WOW!  In checking the last entry in my blog, I can see that it's been about a year since my last entry!  Betcher wonderin' why it's been so long, huh?  Lemme' see here...  Would ya believe that I've been busy?  How about would ya believe that I didn't have good internet access?  How about I just didn't feel like it because there were other things that I wanted to do more?  How about all of the above?  

The last post had us getting Katie's Dad, Ken, into a different care facility for him.  It was a good place with good folks in it, and Ken seemed fairly happy in it as well.  However, a couple of weeks after he got there, he fell out of bed and broke his hip.  He had the hip repaired, but his health had started to decline by then, and he passed away on April 16th.  Katie and I stayed at his place until the end of April when we had to leave for a job at Red Stone Cabins in Kodachrome Basin State Park, near Bryce National Park, in Utah.  We got most of his stuff sold or taken care of with help from Katie's brother, Ken, her sister, Karen, and her brother in law, Bill, so when we left there was very little remaining to be taken care of.  

The job that we went to was at Red Stone Cabins where we cleaned the six guest cabins, and worked in the camp store for both the guests there and the campers who were camping at Kodachrome Basin State Park campground.  It was a paying job that lasted for five months, which was a good point.  One of the bad points is that it was a 200 mile round trip to go to a grocery store like Smith's or Walmart.  There were closer markets, but I think we were spoiled for certain items and really wanted those things at times.  

While we were there, the town of Tropic, Utah, which was about 14 miles away from where we were staying, had its' first farmer's market.  Or it attempted to do so at least, as there were several other events going on in other places that took a lot of the folks away from Tropic.  What's more, it was held early enough that there was no produce that any farmers brought to the market.  As Katie's been painting for some time now, she finally decided to come out of the closet and try to sell her paintings.  Within the first ten minutes of the market being open, she'd sold two of her paintings, and had a commission for another painting!  As there were very few folks attending the market, it was a blessing that she sold what she did, but that was all she sold also.  Still the same, she's a professional artist now with business cards and a website (www.katiedickson-art.com), and hopefully some tax deductions as well.  

We ended our employment at Red Stone Cabins in the end of September thinking that we'd be starting work at Amazon.com in Fernley, Nv., at the first of October for the Christmas season.  That didn't quite happen as business wasn't quite what they'd planned it to be, and they didn't need us until the 2nd half of October. With that much time available, Katie found out about an art festival in Escalante, Ut., which is about 43 miles NE on scenic hwy 12, and decided to take part in it by competing in the plein air competition.  While, she didn't win anything, her painting sold which was another feather in her cap.  While we were in Escalante, we stayed at the Shooting Star RV Park, which was an outstanding place to stay.  There are several (vintage?) Airstream travel trailers which the owners rent out, in addition to several RV spaces available to folks like us.  The biggest thing they have is a drive-in movie screen which is used three nights a week showing movies.  AND there are vintage cars that you can sit in to watch the movies for that extra nostalgia feeling.  Excellent place to stay if ya happen to be going to Escalante, or to the area.

We were due to be in Fernley, Nv., on the 19th of October, so between the time we left Escalante and needed to be in Fernley, we spent time with Amanda and her family.  We got to Fernley on the 19th to get ourselves all set up for which Amazon had no trouble paying for.  We had a week of training, and then started working for real.  While it was much harder work than just about anything we'd ever done previously, working for Amazon.com has many perks, among them paying for campground rent and getting good pay, and being treated fairly good also.  We walked several miles each day in a 500,000 square foot warehouse stowing items in bins that other folks would come along and take out so they could be sent to the Amazon.com shoppers.  Had to do stretching exercises every morning and after lunch, and also had to do mandatory overtime several weeks making for a work week of 50 hours.  Met some good people, most of whom were about our age or older, but there were a few that were much younger as well, all of them living in their RVs for the season.  Although it snowed in Fernley last year, it didn't snow this year while we were there, although it did get down to 9 degrees one night, and wasn't always a whole lot warmer.  

On the 18th of December, we left Fernley to travel almost 500 miles south to Redlands, Ca., so we could see Jeff graduate from Teen Challenge Ministry Institute, and move him to his new residence at Benedict Castle, in Riverside, Ca., on the 21st.  On the 22nd, we left southern California again traveling 700 miles north to spend the next two weeks with our daughter and her family north of Salt Lake City celebrating Christmas, New Year, and the 2nd birthday of our granddaughter, Aubrey.  On the 4th of January, we left Salt Lake City to take Jeff back to his new job, which he started on the 5th.  There was WAY to much traveling being done in the last month.  Glad to be in one spot again.

So we picked up the moho out of storage in Cherry Valley, and drove it about 30 miles to Menifee, Ca., ending up at Wilderness Lakes Campground, which we've been to several other times.  Wilderness Lakes has water ...for lack of a better term, ditches that run through a little of it, and it's stocked with fish, and is used by ducks, geese, and other birds (The website calls them canals... But they're really ...ditches, ok?)  We've never camped by the water, but thought about it this time because there was a couple of spots open by the water when we were picking out our spot.  

Let me back track a little here to say a little bit about the geese that are here, which are Canada geese.  When we hit the road in 2011, we worked at Adventureland amusement park in Altoona, Ia, which had several water features in the park, which attracted the geese as well as other water foul.  I hadn't thought much about them, but found out that they're more than a little vocal at times.  What's more, when they would be on the track of the park's train which circles one of the lakes, them geese would just sit on the track like they owned it, and then get up and out of the way only to make sounds which, to me, sounded much like someone muttering nasty little mutterings at the train driver ...which was me.  Strangely enough, even though three years have passed since we were exposed to them, those birds haven't changed at all, even though we're some 1700 miles away from Altoona, Ia, the same thing is still happening with those geese! 

We became reacquainted with how vocal those geese are on our first night at about 10 PM when they started holding several discussions on ...politics I'm thinking right next to our rig.  When one discussion would end, ducks would immediately quack as if they were saying "ha ha ha!", and this happened several times over the course of an hour or so.  I don't think that they solved any problems with their discussions though as when I got up the next morning, our political situation was still the same.  Since then, they haven't had those discussions near our rig, and I'm hoping that they've been holding them elsewhere, and they'll continue to hold them there.

Ok, so I've brought y'all up to date.  Don't know when I'll be blogging again, but as we're supposed to be doing more traveling this year, I'm hoping to keep myself busy with various projects, blogging included.  Have a blessed day.

Charley