Rude Awakening

We traveled back home for Christmas. What a rude awakening from the nice weather. We hit snow at Redding California, then the whole way north. After a few days in Vernon we headed to the coast and hit a snow storm in the Fraser Valley. Just after we made it through, they shut the freeway down. Carol is getting her fill of White Christmas.
Here's our five grandkids with their cousins, when we got together for Christmas dinner with the Nikkels.
James J. went with me to Vancouver to pick up my Christmas present, a Nissan S-Cargo. Nice play on words (escargo). They only made 12,000 of these so it is, or will be, a collectors item. I've wanted one of these for a while. It's also right hand drive and has huge headroom. I stretch my arms up and barely touch the ceiling.
And of course, if you have a whimsical vehicle, you have to grow a whimsical moustache. Now I just need a tall hat from Dr. Zuess. Now I can't wait to get back south to my hot spring pools.
I've got a ways to go to catch up to this guy.

Palm Springs

Monday we made it to Sky Valley in Palm Springs. We signed in for 4 months. If anyone wants to visit us, Westjet is $235.00 each way from Abbotsford to Palm Springs. We have a sofabed and 9 hot tubs and 3 swimming pools and good weather.

Bombay Beach & Slab City

Friday we went to Bombay Beach.

It is a unique place. It's a trailer ghost town. The salty ground has eaten the trailers down. The trailer in this picture had an add on room. This used to be a resort beach town in the fourties. There are some trailers people have salvaged and moved into.

Today we went to Slab City, another unique experience. Here's the grand tour.

First we have Salvation Mountain.

A fellow has been building on this over twenty years. There are Bible verses all over it. He lives in the vehicles to the left.

Slab city has the usual clubs. They even have a stage with weekly entertainment. The stage is surrounded by chrome car bumpers.

One of the residences. They take pride in their vehicles and make them deluxe.

Slab City was a military base that closed, and the cement slabs were left behind. Soon squatters and snow birds flocked to the site for free living. There are at least a hundred campers there and room for more. People even come here in fancy new motor homes and trailers. I told Carol we could save lots of money staying here but she was not as enthused.

This person is set up with a nice cacti garden. Who could want anything more? I don't think they are leaving anytime soon.

Chocolate Mountains

Monday we left Yuma. I thought we went too far when I saw cotton fields.

This is the route the gps sent us. It must have been a mile shorter. The right side of the road is a military gunnery range.

We finally made it to our RV site. Carol was happy as these are the Chocolate Mountains in the background. She was disappointed when she found out they were really not made of chocolate.

The site beside us has a 1957 BMW Isetta.

He wheeled it out for me. When you open the door the steering wheel pivots out of the way. I showed him pictures of Carol's car, which interested him. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. MMM.

Yuma

Here we are driving over the "London Bridge" in Lake Havasu. It was taken apart in London and shipped over here and rebuilt.

This was our site at Parker Dam Arizona, along the Colorado River.

Here are the cabanas. You can rent one and set up a tent, and have power, eating area and beach. The RV's you see on the other side of the river are in California, as the Colorado River is the border.

Tuesday we made it to Yuma, where we will be till next Monday. It is 89 degrees here and when there is no wind, it is almost too hot. I put the awning out to get some shade. There is a pool and golf course here.

Viva Las Vegas

We left Utah yesterday and after 2 degree temperature, we dipped over a hill into Arizona and hit 24 degrees within minutes. We made it to Vegas and as you can see in the picture we are not the only ones, we finally caught up.

I wasted no time to get my fair share of the sun by the pool.

We went to the strip, to the Venetian and had a romantic gondola ride together. The girl steering the boat was from Tuscany, and she serenaded us along the route. When we were about to go under a tunnel, she said they encourage kissing in the tunnel, it brings good luck, to which I quickly responded, "Do you bend down here or do I climb up there?"

We stopped at as station giving oxygen therapy as well as a back massage and scalp massage.

Here's another shot of the inside. With the ceiling painted and lit up, it looks like you're outside. There are a lot of famous restaurants here.

We had dinner along side of the river at a mexican restaurant. My drink was served in a coconut. As we are in Vegas we spun the wheel and tomorrow are headed to Lake Havasu Arizona and down to Yuma to check things out before heading to Palm Springs. Time to get rid of the winter blanket.

Ogden

This morning we left the mine and headed south. Carol took up half the driving.

For lunch we stopped in a town called Dell. The restaurant was an old school from 1872, with the chaulk boards and books still in place.

Here's Carol exiting the front. The food was excellent and the place was packed. We also took a cinnamon bun and piece of chocolate cream pie to go. Everything was home made. Our waitress must have been 90. (Probably went to school there.)

This is the Main Street of Dell. If it wasn't for the restaurant and the Inn, it would be a ghost town.

When we stopped for fuel we saw this truck with home made rockers and chairs out of bent wood. So far the posted speed is 75 mph (125 kmh), which I am taking advantage of. Montana put up signs because they had to. The fine for speeding is $1. Idaho and Utah are also 75 mph but Idaho has speed traps. We made it for night to Ogden Utah as Carol did not want to stay in a town called Brigham. Tomorrow we'll see how far south we make it.

Basin Montana

Here we are, the only ones in the RV park. They left the water on for us, as they were going to shut it off for winter. They have power, sewer and high speed internet. We plan on being here for a week. In the background on the hill you can see "Merry Widow", the name of the mine.

Here is the entrance to the mine.

It's a long way in.

Once you get to the end, there are rooms cut into the rock.

We've met alot of people, sitting with them and listening to their stories. Many return twice a year and say the relief they get from pain is unreal. This radon mine was featured in National Geographic about 4 years ago. Today PBS was filming us and interviewing for a segment they are doing.

This is one of the ice tubs with water from the cave trickling into it. It is ice cold and acts as an ice pack, lessening swelling.

There is also a trough to dip your ankles. It is freezing cold but works on the swelling. They also have buckets so you can do your wrists at the same time. One lady lays in the ice water. Her husband has to haul her out. She has fibromyalgia and says it hurts so bad, that the ice water is nothing in comparison, and she knows she will get six months of pain relief. They come from Ontario. My swelling has gone down considerably in just the three days we have been here.

We're off finally

We're finally off, our paperwork lasted till the last day. We drove to Calgary and spent the next day with Ken. Here he is in front of the restaurant he works at.

As you can see it was cold in Calgary, they got thier first snow fall of the year. We were able to make it to Lethbridge for the night. Any headway we make south is good. A couple pulled beside us at Safeway with their motorhome. We were asking directions to a recommended RV site. They knew of a closer one and we followed them to it. They were from Edmonton, so they drive this route every year.

We made it to Montana, just south of Helena, to the Merry Widow Mine. It's supposed to be good for relieving arthritis, so we will give it a shot. We will probably stay here a week unless the weather turns bad. The above picture is one of many mesas in Montana.

Pumpkin Patch

Carol headed to the coast and took Lexi, Lincoln and Caleb to the pumpkin patch.

Also in Vernon we both took Zada and Jonah to the pumpkin patch.

Here's Papa and Nana.

I took this picture of gourds. Carol said it would make a good puzzle.

Planning

We just arrived in Vernon, and will probably be here for 2 weeks, changing banking things locally etc. After the cruise we were at Ernie and Joani's for a few days and then went to an RV park in Mission, to be close to the kids for Thanksgiving dinner. We also met with George and Della, Brian Lynda and Myrtle, and Jim and Janet. Carol also got her Canucks games in as we did not get cable or internet at the RV site, first at Davenports then at Sammy J Peppers.
I lost 10 pounds on the cruise, proving a steak diet works.
In Vernon we also had a Thanksgiving dinner with Micah, Kristen and Frieda. Mel and Darrell also came up, visiting friends in Kelowna for a weeks holiday.
At the RV site in Vernon we have cable and internet. We are now planning for going south as the weather is cooling. So far it looks like going to Calgary and then down south for something different, unless the weather dictates otherwise. Driving to Vernon got me itching to hit the road.

Cruise

Just a little update here. We are in Aruba and I finally found a internet connection to hack into. I used the connection on the ship and just checked mine and Carol's email and it was $25.00. Here's Ernie, Joni, Carol and I enjoying one of the parties onboard.

Here we are at the spa on ship having a couples antitoxin seaweed treatment. We are naked and they painted us down with a hot seaweed mixture then wraped us up in foil for half an hour.

Here's Carol at one of the ports of call. When we get back I'll have to sort through the hundreds of picures the four of us took and add some here.