Roadbound

Finally an update

2011-07-10T12:34:00.000-07:00

Well, we've procrastinated long enough -- its high time to post what's been happening with us over the past 6-8 months. So here is a recap of our happenings, adventures, and wanderings since our last post while we were at the Flying X in Texas:

* We spent an enjoyable fall volunteering at Bacones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge near our kid's place in central Texas. We headed back to Yuma in late October to begin our 8th winter there.

* Shortly after arriving in Yuma we had the opportunity to finally purchase a lot in the Los Amigos community, where we've been renting for the past 6 years. When all the smoke cleared after the purchase, we decided to rent out the lot we'd purchased, and to stay on the lot we've been renting -- I know it sounds bass-ackwards, but it works for us. Our good friends Wayne and Teena will be taking good care of our lot next season.

* We spent another wonderful winter cycling and spending quality time with our Yuma friends. We got back into cycling shape riding with the Foothills Bicycle Club, and managed to get in several metric centuries (100km), as well as a "genuine" century (100 miles) -- of course we went to lots of potlucks, parties, and some full-moon gatherings in the Gila Mountains. We didn't do any cruises or take any longer bike trips as we had in previous years, but we did find time to do a Christmas trip to Laughlin, as well as return there for a bike/hike trip in March -- and also accomplishing our second ride up to the mining town of Oatman.

The hardy group that rode to Oatman

* During the winter, we decided to return to the Black Hills for Summer 2011, to work at the Spearfish City Campground. Its the same place we stayed last summer when we volunteered at the D.C. Booth Hatchery, but this time we'd be doing camp hosting (and getting paid!). We'll be working at the campground with our friends, Fred and Kathleen, but will also be right next to our friends who are returning to the hatchery. We'll also be able to take advantage of the great bike riding up Spearfish Canyon.

* We left Yuma in mid-April, heading for Texas to spend some time with our family there, and to get in a few weeks of volunteer time at Balcones Canyonlands NWR. We had a few medical items to take care of in Austin and Houston, and our stay in Texas was very enjoyable -- particularly getting to spend time with our sons and their families. We realized that its important for us to try to spend more time with our grandkids as they are growing up, and to be there for their birthdays and soccer games and other family activities -- so, It looks like we'll try to spend time each spring and fall there for the foreseeable future, staying and volunteering at BCNWR, which is only about 15 miles from their place. This will allow us to see them often, participate in their activities, but still have some work to do and a place to park the motorhome.

* In mid-May we arrived back in the Black Hills, after a quick stop in Denver to see relatives, and got settled in at the Spearfish City Campground. We work here about 30 hours per week and have a beautiful campsite with all the amenities - including our own cable TV/ modem connection (great for keeping up with the Tour de France). We plan on staying here through the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in August, and will hit the road, heading for Texas after Labor Day.

Not much else is new -- the motorhome is running great, and the car is holding together for another season. We did purchase a new tire pressure monitoring system (TireTracker) before we left Yuma, which has performed flawlessly on our trip north. Our son Brian scored a Verizon 4G MiFi for us which we will activate as we leave here, so we've taken an additional step in internet communications ability. We also recently upgraded our phones to HTC Android ones, also on the VZ network. We're still sorting out all their capabilities and downloading all sorts of apps, but we'll get the hang of it pretty soon. If nothing else, we'll wait until we get to Texas and let the boys sort it out for us.

That's about all for now -- I'm sure we've forgotten something, but I guess that's what happens when you wait this long to put it down in writing. We'll try to be better on our blog updates after this absence -- maybe even try to update them directly from our phones, now that that's an option.

Relaxing on our deck at Spearfish

We're still around

2011-02-25T10:37:00.000-07:00

I guess you can say that we took a bit of a break from blogging over the past six months -- but we plan to get back to it soon. We're spending the winter in Yuma again this year, and enjoying it as usual. We'll post pictures and details soon. Check back soon.

At the Flying X

2010-09-01T13:57:00.000-07:00

On Sunday we finally arrived at Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge for our volunteer assignment. We’ll be here for the next two months, and although we’re just learning about the Refuge, we wanted to share our home at the Flying X Ranch.
As background, BCNWR was established in 1992 to protect the habitat of two endangered bird species – the Golden-cheeked Warbler and the Black-capped Vireo. It is made up of a number of tracts of land which have been purchased since the refuge was established. It currently contains approximately 20,000 acres, but its potential size (based on additional purchases) could approach 70,000 acres.
One of the earlier acquisitions of the Refuge was the 2000 acre Flying X Ranch, located just off FM 1184 approximately 10 miles south of Bertram, Texas (see map). From what we understand, it was originally acquired and built in the late 1960’s as a “Hill Country residence” by a family from Houston, and even included their own private airstrip. The main ranch house is approximately 4500 square feet and, although dated, is still in pretty good shape, and is used by researchers and other visitors to the refuge. It is located on the crest of a fairly significant ridge, and the 360 degree views of the Hill Country are awesome.
Our RV pad is located adjacent to the house, and we have access to all the facilities in the house. The only downsides are that the wind blows a bit up here (but that’s pretty welcome given the almost 100 degree heat), and that its about 20 miles from here to the Refuge headquarters. However, we have a been assigned a 4WD Blazer to use for all of our volunteer activities, so the Interior Department is taking care of our commute.
The other big advantage of this location is that its only about 20 miles south of our kids (and grandkids) in Liberty Hill. Since we only have to work 3 days a week, we’ll be able to spend plenty of time with our family.
Enough narrative – here are some pictures of our place (double-click on any of them to enlarge) :

The entrance gate to the Ranch

The ranch house, our Phaeton, and Texas skies

Hill Country views from the patio looking south

We’ve even got our own weather station
(station MTS899 on weatherunderground.com)

We’ll be posting more pictures of our family and the refuge as soon as we get settled in.

South Dakota, Montana, and beyond

2010-08-25T14:04:00.000-07:00

Its probably about time for another installment of what's happening, where we are, and what we're doing . . . . . some of it is generally according to plan, and some of it is a bit spur-of-the-moment -- but let's get to the specifics --

In late July, our good friends Ken and Muriel visited us, along with our cycling buddy Paul. Ken and Paul were meeting up to travel to Oregon, where Ken was crewing for Paul in the Race Across Oregon. Muriel stayed for the week while the guys were gone, and we had a great time showing her the area, and getting in some cycling.

Riding up Spearfish Canyon with Ken and Muriel

Relaxing at the campground in Spearfish

As far as the RAO race results, Paul finished third (behind two youngsters) at an outstanding 42 hours 36 minutes -- that's for 527 miles and 40,000 feet of cumulative elevation gain! Way to go, Paul!

We finished up our volunteer assignment at the D. C. Booth Historic Fish Hatchery in Spearfish at the end of July. We had plenty of time to get things all squared away, and took off for Montana on August 1, for our month of visiting and sightseeing.

We spent the first couple of days at my cousin Jimmy's ranch in Clyde Park, Montana, just north of Livingston, where my Dad's family is from. We had a great time with Jimmy and Joyce, and enjoyed their great hospitality. We also had a chance to get together with another cousin, John, who lives in Livingston, as well as just wandering around and seeing the sights.

Jimmy getting ready to head out to his hay fields

Our Phaeton at the Sarrazin Ranch campground

We'd made arrangements to take the motorhome in for service at the Freightliner dealer in Bozeman, which sounded like a good idea at the time, but the overall experience was not so good. Even though they are listed as a Freightliner Oasis dealership (meaning one who is specially equipped and trained to service motorhomes on Freightliner's chassis), they really aren't in that league, and their service prices and attitudes are outrageous. I've written a complaint letter to Freightliner, and all of you with motorhomes are warned in advance about these hoodlums!

We then wandered further west and north, doing some sightseeing in Helena and Butte, both of which were on our schedule. I had fun roaming around Carroll College in Helena, as I'd spent my freshman and half of my sophomore year there (long ago) and, of course, things had changed.

45 years ago this beautiful Helena mansion was Siena Hall, an off-campus dormitory where I lived for a year and a half. Its now been sold and is a private residence.

We also spent time in Butte, visiting Fr. Tom Haffey, who was a good friend of my uncle, Fr. Tom Fenlon, as well as seeing all the sights there -- including my Grandparent's house on Granite St., and many of the mining areas and museums. We also made a trip to the cemetery, to revisit the headstones of my Mom's family.

At lunch with Father Tom Haffey, Pastor of St. Anne's Parish in Butte, Mt.

My Uncle, Father Tom Fenlon, was a priest in western Montana for over 50 years. He transcended three generations, officiating at our wedding, my parent's wedding, and our son Brian's wedding.

One of the highlights of our Montana stay was meeting and visiting with Judith, Mandy's cousin who she had never met, but had been corresponding with on the Internet for the past several years. We all got together to take the boat trip through the Gates of the Mountains on the Missouri River, and to see nearby Mann Gulch (which was one of my "bucket list" items), where 13 Forest Service Smokejumpers perished in 1949 (see Norman Maclean's Young Men and Fire). Afterward we drove up to Wolf Creek where Judith gave us a tour of her ranch -- which she has recently designated as part of a Conservation Easement -- what a day!

Mandy and Judith near Gates of the Mountains

Gates of the Mountains on the Missouri River

Mann Gulch, where the Smokejumpers died

We made it back to Bozeman by Saturday to participate in my cousin Brenda's 50th birthday party. On Sunday we got with them for a bike ride, some lunch, and a longer visit.

We also visited Mark's dad, my Uncle Bob, who is my Dad's last surviving sibling -- he is in a nursing home facility, and we're not sure if he recognized us, but it was great to see him.

After seeing Jimmy and Joyce for one last time (and also getting a chance to visit with his brother Leon and his wife Jean), we leisurely took off heading south toward Texas on the 17th. We got as far as Ft. Laramie, Wyoming when our plans took a bit of an unanticipated turn. . . . . .

We'd discovered a couple of motorhome items which needed work (specifically a slide seal issue), but we hadn't planned on going to the Tiffin Service facility in Red Bay, Alabama this fall -- nonetheless, since we had a couple of weeks, we discussed it and decided to high-tail it to Texas -- via Red Bay (it only added about 900 miles). We got up early Thursday and put the pedal to the metal, and headed toward the southeast. After seeing more of Nebraska and Missouri than I ever want to experience again, we made it to Red Bay on Saturday afternoon -- it's early in the season so we should be able to get into an "express service bay" to get the repairs done during this coming week. We might be a day or two late getting to our Texas volunteer assignment, but I think we've got some leeway there -- I guess we'll find out.

Anyway, all is well, except for the intense Alabama August heat and humidity -- but then that's just getting us in shape for September and October in central Texas, right?? Stay tuned to this blog -- and our Facebook pages -- and we'll keep you updated on our progress (or lack of it) as we journey west through Texas and back to Yuma for the winter.

Our first month in Spearfish and the Black Hills

2010-07-08T04:42:00.000-07:00

We've now been here for a month, and have been able to take advantage of lots of activities which we had to bypass last year when we worked at Custer State Park. However, then we were working 40 hours/week, while here at D. C. Booth Hatchery we only do about 20 hours a week which gives us lots more time to get in our cycling, hiking, and sightseeing.

So . . . . here's a portfolio of the things we've been able to do in our first month here -- (double click on any of the pictures for a larger version . . . .)

* We climbed Harney Peak, which we tried to get to last year but ran out of time. Harney is in the Black Elk wilderness just north of Custer State Park, and is the highest point between the Rockies and the Pyrenees at 7244 feet. Our friends, Al and Claire slogged up with us -- we wanted to get this out of the way early in the summer, as this hike becomes mobbed by tourists (mostly ill-prepared) in July and August. As you can see there is a great lookout on the top which was constructed by the CCC in the 30's, and the whole granite summit is very interesting.

* We biked the first (and steepest) portion of the Mickelson Trail from Deadwood to Edgewood. We plan on trying to get the rest of this 109 mile rails-to-trails route done before we leave, but who knows. The challenge is we'll end up doing it twice, as we'll always have to backtrack to the car. In any event its a great ride, and allows us to get in some mountain biking.

* We visited Mt. Moriah Cemetery in Deadwood, and hiked to the top of Mt. Roosevelt, just north of Deadwood. We were interested in both of these sites after watching the DVDs of the first and second season of the HBO series "Deadwood", and becoming intrigued by the story of Seth Bullock, Deadwood's sheriff.
They are doing some historical preservation work on the tower at the summit of Mt. Roosevelt, and it was interesting to see the labeling of the rocks so that they could be put back in the original sequence.

Bullock's gravestone at Mt. Moriah cemetery in Deadwood

* Journeyed just north of Spearfish to Belle Fourche, which has a great little museum as well as advertising that just north of town is the "geographical center of the United States" -- moved here from Kansas after the addition of Alaska and Hawaii.

* Visited the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum

* Fished in Spearfish Creek (just behind our campsite) as well as Cow Creek, just adjacent to the McNenny Fish Hatchery just outside of Spearfish.

* Cycled Spearfish Canyon, taking advantage of a wonderful shoulder, magnificent scenery, and a good gradual 1200 ft. elevation gain in 13 miles.

* Took in the Journey Museum in Rapid City

* We're working on getting our door awning fixed for the third time. Its currently at a local dealer getting the motor replaced with a "new and improved" unit. Our advice to anyone getting a motorhome would be to avoid the Carefree Marquis Automatic door awning, and opt for the manual crank-out version. The electric one has been a real POS.

We're also looking forward to having some guests later this month -- my brother Tom and his SO Trish will be dropping by for a day -- and our Yuma cycling friends Ken and Muriel will be here just a few days later. Muriel will be staying here for a week while Ken travels to Oregon to crew for our cycling buddy Paul, who will be doing a bike race across the state.

We'll be leaving the Black Hills on July 26th, heading for Montana and a month of wandering around that great state. We plan on seeing lots of places and visiting friends and relatives that we've been promising to see for ages. From there we'll be traveling to Texas for our next volunteer assignment at the Balcones Canyonlands NWR near Austin (also near the kids!)

Back to the Black Hills

2010-06-02T08:38:00.000-07:00

Mid-May in Yuma can start to get pretty warm, so we scheduled our departure for points north on May 13. We got Mandy's doctor's visit in Phoenix out of the way on Friday, and continued up to the high country, arriving in Santa Fe a couple of days later. We had a good visit with my brother John, and then proceeded further north to Denver.
We had reservations for a week there at Cherry Creek State Park, where Mandy's sister Penny (and her husband Rex) are volunteers in the Campground Office. In addition to seeing them, we spent some time with my brother Tom, and his significant other Trish, as well as going to dinner with our good friends Oscar and Penny.
We also managed to squeeze in a couple of bike rides on Denver's bike trail system. Since we were at a rather centrally located area at Cherry Creek, we were able to take advantage of the trails and go on some pretty lengthy urban rides.
We left the Denver area on the 28th, and had a great drive north through unseasonable heat (95 degrees!) arriving at Hermosa, South Dakota, on the east side of Custer State Park, where we'd worked last summer. We had a great visit with our good friends Al and Claire, who are working there again this summer, before driving an additional 70 miles on Sunday the 30th to Spearfish, where we'll be for the next two months.
The campground at Spearfish is all that we'd hoped it to be -- we're on blacktop surrounded by grass (and we lucked out and got one of the larger campsites), the power and water are great, we have cable TV and free WiFi, and we back up to Spearfish Creek, which is a wonderful trout stream (I'm looking forward to getting my license and trying it out). In addition, our volunteer job at the D.C. Booth Historic National Fish Hatchery (3 days on, 3 days off, 5 hour shifts) looks to be just what we wanted and expected -- and we've got great team members and a very capable supervisor.

Our place for June and July

Bike path and trout stream just outside the door . . . . life is good

The weather has been a bit unsettled, but we did manage to get in a couple of exploratory bike rides around town over the last several days, and also rode up Spearfish Canyon this morning. There are two bike shops in town, and we've already gotten information on organized rides here, which we look forward to joining. Looks like our two months here will be good!!
We're studying up for our first day of work tomorrow, and are looking forward to climbing Harney Peak on Sunday with Al and Claire -- we'd meant to get that done last year, but just got too busy -- so its first on the agenda this season.
More pictures and news later . . . . . .

Yuma springtime

2010-04-25T15:23:00.000-07:00

Another report from Yuma -- fun is being had by all !!   We've had a busy and productive winter season here this year, but the blog entries have suffered -- I'll try to catch up on our multiple activities over the past six weeks, and our plans as we head into our summer travel season.

We're continuing to have fun on our rides with our bicycle club around the Yuma area -- here is a sample of the rides and the good time that we're having in our little bicycling paradise --

The Yuma bike chicks stopping for a break at Starbucks / Subway

Out on an old abandoned bridge over the Gila River -- which was flowing pretty significantly

The Gila flowing across the road out in the Mohawk Valley east of Yuma -- one of our favorite riding areas

All ready for the start of the annual Tour de Yuma

Club member Mark B. in the top podium position as this year's winner of the Tour de Yuma

As I'd indicated in an earlier post, I took a trip to Seattle and Sequim in mid-March to see my Mother and get her taxes done. I had a great time seeing her, as well as my sister Margaret and her husband Charlie.

My Mom and sister Margaret

After my visit in Washington state, I flew back only as far as Denver, where I picked up the Mazda 4WD pickup we'd bought from my brother Tom in Boulder. Two days of (fortunately) uneventful driving got me back to Yuma, and we're enjoying having not only another vehicle, but one which we can more easily take out into the desert. When we leave here in May, we'll put it in our storage unit, and have it all ready for some adventures next season. We did get the chance to take it out on one of our monthly "full moon" desert potlucks, but any more exploring will have to wait for next season.


                    The moon just rising over one of our "full moon" potlucks

Shortly after getting back to Yuma, we took off on our trip to the Tucson area for some bike riding. About 16 members of the bike club went on the trip this year, and everyone had a great time enjoying the Tucson area. On one of our days there Mandy and I organized and led a 50 mile ride to the Colossal Cave area southeast of Tucson which worked out well -- I'd hoped to scout the whole route ahead of time as I drove back to Yuma from Denver, but only got a little bit of that accomplished in my rushed trip back. In any event, it didn't matter as we found a great route and had a wonderful day riding and sightseeing.

Relaxing at Colossal Cave just outside of Tucson

The next day split the riders -- some opting for the ride to the Sonoran Desert Musuem, while others tried their legs out on the Mt. Lemmon climb. Greg made it to the 18 mile marker at about 7000 feet, while most of the other stronger riders made it all the way to the ski area at 8700 feet (as a reference the climb starts at 2500 feet). Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the event, but would highly recommend this drive -- its very scenic with a beautiful road, great rock formations, and super views back into the Tucson valley. You travel from the hot desert environment all the way up to pine trees, forest cabins, and skiers (in season) -- all in all, a very unique trip. For cyclists, its one of the best climbing rides in the country.

Just last week we drove over to Phoenix for a three day visit with our good friends Mike and Dana, and to take care of Mandy's annual cardiologist visit. We did some great rides with Mike and Dana in the east valley /Queen Creek area of Phoenix, and had a great time in their pool and hot tub afterward. We'll be able to take advantage of their hospitality again just after the first of May, as we'll need to return for a couple of additional tests -- and will stay the weekend for a couple of bike rides.

As a side note, while we at Mike and Dana's, we got re-introduced to the Wii Fit. We'd been considering one for some time, but really hadn't had a chance to try out the new Wii Fit Plus software until our visit with them. Long story short, we are now enjoying our own Wii Fit Plus, and getting some good cross training from our cycling.

We're planning on closing things up here about the 14th of May and heading out for the summer. We will be busy between now and then with moving our lot items to our lot for next year (we'll be in the Los Amigos community, just on a different street). We have access to the lot now, and will be setting up the shed to store the items we don't put in storage. We still haven't found a lot to buy yet, but as long as we can keep renting in the same area, that's OK.

When we pull out we'll have a couple of weeks to get from here to Spearfish, so we'll be spending some time in Santa Fe visiting my brother (and biking at 7000 ft), as well as a week in the Denver area, seeing my brother, Mandy's sister and her husband, and other friends in the area. We'll also get a few motorhome recall items done at the Freightliner dealer in Albuquerque on the way -- and finally get to our volunteer job at D. C. Booth Fish Hatchery on the first of June. We'll be there for two months, roam around Montana during August, and then head to Texas for September and October, to volunteer at Balcones NWR just outside Austin (and just down the road from our kid's place in Liberty Hill).

We also wanted to share some of the beautiful cactus blooms that we're getting here this spring -- these are ones that are in our yard!

Too much fun . . . .

2010-03-01T12:21:00.000-07:00

Yes, it has been waaaay too long since we published an update to our blog -- our apologies to our families and to the few readers that we have out there in the blogosphere. I guess that we're just having too much fun here in Yuma this winter, and have let this particular update slip and slip and slip . . . . . . .

In any event, we'll try to get things going again, and keep up our chronicle of our adventures. The first major item that occurred after we got here -- and went through our scramble to get a different lot and get settled in there -- was to get ready to go to spend Christmas with our sons and their families in central Texas. We hadn't had an opportunity to spend the holidays with them for several years, and with the increasing size of their families, it was something we really wanted to do. We flew from Phoenix and arrived a couple of days before Christmas and stayed until just before New Year's -- unfortunately the weather was unseasonably cold there (just when we were getting used to the Arizona sun) but we had a great time celebrating the holidays with our brood.

Here's a picture of us with both of our sons and their families during our visit.

My brother John also came through the Austin area for a couple of days -- he'd flown to Chicago to pick up a class B van conversion that he'd purchased, and was driving it back to his home in Santa Fe. We're looking forward to seeing him on the road as he transitions to retirement.

Both before and after our Texas trip we got back into our bicycling here in Yuma with the Foothills Bicycle club. This our main activity during the winter and it gets us back in shape after our summer play time. We're enjoying four rides per week with the club and also taking advantage of some mountain biking and tandem riding also.

In early January we took advantage of a great last minute deal on a 4 day cruise out of San Diego, and had a great time with ten other couples from the bike club. We left from the Cruise Terminal in San Diego, and visited Catalina Island and Ensenada, and had a great time with everyone.

In mid-January after a month of running around for the holidays and the cruise, we got back into our cycling and have been having a great winter here on our bikes. We're not riding as much to the east of here in Dome Valley due to some road closures, but have been on all of the other routes a number of times this season, and are currently managing to get in anywhere from 100 to 150 miles per week.

Later this month Greg will be going to Seattle to visit his mother and his sister Margaret and her husband Charlie -- and also get a chance to collect the information to do his mom's taxes. On the way back he'll be flying as far as Denver, where he'll see his brother Tom in Boulder. From there he'll drive back to Yuma in our new (to us) Mazda pickup! Tom has had an older Mazda 4WD pickup for a number of years and we've purchased it from him to have as a utility vehicle here in Yuma -- it will be great to have to go out into the desert for exploring, and to have just for general use around town. We'll store it in our storage unit when we leave for the summer, and it will be all ready for us when we return next fall.

One of our full-moon potlucks in the desert just out of Yuma

Toward the end of March we'll be taking a trip to Tucson with the bike club to do some cycle exploring. For 4 days we'll ride in bike-friendly Tucson and see a number of sights -- the mission of San Xavier del Bac, the Sonoran Desert Museum, ride the Santa Fe Trail out to Colossal Cave, and maybe even have time to try our legs on Mt. Lemmon (about a 6000 ft. climb). It's a great opportunity for a trip to a wonderful city which really loves cyclists -- and we're looking forward to it.

We've also made a recent technological advance - we left our longtime cellphone provider AT&T and joined up with Sprint. We'd been getting increasingly disappointed with AT&T's coverage, particularly during our travels during the summer, and we're anticipating improvements with Sprint. The other big advantage was that we were able to join them as part of our son Brian's family plan, so our costs were significantly lowered -- and we were able to upgrade to Blackberry smartphones, which give us all sorts of increased capabilities. We ported our AT&T numbers to Sprint (it was actually pretty painless) so our contact information remains the same.

We'll try to be more responsive in posting blog updates from here on in -- stick with us and we'll keep you posted.

Back in Yuma

2009-11-24T10:01:00.000-07:00

Its only been about a month since we last updated our blog, but it seems like much longer than that. Since then we've finished our visit to the Tiffin factory at Red Bay, spent about a week with our sons and their families in Texas, celebrated Al and Claire's new rig, and made it back to Yuma for the winter. We'll try to do an update on each of these happenings with some pictures -- although we've not been as dedicated in snapping pictures as much as we should.

Red Bay to Texas -- we got all of our warranty work taken care of at the Tiffin factory, including the replacement of our rear jacks (which collapsed while we were there). We also got the annual chassis and engine maintenance done by the good folks at Red Bay Diesel. In addition, we got some custom work done by Brannon Hutchison at Custom RV -- a ceiling fan in the bedroom, a revised driver's shift panel, and relocation of some halogen lights. All in all it was a good visit, with everything done to our satisfaction -- and the prices were right too! Here are some pictures of the new items.

                                                                                                                                                      Our new shift panel -- the switches are angled toward the driver, and the shift indicator is moved forward. All in all much easier to use.

The ceiling fan in the bedroom is great!!   Its a clean, professional installation, and is controlled by a wireless remote -- one of the best additions we've done!

We were anxious to get to Texas to see our family there, so we hit the road and drove from Red Bay to Liberty Hill in two days -- it was a trip we'd made several times, and we didn't have any stops or sights to see along the way. We got to our sons' place and parked the motorhome, and began to enjoy our sons and their families. We were able to snap a few pictures of our good times there --

Tristam got to run the tractor and help mow the parking for the soccer fields

                                    Gillian with her dad

Grandpa and Kaila doing some homework

                                      Garrett chowing down some pizza

Chloe having fun

We took off from Liberty Hill on Saturday, October 24 and headed out for west Texas -- we'd made arrangements to meet up with our good friends Al and Claire who were heading back to Austin from Albuquerque with their new motorhome. We spend a great 24 hours with them in Balmorhea, TX at a Passport campground (which was very nice -- we'll definitely be staying there again on our trips through Texas). Their new rig is a heavy duty class C toy hauler (Chevy Kodiak chassis with a Duramax diesel and an Allison transmission), equipped so they can take both their motorcycles and a tow car with them when they travel.   We had a great time going over every inch of it, and making plans on how to spend their money on add-ons. We didn't take any interior pictures, but we did get a picture of their rig and ours alongside each other in the wilds of west Texas:

After our visit with Al and Claire (and "our" German Shepard Elsa, who they take care of for us . . . . ), we headed out early the next morning for points west along I-10 -- we made it through El Paso without incident (I hate driving through there, but there is really no bypass), and just kept going through New Mexico. We'd gained two hours as we headed west and crossed the Arizona border, so we just kept rolling along until we got to the Elks Club at Gila Bend -- and found out when we tallied it up that we'd put 625 miles on that day. We usually don't go to that extreme, but we wanted to get to Yuma, and didn't have any reason to stop on the way. We boondocked there for the night, and then arrived in Yuma by mid-morning the next day -- just ahead of a couple of days of high wind warnings (another good reason for a 600 mile day . . .).
We pulled into our rental lot and had plenty of time to start getting things cleaned up, and to see our friends again before we collapsed for the night. We spent the next two days getting the shed cleaned up and the yard cleared and had it all in order by cocktail hour that evening (celebrating Mandy's first Social Security payment!!) -- at which time our landlady came by and told us that she was raising the rent for the current season -- by 50%. No advance notice (we'd been leasing for 5 years), and no explanation -- just dropped the bomb and spoiled our day!
It didn't take us long to decide that her new price was totally out of the question -- so we promptly began to look for a new place the next morning. Fortunately we were able to rent a much larger lot a few blocks away in the same development from our good friends Mark and Faye, and moved there as soon as we could. All in all, it was a good thing, as we weren't all that pleased with the way our landlady had been treating us recently, and it gave us an opportunity to clean out our junk from the rental shed. In addition, we're on a much nicer lot for less $$ -- and there is no way she'll rent the lot for the price she is wants -- what goes around comes around.

So . . . . we're all settled in for the winter, and have been getting in plenty of biking and socializing with all of our Yuma friends. As full-timers, our wonderful winters in Yuma have been the one consistent item in our past 6 years of travel, and we really look forward to them. Mind you, we're ready to leave each April/May to do our summer thing -- but in late October, the Yuma foothills is where our compass points us to.
Speaking of summer travel, there is one other item to note -- we've already finalized our plans for Summer 2010. We'll be spending June and most of July volunteering at the D. C. Booth Fish Hatchery in Spearfish, SD -- the rest of July and August will be spent traveling and visiting friends and family in Montana and Wyoming. In September and October we'll head to Lago Vista, TX (just about 20 miles from our sons' place in Liberty Hill) to volunteer at another US Fish and Wildlife location -- Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge. We visited both of these locations this summer, and are very excited to be able to participate in their volunteer programs next year. As usual, when we pull up the jacks (and hoping they work) in late October 2010 in Texas, we'll be heading west again to Yuma for another season here.
That's about all for now -- although I guess we should also note that we're planning on using a few of our airline miles to spend Christmas this year in Liberty Hill with our family there (our granddaughter Gabrielle will be spending Christmas in Texas this year and we didn't want to miss her). Greg will also be taking a mid-winter break in January or February to fly up to Seattle to visit his mother. All is well with the both of us as we complete another year of vagabonding, and, as you can see, we hope to continue taking advantage of this great lifestyle for the foreseeable future.

So long from Yuma -- we've got the best sunsets in the Southwest

An eventful week in Red Bay

2009-10-11T03:50:00.000-07:00

We've had an interesting week here in Red Bay, Alabama, the home of Tiffin Motor Homes. We planned our annual visit here to get some warranty issues resolved, to get some custom work done, and to get the annual engine/chassis service. So far two out of the three have been successfully achieved -- the details . . . . .
We arrived here Sunday afternoon in the middle of a pretty significant rainstorm, and got a partial hook-up site. Upon arriving, we realized that the motorhome pulling in just ahead of us was Oscar and Penny's -- friends that we had met this summer in Custer, SD. They are long-time friends of my brother Tom in the Boulder, CO area, and they looked us up this summer in the Black Hills as they were starting out on a summer trip to the Canadian Maritime provinces. They are on their way back, and were stopping in to get a whole list of repair items taken care of. We spent Monday visiting with them and hearing about their eventful trip.
Although we had our custom work scheduled at the end of our stay here, we called Brannon at Custom RV, and he indicated that he could get us in early as he had some schedule changes. We went out his way on Tuesday afternoon, and in less than two hours, he had installed a ceiling fan in our bedroom, and put in a modified driver's shift panel in the cockpit. We made arrangement to see him in a week or so to get a couple of lights re-located, and headed back to the campground. We also made contact with our cabinet man, Chris, to have him do a few small changes when he had the chance -- wow, everything is falling into place. . . .
On Wednesday we went out to Bay Diesel to get our 24 month chassis/engine service, and all went well there too. We got all of our items taken care of, and were pleasantly surprised to have Freightliner (our chassis manufacturer) cover the cost for a new exhaust pipe tip -- the stock one had become corroded and rusted -- and, although it sounds like an incidental item, the replacement would have cost over $300! Life continues to be good . . . .
Thursday was our scheduled appointment day at the Tiffin Service Center. Almost all of our items were carry-over items from our warranty service last year, and after checking with the floor supervisor, it was reconfirmed that they would all be covered by TMH under warranty -- just what we wanted to hear. Given the work that would be necessary in several different service departments, it looked like we would be out of here in about a week. . . . . .
We drove back to our site at the end of the day pleased with the way that the week had gone, little realizing that Murphy was about to rear his head. We stopped at our site, took the coach out of gear and put on the parking brake, and pushed the buttons to activate the leveling jacks -- they began to extend and level the coach, but after a minute or so, both the rear jacks suddenly sheared and collapsed. The resulting drop of the coach on the rear suspension (after the air had been let out of the air bags) caused quite a jolt, spilling all of our hanging clothes off the rod in the closet across the rear of the motorhome, moving the nearby washing machine around an inch or two, and buckling the paneling on the bedroom wall. We got the Tiffin techs out to look at the situation, and they helped us get things back in order, both mechanically and personally. They assured us that they had spare jacks in stock to replace the damaged ones, and that all would be OK. We were a bit shaken up, but realized that this was absolutely the best place for a failure of this type to happen. We're right on the cusp of our warranty period for the jacks, so it appears -- at this point -- that we can get things fixed without breaking the bank. We may have to spend a day or two longer here than we anticipated, but that's no big deal -- we hope.
On Friday we spent all day burning off our propane tank in preparation for Monday's repair of the tank float system which measures the level of propane in the tank, and Monday we'll go to the welding shop to get the tank and the jack repair done. Still left to do is the cabinet work, and some work at the paint shop, as well as our remaining custom items with Chris and Brannon -- so we're thinking that we'll be here through most of next week.
We'll do a post next week with pictures of the repairs (the replacement of the jacks should be a good one) and the new items. All in all, we can't complain -- life is still good (but the weather could be better here -- lots of rain and clouds) and everyone in the shop will be happy Monday, as Alabama beat Ole Miss this weekend, and the boss's grandson (Leigh Tiffin) kicked a near-record 5 field goals in getting the job done.

St. Louis and onward

2009-10-02T10:54:00.000-07:00

After leaving our friends and the beautiful fall colors in Wausau, WI, we headed south through Wisconsin and Illinois in the general direction of St. Louis. We're taking our time and trying to limit our daily mileage to less than 250 miles, and alternating our stays between Wal Marts and campgrounds. We've not traveled through this part of the country, so we're trying to go a bit slower and smell a few of the roses.
We'd skirted the St. Louis area before on the west side, but had never stopped to see any sights. This time we took the time to go into the city and tour the Gateway Arch and the associated museum. We stayed at a park on the Illinois side of the river which was about 40 miles out of town, and took a day to drive in and wander around a little. Here are some pictures of our visit on a beautiful fall day --

A couple of shots of the arch as we approached it

These are the little pods that you ride in -- with a supposed capacity of 5 people (but they all better be pretty small or very friendly people). You crowd into these things for 4 1/2 minutes while the train of them crawl up the inside framework of the arch. An interesting way (and probably the only one) to get to the top.

Some of the views of the St. Louis area from the viewing area at the top of the arch -- 630 feet up:

The mighty Mississippi

Looking straight down from the window

Busch Stadium - home of the St. Louis Cardinals

Downtown St. Louis looking West

They also had a great museum at the site and two theaters which showed several outstanding documentary films -- one about Louis and Clark and the other about the building of the arch. We'd recommend the whole park -- its called the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, and is run by the NPS.
We'd wanted to take a bit more time, but there were a couple of weather fronts chasing us, and we'd decided to take another more easterly route, which would allow us to stop for a few days and visit Mammoth Cave in Kentucky before heading to Alabama. We got ahead of the front, spent a leisurely night at a Wal Mart in Owensboro, KY and then rolled into Cave City on Wednesday. We'd located a park (map) with very attractive rates -- and highly rated -- that was just outside Mammoth Cave, and would allow us to stay several days and explore the area. We had a great 4 1/2 hour tour of the cave yesterday, and although it rained a bit last night, the sun is back out this morning and we're getting ready to get out and explore the Bowling Green, KY area today -- the Corvette Museum looks like it might be interesting.
We're only a couple of hundred miles from Red Bay, so we'll head out of here on Sunday and get to the Tiffin factory a day or two ahead of time and see if we can get things started early there. We're having a couple of custom items done to the coach (new shift panel and a bedroom ceiling fan), along with some holdover warranty items and the 2 year engine/chassis service -- all at three different places -- so we'll probably be there for at least 10 days.

September update -- and on the road again . . . .

2009-09-26T13:17:00.000-07:00

I know its been a long time since we've settled down and updated this site, and we apologize. It took a week or so to recover from the crush of the Sturgis Rally, then beautiful fall weather settled in and the park was very busy over Labor Day weekend (and it impacted us even more since a number of the seasonal staff had left) and we were running everywhere. We were decompressing from that and realized that we had only a little time left in the Black Hills, so our days off were spent hitting the sights that we had not managed to see. At the same time, we got wrapped up with getting things ready to hit the road (which can be a bit of a task if you've been sitting for 3-4 months).
In any event, we've left the Black Hills and are on the road again, on our way to Red Bay, Alabama (where our Tiffin motorhome was built) to get some service done, and some warranty items taken care of. But, before we get into that, here are a couple of the highlights of the last month at Custer State Park ------

My brother Tom and his girlfriend Trish came up from Boulder, CO in late August to spend a few days in the Black Hills. We had a great time with them showing them the area and visiting some of the attractions that we had not seen yet.
Tom and Trish visiting us at one of the entry gates

Clowning around at the fish hatchery in Spearfish

Mandy snapped this one while we were looking at a classic fish boat from Yellowstone which is on display at the Spearfish hatchery

We also took the opportunity to go to the Wild Horse Sanctuary south of the Black Hills with Al and Claire on one of our last days off, and had a great time taking the tour and seeing the wild horses that are being taken care of on this 14,000 acre ranch.
Looking down from a ridge above the Wild Horse ranch along the Cheyenne River

Some of the wild horses that are being cared for here . . .

About the same time, Mandy had her 62nd birthday, and of course you know that means her eligibility for the NPS Senior Pass. Here she is proudly getting her "old folks card" at the local Forest Service Office in Rapid City.

Our seasonal tour of duty was over at Custer State Park as of the 16th, and so the rest of our time during the early part of September was spent taking care of all of the things we needed to do to get checked out and to get the motorhome (and us) ready for some time on the road. We left Custer and headed east on I-90 on Saturday the 19th with no real schedule other than our appointment in Red Bay starting on October 7.

We spent our first night in Mitchell, SD at the Cabela's store, and then went downtown and toured the famous Corn Palace before we left. They were having a weekend Polka Festival, and, since it was Sunday, we happened upon an interesting midwest phenomenon -- a Polka Mass. Not one of our bucket list items, but it was unique . . . . .

After looking at the maps as we approached Sioux Falls, we decided to head further east than we'd anticipated, and visit Wisconsin -- we wanted to spend some time with a number of our friends from Yuma who are from the area, and are there for the summer. We arrived in Wausau, WI on late Monday and have had a great time being tourists, and cycling and visiting with our good friends Mark and Faye, Carl and Judy, and Tom and Carol -- as well as enjoying the outstanding Fall colors which are showing themselves all over the place. We hiked up Rib Mountain, just west of Wausau, and Thursday dug out our bikes and did a great 40 mile "colorama ride" (as Mark puts it), seeing a lot of the area around Wausau and enjoying the wonderful fall weather and colors.

Visiting the Spam Museum in Austin, Minnesota along the way

The "North Yuma Group" of the Yuma Foothills Bicycling Club enjoying a ride and the beautiful fall colors -- Tom, Judy, Pat, Carl, Mandy, Mark, and Greg -- (Faye took the picture)

Greg and Mark comparing their Merrills before the hike -- identical except for size (8 vs. 15) . . .

The North Yuma group upheld the tradition -- no bike ride is complete without a stop at a garage sale, a bit(?) of lunch, and an ice cream treat -- we had all three, in addition to our beautiful fall day in Wausau!!

As it looks right now, depending on the weather, we'll probably stay here until Saturday or Sunday (we're parked at the Marathon County park right in Wausau), and then began wandering south toward Alabama. They have had a great fall up here, but it won't be long before the rains come and the temperatures begin to fall -- and we want to be out of here before that. Fortunately, we'll get to take our time heading south as we still have a week and a half before our service appointment, and only about 800 miles to cover. As of now we're thinking of spending a couple of days in the St. Louis area, and then following a non-freeway route through Tennessee to Red Bay -- we'll update our progress in a week or so.

Update: We left Wausau on today (Saturday), as the weather was beginning to close in. We're now parked at a Wal Mart in La Salle, IL (with excellent broadband internet reception) and looking at a forecast for good weather through the rest of the week. We'll get down toward St. Louis tomorrow and then play tourist for a couple of days there.

2009 Sturgis Motorcycle Rally

2009-08-22T14:44:00.000-07:00

Well, we've both managed to survive the 2009 Sturgis Rally, but it will probably take a few more days for our hearing to completely return to normal. We haven't heard any published attendance figures yet, but the thumbnail estimates are in the area of 400 to 500,000 bikers in the Sturgis area, with somewhere in the area of 50 to 60,000 of them coming south 50 miles to visit us at Custer State Park.
Or you can figure it from this perspective: Mandy and I, from 7/30 to 8/9, sold (and attached) just short of 4400 bike bands to motorcycles coming into the park. There are about 25 entrance gate attendants -- so if each of them averaged the same sales as us, the attendance would be about 55,000 -- that's a bunch of bikes.
We got to work 12 days with only one day off, and most of those days were 9 hour shifts, so we'll have a bit of overtime pay coming our way -- but overall it really wasn't worth it. Yes, the rally is an experience not to be missed, but Harley after Harley after Harley, all with loud and louder exhaust pipes, gets pretty old after a couple of days. Fortunately, the bikers were, for the most part, more fun and polite than a lot of our customers, but the workload and noise from working the entrance gates for that length of time was just overload -- at least that's our take on the event from our corner of the world.
As you might imagine, there were a number of pretty nasty wrecks on the twisty roads in the park, but no fatalities. In fact, we've heard that over the whole Black Hills area there was only one motorcycle fatality during the rally -- which is pretty amazing, given that probably 90 percent of the riders that we saw were not wearing helmets.
We were also surprised to see so many wearing virtually no protective clothing -- basically screaming along the highway in doo-rags, t-shirts, tank tops, and flip-flops (and leather vests). I guess we've got a lot to learn about the Harley "live to ride" mystique, but we're pretty certain that its not what we're after.
The rally was a very positive event for us in one big respect -- during our one day off during the rally we did get a chance to have a great visit with Greg's cousins Mark and Rick, along with Mark's wife Brenda and Rick's companion Ann. They were all down for the rally from Bozeman, and were having a great time. We'd not seen them for at least 3 years, so it was good to catch up with them and get re-acquainted.

Overall, we really didn't have a lot of time to take pictures -- and the ones that we did manage to get really do not relay the feel of the crush of noise and people that we experienced -- but, for what its worth, here is our 09 Rally collection:

(We actually took this one when we went to Sturgis in June -- things were pretty quiet then . . . . . . )

this was the scene at Sylvan Gate on one of our busy days

the crowd at Sylvan Lake for the Buffalo Burger cook-out

Scenes from the Park's West Entrance Gate on a normal rally day

Doing the accounting of the bike bands and the money with our revenue supervisor, Lou

And, finally, our favorite -- this guy has been bringing his mother-in-law to the Sturgis Rally for years, and he wanted to introduce her to us.

A short trip to Wyoming, Al and Claire arrive, trying Facebook, and other fun . . . .

2009-07-28T14:38:00.000-07:00

All sorts of miscellaneous items to catch up on . . . .
First off, we've now gotten our web access resolved -- it turned out that both our Cradlepoint router AND our Verizon USB 727 cellular modem had failed, so we had to replace both of them. Fortunately, they were both under warranty, and we've now got replacements and all is working again. I suspect that they are a bit more sensitive to heat than we'd realized, even though the router is rated for 50 degrees Celsius -- the cabinet that they're installed in does get a bit warm. I've been unable to find any operating temperature specifications for the modem, but I'll be trying to figure out some ventilation for the cabinet that they're installed in to see if that makes any difference.
But, on to other happenings . . . . we decided a couple of weeks ago to take a "three day weekend" and go over to Wyoming to visit the area where I'd grown up, but hadn't been through for 15 years. Our family had moved from Montana to Worland, Wyoming in the early 50's, and I'd attended grade school and junior high school there. In 1961 we moved 30 miles away to Basin, Wyoming, where I completed high school.
With the exception of a class reunion in 1994 (see evidence below),

we'd not been to the Big Horn Basin area in north central Wyoming since my parents moved from there in the mid-80s -- and, since we were only about 275 miles away here in the Black Hills, we thought it would be fun to take a quick run back there and see the area, and some of my classmates who still lived there.

The drive over was great, with a good portion of it through the Big Horn mountains, and down Ten Sleep canyon on US 16, and into Worland.

We made a couple of phone calls to friends in the area who I'd seen 15 years ago, and made plans to get together. During our short stay, we managed to make contact with quite a number of old friends (meaning that in the best way!) : Bill and Kathy S., Virginia B., Kathie N., and Mike H. in Worland -- and with Don and Cheri R., and Doug C. in Basin (we didn't want to publish their last names to respect their privacy). Overall, we had a great time seeing people and places which we hadn't been in touch with for a long time -- and a great thanks to all of you and your hospitality!!

We're now back working at Custer State Park, and making plans for the crush of park visitors we'll be getting during the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. We'll be working some overtime to accommodate the over 60,000 riders who are expected to visit the park -- the estimates for Sturgis are for over 500,000.
We're expecting that things will slow down after mid-August (and they better since we'll be losing about 13 gate attendants by the end of August). Hopefully we'll get to take in some of the attractions that we didn't get to earlier in the season, as well as get in some bike rides and hikes that we've planned.

Our good friends Al and Claire arrived here last week to work with us in the Park for the last several months of the season. They've parked their rig next to ours at our RV park (which is handy for the both of us, given the cramped quarters at our location), and we're having a great time with them and their dog Elsa. We're sure glad that they decided to come up here from Texas to spend the end of the summer here -- more in upcoming posts about our late summer adventures in the Black Hills.

We've also taken the time for a few bike rides in the area here. We went on the Mikelson Trail from Custer to the Crazy Horse monument (uphill!!) with John and Geneva, two friends who we met here at work. Fortunately its on an abandoned railroad grade, so the maximum grade is 4% -- but its still a good ride. We hope to do more sections of this trail, which runs over 100 miles through the Black Hills.

Just for fun category: We noted the news the other day reminding us that it was the 40th anniversary of the first men walking on the moon -- we thought we'd share a picture of the two of us on that day. We'd put the camera on self timer for the first time (we'd just bought it) and took this snap of us, just after we'd taken pictures of our black and white TV screen showing the men on the moon. Boy, it was a while ago . . . .

On a final (and equally frivolous) note, we've both finally given in to our kid's requests and have joined the social networking site Facebook -- we've actually been pretty amazed at the number of people we've made contact with through FB over the last week, and will try to keep our profiles and information updated. We've also cross-linked our Facebook pages to our blog, as you can see from the new additions to the left hand margin of our postings. I guess we'll try it for a while and see how it goes -- we've certainly been pleasantly surprised by the friends we've re-established contact with, and the other linkages we've established so far.

Alive and well (and working) in the Black Hills

2009-07-01T02:21:00.000-07:00

We both hate to realize how long it has been since we last updated our travel blog, and we'd like to assure everyone that we're alive and well --- but working 40 hour weeks really puts a crimp in doing much of anything else, including blog updates.
We both love our jobs as entrance gate attendants at Custer State Park, but with the recent good weather and the start of the summer tourist season, we've been pretty tuckered out when we get home at night. Even with the longer days and warmer weather, its tough to fit much else in other than work. Here is a picture of me with one of our Custer State Park "friends" at one of our entrance gates . . . .

We have made time to see a few sights around our base in Custer --
The Mammoth Site near Hot Springs -- this is a really great paleontology excavation where significant finds have been made, mostly of wooly mammoths -- additional detail at mammothsite.com

Maybe we could move here if things really get bad . . . . .

We also visited Jewel Cave National Park, just west of Custer. We should know by now that cave pictures just don't turn out, but we tried anyway. Here are a couple of the only ones that turned out -- guess you've got to see the cave for yourselves !!

This formation kind of looked like a US map (at least we thought so) . .

Our good friends Al and Claire from Texas came and spent a week with us just recently, and Claire graciously cooked most of the dinners for us while they were here (and parked right next to us here at the Wheels West RV Park) -- what a treat!! We spent as much time with them as we could, as they re-visited all of the Black Hills sights that they had seen several years before. We're hoping to see them again later this summer.

Exploring at Sylvan Lake - Al and Claire with Elsa the wonderdog

At the lookout overlooking Custer, SD

On a hike around Stockade Lake not far from our campsite

Of course, just about the time the weather turned and we could get back on our bikes, the activity here picked up, and we're finding it harder and harder to get even minimal riding in. We haven't worked this many hours on this type of a schedule recently, and our cycling has taken a hit. Fortunately we're getting a fair amount of exercise with the job (we don't just sit in a booth and take tickets), and we're both eating well -- we just need to make the time to get out and see the country.
Not much else is new in our lives -- although one of us did reach an additional milestone: Mandy recently filed for her Social Security benefits which will begin arriving in October.
Speaking of other milestones, we'd also like to give our heartiest congratulations to our good friend, Paul Danhaus, who today finished bicycling's Race Across America (RAAM). Paul was the only 60+ male entry (winning his class) -- and finishing the 3000+ miles from Oceanside, CA to Annapolis, MD in 11 days 10 hours. More on Paul's great accomplishment at pauldanhaus.org
An additional note: Just as we were getting ready to post this update, our Cradlepoint router went out, so we've been without internet access for 48 hours. A quick call to technical support at 3G Store, where we bought the router and Verizon USB "aircard" diagnosed the problem -- somehow the router had failed. They arranged for a replacement one from the manufacturer which should arrive in a few days. We've really enjoyed the on-line access that this system has given us, and the service we've received from the 3G Store -- we'd highly recommend them to anyone who is looking for a reliable mobile broadband system.

Custer State Park and the Black Hills

2009-05-31T14:36:00.000-07:00

We arrived here in South Dakota's Black Hills on May 10, after a quick drive up from central Texas. We pulled into Wheels West RV Park between Custer and the west entrance to Custer State Park late in the day, and on Monday checked in at the park headquarters. Our orientation and training for our summer jobs as Entrance Gate Attendants began Tuesday morning.
We will be seasonal employees of South Dakota Parks, and will work 8 hour shifts at one of the 5 entrance stations to the 71,000 acre park (it's the second largest state park in the nation, after Anza-Borrego Park in California, a hundred miles west of us in Yuma).
Wildlife is one of the big items here at CSP -- the biggest draw is a large herd of buffalo (about 1200 head), which are allowed to roam relatively unencumbered anywhere in the park. The park also supports Big Horn sheep, Mountain Goats, Elk, Deer, Wild Burros, Prairie Dogs, Mountain Lions, and numerous other wildlife -- all of which are pretty used to humans being nearby (well, maybe not the Mountain Lions . . . . ). The largest wildlife issue the park has to deal with is keeping the people a safe distance from the bison/buffalo -- the same issue that the NPS has to deal with in Yellowstone with the bears.
Our orientation and training consisted of about 50% classroom work, with the other half consisting of introducing us to all the lodges and facilities in the park (which are run by a concessionaire) - and to the significant tourist attractions near the park -- Mount Rushmore, Wind Cave, Crazy Horse Memorial, Jewel Cave, etc. The bottom line was that our orientation was a week and a half of tours and visitations inside and outside the park -- tough duty to take.
We're now through Memorial Day weekend, and are working full time at our entrance station duties. The weather this weekend did not cooperate with the people expecting to have summer start this weekend, so we probably won't be working our butts off -- but that's good as we're still getting all of our facts and procedures straight.
Here are a few of the pictures of the sights we've seen over the past week or two --
Crazy Horse Memorial -- we were able to take a very special tour out onto the ledge which will be the arm of Crazy Horse -- and were able to get right under the face. Later in the week we went back for a blast of over 100 tons of granite off of the lower part of the monument.

This picture shows the current state of the memorial in the distance, and in the foreground, the carving of what it will eventually look like. We went out on the large ledge to the right of his face, which will be his arm.

These are several of the close-ups we took of the face while out on the arm -- it was really a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Here is a sequence of the dynamite blast which we got to see . . . this is from about 3 miles away.

Overall, we've been most impressed with the Crazy Horse Memorial -- even more than Mt. Rushmore.

Of course we got a few pictures of the park's wildlife. . . .

Here is Greg at one of the entrance stations we work at -- this one is at the West Entrance to the park.

We did our obligatory visit to Mount Rushmore -- pretty impressive!!

These views are from the drive along the Needles Highway in the northwest portion of the park. The highway goes through several very narrow tunnels and ends at Sylvan Lake -- which you may recognize from the recent Nicholas Cage National Treasure 2 movie (which tried to make you believe that the lake is just behind Mt. Rushmore).

We're planning on doing lots more exploring of the area, and will update with pictures as soon as we can -- but working 40 hours per week is putting a crimp in our time for right now.

We've arrived . . . .

2009-05-14T11:45:00.000-07:00

We're finally in the Black Hills for the summer, but we've needed to cover quite a bit of ground since we've last updated our readers. We'll try to hit the high points of the last several weeks . . . . .
We left Mesa on May 1st, heading for Liberty Hill, TX, and hoping to arrive before the birth of our newest granddaughter, which was expected to be Monday the 4th. Good weather and favorable prevailing winds enabled us to make the journey to the Hill Country in two days, and we were able to be at the hospital on Monday morning when granddaughter Gillian Mae made her entrance. She weighed in at 7 lbs, 11 oz, and was 20 inches in height. Mother and daughter came though the event with flying colors.




While we were there, we were also able to celebrate our grandson Tristam's 12th birthday. We had the party just after their soccer game -- you can see both Tristam and his sister Kaila in their red uniform shirts.

We were also able to get in some grandparent time with our granddaughter Chloe who was only weeks old when we last saw her in October.

We also had the opportunity to see our friends Al and Claire in Bastrop - - and we spent a wonderful afternoon at their place along with our friends Mary Sue, Dave, and Linda. Claire was anxious to show off her new motorcycle, and we made tentative plans to have them visit us in the Black Hills later this summer.

Grandpa and Garrett also made some time to trim some tree branches so that the motorhome would fit down the driveway -- and to take some time to work to get his legs in shape for cycling . . . . . .

All too soon, our time in Texas had to be brought to a close, and we needed to say good-bye to our sons and their families (until this fall) and head north to our summer job at Custer State Park.


We left the Austin area on Friday the 8th after our too-short stay, and put the pedal to the metal to get to South Dakota by Monday morning. After overnight stops in Amarillo and then at Cherry Creek State Park in Denver (with Mandy's sister Penny and her husband Rex, who are camp hosts there), we arrived in Custer, SD late Sunday afternoon.
Since leaving Mesa, we'd compressed our travel in to 5 "road days" and had covered a total of 2280 miles -- which averages out to 456 miles per day -- way too much, but unfortunately necessary given the circumstances we found ourselves in. Fortunately, we had no mechanical issues or adverse weather (although it was pretty ugly between Denver and Cheyenne on Sunday), and the Phaeton was very comfortable for those long road days.
We are now set up for the summer at Wheels West RV Park just outside of the west entrance to Custer State Park. We are in the middle of our week-long orientation and training sessions for our summer seasonal positions as Entrance Gate Attendants at the park. We've been very impressed so far by the Black Hills and the surrounding area, and the park staff we'll be working with, and are looking forward to exploring further this summer.

As soon as we get more settled in here, we'll be posting additional pictures and detail of this wonderful area - one of the great perks of our job is that all employees get VIP passes to virtually all of the attractions in the area (and there are plenty!), so we'll be publishing more info on the Black Hills than you'll probably want to see.

A quick trip to Montana and then on to Texas

2009-05-07T09:10:00.000-07:00

As we'd noted in our last posting, we were heading north to Butte, Montana before continuing on to Texas to see our kids. We also indicated that we'd try to do a post or two while en route, but as you can probably guess, that didn't happen -- so we'll start to bring things up to date . . . . . .
We left bright and early on Sunday morning (4/26) from Phoenix Sky Harbor airport, heading for Butte via Salt Lake City. Fortunately we were able to find some tickets using some of my old (1994) Northwest Airlines points, so all we had to pay was the exorbitant $200 early booking fee -- anyway it was less expensive than buying last minute tickets.
We arrived in Butte a little after noon after meeting my mom and sister in SLC, and flying together on the last leg. As expected the weather was cold, but reasonable, and we checked into our room and waited for my brothers and cousins to arrive.

After all had arrived, we went out for a bite to eat.

We did the normal visitation thing on Sunday night at the church, and then after putting Mom to bed, went out on the town with the rest of the family. Butte has a number of very interesting and historic taverns and saloons in the downtown area and we visited several --

The funeral was Monday morning at 11:00 with a very nice luncheon afterward. The bishop said the funeral mass and there were about 40 priests and well over a hundred former parishioners of my Uncle in attendance. It was a great celebration of his life and his work in over 10 parishes in western Montana.

Monday night was pretty quiet, as my cousins and brothers had to take off early (our flight was the next day) -- but the snow came during the night, and by the time we got to the airport, the flight (the only one that day from Butte) had been canceled. Fortunately, we arrived at the airport early, and we were able to get rebooked out of Bozeman, so we quickly drove the 75 miles there, and all got out -- Mom and Margaret to Seattle, and Mandy and me to Phoenix.
We arrived back in time to find out that our battery was dead on our Honda van -- and when we took it into the dealer the next day to find out what had happened, we were notified that we needed a new battery AND alternator -- and, BTW, a highly recommended timing belt and water pump replacement. At the end of the day on Thursday, we drove back from the dealer quite a bit lighter in the wallet, but with the Honda ready for the next hundred thousand miles.
So, a day later than we'd planned, we finally hit the road east to the Texas hill country, hoping to get there in time for the birth of our newest granddaughter, Gillian . . . . . stay tuned!!

Winding down our Yuma winter stay -- and a last minute change of plans . . . . .

2009-04-24T10:01:00.000-07:00

We're into our last week here this winter, and we're trying to make the best of it. We've been doing some last minute shopping and just generally getting things ready for the road, after being here for four and a half months.
One of our key items was getting several Cummins engine service items taken care of on the motorhome. Over the past several months we've gotten several "service bulletins" of adjustments and/or parts replacements that are needed (under warranty, of course) on the rig's diesel engine. I checked directly with Cummins and found that our engine needed three different things done, and that fortunately there was a local service facility that could take care of it. We took the coach in about a week and a half ago to get everything done -- however, one part was needed which they didn't have in stock. Now its just days before we need to hit the road, and they still don't have it. We will be checking tomorrow (when they've assured me it will arrive) and they will get us in ASAP for the one hour job to install it. I hate to have this type of thing go to the last minute, but I guess I'll just have to go with the flow.
On the more positive side of things, we've been getting in some good cycling, as the weather has been very good -- a bit windy at times, but very good cycling weather nonetheless. Most of the time we've not had one of our cameras with us, so we just snapped a couple of pictures with the camera in our phone -- and they come out pretty good, all things considered.
One of our canal mountain bike rides -- thanks Joe, for organizing these fun events!

The other day we took the opportunity to draft a tractor out in Dome Valley -- he was going about 15-16 mph and we let him cut the wind for us for about 10 miles along old US 80. From left to right: Marty, Cheryl, Ray, and Mandy. Val, Judy, and Lisa held back a bit, as his exhaust was a bit strong!

Through Dome Valley on three Trek Tandems -- Bill and Carol, Mandy (and me behind the camera), and Gail and Dave.

Lisa, Mandy, Cheryl, and Judy as we explored an abandoned estate along old US 80 -- pretty interesting . . . .

I've been meaning to mention an additional item which we recently got which should be a help this summer -- a cell phone signal amplifier. Now that we are depending on cellular phone signals for both our voice communications and our Internet connectivity, we thought it would be wise to make sure that we are doing all we can to assure that we're getting the "most bars" possible. We got a 1.7 watt Wilson cellular amplifier, which is very small, and uses our external cell antenna -- but does not have to hook directly to our cell phones or our broadband card. Basically it has an "internal antenna" -- a small flat rectangular item about the size of a stick of gum, which is attached by a 6 foot cord to the amp. The internal antenna just needs to be near (2-3 feet) to the cell phones or the broadband card to boost its signal. So far it has worked really well -- we've used it in the motorhome for the last 5 weeks, and we also used it on our trip up to Washington in March. We're anticipating that it will be a big help during our summer at Custer State Park in the Black Hills of South Dakota -- it looks like we may be a ways away from either an ATT tower (for our phones) or a Verizon tower (for our broadband access) -- and as everyone knows, you've still got to pay the bill, whether or not you're able to get a good signal. Stay tuned for an update on our situation after we get set up in South Dakota. We're also pretty sure that it will help out as we go through west Texas -- and for our time at our son's place north of Austin. Once again, ATT and Verizon are somewhat inconsistent north and west of Austin -- its Alltel and Sprint country.
So, we're busy deciding what things to take for a summer at 5600 feet, as well as making sure that all the systems on the rig are in their best shape. I've had a pretty good list of items that need to be checked, verified, cleaned, lubricated, or replaced -- and I've gotten through most of them. The big things that remain are packing the 4 bikes in the van (we've decided to leave the tandem here for the summer), getting all the motorhome tires aired up properly and making sure that the the Pressure Pro TPMS is monitoring all of them, and just a general cleaning of the rig, inside and out.
The cleaning thing was also prompted by our potluck dinner here Sunday night -- we wanted to host a get-together for our friends who were still here, as we won't be seeing them until fall. We had a great time with BBQ chicken, and all the appropriate potluck items which go along with it. We really have a great group of folks here in Yuma, and we're very lucky and fortunate to be able to spend a wonderful season with all of them. Here are some shots of us all together for a last get-together before we take off -- (I guess that's a bit incorrect, as we're heading to another potluck on Monday night, which will probably be our final one -- we've got to get our packing work completed sometime!!).

All the gang from the roof our motorhome

Another shot from a different angle as the dessert line starts up

Mark racing over for a last dose of ice cream

PRE-POSTING UPDATE (several days after the above was drafted) --
The day before we left Yuma, we were notified that Greg's uncle, Father Tom Fenlon, had passed away in Butte, MT. He had served as a priest in Western Montana for well over 50 years (he was ordained in 1942), and had been a pastor at over 10 towns and cities during that time. Uncle Tom married us over 40 years ago (as he did my parents, and our son Brian), and has been a big part of our life. We immediately modified our travel plans to be able to attend his funeral this coming Monday in Butte.
We're now in Mesa, AZ, arriving here on Wednesday after a short drive from Yuma. We drove the Honda up to Flagstaff and back yesterday to get Mandy's annual checkup completed (she passed with flying colors!) -- and now we'll be leaving the motorhome here for the next several days and flying to Montana early Sunday morning for Uncle Tom's funeral on Monday. All of Greg's brothers and his sister, as well as his mother, will be traveling there too, as well as a number of cousins and other family friends, so our celebration of Father Tom's life will also be a bit of a family reunion. We'll fly back to Phoenix on Tuesday, and will head out to Texas with the motorhome on Wednesday morning. We'll be cutting it a bit short for arrival before Gillian's birth (currently scheduled for May 4) but our son Brian and his wife Christy agreed that it was much more important for us to take the time to go to Butte to say farewell to Uncle Tom.
We're planning on posting some entries to the blog as we travel (assuming connectivity), so until then . . . . . . .

Gila Mountain Potluck

2009-04-11T02:47:00.000-07:00

Our cycling group usually schedules a desert potluck in conjunction with the full moon each month, but this year our luck with the weather has not been good. Its either been too windy, or too cold, or even -- in one case -- a bit too rainy (believe it or not).
Our usual destination is Baker Tanks, about 30 miles east of Yuma, and actually inside the Barry Goldwater Bombing Range. Its an area of rock formations which hold runoff water (hence the "tanks" terminology), and over the years a "ramada" has been built out of rock, concrete, and a few strategically placed retired railroad rails. We posted some pictures of the location with one of our gatherings earlier in the blog -- a few reminder pictures below from our potluck there last spring.

The Baker Tanks full of rainwater runoff

The downside is that the Baker Tanks location requires a 60 mile round trip, and often has other groups there, as well as being pretty exposed to the weather. Recently several of the club have found a much better (and closer) location on the east side of Gila Mountain above Dome Valley, and we had a wonderful gathering there on Thursday evening -- the last full moon of this winter stay in Yuma.
It does not require 4wd to get into, but it does require a high clearance vehicle to get over some of the rocky areas of the road. Once there, there are lots of canyons and draws to explore (but watch for the snakes) -- the whole area is a soft sandstone which has eroded in many areas forming many arches and caves. Its a very interesting area, and like none that we have seen around here in the 6 years of intermittent desert hikes and exploring. It was really amazing to find it and realize that its just over the hill from our place in the foothills -- and that we regularly ride within a mile or two of it when we do our Dome Valley route.
Here are some of the shots of our recent potluck there -- there is no doubt that we'll return (double click on any of the pictures for a larger version).

An example of the caves and rocks at the site

Judy and Greg explore one of the larger caves

The boys enjoy some refreshment before dinner - Dome Valley is in the background

Sitting around the fire resting our feet in the knee-resting position

And the girls were on the other side of the fire -- kinda like a high school dance . . . .

A great campfire and a wonderful evening with friends (unfortunately our shots of the full moon did not turn out -- we'll remember to bring the monopod next year).

An Update on our Summer Plans

2009-04-08T15:43:00.000-07:00

Today we finally received complete confirmation of our summer position at Custer State Park in South Dakota's Black Hills. We've been hired as seasonal state employees working as Gate Attendants (we'll be the smiling ones taking your money and telling you where the buffalo are roaming . . . .), rotating through all of the park's five entrances. We plan on arriving on May 10 -- we'll be staying at Wheels West RV Park, just outside the west entrance to the park near Custer. The state uses a combination of paid workers (like us) and volunteers -- and the volunteers get most of the the available worker campsites inside the park -- a bit of a change from the normal workamping scenario that we've gotten used to over the past summers.
The park management did find a site for us, but it was way off in one corner of the park (which is huge -- 72,000 acres) -- so we decided to stay closer in at the commercial park near Custer. All in all, the overall employment package was attractive enough, even with this additional expense, to keep us interested. Our orientation will start on May 11, and our commitment/contract is through late September.
We're really looking forward to enjoying the summer there -- neither of us has been there before, but we've heard so many good things about the area, we can't wait to get started.
In preparation for hitting the road in a couple of weeks, we finally had our appointment today with the Cummins facility here in Yuma (Yuma Diesel Service) to get several engine recalls/service advisories taken care of. We got two out of three taken care of, but parts had to be ordered for the third one, and we'll have to take the coach back in to them in a week. Everything else is coming together as we check out all the coach systems to make sure everything is ready to go.
As we head east, we'll make a quick detour to Flagstaff then take a couple of days to get to the Austin area, where we'll stay with our sons and their families for a week or so. Our stay there will coincide with the birth (scheduled for May 4) of granddaughter Gillian, and after we give our love to our whole family there, we'll head north to South Dakota. We plan on spending more time there this fall on our way back to Yuma.
We've decided to leave the tandem here in our storage in Yuma for the summer and just take the road bikes and mountain bikes with us. We're not in a tandem-ing phase at this time, and it will make packing the car much easier to only have to make arrangements for four bikes. I've also done some housecleaning in the motorhome basement over the past week, and Mandy has gone through her kitchen cupboards, and we've both found a number of things we really don't need to drag with us all over the country. Its taken us 18 months to get really where we need to be in effectively using the storage in our Phaeton -- balancing usefulness and necessity with weight, placement, and available storage area.
We also got our last Algodones, Mexico run done over the past several days -- getting our teeth cleaned, and stocking up on drugs and prescriptions. Its really great to be able to wait until the crowds die down -- both days we had virtually no wait crossing back into the US, whereas several weeks ago we would have stood in line for and hour or more. That's about it for now -- no pictures this time around. We'll snap some for our next posting as we should have some good ones from tomorrow night's bike club potluck out near Gila Mountain -- the full moon and excellent weather forecast (at least for now) should make for an enjoyable evening.

A Whirlwind March

2009-04-03T12:10:00.000-07:00

I'd made plans earlier this year to fly up to Sequim, Washington in early March for my mother's 90th birthday. My two brothers and my sister would be there and we'd have a good reunion -- I think that the last time we'd all been together with Mom was when we celebrated her 80th in Santa Fe at my brother's.
My sister called me in late February to tell me that Mom had had a small seizure and we'd probably need to review her living situation -- she still was living by herself in her house. We decided to temporarily put her in assisted living, and decide the permanence of the arrangement when we all got up there for her birthday.
To make a long story short, we had a great birthday party for Mom at my sister's place in Seattle. Since I'm the retired one, and have (theoretically) more time than my sibs, after I flew in on the 8th, I drove over to Sequim (on Washington's Olympic Peninsula) and brought Mom back to Seattle. One of her high school classmates from Butte (who is a retired Seattle doctor), and her nephew Al (he's the redheaded one) came and joined us all as we celebrated her 9 decades.
We discussed the situation with her and we all decided that the assisted living arrangement was the best alternative. I took Mom back to Sequim, and we spent a few days doing her taxes, and moving some of her items to her new place. The bigger question was what, when, and how to take care of all of the rest of her things and the sale of her house, which was now sitting vacant.
I returned to Yuma, and after some discussions between Mandy and me -- and with my brothers and sister -- we decided that it would be better to address the issues now rather than later this year. We packed a few things, grabbed the GPS, fueled up the Honda, and temporarily left Yuma's sunshine behind and headed for the Northwest.
Fortunately we had time to stop for long-overdue visit with our good friends, Randy and Lori (and their daughter Natalie) in Vancouver (WA). Lori also showed us her newest pets -- miniature horses!

We also made time for quick tax-free visits to REI, Performance Cycle, and the Columbia Outlet Store in the Portland area.

After arriving in Sequim, we spent about a week boxing and packing things at Mom's house, getting her more permanently set up in her assisted living situation, renting a storage for the items that we all wanted to keep, and getting most of the items move to storage. We also spent time visiting with Mom daily, and taking advantage of the great meals at her facility.

Our hope is that our week of work would allow my sister to get Mom's place on the market this spring, and we'll see what happens in this interesting real estate market.

We didn't have time to take many other pictures, but we did snap a few along the way --

We caught a pretty good view of Mount Shasta as we zoomed by

We've always been pretty impressed by the windmills just west of Palm Springs -- but no wind this trip -- they were all still!

This was our first view (and transit) of the new Tacoma Narrows bridge connecting the Kitsap Peninsula with Tacoma -- it will get heavily used this summer, as there is a planned closing of the Hood Canal floating bridge for about 60 days.

We thought this was pretty interesting -- an old Huey being trailered to its new home. The guy had Army stickers all over his truck, so I suspect that he's probably a veteran on a labor of love.

Mandy managed to catch this interesting view as we were following him down the I-5 at 75 mph . . . . . .

So, after 3300 miles of dodging California traffic, and enduring Oregon and Washington rain, we're now back in Yuma, enjoying the last of the spring cycling here, and slowly getting ready to leave for points east. Our current plans are to hit the road around the 20th of April. We'll make a short drive to the Phoenix area and leave the motorhome there for a day or two while we make a quick run up to Flagstaff for Mandy's yearly visit with her cardiologist. We'll then head east on I-10 for central Texas and a visit with our sons and their families for a week or two -- and for the upcoming birth of our sixth grandchild. Our son Brian and his wife Christy are expecting their second child -- a girl (Gillian) just after the first of May.
After the festivities of welcoming another family addition, we'll turn north, bound for South Dakota's Black Hills. We will be working at Custer State Park, just south of Rapid City, for the summer and enjoying the biking, hiking, and scenery of our adopted state until the end of September. Barring unforeseen circumstances -- and realizing that plans more than 5-6 months out are cast in jello -- our plan is to wander south after our Black Hills stay, going to Red Bay, Alabama for some additional work at the Tiffin factory, and then leisurely head west, with a stay-over in Texas, on our way back to Yuma for the 09-10 winter season.

Speaking of "winter" in Yuma, here are a few flower pictures that Mandy has been collecting over the past couple of weeks, as things bloom out here this spring. Hopefully we'll be able to follow the spring season north over the next month, and see all the variations of flowers that are starting to bloom across the west.

Winter in Yuma - 2009

2009-02-10T04:41:00.000-07:00

Well, better late than never with an update --- with lots of friends through here, and lots of January activities and good weather, we've just been procrastinating on sitting down and getting an update out.
Up until the last couple of days, the weather here in Yuma has been pretty good -- days up into the 70's and evenings down into the low 50's. The wind has been a bit more constant, however, and has kept us from using our BBQ and patio very much -- all in all, though, much better than any other place in the continental US.
The bicycling has been great and we've been getting in some miles and getting stronger -- we got down here later this season than usual, and everyone else in the Foothills Bicycling Club got a bit of a head start on us in getting their legs and butts hardened up. We're making good progress, and having fun, and will be ready to do our "century" before we leave in April.

Our good friends, Jim and Yvette got to Yuma in early January, to work at Westwind RV Park and Golf Resort, just across the freeway from our location. We both decided that we'd just go up to the Quartzsite RV show for a day, rather than taking our motorhomes up for a week or so -- and we coordinated our day in "Q" with our friends Al and Claire, who were here for a week to take advantage of the Yuma ambience.

We jumped at the opportunity to be tour guides and organizers for Al and Claire during their week here, showing them the interesting places all around the Yuma area . . . . . .
Yuma Territorial Prison

Algodones, Mexico

The Flea Market

Seeing the Golden Knights Army Parachute Team

Just having fun

Later in the month, we went with Jim and Yvette for a hike up to Palm Canyon in the KOFA Wildlife Refuge between Yuma and Quartzsite. We took advantage of being in their 4 wheel drive pickup and took an additional side trip deep into the refuge, all the way back to the remains of the KOFA Queen Mine. There was some fantastic desert mountain scenery along the way, but we paid for it by getting several "Arizona pinstripes" on their pickup.

We also had an enjoyable hike with the bike club in the Imperial Wildlife Refuge along the Colorado River north of Yuma. We were familiar with the Painted Desert hike there, but our hike leader Carl took the group to another area very near the boundary with the Yuma Proving Grounds that was very interesting to see -- lots of wildlife (or at least signs of it), neat desert colors, and remains of old mining operations. Mandy's sister Penny and her husband Rex are going to be volunteers at the refuge next winter, so we'll be able to take the opportunity to see even more of this interesting area.

As I noted at the beginning, the weather over the past several days has taken a turn for the worse -- we had some pretty decent rain over the weekend, and this week looks to be colder and windier than usual. However, that will probably mean that the desert will be blooming in a couple of weeks as spring sets in for good, and that will be very enjoyable to see -- we're already getting our annual display of our wildflowers in our lot, and we anticipate seeing more in the desert in the coming months.

January in Yuma -- phase I

2009-01-18T09:26:00.000-07:00

We're finally settled into the normal winter events here in Yuma -- for those of you who haven't been counting, this is our sixth winter here in the sun of the desert southwest, and we're still enjoying it as much as when we first arrived.
The main thing for us is getting back in shape cycling with our friends in the Foothills Bicycle Club (link). The club has "organized" rides four days a week -- with two days being relatively easy (20-25 miles, 13-14 mph pace) and two days of a more adventuresome type (30-60 miles, several pace groups depending on ability and inclination). Each month we schedule a century ride (100 miles -- or 100km), and we have several traditional once-a-year rides. We also "organize" several ad-hoc hikes into the surrounding desert areas, just to break things up. We don't forget about the fat-tire side of cycling either -- each week there is at least one mountain bike ride exploring the area. Its all pretty loosely organized, with the only rule mandating the wearing of helmets on the bike rides. The club has no officers, no published route maps, no sag wagons -- just folks who love to ride. We do have a website with basic information, and a ride calendar, but that's about it as far as organization -- and about all we've found we need.
Mandy and I usually don't remember to take our camera when we go out on a ride, but fortunately we grabbed it today for our Sunday short-and-easy ride around the foothills. Here is a couple of shots of the 40+ riders who were out having fun today.

Of course, there are a number of other things to keep us busy and occupied during the mild winter here -- Algodones, Mexico is only a couple of miles away, and we go there a number of times during the season for drugs (prescriptions!!), dental work, and just to enjoy the fish tacos and margaritas. All the merchants there get together and usually have a yearly party for all the "winter visitors" who keep their economy going.

The Quartzsite RV show and the associated gem and mineral show bring over 200,000 people to the surrounding desert in late January each year. We sometimes take the motorhome up and boondock in the desert for 3-4 days, and other years we've just driven up for a day of adventure -- its only 65 miles north of us here in Yuma, and if you're in the area, don't miss it -- its truly a unique experience.
Our good friends, Jim and Yvette have arrived here for the season, and we'll be joined this week by Claire and Al from Texas, and we all are getting together to spend a day in Quartzsite and -- bet you could guess -- a day in Algodones. We're also looking forward to doing some additional playing around -- probably some geocaching, and some local tourist stuff, as well as just having a good time with great friends. We will be bringing our camera on our events over the next week or two, and the blogging of that will be the "phase II" of our January in Yuma post -- stay tuned!!

Merry Christmas 2008

2008-12-25T05:20:00.000-07:00

As you can see, its Christmas in the desert Southwest -- the temperature today is just above 60 F, but with a bit of an east wind blowing. Its supposed to get up a few more degrees later in the day, and cloud up a bit, and the wind is supposed to gust up to 25-30 -- but its a lot better than most areas of the country, and we're thankful for that.
Mandy's sister Penny and her husband Rex, who introduced us to the Yuma area years ago, will be coming over this afternoon to have small Christmas dinner -- Mandy's fixing a really great soup that we were introduced to earlier this fall by our friends in Bastrop, TX, Claire and Al.
Our friends from our Safari days, Pat and Ron, called yesterday to let us know they'd arrived in town, and it will be great to see them next week. Our good friends from our days at Sunset Point in Marble Falls, TX, Jim and Yvette, will be arriving just before New Years for a couple of month's stay, and Claire and Al will be coming to Yuma for a couple of weeks later in January. We're really fortunate to have such good friends, and such a great RVing community.
We also got a call yesterday from our son Brian and his wife Christi informing us that their new arrival (May 09) will be a new granddaughter! No names have been selected yet. We plan to leave Yuma in time to be in Texas for the birth. No firm plans for what we'll be doing this summer, but we're exploring a couple of promising opportunities.
We're getting back into our bicycling here with the Foothills Bike Club -- neither of us is working this winter (well, Mandy is still doing her Friday morning volunteering at the Salvation Army) so we've got plenty of time to get and to stay in shape. In addition to our road riding on our singles and our tandem, we're trying to get in a bit of mountain bicycling just to round things out.
We had a bit of a repair adventure the other day -- our 8 foot powered roller shades which cover the windshield had a bit of a problem -- the shade material for both the sunshade and the blackout shade was coming loose from the roller (the manufacturer did not anchor it properly) and the shade material was rolling unevenly and was self-destructing. After talking to MCD (the manufacturer), who had done work on them just over a year ago, we decided the only option was to take them down and repair them ourselves. Mandy and I managed to get the rollers down, unroll them out all over the floor, re-attach the fabric to the rollers (with special tape supplied by MCD), and remount them. After 5 hours of tedious work, they were back in and working flawlessly -- but we were pretty nervous during the whole operation. I guess it just goes to show that with the right mental attitude and a deliberate approach, you can accomplish some pretty amazing stuff!
Guess that's about it for now -- we're planning on having a New Year's Eve dinner with relatives and friends (better get here quick, Jim and Yvette!) -- but we'll miss our traditional hike up to the Telegraph Pass towers with Harry and Verena (Mandy really sprained her ankle last year, so we decided against this year). January will be filled with cycling, visits from friends, and some time to go up to Quartzsite for the RV show. The really good weather returns in February thru April (which we'll enjoy to the max), and then we're on the road again to see our new granddaughter, and look for more adventures.
I guess when we stop and reflect on things, life is pretty good -- we've both got our health, it looks like we'll make it through the recession, we're doing what we enjoy, we've got a great home which we can move wherever and whenever we want, and we've got a great bunch of family and friends to help us through it all. Couldn't ask for much more, could you? Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all !!