pril 17th, 2026
We got home safe and sound with all our bags from our “escape” to Taiwan & the Philippines around 11am. Despite our flights not being red eyes per se, we really did not get a “night time” (but rather gained almost an entire day) so Fran decided to go to bed and crash for two hours hoping it would help get her through the day.
We spent the afternoon unpacking and that night just did a “popcorn for dinner night” as we really didn’t have much food in the house nor did we feel like making what we did have! Doug crashed around 8pm and Fran managed to stay up until nearly ten – our normal bedtime which was quite a feat.
The next few days were spent just getting back on track. Doug really struggled and resorted to Melatonin after a few nights of going to bed and waking up at 1:30 am without being able to go back to sleep and that seemed to help along with Chamomile tea but it still took several more days. Whereas Fran, although she had a few nights of being awake for an hour or two around 2:30 am, she managed to get back on track more quickly.
We have been discussing for a while now whether we should be keeping the trailer – we’ve used it once since October and have no plans to use it the rest of this year. We reached the decision to sell it and began getting ready to do just that; emptying, cleaning and sorting what to sell with it. We put up ads on the 21st and had someone interested quite quickly. He came to see it and was happy with it, offered almost asking and after receiving a deposit, arranged to meet on Saturday the 25th for the hand over.
After he left, we discovered we couldn’t find the title for the trailer or any of the other vehicles! So strange for us as we are pretty organized about stuff like that. After racking our brains, looking over and over for where it should have been and then where it couldn’t have been, reaching out to Serena to see if we’d left them with her with the keys and we never found them. So we went online and ordered a duplicate for the trailer on April 24th. They said up to two weeks plus mail time and they do not expedite so luckily this guy was quite interested, nearly met out asking and was willing to wait a week longer than agreed upon before we realized we didn’t have the title.
April 26th was the 50th anniversary or our first date and Doug planned a little getaway to do an overnight at the Strat with dinner in the revolving restaurant. We went downtown and spent some time playing the slots at both the Sahara (kitty corner to the Strat) and the Strat before checking in. We got all dolled up and went up the tower at 6:30 to take in the views on the Observation Deck before the sun went down:
Our dinner reservation was for 7 so we saw the sunset (which was not spectacular) and then the lights of the city came on.
The dinner was very, very good and the desert was amazing – so rich we were thankful to only order one and even then we couldn’t finish that! The restaurant takes 80 minutes to do a full revolution and we were there slightly over that amount of time. A wonderful evening.
We heard from the DMV on the 27th that the title would be mailed on the 28th) we were hopeful but no title by Saturday the 2nd. Robert was most obliging (we think it suited him better too) when he showed up but we all agreed to go forward with the sale and signed an agreement that he give us 80% of the purchase price, we give him the keys and the Permit he needed to drive it and we will get him the title upon receipt. Doug spent 2.5 hours going through all the workings of the trailer and Robert left with it. Another chapter in our lives almost closes. The title showed up Tuesday and Doug went over to where Robert had it parked in a campground not too far away and got everything sorted. (Sidebar: turns out we only had one other couple show interest, so we were glad for the sale we made.)
In the meantime, we ordered the missing titles for the Tundra and Civic and hope to receive those (based on the time line of the first one) by Monday, the 11th of May.
We went to look at cars at the closet auto mall area – we’d decided to stay in the Toyota family (Serena owns a Corolla Cross and Josh just purchased a Plug in Hybrid Prius) and wanted a hybrid. We looked at the Prius hybrid and the Rav4 Hybrid. The former seemed too small and neither car had a trunk which was a sore point with us. We did put a deposit on a Rav4 for next month but in a couple of days decided, “no, we do want a trunk” so we returned, got our deposit back and looked at Camry Hybrids, deciding that was the way to go. It’s a traditional, spacious sedan with a quiet comfortable ride, responsive steering and a massive, usable trunk with only slightly lower gas mileage than the Prius but much better than the Rav4. However, this dealer only had ones with more bells and whistles and none in the colour Fran wanted so we’ll look elsewhere.
So next step was to sell the Tundra. We put an ad together and Doug posted it Friday the 1st. We had a good deal of interest right away but not having the title was, of course, an issue. We hope that will arrive by week’s end. He also arranged a mobile detailing outfit to get it spic and span.
The weather has been quite good since we got back; most days reach the high 20’s, some around 30 but not sweltering as yet. All the trees, bushes and flowers are in full bloom. It doesn’t cool down as much as we’d like at night by 6 some nights so we’re turning on the air on at bed time. The mornings are quite pleasant and we enjoy having the windows open.
We are finalizing our trip to Africa and by the 2nd, we had all the flights booked, almost all the car rentals, and some of the tours/hotels. We’re going to be away for 3 weeks at the end of May to go to Reno and BC then we’re home for 3-4 days before leaving June 24th for a week with Josh and the grandkids before we’re off to Uganda and beyond on the 4th of July.
The resident hummingbirds are enjoying our feeder; we have at least two regulars: Ruby and Blanche as Fran has named them. They are rarely feeding at the same time and if they do show up at the same time, it’s chase away time, we assume by the dominant one.
Doug continues the search for the Camry we want online; reaching out to dealers but no one seems to have the interior we want.
For our 45th wedding anniversary on May 9th, Fran got us tickets to see the Wizard of Oz at the sphere. We’ve never been there and tickets to just do a tour are well over $100 and she got seats for $124 and we get to see a show; mind you we don’t get the behind the scenes tour but a look see and the experience are what was most important to us anyway.
It was very well done; a lot of computer graphics but the screen is HUGE and there is sound, vibration, things falling from the sky etc. We felt glad to be seated up high in the stands as if you were down low, you’d be straining your neck to see the entire screen. The only downside was we found the seats uncomfortable with no leg room. It’s very steep stadium seating with not much leg room. Obviously no photos allowed during the movie but we did catch an apple that fell rom the ceiling!
There were a few “scenes” set up in the lobby but there were hundreds of people. We caught this going down one of the FOUR escalators we had to come down to get to ground level:
Sunday the 10th was Mother’s Day and Fran was spoiled with gift cards for salons for various services. Josh also sent her some of her fave chocolates that unfortunately stayed too long in the mailbox:
It was one big blog of chocolate that she’ll have to chip away at. It still tastes delicious!
Now it’s starting to get hot! A few days around and over 40 / 100F. No more leaving the windows open in the morning as it’s already 29C / 84F when we get up.
The truck’s title arrived on Monday the 11th. We’ve had several serious sounding inquiries but were holding people off until we had it in our hands. Doug had been chatting with a fellow in AZ who came Tuesday morning and the deal was done at almost asking. They wired the money to our account and while we waited for it to show up in our account, we went out for some lunch. It showed up before the food came – the marvels of modern banking, eh? Doug let all the interested parties know that it had been sold and we are currently without wheels here in Nevada until we get a new car.
After hours of online queries and quotes, on Wednesday, we found an Ocean Blue (teal) 2026 Camry LE Hybrid with the grey interior Fran wanted in Mission Bay, California (about 500 km / 300 mi away). Next day, we learned buying a car in California requires that you register it in CA with a CA address so that fell through. There was a possible one in Georgia but the price was not quite as good.
Fran suggested we call the dealer in Oklahoma City from whom we bought the Tundra. Well, lo and behold, didn’t they have one arriving soon in the exterior colour we wanted but with black interior AND a very, very good price. Not perfect, but the photos made it seem more of a charcoal colour than black and at this point, we decided to take it. Doug made a $500 deposit and we should hear by the 15th when we can pick it up.
The Camry Hybrid (Toyota only makes hybrids in this model now) gets 51 combined mileage rating, with a range of around l046 km / 650 miles per tank. The closest we’ve ever had to this was our Honda which got 40 mpg during its prime (gets 35 ish now in its senior years). We are looking forward to this gas savings in these times.
Shockingly, we heard from Tyler the next day, the 14th, advising us the car had arrived and when did we want to come get it?! After discussing renting a car vs flying options to get to Oklahoma City, we decided to fly in on Saturday. Doug was able to get a copy of the purchase agreement signed and wire the funds that day in order to speed up the process on Saturday. If we thought we were reeling a few days ago, now it’s completely beyond belief how fast this has happened.
We booked one way flights on Frontier flying with backpacks only landing at 1:35pm. We Uber’ed ourselves to the dealer, and after doing paperwork (that was supposed to take ten minutes he’d said), we were ready to go home around 3:45.
We are now the proud owners of this lovely teal hybrid:
Tyler showed us a few things about the car (not enough we felt later) and off we went. It’s an over 1750 km / 1100 mi drive home and mostly a straight shot along the I-40 leaving Oklahoma, crossing a piece of Texas, crossing both New Mexico and Arizona back to Nevada. As Fran wanted to watch that night’s Stanley Cup playoff (Montreal vs Buffalo) we didn’t go as far as we could have otherwise and not as far as we could have gone IF the handover didn’t take so long. We stopped just inside the Texas border at the small city of Shamrock and got a hotel. Montreal is the only Canadian team left in the playoffs. Sadly, Montreal lost big time and they’ll be a game 7 on Monday. So we only made it 284 km / 176 mi today.
Despite the time change here (two hours ahead), we were awake before 6am and hit the road within a half hour. It seemed a daunting task to do the rest of the drive that day, so we made a few stops to break up the drive and see a couple of things.
First was the Blue Hole in New Mexico:
The Blue Hole in Santa Rosa, New Mexico, is a stunning, bell-shaped artesian spring famous for its crystal-clear sapphire waters. Located along historic Route 66, it is a premier destination for scuba diving training and a popular spot for summer swimmers, featuring a constant 17C / 62 water temperature. The surface measures about 24m / 80′ in diameter and depth. It is continuously fed by an underground system (the Ogallala Aquifer) that pumps 3,000 gallons per minute, refreshing the entire pool every six hours.
As we weren’t planning on swimming, nor had we brought suits, this was a ten minute viewing only stop just off the freeway.
After crossing into Arizona, we decided to stop in at the Petrified Forest National Park. We’d been years ago and it was such a beautiful day AND we needed to get out of the car!
Well, by the time we got there are 3:30, it was extremely windy and walking was not pleasant – sand was blowing sand and at time, you felt like you were going to be blown over!
We made a few viewpoint stops to see the painted desert:
and then did the short Giant Logs Trail to check out the larger portions of petrified wood:
We were near the city of Holbrook, got a hotel and checked in for the night. Today’s drive was 980 km / 610 miles. We went to the local Italian restaurant where it was spaghetti night and had dinner. Fran sent the paperwork we had for the car off to our mailbox service in South Dakota to handle the registering of the car for us.
We went to bed on the early side and again were up before 6 to finish the 540 km / 335 mi drive home. We found the fuel economy amazing. As recommended, we didn’t push the car for the first 1200 km /750 mi so that meant less than highway speeds and no cruise control. We managed to get the mileage up to 59.2 MPG! (That’s less then 4 litres per 100 km!) (photo taken a bit before that):
After that break in period, we still got near 50 so we’re quite happy. We’ve also never owned a car with a push button start so not having a key to open doors, or start the engine is different for us. We got home to cooler weather than when we left; apparently that wind storm we hit in eastern AZ hit Vegas the night before we got home. When we went for our afternoon hot tub today, the pool guy, Jeff, was there and he said the storm set his whole day back and each stop was taking much longer than usual due to the grit etc. that ended up in the pools he maintains.
That night we had dinner watching Game 7 which Montreal won in sudden death overtime. Yeah! So off to Round 3 and hopefully they make to it through to the finals!
Friday the 22nd, the complex held a summer BBQ and we joined in. The food was good and we got to meet a few more neighbours so that was nice.
Beside NHL hockey playoffs, the Canadian men are doing some awesome playing in the IIHF world cup. As of May 26th, they were 7-0 going into the quarter finals. Go Canada Go!
Fran finishing her scrapbooking project that began in 2004 after we visited China. She has scrapped all our photos since the ’70’s to the end of 2013. We began our overlanding journey and this website around that time, so all our photos are now in the galleries here. Once we unpacked all our stuff from the storage unit she was back at it completing 1998 to 2004 pre China. We finally have a dining room now:
We’ve spent the past few days doing “upgrades” to our new car including getting the windows tinted against the Vegas sun, putting door guards on, adding window visors and a trunk sill, a protective screen to the monitor and our new GPS, adding mudflaps and getting a garbage container that suits us. The glove box is rather small and there is virtually no storage in the doors but there are large pockets on the back of the front seats.
We are monitoring the situation in central Africa and if it continues the way it’s going we are going to have to skip our visit to Uganda and probably Rwanda. We’re ready to pivot if need be.
Towards the end of the week, we got ready for a road trip up to Victoria, Canada leaving on the 30th, with a week long stop in Reno.
