We're Booked And Off To Camping World!

Well the day has finally arrived...I booked our first camping trip for the third weekend in October at McDowell Mountain Regional Park, one of our favorites.  Between now and then, we will be praying for cooler weather for sure.

Once the reservation was made, it was off to Camping World with a list of items to get ready for our first outing of the year.

One of my favorite stores

A trunk full of goodies

The first purchase was a Perfect Harmony bed topper that was on sale that should soften the mattress a bit in our rig.

Ahh, a good nights sleep!

The next item was an Oxygenics Body Spa shower head replacement that I decided to purchase based on George of Our Awesome Travel's review several months ago.  The install was easy and it appears to be much better than the one that came with the rig.

New shower head

Finally, the last purchase was three roof vent covers that I will install as soon as things cool down, but hopefully before our first outing.

I hope that you all had a great weekend and be safe out there!

A Visit To The Indianapolis Speedway!

Well I left Scottsdale on Tuesday morning at 100+ degree temps and landed in Indianapolis to clouds, rain and 61 degrees...heaven!

The nice thing about owning your own company is that you can often mix a little pleasure with business.

After two days of client meetings, I found myself with about five hours of free time before my flight home.

A business associate happened to be in town visiting family and had some free time as well, so we met at the Indianapolis Speedway Museum for a quick visit and then off to lunch...of course.

It cost us $5 each to get in, and they offered us a great tour of the facilities and track for $25, but we didn't have the time to do that, this visit.

So, we took a self tour of the museum, watched a short movie, spent some money in the gift shop for a souvenir mug and pen and then it was off to Dawsons On Main for a tasty Cobb Salad.

My flight was bumpy from start to finish, but I am home now, thankfully.

The good news is that I had a productive and fun business trip and the weekend is almost here. Hope your week is going well and thanks for stopping by for the visit!

 

Bunko!

So Monday night is Bunko at our house so it was a Saturday filled with Fall house cleaning to get ready for the twelve or so ladies who will be arriving tomorrow night.

One of my chores was to clean the chandelier in the dining room. I don't know the kind of sick person that designed this, but it is nearly impossible to get between each of the chandelier arms to get it clean without knocking the jewels off and burning my arms.

I always use a damp towel to clean it and one year it was a little too damp and a slight amount of water got into one of the light sockets. Don't need to tell you that we had sparks flying everywhere and smoke filled the room. I was fortunate to find a replacement socket at Home Depot and luckily the smoke cleared prior to the ladies arriving the next night. Thankfully no such excitement this year.

So after church there will be much vacuuming and dusting to put the final touches on everything. I will have to find a place to hide out when the ladies arrive, I may head out to the motor home for a little Monday Night Football.

Hope your weekend was great and thanks for the visit!

We've Turned The Corner...I Think!

Well I woke up this morning and checked the temperature outside and this is what I found...

72 Degrees!

I know, 72 degrees probably doesn't excite many of you, but when I am use to seeing 93 degrees every morning for the last 120 days, it is pretty exciting to me.  Now that the nights have been cooling down, our pool temperature has dropped to 75 degrees from the 95 degrees that it was three weeks ago.  

I am so happy to welcome Fall on Saturday and will start the process of winterizing our lawn in the next few weeks.  I am so done with the 110+ degree temperatures that we have had for the last 100 days and am looking forward to why we all love to live here in the beautiful Southwest this time of year.  

Can't Wait to Hit The Road!

Welcome back to many of you who call this place home for a good portion of the year, we are getting the weather ready for your arrival.  Take care and have a great rest of the week!

Christmas Shopping Started!

Rick and Kathy Rousseau have been doing a countdown to Christmas on their blog It's about time for the last few weeks and it has made me frankly, a little nervous.  So as a result, I bought my first Christmas present at Costco on Friday.

This first present was just to get into the shopping spirit, so I made it very easy by buying a gift for me.  I have always enjoyed a good glass of wine, but never spent much time learning about the different wines that were available.  My interest was peaked after our trip to Oregon to visit our kids.  My son-in-law's Grandfather Wayne is a wine connoisseur and provided me with an introduction to wines while we were there.

Then my interest was intensified with a great winery tour and dinner at Landon Winery while on business in Greenville, Texas.  So I decided that it would be kind of fun to learn more about wines and try something other than the gallon bottles that I have been purchasing at Sam's Club.

So my business partner, who is also into wines, suggested that I buy a wine cellar to start my new hobby.  We walked over to Costco near our office after lunch earlier in the week and found a 27 bottle Wine Cellar by Vinotemp on an endcap for $199.

I caught Tracy at the right moment and happened to mention what I had found and that I thought they would sell quickly, so we shouldn't wait for Christmas, because they would probably be gone.  She said it sounded good to her and if I gave her a massage, I would be good to go with the purchase.  I can tell you that my massages are certainly not worth $199, but I wasn't going to argue.

So I was off to Costco the next day and to my surprise, the endcap containing the 30 or so wine cellars yesterday was gone.  I walked around the store and happened to find 4 wine cellars at the back of the store and quickly grabbed one up.  I spoke with a salesperson who said that they flew out of the store, so I was right for once with my pitch that they probably wouldn't last long.

In reading the directions, they suggested that the cellar sit for at least 24 hours and contain at least 5 bottles of wine at start-up.  So that meant that I needed to head to Bev-Mo to stock up the wine cellar...I am really liking this new hobby.

So my Christmas present is up and running, it chilled the wine to 59 degrees in less than 15 minutes, it contains more than the five bottles that were recommended (as you can see) and the blue light looks really cool.

Down to 50 degrees quickly

Went a little crazy at Bev-Mo!

Ah, come to the blue light...

My only concern is that Tracy has the neighborhood ladies here a week from Monday for Bunko and the wine cellar does not have a lock...this could be a real problem.:-)

Hope your weekend has been great and don't forget to get going on your Christmas shopping, it was made me feel much to get started!

We Hit 50!

I really don't spend much time looking at the number of followers on our blog, but I have to say that I really never thought we would get to 50 and thanks to Jeannie and Eldy of Where's Eldo, we are there!

I remember when I launched our blog eight months ago, I wondered if we would ever have one follower, and low and behold, Michael and Dee of Gone RVing! were our first followers...thanks to them for getting this all started.

I really enjoy blogging and probably spend too much time reading my favorite blogs each day, but I have to say that I am drawn to your adventures, so thanks for sharing.  Thanks to all of you who have joined us along the way and I look forward to having you with us on our adventures for years to come. 

We enjoyed a windy but beautiful evening tonight and actually took a walk around the block to enjoy the clouds and clear skys.  

Beautiful Clouds

 

I hope you are all having a great week and I hope your weekend is even better.  Be safe out there and enjoy!

Dead Cells!

No, not dead cells in my head, although I'm sure there are plenty, SAM's Club found dead cells in both deep cycle batteries and in the starting battery.

I skipped out of work a little early this afternoon to take advantage of the 87 degree weather and cloud cover to remove all of our rig's batteries and take them to SAM's Club to be checked out.

SAM's was very busy and short handed as usual, so I had to wait almost an hour to get things taken care of.  The starting battery was shot and was a quick $100 purchase and I just missed the 12-month free replacement period, by less than 1 month, so the service manager gave me the good news that I had 67 percent of the battery's value in proration, so it only cost me a mere $25.70 per battery, rather than being free, sounds like a good deal, huh?

So all three batteries have been installed and all appears to be working well.  I used a little anti corrosion spray, which is red, and should keep the connections clean. The house lights are much brighter and Iris turns right over with a roar.  All is good and we are one step closer to being ready for our first weekend away.

Starting Battery

Charging Battery Under The Hood

Charging Battery Inside

That's enough energized excitement for today. Thanks for stopping by, hope your week if off to a great start!

Got The Itch!

It has been a long hot summer her in Arizona and although we have traveled a lot: California, Oregon and Hawaii, we have not taken our rig out all summer.  

So I have had an itch, that no powder can cure. :-) That itch is to get our rig ready for some wonderful camping once the temperatures start to cool down a bit.  

Yesterday was the first step in that process as I fired off the generator and started up the motorhome to give both a little workout.  Because we have had some rain in recent days, the temperature never made it to 100 degrees outside, so I was able to start checking things in preparation for our first outing, hopefully toward the end of September, if the weather cooperates.  I was greatly encouraged by reading Rick's post today regarding Fall colors on his blog Rick & Paulette's RV Travels.

In starting to check things out, I did notice that the deep cycle batteries that I purchased last August from SAM's Club did not appear to be holding a charge and that our starting battery, which came with the rig, appeared to be having a similar problem.  I called SAM's Club and of course I just missed the 12-month free replacement period by about 20 days, so if they determine that the batteries are bad, I will be paying a prorate for the replacements...just my luck!

So I have say that I am getting rather excited to make some online reservations for some great camping over the next few months.  Of course prior to that happening, I will need to replace the batteries, give Iris (Tracy's name for the motorhome) a good bath, clean the inside, etc., ect., etc.. So the work has begun!

Tracy and I enjoyed reading the front page article in yesterday's Arizona Republic regarding a reunion between Rusty and his dog Timber that was a direct result of a blog posting that was made by Sue Rogers on her site rvsue and her canine crew. If you haven't already seen the article and video, do yourself a favor and visit Sue's site, it is a real feel good story!

Well enough of all that, I am pleased to welcome Laurie and George of Owens on the Road as our 49th follower.  I have been enjoying reading their posts as they get ready to hit the road full-time, something that we can only dream about doing at this point.  Welcome aboard and congratulations on what I know will be an exciting new adventure for you both.

With that I will wish you all a safe and enjoyable week and thanks for stopping by for a visit. 

Lots of Whining Go'n On!

Seems like I have been on trains, planes and automobiles for days and I actually have.  Upon returning from our great trip to visit our kids in Oregon, it was off to the airport and on to another plane to Greenville, Texas to work with a group of Engineers for three days.

One of the many benefits of working with great clients is that they invite you to join the group for dinner and I really enjoyed being included for dinner at the Landon Winery.

Thousands of Gallons of Wine!

Bob Landon, the owner of Landon Winery did a phenomenal job of educating, entertaining and imbibing us with his wonderful and tasty wine. Bob shared with us that 95 percent of the wineries are not profitable, which I found to be amazing.  He also proudly shared with us that his winery was not part of that statistic and actually moved from a ranking in the 700's to one of the top 15 wineries within the country.

What a Great Host!

Bob took us into the Barrel Room and educated us on the chemistry of mixing wines, including adding acid, wood chips and testing of the wine's pH to make some of the very best.

To The Barrel Room

Lots of Wine

Discussion of Wine Mixing

The New and Expensive Bottling Machine

Even a Still...

The wine was excellent and so was the bacon wrapped filet that I had for dinner, what a great night!

I want to take this opportunity to thank Judy and Emma from Travels With Emma for joining us on our adventure.  I have sure enjoyed reading about their adventures and am very happy to have them along for the ride. 

Thanks for the visit and have a safe and enjoyable weekend!

Boring Oregon?

Every time I went on our blog, the Live Traffic Feed said that we were in Boring, Oregon. I can tell you that our visit here was anything but boring.

We had such a great time hiking, visiting with family and of course eating and drinking. With this trip and our recent time in Hawaii, I think I am going to definitely check into a fat farm. :-)

As with all good things, this visit has come to an end and we are sitting in the Portland Airport getting ready to leave this heavenly weather for the heat of the great Southwest.

Tomorrow morning I will board another flight headed to Dallas Texas and client meetings through Thursday. Although I would have loved a day to recover, you gotta make hay in the sun shine, so off I go.

For those celebrating Labor Day, I hope your long weekend was great and that your short week ahead will be even better. For those who don't have the benefit of this U.S. Holiday, I hope your week is off to a great start and thanks to everyone for stoping by!

Hiking Horsetail Falls!

Yesterday was absolutely beautiful here in Lake Oswego, Oregon and we took full advantage of the weather to hike to Horsetail Falls.

Of course we were not alone, many people had the same idea, because this was not a day to stay indoors.

From there it was off to look at a townhouse that the kids are looking at renting near Wilsonville and then off to Randy's parents house for a great evening of food, fun and fellowship.

We are headed to church this morning followed by lunch with Randy's mom and Grandma and then hopefully a tour of Stephanie's new classroom.

This has been a fast paced but very enjoyable visit and we will hate to see it end. The tears will start to flow later this evening as we realize that it is time to say goodbye and leave our baby behind, but we won't think about that now.

Hope you are having a safe and happy Labor Day weekend and thanks for the visit!