Geocaching with Dan and Barbara

We took Dan and Barbara with us out looking for Geocaches yesterday. It was their first time to try this very popular hobby where people hide a "cache" and record the longitude and latitude whch they publish on Geocaching.com and everyone that finds it signs a log at the site and records their finding it. They also record the finding on the internet site so that the owners of the "cache" know that people have found it.

We looked for and found some in town and then headed out into the desert for a bit of excercise.

This cache is called Lady bug and as you can see on the rusted tin can there is a couple of lady bug plastic items attached to it. Inside there is a log book to record your visit.










Here we have found another cache and I am recording our visit to the site as Dan plots our next move from the printed pages that we took off of the internet site.










This photo shows the gals all decked out for a trip to the desert. This was not too far from town but was quite isolated. After leaving the pavement and taking the "trail" out to the cache area we had to travel through a lot of trash that people had hauled out to the desert. Surprising how much trash is just out of sight near our towns that does not go to the regular trash sites.

Dan had his eye on a set of matching couches that he felt had some life left in them. I won't tell what his wife had her eye on after a long trek through the desert!












Here Barbara and I pose at a cache. We look real proud of ourselves at our success! All in all we found a total of 6 caches.

It was a very fun day with a lot of laughs and a good time was had by all.

We suspect Dan and Barbara will be willing to go "Geocaching" with is again in the future!

Pamela's Cadillac

Karl Blade had several cars that he brought to the Barrett-Jackson Auto Auction to sell. One of these was a car that belonged to Pamela Anderson who bought the car to give to Kid Rock as a gift when they were engaged. When they broke up he gave it back and she sold it. The title was still in her name when Karl brought it to the auction.

In order to cause some excitement for the car, Karl hired a lookalike to spend some time in the car before and during the auction. The first photo is of Barbara with her as she sits in the car out in the tent during the day prior to it coming in to the main tent. There were a lot of people taking pictures and asking for autographs.

Here the Karl is in the car with "Pamela" just prior to entering the main tent for the auction. People are crushing in to get autographs and pictures!













I had to add this photo to the group as it shows that Karl was having way too much fun with this Pamela deal!!!

The excitement carried over to the auction as this newly restored 1960 Cadillac convertible brought $105,000.00 which made Karl have an even bigger grin than the one in this picture!

Auction Fun

We had a wonderful time at the Barrett-Jackson Auto Auction in Scottsdale, AZ! The weather turned sour on us the last several days but did not dampen our fun.

This is a picture taken from our "Newell Sky Box". It was very well located so that we could see the cars as they came into the tent to be auctioned off. The tables were covered with different colored clothes for each day. There was catered food, coffee, tea, soft drinks, and of course mixed drinks and wine provided. There was security at the bottom of the stairs to prevent just anyone from coming up to the box.

As you would expect, the food was first class as is everything that Newell does during these gatherings.

We were pleased to have the opportunity to see a number of fellow Newell owners that we had not seen for some time. Jim and Arlene Adams, Jim Howell, and Rod and Mary Whelan all came from Florida just to attend this event. Jim Howell is the fellow that we purchased our current Newell from and he gave us an ataboy for taking such good care of our coach.


Here is a photo of Alice Blade. As you can see from her expression, she was having a great time just like the rest of us.












This picture of Karl Blade is somewhat unfair as he was in a deep conversation with someone as I snapped his photo. He really did have a good time at the auction.










This is a photo of me next to the CNN warrior hummer which was in the middle of the Iraq war and had correspondents from CNN in it as they followed the war.

Chip Foose and the group of Overhaulin, a TV show where they redo older cars, redid the hummer and made it a showpiece for CNN to take around to various functions. CNN decided to auction off the car and donate the proceeds to a charity that helps the families of the service personell. It brought over $1,250,000.00!



Another oddity at this years auction were the "Gravity Racers". These were put together by car company design teams and used for charity races. They were very popular at the auction. The one you are looking at was designed by Bently Motors and brought about $45,000.00.
It is comprised of a carbon fibre body and many exotic weight saving ideas.

Barrett-Jackson 2007 (Opening Day Monday)

The first day at the auction is one of expoloration! We wandered around the grounds to get a lay of the land and it took us half a day.

To say this place is huge is an understatement. They have five large tents with cars under cover as well as many between the tents. If you love cars, this is the mecca of car enthusiasts of all kinds. There are muscle cars, antique cars, special interest cars, etc. A veritable candy store!




Here is a view of some of the tents. The people who have brought their cars to the auction are constantly busy keeping them clean. Out here in the desert there is plenty of dust to keep them on their toes.









We found many cars that reminded us of our past automobile experiences. Ones we owned and ones we wish we had owned! This 1955 Oldsmobile 88 is identical to one we owned while I was in College back in the 60's.










They have booths for just about anything related to vehicles for you to buy, even airplanes!

Here Barbara stopped to examine a streamlined version of a motorcycle trike. She was less interested when I said that I would buy it for her! Guess she is just a "Window Shopper"!

Dropping in on old aquaintances

We took the opportunity while in the area to contact and visit a couple named Brent and Louise Green that we had met at a FMCA Rally in Baton Rouge, LA in 1994. Both couples had gone to the rally and stopped at the staging area prior to going into the main rally.

The sites at the main rally filled up prior to our being allowed in and we were forced to stay where we were for the duration of the event. This adversity was shared as we became neighbors and decided to make the best of the situation and have fun.

After that meeting, we attended the FMCA rally in Las Cruses, NM and Puallope, WA together and enjoyed each others company. After that Brent and Louise dropped out of motorhoming and moved from Tucson to Sunlakes, AZ to be near their family.

We called them and made an appointment to visit with them. They were quite surprised to hear from us as they thought we had moved on and forgotten them!



Our visit was a real joy! As you can see from this photo, Louise still wants to make sure you understand fully what she is telling you!

They have a lovely home which is set up to suit them in their current lifestyle.








Here Louise is showing us her craft room where she currently is working on glass jewelery. She takes pieces of colored glass and combines them into beautiful designs and then fires them in a furnace to melt them together. The results are stunning!










Here is a photo of Brent in his new office. He is on many volunteer boards in the area and tries to help with community projects. These keep him quite busy.

Brent also has a complete woodworking shop in his garage which he is very proud of. His current projects are Turned Timepieces that are quite unique.

All in all, it was a very fun and pleasant visit. It is nice to reestablish our relationship with the Greens and we plan to maintain it in the future.

Bisbee, AZ

Our visit to Bisbee was enlightening. We learned a lot about its turbulent past.

Bisbee is a mining town that began after a soldier, who was on a march through the area that was aquired by the Gadsden Purchase, noticed the large amount of mineralization and put in a mining claim.

The mining of Copper and other minerals is a high capitalization effort and this brought in big money from back east to set up mining firms and mine it. Over 8 Billion pounds of copper have been mined here from the start to the present time. Phelps Dodge is the current company here but it is up for sale and will be under new owners soon.

One of the affects of this was the strife between the miners and the companies as the miners tried to organize to protect themselves from terrible working conditions down in the mines.
The history of the strife is interesting in that it is one of the foundations of later unionization of workers in other industries.

As Bisbee grew it went through several sites as it was consumed by fire several times and relocated to make way for mining. Eventually it rebuilt with brick and stone and was a very substantial city which competed with San Francisco and St Louis in many respects. It had Opera houses and was very modern. As this photo shows, it is built upon the hills which border the mines.







The building at the left is the US Post Office for Bisbee. Very ornate as are many of the other buildings in the city.










This is the famous Bisbee Grand Hotel which was known far and wide for its opulence.

Over time the population of the city dwindled as mechanization of the mines reduced the number of miners needed and later when the underground mining was dropped in favor of open pit mining which was much cheaper.







The city now has many arts and crafts shops for the tourists to purchase trinkets and fine art at.
It reminds us of Eureka Springs, Arkansas in many respects.

The elevation of the city makes for cooler temperatures in the summer than most of southern Arizona and is a mecca during the summer months.

Four Generations of Family

We assembled the family for photographs during our visit home over Christmas and the first one shows the four generations of women in the family. Each one of these beautiful ladies were the first born child to thier parents.

There is a tradition in the family that the first born daughter of each generation would alternate between one of two middle names, Ellen or Mae. Therefore you see before you from the oldest to the youngest the following named first daughters.

Doris "Mae", Barbara "Ellen", Sheri "Mae", and Kimberly "Ellen"! This goes back a number of generations previous also. Kimberly says that we will have to wait for some time before she makes a donation to the tradition!


Here we have Grandma "Dorie" with Sheri and her family. She got that name when one of the grandchildren could not say her name when they were little and it stuck.

If you are waiting for my opinion, I will have to tell you that this is a fine looking group if I have ever seen one!

Sheri, Nicholas and Kimberly are all college students at the present time. Sheri will graduate this spring with TWO masters degrees in Human Resource. The other students are hard pressed to keep up in her wake! Shane is in the sixth grade this year so he is not caught up in any scholastic competition with the older folks!



This is a picture of Barbara and I with Grandma Dorie. The sweatsuit was warm and comfy on me so I did not dress up for the photo session!

Christmas Time with the Family

We drove back to Kansas in the Tahoe so we could spend time with the family for Christmas this year. We had to take the southern route from Benson, AZ through El Paso, TX and Wichita Falls, TX and then north to the farm because of the terrible snow storm that was pounding Colorado, northern New Mexico and western Kansas.

Sheri and her family came down and stayed Christmas Eve and Christmas day at the farm with us. This was a fantastic visit and everyone had a good time.

Above is a photo of Pepe, Barbara's Moms dog showing off his new warm winter outfit.


As these photos show, gift receiving is a pleasant task!

Here Kimberly is opening one of her first presents with many more to follow. Watching her is her mother Sheri and father Greg who are waiting thier turn at the treasures fo the day.







Nicholas is grinning from ear to ear as he opens his new Xbox 360! Now he says he can get online and play with his friends who live in other states. (Amazing how technology has transformed our lives!)











This photo is of Shane in a moment of pure rapture as he discovers that he got a "Guitar Hero II" to use on his Playstation 2.

Notice the huge pile he has accumulated and stored in the cardboard box in front of him. Guess he was a good boy this entire year!

Needless to say, our trip home was one of great family togetherness and love.