BEADS BEADS and MORE BEADS

I forgot to mention we stopped off at an Indian Flea market yesterday in Santa Fe, it was "bead heaven" . I just kept saying to Jim, "I wish Barb and the girls were here." The two ladies paying (yes I did pur-chase) in front of me spent over $200 each, it made my $8 look a bit sad, but I was happy I got some nice stones. I did find a nice bracelet, hand made in copper, and signed by the artist Brian O'Malley, (yes he's a Paddy) to add to my jewelry collection .

Our visit Santa Fe

Staying at Rancheros de Santa Fe. www,rancheros.com

ST FRANCIS CATHEDRAL, SANTA FE. New Mexico







NAMBE FALLS & Dam


A fifteen minute hike along the shaded cottonwood trails takes you to the base of Nambe Waterfalls. A Short climb up the side of the canyon brings you to a birds-eye view of the Falls. Sitting above the falls are the Nambe dam and lake a 56-ace lake for fishing and fun.
The movies, City Slickers, and Vampires, were filmed here.



Hiking up to the Falls.







A hair raising hike to the falls......

Views from the Falls.

Carlsbad Caverns National Park New Mexico.

We had a bit of a drive to get to the Caverns, but it was well worth the effort. Price in was a meager $6.00 each. The elevator took us down 750 feet, in 63seconds, then we had a slow walk, for the 1 and a 1/4 miles around the "Big Room". It took us a little over 1 and 1/2 hours to do the circular route round the cavern. The "Big Room", as its called, is a little over 8.2 acres in size, and is said to be the largest open cave in the western hemisphere.

The cavern is well lit, without the light being obtrusive, and the trails are smooth with guard rails on either side. The temperature is a continuous 56f, (13c) and whilst a light jacket is recommended, Jim went without one and did not feel the cold. I did take one, but think I could have gone without. Good walking shoes are a must.

This is the view as you leave the visitors centre, it is quite breathtaking.

Roswell

We went to look for the Alien's, and then go find a Wal*Mart.

Found both..................

I'm the one in the middle.

The drive to Roswell from Whitney, was so good. We saw very little traffic, and some times we would not see another car on the road for miles. We were going to stay the night on Wal*Mart car park in Brownsfield, Texas on the way here. But, we always ask the manager first, and this time she told us that there was a free camp ground about one mile away. We set off and found it, Coleman Campground, just on the edge of town. www.freecampgrounds.com Pull through sites, 50amps, water & can you believe free wi fi. The sign outside says "Free Campground" GREAT.......

See the bug's on the window

Fun at Whitney.

Friends "Old and New"

On our first day at Lake Whitney, we saw Phil and Catherine arrive, who we knew from Peace River. When we tracked them down to their site, and let them know we were there too, we arranged to meet up on the Pickle Ball court next morning. They said they had brought some new players to Whitney with them. As can be seen in the picture, we didn't just do pickle ball. Allan and Trudy had the most room at their site, so evening meals were taken there. It was also a time to have a little fun.

We also spent time doing what Jane does best, ....shopping...We saw an estate sale in the town of Whitney, and so we found a way to spend a Sunday afternoon. It seems that Phil and Cath, Allan and Trudy all love to shop.

Phil buys anything that he finds "interesting."
You should see inside his Dodge Pick-up, it is packed so tightly, mainly with stuff he has bought on this trip, you would be hard placed to put a sliver of paper in there !!!!! Note the "Funeral. No Parking" sign as just one example.

What a great bunch of people. Phil spent a whole afternoon, repairing my power drivers seat in the motor home. Words of thanks are not enough, but "Thank you" anyway.

Pickle Ball at Lake Whitney Texas

Me and Alan

Some, may say its not good sportsmanship to smile when your opponent's miss a ball when playing Pickle Ball. Who cares we had a great game and we had lots of fun.

Trudy gives me a helping hand.

Phil & Trudy try to teach me how to make bird calls.

Take a look at the video.

A lesson in Bird call's

Phil & Trudy try to teach me to do "Bird Calls".





We have all met round at Alan & Trudy's for our evening meals for more than a week now, you would think we would have nothing to talk about after 3 hours of pickel ball every morning and then supper over 4 hours every night (maybe that's why we are doing bird calls now?) we have laughed so much the last week our sides ache. We said our good byes to Darrel & Linda this morning after we played Pickel ball. The rest of us leave on Monday. It has been a great two weeks we will be sorry to go. Our American family continues to grow.

We went to visit George...but he was out.

Crawford TEXAS home of George W BUSH.



Today we went for a drive, and realized we were only a few miles from the "Prairie Chapel Ranch" in Crawford, home of George W Bush. About 1/2 mile before the drive way to the Ranch, the sign's were on the road saying NO STOPPING. NO PARKING. NO STANDING. So the photo below was taken on the move. You can just see the White Ranch in the distance. The Ranch is set in 1583 acres.







The town of Crawford has one gas station, and two gift shops and a population of 705. YES we went into one and had a chat with the lady owner, who was glad to tell us all she knew.



Not sure what the wild flowers growing in the field were, but they were so nice.

After leaving Crawford, we continued on our original destination, Waco. Its quite a small Texas town, and with a notoriety that it doesn't deserve, after all if it wasn't for the "Bungled FBI" raid on The Branch Davidians, which resulted in a massacre. who would have heard of the place. It was our 2nd visit to the town, we were here 3 years ago, and found it quite charming. On our last visit we went to the 'Texas Ranger' Hall of Fame museum. We gave it a miss this time, but did visit some of the quaint shops in the Downtown area of the city.

A day in Fort Worth.

The local "BOBBY"

This is the second time we have been to Fort worth, we were there 3 years ago. Not a lot has changed, but like most places there are a lot of empty stores. The Texas long horn's are spectacular to see up close. And to see the police wearing their stetson hats and on horse back, was neat. Jim had the "all you can eat beef rib" again, so he was happy.

The Texas Long Horn

So close.

This is the only cow I'm getting close to.

A day of rest.....

Lake Whitney TX

It felt strange being in the water without my shovel and screen, but I have been told there are Fossils around here, (no, not the two legged kind) so will try and find a few this week (Debbie if you know tell me). We have seen a few friends from Peace River here, Phil & Kathryn came in the same days as we did, Ed & Bonny work here, we met them 3 years ago at PR, and they have just been around for a chat & drink, its so nice to catch up.



Such a hard life, had to put his t-shirt on as he was burning.

Get your kicks..........

We have decided to try and get some miles on "THE MOTHER ROAD". Looking at the route we plan to take we should hit her a couple times, in Albuquerque and In Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The Love Bugs are back.

This is what the front of the RV looked like when we got to Lake Whitney, Texas today. At one point we must have driven into a swarm, as they hit the windshield with such force, we thought it was rain.

00P'S

Jane working on her tan.




OK OK OK. Before anyone says anything, it was my fault. But.......

We were driving along, west bound on the I 10, we had just crossed the state line from Florida into Alabama, when the engine just died. No warning, no mis fire, no warning buzzers or lights, it just died. I pulled over to the nearside, as far off the road as possible, and stopped. What the hell is wrong with it? The fuel gauge says we have over a quarter of a tank of diesel, so that can't be it...........can it? We call Good Sam, our breakdown service. Twenty five minuets later we get answered. As I am explaining what happened to the operator, I started to do a mental add up of the miles we had done since the last fill up, way back in April 08... Yes that's right, 08, at the BP in Zolfo Springs. To cut a long story short, we had travelled over 820 miles since we last filled up, and had used the generator goodness knows how many hours. We must have run our of diesel. The gauge says over one quarter full, but common sense says 820 miles, 100 gallon tank, 8mpg., yep, we are out of fuel.
I was going to stop at a travel center just before the state line, but the price was $2.49 a gallon, and I thought I'm not paying that much for diesel, I would wait until we get to Alabama.
The good news is, the 5 gallon of fuel the breakdown guy brought was free. The bad news?
When the fuel was poured into the tank, the engine still would not fire, so he had to "prime it".
The charge for anything other than delivering and pouring into the tank, is $125. an hour, or part thereof. Yes the priming, all of 5 minuets, cost us $120. Or it would have if we had that much in cash on us. I had $110 and change, which he accepted. Bottom line. I didn't pay $2.49 a gallon, I paid $22.00c a gallon, and spent 3 hours on the side of the interstate.
Glad it was only running out of fuel, (the first time in my life ever, I might add) as it could have been much worse
than $110.
But like I said at the start, it wasn't all my fault...........

Thank you for the pic's Gen

I can walk like my Dad.


Grace on the run

Grace Gen & Edward

Genette sent a few photo's she took on a holiday they had on the Lincolnshire coast. Love that face Ed....

But it looked so pretty........

Blue Bottle Jellyfish, or Portuguese Man of War

Jim and I set off for a day on the beach today, as we thought we may not get to see the ocean for a few months now. We drove to Panama Beach. The beach was beautiful and so was this jellyfish we found. I knew with the heat it would soon dry out and die, so I set about trying to get it back in the water. After many times we got it back, but I think it will get washed up again as we could not get it that far out. NOW when we got home we looked it up on the internet, and found out what it was called, that it comes from Australia, and can give a nasty sting.

Mark & Chis have a new home.

http://havebounderwilltravel.blogspot.com/
And its so nice. I could get a few pair's of new shoes in that sucker.



It will be so nice to look at it's "BACK-SIDE" all the way to Alaska. But I can see we will have some good times in that 42 footer. It has 4 TV's, one of them is outside so all 4 of us can watch different things, Chris can have the one in the kitchen........



Well, its Sunday morning here at "Club Lazydays". I did a full English Breakfast this morning for Jim, Mark and Mike, as Chris & Kim are not here to feed their men. We hope to leave in the morning around 9am, we will be stopping for a few days in Fountain, up in the Florida pan handle.



FIRST LEG Florida to Alberta. 3947 miles. With stops
in Santa Fe, NM, and Yellowstone, to name but two, on the way.








OVER VIEW OF THE WHOLE TRIP. 5338.ish miles

STILL AT LAZYDAYS......

We need the roof sealed....... will be here till Monday.
Mike and Kim left at 6pm on Wednesday after being here 4 weeks, and were back at 8.30pm after their NEW wind shield they had fitted (the 5th one in 3 year's) cracked. Mark is here too, so may get some Pickleball in. LOL

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