Another delay?

Yesterday, Jeff came to Salt Lake City.  Actually, it was night time when he finally got here.  His whole trip was kind of an interesting day long saga, I'm glad that God was watching over him. 

He started his journey early enough catching the bus from Bakersfield to Long Beach, and was taxied to LAX by Katie's sister and bro-in-law, Karen & Bill in plenty of time for his flight to Las Vegas where he would change planes.  However, I'm guessing that there was a problem with the weather somewhere along the line in the southern part of the country, which caused his flight from LAX to be delayed about an hour.  That flight finally got in the air about an hour late, but he did get to Las Vegas.   However, his flight to Salt Lake City was delayed also.  Then delayed again.  And again.  And again.  

So after checking Southwest's website numerous times to find out when his plane was to arrive in Salt Lake City, Katie and I left Amanda's house at about 8:30 to go to the airport to wait, wanting to be there in case he showed up magically due to some website inaccuracy. That took us about 1/2 an hour to get there, and we waited in the "Park and Wait" area of the parking area which has electronic signboards showing the status of the incoming flights.  Ironically, we never saw the Southwest flight Jeff was on listed.  However, at about 9:40 PM, we got a call from him saying he'd arrived at the airport, like he got there somehow without Southwest's help.  Hoping his return to SoCal for Teen Challenge Ministry Institute doesn't have as many delays as his getting here did when he leaves after Christmas!


The Travelogue 5/12/2012

Before we hit the road, we got a tandem inflatable kayak made by Hobie, the i14T.  As an inflatable kayak, we're able to keep it in the back end of the car.  It takes up the entire back end of the car (a Chevrolet HHR) and that doesn't take into account the oars, seats, mirage drives (peddle power), or life vests, which we put into the basement storage areas of the moho, but go in the back seat when we put the kayak in the water.  We don't use it often enough, but we did manage to use it on the Colorado River below Hoover Dam, at Willow Beach.  The pictures below aren't the best as they were taken through a clear plastic bag that we thought would be good to use to keep the camera dry.  While it did it's job, the bag just didn't do a very good job of keeping the pictures clear.

See what I mean?  I assure you that Katie does indeed still have a face, ok?  At this point, we've put it in to the water and are getting ready to head upstream.  The black blob in the lower part of the picture is the back of the front seat that Katie sits in (she faces away from me as I sit in the rear of the kayak), and if ya look closely above the seat, you'll see some black and white stuff, which is really Tasca with his life jacket on in the front of the kayak.  We both have long sleeved white shirts to protect us from the sun although you can't see me in mine as I'm on the other side of  the camera.

This picture kinda looks like Katie is holding the handle of a pink blob with a face on it that looks like Winnie, which is, indeed, what it is.  I don't think that she was putting Winnie in the water, but I could be wrong.  This picture doesn't do justice to where the water starts and ends, I'm thinking the plastic bag would be to blame for that again.  So after awhile, I just took the camera out of the bag and started living life dangerously.  Gratefully, the pictures were much better!
 

As you can see, the terrain is rugged and barren.  Add to that that the temperature was rather warm as well.  But I'm glad that we had the white shirts on, saved us from a bad sunburn. 

We did get to see several bighorn sheep, which is the Nevada state animal.  Although we'd lived in Las Vegas for about 18 years, this was the first time that we'd ever seen them, so it was kinda special for us.  Altogether, I think that we saw about 20 of them in different places along the river.

There was also a pair of trained ducks that came out to greet us on the way upstream.  I'm guessing that they had got trained from the many boaters that had gone upstream throwing them pieces of food as they would go by.  They learned well didn't they, but they didn't learn anything from us. 

What'd I just say?  They learned well, didn't they?  Here they are again on our trip downstream.  Pesky ducks!

We ended up the trip at the same place we started out at.  Imagine the first photo above (but clearer, ok?) with us getting out of the kayak.  Ok, maybe it'd be kinda hard to do so.  But since I use the mirage drive (kinda like pedaling a pedal car) while Katie uses oars (more like paddles), my legs are really beat by the time we get back.  Yeah, it'd probably be easier if I were to ride a bike daily for a couple of miles, but I don't.  At this particular time of getting out of the water, my legs were so tired that when I attempted to get out of the kayak, I couldn't stand up and fell back into the water.  There were a few young adults that rushed over to help me out of the water, for which I was grateful for, but didn't make me feel like I was that athletic like I was supposed to be if I had some sort of kayak.  This was also a learning experience for me though, as now when I try to get out of the kayak, I make sure that I'm in water that's deep enough for me to stand up in, meaning mid thigh deep rather than very shallow.  Makes for some cold water shocks, but I don't have to worry about bunches of young folks rushing into the water to keep me from floating down the river also!

Have a blessed day!

Been busy!

It's been a couple of days since my last post, which was November 19th.  The gunk that I was growing in my nose and throat seems to have kept me down, as well as spread to my grandsons as well as my son-in-law.  Then we got a pension check and had to run around and spend it all yesterday, so I didn't have the time yesterday to put together a post in this blog, but I did post my feelings about the 2008 Fleetwood Revolution LE 40V in Class-a-motorhome-advisor.blogspot.com if ya wanna go there and take a look at them.  

Tomorrow, Jeff is leaving Teen Challenge in Shafter, Ca., and will be arriving here in the late afternoon.  We'll be able to spend a few days with him before we head to Oregon to spend Thanksgiving with my sisters and other family members.  After Thanksgiving, we'll be heading back to Clearfield again to spend the next few weeks with Amanda, her family, and Jeff.  Jeff will be heading back to California after Christmas to start his studies as Teen Challenge Ministry Institute, and we will probably be heading that way with him in the moho because Katie's Dad is getting to the point that he may very well be needing our assistance.  Katie found out last night that he was in the hospital and not doing well.  So we may be heading south sooner than the end of December, but I'm hoping not.  This is opposite of what we wanted to be doing by a long ways.  But it just seems like we're the ones that can do what needs to be done easier than other folks in the family.  I'll keep ya updated as time goes on.

The Travelogue  4/15/2012

When I last posted, the LV Highland Games was having a parade down the Fremont Experience with the Guiness World Record Caber Toss taking place.  The next day (Saturday), the LV Highland Games took place, along with lots of other Celtic stuff going on, out at Floyld Lamb Park in NW Las Vegas. The SAMS color guard was there again, starting out the festivities (see anyone from the previous parades?)

The Highland Games consist of several games:

The stone put which is similar to the shot put,

The weight throw (there's gonna be better pictures of this event if ya click on the link),and other events which I didn't take pictures of, such as the caber toss (which ya saw from yesterday), the Scottish hammer throw, weight throw, and sheaf toss.  If you click on the links, you'll see more than I can remember about them.  The LA Scots and the USMC 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing Band were there, along with the Utah Pipe Band, and the Cameron Highlanders were among the many different groups that were there to compete or take part in the festivities.  

Among the booths there was one for Clan Keith, which is where the surname "Dickson" came from.  The picture below shows the Coat of Arms for Clan Keith,

and here's a better picture of the tartan of Clan Keith.  Nice colors, huh?

We had a good time at the Highland Games.  I particularly enjoyed hearing the bands and watching them march, which I thought they did quite regally and majestically.  If any readers have the opportunity to take them in, I heartily endorse that choice. 

The end of 2011, beginning of 2012

So it seems as though I'm starting to come down with some kind of ...gunk.  Went through a few of the rest of the folks here yesterday, and I woke up with the ...gunk in my nose.  Coffee felt good going down, that always helps, right?  Hoping I'll feel better as the day progresses, got lots to do today with picking up a grandson from school and going to class in the afternoon.  

The snow here as all but gone away, although Katie and I were surprised when we took our morning walk yesterday, there was a couple of piles of snow in the park like everyone had come together to put most of the snow in big piles there.  And that was all that was left.  Maybe we'll have to walk down there next time there's a large snow to see if the kids in the area roll all the snow together for massive snow ball fights.  That'd be a reason why there would be snow left in the way it was, right?  Earlier in the week, the weather report was for fair weather in the middle of the week, but something has changed so that it's got rain in the forecast, along with cooler temps.  Not what we'd had planned for!  

Katie and Amanda have gone back into the planning stage, this time for Avery's birthday party, which will happen sometime in December.  For the time being, all the decorations from Riley's party are still up, kinda like leaving up the Christmas decorations for awhile after Christmas is over with.  The decorations for Avery's party won't be up until after Thanksgiving, and will probably come down shortly afterwards so the Christmas decorations will be there.  

The Travelogue  4/13/2012

Ok, so thinking back to 2011, the year ended with a large bang in that we went to our storage place by Katie's Dad's place to find that we'd been burglarized again.  Another blow to what we'd wanted to not abandon.  Among the things the burglars took were all of my hand tools, Katie's nice sewing machine, several items from Amanda and James' stuff, and our peace of mind.  A decision was made to take everything we had left out of there, but we weren't sure where we'd put it.  As most of the stuff there was Amanda and James', we called them and asked them if we could put it in their house since they had the room for it now.  They said yes, and we rented a truck for the December 30 (the next day) - January 3.  The next two days were spent packing at a feverish pace to get everything out of the garage and into the truck as we had reservations at the Las Vegas 1000 Trails for December 31.  At about 6 PM, we left Phelan and headed for LV with Katie driving the moving truck and me driving the moho pulling the car.  Got to LV about 11 PM, and did the best we could to not make noise as we pulled into the temporary spots in the preserve, knowing that we'd get a permanent spot the next day, January 1, 2012.  

After getting our spot as early as we could the next day, we set up, had breakfast, and were on our way up to Amanda's house to drop off all the stuff.  Got there about 10 at night, and waited until the next day, January 2, to unload the truck, which was done much faster than what it took to fill it up. In talking things over between Amanda & James, and Katie and myself,  it was decided that I'd take the truck back as we had to have it back on January 3 and I was to start work with a former associate from CLV in the next couple of days, and Katie would stay there to help make things a little more livable with all the stuff that we'd crammed into their house.  So on the morning of January 3, I loaded up myself and the doggies (remember the doggies that we don't go anywhere without?), and headed back to LV where another former associate from CLV was kind enough to pick me up where I dropped off the truck at.  This began our time in LV for a few months.  Kinda of a hectic way to start it, huh?

My work was to assist in making traffic signals in the LV area work with the flashing yellow left turn arrows, which were being installed by a lot of municipalities.  This was to last till June, when we had to be in Bear Lake, Ut., for a camp hosting gig.  We didn't do a lot of sightseeing stuff while we were there, but one of the things we did do was to go to the St. Patrick's Day parade in March in Henderson, Nv,. of which there are pictures of the parade in the above link.  Here are the pictures I took:

One of the groups that took part in the parade was Post 777 of the Scottish-American Military Society, (SAMS) of which there are a few members in the above picture wearing their kilts and regalia.  About a month later, Las Vegas hosted a bag pipe parade down the Fremont Street Experience with SAMS doing the color guard,

marching ahead of the USMC 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing Band

with the most important part of the band here.  Hint: look at the Sousaphone, not the bass drums, ok?

The LA Scots Bagpipe Band was also there, but I didn't get a good picture of them while they were marching.  But I got a few pictures of them playing on stage.

Here is a picture of the combined bands, I think they were playing "Amazing Grace" with the piper on the stage starting the beat by stamping with his left foot. 

For those of you that've heard a pipe band previously, you probably know more about them than I do.  I was amazed at how disciplined and exact they were in their showmanship and their music.  I was especially impressed with the drummers and their movements, case in point these next photos.  They looked like this when they weren't beating:

But looked like this when they were beating:

Or this:

Yes, the picture wasn't taken by a really expensive camera, but it wasn't time lapse photography either.  Very showy, and good!  I wonder how many mid-air collisions they have...

Somewhere along the lines, the Guiness World Record Caber Toss was done. on the .  In looking for videos of the caber toss, I was amazed how many there were of the same night on YouTube.  I guess I should feel honored that I was there at the time, standing mere feet away from the movie takers.  Maybe I'm in one of the many videos there.  Then again...

Ok, gotta go.  Hope you have a blessed day.

Recovery day?

Well, the day after the birthday party has come and is almost gone.  And I just about missed it!  For some reason last night, I thought today would be Monday rather than Sunday.  I admit that as a retiree there have been times that the days between Sundays have seemed like they were all Saturdays, but I don't think I ever forgot about Sundays.  And since I've hit the road, Sundays have just been more important to me than they were before.  So when I woke up this morning and remembered that it was actually Sunday, I did heave a sigh of relief.  Yes, I went to Church earlier today, and I've had a nice relaxing afternoon.  Now I'm doing something I'm enjoying using my fingers on the keyboard.  Hope you guys are enjoying it also!

The Travelogue   Mid December, 2011

After reading the post before the last one, you've probably wondered why folks might want to stay at Cherry Valley Lakes RV campground.  If I gave anyone the feeling that it wasn't worth it to go there, I apologize, I didn't mean to.  It's a great place to go as there are lots of folks that repeat their stays there all the time.  I suggest that you try it yourself when ya get the chance.

I haven't mentioned any dates lately for when these events took place, and I'm kinda surprised that no one has asked "...what was the date when were you there?"  Ok, the dates we're talking about now is the middle to the end of December, 2011.

So while we were staying at Cherry Valley Lakes RV campground, we took a day trip up to Lake Arrowhead at the right time of year when there were lots of folks there.  NOT!  There was hardly anybody there as it was cold and windy, as evidenced by this picture of yours truly:

If you look off behind me to the left and right, you can see whitecaps which might let ya know how windy it was there.  The way I'm snuggled in my jacket with my stocking cap on and my hands in my pockets might tell ya how cold it was.  We went by where the Lake Arrowhead Queen was moored, and it looked like this:

I wonder if it's heated during the winter months...  This wasn't the day for them to be out on the lake even though the website says that they run from 11 AM to 3:30 PM during the winter.  If ya haven't been there, I'm thinking that a ride on the Queen would be just fine during the warmer months; at the point that this picture was taken though, forget it.

At the shopping mall next to the lake, it looked like the recession had hit the area kinda hard as there were several empty storefronts.  Having said that, I'm not a business person, and it wasn't the tourist season there, so those empty shops may have been empty simply because it was that time of year.  I gotta say that even though there were few people here, I was actually glad as I don't always feel the need to be around lots of crowds.  So it felt cold, but good as well.   

A few days later, we went to the beach, in particular Doheny State Beach near San Juan Capistrano, Ca., to stay for several days.  It wasn't quite like the other places we'd stayed at in the moho as we'd never stayed at the beach since we hit the road.   We were given a good campsite where we were able to see the ocean out the windshield of the moho; it wasn't close, but it was visible.  The campground was nice with a lot of trees and bushes between the campsites so each one was secluded from the other ones.  If you're taking a rig there that's longer than 35', it's gonna be pretty tight, if not impossible to get into a campsite, let alone go down the road to the campsite.  Here's a look at the road:

Our moho is a little shy of 36' and it wasn't easy getting into our designated campsite.  But we made it because the road was at the correct angle to the campsite and we could jockey the moho in.  Unfortunately the sites don't have any hookups unless you're a campgound host, and the generator hours seemed to be a little short (10 AM to 6 PM) if ya wanna watch TV at night.  The weather was great while we were there, but that's because "it never rains in California"  (...Ya knew that was coming, didn't ya).  But overall, it was an excellent place to go to, and I'd recommend it anytime, especially in the winter months when there are fewer campers going there.  If it weren't for family and other mitigating circumstances, I wouldn't mind being there right now.

Have a blessed day!

...And even busier the next day, and today as well!

Yesterday, Friday the 15th, Katie and Amanda were way busy taking care of bunches of last minute stuff to make Riley's party a success.  During the evening, James and I were recruited into the process with me putting up the hardware for hanging the pinata and crepe paper decorations, and James installing a local area network (LAN) for the party attendees to play Minecraft together.  Obviously James had the technical expertise to put the LAN together while I, apparently, had the technical expertise to put up the other stuff.  Regardless, we were busy, getting done with what we needed to get done with at 11 PM.  It had been a long day for Amanda, James and myself, but even longer for Katie who did most of the work.  Here's what some of the stuff and decorations looked like:

The above boxes are Steve from  Minecraft.  The above boys are Avery on the left, and birthday boy Riley on the right.

Oh, No!  We've got to run away from the Minecraft black widow spider on the ceiling!  Run, Avery, Run!

 

 Minecraft Computer Central Control.  This is the real, important stuff, remember that.

 More decorations, balloons, Minecraft pinata, Minecraft black widow spider and other decorations, Old Guys Rule Grandpa with granddaughter.  Don't forget that old guys do rule.

And here's the Minecraft party favors, necessary items for any successful Minecraft party.  (I didn't know that!)

 The birthday boy's cake was decorated well and tasted darn good.  Gotta get some more tonight!

This morning, we got up around 8 AM and started into doing last minute things prior to guests arriving three hours later.  And before we knew it, those guests were arriving!  Added to all that excitement, snow started coming down shortly after we got up, and it was forecasted that we were to get 2" - 4" today.  So it was kinda exciting while we were getting ready watching the snow come down, but we didn't watch much as there was a lot to do.  

The guests started arriving right around 11, like they were supposed to.  The Minecraft entertainment went over so well that when the time came for cake and ice cream, several of the guests went back down to the TV room to do the game some more.  Regardless, the end result was that everyone had a great time.  That means Riley, guests, Mom, Dad, Granma & Granpa also.  And after all the candy, cake and ice cream were handed out, all 10 of the guests went home with a wonderful sugar high.  Who could ask for anything more?  

And after the guests left, it was so nice just to sit down and ...take a nap?  Actually, for some folks (uh... everyone but me!), the day continued as Riley and Avery took part in a Minecraft (what else, huh?) competition in Ogden making something that can only be made in Minecraft (obviously!).  I didn't feel like going so I stayed home and relaxed trying to do blog stuff.  James had some stuff to do at work so he left about the same time that the Minecraft competitors left with Granma & Mom.  They all just got back with the news that Riley's entry was in the top three!  Pretty exciting, huh?  I'm proud of him, so's everyone else here. 

Ok, not gonna get to the travelogue today, it's been too busy.  But I still hope you had a blessed day!

It was busy yesterday!

Yesterday morning started off with us going to Sugar House, Ut., where Katie takes her art lesson from Suzzane Jarvis.  I go along merely to accompany her and make sure things go OK for her (like I know something about art, right?) by dropping her off at the studio and then going a block away to spend the time at Barnes & Noble, to surf and read books that are there while sitting in the Starbucks coffee shop.  It worked out pretty good, except my computer battery died a couple of minutes prior to the time that Katie got out of her lesson.  That worked out OK anyway because I left B&N to go park in front of the studio and went in to help her get out.  Her time with Suzzy was good, and she'd started on a portrait of Aubrey last week and began putting some color in this week.  I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product in a few weeks.

We then hustled back up to the Layton Sam's Club to get some gas because our car was saying that it was getting rather thirsty.  This seems to happen whenever the gas gauge needle gets close to pointing to the "E".  Probably happens to everyone else too, huh?  Then to the local health food restaurant, McDonalds, for McRibs.  I think I've had my fill of McRibs for the year.  After that, we waited for 1 PM when our Tax Preparer class started.  It lasted about 2 1/2 hours, and was very insightful in how to start the process of preparing taxes for folks that seem to want other folks to prepare their income tax return.  More next Tuesday.

As Riley's birthday party is gonna happen tomorrow, Amanda & Katie are into making the house party-able with Minecraft stuff here and Minecraft stuff there.  James is going to set up a multi-player game of Minecraft for the kids when they get here.  Riley is getting more and more excited, and looking forward to Saturday at 11 AM more with every minute.  My job is to continue doing the dishes and taking out the garbage, and hanging the pinata where it needs to be hung, along with writing this blog.  I think I can handle all that, but I'll let ya know how the party goes after it's over with.  

The Travelogue   12/06/2011

When I left off, we were still at Wilderness Lakes 1000 Trails, near Menifee, Ca., but I'm hoping you didn't get the impression that we were just sitting around.  No sirree bob! In addition to the above pictures showing a couple of the activities we did, we also found a disc golf course in Temecula, Ca., called Paloma Del Sol disc golf course.  We went there two or three times as I recall while we were in Menifee, and each time, we showed great form, right?

Sometime later, I'm thinking a week, we packed up and moved up to Cherry Valley, Ca to Cherry Valley Lakes RV Park, which is part of the other RV resort organization that we belong to, Colorado River Adventures (or simply CRA).  We'd been to Cherry Valley some time prior to when we were there then, and I'd learn to not like it much simply because the campsites look like this:

The campsites were basically wide driveways with full hookups (fhu) for two RV's back to back giving enough room for the two RV's with their slides out, although ya gotta make sure they don't hit each other.  You can see that there is a strip of ground is about 10' - 12' feet wide that's shared by the two opposing RV's.  Makes for tight quarters, but there's usually a good amount of respect from everyone for everyone, so everyone lives with it.  Still the same, it's not what I really wanted in a campsite, ya know?  But it was free with our yearly payment to CRA, and conveniently located in the area being only 31 miles from Wilderness Lakes.  And once we got settled, it really wasn't that bad.   There's a nice, but small, pool and hottub,

a park nearby that we were able to walk the doggies every morning basking in the sun as we walked,

a couple of ponds (I think those are the lakes, ok?  Maybe use your imagination a little?) with ducks,

lounges for family and teens, and areas for ourdoor games, like horseshoes, tetherball, and volleyball,

I mean the place wasn't entirely bad as we talked to a few campers that were repeat campers there a bunch who loved the place.  But I gotta tell ya that the worst part of it was that I-10 is right on the other side of the wall in the above picture.  And on the other side of that are railroad tracks going alongside I-10.  If ya look at the houses on the other side of the wall, and use your imagination really hard (harder than ya did for the "lakes" above, OK?), you can imagine the sound of automobile, truck and railroad traffic coming from the area on the other side of the fence and this side of the houses.  Loud isn't it.  But, if you're like us, or the many other campers, ya get used to those sounds and sleep just fine anyway.

OK, while your imagination is still whirling, I'm gonna close for the night.  Hope ya had a blessed day.

About last night...

Last night, Katie and I went to the monthly meeting of the Ogden Palette Club, and Katie had a great time feeling that going there on a regular basis would help her craft.  The folks were friendly and there's a demonstration of different painting techniques at the end of each meeting.  On the way home after the meeting, she said that she thought she'd be joining it when the dues for everyone come around at the first of the year.  

Yesterday I mentioned the weather here saying that there was gonna be a chance of rain on Thursday.  Them folks at weather.com seem to have changed things around again by saying that Thursday is just gonna be cloudy, but we gotta watch out for the rain on Friday and Saturday, of which Saturday will be the day for Riley's birthday party.  Not sure what that'll do for the population of the party.  He's gonna do a Minecraft themed party...  how many of you readers know about Minecraft?  Do ya play it?  I'd never heard of it until we got here a little over a month ago, and I guess that there's lots of younger players (...who isn't a younger player compared to me?) out there who do Minecraft on a regular basis.  I realize that computers are the reason that games like that are so popular, and that's why I don't really wanna get involved in it.  I play one game on a computer, and it's so old that I have to use my old Compaq laptop to play it as it can't be played on newer computers: Railroad Tycoon.  Yep, the graphics and audio are lame compared to the games that are out nowadays, but I can still get hooked on it easily.  So I only break out my Compaq about once every three months, whether I need to or not, play it for a couple of days, during which time my heart rate goes up to around 150 bpm (I lie!), realize that that game is controlling my life, and then I stop.  I put the Compaq away, then wait until the urge strikes me again, etc., etc.  And that's the extent of my computer gaming.  And it's ok.  So... how many of you play the game?

Going along with the party, the preps are already starting.  Katie and Amanda are busy planning this and that, and making different arrangements in the house as well.  My talents as a curtain rod hanger are gonna be put into use later today, and the house is gonna take on a different look.  But, I'm thinking that the curtains aren't gonna be Minecraft stuff as they're gonna stay there after the party is over.  And now, I'm being told that I need to go back to the store to get more ...stuff for the party.  Sigh... A grandpa's job is never done!

Sorry no time for the travel stuff today.  Have a blessed day!

Weather anyone?

So now it's been more than a month since we got to Clearfield, and I've said a couple of times about how it was snowing.  Obviously the snow has gone away as the sun has been out many times since I reported the snow, and the temp has almost been warm enough to wear shorts.  Those of you who wear shorts in the winter, please let me know, ok?  Thanks.  I've had a hard time wearing shorts in the winter months, but I may be changing a little now because I've gone out walking the dogs when the sun was down, or early in the morning when there was frost on the ground with pants and a t-shirt on for several minutes, and been comfortable enough not to have to run in to get more clothes on.  Ya think my blood is getting thicker?  Then again, maybe it's just a short term thing.  Anyway, the weather has been nice to us ever since the snow melted.  I don't know how long it'll last, but I'm gonna relish them while they're here.  I guess that it's gonna get cloudier tomorrow because there's a 20% chance of rain on Thursday and then again on Saturday, and the low at night's gonna be a little colder.  We'll see how good it gets after that, ok?

We started our income tax preparer class today.  Didn't really do a whole lot, just set up our online student accounts for the texts, and got an overview of what the course is about.  But it was kinda exciting going there and getting the process started to earn some bucks.  Doing the tax preparer stuff will last until April 15, not sure what I, or we, will be doing after that, have to wait and see.  But it'll be good to be doing something again, meeting people and helping them out.  So, ...how many of you have someone do your taxes, and if so, why?  I've only had my taxes done once, and it was only because of some technicality and the lateness of the date (April 14!) that it was done that way.  Not sure that I'd want to do it that way again.  Just curious, I won't be asking for you to send me any private financial data; yes or no, and why is all that's necessary.

Katie and I are going to an art thing in Ogden tonight, and once again, she's excited about doing this stuff.  Which is good, I'm glad that she's able to get involved in art in a way that I know she wouldn't have been able to do if we were on the road at this time.  So this is a another good reason for us to be here right now.


The Travelogue

So, almost two years ago, we were in SoCal, right?  And the last thing I said about it yesterday was that we were playing disc golf in Victorville, Ca., at Doris Davies Park.  Did anyone get sick watching the video?  I really do hope not.  (When we were working at Adventureland in Altoona, Ia, I found out that people can get sick just watching things go round and round, and this was from other folks that worked the rides with me!  I tip my hat to them for doing that work under those circumstances.)  Were ya inspired enough to go out to your favorite disc golf course and throw a few discs?  Regardless, I hope ya enjoyed the blog entry.

Ok, the dates are kinda vague here.  I'm getting the dates from the date that my camera puts on the images when I loaded them into my computer, and I didn't take a lot of pictures for the time period of the 21st - 28th of November of 2011.  (The 21st was when we played disc golf, mentioned yesterday.)  I'm thinking that we went from Phelan to Menifee, Ca., where we stayed at 1000 Trails Wilderness Lakes.  Here's a picture of what it was like in front of our rig.  If ya see the water, it's part of a canal system that winds its way through part of the preserve.  From what we found out this year when we were staying there, it's stocked

every year just before Memorial Day.  Then everyone comes here and fishes the canals dry.  There is lots to do here at Wilderness Lakes:

• two swimming pools: one for adults only and another for families
• two lounges: one for adults only and another for families
• three hot tubs: one for adults only and two for families
• an exercise room for those 16 and over
• six horseshoe pits for all ages
• pickleball, shuffleboard, and tennis courts
• playing field
• several laundromats and shower houses
• miniature golf
• an activity center to check out the horseshoes, games, books, and movies

It kinda needs a little better upkeep, but overall, it isn't a bad place to stay.  And since it's free with our 1000 Trails membership, it's a good price.  Oh, I forgot to mention horseshoes as well.  We went to the pits one day to observe and a nice (I can't say old guys since I'm old now, ok?) guy showed us how the game is played.  Apparently, folks with 1000 trails memberships go from one preserve to other preserves playing in tournaments.  Before we hit the road in May of 2011, we were in Bend at the preserve there while there was a tournament going on, LOTS of folks with them horseshoes (imagine how many horses don't have shoes now!).  Anyway, we tried it using the horseshoes from the activity center, and can't say that we didn't do too badly.  Here's a picture of Katie throwing one.  I only have pictures of her throwing, she wouldn't

take any of me throwing.  Maybe I had really good form and she didn't want to share it with anyone, ya suppose?  Nah, didn't think so.  Having said that, I gotta tell ya that she whooped me when we played each other.  So she probably didn't take any pictures of me because she was concentrating so hard on her game.  Darn!

A couple of days later, we went to San Juan Capistrano to see the mission ruins there.  It had been a dream of Katie's for some time to be able to go to all the missions in California, and this was the first one that we were able to see.  (Several others were seen this last year while we were in California, more about them later.)  The history of the missions was intriguing, but we wish that we'd been able to see what it was like before the earthquake of 1812.  The picture below isn't the best as it's taken from the street.  If you follow the link above, or click here for images for San Juan Capistrano on Google, I'm sure you'll find better pictures.

Later in the day, we had dinner at a Mexican restaurant a few blocks away, recommended by Karen, Katie's sister.  Really good food.  No, I don't remember it.  But I do remember that I enjoyed the food.

That's it for today.  Have a blessed day.

Happy Veteran's Day!

Happy Veterans Day, everyone!  If you know a vet, please stop to shake their hand(s) and thank them for their service to the country that they've given.  They deserve our thanks.

Hope your weekend was a good one.  Didja get accomplished what you wanted to accomplish?  How about the weather, was it good for ya, or did it inhibit you from getting done what you wanted to accomplish.  I admit that at times I have used the excuse that the weather has stopped me from doing what I knew I needed to do, like take the garbage out, vacuum the carpet, or read a book.  Yeah, it's kinda far fetched, but isn't there a saying about going big, or not going at all?  So aren't those excuses good ones for going big?  No, they haven't been used a lot, basically they're saved in reserve for times I might need to have some quality couch time, or a nap, ok?

Actually, the weekend was pretty good.  No, not a lot was accomplished as was evidence by the lack of a blog post on either Saturday or Sunday.  But I had a good time with the family.  James' sickness seems to have left him and he has gone to work today.  The nasty sounding cough that he had on Friday didn't make its' sound heard again, so we're hoping that he's ok.  I did the sound tech thing at church again making the different praise songs words show on the screen, and was told that I'd do the soundboard next week.  As it's run a different way than the sound board at FPC in Las Vegas (which is now Grace Presbyterian Church), I'm a little concerned.  Also the tech I'm learning from is a former sound guy who'd done lots of professional videos prior to his retirement, and he does things a little different from what I've done before.  I'm sure it'll all turn out ok a few Sundays down the road.

The Travelogue

Going back to the traveling thing from a couple of years ago, we stayed the night at  Camp Wal-Mart in Hays, Ks., and the next morning, headed for Amanda and her family in Clearfield, Ut., where we're at right now.  Google Maps says that this is an 855 miles trip, so I doubt if we made it in one day.  Must've stayed somewhere along the way, probably another Camp Wal-Mart, just don't remember where.  We stayed at Amanda's for almost a month, taking in Halloween while we were there.  This was an important event as I got to take part in the candy filtering for grandson's Riley and Avery.  Good things the filter is small enough to stop them bite sized Baby Ruths, Butterfingers, and York Peppermint Patties, huh?  And let's face it, it was in their best interest that we were able to help them out by not having them eat all those empty calories, don't you agree?

 When we left Amanda's about a month later, we headed south on I-15 in the evening after the traffic had settled down as there was a lot of road construction going on, and traffic didn't want to settle down until late.  So it was about 8 PM when we said good-bye to Amanda and her family, and traveled to Fillmore, Ut before we got tired enough to want to find a place to stop for the night.  We pulled off at the north end of town onto route 99 and drove slowly through the town looking for a place to pull into that didn't look like it was the wrong place to pull into.  Didn't see one in the whole town, but since the population is a little over 2,000, it didn't take long before we were through the town and back to I-15.  Where, luckily, there was a truck stop that had a couple of truckers and no other RVers.  That was where we stopped for the night.

The next morning, we awoke to find snow in the hills and not far away from us, as you can see in the picture above, so you can tell that it wasn't a very balmy night.  I'm actually thinking there was ice on the pavement when this picture was taken the next morning.  In looking up information on Fillmore, we found that it was the territorial capital for Utah from 1851 - 1856.  Wow!  We didn't know we were staying in such a historic place!  

After doing some breakfast stuff, we hit the road again and  headed for Katie's Dad in Phelan, Ca., near Victorville, Ca. I don't remember if we got there in one day or not.  As the mileage is almost 500 miles, I'm not sure that we would.  But we've done more miles than that in one day before and after, so we may have done it.  The idea of going there was not only a visit, but to see if we lend him a hand around the ranch.  Ironically when we got there, we found that everything was OK with him, and our services weren't required.  Here's a picture of our property with our storage garage there, (which is next to Ken's property) with the front of the mighty Chieftain off to the left.   

We stayed there for a couple of days doing what we could at the ranch and in the area, and looking in on our stuff in the garage in the above picture.  Let me backtrack here a little.  While we were in Altoona, Iowa, we were told by Katie's Dad that our garage had been vandalized and some of our stuff had probably been stolen.  (His house is off to the right out of the picture.)  Amanda and James had put most of their stuff in the garage when they moved out of Portland, Oregon also, and that's what the garage was mostly filled with.  So looking in on what was left was definitely one of the things that we did.  I don't remember what we found missing (I guess that would be "what we didn't find"), but it was rather disheartening and disappointing.  After the breakin had occurred, Katie's sister and her husband, Karen & Bill, were kind enough to install a more secure lock on the door to the garage.  We were grateful for what they'd done and hoped for the best.  Still the same, looking in on our stuff, and the mess that was in the garage, kinda made us sick.

One can only do so many things up in the desert of Victorville, Ca., and the surrounding area, and one of those things is play disc golf, right?  Doris Davies Park DGC (This link goes to a YouTube video of Doris Davies Park, taken from a remote controlled plane or helicopter, my RC friends can tell which.  If you get motion sickness easily, you may not want to watch.  I apologize for the sickness if you watch and get a little uncomfortable.)  in Victorville has a bunch of different facilities, among them all is a nice disc golf course which I was lucky enough to have a 100' putt a few years ago.  (I think it was 100', I could be wrong.  Putting stories are kinda like fish stories, right?  It was definitely a long ways, much longer than I'm usually able to putt.)  Here I am on the first tee.  Pretty enviable, huh?  I mean for the small athletic prowess, not the extra poundage, ok?

BUT!  I do look good, don't I!

Ok, I can only stand so much self-adoration in one day, so I'm gonna close now.  Have a blessed day!

Motorhomekia blog

No blog yesterday, right?  Well, there was a good reason for that, ok?  We went to see the Utah Symphony on Thursday night to hear Vivaldi's Four Seasons, along with Nielson's Four Temperaments.  Those of you who are up on symphonic works may be familiar with Vivaldi's Four Seasons, but I'd never heard of Nielson before, so I'm thinking that you'd have to be a real music snob to know who Nielson was, let alone know of his Four Temperaments.  I enjoyed the Four Seasons, particularly Autumn as it's in a minor key and has lots of "anger" in it.  Don't know why I like angry music so much, but I do.  I enjoyed the Four Temperaments because there was a full orchestra, including brass (some of the best parts of an orchestra are the brass, doncha think?) whereas the Four Seasons was merely strings.  Aside from the full orchestra, I could've gone to sleep listening to this musical composition that seemed to have no theme to it, almost only random notes by random parts.  Having said that, please form your own opinion of Nielson's works and listen to them.  You might like them.  But I didn't like that one.

Listening to the Four Seasons reminded me of a video I saw a couple of years ago of an accordionist in a competition playing Autumn.  The young man doesn't have a lot of stage presence, but I don't think he's caring either.  Which is really ok, ya know?  The sound seems to not be exactly synced well with the video, but I'm hoping you enjoy the accordion version of Autumn.  Also think about the amount of energy expended by this guy as the bellows shake just isn't an easy thing to do.  Must've practiced it a bunch.

Yesterday, I also resurrected my other blog, Motorhomekia.blogspot.com, which was the real reason I didn't make an blog entry here yesterday.  I deleted two of the entries, and rewrote the review of the 2009 Suncruiser 35P (which may not interest a whole lot of folks unless ya wanna think about a 35' long moho) to a more objective review of the rig than I had previously.  I'm still not done with that blog post as I want to put a floorplan of it in the blog, but I haven't figured out how to do it yet.  Hopefully, sometime today.  I intend to continue doing reviews of mohos ...that I'm familiar with.  So the next one would be the 1999 Winnebago Chieftain 35U ...which just happens to be the one we have.  

I wanna give ya updates as to a couple of things here in Clearfield.  The snow is gone, the weather has been much warmer the last couple of days, although the low last night was in the 30's.  James is still somewhat sick, came back home from work yesterday.  Luckily, no one else is sick right now.  

The Travelogue

So where did we go after we left Branson a couple of years ago?  Hmmmm... let me see...

Ok, don't know where we were when we took this picture, but because it was such a rare sight, had to get a picture of this car.  Know what it is?  I didn't until I just did some research.  Go ahead, reply back to let me know you know what it is, ok?  Thanks.

As I recall, the next stop was at Carthage, Missouri where we went to the Precious Moments park and museum.  This was one of Katie's desires to see, and I enjoyed it as well.  

When Katie took a trip to the midwest several years ago with her sister, Karen, her niece, Kari, and her Dad, Ken (what a popular name!), she stopped here and got me a figurine of a little kid looking impatiently at his watch.  While I do think I'm just as cute, if not cuter, as the little figurine, I didn't think that I always looked at my watch like she says I do.  I'm just one of those people who aren't time challenged.  Yeah!  Anyway, when she came through before, there were lots of people visiting the park, but when we got there, we were told that traffic is way down since 9/11.  Not sure what the correlation is, but as we enjoyed the park, the figurines, and the artwork in the chapel above, we were sad to hear of that news.  This is another place I would suggest ya stop in to see if you're in the Carthage area.

We left Precious Moments and continued to head west.  Then north.  Then west again on.  As it was some time ago, I'm thinking that it was west on Mo 400 to I-135, then north on I-135 to I-70 where we headed west again to Victoria, Ks, particularly at the Cathedral of the Plains.  As Katie's Dad, Ken, grew up there, she had roots there and we looked around at the city, and drove the moho by the farm where her Dad grew up at.  Actually we drove the moho by it twice because we went south and looked at the farm, then went further south and did a u-turn in a wide spot on the two lane road the farm was on in the moho (this isn't to be taken lightly as moho's don't turn on a dime, ok?), and then went back north on the road until we got near the farm again where Katie got out to talk with the folks that live at the farm now, while the doggies and I stayed in the moho across the road.  We did the best we could to be out of the way, but since there wasn't much space off the side of the road, I had to hope that we didn't create too much of a traffic hazard and no police would come along while we were there.  I was lucky in that there wasn't any excitement of the type I just mentioned, and headed back to I-70 to go to Hays, Ks.  As I recall, Katie's Dad had some roots in Hays as well.  So we wandered around a little, saw Ft. Hays State Historic Site, and the Fox Theater there, then went to the local Camp Wal-Mart for the night.   

Ok, I think that's enough for the day, ok?  Hope ya have a blessed one.

Didn't blog yesterday, but today?

Hey everybody, maybe you noticed that there wasn't a blog entry yesterday, huh?  Just kinda took it easy yesterday morning, but in the afternoon Katie and I had to run a couple of errands so I just wasn't around the computer to do any typing.  James was sick yesterday, but is a little better today, but is still home today.  He's really not playing hooky, he's really under the weather.  Katie checked with an art instructor yesterday about classes and started them today, an early Christmas present for her.  She really got excited about it yesterday and afterwards, was just as excited.  I'm really happy that she's enjoying it.


The Travelogue

After leaving Clarksville, In., we headed west towards Branson, Mo., going through St. Louis, Mo.  I don't remember exactly how much time it took to get through St. Louis, but there was a traffic jam that lasted several miles east of St. Louis, probably all through East St. Louis, to a long ways west of St. Louis.  The sun was going down, and it wasn't a lot of fun trying to change lanes on the freeway, but at least it wasn't nearly as bad as it was when we went through Chicago in rush hour.  Still, it wasn't a lot of fun, ya know?

We stopped somewhere along I-44, east of St. James, to dry camp for the night.  Katie said it was at some little store, but I don't remember.  But as we headed west the next morning, we saw an unusual billboard along the road that looks like this:

Sadly, we've never seen any factory outlet and museum for whatever the factory outlet was selling.  Turns out that this Vacuum Cleaner Factory Outlet and Museum has a website (didn't know until today!) and tells a little about themselves, and a lot about vacuum cleaners, probably more than you ever wanted to know, or thought you wanted to know.  For instance, did you know that in 2008, less than 7% of the vacuums sold in the USA were made in the USA.  Sad, huh?  But thanks to this website, you'll know which ones are made in the USA, AND where they're made in the USA!  Pretty exciting, huh?  Next time we go by there, we will stop and see the museum at least.  Don't know about the factory outlet store though...

We made it to Branson in the afternoon, and as I recall it was kinda wanting to storm, but not quite.  The road to Branson was filled with lots of ups and downs where the moho would be able to speed up on the steep downhills and slow way down going up the uphills.  The campground we stayed at was several miles out of town, and it took about 20 minutes to get to downtown Branson.  Over the next couple of days, we went to the downtown area to ride the Branson Scenic Railway which took us out into the wilderness outside of Branson about 20 miles and back.  We also visited Dick's Olde Time 5 and 10 which had lots and LOTS

 of items that seemed like novelties because they were rarely thought of (at least to us, we rarely thought of those things!), and aisles that are narrow enough to allow only 1 small shopping card down them at a time.  We also went to see the Oak Ridge Boys put on an outstanding concert which just about anyone could like.  While the highlight of our time in Branson, was probably the Oak Ridge Boys, it was followed quite closely by going to the Shoji Tabuchi Theater to see the restrooms.  I'd never been into a restroom where the toilet bases were sculpted,

or the Men's Room had a pool table in it.

Obviously, after seeing opulent restrooms, we knew that we'd seen all we could see in Branson, or just about any other city as well.  And went on down the road.

Have a blessed day.