Opps, sorry, for any confusion I might have caused, I obviously mixed up "#body" (ID) and "body" (tag).

Yes but then it's easier to set:

.pagemaster{
background-color: transparent;
}

So you only have to set the background-image for the body

I went into the default.css and modified the background as directed; however, it did not work!?!

I think the problem is that although I am using a skin set to "narrow." the skin actually consumes the entire page, though the content/body is narrow.  Does that make sense? I say this, as I just noticed that although the content area is contained, the graphic used for the navigational menu bar actually extends to the left and right edges of the page...not sure how to fix this.

Here's what I am dealing with:  BidLessTravel