Blogger is giving me fits. I've been trying to upload my blog for days with varying results, it never seems to hold long enough to complete an entry.

We are set up at WestWorld the equestrian center and one of the pluses is we can attend the horse shows. This weekend is American Saddlebred with lots of beautifully gaited horses and wonderful riders. I'm going to make this short because I'm not sure it will upload.

When I get a chance I'm going to investigate another blogging program. I've heard that WordPress is good. It can't be any worse than Blogger.

Oh, I'm loving the new camera!

OK, one more whine about the cold and then I promise I'll stop. It was sooooo cold last night that I couldn't sleep, I couldn't get warm even clutching the hot water bottle. See, there are competing forces at work here. We like sleeping in the overhead bed with the hatch open and an exhaust fan in the middle of the RV. That means there is a constant flow of air over us, in this case it felt like an artic breeze. Mimi is one of those people who starts to heat up as soon as she lays down, within a few minutes she is at roasting temp and she needs a cool breeze. Of course, that's why she doesn't gain weight, she burns it all off making heat at night. It's a fallacy that if someone who is always cold sleeps next to one of these carbon based heaters, they can use that heat to stay warm. The missing element here is that as soon as the afterburners kick in, Mimi starts kicking off the covers and throwing them aside. If you're really cold, you can't snuggle up next to someone who has no covers on them. Heat doesn't help if the top side of you is freezing and if you let even a millimeter of covers open up, all the heat escapes.

I sleep with a whole lot of pillows and they come in handy in this situation, I can burrow under all of them and build little walls of feathers around me. Problem is, if I move or turn over all the heat escapes and I have to start over building the walls. So, I was miserable for hours last night and finally about dawn Mimi woke up and I conned her into getting up and turning on the heater and turning off the fan. About 10 minutes later I could get up and add another layer of flannel, refill the hot water bottle and climb back into bed. It was blissful for the next 3 hours and then the sun came shafting in through the hatch and right into my eyes. I couldn't win for losing. So, I ended up on the couch with a cotton blanket as it had at least warmed up by then.

When we got up, I made it really clear that today was the day that we unpacked the down comforter. It lives in one of those suck-em-up bags behind the couch. We got it out and fluffed it up and remade the bed. The thing about down comforters is that they trap all the heat under them and spread it around so you can stick your leg or your hand anywhere in the bed and it is warm! You can turn over, and move around and not lay like the dead in a coffin afraid to twitch and lose that little cocoon of heat around you. It's bliss, it's freedom, I am so ready for the down comforter.

This is a picture of Mimi at the Elk's club, kind of a Grapes of Wrath looking place. Picture of our dog Hombre at the top, we're taking a lot of silly pictures while playing with the new camera.

I ordered my new camera and had it sent here to the Elk's in Scottsdale so I picked it up today. One big problem, there was no battery in the box. Everything else was there but no battery. You can't even turn it on without a battery. I spent half an hour on the club phone with the yellow pages and finally found one battery of the correct type at a store on the other side of Phoenix. So, off we went at rush hour on a friday to Chandler for this battery. I wanted to see if the rest of the camera was ok and decide if I should send it all back or just get them to send me a battery. We got it, actually the traffic wasn't all that bad we only came to a complete stop on the freeway twice, got back to the RV and plugged it in to charge. Then we went off to visit the Crazy Ladies who are vendors at a horse show. They are camped there as well and we wanted to check out the spaces to see if it was worth moving. It's pretty nice, it's a huge equestrian center with half a dozen rings, most covered, and hookups and no bullheads. So, tomorrow we'll move out there and set up the dish, I'm having lots of problems with blogger and the cell connection.

Hello all you imaginary people out there! We are in Scottsdale AZ and I am blogging over my cell phone because I will NOT get so far behind again with the blog. Even if no one is reading it and even though the N key on my laptop is not working right and I only seem to be able to write sentences with a lot of nnnnnnnn's. I will have to clean the gunk out of the keyboard very soon as I'm really tired of having to go back and HIT that N really hard.

Yes, we really left Cat City and are back on the road. It was hard. I love traveling but leaving friends and pets and gardens is tough. We spent last night at a rest stop near Algodones/Yuma and I went to see the dentist today. As I suspected, my tooth is shot and needs all kinds of long and expensive work. I just wasn't up for it. I will limp along eating soft food until we get back to the Yucatan and then I'll get a second opinion. The best part was once I decided not to spend a week there getting horrible stuff done in my mouth, I was soooo happy. Stupid I'm sure, but I was thrilled when we drove away and I didn't have to go back and get all that done. Later or mañana or anything but right now. Above is a picture I took the day we left, it's my beginning Wall of Plants behind the pond. Much more will be added later, like next spring when we go back.

You could notice the temperature on the thermometer on that wall, it is somewhere around 90*. It is only a warm memory. It's not freezing here but it is definitely colder and I know we are heading for even colder weather before we start south. I'm freezing and it is about 60* at 1am. I'm such a warm weather wimp anymore. I never liked really cold weather, couldn't understand why people would live where it snowed, but now I just hate anything below 75*. I think 85* to 95* is perfect and up to 105* is OK if there is shade. I've got a sweater on by the time it gets into the 70's and right now I am covered in flannel and my feet are in fleece mukluks + there is a hot water bottle on my back. Sheesh!

We will be here in Scottsdale for about a week. I'm not sure but I think we'll stay here at the Elks club. It's kind of a dump but it has hookups for $8 a night and I need to set up the sat dish and stay up late doing some web stuff. We got here after dark so will make the final decision in the daylight tomorrow. The thing I really don't like is that there are bullhead stickers everywhere. The poor dogs get them in their feet and I had to get the tweezers out to pull about a dozen out of the bottom of my Crocs.

I'm leaving you with a picture of this really cool succulent that was blooming in front of Country's house. I transplanted some over to our side and put it right next to the patio so I could really enjoy the blooms. I then discovered that the name of it is Carrion Plant, called that because the bloom smells like rotting meat so it can attract flys to pollinate it! Joy! I planted a stinky, fly attractant next to the patio!

Surprise, we aren't leaving tonight but probably tomorrow. The garage sale went off well today along with more gathering of things and trying to stuff them all back in the RV.

We went up to our duplex where our macaws are living while we travel around and indulge ourselves. This is a big guilt ball for me. I didn't even go and see my boy in the spring when we were here because I feel so bad when I leave him. I think I put too much on it, he is a bird and he doesn't seem to hold a grudge. I got up there today and while I was outside I said something to Sky and my bird, Mike (that's him above), starting screaming. He had heard my voice and he recognized it. I went in and it was as if I had just seen him a few hours before. He gave me kisses and let me groom him and pet him and he snuggled up to me. This is a bird that would have anyone he didn't know bleeding from multiple wounds if they tried to touch him. He opens Brazil nuts with his beak and could easily break your finger off.

Mimi was nice and had Patrick (our friend who takes care of them) help her clip their wings and cut their nails so I could come in and be the nice guy and comfort Mike. Jolly also recognized me and I got to say hello to her a little bit. Mike gets really jealous if I pick Jolly up or give her much attention but he was pretty ok. Mimi put Jolly on the statue of St Francis that's in the yard and we took these pictures with our cell phones.

After a couple hours, I had to leave. My emotions get the better of me and I feel so selfish traveling when I could be living somewhere with the birds. I get over it but if and when we decide to come off the road I think it will be missing our birds that does it.

Sky made dinner tonight, wonderful pork ribs, and I made an apple pie. It was a nice dinner and this time I think we will really leave tomorrow. After all, there's a new camera down the road waiting for me.

It's semi official, we are leaving here tomorrow. Tomorrow Country is also having a garage sale here so we probably won't get out until the traffic clears but that's fine, we are the champs of night driving! We've been hustling around picking up stuff and finding all the things we left here in the spring and need to take back to Mexico with us. This is where we drop things off and store stuff we don't need. I didn't get everything accomplished that I wanted to, no news there. I really need to go through our little file cabinet and redo all the papers and get rid of a bunch. I had intended to spread it all out in the workshop, maybe tomorrow.

I have been wavering around about buying a new camera. My Olympus C-4040 is wonderful but only has a 4x optical zoom and, for the 2nd time, I think I can see a haziness in the center of pictures. It went back to Olympus and got a new lens a couple years ago because the hazy spot got really pronounced. I'm not sure what it is from or if it is something I'm doing. I suspect that it is related to frequent changes in humidity but I don't really know. Anyway, I've finally decided to get the Panasonic Lumix FZ30 I just ordered it and I'm having it delivered to the Elk's club in Scottsdale AZ, now I'm motivated to get back on the road so I can get my camera. It has 12x optical zoom which I am planning to use to get a lot more wildlife pics this winter.

Our first stop will be near Yuma so I can see my dentist in Algodones, MX. I lost another crown, I'm hoping this is the last of the old ones. From there we're going to Scottsdale to meet up with some friends. I'm going to help them put their web page together, we will be there at least a week staying at the Elk's club. After that, we want to go to Albuquerque and get Tortuga's engine maintenance and then... we can cross the border.

We haven't left and we haven't really set a date to leave either. The punch list is getting shorter and I'm sure we will get out of here soon, it's always hard to leave when we've been settled for awhile and it is always particularly hard to leave here where we have such a serene place and so many friends.

I'm starting to really appreciate the little things we have here, like endless hot water for showers! That is a pleasure only someone who lives without it can really enjoy.

I don't mind being conscious of water use and in touch with all the things that we use and discard, I think it's a good thing. It's part of our disconnect in modern society that we don't think about these things and just turn on a faucet or turn on a heater and never consider where the water and gas come from or where the used stuff goes. I like being always aware of water; how much we have, how much we have used, where can we get more, how safe is it, whether it is for consumption or cleaning and what will we do with it after using it.

I now find it kind of ridiculous that water we shower in and water we flush with all go to the same place. Why contaminate dish water with poop and then need such intense treatment to clean it up? We have 2 tanks in the rv, one for grey water from the sinks and shower and one for black water from the toilet. The grey water tank is 10gal larger than the black tank but we can go 2 to 3 times longer on one black tank than one grey tank. We really don't create a lot of sewage, no one does compared to the water they just run down the sink washing vegetables or dishes or themselves. It seems to me it would make a lot more sense for houses to work in a similar fashion. Well, until I consider things like peeing in the shower - if you can't keep people from peeing in your pool...

I may like being so in touch with water and having to watch every drop but I sure love it when I can just stand under a powerful stream of endlessly hot water. Sin is a relative thing and when you get old almost anything counts. I feel so decadent and wasteful and yes, sinful just standing for a half hour under running water. My younger self would be disgusted with my lack of imagination in sin and rule breaking. I have these conversations with my younger self at times (another sign of decrepitude) and my answer is that it is so much more relaxing and there is so much less drama and the lack of angst is so wonderful. These are things that old farts tell themselves to make up for their lack of interest in really good sinning.

My son and his wife were out a few weeks ago and showed us pictures from their last trip to England. Ginny is english and her parents live there so they go fairly often. Anyway, this trip was for her friend's wedding and I so liked the pictures of them at the wedding that I got him to email them to me. I've sent them off to Costco photo and had enlargements made for framing. I love Costco photo, I used to print my own pictures and it always took me too long because I'd see some flaw and make another print and on and on. Now, I just upload them and pick them up the next day. If I really see a flaw I hate I can do it again but it doesn't happen as often. Since I can't have a blog post without pictures, that is the picture of Dupre and Ginny at the wedding above and the one at the top is a picture of Dupre mountain biking in Wales, I love that picture of him.

We've been working on the yard and pond here, getting things done before we leave. We probably won't be back until sometime in April so a lot needs to be completed.

Lots of rock laid on paths to keep the dust down, Mimi has done all of that with a shovel and a wheelbarrow. She's also done a lot of work on the drip system to keep things watered. I've been planting and potting and messing with the pond.

This is the entrance to our RV parking spot from the driveway. Plants and rock, little by little we will fill it all in.

I planted two new bouganvilla, one orange and one white, and weeded this area near the gate to Country's house next door. Hopefully when we return they will be hanging over the fence.

All this work has been in between visits by a lot of friends. It's great that our friends are really coming around to give Mimi a hug and spend some time with her. Kate and Terry were here last week, her high school friend Valerie and her husband Noel were here yesterday, our friends Diane and Betsy came for dinner last night and Sky came down with dinner tonight. She has waves of intense sadness but I think she has appreciated having all that rock to move, she gets sad and then she goes out and starts shoveling rock with a vengence!

We've also been working on Country's little pond next door. We took everything out, including the fish, and cleaned it, refilled it, replanted the edges, and made a new fountain. It's starting to look pretty nice, more plants in and out of the pond and it will be done for the winter. Country and I are talking about pulling out the preform next spring and making a new pond with a liner.

Every day I write in my blog...honest! I just don't get it to the keyboard. I think about it though and I find myself composing witty things to say about where we are and what we are doing. I just don't write them down. I guess I thought no one was reading this anyway and since I was doing it for myself I didn't need to write it down. That's BS of course since I can't remember today what I thought of yesterday. Still, I have received the odd note wondering when the next entry will happen and so, guilt has set in and I figure I have to start typing again.

I have spent the last few months reading a lot of blogs. It's changed my ideas about only writing when we are traveling and only putting in stuff I think people would want to know about the area. I might get more personal and more opinionated, heh! hard to imagine more opinionated I'm sure.

So.. where are we? We are in Cathedral City next to Palm Springs California. We have a home base here on a friend's property. It's close to some rental property we own and close to our macaws that live there.

Two weeks ago, Mimi's mother died in Denver. She got there the night before and got to spend time with her and was with her when she died. This is something we all do and we rarely talk about but as dying goes, it was a good death. Mimi is ok most of the time, waves of sadness come over her frequently but she's coping.

We've thrown out all our plans and are just going day to day now. Mimi returned a few days ago and we are finishing some work around here. We will head east soon, maybe monday or tuesday. We need to meet friends in Phoenix and get some work done on the rig in Albuquerque and then we will cross the border somewhere and head south.

This is the spot where I built a pond last year. It is doing well and I love sitting and watching the fish. Country and I went to a koi and pond garden nursery over in Upland last weekend and got 2 more small koi. So, there are about 26 Wakin (japanese goldfish) and 3 Koi in the pond. We're planting and putting in more drip systems and turning this little spot of desert into an oasis.