Houston we have a problem!!!!

HE SAID:  Our shuttle tried to jettison from the mother ship today AGAIN!!!. We thought we had this dolly thing above figured out. But after having lunch in Houston, we went back to the car and noticed the driver side tire was almost off the dolly. We have made a decision that we are going to trade our Scion XB in for a flat tow car. It has to be easier then the stupid dolly. It was pouring rain and cold in Houston and was not fun having to put the straps back on the car. 

We stopped in New Mexico Monday night, then just outside San Antonio Tuesday night. We have had three long days of driving. It is nice to be in some wetter states, but the cold sucks, although I know I can't complain. I have now been in three states that I have never been before to add to my bucket list.  

We left very warm and sunny Phoenix on  Monday morning, with the goal to be in New Orleans by Thursday. As of tonight we are just outside Lafayette parked beside a swamp (thank goodness it is February or we would have a camping experience my kids and I know too well that we did in Manitoba next to a mosquito pond. )

Staying in rest stops and Walmart's isn't too bad, but having electricity only with the generator is hard on charging 6 Apple products.  Our first night in New Mexico at a Walmart got us off guard as all the grass around the RV had a ton off burrs..  see below.

The poor dogs were covered in them and it took us most of the night trying to get them out. Libby wouldn't do "her business" until they were all out.  Pat keeps stepping on them on the  carpet. They are hard to see they are so small.

Arizona rest stop

SHE SAID:  

One lesson learned from the burr experience - don't walk around an RV which is lived in with dogs who have walked on dry, burr infested grass - ouch!  I am still feeling the prickles on my thumbs, as well as my feet when they decide to try to hitchhike from the carpet to somewhere else.  I can't imagine the pain the dogs were in as it took us over an hour to get them picked out from their paws and beards.  I think that now, two full days later we are coming to an end of them inside.

It was nice to leave Phoenix to continue our adventure - we had been getting into a routine there.  None of that!!  Day one was still very warm and dry - moving through desert landscape.  In the above picture of John on the rocks (a new drink name, maybe?) was very interesting, as the rocks looked like they were from Lord of the Rings, and would rise out of the ground and start talking and moving.  We drove, arriving in Las Cruces, NM and had the burr fiasco at the Walmart parking lot...note to self...not all grass is alike.

We left pretty early Tuesday and drove to a rest stop near Kerrville, Texas.  It was fairly quiet and very clean, equipped with a dump site for the RV for the inevitable dumping activity - which we took advantage of.   I love the internet, and don't know how people did this without it - must have had a lot more surprises - there's been enough with it!  I can have the location for stopping, with the help of a book we picked up in Yuma, but also a quick search will give reviews and the best area to park in the rest area.  During the day, I did drive on two occasions, mostly to break up some of the monotony.  I was a bit concerned, due to my mono vision and the length of the RV pulling the car.  There were no big cities, so I went with it.  Not hard to drive at all, but when a truck passes, its quite the pull - I guess I'll get used to it.

Today we set off and made it to another rest stop - my googling isn't 100% as this one is 'closed' but there's about 10 rigs and another RV parked along with us.  It rained all day, was cool, and we passed through both San Antonio and Houston - I did not drive today!  I appreciate John will take on that stress, or I guess we'd still be Lethbridge at the Bridge View campground.  

Tomorrow is New Orleans - as we've agreed not to pay for a campground until Florida, I had to work a bit harder for our 'Freebie' as it's almost Mardi Gras.  I have located a casino that allows free overnighting, this one doesn't require a check in or  require gambling - sounds like we will be able to park then take part in the pre- Mardi Gras activities before our Florida time and my run home for a Dr. appointment.  

There she BLOWS!!!!

HE SAID:One of the problems of having a toilet on board the RV is that you also have to carry around your own septic holding tank.  Unfortunately this holding tank can only hold so much of your "stuff".  For some reasons like Robin Williams above I have had too many "that isn't where that stuff is supposed to go!, having just experienced another mistake in our current RV park. You'd think I would have this figured out by now considering we have been in the motorhome for about 4 months. The issue I have been trying to correct is the "level" panel in the RV doesn't register how full our tank is and we have been using guess work as to when to empty it. I have now bought three devices that where supposed to work to clean out the tank so I could get a proper reading. Each device hasn't worked and resulted in unwanted product all over the ground.  Just bought another one device and I think i better wait till I'm in the middle of nowhere to try again as to not offend my neighbours with any"what just died out there!"

Sedona Arizona

Sedona Arizona

I have been really enjoying life in Phoenix with the exception of getting a Shingles like rash all over my next and face which resulted in two doctor visits.  We have enjoyed visits with Jim and Jean Benson and Vaughan and Sherry Smith. Because of my not feeling all that great we have only done about 1/2 the exploration that we usually do. Had a great drive to Sedona but refused to buy the "healing crystals" for 15 bucks!!! On the way home from that town we stop at Montezuma monument which is an awesome federal park that has ancient Native American housing built right into the side of a mountain...

 In Phoenix we went to the "Hole in the Wall". Talking to our friends, it appears not many have even seen or heard of it. A hole in the side of a hill that the Natives used to tell the seasons. It had a great view of the city. Pat's depth perception didn't want to go through the wall, so I took the dogs through myself. 

Hole in the wall.

Our latest adventure took us to the Museum of Musical Instruments. I know it doesn't sound that exciting, but they have thousands and thousands of musical instruments from all over the world and it is designed in such a way that you can go from country to country to see and hear. We were there for three hours. 

We were planning our next adventure to Tennessee. After looking at the weather they have been having, it was too hard to say good bye to Arizona and there plus 25 C or 75/80 degree days. We will be heading to Florida via furthest south highway to stay as far away from the snow and ice!!. 

She Said:

Not sure where to go with this post!  It really has be a different couple of weeks, due to Johns shingles and cold sores.   Much more just sitting around, TV, reading, walks with the dogs and the odd outing.  One afternoon when John was having his post getting up, pre bedtime snooze I went to a movie alone.  This was a pretty big step for me, haven't done this since I was in my nursing course (I do remember that - movie was Pappillion - 1976 - in Edmonton) but was getting pretty antsy, so rather than committing a crime I went to the nearby theatre.  The movie was Vampire Academy - haven't read any of the books and don't know why I picked it - but me and the other two people there enjoyed the matinee.  Sometimes some space is good for us :) (read Johns first comments- I won't go there).  We really haven't seen much of Pheonix, but now that John doesn't look like he's contagious we will be doing some more exploring this next week!

I've had a lot of time to think about decisions we've made this past year, and so far I feel, for the most part, that hitting the road has been awesome.  We've had lots of time to wind down and really enjoy the moments.  The places we have visited have been beautiful and not having to worry about getting back to work with no time frames enhances the experience.  On occasion some deep breathing has been necessary, but that, I think, is to be expected. (including my no making John delete the pictures of me he chose to pose with this entry)

As John said we decided that going to Tennessee would be a bad choice - it has been around zero  with snow there, so why would we go?  We will be keeping to the warm side (hopefully) and travelling highway 10 all the way to Florida - we will be at New Orleans which has always been on my bucket list.  Once we get to Florida, I will be flying back to Alberta for a Dr appointment while John and the dogs sit at the beach and enjoy the weather.  On the bright side for my quick home trip, Heather and I will be going to an Air Supply concert in Edmonton.  

And to end this post...CANADA ROCKS!!!  KEEP UP THE AWESOME OLYMPIC PERFORMANCE!!

Is that You???

Gilbert Temple - Open house

He Said:We had a great visit with our niece Emily and Rocky and kids in Nogales. We went to church with them. It was different as they ran one meeting in both Spanish and English. Too bad I am only on lesson three of my Rosetta Stone Spanish lessons.  After visiting them in their home we headed off to Phoenix. We thought it was too close to Tucson, so kept driving. Ended up in Casino Arizona’s parking lot for free. We were actually turned away from Wal-Mart…go figure. Anyway. We are now in Desert Shadows RV Park in North Phoenix. It has all the bells and whistles, which is awesome. Who’d thunk that you can still get TV with an antenna?   Made contact with my first missionary companion Kent Lee. He is a Lawyer here and we had a visit in our motor home and at their house. It was great catching up.  Here is our picture taken at the LTM (the previous MTC). And here is us today.  Thus the name of our blog. I think I have changed the most. Kent’s wife Jeannie couldn’t believe it was me.

Before and after 38 years

Besides lots of shopping we did make it to the Gilbert Arizona Temple opening. What a beautiful temple….I was just sad they didn’t have cookies like the BC and Calgary temple openings.  Oh well.

We are going to be here in Phoenix for the next few weeks. Haven’t even begun to see the sights here.  More people to visit here too!

Outside the Gilbert Az Temple

She said:

Formatting this blog after John has written his part is perhaps become one of my biggest challenges!  It will come, I am sure.  Last Sunday was a very pleasant day, meeting with my niece Emily for the first time in many, many years and meeting her husband and children.  I thoroughly enjoyed it, I must say.  Emily has 5 children, two teenagers whom she adopted when they were younger and three - a set of twins who are around three, and a 10 month old baby.  Lacey, one of the twins, has cystic fibrosis - she is very sweet - it truly warmed my heart when she was in her dads arms, and whenever there was music, she got a beautiful smile on her face - she also responded whenever he or her mom whispered in her ear (we were at church).  Her brother Logan is a little power house - very active and full of energy, a typical 3 year old guy - he got into our RV and was ready to hit the road with us - he sat in the passenger seat, looked at Emily and said his goodbyes to her.  I do love that age group :)  Lacey is the baby, and is a beautifully baby, very well behaved while we were there.  The teenagers were typical teenagers, said their hellos, and went to their games :)   They live in Nogales, Az, which is right on the Mexican Boarder - Rocky teaches at the elementary school there.  It was interesting that when leaving Yuma people warned us how dangerous the Nogales boarder is; and in Nogales were was asked what was it like being in Yuma where the boarder was dangerous.  I will have to research that one!  

On leaving Nogales, we thought we would drive partway to Phoenix, but ended up driving it all, arriving around 9.  It is the latest we have driven.  After being told there was no room at the Walmart, we did go to a nearby Casino - I think I liked being there better as there was all night security driving around on golf carts.  We arrived at this RV park, about our 3rd choice as some of the less costly places were fully booked.  WHO KNEW???  I think perhaps we will have to learn to plan better than we have been so far.  It is a lovely park, with lots of grapefruit and orange trees, in full fruit everywhere.  We have picked from some of the trees that are on vacant lots - yum!  The people here are extremely friendly, from all over Canada and the US.  The scotties have certainly made us memorable to the local residents.  There are bunnies around the areas, which put them both in to full Terrier alert - ears and tails up, almost dancing in their effort to get at them.  We will be here for another 2 weeks before moving on.

As John said, we have met with his old mission companion and his wife - the Lee's.  they are very nice people and were kind enough to have us over for dinner.  We met a couple of their daughters, who were lovely!  We also made the trip to Jim and Jean Bensons place - they are in a phenomenal site, surrounded by a golf course, lots of green and grass!  We went for dinner and did some catching up.  For the next week we are going to get more focused(?) on seeing some of the Phoenix sights.  If anyone has a favourite place here, please let us know - open for suggestions!

Kent and Jeannie Lee