End of the Trip Blog / New Pics

Before I forget, in my last blog I said I had posted 4 or 5 new pic albums under Jeri's Picture Albums, now I have posted new pics and video's of Madison under "Our Picture Albums". I guess my pic albums are full and Dave had purchased more space under Our Pics.

OK let's get the end of the trip blog done.

We arrived in Bakersfield on Thursday 9/17, and it took Madison only a short while to get use to us, after that she was always wanting me to pick her up. We made it a point to see her, Kim and Danny everyday, it was great. Anyway, Saturday morning Danny, Dave, Madison and I drove down to David Jr's, us, for David's 40th b/day party, Danny and Madison were going to Danny's folks. When we got to David's Madison needed to eat and take a nap so Dave and I borrowed Danny's (really Kim's) car. We drove over the 1000 Oaks to Mac's house to look at the Jeep they are selling. Dave drove around with it and then we left, we needed to talk before buying it, so we had asked Davey (Mac) to drive it to the party at David's that night. We decided to buy it for driving the back roads in Arizona but Davey showed up he had forgotten to drive it over, no big deal we would get it in the morning. David's party was a lot of fun, Pirate theme, Saturday the 19th was Pirate day??? Everyone had a good time anyway, check out the pics I posted, plus you have to see the cake Stephanie made, unbelievable, it looks just like a Pirate's treasure chest. Boy she does great work.

Sunday morning, Dave and David drove over to Davey's to get the jeep, and Danny & Madison came by to pick us up and to go out to breakfast with us. Well, the guys didn't come back, and didn't come back so we finally called. They couldn't get the jeep in reverse so they left and said they would check it out and get it fixed. It ended up being a loose bolt, the transmission was fine. They wanted to get the front end aligned(?) too, I think, I don't know Dave and the boys deal with all of that stuff. All I know is when we drive down in October for Dezira's 18th b/day party we are picking the jeep up then. We will end up towing it behind my car, not bringing the RV down for that short of trip. We will stay in Bakersfield and Simi while we are down from the 16th to the 19th.

When we got back Sunday, in the late afternoon, Kim had a nice weekend being able to sleep while all of us were gone. Danny needed to do some grocery shopping so when Kim left for work he came over to the coach and dropped Madison off, did his shopping at Smart & Final then came back and visited with us.

Monday morning was coach cleaning time, boy in a month that place sure was dirty, plus, since it was going into storage we really wanted to clean things up. In the afternoon Dave dropped me off at Kim's, after Madison's nap, so I could watch Madison and Kim could continue napping. Madison and I ran all over the house and played, when she gets really excited she has a really high pitched scream. I would cover her mouth, and tell her "no screaming" she would just smile and stay playing again. We had a good time and was really surprised that Kim never woke up once, lucky us.

Tuesday, we cleaned the basement of the coach, then an RV coach cleaning company came by and washed the whole outside of the coach and our awnings. Kim and I did some shopping in the afternoon.

Wednesday, the air conditioning people came by and put in our new bigger air conditioner. We went from a 13.5k to a 15k, what ever that means. I just know it cools the coach off a lot quicker. While that was being installed I had driven over the Kim's to hang with her and Madison until it was nap time for both. That night we all went out to dinner when Danny got off of work.

Dave and I got on the road before 6am on Thursday and were back in Cornville, AZ by 3:30pm. Long drive but we kept switching off every 2 to 3 hours. Once we got to the house we starting emptying out the coach. It was going to be going into storage at 1000 trails and we wanted everything out, hopefully we won't get any mice this time. By 5pm we drove it over to 1000 trails and decided to finish taking everything out on Friday, which we did.

Forgot to mention, on our way back to Arizona I got a call from my brother, Marty, and he just purchased a Travel Trailer, so he has joined the ranks as me, he will now be known as Trailer Trash, as our older brother, Mike, calls me. Sorry Mike, now you can tell your friends that you now have a younger brother and sister that are trailer trash, are you sure you don't want to join us?? :)

That gets me caught up from our trip, next blog is what has been going on since we got back to Cornville, boring I'm sure.

Tomorrow, 9/30, my brother,Mike, is having surgery, everything will be OK I know, but say a little prayer for him and say a BIG ONE for TRINI, his wife, she will need it while he is recovering. :)

IT'S GETTING HARDER AND HARDER TO BLOG

With posting every day on Facebook it is getting harder and harder to do the blog. You feel like you have said everything already, but you really haven't because not everyone is on Facebook. OK enough of that, I need to recap the Yellowstone blog.

But 1st, Happy belated birthday to Kelli Miller, Inara Tomlinson, and David Alton Jr.

Yellowstone

The 1st day we drove into the park to the 1st visitor center, just to find out all the things we need to see. The Ranger we talked to said you will see most of the animals early in the morning and at dusk. We asked it he knew anything about the RV Parks inside the park and he told us to go next door to 1 of the RV Parks and they could help us. We went there and made reservations for Sunday and Monday night at the Grant Campground. Then we drove back into the RV Park we were staying at, which was right outside of Yellowstone Park. We toured around and went to the Imax Theatre to watch a movie on Yellowstone. The next day, Saturday, we drove to Grant RV Park to check it out. On the way we stopped and took pictures of the Elk and Bison, the Bison were right next to the cars, Elk's you had to walk out a little bit. When we got to the RV Park and checked out the sites there was no way we were taking our rig to those little sites. So we ended up cancelling the Sunday and Monday night stays. The only reason we were trying to find another place to stay was because Yellowstone had closed down the road from Madison Junction to Norris Junction. To try and see all of Yellowstone we needed that road to be open and since it wasn't it was going to be very long driving days to see the whole place and to try and not drive when it is dark. As the Rangers said, the Bison are on the roads all the time and they guaranteed that if you hit one of those 2 thousand pound Bison, the Bison would walk away but you would not. They said the Bison might die later but your car was not going anywhere. We ended up making reservations at a motel, Travel Lodge, at the North Park entrance for Sunday night.

Driving to the Grant RV Park, on Saturday, we had passed "Old Faithful" and all the other Geyser's. So we backed tracked to "Old Faithful" and walked the area for 2 hours, at least. We did touring around all the way back to our RV Park we were staying at. The pictures we have posted show the Bison and the Elk we saw, Yellowstone is amazing to see, everyone has to make that trip. We left early on Sunday morning and did the touring around the sites closest to the North entrance of the park, plus that was where our motel was. We did the Mammoth Hot Springs loop, now in Mammoth Hot Springs the Elk are right there in the community. As said by one kid that lives there, the Elk are great lawn mowers but very loud. The male elk are always making howling noise. Monday after leaving the motel, another early start, so much for retirement, we drove back in the North Gate and stopped in Mammoth Hot Springs for breakfast. When we got out of the car there were 2 Bull Elk right in front of us fighting it out. If you look at the pics I posted we only managed to get them running after each other, it just all happened too fast. Monday, after breakfast, we drove the Canyon ridge of Yellowstone, ran into 1 Bison, didn't hit it thank goodness, but we saw Elk, Bison and Antelope. Yellowstone was just amazing, we actually need to go back and stay inside the park, at Fishing Bridge, which can handle something our size, for about 7 days if you really want to see everything.

When we left Yellowstone on Tuesday we stopped in Idaho Falls and saw my Aunt Ann, had a great time. We went out to lunch and visited for a couple hours, she has lost 40 lbs and what really surprised me was that she looks like my deceased Mom, just blew my mind, and when she turned around you would not have been able to tell the 2 apart. Dave even was blown away.

After lunch in Idaho Falls we drove to Wal-Mart in Taylorsville Utah and spent the night there. Wednesday we drove to St. George Utah and spent the night at the Elk's Lodge and had dinner with my Aunt Evelyn. We went in the late afternoon to Aunt Evelyn's and the talking never stopped. We all laughed so much I thought my sides were going to split. Would you ever think I would be talking with my Aunt Evelyn about Viagra, boy that's when I almost wet myself. Boy it sure is fun getting together with my Aunts, Mom's sisters, just wish I had more time with them.

After leaving St. George on Wednesday we were headed for Simi Valley, on the way we called the Simi Elk's Lodge and they were full. I was driving at the time and when I saw a sign that said "Old 58, Bakersfield" Dave was in the bathroom and I yelled that I had changed my mind and we were going to Bakersfield, I was just kidding. When he walked back up to the front I asked him if he had heard me and he said no. I repeated what I had said and he said let's go for it. We can drive down to Simi from Bakersfield on Saturday for David Jr's Birthday. So I ended up driving from Baker, Ca to Bakersfield Ca. long drive but well worth it. It was really a shorter drive then driving to Simi, I think.

We called Kim and she and Madison came by the coach later that afternoon. It took Madison a little time to get use to us again, but that's to be expected.

By the way we added 2 more states to our travel log, to be in the travel log states you have had to either sleep in the state or had sex in the state, we added Idaho and Montana, you guess what we had done to get that state, maybe both.:)

Next update will be the Bakersfield and Simi Valley visit.

Please remember I have updated the Pics

Part 1 of New Update

Tuesday, 9/8, we drove to Bob & Jackie's friends house in Priest River, Idaho. What a place, right on the water. Gary is still in the process of building their house, they hope it will be done by this time next year. Right now the 3 of them, Gary, Alana and their daughter Christy are living in a 2 story garage, that Gary put together. Anyway we had a great time with them that night. As a matter of fact we just talked to Bob today and they are still there.

Wednesday Dave and I stopped in Anaconda Montana for the night. We toured around Butte, saw the Washoe Smelter Stack, where they use to process Copper/Ore. Right next door was the Fairmont Hot Springs Resorts. You pay 6 bucks and you can stay and swim all day. They have 2 Olympic size pools(1 indoor and 1 outdoor) and 2 soaking pools, also inside and out. They cool the water to between 88 and 104 degrees. The pools are natural hot springs so that's why they have to cool them. Thank goodness it wasn't a hot day, cool outside so the pools felt good but boy were you cold when you got out. The day we went the pools were at 93/94 and the soaking pools were 103/104. In Anaconda and Butte we noticed there is just about a Casino on every corner. Also in Butte we got to see "Our Lady of the Rockies". You can read about it on the web www.ourladyoftherockies.org.

Friday we arrived in Yellowstone Grizzly RV Park in West Yellowstone MT.

I'll recap that in the next blog.

IT'S THAT TIME AGAIN

It's that time again for another update.

Last update we were in Port Townsend, that was on 9/1, Wednesday we were at Mount Vernon Wa. at a very nice RV Park, where we stayed a few days. Thursday we took our car and got on the ferry for San Juan Islands/Friday Harbor. There were 6 of us and my car only seats 5 so guess who got to ride in the very back of the car, ME, they said it was because I was the youngest. We drove around the hole island, stopped and did site seeing, looked for whales but no luck there. Then we took the ferry over to Orcas Island. Didn't get back home until almost 9pm, very long day. Friday, we all got caught up with our laundry, just hung around. Linda and Doonie drove down from Bellingham to have an early dinner with us, it was also a surprise early birthday celebration for Linda. Saturday Lou and Sharon hit the road for Wenatchee, so now we are down to just 4 of us. Bob, Jackie, Dave and me. We also hit the road on Saturday to Okanogan, Wa. to the Fairgrounds there. It was a long driving day, just 2 lane roads, so we had to keep pulling over to let cars go by. We also made a lot of stops for site seeing and picture taking, it was a beautiful drive. Then on Sunday we hit the road again and ended up in Sandpoint Wa. staying in a Walmart parking lot. Yesterday, we drove around Canada and did site seeing, but before crossing the border I couldn't find my passport. I know I had put Dave's and my passport in my purse. The Canada border guy said as long as I had a drivers license I could come in but we were more worried about getting back into the U.S. Dave made a u-turn and we went and asked the U.S. Border guy and he said he can't stop me from coming back into the U.S. as long as I can prove I am a U.S. citizen. So we made a u-turn again and went into Canada. We toured around there and took a ferry ride, with the car across Kootenay Lake. We found this Broom Shop, which made the Brooms for the Harry Potter Movies. When coming back into the U.S. they only asked me where I was born, it was no problem getting back and when we got back to the RV there was my passport on the floor board right before you walk out the door. The problem was I hadn't zipped up my purse and the darn thing just fell out, we were just happy we found it.

Bob and Jackie have friends here in the area so we will be going and parking the RV's at their place today.