spend a couple of days in Montreal and then take the train back down to Plattsburgh, NY. Not sure where we will be going after that, but we’ll be in Bristol, TN for the NASCAR race in late August and we have reservations back at Desert Trails in Tucson for December through March next winter.

Have a good summer, I’ll start posting again when we hit the road in June.

Williamsburg and Cold Weather

2011-03-28T04:41:00.000-07:00

Thursday 3/24

Took Nancy into town to a laundromat this morning and Mr Thompson called about 10:45 and said he had the trailer parts in hand and was on his way to the campground. They arrived about 11:45 and went right to work. Fortunately our BigFoot leveling system allows me to lift the rig into the air with all 8 tires off the ground.

They finished the repair work around 2:30 and we loaded up and headed for Williamsburg. Arrived at American Heritage RV Park about 5:45. Very nice destination campground with good WiFi. Lots of trees so our satellite dish is struggling to get all of the HD stations, but we can get them all in non-HD, the campground has a good cable hook-up, and our bat wing antenna is picking up something like 40 over-the -air stations!. Of course I managed to screw up and missed the F1 practice Thursday night because I programmed Speed HD on the satellite box! Oh well, win some lose some.

Dinner here at home Thursday evening.

Friday 3/25

Up early Friday morning and headed over to Colonial Williamsburg. Spent the entire day there. I won’t go into a lot of detail about what we saw, toured a number of buildings and businesses, suffice to say we’re glad we bought a two day pass as we will be back on Saturday!

Had lunch in the Trellis Restaurant in the shopping area between the historic district and the College of William and Mary. A lot of the places to eat are sandwich shops with outside seating, which would have been fine if it had been a bit warmer, but we wanted to get inside. Turned out well as lunch was excellent and reasonably priced.

Weather has turned a bit nasty, cold for the season. A high of only 50 today, but it was sunny most of the day and the sun was warm. We layered and were very comfortable all day. Sunday is supposed to be the coldest of the weekend with rain and snow flurries!

Dinner tonight at The Whaling Company, a seafood restaurant recommended by the campground owner. Pretty good dinner, but nothing really spectacular.

Saturday 3/26

Up early again, watched the F1 qualifying on tape while we were eating breakfast, then off to Colonial Williamsburg again. Caught an excellent presentation by a Thomas Jefferson re-enactor who did really outstanding job. A half hour speech followed by 20 to 25 minutes of extemporaneous responses to questions from the audience which were as detailed and involved as the original speech - quite an impressive performance.

A bit colder today and cloudier so we did not have the advantage of the warming sun today - we dressed a bit warmer and were very comfortable all day.

Visited several more other shops and houses. Of particular note were the wheel wright, blacksmith, cabinet maker, and weaver. We visited the weaver’s shop both days as they were doing different things: Friday they were explaining spinning cotton and wool, Saturday the dying of fabric, both of which were quite interesting.

Finished up our tour of Colonial Williamsburg about 2 PM and stopped for lunch at our favorite chain restaurant (you figure it out!). Stopped at a small outlet mall and Nancy picked up a pair of shoes at Easy Spirit and I checked out the Black and Decker store, but nothing caught my eye. Quite a number of outlets here, but nothing we were really interested in. Back home and relaxed.

Excellent dinner tonight at The Seafair. A very uniquely decorated restaurant, somewhat of a throwback to a fifties supper club with a nautical theme, leather banquets, nice tablecloths, attentive wait staff. The food was outstanding! Nancy had very nice crab cakes and I had the blackened grouper special. A nice bottle of wine and it was a very enjoyable meal in pleasant surroundings - and cheaper than last night’s dinner with two beers!

Sunday 3/27

Really yucky weather this morning - low 30’s, rain mixed with occasional snow showers. We decided to relax and stay home today. Watched the AM news shows, and the F1 race from Australia on tape. Then we made a quick run out to WalMart for some supplies and watched the Indy car race from St Petersburg and the NASCAR race from California. (Why in the world did they go to Las Vegas, then an off week, then Bristol, TN, then California, and then to Martinsville, VA next week - someone has their head up their butt!)

Along with watching the races we were researching places to stay between Charlottesville, VA (heading there Monday) and Lexington, KY. There is a dearth of convenient campgrounds in West Virginia. Some are not open until April 1st, some are way to far off the highway into the mountains. Finally settled on a stop along the way and a place in Lexington. Pizza at home tonight.

Booker T. & Mr. J.

2011-03-23T19:48:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 3/23

On the way across from Roanoke to Appomattox on Monday afternoon we saw signs for the Booker T Washington Birthplace National Monument and Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest. So, making the best of being stranded here in Appomattox, we doubled back this morning and visited Booker T Washington’s birthplace. A very nice, small national monument that was well worth the trip. This was the farm where Mr. Washington was born as a slave and where he lived until he was nine years old. We all know the story of Booker Washington and the Tuskegee Institute, but the one thing that really struck us while watching the short film about his life is that he had tea at Buckingham Palace with Queen Victoria! This man who was born a slave on this small farm in rural Virginia lifted himself up from what could have been a life of crushing poverty to a position in the world where he became a guest of the Queen of England - wow!

Signage in the monument points out that prior to the Civil War half of the slaves in the south lived and worked on farms like this with less than twenty slaves. They also pointed out the fact that owners of these farms were economically devastated by emancipation. The owner of this farm for example owned assets, other than the farm land, totaling $7,100, but his slaves were $5,500 of that total. So more than 75% of his wealth was in slaves which were suddenly declared valueless!

After leaving the Washington Birthplace National Monument we stopped at Fat Daddy’s BBQ in Bedford, VA. Tiny place with a few seats at a counter and tables outside (we ate outside). Pretty good pulled pork.

Then we visited Poplar Forest, Thomas Jeffersons “country villa”. Jefferson’s wife Martha inherited the 4,000 plus acres at Poplar Forest from her father shortly after they were married. The farm there provided the Jeffersons with much needed income and over the next forty years Mr. Jefferson only visited there four times, once in 1781 when the family fled Monticello just hours ahead of the British and took refuge at Poplar Forest for several months. In 1806, two years before leaving the presidency he began construction of his country villa, probably the first octagonal house built in America.

About 75 miles from Monticello as the bird flies, Jefferson visit here several times a year after leaving the presidency and it provided him a retreat from constant visitors to Monticello. Traveling here Jefferson took a round about route of about 93 miles to avoid intervening mountains.

Nancy & I wondered why we had never heard of this house and it turns out that it was only acquired by the Corporation for Jefferson’s Poplar Forest in 1984 and opened to the public in 1986. Restoration of the exterior of the house has been completed and the interior restoration is just beginning, while archaeological research continues on the landscaping and grounds. The $14 admission is a bargain as it includes a docent guided tour of the interior of the house and a hand held, GPS triggered, video guide to the rest of the grounds. Well worth a stop if you are in the area.

Stopped at the Cracker Barrel in Lynchburg on the way back home, just to keep our record intact! Blackhawks game on TV tonight.

Two Weeks Updates Plus and Sitting in Appomattox

2011-03-22T14:00:00.000-07:00

Finally landed where we have a good Wi-Fi connection, so here is an update on the last two weeks!

Sunday 3/6

On the road just before 10AM, on schedule as we wanted to be in Yuma just after noon. Unfortunately the compartment door where we keep our sewer hose fell open, dropping the hose on the road. I saw it in the mirror as it came out and we stopped and picked up the pieces. Once we got onto I-8 near Casa Grande we stopped in a rest area and I jury rigged a strap to hold the door closed the rest of the way.

Those two stops cost us close to an hour and as a result we did not get to the fairgrounds in Yuma until about 1:30, where the parking crew put us in the queue of early arrivals - there were about 75 RVs in front of us! We made lunch and relaxed, listened to the end of the NASCAR race on Sirius and finally were escorted to our site about 4:30! We had been concerned about getting a site with electric hook-up since we do not have a generator nor a large battery bank for more than overnight boondocking. Fortunately this was not a problem as we not only have an electrical hook-up, right beside one of the cattle barns, but a water source as well.

We had to do a bit of running around in Yuma in the evening, stopped at Walmart and bought a new sewer hose, and ended up having a late dinner at the Cracker Barrel.

Monday 3/7

Registration and arrival day for the rally. Nothing really going on until late in the afternoon. Wind was gusty all night, but it was warm in the low 60s. Windy as well today.

In the morning I repaired the compartment door. It appears that the clamp that hold the door closed has never made proper contact with the metal bracket inside and was just clamping on a piece of fiberglass trim that finally broke.I was able to shim the bracket so that the clamp now engages it properly.

We were planning on grilling a pork roast that Nancy had had marinating for several days tonight, but since it was supposed to get windier in the afternoon we decided to grille the roast early and just reheat it for dinner. Our little propane grille struggled mightily to cook the pork roast and it got the job done in spite of the wind which blew it out a couple of times.

Tuesday 3/8

There are five seminar sessions each day of the Gypsy Gathering, with five seminars scheduled in each session, so there is a lot to choose from and sometimes we need to decide which subject we really want to hear about. Some of them we can easily skip, such as those on electrical management systems, satellite TV, or tire pressure monitors since we already have each of those.

Today we only went to three of the sessions: Nick Russell’s Gypsy Journal FAQ, just because he is always an interesting speaker; “10 things never to do with your computer”, on computer security; and a very interesting one about SkyMed insurance to cover catastrophic health issues while traveling.

Speaking of computers on line, we are really pleased with the mobile hotspot feature on Nancy’s new Verizon Droid. We turned it on when we left Tucson since we knew there would not be any WiFi here. It is $20 a month, but we can turn it on and off at will. Nancy can also access the web directly through the phone without using the hot spot, but the screen is pretty small. The hot spot works well and is a lot faster than most campground WiFi.

The travel insurance from SkyMed is pretty interesting and we are seriously considering purchasing it. We were away from home for almost ten months last year, and are already in our third month this year. We know we will be traveling most of July and August and all of December, so even without any spontaneous trips we will be traveling at least six months this year. As the doctor often says, “Well, as we get older...”. Having a medical emergency of any kind is a real risk when traveling. SkyMed will cover all the expenses of ambulances and air transportation home from anywhere in the world that is not covered by your own insurance, it does not matter if you are traveling by RV or any other way. In addition they will cover the cost of transporting the RV home if the driver is physically unable to do so for any reason. Looks like a good plan and we will most likely spring for it once Nancy has a chance to look over the actual contract.

We had to run out to the pharmacy at lunchtime so since we were out there we stopped at In N’ Out Burger for lunch - heading east at the end of the week and won’t have many more chances!

Light dinner back here at home and watched the Hawks game on TV. Now that we have left Tucson and access to local TV on Dish we have reset our location back to Chicago so we get the Hawk games again. We are able to pull in all the local network stations here with our rooftop antenna.

Wednesday 3/9

A few more seminars today. We went to a very interesting one on ways to use velcro around the RV (I know, unless you are an Rv’er it sounds kind of silly). He had some interesting and unique products, we ended up going by his booth and purchasing a number of items, primarily a clever set of handles for our 30 and 50 amp plugs that will make it much easier to unplug them without damaging them. Them we went to a seminar on RV comfort and safety, but it turned out to be primarily aimed at motor homes, so we slipped out early.

Since that gave us a bit of time at lunch we decided to take a run out to Chocolate Crafters, a store nearby that had donated to our door prizes. It is 11 miles back east on I-10, but as we went east we saw that the west bound lane was backed up by construction, so we got off at the first exit and came back to the fairgrounds. We’ll give it a try tomorrow.

Doing pretty well on our water consumption. We were a bit concerned about filling our waste tanks to quickly, but we are now more than halfway through our stay and our tanks are less than half full, so we are golden. We checked out the dump station situation here and there are two problems: first it looks like it will be a bit difficult to maneuver into it until some of the attendees leave, and second, I expect there will be a long line! Since we don’t have a weight problem we will probably wait to dump the waste tanks until we get to a regular campground Friday night.

The wind finally died down here, so the dust and grit situation has improved. Hot though, and we only have 20 amp electric so the AC is not an option. Fortunately we are away during the hottest part of the day. The public relations officer from Marine Corp Air Base across the street who spoke to us the other night said Yuma feels a lot like Afghanistan!

Pizza party tonight, sat with an interesting couple who are representatives of Adventure Caravans. They will be doing a presentation on the Great River Road tomorrow. Back home to watch the Blackhawks game after dinner.

Thursday 3/10

A couple of presentations today on smart phones. Picked up on some good tips for Nancy’s new droid. One of them was on good apps and that had a lot of good info.

At lunch time we ran east to Chocolate Crafters and bought a lot of good stuff. Little place where the owner makes all of the chocolate right there, started as a hobby. Some really unique and unusual combinations (chocolate and Key Lime? - Amazing!) Well worth a stop if you are ever in the Yuma area. It is in a small shopping center just south of exit 14 off I-10, around on the south side of the building, enter by the road south of the shopping center.

Final get together this evening and door prizes (we won a fire extinguisher from Mac the Fire Guy). Tomorrow all 310 of us hit the road again. We are heading for the Escapees park in Benson, AZ. on our way east to Bristol. We were concerned that we might need to drop down into TX to avoid bad weather, but so far the weather looks good on I-40 all the way across. We’ll take I-10 across AZ, then angle across NM up to I-40 near Amarillo. Then it will be I-40 all the way past Knoxville.

Friday 3/11

On the road about 9:30 AM. Good weather and light traffic all the way to Benson, AZ. Stopped at the Cracker Barrel in Mariana for lunch. Arrived at SKP Saguaro Park in Benson a little after 3 PM. We have a very nice, specious site with a great view out our back window for $17! A nice, big laundry room as well which Nancy appreciated as she did a weeks worth of laundry after we arrived.

Ran into town and had dinner at Irene’s Cafe.

Saturday 3/12

Longest day of the trip, 415 miles to Roswell, got on the road a little after 9 AM. Again we had perfect weather and no traffic problems. Lunch at the Cracker barrel in Las Cruses, NM and arrived at Trailer Village in Roswell just before 6 PM. Parked and set up by 6:30, into town toPepper’s for a really nice dinner. Stopped here last time through Roswell and liked it a lot.

Sunday 3/13

Good cable TV hook-up here, so we were able to get CBS Sunday Morning, which we watch every week. Oddly enough it started at 7:30 AM here instead of 8, fortunately I had the TV on to check out the terrible pictures form Japan - our hearts go out to those poor people, what a disaster. As a result I caught the beginning and got the VCR going. Taped the show while we were packing up so we can watch it tonight. Got on the road about 9:15, lunch at the Cracker Barrel in Amarillo about 2 PM (gosh, if they ever go out of business we will have to stop traveling!) and arrived in Texola, OK about 5 PM. Double D is a tiny, basic campground right off exit 1 in Oklahoma. Nothing to write home about, but all pull throughs and an easy spot to stop. Passport America rate is $11 for a full hook-up, not bad.

A cold wind north wind has built up during the afternoon, we had a good tail wind for the last two days, averaging 9.7 MPG running between 65 and 70 both days, excellent milage for that speed. Tomorrow may be a different story. About 50 degrees when we got here, supposed to drop to 30 tonight! Filled our fresh water tank and disconnected the water, safer to do it now and easier than doing it in the cold in the morning! I picked up a quick disconnect gadget at the rally, just push it onto a water bib and slide the outside up and it is connected with no leaks - release the catch and it pops off!

Monday 3/14

Well we can say unequivocally that I-40 from Oklahoma City east to the state line absolutely sucks! Through OK City it is rough and twisty due to construction, the rest of the way it is just rough - really lousy concrete.

Other than the rough ride it was an uneventful day, got on road a little late, 10 AM - feeling the effects of losing two hours between the time change and moving into the Central Time Zone.

Staying tonight in a small campground at Wiederkehr Winery in Altus, AR. Only people here. Campground is four miles off the interstate with a pretty good climb up the mountain. Again a small, basic campground, water & elec. only, but the water was still off for the winter. Plenty of fresh water on board though so no sweat. Had a nice dinner in their restaurant. Sitting and watching the Blackhawks game now.

Tuesday 3/15

We planned on staying at Tom Sawyers Mississippi River Park tonight, but checking the campground website last night we found that the campground was “closed due to high water”. So we went on through Memphis at landed at Memphis East Campground 20 miles west of the river.

Although we are obviously big Cracker Barrel fans, we have been a bit disappointed with them this trip. We have been at the CB in Yuma and Mariana, AZ; Las Cruces, NM; Amarillo, TX; Oklahoma City; and North Little Rock, AR. Yuma had some serious issues and each of the others there were little niggling problems - slow service, order not right, computer problem, long line to pay, etc. Tonight we went to the Cracker Barrel near our campground and it took exactly an hour from the time we ordered until we received our meal! The waiter was very apologetic, said there was a back up in the kitchen. We were not the only ones sitting cooling our heels. However, when it came time to pay I asked for the manager and asked “How much of a discount do we get for waiting an hour for our dinner?”. He surprised me by taking the check and saying “We’ll take care of the whole thing.”! I said I expected to pay something and he said “We screw up, we take care of it.”. So Cracker Barrel has redeemed them with just that one manager.

Wednesday 3/16

Today we stopped at the Cracker Barrel in Dickson, TN (our eighth one in six days!) and it was running like a well oiled machine. Waitress was ready to take our order before we even sat down. Had a nice conversation with the manager who came to say hi when the waitress told him we had been doing a CB tour across the US.

Tonight we are at Deer Run RV Resort in Crossville, TN, and it is definitely a destination park. It is almost a mile around a 26 acre lake to our pull through site, very pretty although it is really early in the season and there are only a couple of campers here. Looks like a far number of semi-permanent weekend RVs is some sections. Nancy is cooking here at home tonight, tomorrow we will hit the Cracker Barrel here for breakfast - that will make nine in seven days! Only a 182 miles to go to Bristol tomorrow and then DINNER AT THE RIDGEWOOD! Best barbecue we have ever had.

Thursday 3/17

Left the campground around 8:30 AM, stopped at Cracker Barrel for breakfast (yeah, I know). Easy drive to Bristol, arrived at the campground around 1 PM and got set up, did some grocery shopping and then headed over to the Ridgewood for a mid-afternoon repast. After we both scarfed up a pork platter with fries we gave some thought to splitting a third one! After eating we stopped in Bluff City at a laundromat and did a couple of loads of laundry. Then a relaxing evening at home.

Friday 3/18

Slept late, then did a run to Walmart for a few necessities. Took a walk through the souvenir trailers outside turn four - which were a bit thin on the ground compared to previous years - and then walked through the Family Race Night displays. Lots of long lines for some questionable free samples.

Saturday 3/19

A beautiful day, sunny and high around 70. There was a cool breeze, but it was pretty hot in the sun. As a result it was pretty warm in the stands this afternoon. Fairly interesting Nationwide race, but Kyle Busch dominated the whole afternoon so it was probably a pretty boring race on TV. Lots of action back in the field kept things interesting for those of us in the stands.

Sunday 3/20

A bit overcast today, but that kept the hot sun off of us in the stands, probably the nicest day we have had for a spring race in years. Crowd was really thin, looked more like a Nationwide race from a few years ago than a Cup race. Saturday night the track said they had sold 80k seats (out of 160k!), pretty poor showing. Talking to the guys who have been sitting next to us since 1999 we found that they were thinking about giving up their tickets next year. We have been thinking the same - not as much fun as it used to be. It is also becoming a bit of pain to be in Bristol in mid-March (see the last weeks travels) and again in late August. We will make a decision after the August race when renewals come up.

Monday 3/21

Took our time getting loaded up this morning, letting the early morning RV traffic dissipate a bit. We had thought about heading up to Lexington, KY for a few days, but the weather looked iffy so we decided to go to Williamsburg, VA. Planned a stop at Parkview RV Park in Appomattox. A nice basic park just two mile from Appomattox Court House National Historic Park. Good thing there are thing to do around here since we are stuck until at least Thursday.

Coming across VA from Richmond Monday afternoon I started to notice that I was seeing more of the left side of the trailer in my mirror than I was used to, it seemed to be dog tracking a bit. When we arrived at the campground this afternoon I took a look - tires on right side are about 2" apart, the ones on the left 6" - Oh Oh! Crawled underneath and found the rear spring bushing on the left side of the rear axle was gone completely and the spring eye had shifted off the pin and back about 2"!

On the way into town I was keeping an eye out for a shop and spotting a trucking company with a big repair shop, so we called them to see if they could recommend a repair shop. Turns out they have a road service truck and they came by late this evening to take a look. The bushings are shot on all four springs, so they will order the parts and call us tomorrow.

Tuesday 3/22

Visited the Appomattox Court House National Park this morning. Very pretty and interesting little park. Lots of Civil War history around here. Stopped in town and had lunch, visited the Visitors Center, took a short walk around town, and did some shopping.

The gentleman from Thompson Truck Services called and the parts we need will be in on Thursday morning. They will come out here to the campground to install them. I can lift the whole trailer with the leveling jacks so they will be able to put the bushings in.

I guess we are lucky that it did not actually drop on the road and leave us stranded on the roadside, at least I spotted it before it caused any damage and we are in a nice campground with a lot of interesting things to do around the area. Guess we should count our blessings! We'll look at the weather and decide what direction to take after the repairs - either Williamsburg or heading back for home.

Traveling on our Stomachs & Organ Pipe NM

2011-03-05T21:23:00.000-08:00

Saturday 2/26

Dog sitting with Sloopy again today. After Nancy gave her a morning walk we headed out to pick up some eggs from the local Egg Lady. There are a lot of people selling things like fruit, produce, and eggs from their cars along the roads. Then we made a run to the grocery store. Starting to get stocked up for hitting the raod, we will be leaving here next Friday and heading to Yuma for the Gypsy Gathering and then to Tennessee for the Bristol race.

Back home we picked up Sloopy and took her to the dog run and played for a while, then back home and relaxed. Windy and overcast today, really the first mostly cloudy day this year. Supposed to be a cold front coming in tonight with high winds and rain, along with snow in the higher elevations. We’ll see.

Sunday 2/27

Cool and windy today. Lazy day watching the NASCAR race. Planned to watch the Blackhawks on Versus this evening, but it was blacked out in AZ because they were playing Phoenix. Bummer.

Monday 2/28

Another nice hike today. We left right after the Monday AM campground meeting and hiked up the Hugh Norris Trail towards Wasson Peak. It would have been nine miles round trip to go all the way to the peak so we only went to the junction with the Esperanza trail and back. Pretty substantial climb right at the start, a long (looong) series of steps cut into the rock to climb immediately up onto the ridge line. Fairly strenuous but great views out into the valley.

Tuesday 3/1/11

Getting ready to hit the road on Friday, stocking up on groceries for the next two weeks so we don’t have to do too much searching around for grocery stores before we get to Bristol around the 17th.

Drove up to Tucson Mall so Nancy could pick up a couple of things at Macy’s. Stopped at IRE Outdoor store and bought a new compass, then the Verizon store to get some info on setting Nancy’s new phone up as a WiFi hotspot. Should come in handy once we get away from here.

Stopped at Beyond Bread for lunch, this has become our favorite sandwich shop, wish they had them in other places besides Tucson!

Wednesday 3/2

Morning walk in the desert and then we went to Coyote Pause for brunch. Nancy went to a craft class that lasted from 11 AM ‘till 3 PM on making little baskets from pine needles. She came home with a very nice little basket. I worked on getting ready to go - loaded bikes on rack and covered them, checked tire pressures, and few other things.

Nancy hit the bingo game one last time tonight, still did not win anything.

Thursday 3/3

Off to Tucson yoga this AM for our last class until we get home in April. A little last minute grocery shopping and lunch at Todd’s. Then we spent the afternoon putting things away and getting the trailer back in shape for the road, Has not been moved since the first of December, so quite a few things needed to be put back where they belong, not to mention things we have acquired. Loaded the smart onto the Volvo late in the afternoon.

Friday 3/4

Got on the road about 10:30 AM after saying goodbye to our winter friends. Headed west on Ajo Hwy (Rt 86) towards Ajo. Stopped in Sells on the Tohono O’odham indian reservation and had lunch at Desert Rain Cafe. Turned out to be a small restaurant with about a dozen tables and counter service, but the food was unique and outstanding. A great place to stop if you are driving through the area, or even if you are going to Kitt Peak, which is not far away.

Leaving Sells we continued west on 86 to Why, AZ. where we picked up 85 north to Ajo. South of Ajo the approach to the city is totally blocked by huge tailings from a defunct open pit copper mine.

In Ajo we stopped at Shadow Ridge RV Park, a Passport America park - $37 for two nights with our member discount. A very nice park with a friendly and helpful owner. WiFi is Tengo Net, but works fairly well, plus cable TV.

In town we found another great culinary discovery - 100 Estrella. Sign says Best Beer and Best Burgers in Ajo. Well, it was probably the best beer selection, a lot of which were on draft, in the southern half of Arizona and I don’t believe I would be contradicted in saying they are the best burgers in the state! They have a selection of four different kinds of beef, from Kobe Beef to local, open range organic beef - which I chose and it was excellent.

Saturday 3/5

Up early to head to Organ Pipe National Monument. Stopped at 100 Estrellas for breakfast since we were enticed by there menu the evening before. A pretty good breakfast too.

Arrived at Organ Pipe at 10 AM. We had called the day before to see if the guided van tour was available but it was booked soe we planned on a hike and drive through the park on our own. When we s[oke with the ranger at the vistors center though we found that there had been three cancellations for the van tour! (Thank you to those anonymous folks for being polite enough to call and cancel). So we signed up for the 1 PM van tour.

We took a 2.5 mile hike from the visitors venter to the campground and back, The campground is very nice and very roomy, but dry camping only.

The van tour took three hours and covered the 21 miles loop through the mountains east of the visitor center, with a half dozen stops along the way. The ranger guiding the tour was a geologist and provided some fascinating information about the geology of the mountains and desert, as well as the desert plants. Well worth the time.

Back in Ajo we went to Marcela’s Cafe and Bakery for dinner. A very good, small Mexican restaurant.

Tomorrow morning we head to Yuma and the Gypsy Gathering. The only internet access we will have there will be through our Verizon hot spot, so I will not post to the blog until Friday or Saturday when we will be on the road headed back east.

Just Kinda Normal Day to Day Stuff

2011-02-26T19:27:00.000-08:00

Wednesday 2/16

That’s what I get for waiting to update the blog - neither of us can remember what we did on Wednesday!

Thursday 2/17

The first time we ate at Beyond Bread a couple of weeks ago I managed to chip off a piece of a front tooth on the particularly hard bread crust (they do have a symbol on the menu warning you to be careful!), Well, it turns out I also cracked a filling in another tooth! It has been starting to hurt and getting worse, so I made an appointment at a dentist in Tucson Estates. Dr. Schmahl turned out to be very nice and very gentle. I was a bit apprehensive since I have been going to the same dentist for 35 years! Probably will eventually need a crown, but I chose to try to get by with a filling until we get home.

Friday 2/18

Nancy had a meeting at the campground this AM to plan for the cook-out next week. I installed the new Sirius antenna on the truck, so now we can use the Sirius radio both in the trailer and in the Volvo, should be nice on the road. We still do not have a radio in the truck with audio input, but the Sirius receiver we bought also transmits in FM so we can pick it up on the FM radio.

In the afternoon Nancy went over to the University where she had appointments for a pedicure and a facial at the Aveda Institute. Afterward we found a new Chinese restaurant to try. The Mandarin Grille turned out to be pretty good, not up to the standards of the East China Inn in Batavia, IL where we usually go, but better than anything else we have found in Tucson.

Saturday 2/19

Running around town doing some shopping today and we ended up on the north side of town so we stopped at Beyond Bread - I stayed away from the really hard crust bread that I broke my tooth on!

We are really enjoying having the Sirius radio in the trailer, should have done this a long time ago instead of messing around trying to find local stations. This evening after A Prairie Home Companion we just put on the classical pops station and read all evening.

Sunday 2/20

IT RAINED TODAY! First measurable rain for Tucson in 2011 (there was one day of scattered showers, but it did not rain at the airport). Cooled off bit as well, it has been sunny and in the high 70’s all week! Of course being Sunday we had the AM TV shows to watch and then the Daytona 500 along with a Blackhawks hockey game at the same time. So it was pretty much sit around and watch TV all day!

Monday 2/21

Morning meeting at the campground. We had a headlight burn out on the smart the other night. Turns out the whole front fiberglass shell has to come off to get at the bulb! Last year we found that we had to do that to get at the valves for recharging the AC. The AC has turned marginal again so we will get that charged as well. So Monday afternoon we took the front of the car apart and dropped it off at Tucson Mountain Motors for AC service.

Tuesday 2/22

Getting ready for the campground Recycling Picnic on Wednesday. Pericles (the owner) springs for hot dogs and hamburgers with the money saved by recycling, everything else is pot luck. While Nancy was baking cupcakes and brownies for the picnic I volunteered the Volvo to help move tables. We picked up 13 folding table and stacked them on the deck to move over to the picnic area, then picked up a couple of picnic tables as well.

After doing the picnic set-up we drove into Tucson to the NAPA store to pick up new headlight bulbs for the smart. The smart has Hella headlights that were put in with the federalizing conversion. They are pretty good on low beam and spectacular on high beam. Well, now they are spectacular on high and low beam! We replaced the 65 watt headlight bulbs with 100 watt Zenon bulbs that put out a powerful, really white light. A big improvement.

We also stopped at BK Sonoran Hot Dogs for lunch. Had tacos and caramelo de carne asada, which were excellent. Along the way we stopped at Barrett’s Propane and filled a tank.

Wednesday 2/23

Campground picnic today, had about 160 people there and lots of good food.

Sometime in January Pericles asked in the Monday morning if there was anyone interested in dog sitting while their owners were away from the campground for an extended time. We volunteered and that was the end of it, now all of a sudden, we are in demand. We had a dog we were taking care of Sloopy, a Boston Terrier who is shoot from guns on Wednesday, and will be looking after her again on Saturday. On Tuesday Pericles called and asked if we could go to another RV and take Rufus for a walk as his owners were stuck in town having some car repairs done. So we went and introduced ourselves to Rufus, a really sweet little dog. On Thursday we will be taking care of Sprocket, a sheltie, who is very laid back, seems to have separation anxiety.

Thursday 2/24

Watching everything on the news and speculation about what it is doing to oil prices, we decided to top up the tanks on the truck. My original plan was to top up in Oklahoma on the way out here in December (which we did) and that would give us enough fuel to get back to OK on the way back east. It is looking like the fuel in OK might be more by the second week in March than it is here now, so we went 50 miles up the highway to the Flying J on Eloy, AZ and put in 150 gallons of diesel at $3.739!! Oh well.

Along the way we stopped at a Cracker Barrel for lunch and then stopped at Total Wine and More to stock up on Scotch and Irish whiskey for the rest of the trip. We stopped at PetsMart to pick up a toy for Molly, Nancy’s friend’s labrador. Next door was an Ultimate Electronics that was having a going out of business sale, so we looked in to see if they had a deal on a Sirius home dock that we could use back home - no luck there, but we did see a Sony HD TV that looked like it would fit in the space in the trailer. The current TV is a flat screen, but not HD or digital. Went back home and looked up the dimensions and determined it would fit and I drove back to Ultimate Electronics and bought the last one in stock.

Then I spent the evening trying to figure out how to get everything hooked up again so it works! With three possible inputs - satellite dish, RV batwing antenna for over the air, and a hook-up for campground cable connections - it requires a distribution box and hook-ups to the TV from the all three inputs plus the DVD/VCR. Takes a good bit of head scratching and cursing to get it all right, especially since the inputs on the new TV are different than the old one!

Friday 2/25

Headed up to the Arizona - Sonora Desert Museum this morning, busier there than we had seen it before, six busses in the parking lot and the closest lot was full at 10 AM. When we left at 11:30 the line to get in stretched all the way out to the parking lot! We did find out that as members we can just skip the line and walk right in, another nice perk!

After we got back Nancy did the laundry and I finished the TV installation. Had to modify my homemade stand a bit as the mounting holes in the new TV were in a different place than the old one! Nothing is ever easy. The new TV will make it a lot easier to watch NASCAR, F1, and hockey.

We went with Nancy’s friend Karen to a little dinner nearby that has a fish fry on Friday evening, excellent fish.

Good Hiking and Good Jazz

2011-02-16T11:02:00.000-08:00

Wednesday 2/9

Tuesday evening we tried out a new Mexican restaurant very close to us called Los Nopales. It was small and crowded, had to wait for a table, but the food was excellent and the service was fast. This is probably the closest restaurant to the park, so we will be back.

Nancy has been trying to complete the tether from her new phone to her laptop without much success. She should be able to surf through the data plan on her phone, but the app does not want to link up. So we made an appointment at the Genius Bar at the Apple store - which naturally is on the exact opposite side of the city from where we are, over in the high rent district.

So we trekked all the way over there and in spite of trying for a full half hour the tech was also unable to make it work! Oh well, we will figure it out eventually. At this point we need to try a new cable.

On the way back we stopped at The Garland Bistro for lunch. We had seen it driving by and looked at their Asian flavored menu on line. Turned out to be a very nice place in a relatively inconvenient spot, although it is close to the university.

Back home we took a nice walk and relaxed the rest of the day.

Thursday 2/10

Off to Tucson Yoga for our weekly yoga fix this morning, then a fairly relaxing day puttering around. Cleaned the car up and then did some house cleaning, Dennis finished cleaning up the wiring on the new stereo installation, bundling cables with zip ties, etc. and put in some wood blocks to keep the tuner from moving around in the cabinet when we are traveling. We have the electronic stuff pretty well permanently done now and it only took four years to get it the way we want! The Sirius radio is working well, now we can reliably get all the NPR shows that we like to listen to, along with the BBC World Service and a plethora of music stations.

We signed up for the Ala-Carte subscription where you can choose 50 channels for $6.99 per month as opposed to the regular subscription cost of $12.99. There were one or two other stations we would have liked that are not available on the Ala-Carte, like the XM NPR feed, but not worth the extra six bucks a month.

The next project is to get the Sirius receiver working in the Volvo, and get all of the speakers there back on line. The Sirius receiver came with a car kit, so we have ordered an antenna that will clamp on one of the mirrors. The magnetic antenna included in the kit will not work since the entire upper part of the truck cab is fiberglass. We may also need to get a new radio for the truck, but that remains to be seen.

Friday 2/11

Still a bit chilly in the mornings, low 30’s so we are not getting our desert walks in until later in the day. Today was shopping day, hit a couple of grocery stores, etc.

Went to dinner at Coyote Pause with Nancy’s friend Karen who is staying here for the winter also with he labrador retriever Molly. Nancy goes over to the dog run often in the afternoon and has gotten to know a lot of the dogs (and their owners). Most dogs come right up to her and nose the pocket where she keeps the dog treats!

Saturday 2/12

Warmer this AM, 48 degrees, so we were off for a ice walk in the desert first thing in the morning. Then we enjoyed being able to turn on the Saturday morning NPR shows without having to fiddle around with FM reception or on line.

Speaking of on line, we have been listening to the Blackhawk games on WGN on the net. As I mentioned earlier, we lost our Blackhawk TV coverage when we changed out Dish Network location to Tucson so we can get the local channels. Just as well - if I was watching this week I probably would have had a stroke over the officiating. When it is so bad that Troy Murray is calling the refs out on the radio it is pretty bad.

We had given some thought to running up to Phoenix today to catch the Blackhawks playing the Coyotes. Well, I guess I waited to long to look for tickets, the cheapest seats available are $369 each! Plus $15 for parking! Needless to say, we are going to listen to the game on the radio!

Sunday 2/13

Just a quiet day around home today, relaxing and reading. Sat outside most of the afternoon as temp was in the low 80’s - not ready to turn on the AC yet!

Monday 2/14

Happy Valentines Day.Monday AM meeting at the campground to review the days activities. Did some shopping. On the way we stopped at Rincon West RV Park to check it out. It is mostly permanent park models witha few RV’s sprinkled in, although they do have one RV area with a clever concept: the RV’s are parked in groups of four, all facing inward to a grassy area with picnic benches. An interesting layout as it gives everyone some space and access to a nice open area outside their door and encourages neighborliness. We were not looking for ourselves as we have already made reservations to return to Desert Trails next winter. Nancy’s sister Joan has found out that an acquaintance has a place there and rents it occasionally. It is closer to us than the hotel where she has been staying (and cheaper!) so she may stay there next winter.

As I said, we have reserved space here for next winter and have been able to move one space to the west into a roomier spot. The one we are in now is a bit tight, there is a cactus garden at the front of our site which does not leave a lot of room to park the truck and the truck somewhat blocks access to the walkway that runs next to our site. In the new site we will be able to back the trailer deeper into the site and make room for the truck. So we are happy.

Tuesday 2/15

Took a long hike in the desert this morning, a little over two hours. Hiked up through Tucson County Park to the Ironwood picnic area on South Kinney Rd. and back. Of course on the way back we missed a turn and somehow got off the trail we took on the way out, which meant we kind of went a longer way around to get back to the park, no big deal. There are a lot of trails in the park, we have three maps and they all are different, so it is a bit of a crapshoot figuring out which way to go sometimes. Pretty hard to get really lost though.

After our hike we cleaned up and went to Coyote Pause for brunch. Relaxed in the afternoon and then we decided to go over to the Sheraton on East Grant Rd. to hear the Tucson Jazz Institute band who are there on Tuesday evenings.

They did a show here in the campground a few weeks ago and were really good. They had a sizable group there and they put on a great show of traditional jazz! From older folks to young kids it was a pretty varied group, trombone players who looked no older than 15 and a female drummer who is in seventh grade! They also have a young man who does a pretty credible impersonation of Louis Armstrong. Overall a real enjoyable evening sitting around a fire pit under the full moon and stars, listening to good live jazz.

On the way over to the Sheraton we went to Shlomo & Vito’s NY Delicatessen on Skyline Dr. Good sandwiches and soup, to bad it is all the way over on the other side side of town. We will probably stop there again though as it was very good.

A Hummingbird Guest and a Serious Hike

2011-02-08T11:17:00.001-08:00

Wednesday 2/2

COLD here this AM, 25 degrees. Still, it’s sunny and a whole lot better weather than at home (or in a lot of the rest of the country!).

We have a hummingbird feeder hanging outside our back window and it gets a lot of attention - both from hummingbirds and woodpeckers! The feeder is hanging on a rod extended from our ladder and this morning a hummingbird is sitting on the rod in the sun. We think he is getting warmth reflected off of our back window as well as from the sun.

High today was 37 and our little hummingbird friend stuck around all day! He was still there at dusk and filling up from the feeder - hope he makes it through the cold night!

Thursday 2/3

11 Degrees this morning! We were up fairly early and off to Tucson Yoga for our weekly class. Left water running at a trickle all night the last two nights (gray tanks are open) and it kept us from freezing up. Did not know that would work, but the campground suggested it. Normally we would have disconnected our fresh water hose and worked off our fresh water tank, but the spigots here are on pipes above the ground and if we just shut the water off they would freeze.

I mentioned in an earlier post that we had decided to subscribe to Sirius radio in order to get NPR and some news stations while we are in remote areas like here in Arizona. We are unable to pick up either Public Radio station in Tucson due to the shadow of the Tucson mountains immediately East of us.

Well, let me tell you, if you decide to try Sirius do not try to order it on line! I experienced the worst ordering process and the worst follow-up customer service I have ever run into. As briefly as possible: After researching and determining what I wanted, I attempted to order on-line. Deep into the order process it did not want to accept our home address! Finally I got a message that said, “Your order MAY have been placed, please contact customer service”. OK, so I called, 45 minutes later my call was answered and I was told that the order was not in process because of the address, so I went through the whole order process again on the telephone.

The website said orders are shipped by the 2nd or 3rd business day, so I waited until the 5th business day to check on what was happening. This time they answered fairly quickly and I was told that the order was “on hold for inspection”. The first rep put me hold when I asked for a supervisor, after 30 minutes (yes, I can be stubborn!) I was kicked back to the new call queue, the second rep got me to a supervisor reasonably quickly and he said the order was on hold to verify the address!!!! After I went balistic he said they had approval from the credit card company and he was releasing the order. “The release will take 24 to 48 hours (this was on a Friday) and shipping will take 3 to 5 business days”!! What happened to 2 or 3 days? “Oh, the website is wrong, 3 to d working days is the standard shipping time.” Is there anything you can do to speed it up? “No”.

So...I waited another four business days and called to check “I show that order on hold for inspection.” What the??!!!!

At that point I cancelled the order and went to Radio Shack and bought the radio and installation kit I wanted, brought it home and hooked it up that evening. To bad there is no other company offering satellite radio (Sirius owns XM), I would go there in a heartbeat. Sorry for the screed, had to blow off steam.

While we were in the Tucson Mall picking up the radio Nancy stopped in the Verizon store and ended up getting a new cell phone. We were able to switch around our plan so that she will get unlimited data and internet access for about $10 a month more than we were paying before.

Anyhoo... the high today was 42 and we were back below 32 by the time we went to bed.

Friday 2/4

Low last night was 24 and it got up to 59 today so things are improving. Trust me, we are not complaining, we will take bright, sunny, cool days over the nasty weather a lot of the country is seeing - life is good.

Still a cold breeze, so other than going to get a propane tank refilled and doing some grocery shopping we stayed in all day. Got a few things done a round the trailer, cleaning and a couple of minor repairs. Dennis also finished running the wiring for the Sirius radio and the antenna.

Saturday 2/5

Still a bit of a cool breeze today. We went into Tucson to the old Presidio to see their monthly living history reenactment. It was quite interesting in a low key way. We watched a blacksmith make a link for a large chain by hand. We were able to stand right next to him, feeling the heat from the coal fire he was heating the iron in, while he described the process. There were also Spanish soldier re-enactors who were demonstrating firing of flintlock rifles and a brass cannon, along with displays of traditional foods and grains.

Since we were only a couple of blocks away, we just had to stop at El Charro for lunch.

Sunday 2/6

Finally took serious hike today. Headed out about 10 AM, drove up to the trailhead of the King Canyon Trail in the Saguaro National Forest, just past the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. We headed up the trail about twenty after ten, three miles out and three miles back, along with a 1,700 foot climb to the top of Wasson Peak! Whew, it was about all we had in us, but the views were just fantastic, both west into the Avra Valley (where our RV is) and east across the city to the Santa Catalina mountains. Overall it took us almost five hours. The trail up started on an old mining road of large crushed rock, which was tough going on the way up and really brutal on the way out when we were exhausted.

These pictures were taken on the saddle where the King Canyon trail and Sweetwater trail meet. We were sitting side by side on a rock and just passed the camera between pictures, so you get an idea of the views in both directions. Behind Dennis is the Rincon Valley and the Santa Catalinas

Behind Nancy is the Avra Valley with Kitt Peak way in the distance.
On the way back down we finally spotted an example of the iconic Arizona cactus, a Saguaro with two arms like you always see in drawings and very rarely see in the desert!

It really was a really beautiful day, about 70 degrees with thin, high clouds and a light breeze. As we got toward the top we needed a light jacket. A really enjoyable day, although the last couple of miles coming back were really tough!

Made it back home in time to watch the Packers win the Super Bowl while we ate pizza. BTW, we have found that WalMart has some pretty good rising crust frozen pizzas. Combined with the pizza stones that Joan gave us for our RV oven we can make pretty good pizza.

Monday 2/7

Monday morning meeting at the campground was cancelled this morning. We headed in to the city to do some grocery shopping, then decided to go up to the Northeast side to check out the hiking maps available at Summit Hut. Spent some time browsing as it is a very nice hiking/climbing/camping store.

Since we were already in the area (do I detect a pattern here?) we stopped at Beyond Bread for a couple of their excellent sandwiches for lunch - and dinner since we brought half of both our sandwiches home!

In the same shopping center was Annabelle’s Closet, a resale and antique shop that we had heard about. We spent the better part of an hour browsing an eclectic collection of “stuff”. Actually very nicely displayed and a lot of interesting items, although we did not end up buying anything. Found a couple of rugs that looked interesting, but the prices on the ones we liked were a bit high.

After that we stopped in Bookman’s, a nice large used book store in the same shopping center. We were getting a bit worn out by that point, but we may have to stop back here sometime - of course we have two boxes of books in one of our storage compartments on the trailer that are awaiting our attention! We’re not going to run out of reading material any time soon!

Tuesday 2/8

Dog sitting today for Nancy's friend Karen. Her dog Margo is a 9 month old Labrador. We went and took her for a walk around 11 AM and she was wound up tighter than a drum! Running all over the place. After the walk Nancy took her to the dog run where she ran herself out of energy with several other dogs, including our neighbor's Australian Kelpy herding dog. Of course that then required a bath at the dog wash before we could take her home!

Nancy did laundry and we puttered around home the rest of the afternoon.

Turning Cooler, Pics of Ceramics

2011-02-01T16:40:00.000-08:00

Friday 1/28

Out for a morning walk in the desert today and then we went over to the SE side to pick up the Volvo where we had some minor body work done at Family Auto Body. It looks really nice with a freshly repainted front bumper!

On the way home we stopped at BK Sonoran Hot Dogs, which, as Nancy says “is just an excuse to drink Coke with real sugar!” They bring the Cokes in from Mexico in real glass Coke bottles made with cane sugar, and they taste like Coke used to taste.

Friday evening Pericles, the owner of Desert Trails stopped by with his aunt from England. He had asked earlier if he could bring her by as she had never seen large American RVs as compared to “caravans” in England.

Saturday 1/29

Getting back into our routine of hiking in the desert every day.

Sunday 1/30

Relaxing morning watching the Sunday AM shows. Another nice day, in the 70’s. Supposed to cool off next week and maybe even rain! Official rainfall YTD is 0.00”!

Had lunch at Coyote Pause.

Monday 1/31

A cloudy day! A real rarity here. Later in the morning we actually had some rain and in some areas it was proceeded by hail! Cloudy off and on, with scattered showers most of the day.

After the morning campground meeting we drove into the University where Nancy had found that the Aveda spas have a school on the campus where manicures, pedicures, facial, etc. are available at really low prices so she made an appointment for a manicure to check it out. Turned out to be a great deal!

While she was doing that Dennis went over to Antigone Books and browsed for a while.

Checked out Beyond Bread for lunch, excellent sandwiches and bread. To bad they are all on the NE side of the city.

Still cool drizzly and cloudy in the afternoon. When we stopped at the office to pay our February rent we asked if we get a refund for rainy days - this is the first one since the first of December!

Tuesday 2/1

A bit cool here today, but nothing like what is going on in much of the country! Supposed to have a hard freeze here the next three nights with daily highs in the forties, still bright and sunny though.

Nancy went to the quilting class today to finish up here “table topper”. Dennis went across to the east side and picked up the ceramic pieces that we all painted last week at Color Me Mine. They all came out pretty nice:

Here is Nancy’s bowl,

Nancy’s expresso cup and saucer,

Joan’s spoon rests,

Dennis’ teapot,

and our garden gnome - Elfbert! All three of us worked on this one.

A Sunset Hike and Nancy's Sister Visits

2011-01-27T16:12:00.000-08:00

Sunday 1/16

Saturday evening we went to Coyote Pause for dinner. Sunday was a quiet morning at home. Watched the Sunday AM shows and most of the Bears game. In the afternoon we went over to Saguaro National Forest for a sunset hike that we had signed up for in December. It was a beautiful afternoon, shirtsleeve weather on the way up to the ridge to watch the sunset. We meet two volunteer rangers, Dick and Dick, at the trail head, about three miles down a really rough dirt road. There were about ten of us in the group and Lead Dick stopped at several places along the way and told us about the geology and features if the desert in the area.

The first part of the hike we went about 3/4 of a mile on sandy gravel with a mild uphill grade, climbing about 300 feet. The second half was a steeper climb for a total of about 750 feet to the top of the ridge. There we had spectacular views both to the north

and the southwest. We sat and relaxed for about half an hour and were treated to a spectacular sunset.

Like the hat?

On the way back we were down off the steeper part of the climb in the twilight, with the last pat of the hike in the desert by the light of the full moon. Overall about four hours and a very enjoyable hike. As advised we had packed light jackets, which we needed on the way back down.

Back home we had a pizza for dinner.

Monday 1/17

We are both feeling a bit punk this morning, so we slept in and skipped the Monday morning meeting at the campground. We did get out for lunch and tried Todd’s at the little airport just to the west of us - a very good lunch. Otherwise we just relaxed and watched the new Masterpiece Theatre, Downton Abby, that we had taped Sunday evening.

Tuesday 1/18

Still taking it easy and trying to recover from our colds. We had lunch at Coyote Pause and then checked out a health food store near by that another camper had told us about. Then just relaxed. Today was an absolutely beautiful day in the mid-70’s without a cloud in the sky - we are really growing to love Arizona!

Wednesday 1/19

Made a quick trip back to South 12th Ave and hit BK Sonoran Hot Dogs for lunch. This time Nancy had a quesadea. Otherwise a quiet day.

Thursday 1/20

Didn’t make it to yoga this morning as we are still both a bit under the weather, Nancy had a hot rock massage on her neck in the morning. We did manage to get out for a nice hike in the desert in the afternoon, it was warm, but there was a nice breeze so it was very pleasant.

Friday 1/21

Nancy was really under the weather this AM, so we took it easy and hit Todd’s again for lunch. Just at dusk we heard one of the owls that lives in the campground and he sounded really close. We went out and looked and he was about 20 feet up in the palm tree behind out trailer! A Great Horned Owl, he was hooting and another owl on the other side of the park was answering. Really cool!

Did some research on Sirius radio today. The FM radio reception here is about as bad as the TV reception - as in “non-existant”. There are a number of NPR programs that we like to listen to and we like to get NPR news in the morning. Sirius looks like the best bet and Dennis ordered a receiver that can be used both in the trailer and the truck. Also looked at a Best Buy for a tuner to drive the speakers in the trailer without much luck.

Saturday 1/22

Nancy’s sister Joan arrived in town today for a short vacation. After she arrived and got settled in at Starr Pass Golf Suites we headed in to El Charro (Joan's favorite restaurant), but it turned out there was an hour wait! So instead we ended up at Perfecto’s - not as much atmosphere, but good food.

Sunday 1/23

We got together with Joan for lunch at Coyote Pause and then went over to Color Me Mine in a mall on the east side to look at the greenware available for us to choose. Nancy picked up a couple of coupons from Groupon and we are planning on going there on Tuesday.

Nancy stopped at a Clair’s Boutique in the mall and picked up a pair of expensive (not) pearl earrings to replace some that she had lost.

Dennis wanted to check out the Best Buy across the street and, as expected, this one had better stock than the one on the south side - more of an upscale neighborhood. We have ordered a Sirius radio system to use in the trailer and we needed a tuner to drive our surround sound speakers. Tuners that are “Sirius ready” hard to come by and expensive, but we found a fairly reasonably priced one.

From there we came back into the city and had dinner at El Charro.

Monday 1/24

This morning Joan was scheduled for a hot stone massage here at Desert Trails. Dennis got the new tuner hooked up this morning and it is just what we needed. In addition to the Sirius connection capability it will also connect with and control our I-Pod (where all our music is). If we wanted to it could also control a Blue Ray player, CD, DVR, and TV (we needed a Volkswagen and bought a Ferrari!). It works great and for the first time we have all of our surround sound speakers working! For those who don’t know the story, our Newmar was a repo when we bought it and all of the electronics had been stripped out, wires just cut. Dennis had reconstructed the video portion and we have been using a cheap stereo for a radio, which was less than satisfactory. Here in Tucson we are unable to get the NPR stations, so we are going to put in the Sirius radio so we can listen to our favorite NPR shows wherever we are.

After Joan’s massage we went up to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and had lunch in the cafeteria and then took one of the afternoon tours. While Nancy and Joan finished the tour, Dennis dropped out and went back to the gift shop - and of course bought a new book on Arizona history.

After leaving the museum we stopped at the visitors center in the Saguaro National Forest so Joan could pick up her America the Beautiful – National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass – Senior Pass. Dennis got his a couple of years ago and it is a great deal - admission to National parks and monuments for free for the rest of your life! If you are over 62 it is too good a deal to pass up, go get one.

For dinner we tried Daisy Mae’s Steakhouse. A really good reputation for steaks and the food was as advertised. The atmosphere was also as advertised - not much. A couple of problems for us though, when we are paying $25 for a steak we expect utensils that don’t bend when you try to cut your steak and something a little more upscale than plastic plates and cheap paper napkins! But hey, you don’t know if you don’t try and that was a really good rib eye!

Tuesday 1/25

This morning we went to Color Me Mine over on the east side of Tucson. This is one of those places where you paint unfired pottery and then they bake it for you. Nancy had picked up coupons from Groupon so the three of us spent about four hours painting greenware. It was a lot of fun and we are anxious to see how our pieces come out. Joan did a couple of spoon rests, Nancy did a bowl and an expresso cup and saucer, Dennis did a teapot, and together we all, worked on a garden gnome (to put outside our trailer). We cannot pick up the finished pieces until Sunday afternoon. We’ll post some pictures if they turn out OK.

Had lunch at an In ‘N Out Burger in mid-afternoon, stopped and did some grocery shopping and then went back to Joan’s hotel. Had a pizza delivered and watched the State of the Union address.

Just about dusk Joan looked out on the patio and said “There’s a javelina!” It had just walked by, so Joan and Nancy ran out to get a look at it (there had been one on the patio early in the morning a couple of days earlier) and while they were looking left for the javelina that had walked by another one poked it’s head around the corner behind them! You never saw two people move as fast as those two trying to get back in the door! They looked like those cartoon characters whose feet are moving so fast they look like spinning wheels! Joan said “Feet’s don’ fail me now!!”

Unfortunately we did not have a camera with us, since two of the javelinas walked around on the patio looking for a hand-out. We watched for them Wednesday evening camera in hand, but never saw any.

Wednesday 1/26

We met Joan at Coyote Pause for breakfast, then up to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum again. We spent an hour walking around looking at the exhibits, then while Dennis went back to our trailer Joan and Nancy took a docents tour. We met up there again at lunchtime and ate in the cafeteria at the museum. Getting memberships to the museum this year has turned out to be a great idea as this is probably our fifth visit this winter and Joan used two guest passes while she was here.

In the afternoon we went back to the hotel and Nancy and Joan went swimming while Dennis relaxed. After waiting to see if the javelinas would make a return appearance (they did not) we went to El Charro for dinner.

Thursday 1/27

Went to our regular Thursday morning yoga class at Tucson Yoga. Good to get back in the swing as we missed last week. Afterwards we met Joan at a Waffle House near the expressway for brunch. She is headed up to Phoenix to visit a friend for a couple of days before heading back to Chicago (Brrrr!). We are perfectly happy to stay right here where it is warm.

Did a few chores around the trailer in the afternoon and just relaxed.

Not a Lot Going On

2011-01-15T19:28:00.000-08:00

Wow, I did not realize it had been so long since I posted. Here's the latest update:

Thursday 1/6

Off to our weekly yoga class at Tucson Yoga this morning. Even when we don’t really feel like getting out and going, it always feels better after we do! A quick stop for some groceries and back home again where Dennis found a message on the Escapees forum from one of the HDT guys asking where we were in Tucson as they are at Justin’s Diamond J RV Park. Well, that park is right next door to where we are! The two parks butt right up against each other. So we took a walk over to say hello to Larry (“Still Working”). He was preparing to head to Kitt Peak for the evening program, so we just had a brief chat.

Went back to Perfecto’s for dinner and had an excellent meal. The place is not much to look at, but the service is friendly and the food is really good.

Back home and watched a couple of movies.

Friday 1/7

Slow start this morning, Dennis is getting over a cold so we are taking it easy today.

Saturday 1/8

Dennis is really under the weather today, so we are just vegging. Spent a good part of the day watching local TV coverage of the terrible shootings here in Tucson. We are on the other side of the Tucson Mountains from where the shootings occurred.

Took a walk around the campground in the afternoon and that was about it.

Sunday 1/9

Dennis is feeling better today, but we still just relaxed, watched the Sun AM news shows and the football game. Another walk around the campground today and tonight we are listening to the Blackhawks game on-line.

Monday 1/10

So now both of us are a bit under the weather. Dennis’ cold seems to have morphed into a sinus infection and Nancy is trying to fight off the cold.

As a result our activities have beed limited to short walks around the campground.

Tuesday 1/11

Those of you up north can take solace in the fact that we can confirm the sun is headed back north again. Ever since we arrived here in December we have been puzzled by the sun shining into the trailer. Our large back window faces south and as a result we have had to keep the blinds closed all day, we were opening them partially in the morning to get the warmth of the sun, but by mid-day it was making it hot in the trailer. We remember from last year that we could have the blinds open for a good part of the day. Well, mystery solved - the sun has now moved north far enough that it is no longer shining directly into our window from mid-afternoon on. Last year we did not arrive until the first of January, so after the first week we no longer had the afternoon sun shining in. DUH - live and learn.

Nancy participated in a an all day quilting class here at the campground today and Dennis went and did the grocery shopping.

Wednesday 1/12

Both feeling a bit better day by day. We even managed a brief walk in the desert on Tuesday afternoon. This morning we drove into Tucson to check out the Wednesday morning farmers market. Quite a disappointment as it consisted of one stall selling produce, one selling spices, and three or four craft booths. Oh well, they can’t all be winners.

Stopped at the Food Conspiracy and stocked up, then went to El Charro for lunch. Once again a delicious meal.

Nancy went to the evening Mah Jong game again tonight while Dennis stayed home and listened to the Blackhawks game.

Thursday 1/13

After our morning yoga class at Tucson Yoga we returned to Desert Trails and each of us had hot stone massages. Angel is a lady here in the campground that does great massages with both hot and cold stones. Sounds a little strange, but it is really wonderful. We first experienced these last year and have been waiting for her to get here this year.

Relaxed the rest of the afternoon.

Friday 1/14

Finally out for an early morning walk in the desert this morning. The weather is warming up slowly, supposed to be in the 70’s all next week.

Went and did some shopping this morning, Nancy was looking for a few short sleeve tops since she did not bring enough with her. After hitting a few places without much luck she found a couple at Target. Since we were in the area we went down to South 12th Ave since Nancy wanted to try the Sonoran Hot Dogs at BK Carne Asada Hot Dogs. The Sonoran hot dogs lived up to their billing and Dennis had an excellent hamburger as well. To top it off the Coke they sell is bottled in Mexico, using cane sugar. Tastes like the Coke we used to have when we were kids.

After a quiet afternoon we drove over to Coyote Pause for dinner.

Saturday 1/15

Drove into South Tucson this AM to check out another farmers market. Much like the one on Wednesday it was disappointing - very small. As long as we were in the area we went on East to Camping World and picked up a couple of items that we need and spent some time browsing to what we wanted that we really did not need.

By then it was almost lunch time so we backtracked to South 12th Ave (do I detect a pattern here?) and hit Perfecto’s for another delicious lunch. Stopped at La Estrella Bakery and picked up some doughnuts and cookies.

Back home Nancy did some laundry and then we took a walk in the desert and relaxed the rest of the afternoon.

Back in Tucson

2011-01-05T15:21:00.000-08:00

Saturday 1/1/11

Well, it was warmer in Chicago on Friday that it was in Tucson! We came back anyway, and by Saturday the 42 degrees when we arrived here was better than the 25 we left in Chicago.

Definitely a cold snap here in Tucson, we had to disconnect our water hose the first three nights back as it was dropping below freezing. Good thing we keep at least a half tank of fresh water on board for back up.

Uneventful flight and we arrived back at Desert Trails about 3:30 Saturday afternoon.

Sunday 1/2

A bit too chilly for a desert walk this morning - 25 degrees! - so we relaxed and watched the Sunday AM news shows and just took a walk around the campground later in the day. Had to make a run to the grocery store of course to get stocked back up. The trailer survived the 18 days just fine with no issues. Apparently it has been chilly and windy while we were gone.

Monday 1/3

Monday morning meeting at the campground and then got our walk in before we made a run over to the Food Conspiracy to pick up some additional items not available in the regular stores. Then just relaxed the rest of the afternoon.

Tuesday 1/4

We needed to take the truck in for an estimate on some work so we were over on the SE side of the city late in the morning. A little too early for lunch at the In ‘N Out Burger so we took a short ride around the east side of Davis Monthan Air Force base. There are an incredible number of Air Force planes mothballed and being scrapped. Row after row of planes, they cover acres and acres around the east side of the base.

Wednesday 1/5

Decided to go up to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum this morning. We wanted to get there in time for a tour at 9 AM so we had to leave by 8:30, no problem except I had to scrape ice off the windshield of the smart - Oh the horror!!

Then it turned out that there are no morning tours the first Wednesday of the month! So we spent some time in the hummingbird exhibit, which was neat as there were very few people there and if you just remained stationary you started to see a lot of activity from the birds. This alos gave us a chance to see the 10 AM free flying raptor show which we had not seen before and that was well worth the visit.

Back home by lunchtime and just vegetated in the afternoon since Dennis is fighting a mild cold.

Nancy is going to check out the Mah Jong group this evening. We’ll see how that goes.

Back in the COLD!

2010-12-14T13:51:00.000-08:00

Friday 12/10

We keep looking at the weather forecasts for Chicago and become less and less enthusiastic about returning home on Monday! Fortunately we have our winter jackets, etc. with us, so we may look foolish leaving here Monday morning, but at least we won’t freeze when we get there!

Regular walk in the desert this morning, and then we went into Tucson to the 4th Ave Winter Street Fair. Articles in the paper have called this the nation’s largest street fair and it sure looked like they were correct! The fair booths are set up in the middle of the street in a double row facing each curb. Good layout as the foot traffic goes around each side and the merchants on the street are included in the festival. It covers six long blocks and had a wide variety of arts and crafts. We spent a good part of the day there and walked the whole thing.

Apparently parking is a real issue, it was crowded on Friday - can’t imagine how it looked on Saturday and Sunday! Anyway, with the smart car parking was no issue, we were able to find a free space at the curb just a couple of blocks away. Too small for most cars to get into!

We also had a chance to take a test drive of the new Nissan Leaf fully electric car. They had a display set up at the street fair, first a description of the concept, a cutaway of the battery pack, etc., then we each got to drive a Leaf for a mile or so around city streets. They are very nice, comfortable, roomy, with good acceleration and drive like any other car - boringly normal in fact.

After the street fair we came home and relaxed for a while and then went to Coyote Pause for dinner before joining the Tucson Amateur Astronomy Assc. for a star gazing event at a picnic area in the Tucson Mountain Park. Unfortunately it started to cloud over just about dusk, which made for a spectacular sunset, but put a bit of a crimp in the star gazing. They had several telescopes set up with good views of the moon, Jupiter and it’s moons and a few other things, but naked eye star gazing was not real good.

Saturday 12/11

Lazy morning after our dawn walk in the desert. We took the truck for a spin to loosen it up and keep the batteries charged. Then we stopped for lunch at Perfecto’s, a cute little family restaurant on South 12th Ave in a area with a lot of Mexican eateries and groceries. Excellent food, we will be back here after the first of the year as there were several dishes we want to try.

Back home we started getting things together for the trip back to Chicago on Monday and took a short walk around the campground.

Sunday 12/12

Early morning walk in the desert. It is amazing how the desert keeps changing in the changing light. Dawn is usually spectacular, the cholla seem to glow as they catch the first light of the sun, the cactus wrens perch on the tallest saguaro and sing. It is breathtaking some mornings.

Finished packing and setting things up for an extended absence, last thing I did Monday morning was to disconnect the water.

Monday 12/13

Well we’re back in Chicago and it is colder than a well diggers you know what! Yeah, I know, most of you don't feel sorry for us at all. Flying was the usual hassle, a bit easier since Tucson is a small airport. I have decided to start carrying some kind of purse when I am flying - maybe a “man bag”? It is a real pain to dig everything out of all my pockets and dump all that stuff in a bin.

We lucked out with the rental car. We had an “intermediate” reserved to get the best price, a Ford Focus. When we got to the car it was filthy, inside and out. The Enterprise guy looked at it and said “this is unacceptable”, he looked around and there was a black Buick parked next to it (shiny clean), “Would a Buick Lucerne be OK” Are you kidding, a three level upgrade for the same price? So we drove out in a nice, full size Buick. However, after two weeks driving the smart this thing is a boat! It feels bigger than the Volvo! It is nice though. On the plus side, it has seat heaters!

So we’re back home for three weeks. I’ll resume the blog when we get back to Tucson on January 1st.