Wonderful Christmas week

Got to see Sally's kids Sarah and Andy before leaving town...

On our way out of Arizona, stopped in Yuma to see Jan & Chuck Moore and got this cool Christmas picture - Jan with a tree on her head, me with a halo. Awww- how sweet.

2008 Cancun, 2009 Belize, 2010 San Diego

Our progression of beaches and sunshine for Christmas. We've loved this year being in the RV if not in the ocean snorkeling. We'll probably repeat this one after maybe trying South Texas next year.
We got to see my cousins Judy and John and my Aunt Betty. Went out dancing to live music at a cool bar called Belly Up.

Got to see a friend, Sylvia, I haven't seen in about 12 years and her new husband Bill. (Forgot to get their picture - darn!) Always fun to reconnect.
Santa was SO good to us - new 2011 Rand McNally (with Wal Marts), new RV step stool and a cool sign for our front window...

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Christmas dinner at the Marine Room, awesome restuarant on the water in La Jolla. Awesome filet mignon and rack of lamb...










One of our favorite things is a bike path right out of our campground. From here we rode 15 miles one day all around Mission Bay and an island in the middle of the bay. Then the next day, only 3 miles to Pacific Beach then down the boardwalk and back for another 15 mile or so day.



Oh yes - we will be back here to San Diego! Great trip. Next stop - Pasadena for the Rose Bowl Parade.

Happy Holidays!

We consider ourselves to be S-O-O-O blessed to be able to roam around our great USA the way we do in our RV and to be comfortable in our 300 or so square feet and to know that we can get along just fine, with each other and with ourselves, with so little. We have been able to visit so many friends and family and to meet wonderful new friends along the way.
B-U-T we do find we miss just a couple of things: Our longest and best friends, Arizona and our hometown of Prescott. Prescott pictures are of our beautiful Courthouse Plaza.
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Brunch out with the Prescott girlfriends...took the hats off the walls, that shade off the lamp and the feather duster out of the closet to dress us up.



Holiday time is volunteerism time for me. That is the annual Prescott Last-Minute-Non-Profit-Stocking-Stuffer Bazaar that attracts thousands of shoppers to buy hundreds of dollars of goods benefiting non-profits. The 2 organizations I support are - P.E.O. (selling the purses to the left) and International Street Angels of the World (selling angels and other things on the right) and my daughter Sarah smiling at us in front. She has helped me with this each of the last 3 years. Between our 2 booths we raised $1,600, supporting education for women and disadvantaged children !

It's not Christmas for Sally without getting together with her girlfriends from high school - Betsy and Shirley - and their families... a long tradition.

P.E.O. Christmas party included my two favorite elves, Linda and Marie.

A formal party allowed us all to get dressed up and look our very best.

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Sally stays busy with the fundraising and working to downsize this house so we can consider being full-time RVers for a while. Gregg stays busy with RV maintenance and improvements and repairs on this house in which we now rarely live. We enjoy being "home" here but we have itchy, itchy feet! We'll be off on a 6 week jaunt westward soon, then return to Prescott for a bit before heading out for another 10,000 mile+ adventure in 2011. Destinations unknown this year - we'll just see where the road takes us...

Balloon Fiesta Pictures

Wow - what an experience this Balloon Fiesta has been. One to not ever be forgotten. Great way to wind up our almost-eight-month trip. I think we can both finally say we are ready to be "home" for a bit.

We'll hit the road for Prescott in the morning and be home by evening, looking forward to unlimited electricity and long showers, seeing friends and family.

We will have travelled almost 12,000 miles, 21 states, 232 nights and stayed in about 100 different places overnight. Thanks to family who put us up for free and other boondocking arrangements we found, we managed to keep our average cost per night down to $12.32 despite $85 per night in the FL Keys for 9 nights.

We're already talking about where and when to go next - not slowing down our RV life yet. Just heading to Prescott for a little respite...

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Albuquerque Int'l Balloon Fiesta

We are not only here seeing this but here with a group of Escapee RV club members - about 30 rigs - most of whom are volunteering to crew for the balloonists thus earning free crew passes to all events, some free meals and tail gate parties among the pilots crews and probable rides in balloons (valued at $350 each during the Fiesta).

Some of our friends here crew for this Ladybug Balloon.

We are learning LOTS about ballooning. My job is holding the throat of the balloon open while air is blown into it from a high powered fan, then flames are blown into it to heat the air inside. It gets HOT doing this job! Can't wear nylon as it could melt. Can't wear earrings as they may get too hot. Gregg shares that job with me on the other side of the balloon. He's also involved in setting up all the apparatus. Another job I have is handing out patches and pins to collectors wandering among us - thousands of them. Our whole team will help chase down the balloon and pack it back up for the next day.

Our friends Gloria and Charlie on the right and left, our pilot Earl and Randi, the lady who made the balloon we will fly this week.

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We'll get 9 days of this if weather will cooperate. Having a ball!

Canyon de Chelly slide show

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Canyon de Chelly

I can hardly believe I've lived in AZ for about 38 years and had never gone to

Canyon de Chelly. What a beautiful park, National Monument, on the

Navajo Reservation.

We loved the free campground and stayed four days so we had plenty of time to drive both rim/overlook drives, take a day long tour by all-wheel-drive open-air vehicle, take a ranger lead hike and the only do-it-yourself unguided hike in the canyon. Every one of those exceeded our expectations. What a great time there!

Almost home

So close to home in Prescott - we are in eastern AZ this week to get together with good friends. We always feel the same in AZ - it's still our favorite place to live. My friend Martha made me a birthday cake and sent it to me over here - beautiful!

and yummy...

We got to do some good hiking in Forest Lakes. That's Chica Sheeley who loves to hike and roll in mud puddles. Not your girly, prissy kind of Shih Tzu but she does clean up real pretty!

Dick and Beth took me on a great kayak paddle around Willow Springs Lake on a gorgeous day. They've just returned from a fabulous RV trip to Alaska.

Bunches of us gathered at Sharp Creek for friend Randi's 21st annual Chili Cookout. We matched up our RV awnings and made ourselves a nice cool shaded breezeway. Had a great time but I got too busy catching up with everyone to remember to take people pictures! Dang!

Now we are back in Forest Lakes and all friends have gone back home. It's lonely but we're being good about getting daily hikes in. Very fine boondocking spot - thanks Dean, Judy, Lynn and John!

We're waiting for a big thunderstorm and an inch or so of rain tomorrow and when that is over we will head up to Canyon de Chelly for a few days. Then we'll be
off to Albuquerque for the Balloon Fiesta for 10 days, joining 30 other rigs and 50+ friends-to-be in an Escapee RV group. Really looking forward to that!

Palo Duro Canyon, TX

Thanks to our friend Jim, we learned of Palo Duro Canyon State Park just south of Amarillo. Beautiful! Looks like Arizona! Wildlife - Gregg spotted coyote, deer and tarantula - just like home. All campsites have ramadas over the picnic tables. The whole park is down in the canyon, very picturesque. Lots of hiking and biking trails we would have loved to use had it not been so danged HOT.

O-o-o-o-oklahoma

There! Now YOU can get that song stuck in your head too... (sorry 'bout that.)

That's Bass Pro Shop in the background in Oklahoma City, one of my favorite "campgrounds", free with fun shopping and amazing decor. This one with a whole heard of bison in the store.

This is within easy walking distance of OK City's beautiful Bricktown, restored part of downtown with parks, canal, water taxi and narrated ride, 18 full size bronze statues of OK history (with plans to eventually have 49 statues). Also an easy walk to see the memorial for the OK City bombing of the Alfred Murrah Federal Building. Stirring site - 168 chairs represent the 168 lives lost.

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The size of the OK BBQ certainly rivals what I would have called Texas-sized. It took me three meals to finish this sandwich.

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Birthday dinner at one of our favorite restaurants ever. Not much to look at (notice the landscaping by the front door) inside or out, but the BEST catfish and fixin's imaginable.

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I LOVE my birthday present! (I always do as Gregg likes me to find something I want and just tell him where to get it. This I found in Michigan's U.P. in July and had to wait 'til now to get it.) It's sliced agates and just gorgeous with sun shining through it, leaded like stained glass. Thanks, Gregg!

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See how wet it is outside the window? We sat out tropical storm Hermine in this Chickasaw National Recreation Area - beautiful campground. 8 inches of rain in 2 days near here.

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We were cozy & dry and quite content with our books, Boston Legals, TV, Internet, full fridge and liquor cabinet. Life is Good.

Toto, I've a feeling we ARE in Kansas!

Enjoying Wichita, along the Arkansas River, with its beautiful statue the Keeper of the Plains and a 9pm lighting of a Ring of Fire each night.

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Hutchinson, Kansas delighted us with a stay in the nice campgrounds at the site of the Kansas State Fair and something new to us - a salt mine. Very interesting! Suited up with hard hats and emergency air devices (which have NEVER been needed here), we descended 650' into a working salt mine and underground storage vaults.

Precious and fragile things such as this newspaper printed the day after President Lincoln was shot and George Clooney's batman costume and Hollywood movie films are stored here.

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And, we got to have coffee with friends Donna and Hap.
We met them in Prescott several years ago when they stayed with us as part of the P.E.O. Bed and Breakfast program. Fun to stay in touch with friends like this.