bobanddenisewanderlust

Saturday- We had the Pet Parade at 9:30, which meant that we had to be over at the pavilion next to the tennis courts at 9:00. It was still warm and sunny, so we were very glad that they put us under the awning. We had our picture taken.

Karlie was dressed as a caterpillar and Roxie as a lady bug.

Then we watched the parade. There were various different categories.  Best costume. longest ears, looks most like owner. etc. Karlie won longest ears.

Here were some of the other dogs. These three won best buddies, they were from the South Loafers.

His shirt said I love camping.  Below is the cowboy.

Above, she was strutting her stuff. She actually likes to wear the glasses!

This gal was wearing her bikini and life preserver.

This dog did a lot of tricks. He won the  best trick award . The final trick was to play dead, which he did really well.

This little lady was the senior citizen, at 17 years old.

This dog won best costume and looks most like owner.

This was the parade route.

After the parade, we returned to the motor home with the treats that they gave us and that Karlie won. We ran to Target, as the new bike seat that I bought did not fit my bike. We went to Walmart, dropped stuff off at Goodwill, bought gas, and picked up subs at Jimmy Johns for lunch. We returned to the motor home and ate lunch. Then we ran over to the Craft Fair. I had won a $10 certificate, so I used the certificate and bought a necklace and earrings. Of course, I had to add money to the $10!

We returned to the motor home and took a nap. We found another apartment. This one is rented by two grad students who are doing internships for the summer. The dates are close, so I had contacted Megan at McMillers and changed our arrival date to 5/12. We are renting for 5/10 to 7/10. The apartment is 2 bedroom, but only one will have furniture.  They would rent it either way, but since the furniture is rented, they are dropping some of the furniture. Today we confirmed with them that we are taking the apartment. What a relief!

We were just changing shirts when there was a knock on the door. The lady who was running the pet parade stopped by. She had the pictures and awards. She was going to give them to Lorraine, but since she was not home, she stopped at our rig and asked me to give them out to our fellow Roadrunners.  I gave them out at dinner.

We went to happy hour with everyone trying to get rid of their leftover appetizers. We then went to our farewell dinner. It was pork loin, scalloped potatoes, Caesar salad, a roll, carrots, and an apple dumpling with ice cream for dessert. We both ate our ice cream and took the dumpling home for later.

They gave away the big prizes. We were back in the pot for this one, but did not win anything. We said our good-byes to some folks. Here are Paula and Charlie.

Ray and MaryAnne.

And of course, us….

We returned home and put stuff away in preparation for leaving in the morning.

Sunday-  Bob ran over and picked up our good-bye bags. They included bottles of OJ, fruit and Danish.

We went over to Marvin and Marian’s rig to say good-bye. They both had the Montezuma’s Revenge, so we had not gotten to visit with them. Marian was still in bed but we said good-bye to Marvin.

We drove out of Palm Creek at about 10:00.

We drove south/east on I-10 to Tucson. We stopped at a truck stop and unhooked the car. We drove downtown to El Charo Café, our favorite Mexican Restaurant. Bob had the tamale trio and I had the chili rellano. Both were terrific!

We returned to the motor home, connected the car, and continued on our way east. We stopped in Benson and stayed at Valley Vista RV Park, for $13 with 50 amp full hook ups. We took a nap. Having so much fun was exhausting!

At 4:15 we left and drove south to Sierra Vista for dinner with Bob’s cousin Rhonda Root and her husband Brian. They served us Tri-tip which is a beef cut popular in the west, with bean/ham, salad, tortillas and broccoli. Yum! We sat talking for hours and solving the problems of the world!

Monday- We were up early and on the road a little before 8 AM. We continued east on I-10 to Deming NM, where we turned north on Rt. 26 for about 50 miles before we connected with I-25 north. We drove into Elephant Butte State Park( $14 for 50 amp and water) at around 2 PM. The lake has risen 45 ft. this year, which is a very good thing, since the water was very low the last time we visited here in the spring of  2013. We settled in and made some phone calls.

Dinner was left over prime rib from last week. We watched TV and found that we have a problem. It is going to snow again, in northern New Mexico and  southern Colorado. We had planned to travel to Santa Fe, spend one night, then continue north to Colorado. Instead, we are going to need to hunker down for a couple of days until the weather clears. We had built some time into our schedule, just in case this happened!

Tuesday- It was 30 degrees when we woke up! Brrrr! Good thing we had 50 amp. We dumped and continued our trip north, We stopped in ABQ at the Sandia Casino for lunch. We parked in the RV parking and walked down the hill to the Casino. We went to the grill for lunch. I was going to play the slots, but you have to have a card and all I had was $2  in quarters. Their loss, not ours!

We continued north on I-25 to Santa Fe stopping at Santa Fe Skies RV Park. We have stayed at this park before. It is a nice place, but at $38.75 per night with the Good Sam discount, it is more expensive than we like to pay. We had paid $13 at Valley Vista and $14 at Elephant Butte, so this is way out of our price range. Unfortunately, we were stuck, as it is going to be windy and snowing at Raton pass.

We settled in, took a short nap, ate dinner, and watched TV.

Wednesday- We completed some tasked around the motor home, then drove into Santa Fe. Our first stop was at the post office. Then we went to Trader Joe’s. From there we went to Walmart. While on the way, the manager, Christine, from “The Foundry”, the apartment complex where we are planning to stay in South Bend returned my call. We had found the apartment on Craig’s List, so I had called the apartment complex to make sure that the grad students we are renting from are on the up and up! Well, slight problems. Yes, they will accept the dogs, yes they are allowed to sublet BUT their lease expires June 30 and we have to submit an application to the apartment complex with an application fee. Hmmm. Christine said that it was not an issue for us to rent for those dates, as the apartment is not leased again until August 1. So she is sending us the application. She also said that the two grad students are very responsible.

We returned to the motor home, ate dinner, watched TV and went to bed.

Thursday-  Temp. 36. We woke up to find that the snow storm had passed through quicker than anticipated, so we decided to go a head and leave. I printed out the application that Christine had sent . We completed it and then could not get the computer and printer to talk to each other again. Bob finally gave up and I took it into the office at Santa Fe Skies and faxed it to Christine. I also sent an email to Blake, the grad student we have been working with, about the issues with the apartment. He states he thought that their lease expires of July 30, so he is paying the $50 application fee and is working with Christine for us to be able to stay in the apartment until July 10.

Santa Fe Skies was really nice, they refunded the one night and we drove out of the park around 10 AM. We continued north on I-25 through New Mexico, over Raton Pass, where they had received 6-8 inches of snow, but since the temp was in the 50’s, the snow had melted.

We stopped in at the KOA in Colorado Springs to spend the night, at about 4:30. We stayed at the KOA ,$38.00, because we were afraid that the temp was going to drop past freezing again this evening and we wanted the 50 amp service.

We set up camp, walked the dogs, then went to the German Restaurant for dinner. Usually we go to Edelweiss, but friends Marion and Marvin like Uwe’s German   Restaurant better, so we decided to give them a try. The restaurant opened at 5:30 and we arrived at about 5:35. The place already had patrons, and filled up rapidly. The salad was very good. Bob had brats with potatoes and sauerkraut. I had the special which was a veal in a light cream sauce with spaetzle and red cabbage. My spaetzle was good, but I was not impressed with the veal or the red cabbage. Bob was happy with his meal.

We left and returned to the motor home, tired and ready for bed.

Friday- We left the KOA at about 9 AM, continuing north on I-25 to Castle Rock, were we turned north on Rt. 85 to I-470, west of Denver. We took that to I-70 east, to I-76 east, to the Federal Blvd exit .  We definitely like this route better than driving through the city of Denver on I-25! We arrived at the Westminster Elks Lodge at about 11:30. We found all of the 50 amp sites taken, so we backed into a 30 amp FHU site, for $18 per night. We always feel like we are coming home when we drive into the Westminster Elks Lodge!

Ernie and Raleen will not be back at the Lodge this year, so we were not sure who was the Camp Host. We found out it was Ann. Her husband Richard had been in Hospice services when we left in October and had passed away over the winter. 

We ate lunch, then took a short nap. I am still trying to catch up on sleep! We would have gone to happy hour, but did not see anyone in the pavilion. We had defrosted a chicken that we had in the freezer a couple of days before, so we cooked it and divided it up into 2 cup freezer bags for casseroles. 

We went to dinner at the Lodge, I had the pork loin and Bob had the NY strip, both with mashed potatoes with gravy and green beans($8ea). We returned to the motor home, watched TV and went to bed.

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