Merry Christmas to all!
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Desert Hot Springs to Montana
Dec 12 - 20....Just a little tardy on this weeks blog! We spent this time at the Desert Pools RV park in Desert Hot Springs (north of Palm Springs). The weather has been great (although not as warm as it should be this time of the year). We did some Christmas shopping, tried out the 'hot springs' to heal our ailments, Dixie did a few haircuts and we relaxed a little. On Saturday we went to the famous Palm Springs Follies. This is a Las Vegas style show with the main difference being that the women and men in the show are 55 plus. The oldest 'girl' is 82! From a distance you would never know they are the age they are - they can still sing and dance. Many were retired showgirls & with the Rockettes The show was unbelievable - it was fantastic. The costumes were better than some Las Vegas shows we've seen. The show latest 3 hours which included a comedian/impressionist, canine capers, a special Christmas segment & a special guest star Anacani, a Mexican singer that made her debut on the Lawrence Welk show in the 70's. She still looks the same! We also visited Dixie's brother and niece. On Monday we put the motorhome in storage and flew to Montana where we will spend Christmas with Dixie's family in Great Falls and Hogeland. Then on to Washington to our Daughter's to spend New Years with them. Have a Merry Christmas and we will talk to you again in the New Year!
Sunday, December 11, 2005
Apple Country
Dec 7 - 11....We are currently in the heart of the California Apple Orchard country. We are at Oak Glen RV Resort which is across the road from several gift shops and restaurants in apple country. We have sampled the hot apple cider & of course wandered in and out of the gift shops. The weather has been cool, but perfect. We have a beautiful view from the mountains overlooking the city and other mountains. We are 5 miles from Yucaipa and about 12 miles from the Redlands. We spent a wonderful evening visiting with Mike's sister and family in the Redlands. We attended a meaningful Christmas church service at Pathway Church (Mike's brother-in-law was the minister at this church in the early 80's). Tomorrow we move on to Desert Hot Springs (north of Palm Springs).
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
From New York to the Beach!
Nov 29 - Dec 6....Another week flies by! Dixie had a great trip to New York to visit friends from Continental Days. They saw the Christmas Tree at Rockefeller Plaza -before and after the tree lighting ceremony (the streets were packed with people). The group also attended the Broadway play, "Wicked". The trip back included a couple hour layover in Houston where there was catch up time with some co-workers there. A good time was had by all! Mike held down the fort and shuttle Dixie to & fro --out of LA & into Ontario. Friday we had Dixie's Aunt & Uncle from Riverside & Cousin from Florida over for dinner (our first guests in our new home). Today we drove to Carlsbad & spent the day with them. Their timeshare was across from the beach and had a beautiful view of the ocean! Wednesday we move on to the next stop - Oak Glenn RV Resort in Yucaipa (3800 elevation in apple country)....We hope it doesn't snow on us!
Monday, November 28, 2005
Happy Thanksgiving
Nov 22 - 28....Sun City, CA - We arrived at the Wilderness Lakes RV Park, which is 2 miles south of Sun City on Wed. the 23rd. We spent a wonderful Thanksgiving with Dixie's Aunt and family in Riverside. On Friday we drove to the Palm Springs area and attended the Skin's Golf Game at LaQuinta Trilogy Golf Course. Friday was the pro-am and Saturday was the first 9 holes of the event. The 4 players this year were Tiger Woods, Fred Couples, Fred Funk, and Annika Sorenstam. We had a great time both days but the highlight was when Fred Funk pulled out a skirt and put it on due to a bet the guys had with Annika. She out drove Fred on the 3rd hole. The crowd loved it! You may had seen that on TV as it was in the golf highlights on Sat and Sun. Fred Funk also ended up winning the event with the most Skins. We spent Friday night with Dixie's brother and family in Rancho Mirage. Today we drove up the road a few miles and toured the National RV Factory. This is where our new motorhome was made. We learned alot about the structure of our RV and found it very interesting to see the whole process. Tomorrow Dixie is going to New York for a couple of days to meet up with some friends. We will be at this park until Dec 7th. We are still enjoying wonderful Southern California weather!
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Sunny Southern California
Nov 16 - 22.... Ramona/San Diego, CA -- Last Friday we spent the day in San Diego visiting Seaport Village and taking the Ferry to Cornado Island. The weather was just beautiful, as was the city. San Diege is just 40 miles from the RV park we are staying in. The area around Ramona is quite mountainous - we have found that we don't drive fast enough for California drivers. They apparently know the road well and feel comfortable taking the curves at 50 plus miles an hour - not us!!! No matter which direction we go we travel on curves and mountains. We head out tomorrow to an RV park near the Sun City/Menifee. We will be going to Dixie's Aunts in Riverside for Thanksgiving and then on to her brothers in the Palm Springs area. We plan to attend some of the Skins Golf Tournament at LaQuinta.
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
The Dr. Phil Show
Nov 14 - 15.... Hollywood, CA -- We are writing this while driving in traffic through LA. We ventured out yesterday to begin our trek to the "Dr. Phil Show". The drive to Hollywood was 140 miles & then we drove around to find a hotel that was near the Paramount Studio as we were to check in the next morning between 730a-830a. This is where the fun began - We arrived at the studio at 730a, however do you think there was a place to park? Tue. is street cleaning day, residential areas must have a permit to park & there are no parking garages anywhere. After driving around for 45 minutes we finally found someone leaving & parked there (we later found out there was a shuttle parking lot - we weren't advised of that when we setting up the reservation) . It's now 815a and we go to check in and they tell us and about 6 others that we are on 'standby' - the show is full. Needless to say we were a bit frustrated. Luckily they film 2 shows in a day and they told us we could go to the afternoon show. This show had the audience view a movie prior to the taping. We were then walked across the Paramount lot to a large theater where we watched a movie called "Yours, Mine & Ours"... a remake of the movie of the same title that was made in 1968 starring Lucille Ball & Henry Fonda. This one starred Dennis Quaid and Renee Russo. The topic of the movie and the Dr. Phil show was "Blended Families". The movie will be released on the 23rd of this month and the Dr. Phil show will be aired next Tues., the 22nd. After the movie we were walked back to the studio where we waited some more. Finally at 1230p were taken into the set and the show started at 110p. The show guests were Dennis Quaid and two families that were having difficulty 'blending'. One family was given $100,000 to increase the size of their house (I guess it does pay to go on national TV and tell your problems!). Even though the day was long, the experience was made fun for the audience & we did really enjoy the show. However, we can honestly say we will not miss driving the LA freeways! I will add a couple of photo's when I can download them!
Sunday, November 13, 2005
Our new home!
Nov 4 - 13.... Yuma & Ramona, CA -- The remainder of our stay in the Yuma area consisted of another trip to Mexico, visiting some relatives and the purchase of our new motorhome! You would think we would be tired of 'moving'. It took us the better part of one day signing papers, completing a walk through and moving our 'stuff' from one to the other. Our new home it a bit larger - it has 3 slideouts and 3 more feet of space (most of all it has a larger refrigerator. and freezer). We are loving it so far! We made it to our next destination of Ramona Canyon RV Resort on Thursday which happened to be Mike's Birthday. This park is just 5 miles east of Ramona and about 55 miles north/east of San Diego. We spent Friday rearranging everything & getting acquainted with our new home! Dixie's brother and niece drove down from the Palm Springs area to overnight with us on Friday. On Saturday we all went to the San Diego Zoo Wild Animal Park which is just 18 miles north of Ramona. Don't think we have every seen so many animals in one place - the park spans1800 acres! On Tuesday we have tickets to go see the "Dr. Phil show" so we plan to head into the LA areas on Monday. Later in the week we hope to explore San Diego! (pictures to come when we get to a faster speed internet connection)
Thursday, November 03, 2005
Southern Arizona, California & Mexico
Oct 23 - Nov 3.... Yuma, AZ / Winterhaven, CA -- The RV Park (Pilot Knob) we are staying at is actually in Winterhaven, CA. We are located 8 miles west of Yuma. The park is nice however, we are a bit too close to the freeway and train track! We have found that the Marines do alot of training in this area. We have never seen or heard so many helicopters in our life. The even fly at night without lights. The self proclaimed 'Center of the World' is across the freeway from us - there's not much there but a pyramid but we can say we were there. The weather has been great and we have made it around most of Yuma. We have made 3 trips to Los Algadones, Mexico which is about 3-4 miles from the RV Park. All 3 trips were to see the Dentist - what fun! (the price is right but the pain is not)!!! This Mexican town caters to the American tourist. There must be hundreds of dentists - there are several in each block. They also have a surplus of Optometrists, pharmacies and liquor stores. Of course we did have to by some Tequila for our Margaritas! We have been walking, biking and swimming and hope to hike to the top of Pilot Knob Mountain someday before we leave next week. We have also been motor home shopping - more to come on that news front next week!
Sunday, October 23, 2005
Camp Verde and Sedona Area
Oct 18 - 23.... Camp Verde, AZ. We are located south of Flagstaff and about 90 miles north of Phoenix. The weather has been wonderful - warm days and cool nights. We spent one day driving the countryside and taking in, Jerome, Tuizigoot Indian Ruins and Montezuma's Castle. Jerome is a historic mining/ghost town, Tuizigoot is the remnant of a Southern Singua village built between A.D. 1125 and 1400 and Montezuma's Castle is a five-story, 2- room dwelling built in the 12th century. It stands in a cliff recess about 100 ft above the valley. Friday we drove the short distance to Sedona - another beautiful area of red rocks. In case you haven't figured it out we are enthralled with red rocks/mountains! While in Sedona we decided to take another hike. The hike to Soldiers Pass was to have been a 2.3 miles hike one-way. Along the way another hiker asked us if we were going to go the "loop" - so once we got to what we thought was the top we continued on another trail to complete the "loop". After 1.5 hrs we decided we better turn back as we seemed to be getting further and further away from our car. After going a short distance back we ran in to another couple from Michigan and we all decided we were about half-way so we would continue the "loop". Well, after another 1.5 hrs of hiking we found our cars! After reviewing the map we determined we hiked somewhere between 6 and 7 miles - we were on the trail for just over 3 hours. The view was incredible but our legs & other body parts were screamin! After that we found the local "brewery" and relaxed a little. And NO we didn't even walk into a store! Saturday we decided to rest - we washed and waxed the Motorhome.....another lengthy project~ Our next door neighbors just happen to be from Chicago (as in the White Soxs). We watched the first game of the World Series with them in their motorhome (so it was only fitting that they won the first game)! We (Houston Astros) intend to win the game tonight! We leave for Yuma, AZ on Wednesday where we will spend 2 weeks!
Monday, October 17, 2005
Us resting at Ooh Aah Point after our hike down the South Kaibab Trail
Us resting on our hike down 600ft - Kaibab Trail
Grand Canyon National Park
Oct 13 - 17....Grand Canyon National Park -- what can we say, it was GRAND! The Grand Canyon is truly a site all of it's own. We walked about 2 miles on the South Rim walking path the first day we got there. We took in the sunset and even the sunrise overlooking the canyon. We were out there at 610am (that's early for us now). Both the sunset and sunrise was a beautiful site. The pictures turned out the best at sunset. It was kinda hazy (pollution from CA & AZ according to the signs). One day we decided to try a hike down into the Canyon. We left from Yaki Point and hiked down & "back up" 600ft - 3/4 miles each way. It wasn't very far but it was pretty 'straight' down. Once you get over that weird feeling looking down it wasn't bad. They say to allow twice as long coming back up as going down - we made it in 35 minutes down and 40 minutes up (were in better shape than we thought! Next trip to the canyon we would like to make the hike down to the bottom to the Colorado River (7-10 miles depending on the trail) & overnight at the Phantom Ranch and then return up the next day. We will definitely need to be in better shape & be better equipped - we're getting into this hiking thing! We met a few guys that hiked down from the North Rim and were on their way back up to the South Rim - 14 miles down and 7 up (obviously that didn't happen in one day). There are caution signs everywhere advising not to go down and up in the same day. We pretty much covered the South Rim of the Canyon - from Desert View to Hermits Rest! Speaking of getting in shape, we didn't start off to good today as we stopped at 'Twisters Soda Fountain' on Historic Route 66 in Williams where we had a milkshake! Today we are headed to Camp Verde, AZ.
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