Here is Jimmy's latest project.....extending the roof of the deck in Alto, N.M. The original deck is long enough for a 40' motorhome, so, after raising the roof a foot...( 1" clearance), he has extended it an extra 10 feet! (really only needed 5, but the extra really makes it nice.) He's pretty handy, like that! (sigh) At least it keeps him busy!! ha!

Well, we have escaped the heat of Texas and hustled to the mountains! Today, Jimmy played the Kokopelli Golf Course, in Alto, N.M......Wonderful, 72 degrees! The scenery was really beautiful and we finished just in time to go in the clubhouse for lunch, when a huge rainstorm blew up! By the time we got back to the deck, it was pouring and the rain on the metal roof sounded wonderful!

This is a picture of fireworks with he Dallas skyline in the background.......A picture I really thought was neat! Not much going on here, just hiring more truck drivers and getting them set to go out next week. Jimmy has been working on fixing one of his satellite dishes.....taking it easy, enjoying the rain and "a little" cooler weather! Plan to head west soon, for a few, and a Hummer rally!

July 5th....
Jimmy, Bill, Chris and Casey are going to play a round of golf, before we leave the Cliffs to go home.
Ought to be a hoot, Chris has never played this course before (very hard)......I'm waiting to hear how it went, when they get back to the clubhouse!! ha!ha!
Apparently, lots of 4 letter words were used!! ha~

4th of July, 2010!!!

Another cloudy start to the day, but it turned out great.. We had heard that The Harbor ( a new resort area on the lake) was going to have fireworks on the lake for the first time, this year. Apparently, either people had gone home, were up at the Possum Hollow fireworks show (way at the other end of the lake) or just didn't believe it, so we went out in the boat with our friends Janet and Robert and just sat in the water until dark. There were no other boats (maybe 3) and we were just a few hundred yards off the shore.....Well, it did not disappoint! beautiful, non-stop and there were other fireworks everywhere you turned on the lake.(fireworks are a big deal here!) Got home about 11:30 pm. Nice evening!

Friends Janet and Robert came out for the Fireworks on the 4th.

July 3rd, we headed out to Possum Kingdom lake, even though it was still being inundated by the rain bands coming up from Hurricane Alex in the Gulf, in hopes....and (it held true) the sun comes out! We went out to Hell's Gate (the local party cove) and dropped anchor right outside the Gate, because it is a Zoo on the inside and we have already lost 2 anchors over the last year......hundreds of boats come out for the show!

On Tuesday night, Jimmy just decided that we should pack up and go see his aunt and uncle in Horseshoe Bay, Texas, for a couple of days. W actually arrived, undetected, backed the bus down the driveway, and got settled before they heard us! Had a great visit, ate hamburgers, solved all the problems of the world,etc.! Next morning, went to the famous "Bluebonnet" restaurant for late breakfast, then, when we got back to the bus, the neighborhood deputy dawg had stuck a note on it that we had to move! The house is downhill in a cul-de-sac, you can't even see it from the road! (I suspect the neighbor, up the hill, complained!) Anyway, we moved to the little RV park near the entrance of the neighborhood...quite a chore. I don't think they were used to having a 45' long,13'4"tall coach in their park. As we backed into the spot, a monster tree limb hit the closed Internet satellite dish, on the roof and bent one of the gears, so we ordered a new one, when we got home, it's already arrived and Jimmy is installing it now......no sweat.
Then we went back to Lil and Gerald's house and visited some more....had some wonderful dinner! Played some "Farkle " and after the girls won BOTH games, we said our goodbyes and headed off to the bus. Had to get back for a drs.appt. the next day.

Jimmy has reached his 15 minutes of fame!!!!

He is on the cover of Heavy Duty Trucking magazine.

Eventually, electronic logs will be the norm in the trucking industry, so he is working with our friend, in Houston, to get these developed to put in the Fedex trucks.......keep your fingers crossed!

Amazing!
Well, we decided to escape to the cool weather for a week, and Jimmy has decided that he is going to raise the roof on the deck in Ruidoso, himself, rather than pay the $6,000.00 we were quoted, to do it.
After, about $800.00 worth of lumber and 3 days of Jimmy climbing up and down the ladder to the roof, the roof is now 6 inches higher on one side and a foot on the other! The Coach BARELY fit before, only after he dumped all of the air and moved as far to the right (high side) as he could. Even then, the little antenna on the roof would "TWANG" with each beam it went by. the Satellite dish, on the roof of the bus cleared by about a half an inch!
Now, he is on a mission to remove one of the support beams, so that we can access all of the bay doors of the coach. Hence the double I-Beams he incorporated into the roof raising. He is replacing one of the support beams, because it is split in several places, so I'm sure it is weak, and totally removing another one completely. Before next winter, we are planning to have glass doors installed all along one wall, so that we can have an enclosed, heated space.
Anyway, he hopes to get the beams done by tomorrow, so we can leave.
Back soon, tho' because the hummingbirds, deer and pretty songbirds are starting to show up. We even have a bird's nest with mama and eggs, built in the rafters of the deck!

Talk about an exciting afternoon!......
We went to Wal Mart and I stayed in the car, listening to the race, while Jimmy went in. In a few minutes, I heard someone screaming for help and looked about 3 cars up, on the sidewalk, and a big black guy had thrown a woman (his wife) to the sidewalk, was standing over her and thumping her on the ground, demanding his car keys. Her arm was in a sling and she was screaming. About 20 Wal Mart employees came running and I grabbed Nikki out of the back seat and ran to help, yelling to leave her alone.
Of course he didn't stop...until he saw Nikki....then he backed off.
She got up, got in the car, locked the door, he was screaming at her, so all the people were telling her to leave, drive off. He threatened to kick in the window, but she sped off. In the meantime, they had called the cops and the guy took off, too.
Of course, I had to give my name as a witness, and everyone was talking about when I came up with my dog.....(the big wussie...she just stood there until I said okay"back in the car" and she was ahead of me to the car!)
But, it was nice to know that she was imtimidating.......

We went to the lake, for the weekend. Couldn't take the boat out, because it was being worked on, but we really enjoyed the bluebonnets everywhere. The lake was soooo overfull, they had the gates open and were releasing water in to the Brazos river, below.
Had a nice weekend, great weather, home Sunday night......bus goes into the shop at Marathon on Monday, to fix some electrical issues and I will be checking some doctors to fix my medical "issues".
More later.

Here's a picture of the Daddy duck sitting vigil!

Well, after being gone for the weekend, we came home to find only 3 eggs in the nest, but no broken shells! Then, this morning, there were only two......I guess I have to believe she is moving them somewhere. Darn it! I really wanted to see the hatchlings!

We headed up to TMS on Thursday to meet with friends for dinner at Babe's Fried Chicken (THE best fried chicken....ever!) and get ready for the race weekend!
Friday was the Qualifying for both leagues and Nationwide league practice.
HOWEVER, it started raining on Friday night and rained and rained and rained....the entire weekend!!! Sooooo, the races (both Cup and Nationwide) were postponed until Monday.

New tires!!

Well, after a nice weekend, we went home, spent a day and half, then got a phone call at 1 a.m......
Our friend John, from Ruidoso, (the quadriplegic) was being taken by ambulance to El Paso, with 104 temperature, some infection and pneumonia.
We had a new truck to sign papers on, etc. then, needless to say, loaded up the bus, and off we went to El Paso.
About Big Spring, (4 hours) Jimmy hit the brakes and pulled off on the side of the road......the Jeep, we were towing behind us, had a big blowout and tore up the front fender, etc. of the jeep. So we had to stop, change the tire and us Duct tape to hold the fender together!
Off we go, again, then!!........about 9 pm, outside Odessa, where there are ABSOLUTELY no lights, no cars....nothin'! we're going about 75 m.p.h. and all the lights go out! headlights, etc. TALK ABOUT SCARY~
Can't see the road or anything! All we could do was pull right a little bit, until we hit the rumble strips on the side of the road and "feel" our way to a stop! WHEW! JEEZ......how frightening! Jimmy got out and found a problem with the relay switches, so he stole the one from my dishwasher and fixed it!

After getting to El Paso at 2 am, and a short sleep, we were off to the hospital, where he was in ICU. Jimmy stayed, and I left (had the dogs with me) since there was nowhere to sit and hospitals creep me out anyway, after my stroke and Mom's death.
He spent most of the day and I went and had dinner with my brother and his wife. He called me to go pick him up at about 10 pm.
They took John to emergency surgery the next morning and removed his Gall Bladder. It had gangrene!!
The crisis had passed, along with all the other inept B.S. that happens in a hospital...it was decided to keep him until Monday or so.

Well, we had a nice Sunday brunch at the club, and Jimmy wanted to play his first round of golf, this year......He had his own Easter Egg hunt, as he spent a lot of time looking for the little white ball, in the bushes and over the cliffs..ha!ha!
Even a little lizard was watching! Wonderful day.

More pretty Easter Pictures!

A few days before Easter Sunday, we noticed a couple of Mallard ducks have been coming and playing in our pool every morning. So when Jimmy was out cleaning the pool, as he walked by the planter, a duck flew out! Yep! You guessed it! We have ELEVEN EASTER EGGS! The mama was sitting on them in the planter!! I'm so excited, I don't know when they'll hatch, so we gotta watch them closely!

The next surprise was Jimmy removing one of the couches from the bus and we bought 2 recliners, instead.
Aside from the wonderful leather smell, the recliners are WONDERFUL! They add a lot more room and Jimmy had to have one of them (the huge one) as a special massage recliner! He also, redid all of the clear plastic flooring to protect the sculptered carpet...., also got the washer/dryer fixed in the bus (yea!!!)

This is how the couch came out and the big recliner went into the bus! through the window!!!!

This was my 25th Anniversary Surprise! Pretty, huh?

We are on our way home from Bristol and the Nascar Race, but HAD to stop and spend the night in the Tom Sawyer RV Park on the Mississippi River, again! The river is about 5 feet from putting the RV park under water, it is running so high! It's really cool to watch the barges go up and down the river, almost at eye level. The ones going up river, churn and churn and you can watch the rolling waves from the engine for about 1/4 mile down the river! They are from little short ones to super huge looonnngg ones!
From here, we'll be going home, to touch base, and Jimmy was going to take the jeep and drive to Alto, to go skiing for the weekend and I was going to relax.....but, I guess we'll all be headed to New Mexico, in a few days and maybe spend our 25th Anniversary there.

Well, after the "Interference Fit" process, finally worked, we left and stopped by El Paso for a day, to see my brother and some friends. Then off, quickly, by the house in Kennedale, for a day, then off, madly, to Bristol, Tn. for the Nascar Race!

On the way home from Farley's.....steak fingers and ribs.....we caught this great sunset!

As I sit here on the deck, Jimmy is sawing and drilling on the axle sleeve of the bus and I am watching it snow, between brief breaks of sunshine....go figure! Yesterday was my birthday and our friend Harvey spent the day with us. He had not been here since high school, so we drove all around town and let him remenisce! Then , he had to leave, so Jimmy cooked me dinner and brought me flowers and ice cream! I have been feeling pretty punky, lately, so I'm just taking it easy and trying to stay quiet, so I don't go into a coughing fit!

My friend Dara, is basically running the office and catching up on driver's paperwork, etc. while I'm out of town, and Elevinia went by to write the rent check for us....so all's running smoothly, by remote control. We saw a really pretty Buck while driving around......

Sealing up the "cracks".

Well, it's a pretty, sunshiney day and 41 degrees, and Jimmy is doing some odd jobs around the place. Putting up some underpinning around the roof, to block out some of the cold wind. His new project is to run the dryer tubing, under the deck, thus keeping the water pipes warm.
The bus is still not fixed, I guess I'm just lucky that we made it here and I can just sit on the warm deck, like it was my living room. Hopefully, the mobile service guy will be up from Las Cruces, Tomorrow.