I'm sure you have noticed that I misdated the 14 th by calling it the 16 th. Senior moment.
Well Monday was a busy day because we are leaving tomorrow for TX. First, of there was curling and Carroll had a "ton" of laundry , something we had not done since we left MX. Also we went to see our friend Bob play ball as he had a 10:30 game so that killed the morning. He plays a very good quality of ball, certainly better that our league at home.
After the game Carroll and I had to drive to south end of Tucson ( not right in the city ) to return the Modem/Router to Cox, the provider of the WiFI which I had rented for the week. Then we revisited AT&T to get another lesson on the G.D. cell phone. We were ask, when they sold us the Sim card if we wanted to included Canada but we said no as we only needed it for the US. However, Todd called us Monday morning but we could not answer him as the phone says we are out of minutes which was not true hence the reason to visit AT&T. The "Techy" told us , unless we pay the extra 5.00 we could not send or rec a call from Canada, something we did not know so we added the Canada to the cell.
There rest of the day was spent packing up as we are leaving for TX tomorrow. It always seems to take about half a day to pack. cheers
Friday, 20 February 2015
Sad Day 15 Feb 2015
We rec an early morning phone call from Carroll's nephew to advises us the her 80 year old brother , Walter was found dead in his home in Montreal. I spoke with Walter on Skype at 5:30 PM on Wed for a few minutes and told him I would call on Thursday. When he was not on Skype Thursday morning I got concerned so I called on the phone but still no answer. On Friday when he was not on Skype so I called his son as Walter should have been on Skype as he practically lives on the computer. I would have called his friend in Montreal but I did not have a contact.
His neighbor noticed that Walter,s sidewalk was not cleared of snow on Sunday so he entered the house to check and found Walter was dead, sitting in an arm chair. He probably died Wednesday evening.
Carroll and I spent the next hour mulling over who we needed to contact, and knowing we had to speak with the family , if for no other reason bring some kind of peace to all of us. Todd and Clark know uncle Walter real well so we contacted them but we had no real info for them. When we rec the call from Walter's son on Sunday morning ,the police had not arrived at the house yet so there was no further news.
We had a breakfast date with our friends ( Bob and Karen ) at 11:30 so that kind of help to set aside the death for the moment. The rest of the day was spent contacting Carroll,s family and of course my family. A sad day but life goes on. cheers
His neighbor noticed that Walter,s sidewalk was not cleared of snow on Sunday so he entered the house to check and found Walter was dead, sitting in an arm chair. He probably died Wednesday evening.
Carroll and I spent the next hour mulling over who we needed to contact, and knowing we had to speak with the family , if for no other reason bring some kind of peace to all of us. Todd and Clark know uncle Walter real well so we contacted them but we had no real info for them. When we rec the call from Walter's son on Sunday morning ,the police had not arrived at the house yet so there was no further news.
We had a breakfast date with our friends ( Bob and Karen ) at 11:30 so that kind of help to set aside the death for the moment. The rest of the day was spent contacting Carroll,s family and of course my family. A sad day but life goes on. cheers
Sunday, 15 February 2015
Curling, The Scotties 16 Feb 2015
For those who don't know or don't care, the Canadian Ladies Curling, better known as the " Scotties " is on TV and we are curling fans and we are hooked on it. Curling doesn't start until 3 PM so we decide to hunt for a toaster oven. However, the local Wal-Mart does not have one so we had to venture into Tucson, some 30 miles away. Our GPS couldn't find a Wal-Mart if we were sitting in the parking lot so we stopped in Tucson to ask directions. I should have known better than to ask a man but I did and one of us got East and West mixed up. However, we stumbled over a Costco so we took a look in there but no Luck. The cashier, a Lady gave us the exact directions for a Wal-Mart and we found the toaster Oven that Carroll wanted.
We returned to the MH to watch the start of the curling, followed by the Toronto / Montreal hockey game followed by curling, followed by the Calgary / Vancouver game. Did I mention that we watched some curling. ha ha . cheers
We returned to the MH to watch the start of the curling, followed by the Toronto / Montreal hockey game followed by curling, followed by the Calgary / Vancouver game. Did I mention that we watched some curling. ha ha . cheers
Friday the 13 Feb 2015
The RV park has lots of activities and one of them is a 1 hour computer course every Friday at 10 AM, which I attended because "heaven knows" I need a lot of help. Today's topic was moving pictures and videos around and sending them out as e-mail. There was two instructors, one on PCs and one on iPads and iPhones. They were a "way way " over my head but I know that there is much more I can learn and of course I now have more questions than answers. There was about 18 people in attendance and about 3 people talking at once so it was hard for me to follow. The gentleman sitting next to me notice that I wasn't "getting" it so gave me some private lesson so to speak which I appreciated.
We spend some of the afternoon running so more errands and while I was filling the Blazer with gas a cyclist got hit by a car while he was riding in the bike lane just in front of the gas station. We did not see him get hit but he was on he ground and several cars stopped to protect him until police etc arrived.
Now for the finale for the night. Every Friday night is Karaoke night from 7 to 9 so we thought it would be entertaining so we attended and most of the singers where pretty good. Actually there was 6 or 7 singers and they just kept cycling thru. After 1 1/2 hours we returned to the MH as I decided that a hockey was slightly more exciting. cheers
We spend some of the afternoon running so more errands and while I was filling the Blazer with gas a cyclist got hit by a car while he was riding in the bike lane just in front of the gas station. We did not see him get hit but he was on he ground and several cars stopped to protect him until police etc arrived.
Now for the finale for the night. Every Friday night is Karaoke night from 7 to 9 so we thought it would be entertaining so we attended and most of the singers where pretty good. Actually there was 6 or 7 singers and they just kept cycling thru. After 1 1/2 hours we returned to the MH as I decided that a hockey was slightly more exciting. cheers
Saturday, 14 February 2015
Camping at Green Valley Feb 2015
Tuesday 10 Feb; After having the 2.99 breakfast including coffee at the casino we, moved to the Green Valley RV Resort. This RV park is located 30 miles south of Tucson, AZ and has 300 RV sites , mostly park models. Green Valley is a large municipality but is not a incorporated city and it seems to attract a vast majority of Seniors during the winter months. It has several great golf courses and more than adequate shopping plus the casino on " Indian " land. It also is the site of a large copper mine and the home of the only inactive Titan missile for a tourist attraction left over from the "cold War ".
I could not get the Satellite signal for some reason so I played with it off and on all day but no luck. I'll work on it tomorrow.
We spent the rest of the day shopping as the Custom office cleaned us out of our food.
Wednesday 10 Feb: Our friends from Medicine Hat, Bob and Karen Charette , who spend the winter in Green Valley as they are avid golfers and Bob plays ball twice a week so we called they and they dropped in for a visit after his Ball game.
I found the satellite signal this morning; I'm not sure were it was hiding yesterday.
The park has free WiFi at the office bldg. and / or you can purchase WiFi that is available at your site. However, our neighbor , "Jim " ; there is always a Jim in each park, dropped over to check us out and he said the WiFi was the " shitts " but he gave me the phone number for a company who would hook me up within 24 hours to the phone system, so I call them. I called them at 5 PM on Tuesday and they delivered the modem by UPS at 9 AM on Wed and said a Tech would hook me up no later then 5 PM. He showed up at 4:45 PM . Hello Telus.... are you listening; same day service, have you ever heard of it ????
The techy is only suppose to hook a customer from the phone kiosk to the MH but I pleaded computer illerate so he connected us to the modem and called the office to activate the modem. Now I have WiFi.
Wednesday, is Pot Luck supper night at the park so we bought a Marie Callender pie ( she makes great pies ) while shopping so we grab the pie and head for the supper. We also get to sit at a table and met some very nice people. Our table was from Minnesota so they are practically Canadians. cheers
Thursday 11 Feb: today was another " run around day ". First we found an ACE hardware store ( no Home Depot here) as I needed some nuts and Screws and few other items. Then I found an O'Rielly auto shop so I purchased a fuel filter as I intend to change it before I have another problem. They had to order it but promised delivery in1 hour. Hey, NAPA are you listening; 1 hour not 1 week. We then visited Radio Shack to get a Sim card for our iPhone but they are out of sim card but did sent us to ATT some 20 miles away. By the way Radio shack has applied for Bankruptcy Proctection, I wonder why. We then drove to ATT and they inserted the Sim Card but we have not used our phone since Nov and of course it was dead so they could not verify it would work but the Tech assured us it would. Once we charged it , it did work.
Bob and Karen invited us for supper so we had a great supper and got to chat to catch up on the happening at home as they too keep in contact with some friends who just happen to stay in Med Hat for the winter. It just so happen that the Evander Kane trade happened so Bob and I got to beat the hell out of that trade. Another day done. cheers
I could not get the Satellite signal for some reason so I played with it off and on all day but no luck. I'll work on it tomorrow.
We spent the rest of the day shopping as the Custom office cleaned us out of our food.
Wednesday 10 Feb: Our friends from Medicine Hat, Bob and Karen Charette , who spend the winter in Green Valley as they are avid golfers and Bob plays ball twice a week so we called they and they dropped in for a visit after his Ball game.
I found the satellite signal this morning; I'm not sure were it was hiding yesterday.
The park has free WiFi at the office bldg. and / or you can purchase WiFi that is available at your site. However, our neighbor , "Jim " ; there is always a Jim in each park, dropped over to check us out and he said the WiFi was the " shitts " but he gave me the phone number for a company who would hook me up within 24 hours to the phone system, so I call them. I called them at 5 PM on Tuesday and they delivered the modem by UPS at 9 AM on Wed and said a Tech would hook me up no later then 5 PM. He showed up at 4:45 PM . Hello Telus.... are you listening; same day service, have you ever heard of it ????
The techy is only suppose to hook a customer from the phone kiosk to the MH but I pleaded computer illerate so he connected us to the modem and called the office to activate the modem. Now I have WiFi.
Wednesday, is Pot Luck supper night at the park so we bought a Marie Callender pie ( she makes great pies ) while shopping so we grab the pie and head for the supper. We also get to sit at a table and met some very nice people. Our table was from Minnesota so they are practically Canadians. cheers
Thursday 11 Feb: today was another " run around day ". First we found an ACE hardware store ( no Home Depot here) as I needed some nuts and Screws and few other items. Then I found an O'Rielly auto shop so I purchased a fuel filter as I intend to change it before I have another problem. They had to order it but promised delivery in1 hour. Hey, NAPA are you listening; 1 hour not 1 week. We then visited Radio Shack to get a Sim card for our iPhone but they are out of sim card but did sent us to ATT some 20 miles away. By the way Radio shack has applied for Bankruptcy Proctection, I wonder why. We then drove to ATT and they inserted the Sim Card but we have not used our phone since Nov and of course it was dead so they could not verify it would work but the Tech assured us it would. Once we charged it , it did work.
Bob and Karen invited us for supper so we had a great supper and got to chat to catch up on the happening at home as they too keep in contact with some friends who just happen to stay in Med Hat for the winter. It just so happen that the Evander Kane trade happened so Bob and I got to beat the hell out of that trade. Another day done. cheers
San Carlos to Nogales, USA 9 Feb 2015
The drive to Nogales is a 7 hour drive so we would be crossing the US border about 3 PM. The MX roads were not much better and of course we still had those dam Tolls to pay. In MX terms, I'm sure their roads are considered as good but we Canadians don't expect to see potholes or broken pavement on our highways, hence the reason we complain.
One thing I forgot to mention was the vast acreages of corn grown in the area from Mazatlan to San Carlos. Also, the cities along the way have all the infastruction in place for handling the vast corn harvest. Sugar cane is another crop that is grown here but it seems like it is still harvested by hand as we did not see any combines in the fields.
Another point of interest is about vehicle insurance. When you enter MX you must have Mexican Insurance and you can not get your travel documents without it. Therefore your Cdn insurance ceases and in our case, 24 hours before we cross into MX we advise our insurance company to cease our insurance. By the same token, we normally advise our insurance company, by email, 24 hours before we return to the US to activate our insurance and to confirm by email, that we do now have valid Insurance. However, it slipped our minds until we were 2 hours from the border so now we were in panic mode as we had no way to phone back to Medicine Hat.
As we drove into a small town I notice a sign on a hotel that read , Free WiFi so I thought they might let me use the Wifi to contact my insurance company. However, where do you park a 40 ft MH with a car in tow in a small town. Luckily, the next Hotel we seen had enough room to get off the road, even though it was not a parking area. I ask the clerk for their Free Wifi and she graciously accepted by handing me the user name and password. I then used my iPad to send a msg to our insurance company with the hope that they would answer back while we were having lunch. Then Carroll suggested that we try to phone our insurance an sure enough we got thru and the agent ask me the preverbal question as she reviewed our policy and advised me that I would be insured within 10 minutes. What a relief because we can not enter the US without insurance.
Now we head for the border but we must stop to turn in our Temporary Import permits ( good for 6 Months ) which we got before entering MX. This tells the MX gov't that we have not left our vehicles in MX and if you do not turn them in, you will have a very hard time returning to MX. When I pulled up to the kiosk the only gate that was open said "Autos Only" so I stopped. Finally a security guard waved me thru but I debated because I did not think there was enough room. He assured be there was but he doesn't own the MH. I barely crept into the slot with meare inches to spare. I ask why he could not open the RV gate and he said the gov't did not have the money to hire more people. Anyway we got "that " paper work done quite quickly as the clerk was very efficient . Then we had to go to another office to turn in our "Visitors Visas" so they know that we have left MX. We also checked on the 400.00 deposit we had to pay for the car. Since we paid by Visa it will be credited back to our account. This ensures that we also bring the car back. I'm not sure why it can't be done when they check the MH but I assume it is a make work project.
Now for the US border. We have never crossed from MX to the US thru this border so we are not sure which line to enter. I did however, cross from the US into MX at Nogales and I do know that MHs have to use the Truck line as the Auto line has a height restriction. When we were about to enter the US border gates my choice was Truck or Auto. I chose Truck. If you own an RV ; Never never never enter the truck line at the US border. You immediately become " Americans Most Wanted ". This small mistake took 3 hours and 6 different Custom agents to clear us of this most " hernias " crime. However, the Custom Officers where very polite and I might add very busy with truck traffic. We did compound our own problem because we forgot to dispose of our meat and vegetable products before leaving MX.
Once we were cleared to enter the US "legally" we went to a Casino to park overnight as we intended to go to an RV park in Green Valley tomorrow. By the time we reached the casino I was way overdo for a drink!!!It was quite a day. cheers
One thing I forgot to mention was the vast acreages of corn grown in the area from Mazatlan to San Carlos. Also, the cities along the way have all the infastruction in place for handling the vast corn harvest. Sugar cane is another crop that is grown here but it seems like it is still harvested by hand as we did not see any combines in the fields.
Another point of interest is about vehicle insurance. When you enter MX you must have Mexican Insurance and you can not get your travel documents without it. Therefore your Cdn insurance ceases and in our case, 24 hours before we cross into MX we advise our insurance company to cease our insurance. By the same token, we normally advise our insurance company, by email, 24 hours before we return to the US to activate our insurance and to confirm by email, that we do now have valid Insurance. However, it slipped our minds until we were 2 hours from the border so now we were in panic mode as we had no way to phone back to Medicine Hat.
As we drove into a small town I notice a sign on a hotel that read , Free WiFi so I thought they might let me use the Wifi to contact my insurance company. However, where do you park a 40 ft MH with a car in tow in a small town. Luckily, the next Hotel we seen had enough room to get off the road, even though it was not a parking area. I ask the clerk for their Free Wifi and she graciously accepted by handing me the user name and password. I then used my iPad to send a msg to our insurance company with the hope that they would answer back while we were having lunch. Then Carroll suggested that we try to phone our insurance an sure enough we got thru and the agent ask me the preverbal question as she reviewed our policy and advised me that I would be insured within 10 minutes. What a relief because we can not enter the US without insurance.
Now we head for the border but we must stop to turn in our Temporary Import permits ( good for 6 Months ) which we got before entering MX. This tells the MX gov't that we have not left our vehicles in MX and if you do not turn them in, you will have a very hard time returning to MX. When I pulled up to the kiosk the only gate that was open said "Autos Only" so I stopped. Finally a security guard waved me thru but I debated because I did not think there was enough room. He assured be there was but he doesn't own the MH. I barely crept into the slot with meare inches to spare. I ask why he could not open the RV gate and he said the gov't did not have the money to hire more people. Anyway we got "that " paper work done quite quickly as the clerk was very efficient . Then we had to go to another office to turn in our "Visitors Visas" so they know that we have left MX. We also checked on the 400.00 deposit we had to pay for the car. Since we paid by Visa it will be credited back to our account. This ensures that we also bring the car back. I'm not sure why it can't be done when they check the MH but I assume it is a make work project.
Now for the US border. We have never crossed from MX to the US thru this border so we are not sure which line to enter. I did however, cross from the US into MX at Nogales and I do know that MHs have to use the Truck line as the Auto line has a height restriction. When we were about to enter the US border gates my choice was Truck or Auto. I chose Truck. If you own an RV ; Never never never enter the truck line at the US border. You immediately become " Americans Most Wanted ". This small mistake took 3 hours and 6 different Custom agents to clear us of this most " hernias " crime. However, the Custom Officers where very polite and I might add very busy with truck traffic. We did compound our own problem because we forgot to dispose of our meat and vegetable products before leaving MX.
Once we were cleared to enter the US "legally" we went to a Casino to park overnight as we intended to go to an RV park in Green Valley tomorrow. By the time we reached the casino I was way overdo for a drink!!!It was quite a day. cheers
Friday, 13 February 2015
Mazatlan to San Carlos 8 Feb 2015
From Mazatlan to San Carlos is an 11 hour trip, mostly on Toll roads and believe me the tolls are extremely high. Even though most of the roads are 4 lanes they are really rough, meaning potholes and broken pavement. With the money they collected from me I would think they would improve the roads. Many Mexicans don't make enough wages to pay taxes so they have to collect the money somehow, so tolls are the answer.
We made it to the San Carlos area around 5 PM but it has been years since we traveled this route so we were looking for a sign that says "San Carlos ". The city/town of Guaymus and San Carlos are close together but you would think that there would be a sign for both town. Wrong; apparently they only had enough money for one sign and they chose to name it Guamus not San Carlos so we drove right by the turnoff . We kept thinking there must be a sign but finally we decide to check with a Pemex station and we had driven 50 KM pasted our turnoff to San Carlos. We considered staying at the Pemex but thought we would feel more comfortable in an RV park so we turned around and went to the RV park in San Carlos. Besides we were really for a restaurant meal, which would be our last Mexican style meal for this trip.
The RV park owner allows us Travelers who are just stopping overnight to park in the driveway and allows us to connect to the utilities. That way we do not need to unhook the car which is why we travelers stop here.
So parked the MH, hooked up the utilities and had our MX supper. Cheers
We made it to the San Carlos area around 5 PM but it has been years since we traveled this route so we were looking for a sign that says "San Carlos ". The city/town of Guaymus and San Carlos are close together but you would think that there would be a sign for both town. Wrong; apparently they only had enough money for one sign and they chose to name it Guamus not San Carlos so we drove right by the turnoff . We kept thinking there must be a sign but finally we decide to check with a Pemex station and we had driven 50 KM pasted our turnoff to San Carlos. We considered staying at the Pemex but thought we would feel more comfortable in an RV park so we turned around and went to the RV park in San Carlos. Besides we were really for a restaurant meal, which would be our last Mexican style meal for this trip.
The RV park owner allows us Travelers who are just stopping overnight to park in the driveway and allows us to connect to the utilities. That way we do not need to unhook the car which is why we travelers stop here.
So parked the MH, hooked up the utilities and had our MX supper. Cheers
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