Tuesday, January 4, 2011

What do you think?


Ron has been doing a couple of things to the bus. We're always being teased by fellow bus members telling us we need a name for our bus. Shoot, we've never named any of our RV's or vehicles, so this is what he came up with. We also put something in the little window by the passenger side...

Gene taking care of his tomato plants, they look pretty healthy


It took two days for the repair to happen, but, now we are happy campers, we can use our levelers again! The rear of these levelers had not been operable since they got tweaked back in June. We could use the fronts with no problem, but, not the back ones. I wrote the owner of Big Foot and told him what happened and where his guys had located them and that we hadn't been happy, but, decided to try them anyway. He wrote and told me of the guy in Yuma where we could get them fixed and relocated. So, fortunately, we didn't have to pay for any of the repair at all. We got back to the lake on the morning of the 31st and were surprised at all the rigs that had come in during our absence. Fortunately, we had our spot saved, so still had the great view of the canal. Since we were pretty level when we parked, we didn't need the levelers. We'll use them when we really need them.

I think we had about 16 or so rigs all together. For New Years Eve, we had our annual Z-Circle. It was originally thought up by fellow Boomer, Chuck Zyetz, who has since died. A great idea that not only gets people together to get to know each other better, but, also helps us all stay awake and warm until midnight, by getting together in each other's rigs. About a half an hour before midnight, we all pile out of the rigs and to the fire to stay warm until we ring in the new year. In the "old days", when we first started meeting at Mittry, we'd devise all sorts of things to stay awake, but, most of it was done outside where it's COLD!! Thank you, Chuck, for thinking up this grand idea which we have been doing for at the last 10 years! I just looked it up, if I'd known about it before, we could have done something special.

On New Year's Day, some of us had a potluck dinner at camp, complete with trashcan turkey, ham and all the trimmings and some of us went out to eat at Golden Corral. I was with the latter group, because even though the sun was shining, it was still colder than I wanted to be outside. We all had great dinners.

I always forget my camera on days like these, so even though pictures were taken, they weren't mine, so no pics to look at of our celebrations.

The stay limit at the lake is 10 days per calendar year. When we first started coming to the lake, we could stay 10 days in December and 10 days in January and the rangers didn't mind. Now, they are a little bit more stickier on the rules. Not sure why that is, I'm sure if we ever wanted to challenge it, we might win, only because of the wording of the signs on how long you can stay. 10 days per calendar year, doesn't that mean exactly what it says?

The ranger came around on the 1st to tell us our time was up and we told him we'd be leaving in the morning. He seemed okay with that, so come Monday morning, most of us had left, except the latecomers. We are now back at Gene & Kathy's, sitting in their driveway.

Gene always seems to have a garden of some sort going, this time it's tomatoes. I'm hoping he gets some red tomatoes before it gets too hot, because last summer it was just too hot for them.

Ron had to remove the wall, floor and ceiling of the radiator area




Right in the middle of our stay, we had to leave to have our levelers fixed and relocated. We didn't have to drive very far, thank goodness and while the rig was being worked on, we stayed at Gene & Kathy's house. Here are some pictures of what Ron had to do to get ready to have the levelers relocated behind the rear tires.

Me, Dee, Jan, (whose husband, Chuck, took this picture), Bill and Sue learning how to use LiveWriter from Jan

Thanks to a Boomer member for taking this picture - Our group who came to Christmas dinner

We Boomers always eat good!

Karen and Kris loading up their plates

All dressed up for Christmas

Ron and a friend. I wish I had gotten a pic of the back of his Santa shorts...

I forgot to mention that we attended a happy hour at another Boomer's rig right after we got to Yuma. It was to be heavy appetizers, then, we were going to watch the Christmas parade just a few blocks away. After the parade, which we got to see pass by twice, we walked down one of the streets in the neighborhood, called Christmas street during the holidays because almost all the neighbors dress up their yards, RV's and houses for the holidays. Unfortunately, the only pictures we took were of the happy hour, no parade or house & yard pics. But, for those of you who live somewhere other than southern Arizona, the parade consisted of lots of dune buggy's, Jeeps, golf carts and other odd vehicles all dressed up with lights, music and decorations. Even our own party had all manner of blinking lights on ourselves. Shoot, we could have been part of the parade, too!

We parked right next to the canal



View of Lake Mittry from where we were parked

The annual get together at Lake Mittry for Christmas and New Years was fast approaching, so on Dec 22nd, we drove out to the lake to meet other Boomers who were already there. We had a rather small group this year for Christmas, but, it was great. The weather couldn't have been more accommodating, warm and clear and no wind, that is always a plus. We even got visitors who have property in the Foothills, who came out to join us for dinner and a good time was had by all.

At Gene & Kathy's house

While we were at the park, Jeanne & I attended line dancing classes, we all attended a couple of dinners and an auction. I got a real nice amulet bag for a good price plus some other things.

Once we left there, we headed straight for Yuma, where we parked with our friends' Gene & Kathy. They own a lot in the Foothills and we park in their driveway when we're in town. It was nice to see they had a real nice sized tree in their house, it smelled so good. It's kind of hard having a tree when we all live in RV's, I know Kathy was thrilled she could enjoy it this year.

Ron, me, Jack & Jeanne

January 4, 2011

Happy New Year, everyone!!! I, as usual, am waaay behind in getting our blog up to date. I tried just a few days ago, when I went to a gathering of a few friends to learn how to write up an article with LiveWriter.com. Well, I downloaded the program, wrote up the article I wanted to post and it wouldn't upload....so, I'm back to square one with this post. I will try something different later, but, right now, I want to get you up to date on what we've been doing lately, since we left our friends in Texas.

After we left Texas on Nov 29th, we spent one night each at The Ranch SKP park near Lakewood, NM and Dreamcatcher SKP park in Deming, NM. A cold snap had come through and since we were in higher elevations, it was cold, so we just wanted to get to Benson to stay at Saguaro SKP park to visit Boomer friends. By the time we got there, the cold snap had gone away and the weather was excellent the whole week.

We mainly visited with our friends, Jack & Jeanne, who were having a casita built. It wasn't quite done when we got there, but, one of the days the flooring got put in the living area, so we broke it in by having a card game. This is the picture Jeanne took of us playings pegs and jokers.