Cold and Windy in Vegas!

We met our friends Jeri and Stach on Friday for breakfast at the hotel and took them to the airport.  We then ventured out and did our part for a successful black Friday by buying a tv!  Our old tv would be green for a few hours every time we moved.  It also didn't have digital/hd capability.  Friday evening we had wonderful leftovers with our friends David and Debbie and their friends and family that were visiting for the holidays!

Yesterday Ted got the new tv set up and I got lots of laundry done.  This morning we were relaxing when the wind came up and blew over our Satelite dish, fortunately it didn't get busted up!  Max has been a lot happier having us home and not having to do "guard duty"!!! 

Staying inside and warm on a cold, windy day..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Happy Thanksgiving!

Our friend Jeri arrived on Saturday as scheduled and we've had a great time with her.  I even spent Sunday night at the hotel with her so we could stay up late and have casino time.  That was my one lucky day so I was feeling great! 

Saturday evening our friends, David and Debbie Hawkins celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary at Table 34, a great restaurant in Las Vegas.  There was eight of us at dinner.  David's nephew, Lance, whom I have known of for many, many years but had never met was there with his wife Janine.  There were some other friends from their gym and Jeri, Ted and I.  The food was really wonderful and a good time was had by all!

Tuesday evening we picked up Jeri's husband, Stach, at the airport.  Yesterday we went to see the new Harry Potter movie, which we all enjoyed.  I thought it was the final chapter but apparently they made it into two parts, it was obvious that there will be another movie!After the movie we headed over to the Ethel M Chocolate Factory.  We sampled some chocolate and watched some being made.

Ethel M has a 4-acre botanical cactus garden with over 300 different plants, half of which are cacti and half are succulents.  In the daylight you can read about the plants.  During the holidays they decorate the gardens with Christmas lights and other decorations.  We walked through the gardens just as it was getting dark and the lights were beautiful!

Today we took Jeri and Stach to the Valley of Fire State Park.  It is about 55 miles north and east of Las Vegas.  The name of the valley is derived from the red sandstone formations formed from great shifting sand dunes during the age of dinosaurs, 150 million years ago!   Extensive erosion, uplifting and faulting have created the present landscape that is so beautiful!  The valley was occupied by the Anasazi and Pueblos from 300 B.C. to 1150 A.D.  They would have hunted and gathered food but would not have stayed too long because of the lack of water and the heat.  Today it was a bit chilly (mid-40's) but sunny and clear.  We showed Jeri and Stach the campground which we are going to go to on Tuesday for a couple of days. They also saw the natural arch, the balancing rock, the dog, beehives and petroglyphs.

Tonight we had our turkey dinner at the casino with Jeri and Stach.  It was a good dinner and we are home recouperating!  They leave tomorrow, it's been a fun week!

Giving thanks at Thanksgiving..."Ain't Life Grand!"

A blustery day in Las Vegas!

We've had a good week in Las Vegas.  Got a few chores done, did a little casino time and visited our friends David and Debbie Hawkins.  They invited us to dinner along with Max!  We had a good visit with them and have plans to see them again this week.

Today Jeri flies in from San Diego.  Stach is on a jury so he can't come until Tuesday night.  They will be here until Friday so we have some plans to show them around!

Today is pretty chilly and very windy.   We are supposed to to rain tonight or tomorrow and it's a cold storm! 

Relaxing in Las Vegas..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Las Vegas!

We are back in Las Vegas and will be here possibly for two weeks.  We are planning on spending time with my former boss, David Hawkins, and his wife Debbie.   We also have San Diego friends, Jeri and Stach Gutowski, coming to Las Vegas for Thanksgiving!  We hope to take them to the Valley of Fire State Park, Hoover Dam, Red Rock area, to check out some casinos and the guys will probably play golf!  The only hitch in the plan is that Stach is on jury duty and does not know if the trial will end in time for him to come or not!  We hope that he can.

We were in the Valley of the Fire in February, 2010 and the rock is so red it is breathtaking.  Unfortunately my pictures do not do the park justice.  Here are a couple of pictures taken in February.

Visiting with friends..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Back in San Diego at Pio Pico!

We made it to San Diego on Wednesday evening.  Poor Ted was setting up in the dark!  We ran over to Filippi's Pizza in Jamul for great pizza and antipasta salad and headed to our friends, Jeri and Stach to watch Survivor with them!

We have also visited with friends Jim and Della having a wicked game of Phase 10 which Ted won! Visited with our friend Peggy and I actually cooked dinner.  I cooked one of my "meals" from Dinner Studio called Baja Chicken (atop a can of Sprite soda-see below).   Peggy made a fabulous chocolate/peanut butter pudding cake for dessert! 

We had breakfast with Jeri and Stach yesterday and today we went to watch their grandson, Trent, play winter baseball (about 80 degrees out).  He's 10 and really doing well at baseball.  He did a good job pitching for two innings so I took some pictures through the fence.  He had a good game today and said "I wonder why I pitched better than usual" and smiled at me!  Boy, that melted my heart!  We also saw Mallorie, his sister, and his mom and dad, Tony and Gina!  It was a beautiful sunny San Diego day for baseball!

Now, as to the reason we drove over to San Diego instead of going to the Grand Canyon.  In order to register in South Dakota we needed to have our pink slip for the truck which was in San Diego.  In early October when we were in South Dakota I printed off an application for a duplicate copy of the title and mailed it (with $18) to the California DMV.  After checking every week for a month to see if it was mailed to our So. Dakota mail box, I called DMV.  They told me it would take at least 30 - 45 days.  We then made the decision to come to San Diego because the renewal was due November 30th and we didn't want to pay California $800 which they would not refund.

Sounds simple????  NOT!  We got here and got the pink slip.  I called So. Dakota and said I was mailing the original.  They were concerned  that the pink slip would have been voided if the process for the duplicate had been started.  So I phoned DMV again.  After almost two hours I was able to speak with a very helpful lady who told me it was actually three to four MONTHS to get a duplicate pink slip.  She also gave me a phone number to call at DMV where they will stop the process for the duplicate and said I would have time to send the original to So. Dakota and get it registered.  She did tell me it would take forever on hold to accomplish this stop but, it will be worth it!  So we are hoping this will all get done before November 30th!!!!

Enjoying time with friends in San Diego..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Bye to Boerne

On Sunday evening we said good bye to John and Gloria, all the wonderful meals (and desserts) and all the Phase 10 card games John won!!!!

On Monday we got ready to go, stopped off at the tire place to get the flat tire fixed and put it back on the RV.  We left Boerne and made it to Van Horn Texas (about 120 east of El Paso).   Tonight we are in Benson Arizona (about 50 miles east of Tucson).

We are headed to San Diego for a few days to pick up our truck title so we can get the truck registered in South Dakota!

On our way to San Diego..."Ain't Life Grand!"

San Antonio River Walk

We started the afternoon at Chris Madrid's.  It's in a not so good part of San Antonio but is so popular they added on and have two full parking areas.  You line up to place your order and then go and pick up your food.  They have the GREATEST hamburgers!  See for yourself!

After eating all that food, we needed to walk it off so we went to the riverwalk.  In 2009 they extended the riverwalk to the north.  They are currently working on extending it south (to the Guenther House and Pioneer Flour Mill).  Being a Saturday there were tons of people so we got on the water taxi to take us to new part of the river.  There are not a lot of hotels or food places in the new section.  There is a lock that you go through that was very interesting.  The city wanted the new part to blend in with the old part of the riverwalk and make the landscaping maintenance free and attractive.  They did a great job of that.  They added art work under the bridges and along the way that cost millions!  Think they should have gotten some of their money back!

The first part of the trip is through the hotels and the restaurant area that we've seen before but that is so pretty:

John, our great guide, both with boat and tour took us through the new section!   There are cool bridges to see, lots of old buildings such as the Pearl Beer Brewery that is now a Culinary Arts School, a museum and more.  The new artwork under the bridges cost a cool $300,000 to the artist each.  The only bridge that would show up the artwork in my pictures are the fish hanging under the bridge, they even light up at night.  There is one bridge with some very small mirrors made of some special polymer and steel that reflect colors and a bridge with small glass pieces that were made to reflect the surrounding colors of the riverwalk according to the artist and his 10 year old daughter.  One of the bridges plays bird and water sounds sounding like the Rainforest Cafe.  There are three concrete palm trees, some concrete benches that look like they are made of wood (at a total cost of $600,000) and a big rock cave with waterfalls at a cost of who knows how much!

When you enter the lock it takes 3 minutes for the water to rise 9 feet.  It is gravity fed and all the water is recycled in a tunnel.  It is very efficient!  At the end of the river there is a restaurant with many small waterfalls which represent the 11 springs that were there for the brewery.

At the end of the river there is a restaurant with many small waterfalls which represent the 11 springs that were there for the brewery.

It is difficult to see the waterfalls but they go down the steps to the water. The birds are sitting on the steps enjoying the water!

Enjoying San Antonio with John and Gloria..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Boerne Deer!

Ted's been working on some projects all week.  He replaced the drawer guide in my pots and pans drawer with only a few special words uttered!  He also fixed our RV step.  The bolt had jiggled loose from the nice roads we driver over.  He fixed some stuff on the truck that had also worn out from road vibration.  He's had a busy week!

Ted was on the computer this morning and he thought something hit the RV.  It did, a deer "head butted" us!  I took his picture and his girlfriend:

These were both taken from our RV door!

Going to John and Gloria's for another great dinner..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Touring San Antonio

Yesterday John and Ramola invited us to go with them on a tour of the Toyota plant where they manufacture the Tundra and Tacoma trucks.  The plant employees 2800 people and have 2700 more employees of on-site suppliers.  They have a complete healthcare facility for the employees and their families, exercise area and more.  They have been making the Tundra since 2006 and they started making the Tacoma in August of this year.  Yesterday they were making 880 trucks in two shifts, which is about average for the number of trucks made per day and approximately 200,000 per year.   They took us on a tram ride through a small part of the plant with a guide.  We saw them install a dash board in about 1 second, saw them put the truck body down on the axle and much more.  They have an educational area that you can walk through to learn how Toyota was started by Mr. Toyoda.  Mr. Toyoda started by making an automated a loom for his mother!  They name was changed because it looked better when it was written!  They have 3 tours per day, 5 days per week.   It was an interesting tour.

After the tour we went to lunch and tried a Bill Miller Barbeque restaurant.  We all thought the food was okay but I enjoy a sweet barbeque sauce a bit more. 

Of course we had to eat again at John and Gloria's and had a great dinner and another round of Phase 10!  Of course John won again! 

A fun day in San Antonio..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Cute kids!

Yesterday was Halloween and it was also a celebration for Jack's birthday.  Jack is Gloria and John's grandson.  He turned six and is such a character! 

After birthday cake, we began trick or treating!  Jack was a bumblebee transformer and their granddaughter Olivia was Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.  Grandma Gloria and I took the kids trick or treating!  I think we had more fun than the kids did!  Jack tired out and wanted to pass out candy so "Dorothy" and I went on around the neighborhood!

Having fun with the kids..."Ain't Life Grand!"