South Mission Hills

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October 12, 2006
Vacation over! Day No. 158

More than 15,000 miles* traveled
30 states visited, 3 countries

Unpacking in Tucson
Our new home base
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Back in Palms Springs

Enjoying the last days of summer

CLICK Where we've been so far

Everbody down!

CLICK Amused me

Non-union help moves digital piano into concert hall

SEPTEMBER 14: Tom packed the hall at his Toronto concert performance. But first he had to move the piano in. "He sure kept us awake!," said one concert goer. Read more raves. Click the link.

CLICK Tom knocks'em dead

The Pancho Stops Here

Truman Family Home, Independence, Mo.

"Where are we? We're about to Climax!"

Climax, Minnesota. Just down the road from a town named Fertile.

Rainy day play. Can you play an 88-key digital keyboard in a 20' RV? Yup.

Oogling Ottawa

Let's grab a beer, eh?

Boston? Bean there...

Travel for a year for the cost of staying home?

My friend Carol White--and husband Phil--wrote a book about it. And they're right! In fact, our monthly expenses are one third less than living at home. Read how the Whites travel and save...

CLICK "Live your road trip dream"

"Bury me, please." 22 dead Chinese on display

CLICK Our morbid NYC tour

East meets West

Missy Johnston welcomes Cousin Jim

Tom snapped this photo of Jim and his cousin Missy Johnston on the steps of the New York Yacht Club in Newport, Rhode Island. (Home of the America's Cup for more than 100 years until Dennis Conner sailed it away to San Diego.) Missy, a member of the club, owns an international yacht chartering business.

Tom at Tom's

Monticello, July 18, 2006

Eight pounds from San Diego

Rv-ing can be a good way to leave pounds behind. Especially when it's humid and too hot to cook. A late breakfast, a really late lunch, no dinner. And bingo! There's less of you.

The Wright's flight, Kitty Hawk, N.C.

Biking Myrtle Beach

Camped by the water at Navarre Beach, Florida

Drowning a cat

The children saw it first.

"Mommy, mommy, there's a kitty in the water!," they yelled. A cat in the water? Cats don't like water, I said to myself.

And then i saw it.

A dirty white, bloated cat laying in a half foot of Florida Gulf Coast sea water. And not only was this cat in the water, she (he?) was drinking it.

One weird kitty.

I was just about to tell the kids not to go near the crazy cat, when one of the mom's had the good sense to yell "Don't go near it! It's sick".

It's beyond sick, I thought. It's near death. I wondered what to do. I wanted to put the creature out of its misery. With not much effort, I could cover it with the air mattress i held, pressing its head down under the water.

But the kids would not understand.

"Mommy, mommy, that man is drowning the kitty!"

And so I passed by, wading into the water as I watched the cat take sips of the salty, warm Gulf water. Death by sodium? Was the animal trying to help the Grim Reaper by ingesting salt water?

I wished Joan Embery was around to explain the cat's peculiar behavior. I slid my body on to the raft, trying not to fall off before centering myself, and paddled out into the sound to work on my 'all over' tan.

My skin color keeps changing.

When we left San Diego I was winter white: tan face, pale body. In Mexico, I turned chili red. Down the road, in Austin, I think, I became the color of a Sugar Daddy.

Not green, as in, I will care for you and take care of your every need, but warm brown, like the nickel candy bar I bought as a kid. Sugar Daddies lasted forever. Remember? And if a tooth was loose, all you had to do was bite down hard into a Sugar Daddy and when you pulled it out of your mouth, the tooth would come with it.

Beats a door knob and string.

Now, my skin is darker than warm brown, like coffee with just a little cream in it. And the color is continuous...from the top of my foot to the top of my forehead, an even shade of Coppertone perfection..

Skin cancer be damned. And as far as the sun 'damaging' my skin and turning it to leather, I'm too old to worry about that.

I have loved the sun and the water and turning August warm and brown since my earliest memories of summer, barbecuing corn over a fire on the Strand just south of Coronado on a weekend family outing. I think I was four? Perhaps five.

No health warning will keep me from the sun. The only concession I make is to wear a hat and use some block on my parts of me, my chest--which can blister--and my face. My goal is to look like Ralph Lauren but not like a Ralph Lauren saddle bag.

But I've had enough for now.

I paddle back to the shore. The kids have gone but the cat is still there, crouching lower in the water, motionless, its head almost resting on the sand. It no longer drinks. I hope that it is finally dead, but no. The head lifts up slightly and then drops down again.

Death has not taken the poor kitty yet. But it will, soon.

I walk away, leaving it to greet death alone. And although my back is to it, yards from the beach, I can still see it, in my mind.

Sipping salt water.

Forget something?

One down

I won't tell you which one of us was at fault.

A little of the blames rests on one...and alot on the other. But we shared the embarassment equally.

Gratefully, there were few witnesses when, early on in our travelling roadshow, we committed "RV New Owner Mistake No. 1".

Ready?

We drove away from our campsite without unhooking the RV. Power cord, coaxial tv cable and sewer line were still firmly screwed on when we took off.

Luckily, the one who deserves most of the blame--now known as T.O.W.D.M.O.T.B.--yelled "STOP!!!" about 10 feet out from the campsite. That's about the length of the power cord so we didn't uproot the camp's electrical box. Just tilted it, a little.

The sewer line doesn't screw into the ground so it just easily slid right out.

Not so with the tv cable. At 8 ft., it was no match for the pull of a 10,000 lb. RV. (Hey. We bought the cable at the 99 cents store. What the heck.)

"STOP!!!"

Good thing we we're heading out early that morning. Few people were up. (RV-ers tend to sleep late, it seems.) The only one who witnessed our screw-up--outside of anyone peeking at us through closed blinds--was the camp maintenance man. He just happened to be tooling by at that moment in a golf cart.

The one who deserves most of the blame cringed when the overly helpful maintenance guy ignored our stupidity and yelled out, "Can I give you guys a hand?". He was a little loud. And a little gleeful. And we politely turned him down.

Turns out Mr. Maintenance was also the camp gladfly and he loved to stop and chat with folks all over the park. The one who deserves most of the blame is convinced we became known at the Rancho Sedona RV Resort, Az. as "the dumb new guys in Space 36".

To date, we have not made "RV New Owner Mistake No. 2".

But we will.