A day of visiting friends

We took time out today to visit with friends who are staying in the area.

After we checked into this RV park last Sunday we were pulling around to find our assigned space when we saw this guy waving his shirt at us. Then he removed his cap and took a big bow. At that point I realized it was Frank Damron. Frank and his wife, Sharon, are full time RVer's who have been working the RV shows and rallies for several years as vendors. They sell safety equipment for the chassis' of these beast including Bilstien Shock Absorbers. He has put these new shocks on our last two coaches in addition to a Safety Plus steering aid. Over the years of seeing them at the different rallies we have become good friends. So today we took some time to go look them up at the RV park where they are currently camped. They not only live full time in their coach they travel with their pet parrot Rocky. Rocky took to Joanne and had to give her a kiss before we left.

After leaving the Damron's we drove over to see Rich & Linda Cotterall's vacation house in Bullhead City, Arizona. They have a very nice place on a corner lot with a large garage to store their boat. After seeing the house Rich suggested we go see the lake they play on during the warmer months. I was not aware that the Colorado River in this area had more than two lakes. I knew of and have been to Lake Meade and Lake Havasu. In addition there is Lake Powell and Lake Mohave. Lake Mohave is just north of Bullhead City so we piled in their car and headed out. This is a beautiful lake with very blue water. From my Navy days I know that blue water means depth. That is why we were referred to as "blue water sailors" since we spent most of our time out in the ocean. Joanne was curious of just how warm or cold the water was this time of year. Definitely not warm enough to put the boat in and try some skiing.

This was our last day here in the Laughlin/Bullhead City area. Tomorrow morning we will head west and north to Baker, California, to get ready for the Baker to Vegas Challenge Cup Relay Race.

A ghost town and burros too

Today the four of us decided to go visit Oatman, Arizona. This is an old mining town about 30 miles east of Laughlin. The mines were deserted in the 1930's and the town was pretty well abandoned. Today the place is pretty lively for a "ghost town". It is a major tourist attraction with many stores and shops to spend your dollars. Here is a picture of the Oatman Hotel with many tourist out in front.

One of the major highlights of visiting Oatman is the wild burros. Burros were used by the prospectors as pack animals looking for gold. They were also used in the mines to pull the ore carts out. After the mines closed many of the burros were turned lose into the wild to fend for themselves. Today many of the ancestors of those burros roam the area. The wild burros are protected by the U. S. Government. These burros come right into town and seek out the tourist to feed them. Many of the shops along the street sell bags of carrots to feed to the animals. As a matter of fact, the burros will walk right up to you and if you have nothing to feed them they will just keep going until they find someone with a carrot. Here Joanne poses with a mama burro and her baby. The baby burros have had a sticker placed on their forehead indicating they are not to be fed carrots. Apparently they have not developed enough to handle them and can choke to death on them.

One of the many shops along the street was called Jackass Junction. Here is Don doing his best pose as the local jackass. While we were in town we only saw the one mama burro with her baby. As we were leaving we came upon a fairly large herd of them coming up the road.

Oatman is out in the desert but is surrounded by some really neat rock formations. Here are some pictures of these rocks.

What arrow? I didn't even see the Indians!

We have contined our trek west. After leaving Flagstaff and a stop in Kingman, Arizona, for fuel we moved on to the Avi Resort & Casino just south of Laughlin, Nevada. This resort is located on a large Indian Reservation and everything is controlled and operated by the tribe. We had been here several years ago when Monaco America held a rally here.

The resort has a very nice RV park with all the amenities except for grass. The entire camping area on a gravel lot. Buddy Joe is not always crazy about these places since there is no grass for him to do his "business". As with all places in the desert you can get grass to grow anywhere you are willing to pour the water to it. Here in the RV park there is a very large grassy area in the middle that is very well maintained. Not sure what it is for since we have not seen anyone use this area and it is definitely marked "No pets allowed".

While we were in Flagstaff I had called our friends, Rich & Linda Cotterall, to let them know we were headed for Laughlin. (Rich is President of Monaco America RV Club.) They have a vacation house across the Colorado River in Bullhead City, Arizona. As it turned out they are currently staying at the vacation house. This afternoon they came over to the RV park and we had a good visit, catching up on the happenings since we last saw them at the Monaco America rally this past summer in Amana, Iowa.

This evening we joined the Leith's and went over to the casino to enjoy a buffet dinner and relax. Another eventful day in our western adventure.

"We call the wind Miria"

We pulled out of Tucumcari around 8:30 this morning. Our next stop was to be Flagstaff, Arizona, somewhat over 500 miles. That is an unusually long day of driving time in an RV at 62-65 miles per hour. When we first crossed into New Mexico yesterday afternoon the wind picked up. Today it was terrible. The high wind was coming from the south so it was hitting us broadside. Don & Vicki were in the lead and seemed to be handling the wind better than we were. Their coach weighs around 46,000 pounds plus a 5,000 pound car they tow. Our coach weighs around 27,000 pounds and the towed car is around 3,500. We got buffeted around pretty bad.

When the wind is blowing from the side in these high profile vehicles it makes it hard work keeping it on the road but keep it on the road we did. Out of habit I tend to drive mostly with my left hand/arm. This gave my healing left arm a good workout, exercise that is needed. We fought the wind all the way across New Mexico and then, to make matters worse, at Gallup we hit a snow storm. At first we just thought it was blades of grass blowing in the wind but as it got heavier and "wetter" we realized we were getting heavy snow. This lasted about twenty minutes and then we drove right out of it. All of a sudden the sun was shinning again and but for the wind all was well with the weather.

We continued west and as we entered into Arizona the wind died down some and the driving became easier. We arrived in Flagstaff around 6:00 pm and checked into the Black Bart's RV Park. This is an older park that was designed for travel trailers and definitely not large motor homes towing cars behind them. The sites we were assigned were not going to give us a chance to get the coaches level so we took it upon ourselves to find some better ones. The park office was closing as we checked in so it really didn't matter where we parked for just the one night.

Black Bart's has a unique feature for a RV Park. They have their own restaurant with a fine menu. In addition they hire their wait staff from the music department at the local university. In addition to waiting tables they take turns on stage singing and entertaining the patrons. After a good meal we made it back to our respective coaches and turned in for an early nights sleep. The picture to the right is the view we had from our site at Black Bart's RV Park.

We are actually on the road

After all of these months of sitting at home, whining about being bored, we have actually gotten underway in the coach. We are headed west for a new adventure.

Our good friends, Don & Vicki Leith, arrived in Warr Acres yesterday afternoon. They live in Central Arkansas now after spending a few years living as nomads in their motor coach. They parked their coach at the almost abandoned shopping center a few block south of our house and then joined Joanne & I at the house for dinner and a good visit. At 9:00 this morning we met them at the shopping center and pulled out. We are headed for Baker, California to work as volunteers for the Baker to Vegas Challenge Relay Race. More info will be given about the race and our activities as we progress on this journey and actually learn what we are supposed to be doing

Tonight we are at the Cactus RV Park in Tucumcari, New Mexico. This place was originally a 1939 era motor court type motel. The original buildings are still here, around the perimeter of the property. The RV hookup slots are out in the middle of the motor court plus some more to the south of the buildings. Of course, the old motel rooms are all closed up now and it is strictly an RV park.

A couple of doors west of the RV park is Del's Restaurant so the four of us walked down there this evening for dinner and then back to the coach to rest up for tomorrows travels. Our next scheduled stop is Flagstaff, Arizona.

Visitors

It has been kind of quiet around the old homestead lately but we did have a couple of visitors this week. Today we had our middle grand daughter, Aurora, for the afternoon while her mother was working. We really enjoy Aurora but she has a mind of her own. Emma, the oldest of our three, likes to hug and cuddle up but Aurora pretty much wants to do her own thing and is very head strong about it. Here she is enjoying time with Buddy Joe.

Earlier in the week we had a visitor on the front lawn. Our area, like many other places in the country, has been inundated with Canadian geese. They are seen in large groups and it is very unusual to see them by themselves. This one spent quite a bit of time in the yard before he decided to fly away. Joanne took this picture through our dinning room window.

The sling is gone!

Just a quick update on the old arm. Went to the doctor this morning for a checkup on my arm. They took new xrays and all seems to be healing well. He was surprised at the amount of motion I already had. That is probably because I've been cheating a bit and slipping out of the sling so I could use the keyboard on this computer. (Did you know that 70% of your typing is done with the left hand?)

He took the bandages away and I no longer have to wear a sling. The stitches are still there but will come out next week. All that is left is to get back to using it and 1) build up my strength in that arm and 2) work the soreness out and recover full motion. I've already found being rid of the sling has helped. With the sling my daily trips to the gun range have required me to only use one hand in my punching holes in the target. Today I was able to use both hands and my aim has gotten back where it belongs. Although I remember the doctor telling me it would be a "one inch incision" here is what I wound up with.

Things are looking up and I hope to be back to normal use by the first week of March when we head out for California, Nevada and other points west.

An undate of activities and status report on the arm

We had been asked to care for our middle grand daughter yesterday while her mother worked. Aurora arrived around 1:00 pm and was here until around 6:30. This is the one that is very independent and likes to do her own thing. She has a pretty good imagination and usually can entertain herself very well. Here she is working a jigsaw puzzle with Grandma.

Not very long before Aurora left the youngest grand daughter, Cadence, showed up along with her mother and dad. (The dad is also Aurora's dad but he does not make an effort to spend near enough time with her.) Anyway, the dad, who is my youngest son Alan, was trying to help me get a router working on my computer so they were here until around 8:30. (By the way, we never did get the router to work so today I purchased a new one. Can't make it work right either.) Cadence is always very shy when she first gets here. We don't see nearly as much of her as we do the two older girls. By the time they left she was having a big time and was very comfortable here. We love our little girls but they wear us old folks out pretty quickly. This is Cadence, who will be two years old next month with her dad.

Having the girls here was fun but was kind of hard to interact with them with just one arm. I did have to have surgery on the left elbow this past Wednesday. They originally expected the need to put a metal plate in to force the bone back in place but that did not happen. I did have a bone chip that was loose and causing trouble so they did take that out. The doctor originally told me he would be making a one inch incision. When I took the bandages off to shower the thing looked huge. I measured it and it is three inches long. I'll go back this next week or so to get the stitches out and then will have to start doing some exercises to get it working correctly again. Got to get this all working before the first week of March when we plan to get back on the road.

Cold weather sucks

Anyone who knows me very well knows that I hate cold weather. Also, extremely hot weather but I can take the heat over the cold. The start of 2009 has really been up and down here in the Oklahoma City area. It has ranged from the 80's down to the teens here in January, often in the same week. It started getting cold again this past weekend and now is really cold with ice on the ground, mixed in with a little snow. This picture shows what we have today. Although that looks like snow it is actually sleet and it is still coming down.

We are having to keep the house warm using the central heat system instead of the wood burning fireplace/stove. After the chimney fire we learned that we have several cracks in the flue tiles and cannot use it until a new liner is installed. We had a guy out last Friday to measure for the liner but have not heard back from him on doing the work. Doubt he wants to be climbing on the roof in this kind of weather. In the meantime I can almost feel the monthly gas bill increasing as the furnace seems to never shut off.

On cheerier note: Joanne and I have pretty much recovered from pneumonia as has her mother. Also, after the latest PET Scan we have learned that Joanne's mother is now cancer free. Not only is that good news for the mother-in-law but also for us in that we can start making plans to get back out on the road in the RV. That means I've got to get this fractured elbow healed enough to be able to hookup and unhook the RV and drive the thing. There definitely is a fracture in the Radial Head in the elbow. I'm scheduled for a CT Scan tomorrow morning to see how bad it is since it was hard to tell from just an x-ray. If it is under a certain size then they do not have to operate and just let it heal on it's own.

As you can see, we have already had a full 2009 and it is not even past January. As has been mentioned in previous post there is not much place for us to go from here but up.

Stuff happens in threes

I've always been told that things happen in threes, especially bad things. Started off 2009 with a really bad case of pneumonia. While I was laid up with that we had a chimney fire that has pretty much ruined the chimney, even though our fantastic local firemen took great pains to keep their damage at a minimum. So I've been waiting to see what else was going to happen.

Didn't have to wait long. Late this afternoon, while attempting to put the Christmas tree and other decorations in the attic, the step where I was standing on the drop down ladder broke, throwing me to the floor. In an effort to break my fall I reached with my left arm, landing heavily on it, jamming my wrist and elbow. Had x-rays taken in the Emergency Room but they could not really tell if anything was broken. There is definitely some damage in the elbow. I already have an appointment with my regular doctor on Wednesday, a follow up to the pneumonia, so they gave me the x-rays to take to him.

So here I sit, typing with my right hand only, my left arm in a sling and fairly high on prescription pain killers. The third event has occurred so maybe the bad stuff is behind us for this new year.