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This is just after we crossed the border into Montana
Interesting that we were on prairie all threw southern Alberta
And now you can see mountains over there
Of corse I forgot my sunglasses and we are driving into the sun
As you can see the weather has changed significant
We are about 1° with light snow
I am hoping we are going to be driving into rain
Instead of this stuff as we are heading south
There is no sign of snow any ware
We are still about a half our out of Salt Lake City
But it is pouring rain
There is no more snow there is no more snow outside
Yes but we are no where near Salt Lake City
We are a half hour out
Wow we are in Salt Lake City
It looks like the rain is letting up
Some of these drivers are crazy
Look at that traffic it's brutal
Look at the guys coming from over there
I was telling Gail
I think my knuckles are getting permanently white
From this driving
So we are a couple hundred miles
Maybe 150 miles south of Salt Lake City now
Gail finely made me turn the heat down
That's a good sign
She is even got her coat off
Nice driving conditions now
We can feel the heat from the sun coming through the window
Okay here we are getting new front tires put on the motorhome
We stopped so the dog could take a ***
Then a tire guy came up and started pointing out the problems on our front tires
$1000 more than we planned on spending
But all part of the fun
I should show you the rest of the area around here
This is one of the flying J truck stops
We have a restaurant here and a couple of motels
It's almost like summertime
Okay we are parked at the Casablanca Casino
Everything is looking good
This was free parking
So all your show you where we parked here
There's 1 million other motorhomes all parked around us
So are we going to go for a walk
It's nice it's summertime here
Gail says are you taking a picture or not
Yes
Just going for a walk
It's sure nice to have the summer weather
Gail says what did I do with my cup
We ran the slide out out so we have a little more room in here now
There is nothing on TV
The generator is running like a hot damn
In the nice warm weather
I think it's a California generator
Wow look at this summer in paradise
Just pan around
I was turning directly into the sun there
It is a beautiful morning
We are going over to this hotel for breakfast with
Donna and Darryl in about a half hour
Now you should be able to see Las Vegas over there
I think were about 10 miles out
It's 20° outside
It's summertime
Wow were just getting through Vegas
More white knuckle driving
We finally got through all the road construction
And what have you
Just hang on for dear life
And keep the pedal to the metal
This is quite pretty
We must be coming up on the dam
Yes we are
Well were at the Hoover dam
We had to go through a security checkpoint
And now we're stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic
Trying to get to the bottom I guess
I'm not sure where this goes
Of course when we stopped at the security checkpoint
When I was playing with my lock and key on the trapdoors for the basement
I managed to get one to lock yesterday
Well today they wanted them all open
Guess which one would not open
I thought we might have to go to jail or something
But they managed to see through from the other side
So they let us through
I have got to figure out when we get to where we're going
How to get that lock to work
Lots of fun
Well here we are at another gas fill up
Where we found another tire guy
Who pointed out how rotten are back tires are
And it looks like we're going to spend another thousand dollars
Fun trip
It actually got cold out today about 18°
So we have about four hours to go to Mesa
It's going to take them about an hour to finish up here
And will deal with the visa bill when we get home I guess
Okay back on the road again
We're about 100 miles out of Phoenix
Nice scenery it's starting to warm up again
It was quite cold back or we got our last set of tires
We are going past these rock formations on I 93
It would be interesting to know how they were formed
No he did the Grand Canyon Ed
It's when you through the axe down
No he didn't throw the asked down here
Gail is off to water the dog
I just wanted to show you a picture of these
Special levelling jacks that come down on the motorhome
I guess you have to put it in park put the emergency brake on
And then you hit this little button
That starts pushing these jacks down
This screaming noise comes on it's a safety sound
That stops you from driving with your jacks or down
Well we had a little incident with this
Just after we got here
We had to drive to going pick up the rental car
I'm on main street stopped at a red light
All of a sudden the alarm starts going
It just screams
Well I'm panicking
I'm thinking my jacks are going down on Main Street
All on their own
I hopped outside in the middle of Main Street
Looked under the motorhome
No jacks are down
So we managed to drive it about 10 blocks
Before we could find a place to pull over
Then I reset the jacks
I just told them to go down
And come back up again
And everything sorted itself out
There were some tense moments
This is the car we ended up with
When we went to rent our Ford focus
When ended up with a chevy ugly instead
We are finally set up
Here is a view down our front street
And we will go around down where Gail went
Here we have a fruit tree in the front
It looks like we have some grapefruit
So I'm going to pick one
And see what they taste like
Wow we get grapefruit the size of watermelon for free
Gail is checking her email this morning
This is I guess our first morning here eh
Second
Second morning, oh yes I guess so
The first morning they put us in the wrong spot
Or a spot where I couldn't get the motorhome level
So we changed spots
Gail said nobody's emailing her
We have no friends anymore
We went to Campers World
And Gail bought herself a new little table
To sit and have her coffee.
Say hi Gail
That sun is bright
It's quite hot to isn't it, right
We should put the awning down
So we are just checking out
Some of the other facilities nearby
See if we can find one we like better
This one is called Sun Life
It doesn't have the pool facilities we already have at Mesa Regal
So I'll see if I can get lost in here now
Gail really likes Val Vista
Look at the trees with all the fruit on them
This one's got palm trees and grapefruit trees
We liked all of the extra activities they have here
They even do wood carving
Notice how these grapefruit trees
Have painted white trunks on them
I asked one guy
And he said they paint them because it helps to reflect the sun
And I guess it keeps some insects away
It doesn't show Avenue K
So I don't know where the hell we are
Just a minute Avenue L
Oh where over here
Okay we have to go away back
Look at all the grapefruit on the trees
Holy cow it's just loaded
There's another Chevy ugly
It was 74°F today
I think we're going to bingo tonight
I had a shot at the hot tub last night
Did some swimming for a while
Gail is even going to go tonight
Gail getting some sun this morning
Another beautiful day in paradise
Went out to that flea market thing today
Bought a couple of sexy chairs
It's working out good
I just thought I'd show everybody our swimming pool area
Something interesting that we found that all of the parts we went to
Non of the pools get much deeper than 5 feet
There's no diving boards or diving areas at any of the pools
But yeah this is beautiful
I was talking to Gail earlier this morning
About when we get back I have to think about
Tires for the Honda
It turns out that was a pretty sensitive subject
We got the room on the motorhome
Looks pretty good
was a nightmare to put up
I think we gave all the neighbours
There entertainment for the day
It's got screens right now but there are flaps that come down
Tons of room in here
So on Friday I went into the wood carving place
And I built this little guy here
They just handed me a rough out and some carving knives and I build cowboy Joe here
I'm going to go to Scottsdale on Wednesday which is tomorrow now
And see a guy about a fairly extensive wood carving course were looking at
Might be fun
Look at this were just going down a residential street in Mesa
I would just saying to Gail no lawns
Everybody just has gravel or rocks in their front yard
Along with a palm tree or two and some cactus
Quite interesting
Off to Cabelis
Check out this camping stuff
We are traveling on US 60 W. to Gail tells me
Interesting we have six lanes of traffic all going in the same direction
This is how they should have the whitemud set up
I wonder what they big bubble building is over there must be some sort of hockey rink
It's the University of Phoenix
Funny looking university
Okay were at Cabelis
In Glendale Arizona
Okay well we will go inside
We are in about five minutes and we already have the carful
We were just going to look for a barbecue
This is an amazing place
I'll get a better picture of that wall thing they've got down there in a minute
But yeah I can see this is going to be an expensive little shopping trip
This display they having here
These are all like stuffed animals
It's like you're on an African safari
The gun section
I'll have to try and get a better shot of that for John
They sure do up these displays nice
There's an elk stating over there
Just heading back to the camper now
That's interesting
When you buy gas here you can just fill up and then go in and pay
If you want to buy gas here
You can just pull up to a gas station fill up and then going to pay
Nowhere in the states that works
You either have to have a preauthorized card
Or leave your visa in there with them
Or you go in and you buy $50 worth of gas and then put it into your car
I guess they had a lot of people drive away without paying
So we're back from Cabelis
Gail is assembling our new barbecue
Doing a real fine job
Of course needing advice from me from time to time
Yeah right Ed
Just sitting in the Arizona room here I think it's about 100° outside
It feels awfully warm to me
Trying out our new barbecue
I told Gail I was going to go pick myself another grapefruit
For a snack
How was that for the size of a grapefruit
Big ugly thing
I was asking someone wire the skin so thick on these things
They said it's a sign of a hot summer
The hotter the summer the thicker the skins
When you store the grapefruit apparently that skin will send down a bit
When I cut this baby open I'll bet you half that's going to be skin
Yep I was right
That is one thick skin on that thing
It's a rocker recliner for $275
It's the most comfortable thing you ever sat in.
I think were going to be buying a coleslaw making machine
On our way to Salt Lake City