The Travels of John & Mimi: March 2008

Well, we are several days away from our "mini trip" to the San Bernadino Mountains just north of L.A. Our plan is to camp there, and drive into the city during the day to visit museums, bike the boardwalk, etc. This will be a prelude to our major New Mexico trip in early May.

The big news is that I'm In Bidness (thats Texan for business). That's right. I've figured out a way to make some money as we travel to help pay for the outrageous gas prices, as well as taking a tax deduction for part of our travel. It all started on our last trip, where we had a nasty chip on our windshield on our way to a seminar series on RVing. At the seminar, there was an RVer who had a windshield chip fixing business. I watched as he fixed mine, and he was very helpful with all of the questions that I bombarded him with. What a perfect little business! RV windshields are very expensive, and it's best to fix small chips and cracks as soon as possible, so that they don't expand into larger ones. Repair it now $ or replace it later $$$$.

My equipment consists of a ladder and glass tool kit. Advertising is by magnetic signs on our tow vehicle. And that's it! I'll let you know how things progress while we are on the road.

This is a picture of a cactus in our yard. It's springtime here already. Mimi has been harvesting sugar peas and lettuce. Our trees are producing limes, lemons, oranges and grapefruit. A regular garden of Eden.

We are currently doing "packing" which consists of us transferring much of our household to the motorhome. It's the least enjoyable part of traveling. Our cats are becoming suspicious because of the increase in activity. They hate the first few days of traveling, then settle down. Poor Puddies! At least we don't make them drive or buy gas.

On the right side of the blog page are links under My Favorites. You may want to check them out. Briefly, Tioga George is a good friend and the "Grand daddy" of full-time RVing and blogging. Nick is also a full-timer and publishes a newspaper and books on RVing. Michel is a fulltimer from Europe who is a world traveler and professional photographer currently working in India. Geeks On Tour are a full-timing couple who do educational stuff about computers. Their site is a gold mine of information. Peter is a retired business executive who is touring the U.S. in his giant motorhome. He aspires to be a professional model airplane pilot. Finally, Daily Coyote is about a gal living in a log cabin and raising a coyote as a pet. These are the people we meet on the road.

And don't forget to check our trip progress and current location with the Google link provided.

Hello. The last time we posted was on our old blog. That one was ok, but it didn't handle pictures as well as I liked. Our new one has the same name, but a new publisher. Here's a few things about the new one:

Under LINKS, in the lower right, is where you will find our trip progress & current location. It links to a Google Map, which can be fun, because you can zoom in. For instance, our current location is Home, in San Diego. If you zoom at maximum mangification, you can actually see a satellite picture of our house, pool, and RV in the driveway! The picture is probably a few years old, but still cool.

Another LINK is to our old blog. Don't know why you would want to view it, but there it is.

This first post is of a trip we took Thursday to the Anza Borrego Desert. It was just a day trip, but a good opportunity to try out the blogs capabilities and show you some neat wildflowers and cactus blossoms. What makes these flowers so amazing is that the desert is generally such an austere, brutal place. But once a year, it takes a break from that role and puts on a colorful show. Many of these flowers are tiny. It takes a camera with a Macro setting and placing the lens only a few inches away for a good shot.
Enjoy......