On The Road with Jim and Pat

Hello from Eureka, IL

Saturday evening May 16, 2009 (Fourth travelogue of this trip)

We are parked in a vacant lot in the little town of Eureka, IL (map). This morning I made my last trip to Elkhart to exchange a rear view camera that I had purchased earlier this week at one of the salvage stores.

We have had almost non-stop rain for the past few days. Indeed, it rained most of the days we were in Goshen. As I had mentioned, we were parked next to a small river. It was at least 15 feet below our level when we pulled in, but this morning it was up at least 5 feet over the original level we experienced. On our way here, we saw many fields that were severely flooded. Some spots on highway US 24 had several inches of water in the low spots.

It had also rained a great deal in Iowa on our way out and then on the way to Goshen. When I went to drive the truck, it ran terribly. It took several minutes for the engine to get hot enough to dry out the ignition.

It rained most of the way today as well. We are ready to get back to the dry Colorado weather!

On Mothers’ day we went to Amish Acres in Nappanee. This is a preserved Amish farm as well as a theater and large restaurant. We had made reservations for the play (Nunsense II: The Second Coming) and then dinner. The theater has been converted from a huge round barn. It seats about 400 people. The play was about 5 nuns and their lives. It was a very fun and enjoyable play, We took the walking tour which also included a wagon ride pulled by an old Farmall tractor. Dinner was another great Amish-style dinner. Pat got her play ticket free, since it was Mothers’ day.

Monday we spent the morning setting up our booth for the Monaco America rally. In the afternoon we did some tourist type things in Shipshewana and then went to Elkhart to the salvage store (again).

The rally was Tuesday through Thursday. We had signed up for the meals which included 3 breakfasts and 3 dinners. The breakfasts and two of the dinners were catered by the Essenhaus which is the restaurant we mentioned in our last post. Great food!

The Wednesday dinner was really a great experience. The group split up and went to various Amish homes for dinner. About 70 of us went to the Yoder Home. Another great Amish meal. The Amish were typically farmers, but their population has grown so much in recent years that many have started cottage industries, since there is not enough farm land available to support all of the families. These group dinners are one of those industries. They build buildings separate from the house. Electricity is not allowed in the house, but the dinner hall can have electricity. We are not sure if our building had electricity. The lights were gas fired and we did not see anything in the kitchen powered by electricity. We did see a small generator working outside the building, but it was not big enough to run any kitchen appliance.

The people at this rally were very welcoming and friendly. Several of the ladies made sure that Pat knew that she was welcome to attend their Tea. When she won a small door prize there were quite happy. Often times, the vendors are considered outside folks and virtually excluded from any of the activities. As has been the trend over the last year, our sales not that good. That was true of almost all of the vendors. The economy has really affected people’s spending habits.

I am posting a few photos. The first one is from the RV Museum mentioned in our last post. The picture of the “wild” male turkey was taken at Amish Acres. Another photo shows the ruts in one of the roads around Shipshewana. The horses seem to travel in the same path on the road and their steel shoes wear a distinctive pattern in the pavement. We found many of the roads in the area had these wear patterns. Another photo shows our group dinner at the Yoder house. If you look closely, you will see the gas light in the ceiling.

Probably our favorite photo is the buggies in front of the Wells Fargo Bank in Shipshewana. As I mentioned in our last post, I went into the bank and there were several Amish folks doing their banking. At that time there were six to eight buggies at the same hitching rail as that shown in the photo.

Pat and I don’t know exactly why, but we are very fascinated by the Amish lifestyle. It is not possible to put into words how their very basic lifestyle is somehow comforting to us. When we left today is was kind of sad.

We will probably be back in Prescott, IA tomorrow for another visit with our relatives and then back to Evergreen.

That is all for now.

RV Museum in Elkhart

“Wild” turkey at Amish Acres

Ruts in the road from the Amish horses pulling the buggies

Diner at the Yoder Home

Amish buggies outside the Wells Fargo Bank in Shipshewana

Hello from Goshen, IN and a happy Mothers’ day!
Sunday morning May 10, 2009 (Third travelogue of this trip)
We are at the Elkhart County Fairgrounds (map). If you zoom in on the satellite version of the map, you will see that we are parked next to a small stream (Rock Run Creek). Just on the other side of the creek are the main railroad tracks for trains running from the east coast to Chicago. They are less than 30 yards from our bus. At least 20 trains a day pass by. We are used to almost no noise at the house, so this is quite a change! However, both Pat and I love the sounds of trains, and even though I am quite a light sleeper, it has not bothered us at all. Maybe it reminds us of the great train sounds in Europe.
We arrived at the fairgrounds on Thursday (4/30). Our set-up day for the rally was Friday. The actual rally (for the vendor area) was Saturday through Thursday. That is a long show. This rally was for Holiday Rambler Motorhomes. Those are up-scale motorhomes and we had hoped to do well. There were over 120 motorhomes, but the owners were not ready to open their billfolds very wide. We were not skunked (many vendors were).
We spent Friday and Saturday doing tourist type things in this area. Goshen is the hub for touring Amish country and it is rich in places to visit.
Friday we went to Elkhart which is considered to be the RV manufacturing “capitol” of the US. It has been the focus of lots of political visits, because it is so hard hit by the drastic downturn in RV manufacturing. Several of the manufacturers have filed for bankruptcy or gone out of business. It is really sad to see all of the empty buildings. Our first stop was a very famous RV surplus store. They have tons of what some folks would call junk. Almost all of it is from overruns of suppliers to the industry. One would think that there would be lots of new stuff from all of the manufactures who have gone bankrupt, but those products are tied up in the courts.
While in Elkhart we toured the RV/MH Hall of Fame museum and library. It is housed in a fantastic new building and has a great collection of historic RVs. Some of the motorhomes date back to 1915!!!
From there we drove to Middleburg, IN and had dinner in an absolutely fantastic Amish restaurant. It is a huge facility that serves their meals family style. The food was so good that we went back yesterday for breakfast and again for dinner!
Yesterday we went to White Pigeon, MI to another famous surplus store. We then spent the day driving the back roads and shopping in Shipshewana, IN. As we drove, we saw at least 50 Amish horse drawn carriages on the road. On the narrow roads, where they can not travel on the shoulder, the horses shoes have actually warn distinct grooves in the pavement. In Shipshewana (and many of the towns we toured), there are hitching railings where they tie up their horses. As we drove we saw several 4 horse teams pulling plows in the fields. The farms are very well maintained. The landscaping and buildings are a sight to behold.
I went to the a Wells Fargo bank and it was great fun. There were about 6 carriage parked outside and several Amish people inside. One lady had her three small girls with her and they were dressed in traditional Amish fashion.
Today we will tour the Nappanee Amish acres where we will attend a play (Nunsense II: the second coming) and eat some more great Amish food.
Monday we will set up for the Monaco rally here at the same fairgrounds.
That is all for now.

Hello from Monticello, IN

Wednesday April 29, 2009 (Second travelogue of this trip)

As is often the case, we are staying in a Wal Mart parking lot (map).

Our first post of this travelogue was written from our shop when we were snowed in and staying in the bus. We had planned to leave on Sunday (4/19). Obviously that did not happen. We finally got away about 2:00 PM on Tuesday. As we left the house, we noticed that the tow bar was not locking in the extended position on the passenger side. Every time we slowed down, the truck would shift to the driver side about 8 inches and kind of jerk around. Once we got into traffic, it got quite interesting. When I slowed down I would look in the mirror and watch folks try to dodge what they thought was an unhitched big truck coming at them {grin}. It was really not all that funny, but what else can you do to make the best of a bad situation?

We had planned on stopping to get the bus emission test done (mandated and always a frustrating and expensive experience). While I waited for them to do the testing I contacted the tow bar manufacturer and they told me how to disassemble the arm. Problem was, the parts were corroded in a way that they were “welded” together. The folks at the truck service location that did the exhaust testing used some BIG tools to get the parts separated. I worked on the parts a bit, and gave up since we needed to get down the road.

We drove to Ft. Morgan, CO which is only about 100 miles from Denver. It was getting late, and I was tired and frustrated and needed to work on the hitch. We parked in a Wal Mart lot. The next morning I cut some steel bar that I had with me and jammed the bar on the arm so that it was forced into the extended position, holding it with radiator clamps. It worked like a champ for the rest of the trip to Iowa.

Our next stop was York, NE. We again stayed at a Wal Mart. On Thursday we drove the rest of the way to Prescott, IA where we stayed with our relatives. This is always an enjoyable stay. The first day it got into the 80s. After that, it turned cold and rainy. Indeed, it rained over 2.5 inches in three days. There was some minor flooding and the farm sustained some damage to the terraces.

During our stay, I completely disassembled the tow bar and cleaned all the parts. There was a lot of rust scale in the tube portion of the arms and that probably caused the problem. It now works great.

We visited with a bunch of folks and generally had a great time. As always seems to be the case, we really fell off the diet wagon. Food in IA is always great, and Jeanie (our host) is a great cook. I even got the run the tractor for a couple of hours. That machine is sure a lot more sophisticated than my old International this I use to plow and mow.

On Tuesday (4/28) we left about 1:00 PM and started heading towards Goshen, IN where we have a couple of trade shows. Our route was planned so that we avoided the Interstate system in the Chicago area. Our route took us on US 34 and then US 24. Lots of folks enjoy traveling on two lane highways. This leg of the trip (SE IA to Goshen) is a bit over 550 miles and we allowed three days for the travel. Thus we were not pressed for time and really enjoyed the rolling farm land and great small towns that you travel through. We would like to travel in this mode more often. We just have to plan our travels accordingly.

Last night we stayed in Mt. Pleasant Iowa at a Wal Mart (detect a theme?). We are only a bit over 100 miles from Goshen. Tomorrow we will get the bus parked in the fairgrounds and be ready to set up on Friday.

That is all for now.

Camping in the shop! Saturday morning April 18, 2009 Well, sometimes we get to use our bus for reasons other than travel. Over the last two days, we have had over 27 inches of snow (see photo) and it is still snowing! The power went off a bit after noon yesterday and is still off as I write this (about 8:00 AM). We moved into the bus just before dark yesterday and had a very comfortable evening/night. It is sure nice to be fully self contained!!! We can go quite a while on the house battery bank and the inverter (makes 120V) and then we can fire up the generator. I have rigged an exhaust pipe outside the shop and we have the shop door open. All the comforts of home, except we don’t have TV since the dish is not up and the dish on the house is covered with snow. In a little while, I will connect the bus generator to the house power distribution box (making sure I disconnect from the public power) grid and let the furnace run and the refrigerator/freezers cool down. I just went into the house and the temperature was around 60 degrees thanks to a self-standing natural gas fired stove in the basement. We were supposed to leave for Iowa tomorrow. That, of course, will be delayed. I will have to plow today (plowed yesterday) and get some things done that got delayed by the weather . Our trip this time will be to Iowa to visit with our relatives (we love that!) and then on to Goshen, IN for a couple of rallies where we will be vendors. UPDATE: as I was finishing up this short blog, our daughter Lisa called and said that parts of Jefferson and Clear Creek counties (our area) has over 41 inches of snow and it is not supposed to stop snowing until noon. In addition, over 10,000 homes in the Evergreen area are without power. The strange thing is that Denver has mostly gotten rain and the roads are clear. That is all for now.

April Showers (Snow!!!!)

Hello from Honolulu, HI and Evergreen, CO Friday evening April 3, 2009 (Third travelogue of this trip) This installment will start at the Honolulu airport and finish up somewhere on the way home. I will publish it when we get home. Things have been a bit hectic since we got home, so this travelogue is a bit tardy (being posted on 4/6/09). Tuesday we took it kind of easy. I did a lot of work on my business website. It was getting pretty dated and needed a general overhaul. I did a major format change and got some of the content updated. I also got the e-store updated as well. Take a look at: http://rvsafetysystems.com/. It may sound strange to be doing work in such a beautiful setting, but it needed to be done and it was fun to take breaks and really enjoy the setting. That evening we went into the small town of Hanalei. We love that town and will discuss it more in a couple of paragraphs. Wednesday, we again drove south to visit the Kilohana Plantation and ride the Kauai Plantation Railway. This was a great tour. The plantation was a huge sugarcane plantation at one time. It is now an experimental farm and great tourist attraction. Our tour included a ride out into the plantation where we stopped to feed “wild” pigs. We then took a hike down into a beautiful valley that was close to being a rain forest. Our guide was very knowledgeable about the vast number of plants and trees that we saw. After the hike we had a fun box lunch and then hiked into the experimental farm area. Here they are growing a large number of fruit hybrids. Not many were in season, but we did get to eat a great fruit that was a combination of a lemon and orange. It tasted great. We got to see banana trees, pineapples and many more varieties of fruit. We then met the train for a return to the visitor center. The sugarcane plantations used trains to a fair extent. This train (see photo) was pulled by a 1939 Whitcomb locomotive. I had not heard of Whitcomb locomotives, but it turns out they built a lot of mine locomotives in the early part of the 1900s. Later they were bought by the more well know Baldwin locomotive company. In any case, it was an interesting locomotive that really was more like a truck, in that it had a small diesel engine/four speed transmission/clutch for the drive train. After the plantation, we went to the Kauai Coffee Museum. This is a huge coffee operation with very advanced coffee processing equipment. It was quite a contrast to the very small “old fashioned” processing plantation we visited in the Kona district. It was fun to see the drastic differences in the processing. Thursday we again had a leisurely day with an excursion to Hanalei for dinner. So, let’s talk about Hanalei. It is a very small town with a great deal of charm. In the fields around Hanalei, the majority of all of the Hawaiian taro is grown in fields that are constantly flooded. Taro is used primarily for poi, a staple of the Hawaiian diet. Hanalei is also famous for the filming of the movie South Pacific. In addition, it was made famous by the song Puff the Magic Dragon. The cliffs near the town are said to look like a dragon. Lastly, the town in Lilo and Stitch is said to be based on Hanalei. But to us, it is just a fun little town with some great casual eating opportunities. As seems to be our habit, we found a great little ice cream store on the way home from Hanalei. It is Lappert’s and seems to be fairly famous in Hawaii. It serves great ice cream and very fresh, tasty coffee. We had to laugh when we rented our first car in Hawaii. Of all things, it was a PT Cruiser (same car as we have at home). It is considered a mid-size car by Dollar Rental. When we got to Kauai, guess what? Another PT Cruiser {grin}. At least we knew where all the controls were. We did pretty good on expenses for this trip. Stampin’ Up! paid for the hotel/airfare/meals for the first half. We used our timeshare for the second week, used miles for the rented cars, and now we are sitting in first class (via air miles) on the way home. Our flight from Denver to Honolulu was over 7 hours, and it got very cramped in coach. We decided to spend the air miles for the upgrade on the way home and it sure feels good. Well, we are home. Got into Denver at about 9:00 AM Saturday. They had predicted a foot of snow by the time we arrived. However, it turned out that Denver only had about 1 inch. By the time we got home it was snowing pretty good and we ended up with about 6 inches and temperatures in the low 20s. Talk about thermal shock!!! That’s all for this trip. We head out in the bus in a bit over two weeks, so join us then. BTW, did you notice that we have added a map showing the states the bus has been in. If our schedule works out, we will be in a few more states by the end of the year.

Kauai Plantation Railway

Our Great Tour Guide at Kilohana Plantation

Kauai Coffee Visitor Center

View from close to our condo overlooking the taro fields

Our condo in Kauai

Hello again from Kauai, HI Friday morning April 3, 2009 (second travelogue of this trip) As it turns out, this travelogue is written in two parts. The majority was written at the condo, but we had to check out and I did not get it finished. The final part is being written in the Honolulu airport. Now we need to start talking about this island. Kauai is the northern most Hawaiian Island. It is 552 square miles (about 14% the size of the big island). The highest point is Mount Waialeale which is 5080 feet (about 1/3 as high as Mauna Kea of the big island). The mountains of Hawaii are very deceiving. On Kauai, they look sharp and rather tall. On Hawaii, they do not look tall (until you notice the snow), because the slopes are very gradual. Indeed, when you compare the altitude of Mauna Kea, it raise almost 14,000 feet above the base which is said to be a higher elevation differential than Mt. Everest.. This island is called the “Garden Island” for good reason. It gets a lot of rain. At one location the average rail fall is 460 inches! Everywhere you look, the vegetation is very thick and green. The weather here has been windy and we have had quite a bit of rain (normal). That is OK. We have been going at a much more leisurely pace. We had thought about several tours and dismissed most of them. We chose not to go on a whale watching cruise since the ocean swells are rather high and the whales have mostly left this area. I had thought about doing a dive here, but because of the rough seas, I changed my mind. When we were here in 2003, I did a dive with Pat’s brother and his wife, and the diving conditions were not all that great. We talked about the cats and mongooses on the big Island. Here the “wild” animal population is chickens. They are everywhere and the rooster crowing is rather fun (right outside our window as I write this). Domestic type chickens were brought here decades ago. Some folks also brought fighting roosters. The story goes that in 1992 the devastating Hurricane Iniki (third worst damage causing storm in the US) caused all the chickens and roosters to be turned loose and roam free. They do not have natural predators, so the population is quite high. Both islands have very large wild pig populations and they are a big problem. Hunting is permitted at all times. We are staying in a time share that we swapped with our timeshare in FL. It is actually a part of the Westin Hotel (map). As is generally the case, I post a link to a satellite photo of our location. This one is particularly interesting. I double checked the GPS coordinates and the location of the indicator is very close to our building. However, the satellite photo is rather old and does not show the rather extensive complex. Our building is on a high bluff overlooking the ocean. The Westin is in the Princeville area of Kauai. That is on the north shore of the island about 30 miles form Lihue and the airport. It is gorgeous here. One of the first things we did, was to look up the house where Pat and I and several members of her family stayed in 2003. For documentation, the address was: 3948 Anini Rd (map). As the crow flies, it is less than 1 mile from our location. That house was right on the beach. It looks like the place is a bit run-down since we stayed there, but it sure brought back good memories. Monday (3/30) we drove down the west coast and along the south coast and then turned onto the Waimea Canyon road. This road leads up to several overlooks that give a great view of a huge majestic canyon (see photos). This canyon is not as big as the Grand Canyon, but it is spectacular. The road then leads up to the Kalalu Lookout (see photo). This gives a great view of a steep drop-off into the Na Pali coast region of the island. The Na Pali area is remote and can not be accessed by car. I will end the travelogue here. We are supposedly headed home on a 10:00PM flight. Only problem is, Denver is expected to get about a foot of snow and there is a possibility that they will have to cancel the flight. We will finish up the final travelogue in the airport and on the plane and publish it when we get home.

Falls at Waimea Canyon

Kalalu Lookout looking down on Na Pali

Hello again from Princeville on the island of Kauai, HI Tuesday evening March 31, 2009 (Second travelogue of this trip) Wow, I feel like I am so far behind on this travelogue!!! Lets try to finish the details of our stay on the “Big Island” last week. In the next travelogue I will start on the details of our stay on this island. On Wednesday we took a “Sunset Cruise” that had a buffet dinner and some whale watching. This was a sailing catamaran. They did raise the sail, but we really did not do much sailing – most of the cruise was done with the engines. It was a fun cruise and we did see a few whales. Pat’s brother and wife took the same cruise a couple of weeks earlier and saw a very large number of whale. It appears that we are on the tail end of the whale season. They have had their babies and are starting to head towards Alaska. On Thursday (3/26), I did a two tank dive just off the shore and a bit north of the hotel. The first dive was great. We saw two sharks, an manta ray, and a small eel. The coral was magnificent. I was able to control my air and that combined with a relatively shallow dive (about 50 feet) let me stay down for over 50 minutes. The temperature of the water was in the mid 70s so a wet suit was necessary. The second diver was a challenge. I could not seem to adjust my buoyancy. Part of it was that I was a bit tired from the first dive, as we had to work harder than normal because of the wave action. The second dive was still fun, but a bit frustrating. The dive boat was rather small and there were only three of us diving (plus the dive masters). The seas were a bit rough, so the ride was “exhilarating”. We saw several whales in the distance. One was slapping his tail repeatedly. The big island has a huge population of feral cats. The story goes that various ships brought in rats by accident several decades ago. Then they imported cats to deal with the rats. That did not work out well. Then they brought in mongoose. That also did not work out well, since the mongoose is out in the daytime and rats are nocturnal. We saw a ton of cats, and a few mongooses (yes, that is the correct plural form). An decent site on mongooses is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongoose. Both are said to be a real problem. We did not see any rats, but I think they are also a problem. On Thursday night Stampin’ Up! hosted a fantastic luau. There were over 400 demonstrators that earned the trip. Each had a guest/spouse and many also had additional guests. Thus there were over 1000 people at the event. Luau’s are served buffet style and this one had a huge variety of great food. Most of the dishes were typical Hawaiian cuisine. The entertainment was super and extensive. The event was held outside and the weather was perfect. Last time I touched on some of the geography of the island. It has two mountains/volcanoes that are nearly 14,000 feet. Mauna Kea is the tallest mountain on the island of Hawaii and also the tallest mountain in the state. However, they have very gradual slopes and they looked more like tall rolling hills, till you see the snow at the higher elevations. (see photo) The state of Hawaii is a bit confusing. It consists of several islands. The capital is on the island of Oahu. The largest island is Hawaii. It is the furtherest south island in the chain and the largest (4038 square miles). There are some interesting facts that are unique to the state:

1. is not geographically located in North America
2. grows coffee
3. is completely surrounded by water
4. did not have a written language until the missionaries arrived
5. is the southern most state

That is all for now.

Mauna Kea 13,796 feet

Hello from Princeville on the island of Kauai, HI Sunday morning March 29, 2009 (first travelogue of this trip) In the past we have noted that Pat has earned several great trips through her association with Stampin’ Up! (http://stampinlady.com/). This was our eighth trip. The first trip was a cruise to Bermuda in 2002. That was followed by Hawaiian cruise in 2003. All of the trips have been cruises with the exception of this trip. I should add that all expenses are paid by Stampin’ Up! This trip was to the fabulous Hilton Waikoloa Village Resort (map). This resort is located on the north western coast of the “Big Island” (Hawaii). The resort is huge and has several buildings spread over a vast area. While you can walk to the various locations, it is much more convenient (and fun) to take either a boat, or a train. The resort is located right on the beach. Several folks saw whales from their rooms. Our room did not have a direct view of the ocean. Our view was of the beautiful golf course. The landscaping is beyond description. Stampin’ Up! paid for five nights plus air fare. To give you a feeling for the quality of this facility, we went in a day early and paid for one night ($290). They also provided a very generous daily food allowance. As if that were not enough, they provide great gifts each night in the room. We rented a car since it is very hard to do any sightseeing without one. One of our self-guided tours took us on the northern part of the island loop over to the east coast and close to Hilo. One of our stops was at the great Akaka falls. There are two huge falls and you walk through what we would think of as a rain forest. The next day we went down the western coast to the Kona Coffee area. This is a designated area 1 mile wide and 50 miles long that produces the very special Kona coffee. We toured a great little coffee plantation (Holualoa Coffee Company) that grows and processes the coffee beans. Most of the plantations are rather small farms passed down from generation to generation. On Tuesday we took a 10-hour bus tour that made the full circle trip around the island (260 miles). Our driver talked non-stop the whole trip. I found his presentation fascinating. The three highlights of the trip were the tour of the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park where we observed the Kilauea Caldera, the hike to the Thurston Lava Tube, and the rainbow falls. All of the Hawaiian island are formed from volcano eruptions. There are still active volcanoes and Kilauea is one of them. Recently, the Kilauea crater blew open and we were able to observe the steam coming from the opening. We ate lunch at the hotel overlooking the crater. The Thurston Lava tube is fascinating. You hike through a very dense tropical forest and then enter what is essentially a long tunnel. The tunnel is formed by cooled lava surrounding the lava flow. When the flow stops, the hot lava flows out, leaving the tube. This tube is perhaps 100 yards long and the bore is about 10 feet in diameter. Lava is very porous and we had water dripping on us as we walked through the tube. The Big Island has landscape extremes. On the north west part of the island it is basically a desert. The land is mostly covered in lava. As you head south along the west coast, about half way down there is increasing amounts of vegetation, especially in the Kona Coffee area. Further south, there are stretches where there is almost no vegetation. On the east coast, the type of lava has produced abundant vegetation. Indeed, this is where the vast sugarcane fields produced great corps (sugarcane is no longer grown in Hawaii because of economic issues). In addition to the vast farm areas, there are several rain forests. I will continue our discussion about our adventures on this island in the next installment.

Pat on the trail to Akaka Falls

Kilauea Caldera

Trail to Thurston Lava Tube

Lets finish the details of the CA/AZ trip Saturday afternoon March 28, 2009 (ninth travelogue of this trip) Well, it seems a little strange to be finishing up this extended travelogue so belatedly. It further seems strange to be posting this information from Hawaii. That will be the subject of the next travelogue. Since we got home, I have been going at full speed on several projects. One was getting our taxes ready for our tax person. That takes a full 4 days of work to sort out all of the business records and expenses. You would think that I would use some sort of good business accounting system, but so far that has not happened. Given my tendency towards procrastination, I would probably not keep the records up to date anyway. Now to our trip home. After our wonderful, extended stay in Yuma, we headed home on March 2. The journey home was about 1200 miles, and we decided to break the trip down into smaller legs than we normally do. We have a goal to schedule shorter travel days, but somehow that does not always work out. Our first stop was the Cliff Castle Casino in Camp Verde, AZ (map). This is a casino between Phoenix and Flagstaff on I-17. We have stopped there before and Pat rates it as one of the better casinos. Our next stop was the Sky Casino (exit 102 on I 40 in NM) (map). We had not stopped there before. Again, Pat enjoyed the casino and came out ahead at these casinos. From there we made our traditional stop at the Wal Mart in Trinidad, CO (map). We tend to stop there, as it allows us to arrive home in the middle of the next day. We arrived home home March 5 about noon. On the last two legs of the trip we fought gusting cross winds most of the way. Some were very strong and at least one semi was blown over after we went through the area. Fortunately, the bus does pretty well when subjected to these terrible conditions, but it is still not a lot of fun. We did hit a good weather window for our trip home. A day or two after we got home we had a small snow storm. Given the road to our house, we would not want to be driving the bus in the snow. Periodically we update the statistics of our travels in the bus. We started our maiden voyage on March 6, 2006. In the three years since, we have spent 517 nights in the bus, and traveled over 50,000 miles. We have had almost no problems during that time – quite a feat give the age of the bus (over 24 years old) and the fact that it was modified/maintained by a crazy engineer {grin}. We feel very fortunate that we are able to travel in our very comfortable, fully equipped bus. I have attached a photo of the Shepherds and Hackenbruchs. That is all for this tripThe Shepherds and Hackenbruchs

Hello one last time from Yuma, AZ Sunday afternoon March 1, 2009 (eight travelogue of this trip) I guess we have been having too much fun to do much posting on the blog. Ed and Stevi got back from house sitting on Friday. They has been in Prescott and it was much cooler there. Indeed, the last of the snow melted the day they left to return home. We had planned to take in a couple of movies on Valentines day, but we did not get around to it. Instead we went the next day. We saw two movies and got several discounts to where the four tickets only cost $20. The first movie we saw was “He is Not Really All That in to You”. It was, at best, a so-so movie. The next one was: “New in Town” and it was absolutely a great movie. The setting was New Ulm, MN and they hit it dead on. Minnesota people are really super folks, but their accent and life style are different from what we are used to. We called the kids and told them they had to go see it. We did a bit of grocery shopping and running around the past couple of weeks. I finished up the two articles I was working on and have started a third. Actually, it is the fourth since I have a third article that is nearly finished, but we are not sure where it will be published. I did a few other business related items, some small projects on the truck and bus, a bit of reading and some relaxing. Pat also did a bit of work, but mostly read and relaxed. We walked most days. Pat had a gift credit card that was going to expire at the end of February. She had been wanting a Wii and Wii Fit. We were able to get those and she has been getting started on working out and doing baseline measurements. It looks like it will be a great way for her to work out in the bus (and home) and the games are fun. I mentioned shopping. When we go the the local grocery store (Fry’s) it is quite an experience. Pat described it as going to a store in Denver that is crowded to the max (with small isles), but the difference here is that everyone here is over 70 and are in absolutely no rush. Indeed, they read every label in great detail. A week ago Friday, some good friends drove into Yuma and we all went out to dinner. Sean and Louise have a fabulous blog about their full-time travels in a beautiful,unique Bus (http://ourodyssey.blogspot.com/). Our paths seem to cross once or twice a year and we always have a great time talking about our travels and lots of other things. Last weekend I dropped Pat off at one of the local casino and then I went to a hamfest (folks who are interested in Ham Radio technology) and then to a neat car show. The hamfest was not a good one. I have given quite a bit of thought about getting my Ham license for many years, but just can’t justify the cost or time resource required. I still like to follow the technology. The car show was rather small, but had great cars. There are a huge number of street rods, classics, and customs down here. The average age of most “snow birds” is at least 60 and many are financially set and can afford the “toys”. I mentioned that we had gone to see the flowers in the desert. I have attached two pictures of the flowers and one of Pat standing in front of an Ocotillo (sometimes called “Vine Cactus”). This is a curious, and unique desert plant of the southwestern United States. As you see, they can grow quite tall and have flowers on the tips of the spines during a small period in the spring. The purple flowers carpet the desert this time of year if the weather is conducive. Today we went shopping with Ed and Stevi and tonight we are going to splurge and go to Red Lobster for dinner. Tomorrow we start our journey home. It will be a struggle to leave these great folks, wonderful surroundings and outstanding weather. Today it is close to 90 degrees. That is all for now.
Carpet of flowers in the desert

Close-up picture of flowers

Pat in front of an Ocotillo