Down in the heart of Texas

Up around 7 and on the road by 8:15. This was the first day we’ve seen lots of wild animals. Do they still count as wild animal sightings if they were all behind huge fences? Lots of hunting ranches in the area north of Leakey, TX. We saw elk, emu, at least two different types of deer and, of course, lots of the recquisite Texas vultures or buzzards or whatever the heck they call them down here. The country just north of Leakey (roughly 100 miles west of Austin) was quite beautiful. This is hill country and one of our favorite parts of Texas. And, as usual, we are always quite amazed at the huge spreads, houses and elaborate gates that they all seem to have. One even had a keycard post to open the gate!

John had been wanting to stop at some of the historical markers, but most were too small or on the other side of the road with limited visibility for pulling back on the road. Fortunately, our lunch stop was right by one of the markers. You can click on the picture to read it - we thought it was pretty interesting. You never know what you'll run across when you get off the freeway!!!

It was cloudier today and we hit short rain squalls in several places. The high today was 88 degrees. The car and motorhome are in dire need of a bath, but that comes after John & I get at least one dip in the pool at Magic Valley!!

At around 3 we came upon a big line of cars and semis. After about a 20 minute wait, we discovered that, for some unknown reason, a semi full of fresh beef must have rolled. The top of the trailer was blown out and there were boxes of meat everywhere in the ditch. We surmised that someone was passing in a no-passing zone. Don't know that for sure, but we've sure seen lots of it around here.

We stopped for the night around 4:30 at a pull-off just north of Laredo. We enjoyed hot showers (before the water cooled off) and should be able to get an early start in the morning.

A slice of small-town Texas life

Several days ago we had called friends from the RGV to see if we could meet for coffee somewhere along our way. They invited us to overnight at their place in Fritch TX, so we accepted. We arrived at Noel & Carol’s a little after 3:00 pm on Sunday and enjoyed a wonderful brisket supper with them, their daughter-in-law and their grand-daughter. We had a really nice visit around the firepit that evening catching up on all of our summer trips and getting reacquainted again. Only a Texan would get the firepit going on a 97 degree day!! Just kidding, Noel – it was fun! Breakfast this morning was a very entertaining event at a local restaurant. We’re sure enjoying these tastes of small-town America again and truly enjoy Texan’s own brand of humor! After a side trip to see the Lake Meredith Reservoir, we hit the road about 11:00 am and headed back to Hwy. 83. We stopped at the Childress Dairy Queen for snacks and then continued on to Abilene where we stopped for the night at the local Wal-mart parking lot. We picked up some chicken and salad for supper and called it a day.

Wonderful visit with family in Kansas

Since I last wrote, we spent Thursday driving over to my brother and sis-in-law's place nearDodge City, KS. We had lunch pulled over on the side of the street in Granada, CO. We saw lots of huge feed lots (or t-bones on the hoof according to John) on the way and also noticed that quite a bit of rebuilding had been going on in Greensburg, KS since we were last through there a few months after the devastating tornado that occurred in May 2007*. The family had a nice dinner waiting for us and we enjoyed playing with the little ones.

The next two pictures are ones I took when we drove through Greensburg in 2007.

The next three pictures were taken on this trip.

The local college where several of our nieces attended was kind enough to allow us to park there and work off our site rent (with full hook-ups, no less!). So, after going to a local parade in the rain on Friday morning and then walking over to see Marcy & Josh’s house, we worked for about 6+ hours on Friday with other volunteers assisting with a remodeling job. Everyone was very nice and we enjoyed visiting with another full-timing couple who were our neighbors. After we finished with that and got cleaned up, we headed out to my brother and sister-in-laws’ for a quick dinner and then back to the auditorium for the college girls’ volleyball game. It reminded us so much of small town sports when we were growing up!

On Saturday while John & Jon were working on the RV generator & checking the AC units, Deb & I drove in to Pratt to get groceries and then we met the guys back at the motorhome, where Jeremie, Stacy and their two kids met us for a picnic lunch in the sunshine. Then John & Jon headed for a small local lake to go kayaking/fishing and Deb & I enjoyed some visiting time. We made a side trip to see Stacy’s newly remodeled house and then we headed back to their lovely log home where Stacy had fixed a wonderful elk stew and Marcy made some great garlic mashed potatoes – yum, yum! More kid time and we all called it a fairly early night.

Jon & Deb each stopped by Sunday morning on their way to church activities to say goodbye and we headed out around 9:00 a.m. Thanks to Jon, Deb, Jeremie, Stacy, Josh & Marcy for a wonderful visit!!

*Quote from Wikipedia: "On May 4, 2007, Greensburg was devastated by an EF5 tornado that traveled rapidly through the area, leveling at least 95 percent of the city and killing eleven people."

Time for a break

Last night's weather forecast had us thinking that we might head for KS this morning, but it turns out that it didn't even snow in Colorado Springs. It was windy off and on here today, though, and we were tired so we just stayed put. In fact, we didn't even leave the motor home all day...

I cleaned the bathroom, worked on the woodwork, cleaned up bill stuff and spent the afternoon getting caught up on this blog. John cleaned the shower and the microwave. Hmmm....can you tell that he's better at relaxing than I am???

Tomorrow we'll head for my brother Jon's place. It'll be so fun to see them and two of their daughters and families! Lots of cute little kids to play with - yippee!!

Em's & Kelly's - sorry we can't hang around to see you, but hopefully we'll all see each other next summer!!!

Denver Day

We all hopped out of bed this morning and headed for the airport around 7:30. Darlene rode with us and, after we dropped Eric off, we stopped for a nice leisurely breakfast. Then we took the left-over blueberry pancakes home for Derick's grandpa to enjoy. After sharing pictures, Darlene and I headed out for a little shopping trip. John & I headed back to Pueblo a little after 1 pm so Darlene would have a little time before she had to go into work. Thanks, Darlene, for the wonderful visit (as usual!).

When we got back to the motor home, we finished setting up and got things organized again. We miss everyone, but it does feel good to have some down time again!

Time to head out...

...but we hate to leave Eric, Kari and baby Jacob. Thanks for a wonderful visit!

We got things unhooked, the car hooked up and pulled out of the RV park. We stopped for a few minutes to tell Kari, Jacob and Kari's parents goodbye and hit the road. Eric came along with us so we could drop him off at the Denver airport for work. He'd never ridden in our motorhome before and seemed to especially enjoy the ability to use the laptop while traveling!!

We had good weather until the eastern side of Monarch Pass where we hit some wet snow. Fortunately it wasn't sticking to the road. (If you want to see the snow better, you can click on the picture!)

The aspens higher up are turning that beautiful gold color that they have. They would have been much brighter and prettier in sunshine!

Blue Mesa Lake was as pretty as we remembered it from when we were last by here in 1993.

We had previously planned to park the motorhome in Colorado Springs, but finally decided to park it in Pueblo and take the car north. So, we did that and headed for Denver around 5 p.m. We arrived at our friend Darlene's house around 7:00 and had a nice evening visiting with her, her dad, Francis, and her daughter, Elizabeth, who lives fairly close. For those of you who don't know, Darlene's son, Derick, has been a part of our family since he and Eric were in college together 15 years ago.

Happy Birthday to Jacob's Grandad!

It was just a hang-out kind of day, which felt really good! We did laundry after breakfast. Kari had to work at the spa and was worried about being bored, so she did a facial for her mom and massages for her dad, Eric and John throughout the day. How nice - thanks, Kari!

The rest of us played with Jacob, enjoyed lunch downtown (during which a huge wind, rain & hail storm came through that took out several large portions of trees around town), played some Mexican Train Dominos and then went down to the local Mexican restaurant where we enjoyed really good food and great company!

Afterwards we headed back to our place, played one more hand of dominoes and tried to watch the rest of the "Amadeus" DVD, but apparently there's a second DVD that wasn't sent to Ken & Harriet. Darn! We also enjoyed celebrating Ken's birthday with him all day and ended it with some carrot cake that John made - yummy! Everyone headed for home early, so we could get things finished up to head out in the morning. Bummer - we've had a really good time with Eric, Kari & Jacob and with Kari's parents also the last few days! Thanks, everyone!

Ouray Walking Tour

Kari's parents, Ken and Harriet, arrived late last night, unloaded a few pieces of furniture for Eric & Kari and then parked their pick-up camper just across the road from us. So, when everyone finally roused out of bed this morning, we headed down to Eric & Kari's for breakfast. Their neighbor, Kay, and her son, Zach, were enjoying the sunshine on their front porch so they came up and had pancakes and eggs with us. Fun visit!

Later, we headed downtown to do part of the Ouray Walking Tour. This is the Uncompaghre River that runs through town. It is the most unusual shade of green that we've seen.

There are lots of hollyhocks in town, also. Many of the historic homes and businesses here have beautiful yards and courtyards.

This is the Beaumont Hotel. It's on the National Historic Register and looks very authentic both outside and in. All three floors are open to the main floor lobby. This would be a fun place to stay if we traveled differently!

Baby Jacob is having a fun time with all four grandparents visiting at the same time!

Dinner tonight was marinated chicken, rice, salad and baked squash at our place. Afterwards, we watched the first part of "Amadeus" and decided to watch the rest tomorrow.

Work day

After John & Eric went to Ridgway to pick up supplies at the hardware store, we spent the day helping Eric & Kari with house projects: got the sofa winched up to the 2nd story deck and into the living room, got the old sofa moved out to the deck, got the futon set up in Jacob's room, got stuff organized in his room and put together the drawer that rolls under his crib.

But the most fun part of the day for me was when Kari needed to have a volunteer to get a facial at the spa! Wow! Was that ever nice and relaxing! John baked his first high-altitude cake while we were there and then we all had spaghetti at the motorhome and played a little Cribbage before Jacob got tired and they went home. Had a fair amount of rain today with beautiful blue skies in between...

Jobs and Telluride

Kari had to do some training at the spa this morning, so the rest of us just hung out and played with Jacob. We finally got a call from Deborah at Ouray KOA - we got the jobs! Should be fun!

In the afternoon, we took both cars and headed for Telluride. This pond just past the town was the most incredible turquoise color. It reminded us of Kenai Lake in Alaska.

Here is a panoramic video of the area around the pond. Gorgeous, but unfortunately it was starting to rain so we took some quick pictures and got back into the cars. We'll definitely come back here next summer - hopefully on a nice sunny day!

We wanted to wander through downtown but it was still raining and even hailing once in awhile so we settled for driving around looking at the cool houses. Kari stopped to check on a possible job at a spa and then we headed for Montrose to get groceries. It was still raining and was really pouring by the time we finished dinner at Chili's. Got our groceries, Eric, Kari & Jacob headed home and we stopped at Target to pick up a few things. Got home about 8:30 and called it a day.

Cross your fingers for us!

Hmmm...Looks like it's getting closer to time to get out of Dodge!

We called the Ouray KOA this morning as they had requested and they asked us to come out for a tour/interview. We spent the rest of the morning there and are thinking this would be a fun job. If hired, we would be a cooking team from Wednesday dinner through Saturday dinner (no lunches - so would have a break in the middle of pretty long days!). We really enjoyed Dave & Deborah and believe they would be fun to work with.

Kari had some training this afternoon so the rest of us hung out with baby Jacob - tough job, but someone has to do it!

Job Hunting

We did laundry this morning and then headed north to check out some workamping job possibilities for next summer. Of the six parks we stopped at, three looked like they would be nice to work at. We'll be following up with at least two of them in the next few days. John also was encouraged by the local Safeway store manager to contact her when we return next summer. Sounds like they are usually looking for bakery help...

On the way home through Ridgway, we saw this old railroad truck. The museum looks interesting - maybe we'll be in the area next summer and can go see it!

Eric & Kari had picked up some steaks for dinner which we enjoyed after Kari returned from her job interview. She got the job and will be working Sundays. It is nice to have adult time once-in-awhile when you have a little one! Oh, yeah - just thought I'd mention that I had the highest total score for the three Yahtzee games we played tonight...

Tour Day in Ouray

This morning John, Eric & Kari toured the Bachelor-Syracuse Mine just outside of town, while Jacob & I had fun together. They said the mine tour was pretty interesting.

In the afternoon, John wanted a nap, so the rest of us went to see the local museum. It's in the old hospital and was very nice. I was amazed at the sheer number of artifacts from this area.

Afterwards, we stopped by the courthouse which is on the historical walking tour. I was quite impressed with the courtroom which still has the original 1888 chairs for spectators. And, it's still in use one day each week by the District Court Judge!

We all enjoyed dinner together and then spent some time outside around the firepit making smores with the downstairs neighbor, Kay, and her son, Zach. Wonderful neighbors - too bad they're moving across town soon, but I'm sure they'll become good friends for Eric & Kari.

Million Dollar Highway, Silverton & Animas Forks

Well, we got to drive the infamous Million Dollar Highway today. It's really gorgeous...if you're not driving! The driver better not be taking his/her eyes off the road 'cause this one's pretty hairy! We stopped at an overlook just south of Ouray and this is the bird's eye view of the town. Can you see why they call it the "Switzerland of America"?
This is a view of the highway from the pull-off near the Yankee Girl Mine - one of the richest concentrations of silver ore in the U.S.
When we arrived in Silverton, we left our car and hopped in with Eric & Kari (after moving the dogs to the back). Then we headed for Animas Forks, an old ghost mining town. We can hardly believe that this "road" actually appears in our road atlas, although it is marked as "Unpaved - check conditions locally". They aren't kidding - this is 4-wheel drive territory and is mostly one-lane with frequent small pull-outs. I found it more relaxing to focus on baby Jacob's smiles rather than looking at the narrow, rocky road winding along the mountainside. Eric & Kari are much braver than we are!

That said, the ghost town and surrounding scenery was awesome! It was chilly & windy when we arrived so we ate our picnic lunch inside the manager's house. Here's John checking out the views from there.
A couple of the houses had a "bathroom"! It was an attached outhouse. What do you think, Mom & Dad - would you have liked that up at the lodge????
Here's a view of the manager's house from the outside.

When we got back to Silverton, we stopped for ice cream at the hotel, did a little window-shopping and headed back home for tacos, movie and play time with the baby. Great day - thanks, Eric & Kari!

Colorado, here we come!

Up and out of Wal-mart by 8:00 a.m. For the first time on this trip, we had a little headwind but it was only through the first canyon on Utah Hwy. 6. Throughout the 23-mile deer "area" we saw 0 deer. Not much wildlife on this trip yet... Hwy. 6 winds through the gorgeous Price Canyon area and we did notice some signs of fall colors.

After passing through the communities of Price and Wellington, the country opens up again. It was so easy to eliminate the roads and fences in our minds and picture, instead, a group of Indians on their ponies picking their way through the sagebrush, while a wagon train was creeping along in the distance with a tell-tale plume of dust.

...finally some wildlife! John spotted several elk laying down near a rest area where we had stopped to switch drivers. We crossed into Colorado just after noon and stopped for a picnic lunch in the sunshine at the Colorado Welcome Center in Fruitas. At Grand Junction, we headed south on Highway 50 and then Hwy. 550 from Montrose on to Ouray. As we got closer to Ridgeway, this was our view. It was a little disconcerting to realize that we would be driving the RV in those mountains ahead! They sure are beautiful, though, and I read that the San Juans are the newest of the entire Rocky Mountain chain.

We pulled into Ouray a little after 4 and, shortly after getting set up at an RV park just a block from Eric & Kari's, they showed up with baby Jacob! So good to see all three of them again! And, Jacob seems so much more grown up than when we last saw them in Hawaii in May! After dinner we took a walk through town. This is a view of main street Ouray.
This is an historic livery stable that is currently housing a horse-drawn carriage company. Very cool town! It reminds us a bit of Girdwood, AK and the mountains surrounding it are really gorgeous!
Good travel day, but it'll be fun to stay around here, spend lots of time with the kids and grandson, and explore the area!

Idaho to Utah

Beautiful weather today! We left Boise around 9 a.m. and cruised across the wide-open expanses of southern Idaho. We remembered seeing more animals when we were in this area two years ago with the car, but this time all we saw were huge herds of dairy cows. We crossed the border into Utah at 2:15 p.m. and stopped for fuel at the Flying J in Ogden. Unfortunately that put us creeping through Salt Lake City at the beginning of their rush hour. Pretty slow going sometimes - especially where two on-ramps of two lanes each in about 50 yards merging onto a three-lane freeway with no metering stop lights...

We were hoping to get as far as Price, UT tonight, but a phone call from Eric reminding us of a high deer crossing area before that, plus the SLC delays, helped convince us to stop earlier. At 6:30 we checked out the Cracker Barrel parking lot near Springville, but it didn't look very large-rig friendly so we went across the freeway to the Wal-mart. We picked up chicken, shrimp and salads inside for dinner in the rig.

Just before retiring at 9:00 p.m. we took a little walk to scout out coffee possibilities in the morning and then picked up some trash and put some carts away in the Wal-mart parking lot. Just our way of saying thanks for letting us stay for free! This was our sunset view from our first "stay" at a Wal-mart. Not bad, huh?

Exploring Idaho

We took a break from our traveling today and did a little road trip in the car. What a beautiful area! We headed north out of Boise on Hwy. 55, also known as the Payette River National Scenic Byway. The byway is 111 miles long and follows the Payette River which is calm in several places but mostly pretty serious whitewater.

We made one stop at a mercantile on the way (other than pull-outs). On the right side of the store were guns, knives, military gear, etc. I think I can safely assume that these people were not Democrats if the signs, posters, and hat logos were any indication! On the left side were many beautiful Amish quilts for sale with proceeds going to assist handicapped kids. Interesting combination...

We pulled into McCall early in the afternoon and stopped by the Chamber of Commerce Visitor Center where a nice lady gave us several ideas for a place to eat our picnic lunch. We ended up at Legacy Park on the shores of Payette Lake. Lovely park to enjoy on a gorgeous day!

Later we wandered through some of the shops. After I enjoyed some ice cream at the marina, we headed out of town and over to Hwy. 95 which we took back south. This highway wasn't quite as scenic but still interesting. The first part was a pretty winding road through the national forest. Then the scenery opened up as we entered the farming valleys.

We didn't get home till about 6:30, enjoyed some left-overs for dinner and then soaked in the hot tub for a few minutes before showering and calling it a day! Tomorrow we'll hit the road again. We're looking forward to seeing Eric, Kari and baby Jacob again!

Labor Day weekend fun!

On the road again!!!!!

We left Everett Friday morning and headed east on I-90. The Snowqualmie Pass area is beautiful and fortunately we missed the worst traffic - not bad at all!

One of our first excursions with our friends Curt & Diane after we arrived was the Country Mercantile just north of Tri-Cities on Hwy. 395. If any of you travelers reading this blog go through this area, be sure and stop! They have wonderful local fruits and vegetables and the most amazing assortment of jams, sauces, dressings, salsas, candies, etc., etc. that you'll likely find anywhere! And, as an added bonus, their parking lot is very RV friendly.

On Saturday afternoon, we headed for the local county fair. If my memory is not too faulty, I think this is a little osprey.

The kids' tractor pull was a big hit and our little friend, Jesse, did an awesome job!

On our way home we stopped at one of the local wineries - aren't these grapes beautiful?

The rest of the weekend was spent shopping, watching movies and just hanging out. Thanks for everything, Curt & Diane!

Late summer summary...

Wow! Amazing how fast a summer can go... John finished up his summer job with Safeway in the Everett & Lynnwood districts and we are now footloose and fancy-free again - yippee!! The last few days before we left Everett were pretty busy with some last minute visits with cousins Theresa and Angela, RV’ing friends John & Susan and, of course, saying goodbye to Vance, Jody and grandson Sebastian. Definitely the hardest part as we're not sure when we'll be seeing them again.

Here are a few pictures from our Pacific Northwest summer...

Several members from our Escapees "Class of 2007" gathered on Whidbey Island in July for lunch and then we soaked up some sun at Fort Ebey State Park for awhile. Fun group/beautiful day!









Several days later we hopped on another ferry (we enjoyed the Washington State ferries this summer!) and went to see Port Townsend. This is a wonderful place to visit: the uptown and downtown areas, Fort Worden, and the harbor were our favs.

Near the end of July we finally located a reputable business to replace some severely rusted framework on our motorhome. Aalbu Bros. of Everett did an awesome job for us. The only bad part (besides the bill!) was that we couldn't stay in the rig and the first week at Vance & Jody's was the hottest of the summer in Seattle. High 90's to 100's was too much for us! We also spent four days in a hotel to make room for Jody's family. We were thrilled to get our home back!

Our oldest son's (Eric) in-laws came for a visit in early August and we spent a wonderful day on the Kitsap Peninsula visiting the Elandan Gardens where the owner, Dan, kept us well entertained and made sure we knew how to correctly pronounce "bonsai"! We enjoyed the ancient trees and beautiful flowers, had two lovely picnics and two fun ferry rides. Good friends, good day!

Our oldest grandson enjoyed visiting grandma and grandpa at their motorhome this summer. Don't you think we should sign him up as a substitute driver?

September 4: time to head south via our friends, Curt & Diane, in SE Washington, son Eric & his family in Colorado, brother Jon & family in Kansas and then on to the Rio Grande Valley in southern Texas for our workamping job!