Where the hell have we been???

Hello Dear Readers!

  Well it's been almost a year since my last entry to this blog, so I guess apologies are in order. That's not to say you'll be getting any, they're just in order. We had a great time at Mom's for last Christmas, it was good to see all the DFW family. We also got to be with Mitchel and Melissa for a few days at Lake Mineral Wells State Park. When we left the DFW area and headed back to the Rio Granda Valley we had an extra rider with us, my Mom. Let me tell you, if you ever get the chance to do something like that with your Mom, I suggest you jump on it. The three of us had a fantastic January. Penny and I did things we probably would not have done if it weren't for Mom being here and I'm sure the same can be said for Mom. We went out several times with some friends of ours to some rather seedy places (Crazy Joe's Biker Bar) and she had a ball. She even got out on the dance floor with yours truly a few times. For an 85 year old she is still pretty active. Every day, weather permitting, she would go for a walk sometimes she'd take Squeaky, sometimes by herself. She'd be gone for half hour to an hour walking around the park, and she is a pretty fast walker. We tried to put some weight on her because we think she could use a few extra pounds, but I don't think we were successful. She was the best house guest. The only problem we had with her was not being able to keep her away from the dirty dishes after dinner, it was a race and an arm wrestle as to who did the dishes. I was little concerned that our two dogs would be too much for her, she says she's not a big dog lover. She may not ever want a dog of her own but she fell for these two, and the feeling was mutual. In fact her new nickname is "the dog whisperer" because she could calm Wonder down quicker than ever.

  We spent the first 3 months of 2014 in Mercedes Texas at Llano Grande Lake Park RV Resort. We really fell in love with the park as well as the Rio Grande Valley area. We met some great people while we were there, as well as catching up with some old friends.

  To say we've been busy is an understatement. Along with traveling about 15,000 miles, covering several states, we saw some fantastic sights with some fantastic people.

  On April 1st we left Mercedes and headed east for Myrtle Beach South Carolina for spring break with Miranda and Lexi. Brian and his boys, Jackson, Ryan, Collin and Owen were also able to come for a weekend. We had a great time. We were about 100 yards from the Atlantic Ocean. It was still a little cool, but a good time was had by all.

   From Myrtle Beach we made our way towards the DFW area for my niece's wedding and a family reunion of sorts. Most of the four generations of the Rehder family were there. Again, a great time was had by all.

  From DFW we headed northwest towards Colorado. Once there we took a drive to the top of Pike's Peak. No, we did not tow the camper up the mountain.

  After Pike's Peak we started the "National Parks" portion of our journey. We started with a week long stay in Estes Park Colorado, visiting Penny's cousin Andrea and her husband Skip. They were quite the hosts. Andrea even had entertainment planned in the form of My Fair Lady, which she played a part in local community performance. It was a very good show. It was an outdoor show and was definitely the coldest July night we've ever experienced. I think it got down in the 30s. Rocky Mountain National Park is right there in Estes Park and was beautiful.

    
  We left Estes Park and headed west to visit Yellowstone National Park, Grand Tetons National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Zion National Park and Grand Canyon National Park. The pictures below are in the same order. We had the pleasure of good friends Tom and Jo Theriot joining us for the Grand Canyon.

   After the "National Parks Tour" our journey went south, and not in a good way. We had been having an issue with the slide out for our bedroom and we were hoping it would make it to Mercedes Texas for our winter stay. We were less than lucky. On the way to our next stop from the Grand Canyon we were following directions from our GPS, it sent us down a road that we found out was having some work done on a bridge. In fact, the bridge was gone and they had made a small one lane road around the construction. Small being the operative word. We didn't quite make it. The road gave out on the driver side and we came VERY close to tipping the entire rig over.

  Needless to say, it took a very large tow truck to get us out. Most of the damage was cosmetic, although the fresh water tank was also damaged. We had never used the fresh water tank as we always use the city water in the parks we stayed in. So, again we thought we could get it all done once we got to South Texas. It was not to be. When we reached Deming New Mexico the bedroom slide out would no longer go all the way out or in without help. The repairman in Deming couldn't fix it but helped us get it back in to where we could take it to Camping World in El Paso for repairs. That was on September 28. The slide we wanted fixed through the warranty and the body damage through insurance. Evergreen is very particular  (read difficult) about who works on their campers. They blamed the slide manufacturer for the problem and the slide manufacturer in turn blamed Evergreen for faulty installation of same. We told Evergreen that we bought the camper and warranty from them, they could fight with the manufacturer on their time. After 83 days of arguing and waiting for parts, all repairs were completed and we hit the road on December 20th heading to Mercedes.

  During our extended stay in El Paso we had to say goodbye to our navigator Wonder. He started having seizures the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and on Friday he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Sweet boy we miss you.

  We did get a buddy for Squeaky a few days later, not to replace Wonder, that's impossible, just a companion. His name is Charlie.

  Obviously, traveling 15,000 miles at an averageof 300 miles a day, you can guess I left a long list of stops out of this blog. Some of the more memorable are listed below:

Panama City Beach Florida 

Savannah Georgia 

Colonial Williamsburg Virginia 

Jamestown Virginia 

Ashville North Carolina 

Pigeon Forge Tennessee 

Hot Springs Arkansas 

Amarillo Texas *

Raton Pass New Mexico 

Colorado Springs Colorado
Manitou Springs Colorado
Cripple Creek Colorado 

Jackson Hole Wyoming 

Bear Lake Utah **
Boulder City Nevada

Sedona Arizona
Tombstone Arizona 

There were others, but I've slept since then.

Things we saw:

Tybee Island Pier
Yorktown National Battlefield
Exchange Hotel Civil War Museum
Monticello
Biltmore Estate
Shilo National Battlefield
Bathhouse Row
Cadillac Ranch
Highway of Legends
Garden of the Gods
The Stanley Hotel
Sinks Canyon State Park
Red Rock Scenic Byway
Boot Hill
The Birdcage Theater
This list scratches the surface.

* in Amarillo we picked up a hitchhiker, a writing spider. He stayed with us for over 2 months.

** Bear Lake had the bluest water we had ever seen in a fresh water lake.

  So, that brings us up to date. Tomorrow we'll be back at our winter destination, Llano Grande Lake RV Resort. Who knows where we'll go after that?

And then there was 5?

 Merry Christmas everyone! We are back in the DFW area for a few days after spending a month in Mission Texas.

 We went to my mom's for Christmas with the family and had a great time. While we were there we told everyone that we would be heading back to the south Texas area (Mercedes Texas) for at least two months or until the rest of the country thaws out. My mom told Penny that it sounded pretty good to her, so Penny told her to come with us. Now my mom is a very young and active 85 and her husband recently passed away. Mom liked the idea a lot, and the rest of the day tried to think of a good reason not to go...she came up blank. All my brothers and sisters agreed that it was a good idea as well. So hopefully come Monday the 30th there will be an extra passenger in the truck heading towards the Rio Grande Valley.  As much as I would like to claim this as my idea I can't, it was all the most wonderful woman in the world's, my beautiful wife Penny.

Havasu Lake California, Tonopah Arizona, Wilcox Arizona and Las Cruces New Mexico, Balmorhea State Park Texas and Schertz Texas.

  Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! It's been a while so I apologize. We have been in several places since we last talked on the 11th, so I'll go over the some of the highlights.

  While in the Barstow area we did manage to do a little sight seeing. I know, some of you are thinking "aren't Barstow and sight seeing mutually inexclusive?", they are not. We went to see the Calico Ghost Town. An actual old mining camp with a few of the building still standing. We had a fun afternoon going through the stores and exhibits.

  From Barstow we headed towards Havasu Lake California, which I'm sure you can guess is across the lake from Lake Havasu City Arizona. This was a very nice park right on the lake. Actually it was Havasu Landing Resort and Casino. The weather was very nice and Wonder loved walking on the beach so we stayed a few more days.

  Since we were so close we took the ferry across the lake to Lake Havasu City to see the sites there or at least the site there. For those of you who don't know it is the home of the original London Bridge. It was bought in the late 50s and brought over piece by piece and reconstructed here. The story is much more exciting than the actual site, but at least we can say we've seen London Bridge, and contrary to popular belief and song it is NOT falling down.

  After Havasu it was a series of one night stands, beginning with Tonopah Arizona,  which is as big as it sounds. We stayed at the Saddle Mountain RV Park which was a good park with all the needed amenities. Wilcox Arizona was our next stop, landing at the Fort Wilcox RV Park, a much smaller park but not very crowded. The best part being the camp hostess sold pies that she had made from scratch, we bought an apple and a cherry and they were both delicious! From there we headed to Las Cruces New Mexico and the Sunny Acres RV Park, not in the best part of town but serviceable for a one nighter. The next morning we were in Texas again! By afternoon we stopped at the first state park we've been in since Alabama.  Balmorhea State Park is home to the largest spring fed swimming. It's 1.75 acres of the clearest water, part of the pool is 20' deep and although the sides of the pool were concrete the bottom was natural but it was still crystal clear. The water temperature stays around 76 degrees year round. It was only in the low 70s weather wise when we arrived so we passed on swimming but others were in the pool.

  Now some of you may remember our issue with the washer connections not being connected to anything but the washer, so a few few days earlier we contacted an Evergreen dealer in New Braunfuls Texas about doing the warranty work to finish the connections. We told them what the issue was and that since we lived in the RV we needed the work done in one day. After a couple of phone calls and an email with photos of the problem we were told to be there Thursday morning and they'd take care of us. YEAH! Nothing is EVER that simple. So after leaving Balmorhea on Wednesday morning we were in Schertz Texas about 10 miles south of the dealership on Wednesday evening. Bright and early the next morning we take the RV to the dealer who, only after we unhook it from the truck and are about to leave for a few hours, tells us they won't get to it today and we'd have to leave it with them. To say we were pissed is an understatement.  We promptly hooked back up and left. When we got back to the RV park we decided to go another route and started calling mobile rv repair companies that would come to us to do the work. We knew that we may not get all of the bill paid for under the warranty because an Evergreen dealer was not doing the work but by this time we didn't care. We found a guy who could come out that same afternoon. It was after 4 when he got there and by the time he figured out the best way to complete the work it was after 5. He told us he had a roofing job the next morning but would be here early afternoon to do the work. The next day it rained off an on all day, and by 3:30 our guy was still not there. At 6 his brother calls to say the weather has really slowed them down, could they come in the morning? That didn't work for us because we were due in Mission Texas that afternoon. So close and yet so far. Which pretty much brings you the reader up to date. We are here in Mission Texas at the Mission Bell RV Resort. We will be here until the 20th of December when we'll head towards the DFW area for Christmas with family and some doctors appointment. As far as the washer goes, we have another guy coming Monday to take care of it, he's already been here to survey the work, so hopefully by Tuesday we can do our laundry without having to leave the camper with a bag of quarters.

Grant's Pass Oregon, Corning California, Tulare California and Barstow California

Hello Dear Readers!

  It's 12pm November 11th and a beautiful day here in Newberry Springs California. I can almost hear some of you asking "where the hell is Newberry Springs?". Well, we're about 20 miles east of Barstow on historic Route 66, just a mile or so from the famous Bagdad Cafe. Famous only because of a movie about it by the same name. As the title of this edition tells you, we've come about 1000 miles since my last edition. We left Silverton Oregon on November 5th after we finally got our washer/dryer repaired.  Unfortunately our repairman discovered that although the camper was sold to us as washer/dryer ready it's not. Seems that the water lines and drain pipe that are in the utility closet aren't connected to anything, and now I hear most of you saying "WTF?". All will be fixed by a dealer at no cost as soon as we get somewhere for a while. Anyway, we stayed that evening in Grants Pass Oregon in a small RV park and headed south the next day. On the way to our next stop we passed beautiful Mt Shasta.

I needed to get some prescriptions filled so we stayed the next 3 nights in Corning California, the Olive City. Wonder was beside himself with anticipation. Corning is a small town with several olive groves, olive oil manufacturers and olive museums.

  From Corning we headed south still and landed in Tulare California. It wasn't our first choice, or even our second, but for a one nighter it served its purpose. That brings us to where we are today, Newberry Mountain RV Park. A small but nice park just outside of Barstow in the middle of the Mojave desert.

  We're going to do some exploring today. There's the Calico ghost town not too far away that looks interesting, and we might even stop and eat at the Bagdad Cafe afterwards!

  So until next time...

Silver Falls State Park

  I need to catch ya'll up a bit. I kind of left out some information on my last post. We actually have been in the Portland area since the 22nd. We're in the Silver Spur RV Park in Silverton Oregon, about 15 miles east of Salem and 40 south of Portland. It's a nice park with all the amenities we need. As it turns out we'll be here until the 5th so we can get out washer/dryer fixed. From here we'll head south down the Pacific Coast Highway on our eventual way back to Texas. So, now you're all caught up...sort of.

  Luckily there is plenty to do and see in this area. We've been to downtown Portland twice, once on business once for pleasure.  We've been to the coast (see previous post) and today we went to a state park a few miles away. Although it was a little chilly it was a beautiful drive and once there the scenery was spectacular. I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

So THAT'S the Pacific Ocean!

 On the 24th we took the boys for a little drive, we headed for the coast. This would be Penny's first look at the Pacific Ocean, Squeaky's too for that matter, and Wonder, well it would be his first sniff of the Pacific.

  Our first stop was Road's End State Park in Lincoln City. We took Squeaky down on the beach, he loved running across the sand chasing seagulls.

  From there we headed south to Boiler Bay State Wayside near Depoe Bay.

  Further south we stopped in Newport and visited the Yaquina Bay State Recreation Site and Lighthouse.

 As this was Penny's first look at the Pacific, I asked her if the Atlantic coastline offered similar vistas. She said she'd never seen anyting like them and she's been from Virginia to Florida on the east coast.

  All in all a very good day!

Kennewick Washington and the trip here.

  Hello to all my friends, family and readers. Sorry for not posting for so long. We're in Kennewick Washington, part of the Tri Cities area. Somewhere along the way we met a man at one of the RV parks we stayed in, and when he heard we were headed here he informed us that if they wanted to give Washingtonn state an enema, the Tri Cities is where they would stick the hose. I am pleased to announce that he had know idea of what he was talking about...the Jackwagon!

  On the contrary, the area is very pretty. We're only about 450' above sea level where we're at with rolling hills all around that are maybe 1200' feet. The area is east of the Cascades so it doesn't get the rains that Portland and Seattle are known for. It's usually sunny here most days.

  We're here visiting Penny's nephew J.W. She hadn't seen him in several years so the reunion was very heart warming. We also got to meet is lovely girlfriend Litsa and her mother too.

  We had intended to stay in Kennewick just a few days but made a mistake by going to an RV show at the mall. Long story short, we traded in our 2008 Cedar Creek by Forest River for a 2014 Bay Hill by Evergreen, model 365RL if you want to look it up, for whatever reason I don't have pictures of it on my phone yet. So, instead of 5 days we were here 15. But we left much more comfortable.

 Getting here we stopped in a couple places. First was Twin Falls Idaho, we stayed for just two nights, the RV park was ok nothing special, but accommodating. We took a short drive around and saw some pretty falls. The strange thing was that all of these falls come out of the middle of the mountain side.

 The next stop was the Catfish Junction RV Park in Huntington Oregon. This was a small park with water and electric but no sewer. However it was located right on the Snake River.