WE’RE AT THE GATE & WE’RE READY TO RUMBLE:))

FINALLY, AFTER 6 LONG MONTHS WE ARE ON THE EVE OF DEPARTURE:))

 

PHEEBS WAS A BIG HELP LOADING THE RIG TODAY

First thing I did this morning when I got up was to check the weather map. Relieved to see our rains had moved on & we were in for a dry day but not happy to see rain & snow along the western edge of our route. Cold fronts moving in as well. Of course by the time we get out in that neck of the woods next week it's impossible to know what the weather will be doing. As I said before, we'll just monitor the weather day by day as we motor along. Right now it's looking like we may take the Chicago west trail.  Update:  Just checked the weather map again tonight & it looks like we’ll be into some rain whichever route we choose.  And we just heard reports of snow in the Texas panhandle………..Awww nuts!!
  
It's funny how it happens but it does. Each time we head south I think to myself while sitting in my big cushy recliner the night before, why would anyone leave all this great comfort & security to once again venture out across the land with all it's variables & unknowns. Why indeed. Here I sit with our big screen TV, nice sounding stereo system, warm cozy air wafting through the house, lots of room to get up & walk around, hot shower with endless water every morning. No traffic to worry about, or flat tires, or engine problems to concern us. Everything is routine & easy going. No surprises. Why indeed would we voluntarily trade all that in for the great unknown which lies ahead. Well, my only answer to all those questions is to read them all over again & simply say, it is because of all those things, that's why. And 6 months from now when we once again look forward to returning home to Bayfield it is those exact same reasons again why we can't wait to get here. Oh the wondrous life of a Snow Bird:)) 

WE ARE TRAVELING LIGHT THIS YEAR WITH NONE OF OUR BINS FILLED
Amazes me how the kitchen of our house always looks like a cyclone hit it just 24 hours before we pull out. It is the final staging area for all the last minute stuff it seems. And yet by the time we are ready to go in the morning everything is looking totally spiffy, clean, uncluttered, & organized. That Kelly does an amazing job. But I help too:))

SAID A FINAL FAREWELL TO OUR LITTLE MUSHROOM FOREST THIS AFTERNOON

 

  

NOTICE HOW THESE 2 MUSHROOM ARE PUSHING UP & OUT OF AN OLD STUMP EVEN LIFTING THE WOOD

Despite predictions of rain & cloud today we sailed right through another great looking sunny day. And that is a huge bonus for any Snow Bird making final preparations to head out the following morning. Too many times I have been hooking up our tow vehicle in the rain on the eve of departure. Long range weather looks really gloomy for this area next week.

 

A FEW PARTING PHOTOS OF OUR HIDDEN AWAY HOUSE & YARD THIS AFTERNOON

Unlike many of we Snow Birds heading west, Chuck, Geri, Doogie Bowser, & Radar from HAPPY TRAILS are leaving Truth or Consequences New Mexico heading east to Florida where they will take up permanent residence. We met the Happy Trails gang near Ajo Arizona a couple winters ago. Nice folks. All the best in your travels guys:))  And IVAN his very self along with traveling companion Hailey who incidentally is very comfortable riding on Ivan’s lap, are well on their way from Alberta Canada to destinations unknown somewhere in the great American South West.  Ivan is a Master at always finding himself free boondocking sites wherever he goes.  Ride along with Ivan & Hailey again this winter as they take you to spots most other folks don’t ever get to see.

 

AFTER HITCHING UP THE JEEP ABOUT 4 THIS AFTERNOON I TOOK A QUICK SPIN AROUND THE BLOCK TO MAKE SURE EVERYTHING WAS HOOKED UP CORRECTLY…IT WAS:))

Two new Google Friend Connect people made it aboard just in time for our departure. We welcome jhm 52000 as well as Linda & Jim from ON THE ROAD AGAIN.  Nice to have you along folks & thanks for stopping by.  Might want to set your alarm clocks cause we’re early birds & we’ll be hitching up the horses first thing in the morning:))

THIS IS THE ROAD WE TRAVEL BACK & FORTH TO GODERICH ONTARIO…PORTAL HILL LINE

And every year at this time I like to remember an event that occurred in my life back in 1979.  And I like to remember the people who helped me through a very difficult period of my life.  I first posted this a few years ago…………………….  MY FIRST AA MEETING   

KELLY HOOKS UP A SKYPE CONNECTION WITH HER DAUGHTER REBECCA & GRANDDAUGHTER ELLA THIS MORNING

Well that’s about it for my last post from Bayfield Ontario Canada this year.  Saturday night at this time we should be somewhere south & well west of here.  Kelly will get our Verizon internet up & running after we cross the border & considering all things are sometimes considered equal, I should be back right here tomorrow night.  Thanks to everyone for their thoughts, comments, emails, shouts, & Facebook ‘likes':))

GROANER’S CORNER:((  Did you know hitting the gym to release stress is not nearly as effective as hitting the people that cause the stress to begin with.

-------------------------------------------------------------
- Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.
- Home is where your pet is:))
- "If having a soul means being able to feel
love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals
are better off than a lot of humans."
(James Herriot)
- The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails -William Arthur Ward
- The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...AL.
- It is not so much having nothing to do as it is not having the interest to do something....AL.

TODAY WAS A BIT SLOW BUT TOMORROW WILL BE ‘CRUNCH DAY’

A rain shower coming in off Lake Huron caught us about half way around our Pine forest trail this morning. Not a heavy rain but enough to make for a soggy doggy by the time we scurried home. Soggy is not in Pheebs vocabulary nor is anything to do with water unless she is drinking it. She did get to meet her best Pal Dexter again so she was able to have a great playful romp & say goodbye to Dexter until next Spring.

DEXTER IS PHEEBS VERY MUCH MOST FAVORTIST BEST PAL

 

WHISPERING SOME DOGGY SECRETS…DEXTER TAKES HIS DAD GERALD FOR A WALK EVERY MORNING

 

PALS:))
Couple questions from readers as to where Monica picked up that yard light in Wednesday nights post. Walmart. With the changing of seasons they might be on sale right now.

A VERY WET DRIVE TO GODERICH THIS MORNING
And speaking of Walmart, that is exactly where Pheebs & headed this morning. Had to pick up the last of a few 6 month prescriptions. Needed to burn off a little Jeep gas anyway to make it a bit lighter for towing. A dull overcast damp feeling 56F day but we brightened it up with a 6" Tuna sub & drive down around the harbor before heading home.
 

ONE LAKE FREIGHTER HEADS FOR PORT WHILE AN OCEAN GOING BULK CARRIER TAKES ON A LOAD OF SOY BEANS IN THE GODERICH HARBOR

 

LOOKING FOR A NEW COFFEE CUP IN THE DOLLAR STORE I COULDN’T HELP BUT NOTICE ALL THE HALLOWEENY CHRISTMAS STUFF

PHEEBS WAITS PATIENTLY IN THE JEEP WHILE I ORDER US UP A SUB AT ‘SUBWAY’

More of the same kind of pre-trip puttering today. Push will come to shove Friday as all last minute things are organized & taken care of. New batteries in the furnace thermostat & a new air filter in the furnace. Replacing those thermostat batteries is very important. Found that out the hard way a couple winter's ago when the old batteries weakened & our thermostat quit. Lost all our house plants in the ensuing cold but luckily the fella looking after our house caught the problem in time & prevented any pipes from freezing up & bursting. 'New batteries in your thermostat'......put that on your 'to do' list. (2 double AA's)

“ANYMORE OF THAT TUNA SUB LEFT DAD”?

Guess I should be remembering to refer to our older named Blog Followers list as Google's newer Friend Connect. I've never liked the word 'Follower' anyway so I'm going to work at getting my mind switched over to the new thinking. And it is DEBBIE McCORMACK we welcome to our newer named Friend Connect list tonight. Thanks for dropping by Debbie & welcome to the upcoming travels of The Bayfield Bunch:))

AND MUSHROOMS JUST KEEP POPPING OUT OF THE GROUND ALL AROUND US

Kelly was busy on the phones today but for me things were on the slower side. However, tomorrow will be ‘crunch day’. All the final things into the rig, double & triple checking of the ‘to do lists’. Walk through the carport storage area, sheds, & every room of the house for about the umpteenth time looking for any little thing we may have forgot or suddenly decided we need. Computer cords, flashlights, battery chargers, etc.etc.  Not so bad if you are a full timer who takes their house with them everywhere they go but for we Snow Birds this can be quite a time of organized confusion.  That will end instantly when I start up the rig & pull the gearshift handle down into ‘D’.   Over 6 months of hitch itch waiting vanishes in a split second.  Summer quickly becomes a distant memory as all thoughts immediately transition forward to the journey ahead.  Our untested 2011 Winnebago is going to be a learning experience for us.  We have never spent a night in it before.  Our shakedown cruise & learning curve will begin as soon as we get the wheels rolling.

AS I WRITE THIS TONIGHT PHEEBS IS SOUND ASLEEP ON THE CHAIR RIGHT BESIDE MY COMPUTER DESK

Aunt Jean just called from Sarasota Florida wishing us all the best on our travels.  Don’t think she will make it to Arizona this winter but maybe Bayfield in late Spring:))  As I type this tonight it is pouring rain & turning colder.  The next 4 & 5 days are calling for more rain so we are once again just getting out of Dodge before the really snarly weather rolls in.  Leaving in rainy weather is psychologically OK because it just gives one that greater good feeling when at some point skies begin to clear on the western horizon ahead.  One knows warmer weather, sunshine, & good times are just around the corner.  Now how’s that for some darned good old positive thinking:))  

TWO BEST PALS SAY THEIR ‘SEE YA NEXT SPRING’ GOODBYES THIS MORNING

GROANER’S CORNER:((  This woman rushed to see her doctor, looking very much worried and all strung out. She rattles off: “Doctor, take a look at me. When I woke up this morning, I looked at myself in the mirror and saw my hair all wiry and frazzled up, my skin was all wrinkled and pasty, my eyes were bloodshot and bugging out, and I had this corpse-like look on my face! What's WRONG with me, Doctor!?”
The doctor looks her over for a couple of minutes, then calmly says: “Well, I can tell you one thing for sure……… there ain't nothing wrong with your eyesight.”

-------------------------------------------------------------
- Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.
- Home is where your pet is:))
- "If having a soul means being able to feel
love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals
are better off than a lot of humans."
(James Herriot)
- The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails -William Arthur Ward
- The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...AL.
- It is not so much having nothing to do as it is not having the interest to do something....AL.

MORNING COFFEE WITH A BEST FRIEND & OUT TO SUPPER WITH ANOTHER GOOD FRIEND & NEIGHBOR

In my opinion I think weather forecasters do reasonably well with their daily & weekly predictions considering all the changing variables. And especially in this day & age with our wildly fluctuating weather patterns. Luckily they didn't get our weather right today. The big rainy Colorado low tip toed through our area overnight dropping a little rain. By noon we were once again into brilliant sunshine with clear skies & warmer temps. I love it when the weather folks get things wrong sometimes.

 

WHETHER SHUFFLING NOISILY THROUGH AUTUMN LEAVES OR WALKING QUIETLY ON A BED OF SOFT PINE NEEDLES IT IS ALWAYS A PLEASURE TO WALK IN THE FOREST EACH MORNING

OVERNIGHT RAINS HEIGHTENED COLORS ON THE FOREST FLOOR THIS MORNING
One of my 2 best friends & I Jeeped ourselves down to Grand Bend for a coffee this morning. I have blogged about Richard before over the past few years & we always have ourselves a great conversation every time we get together. Richard lives just kitty corner from us & he & his wife Gayle & their golden Lab are a very private family like Kelly, Pheebs, I. Maybe that's why Richard & I get along so well.

Trimmed a few trees & packed a few more things into the rig. Kelly landed herself a used free Blackberry phone over the week-end so busied herself this morning getting it all set up for our travels. I won't bother getting into all the technical things she had to do to reconfigure the phone because as readers know I am still back in the land of rotary dial phones. The Blackberry had belonged to her daughter Sabra & Sabra updated herself with a new Blackberry.

WHY SO MANY BICYCLES LINED UP ALONGSIDE THE ROAD?

A LARGE FARM FAMILY & A LONG FARM LANE WAY THAT’S WHY…KIDS RODE HERE TO CATCH THE MORNING SCHOOL BUS

GYPSY asked, "Do the border guards actually check your fridge & cabinets to see what food you are taking across"?....No, not routinely & most people cross the border without being checked. But if you are unfortunate enough to be singled out for a random spot check they will go into your coach & check through your refrigerator & cupboards looking for banned food items. If they find something which in our case was a simple orange one time then you have to line up, go inside a building, & have a bunch of questions thrown at you. By the way, when they are going through your rig, you & your pets have to out of the coach standing a certain distance away. If it happens to be snowing & blowing, too bad. You stand there until they have completed their search. If they find an unacceptable food item I am convinced they enter that into a computer data bank & you run a good chance of being stopped again the next year, & the next. I speak from experience because it happened to us. Don't run the risk of putting yourself through all that. Just because you have not been singled out for an Agriculture check don't be naive enough to think it can't happen to you. It can.

Craig from MERIKAY'S DREAMS commented, " You used to "travel with a big dish satellite system"? You mean like C-band? Those dishes were 8 to 20 feet across! You don't really mean "big dish" do you?………….. Well, just to keep things straight here I went out to the carport where we still have 2 of our old satellite dishes up in the rafters. No it's not the big 20' land based satellite Craig referred to but they are the bigger 2x3 (give or take a few inches) dishes that were popular a few years ago. They are big compared to the tripod mounted satellite dish we now use in Congress. I have no idea what C-band is. But then again I have no idea what calorie free chocolate fudge is either.

<<< BLUE JAY

Why would someone think about coming home from a lengthy trip when they hadn't even left yet. Well I don't know either but that thought did cross my mind this morning as I was standing in our driveway. It's a great feeling right now knowing we are about to begin our journey in a few days but it's also a great feeling at the other end of our long journey when we pull right back into our driveway here at home again safe & sound. I think most Snow Birds will understand my thinking on that:))

The word 'cancer' strikes fear into each & everyone's heart. And so it has over at fulltime RV'ers Jim & Sandie's house these past few years. Just a few days ago they were led into a room to have a talk with their Oncologist after Jim underwent a PET scan.  You can read Sandie's post at, FEAR, ANXIETY, WORRY, AMAZEMENT, RELIEF, JOY

Ok, Ok, not to worry........ I won't be taking that winter hat with me this year. But next week at this time I will once again have my big brown Tombstone cowboy hat planted firmly on my head until next April. I like when that happens:))

OUR LITTLE MUSHROOM FOREST IS QUICKLY SLIPPING THROUGH IT’S LIFE CYCLE

Neighbor & good friend Monica took us out for supper at THE DOCKS tonight. Like us, she is a Snow Bird but unlike us she is flying south instead of driving south. Monica is leaving Friday for Florida & we are leaving Saturday for Arizona. We will all be back here about the same time in the Spring.

OUR GOOD FRIEND & NEIGHBOR, MONICA

 

‘THE DOCKS SURE HAS A BIG MENU

Here’s a paragraph I wrote in June of 2009.  I call it, ‘THE OOOOOPS FACTOR’…… Last summer a pine tree jumped out from behind another pine tree in our driveway & OOOOOPSED off an open rear bin door. That little fix cost us nearly $500.  Two summer's ago while moving the rig forward our carport must have swung on it's cement post foundation & OOOOOPSED an open screen door into a twisted pretzel. Had to go all the way to Elkhart Indiana for another door.  Pulling out of a campsite in Silver City New Mexico last November I nearly OOOOOPSED a whole electric post right out of the ground with the driver's side of the motorhome. I have also pulled out & OOOOOPSED a couple of electrical cables. OOOOOPSED a rear hydraulic jack last November near Alamogordo New Mexico when I dropped the rig down too hard on an over extended jack. OOOOOPSED both sides of the rig with some nice desert pin striping while motoring through cholla shrubs in the desert looking for boondocking sites near Why, Arizona. Two years ago we OOOOOPSED both dual wheels on the passenger side into a ditch in Lindsay Ontario while trying to make a tight right hand turn into a darkened parking lot late one night.  Click here to read about our AWWW NUTS LINDSAY OOOOOOPS:(( OOOOOPSED our satellite dish in Quartzite Arizona by not anchoring it down properly & having a big north wind slam dunk it into the desert floor & if I were to think about it for a bit more I could probably come up with some other additional good OOOOOP's as well!! (Update-OOOOOPSED another satellite dish in January 2012 near Bouse Arizona)   Click HERE to read about how Wandering Willy & Ivan saved the day by putting our broken satellite dish back together near Bouse Arizona…………..

PHEEBS LOVES GETTING AFTER THEM THERE GRASSHOPPERS

 

 

PHEEBS JUST BEING HER USUAL SILLY SELF

Neighbor Monica bought us a nice solar yard light this past summer & we will be taking it to our Congress house & putting it in our cactus garden for the winter.  Thanks Monica:))

 GROANER'S CORNER:((

Did you know it gets so hot in Arizona that Roadrunners have to use pot holders to pull Lizards out of the ground & ranchers have to feed their chickens crushed ice to keep them from laying hard boiled eggs. Yep, it’s true alright:))

A man woke up in a hospital after a serious accident. He shouted, 'Doctor, doctor, I can't feel my legs !' The doctor replied, 'I know you can't - I've cut off your arms !'

An invisible man marries an invisible woman. And you know what, the kids were nothing to look at either.

A little boy went up to his father and asked: "Dad, where did all of my intelligence come from?"  The father replied, "Well son, you must have got it from your mother, because I still have mine."

-------------------------------------------------------------
- Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.
- Home is where your pet is:))
- "If having a soul means being able to feel
love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals
are better off than a lot of humans."
(James Herriot)
- The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails -William Arthur Ward
- The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...AL.
- It is not so much having nothing to do as it is not having the interest to do something....AL.