A Quiet Few Days

Ashley's birthday party yesterday was a terrific success. The neighborhood park was a perfect setting ..... the kids could run around and play and shout. Their school gym teacher came and lead them in games and activities for about an hour and a half. Since they all knew him from school and knew the games, they had a wonderful time playing. There were about 20 children invited plus siblings, who just come along. After all of the play, Robyn and Scott served hotdogs and chips and then birthday cake. And after all that, there was a pinata filled with candy and toys......................

Starting today, Monday, we have 3 days on our own to just relax. Barb left early this morning to go to a casino for a poker tournament. And I have been updating my computer. Windows Vista has a new program for getting mail that combines both of my email accounts (gmail and hotmail). So I updated it and like everything else on the computer, it did not work the first time. Have been playing with it for a couple of hours now and it seems okay.

I guess the rest of the day and week I will read and take walks and maybe work on some pictures.

Love and hugs ,
Linda and Barb

Arrival in Las Vegas

We left Needles on Thursday and had a very uneventful trip to Las Vegas. And we are greatful for that. The big highlight of the trip was watching all of the motorcycles driving in the opposite the direction. They were on their way to a motorcycle rally in Needles this weekend. It almost reminded us of the Sturges rally in South Dakota.

We arrived at the Oasis RV Resort by 12:30 pm and were all set up by 2:00 pm. For those of you who are rv'ers, you know that means we did it very slowly. As we usually do things. Setting up means that on the outside of the rig, I connect the water, electric, sewer hose, awnings out, tire covers on, chairs/tables set up on rug. On the inside of the rig, Barb takes all tables and chairs and dishes/pots that have been put up safely back down. Coffee pot gets unhooked, all albums and files that go in corners get put back in the correct place, etc.

We have spent Friday and Saturday with Robyn, Scott, Ashley and Zack. We are thrilled to see them and they have, as children do, grown up quite a bit in the last year.

Friday night we had a seder dinner.

We know it is at the end of Passover but decided it would be fun to have seder dinner and read the Haggudah with the kids. They have a children's version of the Haggudah and the kids did the majority of the readings. It was a wonderful experience. And the dinner was great ...... between Robyn's cooking and mine, we had all of the traditional foods..........gefilte fish, matzo ball soup, brisket, twice baked potatoes, green bean casserole, salad. Ymmmmmmm.

Saturday was Ashley's birthday and her party will be today at a nearby park. So we spent Saturday shopping for all of her birthday stuff.... cake, plates, etc. And Saturday night , she got to pick what restuarant she wanted to go to for her birthday. So we had a great dinner at Outback.

Today is the party. We will go there about noon.......party at 3:00pm.

Love and hugs,
Linda and Barb

Our New Park Model

As I mentioned earlier, we purchased a park model at the Superstition Mountain Resort (SMR) in Apache Junction. We are not planning to give up full timing but decided to purchase it to have a place to stay some time in the future when we do want to stop traveling.

Our plan is to rent it during the winter season and summer too, if possible, and just have a little income from it. So far, we have it rented for Feb. and Mar.

We spent the last two weeks before we left fixing it up the way we wanted it. The previous owner was an "accumulater of stuff." So we needed to go through everything and decided what we wanted and what we wanted to give away. Some stuff went to friends, some to Goodwill and some to a friend's church for their yearly auction. And the 7' pvc pipes went to a construction company that works in the park.

After getting everything out , we decided that the drapes she had throughout did not give us the amount of light and airiness that we wanted. So we removed all of the curtains, drapes and rods. And then I spent a day patching the holes from the rods. I have become real good at patching. There were also some cable wires and phone wires that were strung from the bed room to the living room. They were either glued on or attached with nails. So I need to carefully remove them, trying to leave the wallpaper on the wall, and then patch all of those holes.

While I did all of that , Barb cleaned the kitchen and all the appliances. She even moved the store and refrigerator out to get behind everything. We washed down all of the walls, the cabinets and the windows. And then we started on the shed. That took another day or two.

But now, the park model really looks great and we are quite thrilled with it. In June, we have arranged to move the fence that is there so that it is on our property line. That will increase the size of the fenced in area for our yard.

We are in Needles, CA now. Barb is at the casino and I will be reading. Having restful day.

Love and hugs,

Linda and Barb

New Tires Installed

Finally, yesterday, the new tires were installed. I think we have learned our lesson with regard to tires.............Costco is not the place to go. As I mentioned the date code on the Michelin tires that Costco ordered was from March 2007. So the first mistake I made was to not do anything about them right away. I talked with Kirk at Freightliner and he questioned if the tires were in an air conditioned warehouse. I had no idea. I then misinterpreted the date code on the tires and thought that they were just 6 months old and that that would be okay. Later found out the code indicated that they were a year old.

The second mistake I made was to wait until a week before we were to leave to try to get tires ordered through Freightliner. That just was not enough time.

So here we are with lessons learned. The new tires are installed. They finished about 3:00 pm yesterday and we hit the road. We just wanted to spend a night at a full hookup and off of a parking lot with diesel trucks coming and going all day and night.

So we drove 35 miles, arrived at Tonepeh, Saddle Mountain RV park, and set up camp. Had a few problems with the electricity having too high a voltage. Our surge/electrical protector would shut off the electricity every time the voltage reached 132. The good news is that it was working and protected our electrical units. The bad news was the electricity to the rig kept shutting off. Barb figured out that we should change from 50 amp to 30 amp to see if that helped ......... and it did. We are okay now.

We leave this morning for Needles, CA for two nights.

Love and hugs,
Linda and Barb

Superstition Mountain

View of Superstition Mountain as we see it from our rv site in Apache Junction. Feb 2008.

It does not always have grass on it but there was lots of rain in the spring and the mountain thrived.

Our Weekend at Freightliner

All plans have been changed. We left SMR on Thursday, planning to have new tires installed at Freightliner on Friday and then leave for Needles, CA on Saturday. THAT WAS NOT TO HAPPEN.

The story on these tires has become very involved, but here goes. Last November we knew we needed new tires for the rig at a cost of about $400 per tire. Kirk, the rv service person at Freightliner, suggested we get them from Costco, save some money, and he would pick them up. He also suggested we wait until spring to get them. So we ordered the tires in March. When they came in, we discovered that the date code indicated that they were manufactured in march 2007. So we contacted Kirk last Monday and he did a rush order through his tire dealer to get new tires for us. They were supposed to come in on Friday.

Friday afternoon, Kirk found out the tires did not come in and would not be in until next Wednesday. Now our plan of spending a week in Needles was shot but in addition, our plans were to be in Vegas with the kids by Thursday. We decided not to wait until Wednesday, just in case they did not come in then. We went back to Costco, got their tires and are just hoping and planning that they will be fine. Salesguy there said the tires were from an air conditioned warehouse in Ontario, CA. But now we have to wait until Monday, tomorrow, before they can be installed.

So here we are this weekend in Freightliner's parking lot. Actually it has been quite restful. We did a little shopping, did a lot of paperwork that has been stacking up. Today, well, I do not know what we are going to do. There is a dog park nearby so we may take Bailey there.

That's our update as to our travels. We plan to leave here either Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning. Not sure how far we will go.

Love and hugs,
linda and barb

Summer 2008: We are on the road again!

Summer is here and we are ready for our new travels. We left Apache Junction yesterday for a long 45 minute drive to Tolleson. In other words, we drove from the eastern edge of Phoenix to the western edge of Phoenix. We are parked in the lot of the Freightliner facility. Today we get new tires and few other repairs. We will stay here tonight and then leave tomorrow morning.

Today will be an interesting experiment for us. We have to leave by 7:00 am and not return until 4:00 or 5:00 pm. In the past when we have done this, we have gone out to breakfast, gone shopping, go to a movie, whatever. But this year we have Bailey. So we will still go to breakfast since it is cool in the morning and okay for him to stay in the car. And then we will spend the rest of the day at a nearby park.

The last few months have been quite exciting for us at AJ (apache junction). And I will fill you in the next time I write. Most exciting is that we have purchased a park model in the rv park that we stay in. Pictures and stories to follow.

We are heading to Needles, CA and will spend a few days there before going to Las Vegas. I plan to keep this blog up to date while we are traveling.
So stay tuned and check in ..... comments are welcome.

Love and hugs,
linda and barb