March 30, 2012 Greetings from Balmorhea, TX.

I know, it was my first thought too, where is Balmorhea, TX?

First, backing us to yesterday, we traveled from Gila Bend, AZ, to Deming, NM, yesterday, about 350 miles. Jim and Penny Scott are still there, so we wanted to stop and see them on our way east. She spent almost two weeks in the hospital after we left in February and is doing much better.

Unfortunately, we decided we needed to get east as quickly as possible to avoid extra time at the higher altitudes while Larry’s BP is running high. And, there is some kind of storm on our heels, so we are working on the theory—keep moving! So we missed saying “goodbye” to Mary and Jerry Frye in Casa Grande, AZ. See you this fall, Mary and Jerry. Have a great summer!

We had some wind along the route to Demining. One gust moved our truck to the other lane—scary, but it was only one gust. We did enjoy seeing some color in the desert:

Note quite what you expect in the desert, is it?

This photo comes from the “You don’t have to be rich to RV, just real handy with tools" story. It is homemade camper. We do have it a bit better with our Big Foot than some, don't we?

We are in Balmorhea, TX, thanks to the RVer just to the left of this photo. Dennis Hill told me about a Passport America park this morning when I mentioned I thought we would only make El Paso, TX, as I didn’t get much sleep last night. He made this park sound inviting that when I found my second wind in El Paso, we passed by Mission RV Park another 160 miles to the little berg of Balmorhea. It's on I-10 about 21 miles east of the I-10/I-20 split. Very nice and affordable at $10! The air conditioner is working to reduce the outside 90 degree temps down to the 70s—making life much more comfortable!

Very clean and neat looking park. Here we are—ready for dinner and then to bed!

Tomorrow we hope to cover about 250 miles to Segovia, TX. From there, it should be one more night on the other side of San Antonio, TX, and then back in Livingston. We hope that being at the house and not enjoying the stresses of traveling will return Larry’s morning blood pressure readings back into acceptable levels.

We won’t be able to post from Segovia, TX tomorrow night. In the past, neither of our AT&T or Verizon phones had coverage in that park. It is one of the bare-bones parks in the Passport America program, but we have stayed there successfully several times over the years.

So, back with you on Sunday night after passing through the big city of San Antonio!.

March 28, 2012 From Sugar Barge, CA to Gila Bend, AZ

We are back traveling. This post should be called: Again!

Larry’s lab work was better than February’s results, so we snuck off Bethel Island a few days early. It was hard to leave while the state was in full-spring mode. Nothing says spring like tulips and daffodils.

However, across the street, the wild mustard flowers say “It’s time to get out of Dodge”—before the dreaded hay fever sets in…again.

I spent 10 miserable days sneezing and blowing my nose round the clock when the park trees dropped their blossoms on us. I wasn’t ready for another bout. I went to W-M to buy some allergy medicine. I read the directions: One brand said do NOT to use if you have kidney disease and the other said, Do NOT use if you have liver disease. Yikes, something that harms our kidneys or liver isn’t something safe to use. I decided sneezing and blowing my nose was preferable to the other options.

Larry celebrated his 83rd birthday with dinner at my dad's house. In case you missed it, here is the dinner:

My dad on the left—who will be the same age in May and Larry on the right.

Yum yum. Diane brought macaroni salad and Karen brought a fruit plate to complement ham and sweet potatoes—again.

And of course, desert!

It’s official: Larry is in pretty good shape at 83 for the shape he is in, smile! Way to go, honey. My Timex watch…he keeps on ticking!

Sugar Barge changed out one of the electrical transformers while we were there. After 6 weeks of full hook-ups, it was difficult to realize we were without electricity for 10 hours. Everything I wanted to do that day required electricity. Here are the guys and their toys:

Because Sugar Barge is in a flood-zone (The river is higher than than Bethel Island’s ground—held back by levees) the electrical services are installed about 10 feet up in the air.

We left last Saturday morning. We stopped a night in Bakersfield, CA and then another night back at Quartzsite, AZ. We pushed on ahead of a storm to Gila Bend, AZ. And that is when our trip plans went into neutral—AGAIN.

Larry’s BP has decided to climb into an uncomfortable range—again! It went from okay to very NOT ok over night. So, we are spending a few days and tinkering with his BP meds to get his BP back into safe range.

Will we ever get back to Texas for a few weeks this year? We miss our Texas friends! I miss my pottery studio and the shower with 40 gallons of hot water and my own washer and dryer. I have boxes to open from Amazon—sent last time we thought we were headed there in February there as well as more boxes ordered last week.

In the meantime, we are trying to find beauty in the life around us here at Holt’s Shell RV Park in Gila Bend.

It is spring in the desert. The days are warm and the nights are delightful.

We drove through Gila Bend and were impressed with this little town. I have heard about a fantastic Italian resturant and it looks inviting from the outside, however, we are sticking to home-cooked meals for a bit. We may sneak out to the local DQ for a Blizzard this afternoon. We are good--but not so good we pass up good frozen treats, smile.

Whoops, this blooming cactus is a metaphor for our life—beautiful to look at, but be careful, there are some very sharp thorns hiding in among all that beauty. These darn health issues are worrisome. It is difficult to know exactly what to do……and how to keep on living while working to keep on living!

Stay tuned for our next decision. Is the BP low enough to continue east or do we have to stay out west for the summer?????

In the mean time, I noticed these two trucks this morning and had to take photos. This is the way to be a long-haul trucker:

He has better living accommodations than we do in our shoe box--at least more space!

Behind him, was this luxury RV—tractor—again, with a lot more room than the shoe box.

That his his trailer on the left. Notice the size of his tractor hauler?

That is a full-fledged RV pulling a trailer; no, not a racing-car trailer, but a commercial trailer with a load:

Gee, if they had had RV-haulers like this 20 years ago, we could have been talked into working, smile! The best of both worlds: Actually paid to drive a RV around the country and see new sights.

Check back soon to see if we head east.

Mar. 7, 2012 A quick update from frustrated computer user!

Greetings from beautiful Sugar Barge RV Park in Bethel Island, CA.

This month is labeled “Frustration to the Max” month.  First the set-to with Camping World charging us $52 when they failed to deliver the promised services and I had to call back to get the refund they owed us, then my computer locked up.  Everything worked except I was unable to bring up the Google log in page to check email and work on the blog.  I would get a message that Internet Explorer/AVG could not find the log-in page.  Larry backed-up the computer 14 days, when it didn’t work, he uninstalled AVG.  Then Larry tried to install MS Security Essentials, but kept getting a message stating it could not load because I didn’t have a genuine Windows application on my computer.  When he checked with MS, the page said my computer had a genuine Windows application.  Around and around he went for two days. 

We finally removed the Security Essential program and AVG paid program and loaded the free AVG program so I could get back on the net.  I could log in to Google again, except by now, I couldn’t get Verizon Broadband service, only 1xrtt service—so slow, I couldn’t load up the blog.

I am sitting in my dad’s garage in Antioch using the broadband card—so this will be short.

Larry’s March lab tests were back up to what he was in January—YIPPEE!  So, we don’t know if he had a bad month—or two bad test results in February!  We saw Dr. Chi last Friday and she was happy to see the results had improved.  We were VERY happy too.  If he can pull another round of similar results at the end of March, we have a window of travel of April until July!!  Yippee!  Back to Texas to do what we planned in February!  Life is good!

And in the meantime, we are enjoying spring in the SF Bay area—where the trees are white and pink and the hills are starting to turn velvet green.  This is the best of times in California!!

Aren’t all those colorful trees beautiful? 

Unfortunately, this is an ugly photo:

The price of gas hit $4 a gallon a month ago.  Diesel is running about $4.49 to $4.69 in this area.  Ugly and painful for retired folks!  We will continue to travel, just slower and with fewer meals out.  We will get by!

Enough for today. May the spring flowers brighten your world and fill your heart with hope!