Almost Home.......

Well, today we crossed the border from Idaho back into Oregon.  The old truck and RV haven't been back to Oregon since September of 2012.  What an awesome adventure we have been having, from Washington to Maine, Maine to Florida, Florida to California, back to Oregon and many many points in between.  The adventure isn't over, we are just returning home to enjoy the summer with our families and friends, and then we will be off  again.

We spent the last 2 weeks in Vegas, which is way too long to stay in Vegas.  We celebrated Roberta's youngest sons 21st Birthday with other family members.

Great Party. Only wish we would have won a bit more money.

Oh Well, we still had a BLAST

 Above is the view from our balcony at the Polo Towers Resort we stayed at.

Burger Joint on Fremont Street in Old Downtown Vegas

We decided if we couldn't get it for free it wasn't worth it.

We had tickets for CirqueDuSoleil, Michael Jackson "ONE", at Mandalay Bay.

Very Cool

Below is a link to a YouTube video for it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vtn-pnt1ub8 

So, this will be our last post until possibly after summer, when we plan to head South for the winter.  We will be arriving in Portland April 1st, and will be staying at an RV Park in Troutdale, down by the Sandy River, near the Halsey Street Bridge.

Thank You All for looking in on us for the past few years, and hopefully we will see each and every one of you during the summer.

Roberta and Steve

Valley of Fire.......

Yesterday we took a drive out to Lake Mead and the Valley of Fire State Park.  It was a perfect afternoon for a little hiking and exploring.  We found an Arch that nature has made, some stone cabins that were built for travelers back in the 30's, and countless mountains of brown colored rocks.

At one stop we came across some Petroglyphs carved into the rocks.  Pretty Cool.

At another stop we noticed the sun reflecting off the ground and shining through the rocks.  Beautiful...

Today we went to Sam's Town Casino, just down the road from the RV Park, to watch the Oregon Fighting Ducks take on BYU in the NCAA March Madness Tournament.  The Fighting Ducks won 87 to 68. Ducks are moving on to the Round of 32 this weekend. Number 7 ranked Ducks will take on Number 2 ranked Wisconsin.  "GO DUCKS"

That's it for now.  Our friends Fred and Tina are flying into to Vegas tonight, so looks like we will be up late. Party Time.

Thanks for looking in on us,

Roberta and Steve

Hey Baby Let's Go To Vegas.........

Our last day on the Colorado River, before heading to Vegas, was spent sightseeing around Lake Havasu, with our friends Richard and Carol.  It was a beautiful day, so we took a boat ride from Lake Havasu, across the river, to an Indian Casino on the California side.  The Casino was nothing to talk about, but the boat ride was great fun.

Arriving back from the Casino, we noticed a bunch of people down the boardwalk, so we thought we better go check it out.  Spring Break had begun in Lake Havasu.  Young Adults everywhere, doing what we use to do when we were their age, "PARTYING".  They were all very polite, friendly and enjoying the river.

Oh, to be that young again....."NOT"

Anyway, we arrive in Vegas yesterday afternoon.  We will be here for 2 weeks, before heading back to the Great Northwest, arriving in Portland about April 7th.  We are hoping for an early summer, since we are soooo spoiled from living in the Sun all Winter.

Thanks for stopping by to see what we are up to.

Til Next Time,

Steve and Roberta

Still Relaxing Along the Colorado River.....

Well, we are still just relaxing, and enjoying the wonderful Arizona winter weather.  There are a bunch of wild burros roaming this area, along the road and river.  They manage to cause traffic jams, since nobody really wants to hit one of these things.  Also, there seems to be a large population of baby burros.  They are so cute, and NO, the Ass on the right is not Steve....

We were told about Tommy's Paradise Friday All You Can Eat Fish & Chips, so of course we had to check it out.  We weren't impressed and will not be returning.  The locals seem to really like it, but we would rather go the the "Wooded Chicken" for their Fish & Chips.

Last weekend there were boat races on the river.  This is some kind of "CRAZY" boat racing.  The boats seem to be going about 100 miles an hour, and they are towing a slalom skier, with a 200 foot tow rope. Everybody are wearing helmets, and it looks like the skier is hanging on for dear life.  You won't see us trying this sport......

And the desert sunsets are absolutely beautiful.

So, that's about it for now.  We have 2 more days here, before heading up to Vegas for a couple of weeks, and then we plan to be back in the Portland area about April 7th.

Thanks for looking in on us.

Roberta and Steve

Enjoying Our Time In Palm Springs

Well, it looks like our time in Palm Springs is quickly coming to an end .  We have been enjoying the Great Winter Weather here, for the past 6 weeks, but it is about time to move on, and work our way back home. We will be leaving here next Thursday and moving up to the Lake Havasu/Colorado River area, for 2 weeks, and then on to Vegas for 2 weeks.

We have become a couple of Retired Desert Rats, playing water volleyball almost everyday, riding our bikes, relaxing and just goofing off.

There seems to be an endless amount of activities going on all of the time.

We attended the NCAA Ladies Softball Tournament, where we watched the Oregon State Beavers play Boise State and the Oklahoma Sooners.  We had a Blast looking at all of the amazing cars at the 2014 Auto Show. What a beautiful setting and another perfect day.

Roberta managed to get picked up on a ladies softball team, from San Diego, and played in the Ladies Over 50 Softball Tournament.  They didn't win, but had a GREAT time trying.

So, we guess that's about it for now.  It has been another Awesome Winter in the South, but we are looking forward to seeing all of our friends back home this summer.

Thanks for looking in on us, and hopefully your winter has not been as bad as we have seen on TV.

Until next time,

Roberta and Steve

We Are Still Alive........

Sorry for not posting for awhile, but we have pretty much just been relaxing.  We flew home for the Christmas Holidays, returning back to our RV, in Austin Texas, the first week of the New Year.  As you all know, there was a very large "COLD FRONT" covering most of the United States, and it looked as though it wasn't going to let up.  So we didn't even have to give it a second thought, we just pointed the rig West and headed as fast as we could to Warm Weather.  2 days across Texas and another day to run through New Mexico and on to Yuma Arizona.

Ahhhh, Warm Sunny Weather.

We spent a week in the Yuma area, and met up with our friends, Richard & Carol, a couple of times.  We all ran across the border one day, to Algodones Mexico, just to have shrimp tacos.  Best in the entire Yuma area.

From Yuma we continued Northwest, to the area around the Salton Sea, just South of Palm Springs.  We stayed at an RV Park where we stayed 2 years ago, and reconnected with some old friends.

We will be hanging out in the Palm Springs area until the first week of March, enjoying the warmth, sunshine, playing water volleyball, bike riding, outdoor activities and working on our winter tans.

Roberta will be playing in a womans softball tournament next week.  She found a team from San Diego that needed an additional player.

We will try to do a better job of posting from now on.

Thanks for looking in on us,

Steve and Roberta

Making Our Way To Austin Texas.......

During our stay in Memphis we took a day to drive up to Wilson Arkansas.  Why Wilson you ask....???? Well, our friend Gary, from Nashville, is involved with this town being renovated and rejuvenated.  The town of Wilson, and surrounding 65,000 acres, was recently purchased by Gaylon Lawrence for a mere $150 million.  There is a whole lot of history about this town of Wilson, and Lee Wilson & Company, one of the oldest family-owned businesses in Arkansas.  If you are interested, you can check out the link below for more information:

http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article/34051/150-million-sale-brings-an-end-to-wilson-empire?page=all

There are cotton fields forever in this area, and we were invited to visit a Cotton Gin.  We have been wondering what they do with all that cotton, and how was it cleaned and processed after picking.  From what we hear, this Cotton Gin is one of the most modern in the country.  Pretty much totally computerized, and the management likes to see people just standing around, which tells them everything is working fine.

The white is cotton being fed through machines that separates the husks and seeds, then it is sent to another machine below, to compress it into 500 pound bales for shipping.

The seed is very high in protein, and is used for cow feed.  The cotton seed is transported via air tubes and stored for resale.  The bottom right picture shows three 500 lb bales waiting to be loaded in a waiting truck.

We were taken on a personal guided tour, behind the scenes of this little town of Wilson, and shown plans of upcoming town improvements.  If our travels take us back this way we will return to see how it turns out.

Our daughter, Andrea, asked if we were in the area of Tishomingo Oklahoma, could we stop at the "Pink Pistol" to pick her up a T-Shirt.  For all you Country Music people out there, Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton live in Tishomingo Oklahoma, and Miranda has opened her second Pink Pistol store here.  Her first store was opened a few years ago in her home town of Lindale Texas.  This year was her second annual "Pink Friday" celebration, the day after Thanksgiving.  Main Street Tishomingo was blocked off, where there were Bands playing, vendors selling their wares, and a two hour line to get into Miranda's store.

Everything in the town was decorated in PINK, for Pink Friday, even Santa, and a few other children characters that were roaming around.  Pink was definitely the color of the day.  We didn't find Blake or Miranda, but the weather was nice, we had a Great Day and we found a couple of T-Shirt.

One corner of the store was dedicated to "SHIT", where we had a hard time trying to figure out what to purchase.  We figured Blake had something to do with this corner of the store., and we decided to leave this Shit alone, since we already have enough Shit.

Neil McCoy was scheduled to perform at 8PM, but since the nights have been getting down right COLD, and we had an hour drive back to our wheelhouse, in the dark, we decided to skip the show and head home.

Tomorrow we travel South toward Austin.  Hopefully we will find warmer weather so we can work on our winter tans.  We fly home on the 11th for Christmas and will return January 8th.  We are looking forward to spending the Holidays with all of our family and friends, and enjoying some good old fashion Northwest weather.

Thanks for looking in on us, and we will continue our adventure after the first of the year.

Hope you have a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,

Steve and Roberta

On the Road to Memphis

Before we said goodbye to our friends, and Nashville, we had to make one more trip downtown.  Our first stop was the Ryman Auditorium, which was the original "Grand Ole Opry".  The Auditorium was vacant for many years before it went through a complete renovation, and is now a National Historical Building.  The Ryman is still used for concerts and events, since this venue has some amazing acoustical properties.

Absolutely Beautiful and so much history

Our next stop was the Country Music Hall of Fame.  On our way, we took a short detour over the Cumberland River, on a walking bridge, where we could see a nice view of downtown Nashville and LP Field where the Tennessee Titans play football.  The red art structure is part of a Roller Coaster that was at the amusement park where the new Grand Ole Opry is now located.  Our visit to the Country Music Hall of Fame was "GREAT", but our pictures did not turn out very well.

The Pedal Tavern looked like FUN, but it was a CHILLY day in Nashville so we decided not to partake.

 From Nashville we made our way to Memphis, for just a couple of days.

Our first stop was "Graceland", the home of Elvis.

Elvis Memorial Garden, where Elvis, his mother, father, grandmother and younger brother are laid to rest.

Elvis had a couple of aircraft.  The Lisa Marie was named after his daughter.

And a trip to Memphis would not be complete without stopping on Beale Street, to listen to some Blues and enjoy some Barbecue.

We were directed down a dark alley, to the World Famous "Charles Vergos' Rendezvous" where we stuffed our face with some delicious Charcoal Barbecued Ribs, and then a stop at the Rum Boogie Bar and BB Kings Blues Bar for a couple of brews and some good music.

We have a few more destinations we want to visit before we make it to Austin, where we will fly home for Christmas on December 11th.

We aren't sure where our next stop will be, so please come back to see what we find along the way.

As always, Thanks for looking in on us.

Steve and Roberta

Chattanooga and Nashville

We are currently just outside of Nashville, staying at our friends, Gary and Debs house.  Gary cut down a small tree so were able to park our wheelhouse in their front yard.  As you can see, they have a very big front yard, so we weren't in the way.  These pictures were taken from where we were parked.  We ran an extension cord for power, and hooked up the hose for water, and we were at home, at our friends house.

We stayed just minutes outside of Chattanooga for two nights, to check out the area, and visit Ruby Falls.

There didn't seem to be much going on in Chattanooga, so we were glad that our stay was going to be a short one.  We did locate the Chattanooga Choo-Choo Railway Station.  The Railway Station is also a Hotel, where they have some of the old rail cars converted into hotel suites.

We drove up to lookout mountain to see the view, but like many other places, the view will cost you money. Since it was a view of Chattanooga, we didn't need to see it for $50.  We managed to find a couple of places that gave us the same view, and at Rock City we found a unique Starbucks.

After reading bad reviews about the Ruby Falls Cave Tour, we decided to checkout a much recommended cave tour at Raccoon Mountain.  This was a pretty cool cave, and we were the only two people on the tour.

Last Friday evening we went out to Barefoot Charlie's, just outside of Nashville, to listen to one of our mutual friends play and sing.  Our friend Mark likes playing small venues with his just his guitar, and an occasional harmonica.  Mark's Bride, Terri, was also there, so we had a wonderful evening with our Nashville friends, eating a burger, having a brew and listening to some wonderful music.  Thanks Mark. 

Gary has a friend that volunteers at the Lane Motor Museum in Nashville.  All the vehicles in this museum are European, (well most of them) and some of them are very different.  We had our own private tour guide, where we were taken for a ride in a very cool European compact car, and were privileged enough to see behind the curtain, where the public is not allowed.

Steve's Favorite

Yup, an air driven car.  Hang onto your hat on this ride.

3 wheeled vehicles

Sporty Models

 Roberta's Favorite

Motorcycles and Bicycles

And our ride in a antique European compact car

There is a Nissan Automobile Factory here in Nashville, and Nissan rents space in the basement of the museum, to store some of their concept cars.  So, behind the curtain, are a few cars that most of the public have never seen, and probably never will.

For all you Oregon Duck Fans, here is an older Ferrari, that any Duck Fan would love to drive to the Game.

We only have a few days left before we say good-bye to our Nashville friends, and look for some warmer weather.  This weekend we are planning to tour the Ryman Theater (Original Grand Ole Opry) and the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Moving on to the Memphis area on Monday.

Thanks for taking another look at us.

Roberta and Steve