Saturday

Another first, got up early and had breakfast at the hall.  Pancakes, bacon, eggs, a great way to start the day.  It was a smaller than usual group for breakfast, but lots of our friends were there, so that made up for it.  No Marg didn't go for breakfast, it's not really her thing. 
  We had to hang around today as it was furniture delivery, so we spent most of the morning on the phone with either Mediacom or Tracfone trying to sort out our issues.  Marg re-arranged cupboards and found the perfume and cheque book she thought were lost.  We were pretty worried about the cheques, but it turned out that when she looked through suitcases again found them. I think she was more worried about the perfume, as it is a pretty swish one.  The TV went out again for a while and Marg is still getting dozens of text messages from people we don't know.  I think the TV is just the HD channels and that is why it's hard to diagnose.  Lots of visitors as there were still some people we had not seen, like Karen & Christine.  Karen stopped in because Marg had indicated she would help out with Christmas functions if anyone wanted.  Well Karen is looking after the party next week and saw Marg's facebook posts on baking, so they discussed what has to be done next week for party favours.

  Just around noon the delivery truck came and we got the lawn chairs out of the living room.  Then a bunch stopped in to see what we had purchased.  She picked pretty well, because it all fit and I mean just as the space is really limited in the trailer.  The loveseat is a single hide-a-bed and the two chairs are wall-away, to they all conserve space.

  After lunch we went out; Marg to Bells and me to Ace Hardware, they are in the same shopping complex, really handy.  Picked up some more stuff, me mostly repair stuff and some pest barrier to spray on the patio out back.  Trying to cut down the ant population.  I was going to get a pressure valve for the hot water tank, but it turns out there are 3 or 4 sizes, so that will give me an opportunity to go there again.  Also got a surge protector for the TV, DVD & all the junk Mediacom hooked up.
  Back for happy hour and our crowd was really small today.  Only 5 guys, but the women were there in numbers.  After we had our first bbq, turns out I had left propane in the tank and we were good to go.  We still had not done much of a grocery run, but had a good dinner with what was on hand.  Then went out to Basha's.  The girls discuss things like good deals and Basha's had a special on T-bone steaks, for this weekend only.   Ended up with a rain check, so it will be a return trip to there tomorrow.  They had a special on beer, but I thought I would get it tomorrow when I return.  Then back to Walmart where she bought a cart full of groceries, so we are set now.  Also picked up a few other things, but forgot to put more time on our main phone, so that means a trip back there tomorrow.  There price on beer was better than Basha, thankfully I waited.  Hey beer went up this year, it is $15 for a box of 30 cans.  Gee we really messed up today, every trip needs a return visit, and us so busy --not.  Even thought beer went up a dollar for a box of 30, gas is down to $2.50 or so a gallon, so drive more drink less might be the message they are giving us.
  Stay tuned tomorrow will be really exciting.  We will probably get the stuff we went for today.

Friday

Well about yesterday.  Around 10:00pm Marg said she heard water running, but I couldn't locate any.  After much checking, I went out to look in the compartment where the hot water tank is.  Sure enough a pinhole leak had developed and water was spraying all over in there.  That in itself is not good, but the floors in these units are particle board and if you get them wet enough they turn to pudding.  I shut the water off as well as the heat element and we spent the night without water.
  First thing in the morning it was to Best hardware, where they are really helpful.  The plastic line that sprung the leak is the old style that is no longer acceptable and although they sell connectors, but not pipe, the guy said he would only sell it very reluctantly.  I already knew about the pipe from the reno's last year, so opted for a piece of pex and some alligator connectors.  I also had to buy another plastic pipe cutter, as my other one is at home.  On my return to the unit, I discovered I had bought the wrong size on one, so back to exchange it.  On my return I cut the lines and put the pieces together to discover I had created a worse leak than the original.  Turned out I had a faulty connector, so back to Best where they gave me a new one for free.  I also got a galvanized T to replace the elbow on the hot water tank and put a drain valve in.  All went together and it appeared to be a thing of beauty.  Well until the pressure release valve started dripping and I couldn't get it to stop.  But we have water and if it's still leaking tomorrow will probably replace it.  Had to borrow some wrenches to do the work and when I was out and about Jim & Beth gave me a present for our place.  Turns out it was sign he made that has our names on it.  Wonderful people.
  Spent the rest of the day putting up the window awnings and putting away some of the stuff in the Az room.  We had to stick around because Mediacom were coming to connect the TV & wifi.  Marg cleaned stuff and put other stuff away and we are getting pretty organized.  Quite a bit of visiting as well with some people we had not seen yet & Smitty stopped by for the willows I brought him.  He carves diamond willow & it's hard to come by where he is, while it grows in every wet spot where we are.  I also think she may have bought the furniture, from one of the stores we were at yesterday; 2 chairs and a love seat.  I believe it might be delivered tomorrow, so stay tuned, we will add pics.
  The Mediacom guys came and took a couple of hours, but did a pretty nice job on installation.  Everything seemed to be working, so gave them a $20 tip when they left.
  We had some time, so the manager had stopped in to tell me where I could park the trailer.  Pulled it in to the storage lot and locked it all up.  It's kind of neat as it is pretty close to where we are located, so we can keep an eye on it.
 By then it was time to go for happy hour, so we had to get over to the Jonhson's.  The group had thrown in a few bucks and we had pizza delivered.  There was lots and a good variety.  Kenny & Doris had made ice cream, which was our desert.  Lots of laughs.  Some new people in the park were invited and it was interesting to hear their reaction.  The comments are always about how friendly this park is.  One guy was explaining to me where he was from & where it is located - Victoria, until I told him I was a Canuck.  Pretty funny.
  Back to the trailer for some last minute stuff where we discovered neither the TV nor the wifi working.  Marg spent a bunch of time on the phone where they got the TV going.  They will be sending the guys out to fix the wifi on Sunday, turns out the install was not done correctly.  Marg tore a fair strip off of them and in the end said she thought tipping them was a serious error.
  The animal races started tonight, so that was our evening entertainment.  As luck would have it the elephant won the first race, so I was doing the victory dance.  In fact I won 5 out of 6 races.  Marg did pretty well as she won 3 of 6 races.  A fun time again as I likely made a fool of myself.  Oh well, they expect it of me.
  We're tired, so good night all!  ;>))

Thursday, December 4th

No post yesterday as we never had a connection, so will recap it for you.
  We got away from Vegas pretty early, as they are an hour later.  To us it was 7:30, but that was 6:30 local time.  As soon as we crossed the Colorado river we lost that hour again.  It rained pretty hard all morning, right through Kingman, almost all the way to Wickenburg.  We were fortunate to make the cut-off just south of there that took us over to highway #17, so we managed to miss all the traffic tie-ups in Surprise, Sun City, etc.  We arrived in Phoenix just after 2:00 & the 101 was really busy, pretty much bumper to bumper right to the 202 junction.  After that it was better and we got in to a car wash to clean off the truck and trailer, both of which were black after all the road grit and rain.  Pulled in to Carefree about 3:30 and passed the bunch we usually happy hour with & they were at it, trying to lure us over.  We no sooner stopped than we had a welcoming party, so it took quite a while to unload.  In fact the living room and bedroom were full of boxes, bags and various containers full of god knows what. 
  The place was in pretty good shape.  The carport was full of debris and spider webs, but inside was relatively clean.  Got about half of the stuff put away and visitors showed up to go to dinner.  Well we had to eat anyway, so off the Village Inn with 9 others.  Wouldn't you know it, free pie night, so the place was bumper to bumper with old folks -- anything free is a big attraction.  Nice dinner and back to the unit where we continued to sort through stuff.  Parked my trailer with only the Rhino left in it behind the shop and called it a day.  Rained all night and into the morning.  Larry said he had an inch in his rain gauge.  It doesn't rain often in the desert, but when it does, it doesn't soak in, rather it ponds and runs everywhere.
  First night in the park model and I slept like I was in a coma.  Marg was up by the time I woke and it was 8 already.  Had to hustle to get in my shower in as it was Thursday AM, you know coffee and donuts at 8:45.  Got hugs and welcomes from a the group, everyone kept saying -- welcome home.
  By noon the rain quit and by the end of the day you could barely tell it rained.  After coffee we started our errands.  First stop the bank, we had a draft to deposit and my PIN on my debit card didn't work again.  The very nice bank guy said if cuts out after about 3 or 6 months.  Well I only use it about once every 2 or 3 years, so ....  Anyway he got me going again.
  Then off to Mediacom to get TV & internet service.  Got a better deal than last year and they are coming to connect us tomorrow.  This creates another problem, can't connect us without a TV set.
  Went out looking for furniture.  Marg got everything put away, so time to get more stuff, I guess.  Marg wanted to try the orphanage store first and we didn't find anything there.  They sure have a lot of furniture stores here, and we went to lots, looking for recliners and a love seat.  There are lots, but they are: too firm, too soft, wrong colour, wrong shape, wrong kind, wrong material.  We have a pretty good idea what we don't like now.  We did manage to get a TV - 32 inch Samsung as that is all the room we have, so now they can hook it up.  We also got a DVD player, they are so cheap now, they must be getting ready to phase that media out.  Also got the SIM card and rate card for the second cell phone and got it working.  This time I did it myself, called the 800 number and got it all going.  Bought a one year card, so this will let us keep the number from year to year & not have to do this again.
  Got back in time for happy hour.  There are some new people there.  One lady, Rita is from Grande Prairie - now this is a small world.  Nice to spend some time with old friends and make new ones.
  By that time it was dinner time, so off the Dirtwater Café.  Usually great food, but the menu changed from last year and it was OK, but not like last year.
  And that's the kind of day it was.

December 2nd

Made a serious error yesterday giving Marg a hard time about sleeping late on the first day.  She was up and about at 6AM, I finally got up at 6:30.  There is a real note to self learning experience here. 
  Anyway we had a breakfast at the hotel.  It was pretty good, scrambled eggs, sausage & all the other good stuff.  Then it was back to the room to pack the bags out to the truck again.
  We filled up and were on the road by 7:30 AM.  For some of you this may be no big deal, but for us it is a major accomplishment.  Traffic leaving Pocatello was light and roads were dry, so we made pretty good time.  In fact we got to Salt Lake City by about 9:30 and traffic coming in to the City was pretty heavy.  It thinned out by the city centre and the last half was pretty light, so all in all a good time to get through.  I think it was about an hour to get through to the south end.

  About an hour out of there I got a migraine, so Marg drove to Scippio where we stopped for lunch.  When I said - well you can't accuse me of not feeding you lunch today, her reply was that technically it was her to brought us in for lunch.  I can seen I'm not going to win that one.  LOL  After lunch I drove and it rained off & on all the way to Las Vegas.  We just waved as we went through St George, our usual stop-over. We never see anyone we know on the highway, so it was a real surprise when Pat & Diane Taylor passed us just after lunch. 
  In fact it rained quite heavy in Vegas where we had to manipulate our way from the I-15 freeway to the 515 that goes east.  This is usually a tricky connection, but as luck would have it we made it there during rush hour. I was really dreading it, but we lucked out with getting a break in to both merge areas and blasted right along in the dark and rain.  At the end of the day we made 958 km's today. 

  Went to the East Side Cannery where we got a really nice room.  We have stayed there before, probably some of the nicest rooms in Vegas.  Went to the buffet for supper, our first buffet of the winter and it was good.  Played a few hands of black-jack but got picked clean.  Marg did a little better on the slots, but alas they managed to get it all back.
  We are now 2,881 km's from GP & expect to make AJ tomorrow.  There is some rain forecast for tomorrow, hopefully not heavy.

December 1st

Nice room and we were sure tired.  Slept pretty soundly, but were up and about early.  Got off to an early start after a nice hotel breakfast. We were on the road by about 7:30 and traffic in to Calgary was heavy.
  We took the Stony Trail and it was much better than going thru on the Deerfoot trail.  It takes off at the north end and came out at the south end just before the Bow river.  There was a bit of a delay because of heavy traffic around 16th Ave, but it was pretty good.
  The highway driving lanes were dry and the temp just below the freezing mark.  It was very windy and when we got down further south, especially around Ft McCloud this made for a ground blizzard.  In places it was really hard to even see the road.

  Made it through Lethbridge in good time and the highway south to the border was more of the same, wind.  Stopped in at the duty free where Marg got her cigs and I got a bottle of Macallan scotch, that will get sampled shortly. 

  Made it through the border crossing at Sweetgrass Montana with no problems.  They wanted to know what was in the trailer & when I told them the Yamaha Rhino and the dog sniffed us, we were waved through.

  Roads were dry and travel was good except for the wind.  Drove the Deer Park pass south from Helena to Butte.  Usually don't go this way, but the interstate was in good shape.  By the time we got south of Butte we were losing the light and we crossed through the dreaded Monida pass in the dark.  Discovered there was some kind of strobe beacon like they have at airports on the summit, so it was educational as well.

  When we got out of the pass we thought we were home free, but not so lucky.  It turned out they had freezing rain about an hour prior to our arrival.  Our first notice of it was a van that rolled a few times in the median and all the police activity around it.  Until that time we had been blasting along at 110 Km/hr.  On slowing down, discovered we were on a black ice skating rink.  Took it easy for about 15 miles where it turned into rain without the ice and made good time the rest of the way to Pocatello.  A total of 1,204 KM's today and that was enough.

  Checked in to the Best Western we have stayed at in the past and then over to Appleby's for dinner.  If you follow us, this will sound like a familiar pattern.  Some new things there: like the Honker Ale I tried and you can self order appy's at the table using a digital pad.  Pretty cool.

 

Day One of the journey south - Nov 30th

Got a bit of a late start.  The roads were great except for about 30 km south of Lil Smoky where it was badly rutted with solid ice and the un-sanded hill at 2 Creeks where the trailer wanted to go first. The trailer is tracking fine and tows pretty well, although a bit heavily loaded.
  The truck pulling the trailer with the Rhino is turning out to be a gas guzzler.  A bit of a surprise as it is normally pretty good.  Will have to see if that doesn't settle down.  Too late to worry about it now.
  Got to Edmonton just after lunch and had a nice visit with mother.  She was having an off day, but was cheered up pretty good by the time we left.  Because of the terrible roads, we were not making good time, so our visit was short.  She was pretty understanding, it was good we stopped in.
  Made it out of the city in pretty good time taking the Capilano down to Argyll and then out the trail.  Stopped for fuel at the airport as it is usually priced pretty well.  By then it was starting to get dark, so we drove on to Airdrie in the dark  This made about 750km's today,  Had to push it a bit as we need to get through Montana tomorrow with the forecast we are seeing for Tuesday and beyond.  Speaking of forecast, it the temp was lower in GP, but with the wind it felt colder in Edm and here in Airdrie.
  Supper tonight was Boston Pizza and was pretty good.  I had the butter chicken and it is usually not as spicy as it was tonight.  In fact it was hotter than Marg's Buffalo wings.
  Comfort Inn tonight, nice room. We filled up before pulling in, so tomorrow we can get out in time to enjoy rush hour in cowtown - the 2015 Grey Cup Champions.  We debated going on through tonight, but it was about 7pm and we had enough for today, we are seniors and in no great hurry other than to get someplace warmer.

The Journey begins

Well tomorrow anyway.  We will start the journey south in the coldest weather to date.  Yesterday it was the coldest place on planet earth.  We are full of trepidation, but anxious to make our way south with the rest of the snowbirds.  Stay tuned as we once again report on our otherwise uneventful life.