November 12, 2000, Sunday- jacks up and pedal down for an easy ride of 120 miles from Mesa to Tucson. We had stopped at the Flying J for some propane and possibly some fuel, but the line was backed up onto the frontage road. With Arizona's screwy diesel rules, there is an 8 cent discount for auto/rv use, verses commercial truck consumption. So, the RV island would have taken over an hour to get services. No thanks!
Beaudry's new 5 star resort has lots of whistles and bells from a full service restaurant to sites with Jacuzzi's, to 2 pools, phone hookups at each site, etc.
The Legend of Bagger Vance provided tonight's movie de jour, with an ok story, but great acting and superb period pieces from the 1930's.
November 13, 2000, Monday- after dropping the coach off for service at 8:30, we hit the malls by 10 for the start of the holiday shopping. By 3 we had not only gotten over half of the list finished, we also found time to hit a few buckets of the little white balls.
Tonight- Denver verses Oakland. Oakland 10-1 with the only loss to Denver. Denver 5-4 needing a victory. What a cliffhanger with the Bronco's winning with a field goal as time ran out.
November 14, 2000, Tuesday- we met with Pat, our Beaudry salesman this morning to chat and tour the new coaches. It looked familiar- the last 18,000 mile service in North Carolina, and we're buying a new coach. Deja vous, but this time we looked at the new Eagles, Monacos and Country Coaches. Some interesting new twists. The Monaco Dynasty, priced similar to our coach, now takes the weight limit up to 43,000 pounds. Our gross is 32,000. Monaco accomplishes this by adding a tag axle. Why is a tag axle needed- because they are overweight on a single rear axle and can't produce a useful carrying capacity. Now they overcorrect by putting 10000 pound useful load (with full fuel). Unless one loads lead bars, you can't physically put half that weight into the coach.
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On the Country Coach Affinity, a 42 foot beauty with 500+ horsepower, they installed an glass cockpit display similar to those on the high-end aircraft. This screen has the ability to display as much detail as the operator desires. You could drive with just a tachometer and speedometer, or full display of every normal gauge conceivable. At just $450,000 I was fighting a line of buyers…..not.
Dinner was at our favorite Tucson restaurant, GAVI. This Italian restaurant has repeatedly been voted the best in town, and in the two year's since we've been here, it hasn't lost anything.
November 15, 2000, Wednesday- and the lawsuits and counter claims go on in Florida. We picked up Phil and Geoff at the airport for a quick lunch and a quick tour of the new Beaudry RV Resort. They left in mid afternoon to enable a return to Mesa before dark and to let Geoff host the "windows" computer group.
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We toured additional areas of this new RV park today and discovered first class computer rooms, billiard rooms, library and exercise facilities. The tennis courts are being finished as we write!
November 16, 2000, Thursday- although it was in the 30's at 6:30 this morning, by 9:30, our tee time, it was warming nicely. When we finished the great municipal course, Del Urich, it was downright balmy in the mid 60's. By this afternoon everything but one small fan for the DSS has been completed, all of the service and all of the tweaks. Hopefully the fan will arrive tomorrow and we shall be complete. Looking forward to it.
We gave Jeff's brother a call. Bruce and Viv were up for dinner at GAVI. Bruce had been an Air Force fighter pilot and also graduated to heavier planes including AWAC 707's. I was fascinated by the flying stories. During the period following the downing of Korean Airlines Flight 007 over the Kampchatka Peninsular, his crews were complaining about having to refuel the 707 AWAC's while staying over the small northern islands of Japan. This required lots of finesse because the transfer rate was a maximum of 6000 pounds per minute, and they needed 75,000 pounds of fuel. That required almost 15 minutes of connect time, all while flying in a figure 8 pattern. Each plane had two fully qualified crews for the 12 hour dawn to dusk sortie. To prove his point, Bruce flew the entire trip, including both refuelings by himself. The next day he sure needed a back rub from having to do such precision flying for such an extended period of time.
He was explaining his standing next to the LSO on a carrier. The Landing Signal Officer was responsible for safely landing each aircraft, giving verbal commands to keep them following the meatball, down the pipe. The LSO pointed out a net next to the workstation. His advice- if I say hit the net, you better dive for protection to avoid the low flying or crashing aircraft.
On his first takeoff from an aircraft carrier he was a passenger on a utility/ mail type aircraft. The commander explained to him that at launch there would be a lot of noise. Then, it would get extremely quite, and the aircraft would sink. Do not touch the ejection level unless we actually hit the water. Good advice, Bruce said, because if he wasn't briefed, he thought that for sure, they were going to crash, but, just before they hit the water, they started to climb.
With a little advanced planning, on our next trip, Bruce would try to get me into an F-16 fighter cockpit, and possibly into the simulator. I can't wait.
November 17, 2000, Friday- and the electoral wrangling continues. It's like the old Mad Magazine cartoons of Spy verses Spy with both sides sneaking around and it's hard to tell where the truth lies. But, the number of courts and decisions flying around defy one's ability to comprehend!
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We crossed the street over to La Mesa RV because they had a free lunch BBQ. So, we figured we'd look at some of their higher end coaches. First the salesman comes over to us and says- don't you have an American Eagle? I looked at Susan and she wasn't wearing an Eagle hat or shirt, and I was wearing my Vail Golf hat, so how did he know? Of course…..Hobbes. Three years ago when we were getting serviced he worked across the street at Beaudry, and, like everyone else, remembered Hobbes. While he was giving us the grand tour, a couple came running over to see Hobbes. They had owned a komondor, who has, since died. Their pet was 135 pounds. Hobbes at 65 is less then a half pint. A few more questions and it turned out that their dog had come from the same kennel as our first Komondor, Kibby. Small world!
November 18, 2000, Saturday- out the door at 7 to meet Viv and Bruce at 8 for a two hour hike in Saguaro National Park. The 6 or so mile hike was through dense cactus fields ranging from saguaro to cholla to teddy bear to barrel, etc., etc. We passed by a few kilns left over from earlier in the century when the mesquite trees were cut down by the cord to fire the lime outcroppings. The wildlife we passed included a few large jackrabbits and some white tailed deer. But, we observed tons of animal tracks and droppings. It felt good to get back to nature.
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Packing was the order of the afternoon.
The election distortions go on and on!
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