Joan on the Road...of Life

Today we traveled about 8 miles down Interstate 10 to Voyager RV Resort, Tucson, AZ, voted best in the nation. Well..it's a nice snowbird park with tons of activities but I've seen better ambiance. We're here for a week and one of the things we may do is join the Monday Evening Movie to see March of the Penguins on the big screen. We asked for one of the wide spaces, 33 x 55, rather than a pull through because they are very long but only 17 ft. wide...too close for comfort.

A couple of the neighbors have welcomed us to the street so it looks like a friendly place. A week isn't time to take any classes or join in too many activities but maybe we'll get in some bocce ball and we already rode our bikes around the park...1500 spaces!...huge place. The weather in Tucson is great, today very cloudy but warm. I think I may resurrect my tan legs here :).

This was our first move after Mr. Moto got his upgrade. What a wonderful difference. Press a button to stow the dish and 2 minutes later it's down. After parking, press one button on the controller to lock onto the satellite and be ready to use...voila...after 5 minutes it's online, first time. All this dish movement is now happening with no computer connected. I'll bet it is at least ten times faster than before. Check out where we are by clicking on the LINK on the RIGHT...Where We Are #1671.

Posted by Joan at 07:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Click here to see where we are on the DataStorm Users Map. We are #1671. I've also added this link to the list on the RIGHT.

Posted by Joan at 06:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our drive from Quartzsite to Tucson was very nice because we chose the Rt 85 bypass around Phoenix. It turned out to be a new 4-lane road for most of the way that took us to Gila Bend, AZ on Interstate 8. I'd highly recommend that bypass route.

We arrived safely at Beaudry RV Resort where we're in a very long, wide site. It's a nice park associated with the Beaudry RV dealership so we'll get a tour of the property on Monday and probably some kind of sales pitch.

Our Mr. Moto satellite was successfully upgraded on Friday so now we have very good internet access speed up and down. Also, when we travel the raising and lowering of the dish on the roof and locking onto the satellite happens at the touch of one button. I won't have to get a computer going to start it up.

Our installer, Bill and Janet Adams, owners of Internet Anywhere did a speedy, professional install of the new equipment. They also found that the roof mounted equipment was loose and we were extremely lucky not to have lost vital parts of the equipment while traveling!

It is a real joy not to have to twiddle our thumbs while websites load so we are happy campers and Mr. Moto is smiling :).

Posted by Joan at 06:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is what we saw pretty much all day. We (Jim) drove 270 miles from Pahrump, NV to Quartzsite, AZ mostly on US 95. In Nevada it's a very nice 4 lane highway but at the CA line it becomes a 2 lane pit. We had brief stints on Interstate 40 and 10, otherwise it was no passing zone most of the way. We lucked out and had very few cars or trucks pressuring us to go faster. There must have been 10 times as much traffic headed north.

Nervous Nelly me had to be headed out by 9 which turned out to be a good thing because the time changed as we crossed the AZ line about 20 miles from Quartzsite so we pulled in about 3:30. We just can't bring ourselves to boondock so we parked at Holiday Palms in a pull-through 55 feet long. Funny but most of the pull-throughs are 35-40 feet long. That's no good for us as we are about 55 total.

We had stocked up on food yesterday so I had the fixin's for Reuben sandwiches...an easy supper as we kicked back to watch the Olympics.

Tomorrow...Tucson.

Posted by Joan at 07:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The view from my Imax window continues. This picture, taken on the fly as we drove down Tropicana, captures the essence of Las Vegas for me...buildings that look fake. I kinda like this picture.

This one is on State 160 heading out of town to Pahrump, up the hill, over the mountains. It was snowing at the higher elevations. The next morning Charleston Peak was covered in snow. I sure like this Nevada better.

Here's our space at Terrible's Lakeside Casino RV Resort. As I've noted before, this is a really nice park. However the trees have grown and we had to relocate to get Mr. Moto to work.

We connected with our friends Linda and Wayne Moody who own a lot at the Pair-a-Dice Escapees Park here in Pahrump. It's a nice desert park, large lots wiith shared storage sheds. They find it reassuring to have a spot to call home. Sometimes I think I'd like that but right now I still have itchy feet and am looking forward to our next several weeks of travel. The Moody's got us into the casino buffet dinners so we better get out of town before we put on a few more pounds! Thanks Linda and Wayne for a nice visit.

Posted by Joan at 06:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We spent a wonderful family wedding weekend in Las Vegas to celebrate the marriage of Naomi Juedes, our granddaughter, and Brad Daily. Almost the whole family was there. What a delight to have our own three children together with us along with seven grandkids and that one special great grandson.

We arrived in Las Vegas at 3 PM on a holiday weekend .....bad move. But after an hour we made it to Sam's Town Casino Hotel and RV Park on Boulder where most of the family was staying. Daughter Laura drove down from Stevensville, MT, a two day drive and also arrived Friday. The bride and groom came in Friday and we all got a chance to visit in our little house.

The rest of the family and guests arrived on Saturday for the 6:30 wedding. The chapel was a bit "hokey" (you could do a drive through wedding) but our little chapel room was filled with tons of love and laughter. After the ceremony we continued the celebration with an Italian dinner at Fellini's. We brought in our Almond Champagne from Temecula and Uncle Jim contributed a magnum of Veuve Cliquot for the first toast.

Post dinner the kids, along with the dads, went Cosmic Bowling until 3 AM...Vegas hours! The newlyweds went out on the town until 5 AM. We all collected for brunch at 11 AM and after hugs and kisses the party started to break up.

Through it all, baby Evan took naps, had his bottles and was cuddled and loved by all. Every time he woke up he was in a new place and he'd look around in awe. Here's the babe in his wedding suit:

Everyone is now home, safe and sound, in CA and MT. We relocated to Pahrump, NV to visit with friends but will be heading for Tucson where it's much warmer. It was a really special weekend and a wonderful celebration for the newlyweds.

Posted by Joan at 08:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Not Campbell Soup...my slow-cooked beef. I got the idea from my sister-in-law Chris who cooked up some Italian Beef Sandwiches for our visit. I've heard lately that slow-cooking is passe...why? I wonder...when it's soooo good.

So here's what I did. I put a 4lb. beef rump roast in the crock (ours is a large oval) and sprinkled a package of dry Italian dressing over it. (I could have added sliced peppers at this point.) Then I made up 2 cups of beef broth using a buillion paste that I keep on hand. (Better Than Buillion; I keep beef and chicken on hand.) I poured that hot broth over the beef, cooked it on high for 2 hours, then on low for another 7 hours. It was tender enough to pull apart with forks to make shredded beef. There was lots of broth so we had French Dip Italian Beef Sandwiches on small French rolls.

There was enough leftover beef to fill two 4-cup containers including the broth. So I chilled that overnight. Then I planned to have enchiladas and Jim said why not use the shredded beef? Rather than a pound of ground beef I used a container of shredded beef. I mixed up a sauce using dry Enchilada mix, tomato sauce and water. Put a little sauce with the beef, roll up the corn torillas with meet, cover with remaining sauce and cheese, bake 15 minutes at 350 and voila...another yummy meal. So good there were no leftovers.

I think that's enough beef for a few days so the the third container gets frozen awaiting it's delicious fate. Since I can find a recipe for anything on the internet, who knows how this beef will end up.

Posted by Joan at 09:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I Love Rock and Roll...we were shopping at Von's and would you believe they were playing Joan Jett over the music system. I could not resist dancing through the dairy aisle.

I love music. I grew up on country. Hank Williams, Lefty Frizell..."I Love You a Thousand Ways". I remember in grade school coming home from a weekend field trip and my boyfriend was singing "I'd Love to Get You On a Slow Boat to China". In high school I was in a musical and sang "My Funny Valentine" on stage to Jack who was my heartthrob even tho he didn't know I existed.

We had a player piano that was the focal point of parties at my house. We sang to "South of the Border" and "Artist's Life". I learned to play a piano piece called "Twittering of the Birds" by watching the keys on the player piano and then copying that fingering. Lucky me! I learned it in the same key as the piano music that my mom and dad found for me years later.

I took piano and organ lessons for eight years and learned also to love classical and church music. I played Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and the magnificent old English church hymns on a powerful organ. I went to college and my roommate was studying opera so we spent many weekends immersed in Madame Butterfly. She introduced me to Eine Kline Nachtmusik which became my favorite classical piece of all time.

When Jim and I married we bought the classical music series of records (red vinyl) offered by the A&P supermarkets. We worked our way through 9 Beethoven Symphonies. This was another wonderful introduction/ collection of music. Jim also listened to country, WJJD and WLS in Chicago, but with him I listened to the special music of 1959. Then, the music died on my birthday, February 3, 1959, when Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and Richie Valens died in a plane crash in Iowa. That was our music...La Bamba, Peggy Sue, True Love, Chantilly Lace...and we also loved Kansas City done by Wilbur Harrison.

Today we have 4778 music tracks on my computer that we play through Musicmatch on our Bose 123 system. Our collection includes all the songs I've mentioned and spans nearly 50 years of music. What a life. At the drop of a hat I can put myself into any year, venue, mood. Music memories are very powerful. Just a few notes can move me back to a place, a time, a special person or event...and I feel the emotion of that time. I cannot even begin to list the music memories I have. I've written about our DJ nights when Jim sits at the computer and picks one song after another...almost speaking to me through music. Sometimes I can predict what song will come next because he's leading me through a memory. God, I love music!

Posted by Joan at 08:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Here's our current space at Golden Palms in Hemet. Although many of the spaces here are too narrow for newer coaches with slideouts we were lucky enough to get this spacious site with a privacy shrub on the passenger side and our nice neighbors on the left. It is probably about 30 x 50. The huge tree, that is starting to bud, is home to many birds. That's a plus and a minus!

Today we had to wash down the awning (bird poop) and stash it away before the winds blow tomorrow. We'll need to wash the car before we leave (bird poop) and I had to scrub off some chairs inadvertently left in a strategic spot (bird poop). Worst of all...when our friends visited, the bird of paradise left a deposit on Dorthey (bird poop) :(.

The upside is the marvelous song of the mockingbirds. These birds get into singing at the strangest times of day. One of them has learned a common cell phone ring. About 6 AM I heard the phone ring...oh no, it's the damn bird. Also there are several pairs of mourning doves who talk to each other in the familiar "coo cooooo, coooo, coooo". I find that sound very relaxing and comforting.

This morning we rode the park and marked several more wide spots that will work for us in future visits. I really like this spot and if we could get back in here we could park the coach all the way to the rear and park the car in front of it...so maybe no "poop" problems!

Posted by Joan at 02:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Two days post eye treatment, things are lookin' good. Jim has had no negative reaction to the treatment, feels fine, and his vision looks at least the same if not better. So now he sees the doc next week for a checkup and then probably 6 weeks later. We are very hopeful that this treatment will halt the spread of blood vessels and leakage of blood in his eye.

He was advised to "take it easy" for a couple of days and in this lifestyle that's really easy to do. With great weather, good books, the internet, hundreds of movies and music he has no problem keeping occupied while taking it easy. If only I could get him to clean up the stack of accumulated mail!

While he's "caving" I've been working on learning Frontpage with an eye to building a website. I've been looking at dozens of other RVers sites and begin to wonder why the world needs mine. Well the world doesn't but I do. Must be that writing my blog or developing a website is an easy way for me to be in a teaching mode. A friend once told me that I was always in a teaching mode, sometimes to the point of irritation. :)

The first step is to figure out what content/pages I want to include...and that depends on my reasons for having a website. So there's a lot of thinking, goal setting and planning that goes on before actually working on the computer. When I finally get a website posted I hope it too will be lookin' good.

Posted by Joan at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We've met more people here at Golden Village Palms in 3 days than we did in 3 weeks at Vail Lake. Interesting people, too.

Next door our neighbors have been here for 10 months after living at Orangeland in Orange, CA for a couple of years. They sold their house in Oregon, moved to CA and never went much further. Turns out that he really didn't like driving a motorhome. So now they have a trailer, parked pretty much fulltime, with a couple of storage sheds and lots of outdoor decorations. One of the sheds serves as a workshop where they make things out of gourds....like nut dishes and bird houses. She tells me there is a gourd farm about 30 miles from here where they get all their supplies. She does beautiful ink drawings on the items. Once a month they sell their items at the local craft fair. She'd like to travel more....but.

Two spaces down is a couple who are retired from a major airplane manufacturer that keeps calling them back for consulting. So since 1990 they have been on the road going from one plane problem to another. They are both airplane mechanics. He's a marine and he fits the picture but she is a pretty blonde with long hair and a sweet southern accent. Never, would I imagine what she does/knows. They are also both pilots of small planes. When they are not consulting/fixing planes they are into square dancing, fully costumed.

Across the street is a snowbird couple from Nebraska who've been here every winter for 4 years. They still farm. They invited us to join the bike riding breakfast group...to ride to a restaurant 3-4 miles out, eat and then ride back. Now Jim could do this but I'm sorry to say I would have a hard time with that if there's any uphill to do. Guess if you're an active farmer you're in pretty good shape!

And then yesterday, our very first motorhome neighbors from Life on Wheels in 2003 dropped by for a visit. When we met we had both sold our houses, bought motorhomes and embarked on this life to the joy/dismay of our kids. We've enjoyed keeping up with each others' travels and just by chance found that we were close and could meet up for an afternoon. We had a good time comparing campsites, adventures, motorhome problems/improvements and family stories.

So here's to good friends on the road!

Posted by Joan at 08:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We were getting ready to head down the road to Yuma when Jim noticed a change in his vision so we quickly got an appointment with his retinal specialist in Santa Ana. Jim has a form of wet macular degeneration that involves bleeding around the retinal area. Sure enough, there was evidence of new bleeding so he made an appointment for digital pictures of the eye and then a treatment to hopefully stop the bleeding. This time he's opting for a new drug injection which is supposed to stop the spread of blood vessels in the area. It is actually a cancer treatment being used for this purpose.

Since everything in our life had been moving along nicely I took this news kind of hard. Silly me. It's just another bump on the road and we'll get past it. My reaction seems to be that immediately I think of ALL bad things that could happen and lump them together into the current situation. Pretty dumb. Ya gotta just take one bump at a time.

So rather than head for Yuma we headed for a new spot in Hemet. We'd been at Vail Lake for over a month and I must admit to being a bit lonely there because the campground is nearly empty all week. So we moved to a "snowbird" resort, Golden Village Palms and already have visited with several neighbors. It's a totally different ambience in a park like this compared to one where campers come and go all the time. And this is a city park so all the stores we need are just around the corner rather than 10 miles down the winding road.

Bottom line here is that I must do more motorhome driving so I can take over if need be. I'm tough, I can do that.

Posted by Joan at 07:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)