Cascade Lake, Cascade ID 7/3/12 - 7/5/12

We made plans to meet up with Jill and her family in Cascade and go camping over the 4th of July.  We had been in Emmett for two months, so it was time to hit the road again!

We got a great campsite and backed in so we could see the lake out our front windows.  It was a double site so the kids got right next to us.  We stayed for three nights and had a great time.

This picture doesn't do it justice, but the evening view over the lake from our front windows was great!

We had the pontoon boat and went out in it several times.  Kamber and Boe look a little chilly riding in it on this day!

Jill caught the "record fish" while we were there!  She was pretty proud of it.

We met up with Jill and Dan's old neighbors from Rexburg, Emillee and Jared, and their family.  We sat with them on this beach and watched the fireworks.  It was a really good show.

Boe is with his neighbors, Orion and Jackson.

Kamber and neighbor Wynne are floating in their raft.

Jill really enjoyed this part of the day!

Home to Emmett 5/1/2012 - 7/1/2012

We made it home in time for me to help with our local Primary Elections. It was great to work in the elections again and to see some of the home-town people. 







Last year just before we left Emmett, Terry let me buy a used quilting machine and frame. I didn't even have time to try it out before we left, so I was kind of anxious to get home and try it out. I make quillows for each of our grandkids when they turn 12, so I had two of them to do this summer. It was so much fun to quilt them on the machine. The first one, and also the second, were far from being perfect, but hopefully I will get better the more I use it.

We got together with the Howards at the City Park a couple of times while we were home.  Here is Terry with his brother Ronnie and wife Alice.

Here is a picture of  Terry's sister Lolita and hubby Bob, brother Verel, and cousin Teresa with hubby Shawn and daughter Madeline.

This is Brother Ron's family, son Matthew and Stephanie.  Their son Mason by Ron's grandson Brandon.  Also daughters Michele and Sherry.

Here is Lolita's daughter, Teresa, with daughters, Brinley, Madeline, and Isabelle.

Matt is going down the slide with his sons, Mason and Logan.

My sister, Lorrie joined us for lunch, even though she was on EMT call.  She ended up getting called out, but got back in time to eat.

Lorrie's swing that sits on the carport keeps getting blown over by the wind and so the top got all ripped apart.  We picked out some fabric and I made a new top for it.  It actually turned out pretty good.

Lorrie has two cats that live with her.  They are always bringing their little "gifts" up to the front and back step.  Sometimes they will bring a mouse or a snake--sometimes alive and sometimes dead and half-eaten.  Terry found one of their "gifts."

Our big project for the summer was to pave our driveway.  We had been thinking about doing it for the past several years.  It turned out pretty nice. We will have it sealed in September and it will look a lot smoother and won't scuff up like it does now.

We paved it clear back to our shed.  They scooped up all of the washed gravel we had on it and piled it back in the shed.  We shared most of it with our neighbors.  Hopefully, this will make it so there will be a few less weeds for Lorrie to keep up with!

Sarah's, Shay's, Hot Springs, Garland UT 4/22/2012 - 5/8/2012

We had fun parking in Sarah & Ryan's driveway for a few days--we fit a little better with our Journey than we did with the Condo!

We got there just in time for Lindee's 4th birthday. She loves the story of "Tangles" so Sarah made her a "Tangles" cake and I got to help decorate it!   It turned out to be a masterpiece, with Sarah and Jenna's help.

Ryan & Sarah with their kids, Jenna, JT (now sometimes wanting to be called John), birthday girl Lindee, and Luke.  What fun to get to share a granddaughter's birthday!

While we were in the Salt Lake area, we took time to go car shopping.  We ended up with a little Dodge Neon.  It is strange to have a car again.  But, I must say, the Scentsy sign looks rather good on it.  At least no one will laugh at us any more for carrying just bicycles on our car dolly!

This is where I turn over the Journey to Terry and I drive the Hippo towards home.  I told him to remember that he could not put the Journey on cruise and go back and make himself a sandwich or anything!

Since Sarah's other kids were in school, we grabbed Lindee and took her with us.  This is the first time she has spent the night anywhere without Mom and Dad or any brothers or sister.  She did great.  She got a little sad the next morning so we let her call Mom.  We didn't know until later that Sarah was at the school helping out in one of the kids classrooms, and Lindee just left a voicemail!  We thought she acted a little funny as she was talking, and she finally just hung up! 

Here is a "bathing beauty" getting dried off after swimming in the hot springs pool.  She is a little fish in the water!  We had lots of fun with her.

Sarah and the rest of the family came that evening and stayed with us until the next morning when we headed to Idaho Falls to Shay's for Tyson's baptism.  We broke in the Journey pretty well and found out there is plenty of sleeping room for eight!

We are so proud of Tyson for making the decision to be baptized into the Chuch, and of Shay for being worthy to baptize him.  He is the last one in Shay's family to be baptised.  Boy, the kids sure grew up fast!

Tyson's cousins, JT and Luke, are happy and proud of Tyson, too.

We got a chance to stop at Malad City, ID, before we headed back to Emmett, and visited with my Uncle Dan and his wife Joyce.  They have such a nice place, out a ways from town.  They have lots of deer and animals come right into their yard.  Uncle Dan is my Dad's older brother.  He and one other, Uncle Bill, are the only sibblings of my Dad's left.  It was so good to visit with him and catch up on their news.

Well, I guess our season is about over and we are headed back to Emmett for a couple of months. 

Wahweap, Lake Powell, Page UT 4/12/2012 - 4/16/2012

We hadn't gone to Lake Powell for several years, so we decided we would go this year.  We get to stay here through our Camperworld membership in Utah.  It is always amazing to us because they give us a receipt for payment when we arrive.  This year it was over $300 to stay one week--all paid for by Camperworld, in which we have a lifetime paid dues membership.  This is just one of the reasons we can afford to be full-time RVers!

  

They have nice clean sites and the trees are getting a little bigger each time we go there.  When we came into the park through the Ranger Station we were pulling our car dolly with just our bikes on it.  The Ranger said, "Looks like you lost your car."  Terry pointed out that we had our bikes back there.  The Ranger just shook his head and said, "Well, I guess I can tell you to just go 'park and ride!'"  He seemed to think it was pretty funny.

 This is the view out our window above our sofa.  It was great!

We rode our bikes to the big marina where people rent spots to moor their boats.  Some of them moor them out in the middle of the lake and then they bring their dingeys or jet skis to ride out to them.  I think it costs a lot less to do that.

We talked to some people who had their boat moored at the marina and they said that lots of times they come and spend some time there and don't even take their boat out, especially with fuel being so expensive.  It is just kind of like being in an RV park (but a little closer together).  They have water, sewer, and power hook-ups.  They have guests come and they just get out the barbeque and let the grandkids play in the water around the boat!

A lot of these cannot be called "boats."  They are big houseboats and small yachts!  It would have been fun to see inside some of them.

 Terry and I picked out our favorites.  This was one of mine--one of several!

 Terry's favorite was this "yacht.! 

 It was beautiful and sleek and had three levels on it.  He would look pretty good being the skipper!

 It was interesting to see how most everyone coiled the ends of the ropes along the dock.  It made everythink look nice and neat.  I don't know if they did it because of how it looked, or to keep people from tripping over all of the rope ends--maybe both.

Well, when we left Lake Powell, Terry finally got brave enough to let me drive the Journey.  I drove for about two hours.  We kind of went the back way when we left so I got some good experience driving on some pretty narrow and winding roads.  Needless to say, I am sure Terry was happy to take over the driving so he could relax the rest of the trip.  I do enjoy the passenger side better, but at least I will feel a little more confident when I have to drive.  We are now headed to Sarah's home in Grantsville, UT.

Verde Valley, Cottonwood AZ 4/12/2012 - 4/16/2012

We finally made it out of Lazydays RV Park.  It was so fun to drive in the Journey and I am so glad that Shay came and got the Hippo so I could ride with Terry.  It drove just fine--in fact, Terry thought it was a little boring because there were no gears to shift or exhaust brake to keep turning on!

 By the time we got to Verde Valley, our next Thousand Trail park, Elaine and Larry had already been there for a week and a half. They had gone and seen a lot of sites, most of which we had done in the past years.  But we got to visit with them.  We actually hit a craft sale so we even did Scentsy while we were there for the rest of the week.

 One place we did go with Larry and Elaine was the Tootszigoot National Monument.  We had been there before, but it was still fascinating to me. 

 I think it would be amazing to live back in the days of these people who had such a simple, but industrious life.  They figured there were about 250 people who lived in these dwellings at one time.  Most of the rooms were built in tiers on this mountain and got into them by ladders coming in from the ceilings.

 There were some ancient rock corn grinders in one of the rooms, so Elaine and I played "ancient women grinding corn!"

 There was an add in the clubhouse for a car dolly for sale, we went and looked at it.  It was in good shape and the price was right, so we bought it.  Our neighbors kind of laughed at us after we mounted our bike rack on it!  They told us to expect some funny looks from people.  We did--the ranger at the gate coming into Lake Powell the next day said "I think you may have lost your car!"  Terry told him to look a little closer and told him that the closest thing to an automobile we had were bicycles.  The Ranger said, "Well then, I guess I can officially tell you to go park and ride!"

When we left Verde Valley, we also parted ways with Elaine and Larry.  They left to head towards Oregon and we left to go towards Utah and Idaho.  We had a really good time traveling with them, and also with Elaine's sister, Fron, for a while.  They are fun to travel with and were always ready and willing to do anything we suggested.  They hauled us around in their nice little car and Elaine even put up with Terry giving her a bad time once in a while!  We will look forward to seeing them again this July at McCormick Park on the Snake River in Hells Canyon.

Life is a "Journey" 3/31/02 - 4/12/02

We had been kind of looking at motorhomes.  Terry really wanted one.  They are so easy to set up and get around in.  We have been living in a 5th wheel for 5 years and maybe it is just time for a change!  You only live once, right?

So, we moved to the "transition lot" at Lazydays RV where they bring your new RV right beside you with the doors across from each other.  We knew that everything in our Condo would not fit, and that we couldn't tow our Hippo behind because it is too heavy.  So, we flew Shay down from Utah (he was there with his family going to General Conference) so we could load some stuff into the Hippo and he could drive it back to Sarah's house in Grantsville.  That way I could ride in the motorhome with Terry (I think he didn't want me driving the Hippo through Phoenix!)

After we went to pick up Shay at the Phoenix airport, we stopped and saw Travis and family, ate dinner with them, and headed back to Tuscon.  About 10 miles from Travis' house, the Hippo quit on us.  We ended up having it towed to a garage and spent the night at Travis'.  The next day they put a new water pump in the it!

We made it back to Tuscon that day and spent all afternoon and evening loading the Hippo with all of our excess "stuff"--seven totes full, three chairs, golf clubs, Christmas tree, dehydrator, popcorn popper, printer, black garbage bag full of clothes (all Susan's), generator, air compressor, and more!  I can't believe we had so much "stuff."

 Our little Winnebago is a 2001, 32", Journey.  It is a diesel, which Terry is very happy about, and the previous owner, plus a couple of other people we have talked to with one, say that it is supposed to get at least 10 mph!  That is way more than we hoped for.  We will see!

 It has two slides that only go out about 2 feet.  Not quite half the width of the dinette booth and the fridge slides out, and the closets in the bedroom slide out.  That gives us enough room to make it fairly comfortable to get around inside.  (A little different from the Condo, but it works!)

 They went through the Journey and checked everything out.  It needed one new front tire (we bought a matching one for the other side), it needed new awnings over the slides, a new microwave, and a new windshield on the drivers' side.  Well, they only got windshields in on Wednesday, so we had to wait for that.  Then when they put it in, the other side broke (it had a crack in one corner) so they had to order another one--which wouldn't be delivered until the next Wednesday!  So, they put us up in their RV park that is part of the same property as the sales and service.  It was very nice, but we were there in Tuscon for a total of 12 days!

 We ended up taking a driving class because we had the time and they gave it right there at Lazydays.  It was really good.  Now I just have to convince Terry to let me try driving!

 Another nice thing is that they replaced the old broken microwave with a nice new convection microwave.  I had told them that I couldn't live without a convection oven and I wanted to swap out the one in the Condo.  Well, they ended up giving us a new one.  I told our service man that I would make him cookies, which I did!  These pictures are all taken before we moved in, so it looks really nice and "empty."  Believe me, it does not look that way now!

 It is different having a bathroom that you can have total privacy taking a shower and brushing your teeth (which is important to me).  In the Condo, the shower and sink were just part of the bedroom.

Terry is testing out the bed.  He decided it was fine after we got our memory foam mattress on it.  There is almost as much closet room as we had in the Condo, but not as many drawers.

Well, you have had the grand tour of our new home, the little Journey.  We are excited and happy with our change.  Terry has promised that we will take it back East this fall, which is a trip I have been wanting to make.  All we have to do now is find a little tote car to pull along behind us and we will be set to go.  Who knew that life was going to take us on this Journey!