Not too far today.

Woke up this morning started unhooking and dumping the grey and black water and oh my God the black water didn't drain.....why I have no idea. We found a Camping World just outside of Albuquerque, NM and by the time we got there they were close.....after all it is Sunday. We should have been further along but the only reason to spend anytime in New Mexico is a stop at Sky City so we did. If there was a way to not go through New Mexico when heading east or northeast from Phoenix that would be great, the place has not much to offer in the way of travel scenery! Anyway we've parked at Camping World and are waiting for the morning when they open at 8:00 a.m. and hoping they can fix the black water problem and then look at a couple of things the Camping World in Phoenix supposedly fixed but didn't get it right in my opinion. A fuse for the bedroom reading lights, and the breaker on the generator tripping when the front A/C is turned on while using the generator. So we will be a day behind and that's if they can get us in tomorrow morning and get these items taken care of. Oh well it's this first part of our summer journey that has a time schedule to meet with the reunions on the 8th and 9th, heck after that we come and go as we please when we please with no set time to be anywhere. Albuquerque lights up the night sky so beautifully, coming into town off the little mountain or hillside is an awesome sight to me each time I see it. I guess seeing that takes away all the crappy scenery an the way into the city. Way too many casino's in New Mexico, never thought we'd drive by so many but we're still was ahead after a few stops here and there. Here's hoping they can get us in first thing in the morning and we can be back on the road tomorrow at a decent hour. Weather is nice and cool tonight, will be great sleeping.

Day one on the road

As has been the custom with these road trip or journeys for the summer our first day doesn't even get us out of Arizona. We left 8:00 a.m. and made our first stop the new Twin Arrows Navajo casino 20 miles east of Flagstaff. Yes we're like the vast majority of retired folks and spend a few hours here and there visiting casino's, we usually don't get hurt and actually have made a lot of money at this one of our favorite pass-times. Anyway the new Twin Arrows is one of the finest Indian casino's we've frequented and we ended up spending about 5 hours there and had a great lunch. We ended up winning $840 so that will be a few tanks of gas and is the start of our gaming kitty! We left there and drove about 30 miles and filled up at Flying J and drove another 20 about to Joseph City, AZ. population 500 but a nice little RV park with full hook-up for $15 a night......won't find another that cheap the remainder of our 3 months on the road. All in all day one not too eventful and not too productive as far as distance traveled, but hey it's 5 more days until we need to be in Davenport. By the way Bentley has finally settled in after 12 hours of not knowing exactly what the hell is going on!

Day/night before departure

OK we're in full swing now, my glasses came in yesterday and now we can leave on Saturday. Brought the motor home down to the lot next door to finish loading up and doing some minor cleaning, like windows, getting pictures back up etc. The Carpet needs replacing and Bev wants wood instead, but in the mean time I might just get a 5x6 rug for under the table for this trip or until we get to Oregon and check out the pricing in and around Bend, Oregon. I woke up this morning to my lowest weight since January 1st and with the hauling in and out and cleaning I'm already exhausted and may have hit or might hit my FIRST goal before we take off. For those that don't know Bev and I have been on a weight lose program of our own, basically numbers counting and logging daily on www.myfitnesspal.com, being accountable for what you eat each day. I started off great guns but have been in a real rut for the past month bouncing up and down between the same 4 to 5 pounds. My FIRST goal is to get below 300 pounds, sure sounds huge to you skinny folks but yep we topped out at 335 after the first of the year and tipped the scale this morning at 302 and feel like I lost that 2 pounds this morning already! By the way Bev is doing great also, down 25 to date and looking good! Enough of that stuff, back to the travels. Mike's pretty much all loaded and ready to hit the road and as you might imagine Bev hasn't started putting things in the motor home, she's been busy making gas money. I'm going to wait now until after dinner with the kids and then finish up my stuff and loading the basements and finish the windows, it will cool off this evening and like I said right now I'm exhausted. It will get more interesting starting tomorrow as we embark on our 5th summer journey exploring these United States and it's many little interesting cities and towns and sites. Between this blog and FB and e-mails I might just keep busy but love every minute of it.

Summer journey of 2013

May 29 Summer journey of 2013 What better way to document, share, and just keep in touch with friends and family than with my blog? It's been so long ago now and was so political in the past that it might have been followed by my family, close family and most conservatives towards the last entries. No I will try and keep this to the summer of 2013's journey and happening, sightings, and folks along the way with hopes those that decide to follow enjoy this as I'm sure I will regardless. It's the 29th and we were hoping to hit the road on June 1st, and who knows may still make that date. A couple of things that might delay that a day or so are daughter Lisa and grandson Jack returning from their vacation to California, and Yosemite National Park, they are due back on Sunday the 2nd so we might just stay to see them before we head out. Second would be that I procrastinated in making my eye examination appointment and it turns out the old eyes are getting a bit weary. I now need some specks that will take normally 7 to 10 business days to make and Monday the 3rd of June will be the seventh working day, so we're hoping for quicker than normal results! I started packing some things into the coach(motor home) yesterday and plan on finishing my stuff up today, yes Bev has been busy and will need a few more days as usual with the ladies. The service on the coach went well, oil change of the motor and the generator, furl filter and a 22 point inspections of the entire coach like fridge, water heater, lights, water tanks, tires, air conditioners etc. and we passed in pretty good shape. Bev wants a recliner lawn chair and the good ones at Camping World run about $159, but I got a flyer yesterday with a sale on these recliners at 2 for $199 and I have a 10% off coupon so maybe we'll get then beings they'll be 2 for $179.10 after with the sale and coupon. OK it's getting boring so we'll end it for today and hope some of the old followers drop back in and give us another shot. Not saying there won't be totally no current events listed but a more pleasurable blog I will strive for, and between this and FB our journey will be well documented with interesting tidbits of information. Mike

second test

testing 1 2 3

test

Testing, testing, 1 2 3 4 5

Miss me?

Wow, I just noticed it's been since July that I've added to my blog. Some of you may be happy about that and then again some just might have missed my rants and raves! Today is just to get things back going, no big opinions or stories to tell just getting back into the swing of things.

I was in adding to my "Pinterest" and decided to add my blog as one of my pin's or boards and hope to keep up with it once again now. If you haven't seen or tried Pinterest give it a look see, you may find it interesting and very informative on a variety of subjects.

Check my blog out now from time to time, hope to be back in the swing of things now!