North to Alaska (The beginning)

We are on the road, heading to Alaska now. We just spent a wonderful week with our friends, Earl & Debbie at their house in Placerville, CA. Nell & Dave also spent the week there with us (and Earl & Debbie too.) We spent most of the time eating. Debbie & Earl made sure that no more that 2-3 hours without feeding us. We did manage to do a little sightseeing while were there. We spent most of one day at the American River in Coloma. It is about 10 miles from Earl & Debbie's place. That is the site of "Sutter's Mill" where the gold was found that started the California Gold Rush. We panned for gold in the river and even found a couple of flakes (not enough to make us rich or even close) you have to look pretty hard to see it in the vial. Jan had purchased a gold pan and several 1 oz vials to store the gold in while we were in Quartzsite, AZ a few weeks ago. She is impatiently waiting to get to the streams in Alaska so she can find GOLD. I think she has the fever.

Our trip to Placerville was a reunion of terrific couples that we met last year in Kino Bay, MX. Paul & Carol live about 15 miles east in Shingle Springs. Pat & Dee live in Porterville, CA. That's about halfway between Fresno and Bakersfield (about 2 hours south of Placerville) They happened to be staying at an RV resort on the American River, about 2 miles from the Sutter's Mill site. We all met and spent the day there. We all met again another day and went shopping and had lunch in Folsum, CA. (Yes, Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison is there.)

It was sad to have to leave our friends, but Alaska is calling. We left yesterday (May 29) with Nell & Dave and drove thru Napa Valley on our way to Sonoma Co. Man, I have never seen so many "wine trees" in my life. Most people know them as grape vines, but..... well I guess I'm just a little wierd. We are staying in Cloverdale at a ROD park (Russian River) for 3 nights. Today, we did some shopping in the morning and then spent the afternoon at the "Pertified Forest." No, not in AZ. There's one here too, just about 30 miles S of where we are staying. It was OK. Worth the $6 entry fee, but any more & it would be overpriced. Tomorrow, we are driving to the Pacific to see the Point Arena Lighthouse. According to the guide, it's the closest point of land to Hawaii in the continental US.

Las Vegas

Well, we had our first "vacation" since we went on the road over two years ago. We spent "4 days & 3 nights in fabulous Las Vegas." We got a special deal from our timeshare condo if we agreed to listen to a high pressure sales pitch. We were able to say "NO" to their offer. Actually we had to say "NO" to 3 separate people, but we did not give in. We enjoyed our stay and actually managed to win a little money. The only problem is that we managed to lose more money than we won. We spent much more time walking "the Strip" than actually gambling, which is why we only lost a little money. Being our first visit, we had to check out every casino on the strip to see all the "glitz." We walked quite a few miles and took a bunch of pictures.

Kari and Josh met us there and took us to see the "Blue Men Review" as a belated Christmas gift. We thoroughly enjoyed the show. It had a lot more comedy than we expected. We would recommend it to anyone. We also were able to see the "Tournament of Kings" show at the Excalibur. That was a lot of fun also. Josh and I played in a Texas Hold-em tournament. We did not finish in the money, but we both did well. We both went "all in" with the best hand and getting outdrawn on the "river." Oh well.......

Vegas was fun, but 4 days was enough.

Parhump

Well, we are in Pahrump, NV at the Charlseston Peak Winery & RV Park. The facilities are beautiful. We haven't toured the winery or gone to dinner at the 5 star restaurant at the park. But we will in the next couple of days. We ran into two couples that we met in Kino. George & "J" and Gary & Yvonne. We plan to spend a little time with them while we're here.

The drive from Vegas took us up a nice grade that we could only manage 40 mph going up. Here is a picture of Charleston Peak taken from the park. The mountain range is the one we had to drive over. More on the park after we have a chance to check it out more.

April 3

Well I guess I kinda figured out this blog thing. (a little). We are in Benson, AZ at Valley Vista RV park until April 9. We just arrived after spending the winter at the Western Horizon RV park in Kino Bay, Sonora, MX. Jan & I were volunteers there from November 14 until March 29. We had a great time with old friends and meeting a lot of new ones as well. Dave & Nell Caton met us in Kino January 15th. We left together & traveled to Benson to meet with some other friends, Jerry & Laura Milano. We met both of these couples 3 years ago in Rockport TX and have been keeping in touch with them and meeting up whenever possible.

We will be spending the summer in Alaska with Nel & Dave.

Kino Bay sunset

Here is a picture of one of the many beautiful sunsets we had while we were in Kino Bay.

My first post

I just opened my blog and I'm trying to figure out how to use it.