Back to Denver

We left Redstone Monday morning at 9:10am, early for us. We (Gail) always say we'll be on the road by 9:30 and we usually leave about 10:00. Not sure what takes so long, because we typically spend about 25 minutes getting things put away and another 10 minutes getting the truck hooked up to tow. :) I think we spend too much time watching the Today show while eating breakfast. Anyway, we surprised ourselves this time. Had an uneventful drive to Denver. Stopped at a rest area for lunch, stopped for fuel and drove a whole 197 miles and arrived around 2:30. And we're in the same site that we stayed in in June. And our campground hosts remembered us from our June visit.

The weather is perfect. High 70's and low 80's and lots of sunshine. Right now we plan to leave here on Thursday morning. I spent today cleaning the inside of the motorhome. This campground has paved roads and concrete parking pads, so I thought I should get rid of some of dust we collected in Utah and western Colorado. Love staying in national forests and on BLM land (the price is right and the scenery is unbeatable), but the gravel and sand sure make for a dusty interior. Even the vertical surfaces had to wiped down. And I washed the throw rugs and some towels. We put three small rugs on the dash when we're parked because Kasey likes to lay on the dash and look out the front window. The rugs help control his shedding, so we don't have dog hair flying all over. He spends a lot of time outside and loves to watch the comings and goings in the campground. He really enjoys people coming over to pet him. And we do get lots of visitors because of him. He's a real part of our family; even if he does shed enough for a whole kennel of dogs. :)

We're going to dinner with Jean and Steve tonight, so better get this posted before they get here.

More later.......

House Sitting, Dog Sitting and Just Hanging Out in Seattle

I realized it's been a over a week since I last posted. A lot has happened since then.

Currently, Dan and I are "home alone" with three dogs. Erin's mom came and took her home and Rodney, Gretchen and Lucy have gone to Florida for Rodney's brother's 40th birthday. So it's just us and Murphy, Jack and Kasey. Gretchen adopted Murphy not too long after she moved to Seattle. He is a German Shepherd/Golden Retriever mix and is about 10 years old. He had been abused and Gretchen spent a lot of time and effort to rehab him. Murphy and Lucy get along really well. She climbs all over him and loves to take him for walks. He is a big dog, but never pulls on the leash with Lucy and if she stops, he does too.

Not sure what breed Jack is, but Rodney adopted him shortly after starting college. Jack is about sixteen years old and is in failing health. He has a large growth on his side, is deaf and partially blind and has mobility issues. He has lost his peripheral vision and doesn't like being surprised from the side. But he has been trotting out to see me when I come into the back yard. Gretchen and Rodney have taught Lucy not to bother Jack and she really does leave him alone.

And of course, Kasey is in the middle of everything. He is four years old and would like to play, but the senior citizen dogs would rather just take it easy.

So we're caring for the dogs, sitting out in the yard (when it's not raining - it's rained quite a bit the past few days, but was sunny today), watching the Olympics, picking zucchini, playing with the dogs, watching the Olympics, ....... You get the picture.
So, what were we doing before everyone left? Stephanie arrived on Wednesday, August 13th. Erin was really glad to see her mom. They both left this Wednesday. Erin's first day of school as a sixth grader was today. We really enjoyed having her with us this summer. And we all enjoyed our time with Stephanie and Erin this past week. They stayed in the motorhome with us, and enjoyed having breakfast with Lucy every day and just hanging out with family. We did go to Pike's Market one day and Stephanie and Dan did a four-hour hike up Mount Si another day.

And Stephanie made a wonderful blackberry cobbler with blackberries picked from the blackberry patch just across the street. Blackberries grow wild all over Seattle and most people don't even pick them. You can see by the pictures just how difficult it is to pick them. And the big ones are always just out of reach. :)


But just see the results of all that hard work. And they picked enough to freeze some too.

As I mentioned earlier, the O'Byrne's are in Florida. They'll be back Sunday morning. We took them to the airport Tuesday evening and they flew nonstop from Seattle to Miami, arriving in Miami about 3:00am. Then Wednesday morning, at 6:15, we took Erin and her mom to the airport. And we will pick up some friends of Gretchen's on Friday morning when they return from vacation. (Gail took them to the airport on Monday last week). We could probably drive to the airport blindfolded. :)

Yesterday, Dan and I drove to Everett, north of Seattle, and visited the Boeing assembly plant. We weren't allowed to take any pictures, but we did see the most recent plane in production, the 787, Dreamliner. Dan always enjoys visiting any airplane facility. He spent four years in the Air Force, but had nothing to do with planes.

And today we attended the fall RV show at Qwest Center in Seattle. It's always fun to check out the newest RV's and see the changes. We have no plans to trade our motorhome. We are very happy with it even though we do have some issues to be addressed this fall with the manufacturer. But our Mandalay came with a three year warranty and the manufacturer has honored that warranty as we've had some things fixed. And they allowed us to get most of the work done in Springfield, IL at a local RV dealer before we started fulltiming. However, we wanted to take it back to the manufacturer before the warranty expires in November for a couple of issues and some minor things which we've found since we began fulltiming in June. So we'll be in Elkhart, IN toward the end of October. We may have to leave the motorhome there for several days since some part of the work may not allow for us to stay in it while they work on it. If so, we may just stay in Monticello with the Beever's (Erin's family). Sure don't need to decide that now.

So, we are enjoying a little down time as we house sit and take care of the dogs. And we've started thinking about where to head to when we leave here next week. We know we'll be going east, but haven't settled on anything else. We've talked about stopping off in Carbondale, CO to visit Tim, Karen, Elijah and Isaac for a few days. We sure do want to see those boys again.

We'll head east on I-90 about next Wednesday and see where we end up. It's sure great to have so many choices in this lifestyle, and to know that the only big decision we have to make is where we'll park for the night. There may be a few others, but I can't think of them right now.

More later.......

Good News, Inverter OK

Guess we're still in the learning curve with the motorhome. After 2 1/2 years!!! But, the inverter is just fine according to the service guys at Coleman Country Campers. Not only are there breakers and fuses at the foot of the bed (which I checked), but there also is a breaker on the inverter itself. And, it's right on the front of inverter as you look at it in the basement bay. But, get this; it is about the size of and looks like the end of a white pencil, not like the regular breaker switches in your regular breaker panel. It just needed to be pushed back in. Soooo, one more thing to add to the list of things we now know about this motorhome. But what a relief to know we didn't ruin the inverter. It actually worked like it was supposed to.

We should be getting the motorhome back this week and then it's off to Freightliner to see if they can figure out why the windshield wipers aren't working. The motors have been replaced twice, but the wipers still just do their own thing. LITERALLY!!! They stop and start when they want to and currently won't operate at all. The wiper controls are on the steering wheel. It's called a SMARTWHEEL and is a Freightliner product. Ha Ha We've thought for sometime that the problem was in the Smartwheel, but Mandalay insisted on changing out the motors, but they've now agreed to look further. It's just not safe to drive in rain without wipers!!! Not that we do too much of that, but sometimes we do travel on a rainy day, just as long as there is just rain and not storms.

Today brings more sorting. It really is satisfying to sort through a drawer or closet and make decisions about the "stuff". I'm only working on Tuesday this week, so hope to get a lot done at home. Two-four inches of snow is expected tonight, which just motivates me even more to get this sorting down, so we can finish getting the house ready to sell and get on the road.

Better get busy. More later....

We'e Moved to Warmer Weather - Scottsmoor, FL

As you can see by our location, we have moved further south. Larry & Phyllis left us Tuesday morning to head back home to Illinois.

Soooo, since we wanted more sunshine than we have had and Dan wanted to walk on a beach in the sunshine; we spent a lot of time on the weather.com looking for just such a place. Wednesday morning we left Fountain, FL for Crystal Lake RV Park at Scottsmoor, FL. Now there's not a lot to see or do in Scottsmoor, but the RV Park is about halfway between Daytona International Speedway and the Kennedy Space Center.

We really prefer to stay in state parks and Corps of Engineer parks, but Florida State Parks are a little pricey unless you are a Florida resident with senior citizen status. This park is another Passport America park with no restrictions as to how long we can just pay half price for our campsite. Some PA parks restrict the rate to 2 days; some only Monday through Thursday; etc.

And, as most of you know, we like Nascar racing, so we would have to visit Daytona Speedway. :)

And we lucked out as far as racing. The 46th Rolex 24 at Daytona is being run this week. This race is a Who's Who of motorsports names with many of the top drivers from NASCAR, open wheel racing and sports cars. There are teams of drivers for each car and the drivers trade off driving for the 24 hours. There are 67 cars with drivers of all experiences driving around a 12 turn 3.56 road course that includes the high banked 3rd & 4th turns of the Daytona NASCAR track.

There are activities all this week leading up to the race start on Saturday. And the really neat part - we could buy a ticket that included admission all 4 days, parking in the infield, and garage access. Since Gail's NASCAR driver and 2 time NASCAR champion (Jimmie Johnson) is on the 99 Gainsco team, we just had to check this out. We spent the afternoon watching practice and strolling through the garage area. REALLY NEAT. And we spotted Jimmie Johnson. :) Didn't get close enough to get an autograph as he was walking away from us.

This is the car Jimmie will be helping to drive. It's called a Daytona Prototype (DP)

Left the race track and did a little grocery shopping and bought a small gooseneck lamp to better light my counted cross stitch fabric I'm working on. Drove back to the campground. Kasey was sitting in the front window of the motorhome to welcome us back. He is such a good traveler. He slept all stretched out on the couch nearly all the way here yesterday. And he sleeps most of the time while we are gone. There are several dogs in this campground and he's met them all on our walks.

Probably won't go back to the track tomorrow. May check out the beaches, but will go back on Saturday for the start of the race. And then, we just may not do much of anything. We are really trying to duplicate the kind of lifestyle we hope to begin this summer with this trip; trying to slow down and just enjoy life without feeling like we have to DO something everyday like we did when we went on vacations. Of course, we do have things that have to be done; walk the dog, wash dishes, walk the dog, vacuum, walk the dog, fix a meal, walk the dog (eat the meal before walking the dog). You get the picture.

More later........