Friday, March 27, 2015

March 27th

We are presently at the 91st FMCA Rally here in Pomona, CA.  We have about 930 rigs here at this rally so not to bad, but I heard the count is down from what they were expecting.  We got the booth set up on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday we had a seminar at 8:30 AM.  The vendor area open up today so there was a little bit of traffic but not much.  I don't know where everyone is but they must be around some wear.  This is going to be a short blog today.  We aren't doing much but trying to sale a few trips.
What Cyndy & i are really looking forward to is heading back up towards Washington on Monday.  We miss the grand kids so we are looking forward to seeing them in April.
I got this in my e-mail today and just couldn't help but but it on my blog.  It really shows how gullible some people are!!
Yesterday I was at Costco buying a large bag of Purina dog chow for my loyal pet, Owen , the Wonder Dog and was in the check-out line when a  woman behind me asked if I had a dog. What did she think I had an elephant?

So, because I'm retired and have little to do, on impulse, I told her that no, I didn't have a dog, I was starting the ‘Purina Diet’ again. I added that I probably shouldn't, because I ended up in the hospital last time, but that I'd lost 50 pounds before I awakened in an intensive care ward with tubes coming out of most of my orifices and IVs in both arms.

I told her that it was essentially a ‘Perfect Diet’ and the way that it works is, to load your pants pockets with Purina Nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry. The food is nutritionally complete, (certified), so it works well and I was going to try it again.

(I have to mention here that practically everyone in line was now enthralled with my story.)

Horrified, she asked if I ended up in intensive care, because the dog food poisoned me. I told her no, I had stopped to pee on a fire hydrant and a car hit me.

I thought the guy behind her was going to have a heart attack he was laughing so hard.

Costco won't let me shop there anymore.


Better watch what you ask retired people. They have all the time in the world to think of crazy things to say.

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

March 24th

What a wonderful relaxing time Cyndy and I have been having the last 4 days.  We arrived here at Soledad Canyon last Saturday afternoon.  We found a nice spot up on top of the hill.  We can barely hear the trains when they go by, so that is a plus.  It has been nice sleeping in and just relaxing.
We have done a little bit of shopping by running into Palmdale  for Costco, needed a few things from there before heading back north.  Turbo made it to Pet Smart to get his nails trimmed, I really don't think he likes it but our legs do after they are trimmed.  Then it was off to the grocery store for a couple of other things we needed.  I had been fighting with the mouse I have for the computer and finally got a new one.  It works a whole lot better.  I think I have had this old mouse for over 10 years, so I guess that isn't bad.
 You may not notice but yesterday I finally broke down and washed the coach, I finally got all of the Mexico dirt off and the Arizona dust. I was only going to get the bugs off the front and the next thing I had gone all around the rig.  This should stay some what clean untell we head north towards Washington at the end of the month.  My luck I will hit a lot of head winds and rain when going back north.  With the rain it will at least take the bugs off of the front of the coach.
I tried to get a shot of the sun setting to the west with the color in the clouds but not that good.  Tomorrow we head out in the morning to the FMCA Rally in Pomona.  We will be working with our good friends Carol & Ken Adams. We are hoping for another good show like we had last year in Redmond Or.  Don't know when I will post again, a lot depends how busy we are at the Rally.

Saturday, March 21, 2015

March 21st

We left Pahrump this morning about 8;30 AM for a drive to Soledad Canyon TTN RV Park.  We didn't have any problems and the drive was great.  We stayed in the high dessert for the whole drive.  There was a little bit of it when we were down to sea level in Death Valley, but that was for a short time.
Any way back to Parhump for the Monaco Rally.  We gave a way 2 $500.00 dollar gift certificates at our seminars on Mexico and a Alaska.
Chris was the winner for the Alaska Seminar and I am sure we will here from them as soon as they decide which trip to us it on.
Sandra was the winner from the Mexico Seminar, and we hope to here from them also.
Then on Thursday night we got invited to dinner at the Monaco Rally to give away the Grand Prize of a one of the following Trips Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta or one of 4 up coming 11 Day Mega Rally.
way.
Judy was very happy to win the trip.  I can remember her stopping by the booth and when she filled out the slip and said I never win anything.  Now she can say I won!!!
We had a great dinner and spent some fun time with some old friends.
Tom & Barbara have been friends for a number of years.  We first met at a Gypsy Journal Rally and our friendship has done nothing but grow over the years. They are a lot of fun to be around and besides that they are also great Geocachers!!!!  I can blame Barbara for us getting hooked on this fun active.  We had a great night talking about the past and the future.
The entertainment was really good.
They were called Eagles Tribute Band, they were really good and played a lot of the Eagles hits and did a great job.  After the show we said our good bys to our friends and look forward to the next time our paths cross. Now for a good nights sleep and up and on the road in the morning.

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

March 18th

We made it through St. Patrick Day, here at the Monaco Rally with no problems.  We got our booth set up and ready for opening yesterday at !2:00 Noon.  It was a real slow afternoon, we had a few people stop by, but all and all it was slow.  They only have about 136 rigs here for this Rally.  I don't know where they are all at, but we didn't see over 200 people come trough the vendor area.
Today was another existing day.  The only thing that made this day even the little bit exiting is we put on a seminar for RVing to Alaska.  I guess  I should say we had a couple of people stop by with a lot of questions about Alaska, so that was good, now if they come back and sign up. They were talking like they would like to go this year, maybe we will get lucky have them go with us.  Anyway back to the seminar for today.  We had a bakers dozen show up at the RVing to Alaska.  They seem to like what we talked about and had some great questions.  I think tomorrow we might find out if they are real interested.  We gave away a $500.00 Gift Certificate, but they have not came a collected it yet, so tomorrow they will stop by I hope.
One of the biggest problems I see here at this Rally is seminar rooms are in different areas from the main area for the Rally.  My room was at the park that is a good half mile from the main area.  I think this is why their were not more people at our seminar.  They do have vans running around both of the RV park so that people can make it to the different locations and the main tent behind the casino.
Friday I have a seminar on traveling to Mexico, hope we have a good turn out its at the same place as the first one.  Saturday we head over to Soldad Canyon TTN Park for a 4 day of relaxing before heading to the FMCA rally.  We get to work with Ken & Carol Adams, looking forward to that.

Monday, March 16, 2015

March 16th

What a day, we left North Ranch at just before 8:00 AM for the long drive of just under 300 miles to Pahrump, NV for the 2015 Monaco International Rally.  Our drive was a good drive and some great sights.
Joshua Trees are really in bloom right now.  It was neat to see how they are growing so well in this area.
We had some real good roads today until we left Las Vegas and start climbing towards Pahrump, we went from 2200 feet to 5400 feet in a mater of 8 miles.  The road was good but the climb was steep, but the old Ford did a great job.  As we were going through Vegas Cyndy got a couple of neat photos.

They really make there highways look great around here.  I do miss the green of the northwest, but the southern states do a great job on sprucing up there road sides.
We even seen some nice piles of rocks, it is amazing how the landscape changes in just a couple hundred feet.  We made it here to the Rally with no problems.  We got parked with full hook ups and even 50 AMP, Cyndy is happy she can run the washer and dryer with air condition on at the same time.  I am a little bit worried about how they have things set up here, but I will leave that for tomorrows story, because I am not sure how this is going to play out with everything all over the place here and some of the seminars are at least a half mile from the main area.  Any way we will see how it goes and more to come.

Sunday, March 15, 2015

March 15th

Today is our last day here at North Ranch, both of us want to come back here next year and spend at least a month here.  There is so much to do, from crafts of all kinds to out riding on the trails around here, and the people are real friendly.  All we have to do is figure out when we want to come back.  OK that is on my list of things to do, but not that important right now.
Today Cyndy and I went out for some Geocaching, there is a lot around here but after the first two we had about 7 miles we thought before we would get to the next one.
 Some of the trails are wide open and others are a little to close to cactus.
 Did I say cactus I should of said brush that have some long thorns on them.  It was a lot of fun, we seen a lot of little lizards
. We spooked up this Jack Rabbit that stayed in front of us for a while then went and I think it thought it was hiding from us.  After a while of driving around Cyndy & I looked at each other and said do we really care if we do any more geocaching. Nope so off we went on some other trails.
I wish we had another week here, because the desert is coming alive with color.  All of the plants are starting to green up and buds are coming out on everything.  After about an hour we both looked at each other and said do you know how to get back.  Lucky we had the GPS's with us so we put in the location of North Ranch, and headed that way.  We had a great two hour ride and we are looking forward to coming back here and doing a lot more exploring.  There is a group that goes out a couple of times a week so that should be fun.  Just think leave from the camp site and know trailing the RZR to where we need to ride like in Apache Junction.
We got back and I need to do some things around the coach so we tied Turbo out and with in 5 minutes this is what I found.
 Yep, he is working on his sun tan!!!
We went over to Sharon & Dwight's place for happy hour and to just sit around and BS.  It has been great to see them again after over 3 years.  We were talking and the last time we seen each other had to be when we went to the Baja California.  After a couple of hours we said our good-bys, we are leaving early tomorrow morning, we need to be at Parhump by 12:00 so we can get our booth set up.  Doesn't that sound like fun.
Here is Cyndy & Sharon tell next time.
Tell next time Dwight, looking forward to when our paths cross again.

Saturday, March 14, 2015

March 14th

Who said hiding at North Ranch could be so relaxing.  Yesterday, we didn't do anything but sit back and relax in the nice sunny day and visit with some friends that we haven't seen in over 3 years.  It was nice not doing nothing but relaxing  Starting to get my voice back to normal.  I think one more good day of relaxing and my voice will be back to normal.  Cyndy is not very happy, but at least my voice is back, now she says if only you would listen to me when I talked to you.  I am working on that little detail, I cleaned all the wax out of my ears and it seems to be helping.  Boy, if I could learn not to say anything she would really be happy.
Here we are Sharon & Dwight Tisdale,  they have went on a few trips with us and have become real good friends.  Last night we went into town and had dinner out, because no one wanted to cook.  Tonight we had them over for a good old Bar-Q, my favorite Tri-tip roast soaked in a wine sauce.  Cyndy made me her favorite potato salad and Sharon made a great peach cobbler. We set around outside untell almost dark talking about everything under the sun.  I think we have solved all of the world problems and then some.
I don't know what is up for tomorrow, but I know one thing we have to load everything up for another road trip up to Pahrump, NV. We will being doing another RV Show with Monaco.  But I think we will take it easy tomorrow before rushing into loading everything back up.  Did I tell you how nice this is up here at North Ranch and the people are really friendly.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

March 12th

Today we finished all of our paperwork and Ron & Juanita are going to take it back to the office for us.  That save's us postage and it gets their a lot faster.  Today at the closing session we gave away the grand prize of your choice:  Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta or one of the Four next Mega Rally's in the catalog. The prize is worth over $3900.00. Ron did the presentation and drawing.
Ron is thanking everyone for making Adventure Caravan what it is today, and thanked all of the Escapees that have traveled with us in the pass.
Here he is announcing the winner of this years winner, and they are Sharon & Don Del Rosario from Rapid City, SD.
They were happy to be this years grand prize winner.  We hope they enjoy their trip. 
Tomorrow morning we will leave bright and early so that we can arrive at North Ranch and just sit back and relax a little.  We are looking forward to catching up with some old friends Dwight & Sharon Tisdale.  We will get to spend a couple of days with them before we head out to our next show in Pahrump, NV
 

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

March 11th

Today was the last day of the vendor area at the Escapees Rally.  Tomorrow we give away the grand prize at the closing of the 55th Escapade Rally.  We are giving away the choose of the Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque, or one of the 4 upcoming Reunion Rally's in the next 4 years.
OK a little bit about my voice leaving me last Monday at the end of the day.  Woke up Tuesday morning and was afraid to say anything, because I had a seminar in less than 2 hours. So after doing the teeth cleaned throat gargled, it was time to try talking.  OK, it is a little better I should do OK.  We were lucky or unlucky, their was only about 70 plus people at the Guided RV Tour seminar.  It went great a lot of good questions which I like the best.  Now back to the booth and see how everyone is doing and taking our $500.00 Gift certificate winners picture.
   
She was very happy to win, Chris Davis just has to figure out where to go.
Back to my voice problem, yep by the end of Tuesday it was pretty much shot again, but not as bad as yesterday.  OK Cyndy no talking again to night so that I might get my voice back. She was happy I think.   OK, woke up this morning and voice is a little better and I made it through the day not bad off.  Now that the Rally is over my voice will get back to normal, I hope.
Today we had the final drawing from the both for another $500.00 Gift Certificate.  We finally got a hold of them about 7:30 PM and we will meet with them over in the hall tomorrow morning at 8:30 AM.  Hope to get a picture of her but the banners are all down, oh well.  Tomorrow we get to relax a little and finish up most of the paper work before we head out to North Ranch Friday morning.
 

Monday, March 9, 2015

March 9th

Boy, these last 3 days have just flew by.  First I need to talk about our new Mattress!!!!  It is great and we both just love it. The second night after getting the booth here at the Escapade Rally set up, we both looked at each other about 8:30 PM, and said that bed is calling us.  It was nice to just lay their and watch a little TV and relax.  I don't know why we waited so long.  Anyway we are really enjoying the confront that it supplies us.
Cyndy and I were busy Saturday getting the Adventure Caravans booth set up.  As always it seems to come together real easy and we both stand back and say I think we may know what we are doing.
We have a great booth, just inside the main entrance to the vendor area.
Sunday morning we opened up with a bang, we had 3 sales before noon.  I hope this keeps up.  Ron & Juanita Kohn  are here to help and they are doing a great job.  They are the co-founders of this great Caravan company.  They have been fun to work with and being a part of the Escapes for so many years they no a lot of people here.  Also it helps that we are the sponsors of the big entertainment for the first two nights.  Sunday nights entertainers were good friends Ron & Kay Rivoli.  They have been entertaining RVers for years and did another great show last night. 
Today they were at our booth selling there CD's and drawing a lot of people to our booth.
Ron & Kay even talking up Adventure Caravan, I think they can sell a trip real easy.
Yep, a lot of people stopping by and asking questions and taking catalogs.
Cyndy and I put on our first seminar "RVing to Alaska", we had over 250 people show up for this seminar.  We had a lot of good questions after our presentation. We had a lot of positive out of this seminar and a lot of great questions.  We had a drawing at this seminar and a couple won $500.00 Gift Certificate  for use on a trip of their choice.
There was just one small problem I had to do. Cyndy is very happy about it, I have just about lost my voice, so I am not talking much tonight because tomorrow I have another seminar bright and early in the morning.  I hope my voice finds me by then!!!
  

Friday, March 6, 2015

March 6th

Today we didn't do much but finish getting things ready for the 55th Escapade.  I have the seminars ready to go.  Cyndy has all the paperwork ready to go, and the table cloths all iron and ready to use.  Now all we have to do for the rest of the day is wait for FedEx to deliver our new Night Therapy Elite 12" MyGel® Ultimate Memory Foam Mattress - Queen.
OK, I checked at 11:00 AM and it was out for delivery, that's good we are going to get it today.  We are really looking forward to this new mattress, both Cyndy & I have been sleeping OK, but looking forward to a real good nights sleep.  So here we were waiting and waiting, and I thought I would check it to see where it was at, when I did I discovered it showed delivered.  I looked out side and it was not here.  So were did they deliver it too.
I called FedEx and they were able to track down the driver and get him to meet me at the front of our gate entry into the park.  You would not believe it, but it was the same driver that had come through the park about an hour ago and said no I don't have anything for Olsen.
We got the Mattress and now came the work.  First lets get the old one out.  You know how much room there is in one of these bed rooms to wrestle a mattress out of it.  After a little bit, no a lot of work we got it all the way out side.  Now for the fun one, did I tell you it weighed 90 LB's.  An it was in a box that measured 24" X 24" by 62" tall.  OK, it fit through the front door with no problem.  Now to get it through the bathroom and into the bedroom.  It fit through the door but that was it.  Now you can imagine Cyndy & I trying to get this through the bathroom. It will not go.  So back down into the main part of the coach and lets take the box off of it.  OK, removed box, now here we go through the bathroom and into the bedroom, all I got to say I am glad it was not a LB over 90.  We made it to the bed and got it unrolled and found out it was up side down.  Now two grow adults trying to wrestle a mattress over while it was growing, not a lot of fun. Now the mattress is right side up and there is two pooped adults.  But we still have some work to do, take the old mattress to goodwill and get rid of all the other stuff to the trash.  So off we went!!
We are looking forward to a good nights sleep, will let you know tomorrow after we get to the Escapade and get our booth set up!!!!

Thursday, March 5, 2015

March 5th

What a great day today, went to the post office.  Sent all of our thank you cards out to the guest from the Copper Canyon Trip (Cyndy does a great job of writing them), and the tax's to the Accountant. Next on the list was to see why the 12 volt lights in the kitchen stopped working.  OK, after looking I found where they came disconnected from there contention. Got them hooked up and now they are working.  I like it when it is a fast fix.
This afternoon we meet with an old friend and guest from our Alaska trip in 2010.  Frank Kingman, we had talk to him a couple of days ago and he wanted to take us out and show us a little bit of Tucson and to dinner.  So here we go and he took us to the San Xavier Mission.
Cyndy always said Frank smelled good.  We walked around the mission for a while, Frank said he comes out here for Mass on Saturday.  They have done a lot of work to this Mission to restore it.

They still have the original doors on both the front and side.  These doors have to be at least 6 inches thick.
 This gofer was trying to pick some fruit of this cactus.  He just keep working at getting one of the fruit pods, and he didn't even mind us watching him. We spent a great afternoon with Frank and enjoyed see some of the spots here in Tuscon.
We had a great dinner and talked tell it was getting late and time for us to get back to our rig.  The next time we are in town we will look up Frank, Tomorrow we have a little bit of running around to finish up before heading to the Escapade Rally.  Looking forward to see a lot of old friends here.

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

March 4th

We arrived here at Voyager RV Resort on the 2nd.  What a big park and well organized when we got here. A guy came up to our rig after we went through the gate and said follow me to your site.  He watched us back in and said good job, my head got a little big, but Cyndy does all the hard work.  She is the one that gets me into the site with no problems, I guess after 9 years of backing into site we have it working pretty good.  After getting the rig set up we headed out to get some food, which our frig was empty after "The Rally in Phoenix".  We got back around 4:00 PM and fixed a small dinner then said lets wait tell tomorrow to get the paperwork done for the rally.  So all we did was sit back and relax after a busy 5 days.
The 3rd we buckled down and finished all the paperwork and got it mailed to the office, but as always we think we forgot to make a couple of copy's of some of the paper work.  Oh, well we will just ask them to e-mail us the copies we will need.  Now it is time to go for a ride back up to Apache Junction to pick up some mail that went to Toni's.  Our Daughter Janice sent it down and it is the last of our tax stuff we need to send to our Tax Accountant!!! That time of year and god for-bid if we are late in paying our tax's.  We stopped on the way back to Tucson for some dinner and got back just at dark.  Dinner was nothing to right home about but it did fill the hollow spot.  Another relaxing night, Cyndy has been felling a little under the weather the last few days.  So tomorrow I will let her sleep in and I will go and get some work done on the truck.
Woke up this morning with an appointment at Jim Click Ford Dealership to have the emergency brake fixed.  While in Mexico the brake cable broke so now it is time to get it fixed.  While I am here I might as well get the oil changed too.  I was there at 9:00 AM and they took the truck right in and started working on it.  They told me that the emergency brake assembly is shot and it need replaced.  So after they had everything done and I had paid for the work I walked out to the truck.  The first thing wrong was they never took the plastic cover off the seats and the paper on the floor mate.  So as always I check the oil, then checked to see if they had topped of the fluids.  The last thing I checked was if the had greased  all the fitting, none where done.  Now in my book when you take your vehicle in for oil change & service you check all the fluids and grease the rig.  Well I blew up at the service manager.  Next I am walking into the office after he brings the truck back out after greasing it and talking to the Service Director.  Now I feel that they should step up and make it right.  After venting a little no a lot, they gave my oil change for no cost.  I told the Service Director that I will not be back here ever again after the way your people took care of your customers.
Now by the time I got back to the coach I had settled down and Cyndy and I went to run some errands and look at coaches again.  While at the show we seen one that we kind of liked.  But they didn't have one that we wanted.  Oh well, we will keep looking.  You never know what we might do!!!!
Tomorrow we will mail our tax stuff off to the accountant and meet a hold friend from our 2010 Alaska trip that lives here in Tucson.

Sunday, March 1, 2015

The End of The Good Sam Rally

We got here on February 24, and went right to work.  By the next day at noon we had the booth all set up and ready for the members of the rally to come by and find out about Adventure Caravan's Tours.
We have good office staff and they were able to get us a corner spot and it was outstanding.  It made for a lot of room and more of a chance to talk to people.  On the 25th at 1:00 PM we were giving our first seminar on "RVing to Alaska" we had over 250 people at our first seminar.  Everyone gave us great reviews.
The winner of the $500.00 Gift Certificate was Donna & Marcel Janssen.
As you can tell he was very happy for his wife winning the certificate.  From that point on we have been on a flat run.
We went thou over 17 cases of catalogs. and talked to a lot of people.  We did great on selling trips, we have been lucky and have 5 more couples going to Alaska next year with us.
 The weather has been just so, we have been told that first we were having rain Friday night and into Saturday.  Then it changed from Friday to Saturday.  Well here it is Sunday night and we have everything put away and no rain yet.  That's great because we got everything put away and none of it got wet.
Today we had a lot of pass guest stopping by to say good by.
You would of thought at one time we were having a reunion right here at the booth.
We had some guest draw here at the booth for the grand prize winner of a Mega Rally or Balloon Fiesta.
The winner was Marline & Jerry Killion they have decided to see the Balloon Fiesta we hope they enjoy this great rally


.It is amazing how hard we try to give away a wonderful trip like this in front of the Good Sam Rally but they don't have the time to let us stand up there for 1 or 2 minutes and give away great trip like this.  OK, that is all I am going to say, they were very happy to  win!!!!
Tomorrow we had to Tuscon for our next Rally with The Escapade  that starts next Saturday I think,