Work, work and more work

Whatever happened to retirement? Since our arrival we get up in the morning start working and don't stop until bedtime. Grandson Aaron was over yesterday helping out, washed cabinets with G'Ma and repair cabinet end piece with G'Pa. Aaron will be graduating this March, has finished all requirements for his senior year, and now is a TA at his culinery school.

Took a couple hours break today and went for brunch at son Todd's home. Amber, Mark, and Nick were over, Aaron had the day off from work (Publix) and Adam was able to come home from work (Publix) for a break, it was nice seeing all the grandkids. Afterwards back to home2 and more work, a house can amass alot of dust in six months.

Home1 to Home2

75:44 hours

4591 miles

We have arrived!

Started work this morning on remodeling Home2. Doug has been under the kitchen sink most all of today hooking up the faucet and garbage disposal. Much to do and alot of time to do it.

Chillimobile

Arriving 01/06/09 lots of chilli in the Chillimobile. Number One Son this should keep you in stock for a couple months anyway.

On the road again and again and again

Left Verl and Lyndia's at 8am driving the final leg of the trip. Drove through LA and into MS by nightfall. Weather cooler today - in fact down right cold this morning, but has now warmed up to the mid 60's. We stopped after crossing the Mississippi River, had lunch and done some gambling at a Riverboat Casino and then back on the road. Then drove in heavy rain most of the afternoon, arriving at Biloxi, MS around 5pm and called it a day. Plan to drive into Sarasota tomorrow night if weather permitting. Now it's time to relax and have a cold beer.

Waltz Across Texas

Another long day of driving but not as long as we thought, looking at the map we figured 10-12 hours, but the GPS showed it to be only a little over 8 hours. The temperature was 73 degrees when we arrived at Verl & Lyndia's, but heard on the radio that a cold front was moving in. During the evening we sat on the porch drinking wine. beer and fighting off the mosquitoes, yes, mosquitoes in January. (I forgot to mention that while in Andrews I dropped the lap top on my right foot. It was not broke but is very sore, swollen, black and blue and now I'm being eaten by mosquitoes).

We have some of the best cooks in our families and everyone has taken such good care of us, I'll be sending out e-mails to get recipes. Doug and I will have to get very serious about our diets once we get to Sarasota.

Andrews, TX

Friday we drove from Gilbert to Andrews, it was long and unlike the drive so far, the country side was not pretty to look at. We've seen wonders of nature on this drive, but this land was barren and the closer we got to Andrews a certain odor developed, some say its the smell of money, but believe me it smelled more like oil and sulfur mixed. We already knew about the smell, as Dick had previously warned me before we started the trip. This has been our longest day driving, over 10 hours and 700 miles. Dick and Jenni had a wonderful meal waiting for us and we had a good visit. Heard more about their time in Dubai and Dick set us up with his special alarm clock "Call to Prayer". It is a Muslin alarm clock and when the alarm goes off if sits you right up in bed. That morning they fixed us another big meal and we got on the road for Maud, TX

Gilbert, AZ

New Years day we drove back through the Grand Canyon and continued on to Chrystal and Bobs' in Gilbert. We had a very nice visit with them, they have a beautiful home and are very gracious hosts. They took us downtown Tempe to walk about and had supper at a nuevo Mexican restaurant. That night we all recessed back to our childhood and played with the WII, what fun.

Grand Canyon Pics

It has been awhile

It has been awhile since last post and we've come a great distance. After arriving at the village of Tusayan and checking into the hotel we found out they had no satellite reception so were unable to get on line plus our wireless card did not work.

On New Years Eve day we went to The Grand Canyon, it is beautiful, colors unbelieveable, but so much snow that walking was dangerous. We started our walk at Mather Point, had lunch, (Navajo Tacos) at the El Tovar Hotel, then finished our walk at Bright Angel Trailhead. There we saw mules bringing people up from the bottom of the canyon.

Later that afternoon we went to the IMAX theater and saw the movie "The Grand Canyon", it really doesn't show the true colors of the canyon.

Sorry to say we didn't celebrate the "New Year" that evening - as we were still full from lunch and pretty tired, so early to bed as we wanted to get an early start the next day.

More pics

Searles Lake, Death Valley, Grand Canyon Pics

On To The Grand Canyon

What a way to wake up, beautiful suite with his and her bathrooms, after Starbucks we’re on the road again. Scenery not as nice as yesterday, but interesting. Up the mountains and down the mountains with not a tree in sight with rock formations that are unbelievable. We had no idea that CA, NV and AR had so many mountains.
As we got closer to our destination we realizes we had no telephone number or address for our Hotel, as we booked our reservations through a on-line booking agent. Also no info on the GPS, so Doug called the tour company, surprise, they have no information on the hotel. Now we’re wondering if the hotel even exists. Next problem is that we are losing our cell phone connection, but finally got through to 411 and they provide a telephone number. When Doug calls the hotel they explain that they have no physical address and the town, Tusayan, isn’t even on the map. Finally arrived, the hotel is nice, very rustic but after checking in they put us in a smaller room than we had reserved, the hotel is full, but someone else hasn’t checked in yet and "First come, first served" so they gave us their room. Hope they weren’t too disappointed.