Merry Christmas! And The Whale Swam Away

Merry Christmas!!

It's been a pretty busy year for all of us but with the celebration of the Lord's birth rapidly approaching, it's time to take a deep breath and just enjoy the season.

I am going to have to regroup on my whole blog idea. In this past year we have purchased a home in Indiana and now a Park Model home in Arizona for a winter home.  We SOLD the whale.  SO, my dilemma is what to do with my travel blog called, "Tales of the Whale".  I'm open for suggestions.

This past June we decided to buy a half duplex in our hometown of Crown Point, Indiana.  We flew to Colorado to pick up our storage unit belongings and drove them back and moved in on June 6th.

 This address:

470 Cochran Dr

Crown Point, Indiana 46307

We got settled in and put the Whale into storage.  It seemed strange to do after living in a Motorhome for four years.

We worked with our son, Jeff, doing construction projects for the Churches that he works for all summer long.

We had planned a family reunion trip to the Ozarks for July.  So, we got the Whale out of storage, loaded it up and drove it to a campground near to where all the kids were staying. We enjoyed Todd's boat, the water and the time together with our children, their spouses and our eight grandkids.

Kathy, Craig, Tana, Barry, Jeff, Rachel and Todd

Todd and his daughter, Haley

 Jeff, Rachel and children Kristen, Kara and Ty

Our Daughter, Tana, husband Barry with their children 

Carter, Kyra, Collin and Cooper

 Our Grand Children

Cooper, Ty, Collin, Kyra, Kara, Carter, Kristen and Haley

  The whole gang

As fall began to approach, we started making plans to spend our fifth winter in Wellton, Arizona.  We have grown attached to other "snow birds", "winter visitors". that come each year to the Tier Drop RV Park.  We have made friends from Canada, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, Oregon, and Texas.  As we made the 2,000 mile trip down with a stop in Colorado to visit family there, we started thinking and praying about what we would do with the Whale.  It becomes too costly to drive that long of a distance back and forth and then to pay for summer storage, so we decided we would put the Motorhome up for sale or at least cover it and leave it in Arizona.

We really are amazed at the sky painting the Lord has for us in AZ.

I posted on Craigslist and in just a few days we had a couple, Donnie and Marie, come to look at it.  She wanted to take it right away, but they also had a few other RVes they wanted to look at.  We began to wonder where would we live and what would we do with all of our belongings stored in the Whale, if it were to sell.  So, we began our search for a Park Model.  They are basically a small version of a mobile home.  

We took some time to drive up to Las Vegas to spend Thanksgiving with my Mom and our daughter and her four kids also came down to spend some time with us.

We found a well cared for 1989 Fleetwood Park Model for a very good price at another Park about five miles on the other side of Wellton and we paid a guy to take it apart and reassemble it here in Tier Drop.  We had to get approval for it all, but they got right to moving it after Thanksgiving.  It was quite the process to move it in three parts.

 The first step was to take it apart.

 The main part was brought in first. This started on Nov. 30th.

 Next came the Arizona room

 The third part was the porch and awning

 We spent our first night in the Park Model on Tuesday, Nov. 5th

 The couple came back to buy the RV and so we were able to pull it next to the Park Model (home #33) and empty it out, wash it and drove it away on Wed. the 6th.  It was sad to see that home be driven off, but it's not far away, just across 11st in another Park.

This is now our morning view.

We are still working on putting things together on the inside, but here are a few pictures:

Kitchen

Bedroom




Bathroom

Most Park Models are about 400 sq ft.  We are allowed to add Arizona Rooms.  Ours adds about 156 sq ft extra.  Currently, we are using it as a second bedroom/storage room.  It's still a work in progress.  The place came furnished and then we added in everything we had in the RV, so we are stuffed with stuff.




Arizona Room

 Our address from Oct to March
28320 E. County 11st #17
Wellton, AZ   85356

It's been a whirlwind of putting things away and finding room.  33 (because it's our 33rd home), came furnished so we now have more stuff than we came down with.  There were totes full of Christmas decoration and hangers already on the roof, so we put some up.

 

We will be driving up to Mom's in Las Vegas to spend Christmas with her.  Our oldest son, Todd and his fiance, Jennifer, will be flying in along with my younger brother, Dave and Cathy from Phoenix.

We pray that you are able to enjoy the wonderful blessings of the season!

Blessings,
Craig and Kathy

Blog #397 Look What Just Blew in to Tier Drop.

We were awake early this morning, Friday the 20th of October. We left the RV Park and headed east to see the sunlight and to get back to the connection to I 40 west.  We debated about ways to drive to the southwestern corner of Arizona, but decided to stay on major highways since it was going to be windy and we had 600 miles to go and we might need a place to stop before that.

We started out with good weather and clear skies and then we got into some pretty strong cross winds around Gallup, NM.

We crossed into Arizona.

That's about when the wind hit.  We watched to see what truckers were doing because they usually get off the road if they know the gusts are too strong.  We saw a couple pulled over, but most kept going, so we did, too.  Now the dust was starting to stir up.  We looked forward to turning south on I 17 at Flagstaff so it would be a head wind and not be bucking us around so much.

We pulled into a rest stop 15 miles south of Flagstaff.  We decided to rest a bit and see if we felt up to going the 267 miles that remained.  We could have stopped for the night, but both of us were ready to be off the road for awhile.

We jogged around Phoenix on Loop 303, to I 10, to 85 and finally to I 8.  The wind was letting up, but the dust was so thick it totally blocked the sun.  We kept going.

It had been 12 hours since we left Albuquerque.
Exit 30 to Wellton, Arizona

The Park doesn't look like much, especially in the dust, but it was so good to see it after a week since we left Indiana.

Several of the early arrivals greeted us and it was great to see them.  The Snow Birds will be coming in one by one now until the place is full.  Our normal spot had some work done and it still has a soft spot, so we moved to #17 until we decide what we will do.

We are now on Pacific Time Zone, but Arizona does not do Daylight Savings Time.  Whoo Whoo.

So, we are partially set up, (since we don't know if this is where we we'll stay), and settled in.  We had turkey and dressing that I had frozen from cooking it in Indiana.  We are truly thankful for the trip to be behind us and now we are ready to settle in for the duration.

I'm not sure how often I will be Blogging, but I will still be posting to Facebook.

Thanks again for all the prayers of support!!

Blessings,

Kathy