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.