Elaine & Mary in new rig in Las Cruces recently. 

Sunset over mountains near Las Cruces. 

Our new RV parked at Stephanie & Paul Bernhagen's in Las Cruces. 

1/2/07 We are back in Tucson at Aunt Marion's house where we left our car when we went to Texas to pick up our new motorhome. We will try to get better organized tomorrow and then head back to Yuma on Thursday. Finally, I took the time to take some pictures of our new RV and post them below so you can see how beautiful our new home is. Enjoy!
On our drive back from Texas, we stopped the first night in Abeline to spend New Year's Eve with Larry and Joyce Space, friends from our Panama trip in 2004. They were stranded at the Flying J when their truck seized up and they needed major repairs. Not a good thing to happen on a holiday weekend! We had a happy reunion with them and stayed in the parking lot there overnight. Hopefully they were able to get their truck repaired today and get on their way to Phoenix.
Last night we stayed in Las Cruces at Paul & Stephanie Bernhagen's new home, along with Judy & Tom Fisher. Amazingly, there is room for 3-4 rigs to be parked along the side of their place. Another SKP couple joined us all for dinner at a local pizza parlor. What a gorgeous home Paul and Stephanie have built there and they did all the work themselves! I have asked Stephanie to send a picture, since I forgot to take one, and when she does, I will post it for you.

2005 Seabreeze LX with bedroom slideout. 

Left side of Seabreeze with living room slideout. 

Front seating area of Seabreeze. 

Couch & dinette in living room of our new Seabreeze. 

Bathroom vanity in Seabrreze. 

Bedroom of our new rig. 

Kitchen of our new rig. 

12/31/06 Happy New Year Everyone! Sorry we haven't been adding any posts to this site but finally we have something big to report. Two days ago we bought a new RV!! It is a 2005 Seabreeze LX 8341, which means it is 34 feet long. Although it was listed on eBay as a used RV, it only has 4043 miles on it and as we moved into it we came to realize that no one has ever lived in it. It even still smells new. It has 2 slides, one in the living room and one in the bedroom. WOW does it seem huge! This is one of the 3 rigs that Elaine bid on through eBay and which we didn't win the bid on because we didn't meet the reserve price. But after the eBay listing expired, we contacted the dealership and negotiated such a great deal on it that it was worth driving all the way to Denton, Texas. This is just north of Dallas-Fort Worth and was 1000 miles from Tucson, where we shared Christmas with Elaine's sister, Aunt and 2 cousins. We took 1 1/2 days to drive here so that we could be here by Friday, so we could have them transfer over our satellite system and we could get the paperwork done before the long holiday weekend. The dealership is McLain's RV and they have been fabulously friendly and accomodating. There was a HUGE storm here Friday and part of Saturday and the rain was gushing down. They put both rigs door to door under a huge metal canopy which enabled us to move our stuff to the new rig. Now we are camped in the little area they have behind their dealership, where we are testing all the systems and getting ready to start the drive west later today.
We had been looking forward to New Year's Eve with the Boomers out on Sidewinder Road, near Yuma. This RV deal prevents that but it has been well worth it and we will be starting 2007 in a beautiful new home!
Sending big hugs and hoping that 2007 is a great year for you all.

Front of Rental House In San Jose 

12/9/06 Sorry about the long delay in posting. We have been working on the vacant rental house in San Jose. Having just finished it today, we have now returned to Park Sierra in our RV and are sitting here with the rain pounding down on our roof. It is good to be back here where we can rest a little because working on a house gets harder every time! Luckily Tarra will be handling the re-renting of it, which should take place on the 15th.
The plan is for us to have a few medical appointments this next week and then start heading south the week after that. We would love to be with our Boomer friends on Sidewinder Road near Yuma before Christmas. On the way there, we will be swinging by San Diego to see Darran. We bought the used truck that our neighbors here, Alan & Carol Rodely, were selling and used it while working on the rental. Next we will drive it down for Darran to use, since he is going to sell his car.
The house that we were working on is the very first house that Elaine and I, and the kids, ever lived in together in 1979! I will attach a picture of it for those of you who would like to see it.

11/20/06 Just a quick update to let you know that we are back at Park Sierra and enjoying reconnecting with friends and neighbors. Of course, we are also unpacking from the trip and re-packing the RV so we can leave again the day after Thanksgiving. We will be returning to San Jose to work on the vacant rental house. As soon as that is dealt with, we can think about heading south for adventures with Boomers, Boondockers, and RoVing Rods. Everyone is asking where the next big travel adventure will be but we haven't had time to do any research or make any plans yet! Hope to do that while camping in the southwest soon. More on this later.
If you didn't receive our last travelogue, please read it below as I just posted it (forgot to do it on the 14th when it was originally sent.) Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!

Dear Friends & Family, 11/14/06
Here we are in Key West, Florida and only 2 days
away from flying back to California from Galveston.
Yesterday we were in Nassau, The Bahamas. Luckily, we
have had wonderful weather for the entire crossing and
haven't needed the warm clothes that we carried along
on the entire trip thinking it would be cold crossing
the Atlantic in November! I suppose it is because we
took a southerly route.
Our last port before the 6 straight days at sea
was in Tenerife, The Canary Islands. It is located
off the coast of Morocco, and was a much larger island
than we had expected. There is also a large dormant
volcano there. We did a bit of shopping, since there
were also some low cost clothing stores. The people
were very nice and the entire place was clean, nicely
laid out with pedestrian streets, etc. and good
infrastructure for visiting cruise ships and
passengers. Next time we are there we are going to
explore the island more, as everyone said there was
lots to see.
I don't think I mentioned in a previous travelogue
that we missed seeing our RV friends, Joe & Carla
Calwell by just one day when we were in Messina,
Sicily. They had been camping near there in their
European RV but had to leave for the mainland the very
day we arrived. Now we will just have to see them at
the Boomer gatherings in the southwest this winter.
That is, providing we get down there ourselves. We
have another vacant house to deal with in San Jose
when we get back. Elaine's daughter, Tarra, and her
partner, Alonzo, have been handling things for us and
starting on the fix-up process and we really
appreciate that. Now we will have to finish things up
and try to get another good tenant in there before we
can travel south for the winter. We had hopes of
going to Mexico again this winter, as we haven't been
there for years, and we wanted to go with Jonna & Mimi
to their place in Akumal, near Cancun. Those plans
might be changed now.... Boo hoo.
Thursday night we will be landing in Oakland, and
spending the night at Tarra's in Fremont. Friday we
will return to Park Sierra to see our friends and
neighbors, pack up the RV, and head back to San Jose.
We will be trying to do a better job of keeping in
touch with people individually by e-mail, but probably
not right away. Thanks for traveling with us and we
will be looking forward to seeing all of you sometime
in the future. Sending huge hugs to you all.
Love, Mary & Elaine

Travelogue #13
Dear Family & Friends, 11-2-06
Here we are in Barcelona which is the third stop
on our cruise itinerary. We areńt doing much
sightseeing today because we spent about a week here
in 2005 when our first transatlantic cruise ended
here. It is a beautiful and interesting place to
visit, however. Today it is cool and there is a 40
percent chance of rain, so being in the internet place
is OK.
Our cruise started in Venice on Oct. 29. We had
met Lee & Susie Blattner at our B&B on the evening of
the 27th and spent the 28th exploring Venice. It was
a warm, sunny day and it was delightful to just be
walking around and taking pictures. There were about
4 cruise ships in port so it was crowded with tourists
but still fun.
The first port of call was Dubrovnik, in Croatia,
where we had spent 3 days in 2005 when we toured 7
Central European countries. So we didńt go into the
old town but went shopping for jeans instead. Because
of our 2 months in the Middle East, our wardrobe was a
little light and we needed something warmer for the
cruise ship. In fact, last night we encountered gale
force winds and high seas on our way here, but we
didńt get sea sick.
We have several more stops in Spain, and then
Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, before we have about
a week at sea crossing the Atlantic. The ship food is
fabulous, as usual, and we are enjoying the leisure
time and socialization with Lee & Susie as well as
other passengers. We are over our colds and feeling
good.
Hoping that this finds all of you doing well and
enjoying some nice Fall weather.
Love, Mary & Elaine

Middle East Travelogue #12
Dear Family & Friends,
Today we are feeling better and I am determined to
catch up on the travel tales. Thanks everybody who
responded to our last few travelogues. It is always
great to hear from you and get news from home and hear
what is happening in your lives too.
We were still in Aswan when I quit writing
yesterday. This is the place where the optional trip
to Abu Simbel takes place; this is the one I mentioned
in a previous travelogue. Ramses II, one of the
longest reigning Pharohs in Egypt (67 years) built a
huge temple to himself, with 4 immense statues of
himself seated outside. I think these are about 100
feet tall. Also nearby there is a similar temple
dedicated to his favorite wife. Nefertari, but there
are only 2 statutes of her, and three more of himself
there! What an ego!! These 2 temples, and all these
statues were moved about 100 meters over and 65 meters
higher on the banks of Lake Nasser so that they would
be above the rising waters of the reservoir. The most
amazing part is that this was done over a 4 year
period, which tells you right off that it was done by
foreigners. Because the way the Egyptians all sit
around doing nothing, I don't think they could move a
one bedroom apartment across the street in 4 years
without help. Anyway, in order to create the same
kind of cliff arrangement in the new spot, there was a
huge dome built above the Ramses temple which was a
major engineering feat and the second largest dome in
the world. Can't see it though - it is covered with
rock and dirt to simulate a cliff. To get to this
site, we had to get up in the middle of the night and
catch another convoy. Luckily, it was a trip done in
a nice big comfortable bus. Driving through the
desert reminded us of crossing the Atacama Desert in
northern Chile where there has never been any rain
recorded and there is absolutely no vegetation. Same
here.
I forgot to mention earlier that one of the first
places we went was to the Temple of Isis in Philae.
This is another temple that was moved but it has been
placed on an island between the old and new dams, so
it is near Aswan but you still have to get there in a
boat.
The last thing we did in Aswan was go to the night
bazaar to try to buy some nice blouses for our
upcoming cruise back to the USA. The market has nice
displays and great looking merchandise but it was
difficult to take advantage of it because of the
hawkers. The salemen are so aggressive and persistent
that within a short time, they drive you away. We
managed to hang in there long enough to buy 2 tops and
a scarf and then gave up. There are malls here in
Aexandria so maybe we will try those instead. Ir
isn't just in Aswan that this harrassment of
Westerners occurs, it is everywhere. In fact, just
walking down the street, taxis honk at us and also
pull over hoping we will hire them. The sad part
about this is that when real people who are not trying
to sell us anything approach us, we are so wary that
we are usually rude. Many people on the streets
welcome us and try to speak English to us. It is
refreshing.
From Aswan we sailed back to Luxor. In both
locations we became aware that there was lots of
garbage being dumped right into the Nile, as it was
floating right by us. We watched guys from the
Movenpick boat throw stuff right into the river and
this is one of the most expensive Swiss hotel chains!

In Luxor, we took a ferry across to the west bank
of the Nile, because this is where all the tombs are.
Then we were mounted on donkeys and we rode about 4
miles to the Valley of the Kings. What a bouncy
experience, but fun, especially on the ride back a few
hours later when we rode through some small villages.
In the Valley of the Kings, we visited 3 tombs which
were covered with very colorful frescoes and very
different than any of the temples we had seen. Then
we hiked up the cliff to the top and across the ridge
and down to the remains of a village where the tomb
builder workers had lived. From the top of the cliffs
we had a great view over the Nile Valley and we could
clearly see where the desert was and where they had
been irrigating. But the air was very polluted here
too, even though there aren't millions of cars like in
Cairo, so it must be from crop burning and cooking
fires.
The last day in Luxor we went on another convoy
and visited the temples in Abydos and Dendarra. By
this time we were definitely getting templed out but
amazingly, there is always something different to see
in each one. The best part was driving through the
villages on the way and watching the people. There
were many sugar cane fields, people working outside,
many mud huts where poor people live, and of course
lots of donkeys, sheep, goats and some camels. They
load these up with sugar cane stalks so they look like
huge stacks walking along the road. Women walk along
the road carrying everything on their heads including
huge heads of cabbages. In every town there are
police check points and there are little boxes built
on poles where they sit with a machine gun and watch
the traffic go by. We have heard that they receive
very poor pay; probably between $80-100 per month, and
if there is a problem they should respond to, they
don't bother. In Hurghada an offensive German tourist
was being beat up by 2 Egyptians with a tourist
policeman across the street watching.
From Luxor, we had another convoy to Hurghada
which is right on the Red Sea coast. On the outskirts
of town there were hundreds, perhaps even thousands of
unfinished buildings. This area is being massively
overbuilt and it is causing degradation of the off
shore coral reefs. Our group took a boat out for
snorkeling on a very windy day, which made it
difficult. The corals and fish were not nearly as
good as they had been in Dahab, over on the Sinai
Peninsula. We ate dinner one night at Papas II which
is owned by Richard, an English guy. He gave us a lot
of information about the area. We also met a
delightful Dutch couple who has an apartment there for
diving and they spent hours with us talking about
Egypt, politics and the problems of the Red Sea.
As i mentioned in one of my last travelogues, we
had another middle-of-the-night convoy to Cairo. Here
we had our group farewell dinner and then people took
off for new adventures or home. Overall it was a good
tour which could have been greatly enhanced by a
better tour leader.
Today is the last day of Ramadan. This probably
means huge celebrations tonight. At least tomorrow
there will be restaurants open during the day and we
can get a feel for what Egypt is like during the 11
months of the year when there is no Ramadan, and
people aren't fasting all day.
Friday we fly from Cairo to Venice, where we will
join Lee & Susie Blattner in a hotel there. Sunday we
all board the cruise ship for our 18 day trip back to
Galveston. After a month here in Egypt, it will be
good to return to a western nation!
Sending big hugs to those of you who have traveled
this far with us!
Love, Mary & Elaine

Middle East Travelogue #11
Dear Family & Friends, 10/21/06
Don't have a lot of time or energy to write today
but I thought I would throw a few more travel stories
at you while I had some internet time left. We are
back in Cairo today, after getting up at 1:15AM this
morning in order to catch the convoy from Hurghada to
Cairo - ugh! Besides feeling crappy from lack of
sleep, we both have acquired the cold that was
circulating in our tour group. So we are chilling out
today, have our farewell dinner with the group
tonight, and then tomorrow we are back on our own
again. Hooray.
You might be wondering about my mention of convoys.
It seems that ever since the massacre of 52 foreign
tourists in 1997 at a temple in the Valley of the
Kings in Luxor, and the subsequent negative effect on
tourism for the next few years, the police have been
keeping a very close watch over tourists here. On the
roads our buses have to stop frequently at police
check points where sometimes they question the driver
or guide about our nationalities. On certain roads,
such as the one between Luxor and Hurghada, and
Hurghada and Cairo, because there are long stretches
of desert where there are no towns or villages, it is
a requirement that all tourist vehicles travel in a
convoy. These leave only twice a day and we have to
be sure to be up in time to get on the bus and join
them. The other reason for them is if a vehicle
breaks down, then the tourists can be loaded onto
another of the vehicles and still reach their desired
destination. Unfortunately, the convoy from Hurghada
leaves at 2AM, which means an early wake up for us
all.
As a matter of fact, there was a mutiny in our group
over this, because most of us didn't really need to
get back to Cairo early this morning so we thought
Shona should have scheduled us for the noon convoy.
But she wouldn't budge and the group split up into 2
camps over it, which has been rather unpleasant.
Anyway, I ended the last travelogue with our
arrival in Aswan. This is as far up on the Nile as
cruise boats can go because this is where the dams are
located. This part of the Nile is interesting because
there are islands here, and also tombs cut into the
west bank of the river which we could see from our
boat and which were also lit up at night. The
mausoleum of the last Aga Khan is also on a hill over
there. Aswan is the 3rd largest town in Egypt, after
Cairo and Alexandria, although they have millions of
people and Aswan only has several hundred thousand.
There is a large Christian community here, which are
called Copts, so we visited the very different and
architecturally interesting Coptic Cathedral. Nearby
is the Nubian Museum,a most interesting place and with
well presented displays, if somewhat dim in areas. I
believe I mentioned in a previous travelogue that the
Nubians were totally displaced from their land when
the High Aswan Dam was built. Actually, they had to
move three previous times because of the first Aaswan
dam in 1912, then twice more when it was raised
higher, so these poor people were always getting
settled and then displaced! When all their land was
covered by Lake Nasser after 1972, some of them moved
to the Sudan and some settled in Egypt. Lots of them
are in Aswan and there is a chance to walk through two
Nubian villages on Elephantine Island in Aswan but we
never found the time to do it. The museum showed how
they lived, their rather colorful houses and mode of
dress, etc. as well as displaying a lot of artifacts
of archeological sites that were either moved or
covered when the High Dam was built. The most
interesting part was the photographic display and
explanations of all the archeological sites that were
catalogued and moved before the rising waters could
cover them. This was the result of a worldwide appeal
and the response of many nations, including the USA.
Within a relatively short period of time,
approximately 30 sites were cut up into moveable
blocks and set up in other places, including one that
has been transferred to a museum in New York as a form
of payment for all the money the USA provided for this
project. I believe our nation provided about 30% of
the necessary funds.
Besides visiting these places, our group
chartered a felucca and had an afternoon sailing
adventure on the river, visiting a nice botanical
garden on another of the islands. It was clear to
Elaine and me that although we enjoyed the felucca, we
were very glad that we hadn't taken one of the ImTrav
tours which involved sailing between Luxor and Aswan
on one of these. It would have meant sleeping on deck
with all the other group members and also there is no
toilet on board. Young people quite enjoy these
adventures but we are a bit older now and appreciate
our creature comforts! As we sailed back to our
cruise boat, weaving in and out through the many
islands and rock formations, we could see how greatly
skilled our boatmen were.
10/22/06 Had to stop writing rather abruptly
yesterday so I didn't send the above, as planned. Now
we are in Alexandria, where we have come for a few
days of rest and sightseeing and to hopefully recover
from this cold which is dragging us down. So I will
try to finish telling you about our other adventures
tomorrow.
Sending big hugs to all and hoping all is well.
Love, Mary and Elaine

Dear Family and Friends, 10/19/06

Haven’t had time to write an in depth travelogue
for quite some time, so this will probably be lengthy.
I will break it up into parts. The last one I wrote
was from Cairo, and we have been lots of places since
then!
Our tour group is made up of a Canadian couple, a
New Zealand couple, an Australian couple, an English
couple, a young single girl from the Netherlands, an
older single lady from New Zealand who now lives in
Australia, our young tour leader from England named
Shona, and us, so it is quite an international group.
It is also mostly people older than forty five, which
suits us, especially since many are really experienced
travelers. Once the tour started, we visited the
Egyptian Museum in Cairo (awesome), the Citdel in
Cairo where there was an interesting mosque and a view
over the whole city (if the air hadn’t been so
polluted), and the bazaar area called the Khan El
Kahlalli, as well as the Pyramids of Giza.
Surprsingly, these are actually within the city of
Cairo, since the urban sprawl has enveloped them. I’m
sure they used to be even more awesome than they are
now, as they were once covered with a pink limestone
facing, which has been stripped off by preceding
generations and used in other buildings in Cairo.
Elaine and I also wanted to visit the area called The
City of the Dead, which is the Northern Cemetery where
there are tombs, but also somewhere between ten and
fifty thousand people living there. The tombs usually
have extra rooms for the family of the deceased and
poor people just moved into them. Because it is a
questionable area to visit on your own, we drove by it
with our tour group but didn’t actually go in. It is
a statement about how overcrowded Cairo is that people
actually live like this.
That night we took the sleeper train to Luxor.
The compartments were for two people and were
comfortable. They served us an airline type meal
which was basically inedible, then the porter changed
the compartment so there were two sleeping bunks. We
arrived in Luxor at about six AM and then transferred
to our cruise boat. This was also pretty comfortable,
but the cabins were about half the size of the ones we
have had on other ocean going cruise ships. Almost
immediately, we were whipped off to Karnak Termple on
horse-drawn carriages. The temple is awesome and has
a huge hall with one hundred and thirty four huge
columns all covered with carvings and hieroglyphics.
There were also several obelisks that were big and
other interesting features as well which I won’t bore
you with now. Upon our return to the boat, we started
sailing up the Nile. It seems funny to say “up” since
we were sailing south, but the Nile flows north and
also the topography is such that Aswan is higher than
Alexandria, so it really is going up. That evening we
anchored off Esna, waiting for our turn to go through
the lock there. It was late afternoon and we were
enjoying a cold beer out on the top deck, looking at
all the other cruise ships gathering there. Soon
there were lots of rowboats around with men in them
yelling and throwing merchandise to the people on the
cruise boats. These were guys trying to sell things
like clothes and blankets and they were very
persistent. It didn’t even seem to faze them when
people kept throwing the stuff back to them and
occasionally things landed in the water! When someone
wanted to buy something and a price had been
established, then money was put in a plastic bag and
thrown down to the guys in the rowboat. We were quite
impressed that they had such good aim and could hit
the top deck of the cruise boats which were usually
three or four stories tall.
The weather has been tolerable, since it has been
cooler than we were lead to believe it would be.
Aswan is always hotter than Cairo by about eight to
ten degrees, but being on a cruise boat on the Nile
was very pleasant. It was so enjoyable to sit on the
deck and watch the green fields and small villages go
by. In some places we could see the tall, dry, brown
hills behind the green fields which made us aware that
the desert wasn’t very far away. In Egypt, all the
food is produced on only about four percent of the
land, this being the land that is within a close
distance of the Nile so it can be irrigated. The
construction of the High Dam at Aswan has caused a
fife hundred kilometer lake to back up behind it and
it is this lake that has enabled Egypt to survive
through the last two droughts and which is causing
them to try to increase the amount of land that they
can use for agriculture. One thing that was so
obvious is that in the areas near the Nile, the most
predominant animal is donkeys, not camels. They use
them for riding, pulling carts, and carrying produce
and they are everywhere. There are also sheep, goats,
dogs and lots of kids. Another thing that occurred to
us was that we were not seeing many women once we left
Cairo. It is the men who do all the public stuff such
as selling, driving vehicles, working in stores, etc.
This is definitely a male dominated country! Every
employee on our cruise boat, and the other boats which
docked near us, was a man.
By the way, one thing we learned about Nile
cruising is that there are so many cruise boats who
basically do the same itinerary, that when we docked
somewhere, like Luxor, we usually had another cruise
boat tied up on both sides of us, which somewhat
ruined the ambience. You have to walk through as many
as three or four other boats to get to the ramp to
disembark to the bank! This is true even of cruise
boats that clearly were much more luxurious than ours.

There is lots more to tell you but my time is up
here for now so I will send this and write another
installment later today or tomorrow. Sending big
hugs.
Love, Mary & Elaine