Month: July 2018

Hi Everyone!! First, apologies for the long delay since our last post.  And thanks for all the comments, we love hearing from you guys!!  At the risk of sounding like I’m making excuses (which I admit I am 🙂 ), I have been struggling with – or more like fighting with – my computer and storage space.  The short story is we are completely out of storage space on the computer, way too many pictures and videos.  This in spite of the fact that I have 3 cloud services – Google Photos, Verizon Cloud and One Drive.  But alas, all the photos from Steve’s “big” camera load to the computer storage even though I thought I was getting them to go straight to One Drive.

Technology is not my strength by a long shot, and it certainly isn’t Steve’s.  I have spent hours trying to figure out a solution and have not resolved it yet.  And part of the problem is I’m always trying to move pictures from the computer to the cloud when we are in areas with not great internet service which is most of the time.   I think I’m going to get an external hard drive when we’re back in civilization somewhere soon.  I’ve always struggled with getting our cell phone pictures and the pictures from Steve’s big camera to be in one place so I can merge them together into albums to put in this blog.  And now this storage issue … ahhhggg!!

But enough about that, sorry for venting.  Onto the happier topic of our travel adventures.  I’ll give you a roundup of where we’ve been these last few weeks and what we’ve been up to so we’re all caught up.  We left Denver after a lovely visit with Samantha and went to southwest Colorado.  Near a really cute little town called Ouray, in the San Juan mountains.  Loved it there, and went to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.  Beautiful.  We also drove a long (13 mile) dirt/gravel road to the area True Grit with John Wayne was filmed (at least part of it).  It was also a beautiful area and we enjoyed exploring it, very remote.

From there we went to eastern Utah.  First a 3 night stay at the Dead Horse Point State Park (they filmed the end scene from Thelma and Louise there, where they drive off the cliff).  Great state park and made us realize we should maybe try to stay in state parks more often.  Then we moved just 30 miles to an RV park in Moab, UT.  Main reason for using an RV park vs. a state park is that most state parks don’t have full hook ups.  We had electric only at the state park.  No water and no sewer hook up.  But we have big tanks for that and planned accordingly.  We could have made it several more days without hook ups we determined.  But anyhow, we moved to Moab, at a decent but not great RV park with full hook ups.

I can sum up our 10 days in the Moab/Dead Horse State Park area in 1 word:  HOT.  It was 105 or more every day.  No trees, no shade, just lots of red rocks, beautiful canyons and hot.  I admit it slowed us down quite a bit.  We even spent a couple of days hibernating in our air conditioning.  And Gerry hates the heat we have learned.  But we got out and did a lot too.  We celebrated Steve’s birthday at a lovely ranch about 20 miles outside of Moab that was a beautiful drive.  We got massages at the ranch spa too (hey, it was Steve’s birthday)!  We went to Canyonlands National Park and Arches National Park.  Both are beautiful.  We did several hikes and also rented a Jeep for an off road adventure.  We’ve never done that before and it was fun.  Plus the Jeep had air conditioning which we kept at full blast all day, while we had the top open.  Gerry was not a huge fan of the Jeep and the bouncy jeep trails.  But it got us off the beaten path and into some really cool places, including some very steep jeep trails with big drop offs that were a little scary.

The rental place gave us a good lesson before we left about shifting and when and how to use which gears and they also gave us maps of the “beginner” trails.  The instructions even tell you exactly where on each trail to shift into lower gears and were pretty idiot proof, as evidenced by the fact we completed the trails they suggested and made it back safely!

We left Moab yesterday (Saturday) and drove about 150 miles east back to Colorado.  We’re only about an hour from where we were a couple of weeks ago, on the other side of the San Juan mountains.  We’re about 50 miles south of Telluride and about 70 miles north of Durango.  We LOVE it here.  One of the best campgrounds we’ve seen anywhere, rustic but nice.  Lots of trees, and nestled into the mountains all around.  Sites big enough to have a campfire at each site, and we’ve had a fire already in ours.  And it was so chilly this morning we turned on our fireplace and went looking for our sweatshirts!!  We’re at 8,100 feet elevation and it was only about 80 today for a high.  Perfect.  Went for a great 6 mile hike today into the mountains, walked right our our RV door to the trailhead.

The RV is holding up pretty well so far, but we have lost a few (3 total) pieces of wood trim inside.  One is a crown molding on a kitchen cabinet, one is a piece of baseboard and one is off the closet door.  Not sure why things are falling off now and not last summer on the bumpy road to Alaska.  But, maybe we knocked a few things loose then and they’re falling off now.  Who knows…but, all in all the RV is great and we are still loving it.  And loving this lifestyle.

We plan to go to Telluride tomorrow.  We hear it is a very nice, resort town that is super dog friendly.  They have a Gondola that allows doggies, so we’re going to ride it to the top of the mountain.  I’m sure I’ll have things to report on that later!

I’ve put together some pictures on Google Photos from our phones.  As mentioned earlier, I can’t load any of Steve’s pictures from the big camera yet, so phone pictures are all we have.  Hope they work!!  The picture below is on Steve’s birthday, on the drive out to the ranch for dinner.  The links to Google Photo albums is below it.

Arches National Park:   https://photos.app.goo.gl/QpVC9RQkX8HzvUd66

Moab, UT:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/u1fpH66eREEmk2RF7

Off Road Adventure:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/9Whif6uRf137qW4bA

 

Howdy everyone!  We have been enjoying the Denver area, visiting Samantha at her new home.  We arrived to the RV park in Golden, CO on July 4th.  It’s a great location, only about 5 miles from where Samantha lives and we have a view of the foothills out our windows.  That’s the good news.  The downside is that the RV park is super crowded, the spots are not big enough for the big rigs (ours included) even though they advertise otherwise.  We’re told it’s one of the few RV parks near Denver that can accommodate big rigs (such that it is).  We white knuckled it as we drove through the campground to our spot – people’s trucks and tow cars don’t fit onto the assigned spots so they hang out into the driveway which makes it really hard to drive thru with the rig.  But Steve did a great job getting us into our spot and we’ve made the most of it.  Did I mention we’ve had the good fortune to enjoy the almost nightly live bands directly across the road at the big biker bar?  🙁 Oh, and the loud motorcycles that come and go morning noon and night at the big biker bar???  Oh well, it’s an experience and makes us appreciate the more remote, quite places we are heading to next.

We’ve had a great visit with Samantha and her friend Ryan who moved out here with her.  She graduated from OU in May (yeah!) and moved here the end of May.  She will be working at a cannabis company, with 2 retail locations and grow facilities.  This is her dream come true, to work in the cannabis industry, and she is excited to start her career.  There’s a rather lengthy process to get credentialed to work in the industry, and she’s making her way through the process.  She should be fully credentialed and able to start work by end of July.  She is so happy here and we are so proud of her, she has worked hard to make this happen.

We got out for a hike the other day with Samantha.  A great trail, only a few miles away.  We were enjoying the hike in spite of the heat and then we met a rattlesnake right on the trail!  Steve almost stepped on him since he was leading the way on the trail, but didn’t see him.  Samantha saw the snake and screamed.  So Steve was on one side of the snake, Samantha and I were on the other side of him and Mr. Snake was not showing any signs of moving.  Steve threw a couple of rocks at him hoping to motivate him to move, but no luck.  There was no way to go around him, there was a steep drop off on one side and a high rock on the other side.  So, Steve took a long branch, pushed the snake out of the way while Samantha and I ran by him on the trail.  His rattle was going full speed and it was scary!!  Thank goodness Gerry was at doggy daycare that day! We are  worried about our hiking in this region over the next few months…not sure what we are going to do yet about that.  We’ve been reading about what to do in the event of a bite.  I have a picture of the snake below for your viewing pleasure!

Steve looked up an old college friend, Adam, who lives in the Denver area and we were able to get together for lunch while here.  They hadn’t seen each other in about 35 years!!  Was so nice to visit together and hear them talk about the old days!  I have a picture below of the two of them.

My last post was about New Beginnings and Beauty All Around.  I think we can put this post under the same category – New Beginnings and Beauty All Around.  Life is good!

Now it’s time to move on to our adventure for the summer, the Southwest.  We leave here in the morning for the southwest part of Colorado.  We’re going to spend the next few months exploring Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico.  Hopefully we’ll be able to enjoy lots of hiking and seeing all the National Parks in the area without any more visits from Rattlesnakes!!!

Hello, Hello, Hello!  Yes, we are “on the road” again!  We left Columbus June 16 and our first stop has been Minnesota.  It was hard to say goodbye again to family and friends, and we appreciate all the well wishes from you all!

It didn’t take us too long to remember how to do this “RV thing” again.  It probably took us longer to hook up and prepare for take-off than normal since we were a little rusty, but I think we’re back in the groove now.  We do love our RV and life on the road.  It makes us happy!  Gerry did not miss a beat and has adapted to his back seat palace just fine.  Really, the back “seat” of our truck converts to a very spacious doggy palace that has been outfitted with multiple doggy pillows, toys, food and water bowls and things to chew on.  He even has a doggy puzzle that he uses his nose to find treats in compartments to fight any boredom.  🙂

One reason we came to Minnesota was to visit with Guy and help him launch a new business.  I’m happy to report (for so many reasons!) that he has formed a new business, Aspire Sober Living.  We have formed a partnership with him and  have purchased a house that will be a sober living home.  He has been a live-in manager of a sober house for over a year now, and wants to own and operate his own.  Sober homes are very common here in the Twin Cities, they are independently owned businesses that provide a sober living environment for residents in recovery.  A safe and supportive environment to live in, usually after leaving a rehab treatment facility, with like-minded persons to help each other.

Guy has put a lot of work and thought into making this happen.  And we found out the housing market in the Twin Cities is incredibly competitive!  Houses are flying off the shelves around here!  But the stars aligned and we found the perfect house and won in spite of 6 other bidders on the same house.  The house had been a “catagory 2” house which means it was condemed for habitation.  The sellers did a total rehab on the house as a flip.  It has 6 bedrooms and 3 baths and will house 7 residents plus Guy.  Guy said, “How fitting…a house that was condemed, rehabed, and now will provide a home to people in recovery, rebuilding their lives.”  Really.

So we have been super busy looking at houses, going through the offer, cross your fingers and wait to hear if you won the bid, inspection, etc, etc, etc process for the last several days.  We’ve also been completing the zoning applications, drawings and other requirements for the sober housing certification.  All has gone smoothly and is on track for a fall opening.

In the meanwhile, we have also been fortunate to have met and getting to know Guy’s girlfriend, Katelyn. What a delight she is, beautiful and smart and as warm and friendly as can be.

We’ve been staying at an RV park a little over an hour outside the cities – there are no RV parks in or very near the cities.  In spite of the driving, which has been significant, we have loved staying here.  It is right along the freeway, but once you get down the drive way you enter a beautiful 40 acre oasis with a lake, lots of trees, very well spaced RV sites and very nice owners.  They have paths mowed all around the lake that we have enjoyed strolling and Gerry has loved running on.  Tons of birds right out our window every day.

We leave tomorrow morning for the Denver area.  We will spend a few days staying near Samantha and visiting with her.  She moved there the end of May, after college graduation.  More on that later when I give you an update on that visit!

New beginnings indeed!  And beauty really is all around us, sometimes in the most unexpected places.