Happy Trails RVing

Back in Mission

2011-09-20T18:44:00.002-05:00

We left Iowa at the end of August to return to Texas. Everyone kept telling us how hot it was, but we wanted to get back home. Seems like we had come to the point that we were tired of our cramped RV and we heard our recliners calling our names. But wait.........I am getting ahead of myself.

As many of you know, Roger and I had our 25th wedding anniversary in August and after returning from the RV rally in Madison, we decided to get the family and some friends together and have a pot luck to help us celebrate. That is just what we did, our anniversary was the 16th but we had the potluck on the 21st. It was a nice way to share it with everyone and also a little of a last chance to say good-by to everyone before we left for Texas. We only wish my other two daughters could of joined us. Do to the short notice and the cost of traveling that far, we understand. Kim and Janis, we missed you, but knew you would of been there if you could of.

From Anniversary

We arrived home on Friday the 26th and on Saturday evening our air conditioner went out at our mobile home. Wouldn't you know it was 10 at night and no one to call that late and a weekend to boot. The friends and family were right..............it is very hot in South Texas in August. We ended up running the window A/C in the Texas room (sun porch) and leaving the door open with fans blowing it into the house. Made it through till Monday then got a hold of the repair man and he came out that afternoon. The part was a whole $19 and service call was $60. Thank goodness it was more then that.

We had planned for sometime to replace the old gold bath tub/shower in our main bathroom. After taking a trip to Lowe's and a mobile home place, we decided we didn't like any of the shower liners. The opening was 56 inches and the ones we had to pick from were either 6 inches too long or 6 inches to short. After visiting the mobile home place, they did have a shower base that would of worked, however there was still that step up into it and the floor of the shower was smaller then the tub floor we were using. We then decided to spend a little bit more and go with a tiled shower. Our friends, Larry and Mary knew a guy so they sent him over and after getting an estimate, we were ready to go for it. Made a trip to the tile store and picked out the tile, brought it home and waited for Loopy (that's his name) to start. Here is the finished shower...........we love it.

From Blanket, bird and bath

We also painted the bathroom and got rid of the yellow flower wallpaper. Be sure to check out the rest of my photos by clicking on the pictures.

I received an email about a good friend of mine. He is in the hospital in Mason City. I sure wish I could be there to visit him and be of some help to his wife, Erma. Doug if you happen to read this, please know I am thinking of you every day and our prayers are with both you and Erma. Please get well soon and get a lot of REST.

It won't be long before the parks around here start filling up again with all the snow birds. We have been to two pot lucks and to Peter Piper Pizza with the park people here in Valley View. It is good to see our friends again.

We do have one other project we are going to under take. Roger and I spent this afternoon, clearing out the Texas room. Roger and Dick are going to take off all the paneling and ceiling and insulated it and sheet rock it. I will be taking pictures of that as well. It seems now that we don't have Keota any longer and family is so far away about the only thing we have left to take pictures of is flowers, birds, projects.

Catching up..............

2011-07-14T15:33:00.002-05:00

I guess I have some catching up to do, haven't posted since May.

After leaving Nashville, we headed north and spent a week visiting with some friends we met in Florida in 2005 -2007. They live in Aurora, IN and we did a lot of eating out while there. We then pushed north again, staying in Indiana and met up with Dick & Darlene, then Larry and Brenda to attend a FMCA rally. Had a great time, I went to two different seminars on Satellite TV and after the second one, we decided to do away with all the stress we have in setting up our DirectTV satellite. We had a roof dish installed that will hunt for satellite after pushing just one button. Boy is it nice, we have been using it ever since and I must say............it was money well spent. Where we are right now, among the trees, I really thought we wouldn't get a signal, but we have one. :) I guess the best buy at the rally was the great patio mat I got for $40. Yes, you are reading it right. I saw it at the new RV display and asked if they sold them? They said no, but they had them at their dealership. I then asked if they would sell that one, it was just the color I wanted. The guy looked at his boss asked and boss asked him what they sold for at the shop. He said $140 ..............boss then said to me.....how about $40. SOLD. Love it, it is 20 foot long and just fits under our awning. It rained on our last day there, I didn't sleep well all night worrying if we were going to get out of our spot. Here is a photo of our motor home, surrounded by ankle deep water.

From 05 - May

We made it to Cedar Rapids just in time for me to attended the retirement party were I use to work, for all those retiring this year. It was good to see some of my old friends again. Can't say I miss the work, but I do miss seeing my friends, they were like a second family.

Granddaughter, Emily's gradation was next. It is just so hard to believe that these grand kids are all growing up and it just makes one feel so much older. She had a nice party at the park, it was cold and rainy but we all had a good time.

From Emily Graduation

June brought some more activities, met with the "Iowa people" from our park in Mission. (Valley View Estates). We met at the Riverside Casino and had a great meal and conversation. Won't be long and we will all be down there again doing our potlucks. A couple days later was my birthday and we were camping at West Overlook by Iowa City. Family and friends came to campground to say hi. My three daughters and my great hubby went together and paid for me to take a hot air balloon ride. Roger was going to go with me. We decided to wait awhile till the weather got better before doing it. I would have to call for reservations. Fathers day we were still at West Overlook, so made arrangements for the family to meet us in Coralville and go to a Chinese restaurant for diner. Had a good time there.

From 06 - June

Later in the month of June, we decided to head North to Mason City/Clear Lake area. Our good friends Tom and Sharon, offered their yard for us to park our motor home in. What a great place to stay, so quite there and watching the birds right outside our window was really nice. Tom and Sharon were great host, had us over to eat at there place and we went out many times. Sure wish we could of stayed longer, but one does not want to wear out there welcome. We sure are going to miss them and Max (there little Maltese that looks just like our Keota)

From Galena

Over the 4th of July weekend we were very busy, as I am sure everyone is. We had a family picnic in Hampton on the 3rd. It was for Roger's mother side of family and there was a cousin from Denmark visiting so got to meet them. Had a great turn out and with me into working on family tree, I also learned a little more about the family.

From Nielsen reunion

On the 4th we headed out with our car for Davenport, about a 4 hour drive to attend a surprise birthday diner for Roger's cousin Peggy. It sure was good to see all the Trafford's and get to visit with them. We were given some old pictures of the Shook - Harding families and Peggy helped by naming some of the people in the pictures. Of course Peggy had many stories to add to some of the pictures. Only wish I had taken a tape recorded with me. I made up Peggy a book with all the Shook - Harding family tree information I had at that point. Sure hope she and family enjoy reading all the family history.

From Peggy Birthday

We spent the night of the 4th in Cedar Rapids at daughter Sandra's house. On our way home, I asked Roger if he wanted to stop in Charles City and check out a cemetery where his 3rd great grandfather was laid to rest. I had found a picture of the grave marker on Ancestry and sent a message asking where it was. Got an email back with directions. We found it and that got Roger excited about looking for others. While in Mason City and Clear Lake we went to three different cemeteries and found many graves. I took pictures of 61 grave markers, I wasn't sure if some of them were related, but took the pictures anyway. I shot anything with Shook, Harding, Nielsen, or Theilen on it. After getting back to RV and going through my Family Tree Maker program, I found many of them were related, I think there were only a couple that weren't and who knows, I may find them after more research.

On the 12th of July, we left Tom and Sharon's and headed for Galena, IL for our balloon ride on the 13th. The morning of the13th, that was yesterday, we headed out to find where we were suppose to be that night, then back into town. Decided to take the trolley ride around town and learn a little more about it. It was an hour ride and very informative. I will never remember all that man told us, but nice anyway. You will have to check out my web albums to see all the old homes and downtown. I did not know that U.S.Grant was from Galena.

We had to be at Eagle Ridge Resort and Spa by 6:45pm. Left the campground at 6 and headed out that way. After everyone arrived, they started to blow up the balloon. They did this with 3 large fans. It didn't take them long, as soon as it had all the air in it, they removed the fans and started the burner and blowing heat into the balloon. At this point the basket was laying on it's side, but as soon as the balloon got enough hot air, it turned the basket over and it was time to get in. I must admit, this was the part I was dreading the most. I am not too good at climbing into anything let alone a basket that is chest high. They had step stools to climb on, but getting my leg over the edge was a challenge. I gave Roger instructions, not to take my picture getting in. The flight was GREAT, and so glad we went. It was something I have been wanting to do for years. It was like floating and so peaceful. We ended up going just a little over 5 miles in 47 min. The balloon got up above some clouds and we were up to 6000 feet. We ended up landing in a cow pasture. The landing and getting out of the basket was my next worry and I must say, that was easier then the getting in. The basket landed on it's side and we were on our back, holding onto some ropes. I had to wait till the people on the other side of basket got out then the ones next to me and then I just rolled out and sat on edge and feet on ground. Afterward we walked to the awaiting van and they had champagne, Sprite, and chocolate for all of us with a toast for the safe ride. What a great birthday gift................thank-you Kim, Janis, Sandra and Roger. I LOVED IT and will have this memory for a very long time.

From Galena

Be sure to click on any of the pictures to view all of the photo's in my Photo Albums.

That catches you up on our adventures, we will be in Iowa till we head to Madison for another FMCA rally in August, then our 25th wedding anniversary, and back to Texas.

On the road again.

2011-05-01T18:26:00.003-05:00

We left Mission on Easter Sunday and made it to Huston for our first night. Before leaving we had a leak under bathroom sink, which had to be fixed and then the left turn signal would not work on our tow Vue. Didn't get it fixed right away, but Roger did fix it later.

Our first night was in Huston at South Main RV Park, it was right off the bypass and one of those places you don't want to miss or it is a puzzle how you are going to make it back to the entrance. On Monday we drove on east along I-10 and being so busy and Roger not liking high traffic, I drove all day. It was a long day (I'm not use to driving all day) but we stopped at the welcome rest area as we entered Louisiana and after lunch I took a short 15 min. nap and was good for rest of trip. Stayed our second night in Independence, La. Along 1-55, the campground was Indian Creek Campground and with me driving that left Roger to read the directions and he missed reading one of the turns to the campground and I ended up going strait for 5 miles before I could find a place to turn around. The turn we needed was just past the interstate, we finally found it and and settled in for the night. We can now add Louisiana to our state map on side of motor home.

Leaving Tuesday morning, it was raining, but we soon drove out of it and the rest of the drive up I-55 was pretty good, I had marked where all the rest areas were and who would of known every one of them in Mississippi were closed. We ended up pulling into a truckers pull off to eat our lunch and change drivers. Tuesday night was spent in Coldwater, Mississippi (had to get another state sticker) at Memphis South RV Park. It was about 25 -30 miles south of Memphis. We spent the night watching the weather on TV as there were bad storm warnings and tornado warnings out. As soon as we heard the warning go off, we headed for the bath house. We were told to go to the mens showers as they were in the middle of building and the stalls we built completely enclosed and were the safe place to be. By the time we got there.............all the shower stalls were taken. I was thinking okay...........only so many people can be in there. Well they weren't full of people...............everyone had stuffed there dogs and cats in the stalls and all the people were standing in main part of bathroom with the main door right in front of us. At one point I said " If the tornado does come, at least all the dogs and cats will be alive even if we aren't." That didn't seem to make any difference to these people. I had even asked if any of these dog and cat people could get one of the chairs out of the shower stall so I would have a place to sit. That didn't happen either. One gal said her cats were sitting on it. We gave up after the worst of the storm had passed and decided to take our chances in the RV. The bath house was starting to smell of dogs and cats, and it was very warm in there..............no windows at all. After a stormy night.............we slept really good that night. It was still storm warnings the next morning and they were heading the same directions we would be headed, so decided to stay another day. These were the storms that killed so many across the south on Tuesday and Wednesday.

We headed for Nashville on Thursday and stayed at a Corp of Engineer park east of Nashville. Seven Points, and it was really a nice campground. I had reserved a site on line for Wednesday - Sunday and so glad I got one on the inside of the loop. The lake was up and flooded most of the sites on the outside part of the loop. It even flooded the road we drove in on so had to get directions on a different way in and out.

While in Nashville, we ended up on Friday, going to downtown Nashville and did a walking tour through downtown and to the Ryman Auditorium. This was really nice and learned alot, got to go back stage and see the dressing rooms as well. We do wish we would of had more time to look at things and read some of the stuff, but maybe another time. Just getting around in that town was a challenging as a lot of the streets were closed for construction of the new convention center. I was almost ready to say the heck with it and forget the whole thing. We didn't and after the walking tour, we took a trolley ride around with a tour guide. One could get off anywhere if they wanted but, we didn't. I did find the Bicentennial park. They had a wall that was a time line with pilers along the way with the dates. I think that wall must of went one for a couple of blocks.

From 04-April

On Saturday we went on the General Jackson lunch cruise with a great lunch and entertainment by the Shotgun Red band. So glad we did that one. I had taken the card out of the camera Friday night to upload all the pictures from that day and wouldn't you know, I forgot to put it back in camera so didn't get any pictures on the boat. Well we did, but they are on the camera hard drive and my cord wouldn't work to get them off. After getting off the boat, we had over 3 hours to kill before the Grand Ole Opry so decided to go back to RV and take a nap.

We went back to The Grand Ole Opry for the evening show. It wasn't really what we were expecting. They do commercials through the whole thing and Roger really hates commercials.

We are now in Indiana at a State Park and will be going to see our friends, Ida and Bob tomorrow. We haven't seen them since we were in Florida for the winter of 2006 - 2007. We use to pal around with them all the time, so this should be fun to see them again.

Till later..............Alicia

Upgrades and Fish fry

2011-03-05T09:02:00.003-06:00

I had to go back on read my last blog to know what I wrote about last time, guess that means it has been too long.

This Family Tree Maker is keeping me on the computer and busy. I haven't even done any crafts since we got back from California. I had put all the family info in the program in one tree and then decided to split it up with my family in one tree, Seaton (x-husbands) family in another and Shook (Roger's) in another tree. I find it so interesting to be finding old pictures, census records, draft cards, etc. from Ancestry.com. I also have been saving all the prof I find and loading it to tree and making copies to save and print up. Found some information on my x's (Mike Seaton) 4th great grandfather. He was taken prisoner in 1776 by the British and on Jan. 20th, 1777 he died on a British Prisoner ship in New York harbor. It is these kinds of things that makes history so exciting. Also found one of my greats (can't remember how many) helped with the underground railroad. Another one was in the civil war. I am still having problems tracing some of them to their mother countries. What with all the name changes and spellings, it gets confusing.

The middle of Jan we moved our motor home (RV) into storage as our friends Dick and Darlene were expecting company and they were using their RV spot for one cousin and needed our RV spot for another cousin. We had Ron and Sharon Faught from Mason City in our driveway for about 6 weeks. While here, Tom helped Roger put in a new sidewalk connecting the driveway with the shed in back. Sure glad Tom offered to help........thanks Tom.

From Fish Fry

We also had a fish fry on our deck in February and had 12 people here eating fish, fries, coleslaw, fruit salad, potato salad, popcorn, pies, cake...............lots and lots of food. Speaking of lots of food, we also had a Super Bowl party at our place.............we were the only ones with a big screen TV. We had so much food left over from that, had to give some of it away.

After Sharon and Tom left to head to Florida, we called the painter and got some paint to paint outside of our mobile home. It was a "John Deer" green and I just hated it. It is now a nice grey to match the grey trim we had on shed. It sure looks a lot nicer. Along with the improvements we have been making, we decided it was time to finish off the kitchen and get the new microwave/convention oven for over the range. It finally got here and we picked it up this past Thursday and Dick and Roger installed it yesterday. I JUST LOVE IT. Now the kitchen is finished and the only thing left is I plan on doing some painting next summer or fall when we get back down here. Roger is planning on tearing the Texas room (sun room) apart and taking down all the old brittle paneling and popcorn ceiling. Will then insulate and put up dry wall. It should be cooler in there, don't think it has any insulation right now.

From RV.net party and New place

From Fish Fry

That pretty well brings us up to date, I do want to add a touch of Spring, Roger brought 2 rose bushes home from Kim's in California and our friend MaryAnn gave him. See...............Spring is coming.

From Fish Fry

Forgot the other news.........................Roger is now learning the computer. He hasn't been getting on it each day, but he is trying and that means a lot to me. One step at a time. Won't be long and he will have his own email address on maybe even on face book. :)

Christmas in California and 2011

2011-01-07T17:47:00.002-06:00

I don't know why I have such a hard time coming up with things to write about on this blog. Some of it is just that I don't get around to it.
I am in California for Christmas. You notice, I didn't say SUNNY California. That is because it has been raining for days and will continue to rain for more and more days. Can't wait to get back to SUNNY TEXAS. We drove out here last week and are staying with my daughter Kim and her son, Zeppelin. She got a new house last spring and has been fixing it up. It really looks nice and she is doing a great job. She has three bedrooms, 2 baths, living room, office, family room and kitchen. The kitchen was already redone so she didn't have to worry about that expense. The living room is still in the dry wall stage. She scraped off all the popcorn ceiling and painted everything. Also put in all new floors. She went after her Christmas tree yesterday and due to the rain, it had to sit in garage to dry off before bringing it inside. It isn't decorated yet, I was going to do it for her, but she told her son if he did it, she would redo it after he went to bed. Guess that means, she wants to do it her own way.
We have been using our GPS a lot out here. This is the most we have used it since we got it 5 years ago. Sure is nice to set it and let it do all the work. The traffic is terrible, sure glad we don't have to drive in it all the time.
I have two cousins that live around this area and plan on going to see them. Sally, from my mom's side of family lives in Lake Elsinore and Patti from my dad's side lives the next town to the south. I got a hold of Patti and plan on going to see her on Wednesday afternoon. Tried the phone number I had for Sally and it was disconnected. Don't know if I copied it down right. Anyway, thought I would stop by and see if she is home, if not, leave a note. I got to see Sally in 2002 when we came out here. Patti, I haven't seen since sometime in the 50's. Boy, that is a long time. Going to take the camera and get some pictures for sure. Patti has been working on family tree so we will have a lot to talk about.
We did make it to the Gene Autry Museum of Western Heritage over the weekend. We were going to go to a flea market, but due to all the rain, it was canceled, so the museum was close by and dry. It was nice, but not like we expected. Think we were expecting more on Gene Aurty.
Last night we went to a Christmas show, the All American Boy's Choir. They were very good and it did help to take ones mine off the rain and get you in the Christmas spirit. It was a long drive there and back, but using Kim as our chauffeur and she does a great job.

Okay, we are now back from our California trip. Came home between Christmas and New Years. It is good to get back home. We did get down to visit with my two cousins and so glad we did. Had a great visit with Patti and she told me things about my father's family and my father that I didn't know. Hope to stay in touch with her and learn more. Took Kim and Zeppelin with us to go see Sally and her hubby Winston. Had a nice visit, they do a lot of traveling so we had a lot to talk about. Fun listening to others adventures.

Had a very nice Christmas with Kim and Zeppelin. Got a Family Tree Maker program for my computer with a 3 month membership to Ancestry.com so I have been busy with that. I have found some interesting things and hope to find more. Patti was telling me about my dad's side of family and I didn't have any information on them. Didn't get any from Patti, but with Ancestry.com I traced them back to Jamestown, Va in 1650.

Now for a few pictures to share with you. Remember they are all on my "web albums" and you can click on link under picture or on picture itself to take you to the whole album. I don't post them all........too many of them.

From Christmas 2010

This is your place in Mission, yes we did get up a tree and decorated before we left.

From Christmas 2010

This is daughter, Kim's house in California

From Christmas 2010

Cousin Patti and myself with her grandson, Peter.

From Christmas 2010

My cousin Sally her hubby Winston with Roger and myself.

From Christmas 2010

Daughter, Kim and her son Zeppelin.

Hope every had a great Christmas and got a good start to 2011. We are making our plans for this next year and working around the place to get it the way we want. Busy with park activities and running around with our friends.

Roger got a book for Christmas called "Don't Whiz on a 'Lectric Fence" I am going to use one of the passages from that book for my closing. hehehehe

"Don't name a pig you plan to eat"

And Life Goes On

2010-10-19T16:20:00.002-05:00

I read a number of blogs each day, and after coming across most of them with no updates, I got to thinking I need to update my blog. I am not sure what I am going to write about. We are still in Mission and taking one day at a time. Still having hot and humid weather, but we stay inside during the day, so not to bad. We do make it to the pool on some days. Try to go in the late afternoons as there is a canape over one end of the pool and it provides some good shade. I don't like being in the sun, so found this the best time to go.
The park has pot lucks twice a month and they go out to pizza one time a month. The pizza is not a great place, but good to get out and visit with others. Pizza place is called "Peter Piper" and it is cheep pizza and one of those places with games for the kids.
As many of you know, my grand daughter, Emily wanted a zebra afghan for her graduation next May. I did get it finished and I am really pleased the way it turned out. Just hope Emily will like it. Here is a finished picture of it.

From Life in the RGV

I did get a few days off from working on afghan, I was asked to make four cross stitch bookmarks. They were name ones and I had to do them before our neighbors left to go back to Iowa. Got all four done in 3 1/2 days. Soon as afghan is done, I am going to have to find a new project to work on. Been thinking about starting to make baby afghans and hats for the babies in hospital. I just need something to keep me busy while watching TV.

Before we left Mission last spring, I was walking every morning for an hour and was hoping to get back to it again. Due to a heal spear, I haven't been able to do that. I finally went to the Foot DR and was told to stay off it, wear a special boot at night that would stretch the cord in foot, take Aleve twice a day, get new inserts for shoes from sports store, and finally get new shoes. I have done all that and I am still having problems. Dr. told me I could start walking short 10 minutes walk, but every time I try it, I am back to heal pain. He had told me if it hurts stay off it, so I have been spending a lot of time doing just that. That only means one thing...........more craft projects.

I did go to a garage sale here in park and bought three x stitch kits and I am now working on one of those. I thought I would buy it so I would have something to take in the RV during the summer. Anyway.......having fun working on it right now.

Roger seems to keep busy finding small projects to work on around our place here. I keep thinking there isn't anything else he could find to do.......but he seems to find something. We did have a car port put up to park our car under and it sure is nice to have it out of the HOT sun. Should help keep it looking nice too. Being as Roger's dad was a farmer, I think he has some farmer blood in him, he always wants to have a garden. Once again he has fixed a small area in yard to have one here. It is not very big, but he wants a few tomato plants and pepper plants. I guess the yard is his..............so go for it Roger.

Our friends from PA wanted to buy a place down here, they looked around when they were here last winter and we told them about a place here in the park that was for sale. They asked us to go over and take pictures and I did that then emailed them to them. Next, we were asked to go look at it and take more pictures. Did that too, and emailed them. They ended up buying the place. I am excited that they are going to be close to us and looking forward to them arriving any day now. It is about 3 blocks from us. This park is one that you own the land as well as your home and like us, they will have a place to park there RV.

The park activities will be start in full winter mode starting in November. That means lots of jam sessions, craft sales, dances and entertainment. All the parks list their activities in a paper called the "Winter Texan" and it goes out to all the parks for everyone to pick up a copy free. Then you can go to what ever activity you want, you are not limited to just your parks activities.

We are planning a trip to California over Thanksgiving. Daughter Kimberly has bought a new house and wants us to come see it. We haven't been out there since 2005 when grandson Danny graduated. We are not taking the RV, just our Saturn Vue and staying in motels. Will be a little different for us.

Till later, life is good here in the Texas.

Improvements

2010-08-14T18:09:00.002-05:00

As many of you know, I have started making afghans for the grand kids when they graduate, so while in Iowa I asked Emily what color she wanted. I had intended on making her one with same pattern I had made the rest. That was doing it with co-hooking..........a new technique I had learned a few years ago while here in Texas. Emily decided she wanted a Zebra afghan, not having a pattern for this, I went on the Internet and found a site what had pictures of one, I copied that picture then printed it on graph paper. To make it large enough for afghan size, I had to print 4 sheets and reverse two of them to match up the stripes. After doing this, I decided I couldn't see the graph squares where the black part was, so now I outlined all of the design on one sheet and then very carefully square by square drew it out on another piece of graph paper. Now I have the pattern on something I can read. I highlighted the part that was to be black and proceeded to count all the squares so I would know how many stitches of each color. Graphs are hard to read when working on them, so my next step was to write out the directions, one row at a time. The Internet site said I could carry my yarn across my work, I tried this for a couple rows and didn't like the looks of it. I was seeing white thread, behind the black stitches and black yarn behind the white. I ripped that all out and started over, this time I rolled the yarn in balls and I am now changing colors every time the pattern calls for it. Needless to say, at this point (I am about 1/4 of the way done) I am carrying 29 balls of yarn for each row. It is a challenge and as many of you know, I am up to a challenge. Besides, what do I have besides time. I have worked out a system, with two baskets to put the balls in. I put the ones I will be crocheting with in basket between my legs while sitting in recliner, I crochet across and as I finish with a color, that ball goes into a basket off to my right. When I finish the row, I switch the baskets around, putting the full one on chair in front of me and empty one to my right. Now I have to flip my work (afghan) over with out tangling the yarn. Here are a few pictures.

From 08 August

Roger has been busy too. We had talked about getting a carport for some time. He ordered one and it came the other night and was put up in about 45 minutes. It is 12 x 21 and sites on our driveway off alley. Now the car will sit under it and be much cooler when we need to use it. Things get pretty hot down here. He also paid extra to get the height he wanted. Standard was 5 foot on sides and he got 7 foot. That makes the peek 9 foot.

From 08 August

The next night we had two more workers here, Roger decided we needed some sun screens installed on windows in Texas room (sun porch) so ordered them and the 2 guys came to install them. He got a special deal to do the whole mobile home, so we now have new sun screens on mobile home. Check out the before and after pictures.

From 08 August

So what do you think ? We can see out, but you can't see in from the outside. Now we will see if it improves our electric bill. It is suppose to.

Our good friends that we met from RV.net that come down here in winter, just called me tonight and told me they bought a place in our park. I am so excited, we sure will enjoy having them so close and hanging out with them. Way to go Mary Ann and Larry, congratulations on your new place.

Roger and I will be celebrating our anniversary on Monday and since the park is going to Peter Piper Pizza, guess that is what we are going to do. I don't really consider that a anniversary dinner, but at least we will be with others. Till later, stay cool.

To view the rest of this album and my others click on the blue leak under pictures.

Back in Mission now.

2010-08-01T17:26:00.003-05:00

Boy it has been awhile since I posted on here. What can I say, I have been mega busy. After looking over my last blog to see where I left off, I guess the best place to start is our camp out with family at West Overlook. We had reserved spots and a good thing we did as the lower area were we usually park was flooded. Met Roger's brother Larry and wife Sharon along with son Matt and wife Heather there. On Tuesday the night we arrived, grandson Marcus came over and told us his mom (Heather) had been bitten by their dog. To make a long story short, she had been trying to separate her two dogs and one of them bit her on knee cap when going after the other dog. I took her to hospital, and after xrays, they decided she needed surgery to clean out as he had bit her on knee cap and it had caused air to get under it, thus infection. Heather ended up staying in hospital till Sunday afternoon. She was going to help us drive to Texas and Doctors said she couldn't. She is still undergoing treatment and having some problems, but hope she mend soon and can return to the things she loves to do.

From 07 July

While camping at West Overlook, we had a RV service guy come out and look at our TV antenna and our toilet. After the full week of waiting we got a new TV antenna and a new toilet. We also got a nice hefty bill, think the guy got over paid for his service. But you learn, he was recommended to us by a guy that was camped across from us, we won't be calling him again.

We left West Overlook on the 13th of July and headed back to Morgan Creek campground in Cedar Rapids. The rest of the week went very fast, as before going to Morgan Creek, we went to Battery Plus to get new batteries in RV. Roger wanted to replace our 4 batteries for 3 and so they took out the old batteries, then after awhile told us they couldn't do it, so were going to put 4 batteries in like the 4 we had. Low and behold, they didn't have any, so they had to put the old ones back in. Roger new we were in trouble when the guy said, he should of made a diagram of how they were hooked up. He hooked them up and then it was my turn to drive to campground. Well, the step would not go in, so Roger called them back outside and they checked the connections and said it was right. Okay, I drove to campground with step out. After getting to campground we hooked up to the 50amp and turned on the air. All of a sudden the overload light came on so unplugged the electric and unhooked the batteries. Now what to do, we ran and extension cord from back of RV ref. to electric on pole, packed some things and went to daughter Sandra's house to spend the night. Next morning, Roger went over to RV and found the ref not working at all, so he pulled out what he could and brought it back to Sandy's to stash in her ref and freezer. The guy from Batteries Plus called a little later and we took RV over to get it fixed. He said he looked it up on line and found out he could hook up the 3 batteries so that is what they did. Everything working fine now, but all could of been avoided if they had done it right to begin with.

On Saturday the 17th we picked up the truck and went to Stanwood to load all our things we had in storage. Granddaughter Emily went with us and with her and Matt and Marcus' help we got it loaded in about an hour and a half. I must say, glad we ended up getting a 16 foot truck as we needed the extra space. We didn't load it to the top, but all the floor space was used up. We left on Sunday morning for Texas with Sandra going with us to help with the driving. We were planning on her being a relief driver, but she ended up driving the truck all the way by herself and Roger and I driving the RV. It took us 3 days on the road with 2 overnight stays. It sure was good to have all the help we had, both in loading and the driving.

We are now in Mission and still organizing things. It would of been so easy if we were just moving our things into an empty place, but we bought this place furnished so it is what to keep and what to get rid of. We now have a pile on our deck of stuff for a deck sale and still sorting things. I do have the the house pretty well done, a few boxes left in my craft (extra bedroom) room, but it is looking good. Now what to do with all the stuff on the deck, hoping to make room in small shed for it till sale.

While Sandra was here for a week, we got to take her to some of the things she wanted to see. Made a day trip to South Padre Island. It was up in air if we were going to make it to Mexico. They have some flooding here and the road going there was closed. She was to leave on Tuesday the 27th so on Monday after checking on the Internet for road closings, we took off for Mexico. The DOT didn't have it that road listed as being closed, but it was. We then decided to go the the outlet mall. While at the mall we talked to a clerk who gave us information on another route to take to get to Mexico. Off we went after stopping for lunch and spent the afternoon shopping in Mexico. She had a good time and we got back to the car just as a big rain storm was about to hit. We sure enjoyed having Sandy here, it means so much to me to have her come and see where we are living and share with her some of our life here. I am not sure if she enjoyed going to the park potluck and eating with all the seniors. LOL We miss her already, but life must go on.

Roger got me a gift card for my birthday in June for a new dishwasher and while Sandy was here we went and picked it out. It came in and Roger and Dick went to get it, so thanks to Sandy's suggestion, we decided to move the lower cabinets to other side of kitchen and put the dishwasher by sink. Roger and Dick worked on it one day and tore my kitchen apart, but it was all for a good cause, and I love the new dishwasher. Here are some pictures to help explain it all. Be sure to go to my web album to view all the pictures. Click on picture.

From 07 July

We have built ins in the bedroom and the one on the end has no door so it was hard to put anything in it and I wanted it shortened so I could put our hall tree in corner. Once again, Dick to the rescue and he cut it and I now have a place for hall tree. Thank you Dick for all your help.

Guess that pretty well brings us up to date. We will be working around here to get things settled. We only work in early mornings and evenings due to heat. We are planning a trip to California to visit with daughter Kim, but no date as of yet. Everyone keep cool and have a good summer.

Surprise

2010-07-06T11:32:00.003-05:00

Not sure how to title this entry, will have to think about it as I am posting this.

The 1st was Sandy (daughter) and Brian's 10th anniversary so we went out to eat with them. They wanted to go to Granite City, so off we went. I can't say we were over impressed with the food and it was high priced. Don't think we will plan on returning there very often. Sandy saved leftovers in a take out container to take home for Brian's lunch the next day.........and wouldn't you know, we walked out and forgot it. Poor Brain had to buy his lunch the next day. Anyway, Happy 10th Anniversary Sandy and Brian.

We hadn't had a visit with two of our grandkids yet, Aj and Mariah (Matt's two children), so on the 3rd we invited them to our campground to have a cookout. Joining us were Sandy, Brian with daughter Emily as well as Roger's daughter Jenny and her 2 daughters, Maggie and Heidi. We sure had a good time, had some yard games going and Emily brought a new card game along so some of them played that. We were very lucky as the rain stayed away that day and didn't make an appearance till the 4th............wouldn't you know it.

From Morgan Creek Camping

The 4th found Roger and I spending the day alone in the RV. Nothing exciting mind you, a little tv and then watched the fireworks in NYC on the blube tube.

Monday I took off and went to do some laundry, we were headed to West Overlook so wanted to get it done before we left. By afternoon, we were once again just passing time...............retired folks do a lot of that. About 3:30 I received a phone call and low and behold it was Dale and Terry Pace. They winter in Mission and we met them with some other people at an eat out with the RV.net group. That was 3 years ago and we have been friends since. I had just been reading Dale's blog earlier in the day and she stated they were headed to SD from Indiana, so I told her I would wave to her as they passed thru Iowa. It happened that they were spending the night at West Overlook, outside Iowa City. We were going to be headed down there the next day to do some camping with family. We decided to drive down and have a quick visit with them. After picking them up at campground we drove into Iowa City and took them to Jimmy Jack's Rib Shack. They seemed to enjoy the meal and we sure had a great time visiting with them. Upon returning them to there RV, we found son Matt and wife Heather setting up their pop up, so stopped and chatted with them.

While heading to West Overlook last night to pick up Dale and Terry, I was stopped in North Liberty by the town cop. At first I thought maybe he thought I was speeding, I might of been just a tab over, but no, he said my windows were tinted to dark. He got out his little meter and checked, it showed 70% and he said state of Iowa only lets you have 30%. He said I would have to have my front windows scraped, gave me a warning. I asked how much a ticket was if he were to give me one, $90. Not sure I want a ticket, but sure don't want to scrape the tinting off my windows either. We need that extra protection in the south. Have to give it some thought. I was thinking maybe I could just roll down the front windows every time I see a cop, or at least when I go thru North Liberty. He did say as long as we have Iowa plates it would be that way, if we had TX plates it wouldn't be a problem, he wouldn't stop us then. Oh well, you can't win them all.

We will be camping with family for this week and then back to Cedar Rapids and Morgan Creek campground. On the 17th we are picking up a 16 foot truck and taking it to Stanwood and loading our things in storage. We will leave the truck there and back to campground for one last night. Leaving on the 18th for Mission. My daughter Sandy and our daughter-in-law Heather are going to help us drive the truck and RV to Texas. Sandy said no way will she drive the RV but Heather has no problem with it as she drives school bus. Roger and I could of done it by ourselves, but neither one of us really like driving long distances and besides it will be more fun with the girls along. We have been teasing Roger about traveling with 3 women, he said he would just get in truck, lock the doors and be by himself.

Till next time, happy trails.

June ......... Birthdays and Weddings

2010-06-19T10:52:00.002-05:00

June is the month for weddings, we all know this, but for me it has always been a month of birthdays also. At least, my birthday. This one was one of those milestone ones. This is the year I start on Medicare. Boy...........that makes me feel old. Some say you get that feeling when you become a grandparent or hit the magic over the hill age. Not me, Medicare did it for me. Maybe it is all the ace and pains that I am getting along with it. LOL. Hopefully, I won't have to use the Medicare very much.

I knew my DH (Dear Husband) was up to something along with my DD (Dear Daughter) as she kept calling him on his cell phone and he would take off around corner to talk in private. What it was, I was not sure, but I knew they were planning something and who am I to spoil their surprise. Yes, they were planning a surprise party and it was fun to have everyone gather to help me celebrate my birthday. To start things off, I had a surprise visit at campground from my friend Dawn on the 10th. I didn't know it then, but she was invited to the party but was leaving on a vacation the next day, so couldn't make it. We had a nice visit and she brought me a plant and some balloons. Thanks Dawn.

From Alicia's Birthday

My birthdays use to always start with a phone call from my mother, very early in the morning. I was born at 8am sharp, and mom always reminded me of it with a phone call on that day. Now I get calls from my three daughters. All three live in different time zones, so first it was Sandy(central zone), then Janis (mountain zone) and then Kim (pacific zone). It was so good to get their calls, means alot to me. Next Roger took me out to lunch, he had called Sandy to join us, but she called and said she was too busy and had too much to do. Another reason to believe something was up. She had called he a few days before asking me to supper at her place, so she was busy cooking (sure). Anyway, Roger felt guilty for her doing all the work, so he took me back to campground and said he was going to stop to see if he can help Sandy with potato salad. Ended up she was done, so he went to get hair cut. That was ok, as I had a nice quite afternoon alone at RV. At 5:30 we went over to Sandy and Brian's, and surprise Jerry and Theresa were there waiting outside. I guess the real surprise to me was who they invited and getting to see everyone. Thanks Sandy and Brian and dear hubby Roger, it was a great birthday.

From Alicia's Birthday

Yesterday was the grand-daughters wedding. This is the first grandchild to get married. It started off as a very stormy day. Park ranger came by to tell us of bad storm coming. It came and was letting up when it was time to leave. We drove to Muscatine for the wedding and it was at the rose garden at Weed Park. (Sure hope that park was named after a person, and not because of weeds) LOL We were first to arrive as Sandy and grand-daughter Emily rode with us and Sandy was doing pictures for the wedding. Since it had just stormed, the roses were covered with rain drops and they were really pretty. We had 2 hours of picture taking then the wedding, so nice the storms stopped and the sun came out for the outdoor wedding. The only problem was the humidity and the sun. After have heat exhaustion a long time ago, I don't seem to do very good in heat or sun. Anyway, it was a very nice wedding and everyone looked so nice. After wedding everyone took off for the reception, which was a little drive out of town, but we found it. Fun was had buy all and the food was great.

From Elizabeth's Wedding

Here we are with the bride, Roger's grand-daughter Elizabeth. Be sure to click on the pictures to take you to the rest of them in my web albums.

We are camping at Squaw Creek Park, which is outskirts of Marion, IA and camping with Roger's brother Larry and wife Sharon and Roger's son and family will be joining us today. They already have their camper set up, just never made it back here after wedding. LOL It is Father's Day weekend, so will have a cookout and enjoy the family.

Till later, happy trails and enjoy your summer.

"May" a busy month

2010-06-03T18:43:00.002-05:00

Where to start. We are in Iowa and are now at our 3rd campground. We are only allowed to stay in one campground for two weeks, so it is move every two weeks. We started off at West Overlook on Coraville Dam (North of Iowa City). While there we drove back and forth to Stanwood where we have our things stored in a unit there. The thought was we would sort though everything and have a sale in Stanwood on the day they were to have their City wide sales. This we did, we spent four days hauling things to Matt and Heather's building up town and setting up for a sale. I must say it was quite a job. The sale was on the 8th and after a week at working for it, we made a whopping $118. We both decided it was not worth all the work we put into it. If we had to do it over again, we would of forgotten the sale.

One of my past co-workers stopped in at sale and asked me if I was going to the retirement party the following Tuesday. I hadn't heard anything about it, but said sure. There were 11 bus drivers and attendants retiring and most of them were there when I drove. I had a good time visiting with some old friends and getting a first hand view of why I am glad I am no longer driving school bus. My good friend Julie is retiring after 32 years of driving, I sure wish her well and hope she enjoys her retirement.

From May activities

While at West Overlook, we spent one afternoon visiting my good high school friend, Janis and her mother. She lives not far from West Overlook. Seems the only time we really get to see each other is once a year when we stop. Had a very nice visit with both of them. Found out Janis was going in for knee replacement the following Monday. I haven't talked to her since but hope to make it down to see her once more before we leave.

Our next move was on to Squaw Creek Park. This is a county park and on the outskirts of Marion. The county parks have a coupon book you can buy that brings the cost of camping down buy at least $5 a night. If you get the larger book, you can save $6 a night. We had a nice spot on a hill and a clear view to set up our satellite dish. I must say that was a challenge. After working at it for a time, we called good friend Dick and he came over and after about a half our standing out there moving it ever so little, he got a good signal. I came to the conclusion, I just don't work at it long enough. It is good to have satellite back again. We had been without it since we left Mission. While at West Overlook we weren't even able to get ABC or NBC in on our antenna, so this was a real treat. Thanks Dick for your help.

Our grand daughter, Elizabeth is getting married on June 18th, and what is a wedding without a shower. On the 22nd, my daughter Sandra and I drove to Davenport to attend a wedding shower for Elizabeth. She got some nice things.

From May activities

Next on our calendar was Sabrina's graduation. She hasn't had her party yet, it will be the 5th of June, but we went to the ceremony and afterwards to the house for a cookout. Had a good time. I had gotten an idea from our grandson's graduation to roll money up and give it that way. I went to bank and got 200 one dollar bills and made two rolls of 100 each. One for Sabrina and one for Elizabeth. I taped them end to end, put a few sticky notes along the roll to encourage them to keep on rolling and put the roll in a small purse I had bought. Sabrina and family could not stop laughing and everyone had a ball watching her unroll all the bills and then take the tape off them. I also made each girl an afghan, Sabrina's was orange and lime green and Elizabeth's was purple with purple variegated. Here is Sabrina with her roll of one's.

From May activities

On the 30th we drove to Muscatine to attend Elizabeth's graduation party. I must say, she was not as excited over the roll of ones, but everyone else had a good time watching her unroll them. Sandra took a video of her.

From May activities

Be sure to click on one of the pictures or the link below picture to view all the photo's I took. I think you will enjoy them.

We are now at Morgan Creek Park on the NW side of Cedar Rapids and will be here till the 14th when we will return to Squaw Creek. We went to Riverside casino, South of Iowa City today. Met up with Iowa people from our park in Mission (Valley View Estates) and had lunch and a little gambling. We are not gamblers but did put 4 dollars in and lost it all. LOL We still have birthday parties, a middle school graduation and doctor appointments to take care of, then we will be planning our trip back to Mission.

Till next time, happy trails.

Update

2010-05-05T19:44:00.002-05:00

We were in Canton at the "First Monday Trade Days" for 2 days. I went the first day and we walked and walked and walked, bought some things and after 5 hours, I had had enough so we went back to RV. Roger went again on Friday with Dick and Darlene and about noon, Darlene's cousin was parking his RV next to ours, so I tried calling them to let them know. Wouldn't you know, all I could get was voice mail. I tried Dick's phone, Darlene's phone and Roger's phone. I couldn't get anyone. About 1:30PM, Darlene called me wanting to know if I had heard from Roger or if I could get him on phone. Told her I had been trying and no luck. She said, they couldn't find him and if I got him to tell him to go to car. I kept trying all afternoon, couldn't get any of them. Finally at 4:30, Darlene called me to let me know they found Roger and were on their way home. What a day!!!!! Roger came home with some more stuff he found there. Seems he was sitting on bench at gate and Dick and Darlene were at next gate down (1 block away) waiting for him. Dick finally rented a scooter for an hour and found Roger.

Friday night we all got together and Gary (Darlene's cousin) was telling us about his trip to Iowa a few weeks earlier when his mother died. They had gone by way of I-35 and told us about all the construction. I woke Saturday morning thinking about the construction and checked the map for a different route. I had already spent time going over I-35 route, so now I had to start all over. We decided to try something different to bypass the construction. It was a good route and I think we will do it again. Bypassed all the BIG towns and it saved us close to 100 miles. Just goes to prove you don't always have to go with the interstate.

Got into Des Moines on Sunday afternoon and wouldn't you know, rain storm with some hail. We headed out to Sailorville Lake and got a spot across the road from Roger's brother and spent the rest of day visiting and evening visiting with them. Hadn't seen them since our side trip to Corpus Cristy in March. Good to visit and catch up on everything.

Left Monday morning for Iowa City and our next camp ground at West Overlook, at Coraville Lake. We are parked along the lake shore, but haven't gotten to spend much time in RV. After getting here, we spent close to 3 hours trying to get satellite hooked up and running. Have it hooked up, but still not working. Guess I will have to call again to find out what I am doing wrong. I told Roger, I can't keep calling every time we move the RV. Maybe I should take a crash coarse on satellite hook up. We have been running every day, going to Stanwood and our storage unit. Have now gone through everything and moved the stuff we want to get rid of, down to son Matt's place to sell this Saturday. The town of Stanwood is having city wide garage sales. That is one of the reasons we came back early. Will be going there tomorrow to set up and make everything. What a job, we are getting just toooooooo old for all this moving. We still have to move the things we will be moving to Mission, over to Matt's garage to wait till we leave here. Then move it again into a truck, drive to Mission then out of truck. That's a whole lot of moving. I am tired just typing about it. LOL.

That pretty well sums up this past week. We did get some bad news today. Seems Roger's good friend Ron Keeney passed away on April 30th and the service was Monday. Roger's a little upset that he didn't make it to service. He and Ron worked together for many years. We did get to attend Ron and Nancy's open house last summer and had a very nice chat with them.

That is my update. The weather here is getting colder so we have the electric heater going at night. Going to get down in the 30's, and we thought we were coming back late enough that we wouldn't have to worry about that. I only brought one sweatshirt, so hope this cold snap doesn't last too long.

Happy Trails

Woops

2010-04-28T19:11:00.002-05:00

I never seem to have anything newsy to write about. We left Mission yesterday morning and drove to Georgetown, TX following our friends Dick and Darlene. We were headed for Canton for the first Monday flea market. We spent the night at a corp of eng. campground at Georgetown and due to the fact they did not have pull through, Dick and Darlene went to Walmart to camp. Ours was a nice quite night of camping for $9 and theirs was free but bright lights and noisy.

From Leaving Mission

We met up at Walmart in the morning and proceeded up I-35 with us flowing them again. Before we made it to our turn off at Waco, Roger found himself trying to change lanes as the lane he was in was ending. He checked his side mirror but didn't see the van next to him. Yes...........he hit it. Not a whole lot of damage, some scratches on the van and a few on our motor home, but Rog wiped them off the motor home. The front fender was a little loose, but nothing major and he fixed it till we get back to Iowa. Here is the damage to the van.

From Leaving Mission

We will be doing flea market for the next 2 days, they are talking of rain..........sure hope it doesn't. Leaving Canton on Saturday morning and will try to make it to Witchita that night. Then on Sunday hope to make it to Des Moines and spend the night camping with Roger's brother at Sailorville Lake.

Happy Birthday, Roger

2010-04-16T16:50:00.003-05:00

Where has the winter gone. Here it is middle of April and we are getting things ready for our trip north. So much has happened and time just seemed to fly by. True, we didn't have the best weather here this winter, but it was better then being in the cold up North. There is so much to do around here, if one wants to be busy. I can't say we are over active as we are not gulf players or shuffle board players, but we have kept busy. Buying a new place and moving again has seemed to have occupied most of our winter, but we had some fun also. With the great friends we have made here in the valley, we are blessed with fun and friendship.

Tomorrow is Roger's birthday....................guess I am making a trip to Home Depot to buy him an 8 foot step ladder. He keeps telling me that is what he wants, so guess that is what it will be. He kept telling me, he was going to wait and use his birthday money. Guess what.............no birthday money. We will be going to the parks club house for potluck supper tomorrow night. I am making a tater tot casserole and a watergate cake for him. It should be a nice birthday.

Well, the medical bills are rolling in from my stay in the hospital. So far they aren't as bad as I thought they would be. I am sure there will be more bills to come.

I have my list going of things I need to get done before we can leave, as well as a list of what needs to go back into the RV. We are trying to keep the load small this trip, in case we need the room when we bring our things from storage unit back here. I have gone through RV and taken out a bunch of stuff and I am not taking much for crafts with me. Will be packing it next week. We will be leaving here on Tuesday the 27th along with Dick and Darlene and will be headed for the First Monday Flea Market in Canton, TX. Not sure why it is called first Monday. It runs Thursday - Sunday before the first Monday of each month. We are only planning on staying till Sat. morning and then start towards Iowa. Have a city wide garage sale in Stanwood and we want to get rid of more of our things we have in storage, so will be partaking in it.

For now, hope to see many of you in a few weeks and for all our friends from RGV, counting the time till we will be back here. Happy Trails

Rio Grande Hospital

2010-03-29T10:03:00.003-05:00

On the 20th, I was overcome in the afternoon with chest pain and it went all the way around into my back. About an hour after the pain started, I started vomiting and continued all afternoon. It was not a pretty site. About 5PM I called some friends here in the valley to find out where there was a 24hr. clinic I could go to. Those good friends, dropped everything they were doing and came over and drove Roger and I to the Rio Grande Hospital. It is so comforting to know that when it comes to it your friends are there for you. Thank-you Larry and MaryAnn.

I was taken into the emergency room right away and given an EKG, then before I knew it was having needles poked into both my arms. Now I am not an easy one to find the veins, and the guy on the left hand was trying to get an IV inserted (just in case it was needed) and the guy on the right was trying to draw blood. I told him, they usually go in at the back of my hand instead of arm, but he kept trying and I must say, digging around to find something. By this time, I was squealing at both of them. I am not saying screaming as I wasn't really screaming the way I define screaming. After the guy on the right decided he couldn't get anything, he sent in another gal to try. She told me he told her I was a screamer. I explained I had one on each side of me digging for a find and it was very painful.

After a number of EKG's and blood test, they decided my heart was okay and were trying to get me a room to spend the night. I had one ice chip while in Emergency room and did another vomit. I was very dehydrated by this time, as I had been hanging over bathroom bowl all afternoon. They did give me some morphine to easy the pain, after they decided it was not my heart. When the Dr came it to tell us the test on heart came in negative, Roger asked if it could be my gal bladder. He said "What makes you say that" After taking me to a room and getting me settled it, I once again was using the little bag they gave me in case I got sick again. When is this going to stop?

That night I was not hooked up to an IV for fluids and I couldn't keep anything down. I was given medication for pain, thru the IV needle, but that was all. In the middle of the night, I woke up and called the nurse because of pain, and she thought maybe I should try some soda crackers and 7up. I nibbled at the cracker and took about 5 sips of the 7 up and up it came. I called the nurse back to my room and she said then that it could be my gal bladder.

The next morning, I was taken to get alta sound on gal bladder and the teck told me he found stones and inflammation. This was on Sunday and guess what, I guess the surgeons do not work on weekends. I had to wait till Monday and then the gal bladder was removed. Dr. said the gal bladder was dead. Now for the recovery. I was released from hospital on Wednesday night and have been home taking it easy but still trying to keep moving now and then. The first night full day home, I walked to end of block and back and I am now walking around the block once a day. I still have pain in my rib area on right side, but at least I am able to now sleep on both sides at night and that is a big help.

My kids were great, all three of my daughters got together and sent me a lovely bouquet of flowers and they called me everyday and sometimes twice a day. My step daughter sent a card and called and step son called as well. Then there were my friends from the valley, Dick and Darlene came to see me a couple of time, Larry and MaryAnn, and Shirley and Bob who brought a lovely bouquet of yellow tulips. The computer club from Bentsen Grove sent me a nice card. There was even a phone call from one grandson and a close friend from Iowa. Wow, was that ever a pick up to know how much everyone cared. Thank-you all for helping me thru all this.

I must add something here about my experience in this hospital, I was treated well and most of the people were very nice. As a matter of fact, my nurse the first night was from Iowa and she said she was really happy to have me and be able to talk about Iowa. Then there were the two male nurses I had the night after my surgery, they were great, helped me out of bed, into bathroom and off the toilet. I told them they looked more like body guards then nurses and I have never had two big guy like that help me to potty before. LOL The food was nothing to brag about, but I was only on liquid diet for one day after surgery and solid food the day I went home, but I was not impressed. The thing that bothered me the most was the noise. If I didn't keep my room door closed I could hear all kind of loud talking outside the door. I mark this up to the fact that all the nurses have these computers they wheel around on tall carts and they would plug them into outlets in hall outside my door and stand there and chat between themselves. I was amazed they had these computers in hall working on things and not at a nurses station. The other odd thing we are not use to is all visitors are greeted in lobby and must have a pass to go to someones room for a visit and only 2 people at a time.

That brings you up to date on my gal bladder, I will be slowly getting stronger and be able to do more, but I don't want to over do it. I will also be seeing my family DR. in Cedar Rapids when I get back and bringing her up to date on my experience. Till later, everyone stay healthy and thanks again for all your support.

Brownsville - Zoo

2010-03-08T17:07:00.002-06:00

On Tuesday, March 3rd, we met up with our good friends, Larry and MaryAnn and took off for a day trip to Brownsville and the Gladys Porter Zoo. This is really the first zoo that both Roger and I have visited. We had been to the small Bever Park Zoo in Cedar Rapids, but this was a first for both of us. This zoo is not a large one, but much larger then Bever Park. We made a day of it, following the zoo map and trying to see it all. We took many pictures and got to see everything we wanted except for the gorillas and the butterflies. I guess that will give us an excuse to make another trip in future years. It is not something I would want to visit every year.

From Trip to the Zoo

The zoo was packed with school kids and I must say..............after a while.........they were getting to me. I guess I just have a hard time dealing with noisy, rude kids. I thinks we counted some 12 school buses parked in lots at the zoo. That's a lot of kids.

After the zoo we set the GPS and headed for a place to eat. We were looking for a Chinese, but the GPS never did find it, took us to a Golden Corral, so that is where we ate. What a fun day to spend with good friends.

On our way down here last fall, we had some problems with a tire, never did get if fixed, so it was time to get new tires before heading north in a couple of months. We took the RV to Pharr and after spending the entire morning at tire shop...............we now have six new tires. Oh ya, that was also after some $1,581 and them telling us we need new rotor (sp) on each side. Now we have to find the parts and get that done before we leave. Boy, if it isn't one thing it is another. We will do it as SAFETY is the most important thing and when one has an older rig, you have to expect to spend money on upkeep.

Next Saturday I will be having my craft table again. I am hoping to do good, but one evers knows. It seems that people just are holding on to there money and don't want to spend it. Not sure if I will be doing a craft table next year. Time will tell.

I have been getting things ready for a yard sale here. After moving in to this new place, there are things that were left here, that we are going to sale. We were going to wait till we came back in the fall, but because we will be bring more things down (that is in storage), we need the room for it when it gets here. Plan on having the yard sale the 19th and 20th. We did sell one of the single beds we had, one more to go. We really want to get rid of the upright freezer that is sitting in the shed. Wish us luck.

Busy......Busy.......Busy

2010-02-24T19:01:00.002-06:00

After returning from Corpus Cristy, the guy we bought our new place from, informed us they would be leaving and returning to Canada on the next Saturday. At least a week before we were expecting. We were so excited. On Saturday the (20th) we got up early and saw them off and then proceeded to go into house and look things over. We hadn't told our friends, Larry and MaryAnn that we were getting in early, and had invited them over for the afternoon. I think they were a little surprised to see us standing on the deck when they got here.

From RV.net party and New place

After moving some furniture around and checking on many different things, we got busy moving stuff over from the motor home and then the things we had packed and were in the shed. It was hard to decided where to put some things, but I think we are getting settled in now. Moving the furniture helped it to feel more like our place. We still don't have our pictures and other things set out as they are still in storage in Iowa, but we will get there. Please check out all the pictures on the web album to get a full tour of our new place.

Tuesday we went with Larry and MaryAnn to the RV.net party that is held here in the Rio Grande Valley. It was somewhat smaller this year as the organizer had an emergency and were out of town and the party had to be postponed till Feb. It was suppose to been in Jan. We had a great time, it is so good to see friends we have made in past years and meet new ones that are on the RV.net forums. We all had grilled hot dogs, chips, soda and Klondike bar. They then passed the microphone around and each couple got a chance to tell a little something about themselves along with there RV.net user name. Door prizes were given away and a group picture taken, it was then time for some more chit-chat and making more new friends.

From RV.net party and New place

On Thursday of last week, I called DirectTV to arrange for our move into house and have them come out and put up new dish. Roger decided he wanted to go the extra and get high definition. When calling I made all the arrangements and set up an appointment for Saturday afternoon. The installer came out, but..............he informed us he could not put the high definition dish on our metal roof. OH, we could pay an extra $100 to get a pole, dig a hole, pore cement and make sure it was completely plum then they would put it there. We told them "No Thank-you" I called DirectTV back that afternoon and arranged to have them come back and install a standard dish for our use. At least that is what I tried to do. After talking to the first lady, she insisted on having a tech guy call us back and see what the problem was. I think Roger must of talked to him for at least a half hour, at the end of that time, he connected me back up to costumer service to make an appointment for installation of the standard dish.

Now this gal got all my information, and then informed me they would call me back within 72 hours to make an appointment. Now wait a minute, I asked her why she didn't make the appointment as that is what they have done ever other time I have called. She said they would call me. This was Saturday, now what? Roger took the cables we had ran for satellite in the RV and ran them into house, we are using that now. Monday, I called costumer service back again, had to go through the whole thing again and set an appointment for Wednesday morning. A different guy showed up this morning and guess what, he like the first guy, had a work order for the High Def and didn't have a standard dish with him. He called someone with his phone, and talked to them, put me on the phone to talk to him and he set up another appointment for tomorrow afternoon. We are keeping our fingers crossed. When the guy calls before he comes, I am going to ask him about the order and if he doesn't have a standard dish, I am going to tell him to save the trip and boy is the #$%& going to hit the fan.

Till later, all our northern friends and family, stay warm and we will see you in the spring.

Corpus Cristy

2010-02-13T20:14:00.002-06:00

Wow, where do I start........we were getting ready for a pot luck at our park on Thursday and received a phone call from Roger's brother, Larry. They were headed for Corpus Cristy and wanted to know if we wanted to meet them there the next day. I was suppose to have a table at craft sale in Bentsen Grove, but decided to call and cancel my table and we would head out to meet up with Larry and Sharon.

We took off Friday morning and them at a Denny's, ate lunch and decided which motel we would stay at. We spent sometime chatting and catching up, then went for a walk on beach. Got checked in later on (they didn't have our rooms clean, first time we stopped at motel). Went to a small shop by motel for supper and decided what we wanted to do the next day.

Friday night, Roger and I watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, or should I say, we tried to watch. We were both having a hard time trying to stay awake. Good thing I set the DVR to tape them while we were gone.

After breakfast this morning, we took off for the USS Lexington for a self guided tour. There are 5 different tour routes to take and we made two of them in a little over 3 hours. Wow....so much to see. One really gets a workout climbing up and down all the steps on board that air craft carrier. Roger took many pictures.............till while we were up on the flight deck, his battered died and guess what, he left the extra (charged) battery at the motel. After the tour we returned to motel for battery and continued on with our days journey. Be sure to check out all the photo's in "My Web Albums"...........Roger had camera and was having fun taking pictures.

From Corpus Cristy

Larry drove to Port Aransas and take the ferry ride. We spent the day exploring the area and eating out again. It was fun to spend the day with them and get a chance to do something different. We have been living in RV waiting to get into our new place and the change of scenery is nice.

We will be leaving tomorrow to return to Mission and get back in the swing of things there.

Moved into RV

2010-01-30T16:37:00.002-06:00

Selling our place at Bentsen Grove was a hard thing for me. I got to know so many nice people there and between the Computer Club and Line Dancing, I am going to miss everyone. We must move on and that is what we have been doing the past few weeks.

Our new place in Valley View Estates, is still occupied by the couple we bought it from. We were nice and let them stay there (even tho we now own it). So we have now moved into the RV which is sitting on an RV pad next to house (mobile home). This move was confusing as there were things to move back into RV and some things to go to house. Since we can not get in house yet, they needed to be packed and put in shed till such time we get house. That was hard part as it ended up much was just packed, moved to RV then if I didn't have room, it was repacked and put in shed. I think we are finally to the point that the RV is live able for now.

I have not been able to get the satellite dish set up here, I don't understand why I have so much trouble with it. Seems like every time we move the RV I have this problem. I called DirectTV and they are sending someone out on Monday to help me get it set up. I am sure I have all the settings right. Roger is also expecting the guy to come fix our steps on RV. They would not come out and it was very hard to move in with no steps. Roger met the guy here last week and it seems the motor is shot, so had to order a new motor for steps. If it's not one thing it's another.

While trying to get the satellite stuff out from under belly of RV, the neighbor came over and informed Roger, he didn't want him walking on his grass, he is trying to grow grass there. Take my word for it, the grass is a mess on both sides of his place and there is no way he is going to get grass to grow there. He wanted us to move RV over so Roger would walk on driveway. We moved it and Roger can walk on driveway, but he will still have to step off when he gets into bays or has to dump holding tanks. I don't know what it is, but somehow we always manage to get a neighbor that has some kind of complaint for us. When we lived in Cedar Rapids (17 years) the lady next door was upset because we were parked in alley buy her trash cans and they were sitting way far back off alley and the garbage men would not walk the extra feet to get it. I was all our fault. Then we moved to Stanwood, there the town held a meeting to get us to install special skirting on mobile home so it would look like foundation, then one guy complained about our mail box. Then we get to Bentsen Grove and the neighbor there complained about our dog. Now it is the grass. Guess we just can't win. We will be nice about it and maybe kill them with kindness. LOL

Went to a program at hall last night. It was a family from Alaska that have a show in Branson. They have 7 kids and travel with all of them in a motor home. They call themselves "Redhead Express" The girls are the main entertainment. Ages 20 - 18 - 16- 14. The 20 year old writes many of their songs and plays lead guitar, the 18 year old is the banjo player and has a smile that you can not forget. The 16 year old is a fiddle player and Madelin player and boy can she yodel. The youngest girl (14) is a base player and she is good. Mom and Dad both sing and then there are three younger brothers (11 - 9 - 7) and they play banjo, Madelin and base also. Really cute to see the 7 year old try to play that big base.

Till next time. Stay warm and remember............spring will come, just don't know when.

Sold our place at Bentsen Grove

2010-01-18T17:41:00.002-06:00

While visiting friends on Saturday, Roger received a phone call from a couple who were at our place in Bentsen Grove and wanted to look at it. We were across town, he really didn't want to go as so far all of the showings have not amounted to anything. He gave in, told the guy he could be there in 15 minutes. That was a good move as they bought it, put money down and now we are working on paper work. They wanted to move by Feb. 1st and since we have the motor home to move into, we agreed. We will be moving into MH until we can move into new place before March 1st. The motor home is located at the new place and has full hookups, so it is going to work out okay. Now I am trying to decided what to move into motor home and what to pack to go into house when we get moved into it. There are two storage sheds at new place, so we can store stuff there.

Till later...........will keep you posted.

2010-01-13T15:21:00.002-06:00

Winter here in Mission, Rio Grande Valley, is not as nice and warm as the past two years we have been here. We have been having some cold and rain and everyone around is hoping it will warm up soon. I am sure it will as winter can't last too long around here. I just keep telling myself that it is not as cold as it is in the North and we can live with this. We did have some very cold nights, below freezing and a warning was put out for the fruit corp. Since we have two ruby red grapefruit trees and 4 orange trees, we had to do something. We were told at the park meeting that if it gets below 28 degree for more then 6 hours it would ruin the fruit and it would be best to pick the fruit. We did just that and then got out our juicer and made orange juice and froze it. We were lucky that the place we are buying has a very large freezer in the shed and that is where the juice ended up.

From 2010 - January

All the parks are filling up and all park and valley activities are in full swing. I am still doing computer club on Monday mornings. Over the Christmas break, we offered informal computer help instead of the class like setting we do. That format went over very well. The skill level of seniors are so different and it is hard in class to make sure everyone is understanding what is going on and what to do. Then too, we have new people arriving new each week and if they are new to computers, it is a catch up to what we have covered already in class. Thanks to one of the instructors, he has offered to open up the meeting room and have that informal one on one help for 3 days a week and some of us go up to help with that. My other big activity is line dancing and if I get a chance, it meets four times a week. Due to my having a cold or sinus problems the past week or two, I have not been attending line dancing but hope to get back to it this week.

On Friday the 8th we had an appointment with our lawyer and cosed on our new place. We are now the proud owners of our next home. I still do not have photos to share with you of the inside, as the couple we bought it from are still there. We will be getting it on March 1st. We have spent a lot of time with them and feel like old friends. They are from Canada and we have agreed on March 1st as they want to spend more “warm time” here. We have started to move some things over to the new place. We had some things at our place in Bentsen Grove that we wanted to take with us and since we are selling it furnished, we needed to change out a recliner. We took Roger's new lazy boy over to new place and brought one of their recliners over here. We also had an area rug we had bought last spring and we wanted to take it with us. When we show the place at Bentsen Grove we felt we should have the things in it we are going to be leaving, not have to tell them “ and we are going to take this, replace it with this, we are going to take that, etc. Also, it doesn't hurt to declutter. Now Roger is wondering what he is going to do with all the things he kept when we sold our place in Stanwood. We have a storage garage rented and I must say, it is full. When we get back to Iowa this spring/summer we will have to go through things and do some more sorting and thinning out. When you buy a furnished place, you just don't need all the things you thought you needed.

After waking up Christmas morning and opening our gifts to each other, Roger decided to take the trash to the dumpster and drop our plates off at the hall so we could get our place for dinner. After going outside to get his bike, he came back inside and informed me someone stole his 21 speed bike. We ended up calling the Sheriff after dinner and making a report, but it seems there have been many, many bikes stolen from this park and others in the area. Who ever it is, crawls under the fence, finds the bikes and throws them over the fence where they are loaded into a truck and then they are back under fence and gone. We did do some looking at pawn shops to see if it showed up, but that didn't do any good. Spent a day checking out new bikes, but decided to wait. Our friends (Larry and MaryAnn) from the park next to our, called us and said they had friends in their park who wanted to sell a 7 speed bike. That is what Roger had decided he wanted. He never did use all the gears on the 21 speed. He ended up buying it and is now back to riding his bike.

From 2010 - January

We are keeping busy despite the cool weather and the time seems to be flying by. Still have our place at Bentsen Grove up for sale and seem to show it a couple times a week. With all the people arriving in the valley, we are just waiting for that right person to come look at it.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-23T10:29:00.002-06:00

Boy, have we been busy. We put our place here at Bentsen Grove Resort up for sale and have had a few lookers, but nothing serious yet. It takes a little extra time each morning to make sure it is all clean and ready to show, just in case some one stops in or calls to see it. The park has a notebook in the office with a listing of units for sale. I made up a page to add for our place. We also have a sign up on the unit so and then it is word of mouth. We will put it in the "Winter Texan Paper" after the first of the year. Hopefully we will get someone that is interested in it.

On the 14th we made a trip to Hidalgo for their Christmas light display. Hidalgo is South of McAllen. We went with Larry and MaryAnn from the park next to ours. Of course we went out to eat first then went for the light show. This is our 3rd winter here and the first time we made it down to see the lights. What a great time we had and the lights were wonderful, so much to take in and it seemed like I was sitting on the wrong side of the trolley to get the pictures I want. Now if I can remember next time to site on same side as driver, I will get pictures of other side. LOL Most of the pictures we taken from moving trolley, so not as good as I would of liked. Also, I haven't learned how to use all the features on the new camera, so that would improve them also. Be sure to click on picture to take you to rest of photo's in "My Photo Album".

From Hidalgo lights and Green Gate parade

Roger has signed us up for Christmas dinner here at the park, it will be at noon, then we will pack up and head to Valley View (were our new place is) and have pot luck with them at 5pm. Boy are we going to be stuffed. I just don't know why we need to have two big meals that day, but as the saying goes...............whatever.

Yesterday morning, I received a phone call from my sister, Linda. She drives truck and was headed this way with a load and wanted to know if we could meet up with her. We had made planes to meet with the couple we are buying our new place with, to go see a lawyer. So I told Linda we could meet her before that. We then took off to check at our old park to see if our packages had been delivered there, then on to meet Linda. She wasn't here yet, but would be around 10:45am, so we headed for Weslaco where she was to unload. We waited till she got there, which was around 11:30 and then went for lunch. Left there and met with Jack and Sharon and lawyer and waited for Linda to call after she got unloaded and knew what her next load would be. She hadn't called, so I called her and she said she was just finished unloading and didn't know about another load yet, so she was going to head to Flying J and park there and get back to me when she found out. After leaving Jack and Sharon, we started for home, on way got a call from Linda, she didn't have a new load and would find out in morning if she got one then. I dropped Roger off at home (we were almost there) and I took off for the Flying J in Edinburg to pick her up. She was going to spend the night at our place, and I would take her back to her rig in the morning or when she found out about a load. Low and behold, we weren't even back home yet and she got a call, she had a load to pick up in Huston by 11am the next morning so she couldn't spend the night and would need to go back to Flying J. Roger was at park next to ours watching a gulf cart Christmas parade so we went there to get him, so he could ride back with me. Buy this time I had not had any supper and hadn't eaten since the Subway sandwich we had for lunch. It was back to Flying J and home again. I felt like I had been driving all day. Regardless, it was good to see Linda and spend a little time with her.

Like I said before, Roger went to Green Gate park to see the gulf cart parade there. We have some friends there (the ones we went to Hidalgo with) and he had is gulf cart in parade. Roger took pictures, so be sue to check them out.

From Hidalgo lights and Green Gate parade

I seems we are ready for Christmas, both of us have finished our shopping and have our cards and packages mailed. We have received packages from three of our five kids and know of one more on it's way so everything is a go. Then we have our plans for 2 dinners and the day spent with friends, Dick and Darlene. All that is left is to wish:

Merry Christmas to all our family and friends from Mission, Texas

Our New Place

2009-12-01T17:05:00.002-06:00

We made it back over and took some pictures of our new place. Now please remember we are still at Bentsen Grove and won't be moving into new place till March. We did take the motor home over and have it parked on the pad there and hooked up to electric. The couple we are buying from are so nice, we seem to stay and have a good chat with them each time we go over. It helps to have our good friends, Dick and Darlene across the alley, so we stop and chat with them also. Here are the pictures, be sure to click on the first one and it will take you to My Photo Albums. Then you can view all of the pictures of the place.

From Our new place

The computer club went to lunch yesterday and we had a good time. Class seemed to go pretty good. I did a hands on class with everyone making a file, saving it, then going to documents and making a folder to put it in. We then dragged and dropped it into the folder.

While we were out to eat, the subject came up of our moving (some of them read my blog) and one of the couples wanted to come over and look at our place here. We haven't put it up for sale yet, but they seamed interested. Have to wait and see, we have a lot of time.

Hope you enjoy the photo's, till later..................Happy Trails

Happy Thanksgiving

2009-11-24T08:33:00.002-06:00

We have been in Mission for over a month now and getting back into the swing of things. Computer Club here at the park is meeting every Monday morning and they have asked me to teach the beginners class. I was a little worried about this as I am no pro at computers but said OK anyway. Thanks to some DVD's I bought from Geeks On Tour, I have used them in class and they seem to have saved the day. Now mind you, I do some of the class on my own as well, but the videos have helped a lot. The first weeks lesson was on using the mouse, and basics such as WordPad, the desktop, etc. The second week was learning about getting on the Internet and a little about how to navigate around. This past week, we went into email. We have everyone open a Gmail account from Google and that way everyone is following along on the same screen. Most of them bring their laptops and we have tables set up and it looks and feels like a real classroom. The club also has and advance class which follows the beginners and I feel if I learn just one thing each week, I have learned.

I have also started back with line dancing. They are meeting about 4 days a week, so far I have not made all 4 days in one week. Just seems I have something else going on. They also have a beginners and an advance class. I was going to the beginners (and I still do quite a bit), but I really get a little bored, as every time a new person shows up, it is like stating all over again. With my dancing background, I think I catch on pretty well, so I have decided to attend more of the advance classes. I may go to some beginners classes also.

The park will be having their big Thanksgiving dinner at the hall on Thursday. We have signed up to bring a desert so I will be making pumpkin pie. They have different colored pages to sign up on and that is the group you will sit with during dinner. We are with the orange group. Each color group has serving tables with their food so the lines aren't too long. We have been in some parks, that if you are one of the last tables to be called to get your food, everything is picked over and some of it is gone and by the time you sit down to eat, the people who were first are getting up and heading home. Real get together time there, don't you think?

The park had it's first craft sale and I had my table, but November is not a good month. First of all there are a lot of people who do not come down till after Thanksgiving. Also, people have spent money traveling here, have expenses when they get here, food to buy, etc. so they are not spending there money at craft sales. I made a whopping $13.50 and then had to pay out $3 for the table. Wasn't hardly enough to buy lunch, so went home to eat. I am hoping Dec. will be better. I am making some poinsettia pot holders for the Christmas sale. Hope they are different enough that they will sale.

We have been spending time visiting other parks where you can own your own land and looking at other units. One of the things on our wish list was to have a space to park the RV on the same lot and most of the parks you can't do that. We even went and looked into new mobile homes. Saw some really nice ones, but with the price and then having to buy a lot, and the set up fees and putting on a Texas room, it would be way over our budget. We kept going back to one unit we spotted and even made two showings of it. The owners live in Canada and were not down here yet, Roger talked to them on phone, but we decided to wait till they got here. We went to see them on Sunday and after talking to them for a long time, we decided to buy it. We have put money down on it and will work out all the details later. They want to stay down here till March so we will not be moving till then. It does have a pad for RV with sewer, water and we will put in the elec. hook up for RV. It is 2 bedroom, 2 bath, living, kitchen, laundry and yes, a Texas room. It also has a large covered deck and one small shed and one large shed that is set up as a work shop with over head storage. It is at Valley View park and our friends live right behind this place so it will be handy. We are excited about it, but it will be a long wait till March.

May you all have a very Happy Thanksgiving and enjoy your family and friends.

In Mission - Bentsen Grove

2009-10-22T09:36:00.002-05:00

We arrived here in Monday (19th) around 4:30pm. It is good to get here and get settled in. We are still working on the settling in thing. Have to take RV to the storage area today. We parked RV across the street and unloaded it after cleaning our trailer. I can't believe we had so much stuff to unload. with my crafts and Roger's tools he brought, it took awhile. Roger got my 3 wheel bike out of shed and filled the tires with air. I am ready for a bike ride now. We were going to take one last night, Roger got the front tire on his bike put on and went to fill it with air, and blew the inner tube. Now he has to get a new tube. We took a walk instead.

There really isn't much to write about as not much happening in park right now and our friends aren't here either. I want to make it to the pool today and I want to check out the exercise room and show Roger how to use some of the equipment. We did take our pop cans to the recycle area and crushed them, then to the hall and read the bulletin boards. Seems they are having garage sales here this Sat. and a Halloween party on the 31st. We also signed up for flu shots for next Tuesday. Wow...........isn't that all exciting??? Not really, but like I said before, not much to write about.

The weather has been nice, in the 80's. Slept with the air on last night, haven't done that for awhile. We were sleeping with heater running all the way down here. The fruit trees in our yard are full of grapefruit and oranges, but they are still green so it will be awhile before we get some of that great fruit.

We did venture out yesterday and did some driving round and looking at other parks for mobile homes for sale. I can see this is going to take awhile to find the right price and everything we want. I like the park we are in, but we lease the spot and own our trailer. The activities in this park are great and I have made many friends. Roger wants to own the land as well as the mobile home and many parks are set up that way. It is the activities in those parks that sometimes are not up to par with what I want. Roger doesn't do activities, so it really doesn't mean anything to him. Also, we have a wish list of what we want this time around, so finding everything is the challenge.

"How beautiful a day can be when kindness touches it"

Too Cold.......Left Iowa

2009-10-14T17:15:00.002-05:00

Wow, the title says it all. It was cold and they turned off the water at the campground we were staying at, we checked into another one, but they were going to turn off water too. Roger called both the Dr's and they got him in on Monday (12th) so Tuesday morning we took off for the south.

When we left our place in Stanwood, the satellite box was one of the last things we took out, and wouldn't you know, I pulled all the wires off the box, went to back of TV and gathered up wires and then missed the power cord for satellite box. Called the new owner and she found it and dropped it off at our son's house who lives a half a block away.

Monday while Roger was running around doing his DR appointments I spent the day at daughter, Sandy's house doing laundry. Took my lap top with me and the cord with my Verizon USB card and when I left, I left the cord. Didn't get lap top out of bag till last night and had to call Sandy to see if it was there. Now they have to mail it to me. They are going to overnight it and we will pick it up at a post office close by. I just can't go without my Internet. I must have a block for cords.

We are at Mark Twain Landing campground outside of Monroe City, MO right now. Will go into Monroe City and check at post office tomorrow, if the cord is there, we can move on, if not it will be another night here. I must say this is a very nice campground, but it is still cold here. Don't know how much further we will have to go South before it gets warmer. I went to office today and she gave me the code to use the Wifi here, so I am now almost a happy camper. We have cable TV here, but no ABC. I watch alot of ABC, so having some withdrawal with that.

Tuesday morning before we left, Roger had to drive back to Stanwood and stop at post office as we needed to pick up mail (they were closed on Monday, Columbus Day). He also had to go back to Dr for blood test. Besides picking up mail, I asked him to get me 100.........forever stamps. He gave me the check book when he got home, the check was for $80.80, then he gave me the stamps. He had a total of 20 stamps....................WHAT..........20 stamps for $80, WOW. I guess he and the gal at the post office did not understand each other. I called her this morning and she said she changed to check. I guess my lost cords aren't that big a deal now.

Not much more news, we are glad to be on our way, just wish it was warmer. Checked weather in Mission and still in 90's there with some 80's. Sure sounds good to me right now.

Paper's signed.....we are now homeless

2009-10-06T19:07:00.002-05:00

We closed on our home yesterday and are now moved out and sitting in a campground in Cedar Rapids. I must say it was a lot of work those last 4 days. I am soooo tired, getting to old for this. We have some mixed emotions about it, will not miss the town of Stanwood, never really made any friends there but we will miss the mobile home. We really liked that place, just hope we can find a good place in Texas that is as great. There is no hurry to find one, we want to be certain so we don't have to do this moving again.

Roger has Dr. appointments on the 19th and 20th and we will be leaving here after that. We are going to take this time to try to see all our friends and family and get a few things done we have been putting off. Who know, we might even take in a movie. While living in Stanwood, it was always a long drive to Cedar Rapids, so didn't get to do some of those things. It is getting quite cold here, and our old bones are not use to this, we are looking forward to heading south.

Till later

House Closing on Monday the 5th

2009-10-01T17:37:00.002-05:00

Just wanted everyone to know, we got word this afternoon that we will be closing on our house on Monday. We were hoping for a week of two to get everything moved, but lawyer said we should be moved out by Monday, so she can get keys, etc. It is a good thing, we have almost everything packed and waiting in garage to be moved. Roger went down and got a storage unit today, so will start with some of it tomorrow. Making my list of things to get done and which day to do them. It is raining here, so that may put a damper on things for tomorrow. Geeee........we are getting tooooooooooo old for all this moving stuff.

I think I told everyone about the sending the new camera in to get fixed. I did get the card back and now have those pictures in "My Web Albums" There a some of our place here and most of them are of our grand-daughter, Emily and the high school band. She is in color guard and does a great job. If you want to view all of them, just click on photo and it will take you to the web album.

From 2009-09-30

Not sure when I will get back here to write again, I am going to be busy for a few days. We will be taking RV into Cedar Rapids and camping at Morgan Creek at least till the 15th, that is when the park closes for the season. Roger has two doctor appointments the 19th and 20th, so can't leave till after that. We are hoping Morgan Creek will remain open for a few more days, if not, I think we will be headed to Hawkeye Downs Fairgounds. If you are in the area, stop by and see us.

Till later.................Happy Trails

Sold our home

2009-09-17T10:05:00.001-05:00

We have an offer on our place and there has been earnest money put down on it. We took the papers to the lawyer to look over and get things going. Now it is a wait game. The lady who is buying it is going thru a divorce and wants this place to move into. She is living with her mother right now. We are not sure if it will close before we leave for the Rio Grande Valley, but we are packing up everything and getting ready anyway. We will be moving it all into storage for now and after we find a different place in Texas, we will come back and get it.

Here is a picture of our place. This was taken from the street.

The time just seems to fly buy. I have everything almost packed up here and only kitchen left to do. Don’t want to pack it too soon as still stuff we are using every day. As it is, it seems like there is always something we are looking for and it is packed. Been loading RV at same time, so most of what we need is there.

I got Roger a new camera the end of July. We had taken some pictures with in at the Jefferson football game last Friday night. Our grand daughter, Emily is co-captain of the color guard and they preformed. When trying to upload them to my laptop, I couldn’t get the cord to attach to camera right, now the camera won’t work at all. What a bummer. I hope I didn’t mess up something trying to get the cord attached.

Not much more happening is dullsville (Stanwood). I must say, we will not miss this town. Have never made any friends here, we will miss our home and Roger is going to miss his garage, but those can be replaced. I am really looking forward to doing more traveling next summer. Not sure where we will be going, but even if we make a few RV rallies, it will be a start. At least we will not be tired to this place, mowing lawn and working in garden.

I will keep you posted when the sale is finale, hope it is soon. Roger has an eye appointment the 19th of Oct, and we are planning on leaving after that.

Where did this month go?

2009-08-25T09:23:00.002-05:00

Wow, we are in the last full week of August and I just can't believe it. I don't know where it went. I am not sure if that means I am very busy or just retired and we all know time goes by faster when you are retired.

We have an appointment tomorrow to take the Vue into Cedar Rapids and have the tow bar welded on. We are going to have to take both cars as, it will take all day and too far to come back home, so we will make a day of it. Not sure what we are going to do all day, I called one of my friends to let her know we would be in town, but haven't heard back from her. Guess maybe we might see if there is a movie we can go see, that ought to kill some time.

After getting home from our camping trip with Roger's brother Larry and wife Sherri, we have been trying to finish up with things here at home. We had ordered two new bathroom sinks and they came right before we left to camp, so Roger got them installed. The other project was to get the crack in kitchen ceiling fixed. We had a guy come to do it, he works on mobile homes all the time and when he was here to winterize the place last fall, he told us he could fix it. Well, he wasn't quite sure how he was going to do it, but ended up mounting a 1x4 on ceiling all the way across. Roger is now painting it. That will pretty much end all the fix it projects. Now I need to get out to garage with Roger and start sorting all his garage treasures (that's what he likes to call them).

I have been working on my crafts for the craft sales at our park over the winter. They have one every month and the table only cost me $3 each month. I have many crocheted items, manly bookmarks, butterflies, hanger covers and photo frames. I have also made tissue box cover with plastic canvas and these have photo frames on side. The other item I make is sun catchers made out of beads. These I learned how to make sometime ago and they take quite a bit of time to do as I have to drill the holes, cut the sticks, sting the beads, etc. I have just finished making some 34 of them. They are not all alike, I have cardinals, blue jays, USA hearts, hummingbirds, red hats, Canada flag, and hearts. I am now working on some more of the tissue boxes. Don't know what will be next, I made a list of everything I had left in Texas and that helps to decided what I need to make more of. I like to keep my hands busy, so it is craft, craft, craft.

I decide to look into Face Book as everyone seems to be doing it. I joined and can keep up with what the rest of family is doing. I have been able to see photos that I never would of seen if I hadn't joined and read about what family is doing. I also go hooked playing Farkle. Oh well, you only live once, might as well enjoy it.

We are not quite sure when we will be leaving Iowa for Texas. Roger has an eye appointment the 19th of Oct. so will have to be after that. I really wanted to leave earlier, but guess not. We are still waiting for the sale of our place to happen. Have one gal that wants it, but is getting a divorce so the money has not happened yet. She did line up for someone to come and evaluate it and they are suppose to come this afternoon. I hate this waiting till the last minute as if this is going to happen, I need to start packing. I am getting too old to try and get it done all in a time frame of a couple of weeks. I guess we are going to give her till the end of Sept. and if there is no down payment, we will pull it off the market and try again next spring when we get back. I have packed some things and have them sitting in garage. It is just hard to know what to pack and still make this place look lived in. I can't strip all the walls bare (yet).

Roger likes Bluegrass music and we missed the festival that was in Strawberry Point (Backbone) so I looked on line and found out the one in Central City is this weekend, so we are going to go to that. Will pack the lawn chairs, cooler and maybe I will take a craft to work on while listening to music. Should be a fun time and good to get away for a day.

"The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra."

Coralville Lake

2009-08-10T17:05:00.003-05:00

After being home for almost 3 months, we finally got the motor home out and are camping. Met Roger's brother at Coralville Lake to camp for 6 days. We have had rain and storms, and now heat and humidity. The TV reception is not all that great and we can not get ABC or NBC with our TV. Roger's brother (Larry) is parked next to us and he gets them. I just don't get this new digital TV thing. I told Roger he needed to get up on roof and cut some tree branches away from the antenna. Do you think that has anything to do with it. I am having TV withdrawal, good thing I have the DVR set at home to record all my favorite show. Will catch up this next week.

After attending our grandson's graduation last May, and seeing the zoom my daughter got with her camera, Roger decided we needed a camera with a better zoom. Well, we got it and have been playing around with it while we are camping. All the pictures in my new album will be from the new camera. It is Nikon Coolpix P90. It has 12.1 Megapixels, Wide 24X zoom, 3 inch Vari-angle monitor and vibration reduction. It is going to take some time to get use to it. As you can see from my pictures, we have a ways to go.

From Coralville Lake

We spotted these geese out on the lake our first day camping and got out the camera. Then we tried really zooming in on them. Remember, we have no tripod so found it was had to get a good focus. Here is a picture of geese with the zoom.

From Coralville Lake

Not too bad, but still working on the zoom. Be sure to click on either picture to take you to rest of the photo's.

Roger's daughter (Jenny) and her three girls came by campground for a visit. They live in Muscatine so we don't see a lot of them. They went to the beach for a swim and then back here for hot dogs. Roger's son(Matt) and wife (Heather) came by with his boat and gave everyone a ride. The boat use to belong to Jenny's father in law and had ran for 15 years, so Jenny was glad get to get a ride in it.

From Coralville Lake

I then tried to get a sunset pictures. The sun was setting behind some campers in a distance, and here is what I got. Not too bad for my first try.

From Coralville Lake

Now I have the smart card in my purse and going to take it and Roger to Wal-Mart and show him how to get the prints made. He keeps telling me he wants prints to look at not just the computer. Do you think that has anything to do with the fact, he doesn't do anything on computer.

I must say, I like this new camera. We got it with the idea that Roger would like it and use it more. He needs a hobby and thought he would take more pictures this way. I think he is going to have to use it more to get use to it and learn the different settings one at a time. One of the things that is nice about it is, when I upload the pictures to Picasa, there is very little editing to do. Seems like the camera takes a great picture.

Check out the VUE

2009-08-03T11:08:00.002-05:00

We are into August now and the summer is going by very fast. I check on the temp in Mission and there is no way we want to be there now. Sure hope it gets a little cooler before we head down there this fall. As of now, we are planning on leaving here around the middle of Oct. and maybe do a little site seeing on our way. There is so much to see and do and it seems we never really stop to do them. Roger says it is me and I say it is him. I guess it is alittle of both of us. I can plan all the stops and things and spend time looking them up, but I would like some feed back from him and some help with the planning. Seems to me, he has a free ride, as I am the one that charts the route and campgrounds, etc. Come on Roger, lets work together on this.

We did get most of our painting done. I posted a picture of our master bath last time, I took a new picture and I must say it turned out pretty good. I am not sure how many people will be happy with the color, but I like and they can always paint it after they buy the place. Here is the master bath now.

From Summer in Iowa

It was really had to match the green counter and we didn't want to redo them. We have gotten new sink to install and Roger is working on that as I am typing this. The trip to find the sinks was and adventure all its own. Roger had called a mobile home place and found out there was a place in Davenport that sold mobile home parts, after checking, it was in Moline. We took off last week on Monday for our trip to get new sinks, got there and they don't carry the kind or shape we needed. You will notice in photo they are sort of a square shape. They sent us to a couple of other places and still no luck. After returning home, I googled "mobile home parts" and opened up the first site that was listed, went to "bath and there they were our sinks, they were even in the color we wanted............and only $19.95 each. Wow, we should of down that in the first place. I placed the order and they arrived here on Friday. We are moving right along with getting this place fixed up for someone else and hopefully we can sell it.

Last summer Roger put on vinyl siding and when he did that we closed off one of the doors to the mobile home. You see there were two doors in front, one to living area and one to bedroom right next to living room (I use that as my office). We really didn't like two doors almost right together and when we moved in here, we had a back door added off the kitchen, so didn't need the door in bedroom. After closing it off, we never finished it off on inside, only put some insulation up, now we have added paneling to back side and sides and are going to put shelves in the opening. It is an easy fix, but better for us then trying to sheet rock. Only one more fix to do after Rog gets the new sinks in, and that is the crack in ceiling from when they moved this mobile home here. That one is going to be hired out, hopefully real soon, as I want to advertise and have an open house to see about selling and time is running out before time to leave.

I guess I didn't tell the story about Roger selling his Mazda pickup. He had $750 on it and had some lookers but decided he needed to take it in and see about getting the catalytic converter removed or what ever it was he has going to do, it was clogged. The guy told him there was a problem with the brakes and it would cost him about $160 to fix. Well, he didn't want to put anymore into it, he wanted to get rid of it. He had a guy that had offered him $550 but Roger said he acted like a jerk and he would not sell it too him. He gave in and called the guy and in the end the guy jewed him down another $50. Ok, $500 in our pocket. A week or so later we had gone out to eat and were walking down the sidewalk when here comes his truck and pulls in a parking space right in front of us. It wasn't the same guy that had bought it so Roger ask the guy if he just bought the truck, he says yes and Rog wants to know what he paid for it, he tells the guy he just sold it. Well, the guy paid $1,100 for it. OUCH. After a long talk with this guy, and Roger is telling him some of the history of the truck and what needs to be done, we also find out the they guy is interested in the tow bar we have to go with it. We give him our name and phone number. He does call later and buys the tow bar from us. At least Roger gets another $50 for it.

Now Roger is feeling really low about loosing his truck so he starts thinking about what will make him happy and what he wants next. We start looking for a SATURN VUE. After some local looking I get on the computer and find one that he likes in Wisc, so we made a trip and bought a 2006 Saturn Vue. Here is a picture of it, now we have to get it set up for towing.

From Summer in Iowa

Now if any of you readers are interested in buying our 2001 Saturn SL200, let me know.

Some of the other excitement in our lives is our trip to Clear Lake for the family picnic, we just got back from that. We are going to get the RV out and go camping the next week with Roger's brother and wife for a week, that should be fun and a break from the work around here. If you click on one of the photo's I posted it will take you to the rest of the album and you can check out the rest of our excitement, 40th Ann. party for one of Roger's friends, visit with grand kids, painting and others. Check it out.

Remember: Love is a little word; people make it big.

What to write about??

2009-07-13T15:37:00.003-05:00

Here it is the middle of July and I have not posted anything on here yet. Shame on me. I just have a hard time coming up with things to say and to share. I have never been good about keeping a journal, so why should this be any different?

I sent the hand scanner I got off QVC, back to QVC. I just didn't like it and they have a 30 day return policy, so why not send it back? It wasn't doing me any good sitting in the corner. I am still scanning and editing photos in Picasa, I am up to 1995 now, not bad considering I started with the years I was married and raising my three girls, that was 1966. I put those all in one album and burned a DVD for each of my girls. Now I want to make a cover for it.

My crafts..........I finished the cro-hook afghan I was making. Wanted to make one for two of the granddaughter's for graduation next spring. Had one done and needed to make another one. Now with that done, I have started on my beaded sun catchers. Roger got me the sticks when he went to Menards and I am now marking where the holes go and then will go to garage and drill all the holes. Have six sticks and there are 116 holes each stick............WOW I'm tired just thinking of it. I am sending in an order for more beads, it should be here about the time I get all those holes drilled. Roger did buy me a small drill press and that is a big help.

We have had a few showings on your place here. It seems people have trouble getting loans for a mobile home. This last one seems like it was going to be the one, but we haven't heard back from her, she was going to bring her mother over on Saturday to look at it, but it was a no show. If we don't sell it this summer, will try again next spring when we come back home. We have been trying to get a few things done around here to make it better. Got some paint and decided to paint the master bath. It had a horrid rose wall paper on walls and really out dated. The bath room also has these green counter tops. It is really hard to match the counter tops (can't take them to store with us) so after trying a couple of times, decided to go with a light lavender. It was that or pink or yellow. I already had purple towels and rugs in there, so it was lavender. I must say it looks pretty good. Not sure how many other people are going to like it, but it is better then the roses. I am going back and doing touch up painting right now. I hate to rat on my hubby..........I've already told him this...........but he is a terrible painter. He wants to get in there and get it done in a hurry and the paint gets on too think and runs and then a mess. Even taping, he gets the tape on where it is covering part of the wall, so now it is back to touching up. Oh well, I have nothing but time. We are going to get new sinks and faucets for both bathrooms, but have to make a trip to Davenport for that. There is a place down there were we can buy mobile home items. The sinks are sort of a square shape and we don't want to replace counters so that is our best bet. I bet your asking, why not new counters if there is a green one in master bath.......let me tell you, it is a very odd shape and a lot of angle cuts and Roger is not good at that sort of thing............so just new sinks.

Ok, I did find this photo, it shows you the rose wall paper and the green counters, I will take another photo when I am all done with bath room and you can see the change.

Guess that is about all for now. Haven't taken any new pictures to send on to you, I could send you some that I am scanning, but they would be old ones. Maybe I will do that for next post. Till later, stay cool, drive safe and Happy Trails

Senior moment

2009-06-24T09:15:00.002-05:00

Last Friday we went to the retirement party for my old boss. We made arrangements to meet another couple I worked with and ride with them as parking was slim. I had taken my camera and had it in the car with me and wouldn't you know, when getting into their van, I left the camera..............no pictures from the party and all my old friends from work. Hopefully, one of my friends will share with me, I have my fingers crossed. I was hoping to post some pictures here, I am sure everyone is ready for new photos. It is hard to come up with new ones when we are not traveling and no Keota to take pictures of. Guess I will need to do a better job of keeping camera ready to shoot.

I have been going thru all our photo albums and pulling out photos. Started scanning them and putting them on computer then, make DVD's with them. It is quite a job, but when one is retired, we have all kinds of time. Once they are scanned, I edit them with Picasa and label all of them. I can't believe all the photos that have no writing on back to tell you who they are when they were taken. I came across this a lot when doing the old photo's of Roger's family and I don't know the people so really hard to label them. I need to get him to sit down with me and go through them with me........like that is going to happen. LOL My scanner will not work with vista and that is what I have on my lap top so I am using my desk computer to do the scanning. I was going to get rid of it, but when I found out I could not get a driver for this scanner to work with Vista, decided to keep the desk PC just for scanning. I have two computers in office running all the time, one scanning and one for my other work. I saw on QVC a while back, a small photo scanner that you can sit on couch and do your scanning while watching TV. Wow, that's what I need. I ordered it and it was great till the plastic sleeve the photos were to go in to do the scanning got streaked from going thru the scanner. After awhile the scans were a poor quality, so back to my old scanner.

I really need to get out may crafts and see what I need to make to take back down to Texas for the craft sales. I made a list of what I had before I left and I know I will need to order more beads for my sun catchers. Should do that this week as it will take a while to make out the bead order and then have them mailed to me. The rest of the things I can do as I want, but the beads need to be ordered. Not sure about the craft sales in Texas, I like doing them, but it seems I don't really sell that much, wondering if it is worth it. But for those of you who know me, I love doing my crafts and I need to keep busy.

Not much more news around Stanwood, I go for my 2 mile walk in the mornings then stay in where it is cool and work on my computer and some house work and crafts. What more can I say. Happy Trails to everyone and stay cool and stay safe.

Birthday

2009-06-13T14:13:00.002-05:00

This past week has been a busy one. Started off on Monday going to Cedar Rapids and getting my physical. I didn't get one last year, so I guess you could call it my every two year one. LOL. I have been having a swishing sound in my left ear for about 3 years now and talked to my Dr. about it, she decided to send me for some test. On Friday I made another trip to Cedar Rapids and had a full blood workup done, then went for an MRI for my ear. After that went and got my mammogram . I always hate those, but I guess better safe then sorry. The MRI was no picnic either. Had to lay still for 25 minutes in the tube with loud noises. I ended up singing to myself and made it to 17 bottles on bear on the wall. After the 25 minutes, they moved me out, gave me a shot in vain and back in the tube for another 10 minutes. I also went for a hearing test that afternoon. When I got there, I was told the appointment was for 11am. Woops, someone made a mistake, I told her I had a card in my car that said 1pm and if she wanted I would go get it for her. I had the mammogram appointment at 11am. She ended up taking me anyway. Now that all the test are over with, it is wait to hear from my doctor and see what the results are.

The rest of the week was taken up with dinner in Iowa City with my friend Janis and her hubby Jim, then on Wed. our friends from Mission stopped by to see our place. That was Dick and Darlene, Dick went to school with Roger in Clear Lake so they go wayyyyyyyyyy back. We also went out to eat with them. I bet I gained a few pounds this past week.

I started off this post with a heading of "Birthday" so I guess I better explain that one. For those of you that read this blog but don't know me all that well, Thursday the 11th was my 64th Birthday. It was spent at home, Roger got up and gave me his gifts and Matt and family came over in the afternoon with a card and a gift card. Then my daughter Sandra along with her hubby Brian and daughter Emily and I can't forget the 2 dogs came for supper and grilled out and made supper for us. She also made we a Watergate cake. I got a nice E card from my sister and a phone call later. I also got nice calls from my other two daughters, Kim in California and Janis in Colorado. I also got a nice card from my high school friend Janis. Thanks to all of you for remembering me and the cards and gifts.

Happy Trails

Catching up

2009-06-04T08:28:00.002-05:00

Yes, it is time to catch up on this blog. It seems like there is nothing to write about, Stanwood is not a very exciting place. This past weekend found us sitting in our garage trying to sell all the things we no longer want. The town of Stanwood had their "city wide garage sales". It was suppose to be on Saturday, as we found ourselves getting ready on Thursday afternoon, we decided to open one day early as we were all ready. It sure paid off, made close to $150 that day. Then Saturday was a great day also and made a total for the 2 days of $400. The left over things were loaded into car and taken into Cedar Rapids and dropped off at Good Will.

Roger put his 1990 Mazda pickup For Sale and we had quite a few looking at it, or knew somebody that would be interested, it is still sitting next to garage with the For Sale sign on it. We use to pull it behind our motor home and is set up for towing, even has the tow bar to go with it. We also placed a FOR SALE BY OWNER sign in our front and back yard, as we are going to try to sell this place. Have had some phone calls on it, but nothing to get excited about. Only one showing at this time. With the house up for sale, I have been doing some deep cleaning and decluttering. Roger says I watch to much HGTV and that is why I am doing all that. I say, what can it hurt. If we move we have to get all this stuff out anyway. Yesterday, I cleaned out our bedroom closet. I must say, the place looks pretty good, I would be interested in it if I were looking. Roger's worried people will not be able to get a loan on a mobile home, I told him, that wasn't his worry. If it happens great, if not, we will wait till it does. No hurry.

Every morning I turn on my computer and log onto the Internet, read my mail, go to the Good Sam website and sign in for free monthly giveaways........still haven't won anything and been doing it for over a year.........and then start reading all the blogs I follow. It is really fun to see where all our friends are now and what they are up to. I follow about five of them right now and I guess that is why I decided to write in mine this morning. Some of them do not write every day and I start wondering what they are doing, so guess I should keep mine up for the few people who read mine.

We were in Cedar Rapids on May 19th and at Menard's (home improvement store) and decided to get us a counter top ice maker. It was on sale $98 so we got it and took it home. After reading the little book of instructions that came with it, we decided to get some distilled water to put thou it the first few times. After getting the water later in the week, we plugged it in and gave it a try. I say try as that is what it was. The darn thing kept coming on with a red light telling us to add more water. Well the book said to turn it off, wait 3 min. then turn it back on, the water was working its way up into the machine. So this we did.......and did.........and did.......and did.....and did. You get the idea, we did that for over an hour, then called the help phone number in the book. The tec told us to take it back, it was not working. This we knew, that's why we called. We took it back to the store and they didn't have any other ones so they credited our debit card back. They did call the store on the other side of town and they had one. On our way home we stopped at the other store. They had one left however.............it was not for the same price we paid before. I asked the clerk about it, he said it has never been at that price. After much go around with them, and a number of people to talk to, they gave us that one for the same price we had at the other store. There should of been a flash of light go off for us, why was it so cheap at other store ( didn't work). We took the new one home and tried it right away and guess what, it made about 4 ice cubes then started doing the same thing the other one did. WE TOOK IT BACK TOO. We won't buy one of that brand again........EMERSON.

Roger is so excited, he went to a foot DR. place in Cedar Rapids on Monday and they did measuring of his foot and told him they think they can get him in regular shoes. He won't have to wear the Frankenstein boots. He goes back next Monday and they we set him up. They had to get approval for new shoes from his DR as he is diabetic and Medicare pays for a new pair every year. He only has one pair of shoes to wear and if they get wet, or something happens to them, he is out of luck. Hope it all works out for him.

I will keep reading all the blogs and if any of you get close, please stop by to say hi. Till later............Happy Trails

Home

2009-05-19T17:11:00.002-05:00

We arrived in Stanwood on Sunday afternoon. While stopping in Des Moines to fuel at Flying J, we had called Roger's brother (Larry) who was camped at Saliorville Lake and he met us at Flying J and we had a nice visit with him while we ate our lunch.

I can't believe all the things one has to move out of RV and back into the house. I keep telling myself that everything is duplicated so no need to move it........ya sure. There just seems to be things that still have to move. Like food, dirty clothes, laptop, printer........and the list goes on. I don't know how people keep an extra set of clothes in their RV, it seems like there is always something left in RV that I want to wear. We take out all the food also, as when we leave here in the fall, we can't leave anything that is going to freeze so have to make sure we have enough room in RV and if we had duplicates of everything, it would never all fit.

Getting set up at home wasn't all that pleasant this year, first while hooking the water back up, there was a leak under our mobile home............so a phone call and some time later the guys came to fix that. No cost and they are the same ones who blew out our water lines last fall....so sort of their falt. The next challenge was getting our DirectTV set up. The dishes are set up on side of garage and I called to get our local channels changed from Mission to Stanwood. Guess what, still can't get them. They lined up a service guy to come tomorrow and fix that problem. I spent 2 hours on my cell phone (no land line telephone) and that's what I ended up with. While in Texas we changed to a DVR and that takes two satellite cables going to it. We had three dishes installed here last fall, so do to the fact we cancelled one of the boxes, we decided we could just take that extra line and run it to the DVR that is located in the living room. Roger got under mobile home and found the cable running into the bedroom where we will no longer have satellite and cut it and ran it up the hole into living room. Then he had to put a new end on it. Okay.........now I hook it up and it won't work. That was part of the 2 hours I spent on phone with tech support. Matt (our son who lives a half a block away) came by last evening and showed Roger how he goofed putting on the new end........fixed it and I now have the DVR working, just no local channels.

We made a trip into Cedar Rapids this morning. I had gotten information from the school district about my health insurance and needed to make a trip to get it cleared up. Then it was off to do some shopping. We had tried to eat most of food on way home................makes the RV lighter going over the mountains............LOL. We needed to stock up. We live about 30 miles from Cedar Rapids so try to stock up and not have to make that trip to often. There are stores closer and sometimes we go to them.

I am keeping busy catching up on laundry, had all the sheets I use to cover TV's and other things while we are gone and our other clothes. It will take awhile to get caught up. Hope this finds everyone enjoying the spring weather and if you are planning any vacations or trips......................Happy Trails to you.

Calan's Graduation

2009-05-14T17:20:00.002-05:00

Wow, it really makes me feel older when you have your grandkids graduating. In 2005 we made a trip to Colorado and then California you attend two grandson's graduations. Dustin (Janis' oldest son) was in May that year and Danny (Kim's middle son was in June). We are now back at Janis' for her youngest son, Calan who graduated on Wed. It was at 8:30 am and so we were up early to go and save seats for rest of family. I can remember attending Janis' graduation and it was very stuffy and the kids weren't allowed to have any fun, if they did, no diplomas. Here in Grand Junction, they are all for the kids having fun. They take blow up balls and animals and bounce them around up in the air and after it is all over they are allowed to throw their caps in the air. You won't see that in Cedar Rapids.

From Grand Junction - Calan's Graduation

After the graduation Janis and I worked at getting her house ready for the party. She doesn't like to decorate, so I did that........not much of it, but Calan didn't want much. They had a good turn out and everyone had a good time.

The past 2 weeks we have just been chilling out. We have made many trips here and seen all the sites, so not much else to do. Did get some shopping done and just hung out. Spent today getting the RV ready for travel tomorrow. Took it over and fueled up then to a RV park and dumped the holding tanks. We will be leaving early in the morning. Roger is dreading the drive up over the mountains. I know we will make it just slow and easy. I guess the this will be the last post till we get home. Till then.......Happy Trails

In Grand Junction

2009-04-30T09:24:00.003-05:00

We made it to Grand Junction on Tuesday.........and are now parked in side yard at daughters house. They added another 3 stall garage on side of the 2 stall garage and we weren't sure if there would be room for us. It is working out great..........only longer walk now to get into house.

Decided to set up our DirectTV will we are here, and have been working on it since Tuesday when we got here. Finally, yesterday I decided to give up on the DVR and use the basic box and see if I could get the roof dish to work. We had the dish with tripod hooked up and could get no signal. It was really weird as I got it to correct evaluation and was turning it slowly back and forth and watching and listening for a signal to come and all of a sudden............a station came on the screen. Never did get the signal................but we now have the satellite working and I am going to play around with the one for bedroom today. Hoping to get the DVR set up there...........but I am going to move the portable dish to a different spot. I think it is in line with trees where it is.

We haven't done much here........after making a lot of trips here over they years.....we really don't think there is much to see that we haven't already. Yesterday was spent catching up on the laundry and working on the satellite dish. Everyone is working, going to school or playing gulf here. I did spend most of yesterday on line and getting my gps maps updated. It took all day to download onto the lap top then another couple hours getting it onto GPS. It is done now and we are set to visit new places. Wish I had done it before we left last October, as we could of used it a number of times. Hadn't been updated since we bought it back in 2006.

Till next time..........happy trails

Alburquerque - The Rally

2009-04-24T15:29:00.002-05:00

The Rally is now over and we are spending a week in Cortz, CO to rest and unwind after a week at the rally.

We arrived in Albuquerque on the 13th and checked into a KOA north of town. This gave us a chance to do laundry, shower, empty holding tanks and fill water tank.

From Albuquerque - Rally

While at the rally we are dry camping except for electric, which we paid extra for. On the 15th we headed into Albuquerque to park at the Balloon Fiesta Park, we had a morning time to check in and were some of the first to get there as we were only about 10 miles away. We got a pretty good place to park and it was close to where the buses loaded to take us to the fair grounds for rally, the bath rooms and the night entertainment was very close. The first thing we did after getting set up was catch the bus to the fair grounds to register and get our information. Ended up buying two rally sweatshirts for $5 each. Now you say what a bargain.........yes it was but they were from last years rally, but we didn't care. They are quite nice and we knew there was some cold weather headed to Albuquerque so we would need them.

We attended a few seminars and did some shopping at rally. It seems as tho the more rallies one attends the seminars seem to be something we don't think we want to do again. Went to a couple of heath type ones and I went to one on Google Earth and one on Picasa, both given by the Geeks on Tour, Chris and Jim. It was good to finally get to say hello to them, I am sure they don't remember all the people they meet at these things.......but at least I stopped by the RV.net booth where they were and introduced myself.

From Albuquerque - Rally

One day the Balloon Fiesta park was offering half price off the entrance to the museum so we went to that. It was quite interesting......giving the history of ballooning, I think we must of spent most of the afternoon there.

Roger loves the entertainment that is at the rallies. This year on opening night.........which happened to be Roger's 66th Birthday, Neil Sedaka was at the Rally.

From Albuquerque - Rally

It was very good, but wish he would of sang more of his old songs. The bad thing was it was cold out and the whole thing was inside a large tent like building with a dirt floor. The chairs they had were cheep folding ones and very uncomfortable. One has to get to these things early to get a seat, so when arriving about 6pm and he didn't come on stage till after 7:30 we already were tired of sitting. You will notice in the photo's in my Albums (if you click on photo it will take you there) that while waiting for the concert to start............people walk around.....up and down isle with signs with numbers on a sign. Ok..................this looks funny to you, but they are looking for a match to their number to win a prize. We are each given a number when we register and have until Saturday to find it. There are 4 of each number, so one has a chance to find 3 other numbers like theirs. People walk around with the numbers on front of them, on back of them and even signs held in the air....all during the rally. They even post them on their RV in hopes someone passing buy will see it and be a match. Needless to say............we have been to 5 of these rallies and have never found our match yet. Oh well, maybe next time.

The good night of entertainment was when the Osmond Brothers came. That was a good one and we both totally enjoyed that one. One year they had Debbie Reynolds and boy was she good.

From Albuquerque - Rally

There was also a balloon glow one night and I got some pictures of that as well as one morning I looked out the RV window and saw balloons getting ready to go up.......wow more pictures.

From Albuquerque - Rally

We left the balloon fiesta park on Tuesday morning and headed to Cortz. I must say, the traffic was a pain getting out of Albuquerque and the Balloon Fiesta Park along with over 3000 other RV's.

Next stop will be heading to Grand Juction and staying at our daughter Janis' house. We will be parking in their side yard. Going to grandson (Calan) graduation which is May 13, then we will be heading back to Iowa, hopefully it will be warmer then.

Don't forget to veiw all my pictures in My Web Album, you should click on one of the photo's and them go thu all of them, I only posted a few. Enjoy

Till later...............drive safe and Happy Trails

Made it to Albuquerque

2009-04-14T14:12:00.001-05:00

Friday, April 10, 2009
We left Bentsen Grove Resort this morning about 7:45am and headed West along Hwy 83. I started off driving and drove till we were past Lorado and ready to turn off I-35 and follow Hwy 83 again. That was at Exit 18 and we stopped at the Rest Area which also was an Information Center. While there we ate our lunch then proceeded on with Roger driving. We followed Hwy 83 to Carrizo Springs, then cut across on Hwy 277 till it met up with Hwy 90 in Del Rio. We are now at a Passport America Campground for the night. The campground is called Buzzard Roost , not sure where the name comes from, but the price is right. We got a pull thru and we even have cable TV. I tried getting on the Internet but found out Verizon is on Extended Network and it would of cost me extra.........so that was out of the question. We ended up going about 315 miles today.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
We pulled out of Buzzard Roost Campground about 8:30am. Took Hwy 90 West to Sanderson where we caught Hwy 285 North to Fort Stockton. I must say Hwy 90 was a very good road and had a lot of road side parks to pull off onto. There was hardly any traffic and no cell phone service at all. Roger liked the road, but I was driving so what wasn't there not to like. We got fuel in RV at Sanderson, it was $2.19 a gallon. Put in 50 gallons. We got on I-10 in Fort Stockton after stopping at the Dairy Queen. I told Roger I didn't care what he got, and he brought back 2 banana splits. Like either one of us really needed that. I was thinking more along the lines of a small cone. Guess that is what I get for not speaking up and saying what I wanted. Once we were on our way on I-10 we started getting wind and it continued to get worse. We made it to Van Horn and are now at another Passport America campground. It is called Mountain View, it is right along the interstate, may be a little noisy tonight, but hey, we live by railroad tracks.............so can't be that bad. We do have cable again tonight, but no list of what the stations are, so it will be flip.....flip.....flip all night finding something to watch. Sure miss the Direct TV where you have a on screen guide. Oh well, guess this is what us Rver's call roughing it. LOL
Roger did say he misses Keota. He can remember every time we stop, Keota would want to get out and lift his leg and pee on everything. It does seem strange not having him with us.......it will feel that way for awhile and every time we go someplace were we had him. When we get home, we will have all his toys, bowls, etc around to remind us. We sure miss the little guy.
Easter Sunday
We drove from Van Horn to Las Cruces, NM........it was a short drive and that was a good thing as we had winds again............but not as bad as Saturday. Once again we stayed at a Passport America park. The half price looks good but this campground had alot to be desired. We will not be going back there again. It was Coachlight RV Park off I-10 at exit 140. The lady at the desk was very rude and the whole time we were there we were smelling sewer. I went over to use the bathroom/shower at about 8:30PM and it was all locked up. Crossing that one off our list. We had to unhook the car, even tho we had a pull through. We had been having Taco Salad every noon meal since we left Mission so decided to cook up a Easter Dinner and wow..........we had ham and pineapple frozen pizza. It was good, but not really a great Easter dinner. Decided as long as we were unhooked we would take a car ride and find a Wal-Mart and picked up a few things. Watched a little TV and called it an evening. We did get some phone calls from our kids and it was so good to hear from them.
Monday, April 13, 2009
We drove on into Albuquerque and are now at a KOA north of there in Bernalillo. I had reserved a spot here for the 14th, so we called ahead to see if we could get an extra night for tonight. Ended up with a nice spot..........we are right by office and check in area, so we are watching all the rigs coming in. They have free cable here and it is good as well as free WiFi and it is very good and fast.............so that is what I am using now. After getting settled it we watched Dancing With The Stars............that is one show Roger likes to watch with me.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Today is get ready for Rally day. Got up and headed for the laundry room, as I knew there would be a lot of people doing the same thing today before they head to the rally. Roger washed outside windows and filled the water tank. We will be getting up in morning and dump the holding tanks and head the 8 miles back to Albuquerque, not sure if I will get much of a chance to write then, but I sure will be back with more after the rally.

2009-03-29T16:41:00.002-05:00

March is coming to a close and it will be April in a few days. We are planning on leaving Mission on Good Friday the 10th. It is now time to get our list going and the plans made for our next adventure. As many of you know we are headed to New Mexico the "The Rally" in Albuquerque. I have made reservation at a camp ground outside Albuquerque for the 14th and we will be entering "The Rally" on the 15th. We need to spend the night before at a campground close by so we can make it in that morning (our appointed time to arrive) and also so we can fill our water tank and dump our holding tanks. We will be dry camping with only electicity while there.

We moved our motor home from Sleep Valley park over to Bentsen Grove where we have been spending the winter. It sure was good to get behind the wheel again and drive if only for a few miles. It is now parked across the street from our trailer so we will be able to wash, clean and pack it before leaving. I have list going for what to take what needs to be done before we leave. The next 2 weeks will be spent getting ready.

The Rally is from the 15th thru the 21st. It is always fun to go to these and see the new things, attend seminars and the fun and games. Our first one we went to was in California and we keep going back. Besides this rally we have been to Safari Rallies (that's the make of our motor home) and FMCA rallies. FMCA is Family Motor Coach Ass.

Today we went to the Don-Wes Flea Market in Donna. We both had a list of things we wanted to look for and seemed to find most of them. When we moved into this trailer in Nov. we had taken some things out of the motor home and we now want to add those things here and put the ones we took out, back in the motor home. The one thing I have not been able to replace as yet is all the "Lock Lock" containers I use for all staples in RV and at home. I would like to find the same sizes I have now as they stack in cupboards nice and I know just what size of flour, Bisquick, etc. I can buy to fill them. So far I have been able to find 2 of the sizes I need, but can't find the rest. I will keep looking, I may have to settle for a different size.

There really isn't much more news here. the weather is getting hot, was over 100 degrees the other day, but it is still cold up North so not really in a hurry to go home. The activities in the park are slowing down. The computer club I go to on Monday mornings is still meeting as well as the Line Dancing class I go to three days a week. I must admit, I didn't go this past Thursday as it was just too hot. I get over heated easy and decided to just stay inside and stay cool. I did get up before the sun came up and went for a long walk, the hummity was high and I was in a sweat before returning home. I am sure you don't want to hear about all that, so will close for now. Hope everyone is getting into Spring and enjoying the nice weather when they can. Till later......Happy Trails to all.

Company here in Texas

2009-03-17T18:26:00.002-05:00

It has been awhile since I last posted......but have been very busy as Roger's brother and his wife were here for a visit. It sure was good to have them and we kept somewhat busy. Larry and Sharon arrived here on a Thursday and the next day.........Roger had a dentist appointment in Progreso, Mexico. We took off with Roger's school buddy, Dick and the five of us went to Progreso.......Dick and Roger to dentist and Larry, Sharon and I shopping and looking around. Needles to say........we didn't buy anything.........but we did a lot of walking.

I can't remember the date line of everything we did..........but we did make a trip to South Padre Island. We lucked out as the spring break kids had not arrived and it was not crowed at all. After checking out the visitors center we took off for the beach. All had a good time walking on beach, getting feet wet in gulf as well as picking up small sea shells. We then drove on up the highway a ways then back with a stop at the turtle rescue place. Roger and I had been there earlier so we sat in car and let Larry and Sharon go check it out. Now it is lunch time so Larry wanted to see how "Church's Chicken" was..............so that is what we had. I was all for something different, but his was their vacation and we aim to please. Our next stop was the gift shop. Had a good time roaming around inside and out and taking pictures.

Be sure to click on the picture to take you to the rest of My Web Album!!!!

From Larry and Sharon

Larry had a guy he worked with in Mason City, Iowa that is also staying here in Mission, so they spent some time with them as well. Mike and his wife are at Hidden Valley Resort. We also got to visit the Riverside Club as well as Pepe's. It was cold and rainy when we went to Pepe's and we were in the teekee (sp) hut and it was cold out there. I thought the food was better at the Riverside and better priced. We went on a Wednesday and that was tenderloin special day......so that is what we had...........very good. We will return there. After our tenderloin lunch we drove up to the only had drawn ferry left in the USA. We didn't go across on it as they were very busy but we got to watch it. Maybe someday we will make the crossing. It crosses the Rio Grande River and cost 50 cents to go from US to Mexico and 75 cents to get back.

Our other adventures included shopping and eating.........and Sharon fixed a great steak dinner for us here at our place in Bensten Grove. Thanks Sharon, I really think it was the best meal of all. She also fixed us home made Spaghetti with meat balls..........very good.

They left this morning and it is now time for Roger and I to start getting ready for our departure which will be in a few weeks. Not sure of the date yet, but it will be around Good Friday sometime. We are headed for Albuquerque, NM for "The Rally" (RV rally) Looking forward to that.......I think Roger is ready to head out. Till later..........drive safe and Happy Trails.

Line Dancing

2009-03-02T17:29:00.002-06:00

As many of you know, when I was in Jr. High and High School, I spent every Saturday (all day) teaching dancing......It was what I loved to do. Before Roger and I got married, we were Square Dancing and Round Dancing.....now I have taken up Line Dancing. The park here, has line dancing three days a week and we dance from 2 to 3 hours at a time. I must say.....my first time there......I lasted an hour and 45 min. then I had to leave. I was red faced and dripping wet. I took this up for the exercise......but it is more then that now. I have met some great people and had so much fun.

The group goes to nursing homes and adult day care centers to preform. I have not gone with them........I just can't take the heat. They have the heat turned up at those places and I have a hard time with over heating during class......when I am dancing in air conditioning and under a fan. They did get to preform at our weekly park meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 25th and I went with them. Most of the pictures you will have a hard time finding me.........I am in back row.......but you can get the idea. It was great fun and I have learned so many different dances. The yellow shirts we have say....."I know this dance.................now how does it start" How true that is. I don't know if it is a senior thing or what......but when the music starts or a dance is named, it is hard to remember which dance that is. I wish I had a video to share with you.........but these photos will have to do for now.

Remember to click on the photo to take you to the Web Album.

From Bentsen Grove Line Dancers

We are expecting a visit from Roger's brother (Larry) and sister-in-law (Sharon) sometime this week. It is going to be great to show them around and give them a taste of what life is like here in RGV (Rio Grande Valley)
I am hoping to get more photos now that I will have new subjects. Not sure when I will be back to post.........depends on how busy we stay.

Life is great and spring is coming......everyone stay warm.....drive safe and .........Happy Trails

Our Trip to Monterrey, Mexico

2009-02-22T08:14:00.005-06:00

As many of you know, last winter while we were at Sleepy Valley Park, I attended a style show and during the door prize drawings..........I won a free one day trip to Mexico. Last year, I did not have a passport or my birth certificate that one needed to make the trip..........so I asked if I could use it this year. I really didn't want to go alone.........what kind of fun is that? I asked Roger to go and I would pay for his ticket. That was rather hard to do and arrange with Keota here and not leaving him for that length of time. We finally decided to book the trip, we had our choice of about 5 trips but decided on the Monterrey one.

We had to be in McAllen (about 8miles) by 7:15 AM as that was when the bus was leaving. We didn't know anyone, but we were off. Due to the fact that our stop was the last one of 5 that the bus took, we got to move to the back of the bus and find a seat. Of course we got lucky and got the seats right across the isle from the potty......WOOPIE. After settling into our seats it was off to Mexico. I had never looked up to see how far it was, but after leaving at 7:15 we didn't get to Monterrey till about 11:30 AM. We did make one stop on the way, to stretch and potty.

The first thing our guide did when arriving was walk us thru a park to a public restroom. The guide "Juan" went to the boat and bought our ticket to ride the boat along the river walk. The River Walk is called "Paseo Santa Lucia" and we enjoyed it. The only bad part about the boat ride was we were cramped into the boat and if you were sitting on the left side and the guide told you to look to the left..........you couldn't turn that way. Roger missed some of it due to that fact. I was sitting on end of bench on left side of boat, in front so I got to see more...........I turned to front of boat and got a pretty good view.

Click on any photo to take you to "My Web Albums" and see all of them.

From Our Trip to Monterrey Mexico

After leaving the boat, we were led to the macro plaza and viewed the Governor's palace. It was built in 1906, the first floor is a museum and the 2nd floor is Governor's offices. Juan our guide said the governors of Mexico can only hold office for 6 years then they are done for good. They can run for President but not Governor again. There were a lot of statutes in the plaza, I can't remember all the names, but they were very impressive. The one thing we did notice was how dirty everything was. The brick path along could of used a good power washing and there was gum stuck to the path. We did get a few pictures of "Neptune's Fountain", it was quite
impressive.

From Our Trip to Monterrey Mexico

Next it was a short walk into a shopping area of downtown and to a Hotel for lunch. Juan had called ahead of time to let them know we were coming. The lunch was buffet all you can eat and set up very nice. Cloth table clothes, napkins.............the whole thing. Juan once again paid for every ones lunch to add to our bill to him at end of day. It was $12.50 each and that included the tip. There was a lot of food including, salad bar, bread bar, dessert bar as well as the main dishes. I could of said HOT dishes but that would of been stretching the truth. I was amazed when taking my first bite.............COLD. There were burners under everything and they all had lids on them..........but everything was cold. For some reason.............cold fish and other meat and veggies do not appeal to us. I have tired to reason out why it was all cold, and it just doesn't add up. After all Juan had called ahead and it was only 12.30PM so it wasn't that late in afternoon. The dessert bar was great............so I guess it made up for some of it.

It was back on the bus and a ride to "Horse Tail Falls" The road to the falls is an experience in itself. It is narrow and winds around. Now being a school bus driver, I have some experience in bus driving, but I would of never attempted to take it up there. It was a dirt road and a number of times we met cars and trucks coming down, very close calls. Also gave us a chance to see some of the homes.............if that is what they are called. Wow..........what a life. There was litter and trash everywhere and quite a slum area. One would think a drive to a tourist attraction like that that the road and homes would be something that would show a better impression of their county.

After arriving at the falls, Juan once again paid our admission to walk to the falls. That was $3 each. Ok, our total now to pay Juan is $2 for boat ride...........$12.50 for lunch and $3 for walk to falls. That is for each of us............that is a total of $35 dollars. Now Roger is sitting there adding all this up and saying......"how do we know for sure what all those things cost......he could be making extra money on this". Well, he may have a point, but how do we know Juan isn't telling us the truth. You have to trust sometimes.........besides..........I am sure he wouldn't have a job long if he were ripping us all off. Besides all of that..............the tour brioche said to pay your guide anywhere from $3 - $5 a day per person for a tip to your guide and the same for the bus driver. OK.................now it is up to almost $50 extra. I guess we would of liked to of had that all included in the price of trip to begin with and not have to worry about all the extra.

Back to the falls. After Juan paid for our tickets to walk, he told everyone they could take the walk ticket or if they decided to ride the cart or a horse it would be extra. It was only a half mile walk, so we walked. The horses looked like they were on their last leg........could of dropped over dead before we got up the hill. The falls themselves were well worth the walk and the $3 each. As you can see from the pictures. They really do look like a horse tail. This falls is spring fed.

From Our Trip to Monterrey Mexico

Please remember to click on photo to take you the rest of the pictures.

Leaving the falls, it was back to the bus and a hair rising trip back down that awful road. The bus had a slight problem on one of the turns, but he made it. We then stopped at a road side market called "Los Cavazos". I stayed on the bus, but Roger got off and walked. He did find a leather case for his pocket knife that he has been hunting for.

Leaving Monterrey at 5:30 Pm we got back to McAllen at 11:30PM. Our stop was the last one to unload so about an hour of that time was driving around dropping off people. We both decided we have no desire to make another trip to Mexico. There is enough things to see in the US to keep us busy. But we can say we have been there and done that.

It has been a very busy week and today, I am chilling out and trying to catch up. I have to see about getting my taxes done before we leave here...............so that is my next thing on my "to do list". Hope everyone is doing well and hope to see everyone soon.

Happy Valentine's Day

2009-02-14T16:02:00.003-06:00

Here it is Valentines Day.................I had to be at the hall for a craft sale this morning. It was a good craft sale today, broke $100.00. I know that doesn't seem like much..............but, I only have mostly $2 items and then my beaded sun catchers. I really felt good with what I sold. I had a table last Friday at our old park (Sleepy Valley) and only sold $12 all day................I was ready to put down the crochet hook and call the craft shows off. Thought it wasn't worth my time to sit there all morning and make a lousy $12. Then the next day (Sat) there was a craft show at our park and I sold $92 .....................so I was back in business. I went home and last week made a few things to replenish my supply. Wow...............then today I really did good. I guess there is hope after all. I really don't need the money..............just like doing it.

There isn't much news...................the weather down here has been great. We have even turned on the air condition the past two days. We did make it back to the flea market and did some more shopping. Or should I say, Roger did some more shopping. He has found some socks there that he really likes. They are diabetic socks..............so we are loading up on them. He even told me to get rid of his other socks..........................so they must feel pretty good on his feet. Then he decided to get lawn decorations so we came home with a covered wagon and a cowboy boot.

From Yard improvements

He has also been putting a border around the fruit trees with wood chips. Next he wants to lay back paper down and do yard in rock. The grass down here is not like the grass up north..........it doesn't look the same or feel the same. Our yard is mostly shaded............and not much but weed grass grows there. I don't say much as it gives Roger something to do.............and he likes puttering. The back part of yard is all dirt and when the wind blows............it really gets dusty all over. The rock will help that out. Don't forget to click on photo to view all of the pictures.

This coming Wed. we are taking a one day trip to Monetary, Mexico. Last winter when we were down here, there was a fashion show at Sleepy Valley...........I wasn't going to go, but the lady across the street asked me to go with her. During that show, they had door prizes and low and behold.............I WON. You heard me right. I won and it was a free one day trip to Mexico. I was going to go by myself as we didn't want to leave Keota.......it would of been too long. Now that Keota is no longer with us......Roger is going also. Just had to buy him a ticket. The bus leaves at 7 am and gets back at 9pm so it is going to be one long day. I am making note to have camera ready and batteries charged before the trip. Looking forward to taking this trip.

We were given some free tickets to the McAllen Symphonic Band concert this past week. One of the gals that I help in computer club called one night and said her hubby was sick so they couldn't go and wanted to know if we wanted the tickets. It was really good. I must say...........it is the first time we have been gone during the night time hours..........Roger doesn't like to go out at night. Thanks.....Shirley and Bob for the tickets.

We upgraded our DirectTV to include a DVR and it sure is nice to record shows with. I dropped all the movie and sports package we were getting and only added the Starz package of movies. Roger likes to watch his movies...........so I have to keep him happy.

Once again............Happy Valentines Day

Alicia

Enjoying the Texas Weather

2009-02-04T16:02:00.003-06:00

Here it is February and the weather is great. I am still keeping very busy with my computer club, quilting for needy and line dancing. I told you I had gotten new shoes to dance in. I had to take them back as well as the new tennis shoes I had bought. I found out they caused my big toe to hurt so after wearing each pair only once, I took them back to Sears and while there, I got another pair of New Balance tennis shoes. I had decided I wanted a pair of open toe sandals, with a strap in back. Sears didn't have any so I went to Penny's and found a pair there. After trying on one size, decided they were just a little too short as my big toe on my right foot hung over just a fraction. Tried on the next size up (no half sizes) and decided to get them. I really like them, but after wearing them to line dancing one time, I think I should of gotten the size smaller. Now it is my left foot that is the problem..................I just can't get it right. I ended up wearing the new tennis shoes to line dancing yesterday and they seemed to do ok. I will have to work on breaking in the sandals but first I have to get rid of the sore off my toe. LOL

I am really enjoying the line dancing, I have even been on the Internet watching Utube videos on line dancing. One of the dances we do is what is called the "Cupid Shuffle" We were told this is a very popular dance with the kids, so I went on and watched some of the video's. I have to say, what we do in class looks nothing like what the kids do. There was one video with a one eyed grandmother and I think we do it better then her. One would think that when you are line dancing you are doing it in a line. This is true for most of it.........but some of the dances we are doing in circle. I must say....................I don't like the circle dances..............would rather do them in a line. I bought a CD with all the music we used and have the dances wrote down, so I should be able to keep them up over the summer. If nothing else................it is good exercise.

The computer club is still going strong. I seems to learn something new each week, but a lot of it is stuff I already know. I have even helped correct the instructors once in a while. Hope they don't that offence buy that. This weeks beginners lesson is on emails. Everyone is suppose to write a letter and have it ready to be put into an email. Guess I better get that done...................don't want to mess up the class.

This next weekend and the following is going to be busy for me. On Friday...............I will be setting up a table at a craft sale at our old park (Sleepy Valley). Then the next day I will be doing a craft sale at our now park (Bentsen Grove). Then Valentines Day is another craft sale here at this park. Why 2 you ask?????? The one this Saturday is for only people in this park to have tables for sale and the one next week is outsiders can set up. Not sure how I will do..........but it is something to do. As many of you know, I have my beaded sun catchers, tissue boxes and many crocheted items. If I don't do very well this month, I may not do it next month.

Roger has been busy working in the yard and doing odd projects around here. My office chair needed some repair work done, so after many days of hammering on it and trying to get the legs off, he finally borrowed a sledge hammer and off it came. He put it back together and put some screws in it so the middle post would not slide all the way down to floor (that's what it had done.)
Now he is putting border around the fruit trees with mulch and later he will be getting rock to put on ground towards the back of our place. It is all dirt now and really gets so it blows a lot of dirt all over the place. We don't have much yard, just what is between our deck and the neighbors trailer. I front part by street has grass (if that is what one wants to call it) so will leave it as is. He has been planting some flowers also. I will take some photos as soon as I think he is done.

It is time for me to work on our taxes..........and I have to get that done this month. We will be leaving Texas around first part of April and I want them done before that.

I really like doing this blog................and I am sure all our friends and family enjoy reading it. The only problem with it....................I don't get much email back telling me all your news. I guess that is what phones are for..................they have taken over writing letters. Guess that is enough of my complaining.................LOL. I must be getting old. Hope I don't end up sounding like my mother................guess I should watch that.

Till later!!!!!!!

S. Padre Island and RV.net party

2009-01-26T18:43:00.002-06:00

Here it is the last week of Jan. and I just can not believe it. Keeping busy and time is flying.

On Friday the 23, Roger and I decided to drive to South Padre Island and check it out for a days outing. It was just the two of us, but we went walking on the beach, visited the Sea Turtles at the rescue place. We sure enjoyed it and learned a lot about sea turtles. Neither one of us new that the sea turtle could not retract their heads and legs like the land turtles do. This is one of the reasons they come to the rescue place and praetors will attact them and they may be missing part or all of their flippers. I am sorry we did not get any pictures of this, I forgot to charge the batteries in camera before leaving, so we only got a few photos to share with you. After visiting the turtles, we drove north up the Island then turned around and headed towards a restaurant we had heard so much about, Dirty Al's. Got there about 12:30 and it was packed and people standing around. Roger didn't want to wait, so off we went to find someplace else. We picked a place we should of drove by, but we learned a lesson, if the parking lot is almost empty at 12:30pm and no one is sitting in there, turn around and leave. Nine chances out of ten, the food is no good. We would of done better eating at Long John Silvers across the street.

From South Padre Island

Sunday night we went to a program here at the park, six dollars each, but well worth it. It was called Bernie and Red, husband and wife, from Canada. The sang some and did comedy. I laughed so hard thought I would pee my pants..................very funny.

Today we were picked up by our friends, Larry and MaryAnn from Hersey PA. They are staying in the park next to ours and we have visited each other a number of times. Off we went to the Horseman's Club for the RV.net Winter Texan Party. What a great time we had, it was so good to see old friends (this was our 2nd year to go) and meet new people. You see their names when they post on the RV.net forums, and this gives you a chance to put a face to that name. We ate, introduced ourselves, had door prizes, had a talk about RVing in Mexico and then our entertainment along with some dancing. What fun.

From RV.net 3rd RGV get together

Don't forget if you click on photo, it will take you to the rest of the Web Album. Check it out.

Till later................stay warm..............drive safe.............and..........Happy Trails

Where does the time go

2009-01-19T17:58:00.002-06:00

Can't believe it is the 19th already. I guess keeping busy really makes the time fly. Yesterday we went to an Iowa potluck for people here in the park. Really nice, six- 8 foot tables and lots and lots of food. They were giving door prizes for different things, you know, oldest.......came the furthest...........well when they came to most grandkids, we thought we had a prize. I told them, 13 and no one else spoke up..........wow, were going to get something. No such luck.............the old guy (82 years young) sitting next to Roger took it. Someone asked him how many he had.............he said he wasn't sure. They asked him if it was more the 13...................he couldn't remember...................so they gave it to him. Guess that's the way it goes. He has been coming to this park a long time and we are new. It wouldn't of been so bad, but he had already gotten a prize for coming the furthest. Oh well, you win some and you loose some.

Computer club was this morning and I think there must of been about 40 or 50 people there. They always have a beginners class first then, the advanced. I go for both..........not that I feel like I am a beginner, but I always learn something new, and I can help some of the others. After club today, everyone took off to go to "Peter Piper Pizza"..........Not great pizza but the fellowship was good.

We have to take a day and head back to Mexico...........Roger wants to get his teeth checked and fixed, so one of these days we will be heading out to do that. The other trip we want to do is go to South Padre Island. It is about an hours drive from here, and we want to go before all the spring breaks start and it fills up with collage students. I will be sure to take camera with me so I can get more pictures in my albums.

The line dancing is coming along good. I am learning a lot and I think I will be ready for some new dances before long. The problem is there are new people arriving every day and every time they get someone new, it is start at the beginning again. It is good review, if you need it, but I think I am getting most of it. We are doing "Waltz Across Texas"............."Ti-Na's Waltz" .............."Country Boy".........."Magic Moments"........."This Little Light of Mine" ............
"The Twist".............Ten Step Polka...................and "Cotton Eye Joe". The big problem is remembering which steps go with which song. As a matter of fact, we have T-shirts that say......
"I know this dance....................now how does it start" I even went shopping on Saturday and got myself some new tennis shoes and some shoes I can wear that will move across the floor, the tennis shoes are not great for that.

We have been watching the news and all the cold weather everyone up North is getting, what can I say but we are sure glad we are here and not there. So with that said.............Stay warm ............Drive safe ..............and.....................Happy Trails

Time goes on

2009-01-08T18:58:00.002-06:00

Hello all, we are still missing Keota, but time does go on and we are keeping busy. Seems like we have had something going on every day. Last Friday we went back to Sleepy Valley and said Hi to everyone. I was suppose to have a table a craft show, but bowed out due to Keota. We then went to vet and paid up our bill, it wasn't as bad as we thought it was going to be. Then it was off to lunch and shopping for a new recliner for Roger. His broke, he thought he was going to be able to fix it, but saw the BIG spring under there and knew he wouldn't be able to get it back on. We ended up getting a new Lazy Boy and he really likes it.........I am jealous now.

Saturday we got a phone call from friends, Dick and Darlene to meet them at a flea market north of town, so off we went, we then went back to there place and went with them to their parks pot luck. Very good food, and we really enjoyed ourselves.

Sunday we met up with Dick and Darlene again and went out to eat for Chinese. It wasn't as good as we have had in Cedar Rapids or Tipton, but all in all it was a fun time had by all. We returned to their place and sat around a visited with them and their friends Dolly and Mike who also went to eat with us.

Monday, I started off the day going to my computer club. It runs from 9 - 11:30 am so it takes up most of the morning. I think there must of been about 20 or so lap tops all set up and believe it or not, we all got on the Internet at one time this week. It was back home for lunch then off to my quilting. I volunteer there and sew quilts for the needy.

Tuesday.............I thought I would try a new activity so off I went to Line Dancing. Many of you know I use to teach dancing many.........many..............many years ago, so I really don't have too much trouble in that field. The hardest part for me is getting use to it. My hips really get to hurting..................I'm just not use to it any more. I left there after an hour and 45 min. of dancing with a very red face and sweat running off my body. Guess I got a work out.

Wednesday..............We decided to make a trip to the flea market at Don Wes and so off we went. We ended up getting an area rug to put between the couch and our two chairs. That area gets alot of foot traffic so thought a rug may help. I must say it looks quite nice. Got a brown/tan one with a western theme.

That brings it to today...................Once again I took off for line dancing and this time went a little better prepared. I wore shorts this time, got out my head (sweat) band and my neck cooler and took my water and a towel. The head band was soak and wet but I fared better then on Tuesday. My hips still hurt but I think every time will get a little better. They meet 3 times a week (Sat too) but this Sat I will not be able to go, as I am having a table a craft show here in this park.

Thanks to everyone who sent messages about Keota, I received many emails, phone calls and cards. It has been a week now, it seems funny not to have him here, but we know he was suffering and we didn't want that. He will always be our loving Keota.

Keep warm...............drive safe................Happy Trails

Happy New Year - Good by Keota

2009-01-01T18:58:00.003-06:00

This was a bad start to 2009, we made an emergency trip to the Vet in the middle of the night. Our beloved dog (Keota) has congestive heart failure and started gasping for breath in the middle of night. Vet ended up giving him a shot to help reduce fluid and sent us home, telling us to return in morning at 9am to see how he was doing. Returning this morning, Keota seemed to be doing better, but was not eating and we couldn't get his pills down him. The vet forced the pills and thought he might improve some more and give it till five PM and return then. By 4:15 Keota finally ate a little, but would not drink any more water. The Vet said there was not much improvement as far as fluid, and we could go home an give it more time. We made a very hard choice to not have him suffer any longer and have him put to sleep. It was one of the hardest things we have ever had to do. Our beloved Keota was our best friend...........our companion....... our joy. We will miss him. Good-by Keota.............we love you...........my God be with you.

From Keota

Merry Christmas

2008-12-25T14:14:00.002-06:00

Merry Christmas to all our friends and family.

We just got back from having Christmas dinner at the hall. If I remember there where about 437 people. Everyone takes a dish and there is plenty to eat.........boy am I full. Now I am thinking of a nap. I have had a cold, started feeling bad around Sunday so have been doing fluids and popping pills. Starting to feel somewhat better.

On Monday I went with the Bentsen Grove Auxiliary to deliver Christmas goodies to the 11 needy families. My family had four kids, boy 13, girls 10 - 7 - 4. I have posted pictures in Web
Album so be sure to click on the picture to view all the photos.

Their isn't much more news, we had a nice Christmas here. Roger and I still do stockings for each other and we got things that we needed for our new place here. I called it our practical Christmas. Our street did take first place in decorations, so I guess maybe my going the extra mile helped. Last night we took a bike ride around park to check out all the lights. Every street had luminaries lining street. Looked really nice. Here is a photo of Keota waiting for his bike ride.
Don't forget to click on photo to view the rest of them.

Hope everyone had a joyful Christmas, stay warm, drive safe and Happy Trails.

Keeping busy

2008-12-19T19:38:00.002-06:00

Gosh, where does the time go...........seems like it was just Thanksgiving and we had just moved into our new place. Here it is a 6 days till Christmas. We are both keeping busy, me more then Roger. The weather here is up and down or hot and cold........which ever way you want to look at it. When it does get cool, we just keep reminding ourselves it is nicer then it is in Iowa.

I have been going to computer club here at the park on Mondays. The first part of class is directed towards beginners..............I find myself helping some of those new people who need the help. I have learned a few things in that class, but the advance class has helped alot and I am getting quite a bit out of it. They are having problems getting everyone on line during class. I guess the server here at the park is bogged down (too many people using it). There are about 16 laptops trying to get on during class. I have been taking my Verizon USB and connecting with it. It is slow.............not a very good signal around this park. I had a great signal at Sleepy Valley and it isn't that far away.................not sure what the problem is. I hang it in the window to get a better signal as I have a 10 foot USB extension for it.

As I wrote about before, I have been going to the park Auxiliary on Monday afternoons. They make quilts for the needy and are under a huge project of helping 11 needy families. It includes quilts, heater for each family..........they go shopping for each of the kids in each family and buy them each, PJ's, undies, socks, shoes, one toy, and a complete outfit. They also furnish them with a donated coat, hat and gloves. I went to hall on Wednesday and wrapped all the bought items for the 4 kids in my family and got it all sacked along with Christmas stockings for all of them. On Sunday I go with everyone else to pick up a large box of food for family. Then Monday morning we will car caravan to their homes and deliver everything. I am planning on taking my camera so maybe I can get some pictures posted.

One of our neighbors complained about Keota last week, so we have been working on his no barking. We got out the no bark collar. Had it on him for about 5 days strait and he seems to get the idea. Haven't had it on him for 2 days and he still is not barking. I do keep it close buy in case I need to remind him. The sad part was the neighbor told Roger " it was a good neighborhood before we moved in." I thought that was quite mean...............but maybe he was just having a bad day. I just felt he could of been a little nicer on how he told us. We have been careful on leaving Keota home alone. Don't want him barking and after taking him to vet and talking about the problem, it was brought up if we did leave him and he had on no bark collar..........and someone came to door..............he could have a heart attack.............do to his heart condition. Guess we will just have to keep the training up and hope for the best.

I ventured out yesterday and did my Christmas shopping for Roger and Keota. Boy was I tired when I got back. Today Roger went shopping and I wrapped all his gifts. The tree now has some gifts under it. Guess Roger is going to work on wrapping on Monday while I am gone. He sure misses my daughter, Sandy as she always did the wrapping for him.

We are still walking in the mornings and biking in afternoon. Keota wouldn't let us forget the bike ride...............he loves it. Roger and I also like to go to the pool, but once again, hard to get way both of us at once.........and it is not always fun to go by yourself.

Hope everyone is enjoying the holidays............try to stay warm.............drive safe and Happy Trails.

Wow, December is here!!!!

2008-12-07T17:57:00.002-06:00

I can't believe it is December 7th already. If my brother were to read this..............Happy Birthday Keith.

This past Friday was the Craft Sale at Sleepy Valley (were our RV still is) so I had a table. I guess with the economy the way it is, people just don't seem to be buying. Last year at the December Craft Sale I made about $30 more then I did this year. I did have two different ladies ask me if I could make them something different, so will be working on that. This next Saturday, I will be having a table at Bensten Grove Resort where we are now living. Hope I do a little better here.

We finally got our deck cleaned off. It had stacked on it things we did not want. The two recliners went to our friends, Dick and Darlene. They came by last night and picked them up. They were glad to get them, as they just bought a place to and are going to put them in their Texas room (sun porch). The rest of the stuff was in sacks and stuff we took out of this place and didn't sell at the yard sales at Sleepy Valley. We donated that to the Bentsen Grove group and it will be used to give to needy families here in the valley. It is so good to set the deck up the way we want and be able to use it now...............we need visitors now. LOL

I finally got around to giving Keota a hair cut, he hadn't had one since before we left Iowa. I must say he looks pretty good, we have had to put his sweater on him a few times when I got down into the 50's here.

Last Monday, I went to the computer club here at the park and boy what a large group. It was pretty basic stuff for me, but I am sure I will get something out of it, even if it is to help someone else. I also made it to the Bentsen Grove Auxiliary to help with making of quilts for the needy. I was surprised when I arrived and told to pick a family then go and pick out coats that would fit kids. This was all new to me.................so wasn't sure what it was all about. They then told me I would be buying each child a complete clothing outfit for Christmas. I said Wooooo........I can't afford to buy outfits for four kids. No...........the club pays for it, they all go shopping together to pick it out, then each member takes their stuff home and wraps it up for each kid and everyone goes the week before Christmas and meets the family and delivers their gifts.

Roger went to the Rock Club here in park on Tuesday. He seemed to like that, they have their own saws and polishers here and make all kinds of things. On Friday's they go to a ranch and hunt for rocks. Sounds great.

That's about all the news.............stay warm........drive safe........and................Happy Trails

Decorated for Christmas

2008-11-30T13:48:00.002-06:00

On Friday I decided to get out the Christmas decorations and set up the tree. When in the motor home, one is limited to what you can store for decorations, so after getting tree up and what I had for decorations, I made a trip to the dollar store to get a few more items. We were told, the street we are on competes for best street at Christmas, no pressure there. We have a car port out front so I got 3 stands of the icicle lights to hang there. The hooks were already there, so it was quite easy. Next I wrapped colored lights around the poles on each side along with a large red bow. I had some snowflake lights and a string to go on front of mobile home as well as a Christmas Tree I had crocheted years ago. I must say it does look pretty good. With the storage I have...........who knows, I may be able to add more next year. I put the tree under the big mirror in living room and outlined the mirror with lighted green garland. Then got two nice holders for the stockings and set them on shelf and presto, done.

The park where our motor home is still sitting had their yard sales yesterday..............so we took over everything we had from this place that we didn't want. The sale is only in morning, but we got rid of some things and made $40, not too bad, considering it wasn't even our stuff. We wanted to sell it cheep to get rid and not have to move it back here.

I decided it was time to give Keota a hair cut...............he hasn't had one since leaving Iowa. Come to think of it, neither have I. When I cut his hair I do it in at least two different settings and we both get tired and grumpy. I have to finish up today. I got his back, belly and face done, but his legs, feet and back end are still long. He looks kind of funny right now.

Tomorrow is the day I am going to try a few park activities. In the morning I am going to check out and see what the computer club is all about. They have a beginners and regular meeting. I think I am past the beginners, so will try the regular one. Who knows, I may get there and decided they are all way beyond me and end up at the beginners club. The afternoon, I am going to the Bentsen Grove Auxiliary, there I will work with the quilts for the needy. I did that last year at Sleepy Valley, and really enjoyed it alot. It will be a full day for me, guess Roger is on his own.

Thats about all for now................hope all our friends and family are staying warm and.........................Happy Trails to all.

Sorry..........I goofed

2008-11-23T18:19:00.002-06:00

I should post more often. I forgot a step when I made my Web Album and that was to share with everyone. So I had to go back and delete albums and do them over again. The links to those albums on my last post are no good now. Hope this works better......the say practice makes perfect. LOL

Mexico Photos:

From Trip to Mexico

Our Texas Home:

From Our Texas Home

Remember, you can either click on link at bottom of picture or click on picture. Do and and see what the inside of our home looks like.

Hope this works this time....................Happy Trails

Our Texas Home

2008-11-23T17:16:00.003-06:00

Wow, moving is a lot of work when you get old. We started moving in on Thursday and I think.....I have most things sorted and put away. I had to make a list of what I borrowed from the motor home, so I can return it in the Spring. I am hoping to get new things for here...........so I can replace motor home items before that, but we will have to see how that goes. This place has a lot of storage so that is no problem. It is just finding where I put everything now........and poor Roger, he is always asking me where something is. I didn't like the recliner that was in here.....so we went to another park for their in park garage sales and I found a different one. It seems to be much better. We had picked up one before and brought it over here before we moved in. That one was suppose to go into bedroom so one could watch the TV in there in comfort. Surprise..............It wouldn't go thru the door. Now we have one of our folding lawn chairs in there..........at least it fit thru the door. There was no TV in bedroom, and there was plenty of room in cabinet over closet so that is where it is going. Got it put up there yesterday and now it is ready for the Direct TV guy when he shows up tomorrow. We took the 26" HD TV out of the motor home and have it in new home now. We will be getting another TV for motor home after the first of the year. Think it will be a 22" this time.

I got a phone call from my daughter, Kim in California yesterday. She wanted to know how the move was going and she was wondering about the pictures I had promised in my last post. Well, I finally got them all taken..............edited on Picasa..........and put in my web albums. I am posting them here, but if you click on any photo it will take you to My Web Albums.

The first ones are from our short trip to Mexico a few weeks ago.

From Mexico

Now for the Texas home photo's. Remember to view all of the photo's and take a look inside.......click on photo and it will take you to rest of Album. Enjoy

Happy Trails

Moved in

2008-11-20T17:55:00.002-06:00

Today was the big day............we have been waiting for it for some time. I am soooooo tired tonight.........this old body just is not use to all this hard labor. We are slowly getting things sorted out and our things in place. When one buys a furnished place down here, that means, dishes, pots and pans, linens, and much much more. Needles to say, we are filling up the trash cans and sorting and making a list for things needed. Brought my sheets from the RV and washed them and the bedspread today. Got the bed made and a lot of unpacking and sorting done. Tomorrow, Roger is heading to Wal-mart in the morning for groceries and I will stay here with Keota. Will be making another trip to old park to get more from RV. Sure wonder were we had it all, seems like we have moved an awful lot over here. Hope to have some time to take some photos tomorrow and get them posted. Tired so will close now and look for another post real soon.

Happy Trails

Mexico

2008-11-12T19:40:00.004-06:00

We got a phone call from Dick and Darlene on Sunday and they were headed for Mexico and wanted to know if we wanted to go with them. Seeing as we have never been, thought this would be a good time to go, they could show us around. We both want to go there and get some dental work done and pick up some of Keota's pills. For those of you that don't know, we park on the US side ($2) then walk across the Rio Grande River. We made a potty stop before crossing, then there is a turn stile which you have to deposit 25 cents in. When we got to the Mexico side, there were little arms sticking thru the cracks in bride railing wanting hand outs. Then we came to the Mexico Army standing at end of bridge, holding guns. I stopped to take a picture of one of them and another one came over and told me I couldn't. I thought he was going to take my camera, but he didn't and I did get a picture. The sidewalk is lined with vender's and it is hard to walk thru there, they are all asking you to buy something. We just kept on walking and shaking our head NO. Darlene and Dick wanted to show us where they go to dentist, so did that. Then went into one shop and looked around. Roger got some cinnamon and Dick got some cookies. Wow we are big spenders. We walked around looking for the guy that paints the satellite dishes, but he wasn't there (Sunday). We did stop in a store and picked up some Heartguard for Keota. It is about half price from what we paid before. Plan on going back for more and the Frontline, also check into getting his heart meds there before we leave. It was interesting going over there, but can't say we see any real need to hang out there.

Took Keota to vet yesterday as the vet in CR wanted him to be seen when we got down here. I brought a CD with his Xrays and report from Vet for them. They took blood work and sold us more pills and bill came to $200. This is going to be expensive every month. Vet wanted to see him in a month for another blood test. Seems like this last one showed there may be a problem with his kidneys. The meds are probably causing that.

Don't laugh but I bought my Christmas cards today, going to get started on them, so everyone can have our new address. We love to get mail, and not bills. I went to my settings and set it up so some of you will be getting an email each time I post. If you don't want it, be sure to let my know and I will take your name off the list. Hope you enjoy hearing from us.

Monday we met with the people we are buying new place from. Did all the paper work, and called the electric company. I spent close to an hour trying to get that worked out. They kept transferring me to someone else. What a pain. We are getting excited about moving. We had already paid for our spot at this park, so we are going to leave our RV here and pick up our mail here that is being forwarded. Too much of a pain to get it changed, would take forever to get to us.

Everyone stay warm.........drive safe.........and...............Happy Trails

Another day closer to our move.

2008-11-08T20:14:00.003-06:00

We have been a little busy the last few days. Met up with Dick and Darlene and took them to Gonzella Burger. They have been coming down here for 7 years and have never been there. They liked it an plan on returning. We got to see their place they just bought. It is nice, 2 bedrooms, 1 and 1/2 bath, Texas room, and two sheds. Dick is working on a place to put washer and dryer in trailer. Right now it is in one of the sheds. The place has some wild wall paper and so needles to say, they have some painting to do. They have furniture in storage in Colorado so plan on making a trip there to pick it up. It just makes me anxious to get into our place.

Today we went to one park for yard sales, not much there. I did buy a few books and Roger got 2 movies. After that went onto Bentsen Grove to a craft sale. That is the park we are moving to. Got to look around and stayed and had lunch. The people we are buying from sat with us for lunch so had a nice visit with them. They introduced us to some of the people at the park. Seems like they have a few activities that will be a nice addition for us. They have a computer club, which I plan on going to and they told us about a bike club. I am hoping Roger might try that out. Seems they take outside bike rides, have even gone into Mexico on one. They put all the bikes in a trailer and transport them to site of bike ride. I know I can't do it with my 3 wheeler bike, but Roger could do it. The guy we are buying from volenteers in the kitchen and it sounds like Roger might do that. I am really happy about that, I think it will help him to get involved with more going on in park. This park also has an outside and inside pool plus an exercise room. We are hoping to visit them and start getting a little more exercise.

Till later.................Happy Trails

Bought a place

2008-11-01T14:23:00.004-05:00

Well, we did it..........went looking today and found a place down here in Mission. It is not at this park, but we are excited about it. It is a two bedroom (trailer) with front kitchen and a nice deck. The park rent is a little more there, but they have more activities. The couple who where selling are giving up and heading back to Ohio on the 20th so we can have it after that. Everything is included, dishes, furniture, sheets, towels, everything one needs. There is even a computer desk in living room for me. There is also a washer/dryer so no more trips to the laundromat. It is an older trailer, but well worth the price and looking forward to getting settled in at the end of the month. I will be sure to post pictures soon as I take some. The name of the park is Bentsen Grove Resort.

I signed up for Thanksgiving diner here, but Roger said to cancel them and we will sign up for that park, good way to meet our new neighbors. Think we will like it there, but going to miss some of the great people we met here. And the good news is we will have room for company now if anyone should want to come see us.

I will keep you posted...............till then.......................Happy Trails

Made it to the RGV

2008-10-29T18:45:00.002-05:00

Well, after 3 days on the road and some cold nights, we made it here and are soaking up the warm days. Left Iowa on Sunday morning and drove to Kansas City and spent the night at a Wal Mart. It was a nice one also, had a parking lot off to the side of the rest of parking and when Roger went in to check, they said that was were the RV's parked. We were only ones there till a small travel trailer pulled in right before bed. Boy was it COLD that next morning. It got down to 31 and we weren't running any heat.

The next day (Monday) we drove from Kansas City to Fort Worth and were going to stay in a campground, but when we got there, it was full. We pushed on down the road thinking we could find another campground, but didn't and ended up staying in back parking lot of a Cracker Barrel. Once again it was cold that night as well. We dove on all the way to Mission on Tuesday and when we got ready to park in our place, the tree needed trimed..........too low, so we stayed in site across from it. This morning we got up and went to office to see if they could trim the tree before we parked and get 50 AMP installed, the tree was a go, but they can't put the 50 AMP in. She gave us some site numbers to check out that had 50 Amp but we decided to go back to same site we had last year. We had picked the other site out as it had more afternoon shade, but I guess you can 't have everything.

Well there is one thing to say about buying an older RV, we are always fixing something. On way down here, found out there was a leak under bathroom sink. Every time we would turn pump on, it would leak. Called a guy to come fix it and right before he got here, the refer started making a clicking sound and the little lights on front were blinking (elec, gas). Had him look at it. He spent alot of time working on it and decided he will have to get a new circuit board, so will be back. Then this afternoon, I sat down at table with lap top, plugged into outlet and lap top kept blinking from battery then elec. I moved to a different outlet and let Roger know, he checked it out and outlet will not reset, so another thing to check out.

I am posting pictures from the Surprise Birthday Party for son Matt. We went to it on Saturday night before we left Iowa. Remember you can just click on photo and it will take you to web site to view all in he album. You can also view all my other albums by going to My Web Albums.

From Matt's Surprize 40th Birthday Party

Till later....................Happy Trails

Update

2008-10-23T06:13:00.003-05:00

Hi, just wanted to update on what has been happening. I finally got my new lap top and getting it all set up. Had to install all my programs and had a guy (Mike) transfer info from old lap top to this one. Guess he was able to hook up to hard drive in old one and do a transfer. I want to thank Mike for that. I still haven't figured out how to get some of the files into my programs yet, but I did get my Quickens to work, and that was the most important one. The rest I can play with later. Just hope I can figure them out, as I am going to hate to retype all that information back into My Family Tree and Cook'n programs.

I also have some photos to share with you. I have edited them using my new Picasa program and posted them in "My Web Albums" You can go there if you would like to view all my photos, but for now I will add a few here. You can go to the link at bottom of photo's and it will take you to the rest of the Web Album. Or you can click on photo to take you there.

We went to Emily (granddaughter) band performance on Oct. 4th in Cedar Rapids. She is in color guard. Sure enjoyed watching her, however the benches got hard. These old bodies just to take it like the young ones do. Emily did a great job, we only wish we could see her do her cheer leading. She does basketball and that is during winter when we are gone. Hope mom can send us some photos of that.

From 2008010-October

This next photo is from our day outing to Jenny and Doug's Cabin (daughter). They live in Muscatine and have a cabin on the Mississippi River. Doug loves to fish and they have us down every year for a fish fry. He also does the cooking, and fixes extra all coated and ready for us to freeze and take with us South. We sure are going to enjoy them this winter. It is always good to see the grand kids and enjoyed our time with all of them.

From Stolley Cabin

We are leaving on Sunday morning so are very busy getting everything done. As of this morning, looks like we are pretty well set. I keep list going all the time, one for TO DO'S , TO BUY, and many list for different rooms TO PACK. Roger has the yard all cut, and all the lawn ornament put way, as well as the deck furniture in garage. We have a guy coming to winterize the house (mobile home) on Saturday, so will be staying in RV Saturday night. Most of the things on list are last day things to get done and pack, today is go to Wal Mart day. We are really looking forward to getting to Texas again, it is getting COLD here. Just hope we don't hit any of that white stuff before we get out of here. I checked the weather on Internet yesterday, and it is 83 in Mission. The nights are warmer then our days here........................here we come.

To everyone else out there heading for the highways..............Happy Trails

Counting the days till time to leave.

2008-10-15T06:46:00.002-05:00

Hi, yes we are getting ready to leave. I told you in last post that my lap top died, and I still don't have official word on that. Sent it to a guy to get checked out and see if he could retrieve data from my hard drive. I am sure it is the mother board that is the problem. It was really poor timing for me as getting ready to leave and not much time to see about getting it fixed and the warranty was up in September. Oh well, I broke down and ordered a new lap top from Best Buy. They didn't have any in their store that I wanted so did my shopping on line. Really seem to like that better anyway, you can compare prices as well as read reviews on all of them. Just checked on line and UPS site says it will be here today. I can hardly wait to get it. Will have some computer work to do to get it all back and running with my programs and everything.

This past weekend we went to see daughter Jenny and her family at their cabin on the Mississippi River at Muscatine. It was Jenny and Doug's 17th Anniversary so we baked a cake to take and they had a fish fry. Doug does alot of fishing and they sent quite a bit of fish home with us to freeze and take with us. Wish I had a larger freezer in motor home, but we will make room for it. Sure taste good during the winter, better then you can buy in store. Took some pictures, but going to wait to post them till I get them on new lap top. Don't have my photo program on this computer.

Now that the lap top is coming today, I will be able to go to Cedar Rapids with Roger tomorrow. He has an eye appointment and our dog Keota is to see the vet. I want to get a hair cut, see a few friends and do some shopping. Have to time all our trips together, have to keep the fuel cost down. LOL

I will try to get another post done before we leave, if everything goes smooth. Till later....................Happy Trails

Help

2008-10-08T15:25:00.002-05:00

Ouch, my lap top died. Not sure what happened, turned it off last night and when I turned it on this morning, nothing but a black screen. I am lost without it. I am using my desk computer, and had to load my Verizon card on it so I could get on Internet. I will be trying to get it fixed before we leave on the 26th for Texas. Calling son-in-law tonight to see if he has any ideas, and if he can fix it. If not, sorry to say, I am have to break down and get a new one. This one was only 13 months old, so a real shame if it can't get fixed. Would hate to think of taking the desk computer with me. I feel like I am using a real old one.

We went to Cedar Rapids last Saturday to watch the granddaughter, Emily do her Color Guard for the Jefferson Band. It was good to be able to watch her. She is also a cheerleader, but never get to see that as she does basketball and that is over winter while we are gone. Went out to eat with them afterwards, then did the Wal-Mart stop before coming home.

There isn't much more happening around here. I have my list going for what to pack and what needs to get done before we go. Most of it is stuff you can't pack till almost time to leave. The list help tho. Wish I had some new photo's for you, but I guess that will just have to wait till next time. Drive safe, don't forget to vote on Nov. 4th and Happy Trails to all.

Catch Up Time

2008-09-23T18:30:00.011-05:00

I am not very good at keeping this updated, talked to brother-in-law the other day and he said he checks it once in a while, so guess I better work on writing more here.

We are keeping busy, Roger worked on the siding for some time and has it finished for now. Will have to get more siding next summer to finish the job, but he has back, both ends and 2/3 of the front done. I looks pretty good. We closed off the door to my office that went outside. We didn't have any steps out there and never use it. We also had put in a new back door when we moved in so no use for this one. We are now working on getting the RV ready for our departure next month. Plan on leaving here around the 26th of Oct. Hope the weather holds out till after we leave.

Here is my dog, Keota, looking out the doorway before it was closed off.

We had a visit from my good friends I use to drive bus with, Sandra and her hubby Lloyd come out for a day. Was sure good to have them. We don't get too many visitors all the way out here in Stanwoood. Anyway, we went to Chinese in Tipton then back here and watched some Grand ole opry vidios they brought with them. Sandra and I worked on crocheting. She wanted me to teach her how to Cro-hook. We will be getting back together with them again before we leave.

As you will see buy the photos, we had some visitors in our front yard. First time we have seen them here, but the neighbor lady said they use to come all the time. They flocked to the trees in front yard, on their way South.

We had Direct TV installed in house on 3 TV's and will be taking them all 3 boxes with us. We have 3 TV's in our RV (front room, bedroom and belly) The guy that came to connect them was a real jerk and know it all, couldn't wait to have him leave. He even said he couldn't program the remote to work with our one tv as it was not listed, I checked after he as gone, and it was there so programed it myself. Anyway, it is done and now it is getting everything ready to hook up in RV, I also got some digital boxes to use when we are using attenna only, got them hooked up ok, and working good.

We are somewhat Hawkeye fans, and my daughter and her hubby (Sandra and Brian) are Iowa State (Cyclone) fans. My hubby made a bet with Brian for looser to take the winners out to the Texas Road House for dinner. Guess what, the HAWKEYE's won so we get dinner. Maybe next year Sandra and Brian.

I will try harder to post here more often for any of you that are reading this. Till then, safe travels........and.............Happy Trails.

2008-08-26T09:34:00.002-05:00

Not much news to write about as Stanwood, Iowa is not a jumping community. We did go into Lisbon Saturday night and listened to son-in-law sing in the band he is in. He really does a great job and even tho it was not are kind of music, we really enjoyed it. Oh, and it was so nice to be in a smoke free bar. Didn't have that stale smoke smell when you got home and didn't have to breath all that smoke all night.

Roger is finishing up the siding job. He has made it all the way around the mobile home and is front side now. He has enough of his free siding to go to front door. Next summer he will have to order enough to finish from the door to other end, only one window there, so it should go smooth. He took out the outside door that was in my office, we didn't use it and no steps in front of it. Don't worry we had put a door in back side of home when we moved in here, so we are still up to code and have two outside doors.

I am keeping up on all the blogs I read and visiting all the places with the blogs that we don't get to go see. Sure wish it was us out there visiting some of those places. But for now, will have to read about it. The walking is going good, still getting out there every morning and doing about 40 minutes. I am still waiting for the feeling that I am feeling better and I "want " to get out there. Sure hope it comes soon, it is so hard to get up and get ready without talking myself out of it. Now instead of telling myself "I am walking to loose weight" I am saying, "I am walking to keep myself healthy and from getting stiff", hope that helps and the weight thing just doesn't work and I never get there. LOL.

I don't think anyone is reading this blog, so guess it is for my benefit to keep account of what I am doing. I you are reading this..............Happy Trails

Happy Anniversary

2008-08-17T12:10:00.002-05:00

It is hard to believe, Roger and I have now been married for 22 years. Gosh, how the time flies, it sure doesn't feel like that long. Got phone calls from all three of my daughters and Roger's daughter told him a "Happy" but nothing from Matt and Heather. Right now we are at daughter Sandra's house for an Anniversary dinner. Good to get away from home for the day, and visit with them.

I don't have much other news, the toe is healing and I am back to walking every morning. I am now doing a longer walk. I also got all my sun cathers done and packed for going to Texas. Sure have a lot of them made up, hope I can get some of them sold. Now I am going to start working on getting my list going of things to do and things to pack. Time just seems to slip up on one, even tho you are retired and have all the time, it still slips by.

Till later...............Happy Trails

Ouch, In grown toe nail

2008-08-08T10:50:00.002-05:00

I have had an ingrown toe nail for over a year, decided to get something done about it. Went to foot Dr. on Wednesday. He took care of it, so now I am doctoring a sore toe. Haven't gotten back to my morning walks yet, seems every time I put on a shoe, the toe starts to bleed again. Thought I would give it a few days to heal before doing the walking again. I would post a photo of toe, but don't really think you want to see it.

Not much of anything else happening around here. Roger is still waiting for his corners to come into Menards so he can get back to working on the siding. I have been taking it easy (because of toe) so have been working on computer and stringing beads to make my beaded sun catchers. I do attact some of the house work, but other then that it is slow around here. Till later................

Drive safe, save gas and Happy Trails

Family Reuion

2008-08-04T16:25:00.002-05:00

We made a one day trip to Clear Lake for a family reuion with Roger's family. Note: I don't have any family around for get togethers like this. It is a 3 hour drive up there and 3 hours back, so it was a very long drive, but we did not want to take the motor home that far.........price of gas you know. I took a few pictures and I am going to try to put these in here ...........remember I am still learning.

We took Keota in and had him groomed, doesn't he look nice. She didn't cut it as short as we like, I guess that is there way of getting you to come back sooner. But he did get all the other nessisary things done, nails, ears, etc. (don't ask what the etc. is......you don't want to know).

Roger is still working on the siding, it is really hot out today, so he has been staying inside. Me, I am still working on my lap top, learning all the new cool things. I did decide I need more RAM so am going to work on getting that done. I also have not started with the Google Earth I want to download and play around with that. I really need to get a few suncatchers made today, decided to make them all up while home this summer and take them with me to Texas. I have a table at our park when they have their craft sales every month. I sell (or try to) my suncatchers and some of the small crocheted items I make. Not much, just a little extra spending cash.

Drive Safe...........Happy Trails

Still learning

2008-07-30T08:58:00.004-05:00

I'm sending this again, as my link did not work, I hope I have it fixed now.

Ok, I am going to play with this to see what happens when I load a photo. This one is the siding job that my hubby and his brother are working on. I had to tease them that it looked like they got the siding from one of those houses in Cedar Rapids that had gone thru the flood. Truth is Roger got it from some guy in Iowa City last summer and it has been sitting in a pile outside all winter...........guess what it is a little dirty.

Here is hubby Roger on swing and his brother Larry resting on our deck. They have been putting siding on house. Notice our dog, Keota is resting too. LOL

This is going to take some getting use to. One has to put the last photo on first is telling a story as they are always posted to the top of the page. I did cut and copy my information i typed and put it above the photo.

I have spent many hours watching vidios from a web site I learned about while at the Safari and FMCA rallies. The couple travel in their RV and give siminars on different subjects. You can check them out here and see for yourself what I have been doing. I am so excited about all this knowledge............hehehe. I have downloaded Picasa to edit my photos (free from google) and downloaded Photo Story 3 (free from Micosoft) I still want to learn Google Earth but think I should learn some of this stuff first. This blog will give me a place to try some of this new stuff I am learning. Let me know what you think????

Till later..............Happy Trails

Home Again

2008-07-19T19:16:00.002-05:00

We left St.Paul (rally) yesterday morning about 8:30, took us over a half hour to make it to I-94 as it was bumper to bumper motor homes all the way and that was two lanes. Wow was I glad to hit the interstate. We made a few stops on way home, stopped in Clear Lake to get fuel, but it was really high so didn't fill it up. Didn't stop to see brother in law, Larry as they are in OK. Then we had to stop in Janesville to get banana. That sounds wird, but they have good ones and they are cheeper than at the store. Next stop was Flying J in Evensdale for fuel, topped it off. We stopped at Walmart in Marion for food and then at Sqaw Creek Park to empty holding tank. Got home at 6pm. It was a light rain while we were unloading the RV, but most of everything we needed unloaded.

I spent today getting caught up on laundry and putting things away and of course on the internet. It isn't really a very interesting blog, but such is life. One has to do what one has to do. LOL. Keota seems happy to be home, now to find time to give him a bath and hair cut....or maybe I will try to find a groomer that can take him.

Till later.........drive safe.........and...............Happy Trails

Last day at rally

2008-07-17T20:40:00.002-05:00

Not alot happening today, to tell you the truth, it was a wind down day for us. Rog did go over to vendors and bought a few more things. Went to the Safari happy hour and watched them sell the remaining pop and booz they had in truck. Fun to watch everyone gobble up the bargins.

Dawn called me today, she didn't know we were gone. Talked to her about them getting back into their house in Palo. The whole town had water, she said only about 20 families living in town right now........almost like a gost town. For those of you that don't know..........Palo is just outside Cedar Rapids and got hit hard like CR did. I drove bus with Dawn as well as trained school bus drivers with her. She said one of the CR schools will not be opening this year and it is a mess trying to find out where all the families are that were affected by the flood. Transportation has to know this so they can get those kids on bus routes for this coming school year that starts in about a month. Makes me glad I am retired...........as it sounds like it is going to be a mess.

We are leaving tomorrow for home........there are some 3000 of us leaving so the it should be fun getting out of here. I haven't figured out a route yet, but don't think that a problem. Will be making a stop at Wally World to pick up supplies for home as well as stopping to dump holding tanks. Keota is going to be happy to get home, think he is tired of being left in motor home during the day. He needs a bath and another hair cut..........so guess that is at the top of my 'to do's.'

Speaking of 'to do's', I was showed how to modify T shirts so I am really looking forward to trying it when I get home. Can't believe how fast this summer has gone. It won't be long before we will be making plans for our trip to Texas.

Once again, safe travels and Happy Trails to all of you.

Shopping day at rally

2008-07-16T20:31:00.002-05:00

It is Wed. and only one day left of rally. Spent the day going thru the displays and yes even buying a few things. Roger got a new sewer hose...........doesn't that sound thrilling????? I got a vacume system to put in RV, comes with 40 foot hose and wow the suction. Can't wait to get it mounted and use it..........Rog says when we get home. I also bought some new sheets for the RV, 400 count and deep poctets......only $20, can't get them for that at Wally world.

We had to put Keota in the bedroom with air on and block the bathroom door as the service men were coming today. He sure didn't like it. But by afternoon, while we were home, they came. First the Care Free man to fix an awning, then Monaco came to fix the drivers seat. They couldn't fix it, have to order a part...........the front/back motor. Then the honey wagon came.........for those of you that don't know what a honey wagon is, they empty your holding tanks for you...........so you can feel them again. LOL.

We had just gotten home from our morning of rally shopping and got a phone call from our new friends Lee and Pat whom we met at the Safari rally in Amana and parked next to them at the next Safari rally at Prior Lake. After walking Keota and getting him ready for another couple hours locked in the bedroom, we were off to meet them and did some more walking thru the displays. Then stopped for a bite of lunch. Lee and Pat were going on a bus tour so had to leave, we headed over towards the Information area and what did we find, some resort display was giving away FREE food. Wow..............what a find. Had punch..........pie, cookies and fruit. Pretty good topping for the lunch we had. Boy were my feet tired after all the walking today, so we headed back to RV and I spent the evening relaxing with my feet up. Rog went to evening program then we went to get milk and 3 jugs of water. Doesn't that sound exciting. Wish we were more interesting, but that is our life. Till later.............Drive safe,,,,,,,Happy Trails

Hot here today

2008-07-15T19:59:00.002-05:00

We are still at the FMCA rally and wow is it hot. Roger had signed up for tecks to come fix the drivers seat on RV. It stopped moving forward and backwards when we left the Amana's. It is hard to drive as seat is forward and hard to get your feet on peddles. We worked our semainars today so one of us would be here when they came. The problem is our dear spoiled dog, Keota. They say they will come it to fix things as long as dog is in kennel or locked in other room. We could of put him in bedroom and shut the door, but was affraid he would scratch the bathroom door up trying to get out when he heard someone. Roger checked around 2pm and tecks said it would be tomorrow afternoon or Thursday morning. After all day messing up our day today. Anyway, I think if we leave air condition on in bedroom, put a small chest in front of inside of bathroom door, then shut door, it may work. Hate to spoil another day. As it is, we went and got new batteries for his bark collar so he wouldn't bother others. Sometimes, he is worse then having a kid, but we LOVE HIM.

I had offered to help out with the Safari International table this afternoon. Just answer questions and talk about the club. Not much traffic there so Roger and I didn't have much to do, it was only for 2 hours so not that bad. I also went to a craft this morning, made a "grandmother's bracelet", it went pretty well and I will wear it, but all 13 grandkids stones and Roger's and mine on it with small butterflies between each one. Guess the day wasn't a total waste.

Drive safe, save gas and Happy Trails to all.

Getting Started

2008-07-14T18:07:00.000-05:00

Hi, I am in St. Paul at an FMCA rally. I went to a seminar today on how to create a blog and here I am. Not sure what I will be writing about, but a good start.

We have been gone from home since July 1st when we took off to go to Safari rally at the Amana's. Had a great time there, met some great people and had some great food and fun. We left there on the 5th and drove to Clear Lake and spent two nights and visit with Roger's brother Larry and his wife Sharon. Couldn't get into the State Park due to July 4th holiday so went to private campground. We got the last site, wasn't great.......but for short notice, not too bad. Besides we spent most of our time at Larry's house.

On Monday the 7th we headed North to Prior Lake, MN for another Safari rally. Yes you guessed it, more great food, new friends and lots of fun. On Sat, there were 44 RV's headed in a caravan to the fair grounds here at St. Paul. Now it is seminars, get a few things fixed on RV, I am going to do a craft tomorrow and more seminars, entertainment and shopping. I am riding my 3 wheeler around and getting a lot of comments on it. Seems everyone I meet wants to know where to get one. Trailmate should give me a commission for selling them. LOL.

Drive safe, save fuel and Happy Trails to all.