10/26/10 This will be my last post before we leave for India next Monday. We are still at Park Sierra and have been enjoying our stay, although the arrival of some cold and wet weather is making us anxious to get to warmer climates. This is usually a busy time of year here because the annual meeting was last week, as well as the dinner. The meeting this year was a lot less contentious than in other years, perhaps because we have 43 new members. Many of the founding members have had to leave because of poor health, or they have gone to the great campground in the sky. We enjoyed the annual dinner because we sat at a table with some of our best friends here in the park. This picture shows all of us: Ken and Carolyn Kimpton are standing up behind Viv and Curt Rogers, and Carol and Alan Rodely are on the far right.

Yesterday was our second wedding anniversary and we wanted to do something special. So we invited Viv & Curt Rogers to go with us to dinner at the Asian restaurant over at Chukchansi Casino. They were major players in making our wedding a big success two years ago and we wanted to be with them at our celebration. It was a delicious dinner and a good time was had by all:

After the meal, our server brought a special dessert to honor our event, and here is a picture of us before we devoured it:

In a few days, our friend Marie will be back with her little doggie Kristi. They were here a few weeks ago and here is a picture of me holding the little darling:

The packing is fairly complete and we are just doing last minute things now. Every time we are getting ready for a long and foreign trip, it seems like we do a better job of getting our home paperwork, closets, etc. in a more orderly condition as well. Look for the next update to be from Delhi!!!!

10/19/10 Just a quick note to say that we are both doing fine. The weather here at Park Sierra has improved somewhat and we are enjoying the Fall temps of between 72 and 78. Because our upcoming trip involves travels on 4 different airliners, lots of land vehicles, 2 ships, several different climate zones, and involves much more limited baggage allowances than previously, we have started packing already. We will be taking one 21 inch rolling suitcase and one daypack, and possibly a purse. So we have to pack very lightly which requires the exact right stuff. Now the trick is to fit in all the essentials. One of the essentials is our new netbook, so that we can keep in touch by e-mail and post to this blog. Because we have to have power for this device, as well as for our battery charger, we checked into the electricity situation in India. Of course, they have a weird situation - 240 volts with 50 cycles. Ken and Carolyn are loaning us a converter and we hope we have the right plug configuration or else we will have to try to buy it there.
Thursday is the annual meeting for park members, so we will attend that even though we usually try to avoid political situations here. Friday there will be a big dinner in the clubhouse, and Saturday night a casino night there. Because a lot of people are back in the park, there have been several private Happy Hours and dinners as well. Boomer friends, Dan & Jenny Sheppard have been visiting here and it has been great to have them in the park. They were also at the Crabfest with us recently. I slipped up and didn't take their picture for this blog.
On Oct. 30 we will leave here to drive to San Diego, where we will stay with Darran and Marielle for 2 nights before our flight to India on Nov. 1.

10/7/10 Hello from Park Sierra. We have been back since Monday afternoon, but have been too busy to catch up with things like blog posts. Tuesday I had jury duty in Madera and it took all day to select the jury. The trial was going to run about 2 weeks and I did NOT want to end up being on the jury. About 4:30PM I was finally excused - hooray!
Coarsegold has been having very unusual weather for October - cold and rainy. Usually this is one of the best times of the year here, sunny with temps in the low 80's. Hopefully, we will be returning to that weather pattern starting tomorrow. The weather has not been dampening the social interactions which usually occur when we return here. Within hours of our return, our Boomer friend Marie von Minden arrived with her little dog Kristi. They had been up in Yosemite and had never visited here before. So she was with us for dinner for 2 nights, and then last night we were at her place; all delightful interactions. Today we are attending a BBQ at Viv and Curt's, and tomorrow there is a big Happy Hour potluck at the clubhouse. The beat goes on.
Our last post was from Winchester Bay, where we were having an incredibly successful month of crabbing. Unfortunately, the last week there the crabs decided to go elsewhere. Dick and Carole Schneider were still there with us, as were some of the RoVing Rods, so we still had delightful social times. And we greatly appreciated Carole's help when the time came to clean up the boat and all the crabbing equipment. Here is a picture of Elaine and Carole, who had collapsed in laughter, while trying to force all the air out of our boat in order to pack it up:

Rich Baumann, one of our Park Sierra neighbors and also a RoVing Rods member, had been going out in the boat with me and pulling up the traps ever since Mike Harrison had left, and I greatly appreciated his help as well. Usually Elaine and I manage to do these things by ourselves, but this year with her hand still recovering from surgery, she was unable to do any of the physical parts of crabbing. She stayed home and was a great help with the cooking and picking of the crabs, and also did a lot of canning of both crab and tuna. So we have some good seafood in jars and all ready to share with family and friends when we have social get togethers.
Chuck and Betty Goehring were with us almost the whole time at Winchester Bay, and Chuck is always a big help too, and they both are fun people. We got a good picture of them together at the Eagles prime rib dinner which we wanted to share with you:

The rest of the time we were there, I slipped up and didn't take a lot of pictures, so all the other friends pictures are only in our memory bank, and not in the blog.
On our way south in Oregon, we stopped again to visit our friends Tom & Pat Bryant at their farm near Days Creek. They are taking care of her Mom who is in hospice care, so they were unable to visit us on the coast as they usually do. We had caught a few crabs that we were able to bring to them, and also some oysters from the Umpqua oyster farm which is located right where we stayed the whole month. We had a wonderful dinner with them and went home with some delicious produce from their garden, and some special wines from Pat's wine tour job.
Our agenda for the next 3 weeks is to catch up on paperwork and rig maintenance while also preparing for our upcoming trip to India. Our flight to Delhi leaves Nov. 1 from LAX. After a 21 day land tour in both northern and southern India (with Intrepid Travel), we will fly to Barcelona and catch the Adventure of the Seas for a 2 week transatlantic cruise which ends in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Then we get off the Royal Caribbean ship and get on a Celebrity ship for an 11 day southern Caribbean cruise. On Dec. 24 we fly back to LAX. So there will be no interesting blog posts until we start traveling again Nov. 1. At this time we are both healthy and Elaine's hand is recovering from her surgery quite well. Now we just need to drop a few more pounds before starting the travels again....