May 2004

Just Can't Seem to Leave California

We spent the first week of May in Southern California visiting a few friends. We stayed in a beautiful cabin on Lake Arrowhead but we could hear the call of the Big Mouse and knew Disneyland was just around the corner.

We went to Disney's California Adventure with our friend, Christy Noble, and had a wonderful time. We rode some great rides, the "California Screamin" roller coaster was probably the best I have ever been on. I screamed the whole way and Marilyn laughed at me until the big upside down loop - she wasn't laughing anymore after that. We also went on the brand new ride Tower of Terror where they take you up 6 stories in a haunted elevator and then drop you into a freefall. Yah I know sounds like total fun doesn't it? We actually convinced Christy to go with us, well really we used 6th Grade peer pressure. She held on so tight I still think there's parts of Christy still attached to that seat.

We went to eat at the House of Blues in Downtown Disney and Marilyn scored us some free concert tickets to the inner realm of House of Blues. I was drinking a new drink, ice cold Citrion Vodka, I felt so OC (Orange County). The concert was okay more grungy angst than anything else but we stayed until it was over. The next morning Christy came over to say goodbye and had sweet words of wisdom (and a nice cold coke) for my "concussion" that I had obviously received on the roller coaster. Marilyn must have had a thicker skull because she didn't have a concussion, and she had this silly idea that maybe it was the vodka - naaah.

We headed for Sedona that day and we're lucky we found it with the navigator in such bad condition, but I persevered. We stayed 2 weeks in a Thousand Trails membership park (thank you Tim!) and had a wonderful time. We met some great people and even earned a few bucks helping people with their computers. We visited my Aunt in a nursing home in Sedona and went for a beautiful hike close to the top of Bell Rock. We also saw a traditional sheep crossing, hot air balloons close enough to touch and a great old ghost town turned artist colony.

On our way back to California to fly to our convention in Chicago our transmission gave out. Tara (the RV) only has 14,000 miles on her but she coughed up a mere 40mph from Palm Springs to Hemet. We turned her over to the engine doctor and was told the tranny needed a rebuild, nothing we did just that a cellinoid had gone bad. Funny, I didn't even know she had a cellinoid. This grounded us for a week and luckily it was in California where we have the best friends on earth. We stayed at Cathy's beautiful home in the hills of San Bernadino and had a blast with the pool and hot tub - there was more elbow room than we have had in weeks. Our friends Christy and Dennis came down and treated us to the musical "Thoroughly Modern Millie" it was fantastic and seeing Christy and Dennis again was prettty allright too!!

We missed our convention in Chicago as we just had too much going on with our home in the shop. That's okay, we'll be driving through there in late July anyway. With Tara fixed we head back to Arizona but to a different area. We headed for the Grand Canyon and Antelope Canyon for some pictures of Mother Nature at her finest.

We have found a cool way for you to see all our pictures as they were taken. Click on the link below to choose a section of pictures. Once inside the photo album click on the first photo and it will enlarge and give you navigational arrows for "back" and "next" so you can view the photos and comments at your leisure. Click on the "Click here to go Back to Album List" button to come back here and choose the next album.