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A flight of Canadian Geese making a landing on our pasture.
As seen from our RV at Los Ojos, New Mexico on August 3, 2008

Information about our travels, activities and plans.
Updated: October 20, 2009 at Los Ojos, New Mexico

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Blaine and Margaret
	05 Jan 2009 - Mathis, Texas So.... without any help from me... we have had Christmas, New Years, and a birthday, and all of them were just fine. On Christmas eve afternoon we gathered with our Wilderness Lakes friends for our customary celebration and gift exchange and as usual everyone had lots of fun. We had three santas this year, played by Steve Brust, Quentin Bendtsen, and Roy Pomeranz and they all gave convincing performances. There were several unusual gifts in Santa's bag. One of them was a large gray stuffed elephant that Margaret fell in love with. ... so... when the 'exchange' part of the festivities started she told me "I want that elephant!!" The elephant was originally on the guy's gift table so it became my job to get it for her. ... No problem getting it, I just did an exchange when my turn came, but I was worried about keeping it because my turn for an exchange was about half way through the sequence of participants. We got lucky and no one in the last half of exchangers really wanted the big gray beast. Our New Years eve dance was great fun. Jimmy Lee Huff did a great job of playing and singing for our listening and dancing pleasure and the dance floor was continually full. We all feel very fortunate to have Jimmy Lee as a friend and fellow camper. It was a special treat to have his daughter, Karissa, and her husband, Bryce Winters join us for the evening. Jimmy Lee is one of a very few of us who is not already retired so, from day to day, we don't get to see him too often, but there are some of us who are trying to get him to retire and join the full time fun. Today was my birthday and I celebrated in a most unusual way. I went for a pre-op checkup and briefing as part of getting ready for the cataract surgery on my left eye. The surgery is scheduled for January 9th.
	11 Jan 2009 - Mathis, Texas On Tuesday and Thursday (January 6th and 8th) we got my computer class started. With only about ten students, it is smaller than usual, but I think that will be a blessing because I am taking a completely different approach this time. In past years the class was all lectures and I had noticed that even though my students seemed to be understanding what I was saying, they did not seem to be applying the lessons to their own computers. This time it is hands-on exercises and oriented almost completely to things that will keep their computers running good and out of the repair shop. The first class session was mostly orientation about what we would be doing later and it went quite well. The second class provided the surprise. I had several things planned and expected the first one to take only about 15 minutes. However there were several different operating systems being used and because no two computers were set up in the same way we did not even get that first exercise completed. Every computer was requiring personal attention from the instructor to get the task done. But, my luck was with me as Sharon England who teaches the beginning computer course in December (and who was one of my students in my very first computer course at Wilderness) was there to lend a helping hand. Now, I am even more convinced that there will be great benefit from this new approach because the needed changes will actually be done to the computers, not just talked about. But the pace will be much slower than I would have ever suspected and the strain on the instructors will be much greater. So... what else has happened? My eye surgery two days ago went just fine. The eye patch came off after about 24 hours and the vision in that left eye seems improved. The follow-up visit to the doctor yesterday showed no problems and my next visit will be on January 28th to verify that everything is still OK and to get fitted for new glasses. On the way home from the post-op visit to the doctor we decided to stop off at the Best Buy store where we purchased our new Sony 32" flat screen TV. (My theory is that if you can see good, you should have something nice to watch). We don't have it set up yet because Margaret won't let me do anything till my eye is out of its 'rest' period, but the box sure looks good sitting in our living room.
	18 Jan 2009 - Mathis, Texas Another week and everything is going well. The eye is doing fine and my vision in that eye, without glasses, is better than before the surgery. I am looking forward to getting new glasses to see what additional improvement there may be. We are still treating it with eye drops of three varieties on a 4-times-a-day schedule. That will continue till the eye drops bottles are empty in about another week. Our new TV is now out of the box and sitting propped up on the dash. It is hooked up and working and looks great even though at present it is operating at its lowest resolution setting. Higher resolutions will not be possible till we replace the DirecTV satellite decoder box and are able to connect with Hi-Def cables. That will improve the picture but not all the way to HD quality. To get HD from the satellite we will need to replace our present antenna system and we may not do that because it would be a very major operation in this RV, requiring that we also replace the Winegard antenna pointing system. At least for a while I think we will just enjoy the major improvements we have already achieved. Now we are back to the problem of installing the new cabinet that Quentin Bendtsen made for us and getting the new TV mounted in a proper location. We are depending on Quentin for the go-ahead on that part of the project, but I think it may happen soon.
	28 Jan 2009 - Mathis, Texas On January 21st Fred Galvin installed a new air conditioner / heat pump unit to replace the front unit on the RV which had started making funny noises, The old A/C was over 10 years old so I guess we got an adequate amount of service from it. However -- We still have somewhat of a problem with air conditioners. It turns out that the electronics modules in the new air conditioners are not compatible with the temperature control unit inside the RV. But... if we got a new controller then it would not be able to control the rear (old model) air conditioner. As a stop gap solution, we removed the electronics module from the old front air conditioner and installed it in the new A/C. This leaves us with a new (unused) electronics module. Looking ahead to when the rear A/C needs replacing - and assuming the cause is mechanical - we can do a similar operation on it. Then, when the temperature control unit fails as it surely will, we can get the new version of it and re-install the unused electronics modules in both air conditioners and we will be good to go till the next model change. It's a complicated plan, but with some luck it may work. For now I'm not going to worry about it. I had my final visit with my optical surgeon today in Corpus Christi and he gave me a "good to go" opinion. New glasses are the next step but my vision is pretty good so we may delay that part for a little while to give the eye more time to stabilize. On the way home we stopped at Best Buy and picked up a new HD receiver box for our DirecTV system and also an articulating wall mount for the new TV. I am planning to get the final TV mounting done while Margaret is away on her upcoming Caribbean Cruse. My immediate problem is that I have gotten seriously behind with my work on the Wilderness Lakes photo album and I need to clear the decks in that area.
	01 Feb 2009 - Mathis, Texas Margaret left very early this morning for her cruse. She is going with a group of Red Hat ladies from the Lagarto, TX club. Should be fun. They are driving from here to Galveston and sometime late this evening the ship will head out into the Gulf of Mexico. They will make stops in Montego Bay, Jamaica, then Grand Cayman, and Cozumel, Mexico and back to Galveston a week from now. She has her camera batteries all charged up and has promised to take lots of pictures. I have a freezer full of TV dinners so I'm OK. I'm planning to get the new cabinets and the TV installed this week and I will be working some nights with Ronnie Murray recording more of his music for a new CD. We have arranged to use the rec hall from 10:00 PM till whenever so there may be some long nights. Anything beyond that is just frosting on the cake.
	06 Feb 2009 - Mathis, Texas Margaret has been checking in via cell phone every day and enthusiastically reporting on the wonderful time she is having and my TV dinners are getting me by in good shape. I was struggling with figuring how to get the old TV cabinets removed because there were lots of blind fasteners. (Screws that were hidden by finishing plates etc...) I gave up and walked up to Quentin Bendtsen's for advice. He looked at the job and asked if I had any intention of saving the old cabinets. When I said I had no such intentions he went back and got a couple of heavy power saws and a large hammer and the cabinets were soon in pieces and out on our patio. It was a brutal looking process but it sure was quick. Our first real problem came when we found that there was some structure behind the old cabinet that we had not been able to see and it was interfering with the replacement cabinet. Quentin fixed that with some on-the-spot modifications to the new cabinet with one of his power saws. - Not pretty, but that part won't show anyway. The new cabinet was a tight fit and my weak back would not allow me to do the necessary lifting to get it in place. We recruited Jim Hume to do the lifting and Quentin did a temporary fasting with a couple of screws. I finished the job later with lots of screws in all the proper places. The next day I did a lot of careful measuring (and some guessing) and installed the articulating arm wall mount. It was a high lift to place the TV on the mounting arm and I had to recruit one of my neighbors to help for about five minutes. A few more minutes of setting the satellite box in place and hooking up cables and the TV was in place and working.!! We had a dance yesterday evening with lots of good music provided by Richie Albright and his wife, Vanessa, who handles the electronics control chores with skill. I got lots of pictures and danced once with MaryAnn Pearson. My night job of music recording with Ronnie Murray has also been going well and we are getting lots of good sounds for the new CD. Judy Huitt will be doing some of the artistic work for the new CD case. We have given her several photos and a general idea of the theme for the CD and a free hand to let her creativity and talent run wild.
	10 Feb 2009 - Mathis, Texas Margaret got home on the 8th, just as my TV dinners were running out.!! She brought back 208 pictures and many tales of her adventure. Good friends, good food, and lots to see and do. She'll be talking about this one for a long time... The music recording is completed, excepting the possibility of needing to re-record something if any defects show up. To my untrained ear everything sounds great and I'm glad I don't have the job of picking out which songs will be left out just because there isn't space for everything on one CD. As soon as possible I need to get back to working on the Wilderness photo album. I have over 100 pictures waiting to be processed.
	25 Feb 2009 - Mathis, Texas Ronnie Murray and I spent several extra days working on the new music CD. When he listened closely to what we had recorded, he decided that there were at least five selections that could be done better. They got re-recorded till he was happy. Then we recruited Judy Huitt to help with the artwork for the CD label and the inserts for the CD case. As we expected she made some magic.!! It is great to watch a real professional at work. The title of the CD is "Lost Loves and Rusty Old Trucks" and we wanted that expressed visually in the artwork. ... Ronnie came up with a couple of old black and white photos of he and June that were taken back in 1961 when they were teenagers, and the body language in those photos conveyed the "lost loves" idea. The rusty trucks part was a little more difficult but once again, Ronnie produced a photo from his files that was just right. Just one last problem ... There just aren't very many (if any) songs about rusty old trucks... Ronnie solved that one by writing a poem about one particular old truck. We recorded him reading the poem with a light musical background and it became track #1 on the CD and sets the tone for the musical collection. The CD has been received very well by our friends and fellow campers here at Wilderness Lakes and our first production run is nearly exhausted already. All this while, Margaret has been busy from morning till night with a variety of activities. There was a luncheon with the ladies from the Red Hats chapter at Lagarto and then the big annual event, the high tea and bunco party sponsored by our own Red Hat chapter. Now she is enjoying being creative in Jane McFarlen's oil painting class. This year the painting will be a Blue Jay in snow. Another day or so and I think I will be able to post a photo of the finished painting. Jimmy Lee Huff has once again volunteered to play for a dance so tomorrow night we will be out trying to work the kinks out of our legs.
Blue Jay Painting - 1 pix	09 Mar 2009 - Mathis, Texas Time sure goes fast when you're having fun.!! Ronnie Murray's new music CD is very popular with the Wilderness Lakes crowd. We are continuing to get nice complements on it and there are about as many complements on the CD cover art work as for the music. Our thanks to Judy Huitt for such a great job on the cover design and to Ronnie for all those great sounds. We stopped taking pictures for this season's photo album on March 2nd and spent a few days getting ready to release the CD version of the album. This year the album contains 1629 photos and the cover artwork features an impressive photo by Ronnie Murray of an Egret in flight. Early indications are that this may also be a 'best seller'. Jane McFarlen's oil painting class ran a couple of days beyond her original schedule but it was well worth the wait. Under Jane's guidance all of the students produced their own lovely versions of the Blue Jay and should be very proud of their accomplishments. Jimmie Lee Huff made some good music for our dance on February 26th. The last dance of the season will be on March 12th with Richie Albright providing the good sounds. I always hate it when I start writing about the last (whatever) of the season cause that means all of our friends are getting ready to scatter to the four winds again. Actually there have already been several that have folded their tents and departed. We'll see most of them again in the fall and in the meantime we wish them well in their summer travels. Margaret and I are again thinking about a departure somewhere around the first of April, and are planning to do a slow drift westwards to California and Nevada before heading to our place in New Mexico.
	19 Mar 2009 - Mathis, Texas It is obviously time for another update, but this time there sure isn't much to report. Our dance on March 12 was very nice and we had a near capacity crowd. Seems like Richie Albright gets better every time he performs for us. I was in the final phase of getting everything cleaned up from the cabinet / TV modifications when I got my foot tangled up in a video cable and the result was a broken S-video cable connector. Now I will need to take the TV down so I can do the necessary repairs. I just can't seem to get a project completely finished any more.... Margaret has been busy hauling various items back to our storage shed in Mathis. - Just one of the many things that need to be done to get ready to put this RV back on the road. Instead of our regular BBQ this Tuesday, we had an Irish pot luck dinner in honor of St. Patricks Day . The ladies in the park got really inventive with their dishes and we enjoyed all the unusual tastes. Perhaps we'll try this one again next year.
	25 Mar 2009 - Mathis, Texas With Jim Hume's help, our TV came down, got inspected for cable connector damage (there was none) and is now back in place and playing. Yes... there are those times when I get lucky. I have had my new glasses for a few days now and I am adjusting to the prescription change. I think these will work fine for this summer and perhaps beyond. It will not hurt my feelings to finally be able to put a closing punctuation mark at the end of the cataract surgery saga. Margaret had to take her Ford Explorer to the dealer in Alice, TX for minor repairs. All is well now, but a funny story came out of it. ... and she will probably do bad things to me for telling it. When she was arranging for the repairs she described the problem as "The little red marker that shows how fast I am going has broken. ..." Actually it was the little red marker that shows which gear has been selected. This had the people at the Ford dealership about to order a new instrument cluster. Fortunately the error was discovered before things got totally out of hand. We are coming down to the wire concerning our departure date. - Only a few days more at Wilderness Lakes and we will be on our way. This year we will be headed west to Weldon, California and then north to Reno, Nevada with a week or so at each place to visit kids and grandkids. We have general ideas about the trip after leaving Reno but our plans always change so much that they are not worth writing down at this time.
	28 Mar 2009 - Mathis, Texas We have lost another of our Wilderness Lakes friends. Steve Fox has died, apparently from a heart attack suffered in Bullhead City on the Nevada / Arizona border a few days ago. The information I am getting has been coming in from a variety of sources and in often conflicting bits and pieces and I may not have the correct story beyond the fundamentals, but here is the best I can do. (If anyone has more accurate information, please send it to me and I will revise this entry). Steve and Linda were apparently in Bullhead City vacationing and/or visiting relatives when Steve had a heart attack. This was probably about Wednesday, March 25th. The heart attack was not immediately fatal and he spent some time in an Intensive Care Unit at a, probably local, hospital. I believe it was probably Friday, March 27 when the doctors determined that his brain activity had ceased. Later, he was removed from life support. I have been told that Linda will be returning to Wilderness Lakes within the next few days. My personal last contact with Steve was while I was taking pictures of the horseshoe tournament on Friday, March 16th. He was in great form and I got several good pictures of him that day, enjoying the sport with his friends. Although Steve was not one of the "daily regulars" at the yellow table discussions, he always had something significant to add to the conversation when he did show up. That is only one of the many places he will be sorely missed at Wilderness by all his friends.
	01 Apr 2009 - Mathis, Texas No, It's not an 'April Fools' joke ... it looks like we are going to leave Wilderness Lakes today - on schedule. I can't recall the last time such a thing has happened. This morning we are in the midst of packing up those final things and will soon cause the wheels to roll. I'll update this entry when we reach our first-day destination, wherever that may be.
	01 Apr 2009 - Ozona, Texas Evening: We are now at Ozona, Texas and staying at the Circle Bar RV Park, thanks to the suggestion by Don Hendricks and Jim Hume. -- Thanks guys! So, our first day was a nice 320 mile drive that took about seven hours. The weather was good, with just enough wind to remind me to stay awake and pay attention to the driving. This leaves about 380 miles to Tularosa, New Mexico and that sounds a little too much for one day. We'll just head up the road tomorrow and see what happens.
	02 Apr 2009 - Ozona, Texas Morning: We had to do our sleeping last night in shifts - the time before the windstorm and the time after the windstorm. We woke up at about 2:30 AM with the wind howling around our abode. We pulled the slide out back in and lowered the satellite antenna and spent some time listening to the weather radio and trying to get some situational updates on the computer. By 4:00 AM the wind had died down some and we were back in bed. It is now late morning and the wind is still blowing and we are just waiting. We may spend another night in Ozona if it keeps up. I have noticed that our main awning does not seem to be securely latched and is pulling away from the RV body about one inch in the higher wind gusts. I don't think there is anything I can do by way of an investigation till the wind dies down. I don't want to try going on the roof in this wind and the idea of standing on a ladder is completely out of the question. More later....
	02 Apr 2009 - Ozona, Texas Evening: I called Fred Galvin about our awning problem. He said that it was a common failure and probably not field repairable and suggested that a piece of strong cord could be used to make sure that it doesn't open in the wind while we are driving. I'll have a close look when I have the time, sometime this summer, but for now the cord tiedown seems the right way to go and I'll get that done first thing tomorrow morning. The wind blew most of today, but right now it is dead calm and the weather forecast looks like we will be able to make it to Carlsbad, New Mexico tomorrow before it starts blowing again. That's only about 250 miles so, if I'm right about the wind, it should be an easy drive.
	03 Apr 2009 - Carlsbad, New Mexico When we got up this morning Fox (national news) was showing pictures of houses burning in Lagarto, TX, right across the lake from Wilderness. They said the fire had burned about 175 acres and was not under control yet. Margaret belongs to the Lagarto Red Hat Chapter so she started phoning some of the ladies to get first hand information. Putting that information together with some we got from June Murray (who gathered it from who knows where) it looks like about 40 structures were damaged or destroyed. About 12 houses are reported totally lost along with many cars, boats, etc. The fire started, or was centered on, Ranger Drive which is at the south west edge of a major subdivision of somewhat expensive homes. That would have put the wind blowing the fire almost directly into the subdivision. June Murray said she smelled the smoke at Wilderness lakes and went out to see where it was coming from. There are quite a few famlies who can now use our help. If you want to make a donation I suggest you contact Carolyn Edmondson or Georgeann Smith at Wilderness to see where to send it. They may or may not already know what to do, but they are in a much better position to find out than I am. Still on the subject of fires, when I was talking to June Murray earlier this evening she said there was another fire yesterday. This one was located south west of Sandia and burned about two thousand acres. I don't have any other information about that one. After absorbing all the morning fire news I went out to apply the fix to our loose awning. It only took a few minutes to secure it with velcro at the front and back. I still don't know what exactly is wrong with it, but that's all right because I really don't care - so long as it doesn't come loose out on the road. I had allowed considerable time for fixing the awning so we were instantly ahead of schedule and headed down I-10 toward Fort Stockton. We made the turn northwest on US-285 and by the time we reached Pecos, TX we were considering the possibility of going a little further than Carlsbad. It was still early, neither of us was tired yet, and the wind was something we felt we could live with so stretching the day's drive sounded reasonable. Eighteen miles north of Pecos the situation started changing when we came upon a very large sign that advised of a damaged bridge ahead and said rather bluntly that every vehicle over 11,000 pounds (we weigh 31,000 pounds) must go to wherever they were headed using TX-302. In the tradition of all good Texas signs, this one was too close to the intersection and I was past it before the full import of the message sunk in. We quickly found a wide spot where we paused and consulted our maps before going back to the start of our 'detour'. TX-302 was fairly nice all the way to Kermit, TX where we turned north on TX-18 toward Jal, New Mexico. The road wasn't quite as good but still no cause for concern except that we were going to put on quite a few extra miles. At Jal we picked up NM-128 toward Loving, NM. As we were leaving town I made an unfortunate remark over the CB. I asked Margaret how she felt now that all of her life long desires had been met? She had finally been to Kermit and Jal and so could cross the last two items off her list of 'places I really must see'. You didn't really think I was going to quote her reply did you? Highway 128 wasn't too bad till we reached the Jal city limits (1/2 mile from center of town) then it turned into a typical New Mexico "hard surfaced washboard" where getting up to the 55 MPH limit was an act of courage. We were still trying to make jokes about this when the construction zone started. The speed limits dropped to, still unatainable, 35 and 45 MPH and went on forever. No kidding, that 20 miles did seem like forever. We finally intersected our original planned route a little way north of Loving, NM and had almost regained our composure when we encountered the construction zone that went almost all the way through the city of Carlsbad crawling along at two to five MPH in heavy traffic. Needless to say, by the time we hit good road and reasonable speed limits north of Carlsbad the thought of extending the day's drive seemed like a fanciful pipe dream. The extra 61 miles, the bad road, and the construction zones had taken it out of us. So, here we are, 12 miles north of Carlsbad at Brantley State Park which has been one of our favorite layover spots since we first went full-time back in 1991. Margaret heated some leftovers for dinner and immediately curled up on the couch where she is still sleeping soundly. Tomorrow we will try for Tularosa, NM. ========================= Late evening update on the Lagarto fire. The following are cut & paste quotes from today's Corpus Christi Caller Times newspaper. You can read the complete article at: http://www.caller.com/news/2009/apr/03/lagarto_fire_destroys/ .... in the Sunnybrook neighborhood, one of four lakeside residential areas in Lagarto. About 40 structures, most of them homes, were destroyed, forcing about 100 people from more than 30 families to evacuate, according to fire and Red Cross officials ... in the heart of a six-square-block area that’s now residential wasteland. It’s part of about 170 acres destroyed by a Thursday grass fire, according to officials from the Texas Forest Service, which helped fight the fire that officials said may have been sparked by power lines that were downed in strong winds The fire is the community’s biggest disaster since flooding in 2002. “These people lost everything and didn’t have time to prepare,” he said. “It’s more of a catastrophe (than the flood)
	04 Apr 2009 - Carlsbad, New Mexico Hunkering down at Carlsbad... The wind never died down last night... just kept getting stronger and stronger. We gave up on the TV because the satellite antenna can't maintain station lock in this wind. In the middle of the night we retracted the slideout because it sounded like the wind was doing bad things with the slideout awning. Today, about noon, we gave up the idea of driving anywhere and paid our rent for another day. The weather maps on the internet are showing a possibility that we may be through the worst of the wind so perhaps we can drive tomorrow without fear of turning over. Till then we are amusing ourselves by watching the whitecaps on Brantly Lake and watching all the trees and bushes dance and twist in the wind. Our hydraulic leveling jacks are not enough to keep the RV from rocking and rolling. I'll give it a Disneyland "C" ticket rating - interesting and only moderately exciting.
	05 Apr 2009 - Tularosa, New Mexico We had a nice drive today with hardly any wind. North from Carlsbad to Roswell where we turned west on US-70 to Tularosa. We had intended to turn west at Artesia (shorter route) but there were more of those big signs saying bad things about vehicles that are (a) Tall, (b) Wide, (c) Heavy or (d) All of the above. This time we didn't bother going back to see exactly what the message was. - We just re-planned on the fly to an alternate route. We are planning two nights in Tularosa, visiting sister Sue and her husband Charlie. Our next real 'stop' will be in Kingman, Arizona where we need to get lubrication and oil change and four new rear tires for the RV, but we are not prepared to say how long it will take us to get there.
	07 Apr 2009 - Holbrook, Arizona This was a symetrical day. It started out a bit bad, had some pleasant stuff in the middle and ended a bit bad. We thought we were ready to leave Tularosa, NM after our visit with Sue and Charles only to discover a flat right-front tire on Margaret's car. We put some air in it and, as it seemed to be holding, we drove about five miles to a station to get it fixed. Interestingly, the puncture was from a mesquite thorn. We got good service and were ready to roll again after only about an hour delay. Our trip planning today included breaking some new trail and took us north on US-54 to Carrizozo, NM; then west on US-380 to San Antonio, NM; north on I-25 to Socorro, NM; and west on US-60 toward Springerville, AZ. About 45 miles west of Socorro we took some time out to do the "tourist thing" at the VLA (Very Large Array) radio astronomy site. Our last time there was in January 1992 in some quite cold weather and the picutres we took then got lost. This visit was much more pleasant and still just as impressive. We got lots of pictures that I haven't transfered to the computer yet. I may come back and post one or two with this entry. Our VLA adventure chewed up quite a bit of time and as we left we decided we should do our overnight stop short of our original destination of Holbrook, AZ. Springerville seemed a likely candidate but we started looking immediately. There was nothing in Datl, or Pie Town, or Quemado. In Springerville there were four parks but none that we would have felt safe in - real junk piles. No problem, we'll just turn north on US-81 toward Saint Johns. However by this time it was getting late in the day and we were getting more determined to find someplace to shut it down. We found only one acceptable RV park in Saint Johns, AZ but it was full. So, here we go again, northwest on US-180 toward Holbrook with the setting sun shining more or less directly in our eyes. It was dark before we got to Holbrook but we had been there many times and knew exactly where to find our favorite RV park. Of course we were tired after the much longer than normal day and that contributed to the bad ending... While trying to manouver into our assigned site in the darkness I managed to get up against a power company transformer housing. I hardly noticed the contact and in fact it sounded like tree branches scraping along the roof. Margaret was in her car behind me and as soon as she saw the problem she was on the CB yelling for me to stop, but it was too late. I had slid the power transformer considerably on its concrete base pedestal. There were only some slight scuff marks on the RV so I was feeling that this would be an inconvenience with the reporting but not much more than that. Things got more serious when the power company people arrived. There was some internal damage to the power transformer and it would have to be replaced. -- Ballpark estimate $2000. So we now needed to go through the whole routine including getting the local police out to make an "Accident Report". I had intended to simply pay for whatever damages there were, because I have a $1000 deductable, but now I will have to call the insurance company and go through the complete process even though I may yet not file a claim with them. There will surely be more on this in later postings. Tomorrow we will try to get to Kingman, AZ and get some new tires for the RV.
	08 Apr 2009 - Kingman, Arizona Another day, Another adventure..! Got off to a slightly shaky start this morning when I re-inspected the results of yesterday evening's encounter with the power transformer. It turns out that the damage to the RV is more extensive than I thought. Remember the remark about the "slight scuff marks"? Well, that was just the spot where I first came in contact with the power transformer. From there, about 1/3 of the way back from the front of the RV, there is additional scratching and scraping all the way to the rear bumper. Most of this damage is on the lower, rounded part of the cargo doors. However, (don't uderstand how I missed this) the last cargo door caught rather heavily on the transformer and it's hinge is damaged so that it sits askew. It is resisting my efforts to open it so I will be leaving it closed till we get to a place where I have some time to do whatever shade tree repairs may be necessary to get us on up the road. We are now, obviously looking at enough damage that there is no question about filing a claim with my insurance company. So... I notified them by phone and we are working on making arrangements to have the RV inspected and get some repair estimates. Looks like that may get done in Reno, NV once we get there in about a week and a half. I anticipate we may get the repairs done while we are in Reno visiting the kids. Next, this is another "wind day" but we decided to try it anyway. A few miles west of Winslow, AZ we had a stretch of about six miles where the dust was blowing so bad that the state police were escorting convoys of cars and trucks through it in an effort to keep anyone from doing anything stupid. In the worst spots the visibility got down to less than 50 feet and we were running at 15 miles per hour or less. After we cleared the dust storm we had very high winds almost all the way to Kingman, AZ so I didn't get to relax at the wheel. We pulled in to our favorite truck stop, 18 miles east of Kingman, at about 4:00 PM and, for a change, began having some good luck. There were almost no trucks waiting for service and we very quickly had four new tires mounted ($1470) and a lube and oil change done ($180). While all that was happening, Margaret drove up the hill to the RV park and secured a parking space for the night. Our good luck was still with us as it was the very last open site in the park. We are really ready for a long night's sleep and we'll see what tomorrow brings.
	09 Apr 2009 - Weldon, California By comparison to some recent experiences, today was one of the good days. We had enough wind to keep the driver alert, but by comparison with yesterday it seemed almost dead calm. We made about 330 miles and arrived at Weldon, CA just before sundown. Now we are looking forward to several relaxing days and visiting the kids.
	15 Apr 2009 - Weldon, California We have been being very intent on accomplishing our present tasks of relaxing and visiting and I'm proud to report that all is going well. Our latest thinking about future travel has us planning to hit the road again this Saturday. Two easy days will put us in Carson City, Nevada on the 19th and we will probably just stay there till the repairs to the RV are done. - Then on to Reno for more visiting and some gambling.
	18 Apr 2009 - Bridgeport, California We went back to our magic formula for traveling: Get a late start, don't drive very far, and stop early. -- It still works.!! So.. 250 miles from Weldon, CA puts us in Bridgeport, CA tonight. We stopped for groceries in Bridgeport and at the checkout stand Margaret asked if there were any good RV parks close by. The answer was "not really, but you are welcome to spend the night on our parking lot". And that is what we are doing. Now we have less than 100 miles to go tomorrow to get to Carson City, NV and the RV repair place where we are going to get the new paint to cover up the old scratches.
	19 Apr 2009 - Carson City, Nevada Nice day, nice short drive, and we are now parked at Rupert's Auto Body in Carson City, Nevada. The kids, Alan and Laura Carlson, drove down from Reno (35 miles) and took us out to dinner. It was nice to see them again and we enjoyed the evening. Tomorrow we get started with the RV repairs.
	20 Apr 2009 - Carson City, Nevada There is a saying "Always expect the unexpected." and we got a refresher course today. First thing this morning I started the motor generator to refresh the charge in the batteries and found that the charging function of our inverter/converter set was no longer working. Since we were not in a position to be able to plug into an electrical source this was instantly a matter of some concern. I spent some time getting a feel of what the symptoms were and trying various ways to provoke it into working. All without any great success. The best I could get was about three minutes of normal charging when the motor generator was started. Then the over temperature light would come on and the unit would shut down. The unit was NOT hot.. actually it was quite cold..Time for some help..!! I called Xantrex (who made the inverter/converter) and things started looking a little better. I got a phone number for a repair shop, Alternative Energy Solutions, in Reno and gave them a call. The owner said that there was a local mobile RV repair service here in Carson City that was about to make the trip to Reno with an inverter/converter from another customer and if I hurried with a call to them they could bring my unit on the same trip. I called CD Mobile RV Repair and in less than 30 minutes Jason Seldon was here and starting an evaluation of my problem. Neither of us knows why, but as he was poking and prodding and testing, the inverter/converter started working and we could not make it quit again. So now I am leaving well enough alone. The unit is working and I'm hoping it continues that way. Back to the main purpose of us sitting at Rupert's Auto shop.... Having arrived essentially without a schedule as I was afraid of making a commitment to be here at any specified time, we found ourselves waiting all of today while the workers cleared out work that was already in the shop. As of 5:00 PM today they told us that we would be first up for service tomorrow morning. In retrospect, all of today's frantic activity was better than just sitting and waiting and being bored. I'm now looking forward to doing that tomorrow.
	21 Apr 2009 - Carson City, Nevada The guys at the body shop put in about five hours today working on our RV. Almost all of the physical deformities have yielded to skillful hammering and grinding. Some have even been filled, smoothed, and sanded. At the moment it looks a real mess but I can see where it is headed and I'm sure it will be lovely when it is finished. The weather has been near perfect since we arrived and I hope it stays that way because all the work on the RV is being done outside the building.
	22 Apr 2009 - Carson City, Nevada Another good day at the body shop. All of the gray primer is now on and we are ready to go for the colored paint tomorrow.. There are three different colors to put on and the procedure will require us to be out of the RV for about five hours. The guys say the fumes get pretty fierce. We are planning to occupy ourselves with a visits to some of the local casinos. The paint will require some time for complete drying (overnight) and the final touches are planned for the morning of Friday the 24th. Then we are out of here.
	23 Apr 2009 - Carson City, Nevada Our "schedule" took another half day or more slip. I'm not sure exactly why, but the colored paint did not go on yesterday afternoon. That is now scheduled for first thing tomorrow morning. However, this created another 'first' for us. For the first time we are spending the night in our RV while it is inside a building. There is plastic sheeting hanging all over the outside of it to protect it from drifting paint spray and it looks ready for the colored paint. Today, to stay out of the way, we explored Carson City and spent several hours at a local casino. We didn't do too bad and came away from the slots having lost only about $50. Margaret lost most of it, but I'm not supposed to say that. Tomorrow we will be out and about again. Probably with another go at the slots.
	24 Apr 2009 - Carson City, Nevada One more day - one more delay... The final coat of paint got put on the RV late today and when we returned from our second day of casino tours, at closing time, the paint crew asked us if we would mind spending one more night here inside the building to let the paint finish drying before we hit the road. At least the space rental is priced right and the paint job does look great. So.. we will probably be pulling out sometime about mid morning tomorrow. Then sometime before we leave the Reno area we will have to make a quick return trip to have the new chrome exhaust pipe tip put on (It didn't arrive on time) and to let them install about six feet of reflective tape. They said they have had some bad results with putting reflective tape on new paint that was not completely dry. Another little problem (Margaret says it is NOT LITTLE) when we put the RV inside the shop we switched the refrigrator and the water heater over to electric power so as to not run a risk of building up exhaust gas fumes. The water heater made the change just fine. However, the refrigerator did not and we now have a quantity of warmer than wanted food, much of which will be thrown away. Margaret has expressed a strong opinion that tossing the refrigerator sounds like a very good idea. If past experience is any indicator, the fridge will not be with us much longer. Margaret is not a "failure tolerant" person.! Did I mention that we don't get satellite TV inside this building? I'm not sure if we will survive two nights in a row without any TV.
	25 Apr 2009 - Reno, Nevada We finally made it to Reno.!! The new paint on the RV looked good in the light of day and we pulled out of Rupert's Body Shop about 10:00 AM and are now at Gold Ranch RV Park a few miles west of Reno near the California border. Alan and Laura came out for lunch and some casual gambling and I turned a slight profit at the slots. In the evening, Dave and Shirley Carlson came by for visiting, dinner and more gambling. At the slots everyone else hovered around the 'break even' point but I had a streak of luck and ended the evening about $150 ahead. Things are looking up. Margaret's refrigerator seems to be working again, but I don't think this will save it from the scrap heap as soon as we can find a replacement. We will be in Reno for about a week.
	03 May 2009 - Carson City, Nevada Back on the road again - sort of... We woke up to rain this morning and a prediction of worse to come. However we have an appointment to get the last details of the RV paint & repair done in Carson City tomorrow morning so we battened down the hatches and made the 35 mile trip down here with no problems. Sometime tomorrow morning (trying not to make a prediction) we should be able to point this thing east toward New Mexico. Our week in Reno was very nice with dinners most evenings at Alan and Laura's home or with them at some nice restaurant. Of course there was also lots of 'small change' gambling. I managed to play all week on house money at the casino at Gold Ranch where we were staying but I did not do nearly that well at the other casinos. Overall I don't think we lost very much, but neither Margaret or I were keeping a running count. In addition to Alan and Laura and their kids, we also worked in pleasant visits with other family members - Dave and Shirley Carlson and Mary Taylor. Margaret came away a big winner with a new and very nice hairdo, expertly done by granddaughter Hannah Jo who is now a licensed beautician and working at a nice salon in downtown Reno. Her father told us later that Hannah was very nervous at the prospect of cutting and styling her grandmother's hair, but she was also very proud when it was all done.
	04 May 2009 - Winnemucca, Nevada As you can see by the town name in today's header line, we ARE making progress. In a normal entry that would more or less tell the story, but not this time... Just a few minutes after I posted yesterday's entry while sitting comfortably in front of Ruperts Body Shop, I decided to fire up our motor generator and top off the battery charge for the night. In less than 5 minutes our old problem with the inverter/converter was back again. Several attempts at shutdown and restart, much poking of control switches (sometimes with purpose - other times not) and frequent use of harsh language had no detectable positive effect. Since the $75 worth of technician time a couple of weeks ago had gotten similar results (i.e. "Something is wrong but we don't know what.") I didn't feel too disappointed with my efforts - just with the lack of positive results. First thing this morning I made the first of several phone calls to Alternative Energy Solutions in Reno and leaving "Please Help Me" messages. Meanwhile the guys at Rupert's arrived and began work on our two small tasks. The application of about four feet of reflective tape over some of their new paint went well, but at the rear of the RV, replacing the exhaust tip was another story. The new exhaust tip they had obtained was an "outside" fitting whereas the old one was an "inside" type. This caused some consternation and gnashing of teeth and the technicians began speculating on how long it might take to get the proper gender part. The problem was solved when I pointed out that we could saw off a short section of the old tip and use it as a coupler. This would create a female-male-female arrangement and the only thing we needed was another five-inch clamp to hold it together. One of the guys jumped in his car and was off to the parts store while the other one started cutting off the male coupler section. Bottom line -- It worked just fine. Since we would be going through Reno to get back on I-80 for our trip we decided to swing by the address I had for Alternative Energy Solutions just on the off chance that someone might be there who could look at our inverter/converter. The place was very unimpressive. Actually, just a small space in the corner of another business. The owner, Joe Pizer, who looked like a re-cycled hippie with a pony tail secured by a rubber band, was personable enough and he explained the lack of response to my phone calls with "I had my phone turned off". Now, I usually get along well enough with hippie types and I have no problem with pony tails so I engaged him to have a look at our inverter/converter set. When we fired up the motor generator the inverter/converter set worked perfectly and none of our efforts in the next hour did anything to change it. So, just like two weeks ago, I paid $75 for a "can't fix it while it's working" result. The bright spot in this episode was that Joe turned out to be a very interesting individual who seemed to be quite competent in his chosen work. Even with the lack of positive results, which will surely come back to bite me, I thouroughly enjoyed this encounter and even learned a few things about inverter/converter sets. It was early afternoon when we left Reno and headed east. The drive was totally uneventful and we made an early stop here in Winnemucca.
	05 May 2009 - Wendover, Utah A quick look at the sky when we got up this morning convinced us to take care of one of those 'too long put off' maintenance items. We needed new windshield wipers on both vehicles and it looked like rain was coming. As usual the RV presented some problems as we had to drag out the tools and make minor physical modifications to install the only wiper blades we could find that were the correct length. That delayed our departure till nearly 1:00 PM. I joked to Margaret that the only thing we were really doing was insuring that no rain would fall on us for the rest of this trip and as of this evening that theory is holding true. Incidentally, the inverter/converter is working fine at the moment. We have been holding our options open for a possible excursion into Wyoming to get a renewal of my drivers license. It expires in January 2010. Every so often they require us to appear in person for the renewal rather than doing it by mail and I wasn't sure if this was going to be one of the 'appearance required' years. Anyway, I finally got off my duff and made a phone call. The nice lady assured me that my presence would not be required this time and I could do the whole thing by mail. Based on this good news, we now plan to continue east on I-80 to Salt Lake City and then turn south. A good day should put us at or near Green River, Utah tomorrow night. Tonight we are almost exactly on the Nevada - Utah border. The RV parking area is in Utah but the state line runs right down the west edge and the pay station for the park is the main desk of the Nugget hotel / casino which is on the Nevada side. We rewarded ourselves for not having gotten into any new trouble by going out to dinner at the casino. We were also going to do a little gambling but Margaret got off to sudden bad start when she didn't check the settings on her machine and ended up betting $10 on a single roll. It lost and she quit.!! The $10 was her entire evening gambling budget and was planned for 5-cent bets.
	06 May 2009 - Wellington, Utah We had a good travel day today. In fact, if it hadn't been for me taking a wrong turn in the Salt Lake City area, I might have called it perfect. Headed south on I-15 coming out of Salt Lake City we were in moderately heavy traffic and I was paying close attention to my driving. I had taken the precaution of writing myself a note about what highway number I wanted to take (US-6 / 89) and had had it on the dash where I could read it without taking my eyes off the road except for a moment. Good planning wouldn't you say? Then there was this sign at an exit and it said US-89 so I hung a right and went a few blocks before I began to sense that something was not "right".. I found a wide spot and parked the rig to consult my computer map. It WAS the right highway - just the wrong part of it. This part was a good 20 miles north of the part that I wanted.!! Margaret is always good about pointing out the errors of my ways and this time she had in fact commented as we left the freeway that she hadn't seen anything about US-6. Naturally she was correct. The two highways would not co-exist for another 20 miles. We took an interesting tour through a posh residential neighborhood getting the rig turned around and made our way back to the freeway. By now I was armed with much more extensive crib notes and we found our turn-off exactly where it was advertised to be. So, here we are in Wellington, Utah looking forward to another good travel day tomorrow.
	07 May 2009 - Farmington, New Mexico Today was a day of high wind and bad roads. The high winds did not surprise us as we have been having that problem through most of this five-week tour, but the roads were an eye opener. It had been several years since we traveled this route and the deterioration of the roads was obvious in most places. The especially bad roads were; US-6 from just south of Wellington, Utah to I-70 west of Green River; US-191 from I-70 east of Green River to Monticello, Utah; US-491 from Monticello, Utah to the Colorado border; and US-160 from Cortez, Colorado to Shiprock, New Mexico. (i.e. most our route) In spite of all that we made it to Farmington, New Mexico where we decided to spend the night and have a short visit with Margaret's brother and sister-in-law, Pete and Jeanne Delzell. Margaret enjoyed herself but I wasn't very good company. I was so tired that all I could think of was getting horizontal on our couch.
	08 May 2009 - Los Ojos, New Mexico A nice and short trip has put us back in Los Ojos. Everything at our place has apparently survived the winter in good shape. The lawn is a carpet of bright yellow dandilions and that will probably save it for a few days from a mowing that it could use. Within two hours of our arrival we had two different neighbors stop by to welcome us home and bring us up to date on all the latest happenings in Los Ojos. Usually when we get here, the trees are still bare, but this time the aspens in our front yard are already covered in a froth of pale green leaves and the whole valley has a carpet of green grass. It looks great. Way across the valley the lovely waterfall at the Brazos Cliffs is flowing heavily. It only flows for two or three weeks a year as the snow melts off the slopes above. Perhaps that is why we appreciate it so much. Just at sundown a herd of deer paid us a short visit and they appear to be in very good shape so the winter must have been relatively mild. Across the fence next to the lake there are at least two pair of nesting Canadian Geese. These are probably the same ones that nested in that spot last year and raised their families. Lots of other geese have been flying in and out this afternoon so we won't be lacking for company from our feathered friends. Tomorrow, Margaret says she is going to town to use the laundromat and will no doubt spend some time saying 'hi' to her friends up and down main street in Chama. We are quickly settling back into our "no plans" mode and looking forward to a very relaxing summer.
	16 May 2009 - Los Ojos, New Mexico Already a week has passed... Hardly seems possible. Here's a snapshot of our activities. Margaret has been catching up on visiting our neighbors. Also, she got her Bronco back from Phil Pina. It now has a new paint job. It is the same color so it doesn't look all that different unless you remember all the weak spots in the old paint. The hood was in the worst shape and they replaced it with a new one. The chrome has all been re-polished to a high shine and that is one of the things you notice first. Margaret is very happy with her "new" car. We hired a local gentleman to help with some minor ditch repairs and that went well. Last fall we had noticed that some of the pipe liner sections had started to 'float' but they are all fixed now. The irrigation water is flowing in the ditch and I think we will be doing our first irrigation of the season in a few days. The first mowing of the season is done on our property, but I still have a couple of patches to do on our neighbors property that I customarily take care of. The prairie dogs have made major incursions into our 'lawn' but watch out - it is going to be a bad year for prairie dogs as I am determined to drive them well back across the fence. We have both had our annual physical check-ups and have only to wait on blood test results. Except for some "old age" stuff we didn't get any bad marks so far.
	19 May 2009 - Los Ojos, New Mexico Not much real news but the mowing on our neighbor's property is finished and we started the first irrigation today. If it goes as usual we should be finished in about three days. I did an inspection walk of the irrigation ditch as soon as we got a full head of water running and did not find any of the pipe liner sections floating out of place. I guess we did a good repair job last week. Our neighbors just to the north, Art and Ruby Marquez, are planning a family reunion / outing next weekend. Art was here for a couple of days to get their RV in place and to make sure their place looks good. If this outing is anything like the ones they have had in the past, it should be great fun.
	01 Jun 2009 - Los Ojos, New Mexico Art and Ruby really filled up their place with family and friends. There were nine RVs and one large tent.!! Everyone said they had a good time in spite of the bad weather. It rained some on each of the three days they were all here and the wind got pretty strong at times. Due to the crowded conditions, one of the late arrivals pulled into an area that had just been irrigated and got stuck. They just leveled it as good as they could and two days later the ground had become solid enough that we got the RV out without too much trouble. I completely forgot to do a follow up report on our medical checkups. It was all good news from the blood test lab. In fact Margaret and I are both showing better results in all categories than we did two years ago. Guess everyone will just have to put up with us for a while longer. Around the ranch its just the same old routine of watching the grass grow and then mowing it. The high spot of the week is that I finally isolated the source of an overheating problem that my Kubota tractor has been having. It is small debris (like fine grass clippings) clogging the fins of the radiator. The radiator is situated such that there is no clear visual access to either side of it so I could not see the clogged airflow condition developing. Also, it is almost impossible to get high pressure air or water flowing at a good angle to clean the fins. So I am building a high pressure water delivery wand of my own design, fabricated from about 18" of copper tubing with a right angle delivery tip, soldered to a water hose coupling. I am sure it is going to work and I won't have to be continualy monitoring the temperature guage any more. We have been having rain showers almost every day it seems and the temperatures are often just a little too cool to be enjoying being outdoors. There are many prairie dogs that have lived a couple of extra weeks because of the weather. Soon it will be warmer and it will be bad days in prairie dog town again.!!
	15 Jun 2009 - Los Ojos, New Mexico Its been a quiet couple of weeks. The weather is getting warmer (jackets not needed now) and the nice afternoon rain showers are continuing. I have spent a couple of afternoons gassing prairie dogs and even though there is much more to do, there are noticeably fewer of them in our pasture. Margaret spent last Saturday in Chama taking pictures of our annual "Great Chama Valley Quilt Show". She brought back over 100 pictures showing beautiful quilts hanging on every vertical surface in town. The highlight of these two weeks came yesterday when Carolyn Edmondson and daughter Jacquelyn Spruiell took time out of their vacation schedule to spend a day with us. They had spent a few days just south of here at the Ojo Caliente Resort and said it was great to spend time just being pampered. Both of them also seemed to enjoy seeing the sights around Los Ojos and Chama even though we had to compress the entire tour into a single day.
	03 Jul 2009 - Los Ojos, New Mexico Many evenings during the past couple of weeks I have asked myself "what has happened that I could write about?" and nothing important enough came to mind - so I skipped another day. I should have written about some of those uninteresting things because now I have to write about sad things. In the last two days we have lost two very dear friends, Wayne Vanaman and Jean Barton. Those of you who have become a part of our Wilderness Family in recent years may not have had the pleasure of knowing Dave and Jean Barton and Jean's mother, Marie 'Nana' Saam and, if so, you have missed something important. Dave and Jean arrived at Wilderness for the 1998-99 season and returned every year until the 2005-06 season. I can't recall them ever missing a BBQ or a dance and probably not much else either. One of Dave's many talents was as a carpenter and he had a hand in building many of the things we now see and touch and take for granted every day at Wilderness. Jean's interests were often expressed in the lovely things she made in Arts and Crafts. Her engaging smile can be found in many pictures in the Wilderness Photo Albums from those earlier years. You will also find a great many pictures of Marie 'Nana' Saam in the Wilderness albums. Her warm and lovely smile simply demanded that I should point my camera her way. When Dave died in May 2006 Jean decided she was not up to making the yearly trips to Wilderness and she stayed at their home in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania to take care of her mother. Unfortunately 'Nana' died a few months later in August 2006 and Jean finally moved to Florida to be near family members. In the spring of 2008, with her health deteroriating, Jean returned to Susquehanna where her daughter Carol lives. Wayne and Livia Vanaman showed up at Wildeness for the 2003-04 season and soon became 'fixtures' around the park. Wayne has had repeated problems with his health but in spite of not really feeling up to it, his was a regular face at a great many of the social gatherings in the recreation hall. Some of us have suspected that some of this was just a matter of trying to keep up with Livia, who never missed anything that was happening at the park. Wayne always had time to sit a few minutes and join in conversations at the 'round table'. His comments were always well thought out and more often than not, contributed to our solutions to whatever important world problem we were trying to solve at the moment. Now we have had these two close friends taken from us and the least of our reactions is that it has really taken the edge off our Independence Day festivities. We can only hope that we will be able to live up to their examples and leave good memories for our friends just like they have both done.
	24 Jul 2009 - Los Ojos, New Mexico I didn't really mean to be this long getting another posting done. Its the same old problem. Nothing happens and its hard to write about "nothing happening". However, there is another way to look at it.... We come to Los Ojos exactly because it is quiet and usually nothing important happens. How many times have I said that watching the grass grow was the big event of the week.?? I have been making some steady (but very slow) progress in my Prairie Dog wars. I have never seen a year when there were so many of them and I am very sure that they are multiplying much more rapidly than I am killing them. About a week ago we took a "car only" trip to Ignacio, Colorado where we celebrated Margaret's brother Pete Delzell's 81st birthday with dinner and gambling at the local Casino. It was a fun day and I only have regrets that I did not win anything.
	31 Jul 2009 - Los Ojos, New Mexico Linda Fox sent an e-mail letting us know that she is leaving Wilderness, headed for Bullhead City, Arizona very soon and doesn't want to loose touch with any of her Wilderness friends. Since Linda has never wanted her own page on this website, I'll just post a copy of her letter here in my 'travels' section and hope it does the job for her. ========================= Dear Blaine and Margaret, I would like this to go to all my "Wilderness Family". Thank you for being friends as well as a family. I will miss all of you. I'm leaving for AZ next month. My new address will be 1767 Forest Dr. Bullhead City, AZ 86442 and an e-mail address will come later. I'd love for you all to come by and see me. Thank you all for remembering Steve. I will miss him so much and miss all of you at WL, the fun, games and crafts. Love you all and you're welcome anytime. Love, Linda Fox =========================
	11 Sept 2009 - Los Ojos, New Mexico Ronnie Murray called today to update us (and the rest of our Wilderness family) on their summer adventures Way back in March, Ronnie had managed to step on a thorn. He couldn't get it all out but was convinced that it would work its way out. Then summer arrived and June and Ronnie took their granddaughter Angela to Yellowstone. By the time they had planned to return, June was not feeling well, but when they got to a lower elevation she was much better. So.. they went to Angel Fire, New Mexico to visit with MaryAnn and Sam Pearson. June and Ronnie had planned to visit us here in Los Ojos but June started feeling really bad so they just returned to Mathis and she was soon her old self again. About this time Ronnie finally admitted that his foot was really hurting so they began a series of doctor exams and minor surgeries. They finally found a doctor who really seemed interested in finding the problem and fixing it. This resulted in surgery on August 31st. .. The bone had become infected but the doctor is sure they got all the infected parts and the remainder of the thorn out and it now seems to be healing well. Ronnie has been home one week now and he knows we want him to hurry and get well and June knows she has our sympathy. (Marge says "Hang in there girl - We're coming).
	29 Sept 2009 - Los Ojos, New Mexico Summer at Los Ojos has ended.!! I noticed this a few nights ago when I was up at 5:30AM disconnecting some water hoses that had frozen solid. We escaped with no damage, but when pipes start freezing it is time to go south so we are gathering things up and finding places for them in the storage sheds. Yesterday I replaced the anti freeze in the tractor radiator and today we put the tractor and all its implements in the barn and got them covered with tarps. That settles any question about starting up the tractor to take care of some miscellaneous job that had been overlooked.
	30 Sept 2009 - Los Ojos, New Mexico Today was reserved for looking everything over one last time and making sure we do not leave anything un-done. Everything looks OK so we will probably be on the road tomorrow. It was a very quiet season at Los Ojos this summer with nothing major happening. The biggest work project was putting the last 200 feet of pipe liner in our irrigation ditch. There is now only a few hundred feet of ditch, on the upper end, that is not lined and that area will probably not get done because I don't think we are going to find a source for more of the type of pipe that we have been using. Even if nothing more ever gets done, it is a sensational improvement over the situation we had before we stared doing the lining. Maintenance in the lined areas is now reduced to almost nothing more than mowing the ditchbanks.
	01 Oct 2009 - Vaughn, New Mexico We did our traditional very late start, but a half day driving has brought us to Vaughn, NM. There is really nothing in Vaughn that a person would want to stop for and the RV park isn't even very nice. It is just the right distance down the highway for an overnight stop. The weather was good today and we didn't even have the usual wind.
	02 Oct 2009 - LaMesa, Texas Today we managed to do something unusual... We went east out of Vaughn and made a stop in Fort Sumner for some 'tourist' activity that should have been done a long time ago. Margaret spent some of the very early years of her life in eastern New Mexico. Among the tales from that era in Lincoln County, NM was the story from her grandfather that he was friends with Pat Garrett who was known for putting an end to the career of William "Billy The Kid" Bonny at a ranch south east of Fort Sumner. Hearing this story was about as close as Margaret ever got to looking into the life of either Pat Garrett or Billy the Kid. Today we corrected that with a long leisurely visit to the museum and burial site of Billy the Kid. I'm not convinced that our lives will be forever altered by today's activities, but Margaret is happier for having done it.
	03 Oct 2009 - LaMesa, Texas We are shut down today waiting for the weather to clear up ahead of us. When I watched the weather channel they were talking about some 7.75 inches of rain that fell on Beeville, Texas yesterday. We don't need to get any closer to that sort of thing so we are just sitting here in LaMesa enjoying an occasional light rain shower.
	04 Oct 2009 - Kerrville, Texas It was an ideal day for traveling. Cloudy but no rain and no wind.. After such an easy drive we could have gone further, but couldn't have made it all the way to Mathis before dark so we just shut it down and are now preparing to get a nice rest.
	05 Oct 2009 - Mathis, Texas Home again... and greeted with hugs from all our friends who got here before us.
	-20 Oct 2009 - Mathis, Texas Just before we left Los Ojos we found out that our mail forwarding arrangements in Pinedale, WY had gotten fouled up beyond belief. The person in Pinedale who was picking up our mail got a bit lax and our "mail box rent due" notice arrived in Reno very late. By the time Laura wrote the check and got it mailed back, our box had already been closed and would require an added payment for a new key to get it working again. Problem is the Post Office had no way to let us know about this. I finally was able to get a phone number for the Pinedale post offfice (not an easy task) and contacted them. We got a check for the extra charges started toward them and started looking for an alternate mail forwarding service. Shortly after we arrived at Mathis we got the mail forwarding mess all fixed. We now have a new forwarding service and the mail will now start being forwarded to Margaret and I instead of to Laura. Laura was ready to get out from under the job of handling our mail and paying our bills anyway, because she and Alan will be retiring soon and will not be able to handle our stuff. All that remains is to get all the change of address notices sent out.