Sandal Tan

We have been working on our tans which you can tell by our sandal tans. God forbid that we should wear shoes and socks while walking or playing golf. We actually bought golf sandals which is better than having our tootsies sweat.

Kildeer

There seems to be a particular bird that likes to hang around golf courses in Washington and Arizona. The Kildeer which is a long legged, long billed bird which looks like it should be at the beach , breeds and lays their eggs in the most strange and open areas of the ground. They keep their enemies (which in our case are dogs and us) away from their nests by acting wounded and try to lure us from their nesting area.

Spokane RV Park and Deer Park Golf Course

So after getting a membership for the RPI parks we still went for the spendy park that we had in our itinerary beforehand. Tom couldn't bare to give up a month's stay at a great RV and golf resort. And by golly he's as happy as a clam. With crystal clear skies and pristine fairways this is gonna be the height of RV park stays of 2008. (according to Tom). So far the temperature has been in the 90's and we're working on our Arizona tans, which isn't too hard. The dogs tongues have grown five inches longer.









The spaces at this park are huge and well cared for for. The resort people here act like they care how things look, which adds to the pleasure of their customers.

The rv sites are arranged along the edges of the golf course so Tom can watch how everybody golfs better than he, right from out our window. We are close to the eighth green.

Black Diamond, WA. June 2008

From Yakima we went to Black Diamond, WA. to visit Tom's family again before we headed for parts east. It's going to be a good while before we see them and Jo's folks again. Our plans are to continue east after this winter and we'll see how many years it will take to see every state in this beautiful country of ours.

We stayed at Sunrise Resorts' Lake Sawyer RV Park which is on the shore of Lake Sawyer. This park is the closest to Tom's family in all of Washington. In fact it's the only one anywhere near them. "Sunrise Resorts" is a "members" park. IF you are a member, you can get in for REALLY cheap prices. We actually got a percentage off from our price for listening to thier membership spiel. We have been looking into some park memberships since we are now fulltiming it in the motorhome. We took three days of hemming and hawing during which time the sales rep offered a few additional discounts and upgrades. But we finally decided to pass on the deal. Well, then the sales rep "remembered" that we got another big discount because we bought our rv from one of the rv dealers that they use to advertise with. Sooo...... we went for it and bought a membership into the "Sunrise Resorts" and "RPI" afilliated membership resorts. We will be able to stay in rv parks for cheap across the U.S. Yes there are proviso's blah, blah, blah...we can deal with it.

The next day we took off to Deer Park, WA.

SunTides RV and Golf in Yakima, WA - June 2008

Next stop for us was the Sun Tides RV park in Yakima, WA. The park is adjacent to an 18 hole par 72 golf course with a driving range, so Tom was in golf heaven again. We had stayed at this park for a few days on our trip south from Alaska last year and we'd been looking forward to going back again. We stayed two weeks this time which was a nice respite after all the moving around we'd been doing.

Yakima is in a river valley east of the Cascade mountain range and is a very picturesque setting. The RV park is just outside of town and has lovely views of the mountains or the golf course.

Yakima and the surrounding valley is one of the fruit growing capitals of the good 'ole U.S. of A. As it turns out, it is also one of the main hops growing areas in the world. We went to a museum in Toppenish, WA. next door to Yakima and learned all about the growing and harvesting of hops. Tom had an extreme hankering for a beer for some reason.

Toppenish is well known for it's murals painted on the sides of many of their buisness buildings depicting different periods of western life in the Yakima/Toppenish valley. It was a long fun walk through the old town streets of Toppinish to view all the murals.

FMCA Rally, Albany, OR - June 2008

From Guaranty in Junction City, we went just a few miles north to Albany, Oregon for another FMCA rally. We were better at resisting most of the vendors' products this time around, but we did buy an antennae that plugs into our AirCard (which is what lets us connect to the internet) so that we should be able to get a signal even in areas where the service isn't as strong. So far we haven't really been in an area where we could test it out, but we do know others who have this handy gizmo and they say it's great. So I feel confident we'll be happy we have it when we need it.

Back to Guaranty - May 2008

Once our time in Newport was over, it was time to take the motorhome back to Guaranty so they could do the remaining warranty repairs on our list. This time we had planned ahead and decided to leave the RV at the service center and take ourselves and our dogs back down to Rogue River to stay with Jo's mom while they worked on the motorhome.

We spent a few days at Jo's mom's and Tom earned our keep by helping Ike with some projects and chores around the house.

Then it was time to go back up to Guaranty and pick up the RV. Unfortunately, there were a few repairs which were still not quite complete because parts had not yet arrived. Which means we will have to go back again at least one more time this summer before we head south for the winter.

Outdoor Resorts, Newport, OR - May 2008

After the dog show, we went north again, this time to the coastal town of Newport, OR. Our salesman at Guaranty had arranged for us to have a 4 night stay at their lot in the Outdoor Resort in Newport. Not quite as over the top extravagance as the Outdoor Resort in Indio, but still a beautiful park overlooking the ocean. I somehow managed to delete the pictures I took of the resort off the camera before they made it into the computer. But luckily for us, or friends Mic and Rick visited us while we were there and Mickey sent me copies of the pictures she took.





While we were in Newport, we visited the Oregon Coast Aquarium which has a great exhibit where you walk through a plexiglass tube inside a huge tank filled with various fish, skates and sharks. Very cool. Again, this picture is thanks to Mic. Thanks Mickey!

Rogue Valley Dog Show - May 2008

After spending a couple of days visiting with my Mom and Ike, we went up to Indian Mary Park near Merlin, OR for a dog show. The chairman for that show is a Norwich breeder we've met before and we were looking forward to seeing her again. And the icing on the cake was that on the first day of the show, Gracie got two more points toward her championship. Yahoo!!!

Indian Mary Park is a beautiful location and it was a wonderfuly relaxing weekend.

At Guaranty Service Center - May 2008

Before our appointment at Guaranty, we spent a couple days at an RV park nearby where we met up with more iRV2 friends, Becky and Ron. Coincidentally our friends Mic and Rick (from the Indio FMCA rally) were also at Guaranty having some warranty work done on their motorhome as well. So we all got together for dinner a couple of times which was loads of fun.


Then it was on to Guaranty for the roof repairs. When you live in your motorhome, taking it in for repairs can be a little tricky. The folks at Guaranty provide a large parking area with electricity hookups, and water and sewer dump available for people who are staying in their RVs so it's convenient to stay right there. But we still had to figure out what to do with ourselves - and our three dogs - during the days when they were actually working on the coach. Each morning we would more or less move ourselves into the car, transferring computer, books, food, beverages and the dogs with all their paraphenalia into the car so we'd have anything we might need during the day. Each evening we would move back into the motorhome and start all over in the next day.

So we knew that once the roof repairs were completed, we'd be ready for a break before we let them tackle the other items on our list. We left Junction City and headed a couple hours south to Rogue River, OR where my mom lives and where there was a dog show nearby.

Arizona to Idaho - April 2008

It's just impossible to buy something as complicated as a large motorhome and not find things that need to be fixed. As you may remember, we discovered a stress crack in one rear corner of the motorhome shortly after we moved into it and we took it back up to the dealer, Guaranty, near Eugene, OR for repairs. Well in April, Tom discovered a couple more cracks in the roof where the seaming was not done quite right. So we made plans to go back up to Guaranty to have them repaired along with a list of several other more minor items we'd been finding over the winter. We probably could have found someone closer to do the work but we already knew we wanted to return to the northwest this summer and we had faith in the Guaranty team to do a good job with the repairs.

We set out on our trip on April 19th and decided to go up through Utah and into Boise, ID where our friend Doug was recovering from knee surgery before heading over to Oregon. We made the trip from the Phoenix area to Boise in just under a week, so we didn't get to do a lot of exploring, but it was still fun to take a route we'd never traveled before.

We stayed a few days in Boise visiting with Doug and Karen and then we headed over to Oregon.

Tucson and Casa Grande Dog Shows March and April 2008

While we were in Casa Grande, we took two short side trips to go to the Canada del Oro KC & Lost Dutchman KC dog shows in Tucson and Casa Grande. Again we only entered Gracie which paid off in Tucson. Gracie got her first 2 points toward her championship! Hooray. Unfortunately we were not able to follow that up at the next shows in Casa Grande. Gracie looked good and showed well but the nod went to another little girl both days.

Once again our friends Jeffrey and Karen were there with their Mastiffs so we still had a great time at both shows and got vicarious success through them when Surf got more group placements. The first day of the Casa Grande show was quite the experience. The show ground is a pretty dusty place and the wind kicked up to the point where I wondered if I would wake up in OZ. Huge dust storm.

LPGA Golf Tournament - March 2008

While in Casa Grande, we were able to drive up to Superstition Mountain, Arizona for two days of an LPGA golf tournament. Lorena Ochoa smoked the competition, but we were rooting for Christina Kim who seems like sort of the wild child of the LPGA. She looks like a gal who knows how to have fun. Her golf bag is colorful, her clothes are colorful, even the grips on her clubs are colorful.

Jo's been following her progress on the tour ever since. She's had a few top 10 finishes, but no wins yet. But Jo's keeping her fingers crossed.

Palm Creek RV and Golf Resort, Casa Grande, AZ March 2008

We spent a month, from the middle of March thru the middle April, at the Palm Creek RV and Golf Resort in Casa Grande, AZ. Casa Grande is only about 30 miles south of Phoenix but a world away. Not nearly as crowded, less traffic, slower paced. We loved it there. The RV park is really nice - large sites, lots of ammenities and of course a golf course. The golf course is a smallish 18 hole executive course (all the holes are par 3). Easy enough to be a lot of fun, hard enough to still be challenging at our skill level. It was great practice for our "short games". We golfed several times a week. Jo got her first birdie ever so that was particularly exciting for her.

No More glasses! March 2008

After the dog show, we spent a week in Mesa so Jo could have LASIK eye surgery. No more contacts or glasses. It's like a miracle. Jo still can't believe she doesn't have to fumble for her glasses first thing every morning when she wakes up.

Scottsdale Dog Show - March 2008

We attended the 5 day dog show in Scottsdale Feb 28 - March 3. We only entered Gracie because we knew it would be a good entry and Jo wanted to be able to concentrate on getting points on Gracie. Good plan but the results fell short of our hopes. No points for Gracie that time around. Another Norwich puppy, Kami, from the same breeders as Gracie was entered as well and she did better managing to take the points one day. Kami is owned by her co-breeder, Carolyn who is a great friend so we were very happy for her success.

Also at that show were our friends Tish and Orville and Jeffrey and Karen and we had a wonderful time visiting with everyone. It doesn't matter what color ribbons you take home when you get to spend time with such wonderful people. Makes it all worth it. Things went very well for Jeffrey and Karen that weekend when their Mastiff boy, Surf, got a couple of group placements.

Stayed in Amado for February

We didn't really have any particular plans of where to spend the winter - other than wanting it to be somewhere warm. So we decided just to stay in Amado for the month of February. Our friends and mentors, Doug & Karen stayed on too. They have been to that area many times and served as our guides.

We took a scenic drive on our own one day and just relied on our GPS to guide us. We went down to Nogales which is right on the Mexican border, then over the Patagonia Lake and up to Sonoita. From there we were looking for a more direct route back to Amado and the GPS found one. Unfortunately I had neglected to tell the GPS to avoid dirt roads and that's exactly where it took us - on a narrow, winding dirt road on the edge of a deep canyon! Nowhere to turn around and go back. Talk about an adventure. We thanked God it was good weather that day because if there had been rain we would have been in trouble. It sure gave us some gorgeous views though.

We thought that staying in a town less than 20 miles from the Mexican border would guarantee us a nice warm month. It was not to be. We woke up several mornings to below freezing temperatures and one morning it even snowed while we were in Nogales for a vet appointment with Monet.

Still, most of the days were mild, the company was good and the area is interesting so we enjoyed our stay.

Titan Missile Museum

Tom, along with several of the other guys from the Alaska group, took a tour of the Titan Missile Museum near Tucson (about 30 miles north of Amado). It is the only remaining Titan Missile silo after the rest were dismantled after the SALT Treaty. Tom says the control room reminded him of work.

Alaskans in Amado, AZ February 2008

We had been invited to join a gathering of Alaskans who are either full-time RVers, or spend most of their winters in their RVs. They were all meeting up in Amado, Arizona for a week in February. It was like attending a week-long party. Those folks know how to have a good time. We knew several of the folks already but made some new friends too. We loved it. This is a picture of us with our friends Doug and Karen. They are also full-time RVers who started a few years before we did. They have become our mentors and we often go to them with questions.

Yuma - January 2008

We'd heard a lot from fellow RVers about Yuma, AZ. It is one of the more popular spots for snowbirds to spend the winter so after our stay in Indio, we decided to check it out. We were told by friends about a particular area in Yuma where there is a large subdivision of RV lots. Like a regular neighborhood but instead of houses, most of the lots have RVs on them. Many of the lots are for rent and that's where we stayed while we were there. Kind of a unique experience. Weather was fabulous so we can understand why it is so popular.

Surprise Meeting & Golf Tournament January 2008

We stayed in the Palm Springs area for another week or so after the rally so we could go to the Bob Hope Classic PGA Golf Tournament.

While we were there, we met up with a friend we met at the beginning of our adventure, Don. We planned a golfing date with him and some other Alaskans he knew. While we were heading to the golf course, we remembered that a gal Tom used to work with, Becky, spent winters in that area and we were sort of wondering how we might get in touch with her. We got to the golf course where we were meeting Don and before we even got to the first tee, Jo heard someone call her name and there was Becky! And not only that, but turns out she knew some of the other Alaskans Don brought along. Not only that, but Becky told us that the next week, another of the guys Tom used to work with, Mark, was coming down to visit with his wife, Katrina, so we were able to hook up with them for a day too. Proving once again what a small world we live in.

The golf tournament was great fun. It is a ProAm charity event so the first two days of the tournament there were celebrities and amateurs playing alongside the pros. We saw Taylor Hicks, Samuel L. Jackson, Huey Lewis, Kenny G., George Lopez, Luke Wilson, Don Cheadle, Kevin James, Kevin Nealon, Jimmy Fallon, Alice Cooper, Michael Bolton, Carson Daly, Thomas Gibson (Greg of Dharma & Greg) Meat Loaf, Cheech Marin, Kyle McLauglin (from Desp. Housewives) and Chris O'Donnell. There were more, but I don't remember them all - and some I'd never heard of.

Dog Show and Rally January 2008

January 2 we were headed back to Indio for a dog show. Dash managed to win the breed there one day against some big name handlers so that was a nice accomplishment. But the best part was getting to hang out with dog show friends we hadn't seen in quite some time and meet some new ones. This is a picture of us with our new pals Jeff & Karen who show Mastiffs. Tom participates in an online forum for RVers "iRV2" and so does Karen. So it was a happy surprise to find they were also dog show enthusiasts and would be at that show.

After the dog show, we attended a Family Motorcoach Association Rally also in Indio. A rally is sort of like a convention for RVers with various vendors and seminars and nightly entertainment. We really enjoyed it, though we spent more money with the vendors than was perhaps wise. Another couple of iRV2 members, Mic & Rick were at the rally and we were able to meet up with them too.

December 2007

After our few days in Indio - which is where our computer crashed by the way - we went to Mesa, AZ where we spent the month of December.

The park where we stayed was almost like it's own little city. It's huge with about 2000 sites - about half of which are taken by permanent or long-term residents. It had a small cafe, two swimming pools, tennis courts, Bocce ball, a billiards room, card rooms, sewing room, silversmith shop, wood shop, just to name a few.

We were able to spend time visiting with Jo's brother, Mark and his family and with Tom's daughter, Shannon and her husband, Pat. We went to church with Mark and the gang on Christmas Eve and spent Christmas at Pat's grandma's house with a few other members of his family.

For New Years Eve we went to an early dinner and out to a movie and were back home before 9:00. Guess that's what happens when you retire, you get boring - or is that sensible?

November 2007

When I sent out our last newsletter, we were in Bakersfield, about to go to the Palm Springs area for a free promotional stay at a swanky RV resort in Indio, CA. Wow! What a fancy place. The resort is made up of a bunch of large lots - the majority of which are individually owned. The owners add all sorts of improvements to their lots from expanded patio areas to extensive landscaping to small swimming pools and spas with elaborate outdoor kitchens and living spaces. Here are just a few pictures.

Alternative to Newsletter

Hello to all our family and friends,

As most of you will probably remember, we started out sending regular newsletters by email when we first started our big travel adventure last year. Then what most of you don't know is our computer crashed in late November. The entire hard-drive died. Nothing could be saved. So we were left only with the files and information we had managed to back up beforehand. We back up our financial information and a few other files on a regular basis, but sadly I hadn't done a major back-up since just before we left Alaska.

Anyway, in the process of getting ourselves back up and running in the computer and cyber-world I got out of the habit of sending the newsletters. I thought about doing it often, but somehow it just never got done and the longer I put it off, the harder it became to get started again.

So, I'm going to give this blog idea a try instead. My plan is to add to it on a regular basis and you can all check in anytime you think about it to see what we're up to.