sunset over Tonapah!

a location re-visited

OK I’m a tad bit disappointed, I know things change but you want them to change for the better not the worse. I went so far as to go into the Tombstone Visitors Center and give them a piece of my mind as to what they have done to this sweet little town. They were quite interested in the fact that we got married here some 37 years ago and asked a lot of questions. Think they were just appeasing me, but so what.

The nice folks in the visitors center did tell us of a lady by the name of Lorraine who had a small eatery and that was born in Tombstone. Well we went and met Lorraine and her brother Tom who own this little coffee shop kinda place. They remembered just what we both did some 37 years ago. We had the name of a certain Saloon wrong but we knew where it was. Anyhow it was good to talk with folks that agreed with our assumptions.

Miss Lorraine did say that they just recovered from Wyatt Earp Days that was held over the long Memorial Day weekend. And in the Fall is Helldorado Days. She said people come from all over the world to see the historic Tombstone.

I made the mistake of telling a friend about the movie Tombstone with Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer and that hunky Sam Elliot. Now I had no idea that it was rated R and her son couldn't watch it. I honestly think that it was because of the violence, may R because of the huge inaccuracies, cause there were a bunch. But it was still good.

The photos we took of Tombstone area years ago are packed away in storage so I have nothing to show you. But now it is touristy and junked up with t-shirt shops and trinkets. Sorta picture a small Key West that's dusty.

The above photo is of the Crystal Palace Saloon...which was also the Golden Eagle Brewery built in 1879. What better place for us to have a marriage reception in a former brewery. The inside of the Crystal Palace is gorgeous with it's heavy mahogony wood bar and back bar that runs the whole.

It was nice to go back it really was. We are headed to Lake Havasu city to get a big ass fuel tank attached to Big Ass Louie.....stay tuna'd

roadside vision....

We’re still here…

Not a lot of connectivity in the Western part of Texas. Just a long road to go thru Texas. First out of San Antinio is the beautiful Hill Country. Then a bit of stretch of the uglies.. We are traveling Interstate 10 so it is taking us way south. Most of this area we have never been thru. with the exception of I10 thru El Paso. Made that trek when we moved to Connecticut, that trip could be another ten blogs.

So we have gone from on over nite stop at the Comanche Land RV Park. Now don’t let the name RV Park fool ya cause it wasn’t. However it did have hook-ups, electric, water and cable, all for a whopping 10$. We couldn’t run our generator all nite for 10 bucks what with the cost of gas.. Remember it was just west of Ft Stockton, which equals West of NOWHERE!!!

Sunday was in the lovely area of Las Cruces, New Mexico RV park was the Hacienda Resort.

View from our patio

Cute little old lady walking her puppy who looks just like her

Followed the suggestion of the RV park manager on dinner spot and boy are we glad we did. Allende something or other was a true Mexican style restaurant and damn good. I had a soft pork taco plate which consisted of the best pork, chopped onion, cilantro, and plenty of lime.

Also included was a small cup of beans in a wonderful sauce. Husband ordered the green chile verde plate, which consuisted of a taquito/flauta, a cheesey enchilada, green chile verde that was to die for in arich sauce. And a very large chile relleno that husband found a bit spicy to his liking, however I didn’t so we traded. The batter on the relleno was light and fluffy and yes a bit spicy, but oh so good.

Landing in Tucson shortly. We will be motoring down to Tombstone, which is the scene of the crime some 37 years ago...........so definitely stay tuna'd

It is Memorial Day isn't it?

After we landed in Las Crusces, NM on Sunday we popped a beer and settled down to watch the end of the race, Indy 500. Sorry the three ladies didn’t fair as well as I hoped. But they did make history. Nice to see cutie Dario Franchitti win…congrats to him.

Anyway once that was over we were flipping around and came upon a PBS program about WW II Veterans and what they went thru. Seems as though the host had followed these five men for many years and kept tabs on them. Very un-assuming men that made a huge, I mean huge contribution to the United States and their fellow countrymen.

My Father was a veteran of World War II. He was a SeaBee in the Navy. Hunky husband was in the Air Force during Vietnam as was my dear darling brother-in-law. BIL father was in World War II….so a special thank you to these four men,

Daddy, Mr Doodles, Mr D and Grandpa C……thank you!!!

greetings from San Antonio

San Antonio……beautiful……..RV park right on the river! Enjoying the river walk area and headed to see the Alamo and the San Antonio Missions of San Jose. Also looking forward to some good Tex-Mex food. I see a couple of dinning reviews in the future for PBE

It rained quite hard yesterday and thru the nite....which I thought would slow our touristy events down today. But there are some brighter moments ahead around noon so no biggie.

Well we sure did luck out with the weather Gods – thank you very much. Did the whole River Walk walking as well as the Alamo. Which as Mr Doodles says “ it sure is a lot better than it was 40 years ago.” Very well done and the tour was great.

Ate at a cute little Mexican eatery called Casa Orio…I’ll do a brief review over on PBE after I get over my 40 ounce margarita…YUM!

Found it very interesting walking around the Downtown area of San Antonio where the River Walk and the Alamo are located, there are a lot of information folks dressed in uniform asking you do you need directions, or any help? That is very nice. Also saw a lot of people, city workers I’m sure, with brooms sweeping the sidewalk and picking up any trash….quite impressive.

OK headed to West Texas today and we are gonna see how far we can get hopefully 300 + miles and that would be around Ft Stockton. Certainly not a booming metropolis but that much closer to the Pacific time zone.

I put some photos up of My Flickr if ya wanna go peak.

Remember the Alamo

Beautiful San Jose Mission

simple observations

First off - very special Birthday wishes to my beautiful Niece.
We will certainly celebrate when we are all together...........

Happy Birthday

My Sweet lil bird!!!

It’s interesting traveling the highways of the US…you notice funny things like the cleanliness of rest areas. So far Mississippi gets the highest grade. The MS rest area was also an information center, built to look like an old southern mansion. Had very friendly folks inside handing out cold drinks, if wanted, and in return they wanted to know how many in you group and where you are from. That stumped me cause I didn’t know what to tell them, for the time being I’ll say Florida.

Cruising down the highways you become aware of drivers and the lack of courtesy. I’m talking about 4 wheelers now. Drivers seem to have an oblivious attitude to anyone else on the road and of course many of them are talking on their damn cell phones going 80 mph while entering the highway…amazing. So do me a favor next time you see an 18 wheeler or a truck pulling a fifth wheel trailer be more aware and get your ass over and make room.

Oh one more thing there seems to be a big push in the states that we have gone thru on seatbelt safety….click OR ticket they are say. Please don’t tell me you drive without your seatbelt buckled up…stay tuna’d

Louisiana roads SUCK!!

but other than that things are going along quite well.

Left Biloxi yesterday a.m. after touring around the Gulfport/Biloxi area. No I didn't win any money but I didn't lose any either, so came away OK.
Mr Doodles was stationed in Biloxi while in the Air Force, well that was a bajillion years ago, and obviously things have changed quite a bit since his eleven month stay here. But he did say that there were some gorgeous olde mansion on the gulf road, over looking the gulf. They are all gone, as are all the businesses along that boulevard.

We did go into a casino, the Beau Rivage, my they did a wonderful job getting that back up and running. It's as nice as any smaller casino in Vegas. Anyway.........we thoroughly enjoyed our stay at Majestic Oaks RV Resort. Lovely people that own it, would recommend it highly. with lovely gardenia bushes outside our RV door next to the patio area designated for each RV.

The photo below is for my seester ;)

If ya get a chance though write to your congressional dope and tell him to please alot some $ to Louisiana. They are spending all their money on Katrina re-build and ignoring the interstates.

San Antonio...........next stop...stay tuna'd

spose this is one of the reasons gas prices are so high - Shell Oil has not spent one thin dime for the folks in this area...so if y'all are buying Shell gas remember where they are not putting their $$$









this is a lovely resort on Bilox Bay or I should say was a resort.














Picture this was a very lively drive-thru on the luscious white sand beach of Biloxi Bay.

three states in two days...

and Mr Doodles is driving, how cool is that!

Here we are in beautiful Biloxi, Mississippi. We both waved good-bye to Florida, when we crossed into Alabama. There happens to be a couple of casinos in Biloxi, so think I just might go see if I can try my luck and win some $$$ for fuel.

It has been great to hear from all of you….while still in the Panhandle, the air card for internet connection was quite slow so I didn’t get to get on. I am sure that will happen more often than not when in remote areas.

BTW Buddy is a great trailer cat…he has adjusted quite well.

OK more when we get a bit further on down the road……..stay tuna’d!!!

ps.......holy crap Mr Doodles just came it to invite me out to our lovely patio area and join him in a Corona. He is showing off because he put the awning out by himself. Remind me to tell y'all bout the first time we tackled the awning. It might just appear on funniest home videos...no kidding.

and they are off

At approximately 10 a.m. EST....May 17...the adventure has begun.......

Won't be checking email for a bit so if needed we are on the cell#

Wish us luck.....stay tuna'd

Okey Dokey...

Well it's raining...I never thought I would be happy to say that but happy we are. The interstate highways are open off and on.....sooooo, we are gonna do a couple a dry runs with Grace and Louie on Wednesday. And then if all goes well, and we foresee no problems we will head out on Thursday for our travels West.

Not only were we stranded because of fires and road closures, we are both stinkin sick with sinus infections and bronchitis. Oh and I am to have limited speaking for a few day....hahahaha. Just came from the Drs. both of us and are on 10 days of augmentum and some quite tasty cough medicine that is great with a tequilla chaser.

So thanks for all the phone calls and emails - much appreciated ya know.

Hot DAMN!!! stay tuna'd..........

please standby...........

So when they say that over 200 fires are burning in 57 of 67 counties in the State of Florida........doesn't look like we be leaving anytime before Wednesday or even later.

Waiting to inhale

If this wasn't so tragic for the State of Florida because of ALL the vegetation and wildlife that will be lost.........I could turn the last few weeks into a sitcom, I know FOX would buy it.

Yep we are/were affected by smoke and wind. We were going to try to get outta here Saturday........maybe Sunday but looks more like Monday.
Y'all are just getting tired of hearing about our impending departure I spose. Well pray for rain and we can get on with it. The fire fighters do not need people of the roads clogging things up. Around our area it was so bad they closed the roads cause there were so many accidents. FHP went so far as to call the Governor who said close em...that's probably what they will do to some portions of 75 North of us if in fact they haven't done that already.
Yesterday I had to drive thru some smoke and at a distance you could see the shooting flames. Makes hurricane damage pale in comparison I do believe. Smoke has been horrific.

Guess this is the blue tarp saying a fond farewell to us. They really didn't have to go to all this trouble. Gosh I just heard on the news that there are only 220 ground fires here in the state eeeekkk!!! Only good thing is no loss of life and very few structures. But the firefighters are really having a hard time of it. Who would wanna build thousands of feet of a fire barrier in this heat and humidity. Then get the derned things just barely contained, nite time comes, the winds whip up and there they are back at it again even bigger in some places.
Stay tuna'd ... because we do have every good intention of becoming Nomads!

the dopes are everywhere......

Lordy, lordy what are we gonna do? We got the Texan in office being a dope along with all his other co-horts - now they are importing dopes to run for the present spot.

I sent each and every one of them an email saying could ya just concentrate on the development of wind energy and alternatives and don't be doing your drilling offshore.


We can't let them do this can we ??? Here's another one

A quick update...

For those interested = we have been on delay an/or hold for a couple of days. The fires here in our charred state have kept us from completing the tasks of wiring the RV. It was so blasted smokey you could not see 20 ft. in front of you. And breathing that gunk is even worse. Even Buddy, the cat, was bothered by the smell. Mr. Doodles feels like crap and has a horrible cough, and because of that not sleeping well. But he persists on his scheduled tasks, albeit a tad behind schedule.

The problem with these fires is what it is burning, singed maleluca trees are quite very bad for breathing and that is the primary here in our area. Happy to say no homes have been devasted by this latest in our area. Now I can't say that about every one of the 220 +/- ground fires burning in the state of Florida.

So it seems that we are not leaving on the scheduled Thursday or Friday BUT Saturday or Sunday is looking pretty good.

Now want something to cheer ya up? Go look at my sisters latest art work

stay tuna'd.....

Wedded bliss

So the coupling of Grace, the RV and Louie, the truck was consumated today at 10:30 a.m. est. The happy couple were rather glistening in the morning sun, as it rained like hell last nite. But they fit together just like a PBJ sandwich.

So now we start loading and wiring, and futzin as only Norm knows how to do. Only problem that we see at this very moment is they forgot to wire the satellite hook-up for the bedroom TV. The living room was completed, but it appears the sales dope let another item slip thru the cracks. I see a letter written to him in the future. But right now we are concentrating on getting outta here.

See those Nike kinda woosh deals on the side of the RV, those are decals, and we are going to change the colors of them to coordinate a bit better. Blue is not the choice color for our taste and it would appear to make it more of a custom look. And no I have not started painting inside yet. Don't think I will untill we live in it for a year and see how it all grows on me. Y'all know Norm doesn't care as long as it's clean and comfy.

My sweet seester wrote in her blog about our impending departure headed West. And I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am that we are going to be closer in miles than we have been in God knows how long. And throw in the added bonus of my brother-out-law, my sweet niece and her hunky bunky, and my Dad's wife who I love to bits and not to mention the three pups.......wonder if they realize that Cousin Buddy, the cat is included in this package. Well we just will never allow them to co-mingle.

So look for the Gypsy Caravan at an RV park near you cause ya never know where we are gonna turn up......stay tuna'd

The truck that draws a crowd

I am not kidding! Here is a brief explanation of our day yesterday. I will leave out all the curse words and ill feelings we had, but you will get the picture.

We drive up yesterday to pickup the RV and trailer land about 100 miles north of us. Now as a side note we ordered and PAID FOR this RV two months ago. It took two months for the blasted truck to get here...see other blogs on that subject. Anyhow, this is the grand day to couple Louie, the truck with Grace the RV. And ya know we are excited and apprehensive from the get go, it's normal.

The place we purchased the RV from is very well known and has ectremely highly rated customer service. We did our homework before purchasing this RV.

So we get there and the plan is for the service dudes to install the RV hitch in the bed of the truck. That went with out a hitch ... HAR!!! And while that was happening we were to get our meet and greet with folks we will probably never see again, and then get a walk-thru in the RV. Walk-thru meaning a thorough education on how to handle and take care of this RV, we now call Grace, that is going to take several hours. We had the very best fellow to do this, knowledgable, answered all our questions and to make it even better he is a huge drag racing fan.

So now it's 8:30 am and we are delivering Louie, the truck, to the service department dudes to do the hitch install, we pull into the bay, get out and there are at least ten service techs standing there drooling. A couple of them applauded when we got out. I thought this is one hell of a welcoming committee! NOT they were all there to see this damn truck.

Now jump to late that day. we are on our way the hundred miles home without said RV, Grace, and I ask husband to pull into the rest area so I could make a pit stop. As I am getting out of the truck I look up and here comes a Ford Explorer, the exact same color as Louie, the copper. The guy saw us on the freeway and wanted to see the truck, he is a truck nut and had read about this new engine and wanted to see it.
I ghot out of the truck and started laughing, husband had no idea what was going on. I said look honey our Louie looks like he had a baby !

So suffice to say, if in fact this happens while we are traveling, look for us in your area a few days later than originally planned...............stay tuna'd !!!

Oh and I will more than likely write about the Grace issue of yesterday, however the blood pressure needs to subside a bit.

As promised.........

Here's Louie...........is he just the cutest little thing you have ever seen.

21 ft long, 6 wheels, eats diesel and we are well on our way.

stay tuna'd..........

ta da.........

Louie Louie, oh no
Me gotta go
Aye-yi-yi-yi, I said
Louie Louie, oh baby
Me gotta go

Those are the words to Louie, Louie by the Kingsmen........actually those are just some of the words........the rest of them are all in question. It's funny the conflict that encircles this odd song.

So let me cut to the chase..........the truck is here and we are on our way to get the little guy, well Big A** truck that we now have named Louie.

So stay tuna'd cause I got a ton to tell y'all...............

Let's take it on outa here now
Let's go!!