Monday, December 7, 2009Happy Anniversary

Today is our 35th anniversary and all these years have just flown by.  Since we've been traveling over the past several it's going by faster and faster.

Sharon decided that today would be the day she would catch up on the laundry and took off early.  The Laundromat was about 4 sites away from ours so she got done pretty quickly.

We tried to find out if Sharon was right about a restaurant in Deming that was featured on Food Network's, Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.  She was asking around the campground and in the Laundromat and I searched the Internet.  We had no luck at all finding anything.  I did find about 150 other places from New York to LA to eat at though.

After lunch Sharon decided she wanted to Browse around K-Mart and Wal-Mart for awhile by herself so she left for awhile.  I asked her to pick up some Game Hens for supper tonight.

When she came back a couple of hours later she had the Game Hens but not much else.  She also picked up a couple of 2-liter bottles of Coke.  She said she couldn't find a thing she couldn't live without.

She put the Game Hens on for supper and then settled down to do some stitching   She's got the Biltmore House cross stitch that she's working on right now.  She picked it up this summer when we were in North Carolina.

After Dinner tonight we had the Packer game on ESPN and watched that until it was time to hit the mattress.  It was a good thing they won or else it would have been a miserable night.  After we went to bed the wind started blowing up a storm and it was necessary to put the slides in.  That occurred about 4 in the morning.  By morning the wind had subsided somewhat but it was going to blow all day.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Today is a "get-ready-to-go" day today, but with the wind blowing like it is outside I don't think much is going to be happening until tomorrow.  It's not a big deal but I do like to get ready to move on the day before.

We sat inside all morning until it was time for lunch.  There's a restaurant called "SI SEÑOR" downtown that looks like it might be a good one to go to.  We always have a hard time finding a good Mexican Restaurant in Deming, even though there are probably about a dozen of them.  It turned out to be very good food at a very reasonable price.  And they served Sopapillas with your meal.  Yum, Yum.

The wind blew all day and we never even attempted to put the slides back out until later on in the evening.  The wind seemed to be taming down a bit so that we could at least have our bedroom back.

Neither of us was hungry for supper so we both just nibbled on whatever was here.  Sometimes that turns out to be more than a meal.  It didn't tonight, but sometimes it does.

We hung in there watching TV until 10 tonight.  With the new DVR we don't miss any shows anymore.  If we don't see them when they're on, we'll see them the next day.  It works quite nice for a change.  Setting it up to receive signals is another thing.  I'm still having trouble getting to the right screens.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

After a couple of problems this morning we still got on the road at 9 Since I knew how much gas was at the Flying J in Lordsburg, we drove past the discount gas place in Deming on the way out to the highway.  The lights were off and the pumps were dark so we assumed that the place was closed.

We got on the highway headed toward Lordsburg and the Flying J.  We had no reason to stop on the way until we got there, but it was quite busy at the pumps.  By the time I finagled the motorhome and car into a pump, I noticed they had a red bag over the pump handle.  Flying J pulls this crap all the time, and we noticed on the way in that the Pilot up the street was selling gas for a penny more.  We left and went to the Pilot.  They not only lost a gas sale but the profit off two Breakfasts as well.  When we finished at Pilot Sharon noticed that we got the gas for the same price we could have gotten it for at Flying J.  I was more than Tickled Pink.  We got back on the highway until the next exit where we stopped at McDonald's for our Breakfast.

After Breakfast Sharon took the wheel for about an hour before we hit Tucson and then I took over again.  She offered to drive through Tucson but with the construction we run into every year it's sometimes a hassle to get through there.  This year however, there was no construction and it was smooth sailing all the way.  The extra lane they added last year thinned out the traffic nicely.

Along the way we noticed signs for a couple of truck washes and decided to take advantage of one of them.  For $35 we got the motorhome washed up nice and clean.  The truck wash was in Eloy, AZ about 10 miles from our campground so it was just a short jaunt to Casa Grande from there.

We called Mary and Jerry Milan when we got set up and arranged to meet them at the Elks for Supper tonight.  Wednesday is Burger and Beer night and we try to make it whenever we're in town.  They're Burgers are very good indeed.  And we always manage to wash them down with a couple of pitchers of suds.

We got back home just before 8 and settled in front of the TV for the night.  I had recorded a couple of early shows that we watched after CSI New York was over with at 9.  We crashed at our usual bewitching hour at 10.  It had been a tiring day to say the least.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

This really our first day here at Casa Grande.  We love this area along with the location of our home park in Desert Hot Springs, California.

When Sharon got up she decided to go for a walk.  I thought I could probably go with her at least for awhile.  We made it up one row of the park and I was done for the day.  My back wouldn't hold out at all.  I walked back home and Sharon continued on for the next half hour or so.  By the time she got back it was already starting to get warm out.  It's expected to get 58 degrees today, so we'll see.  It's been awhile since we've been in weather that warm.

We really didn't have anything special to do today so we mostly just sat around and watched TV and tried to get hooked up to the Internet with the Wi-Fi.  The system that they have here is notoriously terrible and it doesn't seem to have changed much in the past few years.  We didn't have any luck getting logged on so I went to the office to get a refund of the $28 I paid for the next 2 weeks.  The girl at the desk explained that I was probably logged onto the Wi-Fi at the wrong place.  We came back and tried again but we still couldn't get anything to work right.  I decided to wait until tomorrow morning to see if I could get it to work early in the morning.

I got our sewer and water hooked up today.  There was no hurry so I waited until today to do it.

Sharon made a Turkey Pot Pie for Supper tonight.  We had a can of cranberries to eat on the side.  It was very good and I have some leftovers to finish up in the next couple of days.

We settled in for TV for the rest of the night.  Thursday is a good night for TV.  And now with the DVR we won't miss the shows on the off channels either.  We can stay up until 10 but after that we start deteriorating quickly.  So we don't usually tempt fate by staying up late.

Friday, December 11, 2009

We got ready to go this morning with a mission in mind.  First of all we would stop by IHOP and taste those pancakes they've been advertising.  The pancakes came with the Eggs and Hash Browns meals so we couldn't taste all four but de did taste 3 of them.  They were all pretty good but the Hash Browns were excellent and out of this world.

After Breakfast we headed over to the Verizon Store in the Mall across the highway.  I wanted to check on the phone plan that Phil Bach told me about a couple of days ago for staying connected to the Internet.  After a "spotty" explanation of the plan the guy finally figured out what I was talking about.  It's not a regularly advertised plan, but it is a valid alternative to signing a 2 year contract.  By the time we left there we knew what we would do for our e-mail.  We just didn't know when.

After Verizon we went to Michael's to see if we could find some very wide Velcro to fix the shoulder harness that I received in the mail on Monday.  I need lengthen out the straps that hold it on.  We didn't find it there so we headed toward Wal-Mart to see if they had it.  They did and Sharon picked some up that was about 4 inches wide.

Next on our agenda was to go to th Post Office and see if my package from Jennifer had come into General Delivery.  It contains all our installation discs from the computer.  I forgot to take that CD Wallet from home, and if something happens to the computer I have no hope of fixing it.  Like I'd be able to fix it anyway.

We got a call from Mary and Dennis Ceshker who are up in Apache Junction for directions to get to our campground.  They'll be taking a ride down to Casa Grande to see us tomorrow.

I tried to find a Doctor when we got home but no luck.  I also called DirecTV and told them we never received the free Showtime that they promised us.  I took a little finagling but they finally relented and reset the programming.  So we'll have it now for 3 months.

When we got home we got a call from Mary Milan to see if we wanted to come over and see the sales presentation that was scheduled for 4 PM this afternoon.  We told her we'd be there, but the presentation didn't take place as scheduled.  In fact we waited an extra hour for another one and that didn't occur either.  We left and dropped by Burger King for a Fish Sandwich before we came home.

After getting back home we vegged in front of the TV for the rest of the night.  Fridays are notoriously bad for TV but we had a couple of other shows recorded.  Besides we only needed enough to watch to get us to 10 PM, the bewitching hour.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Today is the day that Dennis and Mary Ceshker, from Sparta, WI, are coming down from Apache Junction to spend the day with us.  This is their first winter away from home and they plan on staying in Apache junction for 3 months.  They're living in their 5th wheel there.

They arrived this morning about 9:45 and we sat and talked for a couple of hours before we even thought about going anywhere.  When we finally left we had decided to go to Olive Garden to have lunch.  It was the farthest restaurant from our campground so we took the two main streets of Casa Grande (Pinal and Florence) to get to lunch.  So we would kill two birds with one stone by taking the tour route to get there.

The Olive Garden was so busy at 12:30 that we had to wait to get a table.  But the food was well worth the wait, as usual.  We all had the Soup, Salad and Breadsticks and enjoyed it was delicious.  We had a very good waitress named Erandi.  Very unusual name and she was quite cute at the same time.  And with her personality she probably earns a ton in tips.

We came back home and sat outside for awhile and caught up on more conversation and talked about what we would do when we're together in about 10 days.  We'll be moving up to Apache Junction for 7 days just before New Year's.

The Ceshkers stayed til almost dark.  Actually it was at the end of the Marquette/Wisconsin Basketball game when they got in the truck and lit out.  It had been a very nice visit.

We settled in front of the TV for the night even though we were surfing to find something to watch.  Sharon was cross stitching most of the night, which kept her busy.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

We slept late this morning but as soon as Sharon got up she got ready and headed off to church.   She usually goes on Saturday night but we were tied up yesterday afternoon.

I stayed home and tried to get our e-mail collected to no avail.  The Wi-Fi at this  park is a piece of crap.  It always has been and it's getting worse.  They like to blame the slow service on people downloading movies and CD Music, but I'd like to see the guy who can actually do it on this system.  I can't get e-mail to come in and they're downloading movies?  I think not!  So we spent another day without e-mail.  I'm just hoping I can get my Journal published tomorrow morning.  It doesn't seem likely at this point.

When Sharon came back I thought she might bring something for lunch but she was empty-handed.  It didn't matter cause we had really good leftovers in the fridge.  In fact I had the Turkey Pot Pie from a day or so ago.  It was still really good.

After lunch Sharon took off with the laundry since we didn't have a football game to watch.  I actually watched the Viking/Bengal game so I could keep an eye on the Packer/Bear score for the day.  The Packers eventually won 21-14 even though they were ahead all day.  We're still in the playoff hunt and keeping Minnesota from clinching the Division.

We had a Chicken concoction that Sharon had frozen in the freezer and I made some Potato Pancakes out of leftover potatoes.  We still had a small portion of Cranberry Gel that tasted very good along with it.

We settled in for TV for the rest of the night.  We had a couple of good repeats to watch for the night and I surfed for the remainder.   And then we headed for the feathers at 10.