Odie tries to Fly

Wow, I've only posted once this week. It's not that I haven't been writing at all. I worked for about two days on our newsletter, and I'm also working on an article for a magazine! Sometimes writing comes easy, sometimes it doesn't. If you don't subscribe to our newsletter, you just missed articles on 'How to Backup your Blog', 'Necessary maintenance on a New Computer', and Quick Tips on keyboard shortcuts for closing windows and filling out forms. Of course, you can remedy that situation by subscribing now! It's been a beautiful week here in Casa Grande. Blue skies and in the 80s during the day, 60s at night. Boring is good when it comes to weather! One thing I was a little worried about here at Palm Creek is Odie getting enough exercise. The last few parks we've stayed at had nearby trails up hills where we could take Odie off leash and let him run. Palm Creek is flat and very populated - meaning he needs to stay on leash all the time. So, we've been pleasantly surprised to find empty fields nearby and for an extra bonus, there's something that Odie likes to chase! Check out the video below.

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Settling In

We are now at our 'base of operations' for the winter. Palm Creek Golf and RV in Casa Grande, Arizona - just south of Phoenix, halfway between Phoenix and Tucson.

We're going to be here thru March. If you're in the area, stop by and say hello! We're in site 1363. We've been in this park several times in the past, the last time in January 2006. It feels different this time and I think a lot has to do with being more seasoned RVers. We feel more at home now, and we're taking advantage of all the amenities. We've only been here 3 days and we've already played pickleball twice and used the pool and hot tub twice. There are 8 pickleball courts here!

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Geocaching at Verde Valley

If you've never tried geocaching - check it out at Geocaching.com. All over the world there are caches of 'treasures' hidden for you to find. All you need is a handheld GPS and a desire to explore. Here at the Thousand Trails park at Verde Valley, they've come up with their own geocaching game. There are 10 caches hidden around the park. They are rocks. Yep, find a rock in a pile of rocks! Actually, they're pretty clearly marked with TTN on the top side. When you turn them over you see a number. Write down that number to prove that you found it. First, Jim entered all 10 GPS coordinates into Google Earth and printed out a map for us to follow: The best thing about geocaching is that it gets you to explore areas you wouldn't otherwise. Like this remote corner of the park with such a fabulous view. I wonder if all Thousand Trails are putting out geocaches? I think it's a great idea. And, the manager here was sure excited when we mentioned that we could cover 'how to geocache' in one of our computer seminars. He even says he can help us put together a tour of TT parks next summer for us to give our seminars. That would be just perfect!

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Jerome, Arizona

We did just a little bit of sightseeing yesterday. There's a lot to see in this area, we won't even scratch the surface. But, a couple people told us that the old mining town of Jerome is a must see. That's just a few miles away, so we did that when we went out to the grocery store yesterday. It's up at 5200 feet - quite a climb from here. Wide open spaces here! And scary roads. This morning we played pickleball. That's the third time since Jim got back. I seem to be developing a case of 'pickleball elbow' :-( Off to the hot tub for me!

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Oh Boy! My Internet is Back!

Oh yeah ... my husband is back too :-) How I love a man who gives me such good Internet! Bottom line - our 'Receive' modem had gone bad. It was old. It is our original modem that we got almost 4 years ago now. That's ancient history with this stuff! Most people in the business have never even seen a modem like ours. Luckily ... *very luckily* we had a spare thanx to Joline who upgraded to new equipment last year and gave us her old modems. THANK YOU JOLINE! Also luckily, we happen to have people parked right next to us who have lots of this similar equipment and who are very knowledgeable.

They're the folks from Maxwell Satellite. They were able to help Jim at a couple of crucial points. First of all, they have satellite dishes, so Jim was able to disconnect our system (the modems) from our satellite dish on the roof and hook it up to their satellite dish on a tripod. They tested their dish and knew it was locked on to the appropriate satellite. So, when our modems were attached to it, and we had the same problem (it would connect and work on the Internet for about a minute, then lose signal), we knew the problem was probably our modems. So, Jim found Joline's old modems and swapped them out. But, here's where it gets sticky. Our Internet Service Provider (not Motosat) communicates directly to the modems, so they need to know about the swap in order to 'commission' them. Jim called them and the person he spoke to said it could not be done. We'd have to open a whole new account, and it would have to wait till Monday. Margo, our neighbor from Maxwell Satellite, said she's swapped modems on their systems before and all you need to do is go thru a re-registration process, an online software thing. Jim did that and voila! Everything is working. I'm writing this blog entry at 4am ... couldn't do that last week! Is this Geek heaven or what? Time to celebrate! There's a winery right at the entrance to the park here, so off we went to do some tasting. And, we topped it off with a lobster dinner! What a great day.

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