Update From Tucson!

            Hard to believe:  We landed back in Tucson, at Lazydayz RV, a spot we have always loved, in November, and wrote about that spot and our happenings.  NOW WE ARE INTO THE END OF 2019 AND INTO THE 2020 year.  How can that be?  You may be asking that, and we are too!!!

            You will see pictures of what happened in December and January to our lives.  The time passing is hard to believe – we have been doing so much, but here is a snapshot:

• We surprised our son and daughter-in-law and family with a quick one week visit to them the first week in December, so that they would see our faces and so we could hold them! We saw Michael and Debbie’s new condominium; heard in real time how they all were; talked with old friends. They were all our Christmas Gift!  No one knew we were coming … it was PERFECT!
• We saw our Great Grandson, River, celebrate his 2^nd birthday!
• We saw how happy our family is, and better yet, that they haven’t forgotten us!
• We saw our Starbuck’s gang at the Sunnyside Town Center store…..they are truly the best Starbuck’s anywhere we have visited in the USA. Yes, we speak from experience and from our hearts!
• We connected up with pals by phone and in person: I got to talk with my long time pal and work buddy Christi Karvasek – wow we go back over 20 years; and I had a great talk with the most talented engineering leader around and my personal buddy, Rebecca Campbell.
• We went back to our townhome in Happy Valley and spent an entire week packing up all our home belongings, placing them into storage, and preparing for our next tenants. (There was huge interest in our place but most wanted the home unfurnished. We wanted a long term lease in order to free us for nearly full-time living in our Airstream. Guess what happened?  The very day the mover’s were there a man came by to check it out and… he and his family will be the people who will be living here.  What a true pleasure to meet them.)
• You will see pictures of our Christmas morning! Gary always makes us a German Pancake, and it was JUST THE BEST!
• On January 1^st, 2020 we moved from Lazydays KOA to Rincon Country West RV Resort. Look for pics of our first sunset there in our new space.  We are here until March 23. Then, these “Road Warriors” will be on the road to Texas and other points we will be writing about.
• You will see some shots of our crazy Sunday morning in downtown Tucson at the Dillinger Day’s Celebration, which is truly just a hoot! People all over the city in vintage clothing.  We knew nothing about this occasion, but we will from now on!

So… that’s it in a nutshell!  May not seem like much, but it has been a true whirlwind for two months. Surprising family, loving on them, packing up our home, moving locations here in Tucson, setting plans for our up-coming adventures…  what a way to end 2019 and welcome in 2020!  We are full-timing it now in our Airstream. We love our home on wheels! We will know when it is time to stop and settle for a bit in one location or move on to another location.  We do know we are headed for Texas, then Arkansas, then Kansas, then Utah, then …..well, we ultimately will be in the east for the fall colors. 

Bye for now! More to come next month, we promise!  Hope you enjoy the pictures!

Not all who Wander are Lost… Right? 

Have you been asking, “Where the heck have those Burke’s been for an entire month”? Of course you have! Hasn’t everyone?  We have tried our best to post an update every 2-weeks on our adventure, right? Okay!! Here it is in a nutshell:

• We left Silver City, NM heading towards Tucson where we were to reside for most of the winter months. And yes, we did do that: arrived in Tucson, AZ at the Tucson Lazydays KOA on the 30^st of October. But instead of checking into our reserved spot for the winter, we took a bit of a delay to have our Airstream looked at. So, we drove directly into the Airstream Service area only to find we had a bowed axel!!!!  ☹  Not too happy of campers, but then again, we are on an adventure and… things happen on an adventure that aren’t part of the plan, right?
• We found out that we needed to have some work done but we decided that, since the CTYII would be our home for the winter, we would wait to have that axel repair done. What the heck is a “bowed axel” anyway, and how did that happen? All we knew was that one of our tires had extensive wear while all three others were fine. The repair shop did some measurements and determined the “spindle” (part on the end of the axle) was out of true. We knew we wanted to swap the current set of tires for ones with a better rating, so we went ahead with that for the time being. We’ll worry about the axle after Christmas. We are now officially in our reserved Lazydays KOA space and happy to be back.
• Our boy Michael and our daughter-in-law, Debbie, arrived for a stay (came from Portland, OR.) and we swept them up from the airport in Tucson. But before they arrived, we were treated to music by a fabulous jazz duo, singing and playing the keyboard close to the baggage claim area! Well, it was like having a private show! They were magnificent! We spotted our kids, and off we went to take them to their home in Green Valley, about 20 miles from Tucson.  We had not seen them since June! We so love our kids, we could hardly let go of them at the airport!  We took them back to the CTYII (about 5 min. from the airport), then they drove their car on home to Green Valley to settle in after their travels.
• Now, some great things we have done, while our kids were here for a week:
  • You will see pictures of our first golf game of the year with our son. Such outrageous fun!  Only lost three golf balls and honestly, that isn’t bad for us!
  • We had a fabulous adventure to the Kitt Peak Observatory, which if you haven’t done is truly AWESOME! Gary, Michael and I had such fun! We had no idea how expansive the observatory was – there are a whole bunch of telescopes there!  We had a tail-gate picnic at in the parking lot, then went in for a ranger talk and walked to the #3 observatory.  There are 4 showings a day, each at a different telescope. We all want to go back and take in the rest.
• We had to bid farewell to our kids after a week of fun, food and adventures ….. and well, we were a bit tearful, we admit. They are the BEST!!!
• We said good by to our son Mike, daughter-in-law Debbie, then we were off 3 days later for our Thanksgiving tradition with Gary’s sister, Judy, and her hubby, Jim. Could hardly wait to see them. The tradition includes: Thanksgiving dinner with them and their dear friends, Lynette and Jody; then, the day after Thanksgiving, we all decorate the Christmas Tree! They are having friends over for Pinochle, so we were glad we could help get the party rolling by helping with the decorations!

And then… Oh my gosh, a major cold front came in!  We had ripping winds and temperatures that dipped into the 20’s.  (Remember, we just came from Tucson, AZ.  😊).  Anyhoo, the biggest surprise was a snow storm with nearly 4” of snow sticking to the ground on Thanksgiving Day!  Truly, it was beautiful! The mountains surrounding the city of Ridgecrest were snow covered right down to the desert floor. You can see our pictures of that – it was so beautiful, though, the pictures don’t begin to capture it.  Our Thanksgiving Day dinner with Jim & Judy and their friends, Lynette and Jody was truly joyous! It concluded with a vicious game of a variation of Mexican Train Dominos!  All I can say is, the rules should state that the highest score wins, right??  Got to get them to change those dang rules!  Can you guess who got the high score?  Well, it was almost a tie between Jim and Judy… quite unusual; we need to check those rules.

• Had awesome Thanksgiving talks and texts with our kids and our grandsons, Nathan, Dylan and Cameron, and our buddies Jim and Gayla. We have much to be thankful for, for sure!
• After tree trimming and movie seeing (“It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” – Highly Recommended!) with Judy and Jim, we were back on the road back to Tucson. We took a little side-trip adventure to Yuma, AZ, which we had never seen prior, just to check it out. Got a little lost on poorly marked roads so it took us a bit longer than expected to find Yuma.  BUT WE ARE ON AN ADVENTURE REMEMBER! After a night’s stay at the Ramada, we found the Starbucks, and headed back on Hwy. 8 to Tucson.
• We are missing our family! We love keeping in contact with them but it’s a challenge on both sides! That’s the hard part of adventuring. So what is next?
• Okay here is the scoop and the full scoop! We will be wintering here at the Tucson Lazydays KOA. While we’re here, we will be having regular adventures on our bikes, and hiking, playing Pickle Ball, and just taking in the lovely country here. AND, we will be updating our blog monthly with our adventures, complete with pictures.  So, don’t be giving up on us!  As all of you know by now (you should know, anyway😉 ) we sometimes change our minds about what we are doing, just because… we can!  SO… stay tuned!!!!

Our USA Adventure Continues – Week 14, Elephant Butte

We’ve made it to Week 14 and to Elephant Butte, New Mexico! We’ll be here until October 15th, so not so much traveling… I think that’s good, but we’ll see! On the way from Roswell to Elephant Butte, we went through Capitan, NM where we found the home of Smokey Bear (true story!) and an amazing antigues/2nd hand store with wonderful owners, Lynda and Kent! Lynda agreed to pose for a picture with Pat even though she never sees the Internet and will probably never see the picture!