Here we are, on the road: February 2013

February 24, 2013 Lorraine’s Report

Hello from Pima County Fair Grounds, once again. We have had a somewhat busy week, it was cold, but we survived, and you can bet I am really looking forward to warm weather again. I have been wearing long johns most days and it is still cold for me.

This week Dave & Sandy called Chuck and said they were coming our way. There was a big storm headed into Minneapolis and they would like to avoid it, so they left a bit early to do that. That would put them into Tucson on Thursday; which meant some very longs days for them. It was a joy to see them again! Thanks be to God all things turned out okay with his health problems!

They came into the camp, and we were there to greet them. I made a nice roast beef dinner; I know how tired you can be after driving so far. You just kind of rock with the rig after traveling so far, but by the next day they got their land legs back and now seem fine.

So this week was spent trying to bet my prescriptions filled. It seems to me to be a bit harder than in the previous years. I asked my doctor in Ferndale for a year’s worth of prescriptions, but, of course there is always a but. Doc Hansen gave it to me, I turned them into Wal-Mart, but, it they were unable to get them out to me. They said they would transfer them from Bellingham, that didn’t work because they were out of date. They then were to call my doctor but when I finally called the doctor’s office the gal told me they did not get a request from the Wal-Mart down here in Tucson. After a bit of wrangling, the right prescriptions with the correct dates, etc. were transferred and I was able to pick them up. Don’t know why this has to happen, but it does.

Misty, our puppy, has had a sticker or something in her paw, right front, for about 2 weeks; Chuck had been trying to get it out, but with no luck. We had to take her to a vet on Monday. Tuesday they wanted to put her asleep while they took out the burr or whatever it was out. This meant she was going to be put asleep, have the thorn taken out, then returned home to us. I have to say the cost of having this taken out was quite pricy. There was a charge for putting her asleep, then one for waking her back up -a fee to do that. Not only are our costs for medical going up, but also the Vet’s bill too. Seems like we just don’t win….oh well! At least she is better.

Friday was another good day for us. We decided to go to the Mission at Saint Xavier’s Catholic Cathedral-to tour it. It was cool, breezy but the sun was warm. These churches down here are absolutely amazing to me. They are so ornate, full of history, and involve so much of the local people, makes you wonder why things are the way they are. Chuck put up a link to the church, be sure to look it up, pretty sure it will answer some questions; there was so much that happened here. Dave & Sandy took us to dinner that night to Chili’s. A fun time was had by all!

Dave & Sandy had to see some friends out of town yesterday so we went to the Saguaro National Park. We took lots of pictures of the area. Chuck and I love to tour these National Parks, we find them to be full of information. We got back a short time before Dave/Sandy did, but they had eaten, so we went to the casino for our buffet. It was really nice, no luck in playing, though.

So that is it for us, been busy with great friends, took care of Misty and me, and just enjoy the life we live…Until next time…

Lorraine

2/24/13 Chuck’s report

We are still at the Pima County Fairgrounds, our last day here. Everywhere we go, we consider the area for our “home” after we get off the road. Due to the cooler than normal temperatures we’ve experienced, we have decided Tucson will not be on the short list. Although there is lots to do here, the place we are staying is on the far East side of town and it seems everything we do is on the West side, a drive of over 15 miles one way. But that doesn’t mean we won’t visit here again, just that we don’t think it would fit our requirements (whatever they may be) for our new home town.

Last week I mentioned that Misty was licking and biting her paw, I thought there might be a cactus thorn or something in it that I couldn’t find. We put her in a dog collar we had borrowed from Steve/Sandy and even after a week of wearing that, her foot wasn’t getting better. So Monday we took her to the vets office, they checked her out and wanted us to bring her back the next morning so they could sedate her and work on her paw.

So Tuesday morning we dropped her off and returned to pick her up around noon. They had found a large weed or sticker completely buried in her paw, no wonder she was trying to get it out. But after a couple more days wearing the collar, she is back to her normal self once again. She’s getting old and sometimes restricts our time away from the coach but it’s nice to have her around most of the time.

Monday Lorraine wanted to do some shopping, she likes Dillard's Department stores and there is one here. She also found an Albertson grocery store like back home, they have some of the best fried chicken so guess what I bought there.

Lorraine has been trying to get her medicine prescriptions filled, we use Wal-Mart because they are in most medium to large towns. But they couldn’t/wouldn’t refill three of them because they were expired, shoot. So she has been working with her doctor back home to prescribe them for another year. But of course, her doctor is out for the week and the person taking over for him doesn’t know Lorraine. But after a few phone calls back and forth and giving the new doctor information, she finally got them called in. But they would only call them into the Bellingham, WA. Wal-Mart so we had to have the Tucson store transfer them. This has been the biggest hassle we’ve had with medicine since we’ve been on the road, usually it works petty slick.

But finally on Friday we stopped by Wal-Mart and they were able to get everything filled and she is good for another 3 months. By then, we hope to have seen her new doctor in the Bay area and will get a year’s prescription from him. I was just informed that I can now get all my medication from the VA with no deductible so I will need to see my doctor at the Palo Alto VA and get everything prescribed from them for a year too. After that, we should be set!

Last week we got a little bit of snow here, everyone said it was very unusual to get snow here. Well on Wednesday of this week it snowed once again, third time we’ve been in snow in this area this winter. This time we got about 2”, only good thing is it was nice enough to not stick on the roads or sidewalks. So I guess snow in this area isn’t a real bad thing, looks nice, doesn’t affect traffic too bad and for sure it doesn’t stay around too long. But I would just as soon have warmer temperatures, enough cold already.

Monday I got a call from our friends in Minnesota, Dave and Sandy. Dave has been recovering from some surgery so they were still up North but called to let us know they were leaving on Tuesday, heading South because there was a storm forecast and they might be stuck there for the rest of the week if they didn’t leave. As it was, they were still in some snow on the way down, you can read about it on his blog using this link: http://davesandyontheroad.blogspot.com/

They really pushed it due to the storm forecasts along their route and made it down here and got checked in around 1 pm on Thursday afternoon. I think he said they traveled over 1600 miles in two long and one short day, whew. But they arrived safely and it was very nice to see them again. They were tired from their long drive and Lorraine had made a nice beef roast dinner so they wouldn’t have to worry about what to do for dinner after their long drive. After dinner, we set around and had a good visit and played a dice game called 10,000.

Friday we had some running to do and Dave needed to stop by a post office to mail out a package so off we headed. While we were out, we decided to visit Saint Xavier Mission, one of the places on our list in this area that we haven’t stopped at yet. You can see more about this place using the following link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_San_Xavier_del_Bac

This small Mission/Church is quite a sight to see, it has over 90 statues of angles inside. I was impressed with how ornate it is, considering it was built in the late 1690s. Of course, there has been attempts to restore it since then but it’s still an impressive place to visit.

After our visit there, we stopped by Wal-Mart to pick up Lorraine’s prescriptions and both Sandy and Lorraine needed to do some grocery shopping too. Later, we completed a nice day with our good friends by going out to dinner at Chili's restaurant, a good meal and better visit.

Yesterday Dave/Sandy were going to head out to visit with some other friends of theirs who are in the area. We had a short visit with them before they left then we too took off for more exploring. Dave/Sandy have spent more time in this area than we have and told us the Saguaro National Park on the West side of town is better than one closer by us on the East side. So we decided to visit the East one today and later we will visit the other one.

Once again, I can’t give justice to the wonders of another one of our National Parks, I’ll let the pictures do the talking. We must have taken over 100 pictures of the cactuses, we started out taking pictures of each one but as we progressed along the 9 mile drive, we just took pictures of the biggest, most regal one. If the West park is that much nicer than this one, it must be really nice. If you get the chance, I would recommend this one for sure, it’s not too far away and has a nice 9 mile, paved, loop around the park. There are lots of places to park and get close and personal to these giant cactuses too, if you like. We didn’t do much walking as the drive brought us close to lots of them.

After we finished our visit, we returned to our coach to walk Misty once again. Just as we were leaving once again, Dave/Sandy drove back to their rig. We walked over to let them know we were heading out to the casino for a couple hours and a buffet and they declined, they had just finished a big lunch with their friends and they aren’t big on casinos either. So Lorraine and I drove over, gave them some money and had a good buffet too.

Like I said earlier, the weather has been cooler than normal. At night the temperatures have dropped to freezing, not much below so I didn’t have to worry about disconnecting our water or sewer hose but cold enough for ice and snow on Wednesday. But the forecast is for nicer weather this week, daytime temps into the 70s, nighttime in the low 40s. That’s better but I’m still waiting for it to get just a bit warmer, I’m looking for shorts and sandals weather. But it is funny to see the local folks get all bundled up in their heavy winter coats during the day when I’m usually wearing a short sleeve tee shirt (with an American flag of some sort on it).

Our plans have us leaving here tomorrow, heading down the road about 10 miles to Lazy Days campground. This is the old Beaudry RV place that went bankrupt a few years back. Mark and Sue stayed here for a couple of days last week and we visited them there. Our friends Tom/Cheryl were there too when we saw them last week. So now it’s our turn, a very nice park with large sites and even has grass and a patio on each site. Compared to the parks we’ve been at lately, this will be a nice change of pace.

But we are only planning on staying there two nights. Steve and Sandy will be returning to the Tucson area tomorrow and will meet us there plus Dave and Sandy will be moving over too. Oh boy, old home week with good friends once again, looking forward to that!

Now I’ll go through the pictures we have taken this week and pick out which ones to add here. I know we have taken lots, of the Mission as well as the National Park. I’ll try to not overload you but there may be quite a few this week.

Misty in her collar, she really doesn’t like it.