Serene Wandering

Any place named Kodachrome Basin would have to be pretty as a picture! The Eastman Kodak company gave permission to use the name Kodachrome in naming this remote Utah park just east of Bryce Canyon National Park.

Randy felt sick the first couple days we were at Kodachrome so Elko and I did some hiking on our own. These views are from my favorite hike called Angel’s Palace.  You can see Randy if you know where to look.

Randy eventually decided to be better, whether he was or not, and we enjoyed a 4 wheel drive adventure out to Grosvenor’s Arch. The road had only been open a few days after being closed for several weeks due to heavy rains.

We also enjoyed some hikes with some stellar views!

At the top of Panorama Point we enjoyed the view, and then Randy checked out our fantasy football scores from the weekend before.  He won, I lost….There was no cell or data service in the campground but there was limited  service available in town, about 8 miles away, and at some high elevations.

Once when we drove through town,  we found we had a voicemail from the Park Ranger at Farragut State Park, north of Coeur de Alene, Idaho.   After some messages back and forth, We are delighted to say we will be camp hosts at Farragut State Park, Waldren Campground, for July and August, 2015. We would LOVE to have you come and stay at Farragut, or nearby, when we are there!

We had driving adventures leaving Kodachrome! Highway 12 is a Scenic Byway – an American Road.  We have been on a few of these designated roads and they are great – or at least they are great when you don’t have a trailer behind you!  At times this one was like a ribbon of asphalt skimming the top of a high ridge. Occasional we both had steep cliffs along side! I was really glad that Randy was feeling well enough to drive!  I wish I had a picture to do it justice.  This one doesn’t.

After a beautiful, drive through Bryce Canyon National Park, we headed further west and south, avoiding that boring old interstate.   Our plans went awry when we headed into Zion National Park.  The first sign indicated that we had to pay $25 to go through the park.  That seemed steep, but we’d pay that in fuel to go around, so we were good with giving the money to the park instead.  Then we found out that we were too long (more than 50 feet) to go through their tunnels.   So…. we took an Arizona detour which added an hour to our already long travel day.  But we made it and all is well.   Live and learn!

We are having a nice stay in Pahrump, Nevada – more about that next time!

Elko is always ready to go in the truck, no matter where it is going, but this week we’ve taken him to some unique landscapes.

It began at Goblin Valley, a very remote state park in eastern Utah. We stayed only two nights as this was the first time, in 13 years of travel in our trailers, that we have gone without electric and water hook-ups. It was survivable, and we ended up being far more conservative with our battery power than we needed to be.    The first night it was so dark in the trailer (without our electric/battery lights) that the useless TV remote control pad was our night light.   Of course the good side of it being so dark was that outside the stars were amazing.  The milky way was easy to see.   Although I don’t see us camping without hook-ups extensively, to go to unique places like Goblin Valley for a few days, it was worth it.

On another day we went to hike the slot canyon at Little Wild Horse Canyon. Randy and I thought it was great but Elko wasn’t a fan.  Parts of the canyon were very narrow, as in walk sideways narrow!  After a mile or so we had to start scrambling over rocks and that was where it got really hard for Elko.  He really likes it when we all three stay together but when we decided that I would take Elko back and Randy would go on, our boy didn’t hesitate at all.  Elko was very glad to leave the slot canyon behind!

After our two nights of roughing it, we left Goblin Valley and continued on to full hook ups at a private RV park in Torrey, Utah near Capital Reef National Park. We have driven through here numerous times on the way to Lake Powell, and Moab but hadn’t spent much time here.   We had seen the petroglyphs and natural bridge on previous trips so this time we enjoyed some scenic drives, old cabins and an old homestead museum/bakery called the Gifford House.

In this area, geologically called the Waterpocket fold, nineteenth century settlers  created a community called Fruita.  The pioneers used to barter and sell the fruit to the communities nearby and their orchards remain.   We were able to pick apples, the only fruit available this late in the season, from an old orchard,  cared for and managed by the National Park Service.

If you haven’t experienced southern Utah, it is truly spectacular. We have one more stop in the area, Kodachrome Basin State Park.  We’ve been there before, but it is worth revisiting, another unique landscape!

We are in Delta Utah, a small town on the eastern edge of the Loneliest Road in America – the section of Highway 50 that goes through Nevada and western Utah.    We drove the lonely road 109 miles to Great Basin National Park, one of the least visited National Parks in the country due to its isolation.

We drove across the great basin towards the park containing Wheeler Peak and Lehman Caves and it was well worth the trip. This cave is visually spectacular and it is very intimate in that you are right next to the formations.

Along the road we observed arrays, spaced one kilometer apart over 730 square kilometers, that are part of the Cosmic Telescope Array.  This project is way too complicated for me to understand and explain but it aims to spot energetic subatomic particles from space.  It is a cooperative project among physicists from Utah State, Rutgers and universities in Japan and Korea.   There is a small visitor center here in Delta.  Who knew?

Heading northeast from Delta we visited the Little Sahara National Recreation area. We went there during the week so we only had to share the dunes with a few riders on 4 wheelers and motorcycles.  Elko loved chasing his ball in the sand.   Reportedly the place is really rolling on the weekends!  We watched some riders going straight up, and straight down very large dunes.  I was just as happy that we had no opportunity to rent a vehicle at the park because Randy would have been wanting to ride the dunes too.

Back in town we have had a mixed bag. ..

The highlight was a visit by Kent and Pam, last seen in Colorado Springs for the football game. They went from Colorado Springs to Sedona, Arizona and then stopped in Delta to spend the evening with us on their return trip to Boise.

The lowlight was speculation that we have had a mouse.   One of Randy’s new tank sensors stopped working right before we left Boise and early this week he got under the trailer to investigate.  Instead of the wiring harness, he found wire pieces that look like they have been chewed.

That initiated more than a few unhappy moments for me and we have done quite a bit of mouse hunting and mouse prevention. There is no evidence that the mouse came with us from Boise or that he got in the living space but Randy went above and beyond to try and mouse proof the trailer as best we can.  Our trailer storage spaces smell great with lots of peppermint and tree oils!

We were able to buy the obscure wiring harness (for the sensor) and all the mouse proofing supplies on Amazon. It is amazing what you can order on Amazon Prime and have delivered in less than two days by UPS and Fedex on the eastern edge of the Loneliest Road in America!

We have really enjoyed the trains that we can see and hear across the field many times during the day and night. We saw and liked the movie, The 100 Foot Journey.  We rode our bikes into town several times to eat at a yummy Mexican restaurant, to go to the hardware store (more anti-mouse supplies), and to visit the Great Basin Museum.

When we drove into Delta, we wondered if there was enough to do to keep us busy for a week.  As it turned out, there is more to do here than we have had time for.   A couple things we had planned to do, but won’t have time for are a visit to the  U-Dig quarry to find trilobite fossils and a visit to the Topaz Japanese Internment Camp site.  These are things to do on our next trip along the loneliest road in America…

Our first destination was Castle Rocks State Park. We have been here a few times and October is the perfect time to visit.  The weather is great and the scenery is magnificent!   The flies must think so too because Randy’s hobby over the last few days has been killing flies.  I guess it can’t all be wonderful.

Although all is quiet now on Sunday afternoon, it was very busy over the weekend with lots of families and rock climbers around.    In fact, the 65ish, lady camp host is a rock climber and returns year after year.  In the winter she runs an animal shelter (www.potreropups.org) near Monterrey,  Mexico.   We have visited with Dottie several times over the years.

Although we didn’t climb any high rocks, we did take some nice hikes. Elko is a sore and tired dog!

On Friday evening we drove in to Albion to go through their Haunted Mansions.   If you like haunted houses, you may want to consider this!  It utilizes 4 buildings at the abandoned Albion Idaho college.   The big old buildings would be so cool to explore when you didn’t have to worry about zombies, scary clowns and all sorts of creepy characters jumping out at you!  Actually it was still pretty fun and amazing that any town lawyer would let you wander through these old buildings in the dark, going up stairs, and down stairs, and through walls and tunnels!

Saturday evening was dedicated to a nice fire before watching the crazy Boise State – Nevada football game (BSU won). We had considered heading to Reno  to be there for the game, but we are glad we are here.   Tomorrow we  leave for Delta, Utah.

It has been a while since I’ve posted and many things have happened! Some have been sweet, and others a touch bittersweet.

I mentioned in a previous post that we had been watching the series Voyager from start to finish at the inspiration of a friend, Karen Kuklinski. Very appropriately, we watched the series finale, with her, at her house – sweet!

Last weekend we met Kent and Pam in Colorado Springs for our annual “Away Game” trip to watch the Boise State Football team play the Air Force Academy. The visit to the Academy was very impressive and interesting.  There is a nice visitor center and the iconic Chapel to tour.

While outside the visitor center a bus filled with Boise people stopped and out came friends Linda and Shannon Murphy, and Reed, Jean, Kristin and Jeff Nate. That was sweet!

The pomp and circumstance before the game with the cadets was very entertaining. Cadets (and the mascot) even parachuted into the stadium with the game ball.  Unfortunately the game was a disaster (for Boise State fans) and the trip turned a little bittersweet.  We just aren’t used to getting beaten handily by conference foes!

On the way home we had a connection in Seattle. Don’t you think Seattle is a nice logical stop between Colorado Springs and Boise?   While we were in the airport, the team we have watched all year, the Seattle Mariners, was preparing to play the California Angels to push for a 163^rd game to qualify for the baseball playoffs.  We had watched all season, it came down to one game, and we were in Seattle – at the airport!  Bittersweet!  Seattle won, but so did Oakland, so the Mariners are out – but it was a great year to be a fan.  We already have Spring Training plans in Arizona, with mom and dad, during March.

A nice consolation prize for having to fly out during the baseball game was that we FINALLY got to ride in the Boise State plane. Horizon/Alaska Airlines decorates many of their planes and some have university themes.  We have ridden in planes decorated for San Diego State, Montana, Montana State, Washington, Washington State, Oregon (several times), Oregon State and maybe even others, but never the Boise State plane.  After the bad loss at Air Force, we finally got to come home to Boise in our plane – bittersweet!

We came back from Colorado for me to work my last two days at the district office. Overall it was a very good experience and I am grateful for it. Last week I was able to spend a lunch “hour” at my old school and had a retirement cake. I worked with Connie, in two different schools, over many years and value her partnership greatly.

For a time we thought Randy was going to have back surgery and our departure would be delayed but the doctor thinks things have a very good chance of resolving on their own and we will embark on Thursday. We will travel first to City of Rocks State Park in eastern Idaho and then spend a couple of weeks traveling into southern Utah, then a week outside of Las Vegas, and then up California and Oregon to be in Vancouver, Washington with mom and dad for Thanksgiving.   We will be glad to give specifics if you EVER think that connecting up might work.

Leaving Boise is bittersweet.    When we left in June we knew we’d be back in a couple months.  When we left in June, we wondered whether we would find a place that we’d like better than Boise to settle down in when we eventually come off the road.   But it has been so nice to be back in Boise that I don’t think we’ll even look.  We’ve lived here for 33 years and will likely live here again at the end of this grand adventure, whenever that will be.  We are so appreciative of the time we’ve been able to spend with friends over the last seven weeks.

Leaving Archer, Natasha and Seth is not just bittersweet, it is hard. Randy especially has had lots of time with Archer and he will be so big when we see him again at Christmas!   They have asked us not to post pictures of him, but just know he is the cutest kid in the world!

Posts will be a little more frequent again as we start going places and doing things. Catch you on the blog-o-sphere!

Last night was the 365^th night we have spent in our trailers.  It took 10 years and 6 months to get that first year completed.    The next years should go much more quickly!

We began in our 25 foot Laredo in March 2004.  Our first trip was a week long adventure to Moab, Utah. Looking back, that probably wasn’t very smart considering how many things could have gone wrong on a maiden voyage.   But, I live by the philosophy that Randy can fix anything  and mostly, he can.

We decided right away to keep a journal of our RV adventures and have continued to do so all along.  We would definitely recommend doing that as we will frequently meander through the journal or use it as a reference to what was happening when.  I’ve even got a few Boise State football scores and records in the RV journal.    Today I found some interesting (at least to us!) statistics.

From March 2004 to October 2011 we tracked our cost per night given the purchase price of our trailer.  Our first night was $22,000 per night.  Our last night in that trailer in 2011 was $103 per night.  The experiences were priceless!  (We stopped doing that exercise when we purchased our new trailer – we didn’t want to know!)

We spent 31 nights per year in our trailer in 2004, 2005 and 2006.  Our lowest year was 19 nights in 2010.  (Randy changed jobs that year and it wasn’t very vacation friendly!)   Overall we averaged 26.7 nights a year from 2004 – 2013 – not bad considering we were both still working!

From 2004 to the present we have stayed in 63 different campgrounds and, of course, we have some local favorites.

We have stayed at Three Island Crossing State Park in Glenn’s Ferry 18 times!   It is the perfect spring and fall getaway, close to Boise when you have to leave after work on Friday.    We knew that we had been there the most, but we didn’t realize we’d been there twice as many times as any other!

We have been to Bruneau Sand Dunes State Park and Lake Cascade State Park/Ridgeview 9 times each.  Following those are Farewell Bend State Park in Oregon (7), Ponderosa State Park in McCall (7) and Union Creek Campground near Sumpter, Oregon (6).    We really like all those parks (obviously!) and recommend them to those of you in the area!

This is the view out the windows in our trailer.   (Randy says we should always have a “room with a view” in our trailer or we should move).    We are in our favorite site, at one of our favorite parks, with two of our favorite people, Darrell and Cindy.   As I wrote earlier in the year, we have been coming to these sites with them on Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends for years.   This is where we had our flood a few months ago!

The skies flooded last night during a very impressive storm!    We could see the black clouds rolling in while we were having dinner and it didn’t disappoint.   It is pleasant to hear the rain on the roof in a trailer – but you feel bad for people in tents!    In the middle of the wild storm, one of us wondered why we hadn’t gotten an alert on our Weather Radio which is intended to do just that.   Technology again!!   Apparently it still thought we were some place we had already been and already left….Randy has to figure that one out!

We can’t seem to escape the technology gnats.  In the Eagle RV park, their wifi was so strong that it was dominating our personal wifi system and not allowing us to log on.   As we prefer our secure wifi account, we took the laptop and mifi out of the park, got the laptop to log in and then left them both on and connected for the week, exceeded our wifi allowance, and were shut off for the rest of the month.  This morning our old HP laptop was refusing to wake up and play AGAIN, so tomorrow, I am off to the Apple Store for a MacBook Pro.   We have long considered going Mac but I was hesitant as I didn’t want to have to use two different computer systems and the school district uses PC – Windows.   As that situation is very shortly going away, so is the HP laptop!

I am enjoying helping new teachers and have been doing some tech stuff at work that I never thought I’d be doing.  Having dinner conversations with Randy about Java updates and pop-ups has not been part of our regular communication pattern!   I will turn in my retirement/resignation letter this week and anticipate the next month will go quickly.

Randy spent many hours replacing our grey and black tank sensors.  It drove him nuts that  the sensors would say the tanks were 2/3 full when he had just emptied them!   He had to remove the underbody of the trailer to get to them but eventually got the old ones out and a different kind of sensors installed.   We are so fortunate that Randy can do, and fix, so many things himself.  I wouldn’t want to know how much Camping World would charge to do the things Randy can do.  Plus there is the fact that this is our home, and where would we go if our home was at Camping World?

Now that the fair has moved on, we moved back to the Riverside RV Park on the Greenbelt.  The Eagle Park was very clean, and the people were nice, but the sites were very close together and it wasn’t really a good place for Elko.  Now we have the Greenbelt and can listen to the Boise Hawks game announcer if we are outside in the evenings.

Randy and Elko get to watch Archer several days this week while Natasha works.  Randy is excited, not sure about Elko!

We have had a nice first week back in Boise.   It is interesting how quickly you can go back to your normal life.  (Although this version of normal STILL has technology problems!)  Randy is working on fixing things here in the trailer and also installed a new dishwasher for our friend, Bridget.  Randy and friend Kent “crashed” book club (again) by having dinner at the same restaurant, at the same time. as those of us who read the book. We enjoyed time with Archer, Seth and Natasha.   We have not yet driven by our old house but I would imagine we will go by and see it sometime while we are here.

Randy and I have enjoyed getting together for dinners and lunches with friends this week!   Thank you to those who have invited us and if we haven’t seen you yet, we are looking forward to it!

I began work on Monday and have sympathy for those of you who work (or have worked) at a desk job!   I am use to my days flying by as a classroom teacher and that has not been my experience this week.   Of course, that may change as my month progresses and I do not want in any way to be perceived as complaining.   I am very grateful for this short-term position so I can retire instead of resign.

Much thanks to our great friend, Jonna, for taking in our mending!  I don’t own a sewing machine anymore, and neither do my mother or Natasha, so we appreciate Jonna helping us out.   It is humbling to ask someone to sew for you but I knew she was a friend who could and would.

After not golfing all summer, Randy has golfed several times this week.  He even competed in the club championship and won  3rd gross for his flight.

This morning I was able to sing with our church choir, a joy in my life.  We have enjoyed worship at churches in whatever towns we have been in but it is great to be back at our home church, Cole Community.

Another passion revs up this week!  The Boise State football team plays Ole  Miss on Thursday (ESPN).   Go Broncos!!

We left Bend on Thursday and went as far as Burns, Oregon.  Randy reminded me en-route that I had said I would drive when we got on these straight roads.  I had not forgotten, but was not going to volunteer!  As you can see, I complied.

Once there, the three of us celebrated our survival with some ice-cream!  I usually share with Elko, but he had his own this time.

We got in to Boise on Friday afternoon.   We went right over to see Natasha, Seth and ARCHER!   He just got cuter while we were gone!  Tomorrow we get to go to the fair with him and see the big animals.

This afternoon I picked up my rental car in preparation for starting work on Monday.  It feels very normal to be here, see familiar places and drive familiar roads.    There’s no place like home!

We listen to an RV podcast each week called Living the RV Dream.  It has been quite helpful for us while prepping for this lifestyle.  A couple of weeks ago they invited people to share mottos for their RV travel.  We didn’t share with them, but we came up with “Fun Will Now Commence” a quote spoken during an episode of Voyager, an old television show we enjoy.

A couple years ago we heard that friends, the Kuklinskis and VanSkivers, made it a Sunday evening activity to watch episodes of Voyager together.  Randy and I had seen a lot of episodes of Voyager years before and decided to watch the series from beginning to end.  We got the episodes first through Netflix, then by borrowing season sets from Karen Kuklinski, and now through Amazon Prime.   It was in late season 6 or early season 7 when former Borg, Seven of Nine, told the children, “Fun will now commence.”

Fun can certainly commence where we are now!  We are at the Bend-Sunriver Thousand Trails RV Resort in central Oregon.  Many RV campgrounds call themselves a resort but this is the first that we have experienced that truly deserves the title.  The place is huge and the campsites are generous. We attended a breakfast and a church service on-site.   The recreational activities abound!  We have gone in the adult pool and hot tub, played mini-golf, ridden bikes and played pickle ball.   (Pickle ball is a cross between tennis and ping-pong and was quite fun.)    There were many more activities we did not have time to take part in!

The only down sides to this park is that it only has 30 amp service and no sewer hook-up.  Most newer parks have 50 amp service and many have sewer.  We can work fine with 30 amp, we just can’t run the bedroom electric heater, the electric fireplace, the electric water heater and the microwave at the same time.   That means I have to do a little juggling in the mornings when I want to warm up and have some hot cocoa.  We do have propane systems, we just don’t usually use them.  No sewer service has meant quick showers (or showers in the pool clubhouse), a visit to the laundromat and paper plates.

Another huge thunderstorm is brewing outside this afternoon.  This is the third day in a row!  We are glad to say that we haven’t had a leak even though the rains have been torrential.   There are fires in the area so hopefully the rain is helping more than the lightning is hurting.

We are here in a golfer’s mecca and Randy hasn’t gone golfing one time.  In fact, he hasn’t golfed all summer.  The club championship is coming up at Shadow Valley soon and it will be interesting to see how he does.

This summer initiation into our lifestyle has been very good but not without some challenges.  First and foremost, technology problems are so annoying!   We want cell service, internet service and satellite service, and I am the one that doesn’t do so well when we don’t have them!  I really enjoy watching the Mariners on TV and Randy has been very patient trying to find and/or move to a spot that has southern sky access to satellite service.  (We have moved mid stay at a park 3 times, but only once was for satellite.)

Randy has decided that the most stressful part of this venture for him is trying to get fuel.  We are just so big and long that we can’t get in and out of regular stations easily.  Truck stops are our friends!  We were on the phone today talking with someone about getting a Pacific Pride card so we can use their commercial fuel stops.

Another challenging thing has been lack of recycling, something we were very diligent about in Boise.  Most campgrounds have little or no opportunity to recycle.  The best set up we have had in two months was at Dworshack State Park in Idaho.  A few have had aluminum bins, but most have nothing.  It is discouraging.

Tomorrow we will leave and begin the trek back to Boise, probably stopping in Burns to break up the long drive.  It has been fun to talk with people this week and set up lunches and pending activities.  I have been logging on to my district email almost every day for a couple weeks trying to get my mind around going back to work after wandering all summer.  Monday will come soon!

Our friend, Jonna, asked me the other day if it will seem strange to come back to Boise and not go to our house.   I don’t know – we’ll see!   Home will be the RV park in Eagle for the first 10 days.

We are very excited to see grandson, Archer – and of course, his parents –   just two days away!   Looking forward to seeing all of you Boise friends!