Yep, yep, I know.  I'm behind on keeping you up to date.  But I can't help it - I've been having too much FUN!  So much to do - so little time to write!  Well, so little INCLINATION to write, I might say.  This could to be plenty long, so instead, I'll try to break it up a bit so you don't have so much to deal with at once.

We had so much fun with Rene, her boyfriend, Dean, and her daughter, Bridget, who lives right next door. And, to make the stay EVEN BETTER, her daughter, Liz, came up to join the fun with her family!  That meant that ALL of Rene's family was there, and that was just great.  We played cards and talked and laughed and ate and drank and ordered pizza and went to the shops.  I had to buy some long pants and long-sleeved shirts because it was so COLD there.  Sadly, it seems to me it was very cold there LAST year, so I guess I'm not learning my lessons very well.  I am also ashamed to say that I didn't take ONE photo of Liz and Mark, so I stole this one off their Facebook Page.  One of my excuses is that they took off to go play on a 20th wedding anniversary trip, so they didn't stay long.   But there were lots of kids, with Liz's four and Bridget's two, and a friend or neighbor often thrown in, so there were lots of things going on...  Raul the pool boy helped get the pool sparkling so the kids could have fun in it.

This is Anna in the air.

Rene's honey, Dean, brought his deer target, so the kids practiced with their bows and arrows.  This is Clara, Brody, and Noah.  

Archery practice

Dean with his deer

Brody, Clara and Brady on the tramp

The fireworks were left over from July 4th

We all oooohed and ahhhed appropriately.

Bridget - always the life of the party

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It looks like I even got a photo of Otis (the dog) but I must have missed Natalie all together.  Sigh.  I didn't do a very good job of photo journaling.  But hopefully, I'll see Liz and Mark and their kids again...we'll see how it goes. 

Now, just a small complaint.  I have a VERY hard time with this blog!  The set-up is horrible!  What I organize on the draft is NOT how it shows up on the final page.  I can't place the photos where I want them.  The type changes shades and sizes with no rhyme or reason.  I'm SORRY - I can't HELP it!  AND...if anyone knows of a better blog site, I'd love to hear about it so I can switch it out.  Let me know, PLEASE.  OK - That's enough of this and that's enough of that.  Next episode coming soon!

The END of the road trip! Yay!

Please remember that if you are enjoying my blog, then I would love to hear from you!  And even though I KNOW some of you are ONLY looking at the pics, I love you anyway.

Here's Craig, who scraped, sanded, and painted the bottom of our boat at The Anchorage in Lyons, Colorado.  See the lovely copper color?  Craig says it will turn blue as it ages.  How interesting.

Yesterday we began our cross-country road trip in the OTHER direction - from Colorado to Michigan, hauling our boat, gaZel.  We thank Jon Hicks daily, because not only did he sell us his GREAT boat - he also sold us his Dodge Durango to haul it with!  Both are in excellent shape, and that big car almost drives like we are not towing a thing!  But we must remember, especially when making sharp turns and parking, that we ARE towing a thing - and a rather BIG thing at that!  I feel like one of those 18 wheeler truckies; sitting up high on the road, chugging along at 65, getting passed constantly, by REAL cars and being careful when changing lanes that there is enough space for my "tail" in traffic.

Here's our Durango hauling our boat - and a great photo of Chris' parking skills!

Today is the 4th of July - so Happy Independence Day, all.  We'll see how the traffic is today.  I know for sure we won't have to worry about a speeding ticket even with all those extra cops on duty out there.  (And those of you who have ever driven with me know that my lead foot is rather itchy, but I'm following Chris' orders to stay at 65 mph.  Hmphhh.)  Believe it or not, the gas prices went DOWN overnight, even though it's a HOLIDAY!  Quite amazing.  So we paid $3.34 in Nebraska.  We're happy with lower prices, as we're only getting about 11 mpg.

Another WONDERFUL thing I just discovered about this Durango - it has separate air controls for the driver and the passenger side!  So if Chris is driving, I don't have to cower under my blanket - I can just adjust my side so doesn't blow so cold.  Isn't that great???

As we are driving along, I think, but Chris THINKS!  I think stuff like, "Hey.  We're in the town of York.  I wonder if that's where they make York Peppermint Patties."  Or "Hmmm...those hay bales look sort of like sheep."  Chris thinks, "I wonder what would happen if I applied maximum force to the sigma faction in the V sector?"  Or something like that.

The crops in Nebraska and Iowa are almost all corn.  Chris mentioned that this morning, which made me break into song, "The corn is as high as an elephant's eye!"  Then I remembered that corn is supposed to be "knee high by the 4th of July" and since this IS the 4th of July, I suggested that the corn is doing pretty well - because it's a lot taller than knee-high.  Chris says perhaps it's supposed to be as tall as an ELEPHANT's knee.  Maybe that's how corn is always measured.  But I told him that only applies in Oklahoma.  (You may have to be musical to GET all this!)

If the crops are not corn, it's hard to tell WHAT they are as we zoom along and can't identify the leaves.  It may be strawberries, or lettuce, or even beets for all I know.

The most amusing license plate we've seen so far said Wa Dat 4.  We can just imagine the five year old in THAT car!  Tee hee.

The last day of our road trip, we crossed the Mississippi River, which is quite FULL.

Chis is so excited about this boat we're hauling.  He said today, "We can thumb our noses at the sailing boats, and we can thumb our noses at the power boats, because WE have BOTH!"  I said, "But we have no power."  (Our outboard motor is only 15 hp, believe it or not.)  He said, "Our boat is called a power-sailer."  I repeated, "But we have no power."  He said, "OK - we are a power-sailer with no balls."

SO...our road trip is over and look what I found here in Michigan!   My sweet friend, Rene!  I'll talk to you later.  Love you, bye.

California or Bust!

While in New Mexico, I was talking to my great nephew, Thomas Bluefeather,  and I was telling him about my two lives.  I have this great life in the USA where I get to visit family and play with old friends and exercise with new friends (in Fort Collins when I can get there) and I get lots of travel and new adventures.  Then I have this great life in Australia where I get to play with my card buddies and laugh with my craft groups and exercise with my tennis friends and do my volunteering and fall into my regular routine which I also love!  I said to Tom - "I wish I could do them both."  He answered, "I think you sort of are."  Good point.  How nice!  It's TRUE that I miss my Aussie friends when I am here, and I miss my family and friends when I am there, but I'm getting BOTH - so what is there to complain about?  Not a thing.  I am so blessed.

Yeah, he's looking old with that grey in his beard,
but he's still my sweet boy!

It was obvious Jonathan was happy to hang out with me.  One day, he was even willing to watch "America's Next Top Model" rather than spend the dy without me!  I love that boy!

Here's another wonderful story about my wonderful life.  Chris and I are driving from New Mexico to California on Thursday to visit his cousins and attend his 50th high school reunion. As it stands now, we have TWO cars here in NM.  The big new (used) Dodge Durango (bought to haul the boat) is here because we needed to get it registered here.  The Honda Fit is here because 1) we came separately, and 2) we don't want to drive the gas-eating Durango to California.  So...Chris originally thought that I would FLY back to Albuquerque, pick up the Durango and drive it back to Colorado while he drove alone straight back to Fort Collins from California - thus saving us the day that it would take for us to BOTH drive back to NM and then onward to CO.  But after thinking about it a while he decided that he wanted to be with me, spend time with me, and it was worth the extra day in order to do that.  Isn't that the sweetest thing?  I am SO lucky to have him in my life! <3

We always have fun with Tom and Sara and the boys when we're in Albuquerque. This time, we went to what they call "The Jumping Joint" and hung out for a while.  It's a huge gymnasium with wall-to-wall trampolines.  It was so fun to watch Sky and Forest do back flips in unison all down the length of the room.  I didn't have my camera ready at the time, so no photos of that.  But here's Forest walking right up this pole and back-flipping off, and Sky OBVIOUSLY obeying the rules!  Even yours truly got involved in the fun - though I was NOT dressed for the occasion.

UP....

and over!

Woo hoo!

So today (Thursday) we are driving to California.  There is a LOT of roadwork in Arizona, and if it says "35 mph" you BETTER slow down to 35 because there has been a cop in a car with lights flashing at almost every site!  And sometimes one at EACH end of the construction zone!  I took this photo to signify....well, I'm not quite sure WHY there are random dinosaurs in Arizona.  It's just road worthy stuff, I guess.

Here's another road trip photo - it has been AGES since we've been to McDonald's, but Chris likes their breakfasts.  

When I was in Los Alamos, I bought a new skirt at the consignment store when I went there with Becky Hardy and Jane Bolton.  It's a great skirt with big purple and teal flowers.  Then I went to the craft shop, because I NEEDED a new craft project, and I bought the wool and a pattern to knit a shawl to go with my skirt.  It's going to be great if I get it finished, but I may have bitten off more than I can chew, as it's rather complicated.  Anyway, when I'm knitting in the car, I am wearing my sunglasses AND my magnifying glasses - it may look silly, but it works!

When I'm driving and Chris is sleeping, I sometimes play the ABC game by myself.  (Because Chris won't play with me.)  There are several versions. The most traditional would be to find a word that STARTS with A, B, C, etc.  When I'm seriously just trying to stay awake and distract myself, I play the "Aaron Version", where you can find the a, the b, and the c on the same sign - and even in the middle of a word!  When I want it challenging, I have to REMEMBER each word, so when I find the E word (and in MY game "EXIT" is not allowed for ANY letter!) I have to recount what I had for A, B, C, and D etc.  But I have learned that the ABC game is absolutely worthless along Route 66 through Arizona, because there is NOTHING but desert!  The only signs are on the trucks that pass - and that makes for a sl-o-o-o-o-w game.

Once we got to California, the air in San Bernadino was BROWN!  WhoEVER would WANT to live in Southern California????  WAAAAY too many people and AWFUL traffic, no matter what time of day!  (There are more people in Southern California than in ALL of Australia!)  We were on a freeway with EIGHT lanes all going in our direction, (not counting the eight lanes on the other side of the median strip) and it was still bumper to bumper - on a Saturday! AAARGH and UUUUGH!   And if you're not crawling, then you are being passed like crazy by maniacs going 10 - 20 mph over the speed limit.   We paid $4.59 for gas in CA.  I think the least we've paid was $3.39 in AZ.

Anyway, we had a lovely day with Chris' cousin, George, and his wife Margaret.

George & Margaret

 Chris and George discussed the problems of the world, and Margaret and I had a very rewarding heart to heart, while I furiously knitted the whole time!  Margaret was a dear, and saved my bacon, as she provided me with 1) knitting markers, 2) magnifying glasses and 3) food!  I still didn't get it finished on time, but it wasn't Margaret's fault.  She encouraged me the whole way.  I think it was Tom's fault!  Too much farkle-ing and not enough knitting at Tom's house.

Tom playing farkle.  Of COURSE -he's winning!

Chris had a wonderful time at the Gardina High School reunion.   It was the FIRST reunion he had attended ever, so after 50 years, you can imagine that many people were delighted to see him.  And, of course, he won the award for coming the farthest - but not only that, there was a prize!  We won a bag with two engraved glasses and a very nice bottle of California wine with a special label for the reunion and our names on it!

David Wise, Geoff and Doug Anderson, and
Mike Welzer with Chris.  These guys were great
buddies in high school, and they still enjoy each other!

Check out that good-looking kid
on the name tag!

Monday we're on the road again - with a frantic schedule.  We're trying to get back to Albuquerque in one day.  Then rushing up to Los Alamos and back to Fort Collins the next day (we EACH have a car!) Then we'll have a day to pack and grab the boat and then the next day - another ROAD TRIP!  Off to Michigan.  Our new Garmin GPS is scarily accurate.  It will say things like "Turn left after the overpass," or "Turn right just before the Wendy's restaurant."  Chris says that pretty soon it's going to say, "Turn left after the discarded Coke can on the right hand curb."

Wednesday: It was a long day yesterday, as we suspected.  I left early, and had to stop in Los Alamos, where I said good-bye to Jonathan again, and dropped off some goodies for Larry and Connie.  So when I got to Ojo Caliente, I decided I would stop and take in the "natural healing waters,"  as, even living there all those years, I had never visited.  I really enjoyed it - the soda water, the arsenic water, the cliff pools, but especially the mud! The instructions for Mudding Up are 1) Get wet  2) Slather mud all over.  (They have this funny little fountain where the mud comes out looking like drinking chocolate!)  3) Bake in the sun until done.  4) Soak in the mud pool.  It was a fascinating experience.  And "as our special blend of clay dries, toxins are released from the pores of your skin and you come away feeling cleansed and refreshed."  What do you think?  Want to give it a go?

Tomorrow we take off again across country towards Michigan.  We'll be hauling our boat and taking three days to get there.  We're quite excited to see our good friends and my sister, Joyce!  Here we come!