On the move again.

The last part of August was spent on getting the rig and truck ready to roll. We left our new friends in Washington on Sept 1st. We were getting closer to our destination for the night when we heard a loud bang. I looked out my side mirror and told Rick we had a blowout on the camper. He asked if I was sure it was the camper and not the truck. I said I see things hanging down from the camper. So he pulled off the road as much as he could with the guard rail there and put on his flashers and we limped to an area where we could get off the road more. There was nothing left of the tire. But Carriage is built for such an occurrence and there wasn't a lot of visible damage to the unit. But underneath was a different story. The way the unit was built with wood and steel to prevent major damage in case of a blowout worked. So we ended up spending two nights in Montana to get 4 new tires put on. We feel better traveling now. We spent some time in Yellowstone and are now at Bryce Canyon National Park. The nights are cold but the days are in the 70's. When we get settled into our winter home in Arizona, I will post pictures of our travels. Please keep praying for safe travels for us and we will do the same to those that we know are on the road again to their winter destinations.

Dinner with new friends

Monday we had dinner with Kay and Bruce from church. We had such a great time getting to know them. We laughed, exchanged stories and ate great food. Kay, you are an excellent cook. Before we knew it, 3 1/2 hours had gone by. Before we left, both Kay and Bruce prayed over us and it was such a blessing. Just wish we would have hooked up with them at the beginning of our stay. May God bless them in their future endeavors. We have been getting the truck and 5th wheel ready for travel. Checking tire pressure on both vehicles, getting the under compartments back in order and thinks like that. After staying in one spot for so long, we are getting antsy to be on the road again. We have met some really great people on this trip, besides catching up with old friends that are in the area. The state of Washington is absolutely beautiful! We have a lot of memories to take with us. Tonight we are going out to dinner with the church group that go out to eat every Wed., whether it be at a restaurant or at someones home. This will be our last night with them so we will say our goodbyes. Some of them we will see one more time at church on Sunday. The others go to the later service and we will not see them on Sunday. We will try to get a picture of Rudy this Sunday. He is the pianist that recorded the song "I Remember You" that I sent out to a lot of my friends. If you want to see the video and hear this awesome song, go to Youtube.com and type in I Remember You by Rudy Mendez. You will be blessed when you see and hear this song. Hope all is well with you and may God Bless you all.

Visit with Robin and Neil

Last Monday after Rick and Jay were done mowing, we went to visit with Robin and Neil. We wanted to see them one last time before we left the area and to see their newly remodeled kitchen. Well, the kitchen is amazing! A total difference from the one before. Great job guys! We had dinner of tacos and beef enchiladas. Robin is a very good cook. Then off to the golf course. We played 13 holes before it got to dark to see and the mosquitoes started to carry us off. We had fun. Their course is very pretty and challenging. I was actually hitting good that night. The next morning we got up and went into Seattle. It’s great to see a city with people that know their way around. The first stop was the market. The picture is dark because we had the setting on action for the races. After a while Rick realized what was wrong and changed the setting. The flowers on the buildings were beautiful. It was a bustling place. This market had everything you could think of. What I loved the most was the fresh flowers. Big bouquets of every type of flower imaginable and they were real cheap. A big bouquet was either $10.00 or $15.00. And fresh fish. This is the market that has the flying fish. The guys working the fish market can toss a fish high and far and they don’t drop them. I couldn’t get that on film, sorry. But here is Robin drooling over the lobster. More fish. Some city shots. Now off to the Space Needle!

Beautiful flower gardens surrounding the Space Needle. We did not go inside or up to the top. Just not enough time in the day. Heading to the music museum. This is the music museum. The colors of the buildings were awesome! We had fun going thru this building. The  pictures didn’t turn out real good inside. You were not allowed to use flash. So after lunch we headed to the locks. This was really neat.

These boats were heading from the lake out to the ocean. This one is now coming from the ocean into the locks to head into the lake. The water is rising. This guy here is one of the workers. They are great at getting as many boats into the locks as they can. This next picture is of a boat that the pilot used a remote control device to move his big boat into and around the lock. The same boat leaving the locks. It is from Wisconsin! What a beauty! We then head over to the other side of the locks to see the salmon heading upstream. The water is rushing past them as they swim upstream. They made a ladder type area for them to get past the locks. Really neat to watch them and they are pretty good size fish! And we saw this seal as we were walking outside by the ocean side of the lock. I think he was fishing. Now on to the Snoqualmie Falls which is on the way back to Robin and Neil’s house. This is just a trickle compared to the spring when they have the mountain snow melting and running thru here. But it was still beautiful to us! Ok, now we are heading back to their house on Interstate 90. As we were going, Robin noticed one of the road warning signs with the lights blinking and she said, “What time is it?” We told here and she said we will probably get caught in the traffic stop ahead. What they do at 7:30 every night, the state shuts down I-90 so they can blast for their widening project. You guessed it, we got caught. Rick and Neil talking to one of the other drivers. Robin took this opportunity to clean out the jeep. She was to drive to a golf tournament the next morning and wanted to have it cleaned. What a great way to pass the time. We were stopped for about 40 minutes. No big deal. It was kind of neat in a way. And here is the outside of Robin and Neil’s house. They have a beautiful home and they are great hosts. Thanks so much for the guided tour of Seattle. Love you guys!

Mud Bogging and a Night at the Races

We started out the day by golfing 9 holes. Then we went to the mud bogging races. We haven’t seen that before so we thought it would be fun. Boy, was it hot! We took an umbrella to shade us a bit but didn’t get to use it to much because the wind was blowing. Look at all the mud flying. They had all kinds of vehicles. We really liked the ones with alcohol engines as they breezed thru it. It was hard to get their pictures as they went to fast. When the trucks or jeeps would get stuck, they had big tractors to pull them out. As we were watching the races, we noticed fire off in the distance. Not a good sign when the wind is blowing. We weren’t sure if we needed to be ready to take off at a moments notice or what. But the fire department got it under control right after this shot. Boy, we sure were glad. Whenever there is a fire, the fire departments around here are great at getting to the site fast. They do a lot of farming and use irrigation. But where they do not plant, they do not irrigate and everything is real dry. After a while we went back home to rest up and cool down before heading off to the races tonight.

So now we are heading off to the races. The big rigs are racing tonight along with the cars. (Of course, not side by side) We were down in front just before turn number 1. It was interesting. We haven’t been to the races in years. This guy spun out in front of us. Here is one of the heats with the big rigs. They were so much fun to watch! Now I know this one is dark, but I had to show it to you. This is 2 big semi’s nose to nose and trying to move each other backwards. It was so cool!!! Yep, they were showing off for the crowd and we loved it! It finally got to dark to take pictures, so we sat back and enjoyed the races. That night we did not get home till midnight. Boy were we tired! Then we got up at 7 the next morning for church. And we survived to tell about it. LOL!!!

Pot lucks and sunsets

This week has been a busy one. On Monday night we had a potluck when friends of Jay and Betty came to the park for a few days. Good food and got to meet new friends. Then Tuesday we went golfing with the new friends and old friends and a little later in the day, the one new couple had a steak and corn on the cob dinner we were invited to. I made brownies with peanut butter chips in them. Again, very good food and great company. Then on Wednesday, the church group came over for another pot luck dinner. This group from the church either go out to a restaurant every Wed. or go to someone’s house for a potluck. This time 3 couples, us included, were the hosts. Monday after we were putting some of the tables and chairs away, we saw this beautiful sunset.

We usually have beautiful sunsets every night. On Saturday, we are going to go watch the mud bog races if it is not to hot. Should be fun.

Leavenworth WA

We went to visit the town of Leavenworth WA. This has a Bavarian tourist town in the center of the town itself. The drive up there was beautiful and took us about 2 hours or so to get there.

This was a field of what looked like small sunflowers. They were not very tall, but from a distance, it was wall to wall yellow. Very pretty.

We saw this glimpse of water and couldn’t wait to see how big the body of water was. This was just a big lake A really neat outcropping of rock. Found another body of water with another dam on it. We are in the “high dessert” and they use a lot of irrigation because a lot of the area is used for farmland. Do you notice anything about this picture? Like the SNOW on the top of the mountain! This is the first week in August and there is still snow on the mountains. Glad I wasn’t up there! Saw this trolley in Winatchee. In between the trees are some people on a white water raft trip. It’s blurry because we were going 60mph at the time. Now we are in Leavenworth. There were flowers everywhere! It was so pretty. The gazebo in town. They have a lot of performers at this gazebo. Lots of free music. It was mostly cloudy when we were there and it did not get above 80 degrees. A very nice day. We walked down by the river and saw a lot of people out tubing. They saw me take their picture and told me it would cost $5.00. Rick told them that it was $10.00 to take it. This next picture is for LaVon. A dead tree trunk. LOL! She likes dead tree pictures. So LaVon, you will really like this next one. We passed this on the way home, a whole row of dead trees! We walked and walked and seemed to walk forever. They have all kinds of little shops to go into. Rick almost bought a beautiful wall clock that played 18 melodies. But he rationalized that we have no wall space to hang it. We went to a little outdoor pub for lunch. I had the pulled pork and Rick had the meatball sandwich. Both were delicious! This lady and her little girl were getting the royal tour of the city. It was now time to head home. We were both very tired. Had a great time with the love of my life!