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!

Last Week of the Decade!

It may seem like we fell off the face of the earth, but we didn't.  We arrived in New Mexico on October 1st, after our Alaskan adventure and working our way back.  We went to Gorham Scout Ranch near Chimayo, New Mexico, to help them out.  Below is a picture of the new site we chose to camp while at Gorham.

The fall weather was rather mild and we enjoyed our new home.  That is, until two weeks ago when we woke up to this:

Eight inches of wet, cold snow.  The snow didn't really last that long because the weather was warm and the sun melted most of it.  We debated when to leave the mountain area to lower climates and decided yesterday was the day.  This decision was partially based on the fact that the next storm coming in (due to arrive today) was supposed to drop "feet" instead of "inches."  Getting stuck up there until late April wasn't in our game plan, so we broke camp (after 2-1/2 months) and headed to Albuquerque.

It appears we left just in time, because the mud up there is almost worse than snow and/or ice.  Wayne got stuck trying to pull the rig out of the clay mud and worked with a shovel and some gravel for over half an hour before he finally dislodged the rig and made it down the hill.  It was a little scary watching him try to pull it out and it kept going sideways instead of forward! 

While at Gorham, we were in the mountains and down in a hole, so internet and phone reception were nil.  I managed to find a spot up on a hillside where I could walk and face southwest under a specific tree and get one signal bar on my phone -- unless the wind blew.  So we were off the grid while there.  Now we're back in civilization and getting ready to head to Atlanta and then Florida for the Alaska Rally in Tampa.  On our way back from there, we'll wind our way through Louisiana and Texas to visit with everyone.

Hope everyone had  great Christmas and we wish you all a healthy and happy New Year!