Severe Winds – Day 2

Boy, did we get the big winds the second day of this wind front!  Sandia Peak in Albuquerque had winds of 99 MPH – Yikes!!! Large trees were uprooted, hitting houses and crushing cars.  The news last night was full of the winds destruction. This morning they showed blowing snow up there too.  Poor folks.

Jim Mossman fixed a tasty pork roast with yellow rice and instant sweet potatoes.  First time for instant sweet potatoes and they were really rather good.  Watched a little TV with them and then called it a night.

Today we awoke to cold temps of 30 degrees and now it just went down to 28 degrees.  And, get this – there is a possibility of snow here today!  So what are we doing?  We’re moving 15 miles further south to stay at the San Felipe Hollywood Casino, as the Mossman’s have been here 14 days and they must leave….so we’ll go with them for two more nights and squeeze out every last bit of our “togetherness” with them that we can.

But there is some good news concerning the Mossman’s – they are going to join us in working at amazon.com in Campbellsville.  I’ve been “working” on them for the last two months and I finally wore them down till they said yes :)  They will work part-time 11 am to 3 pm Monday through Friday, in Receiving Department. We’ll get to see them only a little during the week, between when they get off work and we go in.  But we can share more time on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, on our days/nights off.  So we’ll only be away from each other during the summer and then get back together come October and travel together for next winter…..we’re happy!

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Remember I wrote that the place we use for our mail forwarding in Alamosa was experiencing some hard times and I thought we needed to make other arrangements?  Well, we are now getting our mail through Americas Mailbox in Rapid City, South Dakota.  We haven’t decided about changing our domicile yet, so we are still Colorado residents.  But we needed to know our mail would get to us.  So I have spent the last two days online changing as many addresses as possible.  I have a list of 34 companies I have to notify of our address change…UGH!  And then the internet connection here at Cochiti Lake has been throwing us off a lot, so it has been pretty frustrating pushing to get all the mail changes made.  Took me 37 minutes to change Verizon Wireless last night….and that’s only #10 on the list!!!!!

So if any of you want to have our new snail mail address just email me and I’ll send it to you; but most of us phone or correspond via email or Skype.  Oh, that reminds me ---- how many of you are using Skype?  I installed it and really LOVE using it.  It sure makes a big difference seeing as well as talking to someone….you feel so much closer to them.  If any of you do have Skype installed please let me know so I can add you to my contact list.  For those of you who don’t ---- WHY DON’T YOU???  It’s a free download online and very, very simple to do….check it out.  So nice to SEE your friends, family members and grands.  Lecture over!

Oops, Jim is telling me to button up the rig to go, so I’ll close for now.  Last thought – what do you think of the Mediterranean diet?  I’m seriously thinking of going that way as a lifestyle change.  Seems to be pretty healthy and a way to lose weight.  Let me know what you think about it.

Remember, you are loved!

Wind and Mexican Train

The wind didn’t really crank up here till mid-afternoon, but we started getting prepared for it at about 11 a.m. Out came the dominoes, Jim Mossman fixed some Bloody Marys and we set out for the storm’s duration.

This is the second time Jim and I have waited out a storm this way.  Ask Mike and Sandy Bubar about Sunset Volcano Crater National Monument near Flagstaff, Arizona. That was another wind, dominoes and Bloody Mary day.

Lunch ended up being black olives, Gouda cheese, Triscuits and crackers. We had the 50s blaring on the XM radio and that darn Linda Mossman won BOTH games of Mexican Train.

The wind did start billowing about 3 p.m. but this new rig proved pretty stable.  There was some sideway movement, but it wasn’t too bad.  The news said the gusts were 45-50 MPH, but today it is suppose to be worse with gusts of 55-60 MPH. Do you think we’ll have another game of Mexican Train in the horizon?  Who knows!

Remember, you are loved!!!

Tetilla COE Park, Cochiti Lake

We are staying at the Corp of Engineer’s Tetilla Park on the Cochiti Lake.  This is one of two campgrounds in the area, the other being Cochiti Recreational Area right across from us. Tetilla Park is about 13 miles off of I-25 where the Cochiti Recreational Area CG is about 25 miles off of I-25.

Cochiti Dam by volume of material, is the 23rd largest dam in the world at 62,849,000 yards of material, and the eleventh largest earthen dam in the world. Quite impressive!

The campground here is fairly nice, but not nice enough at $20/night for electric and water. Luckily, with our Golden Age Pass we are only paying $10 which is acceptable for what we have….but the view is very pretty.

Unfortunately, we are expecting vey high winds today and tomorrow. They are saying to expect gusts of 50-60 MPH and may over 75 MPH. So I guess the barbeque ribs we were planning for dinner tonight will have to be “barbequed” in the oven.

We’re so happy to be able to spend some more time with Linda and Jim Mossman.  Glad they decided to spend another week here so we could come over from Pueblo and enjoy their company again. They both make us laugh so much…it makes my heart happy to be around them. 

We will probably get together with the Mossman’s and play Mexican Train all day and watch the rigs bounce around.  There will probably be a considerable amount of alcohol consumed, as well, to subside the fear of toppling over!

Check back with us tomorrow and see if we survived.

Remember, you are loved!

Visit with Friends – The Tumolo’s

You know what Nick Russell says – I try to keep a state between me and any relative, but I’ll drive 200 miles to have lunch with a friend. 

Yesterday we drove
81 miles from Alamosa to Salida, Colorado to have lunch with our Escapee friends, Bobbie and Sal Tumolo. They drove 25 miles down from Buena Vista.  It’s been two years since we’ve seen them and it was great to catch up on their travels to Alaska and all their workamping jobs. 

 

 

Bobbie and Sal are on their way to Utah to work at a ski lodge for the winter….yes, that means snow and really cold weather working outside.  But they love to ski and so it is a good gig for them.

We drove through some very pretty scenery around Salida. There had been recent snows so the mountains were blanketed in white.

It was so very nice to spend a few hours with Bobbie and Sal.  We shared stories of workamping and the need to work to enjoy this lifestyle. We laughed so much I’m sure it added years to our life span.

Today we are off to a Corp of Engineer (COE) park outside of Santa Fe.  The Mossman’s are staying there for another week so we want to go and spend this week with them before they head north.

Remember, you are loved.

Thanks for the Comments

I really appreciate all the heartfelt emails received and blog comments made about yesterday’s blog posting. Thanks to my fellow Facebook friends who passed on our blog URL so their friends could read the blog entry. The story behind my “you are loved” tag line seemed to have really hit a chord with folks.

Someone asked in an email if the bell continued to annoy me and the answer is “no”. Saying “I love you” seemed to defuse my anger and gave me a reason for my response.

The other day I walked into the public library to check out a few books. One of the patrons recognized me and said “do you still love me?” and I said “I sure do” and we both smiled.

Some people say “no good turn goes unpunished” but I say “no good turn goes without a receiver”. You never know when a simple act of good will mean a lot to someone else.

And, as always, remember, you are loved!!!

Story behind saying "you are loved”

When I was working in the library of Alamosa High School we had a big hotel-style bell to get our attention when we weren’t at the front desk.  The students (especially the boys) rang that bell constantly, even if I was sitting right there at the desk, just to annoy me. 

After working there about two weeks, my nerves were shot listening to that bell being rung a hundred times a day.  So I had to figure out a way to get these guys to stop ringing that bell.  Ah, ha, an idea came to me; I’ll tell them “I love you” every time anyone rang that bell.  What teenager wants a plump, little old lady saying “I love you” to them out loud?  Yeah, that will work…won’t take but a couple of days and that will be that!  WRONG!!!!! 

Next morning I started in saying “I love you” every time someone rang that bell.  I must have said it 50-60 times a day.  But there wasn’t much of a decline in people ringing that bell.  I’d say it no matter where in the library I happened to be, if someone rang the bell you’d hear a distant “I love you” from behind the stacks of books….it just became a habit after a few weeks.  Even teachers began to ring the bell and I’d say “I love you” and then everyone began to playfully reply “I love you too”. That became the natural response for everyone.

One day a new student came into the library and another student egged him to ring the bell.  “Go ahead and ring the bell and see what happens”  Sure enough he rang the bell and from back of the room I said “I love you”. The new student was shocked and said “what was that?”  The Librarian said “oh, that’s just Ms. Chapman; she says that to everyone who rings the bell”.

The bell continued to be rung and the “I love you” continued to be said.  It got to be a quirky thing the school talked about and made fun of by some. But for some reason I continued to say it.

One Friday, just before school was let out, this new student came into the library while I was sitting at the front desk.  He looked me straight in the eyes and rang that bell, I said “I love you”.  He continued to look at me and rang that bell two more times, receiving the same “I love you” response.  He turned to leave and I stopped him and asked why he rang that bell three times. His response stunned me, “Because it’s Friday and I won’t hear those words again until I see you on Monday. I wanted some extras to carry me through the weekend.”

He turned and walked out of the library with me unable to speak and my mouth wide open.

Pause here……to swallow hard and wipe my eyes.

I continued to say “I love you” for the next two years I worked at the high school library.  I continued saying it when I later worked at the public library, with a modification.  Working with the public I changed it to “You are loved” as it seemed more appropriate.  That, too, startled many people.  Many frowned at me, but most smiled and said “I love you, too” right back to me.  There wasn’t a bell at the public library but many folk told me they liked to come in so they could hear “you are loved” because it was the only time anyone ever said it to them.

Saying “you are loved” or “I love you” has become a personal motto. Many of you have heard me say it to you often. I say it to sales people, grocery store clerks, bosses, even when placing orders by phone.  Every one needs and wants to be noticed, acknowledged and deserves love. 

So, as Paul Harvey said, “that’s the rest of the story”.  That annoying desk bell started it all.  It amazes me how The Universe takes whatever we have to offer and uses it for good.

And, as always, remember, you are loved!

Back Posting – Palomas, Mexico

While our computer was down we visited Deming, NM, and drove down to Palomas, Mexico, to check out The Pink Store that we had heard about so often.

Unlike Algodones, The Pink Store, is basically the only place to go shopping in town.  That’s it on the corner above. There are a few optical stores and dentists in town also. SKPs come here instead of Algodones because it is smaller and waits aren’t as long at the dentists and re-entry at the border.

We had always heard about folks driving to The Pink Store just for lunch…that’s a 30 mile drive from Deming….why?  Oh, boy, did we find out why!!!  The food is fabulous!!!!!!!!!  Jim and I have eaten a lot of Mexican food in our lifetime.  We lived in a town that have mostly Mexican restaurants. But the food at The Pink Store is the best Mexican food we have ever, ever eaten anywhere!!!!!

When we walked in at 10:30 am we were asked if we wanted something to drink. I asked what they had to offer. “We have coffee, tea, beer and margaritas.”  Just guess what we picked??? Yup, margaritas at 10:30 am!!! Oh, they were good, too. No syrupy bottled mix here.  They used fresh lime, looked like simple sugar water and tons of tequila. The SKP park in Deming gave us a coupon for a drink at The Pink Store, so after two margaritas we were bombed….boy, they were strong.

The salsa they served with our meal was amazing and the Mossman's and us bought a quart of it to take home.  We nursed it to last for two weeks.

After lunch we needed to sober up so we walked around the store and enjoyed all the pottery and wonderful colors everywhere.

Even the restroom is decorative.  Look at the beautiful sinks!!!  Gorgeous, aren’t they?  They sell them here for $84 – very reasonable.

In town we walked around a bit and saw this pharmacy that were Escapees members!

Around town we found a couple of interesting sculptures.

We were going to go with the Mossman's to Las Cruces the next day to celebrate their 36 year anniversary at Red Lobster.  But after Linda ate the food at The Pink Store, she proclaimed that we were coming back to The Pink Store the next day instead! And that is what we did….two more margaritas each and another fabulous lunch the next day….much better than Red Lobster and cheaper too.

We bought some earrings as gifts, some glasses for cocktails and returned to Dream Catcher RV Park with full tummies and content minds!!!

Remember, you are loved.

Dinner with Friends

Last night we had dinner with four other couples who are members of our Escapee Chapter 2. We went to Pueblo’s Cracker Barrel for dinner and to discuss plans for our upcoming Spring Rally in May in Montrose, Colorado. We sure had a good time. There are Lynne & Wayne, Lesle (Bill didn't feel well), MJ & Bill and Chuck & Judy, plus my wonderful hubby, Jim.

Jim and I won’t be able to go to this rally as the campgrounds we supervise open May 21 and the rally is May 16th….too close….we will be busy cleaning up the grounds to attend.  Oh, well, such is life!

We received a few comments about our decision on what type of chair to use with the computer.  Seems the consensus is to buy a folding chair instead of the beautiful, multi-purpose ottoman I found.  Drats!!!  A padded, folding chair coming up.

Weather here in Pueblo has been overcast, raining a bit, a little breezy.  Jim took the truck to class, so I’ll knit and listen to music till he comes back for lunch.

Sorry, no big, interesting things to blog about today.  Remember, you are loved.

Pueblo West

Not much going on here in Pueblo West. Our drive here from Alamosa was uneventful and we arrived at the Pueblo West Campground at the same as Bill and Lesle. We enjoyed an early happy hour and I shared the big bottle of EJ VSOP brandy with Bill that I received as a gift from Joel Buchan in Yuma. Oh, thank you again, Joel, that is great brandy.  We called Dominoes for dinner.  I like their new pizza…the sauce is more flavorful and the crust is too.

Yesterday was our “go shopping” day. Jim wanted to get an exterior gate valve for the blank tank, so we drove 30 miles to Camping World in Fountain.  I also found a book on Corp of Engineer campgrounds, but later found it was the 2007 edition, but at least I have one now; the rates are just not up to date.

We also bought a wall clock which I needed since I no longer wear a watch.  We put it above the shallow closet right inside the door. The close-up shows a 1950s Cadillac pulling an Airstream trailer.  Pretty neat!!!

Lunch brought us to a favorite of mine – Golden Corral – of course, I ate too much, so no dinner for us!

Afterwards, we went to American Furniture Warehouse to look at ottomans to use as a chair when using the laptop on the desk area.  I really don’t like having to move the dining table chair every time I want to look something up on the internet.  This ottoman is the right height, has storage and when you flip the top over it becomes a serving tray which fits into the opening and thus becomes a little table top so visitors could use to set down drinks/snacks. On sale for $39 I think it is a good buy; Jim said a fold-up chair would give more back support for longer stints on the computer.  What do you think???

Then it was off to Barnes & Nobel which is a favorite of all of us.  Bill found several books by a sci-fi author they had been looking for and I bought a book on the Mediterranean Diet, which I am looking at beginning.  It certainly is a health way of eating, but I’m not sure I can get Jim to follow it; there is very little red meat and a lot of fish and poultry.  We’ll see……….

Remember, you are loved!!!

 

Got to see “You Tube”

Yes, folks, you all have got to check out this You Tube of a skit the Escapee Class of 2007 performed at the All Class Reunion in Boerne, Texas, this last week.  It is about “If I Wasn’t a Fulltimer a _ _ _ _ I Would Be”.  The gestures accompanying the jobs are hilarious!!!!!  Please give it a look, you will cry with laughter.

As always I suggest you copy/paste this link into your browser.

http://www.youtube.com/user/kcallander989#...u/0/wWxAhScpRGI

Remember, you are loved.

Raining, but warm

We’re having a rare day of rain here in Alamosa. See, we are technically a high desert at 7,800 feet in elevation, and only get about seven inches of rain a YEAR. Any day or two of rain is unusual for us.

Thursday I spent 6 hours and 43 minutes straight on the internet trying to catch up on all the discussion forums, emails and blogs that I follow on a daily basis.  With being without a computer for 12 days I had a lot to view.

Yesterday Jim and I went to our local health fair and paid $30 to have blood workup done. Next we drove quickly to Campus Restaurant to indulge in a Spanish Omelet smothered in green chile sauce…yummooooo. Enjoyed the company of camping friends who joined us at our table and who generously paid for our breakfast.

Then at 10:30 am we participated in a webinar on amazon.com put on by Workamper News.  There were representatives from all three amazon.com locations (Fernley, NV; Coffeyville, KS; Campbellsville, KY) that are employing workampers this holiday season.  It was an interesting presentation and they answered a lot of questions. They are also offering completion bonuses if you stay till December 23rd. Bonus amounts vary in each location, but in Campbellsville it is $500 per person.  That extra $1,000 per couple is a big incentive.  Working directly for amazon.com (instead of for a temp agency) we will get a 10% discount on our amazon.com purchases!  That’s a big deal for us as I buy most of our purchased Christmas gifts from amazon.com and have them gift wrap them for me and mail the gifts directly to the recipients.  That way I don’t have to mess with packaging or waiting in line at the post office or FedEx.

Jim and I have worked at the Coffeyville, Kansas, fulfillment center the last two years so we have decided to go to amazon.com’s Campbellsville, Kentucky, fulfillment center this year.  We haven’t spent time in that area of the country and it will be fun to be able to see something different on our days off.  At Campbellsville overtime will be available, but it will not be mandatory overtime, which is a plus to us.  We’ll work 4 x 10 hour shifts, Sunday thru Wednesday.  That gives us the weekend off so we can attend any festivals, concerts, or activities most places have for during the holidays.  Our campsite and hookups are paid for by amazon.com and we’ll get $10.50 per hour working nights ($9.90/hour for day work). We prefer working nights so when we get up at noon we can enjoy some daylight before we go to work at 6 pm.

Anyone interested in working at amazon.com can send their resume to seasonal-camper@amazon.com   telling them which facility you would like to work.  They hope to complete their hiring within the next couple of weeks, but for sure by May 30th, so don’t dilly-dally around if you think you want to make some good money in a short period of time.

In the afternoon our SKP friends, Rich and Terry Deacon, came over to see our new rig and visit.  The Deacons manage South Fork Campground during the summer which is close to our campgrounds, so we see each other a lot during the summer. You laugh a lot when you are around the Deacons and we sure enjoy their friendship!  We went to lunch at El Charro Restaurant (yes I know, that’s going out for two meals in one day) and enjoyed a guacamole tostada smothered in more green chile!  After a few beers and glasses of St. Clair wine at home, we bid them goodbye.

Last night I finished reading Deadly Deals by Fern Michaels, which is #16 in her Sisterhood series (seven women who haven’t found justice in the legal system so they take matters into their own hands).  It was a good read…now I starting in on the third Orson Scott Card book in the Ender sci-fi series.  I’ve never read much sci-fi before, but Bill and Lesle got me into this series and I’m really enjoying it.

Off to Pueblo tomorrow so Jim can attend water certification class all week and test next Saturday.  He needs this certification as he tests the water systems at the seven national forest campgrounds we supervise during the summer for concessionaire we work for, American Land & Leisure.

While Jim is at class I plan on reading, knitting and blogging while listening to opera and 40’s music. Talk with you later.

Remember, you are loved.

We're Baaaaacccccccckkkkkkk!!!!

Yes, sireeeee, it's wonderful to have a working computer.

My computer guru, Lory Sanchez, here in Alamosa, Colorado, has fixed me up, including putting in additional 2 GB of memory, new battery, and upgrading us from Vista to Windows 7!!! I'm a happy camper to say the least. The extra 2 GB of memory has made this 3 year old computer so very fast....what a pleasure. Best of all Lory was able to capture ALL of our data.....I didn't lose anything. Even our desktop icons were saved....unbelievable. Thank you, Lory, you are truly amazing with computers.

Oh, and for any of you hesitating about whether to upgrade to Windows 7 or not.....UPGRADE. Win 7 is SO much better than Vista or even XP in my opinion. I'm loving it. It has so many great features.

Now all I have to do is get caught up on all the blogs I follow. I use Google Reader to keep up with my favorite websites and blogs all from one place. It sure saves time clicking on this website, then that blog, and that blog and that blog. When I got the computer back from Lory last night and I brought up our google home page where I have Google Reader added as a gadget, I found we had 163 entries to look at.....UGH!!! But they are mostly blogs that I follow and I want to catch up on, so this afternoon I'll work my way through them all. Got to see what is happening with Nick Russell right?

Last night Lory came over and also our friend Salai and we had a "Girls Night Out". I sent Jim out to get his own dinner and Lory, Salai and I drank wine, ate strawberries, blackberries with honey Greek yogurt and chatted away as I got reacquainted with our computer. Later we went out to dinner at a new restaurant in town, Rialto Bistro. We had their Green Mountain pizza that was made with Alfredo sauce, chicken, spinach, Mozzarella and Swiss cheese. Oh, was it yummy! Then we went to the local movie complex and saw The Ghost Writer with Pierce Brosnan. It was really good...intense suspense story that really kept our interest. It was funny that in this little town of 9,000 people we went to the movie six-plex and bought tickets to a movie and we were the only people in that theater! In fact the ticket taker had to ask to have the movie started for us........

We sure had a great time. Lory and I usually get together when I get back into town and go out for dinner and a movie. It was fun to add Salai to our plans. We laughed so much and I really enjoyed the female companionship.

Yesterday during the day, Jim and I drove up to South Fork to check out the amount of snow. We will be able to get into the first couple of campgrounds in a few weeks, but they sure got a lot of snow up there this winter. Some of the campsites had so much snow, it covered the ground up to the picnic table tops!

Well, folks, thanks for sticking with us and continuing to read our blog. We're back and I plan to post most every day. Sunday we will go to Pueblo so Jim can attend a water certification class and take the test. He needs this certification to care for the water system in one of our campgrounds and water testing at the other campgrounds. So while Jim's at class I will get caught up with my blogging. Thanks again, Folks.

Remember, you are loved.

Almost fixed!!!

I'm using the computers at our local public library today. My computer guru, Lory, is half way through fixing our computer. She had to wipe it clean and reinstall the operating system. Luckily, the hard drive was partitioned and all our photos and documents were on a separate drive, so when Lory reinstalled the operating system she only had to wipe clean the C drive. We'll have to reinstall all the software we had on it, but that's better than losing all our stuff. Lory is going to put in Windows 7, so we'll get rid of the horrid Vista operating system. Hopefully we'll have the computer back later this week.

We sure have been having a lot of wind here in Alamosa, Colorado. The wind gusts have been about 50 MPH. But after surviving the windstorm in Boomerville/Quartzsite in January, I'm no long afraid the RV will tip over. Wind just puts everyone in a bad mood. Happily for Jim and I we have a lot bigger rig to be confined in now, so it isn't too bad.

We've been visiting a lot of friends, running errands to the bank, getting our mail, driving around and seeing all the changes in our hometown since we were here in December. Unfortunately there have been a few business close because of the economy and that is always sad...especially when some of them have been around for 50 some years.

Jim and I are seriously considering changing our domicile to South Dakota and are looking at either America's Mailbox in Rapid City or My Dakota Address in Madison for our mail forwarding service. Any one out there have a preference one way or the other? I know Madison has a wheel tax to consider.

Well, I'll close for now as I only get a hour to use the computer here at the library. Remember, you are loved.

Computer down

I installed an update yesterday and it proceeded to corrupt the start boot sequence. So I basically can't get the computer to start up!

I called my computer guru, Lory, and we did a few things to try to get up and going and they all failed. So Lory will fix it when we get back to Alamosa in a couple of weeks.

So until then I won't be posting many blogs. Luckily the Mossmans are letting us use their computer, but I don't want to over use it on them.

See you in a couple of weeks....remember, you are loved!