08 New Year's Eve Catching up

Yea, I am one of those types of people who think you need to tie up things before the end of the year - so you start the new year off clean and clear! That said I have a week's worth of activities and photos to post today. So bear with me and let us begin.




Here are some photos of this wonderful park we are in, Sumter Oaks, in Bushnell, Florida, where the weather has been fantastic being in the 80s most days.






On one side of the park we have mules....there's even a baby mule second from left.









Then on the other side of the park (where Jim and I are parked) there is a pair of Sandhill Cranes who have the run of the park. They walk around freely and everywhere; actually they come walk up quite close to you - it's very special.




The first day we arrived Joe and Marcia brought out The Margarator with Joe's dad, Butch, Paul and Connie joining in.










Connie made a real unusual, but delicious snack. It looks weird but try it for yourself. It's made with a Ritz cracker, spread with peanut butter, add a little chopped onion, yes, onion, and top that with a squirt of catsup, yup, I said ketchup (yes-I had to look at the bottle in the refrigerator for the correct spelling). But when you pop the whole thing in your mouth it is a very, very nice blend of tastes.




One of the nights Joe, Marcia and another couple, Tom and Sharon, took us to a very cute restaurant called Kracker Shack which is located in Werda-Hecamiat RV Park. You pronounce it where-the-heck-am-i-at. Isn't that the cutest thing? It really is a not-so-good-looking shack, but the food is wonderful.


They specialize in fish (all fried, unfortunately) with shrimp, cod, and scallops, along with pork chops, meat loaf and sandwiches. You can get full or half orders at very reasonable prices. Jim had a half order of shrimp which was four huge butterflied shrimp, paid $9.99 with fries and seasoned green beans and he couldn't finish it all. I got the half-order of fish and received three x eight inch pieces of battered cod with pickled beets and fried okra and couldn't finish it either. We WILL go back for sure.


OK, I didn't put in the photos of Webster, Florida's Flea Market, but that's a post all to itself, so I'll to it separately.


Oh, oh, Bob and Molly Pinner arrived in the area yesterday and came over to Paul and Connie and we all visited. I adopted Bob as my Sixth Husband, with Molly's permission - yes, I have been married five times - and we haven't seen the Pinner's since last February in Laughlin, Nevada, where we spent a few days together. It was great to be all together again.


Oh, oh, oh, Smokey and Pam Ridgley just, just pulled into Sumter Oaks. They have been up north in the cold, cold weather and have finally made it to the warmth of Florida.


Boy, are we going to have a great Happy Hour and New Year's Eve party tonight! Heard The Margarator is coming to the party with Joe and Marcia. Too bad I can't drink anymore (elevated liver function) but I might sneak one to celebrate the beginning of 2009.


Well, Happy New Year to all of you. May you be loved and fulfilled all year long. Remember - you are loved!!!!!

Merry Christmas 2008

Merry Christmas from sunny Florida. I hope all of you are spending time with someone who loves you. Here in Bushnell we will have lunch with the other park rvers. It will be a main meal of ham here....I'm bringing two French Apple Crumb Pies....want to come join us?

I'm adding these two photos after the fact, as they were actually taken at the Christmas Dinner....but I wanted them part of the blog.

Last night we had an Chinese gift exchange and it was a lot of fun. It was really hilarious to watch all the wine being "stolen" - liquor was the big favorite and there were about five bottles of wine moving around the room. Jim and I brought a four pack of Kalua White Russians and, boy, was that a hit. Quiet, stable, gray-haired grandmas all of a sudden became commandos on a mission keeping an eye on where the White Russian went so they could steal it when their number was called. Great belly laughs!!!

Need to start baking my pies so I will sign off for now. Enjoy those around you and be happy. Remember - I love you!!!

Entering Florida

Thursday we left Helena (I did add some photos to yesterdays post if you want to go back and view them) and drove a long day to Lake City, Florida, and stayed in another of our favorite campgrounds, Oaks n' Pines, also a Passport America park. It sits right off I-75, but it isn't too noisy. They have an enclosed area for the dogs to run around...puppies sure liked that. Didn't take any photos....don't know why....keep forgetting.

Left Lake City and headed down I-75 to Bushnell, arriving about 1pm. We had a wonderful welcoming committee with Joe and Marcia Jones and Paul and Connie Anderson waiting for us at the entrance. Escapees Sumpter Oaks Campground is very pretty and we like it a lot. I'll take more photos today and post them tomorrow.

The weather is perfect; temps from 75-79 degrees, blue skies and gorgeous. I had to change into shorts when we arrived to be comfortable. My bones are finally warming up.

We went into town and bought some groceries and looked around town a bit. We keep having to buy groceries here and there as I have the freezer filled with regional foods we wanted to savour in the future. So we have roasted hot green chiles from New Mexico (there are only mild chiles available in the cans), pork link sausage from Coffeyville that we really liked, then, of course, the shrimp, grouper and red snapper from Gulf Shores, Alabama. So when we want to eat just real food we have to go grocery shopping. Last night we felt like eating tacos so we had to go buy hamburger. Tonight I'm making a Mexican casserole - want to come over and join us for dinner?

Well, I slept in this morning till 9 am, and it is time to get dressed and join the world outside, so I'll say so long for now, and remember - you are loved!

Summerdale, Alabama

Ah, we felt like we were coming home when we arrived in Escapees Rainbow Plantation RV Park in Summerdale, Alabama. It's about 25 miles southeast of Mobile and about 25 miles north of Gulf Shores.

I wanted to go to the beach in Gulf Shores, but when we got there the fog was so thick you couldn't even see 25 feet of the beach and none of the water....very disappointing. I didn't take the camera but it didn't really matter as I have pictures from when we were here last year, before we had this blog. So I get to use those photos now....that's pretty neat.

The rv park is very nice with paved roads and you park on grass. You use to be able to buy deeded property here so there are many houses in the park - many not belonging to members of Escapees...you can do that with deeded property. Some of the houses are set up to have their rvs part of the property. The resulting house structures provide interesting architecture. The rv goes into the area where the car is presently parked. Practical idea.

We did make it to one of our favorite places down here, and that is Billy's Seafood Market. You can get numerous types of shrimp, oysters, and fresh fish. It's basically a wood shack with large tubs, totes or the seafood lined up on a table. Billy's has its own boats so you can't seafood fresher than that. We bought large shrimp, grouper and red snapper and froze it for future use. Billy's gets their own oysters and outside there are mounds and mounds of oyster shells from their shucking...pretty neat!!!

One of the unusual things we found here in the Foley area were strip-mall type structures for various types of doctors. Instead of being housed in the hospital building or something, these strip malls provide easy access from the main drag, park and walk in. There are urologists, dentist, orthopedics, neurologists, opthomology, etc. There are three of them in the area and I think this is a great idea; makes it alot easier to use.

There is also an old-fashioned drug store in Foley called Stacey Rexell Drug that makes you feel you have gone back in time to the 50's. Yes, there is a soda fountain with about seven stools with iron heart shaped backs. They make all the favorites, like phosphates, malts, banana splits and, my all-time favorite, hot fudge sundaes. There is even a working pharmacy in the back. The walls are lined with shelves of dark wood with glass cabinets in front to hold the aspirins, etc. It really is a tourist attraction and you see a lot of grandparents bringing in their grandkids, explaining that this is what a drug store looked like when they were young; and how they use to share a coke with their sweetie buying one soda and two straws---that's so they could legally get closer with their foreheads touching....I remember- I use to do it too!!!

Well, that's it for now. We left Summerdale about 9 am and are now traveling on the infamous I-10. Luckily I-10 in Florida is very well maintained and very smooth. Maybe the shelves in the refrigerator will stay put and everything won't come tumbling out when I open the door tonight.

Happy holidays and remember - you are loved!!!

Helena, Alabama

Came into Helena, Alabama, south of Birmingham, which sports banners on their light posts as being voted one of America's top 100 towns to live in by Money magazine 2007. All the houses we saw were brick and upscaled. There were many gated communities. Couldn't see any industries, etc. so figure it is kind of a bedroom community for Birmingham. Highly recommend this place if you are in the area.

We found a charming little campground through Passport America there in Helena called Cherokee Campground. It sits on a lake and in times past they had a man-made beach. It was very popular with the locals who came to swim and boat. Then the beach closed down and in what is now the campground was cleared out for dances. They had lights in the trees and sported live bands on weekends. Then in 1985 it became a campground. It is charming with lots of tall trees. I can image how pretty it must be in the summer with all the gree foliage. We had a peaceful night's sleep.

Drove on this morning towards Summerdale in the Mobile area and got here by 3:30 pm We really like Escapees Rainbow Plantation Park and it felt like "coming home" as we drove down through Robertsdale into Summerdale. After checking in we sat outside the rig and relaxed in the 75 degree weather. It sure felt good, as we haven't been able to sit outside for a month in Kansas. Later we drove into Foley and ate at the Shrimp Basket. Tonight they were featuring 25 cent oysters, so we ordered half a dozen. Jim had two and I downed the rest with lemon and hot sauce.... splurping them from the shells. Oh, they were GOOD :) Tomorrow we will visit Tanger Outlet stores and go to Billy's Seafood for fresh shrimp to put in the freezer. Tomorrow for dinner I will make a salad and we'll devour another pound of steamed shrimp ....yummmmmmm!!!

Oh, we called our Escapees friends, Lesle and Bill, who remain in Coffeyville for another week of working at Amazon.com. Seems the weather got down to 13 degrees and with the wind-chill factor, it felt like minus 3 degrees. Boy did we leave at the right time. Bill called yesterday to say they have changed their plans of spending winter in Colorado and Arizona and are now going to travel to the southeast instead and will happily will be spending time with us in Bushnell. Snow in LA and Las Vegas, plus minus 19 degrees in Denver helped convince them, along with all our comments about warm Florida. Anyone else want to join us???





Our daughter sent us this photo from Santa Fe - yes, Santa Fe with that much snow. Those are candy canes for curly hair. The snow will probably paralyzed the town as they only have 5 snow plows for the whole city.

I have enjoyed reading Knitting by Anne Bartlett. In it the main character describes a woman as having "a careless propensity for joy". Isn't that lovely? I wrote those words in my sayings memory book; those are words worth remembering and striving to become.

I haven't been able to get to sleep at night - too long sleeping during the day I guess. It's 8:30 pm so I'll try again now. Good night, dear friends and remember......you are loved!

On the Road towards Florida

We had enough cold, windy weather and with a two day ice storm predicted for Monday and Tuesday and high wind warning for Sunday, we baled out of Coffeyville Saturday morning when we finished work. We started traveling about 6:30 am and headed for Branson/Hollister, MO to meet up with our Escapees friends, Sandy and Mike Bubar. RV newspaper editor/publisher, Nick Russell says that he tries to keep a state between him and a relative, but thinks nothing of traveling 200 miles to have lunch with an fellow rv friend. That's kind of what we did, traveled 173 miles to have dinner with the Bubars and left the next morning.

Sandy fixed us a great breakfast of biscuits and sausage gravy with scrambled eggs and fried potatoes. We had been up 34 straight hours, so we did get a 3 hour nap then went out for dinner to the Rib Crib - fabulous St. Louis cut pork ribs. Jim and Mike ordered exactly the same dinner including sides (ribs, brisket, onion rings and baked beans), as did Sandy and I (ribs, fried okra and seasoned fries). Do you think we two couples are compatible? You betcha!!!!

After dinner we went to one of those Branson shows - this was the Pressley Family Country Jubilee. These Pressleys were the founders of Branson some 47 years ago and Lloyd Pressley is 84 years old and still plays the bass in the show. Now there are four generations performing in the two hour program which was a mixture of sacred, patriotic, and country music. It was quite good with lots of humor----it felt real good to belly laugh again after 3 months of hard work.

Sunday we took off but took this picture with the Bubars in the clubhouse of the Escapee park there in Hollister. I "pinched "this photo off of the Bubars blog (sorry Sandy) as I haven't downloaded mine from the camera yet.....and I'm posting this from the truck as we are driving down the road (let's hear it for air cards yeaaaaaaaa). We drove through Arkansas and got to Memphis, TN but it got dark while we drove around trying to find a place to stay. The local Walmart had heighth restrictor barrier so that semis couldn't enter and that prevented us from entering also. Semis could only park for two hours and there were security cars and cop cars driving all around. Tried to stay at the Tom Sawyer Mississippi River RV Park in West Memphis, AR but it was pretty barren and office was closed on Sundays. It might be really pretty in the summer with everything green and lush watching the tug boats mosey down the river, but in December there are 4-5 rvs parked there and the land is brown and ugly, so we drove on. Finally parked at Mississippi River RV Park in Memphis, TN with two other rigs and had a good nights sleep. I did wake up a couple of times and although I heard the freeway traffic, I thought "gee it is unusual to be in an rv park right off the freeway and not hear a train"........ till the whistle blew and blew and blew. Yes, indeed, we were back up to the railroad tracks. Oh, well, it is kind of comforting to hear now, we are so use to trains by/in rv parks.

We got off at 9 am this morning and because ice storms were predicted for Memphis this afternoon, figured we'd head south to Mobile/Summerdale, AL to get out of all the bad predicted weather. We'll stay at a Passport America park in Helena, AL tonight (right outside of Birmingham) and make it to Summerdale Escapee Rainbow Park tomorrow. Then I am going to take an extra sleeping pill and tell Jim not to wake me up until I get up and go to sleep and see if I can get caught up from Coffeyville. We really like the Escapee Park in Summerdale and the close proximity to Gulf Shores and the availability of fresh fish and shrimp.

Ok, that is all for today as we are getting close to Birmingham and I need to listen to the TomTom for the final directions. We miss all our friends at home and our rv friends on the road everywhere. Know that you are all thought of often and fondly.

Remember - - - you are loved!!!!!

Ellie with Annie and other campground pets

This post is for Ellie so her sister can see a photo of Ellie's dog, Annie, taking Ellie for a walk. Yes, that is what I meant to say.

Annie loves to have something in her mouth to carry around - usually a ball. But once Ellie was walking Annie with the obligatory leash on the collar and Annie complained that there was nothing for her to carry in her mouth. So Ellie unclipped the leash and held on to it and gave Annie the handle of the retractable leash....so off they went with Annie taking Ellie for a walk.....cute as the dickens!!! You can't help but smile and laugh when you see Ellie and Annie out for their walks.

Here are some other photos of campground pets.

The Blighs have three rescue greyhounds in their fifth wheel.... I admire their dedication to those wonderful animals.

Then there is Joel and Linda with Bruno their beloved Doberman. Very much the gentle giant of the campground.

Then there is Paul and Linda's Newfoundland. You never hear her bark or even growl.

I know I already told you about Sherlock with the blue eyes, but I need to add him in to this conversation of campground pets, just to be fair.

Of course, I have to end up with our two charming fellows, Poncho in the front and Chorizo in the back. They are litter brothers and are six years old. They are great traveling dogs as they fall asleep within minutes of the truck pulling out, and only wake up whenever the truck stops. Unfortunately, they have to be in their crate 11 hours a night, but the young man next door comes and lets them out late in the evening and plays with them a little. It will be nice when we are finished with this workamping job and we can be with them more.

Hope you liked the photos of some of the campground pets. They are all so very well behaved as you hardly ever hear any barking. The pets owners are also very well behaved as they all pick up their pet's "business" and the campground is nicely maintained.

Remember - you are loved!!!!

Thanksgiving Dinner

Well, we woke up early Thursday so we could participate in the Thanksgiving dinner Express Pro had arranged for us. They catered the turkey breast and ham and all of us workampers brought the side dishes. They had to set up 5 long tables to accommodate all the side dishes. We had the dinner at the local Army armory because it was the only place big enough for the 200 or so that came. What a feast we had and the conversations were wonderful! It was very, very nice.

Thanksgiving Day work hours for Inbound personnel started at 8 pm and we were such good, productive workers :) we finished at 1:15 am and got to go home early. All and all it was a very nice day.

Jim's Birthday

Here is a photo of Jim with his "birthday pie"; an Apple Crumb Pie that I made him as his present. Like a lot of "old married couples" we don't exchange gifts any more; but we do cook special dishes for each other to celebrate special events like anniversaries and birthdays. The pie was my birthday gift to Jim.

I took Jim out to dinner tonight at Lanning's Downtown Grill to celebrate his birthday. What a neat place! It is casual, has a bar and very reasonably priced. Jim had the Chicken Fried Steak , which was with real meat-not processed mystery meat and homemade with fresh breading. Even the fries were real and fresh; not processed. I had Fantail Fried Shrimp - EIGHT of them for $8.98 with bacon and onion seasoned green beans and a baked sweet potato. All mighty tasty.

They had some unusual offerings also like chicken gizzards, liver & onions and on Saturdays their special is Hoppin Nuts ????? you ask - it's Frog Legs and Rocky Mountain Oysters!!!! Sure wish we didn't work on Saturday nights as both Jim and I are partial to Rocky Mountain Oysters. If they are not your favs, they also have a full menu with all the normal fare and nothing over $9.98 - even a 8 oz. sirloin steak for $8.98. They are open for breakfast also.

Tomorrow we go back to work and we will work Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, also as the holiday pay is good. Express Pro, the temp agency we actually work for, is providing turkey and gravy and we are providing all the side dishes at a dinner at the local armory. So we will eat our dinner at noon and go to work at 5:30 pm till 4 am.

We have only four weeks to go; but that sounds like too long, so Jim came up with it is only 16 more days of work! That sounds like a lot less somehow. So only 16 more work days and then we will head for Florida for the winter; staying at our Escapees RV Club park in Bushnell. Several of our friends will also be at Bushnell so it will be fun...especially the 4 o'clock daily happy hours.

I was raised in Florida and so I want to go back to my old hometown, Lake Worth, check out my high school, church, and see how things have changed since I was last there some 15 years ago. While in Florida Jim and I are going to try to take a cruise as they certainly are inexpensive now-a-days.

That's the update for this week - check in next week for more! Remember - you are loved!

Getting Cold!!!

Yes, it is getting cold. In fact, yesterday morning we almost broke the all time low record.....it was 19 degrees.....and the record was 18!!!! Florida is looking better and better, I tell you. I still wear my "ninja" outfit as I usually work on the top floor of a mod and it is always warm up there. I do wear sweats over my shorts coming and going from work. And this cold weather is different from Colorado, which is dry. Here is is humid and moist and I feel cold at 40 degrees, where in Colorado I wouldn't even be wearing a jacket at 40 degrees.

Well, they called off mandatory overtime, now we can sign up for Thanksgiving Day overtime. We are considering it as the pay will be good, we already had our turkey two weeks ago, and Thursday is our normal work day.

Amazon.com provides a lot of goodies for us at work. We get free beverages like Gatorade, hot cocoa, coffee. There are ice machines and coolers to store our lunches. There are filtered, cold water stations throughout the plant and on every floor of the mods. There are several break/lunch rooms throughout the plant with machines that dispense sandwiches and even frozen meals. On Tuesday and Thursday nights Pizza Hut comes out with pizza slices for sale...which is a nice change from our nightly sandwiches.

I told Jim we needed to go out somewhere because I needed some photos for the blog and something to talk about!!! Well, not this time -- you have to be content with just me blabbling along.

Well, that's enough blabbling for today. See you next time and remember - you are loved.

I'm a wimp!!!!

Yes, I am a wimp and officially know "I am old". I can't do the fifth night overtime. I was pretty OK up to "lunch" at 10 pm on Saturday shift, but after that my body started to rebel and scream. I mean really scream, "what are you doing to me, you Fool?" By 3:30 am I was really wondering if I could walk the quarter mile to the time clock to check out! My thumbs were swollen and hurt to move and had shooting pains running from my thumbs to my wrist. That scanner gets very heavy after 8-9 hours of holding it and squeezing that trigger. I cried when I got home I was so miserable.

So I am not going to work the fifth overtime night anymore - just can't do it folks. So tonight Jim cooked a wonderful roast beef, boiled potatoes and green beans for dinner at 3:00 pm and I made him a roast beef sandwich for "lunch" for tonight at 10 pm. Bill and Lesle will drive to work with Jim along so I can have the truck and I will stay home and watch "Dancing with the Stars" semi- finals and knit on my scarf!

We also received a call from Disney World and were told "thanks but no thanks". That there was a hiring freeze and there wouldn't be any more new hires for the winter season. So we don't have our job at Disney World as planned. We talked with the Geno's who are already down in Orlando area. Nancy is a returning cast member so she has hours, but her husband Chuck was going to work there the first time this year and he got the same phone call message as we did.

Now comes the choices of where to spend the winter months - will it be still Florida and stay at Escapees park at Bushnell where there will be alot of Escapee friends (we could go on a cruise from there or "vacation" at Disney World); or Escapees park in Summerdale, Alabama (where we've been before and really like the area); possibly back to Quartzsite, Arizona, where there will be lots of Boomer friends; or go somewhere new like Fulton/Rockport, Texas down on the Gulf coast? Oh, decisions, decisions, decisions. But isn't it wonderful that our home is on wheels and we can realistically go to any of those places to spend the winter in pleasant weather. Boy, do we love this rving lifestyle.

Remember - you are loved!!!

What do you fear about growing old?

As we grow older, we all seem to have a fear or two. Mine has always been falling down and not being able to get up ..... yes, just like the commercial. I just have known many older people who can't get up when they fall, so about ten years ago I started sitting on the floor every day and getting up...so I knew I could.

Well, with this job at Amazon.com I have no doubts as I kneel down or squat 50-60 times a day/night. I sure am building up some thigh muscles! And carrying around a 2-3 pound hand scanner for 10 hours not only has built forearm muscles, but also is making for some sore thumbs from holding it up and squeezing that trigger thousands of times a shift.

Our hot water heater went out last weekend. The seams rusted out. The former owners never changed the anoid (sp?) rod. We did change it when we bought it but rust damage had already occured. Thankfully we have Good Sam's Continued Service Plan and for $300 a year it covers that kind of thing. So luckily there is a certified RV repairman amongst the workampers here and Dennis ordered us a new water heater. He installed it this morning and oh, did that first really hot shower feel good. You there in your stick and brick houses don't realize what a luxury you have in hot water. We flip a switch and wait a while to get hot water. Most times I just heat water on the stove to wash dishes.....kind of like always camping.

Well, today is our fifth, ten hour night and now it is time to go to work for the final time this week. Yippeeeeee!!!!!! Think we will go to Bartlesville, Oklahoma on Monday just to get out of town for a while.

Remember - you are loved!!!

Ninja Girl

When I get ready to go to work, Jim calls me his Ninja Girl! This is my work clothes complete with sweat bandana, rubber & knit gloves and box cutter. I always wear shorts because it is so hot inside the warehouse.




It is 4:19 am and we just got home from work. It was a good night's work .... they moved me from Stowing products in bins to working in Receiving shrink wrapping undies.....hundreds and hundreds of female bikini boxer black undies!!! So if you happen to buy your undies from Amazon.com I could have packaged them :)



Pizza Hut started bringing pizza, salads, wings and desserts to the plant for sale by the slice. They do it two days and two nights a week. Pretty nice for a change from sandwiches.



Last night we met a challenge from management on the amount of pieces processed, so management barbequed hamburgers for everyone on the night shift. Pretty good, too.



This is the third night of our first week of mandatory overtime....have to work five, ten hour shifts....yes, that's 50 hours a week....but, boy, is that time and a half good for the bank account. But it is hard to get cleaning, laundry and grocery shopping done with two days off and working 50 hours a week. But we only have five more weeks to go.



I have been walking 5-7.5 miles a night while Stowing. I haven't lost alot of weight (only 3 pounds), but am dropping inches like mad. Soon I will need suspenders to keep up my elastic waist shorts. When I stretch to put product in a bin over my head, my drawers fall down....got to watch that!



Well, it is time to go to sleep ... we wake up about noon and leave for work at 4:30 pm, in which we eat a little breakfast and then cook and eat our big meal around 3 pm. Crazy hours and crazy living.



Good night/morning and remember, you are loved!!!

This and That

Today the post is a "mish mash" of a bunch of things. Two weeks ago at work we only worked 36 hours because of the economical climate. Last week we worked our normal 40 hours and this week we have to work a 50 hour week. The work has gotten easier as our bodies adapt to the rigggers of the 10 hour shift. Our bodies have really hardened and we are both beginning to lose weight and inches...yippeeeeeee!!! The long shift doesn't leave alot of time to do the "domestic" chores, or prepare all the meals. We eat out about twice a week.


On our two days off this week we have "caved" mostly.....just hold up in our rig and let our bodies rest. We did laundry and visited the library, but them it was nap, rest, read and knit.....and go out for meals. It rained yesterday so that made "caving" a little easier.


Our water heater went out this week. Luckily there is a fellow workamper here that is a certified rv tech so we didn't have to take our rv to Tulsa or Joplin to get fixed. So for a week we have to heat water on the stove to wash dishes....there is a shower house in the campground so that has been a blessing. Then again our electric coffee pot broke, so we used our Coleman stove top drip coffee maker for a few days, then decided to buy another electric one as it is faster to brew....Jim was trying to make the Coleman work faster by staring at it with a scowl on his face....it didn't perk any faster though :)


We are experimenting today by trying to roast a turkey in our little rv oven, which is only 15 inches wide and 13 inches deep. But Jim and I are so very hungry for the taste of turkey....in our "sticks and bricks" house we ate turkey 4-6 times a year...many times cook on our gas grill outside. So yesterday we bought a "little" turkey - like 8.5 pounds - and are cooking it now in our rv oven. That's Jim's had to give you a perspective of how small the oven is. Those are unglazed six inch tiles on the bottom oven plate to help distribute the heat. Oh, the smell is divine!!!!! Jim made his famous dressing and we are cooking up the giblets for gravy.....oh, my, I can't wait!!!! We just tested the internal temperature and it is almost ready, but being only 8.5 pounds there is hardly any rendered grease in the pan to make gravy because it is such a young turkey. Oh, well, we'll just have to add more butter for gravy.

Doesn't the finished turkey look wonderful?


Remember, you are loved!!!

Coffeyville Public Library

Now this post is for my friend, Salai Taylor, who is the Lead Librarian at Southern Peaks Public Library (SPPL) in our hometown, Alamosa, Colorado (I worked at SPPL before retiring). Here at the Coffeyville Public Library they have a few features I think are very helpful to library patrons and I wanted to show them to Salai as she might want to incorporate them at SPPL.

This is an area just for the youth to hang. It has neat, modern furniture, bright colors and they have their own computers to use away from "the adults".

This is an area the library created just for people to use their laptops and connect to the library's wifi. Notice the built-in surge protectors to plug in to and the privacy the desks provide. Great idea! Many fulltimers are not using aircards to connect to the Internet, as we do. But there are still many fulltimers who rely on free wifi connections easily found in almost all public libraries, as well as coffee shops, truck stops and pubs. This wifi desk configuration is a very good idea for libraries, as in most libraries you only have tables to use and usually without electrical hookups.

And this is really a clever idea - using grocery store style shopping baskets with the library's name on it for patrons to carry around and gather their books to check out. At SPPL people use to come to the check out desk with arms full of books and tapes - sometimes piled up to their chins. The shopping basket idea is a great solution to that problem.

Hay, Salai, maybe the Friends of the Library could buy them for the library!!!

I want to say "thank you" to all our other blog readers for indulging me in periodically making personal posts to people with photos on our blog. It is just so much easier to posts photos here than to take the time to resize them all and attach them to an email.

Obama wins!!!

Hip, hip horray Obama won the election! We are so excited about the prospects for the future with Obama as our President. Hopefully this shows that Americans can finally accept racial diversity. There are smiles on our faces. Jim and I stayed up and watched CNN all day and late into the night till Obama was named the winner. And what an inspirational acceptance speech Obama gave.

Watching the celebration all over the world, you can see that having Obama as our President will have a positive impact in the rest of the world also. It is exciting to think about all the ways the world can change with his leadership.

Campground Library

Having retired from a public library, it is hard to be away from books. Even though there is a wonderful local public library there were several people making comments about not having books available in the campground as there usually is, so......

Yah, that's me and the new campground library hosted outside our rig. I started out with eight paperbacks and in two hours they were all gone and replaced by eight different books; then came magazines, people asked if they could leave DVDs, etc. It has taken on a life of its own already.

Here is another photo that is really cute. This is Foursocks; a cat that was dumped out here at the campground a couple months ago. The family next door has four young boys and they have adopted Foursocks. Yesterday we had two couples we carpool with over to share dinner. Everyone brought a steak and a side dish and we enjoyed each others company. When Jim opened up the storage doors to get out chairs, in jumped Foursocks and he settled himself down next to the clothes hamper; can you see him there? He really protested being shooed out!!!

Well, it's 4:00 pm and it's time to get ready for work. Seven more weeks to go. We have hardened up the last four weeks and can get through our ten hours without too much back and foot pain.....we sleep real good also. Off we go - write you more later.

Remember - you are loved!!!

Sherlock - the pup

This post is just for one of our workamper couples, Sally and Larry, who wanted a photo of their dog, Sherlock. He has blue eyes and they never seem to show up in any photo taken of him. This photo that I took shows his pretty eyes I think. So I'm putting this large photo on our blog so the owners can save a copy for themselves. Aren't Sherlock's markings beautiful! And he has a darling temperment.

Work update

We are getting stronger backs and found the right combination of shoes, socks and inserts to enable us to live through our work shifts . The work isn't particularly difficult, it is just hard manual labor. Jim and I both lift cartons, totes, bend and stretch and are on our feet the entire shift. I've been pretty happy stowing books this last week.....so many books on so many topics...I was in heaven!!! Jim is in Receiving mostly working with apparel. There is also a whole lot of clothing here, so my granddaughter should be happy to know I found some cute tops for her. I know I am buying all our holiday gifts from Amazon and hope you do too......help insure we have jobs till the end :). My dad taught me to buy from the company that pays you. Makes sense to me.


You can sure feel the change in the weather here. It has been windy and raining and when it rains it's all day and night here....not use to that coming from the high desert of Colorado where we only got six inches of parcipatation a year. We had to run the heater and stayed inside because of the weather earlier this week. Sure wasn't anticipating using wool socks when I left Colorado!

But this was just a cold spell and will warm up this weekend. Today was wonderful weather in the mid-70s.....absolutely gorgeous!!! We barbequed and walked around the park....wonderful day.

Well, we just got off work and it is time to eat a bowl of cereal and go to bed. One more day and then we're off for three glorious days.

Remember, you are loved!!!

Little House on the Prairie

Jim and I took one of our Mondays off and went in search of the actual home sites of TV series, "Little House on the Prairie". It is 13 miles SW of Independence, Kansas, which is only 20 miles north of Coffeyville. Our daughter, Beth, LOVES this series and at 34 years old, still watches the reruns faithfully. So this post is for you, Beth. Your dad and I went there just for you!!! You see this sign and the site is down a real small, gravel country road.

The log cabin is a replica, but resembles the actual house. But this is the actual site of the house.

It is a tiny house and not very tall. I'm only five foot and look how I barely fit inside the doorway.

I took this photo from the doorway. Look how little it is inside. And if Laura lived here, her older sister was also there with their parents so we are talking about four people living in here.

Here's "your pa", Beth, standing in front to show the proportion of how deep the house was.....not so much.

Along side the cabin the historic society has moved in a post office to the left of the cabin and a church to the left of that from nearby towns to add to the atmosphere of the site. It is quaint and very nice.

Well, that's the tour of the "Little House on the Prairie" house location. Hope you enjoyed the tour. There's a lot more interesting places around here. Cute little shoppes and coffee houses in these itty bitty towns that I will tell you about another day. That's it for now.

Remember, you are loved!

Red Hat Event

Fellow Escapee, Lesle Thomas, and I went to a local Red Hat event. It was for lunch and a tour of the Brown mansion here in Coffeyville. It has 16 rooms and many features ahead of its time like alarm system, a hand pulled elevator and a walk-in ice box that used 500 pounds of ice a day. This mansion is unique in that all the furniture is original to the mansion and not just antiques of the period found and stocked into the house. You can get more information at http://www.kansastravel.org/brownmansion.htm.

There are Tiffany lamps and stain glass inserts all around and the walls "look" like wallpaper but are actually canvas covered walls that were hand painted by an artist....amazing. Here is a photo of some of the 55-60 women who came for the luncheon/tour. The Mansion sponsors the event charging $15 as a money maker to maintain the mansion. They offered delicious homemade salads of all kinds with petite cheesecakes for dessert. It was nice to meet the local ladies and hear about some of the places we need to see.

Even with all these ladies there were very few duplicate hats or outfits. I was in heaven as most of you know my favorite colors are purple and red together! Many thanks to Paula Nankivell for giving me instructions to make her crochetted necklace as I needed something red to wear on my purple blouse. See, Paula, it came out pretty good! Paula sells her necklaces and gives the proceeds to Escapees C.A.R.E., adult day care facility in Livingston, Texas.

Well, it is noon and time to make "dinner" which we eat about 2-3pm. I'm making Colorado style green chili with flour tortillas. Luckily, we bought some roasted green chiles at the farmers' market in Alamosa and froze them. There are a couple of good Mexican restaurants here in Coffeyville, but everything is with red chile sauce....they don't know about using green chili on chicken enchiladas! So we are making our own, using our daughter Christine's recipe.

Talk with you all next time. And remember - you are loved!

We survived week one!!!

Yes, we did survive the first week. That first ten hour night was a killer though. At the last break at 1:30 am I went up to the Inbound Area Manager and asked, "Is it OK to cry during your first ten hour shift?" He said, "Sure, here's my shoulder; cry right there." When I went into the break room the look on Jim's face was total shock. "Are you going to make it, honey?" I cried - I wasn't sure I could or would. But I did. By Wednesday at 3:30 am I was pretty good at the end of the shift.

The work isn't hard, but it's the ten hours on your feet and the walking. Jim is in Receiving so the boxes come down on a conveyor belt and he opens them and scans each item and puts it in a tote; then he puts the tote on another conveyor belt and the totes get stacked in large open top boxes. A very tall forklifts hoist them up to different floors to be put away.

That's where I come in as I got moved over to Stowing and am walking 7-8 MILES a night. I mean you pick up product at point A then walk a good quarter mile to put that batch away...then pick up the next cart of totes full of product and walk another quarter to put it away in bins. I love the walking and getting in the 15,000 steps a night, but sure could use a hot tub for backaches and sore feet.

So from Wednesday through Saturday all we do is work, sleep, eat and that's it. We get to sleep at 4:30 am wake at noon or 1 pm, grab a bowl of cereal, check emails and blogs, then it is time to prepare lunch, pack lunch boxes with "dinner" and snacks and get ready to leave for work at 4:30. You don't have time to much else. On our days off we do laundry, grocery shop and try to sightsee one place a week. We are so close to Tulsa, Joplin, Branson, etc. so there is alot to do on days off. This first "day off" period we simply rested our bones!!!

Last Monday and Tuesday I did a couple of activities, but I will write about them tomorrow.

Bye-bye for now and remember - you are loved.

First week of work done

Here is a recent sunset in the rv park. No --- I didn't alter it to make it look like that. It's something, isn't it?

Well we finished our first week of work and are still going back next week :) Our feet and lower back are beginning to get use to standing on cement for five hours at a time. We have "ambassadors" who do our training and stay with us the first week. They recommended Dr. Scholl's "Back Ache" insoles and other workampers suggested Dr. Scholl's Ultra Cushion socks. Both have helped alot, especially the socks. We also take Tylenol or Advil every four hours that also help with the pain.

Next week we begin our regular shift of four, ten hour days. We are worried about that first night. Other workampers said when you finish the first ten hour shift, you really ache and you sleep ten hours, shower and get on the bus to go to your next work shift...maybe down a sandwich on the bus, cause you slept through dinner time. Oh, well, we'll see how we do. Jim sleeps only five or six hours a night.....yes, he still wakes up at 4 am. Huh, now he will go to SLEEP at 5 am and get up at 11 am!!! Me, I need eight solid hours of sleep, so I won't be getting up till 1 pm; just in time to start cooking, then wash dishes and have a couple of hours to be outside in the sunshine before catching the bus again at 4:30 pm.

Dalton Defenders Day

Coffeyville has Dalton Defenders Day the first weekend of October each year. It is in memory of October 5, 1892, when the Dalton gang came to Coffeyville to rob two banks at the same time. The townspeople defended themselves and a gunfight took place. Four gang members and four citizens lay dead at the end.

Alot of the gunfight took place in front of Isham's Hardware store. It was built in 1890 and is STILL standing. On the side of the building is a huge mural of the town with historic points of interest shown. There are "markers" in the ground all over downtown showing where each person died, where one of the bank stood, etc. One of the banks is still standing and has been beautifully renovated.

On Defenders' Day (held October 3rd this year) there is a reenactment of the gunfight held in the downtown plaza. The townspeople dress up in period clothes and walk around town. They hire a professional gunslinger company who provide actors for realism, and along with some townspeople, there is a very, very loud shoot-out reenactment, complete with a narrator. It was very enjoyable!!!

Along with the reenactment there were several booths on the street with folks in period clothing selling homemade soap, a man making brooms, a couple carding and spinning alpaca fleece, etc. Here are some photos of the event.