We left Yuma on April 17th, going first to San Diego to stay at our membership park for a week to visit with friends and family, then it was up to Riverside area to visit more friends and family. We were going to stay a week, but, needed some maintenance done to the bus up in Oak Hills, (near Victorville), at Charlie & Lynn's house, they are members of our bus club. Good thing we went up there, because Charlie found some more stuff that needed to be fixed. We had a good four days up there, visiting, four wheeling, eating together and another friend of ours, Margie came up on Monday afternoon to spend one night. So now our brakes are adjusted, we got new oil and filters, as well as fan belts and new bearings to run the fan pulley.

We are now in Las Vegas, got here last Wednesday and will be pulling out this Wednesday for an overnight stop at the Cedar City KOA. As KOA workampers, we can get vouchers to stay at KOA's on the way up to our jobs, so we picked Cedar City because we want to look it over in case we might want to work there next summer. It is near Bryce & Zion Nat'l Parks. Don't know how hot it gets there, don't want to be too hot, that summer in Blythe was enough HOT for us!

Taking the glass out

We FINALLY got new eyebrow windows for our bus a few days ago. If you'll remember, they were damaged in that hail storm we were in last May while enroute to our visit our friends in Texas. Ron spent

Inside looking out, no window!

one morning calling all around and it seems no one cuts their own glass anymore. Finally, he found one, they came right out, looked at it, measured them and told us they would be back in an hour, take our windows out, using them as their pattern and cut them out on the spot, which they did.

Cleaning out the tracks prior to installing the new glass

They did a great job! Now, all we need is to get them tinted, but, that may have to wait until we get back to Yuma in Nov/Dec. No matter, we'll probably want all the bright light we can get into our coach in the cold north.

We met our good friends, Dan & Jenny, (they live a few blocks away from us in Yuma), we both got up here on the same day. Had a few nights of cards, eating out at one of the casinos and a dip in the pool. They left a couple days ago to have some maintenance done on their rig up in Utah. We may get together with them when we get to Salt Lake City on Thursday.

 When we leave here, I'll be taking pics, as we've only been north on I-15 once before, back in '09. Once we leave I-15 at Idaho Falls and start heading north on Hwy 20, that will be all new territory for us.

We spent about a week visiting with Ron & Carol, then, moseyed on down the road, headed towards San Diego, with overnight stops in Visalia, just for one night, a week stop in Menifee at the Thousand Trails to visit friends and relatives and a couple weeks at the Thousand Trails in the San Diego area, spending Thanksgiving with family. We finally made it home to Yuma before the end of November.

Over Christmas we decided to go out to Lake Mittry, which is about 20 miles away, with fellow Boomer travelers. Before we left the house, we had Boomer friends, Chuck & Jan, staying in our driveway, they were on their way to the Rose Parade in Pasadena, CA, to help with the floats. They were staying until the day after Christmas to attend the dinner out at the lake.

Christmas morning, Chuck was watering our trees when he heard the hot water heater running and thought it was a bit odd, since we weren't home. He called Ron and told him, "I think you have a problem." So, Ron left the lake and came home to check it out. As he walked around the front windows of the mobile, he saw condensation dripping down, thinking, "uh oh, this doesn't look good!". Sure enough, there was standing water in the bathroom, hallway and into the bedroom carpet. The pipe going into the shower burst and water was flowing out of the bottom of the cabinet and onto the floor. Ron turned the water off, kind of wiped

How it looks under our floors

up a bit, not realizing we could have called the insurance 24 hours a day to report the problem. Instead, he came back out to the lake to tell me what happened. The next morning we both went

Water damage in pantry and half of kitchen

back to check out the damage. Of course, by the time we got there, all the water had disappeared into the floor, down the heater ducts & into the flooring under the carpeting. Another friend,

A whole different view of our bathroom

Gene, came over with his extractor and got as much water out of the carpet as possible, then, we pulled up the carpeting and put the fan on it to blow to dry out the floor. Ron called the insurance companyand they gave

Putting the cement board down

Ron the number to call a local restoration company to come out.

We decided when we got back out to the lake, we would just come home the next day and take care of getting the flooring fixed, which is what we did. Ron decided instead getting someone else to re-do the plumbing, he would do it himself and save a ton of money. So, while the

Friends, Troyce & Lisa visiting with us

restoration guys were doing their thing, Ron was doing his thing. The whole project to get our house back to the way it was before the flood was about a month and a half.

We are very pleased with how everything came out. We decided to upgrade the flooring and installed tile throughout the whole mobile and now it looks bigger inside and it's very easy to keep clean, that's for sure.

We did make it up to Quartzsite for our annual bus rally, it was very small this year, smaller than normal, the weather probably had something to do with it, as it was colder than normal. Both Ron & I were sick, so we didn't go out much and socialize except at the dinners. We should have stayed home, but, Ron was determined to go...I felt so awful that I didn't even visit any of the vendors and this is probably the first time I haven't gone to Hardies bead shop in years.

We usually join the Boomer rally during the second week, but, as we still had workers coming over to the house doing things, we felt we needed to go back home. Wouldn't you know, this particular year, since the weather was too cold to do much of anything outside, most of the activities at the Boomers was the second week, so we missed it all, drat!!!

Here in Yuma, we've been having our normal get togethers at each other's houses, Wed movies & dinner afterwards, card games, etc. We're starting to wind down the winter

Roadrunner on our back wall

season, getting excited about leaving for our next workamping adventure in West Yellowstone. Our departure date has been pushed to the middle of April, as we plan on taking our time getting up there, staying at some of our Thousand Trails parks on the way. Sitting here in mid March, dealing with 90 degree temps, I just can't wrap my head around having snow on the ground! We'll probably have our heater on more than anything else, doubt if we'll even need our air conditioning there, as we'll be up at 6600 ft. But, being around that beautiful area for the entire summer is going to be wonderful.

Ho hum, it seems I am always apologizing for being behind in my posts, as I am now. Here we are, at our place in Yuma and it is in late February and this poor old blog is stuck somewhere in October at the pumpkin patch. Sooo, I will attempt to get us up to date! The reason I am doing this now is because we are going to have another adventure this summer when we go to work at West Yellowstone KOA in mid May, so I need to get this updated, so I can share with you our adventures on our way up to the park, when we leave here April 1.

When I left you last, I wanted to include a few more pics of our

The rabbits, not babies anymore

animals, so here is the rest of the story.....Hazel was added to our group of goats because she was

Hazel, Iris and Levi

older and liked to be petted in the hopes that the younger ones

Ron scratching the pig's belly

would get the idea that petting is nice! It did work after awhile, in fact, Levi learned to like it a lot, even little Iris finally came to understand

The chicks getting their feathers

that being petted wasn't bad at all.

We are finally done with our pumpkin patch and very happy

Ron riding his horsey

to be wandering once again. I do miss the sweet little goats, as well as the pigs and their funny antics, BUT, I don't miss

Everybody trying to pile in!!!

cleaning up after them!!! I have a few parting shots of the last days we were there. One of the days, I went into the animal pen with the wagon so I could spread

The pigs are almost as big as the wagon, now!

some clean hay for them. As soon as I emptied the wagon, all of the goats tried to jump in the wagon and one of the pigs almost made it, too. They were so silly! Hazel,

This head is ready to be replaced

the oldest one was trying to chew the side of the wagon, because it was plastic and I gave a ride to Levi, until I got to the gate and then made him get out.

Standing out from where the bus is parked and the patch is waaaay down there....

A few days before we closed for

Looking  back at the bus

the season, we had a customer who works at a small swine

Getting closer...

sanctuary, although, they do have the full sized ones, too. She told us a pig will do anything for raisins and if we throw a towel or some article of clothing into the enclosure, they will play tug of war, all day long. Well, we did find something to throw in there, but, it was too small for them to play tug of war, although they would grab hold of it and shake it around, just like a dog would do, it was so funny!

So, the big animals made us laugh and helped pass the long days when hardly any customers came in. The last day was pretty cloudy and few customers really came in to buy that many pumpkins. Our boss kept popping in from time to time to gather bales of straw, corn stalks, pumpkins and the animals when they had room. He was decorating his yard for his Halloween party that he throws every year for his neighbors and friends. Of course, we were invited too, if we wished to come.

Picking up the goats was no big deal and picking up the first pig wasn't too bad...until it came to getting the last pig. Finally, Ron went in there with the cage they came in and tried to coax it with some pig food. He got her close enough to the cage for the other two guys to surround her and put her in the cage. Our boss said it was the quietest and easiest transfer of pig to trailer he's seen. Unfortunately, during all the grabbing of animals, we didn't have our camera handy for pictures.

We left the lot for the last time on Thursday, the 1st of November and pointed the bus toward Sacramento. Now, we are parked at fellow Boomers, Ron & Carol Leonard's house to visit

A small hawk looking inside

for a few days. They also have a casita down in Yuma, not very far from where we live and it's nice to see their house up here, too.

Today, we drove to old town

Old train station

Sacramento to visit an old building the train depot is going to fix up with shops and such. They also have just

finished building new ramps to the different tracks going to various cities in California,

Inside the top floor

 which is all underground from the main train station. Looks

Ron, Carol, Ron & me

pretty nice.

After looking at that, we

Old Town Sacramento

walked over to the "Old Town" and walked around looking at

Inside Fat City

the shops and had lunch at Fat City. The lunch was delicious and since I wasn't able to have a drink on my birthday, I had something called a Godiva

YUMMY

Chocolate Martini, made with Godiva chocolate liqueur, dark creme de cacao, vanilla vodka and a splash of creme. As a bonus, they had Godiva chocolate sauce drizzled in swirls on the inside of the glass, yum, yum!!! I think it was the most expensive drink I've ever ordered, but, boy, was it good!

After lunch, we wandered into a salt water taffy store and bought some different flavors, then, went into a chocolate factory where Ron bought some dark chocolate almond bark and then, we all had some ice cream! Talk about a sugar rush!!!

Tomorrow, our friends will take us on a tour about their town as well as doing some other stuff, so I will wait to post about that.