The RVGypsies travel blog

The Best Of List

2010-01-22T15:10:00.000-08:00

We played around with creating a 'best of the trip' list all along our journey but never took it too seriously. Then the other day I came across a couple of well worn, stained, folded pieces of paper with our notes about what we thought was best at the time. I decided "what the heck" let's put it in a blog. It's a completely random, partial list. Maybe we'll noodle on it more and keep adding. We sure had A LOT to choose from in 31,000 miles!!!

So here you go...

Prettiest state sign we saw: Mississippi
Best Food overall: Northern New Mexico (second place, Louisiana!)
Best Beaches: Navarre Beach, Florida
Campground most like Jurassic Park: Kathryn Abbey Hanna Park, Jacksonville, FL
Best Bear Sighting: Sequoia National Park, CA
Best Place to find Bigfoot: Caddo Lake, East Texas
Best Town for Original Art: Bisbee, Arizona
Best Coffee Huts: Dutch Brothers, Oregon
Best Town for Spiritual Art: Sedona, Arizona
Best Campground to ride bikes for kids: The Lakes RV & Golf Resort, Chowchilla, CA
Best Swimming Pool at campsite: The Lakes RV & Golf Resport, Chowchilla, CA
Best National Park: Zion, Utah
Hardest Junior Ranger book: Zion NP
Windiest Place we stayed: DeSmet, South Dakota
Best Science Museum: Albuquerque, New Mexico
Sawyer's Prettiest Place: Florida
Robby's Prettiest Place: City of Rocks SP, New Mexico
Best Sunsets: City of Rocks SP, New Mexico
Best Kids Fishing: Columbia, CA and Arcadia Lake, OK
Nicest Waitress: Petro Travel Plaza, San Luis, CA
Most police presence seen on highways: Florida
Best Kid's Breakfast: Shari's Restaurant, Medford, oR
Best Night Sky: Bisbee, Arizona
Best and Worst other kids to play with: Caddo Lake, East Texas

Merry Christmas 2009 & Lavender Festival

2009-12-26T20:24:00.000-08:00

The RV Gypsies wish you all an exciting and adventurous NEW YEAR!

We just celebrated a wonderful Christmas holiday with Joss' Uncle Larry and Aunt Linda from Oregon. We showed them around Sequim, took a walk on the

Dungeness Spit, ate Chinese food for Christmas Eve (just like in the movie "A Christmas Story") and opened presents with the kids. It was great. Our first Christmas in our Sequim house was very relaxing and filled with family and fun, just like the way we like it. Joss was excited to have a big picture window in the front of the house to put a tree in (she's always wanted one of those) and was able to put up her Dickens Christmas Village this year. It’s been 10 years since we’ve had it up…had to wait for the kidlin’s to mature a little!

Everyone asks us about the weather up here since Sequim is known for it's sunny days. Some people call it the blue hole since we are the last to cloud up and the first to clear up in the NW. Yes, we believe it is quite true. We get way more sunny days then most of the area. We also get much less rain (about 20 inches a year), but we have the beauty of the green trees and the Olympic Mountain Range right outside our windows. It really is a unique place!

The winter this year has been more mild compared to last year and the kids are missing the snow we had last year. In 2008, it was in the 20's & 30's for quite a bit of the winter, but this year more in the high 30's to mid 40's. That's just a shirt and a jacket to us. We have been getting some of the storms that are hitting the NW but we still don't get near the amount of rain as the rest of the area. This past Spring was sunny, beautiful and in the 70's. The Summer was the same but a bit warmer and quite long. We kept wondering when the fall weather was going to come and it finally showed in November. So Fall only seemed to last a month before Winter was upon us. We seem to get a good balance of moderate weather and it's just the way we wanted it. Maybe a little more snow for the kids, but don't tell the locals we said that!

Since Robert has had a few days off for the Holidays we’ve been getting on him about finally getting that blog up about the Summer Lavender Festival. So, without any more waiting, here it is, the Winter blog on the Summer Festival, enjoy.....

Sequim Lavender Festival Blog

The real reason our So Cal best friends Leanne and Kendra came to see us during the third week in July was the annual Lavender Festival! Sequim is the second largest growing community of lavender in the world. We have the perfect climate for growing lavender, which needs a certain colder temperature in the winter and not too much rain year round. We also have the largest lavender event in North America, the Sequim Lavender Festival. The population of Sequim more then doubles during Festival from 20,000 to about 50,000 or more.

Robert took a day off so he could come with us to the farms. The Festival includes a street fair with booths, food and live music and free bus rides to seven local lavender farms. We always love the street fairs, they had great shopping for all the lavender products you could ever imagine; lavender bundles, soap, painted bags, cooking herbs, perfume, lotions, notepads, artwork and photos in lavender theme, and much more. I’d never known there were so many items made from lavender. My favorite part about the street fair was the food. As my kids would say, DUH!! The different venders, all-local, worked hard to have lavender food for people to try. I had never tried food cooked with lavender as the herb before, but we got to try lavender grilled shrimp, salmon, and steak. We also had many glasses of lavender lemonade, white chocolate lavender cookies and our favorite, lavender ice cream. They had many different flavors of ice cream, black berry lavender, peppermint lavender, lemon lavender and white chocolate lavender. For me it was a tie between the black berry and the peppermint. Surprise, surprise, all the lavender food was DELICIOUS. We were all happily surprised. I bought a cookbook and will attempt to learn some of this lavender cooking before we have more visitors next summer. You’ve been warned!!

Leanne and I agree the best part of the festival were the farm tours. Each farm has different activities but they all have U-pick lavender bundles, lavender crafts they teach you to make, artists, live music, vendors and food from a local restaurant. Some of the tours had talks on how to make lavender products such as essential oils. Others taught about the many different varieties of lavender and how to grow them best or how to cook with lavender as an herb.

It was interesting how each farm had a different personality to it. Some farms were bustling with activity and fun for the whole family and others were more laid back and relaxing. I think Leanne and I enjoyed the first farm and one of our last farms the most. The first farm we went to, Jardin du Soleil, was high spirited and fun for the kids and adults alike. They had free pictures being taken in the lavender fields with your camera by a professional photographer and lots of fun booths for all, like tasting lavender honey, making glass beads with fire, rocks and crystals (always a hit with us) face painting and an English maze made with hedges.

The last farm we enjoyed because of it’s laid back atmosphere and also because Robert had the kids with him and us girls could sit back on the balcony of the farm house gift shop sipping lavender margaritas while looking out over the lavender fields at the end of the day. It was beautiful. It made me really proud to be a Sequim resident to have this wonderful festival right here in our own town.

Our summer visitors have left and now we are taking the trailer and visiting some of our friends and family in Oregon. The last week of summer we are heading to Oregon to visit our Aunt and Uncle again and also to visit our friend Railroad Ray. It’s been a great first summer in Sequim for the RVGypsies so far. Hope yours has been lovely too!!

Our first summer in Sequim

2009-08-16T21:29:00.000-07:00

Summer in Sequim has been wonderful. In June Nana and Papa Koch, (Josslyn’s folks), came up for Sawyer’s 6^th birthday party. Sawyer loved having his grandparents here for his big day. We drove them all over the peninsula, took them to the beach, berry picking at one of the local U-Pick berry farms and to our favorite place to take visitors, the Dungeness Spit. We ran them ragged for the whole week. I think they had fun though.

The weather in Sequim during the summer takes some getting used to for us “desert people” from Southern California. Call us spoiled but we’ve lived with 325+ days of sun a year. In So Cal, if you wake up and it’s sunny, it almost ALWAYS stays that way for the day. Not so in the Pacific Northwest! In the PNW the weather can change in the blink of an eye. I like it but I’m still not used to it. In the morning it can be raining and in the afternoon we could have sun and clear sky. One week we’ll be cooking along at 90 degrees and the next week it’s in the 50’s and raining. I personally love the unpredictability and the breaks from the extreme heat but some of our So Cal visitors didn’t care for the cooler temps. My parents were cold almost their entire visit in June when it was in the 60’s and a bit cloudy. Southern California was too hot for us so we are happy to have the cooler summer here on the peninsula.

The first part of the summer each of the boys had a week of sports camp. Shortly after that, some friends from home visited us.

The Murrillo Family only had one day in Sequim before they caught the ferry to Vancouver but they made the time to come and see our new home and take us to lunch at the 3 Crabs for Dungeness crab. We appreciated seeing them so much.

In between visitors and swim lessons we play on the block with the neighborhood gang of kids and venture out into the wild to see what we can see. We found a beautiful part of the Dungeness River where we can inner tube and swim on hot days and a some great places to bike and roller blade. We are keeping busy as I’m sure you are too.

We were very excited when our friends from Chino Hills, Leanne and Kendra, who visited us twice on our cross-country adventure, came for a visit as well! We went all over Sequim and Port Angeles showing them around. We hiked in the Olympic National Park and took them to the beach for a little PNW style beach excitement. Unfortunately the wind kicked in that day and made for an interesting cold beach experience. The kids didn’t seem to notice much but the moms did. But, the local birds liked the wind and we did have a fabulous show from two bald eagles that flew right over us for about ten minutes gliding on the currents.

We even went to the few spots in Port Angeles that are mentioned in the Twilight book series, Bella Italia Restaurant, the book store and the Lincoln Theatre. The ladies in the group particularly liked the Twilight store with the Bella and Edward life-size cutouts.

Our summer in Sequim will continue with another blog about the Lavender Festival. Stay tuned!

Trailer is ready for a new adventure!

2009-06-26T07:57:00.000-07:00

Our main website is www.RVGypsies.US. Click here to go there!

We finally decided to put our truck and trailer up for sale. The trailer is perfect for cross country travel, full time living or a spare (mobile) apartment. But it's more than we need now that we're settled down. The trailer is a 2008 Titanium, made by Glendale RV out of Ontario, Canada. The model is a 36E41, sometimes referred to as 36E41TBR. It has 2 bedrooms, sleeps 8, has 4 slide outs and lots of storage. We had it custom made at the factory and it's loaded with extras. The truck is a 2008 Ford, one ton, F-350 Lariat, dual rear wheel, diesel, also fully loaded!

Click here to view a video of the Titanium trailer features and differences!

If you're interested, send us an email at info@rvgypsies.us. We'll give you all the details so you can start your own adventure!

2009-03-01T12:17:00.000-08:00

New Beginnings in Sequim (Click on the pictures for a bigger view).

The kids got their wish, SNOW FOR CHRISTMAS!!! Sequim is not known for getting lots of snow, especially in town where we are, but this year we got almost two whole weeks with snow on the ground, including Christmas. Our kids were thrilled. They played out in the snow everyday throwing snowballs for the cats to chase and throwing at daddy. They LOVED that they got two extra days off of school due to the snow. (Don't tell them they have to make those up later, I'm not telling!) The locals were getting a bit tired of the snow but we were still enjoying it, until, we realized that we may not get to move into our new house because of it. Due to the ice on the roads we wouldn't be able to move the trailer up the hill to our new house. We had been scheduled to move into our new rental house the weekend after Christmas but the snow was still there, and even worse...ice.

But, true to RVGypsy timing, the sun came out just in time to melt all the ice and we were able to move the trailer to unpack. We spent our second Christmas in the trailer and had New Years in our new home. We found a great rental house that has never been a rental before. The house is a yellow one story ranch style home about 1800 sq. ft. At first it felt HUGE to us. After being in less than 400 sq. ft. for a year and a half this house seemed like a mansion. We are now getting used to it and it seems just right to us. It has a nice size grass front and back yard with a creek running along the side. Out my front windows we have a beautiful view of Mt. Baker, the San Juan Islands and on clear days we can see Canada!! I love to sit in our breakfast room to watch the huge cargo ships going to Seattle drift by. The cats LOVE the home because it has lots of windows with deep sills for the cats to lounge on and watch the birds. The cats have both been "fixed" and are much calmer now, very few escapes since we moved in.

After about a week of us being in the house Robert flew to Chino Hills and supervised the moving company load EVERYTHING we own that was in storage and scattered at friends and families homes. Within a short time the moving truck was at our door unloading all the belongings we had not seen for almost a year and a half. It was quite surreal to say the least. We are taking it slow, one box at a time. Except for the kids toys. Now that Robby is reading he is able to single out the boxes marked KIDS or TOYS and open them at a very fast rate. Yes, our home is once again overloaded with toys and they are having a blast.

There are three other kids on our block, a boy in sixth grade at the middle school and two sisters who we have become fast friends with. Robby and Sawyer right away loved playing with them and they ride their bikes to our house (and vice versa) and come to play whenever they can. Their mom, Penny, and I have become fast friends as well and walk and talk most every day after dropping the kids at the bus. Our street is almost exactly half a mile long so we know how many miles we are walking every day. It usually depends on how much we have to talk about. Penny and her girls have made Eunice St. seem like home very quickly for us.

The boys are back in school and used to their new buses. Sawyer goes a few days to an after school program at Cuddles and Crayons so I can get some of my work done and doctors apts, etc. He's not loving it but the social time for him is good. He tends to need a little more practice in that area compared to his big brother. The rest of the days he is home with me and we play games, legos, trains, Lincoln logs and whatever else is on his agenda for that day.

Robby has been very busy with Cub Scouts this winter doing fundraisers, food and blanket collection for the Humane Society and the fun Pinewood Derby race that they do each year. He came in second for his Den. He's made some very good friends in Cub Scouts and loves to work on anything having to do with the Den with daddy.

Robert is still in the learning curve for his new sales job at Home Depot. He is now the only rep on the Olympic Peninsula and they have added more stores plus two more products to his line. He is now selling roofing, windows, gutters, siding and insulation too. He's learning a lot and hopes to be on track by the time spring comes around and everyone realizes they can't wait any longer to get their home improved. The economy has hit our area as well but we still work at focusing on manifesting our dreams even in the situation many of us are in.

Unfortunately keeping up with the website and our blogs have suffered as it has not been the highest priority what with unpacking, doctors apt, eye doctor, dentist, vet, new school schedules etc. But, we did want to give you a glimpse of our new home so you can see where we have landed. Thanks for following along with us. We will do our best to keep you updated along the way of us settling in to our new home.

I have taken up reading again in my few moments alone while the kids are at school. I recently read all four books by Stephanie Meyers about a vampire family living in Forks, WA. I read the first one because it is based HERE on the Olympic Peninsula about a hour from us in the rain forest. I got so addicted to the books that I ended up reading all four within a short period of time. Sequim is actually mentioned in the fourth book. If you like to read, I highly recommend them. Start with her first one, Twilight, and see if you think they are for you. They were great winter reading, I couldn't put them down.

And so, despite the vampires who live so close to us, we love Sequim and all it has to offer. Many people ask us how the winter has been and in my opinion it has been much more mild than I expected. The locals say it's been quite a cold winter so I guess I'll be fine with it either way. It's been very clear and actually very little rain at all. I'd be ok with more rain but don't tell the residents I said that.

Sequim it is

2008-12-07T21:49:00.001-08:00

by Momma Gypsy

We've had beautiful fall weather so far in Sequim and we love it here. We've had a few rainy days but mostly blue sky and clear crisp days. The array of autumn colors are starting to fall to the ground to make way for winter and we hope for some snow.

It's been a challenging transition so far but we are all healthy and doing well so we know this too shall pass. We realize moving is a huge change on it's own but we have been moving for 15 months and now all of a sudden we are on school schedules, work schedules and bus schedules. It's been a lot for the seven of us to adjust to.We have actually made quite a few wonderful new friends here already and are grateful to have had two invitations for Thanksgiving. (Thanks Karla and Pat!) We are excited for what our future holds now that we are in our home of choice.
Robby is blossoming in the second grade at school and doing really well in math and catching up in reading. Tonight he proudly read two pages of Hardy Boys to us. He's doing great. He's also making friends and had four new friends at a bowling party for his 8th Birthday. He's joined Cub Scouts and is very excited about it.

Sawyer is having a harder time adjusting to being in school half days, daddy being gone a lot at work and big brother being gone at school all day. He misses his family that used to be together 24/7 and so do we. He has been getting some special "mommy time" before Robby gets home and he really likes that.

Robert is adjusting to being in sales again.

He's learning all new products, selling roofing, gutters and insulation for The Home Depot. He is one of only two sales reps for The Home Depot in the Olympic Peninsula and his boss has already added another store for him in Poulsbo, about an hour away. It means more driving but also more sales. He's also volunteered to be the Assistant Den Leader for Robby's Cub Scout pack. They look great in their uniforms!

I'm adjusting to being a full time stay at home mom again. Being on multiple schedules

(you all know I'm NOT a clock person!), working to keep it all together and running here at home. We've been looking for homes to rent in the kid's school district and have some promising options.

The kittens and Baylee have made great friends and keep me hopping all day long with their antics. Charlotte is in heat and has taken to escaping from the trailer at least five times a day. The day the doctor will fix her (when she's six months old, I'm counting the days), she'll be in there for her appointment. Sorry Charlotte, no more room at the Inn. We are all full up!!

We are very happy with our choice and love it here in beautiful Sequim. We've only seen it in the Winter time and we love it. We can't image what it looks like in Spring and Summer! Guess you'll just have to wait along with us! :)

We've ARRIVED!

2008-10-17T20:37:00.001-07:00

Well we have made it to our new home, Sequim Washington! After a whirlwind two week trip to Southern California (we'll write a separate blog about that trip soon), we picked up our trailer yesterday from the repair facility and moved back into it. It was so good to be back in our spacious home after being in the rental trailer. We were treated so well by the rental company that we'd highly recommend them if you're ever in the Portland Oregon area and needing a motorhome or trailer. Give Veronica a call at RV Northwest, they really understood how hard it was for us to be without our home and the uncertainty of when we'd get it back from the repairs.

Joss had to run an errand this morning on her way to Sequim and Robby went with her and the kittens. She took I-5 to Olympia, then headed off on Highway 101 towards Sequim. The pictures above are from her leg of the journey. Sawyer and I took the truck and trailer straight up I-5 to Tacoma, WA. Then we headed Northwest, eventually joining up with Joss and Robby where the 104 meets the 101. We caravaned into Sequim this evening and after setting up the trailer, headed to our favorite Mexican food restaurant just a couple blocks away.

It's good to put down the leveling jacks on the trailer and know that we are staying put for a while. How long you ask? We don't know what the future will bring but we're renting space 26 on a month to month basis at Gilgal Oasis RV Park for now. We'll start looking around at houses, barns, vacant land, boat slips, you name it! Just kidding about the boat slips though.

Next week I start my new job with a division of The Home Depot. The boys start school and Joss starts investigating our new hometown and looking at properties.

When we told some friends down south that I was going to work at/for The Home Depot, we got a few raised eyebrows. I won't exactly be stocking the shelves (not that there's anything wrong with that of course) but to be honest...it's so beautiful here...I'd pump gas here before going back to So Cal. :)

SEQUIM OR BUST

2008-10-08T08:48:00.000-07:00

by Mama Gypsy

The number one reason we did this trip was to find a new place to live. Well, after 14 months of traveling the country we have made our choice, "DRUM ROLL PLEASE!!" we've decided to move to Sequim, Washington. (Sequim rhymes with gym and swim, like sk-wim)

The first question most people ask us is "Why Sequim?" Good question, right!?

Purple Haze Lavender Farm

Sequim pasture

Elk or where they just big deer?

Joss with a new friend at the organic dairy farm

Joss and the boys at the Dungeness Spit

Last December, we spent three weeks in Sequim and it just felt like home. When we were packing to leave for other areas I said to Robert "I'd be perfectly happy just staying here right now." He said he would be too so we talked about it. We both thought that we may regret it if we did not complete the whole year long trip around the country so we decided to go ahead and go. We decided a few years ago that we did not want to have any big regrets like that in our lives any more, so we continued on our trip. Whether we noticed it or not, we found ourselves comparing every other place to the Northwest and specifically to Sequim. We decided pretty much by Valentine, Nebraska (late August this year) that Sequim was IT for us. But, there were still some other areas we were considering right up until last week. We had to get over our fears about what to do for a living there. Sequim is a little bit isolated from the big city, it's two hours or more from Seattle by ferry and about two hours from Tacoma or Olympia by car. But, like we handle most everything these days we decided that we were being led to Sequim by both our hearts and divine intervention, so we'd better just TRUST it and go.

We love Sequim because of it's beauty, weather and extremely friendly people. Sequim is known as the "banana belt" because of its unique location in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains. The average annual rainfall in Sequim is only 16 inches, yet 40 miles away, the Hoh Rain Forest boasts an annual rainfall of more than 150 inches, among the highest recorded within the United States. On June 21, 1995, the City leaders passed Ordinance 95-009, prohibiting "weather that may disrupt the plans of its residents and visitors (source: http://www.ci.sequim.wa.us/welcome.cfm)." The quality of life in the Sequim-Dungeness valley is something sought by others, and embraced by its residents.

We love being on the Straight of Juan De Fuca, the Puget Sound and across the Straight from Victoria BC. The city has water views in many directions, mountain views and beautiful valleys as well. The scenery is amazing. We have beaches galore to choose from and I LOVE a cold weather beach!! Sequim is also in close proximity to the beautiful San Juan Islands the area in which the movie "Free Willy" was filmed and has many pods of orcas living there year round. That's so cool. It is close enough to Seattle to go for the day or take friends who come to visit us (HINT, HINT). In the small town of about 5,500 people we have local organic produce farms, local raw dairy with fresh milk and cheese, local lavender farms to tour, and two festivals a year, the lavender festival and the irrigation festival. But we also have a Home Depot, Wal-Mart and Costco as well as a great Mexican Restaurant (a must for me). It's a small town surrounded by beautiful scenery, rivers, lakes and straights and sounds. Lots of water for us to kayak and canoe around. The whole Olympic Peninsula also has tons of biking trails both mountain and flat as well as fishing, boating and camping. It really is a great place for people like us who really like to live out of doors in nature.

We also felt the people in Sequim were just really friendly and seemed so happy to be living there. Even the teens we met there were polite and friendly and made us feel like this place was a place we could call home. So, in about a week or more, we will!

After we visit our family and friends here in our "old" home of Southern California we will drive up to Portland to pick up our trailer that has been in for repairs, then we'll head to Sequim and the end of our travel adventure will be the beginning of a new adventure for us, a new hometown and new state. We'll continue blogging as we get settled in and let you know how it's all going. Stay tuned as we find employment, get the kids in school and adjust to life as "normal" people who don't move their house every week.

Los Angeles again after 14 months away

2008-10-02T20:27:00.000-07:00

We came down I-5 today from our overnight stop in Lost Hills, CA. We were heading to Joss' parent's house to pick up our van we left with them 14 months ago, so we drove straight through Los Angeles via the Interstate. As we neared Los Angeles, the condition of the road worsened with every mile it seemed. Throughout the trip, we've kept an informal poll of various things. One of them being "worst roads". For a time, Oklahoma City had the honors. Then Louisiana took the crown away and held it for many months. Well, today the City of Angels took the award in spades! If you are driving an RV or towing a trailer and need to get to San Diego (or other port-of-call below LA) do your kidneys a favor and figure out a way AROUND Los Angeles!

I assume all the yuppies that cut us off and zig zagged through the traffic didn't notice it as much as we did. I think the suspension of those Beamers, Jags, Benz' and Lexus SUVs is a little more forgiving than our 1 ton, dually pickup with an 8,000 pound trailer.

Besides the road condition, Los Angeles (or the "Greater LA basin" as it's known) also gets the award for the worst drivers. When I say "worst" what I mean to include is "unsafe", "rude", "harried", "impatient" and "stupid". I can say those things because I used to be one. I have worked as a salesperson, driving a company car, around Los Angeles for many years. And being in that position, I was occasionally late, distracted or stressed...sometimes all at once! I drove too fast, cut to close to large vehicles that were moving too slow to pose a danger of hitting me and generally was an jerk of sorts. I was never rude on purpose (okay, almost never) but I can now see how my driving may have been interpreted that way. Ahh the wisdom that comes with age. Age and the experience of driving a 27,000 pound rig all around the country. As we've said before, you don't do ANYTHING fast when you're towing that much trailer. I guess you could say I've mellowed a bit in my driving and there were a lot of people on the road today that certainly HAVEN'T!

But enough of the drivers and roads. What about the beauty of the big city? To be fair, let me preface my comments with the acknowledgement that most Interstates that go through "big" cities don't usually go through the most pretty parts of town. There, that's my disclaimer and if you live in Los Angeles and you love the city...good for you, I hope you've found your little slice of paradise. BUT if you're driving down (or up) I-5, Los Angeles is about the ugliest city we've seen on the whole trip!

We put a positive spin on the visual assault to our senses by telling ourselves that this little trip through LA LA land was to serve as a reminder of why we left in the first place. We have seen such natural beauty all across the country that the smog, haze, concrete, trash and traffic of Los Angeles leaves us no doubt that we've done the right thing.

While we can't wait to see our friends and family while we're down here...we can't wait to head North for the last time!

Kitty close call!

2008-09-25T20:48:00.000-07:00

Half-Pint on Robby's bed

Mortal combat at 9pm!

Half-Pint

Charlotte

Half-Pint on the dashboard

Charlotte on mommy's lap

Humm, what smells so good in here?

Lots of folks have asked how the kittens are getting along "on the road"? They are doing great! They have taken to sleeping on Robby's bed (his is the top bunk) and playing every night, starting at 8:30pm (the kid's bedtime!). They sleep most of the day and I think they play all night. Baylee is still agitated by them and can't help but try to nuzzle them to get them to "do something". This is because the kittens have decided THEY run the house and "the dog" is just an annoyance to be ignored. They move quickly and Baylee gets excited about the activity. The kittens are very tolerant of her intrusions and when they've had enough, they give her a few good swipes with the claws and a hiss thrown in for good measure.

The kittens have brought much energy, silliness and laughter to our Gypsy home. Joss and I can't believe we've gone so long without cats. We both love cats and the boys have wanted cats for years. At our old home, the coyotes kept eating the neighborhood cats. After we lost our last three in 2000, we said we wouldn't get any more until we moved. Well we've been moving!

The kittens are up each morning BRIGHT and EARLY! The other day, Joss said "they're getting us all ready for when we settle down and have to be up for school." I guess she's right, Robby has certainly been getting up earlier (Sawyer has ALWAYS got up early).

Well that's how they've been doing in the family for the past few weeks. Now on to the close call the other night...

It was 9:30pm when Charlotte was on our bed playing and chewing on one of our foam ear plugs (ear plugs are an RVing necessity if you're going to be in an urban RV park, in case you didn't know). I was watching her happily chewing on the bright orange earplug when, GULP, down it went. At least most of it went down, she had chewed part of it off. She wasn't phased in the least about it and went on playing. Joss was very concerned and said "get on the Internet and look that up. What do we need to do?"

I googled "kitten swallowed foam ear plug" and found a few stories but nothing helpful. Then I noticed one of those Google Ads on the right side of the screen. It said something like "Experts online are waiting to answer your questions" so I clicked on it. The website is JustAnswer.com and you can post your question in the appropriate category. They have experts all over the world online to answer the question. You can deposit funds (refundable) into your account with them and then choose how much to pay the experts for the answer (if you are satisfied with it).

We got a hold of a Registered Veterinary Technician in Walnut Grove, CA at 10pm and she answered all of our questions about what to do. She said we had to make her throw up or it could get stuck in her intestines later on and force emergency surgery ($$). I'd read online that other's had noticed their cats feeling ill and had X-rays taken, then surgery. Athena (the RVT) told us to give her a teaspoon of hydrogen peroxide and wait 10-15 minutes. If she didn't throw up, do it again. We did it twice and it didn't work, but we could tell Charlotte was NOT feeling well NOW. We emailed Athena again and she said to try it one more time. This time it worked thank God! Charlotte threw up TWO pieces of earplugs and we hadn't seen her eat the first one!

The next day, Charlotte was not feeling her usual, perky self but she's completely back to normal now. That website, at 10 pm, saved us a trip to the kitty emergency room in a strange city! It was worth every penny we paid. They have a lot of different experts online, check it out, you never know when you might need some help.

Other folks have asked "where do you keep the litter box in the trailer?" The boys made a deal with us. If we got kittens, they would keep the litter box in their room and clean it at least twice a day. The food and water is also in their room, up high where Baylee can't reach it. So far, it's working out great.

After the boys go to bed, the kittens come alive and race around the trailer trying to kick each other's butts! After they have that out of their systems, they curl up on our bed and WE get some cuddle time with them!

We love our little kitties!!!

Missoula Monkey business

2008-09-22T15:11:00.000-07:00

Celebrating Baylee's 12th b-day and second on the road.

After our tire blowouts we stayed in Butte, MT for a night then headed to the big city of Missoula. Baylee's 12th birthday was earlier in the month but we haven't been able to find a party store to buy the appropriate fete materials. Missoula had a Party America store (along with just about every other big chain store you could imagine) so we were ready to celebrate the old girl's birthday. Baylee is the only family member to celebrate two birthday's on the road. Her 11th b-day was in Chowchilla, CA, just a few weeks after our journey started.

Mr. Mysterio and his assistant pull a rabbit out of h is h at!

Robby has been interested in magic for some time now and he earned a cool magic trick set that Joss bought some time ago. He's been practicing on us but didn't have the complete magician ensemble. Well the trip to the party store fixed that! Now Mr. Mysterio (as I call him) is decked out with top hat and cape. He wanted his little brother to be his "lovely assistant" but Sawyer wanted too much of the limelight! Words were said, blows were thrown (just kidding) and Sawyer is now on this side of the stage with the rest of us!

At the trailhead (Robby mis sed the memo on the Aqua attire)

Along the trip, one of the really cool things that happens from time to time is we meet up with fellow travelers. Sometimes, as with the Wiley's in Baton Rouge, we meet in one place, then we stalk them...I mean go to visit them, in their hometown. It's fun for all of us to reconnect and we've made some great friendships that way.

Well, while we were planning our trip in early 2007 and doing online research about families on the road, we came across the Vogel family that was biking around North America. They had twin boys, Davy and Daryl who were 8 at the time. They wrapped up their first trip and headed home to Boise, Idaho as we were getting close to leaving on our trip. They only stayed put for a year before embarking on a HUGE bicycling trip from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to the southern tip of S. America in Argentina. When they're done the boys will become Guinness World Record holders as the youngest people to cycle the Pan-American Highway! They left in June on this 2 1/2 year trip so we've been following their blog (http://www.familyonbikes.org). As we were closing in on Missoula, MT we read that they were planning on staying there for a few days. We emailed and made arrangements to meet.

After meeting up, we all decided to go hiking up Rattlesnake Trail. The weather was beautiful in Missoula and made for great hiking. The Vogel's were staying with hosts Laurie and Ed they met online through www.warmshowers.org. Laurie took her nephew and his friend along so we had SIX boys under 11 years old. Good thing we were outside!

Robby and Daryl are picking berries in preparation of their "berry wars" below.

Some river shots along the trail. If you're reading this blog in a big city and have never sat along side a natural river/creek...put it on your list of things to do before you die (and do it often!)

All the boys as they double dog dared each other to jump in fully clothed (or not).

Below, Laurie didn't need no double dog daring, she was the first one in!

After hiking we went back to Laurie's house near the University (of Montana) and ordered pizza. The boys had a great time playing in the basement with Lincoln logs and other toys. It was nice to see that even if you're a 10 year old that is bicycling across two continents, you are still a kid at heart.

The next day, I picked up the boys and we did some Geocaching on the UofM campus. Here the group is investigating a micro cache (35mm film canister hidden behind a plaque).

That evening, Sawyer was tuckered out so he and I stayed home (the Missoula KOA campground) while Joss and Robby took them back. Here is the Vogel family with Joss and Robby at Laurie's house. The next day (Friday) they were taking to the road again after getting both wheels replaced on their tandem bike. We were taking off also after getting some of our tire issues taken care of.

John, Nancy, Josslyn, Daryl, Davy and Robby. The FamilyOnBikes and the RVGypsies.

Thar she blows!

2008-09-14T20:47:00.000-07:00

Well, we were GOING to write some quick blogs about our stops at Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse Monument and Devils Tower but something more exciting happened today.

We blew TWO trailer tires at the same time on I-90 about 50 miles East of Butte, Montana. Joss was driving with me reading Hardy Boys mysteries to the boys and herding kittens when ALL OF THE SUDDEN... BAM (or was it BOOM?) I think it was more of a KA-BOOM with lots of flying rubber parts and smoke and who knows what else. Joss did a fantastic job of pulling the rig over carefully while I got the fire extinguisher and jumped out (I did mention smoke right?) Well the smoke was just the burning rubber from the disintegrated tire so we were okay in that respect.

When the steel-belts started whipping around in the wheel-well of the trailer, they started tearing things up. It's well known in the RVing world that tire blowouts can make for some COSTLY repairs. In our case it tore up the underside of the trailer all the way through the insulation and the subfloor bad enough to cause the carpet (inside) and the door molding to bulge. The steel belts also grabbed the 3/16" steel box around the steps and folded it neatly up, thereby ripping out one side of the steps and leaving them to drag on the highway (did I mention debris?).

After setting out the reflective triangles on the highway, I walked back to the scene of the blowout to collect some of the bigger pieces of metal and tire from the road. We don't want to litter now do we?! A Montana highway patrol officer was going the other direction when he saw us pull over so he quickly turned around and waited while we called the Good Sam Roadside Service.

Because our trailer is so big (and heavy) we have heavier duty tires than most trailers. It took Good Sam an hour to locate a tire service that had our size tire. But they did and Rayne from Whalen Tire came to our rescue. He mounted a new tire on one rim and put the spare in place of the other. He attached a chain to his truck and we pulled the bent steel plate back out of the way so we could get the new tire on. All in all it took about 3 1/2 hours which is exactly how much time we spent LAST September on the side of the road with our blown radiator. Humm, what is it about September???

All's well as they say and it was a beautiful day to get stranded on the side of the road. Here's a shot of our rig with the tire service truck next to us. Thanks Rayne!

Robert's New Job

2008-09-06T22:15:00.000-07:00

Written by Mama Gypsy
We came to DeSmet for me because I'm a huge Laura Ingalls Wilder fan and I've always wanted to see some of her homes and museums to learn more about her and for the kids to learn. So, because Robert is such a good husband and tries very hard to make me happy he agreed to go
not only to DeSmet, SD but also all the way (backtracking a bit) to Walnut Grove, MN as well. However, sometimes you go one place for one person and it really turns out to be for another person. Well, that's what happened in this case. We were really meant to be here for Robert.

We arrived Monday evening excited to partake in all that the Ingalls Homestead had to offer. We had no idea what we were in for. We found out we could camp right there on the Homestead land, about a mile from town. We jumped at this opportunity to "live" on the same land that the Ingalls Family lived on 128 years ago. That first night we found out what a treat this was going to be. Diane in the gift shop told us we could have the run of the place and to make ourselves feel at home. We did. We were the only campers there for most of the week so we were literally the only people on the land at night. That first night we climbed their lookout tower to watch the sunset with not another soul around for miles. The sunset was beautiful and the peace and quiet even more wonderful. A great start to an amazing week.

As usual we had planned to stay only three to four days, but we almost always end up staying longer. This time was no exception. The first day we roamed around the Homestead. It is 160 acres, the exact 160 acres that Pa Ingalls Homesteaded. They have a dugout home built into a hill like the Ingalls lived in on Plum Creek; a claim shanty like most people lived in once they got here; a house like the one Pa built on the site; a hay roof barn like Pa built; a barn and an old garage with all sorts of crafts to do in it. They let us walk around and do as much as we wanted to and we could do everything as many times as we wanted to.

They have a covered wagon ride that takes you out to an old one room school house that is an exact model of the one Laura taught in. They have a school teacher there waiting to give you a lesson, a fun lesson. The kids dress up in old fashioned bonnets and dresses or cowboy hats for the boys. We did that about four times! Back in the garage you can learn how to make a corn cob doll just like Laura had in "Little House in the Big Woods." Sawyer kept making them and making them until he'd made seven or eight. They told him to make as many as he wanted and he did. He kept asking to go back to make more each day. They teach you how to make your own rope and boys like rope! All three of them made about 10 ropes. We learned how they ground wheat in a coffee mill during "The Long Winter" and the kids got to actually do it. In the little house that Pa built they let the kids wash laundry with real lye soap that they make here on the Homestead. The owners' daughter, Ann, taught the kids how to spin wool on a spinning wheel as well as let the boys help her pull up vegetables in the garden and even take them home for dinner. Sawyer actually ate tomatoes from the garden that night and he hates tomatoes. As you can see there is a lot to do here and we did it all, over and over and over again.

Throughout the first couple of days Robert got to talking to the people who work at the homestead and found out it is family owned and run and had been for 12 years since they'd bought the land. Robert made friends with the owner's father, Grandpa Bob, who was helping out for the summer since they were a bit short handed. Robert started helping him with chores: shoveling out the stalls, watering the horses and cows, etc. Then he started learning some of the other activities like the rope, the corn cob dolls and even the little pony cart that Grandpa Bob took the kids for rides in. By the fourth day Robert was helping so much, pretty much all day, that I went to the gift shop and bought him a shirt so he'd look like the other workers. He started going out at 9am to help them bring in the cows and the horses from their farm next door and he'd help them take them back at the end of the day. He was able to help out pretty much where ever they asked him to and he was happy to do it. I think after a year and a half of not working a job it probably felt good to be working hard again. Robert loves to help out where ever is needed and I think he felt needed too. He also loves learning anything new and he learned a lot about hitching up the horses, feeding and watering them and much more. So after almost a week being here and working on the farm we joke that Robert has a new job. Also after a week of working on a farm from 9am to 7pm he was dog tired and ready for a rest.

We left DeSmet traveling for the first time as a Gypsy Family of SEVEN! We have added to our clan. The mama cat at the Homestead had kittens just the right age to be going out on their own and the family offered to let us take some of the kittens. Since we had promised the kids cats when we got settled somewhere we couldn't pass up the early opportunity to have some authentic Laura Ingalls Wilder Homestead cats, now could we? We didn't. We now have two new additions to our family, Charlotte, named after Laura's first rag doll and Half-Pint, Laura's nick name by Pa.

Once we decided that we'd take the cats we started bringing them to the trailer a little each day to get them used to it and to get Baylee used to their smell. Our last night the kittens stayed the night in Robby's bed. It will be a whole new adventure to see how these kittens adapt from a farm life to a gypsy life and how we all adapt to having cats again. It is exciting to us since we love cats and have not had any for more than eight years. Already we can tell they are a happy addition to our growing family. They make us laugh with their antics and that is a very nice thing. We are grateful for all of Gods gifts and we feel these little souls are two of them.

We'd like to say a GREAT BIG THANK YOU to the Sullivan family and all employees of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Homestead. You truly made us feel like family and we had one of the most amazing times while on this adventure of ours around the country. You are truly a gift to all the families who come through your farm. Keep up the great work!!

A "Friend"ly town!

2008-08-30T19:49:00.000-07:00

My (Robert) mom was born on a farm in Southeast Nebraska. The name of the town is Friend and I always thought it was because the people were so nice there! Turns out it was named for it's founder in 1870, Charles Friend, but that doesn't take away from how nice folks still are. My mom's Great Grandfather, Charles Warner, homesteaded after he was released from a Southern prison camp (Andersonville) after the Civil War. As a kid, I heard many stories about life on the farm and when I was 8 years old, I got to see it. A farm is a GREAT place to spend some time if you're a kid. Nothing like playing in the hay loft, digging for popping corn out of the crib, helping slop the pigs, collect the eggs and drink lemonade on the front lawn under the century old trees. I remember that visit like it was last week, though it was over 30 years ago. Yup, nothing like a genuine farm to leave an impression on young "city" boy!

Our journey to Friend started after the RVGypsies decided to turn West and head for our family reunion in Colorado. Coming from St. Joe, Missouri, the town of Friend was right on the way. I wanted to go back and visit the old farm (it's no longer in the family unfortunately) and take pictures of the town. Many of the folks at the reunion have their roots in Friend also. I had read that there was short term RV parking in the town park, complete with electricity and water so that's where we headed after picking up the mail we had sent there ahead of us. Burley park is the only park in Friend (pop. 1,172 thereabouts) and when I asked directions of the postal clerk, she just said "You mean it has a name? I've always just called it the park!" We settled in on a Friday evening and it was a beautiful park, complete with community swimming pool (circular in shape with the deep "end" in the middle!)

First thing Saturday morning we headed in to the main part of town, which was all of 9 blocks away. We found the main intersection closed off to traffic because they were holding a auction right on the main drag. Turns out it was an estate sale auction...of a distant relative of mine! There were no next of kin, so EVERYTHING in the house was up for sale...including boxes of Reynolds wrap, tupperware, wrapping paper...you name it. They also auctioned off a 1959 Cadillac Sedan de Ville that was mostly restored. Wow, I would have loved to have that but there's just no room in the trailer to park it!

After watching the auction for a while, we headed to Yokel's Hardware, a Friend institution since 1920. Will Yokel is the current proprietor and grandson of the founder. We were instantly greeted with the small town friendliness that I thought Friend was named for. After introductions, Will told us that his Grandmother was best friends with my Great Aunt Francis. Aunt Francis passed away in 1990 but she's still fondly remembered in town. Will was very happy to fill me in on the town and became our official ambassador to the great town of Friend.

Above the hardware store is the old Warren Opera House or Friend Opera House as it's also known. It was built in 1896 at a cost of $40,000 and is the only establishment of its kind for a 50 mile radius from Friend. It was in great use for approximately 34 years and has been sitting dark ever since. That is until the Friend Historical Society was formed and plans for the restoration of the Grand ole Dame were hatched. This opera house was the scene for many of the local high school plays, sporting events, political debates as well as professional productions. It even hosted a circus once, complete with an elephant that had to climb the stairs to get in! Will gave us a private tour of the opera house and showed us where the actors used to sign their names in the dressing room. The power was off so we searched the walls by flashlight. To our surprise we found the signatures of my Grandfather Glenn Warner and my Great Uncle Harold Warner (one of Glenn's brothers)! Their signatures have been on those walls, waiting to be discovered since the 1920's. One of the scenery paintings, still hanging on stage, is from a 1897 production, wow! This is truly a time capsule just waiting to be revealed. And the time is now...

The Historical Society is raising money to restore the Opera House and they've already made some great progress. If you would like to make a tax deductible donation, please send an email to FriendOperaHouse@gmail.com and we'll get you in touch with the right people.

The rest of our time in Friend was spent taking pictures of the historic homes, many of them restored already and going to visit my family's farm. The land around the farmhouse appears to be worked by someone else and the house and buildings are in disrepair but it still brought back vivid and exciting memories I created as an 8 year old boy from "the city". For the family reunion we were headed to, I put together a slide show of our stay in Friend. I think it went over well and the RVGypsies were happy we could show everyone the "old hometown".

Will and I have kept in touch since we left and if you're reading this, we want you to know how much we appreciated how welcome you made us feel!

Ahhh Nashville Tennessee!

2008-07-24T20:15:00.001-07:00

Joss and I learned early in our courtship that we both shared a love of country music. We had in common such favorites as Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash and others. She introduced me to Randy Travis, the Judds, Dixie Chicks and others and I introduced her to the Kingston Trio, the Statler Bros. and more. We were looking forward to seeing Nashville the closer we got. The week before we were to hit town, Joss asked me to get tickets to the Grand Ole Opry, which I did online, and we were all set for the Tuesday night radio show performance.

As a young girl, Joss watched "A coal miner's daughter" and fell in love with Loretta Lynn's story and her songs. She would listen to a cassette tape over and over to learn the words. When were we dating, she made me watch it with her as a test of our compatiblity. I loved it too. I grew up listening to Hank Williams, Hank Snow, Johnny Paycheck, Dolly Parton and dozens more from my Dad's 8-track tape player in the car and country radio. Every weekend, Hee-Haw would be a staple in the Streett household and I would watch right along with my Dad and Mom (I don't remember my sisters being there, humm...) The very first thing I ever won on my own doing, was a 45 single of Johnny Cash's "One piece at a time". I won it from a Los Angeles country radio station, KLAC 570AM when I was about 12. Johnny Cash is still and always will be my favorite singer.

Anyway, back to the Gypsy travels. We found an Army Corp of Engineers campground about 8 miles East of Nashville and set up camp. I really wanted to see the Country Music Hall of Fame and the other's weren't as excited about it so I went alone one day. I liked the museum a lot but it didn't have enough of what I was looking for (very little on Johnny Cash or the Carter family!). But it was awesome in its design, lighting, movies and audio features. The Grand Ole Opry museum however, did have more of what I was looking for. More about that later.

Tuesday rolled around and we all got dressed up for the Grand Ole Opry. It struck us as quite funny that it was located adjacent to the parking lot of the Opry Mills shopping mall. (If you're from So Cal, think Ontario Mills and you'll have the picture of the Opry Mills). Well it turns out, the Opry moved to it's present location 30 some years ago and everything else built up around it. We were amazed at the size of the crowd as we parked Clyde (our truck) and headed to the performance. Wouldn't you know it, after 3 pictures outside, our camera battery went dead...and we had forgotten to bring the spare! Joss had to buy a disposable camera so the shots from that evening are still trapped on film, encased in plastic, sitting in a box, in the trailer.

We had mezzanine seats, or should I say bench seats (nicely padded however) and had a good view of the stage. In the center spotlight, there is a 6' circle of stage from the original Grand Ole Opry at the Ryman Auditorium. The performers of today can stand on the same wood as the legends of yesteryear...pretty cool! During the performances (there were 8 acts of 15 minutes each) the audience was encouraged to come down front to take pictures. Joss took turns taking the boys down at different times and they loved it! The one left behind with me was thrilled to see his brother and mom "down there"!

We all came back to the city another day to eat lunch at the Hard Rock and take a trolley tour of the town. It is amazing how many song writers are working in Nashville today trying to pen that next big hit! I believe our guide said something like 30,000. Our trolley took us to Music Row and the Capital Building and the Parthenon. After that we went back to the Grand Ole Opry to visit the museum they have next door. The museum is free and very, very interesting. It goes in depth with all the main stars of the Opry; Minnie Pearl, Roy Acuff, Marty Robbins, Porter Wagoner and dozens of others. It's a Nashville must see!

Just before leaving, we drove down to Murfeesboro to meet up with a new friend, "Mike the bike" (as the kids call him). The day we were leaving Savannah GA, Mike pulled in on a shiny new motorcycle and proceeded to pitch his tent. The boys were attracted to him like iron dust to a magnet and we talked with him for what must have been an hour. Later we gave him our website and said our goodbyes. Down the road in our travels, Mike emailed and said when we get to Nashville to look him up...so we did! Never give a gypsy an open invitation if you don't want them to take it! We thought it a good opportunity to see another town around Nashville so we offered to meet him close to home instead of back in the big city. He and his friend Miche (pron. Mickie) went to an Italian dinner with us and we loved getting to know them better. After dinner, the boys loved hanging all over Mike's bike!

Joss and I both felt we could spend more time in Nashville and look forward to coming back.

Decompress in the Great Smokies

2008-07-22T17:39:00.000-07:00

The RV park in Asheville, NC did not have space for us for the 4th of July holiday so Robert had made reservations just over the mountains in Tennessee near Gatlinburg. We were ready to leave by then anyway. We felt bad that while our friends were visiting we happened to be
staying at one of the worst RV Parks we'd stayed at. They were not kid or dog friendly and watched us like hawks. We felt like we had the Gestapo breathing down our necks at every turn. We were ready to leave and the Smokey Bear campground in Gatlinburg was exactly what we needed. It was kid friendly, dog friendly and adult friendly too. They had a great pool, great playground with a basketball court and all sorts of activities planned for the 4th of
July weekend.

From the earliest hours of arriving we knew this place was exactly what we needed. It had lots of big trees in between the campsites for a woodsy feel and privacy and it just felt good to be there. The first night they had a wonderful female duo, The Cinnamon Girls, giving us a private campground concert. We all pulled our chairs up in front of the main office and we listened and swayed to the music. I could feel the stress of the last few weeks just drip off of me with each song they sang. It was great. The Cinnamon Girls had two very distinct voices and had wonderful harmony together. We bought their CD and have been listening to it a lot. Their website is www.cinnamongirls.net check them out. The concert started the whole weekend out right.

The rest of the weekend was fabulous too. We spent a day driving through the Smokey Mountains National Park seeing the beautiful Smokey Mountains in their full smokey glory from a recent rain fall. We did a lot of hiking in beautiful natural settings, our favorite thing to
do. To celebrate the 4th of July, Robert found a firework show at a local fairgrounds and we went there with our chairs and tried to blend in with the locals to watch the fire works. They may not have even known we were from a whole other country, I mean state! This was the first place where we did feel like we were in a whole other country. The difference from Southern California to Eastern Tennessee is much bigger than we've felt yet.

The kids had all sorts of questions about where the fire works would be, why they needed the fire truck, where the bathrooms were, you know, they kept us busy answering their constant barrage of questions. You'd think we'd be used to it by now but it still always seems to surprise us with how much these kids can talk, NON-STOP!! But, it is also amazing how once the fire works start, the kids shut up and just watch. We always enjoy a good fire works show and this was no different.

After one pass up the main drag in Gatlinburg, we decided it was too much like Myrtle Beach or Las Vegas, lots of tourist trap! So we avoided it like the plague, taking the bypass road whenever possible.

We had to leave the Smokey Bear Campground early, just when we were making some new friends, to drive to Cookeville, TN to have some work done on our trailer. We had an appointment Monday morning after the 4th weekend. We had to keep the appointment and they are not always easy to get. Oh well, these things are important too. They have to be done I guess. We can't have fun all the time, Can we?

We drove to the Cookeville Wal-Mart and spent the night there. While the trailer was getting some attention there wasn't much to do in Cookeville. I wouldn't recommend going there unless you absolutely have to. Robby and I did a double feature at the movies while Robert and Baylee drove around keeping cool in the truck's A/C. We also found the one and only city park and read some Hardy Boys. Other than that once the trailer was finished we quickly made tracks for NASHVILLE, TN! Whoo Hoo! Now there is one great place. I'll write about that later. Joss

No Peeing in the Shower here

2008-07-15T06:21:00.000-07:00

Written by Mama Gypsy, for a change of pace

We spent a week and a half in Asheville, NC. Countless people along
our travels have told us to go there and check it out for a possible
home, so, we did.

The first few days were spent getting ready for our friends from Chino
Hills, CA to come for a visit, Leanne and her daughter, Kendra. We
did grocery shopping galore, repairs, cleaning and a bit of left over
laundry. We got lost at every stop we made and that continued
throughout our stay there. We had to ask ourselves the deeper
question of, "why do we feel lost?" Asheville is set up in a strange
way with lots of turns and every street has three or four different
names. I think it's because the locals really don't want any more
people to move there but who knows. It got a little better once we
got our updated navigation disk in the mail. One local told me she would
rather not be in anyone's GPS at all. I get her on that, really I do,
but when you are traveling the country and in a different city every
week, the GPS is extremely helpful.

Our friends arrived and we were all so excited to see a friendly face
from HOME! We've been away from home almost a full year now and it
was so nice to see someone from our past. We love meeting new friends
but it's always nice to see a good "old" friend too.

I spent some time getting Leanne and Kendra acquainted with all the
special features of the trailer and all the things they would need to
know in order to survive a week living as GYPSY girls, such as; how to
flush the toilet, how to open the shades, how to know when the grey
tank is full, how to work the shower and how to conserve water while
showering, etc. Then I forgot one important thing, I yelled to them
in the living room, "OH YEAH, NO PEEING IN THE SHOWER!" We are not
allowed to pee in the shower because it has a separate tank and it
does not have chemicals in the tank. It is important to remember when you live
with little boys but Leanne assured me it would NOT be a problem as
she laughed out loud. I realized then for the first time in a year,
THE GIRLS AND THE BOYS WERE NOW EQUAL IN NUMBERS!! Actually, counting
Baylee, we out numbered the boys!! Whoo Hoo!! In hindsight, was that
a good thing, or a bad thing? Hmmmm.......

After getting them settled in we went over the itinerary for the week.
We had a lot of things we wanted to do. First on the list and I
think the most fun we had together as a group all week was Sliding
Rock. Sliding rock is a huge natural rock slide in the Pisgah
(Pizz-Gah) Mountains near Asheville. Yes, the water was cold but I
thought very refreshing. I discovered I like really cold water in warm
weather. Joss, Robert, Leanne and Robby all tried the natural slide
and Joss was the only one in the group to go more than once. You go
girl! (Good to cheer yourself on now and then) The river was
beautiful and we all had fun exploring and sliding. As we were
getting ready to leave Robby wanted me to so see the rock slide he'd
found down river. The others headed to the truck to change and Robby
and I went to "his" rock slide. Just as we did it started to rain. I
can honestly say there is something very beautiful about swimming in
the river while it is raining. I felt extremely free not having to
worry about getting wet and being naturally baptized by God
him/herself. It was truly beautiful.

We shopped in downtown Asheville and we shopped near by Hendersonville, a very cute
little town with a fabulous Indian Arts store called All Nations
Trading Co. and a wonderful old General Store like the old fashioned
General stores of yesteryear. Leanne and I got trapped in the store
during one of the rouge thunderstorms that they get here in the East.
Bummer, trapped in a store. Yes, we found plenty to do.
We again celebrated with our friends, Sawyer's fifth birthday at a
Chuck E Cheese type place called Fun Depot. We were thrilled that our
new friends who we had met in Charleston, SC were able to come and
play with us, Gail and her son Henry. We all had a blast on the
bumper cars and go carts.
Our week did not go without some hitches though. With so many people
in such a little space you are bound to have some issues. We had no
idea they'd be the issues we dealt with though. Leanne and I wanted
to call this little write up "The House of Hormones" but were out
voted by the men in the group. All week we battled with the many
people in the group and the hormones that governed their bodies and
emotions. Sawyer is going through his five year old hormones and now
and then gets quite angry and aggressive for no apparent reason. He
starts yelling, usually at me, that he hates me and I'm so mean.
Kendra is going through newly pre-pre-teen hormones and was very whiny
and moody much of the time going hours without talking a single
syllable that made any sense to anyone except to Baylee and certain
alien life forms. After days of this whiny talk both Leanne and I
thought we'd go crazy until our monthly hormones kicked in as well and
we both had hormone headaches that the only relief was retail therapy-
ALONE! We took a day to ourselves to go shopping, had lots of
caffeine and a whole bunch of Ibuprofin and it seemed to get better.

One thing I must talk about is that Leanne is a 1st grade teacher in
CA. She thankfully brought along the tests that she gives her class
so we could get an idea as to where Robby is with his road-schooling.
He marked a 96% on his math and a 94% on his reading test. Much
better than we thought. However, he is not quite up to par on his
speed. It took him three times longer to read then it did her class
so we will have to work all summer on sight words and decoding words
so he can read at 2nd grade level. His comprehension of what
he is reading is excellent. Overall we were quite happy with the
results knowing that he is not too far behind in the main subjects. I
feel confident with Leanne's help that we can get him fully caught up
by the time he starts school, whenever and where ever that is.

Our wonderful new friends from Asheville, Gail, Ben and their adorable
son, Henry, were generous enough to take all three kids for a full day
so that Leanne, Robert and I could go to the Biltmore Home by
ourselves. We relished in a full day with no kid worries or
interruptions and for the first time on the trip paid extra for the
headphone guided tour. We spent hours in the largest home in our
country and reveled at it's amazing architecture and gorgeous interior
and amazing renovations for the time. In the late 1800's it had full
electricity, an indoor pool with underwater lighting and it's own
bowling alley. I don't think I have to tell you but we had a fabulous
day. We spent some time in the garden where I got some of my best
flower shots of the whole year and then we headed to the winery for
Robert and Leanne to sample some of their wines. After a very full
day we met up with Ben and Gail to pick up the kids and find out what
they had done all day. The had taken the kids fishing at their
friends trout pond and caught a whole lot of fish. Kendra ended up
catching the most fish of any of them and was quite proud of it.
On our last day together we all drove about an hour outside of
Asheville to go see Chimney Rock. It is a large rock that extends up
and out and they have put stairs up to it so you can walk on it and
take photos of the surrounding beautiful countryside. Everyone was
tired and grumpy from a busy week and we had our challenges but also
managed to enjoy the beauty of North Carolina.

We said our sad good-byes as they left to drive to the airport in
Charlotte. It all seemed to pass so quickly as good times do. The
boys are still talking about missing their friend Kendra and wishing
she was still here to drive with in the back of the truck. We miss
our dear friends and hope to be back in Chino Hills for a visit before
too long.

After Asheville,NC we headed to Gatlinburg, TN to check out the famous
Smokey Mountains. Take a break from this long blog of mine and read
about our 4th of July in Gatlinburg next time.

What to write...that is the question.

2008-06-28T17:01:00.000-07:00

I was looking over the 400 or so pictures from the last week and I just can't decide what to write about! After we left Greensboro, we drove up I-81 from the NC border into Virginia. We took it to Staunton, VA then veered NW to visit Joss' Aunt Anne and uncle Dennis (Nana's other brother, Larry being the first we visited oh so many miles ago in Oregon). Dennis and Anne live on a gorgeous farm in the Shenandoah Valley, just north of Buffalo Gap. We had THE BEST view of our trip so far out our trailer windows while parked in their driveway.

It was almost sunset when we took this picture so the quality isn't the best, but you can see the beautiful pond (lake?) that their house overlooks.

While there, we fed chickens, Pedro the donkey, the horses, four dogs and several cats (I was never sure how many there were exactly). We got to visit with cousin Alex, his wife Jakki and their son Ethan. We went to Jakki's parents farm and the boys got to ride ponies. We ate pizza and ice cream in downtown and historic Staunton. We took exhilarating rides in the 1969 Datsun 2000 Roadster Uncle Dennis and Alex are restoring. We ate delicious home cooked meals in the gazebo overlooking the lake (pond?).

We were only there for 3 days but we packed a week's worth of activities, often not getting the boys to bed before 11pm! We had a reservation in Asheville, North Carolina for the 21st of June, but we pushed it out a day so we could visit longer with family.

On the 22nd, we finally left the farm at 1:30pm and started for Asheville. It was a relatively easy drive down the Interstates but it was long, about 340 miles. We pulled in to our campsite in East Asheville at 9:30 pm (yes we travel slow, between $150 fill-ups, potty stops and pulling 15,000 pounds over the mountains we're taken our time).

We've been in Asheville for a week now. Our friends Leanne and her daughter Kendra flew in from California to stay with us for a week on Wednesday. We have met up with our new friends, Gail, Ben and son Henry, whom we met in Charleston, SC a month or so ago. We had a birthday party (the third!) for Sawyer on Friday at "the Fun Depot". It's an indoor fun center with games, mini golf, bumper cars, go-karts, laser tag...we did it all!

We'll that's the latest, we'll of course have bunches of pictures to post on our site as soon as we recuperate from all this fun!

Play ball!

2008-06-18T08:29:00.000-07:00

"The Greensboro Grasshoppers plan to showcase the Gate City this coming week as the South Atlantic League All-Star Game returns for the first time in 18 years."

We came to Greensboro last week to visit with our dear friend Paige. She moved to North Carolina about 10 years ago to be closer to family. The last time we saw her was 2 years ago when she visited us in California. She's been a real trooper while we've been here. She took us out for massages on Thursday, went to the water park all day Friday with us for Sawyer's 5th birthday, took me (Robert) out on the town Saturday and we all went to her parent's house for Father's Day. I think she had to go back to work Monday to get some rest and we don't blame her!

One of the things we had wanted to do on the trip was take the boys to a local baseball game. Paige told us about the South Atlantic Minor League All-Star game which was coming back to Greensboro on Tuesday the 17th.

The Greensboro team is known as the Grasshoppers.

Paige and Sawyer

Paige's friends, Carol and Claudia joined us for the game. Sawyer loves to tell his Pirate jokes and he loved the captive audience of adoring women! This is his reaction to Carol's really loud whistle!

Although it was after 10pm, we stayed for the fireworks. I've never seen so many fireworks at a sporting event. They went on for 10 minutes continually, one after another. We had great seats for the fireworks but unfortunately we were downwind of them and got rained on by firework particles and smoke.

We had a GREAT time at the ballpark. Thanks Paige!!!!

We're havin' a heat wave...

2008-06-11T06:20:00.000-07:00

Man are we ever! It was into triple digits at Virginia Beach...and

that's AT THE BEACH! Geez, it was so bad we curtailed a lot of

Geocaching and sight-seeing. The humidity, although not quit 100%,

sure seemed like it to us. The locals we talked to said it was

"unseasonably hot", more like August. So much so, that some of them

were packing it in and heading home early also. We've had all we can

stands and we can't stands no more (for you Popeye fans). We're outta

here.

We headed to Greensboro, NC today and the heat is HERE TOO! The

inside of the trailer was 92° when we got to our site at 6:00 pm. I

was in a hurry to get parked so I didn't read the fine print and we

accidently took a 30 amp site (shaded however), instead of a 50 amp

site. With 50 amps we can run both air conditioners and it cools off

pretty quick. With 30 amps, we can only run one and if it's running,

we need to be aware of what else we turn on. The AC has been on for 3

1/2 hours now and it's only down to 79° inside. Oh well, at least

Baylee has found the coolest spot and has stopped panting (I worry

about her in this heat).

We're visiting a college friend of mine (Robert) while we're here,

celebrating Sawyer's 5th birthday and Father's Day!

Kitty Hawk and Duck

2008-06-01T16:50:00.000-07:00

Joss had bought a book on the Wright Brothers and Kitty Hawk a few months ago as part of the boys' "road schooling". When we got to Wilmington, NC we knew we had to go to Kill Devil Hills/Kitty Hawk up the coast. I found an RV Park that had great reviews, about 40 minutes away from Kitty Hawk so that's what we used as homebase for our exploration of the Outer Banks, as this part of the coast is called.

The hill the Wright Brothers used in their glider tests is called Kill Devil Hill and it is/was a giant sand dune. To commemorate the 25th anniversary of their historic first flights, a giant granite monument was erected on Kill Devil Hill. Only problem with building on a sand dune is...they move! In fact, the hill had moved 450 feet in the preceding 25 years so the engineers build a wooden base to both support the granite and keep the sand still.

The monument is in beautiful shape and very impressive. This shot is from directly underneath.

For their historic flight(s), they had to be on level ground, or sloping upward so they landed at least at the same elevation as take off (no gliding allowed). The flight had to be under it's own power and at least 320 feet (roughly) long. These granite markers indicate the stopping point of each of the four flights they took on December 17, 1903. The last one is 894 feet long and lasted 59 seconds. At the Wright Brothers National Monument, you walk right where the brothers flew. The original rail they used for takeoff is there and replicas of their hanger and living quarters are all in the original locations.

I'm not sure what this real size model of the 1903 Flyer is made of but it's some sort of metal, perhaps bronze. Anyway, the whole scene is recreated of the 1903 flight, photographer, onlookers, Wilbur at the controls, Orville running along side during take off.

The brothers alternated flying duty, first Wilbur then Orville. This is Orville in the "cradle". They used their bodies to help control the plane by laying in a cradle that was connected by cables to the control surfaces on the plane.

After Kitty Hawk, Joss wanted to drive up the coast to see the wild horses that inhabit the dunes and beach. If you have four wheel drive (or are very good at sand driving) you can drive up the beach for miles before you hit the Virginia state line. We have four wheel drive in the dually so we took a chance. We didn't lower the air pressure as you're supposed to because, frankly, it takes FOREVER to refill the darn things. The truck tires run at 80 psi and those coin operated air pumps run very slow.

Well, with much tire spinning and overworking of the diesel engine, we made it to the horses. Joss took these pictures out the window of the truck because I didn't want to stop for fear of getting stuck!

However we did finally stop so the boys could do some sledding down the dunes. We have been hauling their sleds in the trailer ever since the White Sands of New Mexico back in February. While the boys were sledding I got out to lower the air pressure in the tires. That's when we discovered the beach is infested with biting flies! I don't know if they are the famous "black flies" that are so miserable in the Northern MidWest, but these were black and they swarmed on anything living that stopped moving... like a man trying to let 50 pounds of air out of 4 tires! They were attacking the boys and Joss too. Heck, they were even swarming on the truck tires themselves. We took refuge in the surf, then headed back to civilization.

Civilization came in the form of a town called Duck, NC. It was a very cute town with a good vibe to it, at least to us. We stopped at an ice cream shop and got to talking to the owner of the pizza place just down the walkway. Turns out Chris had recently bought the shop and is a gourmet chef. He has big plans for the location...and what a location it is. It's over looking the water, facing West into the sunset every night.

Chris and his sister, Michelle are running the place (Angelo's Pizza). They are neat people and Chris makes a mean pizza! I asked him to cook me up whatever he wanted and his chef surprise was the best tasting pizza I've ever had. It had so many things in it I couldn't tell what they all where. He did come out of the kitchen and ask me if I liked crab at one point, so I'm sure that was in there!

After pizza we headed back to our camp in Shawboro about an hour away. Thanks for the great meal and conversation Chris! What a way to end a day.

Lions, Tigers and Bears...Oh My!

2008-05-29T05:43:00.000-07:00

When we were in Santa Fe, NM several months ago, we saw a couple walking their huge and beautiful Newfoundland dogs down the street. A little while later, we ran into them again, sans dogs, as they were looking for an art gallery. We were looking for a particular chapel so we compared maps. We got to talking with them and gave them our RVGypsies card. Kari and Joe were relocating back to Wilmington, NC from Portland, OR and passing through Santa Fe on the way home. We wished each other safe travels and went on our ways.

Then about a month ago, we got an email from Kari offering to show us around if we got to their part of the country. We always have the best experiences when we can get together with a local so we jumped at the invitation and made plans to visit Wilmington!

Kari emailed us some local events and the Wizard of Oz was playing at the historic Thalian Hall in town. Joss has wanted to take the boys to a play while we were on the road so we bought tickets to the last performance, May 18th. Now I (Robert) have never seen the Wizard of Oz so I was quite surprised to learn many expressions I've heard and repeated over the years, actually came from this story; "Lions, tigers and bears...oh my!" being one of them!

After the performance, we got to meet the Wicked Witch of the West, who was the nicest lady in person! We also met the Tinman, the Scarecrow and the Captain of the Guards. We met Toto and Dorothy too but the picture didn't come out. After the play we went a few blocks downtown for dinner. It was a fun day. Downtown Wilmington is right on the Cape Fear River with lots of restaurants and shops that are fun to wander in and out of. Many of the old homes in the town have also been restored and Joss was in her element on the horse drawn carriage tour, snapping photo after photo (see our photo section once we get through the pics).

We couldn't get a campsite very close to town because it was getting close to Memorial Day weekend and they were all booked. We don't plan too far ahead and these darn holidays are playing havoc with our plans, geez! We ended up in Surf City, NC which is about 40 minutes north of Wilmington. We really wanted to explore the greater Wilmington area (Carolina Beach, Kure Beach, Fort Fisher, Orton Plantation and more) so we racked up the miles and diesel fuel coming and going to our campground.

The day after the play, we came into town and hit up the used bookstore in our never ending search for the Hardy Boys mysteries. As we entered the store, there was a familiar looking man chatting with the shopkeeps. Joss recognized him immediately...The Wizard! The Wizard himself, standing the flesh was a frequent patron of the bookstore. We chatted a bit and got a photo opp. Later in the week, we ran into the Captain of the Guard at the food Co-op also! That is one of the great things about "little" towns, you have these neat experiences that you just don't get in suburbia.

We did a lot in the two weeks we were here but you'll have to check back with our photo section to read about them. This post is all about Lions, Tigers and Bears...oh my !!!!

Joe and Kari with the boys in downtown Wilmington, NC.

Last performance, May 18th. Notice the collared shirts? The Gypsies get dressed up!

Always the clowns, especially in the theater.

The Wonderful Wicked Witch of the West (reconstituted of course!)

The Tinman, and his ax.

The Scarecrow and a standing, Flying Monkey.

Sawyer quizzing the Captain of the Guard.

The Wizard!

Cape Fear River runs alongside Wilmington. This is a view of the open-air market they have weekly downtown. The bridge is south of town.

Gators, Pirates and Dogs galore!

2008-05-05T18:29:00.000-07:00

We can't quite figure out what our fascination with alligators is but it never seems to end! We've been staying in Savannah, Georgia since April 29th and over the past weekend, we drove through the Savannah Wildlife Refuge (it's in South Carolina but on the Savannah River...hence the name). We had read online reviews of it by other travelers and frankly, thought they were exaggerating a bit. We were wrong! We spent close to three hours covering the 4 miles in the refuge. We saw over 20 gators from 2 foot long to over 8 feet long. Birds, flowers, turtles, fish, even a manatee.

The road is one way and winds through Live Oak stands, dripping with Spanish Moss.

This little guy was one of two in a secluded pond. We met a local that said the two young gators are always in this pond. We suspect they are staying away from the larger gators, which would make a quick snack of them. Did you know, by the time the baby gators are 2 years old, they leave the comforts of home...or mom will eat them?! Mom knows that the 2 year olds will eat the hatchlings so OUT they go or DOWN they go!

After the Refuge, we headed back to downtown Savannah. We had taken a tour around the town on Friday and wanted to go back Saturday to spend more time there. One of the places I (Robert) definitely wanted to go was The Pirate's House. Back in the day, unwary patrons would have too much to drink and they would be carried out of the tavern, via underground tunnel to the port, where upon they would be thrown onto a ship that was short crew. The fellow would awake, hungover and in the middle of the ocean, heading for foreign ports of call! Sometimes when the ship(s) were desperate for crew, they would drug the patrons in the tavern, rather than wait for them to drink themselves stupid. Glad this place wasn't anywhere near in my college days!

It is now a combination of over 15 rooms, almost all haunted, that includes the oldest house in Georgia. The "Herb House" was erected in 1734 to house the gardener for the "Trustees Garden". The Trustees Garden was established as an experimental garden by Gen'l Oglethorpe when they arrived from England in 1733. It consisted of 10 acres and botanists hoped it would provide ideal conditions for grapes for the wine trade and Mulberry trees for silk production. Both of these crops failed, as did many others. Peaches however did quite nicely as well as cotton.

Joss has declared Savannah as her favorite city of the trip so far. What she likes will become apparent when we get the photos up of this stay but I can tell you it is a very beautiful city. The restored historic buildings, the architecture, the squares, gardens and parks filled with trees and flowers. The river front area has outdoor cafes, walks, benches, restaurants, shopping, ferry rides, boats...everything you'd (or at least us) would expect on a river front.

This past weekend was an annual event "Art on the River Front" and the boys and Joss got their hands dirty with some pottery! One of the vendors had hand-made clay pots for us to paint and they would fire them right there. After painting them up, we went to lunch while the artwork baked. The three pieces the boys and Joss did came out beautiful. Now we just have to figure out how to secure them while we're traveling! We don't have many glass things in the trailer you know.

Oops, I forgot to include some pictures from the Doggie Carnival held in Forsyth Park on Sunday! Well, there were hundreds of dogs; white dogs, black dogs, brown dogs, tan dogs, big dogs, little dogs, hairy dogs, hairless dogs, dressed up digs, naked dogs, dogs, dogs, dogs. What amazed us were all the dogs we saw were getting along! No one was trying to eat anyone else! Amazing. Needless to say we didn't bring Baylee. She was getting better about not going after other dogs but lately she's reverting to her old protective ways! She's great with people and kids but not other dogs!

We're off to Charleston, South Carolina on Thursday to check out another of the South's old towns!

Can you say Okefenokee?

2008-04-27T17:46:00.000-07:00

Sunset over the lake at Laura Walker State Park.

After the boats are off the lake...wow!

You can't come to Waycross, GA and not see this place.

Robby's new hat, a 2 year old alligator.

Sawyer's hat was tickling him!

On the boat ride at the Okefenokee Swamp Park.

And after the boat ride...a train ride!

We were no more than 15 feet from this local.

Joss loves the purple flowers!

___________________________________________________

We drove up Saturday from Jacksonville to Laura Walker State Park, just outside of Waycross Georgia. It's the first time in Georgia for any of us. We got into Georgia so quickly from Jacksonville that we missed the "Welcome to Georgia" sign...if there was one. We took smaller highways so there probably wasn't the same signage as on the Interstates, oh well, we'll have to shoot one from the mirror as we leave Georgia.

Anyway, back to our story. We were meeting our friends from Jacksonville, Maria and Juzar along with friends of theirs for the weekend. They got here early and went across the highway to visit the Okefenokee Swamp Park so we all met up on Saturday night for pasta and S'mores. We had a great evening getting to know them all while we watched the sun set over the lake. Thanks for making all the Gypsies feel welcome! After they all left on Sunday, the RVGyspies headed to the Swamp Park.

As we were heading down the one lane road to the park, we got stopped by a train. Since we were the first car at the crossing, we had a front row seat for some "trainspotting". Eeee yaaa! It turned out to be a car transport train. Two engines hauling at least 70 car transport cars. The boys in the truck, that includes me, couldn't believe all those cars were being hauled by only TWO engines. They must have some pretty flat terrain around here! Well, if the day starts with a little trainspotting, it has to be good. And it was.

We bought the package which included the reptile show, boat ride and train ride! The reptile show was up close and intimate as you can see from the pictures. Being a Sunday afternoon and not a holiday, there were only three other families at the show. As our guide was holding the 2 year old alligator he pretended to trip off the stage and almost into the lap of a couple of teenage girls. He knew they were easy targets from their reactions to his snakes a few minutes earlier. These girls screamed their heads off and we all laughed, almost as hard as their parents! Robby amazed the guide during the show by answering the question "how do the birds protect their nests from the snakes?" Robby learned at the Rattlesnake Museum in Albuquerque that the birds will peck holes in the bark all the way around the trunk. The sap and tar then oozes out and will keep the snakes from climbing higher. Way to go little buddy!

We enjoyed the boat ride into the swamp and learned about the moonshine runners, the plant they call "poor man's soap" because you can rub a handful of leaves in your hands with water, and make lather, the fishing spider that will dive into the water and grab small fish and toads, the fire that hit the area big time in 2007 and of course, more about alligators.

We capped the day with a gator sighting right off the sidewalk just outside the visitor's center. Oh and some great T-shirts and ice cream!

We're off to Savannah tomorrow to see the historic town and visit my fraternity big brother and his family.

Boy versus dolphin...boy wins!

2008-04-14T19:06:00.001-07:00

Pam helps Robby get a hold of the rod before reeling his fish in.

Oh oh, the dolphins are closing in on it!

"Curses to you bi-ped! That was my dinner."

Pam, Robby, Sawyer and blue fish #1

"How many fish was that Sawyer?"

Captain Don, Pam and the Gypsy boys with their fish.

'nuff said.

www.SureLureCharters.com if you're coming to Destin

Beautiful ending to an EXCITING day!

***************************************************************

There we were on the high seas. The 40 foot vessel was bobbing in the waves, the twin 350 horsepower Caterpillar diesel engines rumbling when suddenly the line went taught. The pole dipped towards the turquoise green waters of the Gulf. The reel started to spin and we knew, we knew we had us a fish! Robby grabbed the pole from cousin Pam's hands "I can bring 'er in, lemme have it" he shouted over the roar of the engines. And the fight was on. For 20 or 30 agonizing seconds Robby worked that spindle like there was a fire. Then it happened...

As the fish broke the surface, something else did too. DOLPHINS! Chasing our little boy's fish! "Getta way from that fish, you sea maggots", we shouted. But to no avail. Now there were three of them. Back and forth the little, I mean, monstrous fish swam, desperate to escape the nipping jaws of the dolphin, yet he was tethered to the line of Robby's pole. Back and forth went the boy's arms, up and down went the pole, around and around went the spindle until at last...he was victorious! The fish was safely landed on board the Sure Lure. The dolphin surfaced, grimaced at the young lad and swam away, defiantly flipping the tails as they turned away.

Wow! What an afternoon we had today. We drove up to Destin to visit cousin Pam. Mid-afternoon, she had to run an errand in town and we needed to get to the Post Office (taxes you know). Pam asked if we'd like to follow her and we'd go by her boat afterwards. "Sure" we all said and off we went. She has a partnership in a charter fishing boat in Destin Harbor and we were eager to see it. Check out their website, Sure Lure Charters. We thought we were just going to see the boat but when we got there, she called the captain and asked if he'd take us out! Well that wasn't all they had in store for us. As we were getting out of the harbor, Captain Don told Pam to drop a line in the water. We were going to troll for Spanish Mackerel (do they speak Spanish I asked). Sawyer has been asking for a week to go fishing, ever since I bought the boys their own poles in Texas.

On the way out, we saw pelicans and gulls and then dolphins, right by the boat. As we continued, Capt Don shouted down to us from the spotting tower, "there's a shark off the port side". From the deck, we could make out the shadow in the water gliding along about 10 feet beneath the surface. I wanted to better look so I joined the Captain on the tower. While we were out we saw huge black "clouds" in the turquoise green water with dolphins on the perimeter. The dolphin were herding the schools of fish close to the shore to be eaten. And eating they were! We had one dolphin swim close by the boat with a 15 pound fish in it's mouth and we saw other dolphins splashing in the shallow water as they got their share.

As we were heading back, Captain Don spotted another school of fish and expertly guided the boat near them. These were biting too and before long we had another one on the line! This time the dolphin were busy with the fish they had trapped by the beach so we didn't have to race with one of them to bring our fish in. After getting the second blue fish in the bait tank, Sawyer was jumping around like something had bitten him! He loves to catch fish that boy!

It was getting late (and cold) so we headed back. On the way we saw more sharks, a sting ray and an assortment of fish in the clear waters off the white sand beaches of Destin, Florida.

Wow what a day and what a sunset to cap it off! Thanks Captain Don and Pam!!!!

Gators, Snakes and Turtles Oh My!

2008-04-06T20:11:00.001-07:00

The one and only Zam's!

Lloyd brought out this Ball Python for the boys to hold.

ZZ gets one of the gators ready for Joss to hold.

I didn't know they were vegetarian?

Sawyer's not too sure about this thing Robby is holding.

From Rattlesnakes in New Mexico to Gators in the Bayou.

Bald Cypress and other bayou plants in abundance.

Our guide, Ralph, called this an ordinary water snake, non poisonous variety.

Typical shot of the gators we saw in the swamp today.

Sawyer wouldn't hold the boa at the Rattlesnake museum in Albuquerque, but he's getting older and bolder now! Here he is with a ball python.

This was the biggest gator they would let us hold. Joss is just getting to know it here. Hey, how would you like a stranger grabbing you by the butt!

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Wow what a day on the Bayou Boeuf in Southern Louisiana! Several years ago, on the reality show Trading Spouses, there was a super neat family from Louisiana that ran a family business giving tours of the bayou and various alligator products. Joss and I said if we're ever in Southern Louisiana, we'd like to pay them a visit. Today we did.

Their son ZZ, showed us baby alligators and turtles. He showed us BIG alligators and BIG turtles and let us hold a few of them. Our boat captain was Ralph and as we were the only ones on the tour, he let us take Baylee on board. We were grateful for this as it's starting to heat up down here and we can't leave her in the car anymore. This is going to be something we need to get used to handling again. When there was snow on the ground, she was nice and cozy in the truck for a few hours. Now...not so much.

Anyway, it's still a little early in the season and most alligators are still hibernating, hidden in the dark recesses of the swamp. We were starting to think we were not going to see any on the water when Ralph turned the boat around and glided up to one, floating in the weeds. We fed him (or was it a her?) marshmallows (swampmallows?) and got some video of it snapping them down. It was fun.

We continued on down stream and ran into a total of 10 alligators, the longest was estimated at 10 feet. We learned the young ones don't hibernate so that is mostly what we saw. The older ones can live off the fat in their tails while they hibernate. I guess the younger ones are just not big enough yet? While we were going back, Joss and I spotted something black on the end of a log. Ralph turned the boat towards it and sure enough, a water snake, soaking up some rays!

My favorite thing to watch today were the turtles, hundreds of them. They line up on logs and soak up as much sun as they can. But when someone approaches, they hurtle themselves off the log and into the water. I love watching them do that, it's so funny to see them leap/fall/slip/hurtle and jump into the water all pell-mell!

When we got back to the dock, ZZ's dad, Lloyd, let us hold his ball python. So much so, that he went to take care of some other business and forgot we had the snake! Robby loved holding the snake and Sawyer actually did too! Joss wasn't so sure about it though. I think we made her pee her pants a couple of times!

After we left Zam's, we went to the local eatery, Trudy's and had a little dinner before driving the 90 miles back to our campground in Baton Rouge. Thanks to everyone at Zam's Swamp Tours, we had a great day!!!

Mint Juleps are made with WHAT ?

2008-04-02T14:45:00.000-07:00

Cedar Grove Mansion - Vicksburg, MS. A view of the rear of the house.

A view from the front.

Robert's first (and last) real Mint Julep.

One of the over 40 cannon shots to hit the house during the War between the States.

We had read about Vicksburg and the Battle of Vicksburg National Park in Joss' book called "1000 things to see before you die". Since we were only 200 miles away via I-20 in East Texas, we decided to come to Mississippi before going to Louisiana.

One of the restored homes from back in the day is the Cedar Grove Estate. It is a B&B now that offers tours and a full restaurant (dinner only). We had read that the Mint Julep was invented in Vicksburg so we thought this should be a good place to get one. As the restaurant is only open for dinner at 5pm, the bar wasn't open either. After seeing the disappointment on my face, the very kind (southern hospitality) lady behind the desk had someone make a Mint Julep up just for me. It was a complete surprise when we came back in from the gardens ready to take the tour and she presented me with the drink!

Well now, being from Southern California we've been to Disneyland many times. The favorite part of the park for me has always been New Orleans Square. What with the Pirates of the Carribean (Arrgh, dead men tell no tales!) and the Haunted Mansion (There's always...our way out!) I always get the most out of this section of the park. That includes a Mint Julep from the concession also. The Julep's at D-land are a refreshing, minty drink so I thought one from the birthplace of the drink would have to be outstanding.

NO ONE TOLD ME THEY WERE MADE WITH BOURBON!

I don't care for bourbon or pretty much any type of whiskey so I was quite surprised when I took my first sip. I didn't say anything and Joss asked if she could have a sip. Before she took a sip, the boys asked if they could have a taste and she said yes. I figured after she tried it, she wouldn't let them have any. I was wrong! I was talking with our host and not paying attention to what they were doing. Joss isn't much of a drinker (i.e. almost never) and she didn't recognize the bourbon taste, what with all the sugar, water and mint, so she let them try it. Needless to say, the boys hated it and Joss' mouth about hit the floor when I asked what was in it and was told Bourbon!

We took the tour and I nursed the green concoction the whole time. I think next time, I'll stick to that other green minty drink, the Mojito!

Fishing at Arcadia Lake

2008-03-21T19:44:00.000-07:00

The boys met a "soon-to-be" nine year old girl, Breely, at the playground while we were at Arcadia Lake this week. She and her Dad were spending the Spring Break week camping and fishing. Breely wanted to show the boys her minnow collection and then decided they should all go fishing. Breely's Dad, Monty gathered their fishing gear and we headed to the water's edge. Using earthworms and minnows, it didn't take Robby and Breely more than 20 minutes to land some fish! Robby caught a perch (or was it a pike?) in a crack in the rocks that he was standing on! We're not kidding, there were several 6 inch wide cracks in the sandstone and one of them was deep enough that this little 8" fish was hanging out in it.

Breely caught her fish the old fashioned way, by casting out into the lake. Both fish, it turned out, were too small to keep so the kids had to toss them back. Sawyer, on the other hand, became quite attached to the bait fish (minnows) and put several in a pail. These became his pets for the day and he carried them everywhere! We eventually talked him into releasing them back to the lake also but he sure was attached to those little guys!

Joss is afraid Sawyer will be the one bringing every stray bird, dog, cat, snake, gerbil, etc. home. I guess we'd better make sure we have enough land for all these creatures!

The 411 on the ER 911 Visit

2008-03-17T07:13:00.000-07:00

We got into Edmond, Oklahoma last Friday. Edmond is a suburb of Oklahoma City, just to the North. While Joss was reading stories to the boys at bedtime, Sawyer got a little rambunctious and somehow poked Joss in the eye with his finger. It was a glancing blow, under the glasses that cut her cornea. She knew immediately the cornea was hurt because when Robby was nursing as a baby one night, he did the same thing...in the same eye!

We bandaged it and she took Motrin all night but by morning it was still hurting A LOT so we decided to go to the Emergency Room. We ended up at Mercy Hospital in OKC on Saturday morning. After the usual wait, seemingly forever, the Nurse Practitioner got to take a look at her. They gave her antibiotic drops and pain medication which left her very sleepy. I took her back to the trailer and the boys and I went to our cousin's house in Edmond for the big family get together they planned.

She was feeling better Sunday morning so we decided to go to Chickasha for little Emilee's first birthday party. Cousin Steve and his wife Karie have two kids, Max and Emilee. First birthday's are always a lot of fun. How could they not be, the kids are so cute!

Rattlesnake, Bison, Pronghorns, Deer, Aliens and Snow!

2008-03-10T20:33:00.000-07:00

Since it's been a while since I've "blogged", I thought I'd run some interesting things by you...all at once. A few weeks ago we were in Albuquerque (ABQ for short) and visited Bob Myers at his world famous American Rattlesnake museum. He has the largest collection of rattlesnakes from around the country and other snakes from around the world. What he doesn't have is enough room to show his amazing collection of snake-related art, history, knick-knacks and you-name-it!

While we were in Taos late last week, we met a really cool woman who is an eco-farmer during the growing season. She told us of a herd of Bison on the way to her house, up the mountain and off the paved road. Well, we have four wheel drive. What's a little ice and snow? So off we go. We found the bison and continued up the ever narrowing snow packed dirt road. We just wanted to see where it went and how far we could go. Finally I decided we'd gotten deep enough and far enough that I didn't want to a.) get stuck or b.) have to back out, so we turned the beast around (and in the process, flattened out quite a lot more of the road for the locals).

Then Saturday (two days ago) when we were coming down from Santa Fe to Roswell, Sawyer had to go potty. We pulled over on the side of the road, when what to our wondering eyes did we see... a herd of Pronghorn antelope just beyond the barbed wire! Our first antelope sighting, how cool!

After the antelope, we got to our campsite at the Bottomless Lakes State Park, outside of Roswell, New Mexico. On Sunday, we headed into town to see the International UFO Museum and Research Center and other Alien themed things around town. On the way home, just a few miles from our campground, we startled a small herd of mule deer right along the road. I was "exercising" our diesel engine when it downshifted and spooked the deer. They took off running along the fence right next to us (but we beat them easily...8 deer are no match for 360 horsepower)! We got the beast turned around and went back to take some pictures. There were four bucks and four does (double-double dating?).

And finally, last week while in Espanola, between Santa Fe and Taos, we had a snow fall that was absolutely silent and only lasted a few hours. But it was the heaviest and wettest snow we've encountered on the trip yet! It is simply amazing to us Southern Californians how beautiful a little snow can make things!

Sledding the White Sands

2008-02-25T13:10:00.000-08:00

Before we left Alamogordo last week, we visited the White Sands National Monument. It's 224 square miles of 97% pure gypsum crystals that have been scratched white by the tumbling of the wind (we're not kidding, look it up. The ranger told us so!).

In the gift shop, you can buy plastic discs to slide down the dunes with. They also sell wax so you can go even faster. We bought two discs (and wax of course) and headed into the dunes. After a picnic lunch, we "hit the slopes...ahhh dunes!" It was so much fun we ended up staying six hours and watching the sunset. We like to get the Junior Ranger booklets when we go to the State and National parks so the boys had lots to do and look for while we were at the sands. They both completed the program and added White Sands to their growing list of Jr. Ranger badges!

Joss and Robby went on the ranger-led sunset stroll while Sawyer and Robert continued playing on the dunes. While Robert and Sawyer were on the dunes, they met a group of Japanese tourists who were getting some sunset pictures. Robert lent them the discs and they had a great time sliding down the dunes. They were racing each other and laughing the whole time.

While we were on one of the Nature trail hikes, Sawyer stepped on a stick and hurt his foot. He was tired, cold and hurting so Robert carried him on his shoulders the rest of the walk. We don't know how it happened but Robert turned into a "sand monster" and started chasing Robby while Sawyer laughed his head off. The "monster-face" picture is from that incident.

If you're planning a trip to New Mexico, we really recommend the White Sands just outside of Alamogordo and the Museum of Space History in town.

City of Rocks S.P. New Mexico...ROCKS!!!

2008-02-15T16:25:00.000-08:00

Wow what a find! A fellow camper in Bisbee told us about this state park so we looked it up (don't ya' just love the Internet?). Let's see...two young boys and a campground SURROUNDED by rocks...hmmm kinda' a no brainer heh?

The volunteers in the visitor center (very helpful guys) said site 10 was a really good one "it backs into the rocks and would be protected from the wind". "Once you back in there a ways, get out and look 'cuz you can keep going". Well, the wind was BLOWING us all the way from Bisbee so we decided to check it out. It is a developed site (fire ring, bbq, trash can and picnic table) but no electricity, water or sewer hookup. That's okay with us! We have 63 gallons of fresh water and an empty holding tank, let's go!

Well once we backed the trailer up the "drive way" and got to the rocks, we got out and examined the site. At first I (Robert) didn't see what they were talking about ("you can keep going") but then I did. Nestled between two LARGE boulders, was a level spot...just wide enough for the trailer I thought. I took their proclamation ("you can keep going") to be a personal challenge so I put the dually in four wheel drive low gear and cranked the wheel. The angle was so severe that the trailer tires on the street side, were actually pushing the dirt and hopping sideways instead of turning. Thank God we have the 4x4 as it allowed me to go slow enough and with enough power to get the trailer in the spot. After a little back and forth (sure hope we can get out!), we had it where we wanted it.

Then came the sideouts! I was pretty sure we had enough room for the main slide out (dining table and couch) but it was going to be close. You can see in the pictures just how close it came. That rock outside our window is about 8 inches away. We have a couple of feet on the other side so we're good.

Now on to the City of Rocks State Park. This place was formed by a volcanic eruption 30million years ago. Over time, erosion wore away much of the rock leaving these monolithic, Stonehenge-like rocks. We've had a blast climbing all over them before the rain hit us today (sure makes the rocks slippery, gotta make a note of that as soon as the bleeding stops). Baylee has been sniffing out cottontail rabbits like crazy and we've taken over 300 pictures in 24 hours. The sunset pictures were from last night. I'll say it again, you can't beat a desert sunset! It's started to snow as I'm typing this...wow the white stuff is following us from the Northwest! Joss just told the boys it's snowing. Robby's response was "In the desert, it's snowing?" We're going to flip on the furnance and get started on dinner. Until our next adventure...

Tombstone may be too tough to die but it's on life support!

2008-02-10T17:05:00.000-08:00

We've been in Bisbee, Arizona since the 6th and are LOVING this old (1880) town. We are staying at the Queen Mine RV Park which overlooks the Lavender Pit (an open pit copper mine that closed in 1975) and the town of "Old Bisbee". We have taken 3 tours, listened to live music, ate some great meals out and did a Geocache.

Today however did not turn out like we hoped. We headed up to Tombstone for a little history and instead met a two ring circus with participants that seemed to mock the very tourists they rely on. I don't know if it was a period thing or just the type of crowd the place attracts but it seemed as if every fifth person walking the street was smoking. Every corner we turned, we were met with cigarette smoke, uggh!

Then there is the matter of the Six Gun City Wild West show! The wooden picnic tables were in the blazing sun and the paint on them would burn your arms. The wait staff was rude and incompetent. We ordered the boys two corn dogs that took over 30 minutes to come (and that was after 4 inquiries!). Then they came without the milk they included. Joss didn't get the drink she ordered and when the horrible show (the female lead was "medicated" almost to the point of mumbling her lines) was over, we didn't get a check and could not find our waitress! We spoke to the General Manager but were greeted with disdain once more.

Bottom line...skip tombstone (the historical places are almost all "pay for play" and they could just as well be the creation of a Hollywood set builder) and GO TO BISBEE! The residents are very friendly, the shops are bright, creative and clean and the food is delicious!

What, more snow?!!!

2008-02-04T19:57:00.000-08:00

Well we thought we were done with the freezing temperatures and snow for a while but not quite it seems! We've been in Oro Valley, just North of Tucson Arizona for a week now and we've had temperatures in the 20's and 70's, rain, hail and snow on the local mountains. It is just beautiful!!!

We've been enjoying reuniting with friends from Chino Hills that moved here a year and a half ago and reconnecting with family we only see at reunions every three years. We're going to be sad to leave but anxious to see new places also. We're leaving Wednesday to head down to Bisbee before going into New Mexico.

Here area few pictures we took today during a break in the rain. These are the Catalina Mountains taken from within the Catalina State Park. The hail on the ground was outside our trailer. Our first hail storm!

Hard to beat a desert sunset...

2008-01-23T12:23:00.000-08:00

We've been loving the winter sun in Mesa Arizona since the 18th. We're staying at the Usery Mountain Regional Park in East Mesa. It has electricity and water hookups, fire pits, picnic tables, nicely groomed, spacious, gravel campsites and LOTS of cactus...lots!

We're getting some maintenance done around the trailer, inside and out, and getting the roll-top bed cover replaced on the truck. It cracked in a few places and isn't supposed to crack, at all.

We can't tell you how enjoyable the sunshine is. You'd think we'd never seen it before! Like most things, you take for granted what you have all the time and get used to what takes it's place. But boy is it good to be warm again!

Our trailer is situated on a North/South axis so we have the sun coming over the Superstition Mtns in the morning and setting over Phoenix in the evening. The first picture is sunset looking at the lights from Phoenix, the second is the moon rising in the east and the last is the moon setting over our trailer at 7:30am.

We're heading to Tucson and Bisbee this weekend before heading into New Mexico.

Hyperhidrosis on I-84

2008-01-09T20:36:00.000-08:00

Hyperhidrosis: a condition of sweaty palms caused by towing a huge trailer on icy roads with blowing snow!

Yup, that's what I had today for about 20 miles of Interstate 84 just before entering Utah from Idaho. After the truck tried to get a little squirrelly on me, we passed a jack-knifed semi and just past that, a Jeep going the other direction lost control and overturned on the center meridan! Woo hoo, wild times on the Interstate today!

We had beautiful blue skys and sunshine for most of our drive today from Boise to Ogden Utah. We had rough conditions before the state line and when we got close to SLC area, we had snow and dark skies. Our angels were with us and we made it in one piece. We're staying the night in the Riverdale, UT Wal-Mart parking lot. Tomorrow we'll head to Zion National Park for a few days.

Mountain Time ???

2008-01-03T17:23:00.000-08:00

Okay, this is a good one. Here we are in Idaho on January 1st. Robert is at the pool with the boys and notices the clock is fast by an hour. He figures since it's up high in the pool area, they probably just didn't turn it back. Then he sees another clock that's off by an hour, then another and over the course of 3 days, by the fourth clock he FINALLY figured out...WE'RE IN MOUNTAIN TIME!

OMG, it's a good thing we didn't have to be anywhere at any specific time yet! If you remember from our website update on Portland Oregon, we were having a hard time with the time change in November, now we're causing our own time changes! This ought to be interesting!!!

Half way between the Equator and the North Pole

2008-01-01T22:42:00.000-08:00

We crossed the 45th Parallel yesterday, which as you know, is half way between the Equator and the North Pole. :) As we drove today from Baker City to Boise, we passed some beautiful snow covered ranchland, as you can see in the picture. It never got above freezing today but that didn't stop Robert and the boys from trying the indoor swimming pool at the RV park (where were you Orser's?).

An interesting surprise awaited Robert when he went to hook up the sewer pipe. Seems we have a slight leak in the holding tank valves so some "fluid" built up in the pipe. Fluid + freezing temperatures = Yup...frozen poopcicle! We left the grey water (sink/shower) line open and ran warm water which seemed to do the trick. Ahh the adventures of life on the road in wintertime!

The sunset picture was taken in the parking lot of our overnight stay. If you're ever on I-84 and going by Baker City, stop at the Sumpter Junction restaurant. It looks a little touristy from the outside, but the food was delicious, affordable and the decor and history (trains) is great!

SINGLE DIGITS!!!

2007-12-31T21:28:00.000-08:00

We actually saw single digits on the truck's thermometer today while driving over the Blue Mountains summit (4,250 feet roughly). Six degrees showed outside, eeeee haaaaa! Prior to the single digits, when it was still in the low 20's, Robert tried to wash the windshield on the truck with the wiper blades. On the third pass of the blades, the water froze up and practically blinded us! Okay, write that down, when it's well under freezing, don't try to the washers! Hummm, maybe we should add some antifreeze to the water?

We left Portland OR today and traveled about 322 miles out I-84 to the high desert of Eastern Oregon. The picture above was from the lookout on I-84 just east of Pendleton Oregon.

We're staying the night at a truck stop/gas station in Baker City, where it's a balmy 15 degrees tonight..can't wait for that early morning-take-the-dog-out-to-go-potty walk!

Almost took out 3 otters today

2007-12-11T21:47:00.000-08:00

Well, we're ensconced in a very nice RV Park in Sequim, Washington called Gilgal Oasis RV Park. The folks we've met so far are very nice. Lots of retired folks here and about that seem to miss their grandchildren. Robby and Sawyer are getting lots of attention.

Today we drove into Port Townsend, about 30 miles away roughly. We did some Christmas decoration shopping at Swain's. Afterwards, Robert brought the truck around the back of the store to the front door to pick up the family. Behind the store was a single lane drive, a curb, large rocks and the ocean (Sound, Bay, whatever they call it). As he passed the garbage cans, something darted in front of him. He hit the brakes and saw three huge otters scrambling over each other for their dear lives, inches in front of our one ton truck's tires!

We also spotted several deer walking the residential streets of Port Townsend.

We've started a blog...and it's snowing!

2007-12-01T20:49:00.000-08:00

While in the Burnaby Cariboo RV Park in Burnaby (Vancouver) Canada, we met a traveling family, the Orsers. We've so enjoyed our few days together and have a debt of gratitude to them for all of their insights and advice. One of which, was to convince us that we need to set up a blog. We've been behind in updating our website with the pictures and journals for about a month now. The blog will be an easy way for Robert or Joss to post pictures and jot down witty missives (hey we can hope ehh?).

So here goes our first entry...

We awoke this morning to the most beautiful white (as if it comes in any other color) blanket of snow! We experienced snow on Mt. Shasta two months ago but we've yet to have snow on our trailer. Well no more, we've de-virginized the Titanium in Canada (is that legal?). Sawyer was SO excited he ran in to wake up big brother and then, while Robert was taking Baylee for her morning business, he woke up mom (he's much braver than Robert when it comes to waking mom, that's for sure!) {Picture soon...soon as we figure out how to add it}

It snowed on and off most of the day, probably 3-4 inches total. It is a beautiful fluffy, dry snow so it didn't seem that cold. Our trusty thermometer said 28°F this morning.

Robert and Sawyer took our dually to the grocery store and did some fishtailing as they left the RV park (it MIGHT have had something to do with Robert's heavy right foot)! After the grocery store, they ventured to Costco. The parking lot was packed and visions of huge lines danced in Robert's head. But it was Costco after all so they headed in. All the packaging is in English and French (Canadian law) so it makes it harder to read the printing then it is in the states, simply because they have to cram twice as much of it on the same size package!

Back at the RV Park, Yvonne (the Orser's beautiful 5 y/o girl) invited our boys over to their trailer to play. Robert and Sawyer were up from nap first so they went over. (We later learned that Sawyer DIDN'T actually take a nap but Dad didn't know that at the time!) Joss and Robby soon followed and the adults enjoyed several hours of conversation about trips past and present! It's so nice to have other parents to talk about these things with, thank you Jim and Leslie!