Cousins, Projects and Goodbye Tucson

Has it really been four days since my last post?  Boy have we been busy.  Sometimes playing catch-up is hard but here goes. 

When I left off there was a genealogy forum I wanted to attend and a “new” cousin I had plans to meet.  I really like attending these forums.  I’ve been to a few that have been really informational but that isn’t always the case.  I started my genealogy “hobby” back before the internet.  Everything at that time was done by reading microfiche, scanning film, writing letters and visiting libraries and cemeteries all over the country.  It's not done that way today and some newbies need to be clued into getting the facts.  Internet research is so much easier but it has also brought about so many more errors.  Anyway, much of the forum was the “how to” and getting back to basics..  DNA wasn’t a tool most of them at the forum were using. 

I have discovered several “cousins” through DNA.  One of those cousins lives in the Tucson area.  We were both excited that we were finally going to meet after months and months of communicating and exchanging family information via email.  Shelley is my 3rd cousin.  That’s fairly close in the field of genealogy research.  We share the same great grandparents and had a lot to talk about.  What fun that was.

Terry and I knew a couple places we wanted to eat while in Tucson.  One was at the Texas Roadhouse and the other was at Choice Greens.  Jerry and Janice were more than happy to go with us to both places and neither of us were unhappy with that decision.  We definitely had better luck eating away from Voyagers than the last meal we had at the little restaurant inside the park.  We’re thinking some of the waitresses get tired of working with the “old” folks as they can be pretty curt.  On top of that we’re also thinking they must feel the taste buds of the older folks have dwindled because the ice tea and lemonades were so watered down that not only did they look like water, they tasted like it too. 

I mentioned some projects I had going on.  Well, once we found matching benches to replace the booth in our motorhome, the next project was coming up with the actual seat cushions. First we needed to make a trip to the woodworking shop – one at a time – to have the arms cut off.  Then, it was off JoAnn’s for foam and upholstery material.  The foam is now cut to fit but I probably won't start the sewing until we get someplace we’re going to be for a while.  After all, I'll need my sewing machine  for this project.

Minus the arms ... next -- more stain and shine

Fabric

Next on our project list is putting tiles around the countertops.  I figured if Janice could do it, so could I.  However, I did take her shopping with me to help pick out the tiles, adhesive and grout.  The sales person at the tile store wanted to sell us a 40 pound bag of adhesive for the four tiles we were buying.  I had to bring in a professional to pick out supplies …. thus, I brought in Janice.  It wasn’t all work as we did have a side trip to SteinMart!!

We have a few more projects we've done but I'll have to get pictures before I post about those.

One more thing on our schedule was helping Jerry and Janice celebrate the new house they are buying in Beaumont, Texas.  Even the champagne was brought out for this celebration!

We weren’t done in Tucson yet.  We had heard about the big swap meet on Saturday morning at the Voyagers and definitely didn’t want to miss that.  However, it wasn’t so big and took us less than five minutes to check out the stuff. 

We were packed up and off for the short distance to our next place fairly early.  One thing I left behind in Tucson was my key chain loaded with all my keys.  Thank goodness I have another set of car keys in Washington with my kids or I'd be in real trouble. I had hoped someone would turn the keys into the lost and found but no such luck.

 

Next stop was the resort at St. David, Arizona which is about 12 miles north of Tombstone.  We knew fellow bloggers, Kimberly and Jerry, were there.  We parked right down the road from them and then went to the swap meet at this resort also.

Linda ... this picture is for you!

The park we are at is part of our RPI membership so the price is right and the location perfect.  Not only is it close to Tombstone but we also aren’t far from the dog walk!  Being close to the dog walk is a really big thing especially after being at the Voyager in Tucson where it was so far for us and so far for everyone else to get to.  They definitely need more walkways there.  I have never been in a park before where we've seen so many people cut through everyone else's lot to get to the dog walk. We were always having people and their dogs cut through our site.  It got to be a little annoying but we couldn't actually blame them.  It was the planning on the part of the resort itself.

This new park costs us $10 a night and we have full hookups.  We think it’s a deal.  However, as is very common for us, we paid for two nights but will probably only stay one.  The reason we were going to be here for two nights was so that we could visit Tombstone again.  We figured we’d be doing that on Sunday.  However, since we arrived at the park so early on Saturday we decided to go to Tombstone then.  That we did and now we’re ready to move on down the road towards Deming, New Mexico.   That’ll be my next blog.

‘Tis life on the road.

As we grow older, our bodies get shorter and our anecdotes longer.