Summer in New Mexico

Summer update - Wayne and I will be spending the spring, summer, and part of fall at Gorham Scout Ranch in New Mexico.  This is the local council scout camp and we will be volunteering our time there until camp starts, at which time we will be paid employees of the camp!  

Our previous plans of Colorado, Yellowstone, or Bryce National Park didn't pan out as we had hoped, so we're staying local.  The mountains there are gorgeous and I'm ready to head up there now!

We will be leaving Albuquerque, where we have spent the past two weeks, tomorrow and head to Gorham.  We WILL be accessible by email, because we will be camped closer to the WiFi antenna they have set up at camp.  We will check phone messages regularly, but email is the best way to contact us.  

Hope everyone has a great summer and we'll keep you posted on our activities!

Alfa Pictures

I said I would post pictures of the interior of our new rig, so here are a few.  The inside is huge and we are really enjoying living in it (and finally having time to get settled).

There are so many things we love about our new home -- the first thing that comes to mind is the four-door refrigerator with ice maker!  Yeah!  We also have a "basement" freezer, which is in one of the bins underneath.  The electric awning is a real plus.  Like we said before, this met all our criteria and had a lot of the "would like, but not a necessity" items that we wished it would have.  Ziva has adapted beautifully and finally realized on the drive from Louisiana to Arizona that she could jump down and run around while we were driving. 

We'll be heading back to New Mexico on March 25th for a couple of weeks and to plan our next adventure.

Back from Hawaii - Now in Tucson

Our cruise to Hawaii was amazing.  The four days at sea going over were overcast, windy, and rocky.  The ship's store kept running out of Dramamine.  Fortunately we weren't overly affected and sailed along.  We spent one day on each island - Hawaii, Oahu, Kuai, and Maui.  My only regret is that we didn't have two full days on each island.  There was too much to try to see and not enough time.  The weather was beautiful and sunny on our island excursions (except for a ten-minute rain one day).  Then we sailed back for four days with a stop in Ensenada, Mexico.  None of us disembarked for the five-hour stop, but the weather was nice.  I took hula dance classes, heirloom, lei-making classes, and a few others.  Heddy (one of our co-travelers) and I had a lot of fun running to all the different classes!

Wayne and I spent a few days in Louisiana after our return, headed out to Tucson.  We left a couple of days early after watching the weather that was moving in and we're glad we did!

Now we are in Tucson, AZ, camped next to my parents who are out here for the month.  The weather is gorgeous -- sunny, dry, warm (86 degrees yesterday).  We'll leave here on the 25th and head to Albuquerque to plan where to travel next!

Debbie now has a Facebook page (that she is trying to figure out how to operate).  So if you're on Facebook, please send me a Friend request!

Louisiana - No Pics Yet

We are in Covington, Louisiana, as of yesterday.  We are staying at Fairview Riverside State Park, which is very nice and where we stayed last year.  The rain held off until this afternoon and we're supposed to have "very cold" temperatures tonight and tomorrow.  The weather report said with wind chill, it will feel like it's in the teens -- didn't we leave New Mexico for warmer climates?  Alas, it didn't happen.

On a higher note, next Tuesday we fly to Los Angeles to board our cruise ship to Hawaii!  I can hardly wait!  It seems like the past three weeks have been very busy and it will be nice to just sit back and relax!

I will post some pictures soon.  We won't be posting while on the cruise, but I'll be taking lots of pictures which I will share on the blog.  

Until then -- bon voyage!

Out With the Old, In With the New

We are beyond thrilled -- our new motorhome has arrived and we have started the dreaded "moving in" part of the process.  We arrived at the delivery site about 1:30 and our new Alfa See Ya! arrived about 2:15 -- I was amazed!  


That doesn't necessarily mean smooth sailing from here -- they had to come shampoo the carpets this afternoon; the refrigerator recall that was fixed didn't "take" and is being fixed again; and the 50-amp electrical cord has disappeared!  


Wayne and I started moving all the outside stuff as soon as it arrived, since we didn't want to interfere with the carpet cleaner guy -- but as it turns our I was able to move a lot of canned goods and other small items to the interior.  It is now sitting and drying and hopefully we will have dry carpets by tomorrow morning before the rain starts!


We will keep you apprised of our progress.  We hope to leave here by Friday in order to make it to Covington, Louisiana, and Karen and Danny's for Super Bowl Sunday!  Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Alfa See Ya!

I was able to get an exterior shot of our new coach this morning and a couple of interior shots, so here they are:

They have started removing the windows to defog them, so it looks VERY open at this point.  There's a picture of the leather sofa that we are getting rid of (through the open window) and replacing that with a love seat recliner combo.  The microwave/convection oven we needed to replace as the older one was so dated it didn't have a turntable.  The last picture is the built-in computer desk, which was an added bonus for our purposes.  In the second picture, the big empty space over the driver's area is where a TV used to be, but we're having them build a cabinet to go in that spot.  We are setting the TV on top of our electric fireplace across from the chairs area.

The teams are really working to try and catch up to the original schedule -- they fell two days behind when a worker was out sick -- so we're pushing them along, too.  Still don't have a clue as to when it will all happen, but we'll keep you posted.  

The weather the past couple of days has been gorgeous - warm and sunny (sometimes a little breezy), but definitely warmer than other parts of the country!  

This is the view in front of the Lazydays sales office and cafeteria.  I wanted to take a picture of all the Spanish moss hanging from the trees.  It really is pretty.

Two of the couples from our Alaska Trip are still at Lazydays, so we've been getting together and visiting with them.  John and Fran even offered to help us move into our new coach -- which we accepted (if they're still here).  Bettye and Jim invited us to the Crown Club's Celebration yesterday afternoon and we had a blast -- free food and drinks and lots of visiting.


Will post more pictures when we finally take ownership of the new coach!

Reunion Rally

Friday night our festivities began for the rally -- here are some pictures of our tour group:

 

There were over 75 rigs for the rally, which is a great turn out!  Eight couples from our tour were there and we had a great time catching up with what everyone had been doing and were planning on doing.  Wayne and I managed to give a few "tours" of our new home while it was in the service bay.  Everyone is excited for us -- but not as excited as Wayne and I are!  Jim & Bettye Chaplin's new Monaco Dynasty is awesome and they're enjoying it (as are Gizmo and Bubbles).

Most of the group leave this morning and we wish them all safe travels wherever they go and we'll meet again next January!  

Alaska Rally in Seffner, FL, 2011

We're here in Florida!

This is the Rally Center at Lazydays in Seffner, Florida.  The past two days have been sunny and warm, but I never had my camera.  The day I remember to take pictures, it's overcast and rainy (but 65 degrees).  As some of you know, we came for the reunion rally from our Alaska RV Tour last summer, but we also came down to look for a new Home on Wheels.  

We found one!  Not only did we find one, but it had everything on our "wish list" and more plus it fit into our budget.  We won't have it for another week due to some cabinet work we're having done on the interior, but it's not too bad hanging out here for awhile longer.  As it turns out, a couple of the people on our tour will be staying longer, too, so we'll have people to visit with.

Here's some pictures of the interior, prior to how we're going to revamp it:

We are anxious to take delivery and start moving into it -- but we'll wait patiently . . . well, maybe not so patiently.  I'm excited about having everything on one level and being able to "set up" from inside the coach.  Wayne is happy about it being 40 feet long and a Cat 330 diesel engine.  It's a 2004 Alfa See Ya' and only has 31,000 miles on it.  They're prepping it and getting it all ready for us.  The main reason we came back to Lazydays to look for a coach is because of their thoroughness in making sure everything works when they turn it over to you. 

Our first function is this evening for the Rally and we'll take more pictures and post them.  Keep watching!

Hello Atlanta in January!

We arrived in Atlanta after the snowfall (thankfully), but there is still a lot of snow and ice on the ground.  We had cold temperatures the whole way out, but no snow and no wind, which was great!  We're here to visit with Walter, Jennifer, Jake, Hayley, and Zoe through Monday.  The weather was so bad this past week there was no school, so kids were home all week and then Monday is a holiday!

On Tuesday we head to Seffner, Florida, outside of Tampa for the Alaska Tour Reunion Rally to see some people we met on the tour and meet new people.  We'll be there a few days before heading to Louisiana.

Our big news is that while in Louisiana we are going with Ron, Kathy, John, & Hedy on a 14-day cruise to Hawaii!  I AM SO EXCITED!  We fly from New Orleans to Los Angeles on February 15th, board the ship on the 16th, and head to sea.  We'll be on the ocean four nights, we'll see all four islands while in Hawaii, and then four nights back with a stop in Ensanada, Mexico, before returning to Los Angeles and flying back to New Orleans.  Ziva will be in the loving care of Karen while we're gone (thank you, Karen!). 

My plans are to post more frequently now that we're back on the road.  We will keep in touch!