Colorado

Just a few more days until we head out to Colorado. We'll spend Friday night in Denver and have dinner with Norine's son. Got a great deal on a room at the Sheraton West in Denver through Priceline. At least we shouldn't have to post about bad lodging like we did on our New Mexico trip. Saturday we will head up to Steamboat Springs with our good friends. Unfortunately, it's looking like a stretch of rainy weather is starting Saturday in Steamboat Springs. We'll be there for 7 nights, using the 2nd of the 4 lodging vouchers we purchased. It looks like this unit is several steps up from the one we had in Ruidoso. We had absolutely no complaints about the Ruidoso unit. The appliances were dated, but that's not a big deal to us.

Dish vs Antenna

In an earlier post, I mentioned that we were discontinuing our Dish Network service and decided on trying a simple antenna for our television service. We have Apple TV and Netflix on demand which have consumed most of our viewing time. We didn't watch a lot on satellite, and when we did, we were often frustrated with pixilation and other problems. Now that it's been a few weeks, I am happy to report that the decision was a good one.

We did invest in Tivo service so we could record, pause, rewind, and all the other cool DVR stuff. $10 a month is a lot better than paying for satellite or cable.

Our setup is simple. We hung a small antenna on the pole that used to hold our dish. We used the wiring that was already there. The resulting HD picture is fantastic! Much, much better than we ever got with Satellite. As a bonus, the Tivo box also delivers our Netflix movies and shows! Now we can move our Roku box downstairs.

We're finding that we are actually enjoying recording and watching TV shows. Sure, we could have done it with Satellite, but it seems so much easier now. We are very happy that the cheaper solution is also the better solution.

There's No Place Like Home

Whenever we travel, we look at places where it might be nice to spend our retirement years. Initially, we see all the good aspects of a new place and tend to ignore the negative. When we spend an entire week in a location, we always decide that there is just no place like home. No place is perfect. If it were, it would be too crowded and expensive, thus no longer perfect. It would be nice to live somewhere where the weather was nice year round, traffic was minimal, the cost of living was reasonable, crime was low, etc, etc... Since that place does not exist (or at least we haven't found it yet) we need to look at the positive aspects of where we are now.

Approaching Texas

We're taking 54 diagonally across the tip of Texas, Oklahoma, and
Kansas. Two lane road all the way to Wichita.

Resort Voucher

I was a little sceptical about buying the lodging vouchers from
SkyAuction. I was afraid there would be a catch. After using the
first voucher, I'm happy to report that it was a great deal. The unit
was great, there were no timeshare sales pitches, and best of all, no
hidden costs. A nice three bedroom, three bath unit for a total of
$199 for seven nights! I will definitely buy more if they are offered
again. Can't wait to use the next voucher in Steamboat Springs next
month!

Sent from my iPhone

Carlsbad Caverns Panorama

This is actually four separate photos taken in Carlsbad Cavern's Big
Room and stitched together.

Heading back from White Sands

Indian Casino Ruidoso

Tucumcari

We had a miserable night in a Super 8. Lousy bed, lousy pillows,
lousy towels, smelly room and bugs on the wall. We're at Denny's for
breakfast and then will slowly work our way to Ruidoso.

Sent from my iPhone

Halfway

We passed through Oklahoma City and are at about the halfway point for
today. The rain has stopped but it's very windy. Toll roads are
bleeding us dry!

Sent from my iPhone

My turn to blog

We had to find a Best Buy in Wichita since Norine wore out her battery
blogging. She's driving now and scaring the hail out of me!

Lunch

In emporia. See Norines blog for lots of details!

New Mexico

We're getting ready to head out to New Mexico tomorrow. If technology cooperates, I will make frequents posts to the blog. They will probably be from my iPhone so descriptions will be at a minimum. This is my first long trip since the heart attack. Yes, I'm a little nervous about it but I'm really looking forward to the trip. This will be the first time I've been together with both brothers and my sister in a long time. Should be fun!