Visiting Friends

I have often written the best part about traveling fulltime is not the places we go, or the sights we see, but is the people we meet. Successful fulltimers love meeting people (and eating out) while unsuccessful fulltimers stay to themselves and are lonely. We are fortunate to have friends all over this great country.

After overnighting at Wal*Mart in Crowley, Louisiana we rolled into Escapees Rainbow's End campground in Livingston, Texas to celebrate New Years Eve. Now I can tell you old people don't celebrate like young people. When the ball dropped in Time Square we raised a toast and went back to our motorhomes and to bed. But we were in the Central Time Zone so it was only 11:00 p.m, but who cares.

Our friends Kirk and Pam Wood (http://www.1tree.net/adventure/) were parked behind us and Kirk let Rich and me use his WiFi so we had a free internet connect for a week. Mark Nemeth (http://bart.ccis.com/home/mnemeth/) works for Escapees and he stopped to visit one night and a group of us went to a Chinese restaurant. Mark invited the Emonds, Woods and us to his house on Sunday afternoon to watch a football game and sample the excellent beer he brews. The beer was among the best we have ever tasted and we suggested he enter some beer tasting contest. Thanks Mark, we enjoyed the day. Before leaving Livingston we drove down to The Woodlands, north of Houston, to meet Ted and Donna Rogers, part-time RVers. We visited them in their beautiful home and they took us on a tour of The Woodlands development, we saw a movie and ate at a German restaurant.

We next went to Austin, Texas and visited John and Libby Veach (http://www.TheRollingHome.com) two days. The Veaches, Emonds and us have corresponded almost daily by email since 1999 and it was great to see the Veaches again. John has been working for FEMA helping people misplaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Our next stop was two nights at Camping World in New Braunfels, Texas, north of San Antonio. Most Camping World stores allow free overnight camping, but it is never free and this time we spent $51 in their store. The first night we joined Gene and Ann Dwiggins, who we met on the internet in 2000, at a fish restaurant for a delicious meal and good company. The next afternoon we drove to San Antonio and met Willie Nunez and Betty Sue Basham. They are fulltime RVers and building a new home, but will keep their motorhome for fishing trips and camping. They are doing most of the work on their house and have done an impressive job. We all went to eat at a Chinese buffet, one of the best buffets we have had in our nearly seven years on the road.

We headed west and overnighted at Wal*Mart in Fort Stockton, Texas and at a rest area in Lordsburg, New Mexico before arriving at Canyon Vistas RV Resort in Gold Canyon, Arizona. The drive from Globe to Gold Canyon is breathtakingly beautiful, rolling mountains, deep valleys, unusal rock formations, copper mines covering hundreds of acres and a steep decent into the valley. Both motorhomes, the Emonds and ours, handled the task without complaining. At Gold Canyon we visited Ron and Barb Hofmeister (http://www.movinon.net) in their home and they fixed a delicious meal for us. The Hofmeisters traveled fulltime for fourteen years before settling down three years ago. They love their new home and are actively involved in community activities. Barb was producing a play and Linda and Diane attended a rehearsal.

Quartzsite

This was our third time to attend the Newmar Rally at Quartzsite, Arizona. We heard at least 150,000 RVs go to Quartzsite each January with most of the rigs boondocking somewhere in the desert. Our rally was held 6.2 miles south of town and we arrived two days early and parked with about 24 motorhomes from the Newmar Owners Yahoo Group. I had corresponded with many of the people and it was nice to finally put faces with names. The night before the rally officially started we had a pot-luck dinner.

We always enjoy Newmar rallies and this year they had great meals and informative seminars, but the weather did not co-operate. During our six days the high temperatures were about 58 degrees with lows around 30 degrees at night and two days were so windy sand was blowing everywhere. Since all meals, seminars and entertainment were outside it made life miserable. (The third picture below was made at sunrise and will open as a large picture.)

A few times we ventured into town and walked among the vendors (3,500 vendors were there), but bought very little as we had seen most of the junk before. New RVers will find the vendors interesting but us old-timers can walk right by them without blinking an eye.

While there we drove into desert parking areas to visit old friends Mike Desch and Linda Oddo and new fulltiming friends Ken and Sandy Berry. The Berrys had been fulltiming seven days and we wished them many happy years on the road. We also visited The Book Seller, a man who owns and operates a book store in Quartzsite while wearing very little. Linda and Diane had their picture made with him and I won't put that picture on this page, but if you want to see it click here.

The month of January's travels was not over as we were heading to Puerto Penasco, Mexico, but that will be on another page.