Happy New Year's Everyone!!!

Well, we went to the shooting range on Thursday after Christmas, and had a blast! Jimmy brought his AR-15 and my brother "happened" to have his semi-automatic (he brought it from El Paso) and I brought my Lady Bushmaster (AR-15), it only weighs 4 pounds!! ( and my little 38 revolver, for practice).

We all took turns shooting, and I was pleasantly surprise to find that I was a pretty good shot! ( of course the aim point scope helped!) All Bullseyes!

Then on Friday, we all loaded up and drove to Austin to see my other brother and his girlfriend.

We had lunch with our old friend from in El Paso, who is now quite a famous artist, Bob Wade. (we always called him, Robert.) Great visit and lots of reminiscing! Then he took us to his house to see some fabulous art, he's done...and his workroom...( I thought I was a packrat!!)

Saturday night was spent playing video games on Jimmy's new Wii.....Ty loves Boxing, Bill loves target practice and they both love cars...so we had race-offs!

Had a nice Sunday brunch at the Iguana restaurant...then had to head home. Back to work and the daily grind!

Well.....I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, Ours was kinda quiet, my brother and his wife, from El Paso, drove in for the holidays. I am waiting for a couple of more pieces of furniture to be delivered, today.....then we are all going to the gun range to shoot my new Lady Bushmaster that Jimmy gave me! (I know, I know, "only in Texas") it weighs only 4 pounds! I will post some pictures, when we get back.....then, tomorrow, we plan to all drive down to Austin to see our other brother and his girlfriend. After a few days, they will go back to El Paso, from there, and we will head back home on Sunday or Monday. I will be posting some pictures from that too....so stay tuned!!!!!

Have a Happy New Year Everyone!

Well. I've been really bad on keeping up with the blog, but, Hopefully, I will be better in the coming year!

The month of December has been a little busy..... We started off the month buying a houseful of new furniture, before the house is even built, yet. (The infamous "house at the lake" that we plan to build). Maybe that will spur us to start designing it! Anyway, a piece or two has been delivered, The furniture store is keeping it in the warehouse, until we can receive it. This will be after we have moved the current furniture into the 45 foot container (yes, like the ones you see on a train), that Jimmy has placed in the yard, at the shop. The furniture is MASSIVE, so I don't think we'll have room for all of it, here at this house. We plan to , hopefully, start building the house before the end of the summer. I've included a picture of the sideboard.....

Then, Jimmy's newest project, is installing a new Hydrogen system on the trucks that is supposed to improve fuel mileage by 27 percent. The company is outfitting about 40 trucks to run a test for 6 months.....this could be helpful for us when our weekly fuel bill is $4000.

Jimmy taking his picture in the mirror!

Well, it's Monday night and Jimmy called...the birthday boy (our friend Kim) and his friends are going out to dinner and party, get this..... dressed like Pirates! Kim's wife (also named Kim)had this planned and they are going to a bar that has a pirate theme.....serves Rum drinks, etc. I think that they're having too much fun...without me!

Don't you think Jimmy looks good in dreadlocks?

Kim looks like one of the Royal Navy and his friend Dave, looks like a swabby!

Well, Thanksgiving was nice. We had a big cold front come in Tuesday night and my brother and his wife drove in from El Paso on Wednesday. On Thursday, Jimmy picked up the turkey that I had ordered from Luby's and his nephew (does that imply something???). Then we had our friend David and his mom (he's the one that lent us the gurney for Jimmy's mom), so we had a real hodgepodge for dinner! Good food, watched "Transformers", then the Dallas Cowboy game.....They're 10 and 1! Who woulda thunk?? It was really cold and rainy all weekend then Jimmy flew out at 6:55 Sunday morning to Seattle for our friend Kim's surprise 50th birthday party. My brother left to drive back to El Paso by about 9 am.....The news said there was about 6 inches of snow aound Midland.....hope he made it okay.

Then we left for the Phoenix International Speedway for the next weekend NASCAR race! Jimmy's aunt Margaret is involved with CASA....a national court appointed advocate group for children. They get celebrities to autograph Ostrich Eggs and then auction them off for money for CASA. We got several of them...Kasey Khane, Scott Riggs, Reed Sorenson, Kerry Earnhardt and even Mike Helton ( the head of NASCAR) to sign, in Texas. Then we took them to Phoenix with us and got a couple of more signatures.
Kurt Busch, the 2004 NASCAR Cup Champion, signed them and then, we got "THE KING" Richard Petty and his wife Lynda Petty to sign them. He had come to our Marathon Coach Rally to see about buying one of their new $1.8 million dollar coaches! He also seemed interested in our little Road Hog!
Once again, my driver just missed out on winning the race. DRAT!

November 4th, 2007 weekend was the Dickies 500 NASCAR race at Texas Motor Speedway.

We took the coach up to our parking spot on Thursday. Jimmy had agreed to meet a new business client, for the satellite dishes, at the shop on Friday, to install an "in-motion" dish and an F1 (internet capable) dish, on the roof of his "Command Post" truck...so, after a myriad of electronic problems, stretching into Saturday, he finished and came out to the track. I was pretty bored, out there in the coach all by myself, with the animals. Unfortunately, my driver didn't win, but it was fun seeing friends from Tennessee, Mississippi, California, New Mexico and Louisiana. I also sold another Road Hog to another couple who own a Marathon coach, too.

Well, hello everyone!
Sorry it's been so long, but there's been a lot and nothing going on.....
It was pretty quick, but Jimmy's mother, Pat, passed away on October 22nd, of kidney cancer. Just about a month after she was diagnosed. Jimmy and I think she knew something, but was ignoring the symptoms. At any rate, she would have wanted to go quickly, so it went like she wanted.

Well, this will be a short note.....the last 3 weeks have been pretty crazy. Jimmy's mom, Pat, has been diagnosed with cancer and she has declined so very fast. She is home now, with hospice and 24 hr. nurses. It has been really sad and terribly fast, so, I will not be adding anything for a little while.......but please check back.....I'll get back into the blog, soon.

Thanks...Kelli

Well, there's not much fun and exciting going on here, this week. Jimmy has had to go drive one of our Fedex trucks to Harrisburg,Pa. , a driver wanted off this trip, another driver has given us 2 weeks notice and another driver doesn't want to run full time anymore....Jeez! So....I have an ad for drivers in the paper, again (sigh) this happens every year or two.

In the meantime, Jimmy has ordered a couple of new trucks, one to replace an older one and one to start a new run in.


On the homefront.....Jimmy's mom has been in terrible back pain, for a few weeks, so she's checked into the hospital, for tests (MRI, etc.) Hope to have results by Monday or Tuesday.


Needless to say, we won't be able to make the Charlotte race, next week, but luckily some other friends bought our tickets from us. Our race bunch will be having a good time, anyway......!

Other than that, the weather is still hot here, which is pretty unusual.......normally, after Labor Day it's like flipping a switch and it's down in the 70s!

The picture is just birds, sitting on my roof..........


Well, I'll write again in a few days. Maybe something exciting will happen!

Well, it's Sunday and our friends from Australia are back in the country, now, so they drove in to go to a Rally, then visit us for a day, then they have to go back to Austin for Rod's brother's doctor's appointments. This will be an ongoing thing for several weeks, so , hopefully, they will be back and forth, often, since I have already planned an itenarary for them, ha!ha!

Jimmy had to leave this evening, to drive to Memphis, but will be back, tomorrow afternoon.

Well, signing off for now, more in couple of days.

Good afternoon!

Well, not much has been going on, the last few days. After our epic 3 1/2 month vacation.....we had to come home and make some money, to pay for it....ha! Jimmy volunteered to pick up some new trailers, for Fedex at the railyard, thinking it would just be a few.....WRONG! He's been running back and forth Thursday, Friday (he got home at 3 am) and hit it again, this morning for the last six trailers.....until Sunday! 17 more are coming in! Each round trip is a least 1 hour...only if the traffic is good!

This evening, we are leaving to drive halfway to Ruidoso, N.M. to meet John Johns' bus driver and bring his bus here to have some work done on it.

That's all for now, bye!

This weekend, we decided to get in one of the last hurrahs, of summer, at the lake! This summer was sooooo rainy, that many of the lakes around Dallas/Ft.Worth are still closed, because the boat ramps are still under water. However, Possum Kingdom lake, the lake we go to, is a deep lake anyway, so it just got really full, and was really muddy, due to all the rain.....it is now, back to normal and the Dive School is back in business. (It is usually very clear, so there is a Diving School out there). There are deer everywhere, they come out every evening, to eat....on the golf course. The lake views are incredible! The weekend AFTER Labor Day is really nice. There's not too many people on the lake, and the water is still warm. The dogs LOVE it! They each have their own life jacket and Shadow loves to hitch a ride on Nikki's back. Nikki loves to swim around, then just hang onto Jimmy and float....totally relaxed! Really funny to see...

The boat trailer, has a bearing going out on the wheel....which we discovered about 20 miles out of town....so we had to stop and Jimmy drilled a hole in it to add oil, at least until we got here. Now, we'll just leave the boat here, in the slip, while we order a new bearing assembly to replace the one we just changed in May!!! I guess we'll come out in a week or two, to fix it. I'll add more in a few days.

The race was fun and we were a part of the world's largest stadium stunt....they're contacting the Guiness Book of World Records! 160,000 people! Then, on Sunday, we drove as far as Cookeville. Monday, (today) we drove to T-Rick's (an RV park just short of Little Rock) ...tomorrow we will get home, and I plan on jumping in the pool! More later..

We are at Bristol Motor Speedway! It's incredibly hot! 98 degrees and 98% humidity! Good thing the races are all at night!

Friday morning, we woke up at the edge of Oregon, headed South, stopped and spent a few hours in Arches National Park and Moab, Ut. took some pictures, (our newest family portrait) drove some more, and went to sleep in New Mexico, Friday night! WHEW! We dropped off some stuff at Beverly and Casey's in Belen,N.M. then had lunch at Rudy's in Albuquerque. Headed east again and wound up staying at a really nice RV park just outside of Amarillo,Tx.

We are now in a rest area, for the night, just outside of Knoxville. We will get to the track by noon and the Truck races tomorrow night......just in time!

Hello everyone.

I am afraid that we have been on a mad dash across the country, in order to get to Bristol and the NASCAR race on time. After visiting our friends in Oregon, we went to the FMCA rally in Redmond, Or. for the 13th through the 16th, to help some other master agents sell the Road Hog. Jimmy managed to sell one, with some promising leads to call in the future, hopefully!

Then, Thursday evening, its off for the mad dash to Bristol!

Well, when we got to Grants Pass, we parked in our friends, Bob and Nadine's driveway (which is like a parking lot) and made ourselves at home. We just visited the first day, but then the second day we went on a jet boat trip, up the Rogue River. What a blast! We saw some Osprey in their nests, Canadian Geese (that have decided , Oregon is pretty good place to be, so they don't migrate.) and we got soaked! The boat operator did some spins, in the water that ended up drenching us to the bone. (A good thing on a warm day). Then, when we got back, we went out to eat in Nadine's classic '52 Ford.....really beautiful! Had a lot of fun, then went home for the night. The next day, spent around the bus, did some laundry, then had a bar-b-que that night! Got up and had to leave for the FMCA this morning.

After arriving in Coos Bay, we parked in our friends cul-de-sac and promptly sat in beautiful back patio, with waterfalls, and just visited.

The next morning....not early, we went to the Pancake Mill for brunch. Jimmy and Joanie had lunch, while Leroy and I had breakfast. Then we drove around town, drove out to an area where lots of ATVs go play in the Oregon Dunes and sat and visited with Mark and Sharon . We were just seeing the sights and where their business was...just goofed off all day. The next day we got in the Hummer and they got in their Jeep and off we went to the sand dunes......right on the ocean! It was sooooo pretty! We drove out to the New Carisa...a piece of a shipwreck near the beach, then the doggies had to go nuts, running like wild Indians, in and out of the surf.After that, we just went bombing around in the sand for awhile. Not too much....we don't want Leroy to get hurt (he just had back surgery). We had a really nice time....and their cat, Kobe, and Shadow became new BFF (best friends forever). We will be leaving for Grants Pass, tomorrow, to see Bob and Nadine.

And you wonder why I don't get enough sleep!!

We left Seattle, bright and early, so we could make it to Coburg Or. (The Marathon Coach Factory) We had some things to pick up....spare lightbulbs, bay door switches, hose connectors,etc. They had 3 brand new Prevost Buses, just in from Quebec.....then I took a picture of the finished product...pretty cool, huh?
Then we turned right, toward the coast and went to see our friends in Coos Bay....Beautiful area....cool house at the end of the street...making a cul-de-sac. Tomorrow morning, breakfast, spend some time visiting, then on to Grants Pass, Or.

Well, today, we are back in the lower 48! Beautiful pictures of a pretty blue river in a fabulous gorge, on the way down. Had to stop along the way to walk all the kids! Got to the port and decided to go to Sumas...the smaller port, instead of the big port, on a Friday, and we got through in just a few minutes.....once again, just a few questions and off we go! That makes at least half a dozen times, we have been in and out of the country and not one officer has set foot in the bus! We have heard of friends that have had their entire motorhome gone through, strewn out all over and then just left....Have a Nice Day! We have been very lucky! We might be stopping by the FMCA Rally in Redmond, Or. next week...not sure yet. Going to go hang out with friends, today.....seeya.

Well, today we took off driving, early....(9 AM is early) . We are back in the land of sunsets, now, twilight is about 10 PM, so it actually gets almost dark at night....not sure if I like it. We continued South, towards Prince George, and had a couple of incidents.....the road is good, so we were going about 65 M.P.H. when a Caribou decided to come out of the brush and cross the road! The big rig, behind us, had to lock it up, too!
Then, after we regained our heartbeat....and speed...about an hour later, 2 RVs in front of us nearly wrcked and we nearly barrelled into the back of them, when a bear sauntered across the road! Jeez!

We stopped on a turnout on the side of the road, for a break, and Libby, our Jungle cat, really enjoyed walking out into the grass......she's loving her "freedom" (on a leash) and Jimmy took the dogs to play in one of the many rivers we crossed.

Then, as we went along, after the cutoff to Price George, he started noticing that there were no fuel stops around, like on the other roads.....and it was getting pretty important! So, I started digging through the Milepost (travelers bible) to try and find one. After getting increasingly concerned.......I finally found one at the junction with highway 39 to MacKenzie. About 20 miles away.

We turned off any A/C and coasted whenever we could....luckily, a lot of the way was downhill. We pulled into the gas station and both pumps were in use, so we had to wait......yep, you guessed it....it died, right there! Anyway, when it was our turn, Jimmy had to spray starting fluid into the engine, while I drove up to the pumps.......Whew! Another crisis averted! What a day!

Tomorrow, we will make it back into Seattle, where we see some friends, and think of our great memories we have made, on this trip.
I'll make entries, as we travel along, so check back often.

Check out the dust!
It was a cloud that came boiling in, even though everything was closed!


We were supposed to take the cutoff for the Cassiar Highway, right before Watson Lake....but it had been washed out in several places, the road fell into the river, someone had been killed, and the road had been alternately open and closed....only for cars......SOOO, we decided to go another way! We stopped at Archie's in Watson Lake, again, for burgers (we knew they were good), and kept going, until we were about Prophret River, past Fort Nelson, for the night.

We made it to Teslin, and who was there, but our friends we met in North Pole, Ak. from Albuquerque, N.M. and a bunch of people that they were traveling with.
Wednesday morning, they had some mechanical problems, so Jimmy lent a hand, then we were off......Jimmy had told Kim and Kim ours friends in Seattle, that we would be there, Friday night! 1500 miles to go! So, like a barn sour horse....off we went! Talk about Mr. Toad's Wild Ride! Besides the roads having deteriorated quite badly, since we drove up. Many places that were perfect when we drove up, were now freshly oiled and gravelled and had chuckholes that were under construction or being filled.
Very narrow, winding and lots of frost heaves...I guess the permafrost had been melting while we were gone!

Tuesday, we stayed in Whitehorse to go on the boat up the rapids in Miles canyon..pretty cool! Before, though, we went to the transportation museum, again..it was so neat, we went back, from yesterday. Then we went to the Berengia Interpretive museum.....it had actual skeletons from Scimitar cats, Woolly mammoths and other ice age creatures! Then we headed out of town to Teslin and Mutluk Annie's for the night!