Summer in Illinois

We arrived at Timber Lake RV Park early Thursday am. Beautiful day, nice and sunny. The Park is absolutely beautiful - tranquil, lush green grass and beautiful tall oak trees. The park owner wanted to add some gravel to our site pad so we waited for delivery of gravel and then Ron went to work adding gravel and then leveling it. The photos below show The work being done.

Ron is like a magician running this front end loader and leveling the surface. It was really a kick watching him work the gravel around. Next photo is leveling out gravel by hand.


We are all settled in now and love it. This morning about 3:30 am a storm hit and dumped about 2" of rain. We had windows open on the motor home so had to get up to close up everything.

Last evening we went to a welcome hamburger/hot dog cookout and met other Workampers and some of the seasonal guests here at the park. Really nice to be welcomed the first day here. Next Monday we'll have orientation and work assignments and then things will settle down some. Friday nights are Marguerita socials so we will go over and have a drink and meet some more people.

We've driven into Mount Carroll a couple of times, population is about 1,900, very quaint, brick streets in the downtown area and beautiful, old 3-4 story Victorian homes. When we get a chance we'll take some photos of a couple of them and post them.

On our trip here we stayed in Altoona, IA, outside of Des Moines, and had a nice visit with a Workamper couple that we worked with in Mesa, AZ last winter. We had a fun visit and hope they get a weekend to come over to Illinois to visit.

Texas Wildfires

We are just devastated by the damage that the wildfires have been doing in southwest Texas. The hardest hit area has been around the Fort Davis area north of Alpine, TX where we were last summer. Over 200,000 acres have burned (25 homes and 2businesses) plus many horses and cattle. Our friend's son Brent, who lives at Marathon, TX, has been out helping with the firefighting and the rescue of animals. When Cherokee and Jim talked to him this morning, he had had only about 2 hours sleep in the last few days. The winds are blowing 60 mph sustained today so no breaks to help contain the fires.

Today we were supposed to drive on over to Childress but the high winds kept us off the road. Maybe we will be able to get on the road. Just hope the weather cooperates and that the wind dimishes a whole bunch.

While we have been visiting Jim & Cherokee we have been watching the Decorah, IA bald eagles. A livestream 24/7 camera has been set up to view the male and female and 3 fledglings. Over 32 million viewers have been viewing the growth of the babies. If you want to see the live stream, just type in Decorah Eagles and it will take you to the feed.

Update before AZ Departure

We are about 5 days until our departure from Mesa Regal Resort in Mesa, AZ. Things are getting packed away, the gazebo has been sold to our neighbors, and I think we are just about ready to hit the road.

This afternoon our Block had a farewell gathering and this evening our neighbors had a farewell soiree for about 8 couples. Lots of food at both. It's interesting because when you arrive everyone wants to know where you are from and when the season winds down the question is when are you leaving for back home.

We've made several new friends this year and will stay in contact with them as we will probably all be back next year. The last hooray for the Workampers is tomorrow afternoon. Our Workamper Coordinator prepares all the food himself for the party - 42 Workamper couples and some management people are on hand also.

It's been a very busy season here and I think we're ready to be on the road again.

Family news has not been the best during March. Since my sister's death we have received notice that one of my deceased first cousin's wife(Dee's paternal side of family), age 90, passed away and another cousin's wife (maternal side of family)passed away. Hopefully April will not bring any more news like this.

We'll post more news as we wend our way into New Mexico and Texas over the next few weeks.

Happy St. Patrick's Day to You All!

Just couldn't stand to see my daughter outdo me so had to figure out how to add these cool animation holiday things to our Blog. I'm impressed, don't know about the rest of you thinking "What is Dee thinking doing this?".

Weather here is absolutely gorgeous - we hit 90 degrees yesterday. Larry was out on the patio trying to read the auto manual and photo says it all!!!!

Guess the warm weather put him to sleep.

It was a tough week for us. March 1st my only remaining sister passed away very unexpectedly - Medical Examiner thinks she either had a massive stroke or massive heat attack. Her request was to be cremated and no services, so we didn't make the trip back to Boone. There was a Memorial Service on March 9th. Hazel would have been 72 this month, which seems so young now that I'm approaching a big zero year myself.

Things are winding down here at the Resort - year end parties (we have at least 4 parties to attend ourselves) and several people already leaving to travel back to their homes. We extended our stay until May 5th so we won't depart this area along with thousands of others.

Tuesday one of my classmates and her friend is driving to Mesa to have lunch with us. We going to the Midwestern Meat Restaurant (owned and operated by former Iowa residents) and the food is always wonderful. Of course, our favorite thing to order is breaded tenderloin sandwiches and made the old fashioned way like they used to make them back in the late 50's in Iowa. You just couldn't beat good old pork tenderloins back in the day.

We wish some of you were here to share the corned beef & cabbage and my speciality "Green Cake" for St. Patrick's Day. It just isn't St. Paddy's Day without the green cake! Some would argue it's the green beer that makes the holiday though. Our grandson, William, is flying off to Ireland Saturday, March 12th for a week. His golf coach and the Astoria, OR golf team are going there for spring break to golf for a week. It's quite a trip for a 16 year old. Sure wish we could fit in his suitcase. A big bonus is that they get to participate in the annual St. Patrick's Day parade while they are there. What a lifetime experience this will be for him.

More later on. Take care of yourselves and stay healthy.

Chevy Tracker Gone/Chevy HHR In

We kind of went shopping this month and ended up buying a 2007 Chevy HHR for a tow vehicle. It's not the white painted vehicle we wanted but it will do; fully loaded-even has "butt warmers in front seats", leather interior, sun/moon roof, and the ac will cool you down quickly. Best part is it tows all wheels down without much fuss and doesn't accumulate miles while being towed. Our Tracker was a '99 model with over 131,00 miles on it. Still have to get our permanent plates from Oregon but that takes a few weeks. Photo below taken a week ago.

Larry spent last Tuesday at the garage getting the towing mount bracket put on, electrical hookups done and the auto braking system installed. Took the better part of the day, beginning at 7:30 a.m. to get all of this done.

We've been working about every day here, not long hours at a stretch but enough to keep us confined to the RV Park each day. Things are a little better this last week though. The Resort is almost to capacity right now, 2005 spaces, so people are everywhere busy, busy, busy.

Several park residents are coping with pneumonia and Valley Fever. Larry's brother has had pneumonia and the hospital rooms and hallways were filled with patients so he was not admitted for treatment. So far we have missed getting the viruses going around. Valley Fever is a mold type fungus, spread by air, that affects the lungs and recovery is prolonged. We truly hope we don't get this.

Our daughter Suzy began her radiation treatments in Portland, OR on the 21st. She has 14 more to go before they are completed. The same day (21st) our niece, Joni, received her diagnosis of breast cancer also. She is to have lumpectomy next week sometime and then she will have radiation following. Unfortunately Dee and 2 of her sisters all have had breast cancer so their daughters didn't have much of a chance avoiding that cancer gene. Joni is undergoing genetic testing to positively identify the gene for her daughter. Suzy hopes to have the testing done also.

Hope all of you are staying warm and that your weather is improving some.

We've Been Feeling the Cold Here!

This is what it looked like at the front office entrance to Mesa Regal this morning (one of the other Workamper couples took this photo). It was down to about 29 degrees last night. We had about 30 minutes of no electricity early yesterday morning also. The electric company has been experiencing power overload with the cold weather and has not been unable to fill the needs like it should. Luckily we have propane backup and also a generator as back up when we have no electricity. Many of the elderly here have all electric park models so they just had to tough it out when they got up. Weather should be better in a few days after this cold front gets through the country.

Hope you all are staying warm where you are. Don't envy any of you that have snow along with the cold.

Month is Almost Over

January is almost over - hard to believe the time has gone so quickly. We've seen the Wayne Newton show (he rates a 5 out of 10, great musicians and back up singers but his voice is about gone!), visited big RV Show and Gem show and enjoyed great weather here).

Our visit to RV Show was a very busy day, beginning with a wake up call at 5 am so we could be on the road at 6 am with friends who were driving. Ugh, most of you know how I hate early mornings!!! Anyway, it is about a 2 hour drive from Mesa. At least we stopped for breakfast on the way. Thousands of people were there at the show. Best part was getting to see one of my high school classmates. Chuck is a vendor for his business that makes display plaques and frames -he invented and holds the patent on the frames. Business was very heavy so we had little time to actually visit with each other, but it was great seeing him and also meeting his wife June. Chuck made our Dolphin plaque for our RV a couple of years ago. Anyway, it was a long day in the sun.

Dee's big project this week was making a beaded watch band with glass beads and Swarovski crystal beads. The instructor and other class students are all going bead shopping this coming Tuesday to find supplies so they can make more of the beaded watchbands. These are fast to put together once you have the supplies.

On the 21st, Dee traveled to Tucson (40 snowbirds on the charter bus) for the annual Quilt Show. Beautifully displayed quilts were abundant and several quilt-related vendors were on hand so the time was well spent. There was also an American Native Art show going on at the Convention Center which had beautiful artwork and jewelry on display. Well worth the time to see.

Saturday the Workampers got together for a picnic at one of the couples' site. Ron cooked the hot dogs and everyone brought a covered dish and snacks. About 40 people were there. Temperature was in the 70's so we couldn't have ordered a better day to have some fun.

Next Saturday is the annual Gourd Festival in Casa Grande and Dee is going over with the tour bus company for the day. She has 2 high school classmates that are going to meet her so they can spend the day together. They will have a great time.

Enjoy the rest of the month. Hope your weather warms up if you are in one of the cold zones.