Karaoke Night

I've been going to Manny's Mexican Restaurant here in Avondale every Friday afternoon for little over a month now. The reason is that every Friday afternoon is karaoke night. Now that the temperature is not over triple digits anymore it makes for a real nice afternoon in their patio.

As you can imagine within two weeks of going there we already made new friends, now as soon as I come in and right after the "hellos" and "how are yous" the next question is "What are you singing tonight?" I never know what I am going to sing, I look through the books or simply think of a song and ask if they have it which 98% of the time they do. Abe, our karaoke MC uses a computer instead of discs and I believe his archives are stocked with well over 2000 songs.

Some of the regulars there sing the very same song every week, specially the older singers. Me, I come up with new songs each week and I haven't even scratched the surface, I think I can go a very, very long time without repeating. The only reason for me to repeat a song is by request.

Well, tonight is Halloween so some people came in dressed in costume, including mi chica. Since I am too old to be walking around the streets trick or treating I let my kids take their kids. In the meantime we scored a lot of good candy for them at Manny's. Can anybody say cavities?


Mi chica meets me there and after she eats she starts lip-synking along. Here she is looking very much like a not so mean witch as she was smiling for the parparazzi.

Mi chica meets me there every Friday an hour after I get there. She doesn't karaoke but I noticed that she is really good at lip-syncing, but who knows maybe one day she will surprise us all.

Even my Bud light came dressed in its best Dracula costume. I called it my Budcula. And just for kicks here is one of the songs I sang tonight, except I changed the version a little bit.

Silver Wings

Diegos First Play

TREE

A) A woody perennial plant having a single usually elongated main stem generally with few or no branches on its lower part. B) A shrub or herb of arborescent form.

Two of my dear blog friends love plants (Yes, Wanda and Chris)and trees, Chris even had a pictorial of nothing but trees this week. Most of the captured tree images they have shown are very pretty indeed. I on the other hand am not too good at capturing images of trees, to me they are usually somewhat plain.

Well, today I am going to post a picture of a tree that is worthy of being a tree in any National Park, this very strong and erect tree that shone all throughout a show this afternoon. Without a doubt, the best and most magnificent tree from any forest in this whole wide world.







Yes, in today's show Diego and all his kinder garten pals did "Little Red Ridin' Hood", "Goldie Locks and the Three Bears", and "The Enzy Weenzy Spider". Diego was chosen to be a tree and a darn good tree he was. Here he is in what he says is his best "tree" pose.

Idyllwild Pictorial

DAY TWO -- IDYLLWILD
OUR TRIP AS VIEWED BY MY CAMERA LENS


Before we left for Idyllwild we stopped at McDonalds to get some coffee. We had brewed some at the hotel but it sucked. I guess the economy is getting to everyone, I was looking for the Golden Arches, but I only found the Gold Arch.





The first image shows how the valley starts getting small as the road start to go up the mountain.
The second image shows the winding road, we followed that truck for a long time but finally he let us pass.
The third and fourth pictures were taken at about 5000 ft of altitude. The view is towards Hemet and Hemet Lake.


Yours truly trying to look ever so cool as my "name" implies, and sucking in the stomach while trying to say tequila.


This is one of the ever popular "my space" shots. Yep, stretch your hand, aim towards us and hope most of our faces come out. I think I did good on this one if I may say so myself.


Come on Joe help me roll this to see if it fits in the van. I think it will look great in our back yard".




The first of these three images is the theater. Followed by a gift shop, and the last one is a part of the restaurant where we had lunch.


Our brakes overheated so I had to pull off the road and into a view point that showed very well how the road winds down the mountain. After a half hour cool down period I decided to give it a go, I timed some cars and it would take us 20 minutes form where we were to get to the bottom. I put the van in low gear and pushed on. Thank God we made it without any more delays.

If you click on this image you will clearly see the road winding down the mountain.

Idyllwild

PALM SPRINGS TRIP
DAY TWO
BREAKFAST IN IDYLLWILD


So, after a fun packed first day now we were more familiar with the area as we had been driving up and down the previous day we were ready to go out and see some more of the sights. Since we cancelled our reservations at "The Travel Lodge" which would have been around $65.00 dollars a night and opted for the more expensive "Spa Resort Casino" at way over a hundred dollars per night we decided to check out and maybe stay at a cheaper hotel the next night.

I had googled the area and found out that some 50 miles away from Palm Springs there is the little town of Idyllwild. The google map said it should take about an hour to get there so we decided to go and have some breakfast there. To get there we needed to get out of Palm Springs and to get on I-10 towards L.A. Then we exited in the town of Banning and went towards the mountains on highway 243. By this time an hour had already elapsed and we were getting close. Or so we thought, we got to the foot of the mountain and we started the climb. The view was breathtaking as little by little the road was higher and the valley got small. The sign said 22 miles to Idyllwild, that should be a piece of cake is what I thought but guess what, I was wrong, little did I know that the next 22 miles consisted of nothing but twisties. I took us another hour to get to the town and that is including a couple of stops that had the most beautiful view imaginable. From the top of the mountain at an elevation of 5000 feet Lake Hemmet looked impressive.

The scenery constantly changes during those 22 miles and the reason I didn't take a million pictures is because I was the driver. Mi chica helped and she did take about five or six shots of the area. There were mountains that had nothing but rocks, and then all of a sudden there were trees all over the place. We kept driving and then there was nothing but pines and oaks, the pines impressive as always as they seem to shoot for the sky. It was at this time during our drive that I realized fall was here, there were plenty of green trees but many also had those orange and purple leaves that are so representative of fall.

So, we finally get to Idyllwild and by now it's already 2:00 p..m., so much for breakfast. We stopped at a souvenir store and started to browse, after buying a couple of knick knacks we asked the lady there for a good place to go eat. She recommended "The Aroma Cafe" an Italian bistro not to far from there. She did warn us to drive as it was going up the hill and it wasn't really close. We got there and immediately knew that it was a great place to eat. Being that after all this trip is our 27th anniversary honeymoon, the setting couldn't have been more romantic.

I could go into detail as to how great the food was and how tasty the different fresh breads dipped in oil and garlic were but suffice to say that the food there exceeded all of our expectations and the service was top notch all the way.

(When you get a chance please google Idyllwild, California. Perhaps you'll make this wonderful little town your next vacation stop.)

Basically, we just enjoyed our lunch and got in the van ready to head back to Palm Springs. We asked if there was a faster route back and were told to keep going on highway 143 until we hit highway 74, eventually we would find highway 111 towards Palm Springs. We followed those directions and in about an hour we could see Palm Springs from the top of the mountain. By the way Idyllwild seats at a little over 6000 ft. of elevation.

We started the torturous descend and all of a sudden both mi chica and I realized that the smoke smell from the day before as we were coming back the Tram station was back. It mostly smelled like burnt tar. Just a few feet ahead was a vista point where you could take in the most breathtaking views and so we decided to stop there.

I started to put my nose by every wheel in the van and when I got to the front passenger wheel I didn't even have to smell it, smoke was coming out of it as it was super hot. We stayed there about 35 minutes. I was driving behind a white van and from the view point I could see it go down the never ending winding road. I timed it from the time we stopped to the time it finally got all the way down and it took it about 15 minutes.

I told mi chica we were only 15 minutes away from the bottom but also knew the next 15 minutes would be the worst as it was the steepest part of the mountain. I put the van in low gear and just let it coast down while letting the engine reduce the speed on it's own. Sure enough 15 minutes later we were at the bottom and we could see the sign of relief in both our faces.

Fifteen minutes later we were back in Palm Springs. We needed to rest but didn't have a hotel to get to. We had planned to attend an event called "Villagefest" which takes place every Thursday night all year round, but it started at 6:00 p.m. and it was barely 4:00 p.m. What to do? What to do? "I know" said mi chica, lets go back to the hotel, park the van, and walk over to the casino. I agreed and it was then that I asked her, "Not that I'm counting, but how much have you lost so far?" The tally was at $65.00

I didn't know then but because I asked her about her losing streak she went in determined to win. The previous night a lady next to her kept winning in this machine and so she went it looking for it. Wow, nobody was sitting by it so she took the chair and put in her next $20.00, in the meantime I went to get us some more of those most excellent .98 cent Margaritas. In about ten minutes she was up almost $70.00 she played a few more games and then she said, "That's it, if I continue playing I'll lose it all again, if I stop right now I would only lose $10.00 from both nights. I thought that was a most excellent idea. lol

Only problem, now was that "Villagefest" was still almost two hours away. Well we decided to go to the street and see how it all happened. One by one, the vendors started to get there, tow trucks started towing away those cars that were not moved by 5:00 p.m. as the signs stated, and in no time a nearly empty street was busy with thousands of people.

We walked up and down the whole lenght and actually had a great time. Mi chica even got a 12 minute massage, but the lady must have lost track of time because it was more like a 20 minute massage and she only charged us $12.00, what a bargain. After that mi chica was just super relaxed.

We had to pass on the tram, since we got back to Palm Springs so late, but what we saw from the top of the mountain during our Idyllwild trip, probably showed us everything we could have seen from the tram and then some.

At eight o'clock we still had no hotel to stay at so I suggested that we just get on the van and head back to Phoenix. That would give us all day Friday to recuperate from two very busy days. So we gassed up the van, stocked up on coffee and headed back. A little bit pass midnight we were home, sweet home.

Palm Springs

PALM SPRINGS TRIP

DAY ONE


I started to write about our trip but decided to just show you guys some of the images of what was a very fun two day trip.















Three hours into our trip we got hungry, we opted to stop at the "Spotlight 29" casino, were we enjoyed a great lunch buffet in a super nice and relaxing environment.

The Ford F-100 pictured here is going to make some one a very, very happy winner. I love these fat fendered old Fords.


An awesome truck such as this 1956 Ford F-100 needs an even better model, and I found the perfect candidate. (((Fiuuu, fiuuuu)))

I always wondered where the Palm Springs tram was at and since we had to wait for an hour for our room to be ready we drove around town and to the trams location. The tram is in some sort of a canyon and it's dark in there. I was standing there when one of the trams too off, by the time it's almost to the top all you can see is a little dot.


Wow, my model just makes everything look good. Here she is posing right next to an old tram.

These are a couple of images from the Tram Station. See the little hiking trail going up the mountain in the second picture. We were doing just fine until mi chica read in a sign that there were rattle snakes there and not to disturb them. Needless to say that was pretty much the end of our hike. She's like are you crazy, I am wearing sandals.


A fellow tourist saw me taking pictures and kindly volunteer to take one of mi chica and I.













The tram area was very interesting and beautiful. Coming back into the town to take possession of our room we kept smelling this smoke like smell, sometimes it smelled like BBQ and sometimes like tar. It was weird. We finally got to the hotel and by this time our room was ready. As you can imagine we had to get ready fast because the first thing in the agenda would be... yep, you guessed it, the casino.


View from our room on the fourth floor. To use the elevator we had to insert our key, that's something I had never had to do before.


This is a view of the hotel. "Spa Casino Resort". A little pricey but very confortable.



We closed the night by going to the casino again. After a great buffet dinner that included of all things carne asada tacos complete with Mexican salsas to a shrimp stir fry put together by none other than mi chica and cooked right in front of her by one of the cooks. A plethora of deserts and some of the best tasting coffee and we were ready to go "lose" some more money.

It was a long day, we saw more than we thought possible and all in all it was a fun day, since I had drank quite a few .98 cent Margaritas I was ready to rest. The plan for tomorrow is to go to a nearby town about 50 milies away for breakfast.


Wow! There's that model again...
I wonder if she is following me,
Maybe she likes me.

Short Work Week

Image borrowed from the Internet.


It's a short work week for me, after tomorrow I won't be back to work until next Monday. Of course there's a special occasion, I am so glad you asked. Mi chica and I will be celebrating our 27th wedding anniversary and we decided to take a short trip to beautiful Palm Springs, California. Well, at least I hear it's beautiful, since we have never been we decided that would be a great destination.

So our actual anniversary is on Friday but the celebration will begin on Wednesday. Can some of you my long time readers remember that not too long ago I was letting you all know we were about to celebrate our 25th and we were taking a cruise with the family. Man, how time flies, here we are two years later and it only feels like it happened yesterday.

I have been reading about Palm Springs and it sounds like a great place to visit. I think once upon a time it used to be a popular stop for celebrities but apparently that is not the case now. Made so popular during the Sonny Bono days, Palm Springs was always on the spotlight. I am hoping that we get to see and experience some of that old mystique.

So if any of you has ever been to Palm Springs and has any suggestions as to what to do and where to go please feel free to let me know. Anyway, I will be off line until Friday night so I talk to you all then.

El Weekend

Well it's finally Friday, I am excited because we are going to Manny's tonight for some Mexican food and a little karaoke. Mi chica and I went last week and had a great time, tonight a couple of her friends may join us. It should be fun.

Add to that a change in weather and it should be a great night. The temperature is no longer over a 100 degrees, actually the nights are nippy at 80 degrees. I am just not used to cold weather so even when it drops just a little under the three digits I start thinking jackets and sweat shirts. Yeah, I am a wimp when it comes to cold weather.

So, what should I sing tonight, I am open for suggestions.

Tomorrow a friend from work is getting married and we are invited. That should be a good time too. Then my daughter's birthday is on the 24th so she is having a get together at the house and the theme is Halloween. Depending on how much fun we are having at the wedding reception we may just come home early to join the family... But we'll see.

By the way, my car broke down again. Same thing as last week, we know it's electrical so it could be the ignition switch, the starter, or a short caused by the alarm. I just hope it fix is not too expensive.

Anyway that is the plan for the weekend. Sunday remains open for whatever. What are your plans for the weekend? Whatever you do, have a great and safe one.

Correction: Michelle's birthday is the 22nd, and mi chica's and my anniversary is on the 24th. (I knew that, I was just testing you to see if you were paying attention). lol

Show Me The Gold

So, I don't know if I am the only person in the world that watches TV but have any of you TV addicts out there in blogland seen a commercial about a "Gold Kit"? I would really want to know if someone out there would get a little paper bag and fill it with all or some, heck or even a piece of gold, then seal it put a stamp and mail it to some unknown group that claims and promises to send you lots of moula for your gold.

Well, I am kindda broke these days so when I saw that commercial for the first time, just imagine my enthusiasm. So like a chicken without a head I started running up and down my house looking for those forgotten pieces of gold jewelry that probably lays around the house forgotten and abandoned. "I AM RICH", "I HAVE HIT THE MOTHER LODE", mi chica probably has tons of unused gold all over the house, I will need not one, not two, nor three or four, but maybe a dozen of those little paper bags... Yeah right! That'll be the day when I have gold, and if I had any gold, I'll be darned if I would put it in a little paper sack and mail it hopes of turning it into cash.

But that's just me, the guy on TV said he just rummaged around the house and pick some of his gold, mailed it and now he has lots and lots of money.

The next commercial showed a guy that went to this place here in Phoenix and took all his scraps and he too got lots of money for it. I mean they claim they take all kinds of scrap material and that they will pay you lots and lots of money.

Man, I think I am in the wrong business, because I have so much crap that I think I should be a millionaire by now... What? What did you say? That they'll pay me money for my scrap not my crap, oops! My bad.

Somethng To Think About

You are a nice guy or gal, you have a good job, you pay your bills, you have a pleasant personality, and you get along with your peers. Overall you are a likable person.

That can very well be you and me, and everyone in between because to someone you are that person. The world revolves around you and you are ready to conquer it, or at least you are trying. Life sometimes is hard and when something goes right it may be a cause for celebration.

Sometimes life can be disappointing and somewhat stressful. You try your best but for one reason or another things just don't seem to go your way. You need an escape to forget your frustrations or at least to hide them from your mind if only for a little while.

Sometimes the weekend is just cause for celebration. After working hard, or hardly working, whatever the case may be when Friday comes around it's time to party, it's time to celebrate, it's time to have fun and forget about the realities of the working week. The weekend is to be enjoyed with or without someone, but to be enjoyed. Isn't that the way most of us if not all of us feel?

Mi chica was bummed the other day. A co-worker of hers, a guy that is that likable guy that talks to everyone and gets along with all. A guy that loves the weekend, and perhaps wanted to vent and forget some of his frustrations had his life change very drastically in a matter of seconds.

His decision was to go out and have a drink or two, I don't really know and as he was going home apparently he run a red light causing a really bad accident that involved several cars and several people, including one 18 year old girl that unfortunately is no longer with us.

He himself was injured and taken to a hospital where once checked and bandaged was handcuffed and taken to prison.

The fabric of life is very strong but if you start a little tear in it it's very easy to tear it in two in one easy pull. I don't mean to sound preachy, that is not my intention but if someone remembers this story during the future and is planning on celebrating heavily during the weekend, then maybe that someone will remember that when all the fun has been had that fabric of life may already have that initial tear, and maybe just maybe in this world of choices, the right choice will be made before seating in front of the steering wheel of a vehicle.

Just a little something to think about.

THE WEEKEND

What an absolutely awesome weekend. It all started with my car leaving me stranded during lunch break on Thursday while we were attending an event sponsored by one of the trucking companies that we deal with at work. We attended the same event back in February and the whole thing is just about going to see the NASCAR racing car #17 driven by Matt Kenseth. With NASCAR coming to Phoenix next week they usually bring the car out for customers to see. This year they even turned it on, and let me tell you this cars are loud. I forgot my camera on top of my desk so I couldn't take pictures by my rep did take some except I have to wait for him to email them to me.

So, we stayed there for a while, we ate and receive some goodies and as sat in my seat to turn it on, my car was completely dead. Half an hour later we got the battery jumped and we were on our way back to the company. This in any other situation would have been a bad thing, but in this case it was a good thing. The car has continued to start without a jump and I have not gotten my battery changed, I guess I am waiting for it to leave me stranded again. Yep, I am a glutton for punishment.

Thanks to this mi chica set it up for my car to be dropped off at her dad's on Friday night so that he could check it and fix a few things. My car received and oil change, a new belt, he changed my rack and pinion, and rotated my tires. The only thing that didn't get fixed was a leak in my transmission as the whole thing has to come off in order to get the gaskets replaced, so we decided to leave this for a future visit. The car was then taken to be aligned and now it feels like new again.

So, Friday afternoon I sent a text message to mi chica asking her if she would like to join me at Manny's after work for some food and karaoke. She said yes so I got there about an hour before she did and I took my time scanning the books. I sang a song while I waited for her and then two more after she got there. I had a great time, and now we will do this again next week. Actually we will be joined by some of her friends.

Saturday, well if you read my previous post then you'll know that we went to the local Fire House Open House, as this is fire prevention week. I had a great time there just watching my grand kids have so much fun.

On Sunday we got up late and after breakfast we went to pick up my car. On the way back we stopped at a couple of stores that mi chica wanted to visit, and then she needed to have her nails done. It was at this time that I got some stress as they had the Cardinals vs. Cowboys game on and in the last three seconds the Cowboys tied the game sending it to overtime. I was told by mi chica more than once to keep the noise down, but hey it was pretty dramatic ending to the game and we were all screaming. The lady painting mi chica's nails kept saying, "I stop now, I stop now" every time a new play was about to start. I had to get out of the place as I didn't want to see the Cardinals lose, but I came back in just in time to see the kick get blocked and the ball picked up by the Cards. TOUCHDOWN! The Cardinals win the game. It all happened so fast that nobody even noticed what happened. I am jumping and screaming and mi chica says, "What happened" "WE WON, WE WON" I told her. "How in the heck did it happen, I just turned my head for one second" she said. Well, thank God for replays because she got so see how it happened.

To celebrate, we went home dropped off my car and went to eat tacos, yep Mexican tacos. We invited my daughter and my grandson to join us, we picked them up and had a great time with them . After that we came home and just chilled. Yep, good weekend indeed. I hope your was just a good.

Firehouse Open House

This is the third year in a row that we happen to catch our local fire station open house. The fire station is just a five minute walk from my house or a one minute drive if we are feeling lazy. Well, this morning my daughter and her husband along with their three kids and I, we all walked to the station.

The first thing we noticed this time was the ladder 172. This is an impressive truck. Firemen are known for the pride they display in keeping their fire engines and all their equipment clean and in good working condition. Some city workers that attended the event got treated to a ride in the cage as they erected the ladder some 90 feet up in the air. Unfortunately due to liability issues they could not allow for regular people like us to ride.



This is Diego posing by one of the small fire trucks. I took this picture as we got there, he was ready to start going up and down the fire trucks. He really enjoys seeing them and making believe that he is a fireman.




This is "Ducky", my grandson number two. He too loves to go see the fire trucks and enjoys spending a couple of hours at the open house. I am sure the imagination of these kids goes free as they pretend to be firemen.





For the past three years the entertainment is handled by "The Singing Fireman". A real fireman that happens to play a synthesizer and signs songs about safety for the kids. Each time he is going to do a song he asks for volunteers to help him carry the safety message. Kids line up next to him and dance ala "Wiggles" as he sings. The kids have a great time performing for the audience and then when the song ends they are entitled to go and pick a gift.



They usually serve hamburgers and hot dogs, chips actually this year they had pretzels instead, and bottle water or sodas, and once you ate all the good food they serve they treat you to a choice of ice cream, with six different kinds in their popsicles menu I think it's safe to say the kids and grown ups alike were all happy.

For the kids but specially for Diego the highlight of the event is when he gets to dress as a fireman. This is a slow process as kids are shown how many things firemen have to wear while on duty. They start with the pants, then the boots, next come the jacket, then the cloth mask, followed by the gas mask, a pair of gloves, and like icing on the cake, to top it all off a fireman hat. They even get a radio so they can keep in contact with their team mates. This is just such an awesome experience. Last year all the clothes were big on Diego, this year it all fit perfectly. What a difference a year makes.



So, it is our experience that sometimes the best times are had in the most simplest ways. Take a neighborhood event like this and invite as many family members as possible and a good time is guaranteed each time. There were fourteen of us in attendance, and to me it was priceless to see the kids pretending and or wanting to be firemen. If your neighborhood has such events, make sure to go and visit and you will have a really good time.


The Duckworth clan.

Meeting Willy G.

Chosa's Harley Davidson was having a grand reopening and Willy G. Davidson was invited to the festivities. Willy G. does not make appearances in every dealership so I was thrilled to know he was coming and so I rode my bike to the City of Mesa, Arizona where Chosa's is located. (Chosa's is now Chester's Harley Davidson). Willy G. and some very important people from the Harley Davidson Company in Milwaukee were there and they would be signing autographs. The signing was to begin at 7:00 p.m. I got there at around 5:30 p.m. and the line was already pretty long.

I parked my bike and dutifully went to the end of the line, gosh how I wished for those high school days were you would just ask for cuts to the lunch line. Heck, here that was not to be. It only took a couple of minutes til I was already being friends with the guy in front of me as well as the one in the back which allowed us to play the "save my spot" game. This way we could go into the dealership and browse instead of just standing there like dummies.

I really didn't have anything for Willy G. to sign, luckily before we reached him we all received a goodie bag and in it was a HD shot glass and a red Chosa's bandanna. Now I had something to collect the coveted autographs. Mrs. Willy G. Davidson was there as well and she was nice enough to exchange a word or two.

So when we were at the Love Ride in California two weeks later, as we were sitting there enjoying the food, I spotted Willy G. Davidson, his wife and all his entourage trying to inconspicuously cross the grassy area. I pointed him out and one of our friends, a really cheery woman that did not hesitate to go and mob him, entourage and all. Willy G. was kind enough to stop and talk to us, some of the people in our group were covering him as we knew if anybody else saw him they would all come running as well. Trust me there were over 20,000 of us there, hiding him was kindda hard.


We took a couple of pictures with him. I mentioned to his wife that I had just seen and talked to them two weeks before in Mesa, Arizona at the Chosa's re-opening and she commented on how lucky we were to catch them twice in such a short period of time. That was true, because I have not seen them since.

That was the best California motorcycle trip out of all the ones I've taken. On the way back we had just crossed the California/Arizona line, it was around 1:00 p.m, I was bringing up the rear and all of a sudden my bike started coughing and making these really ugly noises, I lost power and I pulled to the shoulder, out of sixteen bikes ahead of us nobody noticed that I stayed behind. I saw them disappear right before my very eyes. The engine was running but you could hear it miss a lot. I saw a sign that a rest stop was just ahead of us so I pushed forward. I made it to the rest stop and I parked the bike. Mi chica pulled her cell phone and started calling, we knew no one in our pack would hear a cell phone ring, they were all riding in the very loud bikes and mi chica's phone was running out of batteries. I saw electrical outlets at the ramadas and so I thought we were saved... wrong! None of them worked, luckily mi chica got through to Phoenix and so the message was sent to my son to come down to pick us up.



Before he could do this, he had to take our Expedition and go find a hitch for it. Everything was closed because it was a holiday weekend with Monday being the actual holiday. We saw cars come and go, come, park, and two hours later leave, come park, go finally at almost 9:00 p.m. my son finally got there. It took him forever to find a place where he could purchase a hitch, and then get it installed. Then, it took him another forever to find a place that was open to rent a trailer.



So, on that particular trip, we left L.A. at six in the morning and got home in Phoenix at almost midnight. Oh, by the time our friends realized we were not in the pack they had no idea were we had stranded, we knew they would have all had rode back, they tried calling us but by this time mi chica's phone was completely out of battery and so we were incommunicados. It was nice to hear from all of them the next morning as one by one they called us to let us know how sorry they were they lost us. Two of them acutally got to Phoenix and attached their trailers ready to go pick us up, but they needed to know where we were.

Mi chica and I enjoyed being stranded together that we didn't even mind. To this day, that trip remains the one we enjoyed the most. No time to get mad or be mad, after all this was all part of the: