January 27, 2008 Another very special grandson

What a great way to spend Sunday afternoon than to have the Grandsons come visit. Our 5 yr old grandson, Robert Daniel Nicholas Logan, full of mischief.

Coming down the driveway to Grandma and Pop's.
And right behind him is big brother Ben.
You can see the twinkle in his eye.
This is his serious side. They signed up for baseball and T ball today, so get ready for some fun shots in the future.

This is another way to spend Sunday... meditating to the sewer line!!! The line separated and when we dumped the tanks, we had running water down the hill. Please note, he is wearing vinyl gloves. Of course he has his helpers... one in a tree and one picking up sticks.
Here is the finished prep work, but he still had to shovel out more dirt to get the lines to come up etc. Not an easy fix, but doable.
Here is the other helper, daddy Brett, pulling up the one end to slip the pipe in etc.
The finished product. Testing will happen tomorrow!!!!

January 24th A very special grandson

One of the pleasures of being here in Texas is going to your grandson's award ceremony. Especially when he is being honored. Our oldest grandson, Benjamin Lloyd Donaciano Logan.

This is second grade awards for perfect attendance in the last 9 weeks. There are 6 second grade classes.
Here is part of the group of perfect attendees. He is the one in the black harley t-shirt.

This is being congratulated on all A's. Are we ever proud. That is the principal shaking his hand. (check out the tie.. sponge bob square tie).

Here he is with the group of academic excellence.

January 14, 2008 near mile marker 303

We headed out in good time to try and make it to Fredericksburg by late afternoon.

One of the slow downs, the border patrol inspection station. Everyone has to drive through for inspection. Which is just a quick visual. Then just after passing Sonora Bob saw rubber flying off a tire on his side.
This is the damage from the outside. What you can't see is the damage on the inside. Mangled up our galley drain handle and broke off some of the cover material.

The tire did not go flat, but the whole tread peeled off. Bob went back and picked up the tread and found a nail that had bent in between the tread and inner lining. Of course we didn't have a spare, so we had to have them bring out a tire. We had to pay for the tire, road service paid for the labor. No angel today. Needless to say we didn't reach our objective, we pulled into Junction KOA for the night. It was a nice park by the river .

This was our view out the side window.. the deer are eating at a feeder that the hunters put in the field. Lots of does and their babies.

The next day Tues, the 15th we pulled into Bastrop and set up for the next few months. We are glad to be in our winter home.

January 13 New Mexico

Sunrise found us hooking up and getting ready to leave Benson in 26 degrees. We are headed to Van Horn, TX today and should arrive mid afternoon by leaving early.

This is about 7:30 a.m. as we head to the office to check out.
The view along I-10 as we travel east. I think this was in Texas Canyon.

At a rest stop in New Mexico, a typical desert planting. Everything was going well until we neared Las Cruces, NM. BAM!!!!!

The front tire on the passenger side blew after hitting some road debris.

If any of you are familiar with the area, we pulled over right near the correctional institute and the fairgrounds. As we were calling the Road Service, we heard gunshots. We had been put on hold and as we waited, we continued to hear the gunfire. We locked the doors and scrunched down a little. We observed a puff of dirt going up in the air every time we heard a shot and correctly assumed that it was target practice. It sure put my blood pressure up for awhile. Then an eighteen wheeler pulled off in front of us and this driver walked back to check on us. We told him we had already called road service and someone was on the way. He just kind of stayed around and offered to help change the tire. To make a long story short, we were glad he stayed. He was driving back to Florida after delivering a load of orange juice to Calif. He was ahead of schedule and he wanted to make sure we were ok before he left. He was an angel. He actually did most of the work when road service arrived. When I offered to give him something, he just said to pass it on to someone else. So he let me give him a hug and our gratitude.

We did make Van Horn but it was getting dark and fortunately we didn't have to unhook the truck.

Jan 6, Benson AZ

On the 6th we drove to Benson, AZ.

On the way there we drove by this field of airplanes that are mothballed in the desert. You can tell it is a very cloudy day.
We stayed at the Saguaro SKP Coop. They have very nice sites. Very roomy and we were on the edge of the property, so this was the view out our window. The days were nice and the nights were cold. We were also treated to a variety of birds and a covy of quail that scurried by each day.
From the front of our site you could see the Dragoon Mountains. They are beautiful in the changing light during the day. We met our friend Vicki & Steve Reigle who are staying here. We managed to get a dinner in and a game of Mexican Train dominoes before Bob and I got sick. We picked up a gastrointestinal virus that laid us low for the rest of our time here. We found out that there were several people in the park that had the same thing.
Each lot is finished a little differently and this was our favorite casita. It gives them an extra room to spread out in and store things when they aren't there. Some of the guys have their workshop in there. There are many sights to see in this area, like Tombstone and the Chiricahua National Monument. So we will just have to come back another time.

Jan 2 The start of our trip back to Texas

We left Castaic, CA and experienced the morning traffic in North LA as we headed east to Indio. We picked a short day so we could rest up for a night before heading on. We had a nice pull through in Indian Waters resort.

As we were relaxing, we observed a hot air balloon flying over. I have always loved to watch the balloons. They are having a hot air balloon festival the next weekend in Indio.
There it goes into the sunset.
The next day found us in Arizona and going through Quartzite. These are a few of the rigs boondocking in the desert. There will be thousands there through the month of January for the RV & Gem show. They have a huge flea market in town in several huge tents.
This is one of the areas nearer to town.

We spent 3 nights in Casa Grande at the Desert Shadows resort. Our friends Charlie & Nila McLeod were staying there also. So they took us to Harrah's Casino for a seafood buffet. Here is the cold bar with shrimp and king crab. There was also hot king crab, various shrimp dishes, clams etc. Also beef, ham and chicken. Nila had coupons so we got it for half price. It was great.
This was the dessert bar. There was also ice cream available. Diet? What diet?!!!

We were also given a $5 voucher to use in the machines and we played for awhile, but lost it. Nila managed to get $50 with hers. Some people are just lucky. We had a good time.

January 1, 2008 119th Rose Bowl Parade

Up and at it at 4 am to catch the bus at 6 am. We were very grateful to be driven into the parade area. Talk about congestion. The sidewalks were 10 deep with people who had slept there several nights to save their place. Some had even had a campfire in the gutters of the street. We had to walk a couple of blocks to our grandstand. This parade route is about 5 miles long and I think we were at mile 4. The parade started at 8 a.m. and the first float arrived at our location at 9:15. I think we could have stayed in bed longer....

Here are the Jacobs and the Logans in the bleachers with about 3 layers of clothing. It was cold at the beginning but warmed up quickly. The bench in front of us didn't stay empty long.
Here you can see Colorado Street and some of the crowds.
I took a lot of pictures but will only show you the better ones. Don't forget to click on it if you want to see it larger to get the details.
Italian float
The rose in the middle of this float opened and closed.
The Year of the Rat
The Sweepstakes winner.. the Rain Bird float.

Check out the tail on the white peacock.

Kaiser Permanente float, Hawaiian theme. The dolphins moved up and down.
The palm trees have orchids trailing down from the fronds.

This guy must be 60 feet tall. In order to get under the overpasses they have to lower the whole body down.

This float depicted the olympics in China
The clusters at the back of the Beijing float represent fireworks.
Some of the SKP people worked on the LA Dodger float. They cut blue straw flowers to apply to the blue areas.
McDonald's float with cancer fighters and survivors on it.

The Egyptian float

The Lutheran Hour float with the manger scene.

Of course our favorite horses pulling the St. Louis float.
It depicted the Lewis & Clark journey west.

Lion's Club float
Valentine's Day
The middle tube rotated around as it travelled.

The Mexican float. Be sure to look at the man by the orange skirt. That is Raoul Rodriguez who designs most of the Fiesta floats (the prize winners) and he is carrying his blue parrot.

Special Delivery. This is one of the floats we saw in process.

City of Hope float.
New Mexico float.

This is where we ate at the Farmer's Market. We toured the area after the parade. Unfortunately most of the shops were closed.