SAT - TPE - SAT

We left Las Vegas on Monday, November 5^th, and spent a couple of nights at one of our favorite state parks, Buckskin State Park, Arizona. It is located right on the Colorado River between Lake Havasu City and Parker.

Then we drove to Tucson and spent a couple of nights at the Davis-Monthan AFB Family Campground.

After spending Friday night in Las Cruces, New Mexico, we drove to El Paso where we spent all-day Saturday at the Freightliner shop. They resolved a “check-engine” light we had on our motorhome. It turned out to be a faulty manifold pressure sensor on our Cummins diesel engine. We spent 8-hours at the Freightliner dealer…not fun waiting.  

We arrived in San Antonio on Monday, November 12^th, for a nearly three-week stay. We spent time with Julie’s mom the first week of our stay.

Early on Saturday morning, November 17^th, we flew out of San Antonio to San Francisco. There we connected with our long flight to Taipei to see our son Paul, his wife Ying, and our grandson Connor. We left San Francisco on Saturday around 1:30PM, but lost a day crossing the International Dateline and arrived on Sunday night around 7:30PM.  

We thoroughly enjoyed our week in Taipei visiting Paul, Ying and Connor and also Ying’s parents. We rode the MRT, Taipei’s subway system, every day as we explored the city.

We visited one of Taipei’s night markets, the Shilin Night Market, last Friday night, November 23^rd. Although it was crowded, it was fun to see all the food stands and various items for sale.

On Saturday we visited the Bitan Scenic Area on the edge of Taipei. It was a nice scenic spot with good mountain and lake views. "Bitan" literally means "green lake", referring to where the Xindian River widens to form the lake. There is a well-known suspension bridge that is used only by pedestrians. We walked across the bridge and I was surprised on how much it moved as you walked across.

We flew home on Monday, November 26^th. We departed Taipei at 10:30AM, but arrived in San Francisco at 6:00AM on Monday, the same day. We got back to San Antonio at 4PM, just in time for rush hour.

We’re finally starting to get over the jet lag, waking up in the middle of the night. We head out tomorrow, Sunday, the best day of the week to drive through Houston.

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Leaving Las Vegas

We have enjoyed staying at Desert Eagle RV Park here at Nellis Air Force Base. We’ve got lots of space at our camp site, the weather has been good, and the sunsets are beautiful.

On October 14^th we received word that my step-mother Jan had passed away at age 78. I flew back to Omaha on Thursday to attend her funeral and met my sister Janet who had flown in from Sacramento. We drove to our hometown of Denison, Iowa for the funeral on Friday. It was nice seeing all of Jan’s children and grandchildren whom we had gotten to know over the years. They talked about how much they enjoyed summer vacations to Arkansas with Grandma Jan.  

While in Denison, Janet and I stopped by the nursing home to visit our 102-year-old great Aunt Evelyn. She’s doing well and enjoys reading. We also stopped to see my high school buddy Tedd and his wife Nancy on our way back to the Omaha airport.

I flew back to Las Vegas on Saturday. We had tickets to the Jimmy Buffett concert on Saturday night at the MGM Grand Garden Arena that we bought last March to celebrate my 70^th birthday. The concert included a set by Boz Skaggs before Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band played. It was a great concert.

On Tuesday, October 23^rd, we celebrated our 37^th anniversary with dinner at the Top of the World restaurant at the Stratosphere Tower. It was our first visit to the Stratosphere Tower and the restaurant is on the 106^th floor. The restaurant rotates every 80-minutes so you can see the Las Vegas valley and the surrounding mountains and the view was amazing.

After dinner we went up one floor to the Top of the World bar to see even better views of the city lights. Then we took the elevator up another floor to see where people paid $120 jump to leap off the tower and plunge 829-feet to the ground. Last we went up to the observation deck to see the city lights and the thrill rides. 

We went down to the Strip on Monday night to get a souvenir T-shirt. We enjoyed going by Bellagio's to see the fountains and the Conservatory. The fresh flower displays in the Conservatory are changed for every season and are different every year.

    

We enjoyed our last Saturday night in Las Vegas by going to The Orleans and seeing The Temptations in concert. The Temptations have been around for 58-years but this was the first time we'd seen them in concert. They put on a great show.

We head south to Arizona tomorrow after spending six weeks here. 

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Las Vegas

We’ve been in Las Vegas for two weeks now. We “moved” here from Lake Powell on Sunday, September 23^rd.

We had planned to spend six weeks here to give the Friendly Ford body shop plenty of time to repair our F-150. We got rear-ended last February in Ft. Myers, Florida in a left-turn lane when the guy behind us didn’t stop. The light had turned green but we had to stop because a guy several cars ahead of us had stopped while making a left-hand turn. The accident damaged our rear bumper and left rear fender. Lucky for us that the guy that rear-ended us had good insurance and they’re paying for all repairs plus a rental car while our truck is in the body shop.

We used the Friendly Ford body shop two years ago to fix the hail damage on our pickup. They did a great job, especially with the aluminum body on our Ford F-150, because it requires special training and tools.

My sister Marcia and brother-in-law Mike came with us from Lake Powell and they spent a week with us. We enjoyed the week, especially going to The Mirage on Wednesday night to see LOVE, Cirque du Soleil’s interpretation of the Beatles legacy. We all thoroughly enjoyed the show.    

We also got tickets to visit the Las Vegas Neon Museum on Friday night. We first went to the Venetian for dinner in St. Mark’s Square. The tour of the Neon boneyard was very good and our guide was quite knowledgeable of the history of Las Vegas and the old casinos.

Mike and Marcia left last Saturday and it felt strange to be by ourselves after spending three weeks with family and friends.

Julie and I decided to go to the Wynn for their Sunday Brunch, voted best buffet in Las Vegas. We usually go to buffets around 3PM because you pay the brunch price and then transition to dinner which starts at 3:30PM. 

We picked the Wynn because they were supposed to have free parking (and the best buffet). Almost all of the casinos on the strip now charge for parking. We later learned the Wynn also charges for parking, unless you spend at least $50 and get your parking ticket validated.

We went to The Mirage last Friday night to see David Spade and Ray Romano at a special 10PM comedy show. It was very good, especially Ray Romano’s stories about getting older, and stories about his wife and kids.

Steve & Julie Cornelius