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Our New House

It was brought to my attention that we haven’t updated our Blog since 2013. Since we have become stagnant and haven’t really traveled for a while I didn’t have much of interest to post. Not that our life isn’t interesting, there just isn’t much RV Travel going on.

Well recently we have turned another page in our lives. We decided since we like our lifestyle so much that buying a house wasn’t in our plans. However we have pretty much outgrown the RV so…

We bought a Park Model home in the same resort where we have lived for the last 11 years in the motor home. If you are not familiar with a Park Model, it is a small 400 square foot manufactured home. Ours however is a bit more than a simple park model. First off ours is set in the ground so it is ground level, then a 200 square foot addition was added making it 600 square foot overall and the whole thing is stuccoed and the roof is tiled. There is also a 117 square foot building on the property, which serves as a laundry room and a shop. This building is attached to the house by a covered patio with outdoor kitchen. Along with the real residential appliances they topped it off with an air conditioner that can turn the house into a meat locker in the 120-degree Arizona summers. You can see more photos by clicking on the link in the left column.

I have added a link to the photos of our house HERE.

So, although we are keeping the motor home, it looks like we are not Fulltimers anymore.

Best wishes to all our readers and I hope your travels are as enjoyable as ours.

I will leave the Blog up because I know others enjoy reading about our travels.

Monday, May 31, 2010

Havasu eye candy

Here is some Lake Havasu eye candy I found. Be sure to check out all the vidios.



Click here for more

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Disaster in the gulf

The oil spill in the gulf it a real disaster. Marine life and life along the beaches will not be the same for MANY years to come. This has put a lot of people out of work since the fishing industry in the gulf is non-existing. It however is making a lot of people a lot of money. Hotel, Motel, Restaurants, and Grocery stores along with other stores are prospering and will for quite some time. Out of work fisherman are being paid by PB to help with the cleanup. I saw were one restaurant owner (former shrimp fisherman) is expanding his restaurant because of the increase in business. This is defiantly an ecological disaster but could be a financial boon for the area.

Beautiful Sonora Desert

I received this in my email box and just had to pass it on to all of you. The author is unknown.


Hey everyone out there!

We, in Arizona, know you're boycotting us -- but you really should come out here and see our Beautiful Sonora Desert. It's just gorgeous right now! We know you'd love it and maybe you can share what you saw with the rest of the country so they can love it too!

This is on an 'illegal super - highway' from Mexico to the USA (Tucson) used by human smugglers. This area is located in a wash, approximately 1.5 miles long, just south of Tucson, Arizona. If a flood came, all this would be washed to the river and then onto the sea!

It is estimated over 5,000 discarded backpacks are in this wash. Countless water containers, food wrappers, clothing, feces, including thousands of soiled baby diapers. And as you can see in this picture, fresh footprints leading right into it.

As we kept walking down the wash, we thought for sure it was going to end, but around every corner was more and more trash!

And of course the trail leading out of the wash in our city, heads directly NORTH to Tucson, then leads to your town tomorrow.

They've already come through here. Isn't Arizona just beautiful, America? Why would you boycott us??? Our desert has basically been turned into a landfill.

The trash left behind by people illegally crossing our border is another Environmental Disaster to hit the USA. If these actions had been done in one of our Northwest Forests or Seashore National Parks areas, there would be an uprising of the American people.....but this is the Arizona-Mexican border. You won't see these pictures on CNN, ABC, NBC or the Arizona Republic Repugnant newspaper. Nor will they mention the disease that comes from the uncovered human waste left in our desert. However, with respect to CNN, ABC & NBC, they do offer us “Special Reports" on cheating celebrity spouses.... This information needs to be seen by the rest of the country. "It's not about Right vs. Left, Liberal vs. Conservative, Republican vs. Democrat. It's about supporting the US Constitution"

Friday, May 28, 2010

What boycott

After the signing of State Bill SB-1070, which gives the local law enforcement the right to question the legal status of a suspected illegal immigrant, several California cities staged a boycott against Arizona claiming this could lead to racial profiling. Well it appears the boycott is having no effect on Lake Havasu City since the hotels and campgrounds are reporting record bookings for this holiday weekend. In the same sense San Diego has reported a number of reservation cancellations from Arizona residents for the summer. The term “Stepping on your own…well you know what” comes to mind.

The weather has been fabulous here in Havasu. We haven’t seen the 3 digit temperatures we usually begin to see this time of year. It has been very warm but comfortable.

We have been of the lake a couple of times this month and the water is smooth as glass and the temperature is very nice. The resort is empty and I personally think everyone left too early, but they all had their own reason to head north this soon.

We will be heading to California soon but only for about 10 days to visit with family and pick up our grandson for a summer of travel. We are really looking forward to having him for the summer and he can’t wait to travel with us. He calls every night and talks to Susan about it.

Monday, May 24, 2010

You gotta see this


Hi there America. My name is Lucas Van Engen. Dutch last name, the "Engen" pronounced like "Singin". And now you know.

In 2 days I will be getting on a Craftsman 54 inch Kohler Courage Riding Mower (basically, a kick-butt riding lawnmower) and traveling from coast to coast, starting in Fontana California, ending in New York, New York. The whole trip will cover 3,300 miles and take about three months, roughly the time it took for the Mayflower to crash on our shores. In that time I will be making several stops across America, many of them planned, most of them unplanned. The mission is two-fold: a durability test on the lawnmower and a chance to meet America.

This weekend he was here in Lake Havasu. You can follow him here. http://www.facebook.com/craftsman?v=app_121480821206742

Read from the bottom up because the newer post are at the top of the page, similar to my blog.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Interesting day

My day started out pretty good today as I popped out of the motorhome to be greeted by this little guy.

Look how small he is compared to my finger. I watched as I sipped on my coffee and soon he scurried off. A bit later I turned on my patio TV and was disappointed at what the Stock Market was doing. After today, this year has been a total loss. In other words the market took back all the gains I made so far this year.

On a good note, I called about the shade screen I ordered for our patio and they informed me it would be installed today. I hurried off to put gas in the car before they came but when I got back they were here and just about had the job done. Wow, that was quick.

Now I feel better about my patio furniture knowing that I won’t have to buy a new set next year after the sun destroys this set. The shade will keep the sun from baking it and also me. The shade will roll up when I want my views, even thought I can see through it, or I can roll it down to protect my patio.

I like cold beer as everyone else does, even though it’s fake beer (non-alcohol), but I guess I got my frig a bit too cold.

I found this can sitting in the bottom of our casita refrigerator after it tied turning itself inside out knocking it off the shelf. Now that’s cold.

Friday, May 14, 2010

No one left

Well we are alone again. All our neighbors have left and we are the only ones left on the block.

I still say they left too early. The weather is the best right now.

Yesterday we headed out on the lake

with some friends and even the lake was empty. Well, it was Thursday. It can get pretty crazy out there on the weekends.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Wind wind wind

It’s been downright windy here the last couple of days. We are getting a bit tired of it and it doesn’t look like it will let up soon. Oh Well, I guess it could be worse as I look at the weather across the nation.

I had quite a scare in the stock market the other day. I have a good chunk of money invested in the market and as I watched the other day the market took its worst plunge ever.

I kept thinking, don’t panic, we are in it for the long run and it will come back. Turns out that it came back as fast as it plunged. Although it was still at a great loss, it could have been worse. The scary thing is no one knows what happened. There is a lot of speculation but nothing definite yet. Today was a good day as the market saw it’s biggest jump since 2005 but still has a ways to go before it pays back everything it took last week.

The resort here in Havasu is about a mile from the Havasu Airport where a number of small planes fly in and out everyday. There is no official rule but they are not supposed to fly over the resort on their approach or takeoffs. Sometimes, however, It appears they are going to land right here in the resort. We all say it’s a matter of time before one does just that. Well the other day I was sitting outside when I heard a plane go over that sounded like it was having a problem. Shortly after I heard a BOOM! I wondered what it was but didn’t give it another thought until I started hearing sirens. I took a look around to see if I could tell where the sirens were headed when I spotted a cloud of black smoke rising from the airport. Sure enough the plane I heard crashed at the airport, flipped over, and burst into flames. Fortunately the student pilot made it out with only minor injuries.

Sure is thinning out here at the resort. Most have headed out for the summer, a bit early in my opinion. We are going to head on over to California next month to pickup the grandson for a summer of travels. He is pretty excited about that.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Dodged a bullet

Sometimes you have to spend a little money to save a lot of money. Today I did just that. We have a very limited calling plan on our phone and have been able to live within those limitations for a long time. But things in life change and so did our calling habits. We have been receiving and making a lot of calls outside of the Verizon network during this last billing period and have greatly exceeded our allowed minutes. I was looking at an additional $400+ this month over and above our usual bill. So what I did was bumped up to the next plan, which not only gives us twice the minutes but also allows us to add 5 out of network numbers to call without using our minutes. Now the reason I dodged the bullet is because during the change over I was given the option to start this new plan beginning with the present billing period. So the additional minutes are now covered. So for only an additional $20 a month I saved over $400 in just this month.