Rally events

With our 6:45 a.m. wake-up call (generator's starting up), we got up to start our day.

One of our propane tanks ran empty so one of our first stops was at a propane company to get the tank filled. While we were driving away from the propane company, it started to SNOW! What the heck is this? It was 43 degrees out so nothing stuck but it was pretty chilly. It snowed on and off most of the late morning and early afternoon. You can see snow on the Sandia Mountains where there was none yesterday.

We then drove over to the Expo fairgrounds to check out what the vendors were offering and to look at some new RV models. Anything and everything that you could want for an RV can be found here. There are more RV specific vendors here than there were at Quartzsite. I spoke with a MotoSat technician and he is going to come out to see why the satellite will sometimes just stow itself (when it is suppose to be searching for the satellite) with no error messages. The technician was really surprised that I wasn't getting any error messages. Thankfully I had John there to back me up. The good news is that there will be no charge for the visit. Yeah! Now that is customer service.

The evening entertainment tonight was Neil Sedaka. I must say that tonight's entertainment was so much better than last night's. Neil is quite the prolific songwriter and many of his songs were easily recognizable. Neil turned 70 this year. As so many artists lose their voice as they age, I'm happy to report he sounds exactly like he did in his prime. Neil said he sold 50 million records between 1959-1963 and then a group came on the scene...The Beatles. He said he then retired. In the past 45 years, he has written many songs that were performed by other artists. He said there is nothing more satisfying than performing your own music. He seemed to really enjoy himself. As I grew up with two older sisters, I was exposed to many of the late 1950' s and early 1960's music so I have many fond memories. Here's a link to some information about this very talented man Neil Sedaka. He has lead quite the life.

The high today was 44 degrees. It is now raining and some areas could still receive more snow. Thankfully it is not as cold as it was and sunshine is in the forecast for late tomorrow. Warm weather is on the way. Yippee!

Truck addition

We were woken up at 7 a.m. with the sounds of generators starting up here in the dry camping section at Balloon Fiesta Park. We dozed until getting up around 8 a.m. and our generator joined in the hum.

We were out the door around 9:30 and headed out to Clark Truck Co. to have the Ranch Hand Grill Guard installed. Brrr...it was cold and windy. Many conversations have been had about the dangers of running into deer, elk, cows, etc. As we are heading to Custer where white-tail deer are like fleas, we decided we better take the plunge. John spoke with someone at Tombstone Territories RV Park and was told that he had his installed in Texas and what the price was. I did some searching on the internet regarding distributors and John did some calling. We actually found a dealer in Albuquerque who had the best price and we didn't have to go out of our way to get it installed. We showed up, they installed the grill guard, we paid, and were out the door within two hours. We feel the grill guard is like insurance. Hopefully, we will never need to use it. We then headed out for lunch as we didn't have any breakfast and we were starving.

We stopped at Target and Lowe's to pick up some supplies. One stop shopping as they were next door to one another. John made the comment that it was really nice being in a town with shopping choices; oh, how I agree.

By the time we got home, it was relatively warm so we decided to sit outside and watch the world go by. It wasn't long and a couple stopped to chat who were walking their cute dog. Soon the conversation turned to the Ranch Hand Grill Guard. I ended up giving them the company's name and phone number as they were interested in getting one. We were then joined by our neighbors Loren and his wife, Linda (from Colorado) and Don and his wife, Bev (from Oregon). The six of us sat out there for almost three hours just chatting and having a good time. Again, we were asked about the Ranch Hand Grill Guard. Goodness! We only had it installed for a few hours and we've received this much interest. I will post a picture of what the truck looks like in the next few days.

We had a quick bite before heading up to the entertainment tent for the live entertainment for the night. The band is local 50's-60's cover band called the Hub Caps. They weren't great but they weren't that bad either. However, I don't think Simon Cowell would be very complimentary. When we left the tent around 9 p.m., it was cold, cold, cold with a strong west wind. We had anticipated it being cold so we wore double layers on our topsides. Still it was a very cold walk back to the rig. I think we could even get a dusting of snow tonight.

Albuquerque & Good Sam Rally here we come

Today was suppose to be a very windy day (again) so when we woke up a little before 7 a.m., we just got up and got going. By 8 a.m. the wind had started up with gusto. We were done at the dump station by 8:30 a.m. and on the road. The trip to Albuquerque was uneventful and we were helped by a tailwind.

The directions to Balloon Fiesta Park was a little off and we missed one turn. We went down the wrong road for a few miles and then turned around. We drove past this Mexican restaurant called El Pinto that had a large parking lot. I told John we would need to try them before we left the area. We got to the Rally area promptly at the designated time of 1 p.m. We've got to give the Rally volunteers credit in their parking organization. It was amazing how they worked everyone in from two different roads. We will put a picture on the blog in a day or two as to what the park looks like from a good vantage point we found. The number of rigs is amazing and everyone isn't here yet as the Rally officially starts on Friday.

We got set up and caught the shuttle over to the Expo (their fairgrounds) where we completed our registration process for the Good Sam Rally. We can either drive ourselves to the Expo where the vendors are and where seminars will be held or the Rally also has provided buses to take us over to the Expo that run every 20 minutes. That is very nice so we don't have to deal with traffic if we don't want too. There will also be evening entertainment here at the park each evening starting tonight. For those who are John and my ages or older , they will recognize the names of the entertainment . . . more to follow on this subject later.

We were starving after we got back to the rig so we decided to go out to dinner and stop at the grocery store. We stopped at El Pinto and found the place to be terrific. It was a very good decision. John said he wouldn't mind going back before we leave if that tells you anything. John stopped in the restroom on the way out which gave me an opportunity to look at some pictures on the wall. They had pictures of Mel Gibson, Barack Obama, and Senator McCain with Gov. Sarah Palin (taken while they were vote stumping) . We thought that was pretty cool.

It was nice to get home, get groceries put away (found a REAL grocery store . . . it was wonderful), and settled in to watch Idol and read over the information regarding the Rally's seminars and such.

Hope everyone got their taxes done and in the mail!