MERRY CHRISTMAS

We wish all of our family and friends a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We wanted to share our beautiful Minnesota winter with all of our freinds in warmer climates. We love our Minnesota winters as long as it is only for a month. Our son Ryan and his friend Heather joined us for Christmas day and our daughter and our son-in-law Brady will join us on Saturday for our official Christmas celebration. Our sons Tony and Jeff cannot join us this year and we will surely miss them.

Today we went out for two hours on our snow machines and the trails are spectacular. We will be tubing on a large hill near us tomorrow. We will be staying at the lake home until Jan 4 and then home until our departure for the south.

We will be departing for San Antonio where our motorhome is at on Jan 7 and then heading for Florida. We will be in Orlando by the second week where we will join with friends we met last year on our trip. We call this the Doc/Ranger Rally. We would love for anyone to join us. The RV resort we were to stay at is full so we are still looking at possibilities. We are still not sure where in Orlando but will work it out in the next week or two. Anyone we met last year, please join us if you can. After that visit we will head to Fort Myers where we will spend the rest of the winter months supervising the building our new home.

For now be SAFE!!!!!

San Antonio, TX December 2 through December 6th

"Smile Pam!" I caught her off guard.
I took loaded these pictures in the wrong order,
but I will tell you the story. This is after I tried
to ride...the cinch broke and I never got to ride.

Here is Jim and this 5 year old paint that he raised and
trained for herding cattle, roping etc... So he got him
all ready, put him on the walker and worked him a
little himself.
Jim showing me some of the leg movements he
uses on her.

Here Jim is trying to shorten my stirrups and if

you'll notice I put my legs forward on her. Jim

told me later he was amazed she didn't make a move

when I did that! It was when I moved my legs

back, she thought I was making a move and she

must have expanded her belly so fast and hard that

the cinch broke and I just slide off the side. No one was

hurt but it sure was funny. John and Pam were both

there with cameras and neither one caught it on film.!

A view of their pasture.

Pool in the back.

Front of house. You can kind of see their

dog Pepper in the foreground.

Jim at the restaurant "Papa Gallos".

Pam's dad Bob and Jim and I.

John, Skog, me and Pat out at a restaurant

we went to with Jim and Pam.

Pam, me and Jim at the restaurant.

Pam and and having a good time.

We arrived in San Antonio on Tuesday and after we got set up we drove over to Pam and Jim's. We hadn't been there for 11 years so we got to see some wonderful additions. They built a pool in the back yard and Pam put a 1000 sq ft photography studio. It was awesome. They took the piano out of it's own room and made Jim a TV room and put the piano in the living room and it was really nice. Pam's mother died in August (she is from Chicago) and she just got back the week before Thanksgiving from getting her dad to come down to San Antonio for a while. I think he likes it, but he is lonely and sad. They were married 64 years I think or more even....(I can't remember the ages of her brother and older sister.) Anyway, he is adjusting. We sure enjoyed his company. We made a run to the motor home to get a few things for dinner and also made a trip to the grocery store. Had a great meal and even better conversation.

Wednesday we just got up and threw on some clothes and headed over to their house. We had coffee and then I was going to ride. Well, it was pretty funny as I explained up by the pictures.

No one was hurt and we all got a good laugh. After that escapade we went out to lunch and a great Mexican restaurant and all stuffed ourselves. After lunch John and I went home to get a few things done and call Pat and Skog to arrange dinner for the 6 of us. We decided to meet at 6:30. Showered up and they picked us up for the drive in rush hour traffic to the restaurant. Pat and Skog were there and we really enjoyed our time with them. The restaurant was pretty crowded and very loud so conversation wasn't the easiest. We decided to meet in the morning for breakfast.

Thursday morning, John and Jim decided to go to Tractor Supply and so Pam and I thought we would meet with Pat and Skog by ourselves. We dropped Pam's dad off at Pam's sister's house. Boy, did she have a nice house.! She was going to get his prescriptions and do some shopping with him. Pam and I really got in a nice quiet visit with Pat and Skog. Skog is still on the mend after a bout in the hospital just days before Thanksgiving. He says he's feeling better, but I thought he was quiet. We discussed all the family members and filled them in on all their goings on. After lunch I went home for awhile and John got his hair cut. We then went over to Pam and Jim's for dinner and a poker game. I had so much fun...I love playing poker.

Friday John and I went to Pam's for a scheduled photo shoot. She took our pictures together and we hope we get a good one. She is one talented lady. She did a calendar for the female firefighters in San Antonio that raised 40,000.00 and gave her considerable notoriety.

Friday night we went see "Australia" and then to PF Changs for dinner. What a great evening.

Jim picked us up at 7:30 and dropped us at the airport. It was very kind of him. Our flight ended up being canceled for a mechanical and we got on the next flight in time for them to tell us that our original flight got whatever fixed and it would leave shortly. We decided to go ahead with the new flight and pray we could make our connection in Dallas. We were racing down the terminal to the next gate and they were calling our names! Good news is we made the connection and the bad news my suitcase didn't! American delivered it to me that night at 10:45pm. The joys of flying.

We didn't get any pictures of Danny (their son) nor their adorable Boston terrier, Pepper. We we fly back in January I will try to do that. Pepper is hilarious...he skate boards!!!!

I will try to get a blog in around Christmas. I have decided not to send Christmas cards, I am going to send New Year's cards....(unless I change my mind.)

Merry Christmas to all of you.

Fredricksburg and Stonewall, TX

This is where Lyndon B Johnson is buried.

His grave stone is the tall one. You can't go

into the cemetery.

This is the house (on the ranch) that he

was born in. The house itself was re-built in

1964...I think.

This is a little white house right by the main

house that the secret service stayed in. They

left this residency the day after Lady Bird died.

The sidewalk going up to the main house that

LBJ signed in 1952.
This is the front of his house.

Notice the Live Oak in the front yard. That tree

is about 425 years old.

These are the two Lincoln Towncars

that he used on the ranch.

Today we drove into Fredricksburg, TX because we were told that they had some cute shops. CUTE! There were a ton of cute shops. Yes, I made John walk all the way down one side of the street and then down the other side. I still think we missed a few. After we shopped we found out that LBJ's ranch was right here in this community. So, we found out where and took off. It was only another 15 min. drive. The family gave the ranch to the US National Park in 1972. The two requests were that they didn't charge to get in and that they kept it as a working ranch. So why did we pay $1.00 each to get in if it was to be free? Not a big deal...just a question. It is located in the Hill Country and really is quite pretty. There are still some Longhorns around, guess they are a bit unruly and not to be trusted. We saw a lot of cattle, deer, and sheep. There is a really pretty river that runs right in front of the property call the Pedernales River. I guess during the rainy season it can flood up and over the banks and fairly close to the house. We enjoyed our tour. You can't get into the house itself, but we did get to see his office that he worked out of when he was President. The tour guide said that the lower part of the house will be open for viewing in about 5 years. After Lady Bird died all the relatives came and took stuff that they wanted. The Park people have pictures of what it looked like then and are trying to reconstruct it just like it was when they were alive. His circle of life started on this ranch and ended on this ranch. The family cemetery was pretty full!

Didn't get home until 5:30, so made dinner and now I am making cookies.

Black Friday El Paso, Tx Ft. Bliss

Tony is the XO (Executive officer) and this

is his parking space at his "office".
Tony at his desk.

Tony and I out in front of a tank.

We all got up on this tank and Tony opened

the hatch and we all got to go in. It is

incredibly small in there.

Tony is sitting in the gunner's seat.

John is sitting in the seat that Tony

will sit in. I am sitting across from both

of them. We weren't in there too long because

it is very close and John doesn't like confinement.

There are usually 4 men in this tank!

Tony climbing out of the tank.

All the tanks in his company.

Chillin in the RV.

The 3 stooges.

Tired and full from eating our lunch out a

an excellent Mexican restaurant.

Yesterday, on Thanksgiving, Tony came out to our RV park...it was only about 20 minutes, if that, for him to get to us. We had turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn, rolls and chocolate silk pie. After we ate we watched a lame movie on Direct TV...then just sat around and talked and got caught up with what he is doing here. Next thing we know it was 10:30...so we called it a night.

Today, John and I broke camp to take the RV to the service bay at Camping World to get a recall checked on the coach. We just left it there and headed out closer into El Paso. We ate breakfast at a breakfast taco place for 2.82 for both of us!!! Then we found a battery place and purchased a new battery for the PT...it wasn't starting very well. Then, because they didn't install them we went across the street to the Ford dealer and got it installed for 12.50! Not bad. They called it the Thanksgiving special. After we got done, we picked Tony up at his apartment and headed out to the base. It was really interesting. We got to go to his office building and then got to go out and see his company's tanks and hum V's and Bradley's. We crawled down into one tank and it was so tight! There are 4 people in this tank and you are packed in like sardines. To think you are driving, shooting, and loading ammo in that close of a space is amazing. Then we walked to see where they can eat . Decided we didn't want to eat there so Tony took us to a Mexican restaurant that was really good.

After our tour we dropped Tony off to get his car and we went back to set up the motor home again, he came back so we could go look at 5th Wheels. He is toying with getting a 5th Wheel or a motor home and putting it in the RV camp on base. That way he can always have his house on wheels. He will deploy to either Iraq or Afghanistan in March and this way he won't have to pay rent on an apartment for a year while he is gone. There is more checking to do on the subject but it was fun to look at them together.

We hung out for awhile and he just left a bit ago to go home. John and I are going to get an early start tomorrow because we have an 8 hour drive down to Kerrville, TX , by San Antonio. We thought we would stay there a few days before going into San Antonio.

Tuesday in Tucson

I know this blog will show Wednesday's date but I am going to tell you what we did on Tuesday. Unfortunately, we (again) have no pictures because all the pictures we had were lost when we downloaded them onto the computer. Don't ask why.......it's not the 1st time this has happened. You were lucky you weren't here to hear the fallout!!!!!!
Anyway, I started the day by going to a Qigong class. Pronounced Che-gong. It is to increase blood flow, lower blood pressure and calm the body. Was very interesting. Then, I made a pie to take to Peggi and Jeff's for dinner as well a side dish for the salmon. This recipe was compliments of Carol Olson and it is excellent. (Everyone loved it.) Then I also did 4 loads of laundry. Now I'm caught up! I forgot to tell you that our RV resort was very close to Davis Monthan AFB and there are an unbelievable number of airplanes stacked up out there! I heard 20,000 was the number but I can only find articles that say 4,200. They supposedly could be air worth within 72 hours. Pretty amazing.
We got to Jeff and Peg's around 4:45...a little late due to traffic.....but we immediately got on the golf carts and drove up to the golf course. The golf coarse is up pretty high and you get an amazing view of the mountains. We took our drinks and headed up there hoping to see bobcat, mountain lions and javalina's...however all we saw was their dinner.....RABBITS!!! One guy stopped to talk and said he had just seen the bobcat, but by the time we got there, we couldn't see him. My luck! Anyway, it was beautiful and just fun to be on top of the valley.
We had an awesome dinner of grilled salmon, pork chops, salad with strawberries, nuts, etc...,baked and sweet potatoes, and bread that was to die for. For desert we had cherry pie and ice cream. Homer and Macey (their Westies) were so fun. They SO reminded me of Maddie.
Well, we had a wonderful evening even if we didn't see the wild animals.
We are now in El Paso. Pretty much drove all day, but we did go search out this pecan farm in Las Cruzes that was pretty cool. They also grow a lot of cotton here. Interesting. Tony had had a full day a wasn't even home at 5:00, so decided that he would come up tomorrow for dinner and we would tour around his world on friday.

Tucson, Arizona

Me, Peggy and Jeff
Me, Peggy and John

Fun rock formations.

Lemmon Mountain

A view from the top.

After we woke up this am, we decided to scope out the town of Tucson. John wanted to see some of the sights that he remembered from 1971 (?), so we rode around and checked it out. We also made a stop at Best Buy to buy ink for the printer. Wouldn't you know we would run out just as we wanted to print something!

Jeff and Peggy picked us up at 1:00 and we headed out towards the mountains. We drove up to Lemmon Mountain. It it so strange because it starts out typical desert, dry, cactus and small brush, then as you go up the mountain and get towards the top, you see SNOW and lots of pine trees and it is much cooler! There is a small town up there, some cabins and a general store and also a ski area. I guess there was a fire up there about 2-3 years ago, so it was rebuilt and was very new.

By the time we drove back down the mountain it was about time to eat. We took an hour or so in the bar and had a drink. Then we ate dinner. I forgot to tell you we were eating at Pinnacle Pete's. We had an awesome steak dinner for a very reasonable price.

Jeff and Peggy had to go let their dogs out..it was a long day for them and they had a 30 min. drive back to the Marana ( I think that is the way you spell/say the area....north Tucson.)

Tomorrow we are going to cook dinner in at their house.

Tucson, Arizona

We made it! It was about 41/2 hour trip. We stopped in north Tucson and Peggy and Jeff Plant met us at the gate of their neighborhood and we parked down in their cul-de-sac and got to see their house. Jeff and Peggy are neighbors of ours on the lake. Their house here is also in a gaited community and their house is lovely. The whole area is brand new. We then drove down to south Tucson where we are staying. We were pretty hungry so had an early dinner at the restaurant here at the resort. I am watching "24" and then I think I'll retire a little early since we had such a late night last night.
Tomorrow Jeff and Peggy are going to pick us up and we are going on a day trip. More about that tomorrow.

Dinner at Bellini's on El Paseo in Palm Desert

Leona and I at the dinner table.
John, Bob, Leona and I.

I really wasn't ready for this picture of Leona and me.

Leona and I went to school together in Izmir, Turkey. We really lost track of each other after we returned to the states and graduated from high school. We found each other again via the Internet when all the kids I went to Turkey with us had a reunion in New Orleans five years ago.

After that, because John and I went to a convention in San Diego 3 years ago and Bob and Leona live in Escondido...(outside of San Diego) we saw them again. So, when we came to the Palm Desert I thought of calling her but hesitated due to the fact they we a little ways away. I thought they were 3 hours out....but they are really only 1 1/2 hours out. So, I called them finally on Friday and Leona was insistent on coming out here to meet us for dinner. So, we all me at a restaurant called Bellini's and had a wonderful dinner...then they wanted to come see the motor home so came back to Indio with us. They loved the coach...I think Bob could have been talked into one tomorrow!!! Anyway, we had a great evening.

Tomorrow it is on the Tucson.

Still in Indio, CA

YUCK!! Oh well, the flowers are pretty!

Well, nothing new to report....every day is the same as the previous...we think we are in

"Ground Hog Day." It is 87 to 90 everyday...humidity about 20% and it is incredible!

We did nothing today...except read and walk and ride our bike...and I went to the grocery store!

Yippee!!! Well, tomorrow night we are meeting a couple that lives in Escondido that I went to school with her in Turkey. John and I actually saw them about 3 years ago when we went to

San Diego with the convention for work...and Julie and Ken came for their 25th wedding anniversary. So, hopefully we will have pictures tomorrow that will be more interesting to look at.

OMG Indio, CA and the Palm Desert Nov. 17, 2008

Some of the lots around this RV Park
This is a new thing in motor homes. A deck that
comes out???? Kind of wierd, but interesting.

More of the RV Park...the grounds are

beautiful.

Unreal!!

Yep, it's me from a distance!

Going up the Santa Rosa & San Jaciento

mountains. We stopped at the viewing center

to take this picture.

Looking down the mountain.

The Palm Desert and surrounding areas are awesome! Good thing we already bought our lot in Florida, because this is pretty darn nice! However, in Florida, I feel like I fit in...here....not so much. I can smell the money around here. We drove down the El Paseo street where all the ritzy shops are and I literally told John not to stop...I need to go home and count my pennies first! :) (Really I want to go back when we have more time to shop...it was 3:30.) It is so beautiful and the weather is really weird to me. It is 90 degrees during the day...and yes, if you're laying out at the pool, it's warm, but sit in the shade and it is perfect. The temperature drops as soon as the sun goes down and nights go down to 55-60. It is pretty perfect. Definitely, if it was 90 in Minnesota or Florida, it wouldn't be that comfortable in the shade. Humidity does make a difference. HOWEVER, that being said, my skin is dry! In Florida, I always feel hydrated. Too many choices to make when it comes to weather.

I am wondering where all the members in the choir went every winter. Did they stay in condos or hotels or houses??? Maybe someone can answer that, Jane!!!

Been getting caught up on my reading...kind of nice. Just chilling tonight, last night we ate dinner at LG Steakhouse. Suppose to be one of the top 10 steak houses in the US??!! It was awfully good.

Saturday November 15, 2008 Lake Havasu City, AZ

The first two pictures are of the view from the pool. We laid out at the pool for 2 hours today and read our books and soaked up the sun! The view overlooks the Colorado River which is Lake Havasu. With the mountains in the background it really is pretty. The next picture on the left is "The London Bridge". It was bought in London and transported here and re-assembled block by block to the original bridge. The picture on the far left bottom is an area where all these "formula" type boats gather...music blaring and young people all over. These big, high performance boats are made here and it is more the norm to have one than not. They are very loud and testosteroney!!!! (Is that a word?)

We toured around the city a little more...actually went to a few more model homes just to compare apples to apples on what we're doing in Florida. So far, I like what we're doing better...good thing eh?

We made brats on the grill for dinner and took a small walk and now are watching a little TV.