Happy New Year to all and have a great new year. We are on the road again! Left home base Fort Myers on New Year's eve, mid-afternoon and went right back to the house with a low tire. One of the tire valves stuck when checking air pressure earlier in the day and slowly let a rear tire go soft. Clearing the valve and inflating the tire got us back on the road an hour later. What a beginning.

"Almost" finished preparations for the road . Maintenance and upgrades are mostly complete, just a few small details left(gulp). Have a clean bill of health from our doctors and Linda is finished with cataract surgery in both eyes. The holidays were great with family and friends, but we want to see southern Arizona in January and February.

First stop, "Mossy Cove Fish Camp" near Lake Placid. Linda's sister Loretta and husband Kyle came to the Lake two weeks early this year. They missed the blizzard that went through two days after they left Virginia. We only stay two nights, we're anxious to continue to Arizona. Next afternoon were in Silver Springs Shores to see John and Kris and drop off two TVs that came out of the coach. We've updated to flat screen LCD's, John can use one and will donate the other locally. It's cooling down with an Arctic front coming through and we're heading North to I-10.

A stop for the night on I-10 near Live Oak at Wal-Mart and the temperature dropped to 28! We continue on I-10 and another cold night near Biloxi, Ms. 30 degrees. Further west at Lake Charles, La. under the bridge on Monday it was 29! Finally, the warmest day in a week since leaving Florida was in Houston for lunch at 56 degrees. Last night we caught up with Don and Jill in Goliad, Texas. Thank God they came south from Austin. It was the warmest night in a week, it only went down to 45.

Goliad is one of the oldest Spanish colonial municipalities in Texas even before there was a Texas. Goliad was established in 1749, is the birthplace of Texas ranching, and a "hanging tree" still stands on the north lawn of the county courthouse. Don, Jill, Linda, and I spent an afternoon in historic part of Goliad and at the State Park where the Mission Espirito Santo, built in 1722, is open to the public. History comes alive on the mission grounds and in the church museum, about a developing Republic, soon a state, and a way of life.

On the road again....Skip and Linda