All Good Things Come to End

Well, all good things eventually come to an end!!  This will be my last post on here!!!

I mentioned earlier of Ken having back pains.  Because of those pains and an upcoming dr appt on May 18, we left Queen Valley and slowly made our way home.  I say slowly because Ken's back hurt so much we made many stops on the way.  We finally got home on Mother's Day (May 14).

On May 18, I took Ken to his dr appt and the dr was extremely concerned with the amount of weight Ken had lost (24 lbs).  Also, dr was concerned about Ken's pain and did a thorough exam then ordered a CT Scan to be done on May 23.  We got the results of that scan on May 24 and it showed Cancer in the stomach and back areas.  The Dr's wanted to diagnose type of Cancer and ordered an EGD of the Esophagus and Stomach area for May 30.  Ken was in such pain, we weren't sure if he could go through with the exam, but he did end up having it....however, upon our arrival back home after exam, he was in so much more pain and unable to walk or even sit comfortably, I called 911 and had him transported to hospital where he was in ER for several hours undergoing more tests.

Ken was admitted to ICU that evening (May 30) and placed on high pain management.  The results of the EGD was Esophagus Cancer that had spread to his Liver, Kidneys, Stomach, and the bones. Ken's pain was so entense, the meds given in ICU weren't enough, so he was moved to Comfort Care where they could increase the meds and keep him comfortable.  Ken passed away at 1:30 am on June 5 with our daughter, Leigh, and I at his side holding his hands.  He is now out of pain and at peace!!!

Life goes on, but this blog will not!!!

I'M BACK!!!

It’s been quite a while since I’ve done any blogging, but I’m going to try and get back to it and let everyone in on our mostly boring life.  I am always on Face Book, but my page is set to private and the only way anyone can friend me is send me a message and ask to be my friend.  I do not friend anyone unless I have personally met them, so this blog is the only site that will remain public.  I haven’t been on Twitter for ages and even though I have an Instagram account, I haven’t posted anything on it.

Anyhow, I was last on here in September of 2015, so have a few things to catch everyone up on.  In October, 2015, we once again drove our motorhome back to Arizona then flew home in December to have Christmas with our kids.  After Christmas, we drove our Grand Cherokee back to Arizona where we settled in for the season.  Lots of activities take place during the months of January, February, and March.  Ken is heavily involved in the workings of the Rock (Lapidary) Shop and we do a lot of off roading in our little Wrangler.  The resort puts on a lot of activities (dances, dinners, and shows) so we are kept very busy!

This was an unusual year for us and on March 26, 2016, we flew from Phoenix, AZ to Fort Lauderdale. FL for the night then the next day boarded a Holland America Ship for a 14 day cruise to Barcelona, Spain.  Our first 8 days were at sea then we had stops at Funchal Portugal, Cadiz Spain, Malaga Spain, and Cartagena Spain before arriving Barcelona Spain on April 10.  It was a wonderful crossing, smooth and storm free….There was another couple with us and our rooms were side by side on the 5th deck verandah where we opened the partition between our two verandahs and had a huge area to enjoy the sea view and spend our happy hours.  

Once in Barcelona, the four of us spent 3 wonderful days touring area and enjoying the food & drink.  The city is so big we didn’t get to see all of it, but by taking the hop on hop off bus, we were able to get to a lot of it.  The highlight of Barcelona was the Sagrada Familia.  This famous Basilica is still under construction (since 1883) and isn’t expected to be finished for many more years.  It was an awesome sight to behold….inside and outside!!!

On April 13 we all got on a plane for Rome where we stayed in old Rome for 5 days.  We had a great B&B ran by a mother & daughter.  They were great and we were treated wonderfully.  It was so fun to enjoy the different flavors of Rome.  The food and wine were fantastic.  There were many days that the two couples split and went to different sights.  What an amazing place old Rome is.  There was so much to see and do there.  Of course, we spent time at the Vatican, the Museum & Sistine Chapel, St Peters Basilica, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, Coliseum, and so much more.  We all rode the hop on hop off bus, took the subway, and rode the train to many different sites… way too many to list here.  This is one area we would like to come back to sometime.

On April 18, we all took a limo to the city of Civitavecchia where we got on another Holland America ship for a 12 day cruise to Venice Italy.  That was one awesome cruise as we all had upgraded to the Signature Suites on Deck 8 where we had huge patios (verandahs).  It also was a very busy cruise with many port stops.  We ended up at Naples Italy, Crete Greece, Santorini Greece, Kusadasi Turkey, Piraeus Greece, Katakolon Greece, Corfu Greece, Dubrovnik Croatia, Split Croatia, and finally Venice Italy.  There were many, many hours of walking and sight-seeing that we all were totally pooped by the time we got to Venice.  However, Venice has no motorized transports, so once again that first day there, we spent a lot of time walking around and getting our bearings before going back to ship for the night (we were docked there overnight before disembarking on the second day).

April 30, 2016, everyone disembarked the ship and we toted our luggage to the water taxi transport where we were taken to our stops in Venice to spend the next 5 days.  Our friends were taken to one stop because they stayed at a hotel near St Marks in San Marcos, and we were taken to another stop also in San Marcos where we had an apartment rented (we were only 5 minutes apart). The assistant to the manager of our apartment met us and walked us about 1/4 mile back to our room…..Like I said, there is nothing motorized in Venice, so we had to roll and carry our luggage to our room….that meant rolling over cobblestone and up and over the canal bridges.  The assistant toted my luggage and Ken had to tote his.  Needless-to-say, we were on the 4th floor, so that meant walking up and toting all we had with us (so fun)…  No matter where we went in Venice, it was by foot or boat.  It was an awesome time and we literally walked the whole island.  Saw so much art and history along with churches and so much more.  Took a water taxi out to the island of Murano where there are some fabulous glass factories (yes, ended  up buying some).

Our friends spent three days in Venice before heading back to the states, but Ken & I spent 5 days there.  The food was incredible and we all ate so much, but the walking wore it all off.  That was a huge plus.

On May 5, we took a water taxi across the canal to the airport where we caught a plane to London for the night.  Oh, we ended up flying business class and had the use of the British Air Lounge to enjoy ourselves before the flight took off…..so nice!!!  The next day (May 6) we got on a British Airways Air Bus in Business Class and flew just over 9 hours to Seattle Washington where we went thru customs.  Our flight was a very comfy and even going thru customs was a snap.  We had a couple hours to wait for our flight on Alaska Air back to Phoenix and arrived very late afternoon where friends from Apache Junction picked us up.  It was a long 40 days that we were gone and so nice to be back to our motorhome.  We didn’t stay long in AZ before we were on our way back to Salem.

Once again, we spent 12 days in Prineville Oregon camping over the July 4 holiday with family and friends (always a fun time).

Labor Day, we were back in Seattle for a flight to Yakutat Alaska and our yearly Salmon fishing trip.  As usual, we brought home a lot of Salmon filets.

Once again, we loaded up the motorhome and were back in Arizona mid-October.  This time instead of flying home for Christmas, we flew home for Thanksgiving and had the pleasure of spending that holiday with our daughter and her family, but were totally surprised when our son’s family came in from Idaho and one grandson came in from Alaska.  We had a wonderful time and loved being with all the family.  Another huge surprise was an announcement that our youngest granddaughter was pregnant and due in May of 2017…. That will bring the total to 10 great grandchildren when that baby is born….WOW!!

So, once Thanksgiving was over, we drove our Grand Cherokee back to Arizona and have been here since then.  As always the park is nice and quiet until just after Christmas when all the residents return and our activities begin.  It becomes a very busy Jan, Feb, and March then in April the majority of residents tend to head back to their homes.  We are one of the few that tend to hang out until Mid to late May and sometimes June…

So here it is the end of April and we are working towards getting coach ready to move by May 10.  We would usually be here longer, but late February, Ken pulled something in his lower back and some of the Jeeping we did in March hurt him even more.  So after a few chiropractor visits, an urgent care visit, and finally an X-Ray in ER has us deciding to get him home and have his doctor take a look at the x-ray results to see if he needs an MRI for further analysis….his pain is not going away!!  I also have a couple upcoming appointments (dental and eye) in May & June, so it’s just as well that we get home fairly soon.  We still have plans for July camping and September fishing, but so much is going to depend on how much Ken is up to doing.

Hopefully, I will get back on here after we are home with some good results.  More later!

SEPTEMBER, OCTOBER

So far so good on my eye treatments!!  My vision has not gotten any worse, but do still get headaches which I am sure is from the old glasses that haven’t yet been corrected.  They say that they don’t want to prescribe a new pair of glasses until they get my vision settled down.  I do have one more appointment this month before we head to Arizona.  At that time, I will have more tests and the doctor will tell me how often I will have to continue the treatments.  I will then know whether he will have me get new glasses (or not).  With all of that said, I had no problem with my vision in Alaska fishing this year.

We spent September 8-16 in Yakutat, Alaska, and I wore my glasses the whole time….usually, I wear contacts, but with having treatments in the left eye, I didn’t want to compromise it.  Yes, we had rain, but with my rain cap and rain jacket hood on, I kept the rain off of my face and glasses.  It really was not that bad because on 3 of the 5 days we were out on the river, we were done fishing before the heavy rains hit.  We were quite surprised at the warmer than usual temps (mid 50s) while out on the river.  There was one day that I got a little cold (and damp), but again we were done before 1 pm so it wasn’t that bad.  This was an unusual year because in the mornings as the tide was out, we drug the boat down to the river’s edge, but when we came back in after fishing, the tide was high, so all we had to do was float the boat up to where we tied it off and left it for the next morning.   That was great because normally, we would have to pull it back up the hill to tie it off.  In the picture below, the boat is near where we keep it and the tide is at mid point.  We had to drag it a lot further down than what this is showing.

Our fishing license was for 7 days, but we ended up only fishing 5 of those 7.  We honestly should have quit after 4, but this year the fish were smaller than last year and we weren’t keeping track of how full the boxes were getting.  After the 5th day, we weighed the boxes and discovered we had more than they would hold, so had to get a 4th box and put about 20 lbs of fish filets in it.

On one of days that we didn’t fish, we decided to drive out to a day use area and find a geocache.  On the way out there (on a gravel road) we almost hit a huge Bull Moose (actually, he almost hit us).  The sides of the road are mostly brush with some hidden side roads and this Moose came running out onto our road from one of those side roads.  After Ken slammed on the brakes and I managed to pick my purse up off the floor and find my phone (camera), I did get a couple pictures of the Moose.  Thankfully, he saw us and veered on up the road and we followed him for a hundred yards or more…. He did not even slow down!!!  Yes, we found the geocache too and no one was hurt!!

         

         
After we got back to Salem, our time was spent getting stuff done on the coach in preparation of heading to Arizona at the end of October.  Ken had several projects going on inside and outside of the coach, then the final step was the annual service and new batteries.  We also had to finish up on getting the rest of our Europe trip taken care of and figuring out all we are going to need.  We will mostly have the stuff with us in Arizona, but will have one last time to pick stuff up from home when we are back during Christmas.

As I write this, we don’t have a date for heading to Arizona, but do hope to be there by the end of October.  We have airline tickets to fly back to Salem on Dec 14 and will stay through the holidays and drive our Grand Cherokee back to Arizona around the first of the year.

Oregon for the Summer

After our fantastic time Australia and New Zealand, life in AZ seemed kinda mild.  The weather was even mild, somewhat cooler than we normally have and even wetter than normal.  Again the time flew by so fast it was hard to keep up with what day it was.  We did the usual park things: dinners, pot lucks, games with friends, happy hours, evenings out to various entertaining venues, and even found a lot of time to do just nothing!  Every Monday, we had a morning coffee gathering to catch up with the weekly events and past happenings.  Ken would spend Monday afternoon monitoring in the Lapidary Shop while I got my weeks worth of reading done.  Ken would also work in Lapidary Shop on Wednesday's and Thursdays getting his own stuff done and then later work on his jewely line.  Every Friday we took off with the park's Jeep group (Rough Riders) for a fun day Jeeping out in the desert.

Alas, the winter quickly wound down and it was time for us to head back to Oregon.  Just as we were packing up and planning our departure, I was notified that my sister passed away.  She was 13 plus years older than me and had been in a care facility for a couple years with severe dementia.  I was so thankful that we were ready to head home and would be able to make her memorial service on June 2nd.  It was a sad, but joyous, occasion knowing that she was finally at peace and in the arms of our Lord and her dear departed husband.  Rest in peace sister, I will always love you and miss you!!

The month of June is our month to get all of our medical stuff done before embarking upon any other adventures and this June is no different.  While in Arizona, I started having vision problems in my left eye.  Once back home I saw my eye doctor and was informed I have a Retinal Pigment Epithelial Detachment in my left eye (right eye is fine).  This is a form of "wet" Macular Degenration.  I was also told that this is a fast moving degeneration and that if left untreated, I would lose vision in that eye in one year.  So, after that appointment, I then had another appointment to have Fluorescein Angiogram to see where the leaks were coming from.  After that test, I had another appointment to start treatment (Intravitreal Injection).  The injection is in the lower left part of the left eye and will need to be done every 4-6 weeks up to three times before rechecking (so not fun).  I was told that these treatments have been successful when eye problem is caught early and will maintain and sometimes make better the vision in the affected eye.  Since having the first treatment and catching up on all of our other medical and dental appointments, it looks like we will be in Oregon till very late in October.....even that is up in the air because I may need more treatments up into November.  After that, we have no idea what will happen.

We still have our Alaska Salmon fishing trip scheduled for September and talking with the eye doctor he said he can work around most all of what we have scheduled including our next cruise(s) in late March to May 5 of 2016.  As it stands right now, we are scheduled to leave Fort Lauderdale March 27 on a ship for 14 days that ends in Barcelona.  Once in Barcelona, we will stay 3 nights, then fly to Rome where we will stay 5 nights.  On April 18, we board another ship out of Rome for 12 nights ending in Venice on April 30.  Our plans are to stay on in Venice till May 5 then fly back to Phoenix.  After that, it will be up to what I have to get done for my eye as to how long we will stay on in Arizona.

Hopefully, I will be better at keeping this up in the future!!  I know, I have said that before and usually end up forgetting.....but I really hope I will be back soon with more news on what we are up to.

Australia & New Zealand

It's been ages since I was last on here, and I have no idea how the time got away from me.  It seems that every time I think about writing something down, I get carried away on something new and forget about writing on this blog.  Anyhow, after we finished our Alaska Cruise trip, we decided to set sail on another cruise in October 2014, but saw the air flights were going to cost an arm and a leg, so decided to use our air miles getting us to Australia and getting us back from New Zealand.  All I can say is "What an experience"!!!

Our flights to and from Australia/New Zealand were to die for as we flew business class both ways.  I have never been pampered sooooo much!!  Our seats were very luxurious recliners that completely went flat for a very comfortable sleep.  Quantas Airlines even provided a quilted pad for extra comfort.  We flew a Quantas 747 to Australia and a Fiji Airlines Air Bus back to the U.S.  Both airlines were fantastic and the seats were so comfortable, we had no feeling of being on a plane for 14 plus hours each way.

On Oct 13, we flew into Brisbane (via Phoenix & Los Angeles) and after a short layover flew into Cairns where we stayed for 6 days.  Because of crossing the date line, we lost a day so were in Cairns October 15-21.  We had a great time playing on the Great Barrier Reef, touring the quaint town of Kuranda (via skyrail over the rain forest), spending a day at a Crocodile Preserve where Ken got to feed a Croc, and visiting an Aboriginal Cultural Center……even learned how to blow on a Didgeridoo, but couldn’t master playing it. 

On Oct 21, we flew to Sydney and toured the city before boarding our Holland America ship on Oct 24.  Sydney is very large city with some beautiful harbors.  We mostly toured the city via a Hop on Hop off bus and got our bearings before visiting the Toranga Zoo (across the bay) where we saw Kangaroos, Koalas, Wambats, Cassowarys, and the so very mean (but cute) Tasman Devil.  Also saw the usual animals, birds, and reptiles that are in most zoos, but the Taz and the Koalas were our favorite.

Our big adventure was 14 days on the Holland America ship “the Ms Oosterdam (Oct 24-Nov 7).  We sailed out of Sydney on the Tasman Sea to Melbourne, where we were able to tour the city and beaches on another Hop on Hop off bus.  With only one day there, it was the only way to really see the city.

Our next stops were to be Hobart and Milford Sound, but as we were leaving Melbourne, the Captain said gale force winds (upwards of 100mph plus) and high seas (50 feet plus swells) were predicted, and he didn’t want to put the ship (and passengers) in danger, so he planned to out run the storm and head for the Cook Strait that goes between the north and south New Zealand Islands…. We were at sea (Tasman Sea) for 2 ½ days and stayed on the edge of the advancing storm.  Even being ahead of the storm, there were still some very rough and windy (75 mph winds) seas.  In fact, one day and night the Promenade Deck was closed off because it was too dangerous to be out there.  We had a Verandah room on deck 6 (Upper Promenade) and did step out a few times, but it was just too windy to spend any time out there.  Once we were on the Pacific Ocean side of New Zealand, the seas were much better…..still windy in many ports, but nothing like what we experenced at sea...

We stopped at 6 ports before ending our cruise on November 7 in Auckland, New Zealand.  We toured the Cadbury Chocolate Factory in Dunedin, took a jet boat ride and 8 wheeler high country ride in Akaroa, and saw the Glow Worm Cave (and the worms) and Kiwi Birds in the Kiwi House while in Tauranga (Rotorua).  In Napier, we visited a Maori Village to learn of their history and culture.

Once in Auckland, we extended our stay for two more days and had fun seeing the sights of the city.  We saw hundreds of Penguins at the local sea aquarium and even watched the Stingray(s) being fed.

Just around the corner from our hotel was the Sky Tower of Auckland.  The tower stands over 1,000 feet tall with a viewing platform at 770 feet.  There is also a revolving restaurant on one level and a bungee jumping platform on another level (no, we didn’t jump).  It took every bit of my courage just to get up to the viewing platform to look at the city below.  It was quite fantastic, but I was so glad when I was back down and on solid ground.

We left Auckland on Sunday, Nov 9 via Fiji Air and flew through the night to Los Angeles where we actually landed on Sunday, Nov 9 before we left Auckland (now that is a very strange feeling).  In reality, we had two Sundays that day.  Instead of flying back to Phoenix where our coach was at, we flew into Portland where our kids picked us up and we spent two weeks at home in Salem before driving our Grand Cherokee Jeep back to Arizona.

We had a grand time and are now looking at doing another cruise in 2016….Destination TBA.

September, October, and November

We spent Sept 3-11 in Yakutat, AK fishing this year.  The weather was horrid, but we caught a lot of fish.  It was raining when we landed and it was raining when we left.  There was only one day we saw blue skies.  The rest of the time was wind and lots of rain….in fact the back of the lodge had standing water most of the time we were there.  The weather was so bad that a barge heading for Yakutat had to be turned around because of rough seas.  However, we were out every day (thank goodness we have great rain gear) and caught a lot of fish.  The fish were smaller this year, but more abundant.  We came home with four full boxes of Salmon Filets (about 175 pounds).  Still had great fun, and yes, we are already booked for next year.

One week after we got home from Alaska, we took our coach in for its annual service and maintenance check (Sept 19) then we spent the next four days (19-23) camping at South Beach State Park in Newport, Oregon.  Our friends Rod & Lynda joined us for a fun weekend.  The weather was fairly decent, and we had one nice day where we walked from our campsite to the beach and back.  We even found a geocache during that walk.  It was wonderful to spend a lot of our time sitting around the campfire and visiting.  Of course, we had to have dinner in town several times and even drove up to Lincoln City to do some shopping at the Outlet Stores.

Once we got back to Salem, we spent many days getting the coach cleaned out and repacked with what we would need in Arizona.  Our plans were to head to Arizona on Oct 11, but we still had too much to do, so put it off till Oct 13.  Good thing we did because the refrigerator in the coach suddenly quit working.  We have a neighbor that is a Norcold Rep, so we called him and he discovered the cooling unit died.  There was coolant everywhere (ugly).  Thankfully, it happened while we were home and not on the road somewhere.  Once again we were fortunate to find a place that we could take it in and get it fixed.  The coach was taken in on Oct 15 and was scheduled to be finished on Oct 17 late afternoon.  Needless-to-say, everything we took out of coach had to be put back in, so the plan to leave Salem for Arizona was delayed until Oct 19.

Saturday, Oct 19, we left Salem and drove south to highway 58 where we had a colorful drive across the Willamette Pass into Central Oregon.  It was so nice to have no rain or snow!  We crossed into California and made our way through Alturas and ended our drive at a little town called Likely on highway 395.  There we stayed the night in a large open parking lot next to the volunteer fire department’s building.

The next morning (Sunday) we had an uneventful drive through Reno, Fernley, and Fallon to a rest area just north of Tonopah, Nevada.  This is a nice place to stop and spend the night because they don’t allow any large trucks to pull in there.  We arrived early enough to spend some time out in the sun having a nice glass of wine.  Up to this point, we had no problems and all was going well.

Monday, we were up early and prepared for the drive to Laughlin, Nevada.  We made it through Las Vegas with no problems and ended our day at the Avi Casino and RV Park just south of Laughlin.  Since we got there early enough, we got cleaned up and walked over to the casino for a wonderful dinner and drinks.   Again, this was another wonderful day with an easy drive.

Tuesday, Oct 22, we were up early and headed into Arizona.  Our drive south was getting warmer as we got closer to our destination.  We pulled into Queen Valley RV Resort about 2 pm and quickly got set up and turned on the AC because the temperature was in the 90s.  Not long after we got set up, Ken noticed a propane smell and discovered the regulator was leaking a little (not good).  He quickly turned off the gas and decided we would have to have the regulator replaced again (this has happened before). 

The next day (Wednesday the 23rd) Ken noticed the inside of the refrigerator was in the 50s.  It was another hot day (90-95) and the sun was beating on that side of the coach, so we pulled the slider awning out to shade it, but the temperature didn’t go down.  Ken then opened up the outside panels and noticed the fans weren’t working….. That really wasn’t good because we just spent $2,300 to have the whole cooling unit replaced.  Thankfully, we have an extra freezer in our shed, so we pulled stuff out of the coach freezer and put it in the shed’s freezer.  We weren’t worried about stuff in the fridge because there really wasn’t much in there that would spoil.  The temperature did go down after the sun set, but not to where it should be.  The next morning (Thurs), we called Norcold and they gave us a name of someone in Apache Junction who could work on our fridge.  We then called Apache Junction RV Sales & Service and were told they could come out, but to run a couple tests first.  We ran the tests, which took 4 hours, then called them back with the results.  They then said they could come out the next day (Friday), but we would have to pay the travel cost ($50) and the diagnosis cost ($94 an hour) because Norcold would only pay the warranty on the cooling unit IF it was bad.  We had no problem with that because it would be more trouble to pull up stakes and drive the coach all the way into Apache Junction (24 miles one way).

Friday was another hot day (88) and with the fans not working on the fridge, the inside temp never got below 50.  Freezer was barely freezing, but that was not acceptable.  We were thrilled when Tom of AJ RV Service showed up and took one look at the unit and said Roberson RV Service wired the fans wrong.  Tom had the fan wires fixed and working in less than five minutes (whew).  Tom also noticed that with our fridge on the slider we have two outside vents.  Well, the fans are at the lower portion of the unit and the upper part of the unit should have a baffle to move the air into the cooling unit (it didn’t)……SO, he quickly got one made and installed (yay).  Tom then looked at our propane regulator and replaced that ($23).  He had everything back to normal in just a bit over an hour.  We were thrilled to not have anything more serious wrong.  Total cost of the repair was $178.  What a relief!!!

We have now been in Queen Valley almost 3 weeks and have seen many residents coming back.  We had our first official coffee social on Nov 4 and enjoyed seeing so many of our friends.  The weather has been fantastic with only a few days in the 90s with the rest in the 70s & 80s.  The evenings have been wonderfully cool.  Yes, we did have one night of rain, but it passed through quickly and didn’t leave too much of a mess behind.  There wasn’t much dust in the air, so didn’t have the mud residue we normally get after a rain (yay).

Soon, it will be time for us to fly home to Oregon and spend the Christmas Season with our family.  We fly on December 9 and will be driving our Grand Cherokee back to Arizona around December 27.  We have a couple stops while driving back to Arizona, so don’t plan on being back till after the first of the New Year.  Until then, hope all have a wonderful Thanks giving, Christmas, and New Year.

Alaska Fun

We finally had the chance to visit parts of Alaska that we hadn’t visited before!

On July 21, we boarded Alaska Air in Portland, OR and flew to Vancouver BC, Canada to begin our experience on water and land.  Our trip was for 7 days on water, sailing through the Inlet Passage of AK on Holland America’s "ms Zaandam" and 7 days on land (via bus and rail) ending in Fairbanks.

This is our boarding picture.  Note, this is after we were up from 4:30 am, had a two plus hours flight from Portland toVancouver B.C., then a 45 minute bus ride (via Holland America Lines Shuttle) to where the ship was docked.  We were pretty tired and quite disheveled when we boarded the ship at Noon. (sigh)

We set sail from Vancouver the evening of July 21 and spent that night plus the next day at sea before docking in Ketchikan at 6 am on July 23. The pictures below are our ship and our docking site.

  

It was overcast with misty showers that turned to a hard rain later in the day, but we had fun exploring Ketchikan and even going out on the “Misty Fjords Cruise & Floatplane Adventure” excursion.  The excursion was to take us to the Fjords then take a float plane back to Ketchikan, but it was way too overcast for the float plane to fly, so we just did the catamaran portion of the trip.  Scenery was shrouded in fog and very pretty!  This picture is just one view of the many waterfalls we saw in a secluded cove of Misty Fjords.

We left Ketchikan’s port at 2:30 pm and sailed through the night docking in Juneau on the 24th at 8 am. Again, we had a very foggy, overcast morning as we walked around town checking out all the souvenier shops and even finding a geocache on top of a parking garage...Yes, we brought our GPS along, but didn't get that many chances to look for caches.  This is a picture of our ship docked near where all the passengers catch buses for local tours.

We had time before our afternoon excursion, so we stopped at the famous Red Dog Saloon for lunch and a beer.  It was extremely crowded, but we had lots of fun there.

  

After lunch, we were back at the dock to catch one of the many buses that would take us out on a Whale Quest and Mendenhall Glacier tour.  What fun!!  The weather had cleared up by the time we were back out to sea on a jet powered catamaran where we were rewarded with Orcas, Humpbacks, Seals, Sea Lions, and hundreds of birds.  What a sight it was to watch the Orcas play, but watching the Humpbacks "Bubble Feeding" was an extra treat.  Taking pictures of these events was tough, but Ken did get the following picture of a Humpback "breaching."  We were watching these Whales for nearly an hour, and Ken got lots more pictures, but this is really the best one!

Once we were back ashore from the water portion of our excursion, we were taken by bus to the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center.  There, we could take a walk down to Nugget Falls and get some up close and personal pictures of the glacier.  All I can say about that experience was it was just awesome!  The picture I am posting is from the viewing platform at the visitor center, but Ken & I took many, many more.

Back at the ship, we pulled away from dock at 9:30 pm and again spent the night at sea and ended up docking in Skagway at 5:30 am on the 25th.  Skagway was a beautiful 64 degrees and sunny.

We walked around town and found a geocache at the information center in town then later in the morning, we rode the White Pass Railroad up to the White Pass Summit.  It was beautiful with lots of great scenes of the mountains.  We even saw parts of the old trail the “stampeders” used to get through the pass in the dead of winter.  I cannot imagine how horrid that must have been.  Below is a picture of the town and our train heading up the pass.

  

From Skagway, we were once again at sea and spent the night sailing, then all day the 26th was spent in Glacier Bay National Park where we picked up some “rangers” who spent the day talking about and showing us neat sights in the bay.  Incredible!!  After dropping off the rangers about 5 pm, we were once again off to sea.  This shot of Margerie Glacier (near the upper point of Glacier Bay) is from our Lido Deck on the ship.  It was such an awesome sight that we took a lot of pictures of this glacier.

On July 28, we docked in Seward at 6 am.  This was where we left the ship (about 10 am) and set off on a Kenai Fjords tour.  Again, we were out on another jet powered boat and saw many glaciers and more whales.  After the tour, we were taken by bus to our hotel for the night.  I must say at this point we were very impressed with the promptness and professional service we had from every Holland America Representative.  We were at this point done with the "water" portion of our cruise, so we weren't too sure how things were going to go on our land portion.  We were NOT disappointed.

We had the morning of the 29th at leisure, then in the afternoon, we were picked up and bussed to Anchorage where we were to spend the night.  We made it to Anchorage and our hotel (Westmark) about 5:30 pm.  It was still early, so had a quick dinner at a local pub and walked a bit in a park near our hotel before calling it an early evening.

The next morning (early) we were picked up and shuttled to the Alaska Rail Road Depot where we got on a wonderful domed Holland America Line Rail Car for Denali National Park.  Traveling with us was a Holland America Lines (HAL) Rep who took wonderful care of us.  He (Scott) had all our room keys, tour info, etc. all arranged prior to our arriving our destinations.  I forgot to say that we didn't have to worry about our bags either.  After we got off the ship, our bags were picked up at each point along the way and transfered separately to our next destination.  All we needed to worry about was our small carry on's, cameras, meds, and small personal stuff.  We were never in want for anything!!  This is our rail car.  Very nice!!

It was an 8 hour ride to Denali, but we were served breakfast and lunch on board (lower section of car) and of course, there was a bartender on board to take care of all our "liquid" needs.  As you can see in the picture above, the rail car has an open platform in the back where people could ride and get some great pictures.  After we made it to Denali, we were picked up and taken to the McKinnley Chalets where we spent two nights.

In Denali, we had time to take a bus tour back into the Tundra Wilderness and see the wildlife and "The Mountain."  Yes, it was clear and we did see Denali (Mt McKinnley).  We also saw 6 Grizzly Bears, 2 Moose, a herd of Caribou, and many different birds.  We were on a Blue Bird Bus, but we had lots of stops along the way and plenty of time to enjoy the surroundings.

After Denali, we again got on the Alaska Rail Road in a HAL car and headed for Fairbanks.  In Fairbanks, we were signed up for a Gold Dredge Tour and a Stern Wheeler trip up the Chena River.  This portion of the rail trip was 4 hours, so we had a nice afternoon to enjoy before calling it a day.  Speaking of day, it was still daylight out at 11:30 at night.  Thank goodness, the hotel had darkening shades or we never would have gotten any sleep.  This is our train arriving at the station in Denali.

The morning of Aug 2, we were off to see Gold Dredge #8 and get some experience on panning for gold. Ken and I got a few flakes ($21 worth), but the couple that was traveling with us ended up with $45 worth of flakes....(they were the big winners).  Yes, here is Ken panning for his $13 worth of flakes (I got $8).

While at Gold Dredge #8, we got to see the pipe line and hear a long story about it and how it works (impressive).

After the gold and pipe line experience, we were then bussed to the Discovery Stern Wheeler II where we floated up and down the Chena River.  This river flows through Fairbanks and in the winter is frozen solid, so they use "Ice" bridges to cross it.  Today, it was a very hot 87 degree day, so no ice in sight.  We got to see an Athabaskan Village and even got to see a dog sled demonstration while on the river.  The picture below is Ken and I waiting for the stern wheeler.  Of course, there was a huge souvenier complex there.

After all the tours were over, we said good bye to our tour guide and all of Holland America staff.  We extended our stay at the Fairbanks Westmark Hotel by one night, so the morning of Aug 3, we took a shuttle to the Fairbanks Airport and rented a car.  I neglected to say that our grandson Justin, who is in the Air Force, was transferred to Fairbanks Eielson AFB, and he and his family arrived late in July to set up residence for the next three years.  It was our plan all along to take another day here and spend the weekend seeing them.  We did get to see them Saturday afternoon, but the highlight was when we picked them up Sunday at Noon and headed an hour out of Fairbanks to the Chena Hot Springs Resort and Aurora Ice Museum.  We didn't have a lot of time to see everything there, but we did have a wonderful late lunch/early dinner in the restaurant and then had a tour of the Aurora Ice Museum.  What a neat place.  It is always at a constant 20 degrees, and they supply you with very heavy parkas for you to stay warm while enjoying the ice carvings.  We had a wonderful time and our grandkids vowed to go back to spend a weekend.

  

The above first picture is of me and my granddaughter-in-law (Holly) having an Appletini (yummy) in an ice glass.  The second picture is of me, my grandkids Justin & Holly with baby Tristen leaving the ice museum. We had a great time and couldn't believe all they can sculpt out of ice.

After the ice museum, we had a very long drive back to Fairbanks and did have a Moose cross the road just ahead of us.  She was far enough away that there was no worry of us hitting her.  Anyway, as we took them back to where we picked them up, we just had to stop at The North Pole.  There was a visitor center there that we enjoyed, but the Santa Clause House was awesome!!  I never saw soooooo many Christmas decorations....EVER!!  Thank goodness we don't have that much time to decorate our home anymore or otherwise, Ken would have had a hey day picking up more decorations.

These pictures are taken in the town of North Pole.  In the first picture is Holly, Me, Justin (holding Tristen). The second picture is Ken and Me in front of the Santa Clause House.

  

We had a wonderful time with our grandkids, but sadly had to say goodbye as we were due to catch the red eye out of Fairbanks that night and fly back to Portland, Oregon.  We earlier had checked our bags at the hotel where they had an Alaska Airlines Desk, so all we had to do was turn the rental car (a Rav 4) back into Hertz, then make our way to the gate (there were only 6 gates-a very small airport).  We got there at 9:30 pm and were the only ones going through security, so had no problem.  After a bit, more people showed up, but when we boarded at 11:30 pm, there were not that many getting on our plane.  We ended up having a row of three seats each to ourselves (yay).....  We landed at PDX at 4:30 am on the morning of August 5 and our daughter and son-in-law picked us up.  Needless-to-say, we were exhausted and needed some long down time.

After being home for two weeks, we are now in the process of packing and getting ready for our September Salmon fishing trip in Yakutat, Alaska.  For many years, Ken has gone to "Yak", but I have only gone since 1999, so getting a chance to view other parts of Alaska was a dream come true.  Seeing our grandkids while there, was priceless!!!

This is a picture of Ken and Me while at our "Formal Dinner" the second night of our cruise on Holland America.  The next cruise we take will most likely be to another dream spot via Holland America Lines: Australia and New Zealand in 2014!

Dry Camping

We just spent the last two weeks in Prineville camping along the Crooked River and had a great time!

June 21, we drove the coach (towing the Grand Cherokee Jeep) to Prineville, Oregon to spend a couple nights at the Crook Country RV Park.  Rain was in the forecast, but at least it was nice on the 21st and 22nd.

Early the morning of June 22, we drove Jeep down to the BLM Camp Grounds and found a site where we could park the Motorhome for the next two weeks.  After we secured the site, we headed out to a geocache run along the Millican Highway.  There are 200 caches along the highway, but at Noon, we started in the middle at cache number 92 and completed number 200 later that afternoon.  We could see some really dark clouds heading our way, so we headed into town and stopped at the Tastee Treat for dinner.  Just after we got inside the diner, the rain came pouring down, then lightning and thunder hit at the same time.  Very bright flash with a LOUD BANG!!  It continued to rain heavy all that night and into the next morning.

At 9 am on the 23rd, Ken went over to the fairgrounds and went through a local gem & rock show (it was raining off and on, but not very hard).  He did come back to the coach with some nice stuff….  That afternoon, we drove Jeep to Highway 20 (east of Bend) where the Milican Highway geocache run started.  We then completed geocaches number 1 through 89 before it started raining hard.  We had to quit for the rest of that day leaving only 23 to finish another day.

June 24, we drove the motorhome 15 miles south and got ourselves parked in our campsite along the Crooked River.   It was raining when we got in our site and continued while we got set up.  Thank goodness we didn’t have much to do because we already had the gazebo and tent set up….we do that to secure our site prior to bringing in the motorhome.  There really aren’t many places along that river where we can park a 40 foot rig.  It quit raining about 1 pm, so we took that opportunity to drive back over to the Millican Highway and complete the last 23 caches.  It only took us a half hour to complete, and we did it before it started to rain again.

On Tuesday, the 25th, our friend Rod pulled his trailer in.  We had his site secured, so he was able to pull right in and set up.  All morning the rain had held off, but just before he arrived, we had some huge down pours.  His wife, Lynda, still had to work the week, so she would join him on Friday.

The 26th was a gray & cloudy day with some sun breaks.  The temperature was in the high 60s, but come Thursday it began to get hot.  The Temps jumped from mid to high 60s to very high 80s (very humid) and into triple digits by the 30th of June.

On Thursday the 27th, Rod went golfing and Ken & I took off for Redmond and found 23 more geocaches.  Since we didn’t have Internet or cell service where we were camping, I was unable to log any of those until we got back to Salem on July 6.

Friday was another extremely hot & humid day.  Lynda (Rod’s wife) joined us later that evening.  We literally sweltered June 29 through July 2 while temperatures jumped high 90s and even into triple digits.  In the canyon, we do get a breeze, but it was a hot humid breeze (we spent a lot of time in the shade).   Sunday, June 30, Ken’s brother Dick and his wife Pam arrived and we had a wonderful one night visit with them.  They were headed from Boise, Idaho to Newport, Oregon to spend a couple weeks and took the time to stop and enjoy a night of camping and the next morning with us.  They left about 10 am on July 1 and headed for Newport.

Finally on July 3, the temps started cooling down.  We had the next few days with wonderfully cooler temps and cooler breezes.  We rafted, played cards, drank, ate, and just had a lot of fun.  Rod’s daughter and her family joined our group on July 3 to spend the weekend.

Since we had already been there two weeks on July 6, we packed up and headed home in hopes to beat the weekend traffic….  Yeah, right….  There was a lot of traffic and just after we crossed over the pass and heading towards the town of Detroit, we had a Doe jump in front of us.  We had one very quick slam on the brakes and thankfully missed her.   Happily, no one was hurt or injured and only had some small things fall off the counters.  I was sooooo glad I had my coffee maker (keurig) packed away.  That would have been devastating to lose.  Both Ken & I always travel with our seat belts on, so no one was thrown.  The rest of the drive into Salem was uneventful, just busy traffic.

We are now getting our bags ready for our two week cruise & land tour up into and through Alaska

BACK HOME IN OREGON

As you can see, I did not hold true to my word about keeping up with this blog.  It seems that I have let another winter season in Queen Valley, AZ go by without any new updates…….Oh well, I’m back and hope to be able to relate all we did this past winter.

On December 7, 2012, we boarded Allegiant Air out of Mesa Gateway Airport to Eugene, Oregon.  The flight was only a bit over 2 hours and we were met by our son-in-law, Tim, and great grandson, Noah.  They drove us home and we spent the next three weeks in Salem having fun with our kids, grandkids, and great grandkids.  Ken managed to get his outside lights up, but nothing like he has done in years past.  Still the house looked festive and we all had a wonderful Christmas filled with lots of love.

After Christmas, it was a rush to get the lights down/put away, load up the Grand Cherokee, and head back to Arizona.  We left on December 27^th and knowing there was snow in the Willamette Pass, I kept watching the road cams to see which way it would be best to travel.  As it was, there was blowing snow and almost zero visibility across Willamette pass on Highway 58, so we decided to go south over the Siskiyou’s and on to the small town of Corning, CA where we spent the night.   Of course while there, we had to visit the renowned Olive Pit for some olives and snacks (great place).

The next day, we were on the road early heading for Sacramento and Highway 80 into Reno, Nevada.  Yes, there was snow on the road side, but the pavement was bare all the way across the pass into Reno.  It was cold, but the sun was out and it was beautiful.  We reached Reno just after Noon and secured a room, then headed out to visit with our Aunt.  She was in good spirits and looked well.  It started snowing later that afternoon and was about 3 inches deep after we had dinner with our cousin later that night.  So nice to have a Jeep!

December 29 we woke to a lot of snow.  It was time to leave Reno, so we hit the freeway and had snow all the way to Tonopah, NV.  We got a room at the Best Western just after Noon, then headed out to what we call the ET Hwy (Extra Terrestrial Highway) to do some geocaching.  Even though there was a dusting of snow on the roads, we had no problems and found lots of caches.  Of course all that we looked for were at a lower elevation than what we planned for the next day.

The morning of Dec. 30, we were up very early to head for some mountainous geocaching.  Out of Tonopah, we took Highway 6 east for 35 miles to a gravel road called Little Fish Lake Road that would take us another 20 plus miles north to an elevation of 6500 feet.   The gravel/dirt roads all had snow on them, but what the heck, we were in a Jeep.  Well, the higher we got, the deeper the snow got.   We did manage to find many caches, but when those caches were knee deep in the frozen snow we gave up.  Just try to find a film canister with coordinates that aren’t always spot on in that deep of snow.

The first picture is the gravel road going north to Little Fish Lake.  The second picture is Ken searching for a cache.  The third picture is another road going into the trees.  The last picture is where we decided to turn around.

We knew the Jeep could go further, but finding the caches that deep was quite impossible.  It was nearing 11:30am, when we headed back down the road and back to the main highway (highway 6) toward the towns of Rachel (on highway 375) and Ash Springs (on highway 95).  It was still early when we passed through those towns, so decided to head on into Kingman, Arizona where we spent the night.

New Year’s Eve we woke to a cold mid 30 degrees and left Kingman around 7:30am.  It wasn’t a long trip, but it was somewhat cloudy and cool all the way back to Queen Valley.  We arrived at our coach around Noon and it was only 50 degrees.  It was great being back, and we spent the afternoon getting cleaned up and resettled.  It actually got up to a sunny 54 degrees that afternoon.  After dinner, we got a call that our second oldest great grandson suffered a seizure that morning, but had come out of it and was doing well.  The doctors did many tests, but couldn’t find anything wrong.  They wanted to do more tests in a few weeks, but he was able to go home that night with instructions for everyone to just keep an eye on him.   Note to this date (May 26) there have been no other problems.

From January to May 15, it was back to the normal routine in Queen Valley.  Monday mornings were our coffee socials and events updates.  Our week went like this:  Monday afternoon, all day Wednesday, and all day Thursday were Ken’s time in the “Rock Shop.”  Then on Friday was our time to have fun with our off road group, The Rough Riders.  We had a lot of fun on many old and very rutted and off camber roads going back to old mines and some very old historic sites.  This is Ken driving the Wrangler up a rough area.  The second picture is of us by our Wrangler.

Again, we had superb entertainment and dinners at the park, plus all of our outings with friends to many different restaurants.  There were potlucks, happy hours, tag alongs, shopping trips, plus much more for everyone to enjoy.  We did our best to take part in it all!!

Temperature wise, this was a cooler winter than in previous times.  January had temps as high as 67 to as low as 21.  As far as I can recall, there were about 4 days of rain during January.  February got as high as 79 and as low as 32, and we even had snow on the 20th.  Snow was quite a surprise because the forecast was for snow higher up, but hitting at our 2,000ft elevation wasn’t predicted.  We did take the Wrangler out to get pictures of the snow on the cactus and hills.  Needless-to-say, the snow didn’t stick around long, so we had to get the pictures quickly.  The following pictures are all from aound our area.  The first two are on the Queen Valley Golf Course.  The next four are out on a desert road near town.

Temperature in March got as high as 90, but was mostly in the 80s.  The lows went as far down as 42 but most of it was in the 50s & 60s.  This was one gorgeous month!

April was mostly in the high 80s, but did hit 100 on the 29th.  Again, the lows were in the 40s & 60s.

Then came May…..what can I say, it got very warm….some high 80s, but mostly mid to high 90s up to May 14 when it hit 100.  We left May 15 and headed for Laughlin where it was 101 (whew).  We only stayed one night at the Avi RV Park and Casino in Laughlin.

On May 16, we drove to Tonopah, NV where we found an RV site at The Tonopah Station.  While there, we managed to get back out on the Little Fish Lake Road to finish up the 250 caches that we couldn’t get in January because of all the snow.  Happily, we were able to get them all plus more in the small town of Goldfield.  We totaled over 300 finds while there.

May 19 was time for us to head for Reno/Sparks where we parked the motorhome for four nights at Sparks Marina.   Again, it was wonderful to visit with our aunt and cousins.

On May 23, we left Reno/Sparks at 7:30am and made it all the way to our home in Salem at 5:20pm.  It was a long tiring drive with only a couple short stops, but it was so very nice to be home!!

We are now in the process of cleaning out the coach and getting settled back in the house for the summer.  Right now, our summer is totally booked up with three huge events.  Later in June there is a 12 day camping trip, in July-Aug, there is a 14 day Alaskan Inlet Passage cruise and land tour, then our yearly 10 day Salmon Fish trip is in September.   Also at this time, we are predicting that we will be back in Queen Valley mid-October because we have said we will be at a Geocoin Event in Las Vegas on Oct 13, so will head to AZ after that.  So much for the plans we had on finishing the remodel job on our house this summer.  There will not be much time left over to do much.  I guess that will leave us a lot to do during the summer of 2014….

Back in Arizona

Hope every one had a great Thanksgiving, but for now we wish you all a wonderful Christmas season!

It’s been a little longer than usual since our last posting, but I hope to get back in the swing of things to keep you all updated on what we are up to.

Since my last post, we have accomplished lots of things, but are now back in Arizona preparing to fly back to Salem, Oregon to spend Christmas with our kids, grandkids, and great grandkids.

We left Arizona last June 5, which was later than our normal departure.  Temperature was 97 when we left AZ, but while in Laughlin Nevada, it hit 105.  We stayed in Laughlin till the 10th of June and spent all of our time geocaching.....even made it over to Oatman, AZ for some touristy stuff and more caching.

After we left Laughlin, we stopped in Rachel, Nevada.  This quaint little town is right in the middle of the Extraterrestrial Highway, and is well known for a lot of eerie sightings along with some late night fly overs.  Our reason to stop there was to go off roading and caching.  We spent three nights dry camping next to the Little A'Le' Inn and had some fun trips off road.  One day, we made it a very tricky road to high in the mountains where a Phantom Jet crashed.  There was a cache there, so we had fun finding it and viewing what was left of the jet.  The views from the top of the mountain were amazing.

We left Rachel on the 13th of June and made it to Hawthorne, Nevada where we spent five nights.  We were hoping to visit some friends while in the area, but they had already left, so we spent our time there caching and taking in the sights.  We took one full day and drove up the back way into Yosemite (over Tioga Pass).  Normally when we come through Hawthorne, the road over Tioga Pass into Yosemite is still closed because of snow, but this year being later, they had it open.  We had a wonderful day in the park, but the highlight was going to Glacier Point and looking down on Half Dome.  We could see many hikers climbing the dome, but we were just as happy to view it from afar....that climb up looked very treacherous!

Our next stop was Reno/Sparks, Nevada for 3 nights.  We always stop here while on our way home in order to visit relatives and spend some quality time with Ken's aunt and uncle.  We had a wonderful time with them and our cousins.  Little did we know that this visit would be our last with Ken's uncle Francis.  Shortly after we left Reno, he suffered a heart attack and was placed in a care facility for rehab and healing.  However, he slowly declined and passed away in October.   We feel so blessed that we were able to have such a wonderful visit with him in June.

The whole time we were in Reno, the temps were in the 80s which was wonderful after being in triple digits for so long.  Once leaving Reno/Sparks, we spent one night on the road, then made it into Prineville, Oregon and parked the coach at the Crook County RV Park.  It was sunny and 80 when we got to the park, but that afternoon, after leaving the coach in Prineville, we drove the Grand Cherokee home in Salem to pick up camping supplies.   From Sisters all the way to Salem, it did nothing but rain, we even hit some snow up on the summit, but back to rain all the way into Salem (it was 64 in Salem).  We quickly loaded what we needed into the Cherokee, then spent the night (the 22nd) in Salem.  The next morning, we fueled up and headed back to Prineville.  Thankfully, on the east side of the mountains, there was no rain and temperature was back to 65.  Once back in Prineville, we drove Jeep down to the river and found one site not in use and quickly put our names on the tag and set up a couple tents to hold it until we could move the coach there.

We moved the coach to our site on June 25 and dry camped till July 7.  We were  joined by our best friends, Rod & Lynda and another couple Darryl & Kathy.  We all had a great time doing a whole lot of nothing but eating, visiting, and some hiking.  Temperatures ranged all the way from high 50s to low 70s but we had a fun time enjoying what sun we did get and the campfire with our friends.


When we got home on July 7, our lazy days were over.  We spent time cleaning coach and getting stuff resettled in house.  Once that was done, we spent the next couple months working on house:  First, we replaced the front door.  Second, we replaced the back sliding door, then Ken stripped the old popcorn ceiling stuff off and re-textured the ceiling with a "paint on" type of texture.  Things were looking really nice, but we soon decided the living room and dining room needed repainting......All of this work was done up to the time we were scheduled to take off to Alaska for our annual fishing trip.  However, before we did go to AK, we decided to replace the huge living room window.  We ended up ordering a new window and scheduled it to be installed after our Alaska trip.

Our Alaska trip was Sept 4-12.  We drove to SeaTac on the 3rd, spent the night, then flew to Yakutat on the 4th.  Had cold wet weather most of the time fishing, but we successfully caught our limit each day.  One day, while cleaning our fish on a small rocky island, we spotted a sick & dying Octopus.  We ended up pulling it further up on land and left it along with our fish remains for a couple beautiful Bald Eagles that were watching us from the nearby tree tops.  Those Eagles, and some other birds, had quite a feast after we left.  After fishing only 6 days this year, we ended up with 3 full boxes of Salmon Filets, plus some in a 4th box.....about 175 lbs worth.  The fish we got this year were much bigger than what we caught last year.  We caught less fish, but they weighed out more (yay).  We did look into buying some Halibut Filets, but they wanted over $800 for 50lbs, so we passed on that.

Once back in Salem we continued working on the house and had the front window installed.  Things were looking really good, but we had to quit and leave the rest of the work (mostly trim work) until the summer when we get back from our winter in Arizona.

We scheduled our yearly coach service/maintenance for Oct 17.  We go to Cummins' in Coburg, Oregon for all our work which usually takes a half day to complete.  This time, they found an oil leak in motor, so had to replace a seal which took much longer than expected.  We had reservations for camping in Newport (17-22) and were antsy that it would be dark when we got there, but actually lucked out and made Newport's South Beach State Park at 6:20 pm and got into our site just before dark (whew).  The next day was a gorgeous 72 degree day.  Ken & I took a very long walk on the beach, then later that day Rod & Lynda pulled into their site.  That was our last nice day for the whole weekend.  Even though it was cold, wet, and windy, we had fun spending our time going out eating, shopping, and best of all just visiting.

The next week was a rush to get the coach ready for our trip south to AZ.  We left on Oct 29 and made it to the small town of Likely, CA where we pulled into the fire station's parking lot for the night.  The next day, we made it to Reno/Sparks, Nevada.  Since we weren't towing the Grand Cherokee, we rented a small car so we could drive out and visit our aunt and cousins.  Our uncle had just passed away on Oct 24, but since we couldn't make the funeral, we wanted to spend some quality time with our aunt.  We did have a sad, but nice visit with her before spending a quiet evening with our cousins.

We headed south on Nov 1 and ended up staying the night at a very small RV park south of Beatty, Nevada.  We were back on the road early the 2nd and pulled into our site in Queen Valley, Arizona around 4:45 pm.  The next few days were spent cleaning the coach and getting everything settled.  Our first gathering of residents was on Nov 5 for the first coffee of the season.  It's so nice being back in QV and seeing all of our old friends.  We love the 80-90 degree weather too!

Since our arrival in Queen Valley, AZ, we have gone on several Jeep rides with the Rough Rider group and have been eating out with many other friends in the area.  Right now, we are getting ready to fly back home to Salem to spend Christmas with our family.  When Christmas is over, we will load up our Grand Cherokee and drive it back to Queen Valley.

For now that should catch everyone up on what has been happening, and I do hope to keep this up better in the future.

Where Did The Winter Go?

Yikes, May arrives tomorrow and whole winter is gone….. Where did it go?  What did we do?

We got back to Queen Valley at the end of December and immersed ourselves into “park life” so much that we lost complete track of time.  What posting I did do on a regular basis was on Face Book and some on Twitter.  Anyone can follow me on Twitter at: Cachinbird.  Only you who know me by name can ask to be my friend on Face Book.  As Ken says, our lives are an open book on Face Book (grin).

Every Monday morning we would get up early and go to the park’s activity hall for morning coffee/donuts and social hour.  During “coffee” we would get the latest updates of activities that either happened or were about to happen for the weeks ahead.  Sometimes we had guests from special interest groups come in and put on a show.  Mostly it was a time to catch up with everyone’s comings and goings in the park.

Ken was heavily involved in the Lapidary Shop again and would spend Monday afternoon and all day Wednesday & Thursday (every week) working on various projects in the “rock shop.”  He produced some gorgeous pendants of Jade and Mahogany Obsidian.  In some of his spare time, he produced some very pretty beaded earrings and necklaces/bracelets.  His work was much sought after and he sold lots.  While he was “out” I would catch up with friends & family on Face Book, Twitter, and Email along with reading some wonderful books.  Oh yes, there was something called “work” around the coach too.

Every Friday we joined a group of Jeepers (Rough Riders) on some wonderful and challenging drives through the back country near and far of Queen Valley.  We went to many old mines, the Salt River, and Coke Ovens.  We usually didn’t travel far, but the roads were so rough it would take us all day to make the drive.  We always planned a nice place to stop and have lunch.

This first picture is our group.  In the fore front is Ken letting air out of our tires in order to track easier over very rocky terrain.

 This picture is from the top of a hill over looking the Coke Ovens.

 This is our group having lunch near one of the mines we visited.

 This is one of our friends attempting some of the "rocky" terrain.

 Usually on Tuesday s (our free day) (weather permitting) Ken & I would take the Wrangler out to do some geocaching.  We would drive off on some challenging roads, but being by ourselves, we never put ourselves in any dangerous situations.  When out by ourselves we would “pack” our weapons and always had with us an Acer Emergency Beacon.  Even in relatively safe situations, you never know what can happen, and we were well prepared.

The above describes what we did on a weekly basis, but there was always something happening in the evenings and on weekends.    We had geocaching events, park dinners/pot lucks, along with Branson style entertainment who came out to the park.  We also had dinner out with many friends at various restaurants and sports bars around Mesa and Apache Junction.  Our favorite Sports Bar was Native of New York where we had some great beer and wings.  Tuesdays and Thursdays, Native had all you want wings for .39 each (yum).   Weekends were our time to relax and maybe do our needed errands and town shopping.  So much depended on what the weather was like and this season it was usually very nice.  We literally had very little rain and some very mild temperatures.  Arizona is once again in a drought situation and desperately needs rain to raise the lakes and water tables.

Our biggest news of the season was the birth of two more great grand-children.  On January 26 our 7th great grandchild (a boy, Tristen Raymond Allen) and on April 15, our 8th great grand-child (a girl, Zoe Lavele Lopez) arrived.  We honestly don’t feel old enough to have 8 great grand kids!!  They are both so precious and we have yet to meet them in person.  By the time we get back to Salem, they will be so much bigger.

This picture is of Tristen and mommy just after birth.

 Here is Tristen at 3 months.  He is one very happy baby!!

This is Zoe and mommy just after birth.

 Here is another one of Zoe just after birth.  Look at all that hair.