Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

We make it a tradition NOT to be home on Halloween. Simply because we don't have kids that take part, so we don't give out :)

Tonight we are going to Sacinko Sushi, its the last night for dollar Nigri! We are also going to the Corral West store, here is Tucson to look at and try on cowboy boots. You heard right. Now that we live in the west, its time to dress like the west. Plus, and I need cowboy boots to complete the "team" look when I do food shows for Maverick Ranch. My next show is the National Cattlemans' Beef Association annual convention in Nashville, in January. Not, that I consider myself a cattlemen or anything, but it should be fun none the less ;)

Anyway, have a happy & safe Halloween, however you choose to celebrate!

I originally wanted to post a different picture for the holiday but(pun intended!) thought it might offend.............................






................................................Sorry if you're offended, here it is anyway!

Ya gotta love Google Image search :)

-Rich-

Weekend Stuff......

The weather was beautiful on Saturday, sunny and 85, another typical day in Tucson. It was a great day for a bike ride. We headed out for a mountain bike ride on the 50 year trail , we both really like this trail, it has a little bit of everything; climbs, technical, rocky sections, chutes, flat areas, lots of wildlife and fast descents!



Most of day Sunday looked quite ominous. This pic was taken Sunday evening as the sun set and illuminated the clouds from the bottom, making them look even more evil. However, we never received anything more then a brief, light shower from these storm clouds! Since it looked like this most of the day, we decided not to head out for a hike or bike ride and instead spent the day cleaning inside and running errands!












We also had an unexpected visitor over the weekend. A neighborhood cat was sitting on our door step peering in at Snuggy! Laura invited her in, she was quite friendly. Snug was NOT to happy and here she expresses her displeasure with our friendly visitor! I think the cat got the hint as she has not been back since Snuggy screamed at her :)










We also shared a nice bottle of wine over the weekend. Now that we are both back to working, its nice to be able to have a nice bottle of wine, once in a while :)

We had a Paul Hobbs Russian River Pinot Noir. We paired it up with grilled duck breast with hoisin sauce and grilled fall squash. You can click the pic and visit our wine blog to read more about our adventures in wine!





Over all, a good weekend, even if the threat of rain kept us less active then we had planned;)

Now, its off to bed for an early start to the work week ;)

-Rich-

Payday and other stuff

Today Rich and I went mountain biking. We both drove in the car to the trailhead, then went our separate ways because Rich rides longer and faster than I do. I rode for about an hour before the heat and sun, and my lack of physical fitness, got the best of me. After a quick shower, I took the scooter up the street to the hardware store to get some diesel stabilizer. Apparently diesel fuel can get all gummy in a couple of months from moisture and sitting. The hardware store only had stuff for gas engines, so they sent me 10 miles down Oracle to Fletchers. After a quick stop for lunch, I stopped at the closest gas station to our moho and gassed up the scooter. I put $2.28 in, which is how much gas I used all of last week! Not bad, eh?

Yesterday I got my first paycheck in over a year, so to celebrate we went out to dinner at Bistro Zin. We thought the menu looked intriguing when we were here last year, but never went. Tonight we went to Sachiko sushi because they had nigri pieces for $1/each. We chowed down and still saved $15 over what we usually spend. This deal is going on until Halloween, so we're going back on Tuesday night.

What's the picture of the Peeps slippers got to do with anything? Nothing, but I stumbled upon it and thought it was a funny way to end a blog.







-Laura

Scooter Diva pin

Got this in the mail today. 'Nuff said.

-Laura

Reader Comments!

We're glad some of you are hanging on!

While we were traveling, our little space on the web was getting around 78 hits per day. A number I still find amazing! Since we've landed in Tucson, its dropped, not surprisingly, to 48 per day. Thanks for hanging in there!

We have limited our posting to weekends or something exciting happening, which ever comes first :)

One of our regular readers, Linda, from rv-dreams, commented on yesterdays blog. She made a comment regarding our lovely little "child" Snuggles the Cockatoo being grounded. I think an explanation warrants its own post :)

Linda wrote...

"I am so glad you guys are still blogging. I miss reading what's going on with you during the week.
Is Snuggy still grounded?"

First of all, if we posted everyday, it might look something like this:

"We got up, showered, had breakfast, headed off to work. Got home in the afternoon, chatted about our day, went for a ________ (walk, hike, bike ride, errand, grocery run, fill in the blank) came back, had dinner, surfed the net or watched TV, catch the 10:00 news, in bed by 10:30."

....Repeat Monday through Friday.......


The two biggest followers of our blog; Full-time travelers, who certainly don't want to read about an existence they have been fortunate enough to give up or retired from; and working folks exploring the possibility of full-timing or retiring soon, they don't want to read about an existence they are in now! So, as a service to our reader's, we spare you the boring details and provide the fun and exciting stuff :)

Now, I'm not complaining at all about our situation. Economic reality means we work. We both are doing something we really love, on our terms(the goal of the Bag-it-tour). We are forever grateful that we had the ability to take a year sabbatical to figure out life 2.0. So many people never get the chance or are willing to take a chance on the unknown that life on the road provides.

OK, enough of that, now on to Snuggles.

For those of you who don't know Snuggles has her own little space on the web so all of her "fans" could keep up with her travels :) (click the pic to go to Snuggles blog!)

Well, it seems that Snuggles is having a troubling time adjusting to us working full-time again. We were very careful, when she was a baby, to raise her to be independent from 8-5pm during the week. Well, a year on the road got us out of that routine.

Even though I'm working from home, she needs to be "independent" during that time because I'm on the phone or on the computer. Well, I let her have some free time while I was working. I turned my back on her for 30 seconds(max) and this the havoc she created, a nice 3 inch cut in the driver seat of the coach :(

I'm sure we'll be able to get fixed by next spring when the coach goes up for sale, but we were not happy. Snuggles was forced to spend the rest of the day in her cage, "grounded". She has also been "snippy" with both of us and feisty around the dinner hour.....

....Needless to say, we are working on a little attiTOOde adjustment ! ;)

So, thanks again for those that still visit! The "tour" doesn't officially end until April 1st, next year and we still have some adventures to share with everyone, so check back every once in a while......

....And keep those comments coming!

-Rich-

Beautiful Weekend for Riding

The weather is stuck in repeat mode. For the past 6 days, its been 85 during the day 50 at night and never a cloud in the sky. It has been getting dark earlier and earlier each day so we don't venture too far out on our bikes(or scooter) after we finish our workday.

The weekend, however, is a different story!

All things Scootering!

Saturday morning we headed to Scoot Over to check out windshields for Laura's Buddy. The crisp morning air is getting up under Laura 's helmet on her commute and freezing her face. Not good since the morning are only going to get colder as we get into the winter. Laura decided that the medium height was most appropriate for her. Good thing too, it was the only size they had in stock :)

Here is the Buddy with the new windshield "mod"!

While we were at the store Laura got information on a group scooter ride happening on Sunday. It was going from the Tucson Mall to Biosphere 2, 60 mile round trip. Since we already knew what the weather was going to be (repeat of the day before) Laura decided to head out for the ride!












Now, this is NOT Laura's group (nobody thought to bring a camera) but I'm sure you could have taken a similar picture as the group made it's way up Oracle Rd to the Biosphere :)

Laura was really glad she went on the ride. She met some fellow scooterists (it's a word, I got it from the Scoot Over website), learned how to ride in a group, got some more "big road" experience and got to test out the new windshield "mod" ( determined the windshield is a keeper)

All Things Biking

We have some world class biking, both mountain and road, available to us, right from our front door. On Saturday afternoon, I headed out on the road to the Biosphere(we did the tour last year, you can read our review HERE ). I had no idea it was 1,000 feet higher in elevation then our "home". So, only averaged 12 miles an hour out. It took me just over an hour to cover the 15 miles to the Biosphere. Because of the hills, this is a major training route for "roadies", so there was a ton of other cyclist on the road. On the way back (downhill!) I averaged 28 miles an hour and hit a max of 38mph :) It took me just a little over 30 minutes to cover the miles back.

On Sunday, I went for a mountain bike ride on the 50 Year Trail. The trail has everything you could want in mountain bike trail, elevation change, some easy sections, some crazy technical sections and a really fun section called "the chutes" that reminds me so much of the trenches at one of our favorite trails in Michigan, Fort Custer Recreation Area in Battle Creek! Including the road ride from home to the trailhead and back I was able to put together a nice 20 mile ride.


We finished up the weekend by feeding our "neighbors" Dolly and Poncho a snack and watching the sun turn the Catalinas a brilliant orange. Here is Laura feeding Poncho. The arena is right across from the coach so that view of the Catalinas you see in the background is the view from our porch, everyday :)

-Rich-

Beautiful Weather!

Daytime temps have been in the mid 80's. It's funny to see the locals all dressed for fall in their jeans and sweaters. I guess when you're used to 115, 82 seems downright chilly :)

Last evening was probably the best evening, weather wise, we have had since we've been in Tucson. The temperature was about 76 as the sun dipped behind the mountains, illuminating the Catalinas in a brilliant orange (they are a different color almost every evening). I washed the car, Snug sat in a tree and picked as many pods as she could reach off of it and Laura sat on the patio reading and surfing.

Yep, a great "fall" day!

-Rich-

Vonage VoIP.....huh?

Comcast finally showed up and got us hooked up to cable TV and highspeed internet!

We had discussed the Vonage internet phone system, as opposed to a conventional phone line, for our home when we land in Denver next year. However, since we are staying put for the next 6 months, and neither of our personal cell phones works from our current "home" location, we decided to make the jump now.

Appently, VoIP stands for voice over internet protocol. Basically, it takes your phone signal and magically converts it to be able to send it over the internet to avoid long distance charges. I'm not sure how it all works, but this thing ROCKS! For $24.99/month you get unlimited calls, local, long distance, wherever. We bought a cheap 5.8ghz cordless phone to connect to it. We also hooked up our fax/printer/copier so I can work. The clarity is amazing, we haven't experienced any echo or delay, yet. We went ahead and set ourselves up with a Denver area code, so we're ready to go when we land next spring :)

Their current incentives (probably all the time) is one month free and a manufacturer rebate for the $49.99 that we spent at Circuit City for the Linksys/Vonage box to connects to the internet. So, virtually no start up cost, except for the $19.99 cordless phone we had buy, since we're in the mothorhome.

The best part, I closed out my cell phone (I now have a corporate cell phone) and closed out my internet efax service (faxes sent to me via e-mail). Our net monthly savings, even with the Vonage, is $75/month, bonus :)

So how does the jingle go........?

woo, hoo, woo, hoo, hoo.......

or something like that :)

-Rich-

Go Tigers!!!

This afternoon Rich & I watched the Tigers beat the Oakland A's to win the American League championship!!! The Tigers are going to be in (and hopefully win) the world series for the first time since 1984....when I was 15! Now I am definately a fair-weather fan. This was probably the first Tigers game I've watched in many years, but it sure was an exciting one!

In other news, I've been riding my scooter all over and getting more comfortable on it. In fact, yesterday I rode it 10 miles to a new sushi place. Getting there involved going out onto Oracle Rd., which is similar to M-59 in Highland, Michigan. I got up to 60mph with plenty of throttle to go. It was strange to go that far in a scooter, but fun at the same time. Oh...on a slightly different topic, a motorcyclist did "the wave" to me on my way to work on Wednesday...made my day!

In geeky news...I used Rich's wrist-mount GPS thingy to check the speedometer on my scooter. It appears to be reading 5mph faster than I'm actually going. I also learned that we're at 3120' above sea level. That's about 600' above Tucson and 1200' above Phoenix, but 2300' below Denver.

-Laura

We're Still Here.......

.......But I'm sure you don't want to read about our full-time working adventures :)

We think we're going to have to drop from daily (well almost) to a weekly post on the blog. Since both of us are back to working full-time, our adventures aren't quite as exciting as life on the road!

I've been in Baltimore, MD for the past 5 days, at the Natural Products-East Exposition. If it's Natural and Organic, it was at this show. I was busy introducing our Certified Organic products. My company, Maverick Ranch, has committed to being totally Organic within 5 years. It's my job to promote our vision to the retail trade. (See, I told you work life wasn't good reading, but I am passionate about the company and our vision!)

Laura has been busy with "Family Week" over at Sierra Tucson. Family Week, for the most part, involves family members confronting their loved one's, that are in treatment, with intervention and assistance from the counselors. Laura is an observer for her first few weeks.

Now, for some exciting news. Laura's Buddy finally came in!

Here is Laura posing in her "gear" (safety first!) on her new hot pink, Genuine Buddy 125cc. This is much more then a play toy. It will be Laura's daily driver to and from work. We are just about 5 miles from Sierra Tucson and it rains very little here in the desert during the winter. She should get plenty of use out of it!

The goal is to go as long as possible without having to invest in a second car. When we relocate to Denver, in the spring, we will be 10 miles from downtown Denver. The hope is that Laura will be able to commute to a job in Denver, when weather permits! (we will, eventually, have to get a second car for those wintery days!)







Here is Laura heading out this morning on her inaugural trip to work on the Buddy! She loves her new Buddy and I'm guessing that this scooter will eventually lead to this:




















We'll just have to see about that ;)

-Rich-

Signing papers, mountain biking, & weather

Yesterday was a day of firsts for us. It was the first time we saw cloudy weather in AZ and we experienced our first desert rain. You'd think...ok...it's the desert, this rain will be over in 10 minutes. Wrong! You can see the rain approaching quickly. That was the first batch, which lasted about 10 minutes. An hour later batch #2 came through, then around 10pm. the big whopper hit. It rained continuously (I think) ALL night! From about 5pm on, there was thunder and lightening. It must be a really big deal because when I was driving home from the grocery store everyone was outside watching the lightening.

This morning I went over to the HR department at Sierra-Tucson to sign papers to become an official employee. Whew! What a process! On top of everything else, I was there, signing papers for almost an hour! And I still have more stuff to read. It's all the same stuff I've signed and learned about before (infectous diseases, fire safety, HIPAA, etc.).

Since it was such a nice day today (high about 87), I decided to go mountain biking. The trail is about 3-4 miles from home and never ceases to surprise. Last year we always saw some sort of unusual (to us) creature. Today was no exception. I saw a chipmunky thing, lizards, and THE BIGGEST spider I've ever seen. I was going to stop and take a pic with my camera phone, but I decided I didn't want my feet anywhere near this spider. Did I mention how big it was? It was HUGE!!! I started getting tired soon (too soon) and started making mistakes. At one point my hand smacked this tree-cactus thing. OUCH! I tried to pull it out of my glove, but it kept breaking into pieces. When I finally got it all out, my hand had multiple puncture wounds. At that point I was done, so I turned around and headed back. Tonight I'm going to chill out and watch a movie.

-Laura

My first sorta day at work

Yesterday I dropped Rich off at the Tucson airport at 5:30am for his trip to Baltimore. He's there until Sunday for a natural food show. So I'm alone until then....just Snuggles and I. Guess this is kinda like being a single parent...LOL!

Today I went up to Sierra-Tucson for a meet & greet. I met my boss, then we went to lunch where I met 10 future co-workers. We had a great italian lunch, so now we know of a good, close place to go. There's not a lot that's close since we're in a pretty rural area. I got the quicky tour when we got back. It's a pretty swanky place. I also found out that 80% of their patients come from out of state, which makes sense because they are a cash only place. Operating a rehab on cash only is pretty impressive and not easy to do. I should be able to start next week after I've been "blessed" by HR. I had to go yesterday morning and get a physical and drug screen. They're also doing a background check. This is a pretty extensive hiring process, especially for a temporary job.

This afternoon, I went to the local coffee shop that has wifi to order some more work clothes, update the blog and do some general surfing. Rich called while I was here. He's in 87 degrees and humidity, while I'm in 96 and dry. We're not sure which is worse, but I think the 87 & humid is worse now that I've experienced both.

Ok....I'm off to the moho. Later!

Laura

Home!

The nearest campground we could find to Laura's new job was 25 miles away, not exactly what we were hoping for. Laura's new boss helped with getting the word out around the workplace that we were looking for a place to park for the winter. We were put in touch with a couple that has a 9 acre horse property with hook-ups. They have a couple of spots available to rent. We went to check out the space, before we drove the coach up to the property.

The space is beyond anything we could have imagined. We have full hook-ups (and soon cable and highspeed internet) we have an awesome view of the mountains. There is great road and mountain biking accessible right from the property. Laura will be 5 miles from work, more on that later!

So, here's our home for the winter as the sun sets on a blistering 98 degree fall day in sunny Tucson. We have nice trees and plenty of cactus surrounding us. There are lots of desert quail running around the grounds.









Here is the view from our "front porch" as the setting sun turns the mountains of the Coronado National forest a brilliant gold. In the foreground are the outdoor stalls and the riding arena. Laura is hoping some friendly folks with horses(willing to "share") check in really soon :)






Here are the stables, just across from us. Since they have extra room. We were able to "stable" our bikes! We have our own little room to keep bikes and equipment out of the elements and just enough room for me to work on bikes. This was bonus we weren't expecting!

We are quite happy with our surroundings and location. Our landlords Dee & Dennis are quite nice and came by a couple of times during the day to make sure we were making ourselves at home! I know we're going to like it here!


I'll let Laura tell you herself about being so close to work!

-Rich-

I'm getting a scooter!!! When we were in Denver, I test drove a lot of scooters and fell in love with the Buddy, pink to be specific. Since we'd have to buy a carrier to get it to Tucson, we decided to wait until we got here. We'll still need a carrier, but we have 6 mos. to buy one. There's a pink Buddy coming to the scooter store in Tucson that they'll get all prepped and delivered to me. How close to work am I going to be? Well, we'll have to measure the exact distance, but I'm guessing it'll be less than 5 miles! I go to the HR department tomorrow to take a drug screen, get a TB test, and fill out a bunch of paperwork. I'm actually excited to start work for the first time since August, '05.

-Laura