Life style choices

 

 

Even while at home, the travels cost money.  Our new rig looks beautiful, and sits ready to go, but as most of you know there are necessities.  The biggest necessity is a “toad”.  Now for you neophytes, a toad is the car you tow behind your motor coach.  Sometimes there is a bumper sticker which says “I only go where I’m towed” on it, but ours will probably stay clean of bumper stickers.  We did the deed today, buying a 2003 dark blue Jeep Liberty from an advertiser on Craig's list.  She lived close by, and the car is immaculate, only 42000 miles, new tires, and lots of new stuff that a smart young woman who cares about her stuff would do. 

We almost made a mistake.  We pursued a deal for a 2006 Liberty for $8000 from a Mexican woman across town, also from Craig's list.  She mentioned it needed a tune up, and we had to communicate through her 15 year old daughter.  They didn’t know what “clear title” meant (maybe I am giving them the benefit of the doubt here), and come to find out, the car was purchased for 4-500 from and insurance co as a totaled vehicle, her brother did the body work, and they hoped to make a tidy profit.  Fortunately, an English speaking family member who was a car dealer got involved, and she had to be honest with us to preserve her license.  So we found out the gory details just in time, and let that one go.  We are happy with the deal we made, and expect a lot of tow miles and country road miles out of it. 

So we are almost ready to hit the road.  We have to get the tow bar attached to the Jeep, get the front plastic protector piece for the coach replaced as it was cracked, and pack the fridge and go.  Oh yes, we expect company before we leave – my son and wife with one year old Gavin are coming for a visit.  And a few birthdays to celebrate before leaving for a Chapter 2 – Colorado chapter of Escapees rally, and a few days at Blue Mesa near Gunnison for our maiden voyage of our new rig. 

I hesitate to relay to all of you how beautiful this spring is in Colorado for fear you will all decide it is the only place to live in the world.  My tulips are abundant, don’t know for sure where they all came from, but I have never had such proliferation before.  The grass is green, the shrubs are leafing out, and I imagine the lilacs will begin about the time we leave town.  Of course the weeds have appreciated all the rain too, but they will begin to disappear tomorrow, hopefully.  I have already received one offer for a surgery date for the end of April, but unfortunately I have an infection on my leg, and had to turn down the offer.  Hopefully another cancellation date will pop up and I will get in before August.  I guess it is hopefully.  Once again I go kicking and screaming to the operating room, but I realize after one year, my right total hip is the better hip, and in one year the left will be as good or better, and hopefully I won’t waddle but be able to walk a straight line. 

Mexico travels

This is our caravan of 9 rig families whom we travelled with in Mexico.  We went with the Escapees BOF (birds of a feather) club called Chapter 8 – the Mexican Connection.  We went last year as well, but travelled with other people.  First we gathered in Tucson at the Fairgrounds for our orientation to our travel group and the crossing of the border.  There were over 70 rigs all together, but we broke up in groups of 6-9 rigs and communicated on CB radios.  The groups travelled about 45 minutes

apart so that we would not overwhelm the border crossing with so many RVs at once, nor hold up traffic too much. 

We had an excellent leadership team this year, who had made at least two trips preparing the way for our caravan.  The border patrol was aware of our coming and looked for our decals on our trucks or rigs, and mostly waved us through.  A few got inspected, but mostly we sailed on by.  The Mexican “Green Angels” also were aware of our travels, and for the most part made their presence known to us all the way to Hermasillo.  There we turned west and headed too Kino Bay, where we camped for 10 days.  The picture above was taken there.  The push pin on the map is Kino Bay, and the toll road and westward road is shown.  

While there we visited a shrimp farm.  It was interesting to see how that was done.  They were probably the only employer in Kino bay aside from tourist business.  The town is very poor, but lots of Canadians and Americans live there part of the year, have beautiful houses, and have a club where they gather to socialize, promote charity projects, and generally enjoy themselves.  We were invited as guests, and attended a dinner there.  We also visited an oyster farm which was part of an esturary I believe it is called.  Sort of a huge wetlands.  There were open cafes there where you could order fresh oysters, they walked out and took them out of the water, shelled and cooked or served them raw.  Dave and I went twice, and paid for it with 2 weeks of digestive upset.  But it was good. 

We were royally entertained by the Hermasillo chamber of commerce to a day of touring the city of Hermasillo, cultural entertainment, a street car tour, and an historical tour of the governernment building there.  There were beautiful historical murals which outlined the history of Mexico.  Did you know that the main person against whom the Mexicans were revolting in the 1800’s was a man named Mr Green, who was very oppressive and not a nice man.  They shouted “Green – GO” outside his palacial home, and thus the term “gringo” became the not so nice reference to white people. 

When the Mexican Connection portion of the trip was over, we travelled up a 10 mile very bumpy road to a campground which is part of our membership group.  It was worth the trip.  There is a very happy little community there of folks who come every winter, spend the maximum time allowed, which is 6 weeks, then buy out a week which allows them to stay another 6.  We only stayed a week, enjoyed the company and the view.  We shelling on the beach, and David got to go fishing on the Sea of Cortez, pulling in fish as fast as he could reel them in.  We still have some in the freezer.  It was the highlight of the stay for him. 

Before our departure from the stateside we were warned about possible danger to our lives and property.  We saw no sign of this, nor ever felt fearful.  I won’t say were weren’t alert, and used a lot of common sense.  We did abandon the westward route from Santa Ana to cross the border closer to Yuma, as it was a long, unknown road, and we were alone at that point.  So we opted to take the toll road straight north and sat in line for 3 hours or more at Nogales to get back into the USA.  Had we been travelling in a group, we would have gladly taken the alternative route.   But not complaining.  We felt safe, the campground was close after we crossed the  border, and we were glad to get back to familiar territory. 

Wish I had more pictures for you.  I guess learning to use the camera, and transferring the pix is next.  But we have a new motor coach, and it will take all our learning powers for a little while.  We are delighted with it.  We picked it up in Casa Grande after coming back from Mexico.  I love driving it, so David has some time off that duty whenever I get a chance.  We slowly made our way home in it, timed our travels in between storms and snow.  It got cold as we headed north, but springtime in Colorado is definitely here, and this is where we want to be. 

Till next time.

The wind is blowing us home

It was blowing in Deming and we are glad to be off the road, it is gusting and blowing the dust around.  We stopped for the afternoon and night in Bernardo, NM.  I had read somewhere this is a donkey rescue farm.  It is billed as a CG for big rigs, close to the highway, and an RV stop for horses.  We were both exhausted from driving that we fell asleep, but we will go see the donkeys soon as David wakes up. 

Glad you got to see pictures of our new rig.  It is a joy to handle on the road, and we are getting more proficient at finding things and working things.  We certainly were in the right place for the right amount of time in Deming as we found a couple who moonlighted in fixing satellite and cable systems in RVs and other places too, I guess, but they were so good and got us all wired up, so now we can watch the home stations again, and CNN and any local stations we can find on the antenna.  We wont get cable, but don't really need it.  We also got the Bose system up and running, and got our subscription to XM-Sirus radio started so we got music and news as we travel along again.  XM doesn’t have quite the choices that our old Sirus did, but maybe we just haven’t explored it enough yet.  The radio has a remote control, so now I think the count is about 7. 

While we were in the Deming Escapee campground the census ladies came by.  I was glad to see them as I was afraid that we would be missed, and was concerned that full time travelers would be missed.  But they said since we were soon to be home, we could respond by mail, the form would be waiting for us in the mail.  I thanked them profusely for being out in the wind and tracking us down, and she said she was grateful for that because some of the people there weren’t very nice.    I thought maybe she just met a grumpy one.  But in a few minutes she came back by our camper, visibly shaken, and said they had been ordered out of the park and they would be leaving quickly.  We called the office to see why they had been ordered out, and the office they did not order them out, in fact were legally prohibited from doing so.  So someone forced their politics on the rest of us and frightened two nice women out of doing their job.  I am glad I didn’t know who did it, as it would have just caused more confrontation, but it is hard to believe that  blind shortsightedness and prejudice could show itself in such a callous manner.  I am trying very hard to be kind here.  I am trying very hard to avoid feeling that some one who evidently thinks they are protecting their own liberty and privacy denies the rest of us our rights and privileges.  Have our politics become so short on freedom and consideration????

 

Not sure I said what I wanted to say there.  But I think some part of our freedom is being lost here, by the impassioned exclusiveness of the attitude of being right instead of loving our neighbor and respectfully treating all with the humanity all deserve.

Anyhoooooooooooo!!  New Mexico I25 corridor is not the most inspiring of routes, but it does lead to home.  The birds are tormenting Punkin, and I will quit tormenting you.  Thanks for listening.