Where Are We Going Now????

Yes we are flying out of TUS to LAX but that is not our final destination. We will be traveling for 2 weeks starting out of LA and our flight home in 2 weeks will take approx. 8 hours. The only flights we have are these two flights. Where are we going? Guess you will need to stay tune to find out.

Bisbee on a Sunday Afternoon

Last Sunday was such a beautiful day, we thought a drive to Bisbee was in order. So off we went to enjoy the afternoon. Jim needed exercise after our drive there, so off to the flight of stairs he went (no he didn't do 1000 stairs, only 86).

Surprisingly there were few tourist in town. In fact it was pretty empty (well the shops were empty but the bars were quite busy).

Of course we went into the Copper Queen Hotel to have a look.

"One RingyDingy" Where's Ernestine?

Oh here she is!

I believe this is a Ford. It's in excellent shape, ran good also (we saw it later going past us).

Of course we had to take advantage of Brats & Chips for $5.00 (well maybe some beer to wash it down also).

It was a pleasant trip, but a long drive to spend only a couple of hours enjoying the town. Some shops were closed, but did enjoy a couple of art galleries.

Caroling Motorcoach CC Style

The weather's been pleasant (in the afternoons), walks good, golf just so-so (some pretty ugly scores), wine tasty, boat rides relaxing, food great and how about those AZ Wildcats. A good match set for tomorrow night against SDSU.

Last night at the restaurant was Southern night. Of course we had to try the Fried Pickles and Fried Green Tomatoes, both were good, then with the main course of fried catfish, well I think that is enough fried food for me for another year. Tonight will be home cooking and of course Christmas day will be home cooking.

Yesterday while on the golf course we had a special treat of Christmas Caroling done MCC style.

Pictures taken with my iPhone so not great images, but you get the idea. There were 4 boats filled with carolers cruising the channel singing all the traditional carols. It was an unexpected treat even it didn't help the golf game any.

Expected high for today is 70 degrees, so pull out the shorts for an enjoyable afternoon on the golf course.

Back for the Holidays

We arrived in Indio late yesterday afternoon after an uneventful trip from Tucson to spend the Christmas holiday in a place where the weather promises to be enjoyable. The forecast is in the high 60s throughout our stay. It's the lows at night, in the low 40s, that keep it from warming up too much. It will hit its high about 2pm then start dipping back down. Now don't think I am complaining - compared to our dear relatives back in Wisconsin, we are in paradise. I've seen their pictures of snow on FB, no thanks, I'm just not a cold weather person.

We don't have anything new planned for this trip, just our normal walk/bike ride in the mornings (though it might be much later morning to let it warm up a bit), golf in the afternoon, either restaurant or BBQ, then start all over again the next day.

Our perfect day ended yesterday with a beautiful sunset. Got the grill warmed up for a couple of filets and after a couple glasses of wine and dinner, the day ended.

Catching Up

Yea, I'm a little slow in posting that we made it back to Tucson on Oct. 21st from our Oklahoma trip.  A total of 2,479 miles were added to the coach's odometer on this trip. Overall, the trip was a success with getting many items taken care of on the coach plus some more memorable times we had.

Finally all construction in our back yard is complete. The pool and decking was pretty much done before we left, but the grill was not complete. That was finally completed a week after we got home. But now we have a fantastic new back yard that we have been enjoying on the weekends. The fridge is stocked (and sampled), the grill works fantastic and everything looks great.

To complete the outside, I just needed to go around the house and spot paint places that were chipped/damaged through the whole ordeal. From all the patchwork the AV guys did inside the house, I also spent a day painting all the patches on the walls. So life turned back to normal for a little while.

On November 2nd Jim's father passed away, so we flew out of Tucson to Fond du Lac, WI (via Appleton) on Monday  11/5 for the funeral on Tues. One nice thing out of that, Jim saw cousins he hasn't seen since his younger days, plus seeing everyone in his family was great.  Wed. flying out of Appleton, it was a little touch and go making our connection in Chicago. First the flight was delayed because of weather in Chicago (that's what they gave as an excuse) then once we were all boarded and heading out to the runway, they stopped the plane, shut down the engines and told us that Chicago airport has closed down because President Obama was either flying in or out of there. But we made it to Chicago just as our flight to Phoenix was boarding - so all was well.

If Jim's work schedule allows, we will be taking off in the RV again to Indio this Thursday. Will post our fun-packed experiences.

Next Stop

The service and the coach washed by 4:30 pm on Wed., we were ready to get organized to leave first thing Thurs. am. Thurs. at 5:00am we woke to a chilly 46 degrees but low and behold no heater when we flipped the thermostat. Couldn't figure out what was wrong, so had to wait till 6:30 for the service dept. to open up. It was a bit cool getting dressed.  Come to find out all we needed to do was hit the reset button on the Aqua Hot - that working, we set off to our new destination.

West of Tulsa we finally stopped for fuel. If you think you are paying a high cost for fillup on your vehicle, just check this out! And this is only one tank, this trip we will put fuel in 3 times. The cost of taking your home with you.

We had a pretty easy trip to Weatherford, TX where we are staying 2 nights. Arrived around 3:00pm, so after parked (more like squeeze in our lot), we went to discover Weatherford. Nothing interesting, just a regular small city. Weatherford is about 30 miles west of Fort Worth. Didn't want to stay in Fort Worth, so opted for this RV park instead and will just drive the Lincoln into Fort Worth to explore.

The RV park is nice, all paved with grass and trees, but the lots are quit narrow with trees that are a bit close. One of our slides comes right up against a tree.

When we arrived I turned on the AC but the thermostat was not working. We called Newell to find out how to fix, luckily it was an easy fix of removing the fuse for 20 minutes to reset the thermostat. Worked fine after that. Early evening I put a load of laundry in the washer and we tripped the power to our lot. Jim went to the office to get someone to fix, needed to wait about an hour before someone showed up. In the meantime, I started the generator and finished the laundry. Our coach is all electric, so we need to be careful in some parks, their power lines are not heavy duty enough to handle what we use.

After all the challenges of the day, we settled in for a glass or two of wine and BBQ ribs.
Friday's adventure to Fort Worth will be included in my next post.

Still in Bay 7

It's Wed. morning and we are still parked in bay 7 at Newell. Most of the repairs have been completed, but needed to wait for a part being shipped in today plus a few items still needing repair. Hopefully by the end of today we will be finished. Of course today's forecast is for rain (60%) so I'm sure once our coach is washed and sitting outside, the rain will commence.

At one point in our service/repair process it felt like the inside of our coach was in total disarray. Jim was helping in any way he could.

One of our ceiling lights didn't work and they had to take the valance framework off to get to the wiring to repair an imperfect wiring crimping job where the wires came apart. But all is fixed.

It's been quite boring just sitting around all day, but we need to be here to describe what we want completed so we are stuck waiting. We went out to dinner Mon. evening to Montana Mikes here in Miami, it's an ok steak place, prices reasonable. And last night we drove about 20+ miles to Downstream Casino and after playing slots for awhile we have dinner at their Red Oak Steak House, which is an upscale steakhouse. Steaks were good, wine was good and of course it all was a bit pricy.  

On the drive over to the casino, we started in OK drove into KS and through MO to end up at the casino building which is in OK. But their parking lot is in KS and the hotel building was in MO. Boy was I confused! I didn't know where I was! But we did make it back to our coach.

We plan to head out first thing tomorrow morning to destination unknown at this time, but will inform you when we get to the unknown. Until then, have a wonderful day.

Our Destination

And the winner is - Sandra! She correctly guessed that we were in Amarillo, TX. Her prize is a free BBQ dinner at our newly renovated back yard. Why were we in Amarillo? On our way to our destination - Miami. Miami Oklahoma that is, but why are we here?

This is where Newell Coach is located and our coach is needing a preventative maintenance service plus to fix a few items. So we make a 1200 mile trip to the NE corner of OK every couple of years. Let me tell you that there is nothing in Miami, OK, so the time we spend here is just waiting for the service to be completed. Luckily the weather forecast is good, so no tornadoes or rain.

We left Amarillo bright and early yesterday morning, watching the sunrise. Our trip only took us 7 1/2 hours with minimal construction along the way. To save about 100 miles we took a different route, instead of heading up I25 out of Las Cruces through Albuquerque to I40, we took a more direct route on a much more rural road Hwy 54. It worked out pretty good except for one section of construction, but with a savings of about $80 in fuel, it was probably worth it.

 Newell has spaces for people to park their RVs while waiting for service the next morning. Here we are all settled.

Here is a picture of some of the many service bays Newell has available.

Some of the used coaches Newell has on site for sale.

Work has begun, we are in bay #7.

Once they move your RV into a service bay, you can stay in your coach or they have a comfortable customer lounge. At night you stay right in your coach while in the building. They make it real convenient. The service will take at least 2 days if not more, all depends. Where we go from here all depends on when we get out of here.  I have a feeling it will take more than 2 days, so that won't give us much option on our route home. We will just have to wing it.

Moving Day

Today we moved farther north to Mallard Creek Golf & RV in Lebanon, OR, just east of Albany. But let me back up and catch you up on our trip to Crater Lake on Friday. It's a beautiful drive, we took the southern route there then came back the northern route, so was able to see more of the countryside. It turned out to be quite cold there, at places only 46 degrees, so needless to say, we looked, took pictures and high tailed it out of there to some warmer weather.

 The lake is quite scenic, but what attracted Jim was the snow. He just had to stop and play.

The water is so clear and even turquoise in spots around the island.

 On our way back we passed by Diamond Lake with Mt. Baily in the background.

This is looking back towards Crater Lake and the next pictures tells you what this point is.

 There were several falls along the way, so stopped to get a look at I believe was Watson Falls.

 Once we got back to I5 we toured a couple of wineries in the area.  We were impressed with a couple, so did purchase a couple of bottles. At the end of the day, we drove 287 miles all of them just beautiful scenery. Everything is just so green, with trees everywhere.

This morning we left Canyonville about 9am and got into Mallard Creek about 11:45. The previous people had not vacated our space yet, so what was there to do except play golf. The course is right next to the RV park, nicely maintained but the fairways are narrow. So Jim spent time looking for his ball on a few holes.

Had an enjoyable round of golf, got the RV parked and we settled in to BBQ chicken for dinner. The weather was perfect this afternoon and hopefully will continue while we are here.

Coos Bay Day Trip

Here it is Thursday morning already, where does time go when on the road? To catch up a little let's go back to Tues. evening. We were enjoying a glass of wine out on the patio gazing on the surrounding tree filled mountains when the sky just decided to dump. Needless to say that by the time we got the chairs put away and got into the motorhome it rained so much that my wine was a bit watered down. It rained off and on the rest of the evening (it doesn't get dark here until after 9pm) and night. But around 7pm the electricity went out in the park. Luckily it was cool enough that the A/C was not required, so we faired quite well even though the coach is all electric there is enough battery power we can survive for quite some time, except A/C that would really draw the power. But if need be, we always have a generator. The power did come back on around 9:30. Never did hear why it went out.

Yesterday since it was still overcast and cool we decided that a trip to the coast would be in order. Sorry no pictures of the ocean/coast as we really didn't see it except all the bays. We started out at Bandon, drove through town, not much. But as we were driving up Hwy 101 we saw Bandon Doons Golf Course, so we drove in just to check it out. Really not much to see there, but we can now say we saw the place (it's a highly rated course).

On up Hwy 101, took a side trip through Charleston then through Coos Bay. Nothing really caught our eye so kept driving. Now we are getting hungry, so Jim found a listing for Ungers Fish & Chips in Winchester Bay. We found the road it was on, but I guess we missed the turnoff, so we kept driving down this road quite aways until we figured out we must have passed it, so turning around we went back.  It still took us quite awhile to find the place, but we finally made it, so glad we did as the fish-n-chips were delicious.

Drove up the coast a little bit further before heading back inland to the RV park. A total of 259 miles for the day and even though the drive was beautiful, I wanted to see the coast/ocean which we didn't even get a glimpse of it.

Here is the Seven Feathers Park we are staying at, which I highly recommend. The park is rated #10 and I totally agree, they only need to trim their trees.

Jim is trying to fix our little plastic side table that a leg broke off, but didn't work, so off to the garbage it goes.

 Here is a look eastward from our space.

 Here is a look westward from our space.

Oh, after we got back from driving all those miles yesterday, we needed some exercise, so of course we walked over to the casino where we proceeded to win $59 then left and walked back. Another productive day at the casino.

Oregon Bound

Friday we left Tucson at 11:30 Oregon bound to find cooler weather and to get the RV on the road. Our place in Indio was our first stop, which we made in 6 1/4 hours with no problem except with rain along the way. Just enough rain to get the RV and the Lincoln filthy. A big downpour hit us right after we got parked and all settled - whew just in time! I think this is the first time we have experienced rain ever in Indio.

We were up and on the road by 4:30 the next morning, hoping to get through LA before the freeways got crowded. We skirted along the foothill freeway with only a 10 minute construction delay and with minimal traffic for that area. Hit the San Joaquin valley at the bottom of the Grapevine after 3 3/4 hours unscathed. Our first stop is Lodi (the only park for our size RV in the Sacramento area) so we can visit my sister who lives in Sacramento.

We arrived at the Flag City RV Park at 12:30, proceeded to check in then went out to unhook the Lincoln to pull into our space. The Lincoln didn't start - nothing new, we have this problem with this vehicle that the battery dies while we tow, so we hooked up our battery jump starter - nothing. This has always worked in the past. At this point I go in and ask the office if there was anyone with cable jumpers that could help us - well no luck.

Just so happens this guy was walking past us and asked if he could help. Of course we say Yes!! He came over with his pickup, jumper cables and still no luck - The Lincoln is just dead. Luckily he was a mechanic and kept at it until he came up with the idea that a fuse was blown, so started to investigate - well that was the problem. After searching through out the many fuses, we finally found one that was bad - replaced it and got the Lincoln started.  Needless to say, that guy made a few extra bucks helping us because if he didn't we would have to had the Lincoln towed to get fixed and ruined our trip. I'm thankful for people willing to help other people. Talk about a stroke of luck.

So after that problem was solved, we decided the Lincoln needed to be driven, so off to the Lodi wineries we go.  After spending the next 3 hours at wineries, we only came home with 1 bottle of wine.  Didn't really find any we really loved. But not to worry, Monday we are heading over to Napa valley.

After driving for 8 1/2 hours this morning and an exhausting afternoon tasting wine, we mellowed out enjoying the beautiful 80 degree weather, then BBQ'd our dinner.

Now it's Sunday morning - tried to post this last night but was having troubles (maybe the visit to the wineries had something to do with it?), it's going much better this morning. Today we are off to visit with my sister for the day.

The beautiful, warm weather has made this trip quite enjoyable.  The mornings are still chilly, but by the afternoon the sun is bright and the air temperature is in the mid to high 70s, just perfect for a round of golf.  Our days consist of relaxation, golf, cruise and dinner.  If we stayed here much longer, we would need to break down and go somewhere to find some excitement. But at this point, we are quite content as we are.

Last night was Prime Rib night again at the restaurant. Here we are about ready to dive in.

Here is a view of the restaurant (on the 2nd story).

Transportation to the restaurant is via boat across the channel to the docks. After a delicious meal and a couple glasses of wine, we are ready to head back across to the RV.

Here is a picture of the resort entryway trees and gate lit up at night.

A project I worked on, with no resolution at this point, is a problem with the speakers in our motorhome.  This problem has existed for some time and the mfg. was not able to solve it. But I have narrowed it down, which to me it is not logical. When the TV is on satellite the 4 speakers randomly work, sometimes all 4 work, maybe one side works or none work and it is constantly changing, so it fades in and out and from side to side then to all working again.  But if you switch the tuner to either the radio or DVD the speakers work fine.  Now figure that one out! I have checked the connections and everything seems to be fine, but there are so many wires and so little space and access. If anyone can come up with a logical reason why this is happening, please comment below and let me know what you are thinking it might be. I would love to solve this problem so we can watch TV without the constant sound fluctuation. 

Friday night we are joining another couple up at the restaurant for dinner, so only two more evenings to ourselves here at the RV.  Then Sunday morning we are heading back to Tucson and back to our normal daily lives.

We hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable New Years Eve and may 2012 bring abundance and prosperity to all in whatever form you create.