We don't think we will be hitting the highway this Spring ,unless we win the Lotto. I was just thinking though, that Trish e-mails me money from her account at least once a month to pay the bills. If any of you out there want to contribute to the poor Paul & tearful Trish travel fund ,it's so easy!  If you do your banking on line, , here are the easy to follow instructions, go to your account, hit e-mail transfers,enter my name, enter my e-mail address twice, select English, put in the amount, select the account, then e-mail me the code!  Please, please remember, you are not allowed to send more then $1000. per day.

Haven't written anything on homesweet highway for a while, mainly because we are not on the highway, we are settled into Shoreham Village in Chester, our Nova Scotia home, here are some other blogs by Paul if you enjoy the humour or anecdotes www.amotleyexistence.blogspot.com
www.fairviewforgotten.blogspot.com , www.fishuntrap.blogspot.com , www.ournovascotiahome.blogspot.com , enjoy and please comment!!!!

Seems we can blog from another computer, but in the meantime,we started a new blog called www.ournovascotiahome.blogspot.com, any our our faithful followers can go to the new site, we have found a little house in Western Shore , near where used to live, move in on August 1st!

Testing, testing, testing, just want to see if we can still blog on this site, or is it just our laptop that's screwing up, trying from another computer!

Great to be back in Chester, after the lobster dinner, Brian served up mackeral another night, then mooseburgers with blue cheese and topped off all his culinary delights with drunken chicken on Father's Day, what a way to be welcomed back to Nova Scotia, there is no doubt we are at home, thanks again to Dale and Brian , and on top of all this we had free electricity for six days. We are staying in Rayport campground near Chester. Met a fellow today ,visiting from Ontario, he left Nova Scotia, forty years ago! He went to work in a steel plant, he said his father owned a dairy farm and he got tired of shovelling shit and pulling tits!!!!!

We are having trouble blogging lately, the site seems to screwed up from our computer anyway, sometimes the picture of Brian,myself and the lobster are there , other times not. We had a great week with the Haases, Brian and Dale, lobster, mackeral, blue cheese mooseburgers and then drunken chicken on fathers day, then we moved into Rayport Campground in Martin's River, while there, we found a house to rent very near where we used to live in Western Shore, we move in on August 1st. In the mean time, it's Rayport or any place we can steal electricity, this week-end we are in Annapolis River campground in Bridgetown , N.S. We watched the most spectacular fireworks ever on Canada Day , did some Karaoke, drank a little wine, and dined with Brian and Cathy, friends from Dartmouth, next week we spend a week in their driveway helping to get ready for Kathy's daughter's wedding on July 17th!

Our first night home in Chester, lobster was on the menu, and the next morning we were all a little overhung !!

Our odyssey is winding down, winding through the hills of New York State, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
Crossed the border into New Brunswick to encounter fog, rain, but we had our Tim's. Did they downsize, I swear a medium is smaller than it used to be, I do know a medium was bigger in the states. Has that got to do with the U.S. and Imperial gallon??? Gas jumped $1.50 more a gallon! But N.B. gas cheaper than N.S. The roads in N.B. are deplorable, potholes galore from Calais to Sackville, it's a wonder the old truck frame took it! We were happy to see the Lupins, Bullrushes and Birch trees, home again!!!
We seen thousands of wind turbines in our travels, but got back to Amherst to see our Federal Government cannot make the one turbine in Amherst work , at the Mountie station, it was supposed to supply all the power at the new station , but hasn't worked for years. My daughter Karen in Amherst served up a nice supper and today we are heading to Chester Legion to have a few cold ones! Great to be home, I guess!!!!! Six months on the Road, and we are going to be home tonight!

A cross between a Zebra and a Giraffe ! Wonder which was the father ?

Trish and her friend The Thinker ! Actually he is eating the putty out of the window !

These guys are a long way from South America !

Colombus Zoo again, also a long way from Canada !

Colombus, Ohio he's a long way from home !

Two beautiful blossoms ! I picked them both, Paul !!!

What a surprise, to see this in Marks, Miss. Canadian National owns Illinois Central Railway !

We are having trouble posting on the site, we had pictures of our friends Brian & Dale welcoming us home with lots of lobster , also a blog on how weel we ate at their place while winding down from the six month oddessy, another night we had mackeral, then blue-cheese moose-burgers, and to top it off on fathers day we had drunkin chicken. What a wonderful week, we have been busy running around seeing relatives, friends, and looking for a house to rent. Yippee, we found a house in Western Shore, near where we used to live before we put all our furniture in storage and hit the road ,last December! Canada Day we spent in Bridgetown, in the Vaqlley and enjoyed the most spectacular fireworks display we have ever witnessed! We have been staying in various campgrounds and will continue to do so until the hnouse is available on August 1st! We will keep you posted, hope we can get back those pictures and blogs lost in the last few weeks!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GARY!! See you soon, we are in Penn. today. We went to Bethlehem, Rome ,Paris, and East Palestine and finally found our first Tim Horton's in Calcutta, Ohio!
Bernie, the old girl only has another thousand miles to go, that's the truck, not Trish, I figure we have easily put on 15, 000 miles in 180 days, See you soon for some care and attention!
Went from 95 degrees in Kentucky to 59 degrees in Ohio, in two days! We have a thirteen year old truck, a forty year old camper, a ten year old laptop, no GPS, but a 64 year old co-pilot and navigator! We figure between the both of us ,we worked for well over 100 years, we deserved this trip, couldn't afford it, but did it anyway, just to prove it can be done! See most of you next week!

We went to see the wild beast show, the elephant and the wild kangeroooo,
Trish was so emotional, she had never before, been to a Zoooooo!

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, and see the cross between a Giraffe and an Zebra!

Columbus, Ohio Zoo is known as the very best Zoo in all of America, ,we seen every animal in North America, then Asia, then Australia, a kangeroo almost knocked us down, then Africa. In most cases we were less than three feet away from all the animals, sometime three inches, with only thick glass between us. The orangatangs were eating the putty holding the glass in, one guy had a rock as a tool, removing the putty. The arctic section was really impressive, polar bears, arctic fox, and cold, cold ice cream! Don't let the idea of glass fool you, these animals are not caged, they have a large, large ,large , natural habitat to roam, unlike the zoos I went to years ago, with all animals in a cage. After five hours of walking we seen every animal, bird, reptile, fish in the world. We went on a Merry-Go- Round, a 1914 restored Carousel, first time for Trish and I hadn't been on one since 1949 at the Bill Lynch Shows on the Hfx Commons! It is a small world, we asked for directions to the Zoo, and it turned out the guy I was talking to, had served as an exchange officer at the diving school in Shearwater in the eighties, he lived in Lake Echo for two years, and served on the Comorant!

Left lovely Louisiana and travelled through Arkansas to ippississiM, crossed the River at Greenville and discovered there is a river highway all the way to Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba, the beginning of the Mississippi . Followed the highway to Clarksdale, seen the Blues Supper Club owned by Morgan Freeman, call Madidi! For Mayor Peter Kelly of Hfx, Clarksdale pays people to go up and down the streets to clean up trash each morning! Back in my day, I worked at a drug store opposite city hall and each business cleaned in front of it's own place by nine each morning, what a concept, but of course ,that was back in the fifties! We found out that the Queen and our friend Donna Malloy will arrive in Hfx on the same date to attend the Tattoo. Prince Phillip will accompany the Queen, but King Bill of St. Lawrence refuses to leave the Rock, he has been to St. John's and ventured in his boat to Port Aux Basques, but says he will never set foot on the mainland! We seen a CN truck in Marks, Miss., talked to the guys, they work for Canadian National , CN bought Illinois Central Railway years ago! Couldn't find a clean park State or Federal in Miss., so went to Tennesee. Trish saw her first ever fireflies in Chickasaw , Tenn. I captured a few in a jar , as we did when we were kids, she cried, imagine her reaction when we visit the very best Zoo in America in Columbus, Ohio, she has never been to a Zoo before, also! Did the Wal-Mart thing in a Big K Mart in Glasgow, Kentucky, the Scotch coming out in me ! We stopped to help a turtle cross the highway in Chester county, Kentucky.
Sorry Gary, no way we will make it for your birthday, buy you a drink on Monda or Tues, or Wed, whatever! For four months we kept looking for warmer weather, now we are heading North looking for cooler weather. We are on ourway today to discover Columbus!

We are bringing home one of Lucy's puppies, if he turns out to be as big as his father ( pictured here) we will hire him out as Chester's watch dog !

Be careful, do not enlarge this photo !!!!

As we left B&G loop, our address for the past seven days, we saw a hawk circling us! Hurricane season officially starts in the US on June 1st, so we are hurrying to get home, Gary, we will be there for your birthday! We started travelling north but keep favouring Northwest highways, heading for Calais to cross the border. We passed the Bonnie & Clyde RV park ( we relate because we sometimes filch electricity) and have landed at another Louisiana State Park, we stated earlier that they were great, but this one surpasses them all, they have the cleanest and largest washrooms we have seen yet, the showers are no where near the shitters, the laundromat machines are only 75 cents, half what they are in the rest of America. The staff are the friendliest, they have a picture of a eighty(80) pound catfish caught here! We are travelling with catfish cooked cajun style by our Scottish friend Andy, the freezer is full! Catfish and Kraft dinner, wow!!!

All good things must come to an end, the week long party is over, today we pull out of the Laverty's driveway for points North and New Scotland, Canada, we hope someday soon, Lucy and Andy will visit the Maritimes and experience some downhome hospitality. We capped off our visit to Leesville yesterday by attending the Memorial Day celebrations, the food was fabulous and the friendship extended to Trish and I will always be in our memories! This all happened because we dropped into Post #145, for a beer, just over 13 months ago, they adopted us , invited us into their beautiful home, and we have become friends , Andy & Lucy are the ultimate hosts, leaving isn't easy!Tonight, before leaving the state of Louisiana we will probably stay in a LA State Park, by far, also the best, we stayed in state parks all across America and Louisiana offers free wi-fi , laundromat and all amenities for $18.00, just as a comparison, none others had wi-fi or laundromat, California was by far the worst, $33.00 a night and no hook-ups, all you get is a shower for that money.

Paul Greer, Post Commander of #145, Leesville, LA invited Paul to participate in Memorial Day 2010 ceremonies !

Lucy loves his little orange tractor !

When we were eating at Catfish Jct. , Lucy noticed that all the waiters and waitresses carried extra silverware in their pockets, she asked what that was about, our waiter Justin told us , when a customer dropped a untensil on the floor, they were right there with a replacement. Then she noticed the waiters had a little string hanging out of the fly of their pants, "What's that for?, she asked, he said, " Oh, that's for pulling your penis out when you go to the bathroom at work, then you don't have to touch it!" Then Lucy said," How do you put it back?" Justin said, " I don't know about everyone else, but I use the spoon!"

Wasn't THAT a party???? We are now into the fourth or maybe fifth day of celebrating Lucy's birthday, I'm not allowed to put her age on the internet but the clue is somewhere in those previous figures! We are definitely not allowed to post any photos or videos of the celebration without her permission! Stay tuned!! Wednesday we went to her all girls gathering and enjoyed the pool, they allowed Andy and I to attend, just this once! Then Thursday was her actual birthdate, I crushed six dozen beer cans and there were only six of us here, then there were the other empties! Friday we went out to Catfish Junction, I ate frog's Legs for the first time and also alligator, Trish settled for shrimp! Today Andy has ribs roasting, then we are off to the Saturday night Legion dance, then Sunday I think there will be another party, and then Monday, Memorial Day , it will be something different, eating and drinking at the Legion. Life in Louisiana is tough! The two legions in town and the Veterans of Foriegn Wars club all get together and celebrate the memory of all those that have given their lives since the Civil war.

Two really cool pool boys Lovin the Luxury at the Laverty Resort !

Reflections of a Texas sunset !

Paul & Trish leaving the Sunny South in seven days and heading for Nova Scotia, via Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, New Brunswick.

Here are Canada's real "Snowbirds" flying over Comox!

Living in the lap of Luxery at the Laverty's in Leesville, Louisiana, and loving it! We spent ten of the hottest days ever in East Texas , the camper was like a sauna, we hosed each other down every fifteen minutes, slept fitfully and woke up sweating each day! Now we are here ,Trish (says our second home), with the LSU cold beer cooler, their new pool, air-conditioning, our own bedroom and bathroom, the LSU deck with the thermometer reading 100 degrees in the shade just like Lucy said! What is LSU, the joke is that LSU means Louisiana State unemployment,but it is actually Louisiana State University, a bar closed recently that had a LSU theme and they were able to purchase a lot of items! We have searched high and low across America for hawk jewellery,without any luck, Lucy gave Trish hawk earrings for her birthday that are just lovely.
Andy is from Scotland, where they don't celebrate Queen Victoria's birthday very enthusiastically, Lucy is from Louisiana, she wanted to know why in the hell we celebrate a dead Queens birthday , so they didn't join me when I sang God Save the Queen!

There she is, the birthday girl, sneaking another look at the pool boys long pole !

Trish seems enchanted with the pool boy, something to do with his long pole!

One of our hawks watching over us !

Sonny is still close to us !

Here I go again about prices in the South, we bought pork loin ribs for Trish's birthday, already cooked for 11.00 bucks, couldn't buy it raw at home for that! A forty -ouncer for 12.99 and a large bag of ice for 99 cents! Also thirty beer for 13.99! And of course the Lambrusco for 6.49!
Wasn't that a party!! We are totally chilling out on Lake Livingstone! Met an old fellow, 85 years young,loves to tell stories. He grew up in Texas, but all his relatives were in Alabama, anyway, he once went to the Mardi Gras, in New Orleans, this guy kept bothering his mother-in-law, kept trying to hold her hand, he got tired of it and approached a policeman, the guy gave the policman a card, on the card it had an address and a message, if this person is bothering anyone, please send him home in a taxi to this address and we will pay for it! Later he told his mother-in-law that he knew there was something wrong mentally with her harraser. Who the hell else would want to hold her hand???

Gimme East Texas over West Texas anytime, we prefer thunder and lighting storms to those relentless winds ! We're 'laxing on Lake Livingstone, not too far from Louisiana. This place has a pool, hot tub, exercise room, laundry, lake, beach, wi-fi, TV room (which we never use) and lots of sunshine, the only negative is the humidity, a couple of good thunder storms gave us some relief! The only other relief is to stay in the pool! Hot tub and humidity don't seem to go together! Yesterday we went to Texas Trade Days, ( read up-scale flea market) lots of nice arts and crafts along with guns galore! Looking forward to Memorial Day in Leesville, I brought my Legion uniform and plan to take part in their celebration! Next day we will head for home!

Our next stop will be our home away from home !

Smokey The Bear and Trish my dear !

Bears may sh__ in the woods but in New Mexico they use the urinal !!

Fishing illegally in Texas !

Not just New Mexico can claim Aliens, we witnessed them landing in West Texas !

Trish, the glasses grew with the legend !

Another Sunset in Texas !

Outside an "IceHouse" in East Texas !

Spent two nights on Lake Waco, wind was relentless, it just tires you out! Returned to Marquez, hoping to see Bubba again at his BBQ, turned out is was closed, his son-in-law went to Iraq. Camped near Huntsville , Texas, the prison museum has their old electric chair, it's called "Old Sparky" . Today they just give them the needle and they do it often, does my heart good when I read they have done away with another monster in Texas! One thing about it, they won't be able to kill again, unlike Canada.
We drive around 55 mph most days on our trip, but on Friday I asked a cop in Huntsville to escort me to the hospital because Trish was having a bad reaction to a bug bite, we did over 60 mph on city streets at times, went through two red lights, she spent a couple hours there and left with a script for antibiotics. She is well now and we are on Livingstone Lake in East Texas, staying for a week. The west Texas winds can drive you batty, for more than two weeks, from the time we entered New Mexico until now, it blew at least 25 miles an hour, day and night! The first day we almost got blown over , I swear two wheels were off the ground at times, winds up to 65 miles an hour on the desert! We haven't met anyone in Texas yet, that likes Obama!

Took a two day break in a Corps of Engineers park near Coleman , Texas, , lovely, 407 sites and Sunday night when everyone else went home we had the whole park to ourselves. Still fighting the winds on the highways, can't wait to get off these panhandle plains. Seeing lots of butterflys and of course our hawks, seen a hawk with a rattlesnake in it's claws, the butterflys are in and out of our camper! The Texas prison system is tough, no air-conditioning on the transport buses here! We met a few tough Texans in an RV Park last night, the lady who owns the park told us her husband bought her a backhoe for their 56th wedding anniversay, a cowboy there in his motor home told us stories of her operating it and a bulldozer to build the park! The cowboy was 73, and has two sons and two grandchildren in rodeo, he attends them all and sells cowhide throws and Indian Jewellery! He would like to see Texas break away from the states before he dies!

Headed for Lubbock, but could see a major dust storm miles ahead and turned around, instead ,did laundry and shopped, the next day very little wind so off we went again. Made it to the Buddy Holley Center,It is in the old train station, much the same as Hank Snow Museum in Liverpool at home. We learned that Buddy Holly, even though he died in a plane crash at 22 years of age was very influential, the Beatles, Elton John, & The Rolling Stones all say when he toured Britian, they wanted to become like him and the Crickets. Elton John wore unnecessary glasses to look like Buddy. Peggy Sue, That'll be the Day, were great hits in the 50's.
It was 35C the day we went to Lubbock, the C stands for Canadian! The wind was very high coming back from Lubbock, we are damn tired of the West Texas Winds, getting off the Plains and heading further South! We camped at Colorado City at SpeakEasy RV Park, nice people!
Two more weeks in Texas, than we enter Louisiana!!!

Camped in Alamogordo, NM , Trish had an issue again with bug bites, she has a bad reaction to them, we decided to drive to Roswell and if she didn't improve we were going to emergency. We drove through Ruidoso, NM , we went to the Billy the Kid center, very interesting! Smokey the Bear started here also, but we passed on the celebration days! Roswell is famous for aliens, we stayed at the Bottomless Lakes State Park and did not see one spaceship, but the stars were fabulous! Trish felt better at the end of the day! The "very first" thing we saw entering Roswell was a sign showing Ronald McDonald getting out of a spaceship to order a burger!
Cowboys used to tie a weight to their lariats, then join lariats, and try to measure the bottom of the lakes, but the underground springs that feed them would float their weights, so they called them bottomless! Turns out they are actually about 90 feet with modern measurements.
We stayed an extra day at Bottomless Lake, very beautiful and peaceful! Today we are settled in a free, yes totally free RV Park in Brownfield, Texas, complete hook-up and wireless internet for free, only 5 days allowed , but they know what they are doing, even on our limit of $99.00 a day, we will probably spend $400. while we are here, gas, propane, groceries, beer, wine,new door handle, etc. ,etc. We weren't going to go to Lubbock , forty miles north, but we changed our minds, Brownfield is dry in more ways than one, can't buy whiskey here, tomorrow we are going to Lubbock for liquor , and also the Buddy Holly museum, and then return to Brownfield and our free camping! Luckily, you can buy beer and wine in Brownfield, because we totally ran out last night. We were able to get our usual 30 beer for 16 bucks ,boneless pork tenderloin chops for 95 cents a pound, Lucy, they also had Lambrusco, one night without Canadian Whiskey will not kill us!!!

Hooray, Hooray it's the second of May, outdoor screwing started yesterday. We didn't get a chance to blog yesterday, we were too busy. Travelled some scary mountains again, not a guard rail to be seen, we hope we never see another mountain. Travelled through the White Sands Rocket Range all day, the scene of the original Atomic Bomb explosion. Reminds me of one of my favourite jokes: You ask someone, who said: "We will fight them on the beaches, we will fight them on the sea, we will fight them in the air", answer: Churchill. Who said ,when he left the Phillipines, "I shall return", answer : MacArthur, then ask, Who said: "Holy jumping, jumping, jumping,jumping,jumping Jesus, what was that??????" Answer: The Mayor of Hiroshima!!!
Talking about the Phillipines, we travelled through the desert on the Bataan Memorial Highway.

Along an Arizona highway we seen prison inmates cleaning the roadsides, we noted that they tow an outhouse along with them and that the transport buses have air-conditioning, some buses had as many as four a/c units on the roof, we also noted that school buses have no air-conditioning! Glad they have their priorities right! Remember how we got storm-stayed in Virginia because of a snow storm, well, a wind storm almost done us in this time, winds gusting to 60 MPH in the high desert lifted our camper 6 inches up and almost tipped truck and camper over a few times, that is not an exaggeration, we travelled for 25 miles at 10 mph hoping we would not tip over trying to get to town so we could get some shelter. We finally pulled into a persons yard that had a for sale sign and parked with their house protecting us. They come home and we explained why we were there. They suggested we park behind their garage and make ourselves comfortable until the wind died down! We played cards and had a drink while the wind still shook the camper relentlessly! We finally made it into Lordsburg, New Mexico and got a motel room, the winds continued until nine o'clock, we watched the news to hear many tractor -trailers had flipped over in the area, we were very lucky. Bought some more tie-down straps today! Roofs were blown off houses, cows were tipped over, and over 3000 people lost their power because of the winds. We thought the winds were stressful, but today we had to face steep mountain roads again, the worst yet, 9000 feet, no guard rails anywhere, while I sweat, Trish prays, she says," Hail Mary, full of grace, get me off this goddam mountain face!" We crossed the Continental Divide, we hope that means no more real mountains! We had to travel slow also because of the " Tour of the Gila" bicycle race, Lance Armstrong was competing! We don't think Brian Barkhouse was there!

Pleasant Acres RV Park, Apache Junction, AZ, waiting for the sun to finally set, so it will cool off to sleep comfortably, daytime temps are in the 90's. We love it !

Hello to our latest follower Johnny Brennan.

The quintessential tourists, except we don't send post cards we blog.

Brent, all outhouses in California and Arizona, it seems, must now post this warning, like all governments, one little incident and they pass a law!

Watching the weather here, freezing temps at the Grand Canyon, glad we didn't go. We spent 4 months looking for hot weather all around America and now we chase the shade around our camper, in the morning we sit on the north side, move to the east in the afternoon , and stay away from the south side. 93 in the shade is just nice. At home in the winter , you heat up your vehicle before leaving, here you turn on the air-conditioning for fifteen minutes before leaving!
I know we keep saying it, but today we paid 12.99 for a forty-ouncer and 12.99 for 30 beer, and the beer is 5.9% alcohol! The temp goes down at night, comfortable for sleeping! Camper door is fixed, the owner, the manager are very nice, we used their workshop, tools, etc. We could not have lucked in more than to find Pleasant Valley RV Park in Apache Jct. Arizona, not many parks would be so co-operative! Trish says McGyver has nothing on me, but you have to have the tools!

Another day in the heat,(but), it's a dry heat!!! We had supper at Post 9399 VFW , Superstition Mountain branch, supper for two people $9.00, beer $1.50 for a large Bud Light Draft. We may stay until Friday, they advertise , All You Can Eat Cod for $7.99 on Fridays. fish day! Temp. is 93, but going down to 73 by Thursday, looking forward to the drop! Lucy tells us we can look forward to lots of humidity in Louisiana along with the high temps, we will suffer through it, they have a new pool!

Here we are in Apache Junction, Arizona, pretending it is August in Nova Scotia, 93 degrees today but no humidity! Sitting out under the stars wondering how we could spend six months every year in the south! Repaired the camper door today with the sun beating down, lathered in Sun block and pouring down the cold beer! We always seem to hit the right places, last evening we drove into this campgound, paid our 20.00 bucks, then mentioned we needed tools and work area to fix our door, the manager pointed out the workshop, and said we can have access to everything there! Just great! The biker bar across the street was a little loud but the music was great! After the last bike left, we were able to sleep great!

Changed our minds about the Grand Canyon, started up that way and it got colder and colder, we said, that's it and turned south again, presently in Scottsdale, Arizona and continuing south, enough of that cold weather! We think warm weather is more phenominal than looking down a big hole ! We hear you had snow this week in Halifax! We are driving around looking for a new camper door, the wind did a job on ours, holding it together with bungee cords until we find a new one ! But ,Cecil, the new door knob is still in good shape, Another reason for warmer weather when your door won't close! Trish says we are starting to resemble the Clampett's, but unfortunately we don't have an oil well. Right now , we are more like Red Green, then again he is probably rich also! We woke up in one campground and our neighbour gave us the bird-watching tour, he showed us a hummingbird sitting on it's nest, he showed us a nest with two baby hummingbirds in it, he also showed us a Morning Dove sitting on her nest, then he showed us a dozen quail eggs, when a fifth-wheeler went to leave he discovered them under his doorstep, he left the step and they are hoping the mother quail comes back, another lady discovered baby birds born on top of her motorhome, so she is delaying her departure uintil they can fly. We seen a pizza place in Nothing, Arizona, for fifty miles in both directions there is nothing but that pizza place, he doesn't do delivery! The people here in Arizona and California must have heard about Jimmy Flynn, like he says, they always greet us when finally passing by indicating they think we are number one, only here they use the middle finger, has something to do with the fact we seldom go over 50 miles per hour, we lead a lot of convoys!

We are sitting here in the Calizona campground looking across the Colorado River, we drove across the river yesterday to discover gas is one dollar cheaper a gallon than California, also Trishes cigs were $1.60 a pack cheaper, booze was about the same! Very high winds when the sun gets high, it blows all afternoon, but a very hot wind. The wind does not cool you off it seems. The dry heat is nice, you don't seem to perspire,even though it is 90 degrees, it cools off nicely in the dark, every star seems to be out! A guy returned from his walk yesterday with a dead rattlesnake, a truck had run over it, Trish told him to get away from this camper "Now", he apoligized in the morning! We are still waiting to see a roadrunner! Lots of lizaards lurking, we have a woodpile next to the camper! On our day trip we met a young fellow working at one of the resorts, he asked if we were going to the Grand Canyon, we said we weren't sure, he said he couldn't believe we would drive all this way and not see it, we came home, thought about it and we are going!

Another day in the desert,enjoying the heat , 93 degrees today. spent some time in the rec hall, with the swamp cooler running on high. played a few games of pool. When the sun goes down, Trish goes topless, otherwise she just goes underwearless, with her terry cloth sundress! Passed a few nude RV parks in our travels, but haven't got up the nerve to go in yet! We sit here watching lizards, hummingbirds, ravens,hawks, while sipping on cold beer and cheap whiskey, a forty ouncer of Canadian Mist is only $16.00, thirty beer is $15.90! Well within our budget! Next three days are going to be cooler, not over 89 degrees!

On our last visit to Post 145 in Leesville we were fortunate to be entertained by the one and only "Andy" !

Cattle Drive in Chowchilla, CA !

Looking out our back door at an Oasis in the Mojave Desert!

To travel six months on the road like us you don't have to be rich, you just have to have all your ducks in a row !

This is Tehachapi, CA. This many turbines on Prince Edward Island and it would fly away !

A turtle in our desert campsite, like us, taking his time and carrying his home on his back !

Calf-roping in Chowchilla, California !

Lucy and Andy's lovable Sugar Babies have arrived, eleven of them, hopefully there is still room for us Canadians at the Laverty house !

We meandered along the Madera Wine Trail to Bakersfield, our favourite memory of this town is the story of our friend Brent, from Chester, who spent four days in the hospital here years ago, he used to work in the oil fields and believe it or not, got bit on the bag by a black widow spider, he tells the story about how all the nurses wanted to see his appendage, swollen beyond the normal size! This city's other claim to fame is that it is the home of Buck Owens! Trish enjoyed her first ever Denny's breakfast in Bakersfield, it was so generous we got a doggie bag and had a second Denny's breakfast in the camper, the next morning! We seen wind power at it's ultimate near Tehachapi , hundreds and hundreds of wind turbines, maybe even a t'ousand! Very Impressive! We have finally found the heat, there is no doubt, it only took us four months, we are in Needles on the Colorado River, and the temps for the next week are predicted to be in the high eighties and even ninety! Low at night 60. We are in the Mojave Desert. We are staying for a week, the park manager asked if we had air-conditioning, we said no, he said you will be spending a lot of time in the air-conditioned rec hall, we said, we don't think so! Burn, baby, burn! We travelled the historic Route 66, we think it is pre-historic, very rough, it is a National Trails Highway, but the federal government can't afford to repair it, I think we might need new front shocks!

This is the gate to Trish's school in Victoria, BC. The place where she became the well rounded person she is, that person who would not say S_it, if she had a mouth full HaHa !

Trish pouring Atlantic Ocean water from Front Harbour , Chester into the Pacific Ocean at Lagoon Beach near Esquimalt, BC. She is returning with a bottle of Pacific Ocean water to pour into the Atlantic !!

It's a slow news day, second day of rain here in our Sunny California campground, Trish had never ever met her grandson's other grandparents even though he was 14 years old so I'm going to relate a rhyme I wrote on our road trip to Newfoundland and their home, it's called: "Screeched In at St. Lawrence

We snuck into town and registered at the Ocean View
We weren't there an hour, when Cody said, "Nan, is that you?"

Then we met Bill, he parked in the middle of the street,
We chatted, and chatted, he didn't move and no one dare beep!

See you in the morning he said, we drove around St.Lawrence, Eastside,
Then pizza in the pool room, met some locals, they all knew "Kacky" Bill and his bride!

In the morning Bill came to get us, Donna was at Emergency,
Cody was in Marystown, we met Lucky & Spot, the tongue washes were free!

Donna returned from the hospital, she cooked mooseburgers for lunch,
Bill took me on a tour of the old mine area, and I met a few of his 'bunch'.

The cold beer and the conversations were great, and I guess Bill and I started to bond,
The hunting stories were fabulous, I learned the difference between a lake and a pond,
Watching foxes was great, but then he wanted me to tangle with a swan!

Next day Bill didn't fish, but we drove around town with cold beer, just the same,
"How ya gettin' on?" he said to his friends, 300 lbs they said, good, give us a few!

Fresh cod for supper, yes, there's some left in Newfoundland,
Donna added "scrunchions", the meal was so grand!

"Save one of those cod-heads for the screech-in"", said Bill,
It lay on the counter all night, put it in the freezer," it will do, it will!"

Friday was the night, we were all feeling pretty good,
The beer and rum were flowing, after wonderful food,
We forgot to thaw the fish's face, but that didn't mar the ceremony,
Trish kissed the cod, there was celebration and cacaphony!

This was quite an honour Trish received,
But then, in Conception Bay, she was conceived!

Ken Hutton's Harley !

Lucy, this is the Trike my friend Ken will drive when he is too old to drive his Harley. He really enjoys riding !

Another 88O warrior, Bob MacDonald telling yours truly to "F" off !

Two ex 880 warriors with Ken's 1929 Ford, with a Vette engine !

Rennie Doll, Jim McCaffrey, yours truly, Gerry Unger. We are 880, we're on the ball ! Wahunga !

Had to get some welding done on the frame of the truck, between the rust and hitting a bad pothole , it was needed badly, otherwise Bernie, she's holding up well! Three sunny , warm days in a row, wow, we are enjoying our stay in Chowchilla campground, right down town, very near the rodeo. We got to chatting with a real cowboy and he told us stories of his broken ribs, ruptured spleen, broken fingers and such, I told him I had heard stories of rodeo guys that had broken nearly every bone in their body, twice! He then related a story of how his nephew broke his urethra tube on the saddlehorn, if you don't know which bone that is, I ain't telling ya!

This fellow is retired from the Rodeo! He lives on the edge of town! As you can see, none of the prize money went to him!

Passed through Cottonwood, California, a famous cattle town, not by choice, a state trooper escorted us off the interstate for driving too slow, in the rain and very high winds, that didn't stop others from keeping up the 70 mph speed limit! That's it, no more interstates, even if they do get you to the warmer weather faster! Northern California's claim to fame is more cattle per square mile than any where else in the U.S. We are stopped for a week in a place called Chowchilla, CA, going to their stampede, it starts off with a cattle drive through the main street of town, we will be there! Stay tuned for Trish's video if a steer doesn't get her! If you look Chowchilla up on the internet, they are famous for a kidnapping of a whole busload of students years ago, a movie was made about it!

Camper would not fit through, so we walked through. This tree is in Redwood Forest in California.

In Cathedral Grove, near Port Alberni, BC, this tree is 800 years old and Trish is ...............

Some RESORT this is !!! Snow capped mountains and oh so cold temperatures !!!

Can you believe we drove Vancouver Island, the state of Washington and the state of Oregon, then arrive in California to encounter snow, what is going on with our weather, we had a little snow in the campground on the Oregon border and they said it was the first time they had snow in twenty years in April, must be an April Fools joke! Rain, high winds, Sunny periods, Sun showers, rainbows and then snow all in a few hours, we are also back to very mountainous driving again. Mt Shasta is 14,000 feet above sea level, we are staying in Lake Shasta for Easter. The world really is going to the dogs, we passed a library yesterday that advertised "reading sessions for your dog on Thursday afternoons".

We traded in our tabs for two free Tim's before getting on the ferry to Port Angeles , Trish got a few more photos in Beacon Hill Park, her favourite place in Victoria! Well, Washington is behind us and we are now in Oregon, just passing Mt. St. Helen's, a few more days to sunny California, wet weather is the norm in these two states! We have to keep moving or we will go mouldy or get covered in moss! Broke one of our major rules and did an Interstate yesterday,just to get south faster, back today to mountain roads around Portland, Eugene and other major cities! We are showing South east on the compass most of the time, Lucy in Louisiana just e-mailed and said in was 80 degrees there, that's our kind of temps, hope to spend a lot of time lying in the Sun for the next six weeks before we arrive in that lovely state!

We drove over 7000 miles to re-visit Victoria, where Trish grew up, and Paul was stationed in the navy for a short period, we also wanted to visit Pauls sister and neice and her husband ,both of whom live in Comox, then we wanted to visit old navy friends from my Shearwater and Bonnie days, we just missed the Olympics ,but we really visited to Roll Up the Rim, and we won, we got two free coffee while here and will redeem them when we leave tomorrow, would hate to miss a great Canadian tradition!

What a relaxing time in Comox on the Wet Coast, actually it hasn't rained that much, threatens a lot, but the sun shines thorugh most days. Our income tax is done and sent, thanks to Dale on the best Coast! Spent a day with Ken Hutton and then a day with Bob MacDonald, old navy friends, then Ken arranged a mini-reunion here and I met guys I hadn't seen for forty years, it was quite a day. On Tuesday, we will cross into Washington once again and make our way South to much warmer weather in California. One -hundred and four days on the road and seventy-six days more 'til we return to Chester!

Across Canada in April or back to Sunny California, it's a coin toss and we want a coin with two heads, I think the Sunny South is going to win, we know there have beeen some unusual temps lately but you can have snowstorms in April and May in Canada, we plan on staying here until our income tax is done, then probably the warmer climes of Cal, Arizona, New Mex, and Texas will win. We have plans to be in Leesville, Louisiana for Lucy's birthday and Memorial Day, at the end of May. There are some people and places we would love to visit in Western Canada, but the Sun has won! The old truck made it Bernie, we figure over 7500 miles so far, and probably another 7000 to get home! We keep our fingers and toes crossed! Getting the brakes adjusted and checked before taking on the Rockies again! Hello to everyone in Chester Legion, see you in June!

Really relaxing in Comox, with family,haven't contacted any friends yet. Seen Paul's sister and going there for supper today!
Reading about how Halifax is the warmest place in the country, we have been chasing around North America looking for bathing suit weather for three months and not having much luck, we only went to the beach once in Florida, then had the odd really warm day in Texas, then New Mex., then California, but nothing to rave about. Paul's niece has a truck camper here that they are junking and he is stripping it for parts, we got a new door knob, new toilet, new jack straps, and Trish got a nice mini dish rack, and fly swatter, we will be practically brand new when we leave B.C. Hope to get to see a few old navy friends this week, namely Bob MacDonald and Ken Hutton!

Wilderness or Wal-Mart, all the same to us, as long as it's free, one night we stayed at a waterfall sight up in the mountains of Oregon, then last night it was the Wal-Mart in Aberdeen, Wash.!!
They say you haven't been anywhere until you have visited Humptulips, Washington, well, we have been there, but we didn't go to La Push in the bush, we had to catch a ferry. We went around mountains mostly in OR and WA ,unlike CA! We had reservations for the ferry from Port Angeles , WA to Victoria on Thursday morning. we drove into town looking for a campground and seen the ferry loading, we went down and asked if we could get on, in twenty minutes we were sailing for BC a day early! We drove off the ferry and immediately went to Beacon Hill Park, Trish was crying, she hadn't been there for forty-four years! Then we went to the Old Vic Fish & Chips, but the prices were new! $20.00 special, two pieces of fish & chips and a beer for $20.00 bucks, it was their 80th anniversary special, we thought $20.00 bucks was really special, Paul can remember buying enough fish and chips for Sunday supper for six people for .75 cents, Trish can remember her and her mom paying four dollars forty-four years ago!
Then we went to see St. Anne's Academy , the private all girls school, that Trish attended for junior and senior high school! The tears flowed again, and she reminisced about how strict and straight-laced the nuns were! If they could only see her today!!!! We took a photo of the Tudor House and then it was time for a Tim's, our first for three months, well!!! Our first from a Tim Horton;s, we actually had one each morning from our large tin of Tim's in the camper!

In the city of San Francisco you get to combine the crazy traffic with the mountains , I don't think they have a level street! We couldn't fit through the drive-thru redwood tree, we finally left California after eight days , mostly white knuckle driving with 1000 foot drop offs just out your window and few guard rails! Entered Oregon, gas cheaper than CA. Filled up in CA, then saw I could have filled up for $8.00 cheaper in OR! Saw an elk herd! While staying in Humbug State Park, there were men and women showers and one co-ed shower, in the co-ed shower room was a notice warning of earthquakes and tsunamis! I guess if you shower together ,you might feel the earth move!! We camped at a waterfall in Munsen Creek, OR last night, it was spectacular! Will enter Washington today, then take the ferry to Victoria on Thursday , then arrive in Comox on Friday!

Trish video taped us crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, during an earthquake !!!

Joanne, we could not afford any of the boats at Oceanside, CA but we think we found one to come home on in Fort Bragg !

Ask Paul all about Alcatraz, he served 25 years !

We found the last Hippie in San Francisco !

We sat across from this and ate our supper.