Duane & Carol's Airport!!!!!!!

This is Duane & Carol's new Home/Airport. Its out in the country near Aguila, AZ. The streets are RUNWAYs and airplanes have the right of way!!!

Man O Man, what a FUN day today was!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Duane and Carol Sprague had invited us to their NEW Airport HOME!!!! It is AWESOME!!!!

What a TREAT it was to visit them.......Duane is a Pilot and loves flying. Many of you know that I have a pilot's license and I love to fly also. I don't get many chances anymore and always look for any opportunity to get in the AIR!! I was so worried that the winds or the weather would not be good enough today so that we could fly.

Duane and Carol used to live here at North Ranch and Duane had a Glider. He could remove the wings and store the glider in a trailer. Every time he wanted to go up flying he had to tow it to the airport and put it together and get a tow plane to tow him up. Fun, but kind of a hassle. About a year ago, Duane purchased a NEAT brand new little 2-place plane. Boy it was nice!!! Ever since I saw it the first time, I wanted to fly in it. Duane knew I was extremely anxious to fly with him. However, he wanted to get a few hours "seat" time in it before he would be comfortable taking passengers. Couldn't argue with that!!!!:-) Duane wanted to find a place closer to an airport. Did he EVER luck out...They found this beautiful home with an AIRPORT. Plus, it was only about 30 miles away from North Ranch. The Sprague's had an extremly nice place here at the Ranch, so it was no easy decision to give it up and move. But this chance of a lifetime came along on this neat place and they couldn't pass it up! WAIT until you see it !!!!!! The move was no easy task, but they got it done. We hadn't seen the place, only heard about it, so it was a special treat and we were IMPRESSED!!!! Love the place!!!! Its out in the country on a big lot and the house and the hanger are FANTASTIC!!!!! What a GREAT privilege it is to know these SUPER people!!!

Here are more pictures of it and our flight:

Duane says "OK, I'm ready to go". Lets get up there, as the winds were starting to worry us. We took off!!! 10 minutes after we got there, we were in the air!!!

Pat is all strapped in and ready to go..............I think she was a "little" nervious but didn't want me to know it!! :-)

As you can see there is a lot of window, so visibility is SUPERB!!!!

Here is a shot of Duane and Carol's place from the air.

We flew over to North Ranch and I took a picture as Duane circled.

This is our lot at the Ranch. See the 8 solar panels on my roof and the Volvo in front of it? Click on the picture and blow it up a little.

Here we are coming in for final on Runway 17, just a couple hundred feet off the ground. We had a little crosswind fron the left and small light planes are much more difficult to land in a cross wind than heavier ones, but Duane did just fine and we touched down smoothly. I was impressed.

After such a wonderful day, what better could top it off than a beautiful delicious dinner served by Carol. WOW,,,,,,,,,,,

Now believe me when I say this was a GREAT DAY!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks so much to our good, long time friends Duane and Carol. Plus, you know what? They even invited us back!!! I didn't hesitate when I answered "You Bet!!"

We'll see you guys soon.

Wednesday, my oldest son and I will be flying from Tucson to Omaha. Mikel will be prepared for the bone marrow transplant. We will be there about a week. I'll try to keep you up to date on our trip Journal...... http://woodalls.mytripjournal.com/mikepatstravels

There are more pictures of our visit at the Spragues place on my Web album :

http://picasaweb.google.com/wb4pdo/DuaneCarolSpragueSPrivateAirport

I don't have them labeled yet, but will soon.

We will be doing another special on the Spragues in the future. I know you're all dying to know more about these interesting "special" people.

Take care and please keep Scott in your prayers.

See ya later

Mike

Here we are at NORTH RANCH !!! Jan 20. 2008

Our place in North Ranch. (click to enlarge)


We got the word!!! Son Scott will soon get his 3rd and toughest round of Chemo. They are now ready for the preliminary procedures for the Bone Marrow transplant to begin. The dates have been set and My oldest son Mikel and I will fly to Omaha, NE on Jan 30th so this can be started. We were going directly to Omaha from S. Texas, but it works out that we have the time needed to move West to our place in Congress, AZ. Then we will fly from Tucson, where Mikel lives.





We departed from Mission, TX on Thursday Jan 17th. Three days and 1282 miles later we were on our lot at North Ranch RV Park in Congress, AZ.





This week will be a short post. It took me a couple days to get loaded and ready to make the move, now it will take at least a couple days to get situated here. So, I'm going to direct those viewers that do not already get my Travel Journal, to it so you can read about our trip. While your on that web, just click on the area that requests an update. That way each time we have traveling to report you will automatically get notice.....





I will say that we had a GOOD trip. However, you can read more about it here:





http://woodalls.mytripjournal.com/mikepatstravels





See ya all next week. Thanks for dropping by!





It was a GREAT DAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!





Mike

All Valley RV Show---Mercedes, TX Jan 10,11 & 12.

The All Valley RV Show was held this week in this BUSY South Texas Valley. This place is full of WINTER Texans.......It was held at the County Fair grounds. We decided to have a PressurePro Booth. About 5 years ago we visited our friends James and Marge Curtis that were staying down here and we attended this RV show. Our good friends and favorite travel companions Louis and Janette Hughes were with us. We NEVER dreamed we would be here now, own an RV lot here and be working this show!!! You just never know what's down the road or around the corner.

The Fair Grounds are 35 miles from our place in Mission, so we got up every morning, drove over and spent 10 hours each day in the booth......Working!!! As usual it was an "experience". You meet a lot of old friends, make new friends and a lot of fun and interesting people.....

This is the fairgrounds and our booth is right inside the door in the tan building on the right.

There were 3 large buildings full of RV's on display with several vendors inside and out. The weather was beautiful all 3 days.

This is our booth where we spent 10 hours each day talking until we were hoarse about the Fantastic product that we feel is one of the greatest SAFETY items in RVing. There were LOTS and LOTS of people at the Show. http://www.pressureprosystem.com/



All in All, it was a good show. It gave us a change of pace for a few days to keep our life challenging plus interesting and we made a couple bucks.



That being said, its nice to be back HOME. Needless to say it "wore" us out!!!! But that doesn't take much anymore.........:-)



Now to get all this STUFF put away and get back to NORMAL, whatever that is!!!!



One special pleasant surprise at this show, I saw an old school mate who I actually roomed with back in school . WOW, that was over 50 years ago!!!!!!! A special "HI" to Tom Boots and his wife. It was GREAT seeing you again! Both of their parents had ranches right near ours in the Sandhills of Nebraska.



We are Tuckered Out, but Oh it WAS A GREAT DAY !!!!!!!!!



See ya' all next week, maybe from Arizona. We don't know for sure right now.....



Take care



Mike

Christmas Day 2007

Its an OLD TIME tradition!!!

It was a tradition for years after I moved to Florida in 1977 that every Christmas Day I would drive to the Beach and have a glass of Champagne. Sort of a celebration of being OUT of the cold country and just give Thanks for LIFE. The last few years since we have been in the Arizona Desert during Christmas we haven't been able to do that.

Well since we are only about 80 miles from the Gulf Of Mexico this year here in Mission, TX., we decided to renew that tradition! We drove to South Padre Island and walked in the SAND. It was a beautiful day and a nice drive.


Here are of few pictures of the area.

The Beaches are not near as pretty as Northwest Florida, but the water and the weather was perfect. It was an enjoyable day.....

Click on any of the pictures to enlarge them. We enjoyed our little trip of a couple hundred miles and it brought back memories of the past. We are both getting a little "itchy" to do some traveling as we have SAT about as long as we can handle. Fuel prices really put a crimp on us, so we just have to PARK more. Hard for us to do, cause we like to MOVE. We have a 3 day RV Rally to work here in the Rio Grande Valley on Jan 10-11-&-12Th where we have a booth with our www.PressureProSystem.com business. Then shortly thereafter we plan to move on to our RV lot in Arizona, that's about 1200 miles..........So we'll be MOVIN ON soon!!!!!!

Thanks for stopping by, we'll see you next Sunday.

It was a GREAT DAY!!!!!!

Take care
Mike