It has been so long I have to go back to look at notes to remember where we have been and what we did.
From New Mexico we went to Tucson, Az where we spent a couple of days visiting with Bill Maxwell and Eileen, the couple from the boat Blue Max.  We really enjoyed the visit with them.  Before we left Tucson we were able to have breakfast with John and Carolyn Ruland.  John was the man who hired me to work for Bay State Milling.  He was the best boss I ever had.  We did not know they were living in Tucson until we met a couple in a RV park in Texas.  They are neighbors of the Rulands.
From Tucson we moved up to Mesa, Az were we visited with friends who were neighbors during the the year we spent in Tempe.  We also toured around Tempe and got to see the now defunct mill where I worked during that year.  We also got to have dinner with my nephew and his wife and two sons.  We had never met his wife or sons.
From there we went on north to the Sedona, Az area where we were able to visit some of the places we enjoyed while we lived in Tempe.  As with Tempe, there has been a lot of change in the past 30+ years.
Our next stop was Williams, Az where we boarded the Grand Canyon Railway for a two hour train ride to the South Rim of the Canyon.  This only allowed for a brief visit so we drove back the the Canyon the next day for a more relaxed visit.
Next stop was Knab, Ut.  From here we have visited the North Rim of the Canyon which offers quite different views of the Canyon.  The next day we spent the day in Zion NP.  Again, beautiful in its own way.  Still a lot of rock formations but this time viewed from the bottom of the canyon so very different from looking into the Grand Canyon.   Yesterday we spent the day at Bryce Canyon NP.  This is more eroded rocks but again quite different and amazing because the rocks make all kinds of vertical formations.
We have gotten to see many different forms of wildlife, from chipmunks to elk, deer,  antelope, prairie dogs, and big horned sheep.  This is a vast area of  high dessert which changes frequently and is always amazingly beautiful.
Yesterday afternoon we got rain, hail, and snow in Bryce Canyon.  Today the thunder storms continue to move through Knab.  We are laying over a day to relax and catch-up a little.
We have taken many photos but I have been having trouble posting them so that may have to wait some more.
Bud

I am too slow about blogging!  We have covered so much ground and done so much, it is difficult to remember where we have been.  After Breaux Bridge we spent one night in a Texas state park, Steven F Austin.  From there we went to Fredericksburg, TX, where we spent three nights at Lady Bird Johnson Municipal Park.  Fredricksburg is an interesting German community and home of Admiral Nimitz and the National Museum of the Pacific war.  We enjoyed a German dinner and visited the wildflower store.
Next stop was Alpine, TX for one night en route to Big Bend National Park. We stayed in Terlingua, TX for our Big Bend visit.  Spaces out here are so vast!  From Terlingua to the park headquarters is 30 miles, virtually all within the park.  The desert and the mountains are so magnificent.  The annual rainfall is about 9 inches. Then another 30 miles to the southwest corner and 30 miles back.  Then another 30 miles to the southeast corner and then back.  These roads were steep and winding, average speed probably 30 miles per hour.  They had received 2 inches the night before we arrived and 4 inches the day before that.   Needles to say,  some roads were washed out and/or flooded.  By our third day we were able to get to all of the parts of the park we wanted to visit.
We intended to leave Terlingua on Saturday but the winds were blowing 25 to 30 miles per hour with gusts upward of 50.  We decided not to attempt to travel and relaxed (not hardly, Muriel did laundry).
On Sunday we drove to Carlsbad, NM to visit the Carlsbad Caverns.  But first, on Sunday evening we drove to the Caverns to watch the bats leave the cavern.  Right at sundown they began to fill the skies.  They say there were tens of thousands which leave the cave each evening during the summer.  This is what lead the first man to the cave, he wanted to see what was turning the evening sky black.
Muriel and I walked into the cave from the natural entrance.  It is a steep walk along switchbacks until you are 750 feet below the surface.  Then we began the tour of the Big Room which has so many beautiful formations it is impossible to take it all in.
Today we drove from Carlsbad via El Paso, TX to another state park outside Las Cruces, NM.  We lived at Fort Bliss (El Paso)  for the two years I was in the army.  Nothing was recognizable from our time there.
Tomorrow we will visit White Sands Nationsl Monument and Las Cruces before we head on toward Tuscon, AZ.

We finally got under way in "Sunshine 2",  our wheeled version of Sunshine,  on Wednesday, 4/29/15 It was about 2:20pm before we got away. We were determined to break away that day.  We only drove about two hours to an RV park near Greenville, SC.  The second day we met a couple from Hickory at a rest area in Georgia.  They were on their way to Gulf State Park near Gulf Shores, AL. We discussed our options and decided to stop at Montgomery and then Gulf State Park also.
The owner of the RV park and his son described places of interest in downtown Montgomery so we set-up quickly and headed into town.  We found Montgomery to be delightful.  It is clean and attractive downtown and along the waterfront on the Alabama River.
We spent two nights at Gulf State Park and enjoyed its mile of pristine beach, its pool, and great facilities.
On Sunday, May 3, we drove to Laurel, MS where we lived for several years and had a great visit with two couples we used to spend a lot of time with.  We did not get away  from Laurel until about two pm so we only got to Picayune, MS that night.  On Tuesday we drove through New Orleans to Houma, LA.  We set up and then went into town to wander around.  We were a little disappointed at first but after we found the visitor center and got advice form a young lady who was a native of the area we did mcuh better.  We got an excellent cajun dinner and then drove down bayou and back up. We enjoyed the ride along the bayou with all its boats.
The next morning we followed a scenic route along the Teche Breaux Bridge, LA.  We stopped for lunch at Brenda's Diner in New Ibera.  Muriel had found it mentioned in a book,  "Road Food", which Jeff and Anne had given us.  We had a great lunch and a great time.  Muriel declared that this will be one of the highlights of this trip.
We are laying over in Breaux Bridge today while Charlie and Evelyn catch up and Muriel can do laundry. The first picture is Brenda and her daughter.  I may only get the one picture this time.

Preparing to begin to travel again.

Sunshine the boat is history, in our lives, but the travel bug still lives in the form of the motorhome which took her place.  We have enjoyed numerous shorter trips but it is now time to get serious about the trip for which we purchased the coach.  We plan to leave this spring to travel the western US and see some of the national parks.  We hope to continue the blog posts to keep up with our travels by coach.

Sunshine's Wheeled sister prepares to depart.

I am trying to get re-aquainted with the blog.  Sunshine's wheeled sister is getting ready to start on a trip to visit some of the national parks in the western US.  We plan to leave in about a week, return indefinite.

It has been too long since Sunshine's last post.  We went to Okracoke after we got back in the water when we were hauled out to re-do the bottom.  Since then Sunshine has not traveled much.  We weathered Hurricane Irene a year ago and then hauled out December for a five year condition survey to satisfy the insurance carrier.  We re-did the bottom paint but left Sunshine out on the hard.  It April we drove down to the Everglades for work weekend at the Outward Bound Base there.  On the way south we stopped in Tampa to look at motor homes and ended up buying one.  Our purpose in buying the motor home is to tour the great national  parks in the western states.  I soon found that I could not be comfortable leaving Sunshine unused and unattended while traveling in the motor home.  So, we have sold Sunshine.  She now lives in Georgetown, SC.  We are looking at the spring on 2013 to begin our travels out west.  In the mean time we are taking short trips in the motor  home and learning to be comfortable with it.  It is quite different from traveling by boat.  While the people we meet at RV parks are nice and friendly, the feel is not the same as boat people. We are already talking about what our next boat will be after we finish touring by land.
The first picture is the new motor home.  The second picture is the two together  just before we relaunched Sunshine for the new owner.  It was a sad day when we let Sunshine go.  We have many great memories of days spent on Sunshine and of the great friends we made along the way.

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The first photo is what we look like now with the bottom paint completed. The sccond photo shows the shells which were in the starboard engine strainer. These had to enter through the small holes visible in the strainer and then grow in the strainer. The lower left corner was one shell growing attached to the strainer. Wonder why the stbd engine ran a little hot at higher RPM's? The last photo shows Muriel and Shelly painting on the bottom. We all three worked on applying bottom paint on two days.

July 21, 2010 Sunshine's bottom is finally done. We have filled and faired all the blisters and applied six coats of barrier coat. Now we have finally gotten the antifoulant bottom paint applied. All that remains is to install the zincs on the transom and a couple of coats of hard bottom paint on the running gear which has three coats of barrier coat applied and ready for bottom paint. After appling the bottom paint I was poking the paint out of the raw water strainers on the outside of the hull and noticed the sound of shells rattling on the inside. When I removed the strainers I found the strainer for the starboard engine was full of shells. Evidentually they enter through the 3/32"holes and then grow inside the strainer.

It feels great to have the bottom of Sunshine looking so good and ready to go. It will be a few weeks before we launch because Muriel is having cataracs removed on Tuesday and I do not expect the Dr. will want her out in the heat for a while.