Gary and Shannon's in Tucson

When we arrived in Tucson, we had to go to Freightliner to have a steering column cover replaced on the coach. We had a faulty turn signal in Illinois and they replaced the turn signal, but the cover was broken, so we asked them to order a new one and we arranged to have it replaced in Tucson.

As soon as we were done there, we called Gary and he gave us directions to their home. We finely arrived at their home and Shannon had prepared us a great dinner, we visited for a while, made some plans for the next day, and then called it a night.

It was so beautiful up at Mount Lemmon, we loved it there. It was my Birthday so we stopped at a little place for drink. At the "Cookie Cabin" we split a great big cookie and enjoyed some hot chocolate, and of course a birthday song !!! We had a great day up at Mount Lemmon and decided to head down to Tombstone the next day.

Tombstone is about an hour and a half drive from their home, but the time went by fast, we were talking and laughing all the way. As soon as we arrived in Tombstone, we stopped at the Boothill Graveyard on the edge of town and checked it out. Then on into town.

Wow, that was another fun day. We loved it there, and had so much fun with Gary and Shannon. We were all tired by the time we finely got back home.

They have a great home, and they even have a great place for us to park our coach right outside their door.

We had a wonderful time in Tucson, we had a great time with Gary and Shannon, as you can see they have a beautiful home there, and we are looking forward to coming back for another visit.

Now we are headed toward Phoenix and will be going to Cummins there to have our engine checked out, it seems to have an oil leak coming from the bottom of the engine somewhere (maybe the oil pan we had replaced last year), it throws oil all over the back of the coach and the car too when we are towing it. We plan to call our friend Gina Minkin and see if we can get together for dinner while we are there.

Spicewood Airport Texas

When we first arrived in Spicewood Texas, Tom and Lynn drove out to the highway to meet us and guide us in to his Brother Bill's hanger at the airport. He had made arrangements for us to park the coach in front of Bill's hanger there at Spicewood Airport.

We had a great Thanksgiving dinner with Tom, Lynn, Bill and Sara and more family and friends. They moved the airplane out of the hanger and set up tables for everyone to sit and eat. They have a big kitchen there in the hanger, so that was a perfect place for a large group of family and friends to enjoy a wonderful Thanksgiving Dinner together.

This was a beautiful airport, one of the most memorable places that we have parked our motor home. Small planes taking off and landing all day, Wow, what an exciting place to be. Bill even took Joe up in the Helicopter for about an hour ride over the Austin area. Joe had a wonderful time and has talked about it ever since that day. Tom would like to have gone, but, was still sick with a cold, however he came out to see Joe and Bill off.

We went down to have biscuits and gravy with Tom, Lynn and her Mom one morning and had a chance to catch Santa filling up his motorcycle at the gas station. I guess that is what he drives before Christmas.

We had a great time during our stay in Spicewood Texas, this is a beautiful area, and close to Austin. We drove down to San Antonio for the day one day and had fun, we also stopped at Fredricksburg Texas on our way of Texas toward New Mexico.

Pat and Terry at Altus AFB, Oklahoma

We have been trying to get to Altus Oklahoma for a couple of years, and something always gets in the way. This time we finely made it !! We have friends here, Pat and Terry Krause. We both worked with them several years ago at Norton AFB and at March ARB in California.

We sure did have a good time here too. I have always thought of Oklahoma as being a flat state, with tornadoes and wind storms. Pat and Terry showed us a different side of this great state and the area where they live. They took us up on a mountain, yes, a mountain in Oklahoma. Who Knew !!!

Beautiful place, then we went to a Wildlife Preserve nearby where we saw Long Horn Steer. They are so beautiful and amazing. They also have buffalo, we could see them, but the buffalo were not close enough to the road for us to get any pictures of them.

In addition to the Long Horn Steer, we also saw several deer and prairie dogs. I had no idea that Cotton grew in Oklahoma too.

Oh, I forgot to mention that while we were parked at Altus FamCamp, our car was parked behind our motor home in a parking lot. The first morning it was very cold and raining, with wind gusts. When we went outside, we saw that the pontoon boat that had been parked a little further up the parking lot had come to rest against our car. It was not secured when it was parked and the winds had blown it loose. I guess we will get the repairs done while we are in California this winter.

We are on our way to Spicewood Texas to visit with our friends Tom and Lynn, we are planning to stay there and have Thanksgiving dinner with Tom and Lynn and their family this year.

Oklahoma City

Once we got settled in at the famcamp at Tinker AFB, we went to the Bass Pro Shop and took a Tram down to the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum at the site of the Federal building that was bombed on April 19th 1995.

This was a wonderful memorial, each of the empty chairs in the following pictures is a monument to a person who lost their life on that day. The small ones identify the 19 children and the large ones the 149 adults. The museum was great too, and we spent several hours going through it. I highly recommend for this to be a stop for everyone passing through Oklahoma. They have done a great job putting this memorial together and it makes you realize how vulnerable we all are, and how precious every day is to us.

We found out while we were here that there is a recall on our Norcold Refrigerator, so we called and found a place locally to get the repairs done. We were told be the mfg that we needed to turn off and unplug it now, so had to go over to Outdoor Recreation and rent a large cooler to put everything out of the freezer and fridge in. Had to wait two days for the part to come in then, we will go in to get the work done.

The famcamp at Tinker AFB, is a very clean nice campground. It is a little crowded to get parked for those of us with large motor homes, but very nice and roomy once you get into your site. We enjoyed our stay here, and are looking forward to coming back again.

We Finely got our refrigerator recall done and after we had to throw away a lot of frozen food, we were on the road again, and heading for our friends at Altus AFB, Oklahoma.

Goshen Indiana to Camdenton Missouri

We spent about 6 weeks in the Elkhart and Goshen Indiana, stayed at the Fairgrounds most of the time and enjoyed the excitement there. These pictures were taken there. The one on the right is of a double rainbow (you have to look close to the right of the bright one.

We enjoyed our stay in Goshen and visits with Kristy and our Grandkids there, but now it is time to move on. When we left there to head for Missouri, we stopped in Springfield Illinois to have a small part replaced on our steering column, then on to the Harrahs in St Louis to camp out for the night. We had a great dinner there and spent a little time in the casino, then headed for Camdenton MO to see Frank, Austin and Cassidy for a few weeks.
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The following pictures are from the Ozark Trails Campground in Linn Creek Missouri. At the playground and in our coach. Joe's son Frank with his two kids, Austin 7, and Cassidy 3.

We will be leaving around the first of November and heading toward Tinker AFB in Oklahoma City for a few days, then we are planning to go on to Altus AFB Oklahoma to visit our friends Pat and Terry.

6 weeks in Elkhart Indiana

Since we have decided to stay here in Indiana and attend the Mandalay Travel Club Rally the first of October, we spent a couple of weeks at the fairgrounds in Goshen, always a fun place to be and very nice. Then we got some work done on our coach at Charger RV repair. We decided to get our stove vented outside the coach and a painted shroud to match the paint on the side of the motor home. We also had an window awning installed outside above the windows behind the sofa in the living room.

We also had some work done on our motor home at the factory service department. The work they did last year on our passenger side slide needed to be done again, and I think they did it right this time, so maybe we will not have any more problems with opening the compartment door when the slide is out. At least it looks much better now and they replaced the hinges this time, sometimes I wonder why it takes 2 or 3 times to get it right.

After we had been out of the fairgrounds for a couple of weeks we moved back for the final 2 weeks prior to the start of the rally. We enjoyed being there early and getting together with some of the others that also came in early. When the coaches started arriving for the rally Joe was helping with the parking of the attendees, so he got to greet them as they arrived and send them to their assigned sites. He loves that kind of stuff !!!

We had a great time at the rally, and got to see a lot of our friends too. Lots of fun and lots of food too. We had some good entertainment and several seminars to attend, there were some vendors there as well, and we established the new Thor Diesel Club and elected officers for that club as well as for the Mandalay Travel Club.

Joe ran for a position on the board of directors for the newly created Thor Diesel Club and was elected the Alternate National Director. He will need to go to the International Family Motor Coach Association Rally and attend several meetings on behalf of the Thor Diesel Club. next year it is in Wisconsin during the month of August.

We will be spending this weekend after the rally, here at the fairgrounds, visiting Kristy and the kids, then heading for Missouri to visit Frank and his kids. We will stop at Springfield Illinois to have our right turn signal handle fixed on the motor home. This will take a couple of hours, so we will spend the night there and get on the way the next day.

Baby Samantha Lynn

Well, I it looks like this new baby girl is in charge already!! She decided to come early, I guess this baby did not want us to leave without meeting her first.

Samantha Lynn Norton was born Monday at 23:23 on the 23rd of August. She weighed 5 lb 7 oz. and was 18 inches long. Both mom and baby are doing fine and they came home from the hospital on Thursday.

We were able to get together with Kristy and the kids last weekend for dinner, and we all had a great time. The kids are all growing up and doing very well in school. Their school started just a few days before Kristy went to the hospital to have number seven, so needless to say she has been very busy. She still has one at home during the day, 2 year old Jonathan.

We have visited the service department over at our motor home factory, and talked to some of the people there. We feel they are making some very positive changes and we are a lot more optimistic about the future of the Mandalay Travel Club.

Four Winds and Damon are both owned by the same company (Thor) and they have merged their manufacture and service departments. They have also decided to have one club for all of the diesel coaches (Mandalay and Damon). So, we have now decided to stay in the area until the rally in October. We want to attend and I'm sure we will learn more about the future plans for the factory and for the club as well.

We will be staying at the Elkhart Fairground in Goshen from now until the Rally starts. We will need to be out for a couple of weeks in September (they have 2 rallies planned for the fairground during this time), but we will be having our awning installed at Charger anyhow, and will just park somewhere else until we can return to the fairground on the 20th.