If we come, they'd better build it . . .
Last night we were once again at Terry & Virgie’s where music was being played at their home by them and their young friends. Fiona made friends with an 8-year old boy named Ezra. My dad’s father’s name was Ezra.
We’re looking forward to this next week with Terry & Virgie and hopefully again on Thursday evening everyone will get together again to play some music.
Last night we had a party at Alex Zabala’s home to celebrate 500 copies sold of his book, Treasure of the Mayan King. His co-author, Dyego Alehandro, attended along with his wife.
So what is the book about? According to their website:
A violent tropical storm has uncovered a previously unknown Mayan pyramid in the Yucatan Peninsula. On the steps of this temple lies a riddle that leads to the hidden treasure of a great Mayan king. One man, the French linguist Dr. Sova, believes he knows the secrets of the riddle. But his efforts to find it are cut short and the information falls into the hands of unscrupulous people. The race is on to see who will be the first to find the treasure of the Mayan king!
You can download a free sample and buy the ebook for only .99!
This weekend we get to stay with Alex Zabala and his wife in Arizona. Alex is the author of Treasure of the Mayan King. Joel worked with Alex on his book and we’ve been friends with him for about 25 years. This is a photo I took at their house.
Tonight we’ll be making our usual Saturday pizza for Alex and his family. We appreciate their hospitality and it’s great to be able to visit and catch up with them.
If you’d like to learn more about Alex and his books, visit his website, Arcani Arts.
Today we will be visiting an old friend and I will be making a new friend. Joel and I have known Dan for I don’t even know how many years. However the last time I saw him was before he married Annette. So today when we go to stay with them for the weekend, I’ll be making a new friend!
On Saturday we will be making pizza – just like we do every Saturday night. This time when we make our crust we’ll also be making a gluten-free crust for someone who needs that.
After our weekend with our old and new friend we’ll be coming back to stay with Terry & Virgie another week! WhooHoo!!!
The Petrified Forest National Park is a national park in Navajo and Apache counties in northeastern Arizona. We stopped for a visit at the Center and Fiona was able to do some exploring both outside and inside. She wasn’t too keen on walking on that “terrain”. Silly!
We have now arrived safely in Phoenix and are catching up on some work and Fiona on some school work. When we did arrive the first thing we all did was take a swim in the pool. We were exhausted by 9 pm though so went to bed early.
We left Kansas City, Missouri this morning early – before 7 a.m. Drove through Kansas – not much to see. However, I did get this beautiful photo of the sky and clouds.
We drove through the Panhandle of Oklahoma and Texas – through Guymon and Dalhart. Funny that we just watched a Ken Burns documentary about the Dust Bowl of the 1930s with Joel’s mom just the day before we left and it mentioned these areas.
Now we’re settled into our hotel in Tucumcari, New Mexico. After filling our tummies, we’re catching up on email and stuff. Tomorrow we drive to Phoenix, Arizona and see our great friends – Terry & Virgie!
We left this morning at 7:30 a.m. CST from Rice Lake, Wisconsin. When we hit Iowa, we stopped at the first rest stop. It’s great! Two stories, looks like a barn, free wi-fi at the coffee shop, and a nearby gas station with good gas prices.
We took a short break at the rest stop to use the wi-fi and catch up on some work. Fiona posted “Adventures On The Road” at her blog.
It was a beautiful, sunny day and we saw lots of green grass and white clouds. We also saw some bison and baby cows. Now we’re settled in to our hotel in Kansas City and looking forward to driving to Tucumcari, New Mexico tomorrow.
Fiona is now in third grade. There are less than five weeks of school left and four of them we’ll be on the road. I’ve already got her curriculum sorted out. She’s home schooled through a State-funded program and we meet weekly with a local teacher. Obviously that’s not going to happen while we travel. However, we will stay in touch via email, possibly do Skype video chats, and Fiona’s teacher can check some of her work online. Oh, and if Fiona blogs about at her blog, the teacher can see what she’s doing as well.
The photo above was taken when Fiona received her last package from Little Passports. Every month she gets to ‘travel’ to another country. She’s used to having school on the road and we’ve got lots of fun things to do these last few weeks of school.
What clothing should we pack for our month-long trip? We’ll be leaving Wisconsin with snow on the ground it seems since we just had 17 inches on Thursday! We’ll be arrive on Wednesday in Phoenix, Arizona where the high that day should be 85 and by Saturday it will be 100. And the temperatures will be much warmer in California than we’ve seen in Wisconsin for a while.
So we’ll probably start off driving away with our long-sleeved shirts on, a jacket, and maybe even boots. We’ll be coming back wearing shorts, tank tops, and sandals. Swimsuits! We’ll have those along for all the swimming we’ll be doing.
It’s the weekend before we leave Monday morning for our month-long trip. Fiona is excited to see her sister Rachelle. That’s a photo there of the two of them last August when Rachelle came to Rice Lake, Wisconsin to visit.
What do you take with you when you know you’ll be gone a month? And you’re on a budget and know you don’t want to eat out too much so you have to bring food stuffs along. Easy! We’ve done this so often it really doesn’t take us long at all.
Joel and I did some shopping for on-the-road snacks and drinks yesterday. Things like:
We still have to get the giant jar of green olives and Sue has to make bread rolls for making vegetable sandwiches for the road. Isn’t this exciting?
