NatalieTom50th

We arrived in Quartzsite, AZ on November 1, planning to attend a rally that began on the 16th. It was quite nice to get there when we did because the weather had just begun to turn cold – it froze in Flagstaff and became unseasonably cold in Phoenix almost as soon as we arrived in Quartzsite. However, our plans were not to be, because Natalie woke up on the 14th with her right arm feeling numb and she could barely speak, but she did tell me to call 911, I wasn’t even sure there was a 911 in Quartzsite, but they arrived very soon after my call, decided it was probably a stroke, and took her by ambulance to the nearest hospital at Parker, AZ, a 35-minute drive north. Before the ambulance drove away with Natalie, ... read more

After our stay in Santa Rosa, our next stop was a couple hundred miles along a mostly washboard highway, to Grants, New Mexico. Grants was named for three Canadian brothers who owned and operated mines nearby. They wanted a community for themselves and their workers, and they built a nice little town with some quite elegant homes on the nearby hills. We stayed at a really nice little KOA RV park. At first glance, the park seems like a wasteland with a few RV sites and a couple buildings. But this park really is a wonderful place to stay for a little while. The owners and managers have really made an effort to make the park something special. First, and most important, the park is really clean and well maintained, both the RV sites as well ... read more

We have made it to Quartzsite, AZ, where we’ll be staying for a month before moving on to Yuma for the Winter. For now, though, we’ll write about our stop in Oklahoma City, where we spent a couple of years courtesy of Boeing, 43 years ago. This is when we met Rinda and Richard, the boys learned to ride their new bicycles, and Natalie was the Popcorn Lady every Friday morning at their school. It was truly a pleasant experience to drive by the old neighborhood, wonder where all the neighbors have scattered and see how the neighborhood has aged. Some was rebuilt after a tornado took out blocks of homes that were near us before, but you really couldn’t tell the old from the rebuilt. And Oklahoma is one of the prime candidates for us ... read more

After our stay in Austin, we continued eastbound by going north first to Weatherford, a city just north of Fort Worth, to visit Natalie’s cousin. Neither of us have many relatives left, so we try to stay connected. It is so great to lay eyes on their new home and hear their plans to make it their own. They are RVers too, so they are a great resource to talk with and get new ideas. One thing about visiting friends and relatives is they know the best places to eat. We had fantastic BBQ at the Natty Flat BBQ in Weatherford. The BBQ restaurants go to great efforts to create their own unique character and it’s Interesting to experience their efforts. This one had the world’s largest cedar rocker outside and was very rustic inside. (Side ... read more

Here it is, the middle of September, a year since we left Lynden with an RV in tow, and I haven’t posted anything here since May, just after we finished becoming Texas residents. It’s time to get back and catch up to the story. Since leaving Livingston, Texas, we’ve visited friends and toured all over, with stops in Austin and Fort Worth, Texas, Colbert, Durant, and McAlester, Oklahoma, Joplin, Branson, and St Charles, Missouri, Santa Claus and Florence, Indiana, Knoxville, Tennessee, and Toccoa and Augusta, Georgia. Then, because we plan to spend winter back in Yuma, we started back west, with a stop in Greenville, South Carolina because that’s an area we’ve considered as a possibility for the day we decide to stop being full time in the RV. We continued westward through Knoxville again and ... read more