Funny how time slips away!

Last post was Aug of 2010. Since then, we have moved into our new house, traded our big motor home in for a smaller one, and purchased a small truck to haul our necessities. We've had lots of changes this past year.

We visited our children and friends in Texas from mid-March to mid-April of 2011. Shortly after we arrived back home, tragedy struck, and Gary's oldest grandchild passed away as a result of a traffic accident, leaving a wife and 6 year old daughter, grieving mother, grandparents, aunts, uncles. He was only 28 years old. How our lives can change in a heartbeat. We never know what's around the bend, do we?

Granddaughter Jordan visited us in June, and also Gary's daughter Lesley came up for a week in June. It was such a joy to have both of them in our house, and we hated to say goodbye. Lesley was able to visit with a lot of relatives that she hadn't seen in years. We were so proud to show her Michael & Courtney's restaurant, Evolution Grille. Cousin Larry Barbiaux and wife Diane, invited us over and treated us to a delicious meal, and it was great because Lesley and her mom had stayed with Larry's parents, Uncle Bob (now deceased) and Aunt Mae. Lesley hadn't seen them since she was very young. Lesley and Jordan also had fun swimming in their pool. Also, many thanks to Dave and Sherry Barbiaux for hosting a family gathering for Lesley.

Also, my first granddaughter, Caitlin, got married this summer. We were unable to go since she lives in Lubbock, TX. The pictures were beautiful. She received a Master's Degree from Texas Tech and is now a county agent for Crosby County, TX. She sponsors and teaches 4-H children and is really loving her work. It's rare to find someone who enjoys their work, and she has worked hard to get where she is today. We're looking forward to meeting her husband, Sloan, on Thanksgiving this year.

We took Jordan to Kennywood and she had a great time. We wised up this year and got one of her friends from up here to go with us, so she'd have someone to ride with...Gary and I are getting way too old for that sort of thing.

We're sitting here now in our RV listening to rain on the roof. It sounds so good. Due to the insulation in our house, we can't hear it rain at all, unless it's really raining hard. Tomorrow we'll take off for Texas, to stay ?don't know how long. What a job it was getting the house ready to sit vacant during the winter. We just hope we didn't make any mistakes. We have a "freeze alarm" that will call us if the temperature in the basement falls to below 45 degrees. We hope that doesn't happen. We'll have to rely on Paul to go out and check it, should that happen. We do have nice neighbors who will keep an eye on our place, too.

I really hope the states on the route were able to fix their roads. We do miss the big, comfy motorhome that we had, but we don't miss the payments that went along with it. It's been hard to get used to a smaller Class C motorhome, but it's still nice to have your own bed, bathroom, fridge, kitchen with you wherever you go. We took it camping three times this year locally and it was very nice.

We made the decision this year to join Grace Community Presbyterian Church in Lower Burrell. It's about 30 miles from our house, but we enjoy going there so much that we felt we should join. Gary's parents went to that church for years. I will miss them badly but I need to see my (OUR) kids and grandkids. We have 6 children between us and lots of grandchildren. I will get to see Matt's little boy, Henry, now 1 1/2 years old, for the first time at Thanksgiving!

I will write more and try to put some pictures on the blog. We're taking off early in the morning! At least, that's the plan!

Red Bay, AL

Well, I've been so lazy since we've been in Pennsylvania this year. Or maybe I just have tunnel vision. We made this appointment a long time ago to take the motor home to Red Bay, AL, to get some warranty work done. It was SO hot and humid there. I stepped out of the RV this morning, and you can see how immediately my camera lens fogged up! The last picture was taken looking to the rear of our coach (on the right). I wiped the lens off and took the other two pictures.

Tiffin Motor Homes is a big industry in this tiny town, and they treat their customers great. It's impressive to look down the rows and see all the motor homes parked there, awaiting service. We had full hookups with 50 amp service and wifi, which didn't work about 75% of the time! Anyway, they are very efficient and we had 7 windows in the rv replaced, plus various and sundry little problems which they also fixed, all done before noon on Tuesday! Since our coach is out of warranty (the problems were all documented prior to the end of the warranty), we had to pay $10 a night. Still, that's pretty cheap for full hookups.

Red Bay is a nice little southern town. Everyone knows everyone else and they're all friendly. Most of the houses are very neat and well-cared for.

We rested up and got back on the road on Wednesday. Tonight we're just south of Louisville, KY, at a place called Grandma's RV Park. It's laid out very nicely, and I'm hearing some road noise, so it may be an earplug night, or perhaps we'll put on the rainstorm CD! We went through some rain just prior to arriving here, and got a little bit of water in a couple of the compartments underneath the motor home, but nothing serious. We're planning on taking off tomorrow morning and hopefully arriving at the Mountaintop Bluegrass Campground in PA tomorrow night. I hear it's hot in Pennsylvania, too!

The little boy in the picture is our nephew, Jesse. Isn't he darling! I just had to put his picture in here, since it was on the memory chip out of my camera. He will be three in November, I believe.

We are soon to become "snowbirds". That means you leave the cold weather in the winter and fly (drive) south, like the birds. Most of you who follow my blog know that we have bought a house in Pennsylvania. It is truly a gem of a house, and we are supposed to take possession of the house on Tuesday. It's exciting, but scary. Since we've been full-time rvers, we have few possessions. So, we have to buy everything from soup to nuts for the house. I'm planning on making a few garage sales in the next few weeks. We already have a couch, chair, mattress, and box springs ordered. I will post pictures of the house when we get moved in. It is about 3 miles outside Butler, which is the county seat. It's on the side of a hill and is hidden from view, except for one glimpse through the trees. It's beautiful there in the summer, with huge green trees and a pleasant deck to sit on and enjoy the birds. When it cools off, there's an awesome finished basement with full bar and beautifully bricked wall, and a freestanding gas fireplace to enjoy Steelers football games. Well, I HOPE we enjoy them this year. The house is actually 4 feet shorter than our motor home, and of course, a bit wider. It's a small house but there's only Gary and me, so I suppose we don't need that much room. The folks we are buying it from are so awesome. They've taken great care of the house and done a lot of redecorating.

I'm taking advantage of the fact that we have good wifi at this campground, and writing in my blog. We no longer have our hughes.net satellite; it bit the dirt. We didn't feel like having someone come out for $125/hr to tell us we needed a new setup, so we got a Verizon air card, or Mifi. We only have 5G/month so I have to be careful about how much internet time I use. That's a real pain. I usually check it every day. Needless to say, I don't download any music and try not to look at any online videos. So, my friends, don't send me any movies unless they're really, really good. Ditto for emails with lots of pictures. Unless, of course, you're showing me your grandchildren. Then you can expect an email back from me with my grandchildren's pictures!

My son and his wife have their first baby, a little boy, born July 13th. His name is Henry Douglas Brown. He's a real cutie and looks a lot like Matt did when he was a baby. I can't wait to see him and hold him.

I think it's about time to end this rambling. More pictures of the house and our newest adventure later!

Arrived in Pennsylvania

We've had a whirlwind of activity since we arrived Sunday in Pennsylvania. We left Seibert, CO, last Thursday headed for Salina, KS. Weather was clear but there was a strong northwest wind, not the best time to be driving an RV, as it feels like driving a billboard down the road. I wasn't looking forward to going through Kansas, as I thought it was just flat and treeless. We arrived in Salina and were beginning to see rolling hills with trees along the creeks and draws. The second, third, and fourth pictures were taken in Kansas. You can see they have had plenty of rain.

The RV park was quiet, pleasing, and neat, around a man-made lake, and we had a good night's rest. The first picture is this campground. Wifi worked great! We even drove into Salina and did some shopping at Wallyworld. We found very courteous, friendly folk in Salina.

We carefully watched the weather reports and saw that rain was headed toward Missouri, again. We checked the DOT website and, after seeing how many roads in Missouri were closed, decided to scrap plans for staying overnight in Missouri. So we took off early and just started driving. In Missouri, several of the frontage roads were under water! We were able to get through the rest of Kansas, through Missouri, and about 50 miles into Illinois with only a few sprinkles in Missouri. Check out the mighty Mississippi at St. Louis in the last picture--muddy, swirling water but we had no problem getting across the bridge into IL, thankfully.

Our RV park in Illinois was off the road and amidst some tall trees. We were happy to be off the road, resting, and noticed that we had dodged a bullet in MO, as they had more heavy rain and we would have been caught in it. But I digress. Back to the RV park. It was one of those weekend destinations for ?locals?, with built-in patios around most of the rvs, and LOTS of kiddos running around. Kids were driving golf carts all over the place. Our site overlooked a cornfield, and after the young lady had directed us to the site, she came over and smiled sweetly, saying that if we wanted to use Wifi we had to walk up to the office with our laptops! Was I ever steamed! They advertise Wifi and then you can't get it except at the office. So, we ate some dinner and then headed up to the office. We sat down on a swing at the porch and got online. We were immediately attacked by mosquitos, due to the fact that there were ponds, well, they called them "lakes", all around the park. After checking our email, we returned to the rv for a well-deserved night's rest.

Southern Illinois is not the most scenic area in the world, but we were once again reminded of the richness of our farmlands in the midwest, from eastern Colorado, to Kansas, not so much in Missouri, but lots of nice farms in Illinois. We took off the next day for Richmond, IN. Gary was still a bit tired but we knew we had to get on down the road. I should add that driving this motor home is a piece of cake compared to driving the truck and 5th wheel that we used to have, since the seats and padded and comfy, and the suspension is more forgiving than the one-ton truck we used to drive. HOWEVER, the roads in Illinois and Indiana were pretty rough and we had lots of potholes on the drive. You feel them, too!

We were headed for Grandpa's Farm outside Richmond, IN. We had stayed there many years ago and it was a lovely place. Well, not so this time. I was surprised to see an area that looked like an RV sales lot, it was so crowded. There were folks, kids, and dogs everywhere. Apparently it, too, was a weekend destination for locals. We were escorted to our site, after paying $30, and settled in...or tried to. The back of our MH was not 30 feet from a two-lane highway, and we immediately noticed the loudness of vehicles going by. It was like living beside a racetrack. To add to that, the next-door neighbors, about 10 feet away, lit up a smouldering campfire, which wafted over to our site. We went to bed and it had warmed up a bit, so I tried to open the window but their porch light and smoke made it difficult to get to sleep, not to mention the loud mufflers going by on the highway. So I closed the window, pulled down the shade, and Gary put on the thunderstorm CD for me. I was able to get to sleep but we were glad to get out of there! That's just one of the inconvenient parts of living our lifestyle.

Pennsylvania is a beautiful state, I have to admit. Spring is just beginning here, but dogwood and rhodendrons are blooming everywhere. We arrived at our destination in Pennsylvania about 3:30 in the afternoon last Sunday. We've been coming to this campground for years and know the campground owners. We were welcomed by the owner, who was out mowing grass. He's always working on something. Gary's brother and his wife came out on their motorcycle and we visited with them for a couple of hours. Then the folks next door came over and asked if we'd like to sit around their campfire, and they were going to have a jam session! So, I unpacked the banjo and headed over there. I should add that the sites here are very large, compared to most of the other rv parks we've stayed at, so the campfire smoke didn't wind up in our rig!

The campground owner's wife, Francine, plays mandolin and loves old-time bluegrass. They had invited a young fellow over who played banjo and fiddle. We were treated to some great music, until...I tried to play! I still have stage fright and fumble with my playing. I was embarrassed but they were very encouraging. It made me realize that I need more practice.

We visited Gary's mom, who lives about 10 miles north of us, and his second youngest brother. He has four of them! We still haven't seen the other two. Everyone has to work and we usually have to wait until the weekends to visit.

We've been looking at houses since we arrived, and saw one yesterday that we liked. Today we have an appointment with the realtor to look at the house. I get a little nervous about spending money but seems like a good time to buy a house. Unfortunately, there aren't many that we saw in our price range that we liked. I want something in a quiet area, near town, with a little acreage, CHEAP, easy to drive to. We aren't getting any younger and have to be careful about what we buy. So, we'll keep you posted!

Sitting in Seibert

We delayed our trek east by a day to wait out the storms that were supposed to hit central Kansas. As it turned out, we probably could have made it to Salina, KS, without any problem, but it's a gamble. We erred on the side of caution and stayed here in Colorado.
This is not a bad RV park. It's quiet, although now, at 9:30 pm, I did hear a train whistle. I don't think too many trains come down the tracks, located about 1/2 mile from here. We're probably 1/2 to 3/4 mile from the interstate here and I didn't hear any road noise at all last night. Milagros!
I was comforted when I found that there are tornado sirens in the town and a storm shelter in the basement underneath the owner's house. We've certainly been in situations in past years when we had no idea where the nearest storm shelter was, with tornadoes all around the area.
We met the folks in the 5th wheel next door, a very nice couple from Texas who are also Escapees. I guess I'd better explain! We are life members of the Escapees, mainly for their mail forwarding service. It's an organization of full-time RV'ers and wanna-be's, and they have a magazine and all sorts of benefits. Anyway, the folks next door are headed for Gunnison, CO, tomorrow. They're from Livingston and Houston area.
We decided to take our walk this morning, despite the fact that it was 42 degrees outside with an occasional very light mist. We wore our long-johns and were darn glad we did. We stayed out about 35 minutes and were glad to get back because not only was it cold, there was a north wind blowing. It's been cloudy and threatening rain all day. We are supposed to get snow showers tonight and are under a freeze warning, but the low's only going to be 31.
This is a very small town. There are several abandoned houses around town and several houses for sale. In the "business district", we noted mostly closed and boarded-up businesses. The grocery store was not bad for this little town. They had fresh produce, dairy products, etc. I didn't see any meat. I don't think there would be anything to hold young people here, as the only commerce is farm and ranch-type stuff. There is a feed mill and huge grain elevators beside the railroad tracks.
I'm glad to be moving on tomorrow. We are planning on getting to Salina, KS, as I said. Forecast is for clear to partly cloudy weather. I can handle that. We should be in Pennsylvania in two or three days.
So, nothing much is going on here, thankfully. We're just waiting to get on the road tomorrow!
Have a great one!

To Seibert, CO

I didn't take any pictures today because there was nothing impressive, to my way of thinking.
We took off this morning about 8:30 from the Terry Bison Ranch south of Cheyenne, WY. Within a couple of miles, we were in Colorado, headed toward Denver. Wow, some of the roads were cement and there was the regular bump...bump...bump...over the joints in the cement, which is experienced prior to the time of year when the cement expands. Man I hate that. I got nervous because the television is up above Gary's and my seat and it was certainly jiggling! I can just see it falling down and hitting us some day. Then, suddenly, we were on asphalt and the road was smooth. We experienced the rough roads several times.
There really wasn't much to see heading from Cheyenne to Denver. It is flat and there are many farms and ranches along the road. Turning east from Denver, we missed the hustle and bustle of downtown Denver. The land gradually became gently rolling hills with trees along the creeks. I think spring is just now getting to Colorado, because the trees were just barely budding out. We did see some pretty farms and ranches.
As we neared Limon, CO, the wind picked up and was blowing hard from the north. Skies were glowering and we figured we were heading into a thunderstorm; but the storm was moving off to the south, to our right.
We had determined that we should "hunker down" for a couple of days here in Seibert, which is 42 miles west of the Kansas border, in order to avoid the severe weather in Kansas. We had a little sprinkle after we got here, but the severe weather has been further to our east, although in the same county where we are located. We have the weather radio turned on and will keep it on all night.
Our RV campground has good wifi and we are finally getting some local programming on their cable network. Seibert is a very small town with a huge grain elevator. We drove around after we got here, and there was one supermarket, which was pretty good sized for this little town. We had to wonder what people here do for a living, and if the young people graduating from high school can even find work here. There's not much going on.
We'll stay here tomorrow and leave Wednesday morning for Kansas. Gary needs a little respite from driving every day. I'm hoping this park is going to be quiet and we won't be able to hear the highway noise. Last night we put on the thunderstorm CD and it was way too loud. We're about 1/2 mile off the interstate in this park.
I'll keep you posted on any new developments! Pray we don't get into a tornado tonight!

To Cheyenne, WY today

We had a good night's rest last night at Ft. Bridger, WY, and took off early this morning, headed for Cheyenne, WY. The weather was chilly, especially last night. I believe our water was beginning to freeze, because the water stopped flowing when I turned the faucet on, then when I turned on the faucet again, it started flowing. I was happy that we had no precipitation on the drive today.

The first picture was taken day before yesterday in Utah, heading toward Wyoming. There are beautiful mountains to the east of Salt Lake City, and, of course, the Great Salt Lake is to the west of it. We didn't get into the city very much, taking the interstate out of Ogden, UT, toward Wyoming.

After we got into Wyoming, the scenery was not very impressive. Most of it was flat, brown, and treeless. The second picture was taken in Green River, WY, and I hesitated to put it on this site because we'd been hitting lots of bugs and were having problems keeping the windshield clean! Well, some days you're the bug, and other days you are the windshield. There were places in Wyoming that reminded me of the Badlands in Montana, if you've ever been there. We did go over the Continental Divide twice (how'd we manage that?).

We made a quick stop at a rest stop after we took off this morning, and I noticed Gary coming back to the RV to get the camera. I looked outside to see little prairie dogs begging for food. He was trying to take a picture of one, and it was so close to him the camera wouldn't even work. He did take a few pictures. The prairie dogs were cavorting and chasing each other and were so cute. I know, it's bad for people to feed them, but I couldn't help watching them. Horse riders hate them, of course, because horses step in their prairie dog holes and have to be destroyed because of broken legs.

We knew we were in high elevations because our ears were popping. We came to a rest stop called "Wagonhound Trail", and got out to take some pictures. You can read about the area from the historical marker. Am I lazy or what. Elk Mountain was magnificent. It is 11,000+ feet high. We noticed that the snow was no longer on top of the mountains, but was at the level of the road in places. There was no snow on the roads, however.

We made it to Cheyenne today about 2:45 pm. We're staying at the Terry Bison Ranch RV Park, and were hoping to go to the restaurant on the grounds for a bison burger. However, since it's Mother's Day, they were having some kind of special buffet for $23 a pop, so we decided we'd pass on the bison burgers this time. We do have good wifi here, and are able to get some local stations with the antenna. Unfortunately, there's lots of road noise, so we'll probably listen to the Thunderstorm CD tonight. We went to the Sierra Outlet but didn't find anything of use to us, then over to a Walmart Supercenter for a few groceries. Cheyenne is a small town but they have a rodeo here (didn't catch the date), but many big-name country music stars are supposed to be there.

Tomorrow we're headed for Denver and points east, and will try to spend a few nights at a little town called Siebert, CO, to let the storms in Kansas pass on through before we head through there.

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there! There's no better title than being a mother. I do miss mine and Gary's children today! Love you all!

On the Road Again~~~~~~~~~~~~

We left my cousin's house on May 5, and I was really disappointed that we never got to see Mt. Rainier or Mt. St. Helens. I kept looking though, to no avail. We headed east from the Cinebar, WA, area toward Whites Pass. It was a pretty good road but got curvy and steep the further along we went. The first picture looks a little eerie and Mt. Rainier was off to the left somewhere. As we continued to climb, we once again saw snow. The second picture is a ski area at Whites Pass. It was only about 4500 feet elevation, but had lots of snow left. The third picture is another mountain that I thought was interesting.

As we descended, I noticed the vegetation changing. The fourth picture is on the eastern slopes of the Cascades, quite a change from the western. I remember learning in school that as the clouds come in and rise along the mountains, they drop their moisture, and by the time they start the downward slope, they are dry, hence the change in vegetation. We dropped down into a valley with many vineyards and apple orchards.

When we got to Yakima, WA, we had the satellite radio on pretty loud and the GPS told us to turn. However, the place we turned was 82 NORTH, and we needed to go south. So we were committed to the turn and continued down the road, winding up in a little place called Selah. We were finally able to get turned around and found our road.

We spent the night at Hermiston, OR, a small town but the RV park where we stayed seemed to be on a main thoroughfare. You know where I'm going with this, right? Lots of road noise. So Gary put in the "Thunderstorm" CD that his brother gave him and it played all night. It really helped. We left early in the morning and thoroughly enjoyed the beauty of northeast Oregon. We did some steep climbing and then came down, finally crossing over into Idaho. The last picture you see was typical of Idaho...flat country with snow-capped mountains to the south. I wondered how it would feel to wake up every morning and look at those mountains. We saw many dairy farms and farming operations in Idaho.

We stopped at Glenns Ferry, ID, to spend the night at a small RV park. It was well kept with arbor vitae planted along the edges of the park. I heard lots of road noise and it was next to a railroad track with several tracks. Trains kept coming through during daylight but we didn't hear any in the middle of the night. Nevertheless, we had to bring out the old thunderstorm CD for me.

We took off around 8 am, once again headed east. As we progressed east, the vegetation became more like desert plants. We crossed over into Utah, again amazed at the tall snow-capped mountains to our left.

The trip through the northeast corner of Utah was pretty, too, and as we progressed on toward Wyoming, the mountains were no longer snow-capped but were orange-red in color with lots of rock formations and green juniper trees on the sides of the mountains. It made a nice contrast with the bright blue sky...when you could see blue sky, that is. Skies have been mostly grey today but we were thankful there were no strong winds, rain, or severe weather while we traveled.

We drove a long time today and are staying at Ft. Bridger, WY, tonight. The RV park is a little pricey for us, so we're not going to stay another day, although Gary could use a rest. I will say this...it's quiet and the wifi is GREAT. For a change! We're anticipating driving all the way across WY tomorrow if all goes well.

Once again, thanks for reading my blog! More later.