“USA 🇺🇸 ~Arizona in Kingman and Where to, Next?”

• December 9, 2022
• By Pen
• 3 Comments

Our view from our window

Our Little Look of Christmas 

The plan was to be in North Carolina for the holidays, and go shopping for the tree with grand kiddos. That wasn’t possible, to do it together, but we got one just the same!

Our Christmas Tree is so cute, for our first Christmas in The Whale.

The picture shows the lights being all wonky, but that’s just in the pic. It’s truly perfect!

While I’m the subject of Christmas: 

When filling out your Christmas cards this year, might you take at least one card and send it to this address:
A Recovering American Soldier, c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center, 6900 Georgia Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20307-5001.

If we pass this on and everyone sends one card, think of how many cards these wonderful, selfless people, who have sacrificed so much would get.

We do get some beautiful sunsets, here in Arizona ⬇️

Brag Post 

I follow RV Eats on FB. I was honored they used a picture from my kitchen in The Whale, for their site!

AND…..
Look what mama got delivered from FedEx, today!  Our mattress topper from “My Pillow” with an enormous Thanksgiving sale savings of $249. It’s all laid out and fluffing up from packaging.

We love it! It’s the most comfortable thing EVER, so Merry Christmas to us!

A nice addition to “The Whale!”

Oh, and you know those pesky tags that come on pillows and mattresses? They read, “it’s against the law to remove them”…. It’s one of the first thing I do! 🤣🤣🤣

So the Holiday sale continues at “My Pillow,” and I saved $56 dollars on new bath towels. I’ve heard they are the absolute bomb. We are super impressed with the mattress topper, so I’m sure we will love the bath sets, too!

In the meantime, we had a lot of left-over Turkey, following Thanksgiving dinner!
None of it went to waste.

Homemade  Turkey Tamales

Finally, Turkey Sandwiches! 

The reason the sandwiches look a bit of a mess, 🤣 is because the homemade bread was still warm and that made it hard to slice…. But OH SO GOOD!


Recently, I made homemade Pizza! We continue to not go out and eat. Can you tell? I don’t know about y’all, but aside from the cost, we are noticing the food tastes terrible. It certainly isn’t making it desirable to go out these days, and I do miss it.

Anywho, I am a huge fan of my bread maker. I bought my first one when my daughter was in grade school (she now has kids in grade school). The bread machine is another of one of my favorite kitchen gadgets, and wouldn’t consider leaving home without it. 

I Think We are Set with Appliances, Now!

Our latest addition to my kitchen gadget collection is The Emeril Lagasse. It is the biggest digital air fryer oven with its XL 26-quart capacity.

It combines 10 kitchen appliances into one, making it an endlessly versatile countertop cooker.

Why did I want this? I need to be able to bake successfully again! We have a built-in Whirlpool Convection/Microwave Oven, and while the microwave is great, plus I can cook meals in this convection, the baking is another story. It doesn’t brown anything; too done on the outside and not baked in the middle. The textures are not good, either; kind of rubbery IMHO. I know baking in convections is not overall as good as a standard oven, but an improvement will be much welcomed!

Finally, in the summer, this built-in gets so hot. It’s also VERY noisy, making a bit uncomfortable in The Whale. It also has no broiler, so now I have one if needed.

So Where Will We Be Going, Next? 

We will blow this popsicle stand in a week; from Arizona and head to Nevada. We will stay near Sam’s Town, which is about seven miles from the strip.
It is there, we will remain, for the rest of winter.

We still can’t go too far at this point, as we will be leaving our VW behind, AGAIN! We actually came here to pick it up by end of November. Delayed till December, and now won’t be ready till January.

Had we known it was going to take the better part of the year to get this vehicle restored, we wouldn’t have gotten it! BUT, you know what they say about hindsight, and it is very true.
If it is ready in January, we will need to drive back here, for the third time and pick it up.
It is getting worked on, and there’s been many improvements, just not very fast.

I know we will love our VW convertible, but it feels like a lot of hurry-up-and-wait time, by this point. I mean WE have places to go and things to do!

The good news is, we finally just got Rusty (or other vehicle) back from the transmission shop, so we can leave Arizona on schedule.
Since we are not interested in dealing with too much rain and colder weather, after we leave Nevada, we will slowly make our way, further north, stopping a few times, and eventually making it to Montana, by summer.

The plan is still to drive to Alaska, after leaving Montana; towing our cute little VW.
Of course, if we don’t get our VW finished, Alaska won’t happen this summer, either, but I’m choosing to think positive.

Fingers and toes crossed!