bobanddenisewanderlust

Saturday- I had my Boot Camp from 8 to 9 and the Work Group from 9 to 10. At a little after 10 we went to the storage unit. During the week, we had taken the shelving units apart and wrapped them with masking tape and bubble wrap. We had also wrapped the two MH doors from in front of the washer/dryer.

We put the shelving units in the Edge and took them to the MH. We put them in the shower, as we thought that might we the best place for them.

We returned to the storage unit. We moved all the boxes to the Edge. We also have the bumper for the Edge, which was removed when we put the tow braking system on the Edge. We made it with a little room left. So we returned to the MH and put the shelving units, both of them in the back of the Edge. Wahoo we made it with everything in the Edge. We even put the folding cooler back in the the car, folded of course!

We then worked on the dining table. We have a container in the back of the car with extra umbrellas, hats, jackets and cloth grocery bags in it. So we cleaned it out, re-organized it, and put it under the dining table. So it can stay there until we get to Sun City. We can pull out the table and still use it, but just not the whole table.

We went to social hour again, and let the dogs run again. We said our good-byes again to our some of our friends. We ate leftovers for dinner.

Sunday- Moving day. We packed up and went to say good-bye to Julie and Noel. Then Jerry came over to look at the magnets for our shades. Then Dave came over to look at the rig and to say good-bye. We went over to say good-bye to Marianna and Fred. I realized I have some Hepa masks in the MH so I gave one to Marianna, hoping that she can use it and be able to tolerate the chemicals and smoke in the air. She has been really miserable this year with the poor air quality causing her to cough a lot. She is going to give it a try and order some if it works…

We hooked up the car and drove out of the park. We took I-70 west to SR 470 south. We eventually joined I-25. Wow, was traffic northbound heavy. It was bumper to bumper. The speed limit was 75 and they were lucky if they were able to drive 20 mph.

We arrived at the Air Force Academy. We had to wait in line at the base entrance. Then went to the Fam Camp entrance. We arrived at about 12:30 and were in line. We had a reservation, so we moved quickly. We pulled in to the nice pull-thru site, $27 FHU 50 amp. A little more than budget, but a lot less expensive than the KOA. There is an Elks Lodge,  but as busy as Westminster has been, we decided to stay at the Fam Camp.

We settled in and I called Marian, and set up meeting them for dinner this evening. We ate a quick lunch and settled in to watch the Redskin game. We lucked out and were able to reach the satellite through the trees.

At 4:30 we left to meet up with Marvin and Marina. We arrived at a nice little brewery and realized that it was way too noisy to be able to sit and talk. When the Grier;s arrived, we left and went to a very nice Italian restaurant.

We were so happy to see them, and their daughter Maureen who accompanied them to dinner. We had met Maureen before.

Marvin had an incident on Sept. 8. He has had heart issues for years, which the Doc’s have not been able to diagnose. Luckily, they had inserted a chip a few weeks ago to be able to see what what occurring.

On that Friday night, Maureen was there having dinner with them. Marvin usually knows when an incident is going to occur. No warning this time! He kept going in and out of consciousness. Finally, he did not come back. They had called 911. The paramedics arrived and he was breathing, but they began ‘pacing’ him to keep a heart rhythm going. They transported him to the closest hospital and he flat-lined. They were able to get the heart going but he was out for a long time. The Doc’s have no idea how he is doing so well without any brain damage!

The Doc’s kept pacing him and on Sunday they put in a 2 line pacemaker. They were able to read the chip and find out that his ventricles were not working. The node in the ventricle which sends the signal to the ventricles to contract was not working correctly.

So we were very happy to see Marvin, who had trouble talking due to a sore throat from the two tubes that they had put in for breathing, but his brain is okay. The Paramedic had visited him in the hospital on Sunday to check on him because they had never had someone who flat-lined for so long do so well!

We had a great dinner and enjoyed a lively conversation!

Monday- We left the Fam Camp at about 8:30 drove out the south entrance of the base. We traveled south to Las Vegas NM. We stopped in Trinidad at the Walmart to eat lunch and decided to unhook the car to go over Raton Pass. There were two trailers with people living in the parking lot! Lots of other RV’s stop in at this Walmart, but two never leave!

We made it across the pass without any problems. We were not sure that with the extra weight in the car with all our belongings that we would make it, so we did the un-hooking and I drove the car. We re-hooked the car up on the south side of the pass in the town of Raton.

We continued south and drove into Storybook Lake State Park in Las Vegas. We were able to drive into a pull thru site with water and 50 amp for $12. It was so nice, we sat outside. It was too windy to eat dinner outside though… We were watching the weather for the winds. This happened that last time we were in this park!

Tuesday- I woke up a 5 and got up to look at the weather forecast. The winds were to be 25 –30 mph by 9 AM with gusts to 50 mph. In ABQ it was to be 12 mph by 11 AM. So I woke Bob us and said lets get going!

We drove out of the park at about 6:20 AM. We drove south and had not issues. We stopped at San Felipe Casino for diesel fuel, as we usually do when driving through the area. We planned to stop at a PA park on the west side of ABQ if the winds picked up, but they were to be relatively mild until about 11- 12. Gallop  was to have 40 mph winds at around 11 AM, so we kept driving west.

We made it to just before Grants when the winds picked up. So we drove in, at 11 AM, to Bar S RV Park where we have stayed before. $24 for FHU 50 amp with our Good Sam card.

We settled in and the wind howled! We went to lunch at the local diner then went to El Malpais National Monument. It was a free NP. We stopped at the Visitor Center,

stamped our NPS Passbook and watched the movie. Below is the park. The lighter the colors, the older the lava flow.

Then we had to drive east one exit on I-40 to a different entrance to the park. We drove through the Conservation area to the National Monument area, through the Acoma Indian Reservation.

Our first stop was at the Sandstone Bluffs Overlook. I-40 goes along the northern edge of this NP, and we have seen the lava rocks from the Volcano every time that we drive through this area.  Those are young lava rocks, only 3900 years old!

The bluffs were impressive. The wind continued to howl, so needless to say, we did not get too near the edge of the rocks!

During the Depression, people came out here and lived on the land. This is the ruins of one of the homes, on the bluffs.

We continued south on Hwy 117 to the La Ventana National Arch. We walked out to the arch, which was a short flat walk. It is humbling to realize how many people, including Native Americans, have viewed this spot over the centuries!

The arch was formed from the sandstone over the centuries, from water and wind.

We returned to the car and drove through “the narrows”. The Narrows is the strip of land between the lava flow and the bluffs. Hwy 117 runs straight through the area. We turned around in the Narrows Picnic Area, and found two trailers where people are living in the picnic area.

On the right of the road is the bluffs and on the left was the lava.

We returned to Grants and our RV park. We walked into the MH and the smoke detector was beeping. It turned out it was broken. The poor dogs! We do not know how long it had been driving them crazy, but we do not think they got their usual afternoon nap!  I did laundry while Bob drove into Grants to the Walmart and bought at new smoke detector. We had dinner at home.

Wednesday- We are still watching the winds and found that we will need to do the same thing today as we did yesterday. We were up at 5 AM and had the motor home ready to roll by 6 AM.

We drove in the dark onto I-40. We continued to travel west. The winds started to pick up before Flagstaff, with winds about 20 mph. We slowed down and continued on our way. What was scary were the 18 wheelers who did not slow down and were weaving on the road from the winds.  We checked the winds to the south and found that in Sedona they were only 12 mph.

As soon as we entered Flagstaff, the trees started to protect us from the winds. We turned south on I-17 and traveled south without any issues. We stopped at the rest area and ate lunch and continued on to Paradise RV Park where we will be spending the winter.

We arrived at about 1:30 and went into the office to sign in. They did not have the bill ready, so they said just come back tomorrow to pay us. The Ranger took us to the site, we backed in and set up.

MaryAnn stopped by on her way back from a meeting. Later, she and Ray came over to visit. After dinner we went over to Mike and Linda’s and visited with them.

We are so happy with our new site! We have a double concrete patio and nice rocks all around the MH. In our previous sites there were little rocks that we kept bringing in on our shoes. I was constantly sweeping. I don’t have to do that anymore! Yippee!

Thursday- We started the day off by taking all the stuff’ in the car to the storage unit. We were so glad to get our car back! The dogs love to sit behind the dining room table and now they are able to again, so they were also happy. We had reloaded all that stuff back into the back of the car, that we had stored there. We had also brought the bikes over to Paradise. We had a busy day running around doing other tasks, including going to the Library to donate books that have accumulated. We had dinner at home and watched TV in the evening.

Friday-  Wahoo, my first day back at Water Aerobics! I have really missed my daily class! I could really feel that I had a lot of stretching to do! After class, I always go into the hot tub and stretch all my muscles out in the nice hot water. Oh, did it feel good!

Bob did some stuff around the motor home. Then we took some more items over to the storage unit, including returning the bike rack to the unit. We were cleaning out stuff that we do not use frequently but want to keep. This way we do not have to cart it with us all the time. With having the storage unit so close, we can keep items there instead of in the motor home.

The long term plan is to put a storage unit on the site at Paradise, but we simply cannot afford to do that right now. We had dinner at home and watched TV.

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