The Crones' Chronicle

When we first started on our fulltime RV adventure, we had five cats.  The Menu Pet Food Recall, several years ago, killed our Andy within a few days. Everyone else survived, but with chronic renal failure.  We lost Rimini and Thelma a year or so after Andy.  Buddy had to receive sub-q fluids for months after his diagnosis.  Louise alone seemed to bounce back the best. But, after nineteen years of walking this earth, she let us know today that she had had enough and that all of her lives were used up.  Our vet, Tracey Jensen, from Wellington Vet Clinic has been caring for Louise and everyone else for ten years.  She has watched over all of their comings and goings.   And, today would be no different.  At 5:30, with Tracey’s help, we said goodbye to Louise.

Lisbeth likes to tell the story about how she adopted two 6 week old kittens from a vet hospital in Los Angeles during the Rodney King riots.  She was feeling so devastated by all of the destruction going on all around her and needed to do something positive. In the midst of all of the riots and fires, Lisbeth heard about two kittens that had been rescued from a dumpster in downtown LA. She decided to adopt them.  And, so, Thelma and Louise came to live with Lisbeth.

Louise was best known for her champagne belly. She always knew when Lisbeth wasn’t feeling very well, and would curl up in bed with her to make her feel better.  She, more than any of the other four cats, had the utmost respect of the dogs.  We thought for sure she would outlive Buddy. But, over the last couple of days, she has refused to eat and is obviously not feeling well at all.  It’s time to say goodbye to a good friend, companion, and traveling pal.

November 30, 2008 Campo, California 

The first leg of the journey was very nice and leisurely.  Made it into Springer, NM the first day, where we spent the night at the truck stop.  We like this truck stop and have used it often coming and going to Geri Abram’s sheep dog trial in New Mexico.   There is a pretty nice restaurant, mini-mart, and a large, level parking lot.  We always try to pull in fairly early so that we can get a spot off in a corner away from the truckers.  Our door opens out into a field so that the dogs can easily hop out and take care of business without having to be leashed up.

Normally, we get up and get going without stopping for breakfast until we are seveal hours down the road.  However, because breafast at the Springer Truck Stop is always good –3 eggs, 3 sausages, and 3 strips of bacon with hashbrowns and biscuits for $6.95 that’s pretty tasty– we break with tradition when we park overnight here.  We always have enough left over for treats for the dogs and cats. And, we are fully stoked up for a full day of driving.

Our objective for this day was to reach Deming, NM.  Jennifer Ewers had recommended we stay at the Starlight RV Park just northeast of Deming. Because Jennifer has vast experience driving this route to go to Geri Abrams trial in Mountainair, NM, it would in all probability be a fine choice.

We spent a really pleasant day listening to Isabelle Allende’s  audio book, Portrait in Sepia . Allende can really weave a story. And, that kept us entertained for most of the day. 

 We had finished Portrait in Sepia and had just started listening to John Keegan’s, Intelligence in War as we pulled into Hatch, New Mexico.  As we rolled into a stop sign, preparing to turn west towards Deming, we heard a clunk and a thud.  We looked in the rear camera monitor and saw ourselves pulling around the corner leaving the towed vehicle behind at the stop sign.  Journey-that’s what we call her–had broken loose from the motohome. The thud we had heard was the emergency brake on the towed engaging and the hitch dropping away from the rig.  In less than a minute, Lisbeth was out the door. Linda proceeded to drive the motorhome around the corner to the closest parking lot.  Lisbeth ran back and put on the emergency flashers on the towed and tried to assess what needed to happen next.  Linda, after parking the rig, ran back to help.  By the time she got there, several people had offered assistance and the tow hitch had been unhooked, dismantled, and thrown into the back of “Journey.” There was no choice but to do the remainder of the trip driving separately.  Forty miles and about an hour later we arrived at the Starlight RV Park just in time to walk the dogs before the sun went down.

On Monday, we continued on into Gila Bend, AZ driving in separae vehicles.  A very boring couple of hours ensued.  While going through Tucson, we realized that there was a Camping World on the outskirts of town and decided it would be a perfect place to stop and pick up the necessary equipment to fix our hitch.  Once we got all of the parts necessary–and then some–we made the repairs, hitched up,  and were ready to continue on into Gila Bend.  We arrived just in time to  check into Holt’s RV Park and walk the dogs before the sun went down.

On Tuesday, we turned the rig over to Ron Brundage and his assistant, Neil, at RV Sat-Link. In their usual efficient manner, they transformed our manually operated 2-way satellite system into a fully automatic system. Linda will no longer have to crawl around on the roof to set up the internet.  While Ron and Neil worked on the rig, we decided to take the dogs and go up the road 35 miles to find an Office Max where we could purchase a USB wireless adapter for the desk top computer. We found a funky little fast food Hawain restaurant for lunch in the same complex, and, a Petsmart where we could get some more cat food.  By the time we had lunch and ran our errands, Ron and Neil were done and ready to program the router and our computers.  Everything worked beautifully.

On Thanksgiving we gave ourselves permission to just kick back and do nothing.  We had forgotten to pick up anything “Thanksgiving-like” for dinner.  But, Lisbeth pulled together some great tuna steaks for the grill, sweet potatoes, and an orange-cranberry compote.  So, there were some Thanksgiving elements to the evening!  As usual, we didn’t starve! 

Friday was spent re-testing the new satellite system, doing laundry, walking in the desert with the dogs, and cleaning up the rig.  We were ready to pull out on Saturday and head for Campo, California. 

Saturday was a gorgeous day.  Cool first thing in the morning, but promising to warm into the 70′s.  We dumped tanks and took on water, propane, and fuel.  We went across the street to a big empty lot to hookup. We had hitched the two vehicles together, when, to our dismay, Lisbeth discovered that the neutral tow on the Ford Explorer (Journey) wasn’t working properly.  That meant that we’d be driving separately AGAIN.  By the time we finally put things in order to drive apart, it was noon.  Another long day ahead of us.  We pulled into Jennifer’s driveway in Campo at 4:30 their time, 5:30 pm our time.  Her family know the folks at the local Ford dealership in El Cajon. We’ll see about repairs on Journey next week. In the meantime, it’s wonderful to be back in Southern California.  The weather is mild and sunny.  And, it is good to see Jennifer and her family again.

November 22, 2008

In October, 2005, we hung up the keys to the Rockin’ Lazy.  Linda’s Dad had requested that we stop our nomadic lifestyle; that we settle in at his place on Pheasant Lane in Fort Collins to oversea him and his affairs.  In July of this year, Dad died. 

With winter coming on and the economy in the toilet, we decided to wait until spring to put the house on the market. After closing up the house and making arraingements for our good friend and neighbor, Cathleen D., to check up on it, we started preparations to move back into our motor home, the Rockin’ Lazy.  On November 23, 2008 we began part II of our journey down the road to nowhere.

L&L