ARE WE THERE YET!!!!!

The state of Utah has some of the most beautiful scenery ever. These pictures were taken while we were just driving down the highway. We went thru Moab, the town is really cute, we stayed there several years ago on a return trip from Montana, at that time we went thru almost every national park in the area. Places like Arches, Canyonlands and Bryce National Parks, if any of you get a chance to visit this area, it's a must see. The colors will amaze you.

We arrived in Tremontan, UT after spending a night at Crystal Springs where we soaked in the natural hot springs that are famous in that area. They had several spas there with varying temperatures, not sure why I didn't have my camera with me when we were in them, but I didn't, anyway, the temps went as hot as 109 degrees, they had a huge water slide there and an Olympic size swimming pool, that was not heated by the springs, but it was very refreshing to step into that after being in the hotter pools.

Getting back to Tremontan, our dear friends, Mitch and Reva were home so we stopped by for a morning visit. We met them several years ago at Fiesta Grande RV park in Casa Grande, AZ, they were our neighbors for the season. These folks are the greatest and we were so happy to see them. It's been way too long. They now winter in Costa Rica for at least 3 months. What an adventurist couple. Love you guys and hope to see you again down the road.

MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK - CORTEZ, CO

This lovely lady we found weaving one of her rugs at the gift shop inside the park. It was her 80th birthday, she was so cute, her rugs sold for up to $800. Sure wish we could have afforded to buy one.

This is John, our ranger who gave us the tour of "The Cliffs". He is a retired science teacher and we really enjoyed his presentation.

This tour took about an hour, we got to walk up to all of the kivas and see how these people lived hundreds of years ago, Really amazing.

ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO OLD TOWN

Old Town was nice, we had a good Mexican lunch and wandered thru all of the stores. The church was built back in 1700 and is a very active Catholic parish. Very pretty. The gardens outside the church were maintained beautifully so much so that even the parish cat loved getting it's "cat nap".

THE ADOBE DELI

The Adobe Deli is just a really amazing restaurant, located literally in the middle of nowhere. The building that the restaurant occupies is really fun, it had so many things to look at, signs to read and a full wall that has nothing but a television screen on it. We had an awesome dinner, Jim, Joni and I feasted on ribs brought out right on the racks they were cooked on and Karl had a strip steak that was incredible. They were worried that it was not cooked exactly the way Karl would have liked it, maybe a little too well done, so they brought him out a 2nd steak, really thick and bbq'd to perfection. They packaged the first steak for him to take home and that was after he ate half of it, he then shared some of the 2nd steak with the rest of us. It was oh, so good. Where are we??? We are in Deming, NM visiting Jim's cousin, Joni and husband, Karl. The country around here is like being in the middle of the desert, lots and lots of sand , very, very hot and alot of wind. We will take off again in the morning, today we did laundry and Jim went to the hardware store and bought that insulating silver looking window stuff, not sure what it's called anyway we cut them to fit the windows to help keep the heat outside.

We are now going to head north. We will go to four corners which is NM, UT, CO and AZ. We want to visit the Aztec Ruins, Mesa Verde National Park, and maybe go to the Navajo State Park. This is all country that we have always wanted to visit but never have, so now that we have the chance to do it we are. Very exciting. More later.

JOHNSON CREEK RV RESORT - INGRAM, TX

This so far has benn our second favorite rv park. They took a pecan farm and transformed it into this great park. Some people live there full-time and then there are those who come just for the winter. It's lovely. Huge pecan trees and in between each row they put in the rv sites with cement and in between there is lawn. Out back is a great river full of fish and deep swimming holes. Jim and I walked down to it and took a swim, this was after we swam in the pool above. The owners took the main house and transformed it into a game room, pool tables and the sort, a great kitchen with several tables, antiques, for guests, an exercise room, library and all the good things a good rv resort have. We enjoyed.

The New Orleans RV Park was really cool. It is brand new, the owner is a retired yacht captain and he is developing this piece of property into a 5 star rv resort, he is also adding condos and a restuarnt. This is all along a waterway. Across the water is a marina that stores boats undercover and when the owners want to use their craft they just call and by the time they get there, their boat is in the water, all fueled and ready to go. On the same waterway is a yacht builder named Trinity. We watched a pair of dolphins feeding right out our front window, it was great. (It's really hard to see but they are there. It's that little blip int he water by the large boat.)

We were shuttled to the French Quarter and we had a great dinner at Landry's Seafood Restuarant, this is a pic of the front of it. We walked down Bourbon Street and heard some really great music by just walking the street.

KITE FLYING

Lily and her best bud, Max, took time out of their very busy day to fly a kite. They also got rides in a canoe and spent all day Saturday at the state park beach area. They had a blast.

MORE LONG POINT CAMPING

Just a couple more pics of Lily catching fish. It was really fun and great to know that there are still fish to catch.

Fishing on the Indian River

I don't have any fish pictures for this post but we did have fun last night catching them. We caught a grooper, a snapper and a catfish. When Jim released the catfish, it stung him and boy did it hurt. We soaked his hand and put on all sorts of hopeful remedies, by 1 am he said it was finally feeling better.

We lit a fire lastnight and roasted some marshmellows, it's Thursday and the ne-see-'ems are still in full force. Unless the wind is blowing with a little bit of strength they lite on you and boy do they bite. Unless we are at the ocean beach where the wind always blows, there is no relief unless we are indoors. So far this is the only downer here. It would also have been great to have a boat or our kayacks. Oh well, now we know.

We were planning on driving to TN, IN and IL on our treck across country, but with all of the tornadoes and the flooding going on in the Midwestern part of our great country, we have decided to take I10 and drive towards New Mexico and then towards Oregon from there. That's the update for now.

JUST ANOTHER DAY AT THE BEACH

The beach here is really beautiful. Lily played for 5 hours, running in and out of the waves. She really had fun and so did we.

LONG POINT CAMPGROUND, MELBOURNE, FL

Lily is off to fish with Papa this morning. Papa went to the little store and brought back some live shrimp to fish with, after loosing several to the little swimmers, finally one was caught. Not sure what it is but it was fun to catch and we put it back in for another day.

GRADULATIONS!!!!!! FOR LILY KAI

Yes that is correct, according to Lily. It's GRADULATIONS!!! Quit clever, if I say so myself. She has the combination of both words, I couldn't even come up with a fun word like that. We really enjoyed going to Lily's gradulation party at St Jerome's school in Ft Lauderdale, FL. It was held in the church and Msg. Swanger was handing out the diplomas for the children that graduated from Kindergarten. The other classes, pre-k 3 and 4 entertained with several songs that they practiced over and over to which Lily almost lost her little voice.