George and Geri's Travels

Merry Christmas To All!!!

2011-12-24T15:02:00.002-07:00

As we complete 2011, we continue to be thankful for our family and friends, and our ability to both travel and spend the winters in the sunny Southwest. This past year was a whirlwind of activity with graduations, rallies, an exciting RV caravan, an overdue visit to Canada, and travel coast-to-coast in the USA. We had the good fortune to have some great family visits, and we had the chance to see old friends and make new ones along the way.

Take a look at some of our photo memories from 2011 and here's looking forward to a wonderful 2012!

PS: We're also thankful for our ability to communicate so effectively and quickly with everyone. With Facebook and Twitter, email and text messages, Foursquare and LinkedIn, our travel Blog, Skype and Facetime and even the odd HeyTell, we're able to stay in touch like never before. While we know it's not everyone's "thing", we hope that you'll bear with us as we convert a lot of our communications away from "snail mail" to electronic formats. In addition to saving a tree (OK, maybe just a branch), we're hopeful that we'll be more timely and frequent with our communications in the future.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

2011-12-10T22:06:00.001-07:00

December 10, 2011

Peoria, AZ

It's been a busy couple of weeks, and it's been feeling like winter as well.

I managed to migrate my eBay selling processes to the Mac and put a bunch of used items out there. Roughly half off this batch sold, bringing in enough to pay for the upgrades to the "spare" bathroom. It's more work than you might expect, since each item has to be photographed and weighed, and the proper text describing the item (especially any flaws) created. This batch went through pretty smoothly, with a minimum of questions and post-sale issues. While I was doing the packing and shipping, I managed to send out most of the Christmas gifts at the same time. We only have a couple of things that need to go out next week.

We've continued to eat well and I've been whittling away at the short list of "should have drunk this last year" wines. We've made some "old favorites" (my Lamb Ragú, Geri's Pasta Sauce") and tried some new recipes as well. Geri made a nice Spicy Shrimp with Orchiette, and I had fun with Pork Chops Roasted over Cauliflower. We did a couple of braises, of Short Ribs and Brisket, but neither was a "keeper".

Today, I wrapped up two coats of paint on the bathroom. When it was completed, Geri and I looked at each other and said "crap". Yes, that's what the walls look like. Literally. Yuck. As it turns out, "what we have here is a failure to communicate". I was worried about the wall color being too dark and thought we'd do contrasting colors on opposing walls, but didn't push the issue. Geri didn't like the color right in the store, but we both let Paint Guy do the computer color matching and off we went. Fortunately, we're smart enough to call a halt at this point and regroup -- while everything is all taped off and changing the color isn't a huge issue. It may take a couple of coats of Kilz before we can go lighter, but that's relatively easy right now. Once we have the colors right, we'll finalize the tile selection and wrap this project up. Hopefully, we'll have selected a light fixture by then.

I did take time out this morning to watch the lunar eclipse. OK, I actually got up early, oh-dark-thirty, and was outside pre-dawn. Chilly, but a nice show. I was able to get at least one halfway decent picture before the whole thing set behind a the neighbor's roofline. The eclipse was visible here just as the moon was setting and the sun was rising, diminishing some of the visual flair, but it was still worth an early morning.

Finally, we're pretty glad we decided to put up the Christmas decorations early, right after Thanksgiving. Within a few days, it turned cold and windy, and we actually had some rain. I think we're almost up to 4" for the year at this point! Anyway, we've use the same decoration scheme as the past several years inside and out. Each year, we threaten to toss the whole thing and start over, but we like what we have and know how to get things up quickly. One person's efficiency is another's tradition, I suppose. Geri did a great job with the tree, as always, and she arranged for some upgrades to the outside lights with a series of LED "snowflakes". All in all, we're definitely getting in the holiday spirit!

Can you believe November’s almost over?

2011-11-29T21:45:00.001-07:00

November 29, 2011

Peoria, AZ

Wow, time sure flies when you’re busy. It doesn’t matter if you’re having fun. Fortunately for us, the past couple of weeks have been mostly on the plus side.

We’ve completed all of the doctor and vet appointments for now, and everything is fine. Merlin’s leg is healing, although it will probably be a while before he’s not running on three legs. The anti-inflammatory medicine helped a lot and he’s able to walk on “all four” to an extent now. We’re optimistic that he’ll be able to work this out without requiring surgery.

So, what else have we been up to? Well, we’ve done some cleaning and started getting the house ready for the holidays. The first holiday is Thanksgiving, of course, and we spent that with our friends Ana and Larry as we have since we settled on Arizona as our winter headquarters. They we married on 11/23/1978 -- Thanksgiving -- and this year, their daughter got married on Thanksgiving as well. It was a fine ceremony and a great after-party (“reception” is so last generation), and we were honored to be there for Alex and Brian. I took a bunch of pictures with a specialized “app” on the iPad, just for effect.

And, much to Geri’s delight, I’ve started to clean out the mess I’d built in the spare bedroom. Between things destined for Goodwill or eBay, there was just a lot of stuff in there. Now, 90% of the Goodwill stuff (mostly older clothing items) is gone to a better place, and everything I felt was eBay-worthy is listed for sale. In fact, one item is already shipped and five more have bids that’ll “win” once the auctions close next Sunday.

Otherwise, I’ve been spending some time migrating my day-to-day computing over to the iMac. I’ve found a series of free apps to handle things that I’m used to doing with Microsoft Office on the PC, and I’m getting the hang of the integration opportunities. Having spent money I didn’t anticipate on the iMac itself, I’m trying to be cautious on the add-on expense. My next project will be to reorganize the desktop -- the literal one -- by moving things around in the study to make the space more effective.

Once that’s done, it’s time to paint! This year, we’re planning to paint both bathrooms and our bedroom. Of course, painting is probably not the extent of the renovation, as we’ll likely tile the floors at the same time. Fortunately, since we already have the right tools, that won’t be a huge challenge.

And, tomorrow is “Christmas Decoration Day”. We’ll get out the boxes of stuff and deploy the decorations we have used for the past several years. Geri will get the tree up and I’ll tackle the outside lights. With temperatures in the upper-70s, this will be a piece of cake compared to what we used to face in the Northeast.

Meanwhile, we’ve continued to eat well. We’ve had a couple of nice Porterhouse Steaks (for two), Geri’s made several of the salads she’s famous for, and we’ve restarted our “try a new recipe at least once a week” program, mixed in with “old favorites”. I’ve started our annual reorganization of the “wine box” as well, trying to identify wines that probably coulda/shoulda been consumed by now, making room for the haul we brought back from this fall’s West Coast travels. It’s a tough job, yada yada yada...

Back in the swing of things...

2011-11-11T16:52:00.001-07:00

November 11, 2011

Peoria, Arizona

Well, things have been hectic since we've gotten back,but that's to be expected. The good newsis that most things are working out well, just like we'd hoped.

The biggest thing is that Geri's kidney continues to havehealed well after her 2009 surgery. Wehad our semi-annual follow-up at the urologist's office today, and everythingis "unremarkable". That'sapparently medical-speak for "you're fine". We got a similar report from the ophthalmologistearlier in the week; the eyes are fine. With visits to the dentist (cleaning for both of us), primary caredoctor (fine with minor prescription changes), hair and nail salons, and petgroomer complete, the list of appointments is rapidly getting cleared. Geri goes for a mammogram next week and we'repretty much done.

Unfortunately, we're shifting our attention to the vet atthis point. Last week, we think Merlingot one paw caught in the closing door to the garage on the way our for a walk,and he came up limping. We got him rightin to the vet, and it seems like he's strained ligaments and/or tendons in hisleft rear knee. Apparently, it's notuncommon in small dogs and should respond to an anti-inflammatory prescriptionover the course of two weeks. If not, hemay need a minor surgery to fix things up. We're keeping our fingers crossed; at 13½, we'd like to avoid that ifpossible. In the meantime, he's on"modified assignment", not allowed to go for morning and eveningwalks (and really not liking that), and restricted from jumping up/down on thebed and couch (not happy with that, either).

In other news, I've almost completed an assignment fromlast summer's motorhome caravan. Thesearen't commercial caravans; they're put on by the members. While the caravan leaders certainly have thelion's share of the work, everyone gets to participate in some small way. I was asked to create an archive of selectedpictures from the trip via DVD for all of the participants. If you know me, this is where I say"nothing is ever as simple as it seems".

These days, burning a DVD from a notebook computershouldn't really be a problem; most full-sized machines have DVD drives builtin. Unfortunately for me, mine (vintage2009) has been acting up over the past year or so. It often won't recognize a disc beinginserted, blank or otherwise. I knewthis would be an issue at some point, and when I tried to burn a sample disc Icouldn't do it. "No problem; I'lljust use Geri's". Uh, not so fast,fella. Geri's machine (vintage 2011; wegot it in the spring before we hit the road) would burn the disc, but not playit. Nor would our Blu-ray DVD player inthe coach.

So, this is a timing thing more than anything. Once back to AZ, I have another computer witha DVD burner that should work. Worstcase, I drop $50 on a USB-connected drive. So, hardware isn't the issue.

The bigger challenges are selection and formatting. Since I collected pictures throughout thecaravan from several other participants, there are a lot of pictures. Including my own, I have 4,969 images, to beexact. It all adds up to over 10.2gigabytes of data, enough for 3 DVDs. Now, nobody wants to watch a slideshow of that size, so my first taskhas been to sort through all the images and try to pick the best ones. Once I started this, I realized that I wouldhave been well served if I'd provided the other contributors with some guidelines. Things like use unique file names (similarmodels within a camera brand will use the same naming conventions, creating thepotential for a duplicate - or 20). And,who thinks to set/adjust the date/time in the camera? Very few, until you're trying to mergemultiple batches of photos together by event within day for review. But, I enjoy this kind of challenge (at leastuntil Geri starts reminding me of all the other to-dos I'm slipping on), soorganizing and filtering was right up my alley.

Formatting? Well,that's another story. I've never reallydone a lot with photo slideshows. "Back in the day", before digital photography took off, yougot your prints back, then selected the best for reprints, and maybe even hadan enlargement or two made for framing. Fast forward to today, and most pictures live on hard drives andsmartphones, delivered to photo sites like Picasa and Flickr, used in Blogposts, or sent directly to Facebook or Google+ or iCloud. There may have been a time when digitalslideshows (the term still conjures up images of Kodak carousels for me) mighthave been "in"; I think I was absent that day.

All that said, the caravan wants a DVD slideshow with transitions and background music and Isigned up for the assignment, so a DVD slideshow it will be. And, leaveit to me to find the most expensive and complicated way to make it happen. After researching no- and low-costs options,I concluded that the best way to proceed was to get that iMac I've beendreaming of and use it to master the DVDs. So, I made the purchase ("Merry Christmas, George") and havebeen learning many things "i" in the meantime (iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iLife).

And, I have to admit, it's been a fun learningexperience. I was able to connect theiMac to my Windows machine, import the photos, make my selections and formatday-by-day slideshows in iPhoto, import them all to iMovie for rendering, andburn a DVD using, what else, iDVD. Geri and Iwatched the first cut yesterday, just over 30 minutes worth.

I've only got a few things left to work out, making finalcuts to the picture sets, getting the sequence just right, verifying that thetransitions (I'm using iPhoto's "Ken Burns" theme, which pans overthe photos as they appear; very professional) all work and getting the musicright. There are a couple of dozensample and theme tracks, but they're limited and I can include music fromiTunes, so that opens things up.

So, in and amongst all the other projects, I'll put thewraps on the DVDs and get them in the mail by early next week. Geri will certainly be glad when this isover! We might even burn a couple ofextra copies to share with family and friends who wonder what we're up to whilewe're on the road all those months at a time!

Travel Summary

2011-11-02T11:39:00.000-07:00

November 2, 2011

Peoria, Arizona

I always find it interesting to look at our summer'stravel in total when we get back in the fall. This year, we traveled farther than anticipated, since we didn't have afull travel plan in mind when we left in April. We knew we'd go to Alabama and Connecticut for college graduations, toWisconsin and Michigan for RV get-togethers, and to South Dakota for mydriver's license renewal. The trip outto the West Coast was an "in-flight adjustment", and a great way tocap off the travel season.

Overall, we were on the road for 195 days, covering about10,930 miles. We stayed overnight at 47different places along the way, which means we averaged a little over 4 daysper stop. We averaged just under $21 pernight. You don't want to know about thefuel.

Here's a summary map:

Back in storage

2011-11-01T15:16:00.000-07:00

November 1, 2011

Peoria, Arizona

We must be getting better at this: we had the coachunloaded by 3:00 PM yesterday. I was upearly and started unloading before it got too warm. Geri made a quick trip to Walmart to pick upsome additional laundry baskets; we find that they're just the right size formost of the unloading. We found thatworking in waves was best: I could bring in baskets of "stuff" andshe could route things to the right place in the house. This way, the dogs can stay with her andaren't running back and forth. We've gota large pile of laundry in the queue (aka, the hallway to the spare bedroom),but most everything is back where it belongs (or at least in the rightroom).

We did find another casualty, though; the standalonefreezer we have in the garage will no longer cool. It was a cheap model bought over ten years agoin New Jersey, so we probably got our money's worth from it. One can argue that two people and two smalldogs can probably get by with the freezer in the kitchen, though, so we'll holdoff on a replacement for now.

Today, the "fun" began. Every fall, we have a series of appointmentsfor doctors, dentist, vet, grooming, etc. We actually start making them 4-6 weeks before we get back. Later this week, Geri has to go for herfollow-up MRI to verify that her 2009 kidney procedure went well. Since nothing is simple, she has to get a fastingblood test done before the MRI, so we were up early and off to the lab. Then, after a quick breakfast at the localIHop, we stopped at the storage lot to sign up for our space for thecoach. Once we were set there and paidup, we moved the coach over to storage and were able to declare"done" on that phase. Yea!

Back to our winter place

2011-10-30T20:46:00.000-07:00

October 30, 2011

Peoria, Arizona

We had a great breakfast with Wayne and Eva, then hit thehighway heading east (for a change). Itwas a beautiful, warm (low-90s) day and we had another easy drive, followingI-10 to AZ-101 just west of Phoenix. Wewere soon parked in front of the winter abode just before 4:00 PM. The timing was pretty good, since our planwas to defer unloading most things until tomorrow. Like my friend, Dave, we have a homemade power cord with a 50 Amp plug, so Iplugged the coach in to keep the air conditioners running, then startedtackling the house.

Our fall start-up routine is nowhere near as complicatedas preparing for departure in the spring. I call the city (water, sewer, trash) and the Internet people about aweek in advance; we leave the gas service on but turned off at the meter. Basically, I have to reset the airconditioning, install new water filters and open the valve, fill the hot waterheater, turn on the gas, bleed the gas lines to the stove and water heater, andlight the pilot for the water heater. Within an hour (barring any mishaps), everything is ready to go, andthis year there were no issues, per se. The water valve was a little sticky but nothing a 12" pipe wrenchcouldn't fix (last year, I had to make an emergency trip to Home Depot becausethe water valve wouldn't open). Thetoilets and drains were fine, since I've started sealing the water in withplastic wrap before we leave. The waterheater pilot light takes a while to come on, but I'm used to that. We buy the water filters in bulk, so theywere already waiting for me to install them. No leaks made for a pretty smooth start-up.

The only problem we had this year was that several of thesmoke and carbon monoxide alarms were beeping. Actually, the real problem was that we didn't have any spare 9-voltbatteries in the house! Geri made aquick trip to Home Depot (not me for a change!) while I was doing the waterfilters, and we soon changed them all out and Merlin was able to come out fromunder the bed. I thought I'd changed thebatteries in the spring, but maybe not. Needless to say, "get batteries" will be added to theone-week-before-arrival to-do list for next year.

Over the past few years, we've made a tradition out ofheading to a local pizza joint, Grimaldi's, for dinner on the night we arriveback, and this year was no exception. They serve the closest thing we can get to "real" New Yorkpizza out here. After dinner, I broughtin the network equipment from the coach and restarted the cable modem. Everything worked fine there as well.

All in all, an easy re-entry this year. As always, we love our travels but it feelsgreat to be back in AZ for the winter...

One last stop...

2011-10-29T21:11:00.000-07:00

October 29, 2011

Indio, California

We made one last stop on this year's "grandtour", visiting with Wayne and Eva (and their friends/neighbors, Will andDiane) in Indio. We had a great time asalways, collaborating on a nice dinner (Rack of Pork, something we don't haveoften). It would have been nice to staya little longer, but we were anxious to get back to Arizona and they'd justarrived home a few days before. Thereare lots of things to do when you get back...

Heading east toward Arizona

2011-10-28T21:35:00.000-07:00

October 28, 2011

Cathedral City/Palm Springs, California

We left Lompoc yesterday morning, bidding the Elksadieu. We'd planned to stay at the ElksLodge in Indio, which breaks up the 12-hour drive from Lompoc to Phoenix quitenicely, but they're hosting some sort of RV Rally and are all booked up. Since we'd planned to catch up with ourCanadian friends, John and Kristine, anyway, we ended up staying a little tothe west, near Palm Springs. ThisOutdoor Resorts park was one of the original developments, and it's a nicepark. We booked a space here for twonights.

We'd made arrangements to catch up with John and Kristinetoday for lunch, so it was a bit of a surprise for them when we passed theirsite yesterday afternoon. We joined themfor cocktail hour (OK, they came to pick us up in the golf cart, since parkingat each site is tight), and then again for lunch today. We had a chance to catch up, as we haven'tseen them "live" since May of 2009, and compare notes on coach upgrades. It was good to see them...

This afternoon, I had great plans - for a nap. Unfortunately, I just happened to look at theRover and it was leaning to one side. What the...? Yep, a screw in theleft rear tire, down to 10 PSI. I had tomake a quick trip to the Post Office to pick up mail this morning and noticed thatthe ride was a little "loose" at highway speeds, so we must havepicked it up over the past few days. Imight have been able to pump it up and we might have been able to nurse it backto Phoenix, but a quick search on Google Maps revealed that there is a tireshop location of the chain we've used lately (Discount Tire/America's Tire)right next door.

I fired up the air compressor, pumped the tire back upand headed out. They confirmed that thescrew was too close to the sidewall to patch, and - surprise - they had a tireof the right size (different brand) in stock. They got me right in and within 45 minutes, everything was all swappedout and, $33 poorer (I only have to pay to renew the warranty on the new tire)and I was on the way home. Not bad...

Wrapping up a visit to Lompoc

2011-10-26T21:31:00.000-07:00

October 26, 2011

Lompoc, California

Lompoc is generally known for its flowers, more specificallythe farms that generate the seeds. Or,for Vandenberg Air Force Base, where a lot of unmanned rocket launcheshappen. Or even the big federal penitentiarylocated there. Nowadays, it's becomingmore and more known for the wines made there, specifically Pinot Noirs. Yep, we're hooked. We managed to visit several wineries andpicked up all of our "wine club" packages. It'll be a nice-drinking winter...

We also stopped to see Geri's sister, Kathy, twice, atthe assisted living complex. She washappy to see us, knowing we were there to see her even if she wasn't sure whowe are. Geri brought a short slideshowof pictures on her iPad, and she really liked that. She even recognized Merlin from thepictures! Awesome.

We parked at the Lompoc Elks Lodge for the first time,which was super-convenient. On the otherhand, we may have picked up an unwanted houseguest, as we found"evidence" of a mouse being pretty bold inside. We cleaned everything up and the dogs, beingprogrammed in their DNA to chase vermin, were patrolling and scratching allover. If we didn't drive it/them out,we'll have to get some traps...

Fiddling Around

2011-10-22T20:29:00.000-07:00

October 22, 2011

Lompoc, California

One of the things we like to do when in "WineCountry" is take advantage of any special events available. One of the benefits of being in various wineclubs directly with wineries is that you get invitations to"members-only" events. We tookadvantage of one of these today, at Fiddlehead. They invited their top-end club members (not just"Fiddleheads" but "Stradivarius Club" - everything issomehow "fiddle" related) to a luncheon in the home vineyard. We had a fine afternoon, mingling with about25 other wine geeks, spending some time with the owner/winemaker, learning alittle more about vineyard management issues and techniques, having a greatmeal (from Snapper Ceviché to a Whole Smoked Pig) and tasting a series of"library wines", older vintage stock held back by the winery. overall, it was a great way to spend a nice,sunny afternoon...

Back home, we decided to sit outside for a bit as thetemperatures cooled off. We'd left theair conditioning on with the generator running for the pups while we were offwining. One of the nice things aboutbeing "out back" by ourselves is that Merlin and Maya Lynn can hangwith us leash-free. Fortunately, Gerispotted the largest spider we've ever seen (actually a tarantula), just walkingthrough the campground, before Maya did. Accordingly, we all retired inside for the evening, where I bored Geriwith Game 3 of the World Series for the evening's entertainment.

South to Santa Barbara County

2011-10-21T20:26:00.000-07:00

October 21, 2011

Santa Maria/Los Olivos, California

Today started out cloudy, almost foggy, but it was justthe typical California "marine layer" that often develops along thecoast. It soon burned off and we hadsunshine for the most part on our short drive continuing on US-101 fromAtascadero to just south of Santa Maria. Our destination today wasn't an Elks Lodge for a change! It's a winery.

We stopped at Trés Hermanas Winery four or five yearsago and were intrigued with their Wine Club deal: based on how much you spendon wine, you get "free" nights in the little RV Park they've builtout back of the buildings. If you'reselective, the wines are reasonably good, so we signed up. Then, we never took advantage of theparking. Sure, we stopped by each springand fall to pick up accumulated Wine Club items, but the relatively long ~10mile drive out winding Foxen Canyon Road from Los Olivos just didn't seem to befun with the coach. Then, last spring,we took a different route and found a road that's much easier on the coach, sowe decided to try that this fall.

The RV Park is only open to Wine Club members, althoughI'm sure they have some various other guests (probably family members) use itfrom time to time. It's a nicely laidout 21-space, all pull-thru layout with water and 30-amp electric at eachsite. It's nice and quiet and we're hereall by ourselves, surrounded by a horse corral, cattle pastures and, of course,vines. The only down side is that theydidn't really execute well on the electrical service, trying to lay out 2130-amp sites on a 100-amp circuit (that math just doesn't work) and usingunder-sized wiring. As soon as there'sany kind of load on the circuit, the voltage drops significantly. Nominally, voltage in North America is 120volts, +/- 10%. Our coach's electricalprotection system will automatically disconnect is the voltage drops below 108or spikes higher than 132. Here, we wereable to drop the circuit below that just using the microwave; classicunder-sized wiring issue. It's OK,though, since it's "free" how loudly should you complain? As long as it's relatively cool, we're fine.

Stop Wining...

2011-10-20T22:22:00.000-07:00

October 20, 2011

Atascadero, California

Yesterday we had more success with wine tasting, so letthe whining stop! We relaxed in themorning, had an early lunch, and headed for Paso Robles. We visited Eberle Winery on the east side,made a stop at the local Wally for some supplies, and then headed for FourVines Winery. It was pretty hard tofind, since we didn't know that the Four Vines brand had been sold and theplace had been renamed "Cypher". It was OK, though, as we got to taste several very nice Syrahs and Rhôneblends. All in all, it was a successfulday.

Eberle Winery uses a wild boar as their logo, so there are several sculptures of them on the grounds.

What to do when the old truck is "retired"? Yard Art, of course...

Many vineyards contain devices to keep birds at bay. This one is a huge wind chime!

We headed home via Trader Joe's again, this time a quickstop to pick up fresh basil. Sounds likesomething Italian? You bet: Jimmy'sFamous Chicken and Brie with Farfalle. Itrimmed up a couple of chicken breasts, Geri made the sauce from scratch withheirloom tomatoes, and it was excellent!

Today, we were lazy. We can't go wining every day! Weputtered around the coach, Geri went shopping, and I upgraded my iPad with thelatest software from Apple. The latterwent mostly well, although I've got an app that's now behaving strangely, darnit.

We'd planned to go to the San Luis Obispo Farmer'sMarket, really more of an evening street fair from whet we've read, to catch upwith our friends Wayne and Eva, but after a strong afternoon of shopping,Geri's ankles were sore and swollen so we decided to pass. We finished off the Tri-Tip and called it anight...

Tuesday is NOT wine tasting day

2011-10-19T21:16:00.000-07:00

October 18, 2011

Atascadero-Templeton-Paso Robles, California

I know I'm sounding like a broken record when I say thatyesterday was a nice driving day, but it was, darn it! For years, we'd rush from place to place, upearly, drive all day, stop after dark. In 2009, Bob and Rod schooled me in the art of traveling in the top halfof the clock: on the road at 9:00 and parked by 3:00 in the afternoon. This fall, we've taken that a step further:leave by 10:00 and stop by 2:00. I'mliking it.

In any event, we had an easy drive from Salinas toAtascadero, US-101 all the way. This isfarming country, in a wide, flat valley from Gilroy (garlic) through Salinas(greens, spinach recalls notwithstanding) down to just north of Paso Robles,where the valley floor narrows, the hills begin to roll, and the vines start toreappear.

Today, I made a quick trip to Templeton to pick up mail atthe Post Office. We're waiting for a newVisa card that hasn't shown up yet. Inthe afternoon, we decided to do some wine tasting. I looked over the various brochuresavailable, did some Wine Spectatorresearch, and made a couple of winery picks. As we get older and wiser (and as the various spots to store wine in thecoach fill up), we get more selective. Ilike to seek out wines that actually do well in a given place, and producerswho've gained some degree of recognition for their quality products. Too often in the past, we've tasted and evenpurchased wines and realized later that they weren't the best ones available ina given area. In Paso Robles, thevarieties that do best are from the Rhône region in France. While predominantly Syrah, Grenache,Mourvedre, and other lesser-known grape varieties are growing inpopularity. So, we were off in search ofRhôneblends (sometimes referred to as "GSM", Grenache-Syrah-Mourvedre).

Unfortunately, I didn't allow enough research time toactually drill down to individual winery web sites and literature. If I had, I'd have realized that typicaltasting room hours in the Paso Robles area run Thursday-Monday, maybe evenFriday-Sunday. Tuesday? Not so much. So, we struck out with a couple of small, highly-rated producers. We'll save them for next time. Instead, we made a return visit to TurleyWinery and tasted some nice Zinfandel. We'd stopped here last fall as well. We enjoyed the tasting, and their new tasting room, and made a fewselect purchases for the Wine Box.

Heading home, we made a quick stop at the local TraderJoe's to pick up some produce (and some Two Buck Chuck, since it's actually $2in California as opposed to $3 everywhere else). Geri made a nice appetizer plate and I gotout the grill to sear a Tri-Tip. It wasa cheater Tri-Tip, pre-seasoned from Costco, and it was way too spicy and saltyfor our tastes. We won't do that again!

Heading South - Again...

2011-10-16T20:52:00.003-07:00

October 16, 2011

Salinas, California

Today, we were up a little later than planned, but we hadan easy driving day. We were all set totravel around 10:30, and soon heading south. We cut across to I-80, then immediately exited for I-680, which wefollowed south all the way to San Jose (no, we weren't singing) and US-101. Continuing south, we were soon exiting inSalinas, heading for the local Elks Lodge. We were soon parked for the night. We're only here for one night as we continue south. Geri made a great "quick sauce"with linguini for dinner that went nicely with a cheap Chianti from Whole Foods(not quite 2-Buck Chuck). We'll call itan early night and then continue south to Atascadero (and Paso Robles winecountry) tomorrow...

CIA at Greystone

2011-10-15T20:41:00.000-07:00

October 15, 2011

St. Helena, California

Today was another relaxing day. We puttered around the coach, Geri did somelaundry, that kind of thing. We headedout for a late lunch (or an early dinner, depending on your point-of-view) atthe Greystone Restaurant at the CulinaryInstitute of America in nearby St. Helena. We've been here numerous times before and, as always, we had anothergreat meal. Geri asked to be seatedalong the bar separating the dining room from the kitchen, so we could watchthe cooking action. We began with their"Temptations" tapas small bites, then Geri had a Roasted Beet andKohlrabi salad followed by a Seared Cod main course. I had the Sweet Corn Soup with Peeky Toe Craband the Crispy Chicken Leg Confit. Everything was excellent, as expected. We matched the meal with a Skaggs #6 Mourvedre Blend (yes, Boz makeswine now) and we finished with their "Sweet Finale", a tapas-styledessert plate paired with a flight of three dessert wines. We ended up chatting with everyone elsesitting at the bar, and everyone was interesting in our travel lifestyle. Another excellent outing!

Greystone. Get it?

Dessert wine "flight"...

Happy, Happy, Happy!

Welcome back to Napa!

2011-10-14T21:06:00.000-07:00

October 14, 2011

Napa, CA

It's great to be back in one of our favorite wine regions,even if we'll have a short stay this time. Wednesday's drive down from Ukiah was short and uneventful, even thoughwe took a slightly different route than last year when Pat and Al were with us. We shaved a few miles off the journey bytaking CA-116 and CA-121 east from Petaluma rather than looping further southto CA-37 in Novato. Since there wasn'tmuch traffic, it didn't matter as much that we were the slowest ones on thenarrow and winding roads. And we weresoon parked in the tight little RV Park at the Napa Elks Lodge.

We'd stopped at this Lodge for drinks last year with Patand Al; Wayne and Eva were staying there while we were at Napa Expo (the localFairgrounds). We checked in, hooked upand deployed, then stopped back at the Lounge for a brew and to add to Geri'sLodge Pin collection.

Yesterday, we relaxed in the morning and did some shopping in the afternoon. We went to the Napa Style retail store (we'veordered from them online in the past) and then Whole Foods Market (haven't seenone of them in a while!). For dinner, Itried a new recipe for Rack of Lamb that I found in the Wine Spectatormagazine; it was excellent with Geri's Famous Grandma's Red Potatoes and hernewly-Famous Heirloom Bell Pepper stuffed with squash, tomato andtapenade. I made some sautéed mushroomswith Truffle Salt from Napa Style and a drizzle of sage/mushroom EVOO that wefound in Michigan that went well with the Moroccan spice influence on the lamb.With one of the Two Sisters Pinot Noirs we'd brought with us from AZ (surprisedit lasted that long?), it was an excellent meal.

Today, we did some wine tasting. It's what you do in Napa Valley! I made reservations at Sterling, known morefor the visually impressive winery than the wines. Knowing that, we weren't disappointed. The Winery is modeled after something fromGreece, and the nice, sunny day showed it off nicely. We rode the tram 300' from the parking areato the winery itself and took our time doing the self-guided tour, with itsmultiple tasting "stations". We wrapped up with a "reserve" tasting. The wines were good but not something weneeded to buy.

Ready for the Tram ride...

...up we go!

Sterling is a very striking facility.

Soon...

I love these tree-lined drives...

Back down the hill, we headed back from Calistoga towardNapa on the Silverado Trail, and decided to stop at Rombauer for a tastingthere. Even though they're known as aChardonnay producer, for some reason we decided to try their Zinfandeltasting. Nice, but no sale so we movedon.

Interesting blooms...

...

... and sculpture at Rombauer.

Back at the Elks Lodge, we relaxed abit before heading over to the dining room for their version of cook-your-own-steaknight. It wasn't as crowded at the onein Eureka, and they had similar rib-eyes to cook. We had another nice feed and relaxed afterdinner chatting with several of the locals. Then, it was back to the coach for a nightcap and some TV. Good day...

Ukiah and Mendocino County

2011-10-11T19:52:00.000-07:00

October 11, 2011

Ukiah, California

We're just wrapping up a nice, albeit short, visit herein Mendocino County. We had an easydrive (I'm beginning to get the hang of these "leave by 10:00 and stop forthe day by 2:00" drives) down from Eureka, in spite of some rain along theway. It was basically US-101 south allthe way. We pulled into the Ukiah ElksLodge mid-afternoon and were soon set up and paid up.

Today, the rain stopped in the morning, so we decided topack up the pups and take a ride. Havingdone a little research online, I knew we wanted to head west to Booneville,then north toward the little burg of Mendocino. We didn't make it all the way, but that was just fine.

CA-253 west from Ukiah is one of those roads where largevehicles are "not advised". Infact, RVs over 40' aren't allowed at all, and we could tell why. Climbing 1,500' through switchbacks thendropping down the other side the same way, over two sets of mountains, made foran interesting drive. Fortunately, it'sonly 16 miles to Booneville, in the heart of the Anderson Valley. We stopped for lunch at the Redwood Drive-in(including a burger carne sola forthe pups) and started our winery search from there.

We made two winery stops (recognizing that we had a longand winding drive back home) in the small town of Philo. Our first stop was at Navarro, one of theoldest operations in the Anderson Valley. After tasting and purchasing a couple of bottles, we circled back toGoldeneye, a winery I'd read about online. They are primarily a Pinot Noir producer, and part of the Duckhorn winegroup from Napa Valley. We had a greattasting in a very relaxing setting. After getting a glass of Chardonnay in the Visitor's Center, weadjourned to the patio overlooking the "home" vineyard, found a nicespot under an umbrella, and were treated to a nice tasting of four differentPinots. Sitting on the patio, working atour own pace; now that's how to do atasting right. Since they're flexible onshipping, we even signed up for their wine shipment program. It should be a good addition to our"portfolio".

Wonderful tasting a Goldeneye

View from Goldeneye's tasting patio

Should be harvesting soon!

Fully relaxed, we headed back over the mountains to Ukiah,stopped in the Lodge for a brew, and settled in for the night. It was a mostly cloudy and damp visit, but weenjoyed it and will stop back again.

Eureka!

2011-10-09T12:31:00.002-07:00

October 9, 2011

Eureka, California

Eureka! We foundit! The Elks Lodge in Eureka,California, that is...

Yesterday was another easy driving day, about 115 milessouth on US-101. We stopped for fuel atone of the local Pacific Pride card-lock outlets and were soon parked at theElks Lodge in Eureka, California. Sincewe'd stopped here overnight with our friends Wayne and Eva last fall, we knewenough to stay on US-101 through town and not have our GPS route us through aseries of residential streets. When Ichecked in, the bartender told me about the Friday night steak dinner, so Isigned up for the 6:30 PM event.

We could see things starting to perk up around 5:30, sowe headed over early and found a nice spot at the "Friendly Corner"of the bar after buying our "cook your own steak" tickets. Geri asked the bartender how the process workedsince it was our first time here. Theresponse: "You brought your own steaks, right"? got Geri good; thelook on her face was priceless!

At 6:30, the Dining Room opened and everyone picked outtheir rib-eyes and headed out to the barbeque pit for seasoning andgrilling. Geri found us a table and gotsalads. Once the steaks were deemed"done", we got our sides and were soon joined by an interesting localcouple since seating is "family style". We had a nice conversation, then Geri and Iretired to the bar for a final glass of wine to cap off a nice evening.

Yesterday, we relaxed, made a Costco run (haven't seenone of those for a while!), watched a little baseball until the rain delay, andI did some Blog updates. Today, we'regoing to explore Eureka and the area a bit as soon as I finish this entry. Tomorrow, we continue our journey south...

Another Surprise Family Visit

2011-10-06T22:04:00.000-07:00

October 6, 2011

Brookings, Oregon

Except, this time, the surprise was on us! Here's the story:

Yesterday was an easy driving day, back to US-101 fromthe RV Park along the beach, then south for a few hours. We stopped for lunch at an overlook justsouth of Port Orford, and were soon at our destination, the Elks Lodge inBrookings, Oregon.

This being our first time here, we decided to check outthe Lodge and decided to stay for dinner. The food reviews were mixed (hint, never fry your chips and fish in thesame oil) and we were just getting ready to leave when we heard someone behindus say "She looks like my Grandma Honey". Huh? That's a nickname for Geri's sister, Kathy. That's when Geri's great-niece, Cheri,surprised us with a visit. She livesnearby and saw Geri's Foursquare check-in at the Elks, and decided to surpriseus. Neat! We didn't even realize that she'd moved backto Oregon recently. We hung out a bitthen made plans to get together again this afternoon.

Today was a "stay in your jammies until Noonday" for one of us. No matter, aswe didn't have much planned. We pickedup a few things at the Fred Meyer, got some gas for the Rover (getting yelledat because, once again, I forgot that I'm not qualified to pump my own gas inOregon), and putzed around the coach. Ichecked the axle hub (still OK) and got out the silicone to seal up a few dripshere and there, then we had a brew at the Lodge before dinner. Afterwards, Cheri came over with three of thefour boys in her brood: Gabe, Levi, and Johnny. James was at a football game. Wehad a nice visit and even Merlin came around after a while. We'll definitely stop here again!

A Few Days At The Beach

2011-10-04T20:45:00.000-07:00

October 4, 2011

Charleston, Oregon

Geri loves the beach. Merlin and Maya Lynn love the beach. So, we spent the past few days at the cleverly-named Oceanside RV Parkin Charleston, Oregon.

We stayed here last year and weren't too impressed withthe facilities, but the ability to walk 200' and be right on a large,partially-protected Pacific Ocean beach was enough to lure us back. And, we're glad we did since the owners haveat least made an attempt to clean things up a bit since last October's visit.

We had a couple of rainy days (that's what raincoats arefor) and some sunny periods, plus a spell or two of strong winds, but still hada nice, relaxing time. The pupsthoroughly enjoyed long walks on the beach, especially since it's usuallyunpopulated and they're able to go off-leash. We didn't accomplish much else, other than laundry catch-up and a Wallyrun, but that's just fine with us after a 1,500 mile trek from South Dakota.

More Washington Wine Country

2011-09-30T22:12:00.000-07:00

September 30, 2011

Prosser, Washington

After getting back on the road in record time in Spokane,we made the easy half-day drive down to Prosser, in the Yakima Valley wineregion, in the afternoon. We passedthrough here last year after spending a few days in Walla Walla, where we hadsuch a good wine time that we didn't partake here. So, we spent this afternoon sampling some ofthe local wines, from Hogue (the biggest and most widely distributed producerin the area) to Heaven's Cave and Alexandria Nicole right next door, then Apexand Bunnell Family Cellars near our Park, Wine Country RV Park (how could wepass that up?). We had dinner at theBunnell's restaurant, "Wine O'Clock". Fun is!

Hogue is probably the largest producer in Yakima, one of the tops in Washington.

We loved this sticker, just like we love Washington wines. But wait; we love Napa wines, too!

Our kind of place!

Wine flights with dinner? Oh, OK...

A Quick Fix in Spokane

2011-09-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

September 29, 2011

Spokane, Washington

Tuesday was a nice day for driving, and we had an easyroute: fuel up at the Flying J Truck Stop right next to where we were parked,get on I-90 West, and drive. Actually,it was a simpler, albeit longer, drive than we'd planned. Right before Sturgis there were highway signsindicating that vehicles over 26,000 pounds (yes, that's us) should avoidUS-212, our planned route to Montana. So, Geri used the iPad to access the Montana DOT while we were drivingalong, and confirmed that bridge construction would require us to bypassUS-212. In this case, the bestalternative was to stay on I-90, even though that added about 50 miles to theday's drive.

We made it to our "destination", a nice quietRest Area in Greycliff, Montana, with no problems and had a restful night. In the morning, I caught a nice sunrise as wewere getting ready to hit the road.

Unfortunately, that's when the snag hit. As I was walking around the coach doing avisual inspection, I noticed gear oil on one of the wheels, one that's beentrouble ever since we've owned the motorhome. I'd replaced the axle cover while we were in Connecticut, but thatapparently didn't fix the leak. Thistime, enough oil had leaked out that the bearing had overheated, so we knew weneeded to stop somewhere for repairs. Ipatched it up so we could travel, and thought about options. Our next planned destination was Spokane,Washington. I figured that a stop alongthe way in Montana at a truck shop could yield a "sure, we can fix it butwe've got to get parts from Spokane" response, so I Googled repair placesin Spokane, found Pacific Power (a chain we've used in the past for engine andtransmission service), called and scheduled ourselves in this morning. What did we ever do before smartphones?

I stopped more frequently than normal during the day andkept checking the axle, and other than running a little hot (checking with aninfrared thermometer, another handy gadget), we were at least stable totravel. We stopped for fuel in Butte andpushed on, soon crossing through northern Idaho. I'd planned to stay at the Welcome Centerjust across the Idaho-Washington border, but it was being reconstructed so wepushed on. Geri used the Exit Guide tofind a Flying J a few miles on, so we headed there. Coincidentally, as we got off the exit,Pacific Power was right across the street, so we pulled in there, let them knowwe'd be ready in the morning, and found a place to park in their lot.

Today, we were up early and I had the coach parked infront of their bays before they opened. We checked in, they said they would get us in as soon as they could,depending on work already scheduled in front of us, and the service writer gaveus some pointers on breakfast and things to see. At the local Denny's, we were seated near alarge group of landscapers heading for a golf outing. Geri got to chatting with the owner and,surprise-surprise, our waitress came over and told us that they paid for ourbreakfast. Now that doesn't happen everyday!

After breakfast, we stopped at the shop and could seethat they were already working on the axle, a very good sign. They did have to get parts from a localsupplier, but that was no problem.

So, we headed for Downtown Spokane to kill sometime. The riverfront park was a relaxingplace to spend a couple of "found" hours; Spokane is another placewe've been through before on the Interstate but never explored. I wandered around, taking a few pictures,while Geri read on her iPad. The SpokaneRiver runs right through and has several waterfalls, but all the water was diverted. I've seen a lot of road and bridgereconstruction, but never a river reconstruction project before. But, it'll all be better/more stable whendone. The area was also the site of the1974 World's Fair, so there are several artifacts left over from that.

This was an interesting two-level fountain.

World's largest "Radio Flyer"; what else can I say?

Saw a little parade of "locals"...

This clock tower was built in 1902 by the Burlington Northern Railroad, and donated with the rest of the land here for the 1974 World's Fair.

Interesting sculpture along the sidewalk...

The curve of the wall and walk struck my eye, and the foliage was just starting to turn.

River? What river?

With the water diverted, construction workers are doing all kinds of projects in the riverbed.

There are several pedestrian and vehicular bridges across the Spokane River.

This is one of the two powerhouses producing electricity in downtown.

Leaves just starting to show color, it was a nice sunny day.

There's a tram that rides tourists down to the lower falls.

The Lower Falls are still wet, with water from the power plants still flowing.

We headed back to the coach after a few hours and foundeverything all fixed. As soon as thebill is ready, we'll pay and be on our way, probably right after Noon. It's never fun to need a repair on the road,but we were fortunate that we could still drive and found a reputable shop thatgot us fixed right away. That four-leavedclover I found earlier this year is still working!

Buffalo Roundup

2011-09-26T22:34:00.000-07:00

September 26, 2011

Custer State Park, South Dakota

Today we went to the annual Buffalo Roundup. The State maintains a herd of buffalo inCuster State Park. Once a year, theyround most of them up and prep the herd for winter. Inoculations are made, some animals areidentified to be culled and sold, and everything is inventoried. And, for the past 40+ years, it's been apublic spectacle. These days, theyshould really call it the "people roundup", since there are 1,300buffalo and estimates ranging from 20-40,000 spectators.

The festivities began at 9:30 AM but parking opened at6:15, so we were up at oh-dark-thirty and on the road to the Park, pups walkedand watered, lunch packed, and cameras ready. It's about a 45 minute drive to the Park, but we ran into a long line ofcars and busses and the last 3-4 miles took nearly an hour. We were parked by 8:30, so there was nopressure. We found the best spot wecould, packed in about 5-deep along the ridge overlooking the corrals, andsettled in. We were soon rewarded withthe sight of the herd coming right toward us.

The corrals were prepared and waiting for the herd.

"Watch your step"!

The crowd was ready. We were in the "North Viewing Area"; the "South Viewing Area" is across the valley.

Geri's ready!

We were right behind the area designated for the Press.

"Spike" was ready...

Al Jazeera was represented...

And here comes the herd!

Maybe it's not quite right to use trucks instead of horses? Especially when someone's exhaust starts a small brush fire for extra excitement?

We hung around after waiting for the outbound traffic(this event generates more visitors than the Park sees all year, so trafficmanagement isn't one of the staffs' strong suits) to subside. We ate lunch and watched a lone antelope checkus out.

The herd was all rounded up...

...and this poor guy just wanted us to leave so he could get his pasture back!

After an hour or so, we wereable to extricate the Rover and head home. After a short nap, we did a little pre-travel preparation and then wentout for a nice (albeit expensive) dinner at Dakotah Steakhouse, right near"home". Tomorrow, we'll finishup and head west...

It's great to be "home"

2011-09-25T21:00:00.000-07:00

September 25, 2011

Box Elder, SD

We've had a productive week here at our "home",since we maintain our legal domicile here in South Dakota. Although we spent the first couple of nightsat the Rapid City Elks Lodge, we then moved over to the new campground our mailservice has installed. When they movedtheir offices our of leased space in Rapid City, they constructed a larger mailprocessing facility and added a 15-space full service campground. This is very convenient for us, since we haveboth virtual (mailbox) and physical (campground) addresses handy, which makesthings like voter registration easier.

So, we were able to handle all the state business we hadqueued up: I got my license renewed, Geri got a new one with the correctedaddress, and we got her handicap parking permit renewed (Why does a"permanent" permit expire every five years?). We shopped a bit, we used up a bunch of thefood in the refrigerator and freezer, Geri made a great meatloaf and a newrecipe for Bolognese sauce with Penne.

We're wrapping up our visit tomorrow, so today I washedto coach and Rover. It took all day, notbecause of the time required but because I needed to wait for the sun to shiftaround from east to west. I putteredwith a few other small projects, Geri finished up the laundry, and we did ourmeal planning and food shopping for the next few days in the down time, so itwas a productive day all the way around.

Warmer, good!

2011-09-17T20:19:00.000-07:00

September 17, 2011

Pierre, SD

Today's drive was almost due south. "Almost" because we continued weston US-2 for a short distance before turning south on ND-3. We stopped for breakfast at the "CornerCafe" in Rugby, North Dakota. They're located at the "geographical center of North America. Don't believe me? They have a monument out front andeverything. I'm not sure I agree withtheir calculations (Acapulco's probably close, but the Arctic Circle?), butwe've actually been to the other two of the four compass points in our travels,so that's cool.

We followed ND-3 south to I-94. This is an area that's home to numerous smalllakes and ponds. Since they wanted tomake the road relatively straight, there are all sorts of causeways that runright through them. Last spring'sflooding did a number on these stretches of road, and construction resourcesare obviously stretched thin. There's noway that they'll get all these fixed before winter.

After a quick jog west on I-94, we turned south again onUS-83, except when we ran into a "little" detour due to morereconstruction. In this case, we weresent 21 miles east then 22 miles south before heading back west on US-14 toUS-83. We were then able to make our wayto Pierre, our South Dakota State Capitol. We found a nice spot at the local Super-Wally and had a relaxingevening.

A few thoughts on North Dakota: it's dirty and it's not likely to get betterany time soon. It's not the fact thatonly 40% of the roads are paved so everything gets covered in dust. It's more that the people don't seem to care,in a "who cares if all the Walmart bags are blowing in the wind" or a"what do you mean I'm not supposed to throw the coffee cup/popbottle/ashtray contents out on the road" kind of way. Many areas seem to have a boom-town or "wild west" attitude inplaces but it's borne of the tragedy of flooding as opposed to more permanentdevelopment opportunities. All in all,we won't likely be back for a while...

Heading South - NOW!

2011-09-16T19:35:00.000-07:00

September 16, 2011

Spirit Lake Casino, Devils Lake, North Dakota

We'd originally planned to spend a few days crossingMinnesota then North Dakota before heading South near Williston and making ourway to Rapid City in Western South Dakota. Accordingly, we left Itasca and headed West on MN-200, crossing intoNorth Dakota, passing the tallest structure in North America (who knew?), andmaking it to the Spirit Lake Casino, just south of Devils Lake late in theafternoon. We found this whole area tobe "under construction", with miles of dirt and mud roads, dodgingflagmen and construction vehicles. Apparently, they're trying to repair damage from this year's floodingbefore the snow flies.

If you squint, you can see the 2,000'+ TV mast to the right. It was the tallest structure in the world until 2008 when something in Dubai took over. We could have gotten closer via several miles of dirt road. With a 45' bus? No thanks...

OK, it's really not that cold but we're smart enough to take a hint!

Well, it's beginning to look like they won't makeit. It's just too darn cold, and smartretirees/snowbirds know that, if you wake up with frost, you'd better beheading South but quick. So, we're spendingthe night boondocking here at the casino (they have 50+ full-hookup sites butthey're all taken by workers on the construction project), then changingdirection to head South.

Mississippi Headwaters

2011-09-15T21:45:00.000-07:00

September 15, 2011

Itasca State Park, Park George, Minnesota

If you're passing through central Minnesota, it's prettymuch a given that you need to stop here. Lake Itasca is the "official" (it was disputed for centuries)location of the headwaters of the Mississippi River.

We got a late start, leaving Duluth close to 10:00, butwe didn't have far to go so that wasn't an issue. We were quickly back on US-2 heading West,and several hours later we made the turn for Itasca State Park. I'd reserved a site online, and it turned outto be a very desirable one (I'd tried for two nights but everything wasbooked). No matter, since we were parkedand set up by 2:00 and had plenty of time to explore the Park. After a quick stop at the Visitor's Center,we were off on the loop road around the Lake. We did the obligatory stop at the headwaters, taking our pictures,snapping some "couples shots" for others, and relaxing for a while tosee if any of the (mostly retiree) crazies who felt the need to cross the rocksor wade across the cold water would fall in. None did, so we completed our drive around the "WildernessLoop" and were soon back home.

My favorite explorer!

Well, here it is, the headwaters of the Mississippi. On the upper side of the rocks, Lake Itasca. On the lower, "The Mighty Mississippi".

I got pictures from one side...

...and Geri from the other. Which one of us crossed the rocks?

Neither! I used the sturdy wooden bridge 50' downstream!

We had a nice pasta dinner (pre-made sauce -"gravy" if you're from Philly) and were soon bundled up for anotherchilly night.

Until Duluth freezes over...

2011-09-14T19:16:00.000-07:00

September 14, 2011

Duluth, Minnesota

We planned a three-day stop in Duluth and were quitesurprised when a cold air blast hit the region. Things were reasonably normal when we left Munising, continuing west onM-28 then US-2 right into Duluth, just over the border from Wisconsin. Then things turned downright cold, with wavesof squalls passing through from the Northwest.

Accordingly, we didn't get much done in terms ofsightseeing and pictures. OK, we didn'tget anything done! We did some shoppingand Geri made a batch of her Famous Chili. She caught up on laundry. I paidthe bills. Pretty boring, right?

Well, we'll just have to stop again when the weather'smore favorable. There is plenty to seeand do, with a nice waterfront and several scenic drives/overlooks. Topology-wise, the city reminds me of amini-San Francisco, with steep, terraced hills and a compact feel. We stayed at the Lakehead Boat Basin, amarina with a sideline as an RV Park, so we had a prime spot right on thewaterfront. It's definitely worth areturn visit, maybe in August...

Waterfalls and Another Sunset

2011-09-11T21:14:00.000-07:00

September 11, 2011

Munising, Michigan

Today was a bright, clear day. Unfortunately, it reminded us all too much of10 years ago...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We were up early and off for a nice drive, east along thePictured Rocks National Lakeshore. As weknew, the rocks are best viewed from the water, but we did find someinteresting spots. Our first stop wasthe turnaround point: Grand Marais. Wehad our picnic lunch there overlooking the small harbor, then worked our wayback to Munising.

We had lunch at a nicely-landscaped pavilion overlooking Grand Marais Harbor.

Remembering...

Alger Falls from the overlook. 193 steps down to the Falls. Really?

Now, isn't this the weirdest little seed pod you've ever come across?

This little guy was indignant that I was coming too close to "his" tree...

Logging was big in this area 100 years ago, and there are still some of the artifacts on display, like this two-horsepower log mover.

This area is called the "log slide", where timbers were rolled down to Lake Superior and floated to Grand Marais around the point.

This little creek spills right out across the beach into the Lake.

Another shipwreck, this one a "skow schooner" (flat-bottomed) that went aground in the 1870s.

Munising Falls, just east of town.

Wagner Falls is just 100' from M-94 south of Munising.

Back at the campground, we met up again with Henry andMarcia and headed for the beach for the sunset. This time, we brought chairs; much more comfortable!

Sunrises, Shipwrecks and Sunsets

2011-09-10T21:30:00.000-07:00

September 10, 2011

Munising, MI

Yesterday was a travel day, and an easy one at that. The pups were up early, watching the sun riseover the St. Mary's River. We finishedtravel preparations and said "So long" to our neighbors at the ElksLodge and were on the road around 9:30. Looping around Sault Ste. Marie to I-75, we were soon exiting onto M-28,which we followed west to the little burg of Munising. We'd stopped here during the caravan, andwanted to visit again for a couple of days on our own.

Once set up, we were relaxing when another coach pulledinto the site next to us. We weresurprised to see Henry and Marcia, another couple from the caravan. They stopped back like we did, to see someadditional sights.

I got the grill out and we had a great dinner of PorkTenderloin, Mushroom Risotto (left over from the Labor Day get-together) andCorn-on-the-Cob. It was good to sitoutside with our wine then get back in the swing of our normal mealpreparation.

Today, we were up early (at least the pups were). After a walk around the Park in a prettydense fog, we headed for town just as the sun started to burn through. Our destination was the Glass-bottomed BoatShipwreck Tour. This is the"companion" tour to the Pictured Rocks sail that we did on thecaravan. It turned out to be a beautifulday for a short cruise along Grand Island, and the stories about the shipwreckswere interesting. As it turns out, Gerigot better pictures with her phone from the side of the boat than I did throughthe viewing ports in the bottom and the whole thing was probably not worth theprice, but it was enjoyable nonetheless.

OK, there's a bald eagle right in the center of this picture. Can you see it? Me, neither. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to switch to a telephoto lens...

Another look at this lighthouse, which we saw on the Pictured Rocks tour several weeks ago.

Through the viewing port in the bottom of the tour boat, here's the anchor (one of the few recognizable pieces) of one shipwreck.

These formations are called "pestles", formed as hard stones wear away the sandstone as the lake currents move them around. Can you guess this one's nickname?

Here, you can see the stone in the bottom of the pestle, still grinding away after who knows how many years/centuries.

Back on dry land, we did a little grocery shopping andheaded home for lunch and a relaxing afternoon. I managed to (I hope) fix up all the errors in my address books, syncingeverything a few times between Outlook on the C, the new iPad, and the Androidphone. I finished entering all our"loyalty cards" into the Keyring app so I don't have to carry afistful of key chain dongles around, and installed Gmail plus a couple of appson the iPad. I'm about ready to tacklethe project of consolidating all my various email addresses into one; I'd setup multiple addresses when I started using Gmail thinking I'd better controlspam and prevent hijacking and identity theft. It's probably not needed and too complicated, so simplification is theorder of the day.

After walking the pups around the Park, we once again satout with our glass of wine. This Park isright on Lake Superior, and we're about 3 campsites and 200' away from thewater. I took advantage of the outdoorgrill being deployed to reheat some sauce and cook up some Angel Hair Pasta fordinner. Everyone, pups included, enjoyedthat. We all walked down to the water'sedge at sunset, as did half the people in the park; tomorrow, we'll remember tobring folding chairs! Geri and Ifinished off the evening with a nice Chianti.

Tomorrow, we'll pack the camera bag in the Rover and takeoff for some waterfall viewing...

Soo revisited

2011-09-08T18:30:00.000-07:00

September 8, 2011
Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan

Yesterday, we took a drive out to a section of the St. Mary's River called "the Rock Cut", where a narrow channel was excavated to allow the large freighters passage to lake Huron. Unfortunately, there wasn't any easy way to get a view of the passage, so we headed back home, with a quick shopping stop on the way. For dinner, we had a very nice linguine and meatballs with sauce I'd made back in Traverse City.

Today was another beautiful day. I headed out mid-morning for some sightseeing (Geri wasn't keen on the places on the agenda). My first stop was the "Tower of History" (), a 200+ foot tall concrete tower right off the downtown area that looks and feels totally out of place. It turns out that it was built as an adjunct to St. Mary's Church, designed as a modern interpretation of the Crucifixion, and eventually turned over to the City to run. The views were great.

The Edison Power Plant is in the center, still generating 25-30 megawatts despite being over 100 years old.

The museum ship Valley Camp, to be toured later...

From there, it was off to the Soo Locks Visitor's Center, right at the locks. Since the next ship wasn't due for several hours, I collected Geri and we had a great lunch at Karl's Cuisine, right across the street, before climbing the observation deck and watching the "American Spirit", a 1,004' ore-carrier, up-lock.

The section of Portage Ave right by the Locks is the most "touristy" area in town.

Fudge is very popular...

The Army Corps of Engineers runs the Locks.

Observation deck

Freighter "American Spirit" heading into the Poe Lock.

1,004' feet long...

...and off into Lake Superior.

Our next stop was the museum ship Valley Camp (), but only because the "combo ticket" admission to the Tower of History included entry. It was interesting, though, as they've converted a 700'+ 1917-vintage freighter into a semi-floating museum. In addition to being able to see the inner workings of this type of ship, they have hundreds of artifacts relating to all things "Great Lakes". A little scattered and disorganized, it was nonetheless intriguing.

Like a lot of museums in The Lakes, there are a few artifacts from the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Tonight, we were still full from lunch, so a nice salad was all we needed. We'll do some inside packing tonight, since we're back on the road, starting our westward leg, tomorrow morning...

Back to the Soo

2011-09-06T21:09:00.000-07:00

September 6, 2011
Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan

Today, we had a great drive back to the Soo. The weather was perfect for a drive. We headed east from Traverse City on M-72, then north on US-131 before cutting east again for a few miles through Gaylord to I-75. From there, it was straight north almost to the end of the Interstate (no need to cross into Ontario this time). We crossed the Mackinac Bridge (one of the few we've seen that has a toll in both directions), had lunch at the Rest Area just on the northern side of the straights separating Lakes Huron and Michigan, and were soon ensconced in a nice 50A site at the Sault Ste. Marie Elks Lodge. When I checked in, I found that their Tuesday night dinner was Geri's new favorite: "Broasted Chicken". So, our dinner choice was made for us. We had way more food than we could eat, had another beer at the bar afterwards, and spent some time yakking with some of the locals who are always interested in hearing about the travels of the members staying in their RV sites.

Ready to get back on the road

2011-09-05T19:00:00.000-07:00

September 5, 2011
Traverse City, Michigan

We've had great weather and spent the past few days relaxing in the Traverse City area. The pups got groomed, Geri got the laundry caught up, and we've laid out a plan for the next phase of our "summer vacation". We're going to back-track a bit and re-visit Sault Ste. Marie (the locks) and Munising (shipwreck boat tour). Then, we'll head for Duluth before continuing west to Rapid City.

Several other couples from our caravan have stayed on through the holiday (great minds think alike). We had brunch at the Grand Traverse Resort (beautiful view from the 16th floor restaurant; wish we'd taken a picture!) yesterday, and did a Labor Day grilling party today. Tomorrow, we're all on the road in different directions...

How many Monaco owners does it take to grill some hot dogs?

Another great caravan completed

2011-09-01T17:35:00.000-07:00

September 1, 2011
Traverse City, Michigan

We've wrapped up our "3 Sides of Lake Michigan" caravan here in Traverse City. We had a great time and met lots of new people. We'll stay here through the Labor Day holiday, catching up on laundry and relaxing for a few days.

In the meantime, you can catch up with the caravan happenings by clicking here:

http://mim3sidesoflakemichigan2011.blogspot.com/

Once you've linked over to the caravan's blog, scroll down to the "older posts" and then work "forward" in time through the end of the trip...

Caravanning!!!

2011-08-20T13:55:00.000-07:00

August 20, 2011
Green Bay, Wisconsin

Whew, the past week has been a blur, and we won't come up for air much until the end of the month, so Blog updates will be sporadic at best. We started our Monacos in Motion caravan last Sunday. Two days in, the couple doing the trip Blog had to drop out due to a family emergency and I was asked to take over. I'm still catching up, and hope to have that Blog complete by tomorrow or Monday. It's difficult, though, when the days are full of activities.

In the meantime, I'll post links to the Caravan Blog as substitutes for our own, plus update Facebook as we go...

So, on Sunday, we drove from Madison to Baraboo, Wisconsin. With a stop for fuel, it still only took 90 minutes. We were soon parked at Fox Hill Campground and ready for adventure...

Caravan Day 1

Monday was all about the circus.

Caravan Day 2

Tuesday, we visited the International Crane Foundation, then took in a magic/comedy show in the evening.

Caravan Day 3

I'm still working on the rest of the week, and will post additional links as they're done. Wednesday, we did the Wisconsin Dells by water, with the "Duck Boats" in the morning and the "Jet Boats" in the afternoon (yes, we got wet). Thursday was a travel day, with all the coaches moving to Green Bay, followed by a wine tasting and dinner out. Yesterday, we did museums: the National Railroad Museum in the morning, lunch at Titletown Brewing Company, then the Neville Museum (local history exhibits) in the afternoon. This morning we headed to Lambeau Field for a behind-the-scenes tour of a NFL stadium, followed by another great lunch. Tonight it's a dinner theater excursion and tomorrow we're back on the road (it is a caravan, after all). Whew!

FMCA "Family Reunion" is wrapping up

2011-08-13T17:08:00.000-07:00

August 13, 2011
Alliant Energy Center, Madison, WI

Well, it was another great week. We picked up quite a few items from the vendors at the FMCA "Family Reunion", and enjoyed our time here in Madison, Wisconsin's capitol.

It was an easy drive on Sunday, heading from Manitowoc to Madison, and Jim and Peggy followed us as we headed South on I-43 to Sheboygan, then west on WI-23 to Fond du Lac, US-151 to I-39 South into the Madison area. They headed for the vendor parking area and we parked overnight in the "holding area" about 5 miles away, then decided to fuel up the Rover. That's when Geri suggested Mexican for dinner and technology (we're in a Verizon 4G area here!) kicked in. She was able to use her phone to find a place right near the Capitol in downtown Madison, then just hit "directions" and "navigate" and, voila, we were eating burritos and enjoying a pitcher of Margaritas. Life is good...

Wisconsin Capitol - no protests or recall elections today, but plenty of homeless people hanging out...

Moonrise over Lake Monoma, near the FMCA Holding Area.

Monday morning we were up early and headed for the Alliant Energy Center before coffee. We were soon parked, getting a prime spot in the first row to the rear of the exhibition building, about 200' away. Most of the seminars and vendor displays are in this building, so it's very convenient.

Tuesday was an off-day, with events not starting until Wednesday, so we did some shopping and generally relaxed. Wednesday, seminars started and the new motorhomes on display opened in the evening. While the newer floorplans are very desirable (most larger coaches have a bath-and-a-half layout with an en suite full bath in the rear), nothing we saw has the interior quality of what we already have. Just as well, since neither of us remembered to buy the PowerBall tickets.

Thursday, the vendor area opened, and by Friday we'd made the obligatory loops through the exhibition center. There are a lot more vendors at FMCA since there are almost 2,000 coaches here (over 2,000 when you count vendors and exhibit coaches). I looked at several things like step covers (very cool in stainless steel) and a replacement sliding tray for one of the bays (great for tool storage) but decided against the big-ticket items. I did pick up an upgraded over-the-air TV antenna and signal finder, and a replacement "stinger" plus a couple of accessories for our tow bar. Geri got into the act as well, getting a stove-top grill thingie, some towel racks, a set of hanging pockets for the side of her seat, and a set of mops (you can't go to a major rally without getting caught by someone selling things with which to clean).

Overall, we got pretty much everything we "needed", which was probably a little more than we expected. One thing I didn't get at either rally was LED light bulbs. They are much more energy-efficient and that helps when we're boondocking, which we do from time to time. Unfortunately, the days of "rally pricing" meaning a good deal are over, I guess. Things the used to be cheaper at rallies now seem priced higher, as if a captive audience is expected to pay more. Things that used to be done gratis, like tow bar maintenance, are now priced at retail for parts. Sign of the times, I guess. Anyway, I'm not paying 2-3 times higher for LED lights that I can buy online and change out over the winter, especially since our two weeks of boondocking at the rallies is coming to an end. End of rant...

So, today the FMCA activities wrapped up. For once, I decided to attend the closing business meeting of the organization (reading of minutes and reports, introduction of newly-elected officers) and, quite to my surprise, we were one of 10 attendees to win the $250 drawing at the end (clearly designed to enhance attendance). Woo-Hoo! Great way to wrap up "rally season"!

We'll finish up our week with a nice dinner of leftover pasta, and finish our travel preparations in the morning. We have an easy drive and a 1:00 PM check-in at our next destination, so we'll have plenty of time to get ready...

Monaco International Pre-Rally Wrap-up

2011-08-06T18:36:00.001-07:00

August 6, 2011
Manitowoc, WI

We spent the week at a rally of just under 200 Monaco-branded coaches, packed into the grounds of the Manitowoc Expo and Ice Center. It was a great week and we had a chance to catch up with quite a few people we've met before (in the real world, or online).

Monaco International is one of hundreds of chapters of the Family Motor Coach Association (aka FMCA), and rallies are held generally the week before FMCA's big confabs (now known as "Family Reunions"). This allows people to catch up and have what's called a pre-rally, and then travel together to FMCA's events. These pre-rallies are often sponsored by a manufacturer (like ours, Monaco RV LLC) and they bring parts and technicians to provide service and support (at least on those things that can be done in a big field being used for a parking lot).

Sunday, we made the easy drive from Sault Ste. Marie to the little burg of Two Rivers, WI, right on Lake Michigan. We stayed at a local RV Park because "early arrival" parking for the Pre-Rally opened at 8:00 AM on Monday. It was pretty warm (OK, hot), so we set up quickly. After figuring out the capacity of the electrical system in the park (2 of three air conditioners OK; three, not so much), we relaxed and might have even had a nap! After we got set up, we noticed that the next coach behind us was pulling in next door, and that it was our friends Jim and Peggy; we met them several years ago at Quartzsite. Nobody was interested in cooking, so we all headed to Luigi's Italian for some nice pasta dishes for dinner (very good, but not "Geri's Famous Pasta").

Monday, we headed for the Pre-Rally and were soon parked in post position number one, right near the entrance (helps to sign up for handicapped parking). Well, let's say we were parked after the grounds crew showed up to trim several limbs that attacked the coach. In spite of the trimming, it was nice to have at least a little shade, as it was warm (OK, hot) for much of the week.

We did well with repairs and upgrades. Monaco fixed a roof vent that was knocked loose in the struggle with the tree upon parking, and also the wind sensor for the patio awning that had lost part of the anemometer sometime last year. We also said goodbye to our 7-year-old Satellite Internet Dish and hello to a new DirecTV HD Antenna. The Internet dish served us well over the years but the technology has passed it by (barely able to get better than dial-up speeds) and parts were failing so connections were lost. I'll sell the modem and positioned on eBay in the fall; maybe someone will need spare parts. On the other hand, the new system works great with the new TVs that Al and I put in earlier in the summer, so that's a big plus.

Wayne and Eva joined us on Tuesday and we saw them throughout the Rally. Breakfast and dinner (plus evening entertainment) are included, and we ate and drank, courtesy of the open-bar cocktail hour before dinner plus a wine/cheese tasting and a couple of "keggers", well. We met a few new people (including one who looked like Dana Carvey - at least to me) and were able to "put a face to a name" with a lot of folks we know from Facebook or the online Monaco forums. One of the best parts of these rallies is the people you meet along the way. In addition, two of the three evening entertainment acts were pretty good (Rivoli Review and New Odyssey), so that was a definite plus.

OK, retirees and wine tastings means that someone needs to provide entertainment...

One afternoon, there was a "Pet Parade", with about 25 families participating. Everyone got a "1st Place" ribbon and a year's supply of doggie treats. Geri and Wayne "did the honors" with Merlin/Maya and Abby, and everyone had a good time. It was definitely "Yorkie territory, as there were at least 8 more in addition to Merlin and Abby. "Dakota", the Huskie that took "best in show" was fantastic and almost looked like there was some wolf involved.

"Best in Show"...

The weather's turned more reasonable and things look good for next week as well. Tonight, we'll do most of our travel preparation so we have an easy morning as we hit the dump station, get the coach weighed (to make sure we have the right tire pressure) and let the caravan to FMCA get on down the road before we head out.

Back in the USA

2011-07-30T14:21:00.000-07:00

July 30, 2011
Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan

Yesterday was a travel day and today it's been about getting ready for our upcoming rallies.

We were up early yesterday and reluctantly said our "good-byes" to Dave and Sandy and "crew". I pulled the coach out to the road and hooked up the Rover, and we were on our way right on schedule. It was a nice day for driving, although it got a little warm in the afternoon and we picked up a strong head wind around the same time. Our route took us back to PH-69 and then North to Sudbury where we picked up Trans-Canada Highway 17, heading west. We followed that route along the northern edge of Lake Huron to the border cities of Sault Ste. Marie (collectively, "The Soo"). We were soon on the International Bridge crossing back to the USA, which turned out to be a 45-minute "crawl". We had no issues at the border or toll though, and hopped off the northern end of I-75 at the first exit. We were soon parked at Soo Locks Campground, right along the St. Mary's River, just downriver from one of the major locks (hence the name). Geri whipped up a quick pasta sauce and we had a nice dinner before calling it an early night.

Considering it's out-of-the-way location by today's standards, Sault Ste. Marie is the oldest city in Michigan, harkening back to a time when travel by water was the norm, not Interstates. The St. Mary's River connects lakes Superior and Huron, and the region's name derives from the French for "Rapids of Saint Mary". The freighters that use the locks along the river are quite large by any standard; we've watched several head by since we've been here.

Today, Geri tackled the laundry hamper and I caught up on end-of-the-month finances. We made a quick trip to the local Wal-Mart, billed by locals as the "biggest for miles" (a quick search reveals that it's the only one for miles). Since we have a 30-amp connection and no sewer on-site, we're reminded of our 2009 trip to Alaska, where we didn't let a little thing like limited facilities get in the way. In between, Geri's started work on a nice quiche we'll have for dinner, probably followed by another early night since tomorrow is a travel day.

"Go North!"

2011-07-28T21:48:00.001-07:00

July 28, 2011
Loring, Ontario, Canada

And so we did, leaving the Niagara Falls area on Monday morning. Back over the Queenston-Lewiston Bridge into Canada, we looped around the western end of Lake Ontario to Toronto via PH-405, the QEW, PH-403 and PH-401, then headed North on PH-400. After a quick stop in Barrie for Costco and Sobey's shopping (OK; not so quick as we had lunch plus had some traffic/construction issues so it took over 2 hours), we continued on and arrived at Dave and Sandy's "cottage" just after 4:00. As we were almost ready for their turnoff, we saw an ATV heading our way and soon realized that it was Dave scouting for us. We were soon parked in a neighbour's driveway clearing (no 2+-hour job backing the coach in this time!) and ready to relax.

We had generally great weather, only one cloudy day, and had a great time visiting with their family (the total group was anywhere from 7 to 11 plus 4 dogs, depending on who was there at any given time. Sandy was super-busy as usual making sure that the household ran smoothly and everyone had enough to eat. We had several great dinners, including deep-fried turkey (a first for us), salmon pie, and some great grilled steaks. One evening we boated over to the Whip-or-Will Lodge for dinner (stuffed pork chops). Throw in solid breakfasts and good lunches (we made a batch of Geri's chicken-parm subs one day) and we ate exceptionally well. Dave's wine cellar got a workout as well, and we pulled a few bottles out of the coach to supplement.

Other than the trip to the Lodge for dinner, we had two other outings. Dave gave us a boat tour around the Lake one afternoon, and we drove down to Parry Sound (a little over an hour) to take a 3-hour cruise (no, Gilligan wasn't involved) around that section of Georgian Bay, which is part of Lake Huron. Otherwise, we relaxed and played with the pups, visited with Jason and Lorraine next door, and generally "hung out". What a great time!

Ready to sail!

To qualify as an "island", a rock has to be an acre in size. Not all are...

"Nice house". "Wear pants".

Along the cruise, we went right past an active osprey nest.

The "Swing Bridge" allows large craft and autos to co-exist...

Note: As always, click on any picture to enlarge...

A Whole New Wine Country

2011-07-24T18:50:00.002-07:00

July 24, 2011
Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada

After several years' absence (I looked it up and I'm sorry to say it was the summer of 2006!!), we're headed to visit our Ontario friends this summer. Our first stop was with Brian and Jeanette, and their poodle, Suzi. The last time we visited, we stopped by their place in Mississauga. This time, we were able to spend a little more time at their "weekend place" in the quaint little town of Niagara-on-the-Lake. The fact that this is HQ for one of the fastest growing wine regions in Ontario (get it, "growing"?) turned out to be a big plus.

We headed across the border yesterday morning and met them at their place. After "the tour", we were off for entertainment. Brian and Jeanette are consummate tour guides, having already worked through the stops and activities. First up, we attended a concert as part of the "Music Niagara" music series, held at Stonechurch Vineyards. After the music and a tasting there, it was off to Ravine vineyard for lunch in their bistro, followed by a driving tour of the local area, including the Niagara Escarpment and the village of NOTL (as it's locally abbreviated). We then made a quick trip back to the coach on the New York side (it's about a 25 minute drive, plus time for the border crossing) to get the puppies so they could come back with us to enjoy a nice barbeque. We ended up getting home right around midnight. No queue at the border at that hour!

Today, we headed back to NOTL for a few more wineries. We started at Southbrook (lunch followed by tasting), then Stratus (tasting at a very modern facility) and ended up at Peller, where we did our final tasting of the day.

We had a great time and enjoyed the time with Brian, Jeanette, and Suzi, and are psyched to return in the future and spend a little more time in "wine country".

When we got home last night, we were surprised to see Wayne and Eva's coach parked a few doors down; they arrived from Maine a day early. We caught up with them a little bit this morning and afternoon, as they are doing Niagara Falls today and tonight. They are headed to Michigan and Wisconsin like us, but they'll go via Cleveland and Toledo while we're going around the North side of Lake Huron via Sault Ste. Marie. We'll catch up again around August 1 at the first Monaco Rally.

Geri, Jeanette, and Brian are ready for lunch and tasting at Southbrook.

Barrels behind glass - Mmmm...

Ultra-modern Stratus Winery

Had to stop for local fresh garlic on the way home!

"We Miss You Guys"

2011-07-22T20:31:00.001-07:00

July 22, 2011
Four Mile Creek State Park, Youngstown, NY

With all of the tasks on the list completed and everything packed up, we were right on schedule for departure this morning. We were up early and on the road by 8:15, with an easy driving day ahead of us. Geri and Alicia did a great job of directing me as I backed out of the driveway, making sure we didn't scrape the hitch on the way out. We got "we miss you already" messages from everyone during the day as we traveled.

Our route was pretty simple: I-91 North to Springfield/Holyoke in Massachusetts, I-90 West to Buffalo, then North to Lake Ontario. We did have an interesting diversion near Albany where I-87 and I-90 converge when I thought the GPS told me to take the ramp to the right and Geri asked me "Isn't that I-90 to the left?". She was correct, of course, and we did a quick loop around a few side streets to get back on track.

We started getting "Call EZ-Pass" messages at the toll booths, so I checked our account online ("good") then called. It sounds like our transponders are getting weak. The batteries aren't user-changeable, so they're sending new ones and we'll deal with any missed payments later. The new ones will go to South Dakota, of course, so we won't see them until our next mail sometime in August. Not that I want to see how much the tolls are, either; it's expensive but better than burning a lot of fuel to take an alternate route.

Speaking of that, we stopped for fuel late in the day (first fill-up since May), and did our annual propane purchase at the same time, since Flying J Truck Stops have a convenient process for that. Since the coach has a 37-gallon propane tank (equivalent to almost 8 of the 20 pound cylinders) and we only use propane for the stoves and, when "off the grid", the refrigerator, we end up filling the tank about once a year. This time, it took 16.4 gallons; not bad since our last top-off was 8/11/2010.

We arrived at our destination, Four Mile Creek State Park, just after 5:00 and were soon set up in a nice 50 Amp site. The park has 275 campsites but only half have electricity and, of those, only a small number have 50 Amp circuits. Like many public facilities, this one was designed years ago when RVs were very different. That said, by reserving early we were able to get the site we needed. This week's heat wave has made having good electrical service a necessity to keep the pups comfortable. OK; to keep us comfortable as well. Actually, it was warm enough today that we ran the air conditioners (via the generator) all day as we were driving. Ah, the comforts of travel...

This park is located right along the shore of Lake Ontario, at the mouth of (duh) Four Mile Creek, which is a couple of miles east of the mouth of the Niagara River which forms the US-Canada border here. While nearby Fort Niagara is the main historical focal point, the area where the park is was used as a launching point for various forces all the way back to the French and Indian War (1756-1763).

We're here for three nights, so I'll continue this over the weekend...

Project Time Continues

2011-07-16T06:33:00.000-07:00

July 16, 2011
Broad Brook, CT

The pre-departure projects continue! I thought we'd done a lot of stuff before we left AZ in April, but that was so long ago, it seems. Over the past couple of days I replaced the leaking axle hub cover on the tag axle, padded and tacked in a couple of pieces of plywood under the new (2" wider) mattress, re-programmed one of the MCD blinds that needed adjusting, installed a backing panel so the DVD cables don't get caught up in the MCD blind (again), replaced the Velcro on the sunscreen on the entry door, built a new bracket to fix the support for the charge-air cooler pipe where a weld had broken, built an aluminum bracket to hang the old bedroom TV outside, and replaced/expanded the non-skid strips on the shower floor. Whew!

On Thursday, we treated ourselves to dinner at one of Geri's favorite restaurants, Cavey's in Manchester, CT. Pat and Al joined us and we had a very nice dinner, with the prix fix menu honoring Bastille Day. I wish I'd taken pictures of each plate so we could try to reconstruct some of them. Pricey, but worth it; there goes the dining out budget for the rest of the trip! :-0

Today, we'll try to tackle the remaining tasks where I need Al's help. Over the next few days, I'll finish off a few more to-dos, wash the coach, and pack up all the stuff we've deployed while we've been here.

Starting the "countdown projects"

2011-07-13T14:47:00.000-07:00

July 13, 2011
Broad Brook, CT

So, where did the time go over the past month+? I sure don't know. I had a good-sized to-do list and seems to get some things done most days, but time has (once again) seemed to slip away faster than expected. Oh, well; at least we're having fun!

Yesterday, I ran a few errands, picking up a battery and charger for Al at Harbor Freight. He bought an 18v Impact Driver (one of my most-used tools) last week, but neither of us read the box: "Battery and Charger Sold Separately". And they meant it, since the battery and charger were, indeed, separate items. Phui...

I picked up a few more items for various projects, a SPST switch at Radio Shack, some aluminum at Lowe's to make a shield for the audio/visual cabinet so the cables don't interfere with the blinds, etc. I stopped at the local truck repair shop to get an air filter (haven't changed that since Alaska in 2009)and an axle cover (has been seeping oil for a couple of years now), but they couldn't get either one for about 2 weeks. Of course, this wouldn't have been an issue if I'd stopped down there a month ago, but we'll be heading out on the 22nd. I spent some time (too much time, I suppose) when I got home searching the Internet before deciding to call the Freightliner shop in East Hartford. The axle cover will be in tomorrow and the air filter by Monday. Should have gone there first.

Today, I got an early start, taking the Pups to the local Doggie Park around 7:00. Back home and fortified with the morning coffee, I started on the project list. First up, literally, was some roof work, cleaning out one vent cover and fan then adding some sealant around the skylight in the shower. I'll have to save the other fan vent for Saturday when Al can help, since I couldn't get the bolts loose (one of those need 3 or 4 hands items). I checked fluids after last week's maintenance and decided we need to tighten up the fuel line (another Saturday job). As it was getting warmer, I moved inside, cleaning the inside of the aforementioned fans, then changing the seal on the toilet (didn't do that when it was replaced by decided it was a good idea). Later, I hung Alicia's TV and ran a new cable coax to her room. Not a bad day's work.

Tomorrow, I'll knock off a few more to-dos, then head to East Hartford for the axle cover. If I get that changed plus the majority of the remaining tasks done Friday, Al and I can clean it up Saturday and next week will just be the air filter, plus giving the whole coach a bath inside and out before we shove off. Whew; I'm tired already!

Still kickin'

2011-07-11T14:09:00.000-07:00

July 11, 2011
Broad Brook, CT

OK, OK; I've officially become a Blog Slacker. After a couple of gentle prods, we're back. Things will pick up later this month when there is actually some travel-related stuff going on. I have posted a couple of Blog updates to our travel schedule and map, but nothing substantial. Maybe life is no longer of substance? It seems like when we're just "living life", Facebook is a much more practical way to shoot out quick updates. Maybe if I eventually get that nice iPad I've wanted, I'll do more Blog updates. Hmmm...

That said, the past six weeks have just flown by. We're still at Pat & Al's in Connecticut, enjoying the summer weather. OK, we've had a few warm days and the mosquitoes have been joined by flies and now Japanese beetles, but overall things have been generally nice. We've had a few storms pass but quickly and often at night.

We've done quite a few family things with Pat/Al/Alicia/Britt and Melisa/Paul/Jesse, as usual, often including local friends (Lynne and Mike, John, Ted). Geri's son Pete/Val/Josh/Belle had us over for dinner one evening at their place in Marlborough. We made the trek to the Westbrook Elks on Independence Day. We've done our traditional cooking "nights": Wing Night, Rib Night, Pinot Noir Night (excellent Oregon and California Pinots), Mexican Night (Dos Equis and 'Ritas). Al and I cooked 100+ steaks for Ted's annual Golf Outing to support the local Athletic Boosters. We had Lobster Rolls down at the Shore and decided Pat could do better at home - and she did!

On the coach front, Al and I did all the routine maintenance and then some, spending the better part of a day changing the gaskets on the roof-mounted air conditioning units before we had major leaks (they should be done every five years or so as preventative maintenance). Oil and filters (oil and fuel) changes for the engine and generator are done, the chassis is lubed nicely, and the air conditioner filters are nice and clean. I have a few more maintenance items to do in the next ten days before we hit the road again, and I'll give the whole rig a bath before we go as well.

We did a couple of interior upgrades this summer as well. I finally found the price I was looking for on a replacement TV for the front of the coach, swapping the old 30" Sharp out for a 46" LED-LCD Samsung that's so slim it didn't require any custom cabinet work (it mounts flush to the front of the existing cabinet). While I was at it, I upgraded the DVD/surround sound box to a new Blu-Ray version, plus swapped out the rear TV for a similar/smaller LED-LCD version. We'll have the roof dish upgraded later this summer for full HD all around. I even picked up a wireless transmitter that will allow us to use the old rear TV outside without having to run a cable from the DirecTV box.

We also finally got rid of the original mattress, upgrading to a Sleep Number Bed specifically sized to fit in the RV. We'd tried everything to make the old one comfortable, with various pillow-top and memory-foam add-ons, but it just wasn't going to be acceptable. We're so much happier with the new mattress, we know we should have made that change before.

Yesterday, we had a surprise visit from our friends Wayne and Eva, who stopped by with their coach on their way to the Boston area. Al figured out a way to get them parked in the side yard off the street, and we had a nice visit, including dinner featuring more of Pat's Lobster Rolls.

Tomorrow's supposed to be a rainy day, so I'll work on mapping out our route when we leave here and update our music playlists so we have some tunes (since I refused to continue paying for XM Radio). Along with some updates to the to-do list for the next week+, we'll be in great shape. And, back to Blogging!

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming...

2011-06-01T13:28:00.000-07:00

June 1, 2011
Broad Brook, CT

Yes, things are getting back to normal. Geri's finished her meds and is definitely on the mend. Not 100% yet, but that'll take some additional time. We've been taking it easy, running a few errands, getting some routine maintenance done on the Rover (belts and spark plugs), and generally hanging out. By next week, we should be back in the swing of things.

On Friday, most of us (except Geri, for obvious reasons) went to the services for Paul's father, followed by what we dubbed "Gordiefest" in the afternoon, a catered affair at the Rockville American Legion Hall where family and friends gathered to celebrate his life and maybe hoist one or two. It all worked out very well.

Saturday, Pat and Geri made Lobster Mac and Cheese; Mike and Lynne had brought some leftovers from a party, and Al and I picked the meat; the ladies did the rest. That's some good stuff, right there. Sunday, we did some barbeque, grilling some chicken and a couple of tri-tips that Geri and I had brought. OK, so this was Costco tri-tip, not authentic Santa Maria Style done over red oak, but it was tasty all the same. Monday being Memorial Day, it was time for the annual pilgrimage to the Elks in Westbrook, CT, right on the beach. Geri and I stayed home since she wasn't up to the exertion just yet. We can tell she's better, though, by the increase in appetite.

Yesterday, I got a call from American Express that they had some suspicious charges on my account. Since this sometimes happens where we are traveling, with charges in multiple states, I figured it was a false alarm. Well, think again, bucko. They had $370 for Eurostar (train tickets), $300+ for some German Internet service and, oddly enough, $1.97 at a paintball shop in Houston. So, somebody snagged my card info, either with a hack or a skimmer at a business. I'll never know, of course. But, it's been fun to spend most of this afternoon updating various businesses where things are automatically charged. Complicated by the fact that my Outlook contacts are a bit messed up since I synced with my new phone. It never ends sometimes...

The weather's been quite a mixed bag since we've been here, with over a week of cloudy and sometimes rainy weather initially, followed by some nice days, then some severe thunderstorms on Memorial Day morning, and now hot and humid for the past couple of days. Weather Underground showed a line of storms early today that missed us and headed out to Cape Cod, and now most of western Massachusetts (we're only a few miles from the CT-MA border) is lit up with strong storms. There's a tornado warning until 8:00 PM, but the radar doesn't show anything heading our way, so I think (fingers crossed) we've dodged another one.

The good news is that we're supposed to have a couple of nicer, cooler days coming up. I'm not sure that'll do anything to reduce the mosquito population, which has been driving us inside morning and night. We don't have "bug jackets" here like Dave and Sandy in Ontario, but we probably could use them. We'll tough it out, though!

Home from the "Spa"

2011-05-25T16:53:00.001-07:00

May 25, 2011
Broad Brook, CT

[Catching up from what has already been on Facebook...]

OK, nobody likely called Johnson Memorial Hospital a "spa", but at least Geri's home! We knew she was feeling better when she started complaining about the food. She's feeling better, but that's relative, of course, since she felt awful before. The hospital provided various discharge instructions and prescriptions for extending the medications she's been on. She'll finish the meds by the end of the month, then have follow-up blood tests and a doctor's visit on the 2nd and 6th, respectively.

Graduation #2 - Check

2011-05-22T20:32:00.001-07:00

May 22, 2011
Hartford, Connecticut

Today was Alicia's graduation from Eastern Connecticut State University - yeah! Apparently, the campus doesn't have a facility large enough for 700 graduates, so the festivities were held at the XL Center in Hartford (used to be the Hartford Civic Center back when the Whalers played hockey there). We headed into the city early (everyone except Grandma Geri, unfortunately) and were able to grab reasonably good seats beside the stage. It was a pretty long event, starting at 9:30 sharp and wrapping up close to 1:30 PM. Of course, the aftermath was a mob scene in the lobby area, but we were able to collect everyone in short order. Paul and I found a local watering hole that was open (like many cities, downtown Hartford is not a happening place on Sunday afternoons) where everyone congregated for a nosh and a libation. This really helped bring everyone into a nice, calm, mellow state after all the excitement of the graduation. After that, everybody headed home for pizza and wings (except me; I headed to visit Geri). All in all, it was an excellent day.

I didn't haul all the camera equipment to the graduation, since long lenses, low light, and fast-moving subjects don't often make for good pictures. But, I was able to find a spot to grab this video of Alicia "walking" with our small Nikon:

Well, it's not bronchitis...

2011-05-21T19:14:00.001-07:00

May 21, 2011
Broad Brook/Stafford, Connecticut

...but Geri does have pneumonia. Now where did that come from? Who knows; who cares? Now, it's time to get better...

Friday morning, she decided that a trip to the local ambulatory care center was in order. It didn't take long for them to order an x-ray and report back with the diagnosis of pneumonia. Then it became a question of prescribing medicines or recommending a trip to the hospital. Because she has impaired breathing anyway, the hospital became the preferred choice, and by the end of the day she was properly ensconced in a room at Johnson Memorial Hospital. They've got her on various medications to knock it out and she's in a "productive" stage, expelling goop from the lungs at a prodigious rate. She's disappointed that she won't be able to attend Alicia's graduation tomorrow, but hopeful to get better enough to be discharged within a couple of days.

We had some additional sad news Friday: Paul's (Melisa's significant other) father, Gordie, passed away in the morning after a long illness. We'll know the specifics on arrangements early next week.

Happy Anniversary to Pat and Al

2011-05-19T21:45:00.001-07:00

May 19, 2011
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to Broad Brook, Connecticut

Today was an easy driving day. We left Gettysburg shortly after 8:00 AM, cutting across to US-15 then north to Harrisburg where we rejoined I-81. In Scranton, we picked up I-84 eastbound and continued, with a fuel stop in Newburgh, all the way to Hartford. A quick leg on I-91 north brought us to the East Windsor borough of Broad Brook and we were parked at Pat and Al's place before 3:30.

We had a small celebration with their friends Mike and Lynne and family Melisa, Paul, and Jesse. We grilled a Beef Tenderloin, Pat made a Mushroom Risotto, and Lynne made a Pasta Salad. With a some good wine, we once again had a great meal.

In other news, Geri's been feeling poorly since Tuesday, with flu-like symptoms increasing as we've traveled north. She hasn't had a bout of bronchitis in a long time, so we're keeping our fingers crossed...

Deja Vu?

2011-05-18T16:35:00.001-07:00

May 18, 2011
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

...or Vuja De? Years ago, some joker explained "vuja de" to me as the opposite of deja vu: the intense feeling that you've never been here before. I've harbored a suspicion that we visited here when I was very young during a family vacation. I spent a good part of today at the Gettysburg Battlefield, but I definitely don't remember being here before. Must have been someplace else.

It was interesting tour in any event, and the Visitor's Center/Museum is very well done, but driving around a Civil War battlefield in pouring rain is less than effective. Overall, I'm glad we stopped here on the way north to Connecticut. It was an educational stop, and it broke up the travel with a day "off the road".

Here are some pictures. As always, click the picture for a larger version...

Paging Noah...

2011-05-17T20:12:00.001-07:00

May 17, 2011
Athens, Tennessee to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

We hit the road early again, and had another (planned) long driving day. We were soon in Knoxville, then on I-81 which will take us north to Pennsylvania. It didn't take long before we were in rain showers, then periods of heavy rain, with a little thunder and lightning mixed in here and there. We had a few spells where traffic slowed to a crawl due to the downpours. We had one stoppage due to an accident, but it was all cleared by the time we were moving again.

Our destination for the evening (actually a two-night stay) was Gettysburg. I think we came here during a family "station wagon vacation" (pile all the kids in the '59 Chevy wagon and head for a destination that might keep them out of trouble) circa 1965 or 1966. I'll spend a few hours poking around the Gettysburg Battlefield tomorrow and see if anything seems familiar.

We rolled in just before 6:00 PM and were quickly parked and set up. Geri made a batch of Dirty Water Dogs, and now we're settling in to chill out before bed. I see from the weather radar that we'll have waves of rain rolling over us for hours. As long as it doesn't involve thunder, we'll be fine.

Oh, and here's one of the perma-rigs (what we call RVs that never move) in this park - looks like Noah was already here!

Rolling North, mapping it Old School

2011-05-16T21:32:00.000-07:00

May 16, 2011
Mobile, Alabama to Athens, Tennessee

Today was what we used to call a "travel day" several years ago, before we tried to slow down while on the road. With only a week between graduations in Alabama and Connecticut, we're rolling "old school", putting in back-to-back days with more miles than we'd like.

We left Mobile early, around 8:00, after doing all of the necessary tasks. After slipping onto I-10 for one exit, we were soon back on I-65, heading north. We fueled up just before Montgomery. We looped around Birmingham on I-459 and were soon on I-59 heading for Chattanooga, back in the Eastern Time Zone. Quickly switching to I-24 and then I-75, we pulled over in a Rest Area for a quick night's sleep. I whipped up some cheesesteaks with some of the pieces trimmed from the beef tenderloin we picked up in Alabama. With a strong DirecTV signal, we were able to relax a bit watching DWTS. We'll be calling it an early night.

We did have a little change in procedure, with respect to the PC I use on the dash for navigation and engine monitoring. When I powered it up, I got the Blue Screen of Death, and I wasn't able to recover to an earlier set point. Since we had to get going, we defaulted to our Atlas and Interstate Guide. I thought about the errors, mostly kernel page faults. When we stopped for lunch, on a hunch, I pulled out the add-on memory card and it fired up fine. Back in business. Cost of repair: $0. Love it...

It's all sinking in...

2011-05-15T20:12:00.002-07:00

May 15, 2011
Mobile, Alabama

Today was packing day. Rick rented a U-Haul truck and we all convened at Alyson's apartment mid-morning. With a bit of an assembly line set up for packing boxes and bags, then moving same out to the truck, we had everything pretty much in hand by mid-afternoon. Once the cleaning supplies were the only things left, I knew it was time for me to head home.

It was a tough day for Alyson. As much as she's happy to have completed her degree and excited to move forward, it's hard to leave college and friends behind. All in all, she got through it OK, and it'll only get easier.

Tomorrow, we all head out, again independently. We'll hit the road as soon as we're ready in the morning. They'll finish up at the apartment (collect cats and fish, close out with the management company) before heading for Albertville. We'll retrace our route to I-59 and then continue north to Chattanooga where we'll pick up I-24 to I-75. I'm aiming to stay near Knoxville, probably at a Wal-Mart for just the night, then we'll continue on early Tuesday morning, heading for Gettysburg.

Graduation #1 - Check

2011-05-14T22:08:00.001-07:00

May 14, 2011
Mobile, Alabama

Today was Alyson's graduation day, and everything went off without a hitch. We car caravanned to the campus early to get decent parking, and got excellent seats on the upper deck of the arena right behind the stage. We were able to have a decent view of the proceedings, although we didn't stay through all 1,300 graduates.

After a quick trip back to the coach to walk, water, and feed the pups, we headed back to the party zone. Alyson and a group of her friends went in together to get a back room at the local Buffalo Wild Wings. Wings and craft beer; how can you go wrong? Everything wrapped up around 9:00, so we had another early night.

Here's a video I was able to get at the graduation...

2011-05-13T20:07:00.000-07:00

May 13, 2011
Mobile, Alabama

Alabama is a "tall" state. We drove almost the whole length from North to South today. Rick and Annette live near Huntsville and the border with Tennessee. Alyson goes to school at the University of South Alabama ("USA") in Mobile, on the Gulf. As far as the "downhill" part, we lost over 1,000 feet, but it took 340 miles to do so, so we really didn't notice.

It was an easy drive for the most part, US-431 to AL-77 to I-59 toward Birmingham. We looped around the South side on I-459 then took I-65 south through Montgomery to Mobile. The weather was cloudy for the most part, with a few sprinkles at times until we were about 50 miles out of Mobile. Then we ran into some sort of microburst storm that involved blinding rain and 40+ MPH winds. Well, that slowed things down! It was over in about 10 minutes (5 miles) and we continued on our way without further incident.

Unfortunately, Annette's father, Gerry, didn't fare as well. Everyone else was just a bit behind us (we all left Albertville at different times and travelled at varying speeds; we were surprised to be the first ones in since we're slowest), and Gerry got rear-ended just as they were getting off I-65. That's what he gets for stopping at a red light that locals just cruise through, I suppose. They were able to get a local body shop to pry open the trunk (luggage) and bungee/tape everything together so it was drivable. Ouch!

Dinner was a group party at a local seafood restaurant, Felix's Fish Camp. I think everyone had seafood, even though they had "landlubber" items on the menu. Geri had a stuffed Flounder and I had seared Ahi Tuna. I won.

We had a nice sunset and dinner (I'll get configured to copy pictures from the new phone next week), and everyone was ready to call it an early night. Big day tomorrow!

Another great visit winds up

2011-05-12T16:29:00.001-07:00

May 12, 2011
Albertville, Alabama

Where does the time fly? I sure don't know. We wrapped up another great visit with Rick and Annette today, and we're all packed up and ready to head out tomorrow morning for Mobile and Alyson's graduation on Saturday. We did some shopping up in Huntsville on Tuesday, since that's the nearest Costco location. Oh, and since Geri's phone has started to fail, we upgraded our cellular technology since we went right past a Verizon Wireless store.

OK, Geri's phone could probably have just used a new battery, but where's the fun in that? And, since we were both eligible for discounts on upgrades (we bought the old phones in AZ before we left for our Alaska trip in 2009), it just made sense to upgrade both. This way, we can help each other through the conversion from BlackBerry to Android.

We also picked up a nice beef tenderloin, which I cut into steaks for Wednesday night's dinner (an early nod to Rick and Annette's anniversary later this month) and a boneless leg of lamb, which I ground up using the Kitchen-Aid for Geri's dog food recipe (we can't get ground lamb everywhere and it's often priced way too high).

So, we're all ready for travel: tanks dumped, awnings up, car packed. Rick's ordering pizza for dinner and we'll call it an early night since we have a full travel day tomorrow.

Visiting with Linda and Wendell

2011-05-08T21:37:00.000-07:00

May 8, 2011
Birmingham, Alabama

We packed up the Rover and headed for Birmingham on Friday morning and - get this - we left the pups behind! Rick and Annette were kind enough to offer to watch them while we headed off for a few days to visit our long-time friends, Linda and Wendell. It's been several years since we had a chance to visit them at their home in Birmingham; we've seen them at their "lake place" on our more recent trips through the area. This was a nice change since we had a chance to see their family and friends this time as well.

Friday afternoon, we did some shopping with Linda before Wendell got home from work, then she made a new recipe: Pulled Chicken Pizza with Peaches and Gorgonzola Crumbles. Woo-hoo; was that good! We paired it with a couple of white wines, both Sauvignon Blancs (one still and one sparkler). This one's a keeper; we got a copy of the recipe and will make this one on the road when peaches are easier to find.

Saturday was one big party. We started out at Cosmos Pizza, where they put on a great weekend brunch, including a "make-your-own-Bloody" bar. After a power nap, they put on a barbeque spread of tri-tip and pork loin for us and family/friends - Wendell's son Patrick, Linda's Mom, Dad, and brother (Til, Bob, and Joe), and friends Pat and Clarence. Wendell set up the outside table under the lights and we took advantage of a beautiful spring evening; doesn't get much better.

Sunday, we were treated to another brunch including Wendell's Fritatta and Linda's Blue Corn Gouda Grits. Full once again, we packed up and headed back to Albertville, thankful for another great visit. The pups were none the worse for wear, having bonded nicely with Rick and Annette. we capped off the day with dinner at Annette's parents, Gerry and Lois, , including a belated birthday cake for Erik.

Happy Birthday, Erik

2011-05-06T11:46:00.000-07:00

May 6, 2011
Albertville, Alabama

Erik (our nephew) arrived home from college Thursday afternoon. He's just completed his freshman year at the University of Montevallo, just south of Birmingham. And today's his birthday. Good deal!

Power Up...

2011-05-05T16:15:00.001-07:00

May 5, 2011
Albertville, Alabama

We've had a nice stay in Albertville so far. Power came back on and everything's back in operation with no real damage. The only thing requiring a "reset" appears to be Rick's cable modem and/or router, since Internet access has been spotty. All the "old" food is consumed or tossed (very little of the latter), although fresh supplies aren't being loaded in too quickly since store shelves are still a bit bare. Interestingly, even though this area is home to numerous Tyson plants, chicken is the last thing to appear in the stores since the factories were also shut down by the extended power outage. I'm sure the shortages will translate to price increases somehow...

There's no shortage of portable generators, though, as every home improvement, warehouse and hardware store has palettes of them sitting around now. Good luck with that; people who don't have one already won't think about buying one until the next disaster.

Back to local happenings, I changed out the bad macerator pump and toilet, so everything's flowing smoothly in the coach now. Rick and I painted the bedroom in the apartment side of their house (where Mom used to live) so Alyson will have a place to stay when she comes home from College in a week-and-a-half. Annette and Geri picked out a nice color in the "brown" family ("Vanilla Brandy"?) that looks like something from a magazine ad.

And, the weather has cleared somewhat, with no strong storms in the forecast at this point. Yea!

Back in 'Bama

2011-05-01T21:23:00.001-07:00

May 1, 2011
West Memphis, AR - Albertville, AL

Yesterday, we followed storms and today, we made it to my Brother's in Alabama.

It was sunny when we left Oklahoma City, looping around I-240 back to I-40. Clouds were on the increase as we traveled east across Oklahoma and almost all of Arkansas. We stopped for the night in West Memphis, on the Arkansas side of the Mississippi River. Our original Destination, a RV Park down near the River, had called a week before to say they expected to be flooded when we arrived. I booked us into a safer location in Marion, along I-55, for the night. If it wasn't for our plumbing issues, I'd have found a boondocking spot, but I wanted to head for Rick's with empty holding tanks.

Soon after we were parked and set up, I could see from Weather Underground that a line of storms was approaching, and we had thunderstorms all night long. These storm systems are different than we're used to, which would be a line of storms along a weather front. Once the front passes, the storms are gone. Not with these systems. The storms form in a line, but then move along that front one after another. From what I could see, we had a series of storms from 8PM on, but places 50 miles northwest and 50 miles southeast of us got nothing. In any event, we kept the slides in and Maya Lynn had a very difficult night as she was quite frightened by the thunder.

We were up early and on the road by 8:30, following I-55 back to I-40. Although it was only 10 miles or so, the rain and wind increased significantly. We stopped for fuel and I was looking around for the Weather Channel guys (didn't see them). I was soaked by the time I was back in the coach, and we slowly made our way back to I-55, across the Mississippi, and then leaving the interstate to cut across the corner of Tennessee to pick up US-72 in Mississippi. We followed this route (US-72 and US-72A) to Alabama, turning to AL-67 in Decatur and AL-69 through Arab and Guntersville, then US-431 into Albertville.

Once we were in Alabama, we started seeing some evidence of the tornados and strong storms that had hit the area several days before. just before Decatur, we saw a row of houses that were heavily damaged and even totally destroyed, and we started seeing areas where the power was still out. Common sense suggests that drivers treat inoperable traffic lights as "stop signs", so we had some minor slowing but nothing too bad.

Once we got closer to Guntersville and Albertville, the damage was more evident with more trees snapped off or uprooted. We saw several power crews working to restore electricity. Interestingly, most (60%?) of the downed trees weren't snapped off but rather their whole root system came loose from the ground. We saw several sections where numerous trees were damaged this way. It's possible that these were what's called "straight line winds" as opposed to tornados. Overall, the damage can still be severe, just different. Right up the street from my brother's place, an older house was just crushed by a large tree.

They haven't had power here since last Wednesday at 6:00 AM (it's now Sunday), but it should be back soon. Rick's done a fine job of managing out of various coolers without losing much of the food stocks. This has been a good thing, since most stores in the area are closed and not getting new food shipments at this point.

More later...

Oklahoma City Memorial

2011-04-29T20:13:00.001-07:00

April 29, 2011
Oklahoma City, OK

Today, the winds finally weakened and we were able to deploy all the slides. I caught up on some bills in the morning and went to the memorial for the Oklahoma City Bombing in the afternoon. It's extremely well done, with emphasis on the victims, the implications of the blast, the outpouring of support and assistance, and the justice process. I spent a couple of hours exploring the Memorial Museum, then another hour outside on the grounds.

Click here for a photo album from the afternoon

The best laid plans...

2011-04-28T19:10:00.000-07:00

April 28, 2011
Amarillo, TX - Oklahoma City, OK

...often turn to crap. Or, in our case, the toilet failed. So, I spent the better part of the Wednesday researching and troubleshooting instead of going to Palo Duro Canyon. For those familiar with household toilets, the RV versions are a bit more complicated, with everything controlled by a circuit board (water flow, trap opening/closing. It's not rocket science but it's probably more complex than it needs to be. I ran through the diagnostics in the manual and called their support line, and I got the name of an expert at the factory. The support person thinks it's a control board ($694) and the factory guy thinks it's the motor ($200). With a new toilet retailing for $499, I've got some deciding to do.

All this was probably just as well since we continued to have very strong winds all day and a sightseeing trip might have been less than desirable. We had dinner at "The Big Texan" because, well, it's something you have to do once. I had a T-bone (reasonably OK) and Geri had a "Texas Filet" which turned out to be a piece of top sirloin masquerading as a filet mignon (not OK). Check; done; no need to do that again.

We did make a quick stop at Cadillac Ranch on the way out of town, which was easy since it's right next to the RV Park.

Click here for some pictures from Cadillac Ranch.

Once fueled up and on the road, it was a breeze to drive over to Oklahoma City. Get it? A "breeze" with all the strong winds. Fortunately, they were still mostly tailwinds, which helps with the fuel economy. We had a couple of choices on an RV park, and probably chose the least desirable option but it was right on the route and worked out OK for a two-nighter. We were parked and relaxing by cocktail hour, and had good Net and TV access. I was able to make a Home Depot run to get a plastic hose and valve to temporarily jury-rig the toilet for emergency use. Now, if the winds would just calm...

Tailwinds

2011-04-26T17:19:00.002-07:00

April 26, 2011
Amarillo, TX

I haven't figured out our fuel mileage heading east yet, but I'm guessing it'll be way above our historical average. We've had strong tailwinds ever since we left the coast. Our route took us back down US-101 and CA-126 to I-5. After a short segment south, we picked up CA-14 heading to Lancaster/Palmdale, and took the Pear Blossom Highway cut-off to CA-118 and CA-18 over to Victorville. From there we took I-15 north to I-40 in Barstow. We'll follow I-40 all the way east to Memphis.

The winds have been almost non-stop, night and day. I'd planned to stop overnight at the last Rest Area in California, just before Needles, but it was closed. Apparently, I need to get near-real-time updates on Rest Areas as we travel these days. Anyway, we motored on another 50 miles to the next Rest Area, on the Arizona side. No worries.

Monday, we continued our journey east on I-40, through Kingman and climbing to Flagstaff (at over 7,000 feet), then descending across the high desert. We made a fuel stop in Winslow and continued on to Albuquerque. It was interesting to finally catch up with the rest of the country by switching from Mountain Standard Time to Mountain Daylight Time as we crossed into New Mexico. We stopped for the night at the Route 66 Casino just west of the city. There were plenty of other RVs already there so we just took our spot in the designated part of the lot.

Today, we were back on I-40, for a shorter driving day. We were off the road around 2:00 PM, even accounting for the loss of another hour as we entered Texas and the Central Time Zone. We're staying at the Oasis RV Park just west of Amarillo, and I planned for a two-night stay so we can do some things in the area tomorrow (Cadillac Ranch, Palo Duro Canyon, The Big Texan to see if someone eats the 72 ounce steak). After showering off the "road grime" from the last couple of days, Geri's well on her way to knocking out the accumulated laundry. The winds are so strong, we pulled in the slides on the windward side for now. The park had a small cafe so we'll dine there tonight (Brisket and Ribs, I suspect).

So, I should have posted a video. Then you could have seen the rocking in the 60 MPH winds...

Don't mind the tumbleweeds!

Tomorrow, we'll visit Cadillac Ranch. This is the RV Park's version...

A great (but too short) visit

2011-04-23T20:14:00.000-07:00

April 23, 2011
Buellton, CA

We've had a very nice couple of days in the Lompoc-Buellton-Santa Ynez Valley. We arrived At Flying Flags in Buellton late in the afternoon on Wednesday, after an uneventful drive. We used our normal route of I-10 to I-210 around the north side of the LA area, then a short hop up I-5 to CA-126 in Santa Clarita. That takes us to US-101 in Ventura, and it's direct to Buellton from there. We didn't have any traffic to speak of (time of day plus fuel price issues?) and the only slowing down was for some of the worst road surfaces we've been on in years.

Thursday was a needed catch-up day. Laundry and grocery shopping; nothing else to report, other than the macerator pump used to empty the holding tanks crapped out (get it?). Fortunately (strange as that sounds), it's not the first time this has happened and I know how to remove it without making a complete mess. Plus, we always have the Big Blue Stinky Slinky as a back-up. But enough of that.

In the evening, we headed to the Hitching Post for dinner, putting away two nice steaks and a bottle of their very own Pinot Noir to boot. They still have the "As Seen In Sideways" stuff on display. Somewhere along the line, I heard that there's a Sideways II planned, which should be interesting.

Friday, we headed into Lompoc. We had a great visit with Geri's sister. As we came in the door at the facility where she lives, she saw us immediately and got really excited. I'm not sure she knew exactly who we were, but she knew we were visiting from far away and was very happy to see us. We spent a couple of hours with her until she got tired and went to look for her "boyfriend" to keep her company.

We then made a stop at the Fiddlehead Winery tasting room to pick up a couple of wine club "shipments" (it seems strange to call them that when they never get shipped). On the way out of the Lompoc "Wine Ghetto", we noticed a tasting room for Loring Wines, another of our favorite Pinot Noir producers, so we had to stop for a taste. Later, we made our usual stop at the Foley tasting room, conveniently located halfway between Lompoc and our base in Buellton. Fabulous day!

Our last day in Wine Country was spent, right, collecting wine. Of course, we had to have a few tastes. Quality control and all that. We first went to Tres Hermanas, north of Buellton on the Foxen Canyon Wine Trail. They have a small RV Park out back, but we've never ventured out there because of the winding roads. We took a different route and found that we'll be just fine with the coach for next time. Combined with a stop at the Lompoc Elks (closer to Kathy), we've already got a plan for our fall visit.

We made our last stops of the day at Lincourt Winery (pick-up only) and the D'Alfonso-Curran tasting room in Solvang (always a fun place to spend an afternoon. Suitably loaded up with wine, we're ready to start our trek to the east, leaving tomorrow.

Back in the saddle

2011-04-19T21:10:00.000-07:00

April 19, 2011
Indio, CA

Wow; it was great to get back on the road, even if we fought the winds all the way across I-10! Our first stop was with our friends, Wayne and Eva, at their place in Indio, near Palm Springs. We had a great time with them, and they certainly took care of us. Taco Night at their Elks Lodge on Monday, then Eva put out two fantastic meals for us today for brunch and dinner. We thought about staying another day, but we need to get to Lompoc to visit with Geri's sister, so we'll push on tomorrow.

It's been interesting to see the price of fuel increase as we go, with diesel in the $4.45-4.55 range and gas just under $4.00. Things should be lower most everywhere else (California's generally one of the highest-cost states).

Tomorrow morning I'll run a few errands before we go: a trip to Cardenas Market for some Chorizo and a stop at the local Verizon Wireless store to check out their latest Mi-Fi device with 3G/4G capabilities (this should be a good back-up access point if we can't get a Wi-Fi signal and/or the Hughes system is acting up.

Good to go

2011-04-17T18:06:00.000-07:00

April 17, 2011
Peoria, AZ

Well, departure day has arrived. The coach is washed and loaded, and we're ready to hit the road. Geri's ankles have been much better since she's been wearing the braces and orthotics recommended by the orthopedic specialist. She'll wear the braces for much of the summer, gradually pulling back when there isn't a lot of walking to do on a given day.

It's been a different kind of winter, more focused on getting to the bottom of the medical issues than on enjoying the desert. While there's been a degree of frustration (and the weather didn't even cooperate for much of January-February!), we're looking forward to another summer visiting with friends and family.

Still Kickin'

2011-01-26T12:07:00.001-07:00

January 26, 2011
Sun City, AZ

Yes, we're still alive and kicking. As I mentioned in my last Blog entry oh so many weeks ago, when we're not traveling there's only so much to report, and shorter, contemporaneous updates are much easier done (and more properly placed) in Facebook.

So, what is new? Well, the primary thing we've been dealing with has been the ongoing saga of Geri's swollen and painful ankles. As I type, we're at an Imaging Center in Sun City where they're doing another MRI. This has been a somewhat frustrating process (going on since late-October), involving a range of tests, changing primary care physicians, and not a heck of a lot to show for it. But, Geri's hanging in there, keeping a positive attitude, and we'll get to the bottom of it - eventually - I'm sure.

We had good Christmas and New Year's Holidays, spending the former with our friends, Ana and Larry, and the latter relaxing at home with home-cooked Surf and Turf. Since we were home for the holidays this year, we actually deployed the decorations for a change. Every time we do, we say we'll cut back in the future, but as soon as they're up we know we'll keep doing it.

In other news, we finally got around to joining the local Elks Lodge (providing access to quite a few RV parking spots around the country), I fixed (fingers crossed!) the fabric that had come loose on the awnings over the slides on the coach, and we dodged a financial bullet when I was able to repair my failing laptop PC with a $59 drive replacement instead of a $2,000 upgrade to an iMac (although I'm still pining for that 27" model). And, the technology projects have given me a chance to upgrade our backup procedures. There's nothing like finding out that you've lost all your email archives and contacts because you thought they were backed up but weren't to make you pay more attention.

One non-coach project I've started is reducing the paper we store (and haul around with us in the summer) by scanning medical records. If medical practices can go electronic, so can we. We've found that it actually takes longer to go through the paper and pull out relevant pages than it does to scan them to PDFs. Changing doctors has finally lit the fire under us to tackle this one, and it'll be done by the end of February (give or take).

I'm also trying to get out on the bike for an hour-long ride at least three times a week; we'll see how long I can stick with that...

We've continued to eat well (really no surprise there, right?), enjoying quite a few new recipes and techniques and, of course, continuing to work our way through the "drink me now" selections in the "Wine Box". We've been experimenting with various bread/dough recipes, working toward a selection that we can make as well on home or on the road. The Ciabatta is coming along nicely, and Geri's started working on Pizza Dough that's been pretty good as well.

I've started thinking through our summer travel plans, and have updated the map (to the left) with some preliminary thoughts. Since we'll be heading east for college graduations (Alyson and Alicia) in May, we may spend some time in the upper Midwest (UP of Michigan and Wisconsin) on the way west, and I'm thinking about a swing through Ontario to catch up with some of our Canadian friends. We have to make another stop in South Dakota (my driver's license renewal this time), but we might try to do that towards mid-to-late-September to avoid the crushing heat (not as hot as AZ but not as dry either). In addition, there are a number of RV Rallies from Wisconsin to Wyoming that we might use as travel points; we haven't done much of that in the past few years. Not that I want to plan it out too much in advance, mind you.

Well, that's it for now. I'll update the Blog again when summer travel plans start to come into more focus...

Life is good, in spite of winter's early arrival

2010-11-28T14:27:00.000-07:00

November 28, 2010
Peoria, AZ

The pups had a great check-up at the Vet, Geri's through the next phase of her dental reconstruction (temporary bridge) and tried a new hair place, the Rover's suspension is back in action, and we had a nice Thanksgiving with friends. The past couple of weeks have flown by.

With Geri having a negative reaction to the change in meds, she's been under the weather lately. She's been a trouper, though, working through the situation and getting all the tests the Doctor ordered done. We'll head back on Tuesday to get the results. In the meantime, she's been a little constrained from walking the pups and doing things around the house. Accordingly, we haven't tried to tackle anything major (like painting the master suite, our planned project for this winter).

Speaking of winter, the weather's turned decidedly colder over the past week and a half, with temperatures running 5-10 degrees below normal. It's felt like December-January out there, and that's fine as long as this pattern breaks at some point. It's been nice and sunny, though, so we've continued to enjoy the desert.

I did tackle one issue: fixing a squeaking disc brake pad on the Rover. Once we figured out which wheel position it was (Geri drove slowly while I listened outside), it was a quick process to remove the wheel, pull off the caliper and apply "squeak relief" (actually a high-temperature synthetic lube) to the pins and backs of the pads, and put it all back together. Other than getting brake dust all over, it was a straightforward project.

We've continued to eat well, though. Working off the stock we laid into the freezer when we got back a month ago, and continuing to enjoy the wines we brought back, most evenings have been very enjoyable. I did a Pot Roast in the slow cooker last week that came out pretty tasty (and made enough for two meals), and Geri made a Shrimp Parm that was "to die for". Last night, we put another Pork Loin Roast on the rotisserie and I made a Mushroom Risotto as a side; rich but very good with a Washington Merlot we brought back. I made a Broccoli Gratin one evening and roasted some Brussels Sprouts (my new favorite vegetable after having them in Cleveland). Mmmm.

The next few weeks are looking to be pretty quiet, as we've been keeping the calendar clear since we don't know what the results of Geri's tests will be (edema is usually a symptom of something else, not a syndrome of its own). I'll update the Blog again next week...

Blogging Hiatus?

2010-11-16T17:00:00.002-07:00

November 16, 2010
Peoria, AZ

Well, it certainly seems that way. We've been busy over the last 10 days, just not with things of interest, I suppose. Some "highlights":

On the doctor/dentist front, we're mostly in good shape. The key piece of good news is that Geri's kidney MRI results were fine, showing only normal re-growth at the site of the tumor removal 18 months ago. And we're well on our way to getting her dental bridge reworked after things came loose over the summer, and we've both had our routine cleanings. Her ankle's another story, with the current theory leaning toward peripheral edema as opposed to gout and another series of tests in the works to sort that out. And a prescription change has her feeling under the weather until she acclimates. And the pups head for the vet tomorrow for various shots (they're not looking forward to that).

We've also been working on address changes. No, we're not moving but our mail service in South Dakota is. They've outgrown their leased space in downtown Rapid City and are moving to the 'burbs, right out near the Cabelas and the Flying J. Woo-hoo! Except for us - we have to change data, over time, literally hundreds of places. Now, many of these are online shopping sites and we can make those changes when (if) we ever order again. But, many are tied into online bill payment (change the card's address and the next month's bill might not get paid) and the few magazines we still receive in hardcopy. Add in medical insurers, pensions, Social Security/Medicare, local doctors and dentists, etc. and it's still quite a chore. While we've been stuck in the study, we scanned a few photos, handled Geri's annual IRA distribution and funding my Healthcare Savings Account, and generally did some clean-up on the filing.

I've also spent some time on "fix it" projects, batting .500. I set the over to automatically clean one night and we were awoken with a bang as one of the glass panels in the door shattered. Some quick Googling and searching the next morning brought us new glass several days later and the oven door was soon back in place. Since I couldn't tell from the online diagram which glass to order and the owner's manual was of little help, I ordered two different items and returned the other one today.

The other project was looking into the air suspension on the Rover, which threw a fault. Actually, I think it was self-inflicted since I forgot to turn off our 12 volt cooler one day and drained the battery. Once jumped, the air suspension was inoperable. I did some online research (there are Rover fans all over the world who can help sort out problems) and checked all the fuses and relays, to no avail. Today, I broke down and made an appointment at the Land Rover Centre in Scottsdale for a fix.

Otherwise, we've been eating well (as usual) with some steaks on the barbie, a pot of sauce for pasta and a couple of rotisseries (chicken - take that, Costco!, and a wonderful pork loin last night). We've also done well in attacking the "Wine Box". Some analysis has revealed that we're long in Pinot Noir, so I've been cross-referencing the inventory with vintage and bottling ratings online, and starting to work through the "drink me now" wines. It's tough work, but someone has to do it...

As I think about the Blog, I'll probably strike a balance between Facebook and Blog updates and stick with shorter missives over the winter, with things picking up again as we start to think about next summer's adventures.

Adjusting to life at a different pace

2010-11-06T14:48:00.001-07:00

November 6, 2010
Peoria, AZ

Some people change their clocks for Daylight Savings Time twice a year. Since Arizona (most of it, anyway) doesn't observe, we choose to "spring ahead" to travel mode in April and "fall back" to life off the road in October.

And, that's just how we've spent the past week. Don't confuse "fall back" with "slow down". We were up early on Monday so Geri could go get a blood test that was needed before her Thursday MRI (up even earlier to have her there before 7:00 AM). We'll get the results of the precautionary follow-up MRI next week. If everything remains clear with her kidney after her surgery in April of 2009, she'll be able to go to an annual schedule for further testing. (Fingers crossed).

Tuesday, we made a big shopping run, laying in enough Costco meats to carry us for weeks and filling out the pantry and refrigerator with things for the next few days. It'll be interesting to see how our shopping pattern evolves this year, as we seem to vacillate between buying in bulk and buying fresh, with very different shopping frequencies. I suspect we'll eventually find a happy medium, relying on bulk purchases to keep costs down but mixing in more fresh ingredients based on meal planning via Food Network ("Ooh; that looks good"!).

Wednesday, we were off to the first of several dentist appointments, this one to get started on a new bridge for Geri (the tooth that came loose over the summer is a goner). We'll get most of the medical/dental stuff out of the way over the next couple of weeks, as we usually do quickly upon our return in the fall. Then (hopefully), we'll be good until another round of check-ups in the spring. Even the pups will participate, as there are always shots they need, it seems.

Geri's almost caught up on the laundry, and I spent some time yesterday and today storing and organizing this year's "wine haul" in the various places we stash the juice around here. I also deployed the various yard decorations, and cleaned and filled the water feature in the back yard so we now get serenaded by the gentle splash of water in the evenings. The weather's been generally nice although the temperatures have been a little on the high side (upper-80s and maybe even a low-90) for this time of year. Things are supposed to be back toward "normal" (upper-70s) by next week.

Geri's ankle was better for a while, as elevation and ice packs seemed to help, along with the odd anti-inflammatory and lots of Black Cherry Juice. Unfortunately, yesterday she felt up to walking the pups in the morning and now she's paying the price. We'll need to get that looked at next week as well.

In between, we've been working on address changes. Moving? No, but our mail service in South Dakota is. Do you have any idea how many places have your address? It must be hundreds. Some are even linked: we have to quickly change things we have auto-billed to credit cards after the card's address is changed, or the automatic charge might not work. And we still have pensions and Social Security to do. Most online merchants can wait until the next time we order, if ever. We'll chip away at it in several sessions each week until we get it done.

Since we had such a busy week, we didn't spend a lot of time on the food and wine front. Geri made a fabulous Penne/Chicken/Peas dish with a Pancetta/mascarpone sauce that worked for two meals. I'm amazed that she can pick up on a restaurant meal (this one I had in Calistoga; she only had a taste) and create something just as good - or better. We also filled in with a store-bought rotisserie chicken that's good for two meals. Yesterday, I tried a new recipe: Butternut Squash Gnocchi with Brown Butter and Sage. Geri made her famous Pork Medallions, and dinner was reasonably good. I worked the dough too much, so the gnocchi were a little on the dense side, but the squash flavor came through nicely. It paired nicely with a 2006 California Pinot Noir from the wine box (2006 was a weak vintage, so I'm trying to clear them out first). This morning, I got a rack of Baby Backs in the over to cook low and slow all day. They'll go with fries and baked beans, and it'll be "Margarita Night", so I'm sure there will be a Facebook picture or two...

Oh, and "Happy Birthday" to my brother, Rick!

Summer Travel Summary

2010-10-31T21:46:00.002-07:00

October 31, 2010
Peoria, AZ

I pulled a few quick statistics from our travel log:

10,685 miles traveled from April 22 to October 30 (191 days, just under 56 miles per day)
1,800 gallons of fuel costing $5,627, averaging $3.12 per gallon and just under 6 MPG
$4,984 in campground fees for 130 nights, averaging $38.34 per night (factoring in "free" nights this drops to $26.23 per night)

The "priceless" part: we got to see more family and friends this year than ever before...

Home at last...

2010-10-31T17:01:00.002-07:00

October 31, 2010
Peoria, AZ

Since Geri's ankle was really getting worse, we ended up cutting our visit in Santa Barbara County short by a day, and made it home on Saturday instead of the Sunday plan.

We're pretty sure this is a "gout incident", but the pain and swelling has been getting progressively worse over the past couple of days. We had planned to attend a wine tasting on Friday afternoon, but I called and was able to cancel that. And the RV Park gave us a credit for our next stay for the unused day (I thought we might have to forfeit that), so we packed up and hit the road early in the afternoon. After a quick stop in Santa Paula for fuel, we were soon wending our way along I-210 north of Los Angeles. A little bit of Friday afternoon traffic slowed us up, and we knew we wouldn't make it all the way to Phoenix. Our friends Wayne and Eva had recommended the Elks Lodge in Indio as an option, but it was getting late so we pulled out back of the Morongo Casino just east of Palm Springs for the night. we've stayed there before and once again had no issues using it for a quick overnight boondocking spot.

Up early, we were on our way just as the rain showers were trying to make their way out of the LA basin and into the desert. With a nice rainbow in the rear view and a fantastic sunrise in front of us, we were quickly back on I-10, climbing the long grade east of Indio, and rolling into Arizona. By early afternoon, we were in Phoenix and after a quick stop at the Flying J Truck Stop to top off the fuel tank for storage, we were back at our place in Peoria.

Since we had all day today to do our unloading, we knew we simply needed to deal with essentials yesterday. I turned on the gas and the water first. No problem on the former, but the water, well, no joy. It turns out that the gate valve that serves as a main was stripped in the threads. It turned fine, just wouldn't open. So, being home less than 30 minutes, I was off to Home Depot for a replacement. Of course, you have to buy a whole new valve; no parts available. Back home, I jury-rigged a tool to close the underground valve out by the meter, installed the new gate in the existing valve, and we soon had water running. At some point, I'll replace the gate valve with a ball valve for more reliable operation, but not now I also had a couple of drips where the cold water enters the hot water heater, so I tightened them up as well.

We were well-prepared for an evening arrival, having pre-planned dinner of Mexican Sheppard's Pie, so we simply moved a few things from the coach: dinner, DirecTV boxes, PCs, and "morning stuff". We soon had the TVs working and the cable Internet wasn't far behind (I'd called a few days earlier to make sure it was "on".

Today, we basically spent the day unloading the coach. After all these years, we have it pretty well figured out. Start at the front, leave cupboards open once they're dealt with, and dump all the laundry in a space where Geri can tackle it in batches over the next few days. We finished up with the refrigerator/freezer, since the house units had cooled sufficiently, and were high-fiving our completion just about 3:00 PM.

From one "wine country" to the next

2010-10-27T10:48:00.000-07:00

October 27, 2010
Buellton, CA

We've closed out our tour of Napa Valley and moved south to Santa Barbara County's "Wine Country" for a few days.

Last Saturday and Sunday were plagued with heavy rain. Geri joked that Napa Valley was sad to see Pat and Al go home to Connecticut. If that's the case, "sad" doesn't begin to describe it. We had almost 2" of rain, bad for us and worse for the grapes still hanging on the vines.

Needless to say, we took advantage of the rainy weather to do, well, not much. Geri did some laundry. We (I) watched some sports on TV. I pulled together a pretty good Pork Tenderloin with Pan-roasted Potatoes, and made a hearty Bolognese-style sauce that went well with Penne. We did some rearranging on the wine storage front (OK, some of that "rearranging" involved bottle recycling). I did some cleanup after we had a minor water leak due to the pulled fabric on the slide "toppers"; this is high on my list of "fix it over the winter" projects.

Things cleared up on Monday. We made a Whole Foods run and Geri went off to shop at Napa Style. We had dinner at Gott's Roadside (formerly Taylor's Automatic Refresher), the only burger joint we've run across with a nice wine list. We had a little excitement at dinner, not the culinary kind, though. As we were chatting with the couple behind us (as we often do), the wife started to choke. Initially thinking she'd gotten into something hot, we all became alarmed when her color started to change. The husband did a quick impromptu Heimlich and a recently-trained vacationing EMT provided advice. A restaurant employee called 911 and the firefighter/EMT crew arrived in short order. Fortunately, the Heimlich and some hot water dislodged the obstruction and soon everyone was calm. We hung around and chatted through a couple of bottles of Cabernet, and headed home later than we'd expected.

Yesterday was our travel day and we were up early since we didn't do our normal night-before preparations. We were on the road on schedule, though, leaving Napa right around 9:00 AM. South on Highway 29, a quick jog on CA-37 to Vallejo, I-80 to Oakland, I-880 to San Jose, and we were soon back on US-101. We made a quick stop in Salinas to drop off a package for Wayne and Eva and wrapped up the driving day a little after 3:00 PM, pulling into Flying Flags RV Resort in Buellton.

We'd just gotten set up when the check-in person from the office came over and asked us to move sites. Apparently, they've got some digging and wiring to do, and we were inadvertently parked in a site that'll be impacted. So, dish down, slides in, water-sewer-electric disconnected and we moved 125' to a different row. Hopefully, we'll be settled here for the rest of our stay. We ordered a pizza for dinner since neither of us felt like cooking, even leftovers. It married well with a nice Napa Zinfandel.

Today, we'll spend the morning going over "back home" things. I've got to call to activate the cable Internet and Geri's got to confirm various medical appointments that are set up starting at 7:30 AM Monday morning. Oof-da; back to the alarm clock! I'll update my navigation map for the last leg of this summer's "vacation", as we'll probably head directly to Phoenix from here on Saturday.

This afternoon, we'll probably head to Lompoc to visit Geri's sister. We'll spend the rest of our time here picking up "wine club" shipments that we've had held for us. It's tough work, but someone has to do it...

A fine wine tour comes to an end

2010-10-22T21:50:00.002-07:00

October 22, 2010
Napa, CA

Whew! We had a great - and busy - week with Pat and Al, showing them around Northern California wine country on their first (but hopefully not last) trip out this way. We're pretty sure they had a good time, as well.

Click here for pictures from this past week.

We started out last Saturday night, when we headed over to the San Francisco airport around 9:00 PM to pick them up. We parked in the Cell Phone Lot and waited until they were through baggage claim, then drove the 5 minutes to the terminal to pick them up. After a quick drive through the fog ("Welcome to San Francisco"!), we were home and relaxing. Geri made some nosh and we chatted until late (much later for them).

Sunday, we got an early start and spent the day showing them some of the sights in San Francisco. We checked out some of the hills, drove down Lombard Street ("crookedest street in town"), drove over to see the Golden Gate Bridge, and did a walking tour along the Embarcadero, from the Ferry Building all the way to the Cannery. After an unplanned late lunch at a dive bar, we headed home and capped off the evening with a great selection of cheeses (Cowgirl Creamery) and a salad.

We traveled to Sonoma County on Monday, crossing the Golden Gate Bridge and heading up US-101 to Santa Rosa. We parked at the Fairgrounds, a nice, clean and quiet park (albeit with limited 50 amp coverage). Once settled in, we headed out for some tastings, checking out Chateau St. Jean and Sebastiani in the time we had available.

Tuesday was a complete change of pace. Instead of focusing on wineries, we headed south to Marin County, west to the coast, then north along Tomales Bay. We'd planned ahead and had everything we needed for an oyster lunch: beer and wine, plates and cups, multiple condiments, and of course, our oyster knife. We powered through three dozen of the freshest oysters to be found, right at the Tomales Bay Oyster Company where they're grown. We continued north on CA-1 to Jenner before turning east and following the Russian River back to Santa Rosa. We made a quick stop at the Martinelli Winery on the way (can't have a day without wine).

We moved again on Wednesday, this time the short hop over to Napa County, actually to the city of Napa where we were soon set up at the Napa Expo Fairgrounds RV Park. This is a very nice facility that we found during last year's wine country caravan. After getting set up, we headed for our first winery tour (having focused on tasting rooms so far). Since it was Pat and Al's first winery tour in Napa, we took them to the place where Geri and I had our first similar experience, probably in 1979 or 1980: Robert Mondavi Winery. They still put on a very good and informative tour, followed by a tasting. Al dug out his wallet and purchased a set of wines that don't get distributed (winery only sales). After Mondavi, we drove south on Highway 29 (the main drag in Napa Valley) and made quick stops at the Louis M. Martini and Peju Province tasting rooms, followed by dinner at a Mexican place right near the Fairgrounds.

We also had another visit with our friends, Wayne and Eva, and their Yorkie, Abby. They were staying at the Napa Elks Lodge, and it was nice to catch up with them and have them meet Pat and Al. We stopped at "their place" one evening and they came over to the Napa Expo the next night.

Thursday, we headed for the "other side" of Napa Valley, driving north on the Silverado Trail. We made a tasting stop at Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, tasting and buying both the Fay and SLV bottlings (Cask 23 being out of our retirees price range), before continuing north to the little town of Calistoga. We had lunch there and made a unsuccessful stop at Chateau Montelena (too busy and too close to closing) before finishing up at Charles Krug Winery. Once on the road home, we stopped at Dean & Deluca and Whole Foods, picking up scallops and salad mix for a light dinner.

Nobody was moving quickly this morning, so we took our time getting started. We had a late lunch/early dinner at Greystone restaurant at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) on St. Helena, followed by a little shopping at the CIA store. This is a neat place, housed in the large stone building that was home to the Christian Brothers Winery when monks still ran the place. Greystone always puts on a nice meal, and we all enjoyed different plates (Pat "won" with the Brook Trout entree), followed by dessert and sweet wine tastings.

Since Pat and Al have an early flight tomorrow, we stopped by the coach and picked up their bags and the pups, and drove them down to a San Bruno hotel, right near the airport. They'll be able to get a shuttle at 6:00 AM that'll get them to their flight on time. Although we were sad to drop them off, it was a much better strategy than getting up at 4:00 AM to make the 1.5-2 hour trek from Napa. We got home around 9:30 and are just going to chill for the rest of the evening.

Overall, it was a great week and a fine way to cap off the "year of the family visit" tour that we've been on since April...

Valleys to rivers to the ocean

2010-10-16T13:13:00.000-07:00

October 16, 2010
Pacifica, CA

Well, we've certainly been through some different parts of Northern California over the last few days. Here's the rundown...

We left the Rolling Hills Casino in Corning (Central Valley) on a bright and sunny Tuesday morning. Our travel day was short and pretty direct: I-5 south about 115 miles to Sacramento. Having stayed there twice last fall, we aimed the coach for the CalExpo RV Park, right along the banks of the American River. As we drove along, we could feel the temperatures rising, so we were glad we were heading for another place where we could plug in and enjoy air conditioned comfort.

Once we were set up, our friend, Jim, from back in the early Aetna days, stopped over for a nice visit. It was nice to catch up; we'd missed him last fall since we didn't have enough time on the caravan to add much in terms of extra activities.

We thought about dinner after Jim headed home, and decided that a quick trip to the local Outback might be appropriate, so I got my steak fix for the week. As I mentioned, it helps decision making if you know what's around.

We were up early on Wednesday, another sunny morning. OK, it was the pups who were up early; I wanted to sleep in. We did a walk around the RV Park, growled at a resident cat for a bit, and generally had a good time. After a quick breakfast, we unplugged, hooked up the Rover and were back on the road.

It was another short driving day, just under 110 miles. This time, we were headed for a new (i.e., we've never stayed here before) place in Pacifica, CA. We followed I-80 out of Sacramento to Oakland, then paid the modest toll to go over the Bay Bridge into San Francisco. after a quick jog onto US-101 and I-280, we were on CA-1, the Pacific Coast Highway, south of San Francisco proper. We were soon parked at the San Francisco RV Resort, in a great space overlooking the Pacific Ocean. They've designed the spaces along the bluff to have motorhomes pull in and trailers (many of which larger windows at the rear) back in. We rewarded ourselves with a relaxing afternoon: watching the surf, taking a nap, and enjoying a nice sunset.

Thursday, we just plain relaxed. Geri got a couple of loads of laundry done, but that was about it. We walked the pups around the park and down the street, seeing the "sights". I picked up our mail from the Post Office and went through that (other than our Absentee Ballots and AZ property taxes going down by 31% - wow! - nothing earth shattering), but otherwise, we just enjoyed a nice, sunny day overlooking the Pacific. For dinner, I did up a nice Pork Tenderloin with Pan-roasted Red Potatoes, which went very nicely with a Cabernet Sauvignon we'd brought from Three Rivers Winery in Walla Walla. We were treated to another nice sunset to cap off the day.

Yesterday, we got down to brass tacks. Well, we don't really have any tacks, much less brass ones, but we at least got busy. Geri started cleaning the inside and I started on the outside, getting the power washer going (yes, this RV Park allows vehicle washing) and cleaning the road grime off the Rover and then the coach. Just as I was finishing up outside, the wind shifted and we were enveloped in a gray "marine layer" of clouds. I'm not sure how long this pattern will last. The sun's right above us, peeking through every once in a while, but the fog and low clouds are hanging on. Of course, it is San Francisco, after all...

We did some of the Otto's Wieners we'd bought in Portland for dinner, with a pre-packaged serving of Geri's Famous Sauerkraut. Since we had a couple of pears left from our stop in Gold Beach, Oregon, she also whipped up a fantastic Pear-Cherry Tart. I did a quick walk to Safeway for ice cream (reminds me of when we lived in Brooklyn!) and we enjoyed the evening.

Today, we're still under the marine layer. Geri's wrapping up the laundry, I vacuumed and polished the tile and gave the mirrors a once-over. Pat and Al should be on their way from CT (we heard from Alicia that they at least made it safely to the airport in Windsor Locks), so we'll aim to pick them up at SFO tonight. We've got a nice weeks planned: tomorrow in San Francisco, Monday-Tuesday in Sonoma, and Wednesday-Friday in Napa. Woo- hoo!

And, speaking of "woo-hoo", a "Happy Birthday" to our niece Alyson on her 21st birthday!

Pictures from last week

2010-10-12T09:11:00.002-07:00

Click here for pictures from last week...

Catching up on the last week, and then some...

2010-10-11T22:04:00.000-07:00

October 11, 2010
Rolling Hills Casino, Corning, CA

Wow; where do I start? At the beginning, or course. I'm way behind in updating this blog, partially because we've been busy and partially due to limited Internet access. So, to recap...

We wrapped up our stay in Woodland, WA, last Tuesday morning. We headed south on I-5 and were soon at the Monaco Service Center in Coburg, Oregon. We spent time at the "old Monaco" in years past, but this was our first visit since their bankruptcy and acquisition by Navistar. We rolled in just after noon on Tuesday to check in for our Wednesday appointment. In a weird twist of fate, they actually did the work (changing one slide seal) in the afternoon while we were off visiting Northwest RV Surplus, Jerry's Hardware and Costco, and getting the pups cleaned up at PetsMart. That never happened in the old days.

Wednesday, we settled up on the bill, but decided to stay another day. We had a mobile carpet cleaner come out and do the little rug we have left, plus the couch. It looks good but, with the humidity, it's been taking longer than we'd like to dry. Not bad, though, to get everything clean inside and out, since I got the power washer out and cleaned the coach and Rover.

Thursday, we headed for the coast in the afternoon, following OR-126 to Florence and then US-101 south. We were following the route we intended to take last fall, before the accident with the Rover. The trip rapidly turned into a rainy day drive, perfect for a just-washed set of vehicles. On the other hand, if they never got dirty, it would mean we weren't enjoying our travels. We decided to spend two nights at a RV Park in Charleston, OR. We were a little put off by the "perma-rigs" (generally old junk trailers that haven't been moved in years and are unlikely to do so any time soon - with occupants to match) near the entrance, but once we were parked we were OK. This park is right on the beach, and we had a chance to let Merlin and Maya Lynn run in the sand and ocean several times.

Saturday, we were back on the road again, heading back through Coos Bay to US-101, then south. We aimed for Gold Beach, and managed to catch up with our friends Wayne and Eva on their last day there. We had a good visit with them, including lunch at a local restaurant and dinner at "their place". Other than Maya and their Yorkie, Abby, getting into a scuffle over dog food, it was a relaxing time and a good visit. We haven't seen them since April so we caught up on travels, etc.

Yesterday, we traveled together down US-101 into California (where we had a 10-minute agricultural inspection, for gypsy moths, of all things) and landed at the Elks Lodge in Eureka. After a quick shopping excursion to the local Costco, we were ready for dinner: Rack of Lamb with Mushroom Risotto and a Baby Greens Salad. Oh, yeah; that's good.

Today, we left mid-morning after a nice breakfast at Wayne and Eva's, got fuel, and took the "scenic route" across CA-299, stopping in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest for a nice lunch, over to I-5 in Redding, and then headed south to the Rolling Hills Casino in Corning for an overnight. We'd originally planned to dry camp but the temperatures here in the valley are in the 90s so we opted to stay in their overnight RV Park and plug in to run the air conditioning. We had leftovers (still full from breakfast and lunch) and relaxed a bit, and are now chilling with some TV Life is indeed good...

Oh, yes, there are various pictures and they're downloaded from the cameras and phones but I'm too tired to process them tonight, so they'll get done over the next day or so...

Starting the last month on the road this year

2010-10-02T15:58:00.000-07:00

October 2, 2010
Woodland, WA

Once again, we find ourselves asking, "Where does the time go"? We've closed out September and will be back at our "winter home" at the end of this month. It seems like just yesterday that we were packing up to head out on this year's "summer adventure". This year, we started without a "master plan" and look what happened: we did fine.

We've got a busy month ahead of us, with a stop in Oregon to get a slide-out seal replaced and then a week of touring Napa/Sonoma wine country with Pat and Al. It's a good thing we've used this time in Washington to rest up!

And, that's pretty much what we've done for the past two days. Yesterday was cloudy and cool. I used the time to do a few Blog updates and to sort through the many photos we made over our two day trips. Today turned bright and sunny, and I've finished up from yesterday. Geri's under the weather with a bit of a sinus issue, so we're monitoring her rest intake, and making sure she gets better quickly.

Last night, I grilled off the first of the Hot Dogs we got from Otto's in Portland, the Frankfurters. With Geri's Famous Sauerkraut, a touch of chili and chopped onions, and a side of kicked-up baked beans, they were a good match for a bottle of the Three Rivers Malbec-Merlot that we picked up in Walla Walla. I wish Geri was feeling better; she would have enjoyed it as much as I did! Today, I'd planned to do a Rack of Lamb, but we'll defer that until Geri's feeling better.

A coincidental journey comes to an end

2010-09-30T21:12:00.001-07:00

September 30, 2010
Long Beach, WA/Astoria, OR

56 days and 2,769 coach miles ago, we left Père Marquette State Park near Grafton, Illinois. What we didn't realize until later and certainly didn't plan in advance was that our route was coincidentally similar to the Lewis and Clark "Corps of Discovery " expedition of 1804-1806 (well, at least the May, 1804 - November, 1805 part). Sure, we saw the "Lewis and Clark Trail" signs along the way, stayed at one of the many "Lewis and Clark State Parks" (Iowa) we passed, and even visited one of the various National Park Service exhibits (Great Falls, Montana) along the route. It wasn't until we got to our current location along the Columbia River that I started thinking, "Hey, we started near the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, followed (roughly) the Missouri to Montana, then the Snake to the Columbia and now we're near the Pacific". So, it became a no-brainer to make a day trip out to Astoria and touch the end of the journey that took the Corps some 18 months.

We packed a lunch and the pups and headed out early on another fine weather day. Since we're on the Washington side of the Columbia, we drove North on I-5 to Longview, then West on WA-4. We made a small detour to Long Beach for lunch, remembering that we'd stopped there during a Seattle-to-San Francisco coastal drive vacation that we took in the Fall of 1993. I commented that it was the "car vacation" (it took us 6 days to drive that portion of the Pacific Coast, primarily on US-101) that convinced me to try RV rentals. And, look at us now...

Long Beach ("World's Longest Beach" - another disputed claim for sure since it's only 40km long) has several entry points where vehicular traffic is allowed, so we parked 25 yards from the surf and had our lunch. The pups had a chance to run the beach and check out the water and all the different smells. We walked a bit along the beach, drove south a few miles then back, and generally enjoyed the sea air and sunny skies.

Leaving Long Beach, we were once again on US-101, retracing our steps from both the 1993 vacation and 2009's journey south (not wanting to think about the dreaded "Hebo Incident"). After crossing the 4.2 mile long bridge into Astoria and Oregon, we made our first stop at Fort Clatsop, where the Lewis and Clark expedition built shelter and wintered in 1805-1806. The facility is nicely done, with relatively accurate (they say) recreations of the shelter and the canoes used in their journey down the Snake and Columbia Rivers to the sea. Since it was getting toward mid-afternoon, and Geri and the pups were getting "car fatigue", we pointed the Rover toward home. I'll save Fort Stevens and Cape Disappointment (the points in Oregon and Washington that define the mouth of the Columbia) for our next visit to the area.

Looping back to Astoria, an older city that will be celebrating its bicentennial in 2011, we noticed the "Astoria Column" monument high up on a hill. At first, I thought it was a totem pole of some sort and, in a way, it is, as it's covered with a Sgraffito (similar to Bas Relief) mural depicting the basic history of the region and city. Founded by and named for John Jacob Astor as a fur trading post (and only beating the explorer David Thompson to the area by two months), Astoria was the first US settlement on the Pacific Coast in 1811. The area was under joint US-British control until 1846 when the Oregon Treaty established the 49th parallel as an international boundary.

The Astoria Column was built in 1926, funded partly by the Astor family (one of my grandfather's first employers after he - illegally - emigrated from Sweden in 1905). It was the site of the first "Community Antenna Television" (now known as CATV or "Cable TV") system in the US. Since it was a beautiful day, I made the trek up the 164 steps (puff, puff) for some additional photos. What a view!

Click here for pictures from today's adventure (use the navigation arrows to change pictures...

Heading home, we stayed on the Oregon side of the river, following US-30 east until we crossed back into Washington at Longview, since there are no other crossings until Portland to our south. Dinner was simple and delicious: a pre-packaged half of a rotisserie chicken, a split baked potato, a nice corn sauté and Geri's Killer Chicken Gravy with Mushrooms. Paired with one of our recent Walla Walla Syrah acquisitions, it was a fine way to end a great day.

Trying a new thing with an embedded slide show:

Oooo - waterfalls!

2010-09-29T20:19:00.001-07:00

September 29, 2010
Columbia River Gorge, Oregon

Today was a fantastic day. We had a leisurely morning and then headed out early in the afternoon, south on I-5 to I-205, then east on I-84. Not all the way to Hartford! Just a few miles to Historic US-30. Not all the way to New Jersey! This area, just about 30 miles east of downtown Portland, is home to several neat waterfalls along the southern bank of the Columbia River.

Historic US-30 follows the Sandy River and then climbs high above the Columbia River just east of the small town of Troutdale. Our first stops were at Gorge overlooks: "Portland Women's Forum" (originally called Chanticleer Point, they purchased the site and donated it to the State) and Vista House at Crown Point (built in 1916-1918 as a rest stop on the original Columbia Gorge Highway).

Next, we stopped at four different waterfalls: Latourell, Wahkeena, Horsetail, and Multnomah, capturing a few images at each one. Since there are 77 waterfalls on the Oregon side of the Gorge, we barely scratched the surface, I suppose. We enjoyed the afternoon, though, and it was fun to drag the cameras and tripod around without having to hurry.

We have a picture of Multnomah Falls, second highest year-round waterfall in the US (a disputed claim, of course) at 620 feet, in our living room in AZ that's one of the only pictures in the house that I didn't take myself. Maybe I captured a similar view; I'll know more when I actually sit down and work with the images in Photoshop to fine-tune color and contrast, and to erase all the people (it's a popular spot on a nice day).

Click here then use the navigation arrows for a few unprocessed pictures (between us, we made about 130 photos).

Back home after fighting some Portland rush hour traffic, we had a nice dinner (Geri's Awesome Butternut Squash Soup and Grilled Sandwiches) and called it an early night. Too much fresh air!

Can you be chillin' if it gets too warm?

2010-09-28T20:55:00.002-07:00

September 28, 2010
Woodland, WA

It's been a relaxing few days here along the Columbia River. The weather has turned unseasonably warm. We've seen a few interesting boats go by, more than just the routine river barge traffic. We had another family visit. And, we had a chance to visit someplace we've seen on TV.

Picking up where we left off last Friday, Geri's reasonably happy with her hair (not cut exactly the way she likes but "way better than it was"). Since we hadn't planned anything for dinner, we both thought of Chinese take-out (that's what all the years we've had together causes), and stopped by the local "China Garden" for a take-out menu. Later, Geri phoned the order in and I went to pick it up. Hmmm; 6:30 on a Friday evening and the dining room is empty. Should have been a clue; the food was passable but not great. No leftovers. I found out later that the place to go is about 5 miles north, in Kalama. Oh, well.

Saturday was a beautiful day, with clearing skies and warmer temperatures. We relaxed around the Park and enjoyed the day. I made Lamb Shanks with Toasted Orzo, doing the preparation work in the morning and searing the shanks and then braising them in the crock-pot for half a day. They came out fine but the sauce wasn't something we'll make again (it called for 2:1 Port to red wine ratio in the braising liquid, and the Port just wasn't a happy addition). The Orzo was prepared similar to a Risotto and was pretty good, except that the recipe called for a splash of the braising liquid to be mixed in, and it wasn't any better there than on the lamb. I'll stick to my traditional Lamb Shank recipe next time, I think.

Sunday was a more normal weather day, with clouds and seasonable temperatures. We caught up with Geri's great-nephew, Michael again for the third time this year. This time, we got to catch up with his wife and boys (Leslie, Brendan, and Cameron) as well; they drove down from their place in Puyallup, near Tacoma, for the day. After they checked out the beach and the over-sized chess set, we went to a pizza shop in Vancouver (WA) that's known for their over-the-top pies, and were we ever surprised! The waitress looked at us funny when we ordered a "large" for Geri and I; we just assumed we'd take some home for a lunch. Well, out came the biggest pie I've ever seen, vertically speaking. The crust was relatively thin, like we prefer, but there had to be three pounds of mushroom-green pepper-sausage-pepperoni-black olive toppings on there, plus two whole thick-sliced fresh tomatoes on top. I was defeated by two slices. We had leftovers, all right!

No way could we even make a dent in this monster pizza!

Yesterday was bright and sunny again, and downright warm. No, it wasn't "Arizona hot", and it certainly wasn't "LA hot", where new all-time high temperature records were set in southern California, but upper-80s is way above average for this area. The air conditioning got exercised, to boot. We took advantage of the nice day to get out, once again driving into Portland to check out a different neighborhood (Woodstock). We made a visit to Otto's Sausage House, "as seen on TV" (we heard about the place on a recent Triple-D episode) and loaded up. Weiners, Frankfurters, Chorizo, Linguica, bulk Italian, etc. Fortunately, a) we have enough room in the freezer and b) we have some of Geri's Famous Sauerkraut ready for reheating. Chili, Kraut, diced onions - Mmmm. We'll make our own "dirty water dogs" later in the week. That didn't stop us from enjoying the last of Geri's Famous Meatloaf for dinner, though.

Today, we had a mix of sun and clouds, and basically stayed around the Park, making ourselves productive. Geri got dog food made and did laundry. I got a rack-and-a-half of ribs on the grill to cook low and slow and did a few small projects around the coach. I realized late in the day that we didn't have any barbeque sauce on board (we finished the Dreamland!), so a quick Internet search yielded a few recipes that I was able to use as a guide to whip up something pretty good. Now, if I could just remember what I did to recreate it!

This one sailed up-river early one morning. It's a car carrier, bringing vehicles from Asia.

Container ship, probably from China, probably Wal-Mart Christmas items...

OK; I was a little late getting the camera on this one. It's "Turmoil", the 17th largest private yacht in the US at 209', and is owned by the family of the guy who started Lands End. Over 14,000 gallons of fuel capacity - ouch!

A Good Hair Day

2010-09-24T16:23:00.000-07:00

September 24, 2010
Portland, OR

Yesterday, it was cloudy and rainy all day long, just like it's supposed to be here, I suppose (although the forecast is brighter). We checked out a dog groomer (no appointments available during our stay here - must be nice to be that popular) and headed for Vancouver (Washington, not British Columbia) for shopping. After picking up a few staples at the Super-Wally, we made a heartening stop at Whole Foods. It's been a while, and we picked up a few specialty items and some Lamb Shanks that I had a hankering for after seeing them done on TV. Back home, Geri made a great version of her Killer Meatloaf, paired with Mashed Potatoes and sautéed Haricots Verts. With a nice Montes Cabernet from Chile, we had a great meal - and packed another dinner's worth away for next week. Mmmm...

Today, it was back to Portland for Geri to get her hair done. This was long overdue, since she hadn't had it done since we were in Connecticut. She got it cut a little shorter than usual, so this should last until we're back in AZ in five weeks (can it really be then?). Now, we just have to get her a mani-pedi and get the pups groomed and we'll be all set!

"Power's back"...

2010-09-22T21:16:00.001-07:00

September 22, 2010
Portland, Oregon

Today, I was up early and heading south with the coach. Wait a minute! What about staying put for a couple of weeks? Yes, well, it's true that we'll be parked in the same place, but today was the day I had scheduled to have the new inverter/charger installed. I had the work done in Portland, at one of the authorized distributors for the manufacturer. I'm still miffed that the "old" one (it's only a little over two years "old") can't be repaired. Hopefully, the new one will be more reliable and in the marketplace longer. If this one goes, I'm switching brands for sure.

New Inverter/charger - ready for installation!

Anyway, I had no problem finding the place, in an industrial park near the Portland Airport, and was right on time for a 10:00 appointment. Geri packed the pups and all the laundry we had in the Rover and stayed back at the Park. I planned for a full day's excursion, knowing what happens with these things. And I had a backup plan if there were issues: with some additional tools (always have to have the right tools), I knew I could do the installation myself, since Al and I did the warranty swap on the old one in 2008 at his place in Connecticut. Upon inspection, the lead tech announced that it should be a straight swap and take a "couple of hours". I just smiled.

Well, by 12:30 they had the old one out and the new one bolted in place (had to drill new mounting holes; wait, first let's sharpen the drill; wait, we need a cardboard template for the holes; wait, I have to take a break after each hole because it's so hard to drill at an upward angle). This was the trickiest part of the job if I'd done it myself. Lifting a 75 pound box up to the ceiling of the bay and screwing it in place isn't easy, even if the holes do line up. I was able to watch all this unfold; had nowhere else to go. I offered a suggestion here and there and held the work light on occasion; "just trying to help". "Let's grab lunch and we'll have this wrapped up in a couple of hours". I just smiled.

The next challenge, of course, was the wiring. The 120 volt circuits (2 in and 2 out) all use 12-gauge wire that has to be connected to lug terminals inside a 3" x 4" opening in the side of the box. 12-gauge Romex is pretty stiff and it was difficult to make 90° bends and get the wires into the terminals while laying in the bay and trying to see in the side of the unit mounted on the ceiling. The existing wires were pretty well bent in several directions from the old installation, so I suggested we snip and start with fresh ends. Soon, all was in place on the 120 volt side, and the 12 volt wiring wasn't anywhere near as difficult as all the connections are on the outside of the unit. By now, three more hours had passed and it was 4:00 PM. I just smiled.

The remaining work was done quickly. The firmware for the generator start and control panel modules was upgraded. Zip ties were in place to get all the wiring back in neat bundles. I backed the coach out of the shop and fired up the generator. Charging? Yes! Generator off. Inverting? Yes! I paid up and hit the road right around 4:30, just what I expected.

Back at the Park, Geri was waiting with lots of clean clothes and a recommendation from the office staff for a good Mexican restaurant. Fantastic! Who doesn't like Margarita night? She had a burrito/enchilada combination plate (what else?) and I had Pork Carnitas which were very good. We each felt that we "won" and left happy. Maybe it was the Margaritas? Nah...

...And lakes and rivers

2010-09-21T19:35:00.000-07:00

September 21, 2010
Woodland, WA

Today was our travel day, the last one that we'll have for a couple of weeks since we'll be staying in Woodland, Washington, until early-October. We left the Wenatchee River County Park mid-morning after a few last photos, and headed west then south on US-97.

The County Park we stayed at has a separate section of barracks-style housing available for short-term stays by migrant workers employed during harvest season.

We didn't get a chance to try out the "fabulous" burgers - next time!

After a quick jog onto I-90 then I-82 toward Yakima, we once again turned west, this time on US-12. Around Noon, we found a nice pullout along Rimrock Lake and had a lunch break. The pups enjoyed walking along the overlook and Geri made us some great sandwiches. It's certainly great to travel with your "house".

Back on the road, we were soon at I-5 where we turned south, heading for Woodland, about 20 miles north of the Washington-Oregon border. In this area, the Columbia River (the border between WA and OR) curves to the north before turning back west to the Pacific Ocean. The RV Park we're staying at is right along the riverfront so, weather permitting (this is the Pacific Northwest after all), we should have a nice view of river traffic from time to time.

Dinner tonight was a pre-planned meal: cut-up rotisserie chicken, mashed potatoes, and another corn sauté with pancetta and onions (didn't have any mushrooms on board this time). I paired it with a bottle of the "Boom Boom" Syrah we'd picked up in Walla Walla. This was the same wine we had at the Corn Exchange in Rapid City in August, and we put a few "in stock" when we visited the tasting room last month. Excellent match...

Sun and rain...

2010-09-20T22:04:00.001-07:00

September 20, 2010
Leavenworth, WA

Today, we had a mix of clouds and sun in the morning, so we decided to take a short ride up US-2 to the little town of Leavenworth. Leavenworth is a Bavarian-themed town, similar to the Danish-themed village of Solvang, CA, near Lompoc. Not that it was settled by German immigrants or anything; the town decided to reinvent itself specifically as a tourist stop to generate income. We figured it was worth a walkabout.

Unfortunately, the closer we got to Leavenworth, the worse the weather got. With low clouds and rain, we decided it wasn't worth schlepping around town with the pups and getting soaked. We did take a ride beyond town in the Wenatchee National Forest, and saw quite a few possible photo opps for a future visit.

Just as we came back through Leavenworth, there was a little break in the clouds and rain, and we were able to snap a few photos. Lots of places had multi-colored flowers on display. 10 minutes later and it was raining again.

Interesting decorations in the center of town.

Some things are just over the top...

For dinner, Geri made a great little pizza in the convection oven, using fresh toppings and a store-bought dough. I dug into the "wine storage drawer" for a nice Chianti and we ate well, as always.

Raindrops and Experiments

2010-09-19T21:37:00.001-07:00

September 19, 2010
Monitor, WA

Today was supposed to be cloudy and rainy and the day lived up to its billing. We decided to make it a "lazy Sunday", with not a lot on the agenda. It didn't rain all day, but we had one huge downpour, with a little thunder and pea-sized hail, mid-afternoon.

Interestingly enough, we both found new recipes to try, so dinner became an experiment in new ways to do "soup and a sandwich". And, it only took two trips to three different stores to get everything we needed!

I started with a Roasted Tomato Soup recipe I found online. Using the grill box as an oven, I roasted the tomatoes and garlic according to the recipe, then pureed the peeled results in the food pro. With a little cream and a drizzle of infused oil, it wasn't bad but I definitely have ideas on how to improve it (peel and seed the tomatoes before roasting, roast at a lower temperature, puree out more of the coarseness) the next time.

Geri made Grilled Cheese Sandwiches with Sharp Cheddar and Apple Slices. They were very good but perhaps not the best match for the soup. They'll be better the next time as well, with the addition of some thinly-sliced roasted pork tenderloin medallions.

To complete the mismatched experimentation with new things, I popped the cork on a Washington Merlot that wasn't the worst match possible but went better with the sandwiches than the soup. Interestingly enough, this was one of the few wines we've ever had that was better when first opened than when we finished it up a couple of hours later while watching TV. Most wines will open up with a little air; this one seemed to dissipate. Go figure...

So, all in all it was a good set of experiments, as everything didn't work perfectly but we definitely learned some things for future reference!

"Let's go for a ride; never know what we'll find..."

2010-09-18T20:22:00.000-07:00

September 18, 2010
Wenatchee, WA

Today, we had a mix of clouds and sun and brisk temperatures in the morning, so we decided to pack the pups in the Rover and do a little local sightseeing. Geri had checked in with our AZ neighbor, Clisby, and knew where she used to live in Wenatchee, so we sought out that area, high on a hill north of town with great views of the Columbia River Valley, first. After that, we made a clockwise loop, back through East Wenatchee with stops at Safeway and Costco (didn't realize it was time for Christmas decorations already!).

Back across the river again, we found the Post Office to mail a few things and then happened upon the local Farmers Market. It was actually a Harvest Celebration, and they had several blocks of downtown closed off. As we wandered through, we passed the farm stands, lots of kids activities, a classic car display (mostly Model As but a "T" and a Chevy and even a Franklin mixed in), and some food vendors. The last thing we spied was a set of tables pouring local wines, so we took the plunge. They were interesting but the value proposition wasn't aligned (i.e., not good enough to buy, especially at the prices they were asking), but at least we got to keep our glasses.

By then it was late in the afternoon and time to head home. Since we hadn't made a dinner plan, Geri had picked up a small piece of Salmon. I wasn't really in the mood for that but was willing to go along, but we soon decided that we didn't both need to have the fish. A quick stop at Albertsons yielded a T-bone for me and, surprisingly, a switch to King Crab Legs for her (Salmon now relegated to a lunch option). So, we poached the Salmon for future use, steamed the Crab and grilled the steak, and split a baked potato. Everyone was happy!

And, yes, we're parked right at the end of Easy Street...