Our Day of Thanks~~~~~

Was just that.....spent with Craig's family and a few friends thrown in for good measure in beautiful Arizona.  The weather was a perfect "10" as you will see from the pictures.

The food was excellent....thanks to Cindy and all who contributed.  This is the first Thanksgiving that I did not cook anything.  It was kinda nice.

I am thankful for my first born Tammy and her hubby Troy, grandkids Blaise, Brennon and Taylor, and my brothers, Mike, Tom, Tim and Scott and their beautiful families for wishing us a grand day as we wished the same for them.  It certainly wasn't quite the same without getting together with them at Mom's but we are all making new memories this year.

Without making you wait any longer here are a few pictures from our wonderful day of thanks.

On the patio

Center Pieces

Our View from the villa at The Rocks

 

 

As you can see a grand time was had by all of us.....

A big THANK YOU to Scott and Cindy for hosting the day!

 

 

Until Next Time~~~~Travel Safely

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood~~~~~

Today is turning into the gorgeous day Phoenix typically has to offer.  The temp should hit 70 to 72 and I'll take it.

Craig is off getting the Fiver cleaned from all the road travel, dumping tanks and checking into a new wheel.  I am starting some chicken to boil for some white chili for supper this evening.

Emilee is going to be late getting home so I decided chili would be a perfect dish to prepare for everyone to eat whenever.  I may throw together some banana bars later too.

We started our day with a walk/run with the puppies.  Today I took Layla and Henry,Emilee's Yorky and Andolian Shepherd, with us as well and they enjoyed it.

Craig's family are all here for a grand Thanksgiving on Thursday and we are looking forward to that.  It will be a celebration for sure.

Other then that, today will be one of those laid back type of days.  Em's neighborhood is so quiet and then all of a sudden the church bells start up and it is so pretty.

More later.....

Until Next Time~~~~Travel Safely

Without A Paddle~~~~~

Long time no post....no internet in the last two spots so here goes trying to catch you all up with us.

Three nights ago we made it to Mountainair, NM and stayed in a so so RV Park.  Hey electric and water and septic was available but we opted to just do E/W.  Since we arrived early enough I was able to use our Weber (Thanks Mom) for some delish NY strips (Thanks Tracy).  Tracy grows the best organic beef in Iowa.  Here is a look at our dinner from Thursday night.

New York Strip, Baked Tator and Cheese Brocoli

Friday morning we woke to everything covered in ice.  It therefore took us a while to get started, probably around 10:00am.  We were trying to decide which way to go due to the weather.  We were about an hour east of I25 which we could take south to I10 or our original plan was to pick up Hwy 60 near Soccoro, NM.  We checked the (511) weather for 60 and all was clear.  We decided to head on Hwy 60 to Show Low, Az.

When reaching Show Low, Az around 3:00pm we opted to head south to Globe due to the weather coming in which would probably hit Show Low overnight.  We were making good time and decided to go on into Globe.  It was raining but visibility was good until around 5:30 it turned into a slow move through some serpentine highway turns...(very scary).  Suddenly, fog came into play and we slowed way down even though we only go 55 at best.  However, we were only running around 35 and suddenly BAM BOOM!!!  We hit a rock in the road.  Due to all the rain they are falling onto the road way.  A Semi, several cars and us all hit rocks on the highway.

We knew we had an issue but had no place to pull over so we put our flashers on and crawled to a safe area to stop and assess the damage.  What Craig could find was that we had indeed hit a rock and that it bent a rim on one of our dullys but the tire was not flat.  We decided we had to get to Globe which by the way was only 25 miles away.  But running at 20 mph was going to take quite a while.  By around 7:30pm we made it to Globe and followed the GPS to the RV park I had found on line.

However, the GPS took us to a Safeway grocery....and no park in sight.  What now....but again low and behold another good Samaritan stops next to us and ask are you looking for the park?  Yes and thank you and he showed us the way.  He even stopped back by to make sure the park had room for us because if not he was going to show us to another place.  Wow......

Due to the incident earlier we were not hungry, we could not get dish or local antenna TV, so we decided to watch a movie and decided on Without a Paddle, a comedy.  It was a great movie and an excellent way to end the our day.

Saturday morning we were up and about and heading to Big O tire so they could remove the tire and rim.  It was raining so it wasn't very pleasant but they jumped right in and took care of business and had us on our way to Phoenix which was still 80 plus miles away.

Finally, we arrived at Emilee's home and had a great day and evening.....no pictures from Saturday or Sunday since we were all just catching up with everything.

Early on we made a decision not to do three things after we started our travels and they are:

1. Do not drive more then 200 miles per day.
2. Do not drive in poor weather conditions.
3. No night time driving.

We felt as if we were Up a Creek Without a Paddle after not following those three things.  Never again.


Until Next Time~~~~~Travel Safely



 

Corral RV Park in Dalhart, Tx

Nice nice nice....we will go back there one day I am sure...put it in our favorites on Good Sam App.

However, the arrival while being uneventful turned out to be an issue with our big Arizona room slide.  It started out but then made a horrible loud noise and stopped working.  Thankfully it had only gone out a few inches but we definitely needed to find someone to work on it.

We were only about 85 miles north of Amarillo so we decided to try there first since we were planning to head that direction anyway.  However, the place we called first told us it would probably be a week or so.  No way on that.  Next I suggested we google on a place in Dalhart and low and behold a company came up called Dalhart Machine and Bearings.  They were so awesome and told us to bring it by even though they had never worked on a RV slide before.

We arrived at the little mom and pop shop to be greeted by someone that could easily have passed for Santa except he had red hair and a long red beard.  He crawled under the Fiver and took a look and next thing we know he has the slide motor out and is bringing it to us to explain exactly what had taken place...the motor has 3 motor mounts and 2 were broke off.  More then likely this has been something that would have happened sooner or later.

He took the motor inside his shop and his welder performed some magic and within 2 hours we were on our way to our next stop...Fort Amarillo RV Resort.  Check it out:  www.fortrvparks.com

Those guys were wonderful and we were shocked at how inexpensive the bill was for the work they performed.  One of those small businesses that keep this country going.....

Laundry and dinner going now.......

Here is dinner tonight......BBQ chicken, buttered parsnips (in honor of Mom she loved em)and salad!

Until Next Time~~~~Travel Safely

All Seasons RV Park~~~~~

Goddard, KS is where we have landed for an over night.

 We just finished a nice run in a beautiful neighborhood across the street from where we are staying.  Almost all the homes have pools and are very nice.  Ended up doing about 1.64 mile in about 28 minutes...slow easy run.

Kansas is a loooooog state so we may only get to Liberal tomorrow but may try and make it to Tucumcari, NM.  I will post some pictures tomorrow of this very nice quaint little RV park.

There is quite a bit of construction around this area so they are pretty full here due to construction workers in their RVs.

Well, I think we should probably get some supper going here.  It will be leftovers tonight.

Until Next Time~~~~Travel Safely

Ozark Prairie RV Park~~~~~

Nevada, Missouri is where we spent my birthday.....It is packed with deer hunters and some other group but we have a nice spot.

We arrived at around 2:00 and took the pups for a 30 minute run.  Then we started watching Nascar. 

We also took another walk trying to find a bar and grill to finish watching the race but to no avail.  But we ended up doing a 5K walk trying though. LOL

We ordered pizza and enjoyed a glass of Pinot (Thanks again Scott and Kris).  No pictures to add to the blog from yesterday or last night.

But here are a few from this morning while walking the pups.

Rustic little RV park



Number 9



Pups free run

More sniffing

Oprah making sure we don't leave her

Libby and Mandie could care less....

Our plan today is to land somewhere in Kansas.  Sooooo stay tuned.....

Until Next Time~~~~Travel Safely

Riverview RV Park Lake Ozark, Missouri~~~~~

We arrived here at 4:30pm and we just finished dinner.  Now we are relaxing and watching some TV.  We will plan on not driving so far tomorrow as we head to the West on 54.

Haven't decided where we will be stopping tomorrow to celebrate my 62nd birthday.  I still can't believe I am retired.  It is more like we are on vacation.

The pups traveled excellent again.  They are so good and loved this little park next to the river with lots of white ducks entertaining them.  We will take them for a nice run in the am before we take off tomorrow.  Below are pictures from the park.  Not much green left which was disappointing but heading farther West that should change.  Enjoy.

Until Next Time~~~~Travel Safely

Friday night~~~~~

Dinner at the Drake.  Tammy and Troy, Craig and I and our grandkids as well will be enjoying a meal together tonight to celebrate our bon voyage!  After our meal we will come back to the Fiver and have dessert (Cherry Pie Bars) for which I made this morning before doing all my running around.



This has been our home for the past 2 weeks.

Our puppies are ready to hit the road

First thing today I had to go say goodbye to my co-workers and sign my exit papers....woohoo it did feel good to do this after my career with Case New Holland.

Next I went to the St Vincent de Paul food bank to deliver the $325 dollars from Mom's memorial.  Wow that is an amazing thing those people do and I was thrilled to deliver this to them.  Thank you to everyone who donated to this memorial fund.  It was a shock to me at first because the line of people waiting to get food really made me realize how many people are in need in deed.  With as small as Burlington is I can only imagine what places like this must be like in a bigger city.  Made me feel very fortunate to have what we have......and sad for those in need. 


We had a fun time and here are a few pictures.

 



Meet and Greet~~~~~

Was a great success....  Our neighbors made the new kids on the block feel very much at home and very welcome to our area.

I think they are enjoying living on the river from what we could tell.  We are certainly convinced that they will take very good care of our home.  It sounds like this could be a long partnership in the lease of our home as they may be here for three years.

Tonight we don't have any plans for which I am happy about.  We will be going out to dinner tomorrow night with our daughter Tammy and her hubby to say our goodbyes...see ya laters etc.

Our plan is to leave Saturday morning around 10:00.....not planning to get much farther then the Lake of the Ozarks area but we shall see.  We are very anxious to get a move on for sure.  Emilee said the weather in Phoenix has been fantastic....Perfect!

Until next time~~~~Travel Safely

Sunday Nascar and Steak on the Grill~~~~~

We went for a nice 2.1 mile run this am with the puppies.  West Burlington, where we are staying until the 16th is such a clean city.  Very enjoyable to run the sidewalks of this small town.

NASCAR today at 2:00 which is out in Phoenix.  Wish we were there already....

Sirloin on the grill will be the main meal of today.  It's really nice and sunny today but we are expecting very cold temps on Tues and Wed.  We are hoping to get out of Iowa before the snow starts in.....

I am also planning to bake a pumpkin pie today too.

This coming week will be a busy one with finishing up some estate issues of my Mom's.....

Until next time~~~~Travel Safely

Unwinding tonight~~~~~

Enjoying the peace and quiet tonight.

Another day of work on the books...only have one more day really since Friday will be a day of goodbyes! And then an evening of celebration.

The puppies are enjoying living our home on wheels but I will be happy when we can start down the road and experience the new sights along the road.  The puppies will enjoy the new smells.

Oprah and Mandy happy campers.  They each have their own beds.

but the girls decided to share one to get the sunshine

Our Tenants Arrived~~~~~

And we are so thrilled to have them.  All our very nice professional young people who from what we could tell were very impressed with our home.  They should enjoy it as much as we have the last 38 years.

Four days......that is the count on days left of my employment.  Heehee

Been at Case New Holland for 23 1/2 years and I am ready to be free.  No more alarm clock for me...ever!

We are planning a get together Friday evening at a bar to do a bit of celebrating...it should be a good laugh!

Then approximately a week later we will start our new Fiver Adventures heading to the WEST!

Hope you will follow us as we check out this country of ours....

Until Next Time~~~~Travel Safely

Movers were a few hours late~~~~~

We ended up meeting up with the guys around 1:00PM....it took until around 4:00PM for them to finish up loading the Arizona furniture up and they were on their way.   They will be arriving in Phoenix on Monday late and will be ready to unload at Emilee's around 7:00PM.  Crazy!

Next came the carpet cleaner...he finished up around 5:30 and Craig said the carpets look brand new.  Our tenants will be happy I am sure.  While Craig waited at the house with the carpet guy, I was home cleaning up a mess from our puppies....they got into the plants.  ?!?!?  Then I decided to sauté up some chicken, with mashed tators and lima beans.  Craig was a happy camper (no pun intended) when he arrived home around 6:00PM.  It was a yummy supper after a bit of a stressful day.

After dinner we took the puppies for a walk and now are relaxing with a John Wayne movie while I write the blog for tonight.

Until Next Time~~~~Travel Safely