Treasure

It has been lightly raining off and on here at La Posa South today. Suddenly a rainbow appeared and Dave moved fast enough to get a picture of it.

The pot of gold at the end of this rainbow is Ed and Linda’s motorhome. Ed and Linda are treasures indeed. They have been the source of much good food, good stories, and good fun. I am grateful they have become our friends.  

I am grateful for all the new friends we’ve been making in our new lifestyle. They help us get through the times when we are missing all of you.

TTYL,

Linda

Graduation

The Escapees Class of 2008 held their graduation to full time RV living exercises and party on Wednesday, January 21, 2009 at Las Posa South LTVA near Quartzsite, Arizona. All members present who met the requirements received a diploma.

Those who had sold their houses, thereby ridding themselves of mortgages, received documentation of that; said documents then being consigned to the fire in representation of burning those mortgages.

Members of the classes of 2005 and 2007 attended the festivities making for lots of new stories to tell around the fire. Much food was eaten, much wine was consumed, and a good time was had by all.

TTYL,

Linda

Bug

For two days I’ve been suffering intestinal distress. Lying down made it worse. Can you imagine what it’s like to be sick but be unable to go to bed?

One advantage of living in such a small space is that everything is only a few steps away. One disadvantage is that so is your sleeping spouse. Dave says I didn’t wake him EVERY time I got up.

I actually saw the sunrise this morning. I’d spent the last hour or so reading in the bathroom because I didn’t want my light to bother Dave and our RV only has two rooms with the bathroom being one of them.

Today we needed to replenish our supplies. Since our car is also our house we set off to town with me still in my pajamas. I never went outside but it still felt weird to be in the grocery store parking lot in my pajamas.  So on one of our stops I got dressed.

 Steve and Carol have been in camp two days now and I’ve yet to say hello to them.  If we lived in a house no one would think a thing of that but with the campfire only a few feet from my window I sit in here and wave at people out there which is very awkward.

I’m feeling better now than I have since this thing struck.  Maybe it’s a 48 hour bug and my time is almost up.  Maybe I’ll be able to go to dinner with the group tonight.  If so, maybe we’ll take our house with us just in case.

TTYL,

Linda

Hijacked!

As you all know by now, we are camped near Quartzsite, Arizona, on Bureau of Land Management property with the Escapees Class of ’08. The area is huge! There are many hundreds of groups parked here using many different methods of finding one another. Our class chose four methods: 1. tie blue and brown ribbons on our RVs, 2. post pictures of the access roads on the class website, 3. put up signs showing the class logo at the turnoff from the main road and the one to our site, and 4. post the GPS coordinates of our campsite on our website. So it’s fairly easy to find us.

Yesterday Steve and Carol were scheduled to join us in their Allegro Bus about noon. They didn’t come and didn’t come. Now, we all write our plans in chalk but I knew if there was a major change, they would call. They have my cell phone number and, I think, the numbers of others in our group.

They finally pulled in about 3:30 and announced they had been hijacked! It seems they were stopped by the side of the road in Quartzsite with their blue and brown ribbons flying from their antenna when a guy in a pickup truck drove up, welcomed them, and suggested they follow him to where the group was camped. So they did. But, when the got out of Bessy Bus they didn’t recognize anyone from the class even though they had met several of us. Then they recognized the RVs parked nearby. It seems they guy who welcomed them was from a group of Allegro Bus owners who just assumed Steve and Carol were here to join their group.

So, they met some good folks, said their goodbyes to them, and came to find us. We are glad they are here.

TTYL,

Linda

Geocaching, RVing, and Model Railroading

Four members of the Escapees Class of ’08 prepared to go geocaching.

Geocaching is a fun way to get some fresh air and exercise. First, someone else hides a container anywhere in the world then posts the location to www.geocaching.com with some commentary. Then one or more persons, like Dave, Lee, Julie, and Dave, enter that location into their handheld GPS units. Then they go hunting for the cache. When (if) they find it, they sign the log inside the cache. If the cache contains goodies they can trade their own goodies for ones in the cache. When they get back to their computers, they log the results of their hunt on the website. This day this group found 3 of 4 caches they were hunting. They weren’t surprised to not find the 4th one since it had previously been reported missing. It was Julie’s first time geocaching–I think she’s hooked.

Here’s an attempt by an RV dealer in Quartzsite to hook a buyer.

We saw this at a rest area on I-10. The owner of the vehicle was walking a couple of dogs that had a few years on them. I relate to the dogs not wanting to climb the steps back into the truck although, since I got my mechanical knees, at least it no longer hurts to climb steps.

Before we sold most of our possessions, Dave and I built model railroads. Six of them over a period of twenty years. All of them were operating railroads. If you’d like to know more about them you can go to www.sandsys.org to check out our models and other model railroad related things.

While we no longer build model railroads, we still like to see them, especially when they are operating. So we went to visit a friend near Phoenix, Arizona, on a GNC Railway operating night and Dave got to run some trains.

  

I, of course, spent the evening visiting with old and new friends since I am physically unable to operate any more. A good time was had by all.

TTYL,

Linda