Here we are, on the road: We’re in Reno, NV

May 5, 2013 Lorraine’s report

Hello once again from Reno, NV. We are at Boomtown, on the outskirts of Reno, a quiet, nice little park. It is nice to be able to enjoy an area that is not under an airport, a freeway or right by the train tracks. We still hear the train passing by, but the long, slow whistle is comforting to me, and the train is a ways from here. We came to Reno because the weather down in the Delta was suppose to be very warm, and I couldn’t stand the heat as well as the humidity. It’s the humidity that hurts my arthritis.

So last week we had Susy & Kaitlyn come up to see us and we had a great weekend with them. They left on Sunday, and called to let us know they made it back okay. Thanks Susy for the great weekend with us!

We toured the Napa area last Monday, and I kinda think I like that area, it’s far enough away from the SF Bay area, the pace seems a bit slower; maybe it’s just that everyone is enjoying the nice quiet, peaceful growing of the grape.

We left the Bay area on Tuesday, and came up here. We haven’t done a lot, but each day we do something. We came out of Atlantis Casino yesterday and we had a lot wind, and on the way home we had our first rain; the first rain we have had in a long time. It was since March 8, 2013. that we had snow, the day before we had rain. That was a long stretch for us, especially since last year when we had snow, rain and windy weather as Chuck worked up north. It was April 27th that Chuck worked his last day a year ago. What a long time ago that seems; that was a long hard time for us and I’m glad it is over.

So this week we will leave here and head back to the Bay area to have Chuck finish up his doctor’s appointments. Not sure how long we will stay, but we need to take Susy out for her Mother’s Day meal. She sure is a good Mother! From there we will start East, back to Minnesota to see his family for their reunion. Of course, it will be nice to see Dave and Sandy, and also Yami from Florida. It promises to be a very nice trip for us.

I would like to send out Bunches of wishes to all the Great Mother’s out there, be it family & friends. I know it is early, but next week we will be back in the Bay area, and you know how busy I get with Katie there. She is one that keeps you busy, and I love it. Until next time, see you down the road. Hugs to all,

Lorraine

5/5/2013 Chuck’s report

Last week’s plan had us going to the Sacramento Delta area for this week but Lorraine wanted to head to higher elevations as the forecast was for much warmer weather in central CA. So we drove over to Reno, NV. instead and it is much cooler here than what we would have experienced in the Delta area.

Monday Lorraine and I took off on an exploration car tour around Napa area. I wanted to check out Petaluma, CA. as we’ve never stopped there. We didn’t find much we wanted there, so headed on over to Napa once again. But soon we decided to just head back to the coach and get ready for our travel day on Tuesday.

It was a bit earlier than normal when we got on the road but that was fine as there wasn’t much traffic to deal with. We had a good trip over the mountain except for some of the California road conditions once again. But with the towing law here, we couldn’t drive over 55 MPH anyway so I didn’t have to slow down too much due to the road conditions.

Once we got to Boomtown, we drove over to Cabellas where we unhooked the car and drove into town to check out two RV parks we were considering. Once was pretty nice but a bit more expensive than staying here at Boomtown at the KOA. Plus we had a coupon for one free night here and they were able to give us a weekly rate then subtracted one day, nice. So we are set up at Boomtown RV park once again.

This is nice park, even has a small swimming pool but it isn’t in service yet. There aren’t many people here, maybe 20 rigs in a 200 site park so we are spread apart pretty much. We are parked on the end of one row with a nice shade tree and even some grass for our “patio”. Misty really likes the grass, we haven’t had too much this winter at the Arizona parks we were staying. And we have the full hookups we like. I have even taken time to flush the black tank and dump and sanitize our fresh water tank. We have a reverse osmosis full coach system so the water in our fresh tank doesn’t have any chlorine so I have to sanitize it twice a year or so.

The casino here at Boomtown has a free slot tournament every day this month so we headed over to enter it on Wednesday. Thursday we hung around the coach until early afternoon when we headed into Reno to Cal Neva Casino for some slot play and dinner. We stopped by to play the slot tournament before we stopped back at the coach. But Lorraine had a semi-high score, enough that we had to go back after 9 to see if she made it into the top 10. No luck there but like I said, it is a free tournament but we both lost some money on the slots so it wasn’t exactly free.

Friday I took Lorraine over to Wal-Mart for her hair appointment. I went over to Petco to get dog food for Misty. They have this fresh brand they keep in a refrigerated cooler and Misty has been doing real good on it. I’ve seen it other places too but mostly the only place I can find it is at Petco. After that, I returned to the coach and waited there instead of waiting at Wal-Mart until her hair was finished.

After I picked her up, Lorraine made lunch at the rig then we headed out to the Peppermill Casino for some slot play. Lorraine won here and afterwards we stopped by the Black Bear Diner for a nice dinner. Once again, we stopped by to try our luck at the free tournament. Once again, Lorraine had a semi-good score, enough for us to return after 9 to see if she made it into the top 10 or not. Once again, close but no cigar. But at least we both broke even on the regular slots, we didn’t play this time, ha.

Saturday we headed out once again to the casinos. This time Lorraine wanted to try the Atlantis. We played the slots for awhile, Lorraine won enough right off to play on their money for the rest of the time. I stopped playing and just “people watched” after a bit. We then headed out to sample their buffet for dinner. I must say it is a nice one plus with our comps we only had to pay $9 for both of us, nice.

Of course, on our way back, we once again tried our luck at the slot tournament here but this time neither of us had a score high enough to return later to check out our final position. But we will probably return every night we are here, maybe one of us will make the top 10 one of the trips there.

The weather here has been nice, in the high 70s during the day and dropping into the low 40s/high 30s at night except for yesterday. We came out of the casino and were greeted to heavy clouds and high winds. It even started raining on the way home. Lorraine tried to remember the last time we were in the rain and she thinks it may have been when we were in Tucson back in February. That’s a nice run of dry weather for us, one of the reasons we really like heading South for the winter. Last year we wintered back in Washington, what a difference for us.

We will be heading back to the Bay area this week, I have a couple of doctor visits at the VA. After that, we will probably spend the weekend with Susy and Katie, especially seeing as how it will be Mother’s day on Sunday. After that, we are going to head out to the East with our next scheduled stop being in Minnesota for a family reunion on my mother’s side of the family in late June.

Susy and Katie will be flying out to visit us in Minnesota too, they will go to the reunion with us too. Susy’s good friend from Florida is going to fly up to meet with us too, should be a good time. And of course, my brothers and sister, cousins, aunts, uncles and such will be there. And besides all the family that will be in the area, we will be meeting with Dave and Sandy too. So it should be a busy time in the Twin Cities area for us for a couple of weeks! Looking forward to seeing everyone soon.

Guess I’ll add a few pictures and get this posted now.

Susy and Kaitlyn at lunch with us last Sunday before they left to head back home.