January 16th Last Friday in AJ

On Thursday the 15th I went out for my final ride with the guys.  We headed to 4 peaks, up by Lake Roosevelt.  I took a another friend Wes,  he lives in Lakewood, but we met them here 6 years ago and have been friends ever since.

 The RZR looks nice and clean again, how much mud will we find today?  This is suppose to be mostly road ride and nice and easy.

Our goal is to get up to the back side of the 4 peaks right in front of us.

We are getting close to 3500 feet and the Saguaro are starting to thin out up here.

Rock and more rocks, the higher we get the bigger the boulders.

Someone got caried away with this pile of boulders, a lot of them are bigger then the RZR.

I though this was a neat rock formation, what do you think it is?

We are up over 4500 feet now and no more Saguaro.

This is Wes near the RZR and Jim, we need a break to get out and move around a little.

The north slopes still had snow on them, here are a few more pictures.

We were able to see Roosevelt Lake from the 4 peaks that we are on.

We only 10 miles from the lake and HWY 188.

 These two road signs were only a couple hundred yards apart but Highway 87 is where the truck is parked.  We went another 6 miles down towards Highway 188 to get out of the wind and eat lunch.

It was a nice easy ride today and had a lot of fun just crusing around on these roads.

We came around the a corner and off in the distance there was this geyser of water going up in the air.  It was coming from  Fountain Hill, every hour on the hour for 15 minutes they have three pumps that get this geyser to over 500 feet in the air.  It was neat to see this, we have been there on St Patty's Day when they turn it green.  If you are ever in the area make this small town a stop, well worth it.
Today was a day Turbo hates, we were up and going early and taking Turbo to the vet. for his health permit. After a hour with the vet. we were on our way to Costco for three things, Paper Towels that we forgot on our last trip and some eggs and another case of water.  Yep, got out of Costco with just those three things and under $100.00.
As we were heading home the truck decided it was time for it to brake down in the middle of Apache HWY, middle lane.  Clutch peddle went to the floor and did not return.  After a few minutes, Cyndy on the phone to Good Sam, I got the truck so it would start with out a clutch.  Not fun driving a manual transmission without a clutch.  We made it to the Ford dealer ship.  The first think they said is I hope we have the part you need, it may not be here and the earliest we could get one is Monday.  Now you all know we are to be in Green Valley to start our Mexico trip on Sunday.Luck must be with us, they were able to get it fixed and I was very happy.  They had the part in stock which the service guy, Roy, said he has only used one of these in the 12 years working here.
After all that Cyndy and I decided we needed a dinner out so we headed to China City Super Buffet off of South Power road.  We had been here about 3 weeks ago and came back for another great meal on a Friday, Seafood all over the place, shrimp of every type, crab legs (didn't eat any of these to much work for the amount of meat you get), oysters, and fish of a couple of kinds,

As you can see a lot of people (seniors everywhere, wait a minute I am one of those now) and the serving area is nice and clean.  The servers are always bringing out fresh food.  We left with our full belly's and another great dinner out.
Tomorrow we getting ready to move. We are put some more stuff in storage and get the coach ready to move.  Sounds like a lot of fun, not!!!!  Been sitting here for over 6 weeks so a few things to check like, tire pressure, fill fresh water, and I think my list keeps going.

January 14th

Holy smokes, it has been 4 days since my last post.  We have been busy getting ready to go to Mexico. That is a bad reason for not telling you what we have been up too.
Sunday was a lazy day of watching some football and seeing who was going to be playing the Seahawks.  I was hope for the Cowboys, but they fell down and let the Packers win.  We will find out Sunday who wins the NFC game, I know it will be Seahawks.  Go Hawks.
Monday it rained just as it had on Sunday, but not as bad.  We did a little bit of running around and moving some stuff around and getting more stuff ready to go over to storage.  I guess it was another lazy cold day here in Apache Junction.  If I didn't know Nick Russell was in Florida, I would have said here was here in Arizona because of all of the cold weather we have been having.  I here he is getting close to heading this way.  I hope he leaves all of that rain in Florida is having back there and the cold.  We are on our way back up to the 70 this week after today.
Now Tuesday a few of us went out for a ride up by Montana Mountain, there are a lot of trails around this area and every time we go on different ones. Monday it had been raining a lot up here in the mountain, so we expected a lot of mud.

I wanted to take a picture of the car before we headed out on the ride.

I took an old friend, Woody and I go all the way back to when we worked together at Boeing.  Right now I would say he is enjoying a great ride.

 After a short trip on some real muddy road we found some nice rocky trails.  Woody and I were happy, at least here mud isn't flying up at us as we are heading down the trail.

 I hope those clouds stay up in them there hills and we don't go that way.

 If you look real close at the hood and Winshield you can still see some of the mud that flew by us and landed all over the place.

OK, those clouds are looking kind of heavy with moisture.  I hope it doesn't catch up with us.

 They were up checking out this cave and Steve started to slip after getting to close to the edge.

I missed the fall but caught the place where Steve ended up.  Not a bad fall I hope!!!  After getting him some water he seemed OK.  No really he didn't fall but it was a funny stage.

 Now those rain clouds look really to close.  I don't think we are going to make it back with out getting a little wet.

I don't know we might make it yet.

 There I go thinking we might make it, here comes the rain.  We are about 2 miles from the trailers.  By the time we got back my left arm and left leg was getting pretty wet, and Woody's right arm and right leg was getting down right wet.  Here is where I think Woody wished he would of said no I don't think I can make it today.  Really it wasn't to bad his left side and my right side was dry.  He did complain a little when the trail caused his side to tip down hill and more water ran in on him.

At leased some of the mud got washed off on the way back.  Pulled the seats out of the car and put them in the back seat of the truck.  I didn't want to have them fill up with water on the ride home.  They like to soak up water and they take a long time to dry out.  Woody said he had a good day and I hope he enjoyed the ride.
Tuesday night we went out to dinner at a real good Mexican place called, La Casita here in Apache Junction.  We meet the kids there,

Lucas & Tony.  The service is so so, but the food was out of this world.  We had a great time visiting with the kids.  It was great spending time with them.  We don't make it down here a lot but it was great see them and borrowing there trailer for the RZR.
Today we went over to the Rattle Snake golf coarse to get a group picture of all the 4-wheel drives that go out a couple of times a week.  They asked us to come over, the picture is for next years directory or something.

Here we are all lined up, the jeeps were first now our turn.  After this was all over we made our trip to Costco to pick-up Water, some vitamins that were on sale, and some paper towels.  After picking up a few other things we were out of there and on our way back.  After we got home and got everything put away and did some other work on stuff for our trip to Mexico, we looked at each other and said we forgot the paper towel.  So I guess we make one more trip to Costco before we leave here Sunday.
Tomorrow I am taking out another friend Wes for the last ride here in AJ, or maybe Friday if the weather is good Cyndy & I may go out again.

January 10th

Today we woke up to a little bit of rain, just enough to get the ground wet.  After Turbo and I did the morning walk, Cyndy and I had a great breakfast.  We haven't done this in a while and the breakfast burrito was great.  We didn't have to much planned today so after looking at each other, we decided to head over to the Mesa Swap Meet.  Wasn't looking for anything in particular but still like to walk around and see what we might need or don't need.

. We arrived at a little after 10:00 AM and there didn't seem to be that many people here. One of the vendors said it seemed a lot slower today then yesterday.  Must have something to do with the weather.

There is STUFF every where, but still haven't found anything I really need yet.  Cyndy is really trying to find something.

Got to love a sign like this "EVERYTHING HAS BEEN REDUCED".  I wonder how much they reduced it?  But didn't find anything here I need, plus this stuff looks like it would take a lot of room, which I have very little of.

Wait a minute I see my favorite thing "Restroom"  after walking this much and drinking a diet coke it is time to get rid of some water.  Look out people need to get thru.

Ok, really what I wanted to do was listen to this guy play for a few minutes.  He is just pass the restrooms and in the middle of this place.  Buy the way did I say this place is big.  At least I am getting my two mile walk in today.  At least that is what my feet say.

Cyndy found a bib that will be good for me when eating ribs!!! She said this would be great for her when eating spaghetti!!!  I wounder if we should of bought one for in the future. 

It started to get a little crowed here about 2:00 PM, and we were getting going.  I did find a new phone case, this one holds the phone just right.  Cyndy did find something, a few yards of fabric to make neat things!!!  Any way it was a great day, it did rain a little but again just enough to get the ground wet.  

A week from tomorrow we head to the Green Valley RV Park to get things started for our trip to Mexico.  Looking forward to getting started, it should be a great trip.  Now to finish watching the Seahawks!!!!!

January 8th

Today we visited with a couple that went to Alaska with us few years ago.  They live here in Apache Junction and we are really looking forward to seeing them again.  It has been over 3 years since the last time we met up them.

Roger & Opal wanted us to go on a cruse with them today, the Dolly Steamboat on Canyon Lake.

It was cool and windy this morning but we have high hopes of seeing a lot of wild life.  The skipper said yesterday they seen a few big horns and that was it.  So here we go on a 90 minute trip on Canyon Lake.
While leaving the dock,

 our national bird flew right in front of us and I was able to get a couple of pictures of the Eagle flying.  This is one of the best one I got.

 He land on these rock pinnacles around the lake.

I wasn't able to catch it flying into the nest with sticks in its claws.  This had to be about 300 feet above the lake with a great view of the area.  What a way to start this nature boat trip on Canyon Lake.
We no more than had gone about 1/4 mile past the eagle and we found this Big Horn Sheep watching over us.

 It is amazing how they are able to get to some of these places.

 As we went a little farther up the lake we found another Big Horn a little bit lower on the canyon.

 Wonder what he is looking at, because he could care less about us.

 We have been well blessed today with the wild life we have seen already.  If you look real close you can see a couple of lambs with this Yew.

 How would you like to climb up this canyon wall.  They just hop around like it is know problem.

 I think this guy is say "What are you looking at?"

 I think I seen four in this picture, but one of them are hiding right now.

I wanted to get at least one or two pictures of the cliffs here also.

 This just amazed me in that these couple of cactus's an a small bush growing on this rock edge, what are there roots hooked to, it is unbeileviable how plant life survives in this harsh climate.

They call this a petrified wall, where a few logs have become petrified.  How many can you count?

We seen this young Big Horn near the waters edge eating brush and trying to hide from us.

 We go around another corner and here is another one getting close to the lake.

We were really lucky today see a lot of wild life.  After a a great ride we went out to lunch at Tortilla Flat for a pretty good lunch.  If you ever get a chance make it up here if anything just to see the restaurant and gift store.  There has to hundreds of one dollar bills taped, stapled up on the walls or ceiling.If you would like to learn a little bit more about Tortilla Flats head to this web site it has a lot of information about this area and they explain it a lot better than I can:  http://tortillaflataz.com/about.html
We had a great  afternoon with Roger & Opal, we are looking forward to meeting up with them the next time we are in the area.  Tomorrow we don't know what we will be doing, I think that is the nice thing about living life style we do.

January 7th

What a beautiful day we had today.  I sleep in a little for me anyway.  I got up about 8:30 AM and took Turbo for a nice long walk.  Got back ate some breakfast and did a few things around the coach that need to be done.  I took the RZR back over to storage to see how much room we really had in it after parking the RZR inside.  Their was plenty of room for everything we are going to be putting in there.  I moved a few more things over to storage. We are waiting for the supplies for the up coming trade shows.  We want to get that packed in there first before I really put much more in there.  Other than that we just had a nice day of 81 degrees and enjoying life.
I have been asked by a few people what we are doing this next year for Adventure Caravan, so here is how our year looking so far:
January 22, 2015 to February 20,2015 we will be doing the 30 Day Top & Bottom Copper Canyon trip.
February 26, 2015 to March 1, 2015 we will be at The Rally in Phoenix, AZ running a booth and putting on a couple of Seminars, one on Guided RV Tours and the other one will be on RVing Alaska.
March 8, 2015 to March 13, 2015 we will be at the Escapees RV Club 55th Escapade running a booth and putting on a couple of Seminars, one on Guided RV Tours and the other one will be on RVing Alaska.
March 17, 2015 to March 21, 2015 we will be at the 2015 Monaco International in Pahrump, NV.  Yep, we will be working a booth and putting on Seminars.
March 26, 2015 to March 29, 2015 we will be at the 91st FMCA Rally in Pomona, CA. We are hoping to meet a lot of old friends at all of these rally's and make some new ones.  After all of these Rally's we will be taking a slow trip back up towards Washington to take care of Tax's and Doctor appointments.  We like to take care of these things during this part of the year. Also, Cyndy will get caught up with giving our grand-children lots of Nana loving.
Then starting June 17, 2015 to August 14th, 2015 we will be the Wagonmaster's of a Alaska 59 Day Trip.  We are really looking forward to this trip, because it has been 2 years since our last trip.  Alaska is one of our favorite trips.
After we finish we will be hiding out in Washington and enjoying our grand-children and kids.  It will be fun visiting with them and our friends.
On September 15th  to October 26, 2015 we will be tailgunning 42 Day West Coast America.  This is a great trip down the west coast.  It will be a lot of fun and there are still a few spots left on this trip if you would like to sign up.  So if you would like to have a great fall trip down the west coast give us a call and we can talk about getting you signed up.
Well our year this year is pretty full, we don't know what we are going to be doing after the West Coast America Tour.  I think we will be just resting and having a little bit of R & R. 
Tomorrow we are going to meet up with a couple that has travel with us in the pass and go on a paddle boat ride and then have lunch, it should be a great day.