The arrival....Rocky Mountain High...

OK, so we've left the Salt Lake City area and we're still on the road to Loveland, Colorado. (although in reality, we have now arrived)

It was dark as we climbed out of Salt Lake City, and as I said, there just was no way to see the beauty around us. Our next fuel stop was Evanston, Wyoming at Exit 3 on I-80. We got there and it was still a bit dark. The signs from the west bound direction don't give any indication of which way off the freeway the Flying J can be found. We took our chances at the end of the exit ramp and thankfully, we chose the right direction. God really does watch over us. Had we gone the other way, there was no way we could have turned around without unhooking the car. There was no RV Island at this station, so we had to use the trucker’s side. Lo and behold, the cards worked in those pumps as they should have! We were happy. Not hungry yet, and seeing the condition of the inside of this Flying J, we decided to just fuel and go. That had to be the dirtiest Flying J that I have ever seen.

As dawn began to break and the skies began to lighten, we could see where we were and what was around us. If you've ever driven across I-80 in Wyoming, you know there isn't much to see unless you simply keep your eyes on the lookout for deer, antelope, wolves, and the like. We only saw a small herd of mule eared deer and a few pronghorn antelope. A couple of hundred miles later, we arrived in Rawlins. Again, we stopped at the Flying J at exit 209. We were getting pretty hungry, but we didn't need fuel yet, so we just parked and headed inside for some breakfast.

Our original plan was to stop in Rawlins for the night. When we stepped out of the restaurant, we knew we wouldn't be sticking with the plan. It had turned bitterly cold and the wind was so strong that it was really difficult just to walk in it. The skies to the west of us looked ominous with their puffy black clouds, and Jim, having grown up in NE Ohio, knew that it was a snow sky. We decided to try and get to Laramie before ending our day.

We trekked happily on towards our final destination. As we approached Laramie, it began to snow. OK, so we aren't stopping in Laramie either. If we do we're liable to get snowed in. The next logical choice was if we could just make it to Cheyenne, we could get fuel and stop for the night. Going into a campground after dark is never a good choice, and we had enough daylight left to get there for sure.

As we drove on, we began to see lots of antelope. Small herds, large herds, and individuals were out there alone. We didn't see any wolves this trip across. The snow stopped and the sun peeked out from the clouds, eventually becoming a very sunny afternoon.

We arrived in Cheyenne (yes, once again at the Flying J) and stepped out of the coach to get the final fuel before our arrival in Loveland. Only about 60 miles to go, but dark was approaching. Stepping out of the coach, we were greeted with freezing cold temps and howling wind. Once again, the card readers on the fuel pumps failed and I had to go inside. I thought why not just ask the clerks what the weather report is for the night. She said it was supposed to snow. I handed her the cards, got things taken care of, and headed back out to Jim. There aren't really any designated RV spots at this stop, so I quickly told him what the weather indication was, and he said we were liable to get snowed in and only 60 miles away would be crazy. We opted to drive the additional 60 miles on in to Loveland.

Our arrival was uneventful. We checked in, talked with the new management and found out that the site we had reserved won't be opened until about the tenth of April. In the meantime, we have been put in a 30 AMP site to wait. The park has been cleaned up a lot since we left last August. The trees have been trimmed, the office remodeled, and there is new staff. And of course, to go hand-in-hand with that, the rates have been increased. We pulled into our temporary site, got setup, and here we are.

Jim is off to work as I write. He's still not really happy with the company, but I expect that will all get worked out. We're expecting to hear something within the next week or two on the job he's been working on for awhile now.

As I noted yesterday, we woke up to snow. That snow is now gone, but it’s still bitterly cold to us.

We took Tasha and had her groomed. Poor old thing – it’s amazing that at 17, she’s still with us. She loves her grooming day. It’s like a day at the spa for people. When we pick her up from the groomer, she has been rejuvenated and until we get home, she behaves as if she’s half her age. Once home, she is so relaxed that she crawls up on her pillow and sleeps really hard until the next morning.

So, Jim and I are on a Rocky Mountain High! We've gone from as low as 69 feet below sea level to where we will be for some time to come at a little over 5000 feet! We both had little headaches for a day or two, but I believe we have adjusted to the elevation again. I plan to post again probably on Tuesday and we might have some great news to post then too. :)

I'm ready to hit the site and do some shopping! Come join me...

Travel time..

This post needs to be viewed with at least a full screen resolution of 1024X768. Otherwise, images will float over top of text! Please adjust if necessary. Written on 3-27-08 Posted on 3-28-08

Snowing! I'm sitting here looking out the window and it's snowing to beat the band. I have to go out about every hour or so and wipe off the satellite dish to keep from losing the signal. Who would have ever thought that we'd need one of those snow cover thingies for the dish?

We left Santa Rosa on Sunday and got as far as Winnemucca, Nevada. California roads, I swear, are worse than the roads in Ohio. It was almost as bad as I-10 through the western half of Louisiana. We took I-80 out of the San Francisco area and just stayed on it until we got to Cheyenne, Wyoming. The road through the Donner Pass area into Truckee was like knobby white concrete. The doorbell has never vibrated off the wall before. It did this time, and the front stereo speaker on the driver's side broke off too. Things that were glued down vibrated so hard; they came loose and went flying into the floor. I don't think I ever want to go back to California again. We overheated climbing Donner Pass and had to stop and cool off for just a few minutes before we could head on to the summit. Jim has got to do something about getting those radiator fins cleaned out completely. He fixed the problem last summer by installing a new "blow by tube" to keep the engine from exhausting directly into the radiator and clogging it. We thought we had gotten all the gummy stuff cleaned out of the radiator fins, but it looks like we'll need to find a place where we can pressure wash the radiator one more time.

We arrived in Winnemucca at about 5PM, stopped at the Flying J and fueled. The card reader on their machine, once again, was not working. After pressing the clear button half a dozen or so times, I took the cards and walked in. I did not find a friendly clerk. She told me it wouldn't clear because someone was outside "messing with it." I told her to look out the window and she would see that there was no one anywhere in the vicinity. Then I was told I'd have to go out and press the clear button. When I informed her that I had already done that, I was told that I'd have to go do it again, in what I considered a rude manner. At any rate, I went out and did it again, then had to walk back in to tell her it still wasn't working. She finally sent someone out to try to get it going and the master key type card wouldn't unstick it either. He was really nice and finally got the pump cleared for us to fuel and pay inside. Finally fueled, we went over to the Model T RV Park/Hotel/Restaurant/Casino to get an RV space. We hooked up, got some dinner, tossed $20 into a slot machine hoping for some good luck (no such thing), then laid down and slept like there was no tomorrow. We were so exhausted from all the bouncing around we knew we'd need some good sleep for Monday travel.

Monday came and we managed to get on the road by 8AM. The drive through Nevada on I-80 is such a waste land. A few small towns pepper the landscape, but they have nothing to offer a traveler. The ride was pretty good. Nevada highways are pretty darned smooth. We came through a mountain pass and used the Pac Brake on the down side. After reaching the bottom and looking at the gauges, all was fine. About 5 minutes later, Jim looked at the gauges again and the Transmission Temperature was about to hit the RED ZONE. He stopped to let it cool off, but the needle on the gauge never moved. So we used the computer system that's within the console shifting mechanism to check the transmission fluid, and all said OK. Sure that the gauge had simply broken we traveled on without incident.

We crested a hill near Wendover on the border of Utah, and all you could see was White everywhere. It was the Great Salt Flats. I never realized what a massive amount of land is encompassed by the Great Salt Desert and Flats. We did stop at a rest area and try to get a picture that would show what it's like, but pictures, just don't do it justice. The Bonneville Speedway is out there. That's where they set all the land speed records. Jim was interested in all of that, and the signs at the rest area gave a wealth of information. Traveling on, we saw a lot of writing in the salt. People bring black rocks out there, write phrases and draw pictures on the salt. It’s pretty neat to read them as you go along. We arrived about 4:30 local time at the Flying J on the west side of Salt Lake City in Lake Point, and got something to eat. While we were sitting there, we saw a motel next door that had an RV sign under the Motel sign and then the name Oqqrrh. (O-ker) After we ate we went over there to get a site for the night. What a ratty nasty place it was. They walked me out back to see the "RV sites." They were nothing less than cruddy with falling down power boxes. Once you pulled into a site, you'd have to back out to get out the next morning. That's ok for someone not towing a car behind a 40 foot Class A home. People just don't seem to understand that when you're towing a car, you cannot backup like you can with a travel trailer or a fifth wheel. Try backing up a little red wagon some time and watch what the wheels do. It just doesn't work. You can go only straight backwards for a few feet and that's it. So anyway, we drove back over to Flying J and spent most of the night in their parking lot. We didn't sleep very well, and we were up and on the road again a little before 5AM. The transmission needle on the gauge was still up high. Now we were positive that we had a broken gauge or possibly a broken sensor. The trip (climb) out of Salt Lake City looked as though it is probably nothing less than spectacular, but in the dark I couldn't be really sure.

That's enough for now. I'm sure you're getting tired of reading and trying to take it all in. I'll post the rest of the trip tomorrow or Saturday sometime. For now, just go shopping until I write again!

It DOES rain in California

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Well, you don't travel around here when it's raining. The roads can be treacherous because, like Florida, many people don't seem to know how to drive on even a slightly wet road. So, on the rainy days, we've stayed in.

Yesterday, we got orders to head for Colorado. We will be leaving in the morning. For those of you that track us, we are going to take Interstate 80 all the way into Cheyenne, Wyoming. And then, I25 south to US34 in Loveland, Colorado where we will be staying only 1 mile off the freeway.

Sadly, Jim has had to work 6 days a week, 10 hours a day, and so we haven't been able to go back to Occidental. In retrospect, I'm thinking I should have rented a car for a day so that I could get the photos of the churches in Sebastopol and Occidental that I wanted. all we've had time for is the drive on Sundays to the Super Wal-Mart in American Canyon, back home again, and weekly chores. By the time those things are done on Sunday, it's time to fix dinner and settle down for the evening. However, there is this old barn that we pass on the way to the grocery on Sunday mornings that I was able to get Jim to stop and let me get a picture of.

So, what else has been going on? To be honest - it "ain't fun."

Jim's company was pressured by the union out here to pay these guys Union wages. They paid retroactively to when the guys started. That was a very good thing. It really helped out with the high cost of living out here. The bad thing is that they took back what they paid them and they took back the per Diem money twice! Now it seems to be a major battle to get the people in payroll to understand that they already took that money away from the fellas for their RV sites, and then they took it back again, so that they've taken it twice. More simply put: The company credited themselves for what they paid the guys so that they could reissue the difference. They failed to credit the employee for what was paid to the company. You can't take something back until you give it first. Some D.A. in Georgia can't seem to grasp the debit/credit concept. We may never see that money unless we take it to court.

On the upside, we're going to be able to get away from all the politics and gossip of a large group working together. I've managed to keep myself distanced from all that stuff, and I'll sure be glad to put some geographical distance on it. The drop back to the old pay won't be very fun, but that's OK. Jim will hopefully have a new job that pays appropriately in the not too distant future.

We had to hire an attorney in Florida because we are suddenly having difficulties with the state of Ohio from a support order when Jim got divorced in 1973. He paid all of his support there, and then moved to Florida in 1981. In 1982 his wife (ex-wife) had the order transferred to Florida. (I'm so glad we still had that original order) and he began paying there instead. Never had anymore contact with Ohio after that. Now, keep in mind that this case is 25 years old, and the children involved are now going to be 37 and 40 this year.

About 8 or 9 years ago, after 18 years of no contact at all, we got a support statement from Ohio for a different Jim Taylor, with different case/order number from the year 1982. It was sent to the wrong address. He sent them back a letter telling them that they had the wrong person and that the statement was not his. Next, we got a phone call from someone up there telling us there had been a mixup and that he didn't owe them anything. Several months later, we began getting statements from Ohio again in the mail saying that he owed this money. It was the exact same dollar amount as it had been for the wrong Jim Taylor. He wrote and wrote and wrote with no resolution or response. Finally, after an Ohio threat to take an income tax refund about 2 years ago, we hired an attorney named Michael Burns in Sarasota. We sent him retainer money and he assured Jim that he would take care of it. By that time there had been lots of letters flying to and from with Ohio, and an audit from the state of Florida had been received. (which Ohio sent to us) The amounts did not come even close to matching. Jim's ex-wife failed to tell the support people that one of the children had come to Florida to live with him in 1983. When that didn't work out and she went home, her mother also failed to tell the appropriate people that because this child was incorrigible, that she'd had her declared an emancipated minor in that same year. She also failed to tell Florida that the other child had then married when she was 17. So, calculating those differences, ( and I'm sure Florida will do that with our attorney's urgings) he is overpaid on his support by many thousands of dollars.

Attorney Burns did nothing in that two years. He did not respond to phone calls, letters, and failed to return our retainer fee. With a new flurry of correspondence flying to and fro, we've had to retain another attorney, Ralph Friedland. He's already accomplished much and we are pleased with the communication from him. We just hope all this gets worked out quickly. I wonder.... when all this is done, if we can make Ohio pay for our attorney fees and refund the overpayments... just a thought.

As most of you know, stress is not good for me, and it has begun to take a toll on me physically. I've had to drag out the cane, and I've had a few anxiety attacks. All in all, when I can put all that's going on out of my mind, I feel a lot better.

So as you can see, we aren't presently having a lot of fun, and it looks like we are about to deplete any small savings that we have managed to put together, to pay attorney fees. We'll be leaving in the morning, and heading to Colorado. I'll tell you all about that when we get there later in the week. In the meantime, please visit Taylor Shopping or Woman A Week Shopping for all of your online purchases!