Hello From Florida!

Ahhhh.. Sun!

Hey! Hey!  WE were here first!!!

We are at Tyndall AFB on the Florida Panhandle between Panama City and Mexico Beach for the next couple of weeks. We are staying at the base’s FamCamp. We have a nice spot with trees and bushes giving us a little more privacy. Seeing the Gulf beaches again is great! Just the way we remember the beach with sand so white and soft it feels like you are walking on sugar. The ocean water temp is warm, no rain forecast for the next week, and air temp in the low 90s.

This is a great place to start getting back into shape for kayaking on the bays nearby. We started kayaking the day after we got here. We kayaked in a nearby back bay and saw a large pod of dolphins (porpoise). They were pretty close at times, well under 20 yards. They hung around where we were for about 5 minutes or so. Mullets were jumping.  One tried to jump into Dan's kayak.  We also saw a Red Tailed Hawk perched nearby in an old tree, but he would not let us get too close before flying away.

Just had to add this picture to our blog since we are headed for Key West....There BE Pirates Here!  Arrrgh!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

New Floors Installed

We have all new flooring and carpet in our coach, installed by Ernie Ekberg at his place in Weatherford TX. We selected a  bamboo flooring from Lumber Liquidators in Ft Worth, and a good quality carpet from Lucky's Flooring in Weatherford, as well as the best RV flooring installer in the business, Ernie.

We had never intended to buy bamboo flooring, but the Morning Star bamboo flooring is tough and durable.  We picked out the unstained Natural for a lighter flooring.

 

Pics of the completed project are here:

http://rides.webshots.com/album/578499643vFFIgh

Everything out of the living area

What a difference!

Ernie working on the entrance way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stairwell with new carpet and flooring for easy cleaning.

Catching Up

We made it to Albuquerque and got our green chile, breakfast burritos fix. But before we got to Albuquerque, we spent a few nights at Mesa Verde National Park. We toured all three cliff dwellings: Balcony House, Cliff Palace, and Long House. All were very interesting to see and to hear what the rangers said about all of them. We enjoyed our stay at the NP campground during the three days. It was hot and muggy – thanks to the monsoon season. During our tour of the Balcony House, a waterfall started cascading down the cliff near the dwelling. We were happy to be under the cliff safe and dry. You know what they say about your home: Location, location, location – and this was a very good location.

Once in Albuquerque, we had our car detailed, waxed, and interior cleaned. The poor car was so dirty from being towed; the carwash put our car through twice before waxing it! Dan also replaced a driving light taken out by a rock and had new tires and  brake pads put on the car. The car is back to looking good! Well, for a little while….

We spent some time catching up on the latest with our son, Shaun. Some of our cats actually remembered him. We then split up so we could visit our friends in the area. It was great seeing our friends again. We missed a few of our friends so we are hoping to see them the next time we are in town. Yea, we don’t have any idea when that will be, but we promise to let you know in advance.

Sandy spent Saturday at Project Linus. She had a great time visiting with all the Material Girls and participating in the Show-n-tell. There were a lot of beautiful quilts for personal use as well as for Project Linus.

After Albuquerque, we went to Lawton to see Misty and our grand-daughters. Both Bry and Vi are becoming beautiful young ladies. Both have a great sense of humor and we had lots of fun with all three. We decided to try the Ft. Sill military family campground next to Lake Elmer Thomas. Other than the fact that it was in the high 90s most of the time we were there, it was a very nice campground. Misty and the girls came to our place on Saturday for lunch and a day at the lake beach.

We are now in Weatherford, TX, parked next to Ernie and Brenda Ekbergs house. Our friend, Ernie is replacing all of our motorhome’s flooring. All the carpet and tile will be replaced by engineered bamboo flooring, with new carpet in the drivers cockpit and around the bed verticle surfaces in the bedroom.

Just a quick note:  Sandy had a request from White Sulphur Springs.  They asked to use one of her photos on their home page.  She is very excited about having one of her pictures published from one of our Webshot albums.

Utah

We survived “The Loneliest Road” to Ely, NV. It wasn’t all that bad.  We  saw what was left of two Pony Express Stations, and several old Nevada towns still hanging on. The mountain passes plus high temperatures were tough on our motorhome and it did overheat a couple of times. Dan figured out the radiator cap had failed, and while not leaking coolant it WAS leaking pressure.  Replacing the cap has helped but not totally solved hot days with long hard upgrades of 5 to 6 percent.  Every time we came out of a pass we saw the road stretched out before us through a valley and leading us towards the next mountain pass. Yep, lots and lots of wide open spaces on this highway.

We spent a few days in Torrey, Utah so we could visit Capitol Reef National Park. According to our book, it is known as one of the undiscovered gems, but apparently someone has been talking in Europe because there were a lot of Europeans visiting. We also started to notice quite a few RV rentals on the road and in this park. Then we started to notice another pattern – almost all of the RV renters were from another country. It looks like foreign visitors have embraced the all-American RV vacation.

We agree that this national park is an undiscovered gem. We found the formations at this park really interesting. We had no problem finding different trails to hike each time we visited. There were a couple of old homesteads, school and blacksmith buildings also located in the park. The settlers also left behind orchards with more than 2,000 producing trees near the campground. Apricots were ripe for the picking, but there are also cherry, peach, pear, and apple, along with plum, mulberry, almond, and walnut trees. Visitors can pick the seasonal fruit right from the trees and eat all the fruit they want in the orchard, but they have to pay for any fruit taken out of the orchard.

Moab has become one of our favorite spots in Utah. Well, for this visit. We have several so it is hard to decide which area of Utah we like better. We actually found grocery shopping interesting at the City Market. They should change the name to Around-the-World Market with the variety of foods they stocked.  They are catering to the many European visitors to the national park system.  The Deli had Dan’s attention and the variety of artisan breads kept Sandy undecided on which multi-grain flavor she wanted to try this time. Oh! And the cheese and the fruits and the veggies! Okay, so we are going a little overboard, but how often does a person get excited about the humdrum of grocery shopping?

We really enjoyed our stay at the OK RV Park, a 50 amp full hook up space for $17 a night with Passport America 1/2 rate.   A pleasant, very quiet campground with grass, a cement pad, and a nice picnic table for each space. Our space also had rose bushes and a plum tree. We had a great view of the red rim rock right out our front window. Sandy took the cats out for walks almost every day. We think the rabbits liked to tease our cats because they would lounge around right in front of our motorhome and the cats would go nuts. “Let me at them! Not allowed to be this close!” Well, needless to say, the cats had to put up with the rabbits teasing because Sandy would not allow them to chase a rabbit when they were outside.

And what about the Arches NP? – Wow! It is breathtaking! Awe inspiring! You feel very small among the giant rocks. If you could not tell from all the pictures we took of the park, we could not get enough of the balanced rocks, the arches, the monoliths, the canyon walls that stretched out for miles, the clear, clean air………the silence. We hiked around some of the shorter trails the first day. The next day, we hiked the Devils Garden and the Primitive Loop that was a little over 7 miles. We hiked across some steep fins, through arches, up and down slickrock…..yea, the description said steep, but nothing about having to do some minor rock climbing or sliding depending which way we were going at the time. As one guy put it, “It is not for the faint of heart”.   Note in the picture of Dan above standing on the rock: that is the actual trail - up and over the rock for a good distance and a good height.

We should have done Canyonlands NP first, because after seeing the Arches even Capitol Reef, driving around on top of the mesa and looking into the distant canyons just wasn’t the same. Very scenic, but just wasn’t the same as when we were walking among the rock giants. At least, we did not get a kink in our necks from looking up all the time.

We are dry camping (no water, sewer or electric hookups) at Morefield Campground, Mesa Verde National Park for a few days, then we will head towards Albuquerque to visit Shaun, friends, perhaps get work done on the car, and do a little shopping. Oh! And a green chile fix! No one makes a breakfast burrito like Golden Pride on Central! MMMMMmmm! Must Have Breakfast Burrito!!!  As always, the pictures and underlined links are "clickable".