December 22 - Yuma

Well, we finally made it.  We are safely ensconced in the Desert Holiday R.V Park in Yuma and no more driving for 2 full weeks.  It is nice to go into the cupboard and get a cup out that is not wrapped up for travelling. 

We have 2 days to get ready for Julie and Gerry Jackson.  We heard from them last evening and they will be arriving sometime on the evening of the 24th.  A lovely present from Santa.

Hopefully we will be having so much fun the next couple of weeks (or at least as much as a Hagell can stand) that I won't be writing any more posts until we head to Palm Springs with a side trip to Blythe, if our friends the Hawes' are home.  If not, I am sure we will see them at FMCA in Indio.

That's all for now, and for those folks who are reading this:

HAVE A WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS AND THE HAPPIEST OF NEW YEARS!

December 17 - Still Texas

We left for Fort Stockton which is a dirty little desert town, didn't even bother with the hook ups, only used their power.  You felt like you were in the middle of the desert but there was nothing appealing about the place at all.  Glad we were only going to be there overnight.  They did have a large Roadrunner in the middle of the town dressed in a Santa suit.  I didn't even take a picture, however, I should have.  I feel bad about it now, too late...

Texas is a very large State with miles and miles of nothing to see, at least along Hiway 10.  Gas prices are getting higher - $3.29.

December 18 - El Paso

Knowing that we were going to be in El Paso the next day, that night I could not get the Marty Robins' song out of my head.  If I could have thought of all the words it may have helped but I was missing a few lines and it drove me crazy...

Texas also has very small Rest Stops, they also have picnic areas in the middle of nowhere but no bathrooms.  The State that brags the most keeps coming up short in my estimation.  Good roads though.

We pulled into the Mission RV Park in El Paso, it is an Escapee park, got set up and then took a tour of the area.  We tried to get to the Old Town, found it was a tourist trap, old, deserted and dirty.  700,000 people all doing their Christmas Shopping - no fun fighting traffic.

December 20 - to Tucson

We tried to leave yesterday but high winds and blowing sand kept us here - we went to a Shopping Centre close to where we are parked and just walking to and from 3 stores, we got so sandblasted we had to come home and wash our faces and clean out our ears, our glasses didn't even keep it out of our eyes. 

Oh well, we got an early start today, heading to Tucson.

Right where our street meets the frontage road a semi, a half ton and a tow vehicle had an altercation, the tow vehicle took the brunt.  A block down the road from that three more vehicles had collided.  Everybody here drives too close and they don't pay attention, at highway speeds the result is not pleasant.  It is a beautiful, clear and sunny day so there is no excuse to not see the person in front of you.  Texas is definitely not on the list of places we would want to move to.

Gas at a Pilot we came upon was $2.79 - the lowest we have seen on this trip.

The Rio Grande river is nothing but a trickle - how disappointing.

I am sure there must be some beautiful areas in Texas, unfortunately we haven't seen any of them.

We stayed at Casino del Sol in Tucson.  We arrived in the afternoon found a nice space, they have a huge parking lot with quite a few RVs parked there, some look like they are there for the long haul.

We thought we would have dinner in the Casino so decided it was too early to go in.  We napped and read until it was time to go inside.

I found a really fun machine "The Beverly Hillbillies" I must have played it for 1 1/2 hours - doubling my money, it has quite a few games on it so you are not just putting your money in and pushing a button with no result.  It also shows lots of video clips of the old TV series which brought back some fond memories and with it lots of cash.  It was a good thing that I came out ahead as Dalton did not.  Anyway, we decided to go back to the RV for dinner and finish off the fantastic Butter Chicken that Dalton had made the night before.

The wind had been blowing ever since we arrived but by evening it was really gusting, blew most of the night but by morning it was lovely and sunny and only a gentle breeze blowing.

Tucson is a beautiful city, not many highrises and all the overpasses and berm fences are painted with beautiful Aztec art.

I had no idea that cotton was grown in Arizona.   I am sure learning a lot on this trip.

In my humble opinion, Arizona is a beautiful State.

  

December 15 - Beaumont, Texas

Yesterday we drove around Beaumont, Texas - a clean little town, but appears to be totally deserted.  We went to find the Post Office to mail our Christmas parcels, it is located in the downtown area, you could have shot a cannon down any of the streets and not hit a soul.  Many of the buildings are vacant, however, it is very well kept which is totally surprising as usually deserted places gather derelicts.

 This is the world's largest fire plug it is across the street from the Fire Station in Beaumont and is a salute to Disney's 1001 Dalmatians.  I thought it was cute.

We are staying in the Gulf Coast RV Park at the west end of Beaumont, a very nice park and if even offers free breakfasts every day from 7 - 9.  What a nice touch!  They even have bicycles for their guests to borrow and it is a Passport America besides.

I can't believe there is no recycling here - one place we stayed at least collected bottles and cans but no cardboard or plastic - Every place we stayed all the way to Arizona have no recycling.  Unbelievable.  However, there are more gun shops and pawn shops than grocery stores.

Lots of concrete roads and cheap gas at least along Hiway 10 - $2.98 - $3.25 a gallon.

We left at 8:00 this AM after breakfast.  Fist big town was Houston which is not very appealing as you approach it, all you can see is oil refineries and cranes.  There are 5 lanes of traffic going in and around Houston as well as 1 exit lane so 6 lanes of steady traffic, sure glad we don't live here.  I got a feeling of claustrophobia sitting in the passenger seat, I am glad I am not driving.

We stayed in San Antonio for 2 nights, parked beside a couple from Nanaimo.

Sunday we toured the Alamo and did the River walk, when we had enough we went home and had  Happy Hour with the neighbours.

The above 2 were taken on the River walk

These are all that is left of the Alamo

I thought this was just about the ugliest Christmas Tree I had ever seen taken outside the Alamo

December 11 - New Orleans

The weather turned colder so we had to "rug up" before heading to the French Quarter.  The park has a shuttle so we hoped on - it was great not having to worry about traffic and parking, which is very expensive, $5.00 per hour. 

We found a nice place to have dinner "Desire".  Strange name but the food was great.  Dalton had a bowl of Gumbo to start and he is still talking about how good it was and I, trying to be adventurous, had pasta with Alligator meat balls and no, it didn't taste like chicken.  It was mixed with beef so...

We went into a Jazz Bar, they didn't play Jazz, which was good for me, but Dalton was disappointed as that is what he was there for.  The band playing was a group called "Siren", they played all the music that we both liked, we even danced a little.  We stayed so late, missed the shuttle and had to take a cab home.  We really enjoyed ourselves, the first time we had been out so late in a long while.

Going to the French Quarter and having drinks in an Irish Pub.  This is O'Brien's' patio

They are famous for their Hurricanes, they are very good, potent too!

Dalton enjoying his beer

Siren in action

Dalton got dragged up on stage, he had some good moves!

December 12

We took a riverboat trip on the Natchez, a steam driven paddle wheeler.  The sun was out and it was a lovely day.  I did expect that we would go down the Mississippi River but as it was so slow we hardly made it out of the harbour.  We did have a guide that explained lots and pointed out all things of interest, although the levies are so high so you could only see the tops of the homes. 

After arriving back at the wharf we decided to go exploring some of the places we saw from the river.   One of the things being "Harrah's Casino and since we haven't been in one since Ontario, we decided we should give it a shot.  Lucky us, we came out with what we went in with plus a little more.  Today we are not as energetic as we were last night, I wonder why, anyway we had dinner back on Bourbon Street, not as good as yesterday and for some reason the music seemed extra loud so tonight we were in time for the shuttle.


December 13 - Leaving Louisiana

We had an easy drive today, roads were pretty good, and not much traffic.  There is a lot of water in this State and therefore many roads are causeways,  quite an engineering feat to say the least.  We arrived in Beaumont, Texas in the afternoon and booked into the Gulf Coast RV Resort, nice place, well kept and they have free breakfasts every morning from 7 - 9.  It is a Passport America Park which makes it even better.  Half Price.

December 9

Dalton golfed at an Arnold Palmer designed course today and I got to go to a Factory Outlet Mall.  We were both totally exhausted when we got home.  I am really out of shopping shape, can't wait to get to Palm Springs to get my shopping Mojo back.


December 10 - Leaving Alabama for Louisiana

Before leaving we fed the goats at the farm across the road from us.  Twin kids were born about 3 - 4 hours earlier.  they are sure cute.  Dalton agreed to part with some of his celery so we would have something to feed them. 

We arrived at Pontchartrain Landing at 6001 France Road - the address is there because we might want to go back, it is a really nice park right on the water.  They have a shuttle to take you to the French Quarter twice a day and pick you up twice a day also.

Had to take the computer back to the Apple Store, hopefully this is it this time.  We only had one person working on it this time.  When we went to Charleston we had about 4 people looking after us and it definitely proves that too many cooks spoil the stew.

Gas prices are really good here. $2.99 a gallon WOW!

December 8th - More of Bellingrath

I have now downloaded Dalton's camera and he had some shots that I wanted to get in.  I am not showing any of the parade as everyone has seen a parade but Bellingrath was really spectacular and there are some shots that he got and I didn't:

We took this picture to show how the entire plant is made out of miniature lights, there is one on my last showing this one lit up

The Courtyard attached to the house

This one and the one above is an underwater scene, pretty neat, eh!

We were really impressed with this system of waterfalls in the middle of the stairs

I love the gnarly trees with the Spanish moss, although we don't know why it is called Spanish moss, as it is neither Spanish nor moss

December 8 - Alabama

While checking out the area around Mobile, we came upon a little Town called Foley, there was a parade happening so we decided to stop and watch.  They had 45 entries, which we thought was quite a few for such a little Town.  We did enjoy it, Dalton took pictures but I am having enough trouble uploading my pictures that I decided to pass on his this time.

After the parade we headed towards the ocean.  We came upon a Fisherman on a wharf by the Ferry Terminal we were going to take, I know, taking a Ferry when we really didn't have to, but it was on the route we wanted to take and we also had a destination in mind.

Back to the Fisherman...he was fishing for Mullet, never heard of it, Dalton says it looks like a fish we would throw back..he was fishing with a net, don't know that there is any sport in that.  He did show us how to do it and it did look interesting. 

The ferry ride was very disappointing as it was so foggy, you couldn't see the front of the car.  It was a small ferry, holding 28 cars, and the trip was 35 minutes long.  Our destination on the other side was Bellingrath Gardens and let me tell you, it is a place you do not want to miss.  We arrived at 4:00 in the afternoon, we were there to see the lights, not so much the gardens as it is the wrong time of the year for that, although they are also spectacular, but the lights...3 million of them.  The house on the property was fantastic.  Mr. Bellingrath was fairly high up on the Coca Cola organization and the house is ofter referred to as "the house that Coke built".  The place has been kept up as if people are still living there.  It was the nicest house we have ever seen, the furnishings we all antiques.  Mrs. Bellingrath had very good taste.  Unfortunately, we couldn't take pictures inside but we sure got a lot of pictures of the lights throughout the grounds.

This is only a portion of the pictures we took.  They are spectacular, especially the ones with the reflections in water.  We spent over 2 hours here and when we left the traffic coming into the park was incredible, we drove for 15 minutes and all the way the incoming traffic was bumper to bumper.  We obviously arrived at the right time. 

December 6 - Finally leaving Columbia, South Carolina

Leaving Columbia we passed 2 accidents on the highway before we were on the road for an hour, traffic was backed up for miles.  The funny thing is they were nearly across the highway from each other, one coming and one going.  It is not against the law to talk on your cell phone here and let me tell you, everyone is on the phone.  Everyone also tailgate, and I'm not talking about the parties.  Oh, I guess I should say that the majority of people who watch college football have tailgate parties, it is a really big thing here.  There is such a big following, the RV parks are filled with people coming to support their teams.

The weather in Columbia was 14 degrees, cooler than it has been but it was 21 when we reached Georgia. 

We came upon the third accident just outside of Savannah, a pick-up rear ended a Semi - now tell me he was paying attention!

Florida was 23 degrees @ 4:30 p.m. - gas prices are going up.  We paid $3.19 before we left South Carolina and paid $3.34 in Florida.

Highway 10  thru Florida, is a really nice highway, it has nice large Rest Stops.  There are also quite a few RV Parks right beside the highway, must be for easy access.  We stayed in a Rest Stop at Lake City, Florida.

We got no sunshine in "The Sunshine State", we did get rain.


December 7 -

Dalton said he wasn't going to be comfortable until we started heading West, after our long delay in South Carolina.  We want to take Interstate 10, it will take us all the way to Arizona.  Up until now we have been heading South in order to get to Highway 10.  Today we finally got to head West.
Tallahassee, Florida - gas is $3.20 and Diesel is $4.00, we can't figure out why diesel is higher than gas, I guess it is one of life's little mysteries.

When we got to Mississippi, we had a good laugh.  We came upon a sign before crossing a river...you guessed it..."The Historical Suwannee River" with musical notes on the bottom of the sign.  Of course we both started singing, however, we each had a different song relating to the river, who knew.

Computer problems again.

We arrived at "Azalea Acres RV Park" in Mobile, Alabama.  We didn't do a very good job of searching it out.  It is a lovely park, the spots are big, very clean and quiet, however, it is a long way from everything.  We stayed for three nights even though we had to drive a long way to get to anything it was very nice and cheap too.

December 3 -

I haven't been much in the mood for writing, with not feeling particularly well and being totally depressed (more like a murderous rage) about the fridge business, but I decided that today, being absolutely beautiful, sun shining and really warm, somewhere in the 70s, thought it would be a good day to add a few more items to the blog:

We went to a Christmas tree lighting downtown Columbia, didn't know it was such a big deal but lots of people were out, kids were dressed in Nutcracker costumes and the restaurants were giving away free food.  You would be surprised at the amount of people that eat shrimp and grits, one restaurant alone makes 80 gallons of grits, I shudder at the thought.  Anyway the town was very festive and we had lots of fun.

This wasn't even the tree in front of the Legislature and it still commanded an huge audience

One of the little Nutcrackers

Now this tree has the decorations I like

November 27 - Still in Columbia -

THIS IS A RANT so if your not interested in hearing our tales of woe, I suggest you do not read any further.

You cannot imagine how much I HATE THE GUTS OF NORCOLD...this is one company that doesn't seem to give a damn about its customers.  Our Insurance Company advised they would pay for a new cooling unit and not a new fridge as the installation and freight costs was prohibitive.  OK, I can understand that...so Camping World ordered a new cooling unit on November 16th.  Don't forget this is after Norcold made them reset the Recall Unit (meaning it had quit before), the reset didn't hold so they replaced the Recall Unit - it also did not hold meaning that it was, in fact, the fridge failing.  We also had to pay for the diagnostic even though Norcold knew it was their unit that was failing.   That evening we suffered the dreaded ammonia fumes, which I already told you about.

As soon as Camping World got the word from the Insurance Company they ordered the cooling unit, and they were advised that it would take a week to 10 days to get here.  That was bad enough but when Dalton and I went to see how things were coming along, Camping World tracked the shipment only to find that, not only did they not send the camping unit of Friday the 16th or even Monday the 19th, but that they were not sending it until Thursday the 29th.  Apparently the company was closed for inventory last week and they still had to build the unit.  I find that so incredibly unsatisfactory, I had to leave the building before I exploded all over the service department.

Not only that but Dalton and I have been sick for the past week, me with a sinus issue and just when I am at the point of starting to feel better, Dalton comes down with a terrible head cold that doesn't want to clear up. 

See...told you it was a rant!!!

November 12 - Continuation

I got so excited when I saw the dog pictures that I was adding that I forgot the rest of the story about the fridge.

The ammonia smell was so bad we could hardly stand it.  Patti brought over a huge cooler so we would have a place to store stuff.  We bought bags of Ice to put in the freezer and fridge to keep things cool for the night.  The entire RV stunk of ammonia, we had all the windows open that would open, both fans were going.  It seemed to calm down a bit and then every once in a while we would get a huge whiff which would stay in the nostrils until the next wave would come along.  Of course we also had to have the furnace on as it was getting cold outside and the wind started blowing as well.  I am certain that in one of our past lives we must have done something bad in this area because we have had so much bad luck here.  By the time we went to bed we were not even certain if we would wake up or if the ammonia would get us in the night.

November 13 - Still here

We made it through the night, no lasting effects.  The smell was gone, even from inside the fridge...YAHOO!!!!

As we are going to be her awhile we took Dalton's computer to the Computer Paramedics to see if they can figure out what is wrong with it.  Our only outing for the day. 

Dalton spent the entire day cooking. 

Much better smells in here today than yesterday!

November 11 - Still in Columbia

We planned on leaving Columbia this morning, Pattie met us for breakfast to say good-bye.  When we got home it had started to rain and Dalton felt we would be getting too late a start so we stayed for another night.

We took Dalton's computer to the Geek Squad as he had a virus.  They wanted to keep it but we decided to take it in to the next place we were staying for a few days.  Columbia seems to be the place where things go wrong go wrong for us.

Anyway, we decided to surprise Patti by showing up at her evening establishment.  We text her to see where she was and if she missed us yet, she asked us where we were and we told her to look behind.  She was so surprised - that made it all the more fun.  we had wings and a couple of beer (Dalton did) and I drove home.

This is beginning to sound so boring!

November 12 -

We woke up this morning ready to leave only to find our fridge had quit.  Dalton made an appointment to get it looked at.  Went to drive away and the battery was nearly dead in the RV, had to charge it up before we could leave.  It is truly time to get out of this place.  One bright spot - gas was $2.99 a gallon - only cost $125.00 for a fill.  Yahoo!!

We spent the entire day at Camping World, they were trying to get Norcold to honor their recall.  They reset the fridge, replaced the replacement and found it was the fridge after all, so we ordered a new one, now we have to stay for a week to 10 days until the other one arrives and then we have to get it installed.  We also found out they have to take the windshield out to get the fridge in, I don't know what else can go wrong.

At least when we got back to the RV park this is what we saw:

6 cute little Westies

The owner of the dogs, she was taking them to a dog show - 2 grand champions, 2 champions and 2 puppies - I could sure use a new pet right now.

November 10 - Columbia

Joined Sams Club today to as we wanted to stock up on some supplies before heading out as the plan is to leave on Monday morning.  There is no Costco in Columbia but Sams Club is a really nice store and with our new membership we got a gift certificate which we were able to use that day.  We were told that we could also get our money back if we no longer wanted the membership.  That is fairly unusual I would think.

Tonight we went to a BBQ at Bonnie's house.  It was the initiation for her grill and her fire-pit. 
The weather was fantastic, sat outside under the stars with the fire going.  I was wearing my sandals, that is always the sign for me that the weather is nice.

Bonnie & Dalton with Bonnie's fella Chris to the far left

Great fire

Patti's son Russ

November 8th - Charleston, SC

We took a trip to Charleston today with a couple hour stop in Summerville as another one of Ron's sisters lives there.  Barbara took us on a tour of the old town area, very nice, as everything in the South is, old building and lots of churches.  We also went to her favourite Greek restaurant for lunch, it was really tasty.

I had an appointment at 5:15 at the Apple Store to check out my computer as I have been having so much trouble with it and the Geek Squad suggested taking it to the Apple Store as they have no software for Macs. We arrived in plenty of time, what a store, it was filled with people learning about all the products. They have what is called a "Genius Bar" where you take your item needing attention and they solve your problems.  We were there about 3 hours but left with an upgraded computer that was working and all it cost was $20.00 for the software.  We now have Snow Leopard - if that means anything to anyone.

As we didn't get to see anything of Charleston we decided to stay there another day instead of going to Myrtle Beach.  I am so glad we did.  We took a bus tour of the City, you always see so much more and learn about all the buildings as well.  We also toured one of the old houses that had been built by one of the wealthy plantation owners as a summer home.

We had the Tour Bus Driver drop us off at the market and what a market it is.  I believe it takes up about 4 blocks.  There are lots of things for sale there, not as big as the College of the Dessert but the stuff is really nice and you get to meet the Artisans.  We had a conversation with an elderly woman making a Sweetgrass basket, she gave us a deal on one.  It is a beautiful functional piece of art, which is also a dying art as the young girls are not interested in learning and the sweetgrass is becoming an endangered species and only the people making the baskets can get a license to cut it.  We didn't buy one the last time we were here so we figured we had better splurge and get ont this time.

We had lunch in a little Tevern across the street from the market, food and beer were both good but the treat in the Ladies Room was the best.  There was a large bowl of sea salt to give your hands a massage- boy did that feel good!  Yes, you had to do it yourself...still great!!

We had an uneventful trip home, not like when we left to go down.  Dalton didn't look at the map and he was sure we had to go on Highway 20, were were almost in Agusta, Georgia when he realized we should be on Highway 26...sooo heading across country we were, hence the pictures of the cotton fields.

This is what cotton looks like before it is picked

This is a lovely looking feld and just to the left side the owner has an air strip

Thought this was a neat looking bridge into Charleston

Dalton at the Information Centre, nice building

This is considered a single home in Charleston

This, believe it or not, is a submarine located in front of the Museum

The above two is an old Penetentiary, it can't be torn down as it is an historical building, it has to fall apart by neglect before they can do anything with it.  Interesting concept.

I just love the old buildings

This was an interesting on, the wife liked the balconies to be rounded and the husband liked it to be square and this is the result.  There is a walkway in between so the disagreement was amicible at least

This is one of the ladies that make Sweetgrass baskets

They had to build special fire trucks to fit into the fire station as a regular size one wouldn't fit and it couldn't be renovated as it is a historical building

This is the Mansion we toured it is the Joseph Manigault House and it was built in 1803

Beautiful staircase and no supporting beams, hmmm

This is the Comode in the wife's dressing room, is has knobs on it to look like a dresser when the top is down, very inventive!