bobanddenisewanderlust

Saturday- We ate breakfast, paid bills, and Bob left to deliver some donations to Goodwill and to take  the car to be detailed. I worked on the article for about an hour. Bob called and said they could not do the car until noon, so he returned and picked me up. We made our last trip to the storage unit, King Soopers and Walmart. We returned, he walked the dogs, and I started lunch. After lunch he took the car back to be detailed.

I worked on getting the inside of the motor home ready for us to leave tomorrow, and took a short nap. When Bob returned, we went to Margie and Wayne’s 5th wheel to pre-plan our trip to Alaska next summer. We have our route done, now there is more research to be completed. It is going to be about 6100 miles, not counting extra side trips. Our mileage in the lower 48 costs about 50cents per mile, so with the increased cost of diesel in Alaska, we figure about 60-65 cents per mile. It will be interesting to see what the actual cost ends up being. We are not setting up any camping reservations as we want to be able to change our minds at any time and we will also boondock as much as possible to save money. The plan is to cross over into Canada June 1, from Montana. All depending upon weather.

We returned to the motor home at about 4:30 and continued to prepare for our trip tomorrow. At 5:30, we went back to Margie and Wayne’s for dinner. Wayne had cooked a Greek Chicken dinner with chicken breasts, olives, tomatoes and feta cheese. It was delicious, served with Caesar salad and  steamed broccoli with carrots.  Dessert was strawberry shortcake! Yum! Below Margie, Brian and Kathy.

Above Wayne and Margie, then Kathy and Brian with bear.

We sat talking with Brian, Kathy, Wayne and Margie until 10, when we returned to the motor home and went to bed.

Sunday-  We were slow moving this morning. We packed up the RV, connected the car, then took the dogs over to say good-bye to Brian and Kathy. Then we stopped in to say good-bye to Margie and Wayne.

We finally left the Elks at 9:30, driving west on I-70 thru the Eisenhower tunnel. We were grieving when we past the exit for Breckenridge. We can’t say how much we are going to miss going to Breck for the winter.

We crossed over Vail pass, and continued on our journey west to Fruita Colorado where we checked into a Good Sam park for the night. While driving, I had asked Bob to grab me a bottle of water. When he opened the refrigerator door, an un-opened bottle of wine went flying. What a mess! He cleaned it up as much as he could, so when we arrived in Fruita, I vacuumed and mopped. Then we mopped some more, as it took 409 to get rid of the stickiness on the tile!

We ate dinner, then took the dogs for a nice long walk. There was a state park across the road, so we went over there to look around. We watched TV and went to bed.

Monday- We were driving out of the park at 9:00, continuing west on I-70. Once we left Fruita, the road opened up. If we saw two vehicles at the same time it was a traffic jam!

We passed into Utah, and about 40 miles into the state we stopped at a rest area.

The scenery was spectacular but desolate. We stopped for lunch at another rest area. It was at 7400 feet altitude. We had kept driving up and up! Bob finally said, we have to reach the top of this sometime!

The rest area overlooked this canyon, where the Butch Cassidy gang hid. This canyon has a history of hiding various gangs and other bad guys.

The Spanish Trail also came through here.

We continued on. Once we crossed the border into Utah, we passed into Pacific time. Since we had gained an hour, we decided to continue on past our original destination in Beaver UT. That was exit 51. We changed to an RV park at exit 23. When we were approaching, we noticed a sign for Encore Resorts! Our upgrade in Thousand Trails now includes 90 days of discounts at Encore, so Bob pulled over and I called into Encore to make a reservation. I paid via credit card, and we drove the 2 miles to the resort. We had a FHU, 50 amp with cable for less money than the other resorts in the area!

During the day I had been on the phone with the agency and I had a phone interview with the Director of Case Management at West Hills Hospital, in West Hills CA, located  in San Fernando Valley, about 25 miles north of LA. She accepted me, and the details worked out this time. Now there is all the other stuff to complete.

So now I have to fly on Wednesday from Las Vegas to Sacramento to walk my license through the California Board of Nursing. Plus I need a drug test and CEU’s. Hopefully they will accept the ones I had to do for my Case Management Certification.

We were both tired, but we needed bread, so we drove into the town of Hurricane to the grocery store. We also stopped for dinner at JB’s Restaurant for dinner. Typical American food. Bob had pork chops and I had a chicken Quesada.

Tuesday-  We started out at about 9 AM, continuing our travel south. As we were passing into Arizona, only for 28 miles, we drove through high altitude canyons. I spent a lot of time on the phone with the agency and trying to contact the California Board of Nursing. I needed to check on what I needed to give them to get my license. Because I had a CA license in the past ( 1978-1980), I had to ‘renew my license’. Stupid, but it is the law.

We arrived in Las Vegas and moved into the Thousand Trails.  The gal at the gate gave us a site on the back wall, but we could not level the motor home. She moved us a few sites down, and we had the same problem. Finally she moved us to site 82, and we were able, with blocks, to level. It is important to level for the refrigerator and because we have the large slide on the drivers side, we need to be level for it to go in and out well.

I needed a passport picture for the license, so we ran out and had my pic taken.

Since I needed 30 CEU’s to renew my license, I set about taking my own courses online and printing out the certificates. I had left my CCM certification CEU’s in the storage unit in Westminster. If I had to read all of the courses and take the tests, there was no way I would have gotten done. As it was, I was working on this until 9:30. We stopped for a short time and went out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant. Bob had found it on Yelp and the reviews were good. We arrived and the salsa tasted like spaghetti sauce. We were a little worried, but the food was really very good, other than the salsa.

Wednesday-  Bob dropped me off at the airport and I flew out at 8:50 to Sacramento. Southwest airlines lived up to their reputation. The staff were dressed for Halloween, in costumes. Of course, the gal who did the safety speech told us to grab the “I can’t believe its butter cup, and place it over your face”. She also informed us that we were on a no smoking, no complaining flight.  Passengers in the airport were also in costume.

The agency has a guy named Ryan who picks you up at the airport and takes drives you around. He as worked for the agency for 5 years. Evidently they practically run the hospital in Yuba City, with 110 of their nurses there.

The first stop was at a UPS store for my LiveScan fingerprints. Thank goodness they were digital, as I take lousy fingerprints on the cards. Cost me $76 but it is fast. They go directly to the FBI so it takes no time at all.

Second stop was at the CA BON. I had my paperwork all completed. Unfortunately, the paperwork that the lady on the phone from the BON told me to complete was the wrong paperwork! So the lady at the counter gave me the correct form, I completed it, gave it to her, along with the certificates for the 30 CEU’s ( I actually gave her 33, just in case they did not like one or two of them. They are picky on what kind of classes you take.) Fortunately, all of my CEU articles are approved by the CA BON, so they should have been accepted.

The gal at the counter told me that she did not think that I could get my license for 4-6 weeks. I explained that the hospital wanted me by the 5th, but it had to be by the 12th. I also explained that my agency had flown me in just to walk the application through the BON. She was very nice and gave me the name of someone to call. She said he was not in today, but to call him on Monday to find out the status of the license! EEEK!

I returned to the car and called Holly while Ryan was taking me back to the airport. She said it did not make a lot of sense. BTW, they did not need my picture! Oh well!

At the airport, I stood in line to check at Southwest to see if I could change to an earlier flight. It would cost $72 dollars, so I just went to lunch at one of the restaurants. Then wandered around the airport.

At one point I went to the restroom. I entered the stall and on the floor was someone’s credit card. I put it in my pocket, did my business, and took it to the gal at the Southwest desk. All of the flights in this area are on Southwest, so hopefully the card will get back to the person. Did my good deed for the day!

While waiting, the guy who I was supposed to call on Monday about my license called me. He asked me all the questions that were on the original form that I completed! He said he was working on my application and it should go through as soon as the fingerprints came back from the FBI.

I finished reading two books while I was waiting. My flights were pretty good, with an empty seat next to me both ways. On the way north, there was a baby in the row in front of me, but the mother worked hard on keeping the kid from crying too much. On the way back, the flight was more full, and the guy in the other seat put a bunch of his stuff in the middle, so no one sat with us, keeping the center seat empty.

I arrived 15 minutes early, and called Bob to pick me up. While I was gone, Bob cooked dog food, check on Las Vegas shows, made my appointment for my eye exam, and generally kept himself busy doing ‘stuff’.

We returned home to eat a crock pot dinner he had made. I fell asleep in the chair, trying to watch TV.

Thursday- We ran to a Concentra Urgent Care for me to have a FIT test. This is a California requirement. I was fitted for a special mask in case of a disaster or terrorist attack. Whatever….  Then Holly called me to tell me that my license was active, online. So that is good to go! She was impressed that I had managed to get it through so fast.

Then we went to a Lenscrafters for my eye exam. Of course, even though I had an appointment, a family walk-in bumped ahead of us, and we had to wait an hour! Then the lady at the Lenscrafters would not do only one lens for my glasses. She wanted to charge me $550 for two lenses ( no frames!). We walked out!

We went to lunch at the food court, having crepes at “Crazy Crepes”. I had an Italian Chicken and Bob had a ham and cheese. They were pretty good.

We returned to the motor home to walk the dogs and re-group. I called my friend Mary who works for an optometrist, to check on what the lady at Lenscrafters said. She had told me that their lenses are different, in the location of the bifocal, and would give me headaches, which is why she would only sell me two lenses. Not true. So we went to the local Walmart. We had gotten our glasses at Walmart in Westminster in April, because they are on our vision plan. I had gone to Lenscrafters so that I could get the lens in one hour. That would not have happened, as I have bi-focals.

Walmart would sell me a single lens for $121. BUT, they checked on our insurance, who we thought might pay for the lens due to the cataract surgery. There was an open authorization. I thought it might be from Lenscrafters. They were not able to put the lens through for an authorization. So I called BCBS vision plan and the lady who I spoke with ( who had cataract surgery last year so she knew what I was talking about), said that the authorization was for the glasses in Westminster. The Westminster optical department had sent us a bill for $24, which we thought was strange, and so did the opticians at this Walmart, as they do not bill. Turns out Westminster never billed BCBS for the glasses.  So, I am eligible for a new pair of glasses, then I can also get new lenses in 90 days ( my prescription may change again between now and then) so I will get new lenses for the old ( since April) frames in January. Then I will also be eligible for another new pair of glasses starting in January, but our vision plan is going to change vendors, so we will lose Walmart and have to go with Lenscrafters, Pearl Vision, Target or Sears.  What ever! So I went with a new frame, lenses etc…

While I was going through all of this, Bob went to the Pharmacy to get a refill on my steroid eye drops. I am down to one time a day with the drops, but I needed a refill of of this one prescription.

We ran over to Labcorp for me to take a drug test. We returned home to walk the dogs, then went to the Hofbrauhaus for dinner.

HB is a replica of the original one that we visited in Munich in 2001. Bob had an Octoberfest beer, at least that was what he ordered, but he thinks he actually got a lager, which was good. He had the bratwurst and I had the Jagerschnitzle. My meat was like cardboard, but the spatzle, gravy and cranberries were good. The music was fun.

We left there and went to the ‘strip’. We were able to get parking at the Bellagio, so we went to watch the fountains. They go off every half hour up until 8 PM, then every 15 minutes until midnight. Walking through the casino, we were treated to a Halloween display. This tree was animated.

They had this Chihuly glass scupture in the ceiling.  His glass sculptures are fantastic!

We walked across the strip to the Paris Casino.

We thought we might go up in the Eiffel Tower, but it was $18 each. We saw that Jersey Boys was playing, so we checked on tickets. The cheap seats were $56, so we bought them. The other shows we had looked at were $180 each, so this was a bargain!

We decided to have dessert at “Sugar”, in the casino, right on the strip side. We decided to split a hot fudge sundae. I was so appalled when it arrived, I forgot to take a picture. It came on a platter. It was supposed to have 3 scoops of ice cream. We ordered two vanilla and one chocolate. Each scoop was actually two extra large scoops. Then there was huge mounds of whipped cream on both ends and in between each ice cream scoop. It had hot fudge, sprinkles and chopped walnuts. It was excellent, but we could only eat about 1/3 of it. Too bad there was only the two of us, it could have fed at least four people! I asked the waiter if he could hold the leftovers for tomorrow night. Too bad, nope he could not!

We weaved our way back to the Bellagio, and home to happy dogs.

Friday- I had a lot of paperwork to do, so I got that started. Lots of California bureaucratic nonsense!  At 10:30, we left to go to a local Farmers Market. We bought tomatoes and cranberry scones. Bob also bought two tamales from the Arizona Tamale Factory. The woman there states that she have just been picked up by Whole Foods and are going nationwide. She is having to build a factory, and she already has orders from Bulgaria. So seems that she is on her way.

We returned to the motor home for lunch. Bob ate his tamales and I had the leftover Quesada from Monday evening.

I continued on with the paperwork until I literally fell asleep sitting up. I moved to the bed and took a nap. We returned to the Walmart to pick up my prescription. They said they could not give it to me because it was too soon. The Walmart in Westminster had called me to say that it was ready for pick up. I had called them and told them, yesterday, that we were in Las Vegas, and that they needed to release the authorization, so that I could pick it up in Las Vegas. Bob had them call yesterday to get the approval for the medication, when he ordered the prescription. So after waiting in line, I now had to move to the other end of the counter, to wait in line again!

While waiting, I called Westminster, and they said they had released the authorization. So when I finally moved up to the counter, the gal had to start all over again. At least they had the eye drops! So I did finally get them!

We returned home, walked the dogs, ate the left over crock pot chicken, and left for the Paris Casino. Jersey Boys was awesome! We really enjoyed the show… No pictures, as they had a Nazi police squad watching the audience. A lady down our row tried to text during the show and she had a spotlight placed on her. Our cheap seats were perfect. The audience gave the cast a standing ovation. The music, singing and story line were great.

I know that prostitution is  legal in Nevada, but on the strip there are men and women, wearing t-shirts which say “women to your room in 20 minutes” and they pass our cards, like baseball cards with the phone number. Bob and I were walking, holding hands, and they kept trying to give him the cards! No, he did not take one….but really,, get a clue, we were together! We returned home and went to bed!

The weather this week has been spectacular. High 50’s at night, high 70’s or low 80’s during the day with no humidity! We have the windows open at night and turn on the air conditioner during the afternoon, as the motor home gets pretty warm inside.

The dogs are very confused about the time since we are now on Pacific time. Wait until Sunday when we move back another hour!

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