First day out on our "Summer Travels" - not such a great start!!!!

Left Casa Clarkson at just about 1pm as anticipated - everything secured for our 3-4 month travel adventure.  First stop - Fry's fuel station to top off our diesel.  All is well until we try to leave!!!  The coach will not start - now what???  A call to Coach-Net and we are connected to a technician - he has us to a couple things (that don't work) and then says he will have someone come out and try to give us a "jump start".  Well long story short - about an hour later a guy came and was able to "jump start" us and we were on our way.  Since our starter battery was quite old (November of 2004) we decided that perhaps that was the problem now.  Without resources, we went back to the lot to retrieve the local phone books.

Next step was to go to the local Interstate Batteries - upon getting there it was decided to not get another 8D battery but two AGM batteries.  Interstate doesn't do installations, but I guess they thought that helping out was a better idea than us blocking their lot for too long.  The batteries were installed and the coach started great. 

Long story short - the decision was made to head North at all costs.  The Inverter was beeping an error, but the coach started and seemed to be running well.  We ended up stopping in Quartzsite Arizona for the night - not quite Parker, but close enough.  We got a good site with 50 amp full-hookups.  oops ... that pesky Inverter still had more trials for us this day.  We have good ac power to the coach (the Progressive unit says so), but there is no electricity to any of the outlets!  Tried to reproduce the magic that Al's RV did a few weeks ago when the same thing happened, but no luck.  At least the air conditioners work!  And thank goodness we have the old RV refigerator that runs from propane.  A power cord from the 20 amp plug on the pedistal is providing us with power for the computers and air card.  We are in the dark, but we are cool and safe.  Hopefully we will make it further North tomorrow - to Mesquite Nevada - and be able to figure out this mess!

It has not been a great start to our travel season - to say the least.  Stay tuned to follow our "adventure"!!!!

New neighbor???

Our neighbors to the West of us are gone for the Summer - like just about everyone else here in the Foothills.  Noticed a new resident - wish we would be here to see the babies!  This is a light fixture on their porch that the plastic lens has been removed - looks like the perfect spot to make a home - precious!

A "way to short" visit by more family!

We enjoyed a very short visit by two of Andy's kids and a "future son-in-law?".  Time will tell on that one, but let it be known that Martin would be a welcome member of the family.  Pictured left to right are me, Andy, Martin, Dianna and AJ.  Turns out they came on the hottest day so far this year, but we were quite comfortable in the Ramada with the misters going and the sun shades down.  Looking forward to another reunion really soon.

Happy Anniversary to Us!!!!!

Celebrating 14 years of married life!  Very low key this year, but watch out next year - 15 will be significant and we might just have to really celebrate.

Visit from Family - Brother Lawrence and Sister-in-Law Connie!

This weekend we had a visit by my (Linda's) Brother Lawrence and Sister-in-Law Connie.  We had a great time getting caught up and of course eating way too much!

Visit by friends from Lake Havasu City

Our good friends Willie & Shirley Hardy came for a weekend visit.  We all had a great time!

Final Phase of our Construction begins!!!

Here comes the "Mexican Brick" - it really does come from Mexico!

Unloaded and ready to begin the walls around the Ramada.

The beginning of the fireplace.

The short wall on the West side is in progress.

End of Day 1

End of Day 2

Fireplace - End of Day 3

Fireplace - End of Day 4

Fireplace - End of Day 5

After the end of day 5, we had a little Happy Hour Gathering.  Pictured clockwise are George & Billie Strasser, Dottie & Lew Anderson, me, Nita & Ken Barne, Andy, Jim & Helen Gilfillan, and John & MJ Maschka.

End of Day 7

Scaffolding looks a little scary!

Making progress.

End of Day 10

End of Day 13 - finally done!  A 5 day job took 13 days - sure glad we were not paying by the hour!

The final finishing touch - after all the construction and heavy vehicles on the lot, we needed a new layer of gravel.  It took two truck loads for a total of 11 yards to put a nice layer down.

Finally completed day 14

Our first fire!  We will be enjoying this Ramada alot!!!

Casa Clarkson is complete!