12/12/11
My sister and brother-in-law, Donna and Tom arrived a day early from the Grand Canyon. They got here Tuesday 12/6/11, so we left Taffy in the motor home for a couple of hours and we went to the Riverside and had a hot dog then went to the Aqaurius Casino. Everyone won little that day. The next day, Wed. (we boarded Taffy Wed. and Thurs., just day care) and went to the Tropicana, Colorado Belle, Golden Nugget, and the Pioneer casinos. We had lunch at the Golden Nugget at Joes Crab Shack. Excellent fish and chips meal. Then on Thursday, we took the Boat Trip to Davis Dam and also past all the casinos telling a story about each one and how Laughlin got it's start. It was a relaxing trip and fun. We each ordered a drink and visited with the bartender, watched out the windows while a narration of what was on either side of the Colorado River. We went topside for a while but it was so windy, we didn't stay up top very long. It was very smooth on the river and we enjoyed the ride. Had a fun time gambling.
Thursday morning I wanted a cinnamon (sp?) roll so we went to the Cinnabon in the Riverside. 2 rolls and 2 coffees was a whopping $16.00! We could have gotten two full meals at the IHop restaurant where we ate the day before.
Donna and Tom left early Friday Morning 12/9/11 on their way to Modesto, Ca. We left on Sat. heading for Lake Havasu City, Ariz. Arrived at the Crazy Horse RV Park about 1:00 pm. Crossed the London Bridge to get to the island where our campground is. From our campsite. it's a short walk to the beach on Lake Havasu. Very nice wether and no wind. We took pictures of the bridge and drove around town. At night a lot of the rv'rs decorate their trailers and spaces with Christmas lights. It's very pretty. Some have santa hats on their rearview mirrors, rope lights that encircle their rigs. Lots have fiber optic trees in their front windows. Some even have nativity scenes, lighted deer, or lights in the shape of trees in front of their 5th wheels. If there is a tree, they wrap it with lights.
We have a view of the lake from our front window. We'll be here a week.

12/1/11
On Monday 11/28/11 we drove to the little town of Oatman, 13 miles off of US 95.Route 66 goes right through Oatman, but we're not sure just how much of the road is actually Route 66.
Not much to see on the way until about a mile outside of town.
Then we started seeing Christmas decorated bushes along the sides of the
road. Some had little signs in front of them with sayings on them, some
were honoring the Firemen, or someone's name. Soon we were in Oatman, a town that still looks like the old west, from the gold rush days.
Part of the town looks like a ghost town, with shells of old buildings, houses, sheds, barns, stores and saloons. All the stores that are currently in business look like the old west and are named like Sally's Saloon,
Betsy's Ore House, and so forth. We passed big white burros, and grey baby burros just wandering along the streets. The burros were left there by the miners when the gold rush is over, the Merchants of Oatman have adopted them giving them names and everything. They are free roaming and choose to come into town when the people are there for the carrots. You could buy carrots from the merchants for the big burros, but the babies weren't to have any. The babies have a sticker on their foreheads showing a carrot with a line drawn thru it.
We got there about 11:30 and were informed there would be a gun fight at noon. We all piled out ot the Jeep including Taffy, and several merchants told us to keep the dog away from the burros as they were known to trample dogs on sight as the coyotes kill their young and dogs look like coyotes. Wouldn't you know it but the dang things kept following us around and were very curious of Taffy. Made us both nervous. We watched the gun fight at noon, the picture we got of the bank robber has a sign in the background that says "Gunfight at Noon". Funny.

11/26/11

We've been enjoying the warm sunny weather in Laughlin, Nevada and
Bullhead City, Arizona, until today when it is very windy at least 25 mph. Still sunny and warm though. We have been taking day trips around the area. One day to Bullhead City Park to watch the river go by and look at the birds. Then one day to Davis Dam. The road over the dam is closed, but we got to see the dam, an earth filled dam, and took some pictures. It provides a lot of electricity for this area. The RV Park we're in we have a view of the Riverside Casino, the Aquarius Casino and The Edgewater.

Friday nights at 8:00 they put on a spectacular fireworks show that lasts about 20 minutes. So far the only one to get my money was the Riverside. I won't be gambling for a while.

We've been getting up at 6:30 every morning, it's a little chilly in the morning, need a sweatshirt and light gloves when I walk Taffy in the morning, but afternoons we put our shorter pants on and short sleeve shirts. I'm hoping to get a tan while we're here. We take care of any housekeeping chores or outside maintenance chores and then do whatever we want. I knit on an afghan I started Nov. 5th, I'm 2/3 finished with it. I read a lot and take lots of walks around the park.

Thanksgiving we had turkey breast that Wayne roasted on the New
Wave Roaster we brought. It was delicious. The rest of the meal was
good as well, instant packaged mashed potatoes, yams, gravy and boxed
stuffing, pumpkin pie for dessert with spray on whipped creme. We just
don't have the room to make all the dishes from scratch, but it sure
tasted like it was made from scratch. We had leftovers Friday.

We put the Christmas tree, a little 3 ft high fiber-optic tree I brought,
decorated it with a few ornaments and put a string of lights around the
tv. We also put a string of lights along the long wall of windows above the dinette and couch. It looks so festive. I also got my Christmas Cards
mailed yesterday. Went to Walmart for Black Friday, but couldn't even
find a thing I needed in there. Wayne bought some groceries. It was so
messy by the time we got there, as it had been open all night and we didn't get there until 11:00am Arizona time Friday. None of the stores
around here served free donuts and coffee. They had never heard of such a thing. That's what I was counting on since Fred Meyer's always has
those treats on Black Friday. I had to buy myself a donut and coffee.

Sheesh!

This Tuesday, we are boarding Taffy and will take the day and do some
of the casinos around here. The Tropicana and the Pioneer for sure, maybe the Colorado Belle, the paddle wheel boat.

11/18/11
We are in Boulder City, Nevada yesterday and today. Drove to the dam and had a look around the dam and Lake Mead.
Will leave tomorrow for Laughlin, Nev.
Here are some pictures of signs along our way. We thought they were
funny. 2 of the pictures I wanted to post didn't come out. They were the
one with the 85 mph speed limit just out of Salt Lake City, Utah and the
other one was the Dam Bus sign on the bus at Hoover Dam.

11/12/11
We arrived in Leeds, Utah on Thursday the 10th. Arranged to have our mail delivered here on the 9th of Nov. Not here yet so must wait for it to get here. Forgot about the holiday, then the weekend so we must wait here until Monday. We have beautiful view from our camp site. The weather is so much warmer. It's 39 at night and sunny during the day, only need a light jacket or sweatshirt during the day. We drove to Zion National Park yesterday. What a colorful drive. No snow around here, but we did have some on a couple of the 4 passes we went over to get here from Beaver, Utah. We took a lot of pictures of the different rock stuctures and mountains. The sun wasn't out so we didn't get the deep red of the rocks, but still it was beautiful.

It's supposed to rain tomorrow, but today we have the door and a couple of windows open.

Today was kind of a catch up day, did laundry, trimmed Wayne's hair, trimmed Taffy's nails, and vacuumed the motor home. We have lots of areas around here to walk, and Taffy is enjoying the nicer weather as well as we are.

We plan to drive to St. George tomorrow. One thing we noticed in Utah is the speed limit. 80 mph.The gas prices were $3.24 and $3.29at the Flying J in Beaver and Parowan.

Driving through Salt Lake City was a harrowing experience with the motor home,6 lanes across with huge 3 trailer trucks flying by. We drove in the far right lane, but that put us right next to a 12 ft. wall. There was construction everywhere, and the far right lane turned into an off ramp. One time we had to drive off with the rest of them, because drivers wouldn't let us over. Wayne was so glad to get out of that traffic. He says every truck in Utah was passing us on both sides at the same time. The 80 mph is outside the city limits, inside city limits it's 75, 65 trucks.

11/5/11

We arrived in Jerome, Idaho, at Steve and Vivian's Thursday, Vivian's birthday. We stayed there Friday, Sat., Sun. Drove to Shoshone Falls which is Twin Falls. They reminded me of Niagra falls on a smaller scale. The mist coming off of the falls sure reminded me of the pictures I've seen of Niagra Falls. Shoshone (you don't pronounce the 'e') were incredible to see.

Steve and Vivian have a large fenced back yard and Taffy was in heaven.
She got to go outside with no leash and stay out as long as she wanted.

The weather has been cold and it snowed a little last night. Yesterday Vivian and I went to a Craft Fair in Jerome. The biggest thing everyone has been making appears to be bracelets/watch bands made from fancy beads and trinkets, and sell for only $12.50 or $15.00. Some booths sell watch faces to match the colors in the bracelet/watch band, They are very pretty, but too bulky for me. I've been trying to figure out a pattern for a hat I'm making and one of the booths had exactly the same hat I've been trying to figure out. I talked to the gal, and she helped me out quite a bit. I didn't bring a warm hat, so I bought one of hers to wear until I could get one made. Her's were the sane as the slouch hat I'vebeen making, that I didn't bring. Go figure. (I didn't think it would be this cold.) 27* last night.

Sunday Vivian and I went to the movie and saw Tower Heist, with Ben Stiller, Alan Alda, Mathew Broderick, Eddie Murphy. It was a very good
movie. It had humor, action, suspense and a good story. Everyone could
see it. Steve, Wayne and Taffy drove around sight seeing Jerome area
while we were in the movie.

We hit snow on our way southeast today on our way to Brigham City, Utah. We're still having issues with our slide out, so we have another
appointment this week to have it checked.


The speed limit in Utah is 75 mph. They go that fast too.

11/1/11
Wayne, Taffy and I left Greentrees at 8:35 this morning and headed for Eugene. The Motor Home is loaded with people food, dog food, 3 laptops, 2 kindles, 12 jigsaw puzzles, playing cards, yahtzee game, 90 dvd movies, for just in case it's raining outside. I have also packed water color supplies, drawing supplies and enough yarn projects to keep me busy for more than 3 months. Those are all my activities. What did Wayne bring for fun you ask? He's got a LCD 40" screen tv with Direct TV and Satellite Dish. It's football season you know. We had to stop at the RV Corral to
have the big slide out checked. Then off we went towards Sister/Bend. Arrived at the Sisters Garden RV Resort (used to be a KOA) $36.93 a night, winter rates. It was 15* at night. Had to put an extra blanket on the bed. It was very cold walking the dog also. Froze our dump hose and had to wait until it warmed a bit in order to leave. I had to use ear muffs, scarf, heavy gloves, heavy coat, Taffy had her winter coat on too, and still my hands and feet for freezing when we got back to the motor home. 177 miles so far.

11/2/11
10:00 we drove to Bend, gassed up and headed for Burns, 140 miles. We had a headwind all the way and Wayne was so exhausted by the time we got to Burns. We stayed at the Old Camp Casino RV park. $22.00 a night.
I had lunch, walked the dog and went to the casino for a couple of hours.
It's a really tiny casino, one large room with slot machines grouped in
in 3's and 4's around the place. I lost at first, then won it back plus $10.
We then had a scrumptous dinner of warmed baked chicken salad with
apples in it. We had another cold night, not quite as cold as the night before. The next morning we were ready to leave and we couldn't get
the large slide out to close. Noone in Burns does that that sort of work
so Wayne closed it manually. We left Burns at 10:00 heading for Jerome
Idaho. 240 miles. Gassed up in Ontario. Still had a headwind, not quite
as strong as the day before but Wayne was really tired by the time we got
to Steve (Wayne's brother) and Vivians. We were so happy to be here.
Had a wonderful chili dinner, visited and went to bed in our motor home
at 9:00 Idaho time. (one hour ahead).
Carol