We're home!

We made it all the way back to Roseville by about 1 p.m. and are almost all unloaded. Good to be home. Goofy Tule was so happy to be here she rushed into the pool so she is still wet. Elsie was smarter than that. No more mishaps so far. Now we will make an appointment to take the RV in for repairs---again.

One last Scrabble game last night and I finally won! Not by much, but at least I have one game in my favor for this trip. I didn't have to be totally humiliated. ; )

When we got here, Britta discovered a flat tire on her car, so she is in getting it repaired. Then we will get Erik to do Christmas with him and she will go home and it will be quiet around here. It will seem dull after our adventures on this trip. But right now dull sounds pretty good.

Happy New Year!

Almost home

We made it to Woodburn RV Park outside of Salem last night. Britta beat me at Scrabble again, then we went to bed to be awakened by a very loud wind and rainstorm. It felt like the motorhome was going to blow over. Elsie slept through it, but Tule was really nervous. It was too loud for Britta to sleep, but Gary slept right through it with no problem.

Today we have driven through rain and clouds with very little snow in patches way off the road. The further south we go the less snow we see. Rain has been the most prevalent weather with a big squall at Roseburg. It didn't snow until we got to Dunsmuir. We are now in a very cold, but only misty Redding.

When we got to Medford we discovered we had run out of water. Evidently a handle was bumped and it drained out as we drove. I neglected to mention that we had to call a locksmith Dec. 26. When Gary and Britta were loading the RV somehow the door locked with all the keys inside. This last few days have been less than fun. Someday we will laugh about all the things that went wrong.

In the meantime, we are enjoying relaxing this evening. Even the dogs are pooped. They did a LOT of running at Mom's. The horse and Elsie made friends and would stand nose to nose to visit, but that required a lot of running down to the barn anytime someone said "the horse is out". Tule would run out with Elsie then stand at the top of the hill and watch Elsie run. Our yard will be boring by comparison. But we will be happy to be home and unpacked tomorrow.

It Happens Every Trip

Yesterday started with rain, but soon turned to snow--almost all day. We did get Mom to the bank and in to pick up her repaired hearing aids, but otherwise stayed inside and did little things for her. We undecorated her tree and got it to the basement, cleaned off the steps again and ate a lot of leftovers for dinner.

Today we got up early ready to get on the road and as Gary put up the levelers the inevitable happened. The right rear leveler wouldn't go up. But this time it wasn't the shear pin, so it needed to be cranked up a quarter turn at a time. Gary rebelled and said this time he would let Good Sam do the dirty work. So I sat on the phone for an hour and they told us someone would be out in 3 hours. At 3 hours and 15 minutes we got their follow-up call and told them nobody had arrived. So they tracked the fellow down and he showed up two hours later. Then he discovered he didn't have the correct tool and Gary discovered the automatic wrench he bought doesn't work. So to make this long story a little shorter, we left Mom's a little before 4 p.m., determined to at least make it to Portland. Since we had everything loaded, it would have been a pain to unload and stay with her one more night. Got lots of little things done for her (she "needed" a batch of cinnamon rolls, we washed towels and sheets, etc). We don't have working levelers, decided it was enough to get them all off the ground so we could get home. We've certainly had enough experience traveling without levelers in this rig. It will go back in to the repair shop as soon as we get home. I think we need to be reimbursed for the storage area it hardly ever uses. Sigh.

So we are on the road in the rain with lots of crunchy snow along the edges that is slowly melting. The good thing about the snow is that we didn't track any dirt or mud into the RV or Mom's house. Everything was nice and clean until today.

I am able to receive email again. Britta gave me a wonderful Christmas gift of a new hard drive, installed by her! Of course, it took longer than expected to save all my data to an external hard drive because my computer had a glitch. But it is now done and I am very happy to be able to get at all the emails I got while it was out of commission. I went from 40 gigs of hard drive space to 233 gigs! Very nice!

With any luck we will get home on Monday. Sure hope so!

Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve with my family (except my brother and his family because he was afraid to drive from Bend --fear of getting stuck somewhere along the way). Today we woke up to more snow falling and looking so pretty. It was warmer today, about 37 degrees, so some of the old snow was melting while the new snow was sticking. We braved the messy roads and got to see Gary's brother's daughters and their families today. It was so much fun catching up on all the news. Then came the hair raising drive out of the neighborhood in Ballard and back to Mom's. It was a great day, although Gary was ready for a nap by the time we got home.

We hope you had a super Christmas, filled with blessings from above. Happy Holidays from the snowy Northwest!

Lots of Exercise

We began the morning by stuffing the turkey and getting it in the oven. Had to haul water to the horse that Mom boards because the water at the barn froze. Then Gary, Britta and I started shoveling snow. Mom's handyman had cleaned the snow off her roof by just dumping it where it landed. That meant we couldn't move any vehicle because there was a mini-mountain of snow behind them. When Mom told us they'd plowed her driveway, she meant they didn't leave snow in front of it and scooped out the very bottom. It is a long driveway, full of 8" deep snow.

Elsie loves running around in the snow, but Tule has decided it is too cold on her feet and will only go out if we go with her. The picture shows her on Mom's patio. The barn and the pasture are such a beautiful view from her patio and family room.

There will be twelve of us here for dinner tonight for our family Christmas Eve celebration. Tomorrow we still hope to see Gary's nieces. His brother and sister-in-law decided it was too scary to drive so we are really happy we saw them in Newport on our way up the coast. We hope you have a wonderful Christmas wherever you are.

Merry Christmas!

We Made It!

After a hair raising trip from Astoria to Longview, we drove on a nice clean freeway all the way to Seattle. Didn't have to go up the coast, although the information the gas station attendant gave Gary wasn't exactly correct. He said the roads were totally clear all the way. As you can see, that isn't quite true.


We dawdled thru the morning so the roads would have more time to thaw. One of Britta's friends emailed her about the Pig 'n Pancake (locally known as the Pig and Pan), so Gary suddenly had a need to eat there. I had wonderful Swedish pancakes, Gary had his usual, but Britta had something you don't usually find on breakfast menus--fried clams with pancakes! She thought they were great, I thought it sounded gross.

We made it to Mom's with no difficulty, but once we arrived the RV got stuck in her backyard. We found some boards and between Britta and Gary it is now unstuck and the dogs are having a ball in the snow. Tule gets cold and wants in eventually, but Elsie never seems to get tired of running in it. You can see that there is a lot of snow on Mom's patio in this photo of Elsie trying to decide where to pounce.

The Coast is Clear!

As we left Sutherlin we had no idea which route we would take heading North. After several phone calls from most of our relatives in Oregon and Washington we ended up leaving I-5 at Corvallis and headed for Newport.
This photo shows the views on our route. Roads had been plowed and were not icy, but you can see plenty of snow--a beautiful sight.

We had a nice lunch at a pizza place with Gary's brother, Alan and his wife, Karen who live in Newport. We hope to see them in Seattle on Christmas Day, but it was nice to have this unexpected visit in case either of us can't get there.

We left Newport and headed up the coast--check out the sunshine and lack of snow after we left Tillamook.


We are so glad we left I-5. The snow was getting pretty thick at Corvallis and we heard Salem had an ice and snow storm today. Portland has a total of 14 inches by now and they are running out of the de icer stuff they use on the roads. There is no way we would have gotten through that. Now we just have to wait to see if we can get through Astoria tomorrow. They had over 6 inches of snow (Seaside has had none) and the roads were closed. Tomorrow is supposed to be dry and slightly warmer. If we can get thru Astoria, we plan to head up the coast to Hoquiam, then over to Olympia and up I-5 from there. My brother-in-law found some website that shows the temperature of the road beds. He is keeping us posted on the best route to avoid ice.

A very nice thing happened. The snow plow cleaned off the road in front of my Mom's house AND came up her hilly driveway and cleaned it off for her! The city and police all know Mom's age and they take good care of her. We are so happy that she actually decided not to drive in the storm! There was an accident right in front of her house last night and that scared her a bit.

So tomorrow we have high hopes of getting to Mom's eventually. It will be a long day, but should be safe. We have been very lucky so far. Thanks for all the prayers and good thoughts!

On The Way to the Storm of the Century

It may be stupid, but we decided to gamble that the weather will warm up and melt the ice before we get there, so we headed out to Seattle this morning. I thought we were leaving at 6 a.m. so I was ready, but Gary and Britta had a hard time getting up, so we left at 7:30. Gary had a really long driving day, but kept his sense of humor and got us all the way to Sutherlin, north of Roseburg, OR. by 5 p.m.! No really bad weather until just before we drove into the RV park. Then the wind and rain hit.

There was snow in the Siskiyous, but the road was clear--no snow or ice. The only problem was that the curvy roads and long day were too much for Elsie. While I was in signing up for our site, Elsie lost her breakfast. I came back to Gary muttering and Britta doing the dirty work, with a sad looking Elsie leaning against her. Now she's fine because we are no longer moving and I took both dogs out for a walk in the beautiful rain.

Right now we have no idea which route we will take from here. Portland has chains required on every road and Astoria is still getting snow. We will talk with Gary's cousin in the morning to see if the coast weather has changed to rain. I'll let you know more tomorrow night. I had a beautiful photo of the snow for you, but blogger won't let me upload it. Maybe tomorrow.

Wish us luck!

We're Back!

We're home now, safe and sound. The trip down Hiway 50 was so beautiful. The trees are healthy (unlike Yellowstone) and the American River was perfect. The only problem was that Gary forgot about how many curves there are and how the sun shines right in your eyes when you travel toward Roseville in the late afternoon.

Now the work begins--unloading the RV and doing a mountain of laundry. But the trip was worth it. One more day with Mom so she can see Erik, then she is on her way back to Seattle. We're all really glad we took this trip together.

The Gambler

We stopped in Carson City. I took the dogs for a long walk in the historical area where we found a place to park the RV,then I had lunch in the motorhome. It got too hot in the RV while I was waiting for Mom and Gary to finish gambling, so the dogs and I went for a walk and found a yarn shop. Of course, I had to buy something--my first yarn for the whole trip.

Mom had pie ala mode for lunch, then an hour later I got a call from Gary saying "how do I get her to stop?"



He kept telling her they had to leave, but she kept winning so wouldn't stop. I guess Gary doubled his money and Mom quadrupled her money.




Finally he convinced her we needed to get on the road.

The Loneliest Road

When we left Delta, UT, the RV park owner told us Hiway 50 was known as "the Loneliest Road". Then we saw the sign. It is an offical name, not a joke!

It was interesting, if boring, watching the same scenery for mile after mile. Then it got a bit prettier with trees and some snow up high.

















We finally reached our destination, Austin,NV. After driving back and forth and around this little almost ghost town, up and down hills, on very narrow, very old roads, we finally found the RV park. The lady I talked with had told me it was next to the Austin Baptist Church, but we discovered it actually was the Austin Baptist Church and RV Park. Hahahahahah!


















It
was a nice quiet evening of cards with the card shark--but I WON! Ha ha!

Such Soft Dirt

Utah was amazing, a geologists dream, I'm sure.







So many different land formations and so many different colored stripes delineating the different eras.


It was like a history lesson in dirt and rock.















The most fun part was that the dirt looked like this--full of cracks. But it was so soft for walking. Every rest stop as well as our RV park had cracked dirt that looked totally dry, but felt like you were walking on a very squishy gymnastics mat. It actually was luxury walking.

Traveling with a Card Shark

We have now hit every kind of weather. Snow on the sides of the road entertained us after we left Deb's. Since none was on the pavement and there was no ice, it was a treat to see it. There was heat and sun as we left home. Then sleet at Yellowstone, rain in North Dakota with lots and lots of mud, thunderstorm in Rapid City, SD, fog thru Nebraska interspersed with sunshine, rain at Deb's in Colorado and finally snow (but none on the pavement)! Love it! Plenty of variety.

As we drove past Vail we saw a horrible truck accident on the other side of the freeway. The traffic going toward Denver was standing still for about 5 miles. Lots of State Police were walking along letting people know and then cars were being allowed off the freeway into Vail. There were at least 2 miles of trucks sitting there that weren't allowed into Vail. What a terrible mess.


At a rest stop near Vail we saw a beaver dam. Gary had spotted several as he drove and I could never see them. When he saw this one and no cars were coming, he stopped so I could not only see it, but get a photo.








Colorado has so much variety as we drive. The mountains are gorgeous. In the valleys there is still a lot of color, then as we headed west it started looking more and more like desert.














Mom loves to play cards, so this is how we spend many evenings after dinner. She is a real card shark so usually beats me, even though this game is new to her. Sheesh!

Fun at Deb's but leveler problems

The trip to Deb's was foggy so didn't see a lot but farmland close to the roads. Stopped in a small town for lunch and the dogs spotted a cat. From then on they had to stare at each house we went by to see if they could see a cat. Goofy dogs.




Mom was delighted to see that the RV park in Kimball, Nebraska had a working windmill.
















When we got to Deb's it was raining, but she was there to greet us, umbrella in hand! We had a great visit--non-stop talking.












Scott came over with his girlfriend--he looks great and is very happy.













Dinner was a Deb Feast--more food than a dozen more could eat, all looking prettier than a 5 star restaurant.

We got up to another feast for breakfast. Couldn't figure out why Gary wasn't coming in to eat. One look at his face as he came thru the door told the story. One of the levelers wouldn't go up. We were stuck. I called Good Sam repair service (AAA for RVs) and was on hold for 45 minutes. Meanwhile Darell and Gary analyzed the problem. This was a new one--the leveler had come totally loose! So Darrell had some good heavy wire and helped Gary wire it up and we will limp home on 3 levelers. I spend another 45 minutes on hold to cancel the service call and we are on our way to Grand Junction, CO. Never dull in RV land, that's for sure. The visit with Deb and Darrell and Scott and Jamie was one of the huge highlights of the trip.

South Dakota is amazing!

We drove through the edge of the Badlands of North Dakota--just enough to give us a little taste. Then we stayed at an interesting place near Lemmon, SD where we had our first frost of the trip. Froze the hose so no water for showers when we got up. Had to use our stored water. We were the only ones there and it was fenced, so the dogs had a ball sniffing out pheasant and other fun smells.



Then it was on to Rapid City and a beautiful RV park. We dropped off the RV, took the dogs for a nice run in the fenced-in dog area, left them in the RV and drove off to explore the beautiful Black Hills.



Saw lots of deer along the roads.










Saw Mt. Rushmore--got a great side view photo as we left the park.





















Then on to see Crazy Horse where we also saw our first snow flurries of the trip. We only had 3 hours of daylight, so didn't go into the museum, just took our photos and drove on.










We did a quick run-through of the National Museum of Woodcarving. Then drove on through Custer State Park and out by way of Needles Hiway. We saw a couple of buffalo right by the road in Custer State Park.






We ate dinner in a cute place in Hill City that had buffalo heads hanging above most of the tables. We got home, walked the dogs and relaxed. We went to bed just before the thunderstorm hit--loudest clap of thunder I've ever heard. Tule dove under Mom's bed (the sofa bed) and slept there the rest of the night. Thunder doesn't bother Elsie, I guess, because she stayed on her nice soft pillow.

For those of you who know Britta--her book now has 7 five star reviews on Amazon--6 of which were written by people who have never met her. She has sold 110 copies and is now putting up Youtube clips of how to do a few of the things in the book. She plans to release one video clip a week until Halloween. Go to
www.eerieelegance.com
to get to her book on Amazon to read the reviews or to see the youtube clips. They will also be on iTunes. She sure is pleased with the success of her first book.

Our day in Plaza

It is so funny to hear my cousin talk about the horrible traffic here nowadays. He says, “you have to look both ways, sometimes 3 ways before you can drive!” If we saw three cars or trucks in a mile, that meant it was a lot of traffic. They are used to being totally alone on the roads. The roads are dirt and gravel and the county maintains them by regrading twice a month. Denny drove 50 mph over washboard bumps. He had a 4 wheel drive Jeep and we drove right out into the fields and zoomed along over lots of bumps. It was amazing.






Mom had so much fun showing us all the interesting things around here. We saw the farm Dad grew up on, the farm where she was born, the school where she taught briefly, lots of oil wells including two that belong to my cousin. One of his oil wells is on land my Dad sold very cheap to my uncle and Denny bought it later. Mom said, “this could have been my oil well if Palmer (my Dad) hadn’t given his land away.” The ND inheritance was always a bone of contention between my folks. Dad thought they should just get rid of that “worthless” land. Mom said, “you can do what you want with your land, but I’m keeping mine and someday it will be worth something.”



It is very interesting to see how they seismograph the area, then set up stakes where they will drill the wells, then the set up of the drill. Then finally they have the pump in and you will always see a flame where the natural gas is being burned off. There is no infrastructure to use the natural gas--no pipeline for it. So it is just being wasted by a very pretty flame that is burning it off. Someday they hope to have a pipeline for the natural gas, but for now the oil is more important to the companies and they are having trouble keeping up with putting in the oil pipelines.














Looking in the phone book was a hoot--Plaza has 2.5 pages of names, Parshall has 5 pages, and New Town, where Denny and Sandy now live at the “lake house” more “in town”, has 10 pages. They really went big time when they moved from the farm in Plaza to New Town, but they really don’t like all the “traffic”.

Something that really bothered me was that all the wonderful old farm houses are not taken care of. Instead of fixing them up, they burn them and bring in a double or triple-wide “modular” home (we used to call them mobile homes). Nobody is a builder nearby, and they love to have their new home go in instantly, so ‘modular’ it is. There are some beautiful old houses that are going to ruin because they prefer the modular homes to working on fixing the old ones.

My Mom is a pie addict. We drove 40 min. to get Juneberry pie. Mmmmmmmm good! Not only had we never tasted Juneberries, but had never heard of them. They grow wild in ND and are worth the trip just to taste them. They look like a blueberry but taste more like a blackberry or marionberry, very few tiny seeds. Yummm. On the way back, a new hatch of bugs hit the CR-V windshield. Sounded like a sudden rainstorm, but when it ended the windshield was covered in dead bugs and no rain in sight.

Gary got a real education when we went out to dinner in the nicest restaurant around, the Scenic. It served basic food in a room that is very basic. I can’t think of any place I’ve ever eaten that looks like this in the Sacramento area. We have eaten out at 3 different places here and all serve the pop in cans. I haven’t seen one tablecloth. The food is good, but very plain.

The wind is something else. Always seems to be blowing hard. I can see why you would never want to have a haircut that had to be just so if you live here. You not only need wash and wear hair, but a cut that can blow and still look decent.

Montrail County, where Plaza is located, is a very patriotic area and very Republican. A high percentage of the kids go into the military from this county. You see a lot of American flags flying on the farms. My cousin commented that he feels very fortunate to have grown up in the small farming community of Plaza. He’d never want to live anywhere else. Everyone knows everybody and they help each other. I can see the attraction. I know the snow is hard, but they don’t mind it. At the Høstfest we met more than one person who had moved back to Minot from California when they retired because they like the warmth of the people in the area.

So for all of you who wondered why in the world we’d want to see North Dakota, we are so glad we came and we loved every minute we were in the state.

Family Time

We are now in New Town, ND (beyond Plaza and Parshall) at my cousin's. They are such a fun family. We had a great dinner with most of their family--lots of joking and laughing and old stories. The excitement was getting to their house.




It was raining--and you know how much I love rain--I actually hope it stops. There is concern that we won't be able to get out of here if it doesn't dry up. The last several miles to their house is hilly dirt road. It was pretty slippery getting into their dirt driveway.









After dinner we had a singalong. Sandy can really play the piano and has a zillion of the really old songs Mom loves. It was such a great evening.




Then we went out to the RV to go to bed and found that the sky light over the kitchen sink leaks--a lot. Guess what Gary gets to do today while I wash rugs and towels that are soaking wet?

Høstfest!

The Høstfest was fantastic! There was so much information, so many displays, so much to buy. It is held at the Fairgrounds in Minot. A very talented woodcarver has made many, many woodcarvings that are spaced out all over the venue.

I had to take a photo of the troll with a fish.














The carving of Myron Floren looks just like him.









Gary got to taste his first Walleye. Most of the food booths are run by the area churches and there are a lot of churches. You can buy lefse at many booths as well as several push carts. And, yes, there was a church that sold a Lutefisk, Swedish meatball and lefse dinner that Gary and Mom both said was fantastic.

One thing that probably shouldn't have surprised me so much is how many tall blond people are here. I usually can find Gary easily in a crowd. Here he seems to be just average and I feel kind of short. And I kept seeing people who looked like friends and relatives. It is that Scandinavian look that we don't realize is as predominant as it really is until you get a lot of them together.

Today we drove around Minot trying to find homes our relatives lived in. We couldn't find my grandmother's house, but did find my Aunt and Uncle's former house. Then we found something wonderful.


Minot has a Scandinavian Heritage Center that is just amazing. There is a recreation of a Stave church as well as a couple of buildings that were moved to Minot from Norway.And note the size of Gary next to the Dala Horse.














It was another great day. Tomorrow we'll see my cousins.