4/15/07 Another lapse in updating this blog - sorry. Also, I have no new pictures to post to keep you interested - just a short update. Today was the last day of Stagecoach Days here at Park Sierra and it was a good thing it was over after breakfast because it was cold and overcast here today. The event started Thursday and it was cold and windy that day so the campfire dinner and entertainment that was supposed to have been held outside at the pole barn was moved to the clubhouse. Our friend from RoVing Rods, Ed Bonham, brought 2 friends and the three of them were the entertainers. They did a fabulous job singing and playing guitars and mandolin, and everyone loved them. Friday and Saturday Elaine and I led a morning hike and then helped out by picking up food from various places, including Costco in Fresno. We also helped with the live auction, in which our friend Ken Kimpton was the auctioneer. Over two thousand dollars were raised for the park with all the stuff that was sold! Evenings, we helped with the raffles at the dinners and desserts. Other things happening here were hayrides, craft lessons, a dutch oven cooking demo, geocaching, various tournaments, and lots of eating!! It was fun and there were over 300 people participating. About five thousand dollars was raised overall. Great job Ken & Janice Ryder!!
Good thing there were fun things happening to keep my mind off the bad things that had been occuring previously. First I shattered one of our dual pane windows in our new RV when I was mowing the weeds on our lot and a rock was thrown up by the mower. Then, my computer crashed. Five days and $150 later, I got it back. Next, we got a 30 day notice from one of our tenants in the Bay Area. Worst of all, I had my surgery for the two skin cancer spots last Tuesday and the next day the doctor sent me an e-mail saying the pathologist report indicated they hadn't gotten it all and I needed to schedule another surgery. So when we get back from our cruise and trip to Spain on May 12, we will return to Park Sierra and I will have another surgery on May 14. Then we will pack up the RV and drive to Santa Clara to work on the vacant rental. Thank goodness Elaine's daughter, Tarra, and her partner, Alonzo, live nearby and can finish things up for us because we have to drive up to Washington to start camp hosting by May 25. The cruise will be a much needed vacation for us!!
Other than all this, things are fine. We are using this week to pack and Friday we will drive to Fremont to stay overnight. Saturday we fly to Houston to stay with friends. Sunday we pick up four other friends who will be cruising with us and then we drive to Galveston to stay overnight before catching the ship on Monday. I will try to update this as internet becomes available. Bon Voyage!

4/4/07 It has been so busy here at Park Sierra that we have forgotten to update this blog! Today we went for a day hike in Yosemite with Jeanne & Rodger from the park and then had lunch at a burger place in Oakhurst. Last week we also went hiking with this couple and we went up Goat Mountain (see picture). Besides being fun, these hikes help keep us in shape, which seems like a never ending battle.
Next week the big event at this park is Stagecoach Days. Between Thursday and Sunday there will be meals, events, nature walks, entertainment, auctions, raffles, etc. all as a fundraiser for the social things that go on here. Already there are quite a few visitors here and the boondock areas are filling up fast. Our friends, Ken & Janice Ryder have done a fabulous job of planning this and getting very good people to head the main committees. We are going to be "floaters". Wherever help is needed at any time, we get called on to do it. We are already lined up to pick up food at stores, help with setting up tables, and leading a daily walk, so I'm thinking there will not be a dull moment. It should be fun.
Now for the bad news. Last Friday I went to the dermatologist and had two biopsies and got the results yesterday. Basal cell cancer in both spots. So I have to go in Tuesday for surgery. One spot is on the right side of my neck and the other spot is between my neck and shoulder, also on the right side. They will probably just remove it under local anaesthetic, and then sew me up. I am hoping I am mostly healed by the time we leave for the cruise on April 20. All those years of being a swimmer, lifeguard, coach, etc. and getting so much sun are finally catching up to me!! I know that Elaine was a very good doctor at one time, now we will get to see what kind of a nurse she is....

3/20/07 Below are a few pictures we took while visiting our Boomer friends, Carole & Dick Schneider who have a lot at Jojoba Hills SKP Park. We were there about 10 days ago and stayed for 6 days. What a great time we had with them and what a lovely park that is - you can see the beautiful and refreshing swimming pool. They also have 2 hot tubs, which we used and enjoyed nearly every day. Carole is a great cook and we shared many delicious meals with them. While we were there, Elaine's son, Darran visited us. That is him, hugging his Mom. It turned out to be nice that we were staying only 1 1/2 hours away from him because we took our BIG recliner out of our rig and drove it down to him for his new apartment. Then we went out and bought a new chair of a more appropriate size (smaller) for our rig. We did this the same day we were having a propane oven installed at the National RV Factory Service Center in Perris, CA. We are very happy to have it and are sure we will have LOTS of great meals using it.
Now we are back at Park Sierra where it is raining today but the other days have been sunny, warm and beautiful. The spring flowers are out and we are enjoying our daily walks. In a few weeks there will be an event here called Stagecoach Days and we are going to be helping with it. Our other plans are to reorganize things in our new RV and get totally packed a ready to drive up to Washington for the beginning of our camp hosting stint on May 25. We fly to Houston on April 20 for our next trans-Atlantic cruise, which ends in Barcelona on May 6. We will visit Elaine's nephew and family near Seville for a few days and then fly back for our drive up to Washington. We will be camp hosting at Lake Kachess, near exit 62 off I-90 between May 25 and Labor Day weekend. This is such a departure from our usual summer plans! Neither of us has worked for 20 years!! We hope that any of you who can will visit us there. Just call us ahead of time so we can reserve a campsite for you.

3/4/07 Sorry we haven't posted for several weeks. Not much exciting news. We have been in Laughlin, NV, first at the Avi Casino and for the past week parked behind the Ramada Express. Several sets of our friends have been with us and we enjoyed their company very much. Lee and Susie Blattner were here with us at the Ramada and other friends, John and Vi Primmer with us at the Avi. Other RV friends, John & Cathy Robnik, joined us for one day and night on their way to NASCAR work in Las Vegas. We went out with them for a microbrew at the Colorado Belle one afternoon at about 4pm. One thing led to another and by the time the evening ended at about 12:30 am, we had imbibed enough to allow ourselves the craziness of going bowling at the Riverside. We haven't been bowling for about 28 years and we paid the price with some sore muscles for the next few days. Our current plan, the next time we get together with Cathy and John, is to skip bowling and try roller-skating...
I have finally finished some paperwork and the dreaded taxes, while Elaine has managed to keep herself busy in the casinos. We paid our camping fees that way, but luckily didn't take a huge hit to the wallet except in the Sam's Club and thrift stores. The sun has been shining most days but unfortunately, the wind has been ferocious and has even kept us from doing our daily walk on a few occasions. Since we are trying to get in decent shape before our next cruise, this has been annoying! Today we are heading towards California, where we will spend some time at the Jojoba Hills SKP Park, in Southern California while waiting for our appointment at the National RV factory on March 12. This new rig we have, which we still love, didn't have a propane oven when we bought it, just a convection oven. As all you RVers know, this means we have to use a lot of electricity to bake anything, and we like to boondock all the time, so usually don't have electrical hookups. We NEED an oven - so we are paying big time to have one installed.
We have friends at Jojoba and are looking forward to some fun times with them too. More on that in the next installment.

2/17/07 We are still camping at Craggy Wash with the Boomers and RoVing Rods and having a good time. The fireworks display last night was awesome, with the best presentation being offered up tonight. Duane Peyton had his birthday yesterday, so there was a Boomer Happy Hour celebration at Sara Park before the fireworks. Lots of food and champagne (thanks, Joe & Carla) were on offer. Elaine has been our garage-sale shopping two days now with friends and has brought back some needed items for our new rig, plus some other "stuff". When we first moved in here, we had a lot of unfilled areas but I think that won't be the case for long!! The weather is sunny and getting warmer and we are enjoying it. Below are a couple of pictures from the daily walk we do here, which is usually a leisurely trek 4-5 miles on the road going up the canyon from our camping spot. Enjoy...

2/7/07 Below are a couple of pictures of the sunset we had here at Craggy Wash tonight. Awesome! Since we arrived here at Lake Havasu City, we have been shopping to buy materials for the many projects that Elaine wants to do in the next few weeks. I am working on the paperwork backup and starting on the taxes. Ugh. There are 4 other RoVing Rods rigs here with us and we are having a convivial time. Boomers will start to arrive soon too, because many people are planning to be here for the Winterblast on Feb. 15-18. The weather has been warm in the daytime and we are loving it!!

2/1/07 Below are some pictures we took here at Quartzsite where we have been camped with the Boomers for several weeks. The gathering is breaking up now, but as you can see from the pictures, there were lots of rigs here (over 175). Many of our friends were here and we had an intense social scene. We attended a great RoVing Rods potluck over on the other side of town, as well as having visits with other RVing friends in the Boondockers. Two days of long drives occurred when Elaine developed a toothache and we had to drive down to San Luis, Mexico for a root canal, and then back down again 5 days later for the follow-up dental work. This saved us lots of money as dental work is much cheaper in Mexico and crossing the border in San Luis is much easier than Algodones this year. Here at Boomerville, there were daily meetings about topics of interest, a walking group every morning, Happy Hour gatherings, potlucks, and special events such as folk singers and Geraldine contests. A good time was had by all!!
Elaine's 60th birthday occurred on Jan. 28 so we had a Happy Hour party for her and over 60 of our friends attended. You can tell we had a good time because it lasted from 4 to 9PM!! The main draw of Quartzsite at this time of year is a big RV event in a huge tent where lots of stuff is sold. We got a new tow bar and had our base plate tightened, as well as buying some smaller embellishments such as a new RV mat to place in front of our door. Good friends helped us with some modifications to the battery system we had installed in Yuma, so now we have good solar power and a way to store and access all that energy. We are loving our new rig with all the space for entertaining. It allowed us to have several dinner parties and happy hour gatherings of up to 12 people. Our friends Kathy and Sally from San Diego drove over and stayed with us in our rig for 2 nights, so they were our very first overnight guests. All went well and Elaine called it "an over 6o slumber party". Now that things are settling down, we are trying to find time to get better organized. It seems like we are constantly asking ourselves' "where did we put thus and such?" Of course, taxes and paperwork backlogs are also going to have to be attended to.
From here we will be heading north, up to Lake Havasu City, for the annual Winterblast. This is a big fireworks display over 3-4 nights put on by the Western Pyrotechnic Association, and is free. It happens Feb. 15-18. After that we probably will join the RoVing Rods for a gathering at Alamo Lake. On March 12 we have an appointment to have an oven installed and have some other updates taken care of at the National RV factory in Perris, CA. A visit to the Jojoba SKP park is also planned around that time. Then we will head back to Park Sierra to help with the Stagecoach Daze event in early April. On April 23 we are booked to take another 13 day repositioning cruise between Galveston and Barcelona. Elaine's nephew and family are still stationed in Spain so we are hoping to visit them again before flying back.
Yes, we are flying back instead of going on to Africa for the trip we wanted. I need several more quarters of Social Security credits to qualify for Medicare, so we have accepted a job for this summer! Hard to contemplate as Elaine hasn't worked for 20 years and I haven't for 18. We will be campground hosts and work the entry gate at a forest service park 62 miles from Seattle called Lake Kachess. It is at exit 62 off I-90 east of Seattle. We are hoping that many of our family and friends will be able to visit us there. It will be the first time we have stayed put for longer than a month in the last 12 years. Our duty time there is between May 25 and the end of Labor Day weekend. So come and visit!!! When we aren't working, Elaine is hoping for some fishing time and we know there are good hiking and kayaking places nearby.
For those of you who forgot, we have a cell phone and you can call us at 928-581-3624 to let us know you are coming so we can save you a spot!

1/15/07 Just a quick update to let you know that we are now located in Boomerville. This is the Boomer gathering in the desert near Quartzsite, AZ. There are about 40 rigs here already and it doesn't officially start until Wednesday! Lots of our friends are here already and we have had tons of visitors in our new rig, and plenty of social occasions lest we have more than one minute to ourselves! The weather has been very chilly and we are hoping for a warm-up pretty soon. One of these days I will get out with a camera and then post some pictures here. We will be here until at least the first part of February.

1/4/07 The pictures below were sent to us by Stephanie Bernhagen after we stayed at their place 2 nights ago on our way back to Tucson from Texas. It amazed us that they had room for several rigs on the side of their new house!
We have now spent 1 1/2 days in Tucson getting things organized in the rig and picking up our tow car. Today we drove from Tucson to Yuma where we are parked outside the home of our friends Eileen and Ray Cooper who live in the Foothills. Now we have to start the process of getting our new rig ready for boondocking. We will start by having an oil change and then have our solar system reinstalled, plus add two more golf cart batteries. Guess what - we got back here just in time for severe weather warnings for tomorrow!

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.