WOW--Another RV friends fix

We had another of our RVing friends come through for a short visit. Don & Vicki Leith, who have been sitting over in Arkansas for several months while they have been building a new house, stopped over this afternoon for a visit. They are on their way west to California to do volunteer work at the Baker to Vegas Run. The Baker to Vegas Run is a relay run from Baker, California, to Las Vegas, Nevada, for teams made up from law enforcement departments.

Don & Vicki were staying in an RV Park not far from our house. We met them at their coach and visited for a few minutes before going to dinner. They travel with his dog, Tess, and her cat, Furbie.

We went to dinner at the world famous Cattleman's Restaurant down in the Stockyards area of Oklahoma City. After a good steak dinner we drove out to our house and had a good visit, catching up on what has gone on since we saw them last this past fall when we stopped by their place one our way to the east coast.

They will be heading out in the morning to continue their trip west. We really enjoyed their visit and hope to see them again soon.

A good visit with an old friend

One of my best friends from high school lives, with her husband and five dogs, in Savannah, Georgia. We were able to visit with Diane and Russ Abolt this past fall during the week we spent in Savannah. She has five small dogs that have been trained and certified as Therapy Dogs. Diane is in town, Oklahoma City, at her parents house. This afternoon we drove down to the south side of the city to visit.

When Di comes to visit she brings one of her smallest dogs, a beautiful little miniature schnauzer named Hanna. She is about the same size as our Brandi Jane was but is more the color of Buddy Joe. Although Hanna lives with four other dogs, including one of her litter mates, she is very shy and needs to warm up to people before she is comfortable. Since Buddy always enjoys playing with other dogs we took him with us. After a few minutes Hanna appeared to want to play but Buddy was not having any part of it. After awhile the two of them just ignored each other.

We did have a good visit with Diane and her folks and always enjoy our time together.

A pleasant surprise

We previously had expected some of our RV friends that had made plans to come through town this month to visit us. Due to some late winter weather and other considerations both couples elected to stay in southern Arizona longer than usual and then head north, bypassing this part of the country. So, it was a great surprise when we received a call from Lew Anderson last night saying that he and Dottie were in Amarillo, Texas, and were headed our way, on their way to visit family in Wichita, Kansas.

They pulled into the Oklahoma City Elks Club, where they are parked for the night, this afternoon. We picked them up a little later and headed to our favorite steakhouse, the world famous Cattleman's in the Stockyards area. After dinner we took a tour of our fair city. Went to Bricktown, the entertainment district that has been built up from the old brick warehouse district east of the downtown area. As we were walking around the outside of our new baseball park, one of the finest Triple A parks in the nation, one of the gate attendants allowed us to slip in an look around even though they were admitting fans for an exhibition game between the Texas Rangers and the Chicago White Sox. We finished off our tour with a visit to the Oklahoma City Federal Building Bombing Memorial. Although the bombing of that building took place in 1995 this was my first time to go down there. It was not as hard to visit it as I was afraid it would be. That may be because we were there after the inside museum had closed and we just strolled the outside grounds.


Tomorrow morning Lew and Dottie will head out for Wichita. We had a good visit and really enjoyed this surprise.

The start of a new adventure

We are still home bound for another couple of months or so. I've decided I need to do something besides sit at the computer all day so I've volunteered to help at the Military Welcome Center at Will Rogers World Airport here in Oklahoma City. I started my first shift tonight in a "training" capacity. Next Friday morning will be my first shift of actually working at the Center.

Will Rogers World Airport is the major airport for the Oklahoma City area and is serviced by many of the major airlines. The other airport in the OKC area, which is a general aviation airport, is named after Wiley Post. Both Will Rogers and Wiley Post were world famous Oklahomans but I've always wondered about naming airports after people who died in a plane crash.

The Military Welcome Center is operated by the YMCA and is a great service to our nations heroes. Most of the people coming through are new Army recruits on their way to basic training at Ft Sill, a little over 80 miles southwest of OKC. The Center also caters to service members who are coming through the airport between flights or awaiting transportation to one of the many military bases located in Oklahoma after returning from leave or arriving on new orders. The new Army recruits come from all over the United States and arrive with a single backpack, a set of orders and a very scared look on their face. They are hosted in the Center until the chartered bus takes them to Ft Sill. We have buses leaving at 6:30, 8:30 and 10:30 each evening but only the new recruits are allowed on the buses since they are funded by the Military Entranced Processing Stations (MEPS). Last night we only had nine people come through, three on each bus. Today they expect about 135 to be coming through.

The Center has several large sofa's, a wide screen TV with DirectTV, computer terminals, games and books available to the service members. Additionally, they have cell phones available if the guys want to make a quick call home to let the folks know they arrived safely. The local Pepsi distributor has put in a large cooler and keeps it stocked with soft drinks. The YMCA provides other drinks, such as juice, Gatorade and teas, available in the cooler. They also purchase snack items and each evening they have Domino's deliver pizza to feed the service members and volunteers.

This welcome center is a pleasant place for our warriors to stop and relax before continuing their journey in the defense of our country. It is an honor to serve these young people and, in our own little way, let them know we appreciate what they are doing. Remember, freedom is not free. If you are able to read this blog entry then you should thank a teacher. If you can read it in English, thank a military service member.

RV Trip--Short but fun

Well, our time "back on the road" was short but fun. We continued through this past weekend with our RV Club the Birds of a Feather at the Cedar Valley RV Park in Guthrie, OK. We awoke Saturday morning to a fine meal of biscuits and gravy provided by our camp hostess for the weekend, Judy Burks. (Each time the group has a scheduled weekend meet one of the member couples is assigned duty as Host/Hostess. Their job is to coordinate with the RV Park prior to the group arriving, see that there are donuts and coffee on Friday and Saturday mornings, and insure clean up of the party room that is usually provided by the RV Park.)

Our weather had been very good on Thursday and Friday with temps in the 70's and plenty of sunshine. Friday evening a weather front moved in and dumped some rain on us but also lowered the temps by 20 degrees. It was cool and damp on Saturday morning but it warmed up some during the day. That evening we all got together for our usual pot luck dinner. It always amazes me that, although no one specifies a menu nor asks anyone to bring any specific dish, we always have plenty of food and a great variety. As the first pictures shows we had plenty of food to feed our 16 campers.

After dinner we were entertained with some trivia games brought by our hostess. One was a list of advertising slogans and we had to figure out the product. Another was a list of TV/movie characters descriptions and we had to come up with who they were. The last was a list of names of U. S. cities with the letters scrambled and we had to unscramble the letters to determine the cities name. Some of these were harder than others but Joanne and I were able to win all three games. It helps that we are the two youngest in this group and that I have spent a lot of time in front of the television over the years. George, the past president of this group of merry wanderers, had an accident recently and is off his feet. He had to play the games in a reclining position.

Sunday morning brought cool temps but clear skies. The group started breaking up and slowly the motor homes started to pull out of the park. We were next to last to leave and made the 30 mile trip back to the house. By noon we had the coach unloaded and back in the storage lot. It was fun while it lasted but now we are back to our routine of not doing much while Joanne oversees her mother's cancer treatment.

Finally, on the road again--well kind of

We are still pretty much home bound while Joanne's mom continues her cancer treatments. It has now been five months since we returned home from the east coast and have been sitting. Well, we actually are out in the coach and away from home, at least for a few days. Our Oklahoma based motor home club, The Birds of a Feather, is having it's first meet of the year in Guthrie, OK. Although it is only about 40 miles north of our house we are really in an RV park with other RVer's.

We arrived here before noon yesterday and were the second coach to show up. By the end of the day we had seven of the eight coaches here. The other arrived this morning. We started off today with donuts and coffee and some good fellowship with some long time friends. Actually, we have been eating most of the day. At noon one of the members, who lives close by, told us about a new Grill just down the road and claimed they served the best onion burgers around. So, most of us loaded up and went to see if he was right. Sure enough they were great onion burgers. This evening we went the other direction to the town of Guthrie to have dinner at The Stables. This is an old livery stable that has been converted into a fantastic BBQ cafe.

Guthrie is a very neat, old town. In 1907, the year Oklahoma became a state, Guthrie was the original capitol city. There were many arguments in the government and with the people of keeping the capitol in Guthrie or moving it to Oklahoma City. In 1910, in the dead of night a group of state legislators "stole" the state seal and moved it to Oklahoma City, declaring this the new state capitol. As history shows the capitol stayed to the south in the larger city and Guthrie fell on hard times. Now much of it has been refurbished and it is a great city of turn of the century buildings and home. They celebrate the 1889 land run here, state hood day and have many "Territorial" festivals throughout the year, harking back to the days that Oklahoma was actually made up of two U.S. territories, Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory.

Happy birthday to our little Buddy Joe

Today we celebrated Buddy Joe's seventh birthday. He has brought so much joy to our lives over the years. He has the best personality of any dog I have had the pleasure to have. He has yet to meet anyone he did not like. Actually, he thinks that the world was populated with people to pay attention to him and pet him.

Since losing his sister, Brandi Jane, a few months ago he had a hard time adjusting to being not just the only dog in the family but now he was the lead dog. He had always deferred to his older sister. Now he has come into his own and wants to be involved in everything. He also has become much more vocal in letting you know he is there. When we had two dogs they were her dog (Brandi) and his dog (Buddy). Now Buddy has become our dog. He has decided he should be in the lap of which ever one of us that sits down first.

Happy Birthday Buddy and thanks for giving us so much joy.

Happy Birthday to my Mom

Today my mother celebrates her 89th birthday. Won't be able to share it with her, as is the case most years, because my folks are away at the National Farmers Union Convention, this year in Las Vegas.


Mom has done well over the years and all four of her sons are grateful for her for all the years she spent bringing us up. Dad's work took him on the road a lot while we were growing up and most of the child rearing was left to her. We were fortunate to have a mom who could stay home and care for the family. Over the past few years she has seen her eyesight starting to fade and needs hearing aids but she is still the same, beautiful mom that I remember waiting at home as we boys returned each day from school.


Happy birthday Mom and thanks for being there.

A goodbye to an old friend

The December 2007 ice storm has taken another casualty. About 14 years ago my youngest son, Alan, and I planted a Bradford Pear Tree in our front yard, hoping that when it matured it would shade our front entryway from the harsh afternoon Oklahoma sun in the summers. I have always called this "Alan's Tree" since he helped dig the hole and worked hard helping plant the tree. This has been even more meaningful in the past couple of years since my relationship with Alan has become very strained. This picture was taken right after the ice storm and shows the remains of a Youpan Holly Tree that had been growing directly in our entryway.

Alan's Tree has done very well over the years and was one of the better looking Bradford Pears in the neighborhood. Up about four feet from the base it forked out into two major branch groups. This is where the storm caused the damage. With it completely covered in ice, especially with most of it's leaves still attached, the weight caused the branch groups to lean out, causing the tree to split right in the fork. After the ice melted the tree came back together and I thought I might be able to save it by putting a large bolt through it, pulling it snugly back together. After looking it over very closely it was determined the split went almost all the way the the base. With the wind we have experienced lately it is a small wonder that the tree has not already broken over. Anyway, I spent today cutting it down, piling the brush at the curb and cutting up the tree for firewood. (Now we have two piles of brush since the city still has not made it's way to this end of town picking up the storm debris.) The wood was added to the other we have been scavenging from the neighborhood over the last couple of weeks. So far we have been able to collect over three ricks of wood that we will be able to use next winter after it has had time to season.

A review of 2007

Well, 2007 has come to an end so it is time to look back on what has happened. This was our first full year of retirement and we were able to put a lot into it. We saw much of this great country and made a bunch of new friends.

After celebrating the holidays with family and welcoming in a new great nephew in December 2006, we made plans to travel. We left Oklahoma on January 10 and headed toward Florida. After stops at the Outlet Mall in Gainesville, TX, and an overnight stop in Alexandria, LA, we arrived in Duson, LA. There we met up with six other couples that had been trekking across country from way out west in their motor coaches. The leader of this group had laid out our route and based our stops around a list of restaurants he wanted to visit. After Duson we spent a couple of nights in Robertsdale, AL.

Our Florida trip lasted a little over two months and we were able to spend time in DeFuniak, Lake City, Titusville, Orlando, Jacksonville, Brooksville, Tampa, Key West and Pensacola. We traveled with our little group of seven coaches for most of the first month. We also attended three motor coach rallies during that first month. Also, we were able to meet up with my parents, who had traveled to Orlando for a convention, and with my cousins, who were wintering in the Pensacola area to get away from the Cleveland, OH, winter. We then spent a couple of days in Gulfport, MS, on the way home.

During our time in Florida our older, but smaller dog developed some health problems. The local vet in Tampa determined that she had a serious bladder infection. She had become incontinent and we had to nurse her along until we could return home for her to see her own doctor. After returning home in late March we had her seen by our regular Vet and he agreed that she probably had a bladder infection and treated her accordingly. It was not until May that it was finally determined that her bladder was almost fully eaten up with cancer. She was a real trouper and, although she had to wear diapers for incontinence, she kept her spirits up and it was otherwise hard to tell she was sick. Toward the end of October she suddenly became worse and passed away on October 26.

We spent the end of March and all of April at home taking care of routine doctor appointments and the things that go along with owning property. We also got to spend a weekend each of these two months with our local RV camping club at their monthly meets. May found us back in Louisiana for another motor coach rally. We spent about two and a half weeks in the city of Rayne at the Spring Monaco America rally. It was good to get back with our main RV club and see many of our old friends. From Rayne we returned home in time for Memorial Day. We spent our time doing maintenance around the house including opening the pool for the season.

July took us north across Kansas and Nebraska to South Dakota. We spent about a month in the Rapid City area. We visited with RV friends and did a lot of sightseeing. We even made a day trip over into Wyoming to visit Devil’s Tower. We returned to Oklahoma via Dodge City, KS, in early August. The rest of August and the first part of September was spent at home.

In early September we headed out on another adventure. After spending a weekend with the local RV club we headed east again. This time we were going to spend some time on the road before attending RV rallies in Virginia and North Carolina. We crossed Arkansas and Tennessee before spending two weeks in Georgia, spending time at Stone Mountain and Savannah. From there we went north to Charleston, SC. We also spent some time seeking out historic lighthouses. After a week in Charleston our plans were to take us north to Virginia but that did not work out. The day before we were to leave we received a call that Joanne’s mom had been diagnosed with cancer and needed surgery. We decided that we must head home and three days later were back in Oklahoma. By now we were into October.

After the surgery in late October, Joanne spent most of her time at her mom’s house. This took us well into November. During this time the coach was taken to Tulsa to a dealer for some maintenance and final warranty work before the one-year warranty ended. Also, it had to have a new windshield installed to replace the one that got broken on the trip home from the east coast. After the repairs the coach went into storage. Things then became pretty routine around the house until mid-December when a major ice storm hit us. Due to the ice on the trees bringing the limbs down most of the city lost electrical power, including us. We were without power for seven days. During that time we brought the coach home and lived in it in our driveway. With the generator we were able to have lights, TV, and heat that was not available in the house.

We ended the year with enjoyable times with family and friends over the holidays. We are very thankful for our families and glad that they are so understanding about our time we spend away from them traveling. With that, we want to wish everyone reading this a very happy and prosperous new year.Safe travels to all.