Sat. Oct. 22nd Lost Wages here we come

It was a very brisk morning today when we got up in Jackpot.  Hubby had a shower but I was too cold to walk all the way to the restrooms (read that 'lazy').  I dressed in layers.  Fleece pants, short sleeve pullover, sweatshirt, my favourite purple hoodie and lastly, my garage sale found jacket with a lining and rain repellent outer layer.  It took me a long time to warm up.

Driving south to Wells there was a dusting of snow on the mountain ridges.  It took an hour to drive to Wells from Jackpot.  Two more hours to reach Ely.  We've stopped a few times at the Prospector RV park when we've had the rig.  It is very basic but it has clean washrooms inside the hotel.  Dusting of snow on the mountain tops here too.

We stopped in Ely to gas up and grab coffee.  Didn't have breakfast today either.  Met a lady in the store who was from Vernon, heading to Yuma to park their trailer and then drive on down to Rincon de Guayabitos and renting a condo there for the winter.  Small world that's for sure.  This was another very hot, long day driving and we finally got to Las Vegas about 3:30 pm.

We are staying at the Hitchin' Post RV park tonight.  Sandy and Mike from Westbank stay here when they drive down to Mexico.

It is ok here.  It is out of the way of the casinos and it has lovely washroom and shower facilities and a nice pool that hubby and I took advantage of before he made supper.  We unhitched the car and drove down to Fremont street for a couple of hours after supper; lost money in the casinos; watched the light show (Jim Morrison), dodged the crazies that filled the street (Hallowe'en isn't until next week I thought) and were back at the rig by 9:30.  I wish now that I had taken the camera with me to town.  I'm catching up on my blog and I do have a picture to add:

Hobo wanted everyone to see that we are here.
Buenos tardes mis amigos

Oct. 21st third day out already

I need to keep this up or I'll get so far behind I'll just want to quit posting altogether.

Today we changed our minds about how far we wanted to drive.  I had thought Boise, ID might be a good place to stop, but when we added up the miles we realized that we could keep on driving all the way to Jackpot, Nevada.

On our way between Le Grande and Baker City, Oregon, we drove across the 45th Parallel.  The 45th is half way between the Equator and the North Pole.  This bit of trivia is for those who actually look for this kind of information on highway signs.

I would like to say that Washington didn't have many, read very few, rest stops on the route we took on Wed. and Thursday.  Once we got into Oregon they appeared more regularly and were very well kept.  The Weatherby, Oregon rest stop was very clean and well kept inside the washrooms, it was easy to get the rig and toad into a parking space and out again onto the highway.  Thank you Oregon rest stop workers.  You do a great job.

We hit a time zone change from Pacific Time to Mountain Time just south of Huntington, Oregon.  Just a comment about Huntington.  There is a campground down off the highway that is on the river.  We stopped there in the spring of 2010 on our way home from Mexico.  Only thing I remember about this site was that hubby met a fellow from Princeton there on his way back from the south.

The other change we came across was the speed limit when we passed into Idaho.  Cars max was 75 mph and trucks 65 mph.

Between Boise and Mountain Home Idaho there was road construction.  Here is a picture.

  This new road is cement and it goes on for miles.  Just thought I'd throw it in for those of you interested in road construction.

We've been through Twin Falls, Idaho a few times on our travels south and this last spring driving home we came home via I-30 instead of into T.F.  We took I-30 through the Thousand Springs Scenic tour.  We missed T.F. and didn't have quite as many hills to climb.  The route drives through and across the Snake River.  The roads are only two lane but they are well maintained.  This route goes through a farming area and small towns.  I was commenting to hubby that the corn is still not harvested and the stalks don't look as big as the corn we grow at home.

We came out south of T.F. onto I-93 and got to Jackpot about 4 pm Mtn time.  We parked at Cactus Pete's RV park, set up the electric (water turned off for winter) and headed for the casino.  I would like to point out that the washrooms in the RV park are nice and warm when it is cold out.

I had a good luck patch so I treated us to supper.  The area we camped in filled up with snowbirds, and guess who we ran into in the dining room.  Yes, the golfers from our golf club.  We beat them to Jackpot because we were up at 7am and on our way without having breakfast.  We stopped on our way and ate leftovers.  This was also another long day.  We don't usually drive so far, but we wanted to get to Lost Wages while the sun shone.

In the morning, after a very chilly night we said goodbye to Cactus Pete's.  Many of the snowbirds had already left and we didn't hear anyone leaving.  We got away about 7:30 our time.

Oct. 20, 2011 second day out

I put in a little bit of our second day in yesterday's blog so I won't make any more comments about that.
As we drove south we had to decide how far we would go.  We decided to drive as far as Pendleton, Oregon.  The weather was perfect for driving, not too cool and didn't warm up too much.

We passed a golf course and rv park about 15 minutes south of Moses Lake.  It is called Sage Hills Golf and RV Park.  It may be one of our stops in future trips.

I wasn't sure where we would park for the night, but hubby just drove through Pendleton and turned into the Wildhorse Casino.  We registered with Security and boondocked for the night.

Here is Hobo getting a good look at the hotel.  He is very shy so what the heck.  I'll take the picture anyway.

Hubby went for a walk down to the RV park that is part of this large Casino complex.  He tells me there is also a golf course.  Can't see the RV park or the golf course from this parking lot, but it is there.  I believe he said it cost 21.00 a night.  On his walk he ran into a fellow golfer from our home golf club.  He is on his way to Casa Grande, AZ and another couple who live at our home club's RV park were also there.  They are on their way to Yuma for the winter.

It wasn't too bad a night boondocking.  Friday is another day.

On our way

Hello friends and family.  We're on our way south!!  My last blog was dated Aug. 31 and here it is already Oct. 19th and we are sitting in the Coulee Playland Resort in Electric City, Washington.  It was a beautiful day for a drive although we did have one big hiccup-we left all our money at home.  We realized our error when we stopped at Costco in Kelowna and hubby asked me for the money.  I thought he had the money.  We went over the scenario of where the money might be and he finally realized that on Tuesday he had taken it from my purse and put it in the drawer because there was someone working on installing a window in our home and we were busy in the rig putting things away.  Unbeknownst to me he thought I had put it back in my purse because he saw a lump of paper that resembled a bulging envelope with American, Mexican and Philippino bills inside my already bulging purse.  Well, the chase was on.  The race was to make it back to Enderby without hitting any red lights back through Kelowna, Winfield, Oyama, Vernon and Armstrong.  Can you believe it?  We did not hit a single red light all the way home.  There it was, right where he put it.  Now the race was on to get back to Kelowna by 12:00, renew our Costco membership, buy a big tub of popping corn, contact lens cleaner and two big bags of hubby's favourite treat that cannot be purchased in the US or Mexico.  Only close personal friends and family will know what that is.  I'll know you have been reading this blog when you comment on the what that favourite treat is.  Anyway, we had the car hooked back on and out of the Costco parking lot by 12:18 pm.  I'm still laughing.

 We have a new passenger with us.  His name is Hobo.  He was a gift from our daughter this past summer.  He's a little shy, so I took a picture of him while he had his back turned to me.  He was asleep when I took the picture of the sign, otherwise he would have wanted to part of the picture.

We had planned to stay here two days but we decided to get away as fast as possible from the cooler weather so we up and left in the morning.  Lots of fishers here with their boats and it is only four miles south of the Coulee Dam on Banks Lake.  The drive south from here was very nice.  Sun Lakes/Dry Falls State Park is on Hwy 17.  The roads are newly paved all the way to Soap Lake.  There are lots of camping and fishing spots to pull into and launch the boat.  One distinguishing feature of this drive is Steamboat Rock.

Time to get ready to go to Mexico

Hello followers of our blog.  Lots of things have happened since our last blog on March 1, 2011.

It's taken me a long time to get over the loss of my Weaverdog, but I'm finally understanding that having a pet is a huge responsibility when we are so busy.  I've put on a lot of weight because I just sat in the house to keep warm this past Spring.  What a miserable time we've had here in our beautiful North Okanagan.  The weather finally started to act like summer near the end of July and August was lovely and warm.  It made great golfing weather.

We are going down to Lo de Marcos Nayarit in a month or so and we are going in our new (to us) rig.
Our lovely old Southwind is now sitting on a RV lot waiting anxiously for its new owner and ours is sitting in our RV parking waiting to go out again on Saturday morning.  This will be its third trip since we got it in June in Chilliwack, BC.  It,  is Dos, our second and much newer rig.  He is a 2006 Tiffin Allegro Open Road model 32.6 ft in length - not 34 feet that we were led to believe by the RV dealer.  They only had to get a measuring tape out to see that it is shorter. 

Our real first trip was home from the dealer.  The drive over the Coquihalla highway was fine.  We had no trouble going up or coming down.  Our second trip was to Lloydminster, Sk to visit my sister and bro-in-law at Sandy Beach which is north on Hwy 17.  The weather was very nice but windy and some rain so we didn't get much golfing in.  We stayed at a Casino parking lot east of Canmore, AB the first night and the second night at the Wal-Mart in Vegreville, AB.  Our family reunion was cancelled this year due to unforeseen circumstances but we stopped in Edmonton to say hello to Mike's auntie Jennie and his uncle Joe.  They were both home so it was nice to stop and say hello.  We also stopped at Mike's old home on 41st Street.
Another Mike H. lives there now and Mike H's wife Debbie gave him a tour.  My Mike's Dad built that house and hubby lived there until his Dad moved his family to the beautiful Shuswap country.  From Vegreville, Mike drove about 50 km and pulled over; saying it was my turn to drive.  What a difference 16 years makes in the stability and ease of driving.  I drove Dos the rest of the way and stopped just before the Home Depot in Lloyd so Mike could take over driving us around the city to Hwy 17 and north to S.B.

In case you golfers are interested, there is a very nice nine hole golf course at Sandy Beach.  Right now though, all the greens are oiled sand greens.  Not too many of them left around nowadays. 

Hubby, myself and my soeur, along with one other lady, went into a golf tournament at Silver Lake.  I'd never heard of the place but there is a lake there and a very nice golf course.  It is sufficient to say that we never won anything, except for Mike who got a KP and won $5.00.

My bro-in-law is a very hard worker but when he gets home he likes nothing better than to grab his geetar and make music.  On Friday night we had a jam session at their home.  It was a very interesting event.  Seestor made a big pot of chili and we bought buns and potato salad and everyone filled up before the music started.  I won't go into the old time dance we attended because the band came to the house to play again for a smaller audience.

Time to leave and home again by the beginning of the August long weekend.

More news to come on future blogs.  Sorry I didn't use my camera at all on this last trip.  I guess I could throw some pics in somewhere here but not right now.
Cheers from the Holoidays still on holiday

Tragedy in the family

I am sad to announce the untimely death of my wonder dog Weaver.  He was a spunky little poodle/bishon cross that I got six years ago from the parents of a student at the school where I worked.  To make a long story short, the pups were going to the pet store, but first Carrie had to drop off one puppy that was purchased by one of our SEA's.  I couldn't bear them all going to the pet store so I twisted hubby's arm and came home with Weaver.  He was a wonderful little dog.  He went to doggie daycare for the first four months of his life.  The daycare was only just passed the school so I put him in his crate every morning and he went happily to begin his day with all the other dogs living on the farm.

After Spring Break that year he stayed at home.  Once we retired he developed separation anxiety.  Our first trip to Mexico he came too.  He was very anxious when the motorhome was moving but calmed right down when we stopped for the night and was happy spending his time with us.  Driving home was not too bad when he was allowed to sit with hubby on the driver's left arm rest.



Now he's happy with the wind blowing his ears back

He loved to play "Ball" and was a delight to watch running circles in the ball diamond behind the condo.

He was friendly to everyone and loved to give his mommy hugs.  He'd put his paws on my shoulders and his head would be tucked into the side of my neck. 

We didn't bring Weaver south with us this year.   His separation anxiety got the better of the wonderful family who volunteered to take care of him when we went south.  Bob and Cher and family; thank you. 
Jeanette took him in November and had him to the end.  Jeanette we can never thank you for your patience and compassion.  I knew he grew on you too.

Weaver Beaver you have left a big hole in my heart but wonderful memories to keep me smiling.

R. I. P.



Only a few week left, boohoo

We've only got a few weeks left here in Lo de Marcos.  I don't have a lot of exciting things to talk about so I'm posting some photos that I've taken since the last post and some from before the last post but I didn't use them.



yellow flowers from vines behind our rig



Lovely amaranth plant on wall of bungalow and hummer peacefully sitting for photo




Same little hummingbird still eating




Little hummer not too disturbed by encroaching fellow/lady?




Taking a rest from sentry duty




Oh oh; is someone coming?




One of the noisiest and busiest birds in the bush