Did you say "$500 Motor Home"?

Why, yes, I did. Mark found a broken down '77 Diplomat for $500. After 20 minutes of tinkering with the wiring, he drove it home. I was overwhelmed with joy when I stepped into a clean and odor-free motor home that had had lots of TLC. Once the snow melted in Utah, we broke out the tool kit and went to work. Mark spent about 6 weeks replacing rotted wood side panels & orange carpet, and rebuilding the front end and brakes. This puppy is cherry: EVERYTHING works. Radio, AC, toilet, shower, bunks, tranny. We dolled her up with new seat covers, new drapes, and new visors.


We spent the July 4th holiday in absolute solitude on Antelope Island, surrounded by a symphony of meadowlarks & chuckers, and a landscape that included a herd of antelope walking above our camp site. This is saying nothing of the breathtaking sunset over that corner of the Great Salt Lake.

So, in the midst of economic downturn, loss, and depression, Mark and I have met another of our goals this year: to get the old gal on the road. (NO, not ME - the motorhome.) Hope your Independence Day was great!

Old People Who Travel are the Bomb

One of our 2008 trips included a great outdoor adventure in Grand Junction, Colorado. Here I am with Molly in Grand Mesa National Park. We enjoyed the vistas, the air show, and the car show. It was our first attempt at using a camp trailer, which put a halt to any thoughts I might have had about buying on of those things.

Instead, my husband bought me a motorhome so salve my wounds after finding out that my dying father was leaving his motorhome and two 5th-wheel trailers (as well as EVERYTHING else) to the American Cancer Society. He's such a dope; he doesn't even realized that the head of the ACS makes more in a single year ($1.5 million) than my dad's entire donation. Ha! Okay, call me bitter. But I'm gonna have fun in my $500 motorhome. Don't laugh -- it's clean, everything works, and will require less than $1500 to get it up to par for a nice vacation.

By April my sweetie and I will be on the road to a family reunion in Sacramento. Then we hope to RV to Dallas for another reunion with my family and some old friends. We'll keep you posted on our RV makeover between now and April. By then I'll be 56 years old. (ouch)