To those who are subscribed to updates on my blog

I am about to post a multi-part Christmas / end of year letter that I will need to do updates to to incorporate hot-links to each part within each part... I don't know whether this ends up sending you multiple emails or not... if it does, I apologize for spamming you in advance...

Christmas / End of Year letter - part 2 - Friends and family

Friends and family

January - With niece Ginny at Arizona Sonora Desert Museum where she is a volunteer.

March - With friends Jane and John (fellow RVers in Christian Fellowship BOF) in Algodones, Mexico

March - With Ginny and Josh (niece and nephew-by-love) in Tucson at Oregano's!

March - With new friends Cyd and Noble (neighbors at campground) while visiting Burton and Nancy in Roswell, NM

March - With friends Doris and Sam (Dwayne's former co-worker)

April - With Patti's former co-workers in DFW area - Nancy, Melanie, Gary, Dave, Burt, Rich

April - With Patti's former co-workers in DFW area - Tom, Jackie, Patti, Dwayne, Nancy

May - At Poplar Springs Farm in Virginia

May - Sweet old bull Henry - Ginny bred him out of her show cow, he was Jimmy's herd bull for many years, was "out to pasture" while we were in Virginia, but later this year had to be put down. :-(

May - Nephew and niece-by-love, Ricky and Kendra's house at Oak Grove in Virginia

June - Mulching the garden in Virginia

June - Mulched garden in Virginia

June - With cousin George and his wife Cynthia in Georgetown, Delaware

June - Cousins Ginger and Susie in Browns Mills, NJ

June - Cousin Jean and her husband Myron in New Jersey

June - Dwayne at Hershey Chocolate Town with our bags of "loot"

June - Dwayne in emergency surgery for possible bowel obstruction at Hershey Penn State Medical center in July -- Patti tracked his progress on television monitor in the waiting area. No, the chocolate "loot" is not suspected in causing this!

June - Dwayne recovered to liquid diet after surgery.

June - Dwayne awaiting discharge instructions from hospital.

July - Dwayne, less than one week post-surgery, doing light hiking in Ontario County Park, New York.

July 3 with Patti's former co-worker, Barbara, and her husband, David.

July 4 with Dwayne's former co-worker Mike, his wife, Kelly, and Michael Paul

July with Patti's former co-worker Pat and his wife Bonnie

July - with Patti's former co-worker, Dennie, and her husband, Jim, on Ossipee Lake

July - Celebrating Patti's birthday in Bar Harbor, Maine

July - with Patti's former co-worker, Aaron, in Vermont

September with Patti's former co-worker, Pat, and her husband, Mark, in the "Cottage Country" in Ontario

September - with Patti's former co-workers, Marlon and Vlad, in Ontario

October - at Kristin and Keith Getty Concert at Dallas Baptist University

October - with Dwayne's sister, Sherry (center), and cousins, Weldon (left) and Marilyn (right)

November, voting in our new domicile county, Polk County

November - with former church family members, James and Joyce

November - with new friend, met at Escapade in Vermont, and author, Charles Sanger, at his book release party

December - Patti at Mustang Island State Park, Texas

Dwayne with Chet, our tour guide at SKP Saguaro Co-Op Park in Benson, Arizona

Links to other parts of this letter:

Part 1: Travels

Part 3: Canada

Part 4: The Wondrous Beauty given by God

YouVersion

Dwayne​ and I have really loved using the Bible App from YouVersion. In 2016, we both used a "Historical" "read through the Bible" plan and appreciated being able to discuss what we were reading with each other.

We are planning to use the Solid Life "Full Bible" Reading Plan in 2017.

If you have a smart phone, download the Bible App now - it is totally free - and come along with us reading the Bible through in a year.  You can also add us as "friends" so we can share our progress together.

The particular plan that we plan to do leads us through reading the Old Testament once in near chronological order, and the New Testament is read twice. The "near chronological" means that Psalms are often read on the same day as corresponding events and historical books such as the Kings are read along with contemporary prophets.

Come along with us!!!!

Why? No....

We left Benson this morning with plans to head to Why, between Ajo, AZ and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. We were going to do some star gazing at the dark of the moon, and also meet folks who are also members of the Christian Fellowship Birds of a Feather Escapees group.

But, when we got ready to leave the campsite, one of the Jeep's tires was quite low. We were concerned that we may have (again!) driven over something (cactus spine?) that would have put a hole in the tire. We decided that caution was the better part of valor, aired up the tire there at the campground, and drove over to Tucson (less than an hour) to a truck stop where we had stopped before. There, we unhooked the Jeep, and Dwayne drove it to Sams Club to take advantage of our warranty on the tire.

They were busy, so it was a couple of hours before they were able to check the tire. In the meantime, we had checked the weather out at Ajo, and it was predicted to have quite cloudy conditions through this week - not good for star gazing. As time went by, it was also apparent that we would not be able to get to Why in the daylight, and we knew that we did not want to go looking for a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) area after dark.

So, we decided to head to the campground where we've stayed before in Marana. It is nothing fancy, but $12.63/night for full hookups (Passport America rate) is a good deal. I drove Miss Doozie up to the campground and Dwayne soon joined me with the Jeep (no problem was found with the tire, so it remains to be determined what caused it to lose air).

Our campsite neighbors have a neat dog bed (it almost looks like a trampoline - probably nice to allow the dog to keep his paws off the gravel) - the dog was intently watching a rabbit in the brush across the driveway from us! As I indicated - not a fancy campground - the sites are gravel - the entire campground is gravel! and the sites are very close together... but it is convenient and has everything we need, so it is fine. Unfortunately, it is a bit muddy coming in and out of our sites - you might be able to see the mud on the front tire of our neighbor's truck... thankfully no one has gotten stuck! Yet!

Auto Court?

I had been seeing a sign for the "Benson Historic Auto Court" when driving into town... I thought, "It's a motel, big deal!" - by what I remember, a motel is just a lodging place where you can park right outside your room.

The sign

Well... it *is* a motel, but there are spaces next to each room for you to park your car under a carport-type structure.

So, is an "auto court" equivalent to a "motel"?
Dictionary.com says they are synonyms.
Wikipedia says that they were a separate thing from Motels.

Isn't it interesting how the industry has changed from the 1930s until now?!?!?

"Boxing day" and weatherstriping

For the day after Christmas (aka Boxing Day), it was "leftovers" day from the feast from yesterday. Everyone brought what they had left over from yesterday (some people had additional servings that they had prepared) and we all enjoyed leftovers together.

This was the serving table *after* everyone had shared in the leftovers meal - so this is after 2 times through - it was all so delicious!

On Saturday, Dwayne had started on the job to replace the weather stripping on Miss Doozie's entry door.

After pulling the old striping off, he was cleaning the area in preparation to put the new on. Isn't he "stylin'" in those safety glasses?!?!?

A view of the old weather stripping at the top of the door - it definitely was in rough shape. We have had so much wind noise when driving - hoping this project will improve that.

After pulling off the weather stripping, there was still a lot of residue left behind to clean off.

Dwayne went up to Ace Hardware, just before they closed on Christmas Eve, and got some liquid that helped to dissolve the adhesive, and an arbor for his rotary sander that took the remnants off.

Nice and clean!

Unfortunately, it got later in the day and too cool by the time he got all of this cleaned up, so we had to delay completion of the project until today. You can see from the picture to the right that there was a lot of daylight coming in around the door - we stuffed towels in there to keep the cold air out on Saturday night when the winds were blowing so strongly.

Replacement weather stripping

The directions indicated that the metal to which it was being applied should be above 50F, preferably above 60F. The weather stripping was supposed to be at 100F - so we had it on the front dash of Miss Doozie with the bright sunshine coming in to warm it up.

Dwayne did an additional cleaning of the surfaces today to ensure that any dust would be removed.

 

Installing the new weather stripping

Getting the bottom corner miter just right.

The door sounds very tight now - the test will be Wednesday when we drive to see if the whistling has been resolved!