Installment #3, 2007

January 21, 2007

Thanks to everyone who has sent us emails, left comments on our Blog and called. We appreciate hearing from everyone. Also, thanks for the “birthday wishes” to Tony.

1st picture is of the Wind Farm we saw in California on our way to Arizona. Hopefully, with the photos, you can double click on them and see a larger picture. Second picture is of an Arizona sunset.

After arriving in Quartzsite and getting settled into Hadlock’s RV park, we signed up for an internet service – it works half the time which is better than none, but very slow. We had to buy a tire for the motorhome – which should have been an indication of what is to come – anyone that has known Sharon for the past 40 years knows that she hates to buy tires.

We have spent a lot of time with our friends from Idaho who are down here – Butch & Mary, Larry & Rollienna, and Treda & Neil. Also visited Jack & Jerri from Nampa who Sharon hadn’t seen in over ten years. Took a trip to Yuma to see Penny & Arnie. They are close friends, newly retired, and trying out the “snowbirding” (travelling south for the winter).

We have sat around once with a campfire – but, imagine this, we are now waiting for it to get warm enough to build a fire. Unfortunately we have experienced the coldest weather that Quartzsite has seen for 17 years – freezing temperatures at night. It was cold enough to freeze the water hose outside – luckily we still had water in the motorhome tank to use. The rest of USA is now getting this weather and they are really suffering. But…to make us feel better…all contact with Moscow, Idaho, friends and relatives inform us that the snow and sub zero temperatures there are much worse than here.

In walking around all the vendors in Quartzsite (Tyson Wells - http://www.tysonwells.com/) http://www.desertusa.com/Cities/az/quartzite.html, Tony found a dash cover for the car he wanted – Sharon suggested it would be a good present for his birthday – an early birthday present – another mistake – it seems a much larger birthday present was in order later in the week.

We have ridden the bikes a little bit around. Had dinner at the Grubsteak….Tony was in heaven…he said it was just like the fish and chips and the Guiness in England.

We took a sidetrip to Mexico just southwest of Yuma http://www.greenandwhitesheet.com/wvdirectory/wvalgodo.phtml. This is Tony’s least favorite place to visit – Sharon, Butch & Mary just love watching Tony trying to escape all the children coming up to him to sell him something. Getting back across the border took a 40 minute line (or queue as the British say). All the way to the front of the line, we kept telling Tony he shouldn’t speak…easy to get into Mexico, but getting more difficult to get back to the U.S. Another side trip with Butch & Mary was to the London Bridge in Lake Havasu Landing for a boat ride to a California casino and back http://www.havasulanding.com/casino.html.

A 4/5th replica of the Vietnam Wall is coming to Quartzsite on January 24th. Sharon has volunteered to help people find some of the 55,000 names on the wall with their computer.

And now, for the biggest news. We have purchased a new motorhome. Happy 66th birthday, Tony!! Motorhome is two feet longer than previous one, a Class A (meaning it was designed and built as a motorhome instead of the class C we had which was a motorhome body on an extended pickup chassis), has two slide outs (one in living area, one in bedroom), automatic steps, two large TVs, a self-seeking satellite television dish, a pullout for the laptop in front on passenger side, and on and on but basically much more room than before and heavenly inside. We are now officially “SKI”ing (Spending The Kids’s inheritance – sorry kids).