A tin cup or a gilded goblet, a hut or a castle, wobbly bicycles or a Bentley -- to wherever and by whatever means, my love, our journey is splendid, our cup is full.
As you can see, its Christmas in the desert Southwest -- the temperature today is just above 60 F, but with a bit of an east wind blowing. Its supposed to get up a few more degrees later in the day, and cloud up a bit, and the wind is supposed to gust up to 25-30 -- but its a lot better than most areas of the country, and we're thankful for that.
Mandy's sister Penny and her husband Rex, who introduced us to the Yuma area years ago, will be coming over this afternoon to have small Christmas dinner -- Mandy's fixing a really great soup that we were introduced to earlier this fall by our friends in Bastrop, TX, Claire and Al.
Our friends from our Safari days, Pat and Ron, called yesterday to let us know they'd arrived in town, and it will be great to see them next week. Our good friends from our days at Sunset Point in Marble Falls, TX, Jim and Yvette, will be arriving just before New Years for a couple of month's stay, and Claire and Al will be coming to Yuma for a couple of weeks later in January. We're really fortunate to have such good friends, and such a great RVing community.
We also got a call yesterday from our son Brian and his wife Christi informing us that their new arrival (May 09) will be a new granddaughter! No names have been selected yet. We plan to leave Yuma in time to be in Texas for the birth. No firm plans for what we'll be doing this summer, but we're exploring a couple of promising opportunities.
We're getting back into our bicycling here with the Foothills Bike Club -- neither of us is working this winter (well, Mandy is still doing her Friday morning volunteering at the Salvation Army) so we've got plenty of time to get and to stay in shape. In addition to our road riding on our singles and our tandem, we're trying to get in a bit of mountain bicycling just to round things out.
We had a bit of a repair adventure the other day -- our 8 foot powered roller shades which cover the windshield had a bit of a problem -- the shade material for both the sunshade and the blackout shade was coming loose from the roller (the manufacturer did not anchor it properly) and the shade material was rolling unevenly and was self-destructing. After talking to MCD (the manufacturer), who had done work on them just over a year ago, we decided the only option was to take them down and repair them ourselves. Mandy and I managed to get the rollers down, unroll them out all over the floor, re-attach the fabric to the rollers (with special tape supplied by MCD), and remount them. After 5 hours of tedious work, they were back in and working flawlessly -- but we were pretty nervous during the whole operation. I guess it just goes to show that with the right mental attitude and a deliberate approach, you can accomplish some pretty amazing stuff!
Guess that's about it for now -- we're planning on having a New Year's Eve dinner with relatives and friends (better get here quick, Jim and Yvette!) -- but we'll miss our traditional hike up to the Telegraph Pass towers with Harry and Verena (Mandy really sprained her ankle last year, so we decided against this year). January will be filled with cycling, visits from friends, and some time to go up to Quartzsite for the RV show. The really good weather returns in February thru April (which we'll enjoy to the max), and then we're on the road again to see our new granddaughter, and look for more adventures.
I guess when we stop and reflect on things, life is pretty good -- we've both got our health, it looks like we'll make it through the recession, we're doing what we enjoy, we've got a great home which we can move wherever and whenever we want, and we've got a great bunch of family and friends to help us through it all. Couldn't ask for much more, could you? Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all !!
Just a quick post to let everyone know that we've arrived back in Yuma after an enjoyable month in central Texas with our sons and their families. We got back about 2 weeks ago after an uneventful 3 day run across west Texas and southern New Mexico and Arizona.
It was good to see all of our friends and family here, and to get back regularly riding our bikes with the Foothills Bicycle Club. Of course, it was also great to get back to high temperatures in the 70s and no humidity. Our lot here was in good shape, and our landlady had cleared the rest of her things our of the storage shed, so we have about twice the room that we had before -- which we'll use for bicycle storage and for a workbench.
We've been busy getting the last of our Christmas shopping and mailing done, and getting miscellaneous things done around the motorhome and the lot. We also have set up the Wii that our son Brian gave to us, and have been enjoying playing all the games -- the game display looks pretty good on our large front TV, and we've got plenty of room to swing our arms and legs as we play tennis, baseball, bowling, and golf. We also particularly like a marble game that really tests your hand-eye coordination, and is a blast to play!
The last several days have been pretty dismal weather (at least for here) with rain and wind and clouds -- but we're thankful that we haven't had to cope with the winter weather that is sweeping the rest of the country. We're looking forward to having lots of friends head this way over the next month or two, and to go up to Quartzsite for the RV show at the end of January.
We've got to mention that we really hit the jackpot the other day -- we filled up with gas at Sam's club and paid $1.44 per gallon -- if you'd asked me a couple of months ago if I'd ever see that level again, I'd have absolutely denied it. I guess it's an indication of the current state of the economy, and we hope that things stabilize soon. Looking around today, it appears that prices have already increased (due to the OPEC news on limiting output) -- these are strange times we're living in.
For the last two weeks we've been enjoying being with our family and the wonderful fall weather in the Texas hill country. We've also had a chance to get a number of miscellaneous things taken care of on the motorhome, as well as visiting friends in this neck of the woods. We also did our Christmas shopping here, and saved some Fedex fees!!
Of course, the most important thing to happen was the birth of our new granddaughter Chloe almost four weeks ago. She is doing fine, as is her mom, Stephanie and dad (our son Kevin) -- and we're doing our best to spoil her while we're here.
We're also having fun with our grandson Garrett, who is now two, and is all boy!! We were able to go out trick or treating with him on Halloween, and had a great time.
Grandma and Grandpa also had an "overnight sleep-over" in the motorhome for grandson Tristam and granddaughter Kaila a couple of days ago. Grandma and the kids caught the morning cartoon shows while snuggled in bed.
We're also got a chance to go to the Saturday soccer games to watch Kaila and Tristam play (and our son Brian coach)!
Both of our sons and their families live on the same acreage northwest of Austin in the Hill Country, and they have a parking place for us and the motorhome, so it works out great when we come here to visit.
The boys also have a gun range on the property, and they usually give me a chance to get some shooting in while we're here. A couple of Saturdays ago they had about 15 of their shooting friends out to practice with their collection of very interesting guns. I was able to shoot a bunch of rounds with my gun, as well as try out some of the more exotic firearms that showed up -- even a full automatic Uzi, as well as a 50 caliber sniper rifle.
The following weekend a squad from the Texas State Guard came out to the range to do their annual pistol qualifying. They could not find any available weekend time at the local military posts, due to the large number of troops training for duty in the Middle East, so they took advantage of Brian's invitation to use his range. Brian and Kevin are seriously considering joining the Texas Guard group.
Brian also talked me into taking a ride with him on his Yahama sport touring motorcycle. Here are the both of us ready to take off for a fall ride through the Hill Country.
While we'e in the area we took advantage of visiting with our friends who live in the Hill Country. We've made a number of friends in the Austin area, most from our two summers of work at Sunset Point RV Park in Marble Falls. We all got together for a wonderful lunch hosted by our good friends Bill and Carol at their beautiful home in Marble Falls.
Since we arrived here in late October, we found out that we have another safety recall on our Freightliner Motorhome Chassis, which we needed to get inspected while we were here in the Austin area. There was a possibility of defective welds on a major component of the rear axle -- which sounds like something we needed to get resolved sooner rather than later -- we took a 140 mile round trip drive to Freightliner of Austin to get it resolved. After a short inspection of the rear axle components, the good news from them is that our welds are perfect.
Since we'd wandered well over halfway to Bastrop, Texas, where our good friends Clair and Al live, we went the rest of the way to park at their place and visit with them and with another good friend from Abilene, Mary Sue. It was great to see them all for a couple of days and to relive the good times we had at Sunset Point several years ago. We took advantage of the good weather to do some geocaching with them at nearby Bastrop State Park -- it had been a number of months since we'd gotten a chance to do some geocaching, and we all enjoyed the opportunity.
We'll be staying here in Liberty Hill until after Thanksgiving, and then heading west to Yuma for our winter stay there. We're planning on arriving back there on December 2, and anxious to get there and get back to regular riding with our bike club. We've only been able to ride occasionally since we left Iowa, and we're both getting a bit soft and slow. We're also looking forward to the warmth and low humidity of the southwest desert, which is the best place (in our opinion) to spend the next 5 months.
Our new granddaughter, Chloe Abigail Faure, came into our life on Wednesday, October 29th, at 12:43 PM. She was delivered at Austin North Medical Center, and mother Stephanie and dad Kevin are doing fine, as is she!
She weighed 6 pounds, 15 ounces at birth and was 18 3/4 inches long. She slept for about 6 hours her first night, allowing Kevin and Stephanie to get some needed rest. Mom, Dad, and baby come home tomorrow (Saturday).
Here are a few of the many pictures we took -- more to come later as we'll be close by until Thanksgiving here in Liberty Hill.
Its been quite a while since we made an update to our blog, and it will probably take more than one entry to bring things up to date.
We spent a good three weeks in Red Bay, Alabama at the Tiffin factory getting all of our warranty issues taken care of. Duane and Nick and all of the techs at the service center did a good job for us (although there are several outstanding issues for next time). When we talked to them about our time constraint in needing to get back to Texas for the baby, they did everything they could to get things done so we could get going.
We will do a separate blog post to go over more detail of the repair and addition items to the motorhome (suffice it to say that we got our key items taken care of - replacements for the day/night shades for the whole coach, additional cabinetry from Chris Berry, a new Maytag washer, and virtually all of our warranty punch list addressed). We'll use this post to just cover our travel chronology since our last entry.
Over our last week in RB, we continued our evening cocktail tradition with our new friends Wayne and Kathy, and also went with them to visit the TMH Belmont Paint facility -- as well as finding the BBQ restaurant in Belmont (which is excellent!). We managed to get all our Red Bay items done by Friday, the 24th, and we hit the road on Saturday morning.
The first leg of our trip to Texas took us down the Natches Trace to Jackson, Mississippi. This is a very interesting parkway, which was originally a trade route (both for Native Americans and white settlers) stretching from Nashville, TN to Natches, MS -- over 400 miles. It is now a National Scenic Byway, and is administered by the National Park Service. It is two lane, has a 50 mph limit, and commercial traffic is prohibited.
We drove the parkway for about 170 miles from Tupelo to Jackson -- it was a very interesting drive, and was the most direct route for us, but I wouldn't want to do much more than 200 miles on it in a motorhome. We were in a bit of a hurry so we didn't get a chance to take too many pictures.
When we hit Jackson we filled up with diesel at the Flying J ($2.939 per gallon!!) and then headed west on Interstate 20 for Vicksburg. We spent Saturday night at the very friendly Vicksburg Elks Lodge, and were going to play tourist at the Vicksburg Civil War battlefield on Sunday -- but we thought we'd better get to Texas sooner than later, so we hit the road again.
Sunday night found us in Tyler, Texas, and after a quick night there at a Passport park, we made the final leg to our kid's place in Liberty Hill, Texas, just northwest of Austin, by Monday evening. We'll be here for the next month or so, through Thanksgiving, and then we'll head west for our winter stay in Yuma.
We took some time today to do some exploring around the area, and went about 60 miles north of Red Bay to visit Shiloh National Military Park, just over the border near Savannah, TN. At this location, along the beautiful Tennessee River, one of the most decisive battles in the Western Campaign of the Civil War was fought in only two days: April 6 and 7, 1862.
The Confederate soldiers, under Generals Johnston and Beauregard, were near to victory over the Union force under General Grant on the first day of the battle -- but a fateful military decision was made to wait until the following morning to completely wrap things up. Military historians generally agree that part of that decision resulted from the disorganization caused by Johnston's death during the battle, and Beauregard's assumption of Confederate command. Grant's troops were bolstered during the night by reinforcements under General Buell, who arrived after a forced march from Nashville and were ferried across the river to the battlefield in the early morning hours of the second day. The Confederates were overwhelmed when they attacked the next morning and had to retreat south over the next week to Corinth, Mississippi (where a further decisive battle was fought in October of 1862).
It was one of the bloodiest battles of the war, with a combined total of almost 24,000 men killed, wounded, or missing in only two days of fighting. Historians have soberly noted that this was more than the combined total of United States casualties of the American Revolutionary War, The War of 1812, and The Mexican-American War. It was the beginning of the end for the Confederate cause in the west, with the final defeat in that theatre occurring with the siege of Vicksburg in 1863. Additional detail of the battle itself can be found in the Wikipedia entry for Shiloh.
It was our first experience at a Civil War site, and it was very interesting. The whole battlefield is very well preserved and is marked by monuments to the various companies and battalions from the various forces. There is also a sizeable National Veterans Cemetery within the battlefield, with soldiers from several wars buried there.
We took the driving tour around the battlefield, and followed the chronology of the battle at the places where it took place. After we were finished there, we drove south to Corinth, MS where we spent time at the Corinth Civil War Interpretative Center, finding out about Corinth's place in Civil War history.
After the battle at Shiloh, the Union's next strategic target was Corinth, since it was one of the most critical railroad junctions in the South. Significant battles were fought there for the 6 months following Shiloh, with the Union finally gaining control and moving further south to Vicksburg.
As a final note and deviating from the Civil War history . . . . . after we finished at the museum, we stopped by the local Wal Mart to stock up on a few things, and found unleaded gas there at 2.839 per gallon!!! I'm not sure how long its been since we bought gas that inexpensively (it seems like years), but it was a welcome sight. The unfortunate thing is that we had to give up a chunk of our investment portfolio to get it back to that level.
