Hello and Howdy folks from the heavenly San Juan mountains in southwest Colorado! Yes, we are currently at our beloved campground, Priest Gulch, located about 40 miles south of Telluride, deep in the San Juan mountains. You’ve heard me say it before, and I’ll say it again… this place really is a slice of heaven to us. We love the area, we love the abundant hiking all around, we love the huge mountain vistas…I could go on and on, but you get the idea!
Priest Gulch campground remains our hands down favorite campground for all the above reasons and more. It’s been here for a couple of generations and is still family run. Everybody is super nice. I was talking to a fellow camper the other day and he summed it up…”you can’t have a bad day at Priest Gulch”. I couldn’t agree more. Oh and did I mention – they have soft serve ice cream cones (we have had a few vanilla chocolate twists!) and, they serve homemade cinnamon rolls on Saturday mornings??? Somehow it just doesn’t seem possible to come back from a nice long hike and not swing by the office for a cone! Gerry loves them too 😊
We’re here for the month of August. We wish it was longer but we’re lucky to get what we did this year. We’re already booked for 3 months next summer. This year, we are staying directly on the river. We have a back in site that overlooks the Dolores River, which runs right through the middle of the campground. They have a bridge connecting the two sides of the campground over the river. We’ve never had a spot here on the river before and we’re loving it. We can hear the river through the windows day and night. The sunlight sparkling on the river as the sun rises over the mountain and trees in the morning is beautiful. This year the river is really low – they had a lighter than normal snow season this past winter. The trout fishers are all reporting the low water level is making it impossible to catch anything. We’re all hoping for lots of snow here this winter!
Our home on the riverView from our back windowsGerry and I having a cup of tea watching the river go by
So what have we been doing besides soaking up all this natural beauty? Hiking, farmers markets, eating, exploring. Not necessarily in that order! Since we’ve been here several times before, we have enjoyed going back to favorite places. Telluride is always a great day trip, and we love taking Gerry on the Gondola. He’s always a hit with the other travelers and he loves the attention.
Riding the Gondola in Telluride
There’s several options nearby for farmers markets and we are frequent visitors! Did you know Colorado is known for their peaches? And sweet corn? Yup – Palisades peaches and Olathe sweet corn are a big deal around here, for good reason. We’ve dutifully taste tested dozens of each just to be sure the reputation is justified, and it is! I’ve even put several bags of frozen peaches and corn in our RV freezer, along with cherries we found a couple of weeks ago. We are doing our part for the local economy!
Of course we’ve been hiking as well. You guys know how much we love a day spent on the trail! There’s been a wildfire nearby that has caused some smoke filled skies a couple of afternoons, but otherwise it hasn’t interfered with anything we’ve wanted to do. We were worried at first that it may force us to evacuate but it’s not moving our direction and it seems to be staying contained up on a mesa way back in the mountains about 20 miles from us. So we’ve been hitting the trails as much as we can.
Kilpacker Trail, a favorite
I’ve put together some pictures and videos of some of our recent hikes. Of course, the photos never capture the majestic beauty, but I keep trying!
Hello, Hello! As I write this post, we are enjoying our second day at our most beloved campground, Priest Gulch, between Dolores and Telluride, Colorado. I’ll have more to share about that soon, I’m sure. But first, let’s get caught up on our last couple of weeks which were spent in Ridgeway.
We love the Ridgeway, Colorado area. We’ve been there a few times before. It’s probably the most picturesque place we have stayed at from a dramatic mountain scenery everywhere you look stand point. We stayed again at the Ridgeway State Park – this is a really nice state park, the RV sites are generously sized and it has lots of walking paths, a river, a couple of fishing ponds, a big reservoir for boating. And it’s a good base camp for all the hiking and sight seeing the area has to offer.
Ridgeway is also where the John Wayne movie, “True Grit” was filmed in the late 1960s. There’s still several buildings in town that were featured in the movie, and we actually hiked right through where most of the “landscape” scenes were filmed, where they were riding through the mountains and countryside. Of course, we watched the movie while there and it was pretty cool recognizing locations and knowing we were there too.
I took this photo out of the window of the truck while Steve was driving … this is the view from the state park where we stayed and on the way into the small town of Ridgeway. I know it’s not a great photo but it gives you an idea of what I mean by the dramatic scenery all around – this was our daily view. Not too bad! This is why we keep coming back to southwest Colorado!
We again visited the very pretty town of Ouray – they call it the “Switzerland of America” and it’s clear why – it’s literally surrounded by tall mountains and has a lot of German or Swiss architecture. I’ve included pictures below of Ouray, but as usual, it’s impossible to capture in pictures what it really looks like. We really enjoy being tourists for a day in these cute little mountain towns. Breakfast at a nice cafe or coffee shop, shopping, exploring. A great day as far as we’re concerned 😊
Another favorite spot we always visit in the area is the Orvis Hot Springs. There’s several hot springs in the area, but this one is our favorite. It’s been there for something like 90 years, has beautiful gardens and landscaping all around several natural pools made of stone and rocks. It’s also clothing optional – and for some reason I find soaking in the hot springs “in the buff” really great! Steve still hasn’t tried it without his swim trunks, I don’t think he realizes what he’s missing… I surprised myself a few years ago when I gave it a try and have been a convert ever since! So there’s a secret out in the open now!! 😁
And of course we have been hiking! We returned to a few favorite trails in the area and they did not disappoint! Many pictures from our hikes in the photos below.
So now we’re all caught up! We moved to Priest Gulch on August 1st, and we’ll be here until September 1st. I can’t wait to share our adventures here soon – meanwhile, enjoy the pictures and videos and please call or text us! We love hearing from you all!
We traveled from the Pindale, Wyoming and Wind River Mountains area, south, to Granby, Colorado. This was a new stop for us. I learned about it from a YouTube video put out by a retired couple who RVs and documents it all. Times have changed! Anyhow, it was the perfect spot for a visit with Samantha and Sam!
Granby is only about 2 hours from Denver (west, northwest). And it’s near the western entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park (the back entrance, not the main entrance in Estes Park). Granby and it’s next door neighbor city, Grand Lake, seems to be a well kept secret. It’s a very beautiful area, mountains and lakes galore, and Grand Lake is the cutest mountain town. We really enjoyed the area and will definitely go back. And the RV park we stayed in was really nice – huge – the biggest we’ve ever stayed at. It was called Sun Outdoors Rocky Mountain – it had a huge pool, a couple of restraunts, mini bowling, an arcade, walking trails, and views all around.
We were delighted to have Samantha and Sam for a visit. And their two doggies came along too! One of the advantages of traveling by RV is always having space for visitors and doggies. We enjoyed exploring the area together (they had not been there before either) and being tourists in the charming Grand Lake village.
I know I’ve said it before, but spending time together with family and friends in the RV is just so wonderful. It’s relaxing and, let’s face it, when sharing about 350 square feet for a few days you can’t help but be together! We love that our RV travel lets us get to visit like this.
We were only there for a little over a week. We are currently staying in Ridgeway, Colorado, and I’ll be sure to share that with you in my next post. But in the meantime, I have some pictures in the links below from our visit with Samantha and Sam, and some hikes in the Granby area. Enjoy!
It’s been a long time since I last posted here on Journey Reeb…almost 3 years! Yikes! Well, a lot has happened in that time – life never stands still does it? I’ll try to do a quick catch up and then we’ll be all ready for this year’s RV adventures.
My last post was in October 2022 – that was as our 2022 RV season was winding down and we were getting ready to head back home for the winter. Then… Steve is diagnosed with cancer; we spend several months (in the RV which was such a blessing) in Houston, getting treatment at MD Anderson; Steve has a successful (!) treatment and is cancer free by spring 2023; we attempt another RV travel season for the summer of 2023 and have ALL KINDS of trouble with the RV; way too many issues to discuss, but suffice it to say it was so bad that by fall of 2023 we sold the RV and said we were done with RVing!. We traveled the summer of 2024 without an RV…we drove so we could still take Gerry, and we booked several cabins, VRBO homes, etc. We quickly realized how much better we liked traveling by RV. So, during the winter of 2024, spring of 2025 – we bought another RV!
So now that we’re all caught up, let’s get on with the good stuff! We purchased a new Jayco Pinnacle 32RLTS 5th wheel (and a new truck to pull it with!) This is our third RV. Our first two were both DRV Mobile Suites (who has since quit production and has been folded into another RV manufacturer, which may explain why we had so many problems with our last one…) This new one is the smallest we’ve had – it’s 36′ long. Our last one was 43′. We wanted a smaller 5th wheel so we could pull it with a pick up truck that was not a dually – with the two rear wheels. We wanted to be able to pull it with a single rear wheel truck so the truck could fit into our garage at home. And, it is easier to pull and easier to find spots at RV parks being a little smaller. So far we’re loving our new Pinnacle!
I noticed the cover picture on the blog is of our first RV, before we left for our very first trip, to Alaska in 2017. How does time go by so fast?? And we look so young in that picture…and my goodness, when I think back about all the things we didn’t know about Rving…. and how much we’ve learned and figured out since then… Maybe I’ll try to figure out how to update that picture with a current one. I’m definitely rusty on using WordPress (which is what I use to host the blog).
Anyhow here we are, July 2025, back out on the road in our new RV and loving it! We left home June 21st and headed west to our first spot in Boulder, Wyoming. We were at this same RV park in 2021. We’re in the Wind River Mountains, about 90 miles south of the Grand Teton National Park and we’re here until July 14. We’re quickly getting our “RV legs” back under us again. It feels really good to be back out in the mountains again and we’re remembering why we love the RV lifestyle so much…it’s a slow pace, all the comforts of home, everyone is so nice in the RV parks and on the trails, Gerry can move from the couch to the chair to the bed 😊 I’m cooking a lot and we’re starting to unwind and relax.
And yes we’re hiking again! I really can’t say what it is about hiking that we love so much but we do. It’s just wonderful. Exploring, walking, nature’s beauty, fresh air – we just love being on the trail. We’ve already done several hikes here in the Wind River Mountains and I’ll attach a link to pictures. It’s stunningly beautiful in these mountains and the weather has been perfect. Cool nights (low 40s) and warm sunny days (upper 70s).
We attended the Green River Rendezvous – 90th year celebration – it’s a long weekend of living history re-enactments of the mountain men who lived in the area as well as Native American history. It’s a big event for this region and brought a pretty big crowd to town. A parade, several rodeos, presentations and speakers, living history museum, demonstrations, etc. We enjoyed several of the events and learned a lot too. Amazing history in this area.
Now that we’re all caught up and back at it, I’ll do my best to keep you up to date with our travels this summer and fall. We will be in Colorado and New Mexico after we leave here. I’m sure there will be lots to share. In the meantime, thank you to everyone for all the well wishes and support, it means so much.
And finally, I need to let you know – I had to disable the “comments” feature of the blog. My blog was attacked by bots and there were almost 31,000 comments, most of which were disgusting and awful. So I had to turn that feature off. A couple of years ago I didn’t even know what “bot” was. And here I am talking about a bot attack. There’s that time flying by thing again…
We do love hearing from you so please text us or call us anytime!
Hello and Howdy! It’s officially fall – and it sure looks like it where we are. We arrived yesterday in Chama, NM. We’ve been here a few times before and we love it in the fall. But….first I need to bring you up to date of our happenings of the last month or so. It’s been awhile since my last post – sorry! We were busy with visitors and soaking up the beauty of our most favorite campground ever – Priest Gulch in southwest Colorado, between Dolores and Telluride.
We arrived Priest Gulch on September 1 and were there for almost 6 weeks. We were lucky again to get our favorite site there – site number 42. It is amazing. Huge by RV site standards. A really big yard all to ourselves, trees, and I decorated with mums and pumpkins. We’ve already made our request for site 42 again for next year – fingers crossed!
Home Sweet Home at Priest Gulch
It was the perfect spot to host our visitors – first my sister, Laura for 2 weeks, then, Guy and Katelyn for 5 days. We were so happy to get to share our little piece of heaven with them. It was fun showing them all our favorite places, favorite hikes, our special coffee shop, riding the gondola in Telluride, and seeing it all fresh again, through their eyes, was so rewarding for us too.
The mountains and aspens did not disappoint – they put on their best fall show for everyone to see. Golden leaves, fresh snow on the mountain tops. Crisp cool mornings and warm days glowing with sunshine. Blue skies making the perfect backdrop for nature’s show. Really – it is that good. There are many who have tried to capture the magic that is fall in the San Juan mountains – books, magazines, photos much better than ours. But it simply cannot be fully appreciated until you are standing in the middle of it all. Or sitting next to a stream babbling over the rocks while admiring the golden leaves mixed with the alpines on the mountainside. I highly recommend it to anyone – you will be amazed at how you feel standing at the top of a mountain after a good hike up, taking in the views all around. Better yet, get an RV and really immerse yourself in it all. Just don’t try to take site 42 at Priest Gulch for the month of September or you’ll have to arm wrestle us for it!!
Of course we made our usual rounds to all the area’s farmer’s markets – Cortez, Dolores and Telluride all have wonderful farmer’s markets. And the very quirky, tiny, mountain town of Rico, which is about 10 miles from our campground, has 2 wonderful coffee shops. It’s really remarkable – this tiny, historic mining town (no stop light and if you blink you will miss it) has 2 great coffee shops run by very energetic young women. They both have great food – one focuses more on baked goods, one more on breakfast/lunch. Both using high quality ingredients and made from scratch cooking and baking. I don’t think there was a menu item left untried at either place by the time we left. So great to see young people embracing good food and the value of sharing it together over a great cup of coffee or tea in a cozy and welcoming space.
We made several visits to Telluride which is always fun. We love riding the gondola and so does Gerry! There’s a vibe to Telluride that is hard to describe but engaging and welcoming. It’s quirky. It’s beyond beautiful. It’s extremely expensive to live there – beyond imagination – many millions of dollars for even the most modest of homes in town. But it’s very approachable and not stuffy. Whatever it is, we like it and always look forward to spending a day there. Guy and Katelyn were there during the Telluride car show – many of you know Guy loves sports cars – so it was great for him to get to experience the car show there.
Hiking. Yes! We did tons of hiking. We revisited all our favorites and found a couple of new ones too. All spectacular. We always say, you simply cannot have a bad day out on the trail. And we took Laura to Mesa Verde National Park, we enjoyed seeing it again. It’s only about 45 minutes away, but has an entirely different climate and landscape. Very high desert, with sandstone cliffs and mesas.
I know I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again. There’s something about visiting with loved ones while in the RV in the mountains. Maybe it’s the fresh air and all the natural beauty. Maybe it’s living in the middle of nature, really immersed in it. Maybe it’s all the good food and meals shared together after a great hike. Whatever it is, I’m thankful for it all. This time spent together is special and meaningful. Life is good!
All in all a perfect stay at our favorite spot. We literally took hundreds and hundreds of pictures (probably thousands!) I have tried to pick out some of the best, but be warned, there are a lot of them! So grab a cup of tea and enjoy the pictures!
Howdy again everyone!! I’m writing to you from my dining table looking out the window from our RV at our very favorite spot ever, Priest Gulch Campground, near Telluride. We arrived a couple of days ago for a 6 week (!!) stay. We are beyond excited to be lucky enough to grab a spot here for 6 whole weeks. But that’s for the next post! We recently spent a few weeks in the Ridgeway/Ouray area and I want to share that with you for today!
We really like this area, we’ve been a couple of times before. Big mountains, lots of hiking and a couple of cute mountain towns. Perfect. We stayed in two places here – one was a KOA, and one was the Ridgeway State Park. We had not stayed at the KOA here before – hands down we like the State Park better, and it’s half the cost. But we took advantage of the KOA jeep rental for another hiking adventure. I mentioned I was learning more about some of the “bigger” hikes in southwest Colorado, and I’m learning you just can’t get to many of the “big” hikes without some type of off road vehicle. So we rented another jeep and hiked Wetterhorn Basin. Spectacular and totally worth the jeep rental. And – we met some new friends – Chris and Al, from Colorado Springs. They were stopped at the point of the road to the trailhead that you just can’t go past unless you have an off road vehicle (they were in a regular SUV). We stopped and asked if they’d like a ride the rest of the way to the trailhead. They squeezed into the backseat of the jeep along with Gerry – and so we hiked together for the day. Was great meeting new folks and sharing the day. We’re looking forward to visiting them in Colorado Springs later this year!
Wetterhorn Basin Hike
We thoroughly enjoyed our time in the Ridgeway and Ouray area. We’ll definitely be back. I have tons of pictures and a few videos from our time in the area. I think they speak for themselves, so I’ll keep this extra short and let you enjoy the scenery!
Hello again friends and family! What has happened to the time this summer?? Almost the end of August already – wow. I hope it’s been a good summer for everyone. We certainly have enjoyed it. We recently spent a couple of weeks in Lake City, Colorado. It’s been on our list of places to go for a few years. It’s in southwest Colorado, in the San Juan mountains, but on the eastern side of the San Juans – we have been going to the western side of the San Juans (Priest Gulch, Telluride, Ridgeway, Ouray) for the last few years. So we worked in a visit to Lake City this year, and we’re glad we did.
Lake City is not somewhere you just “swing by” for a visit. It’s out of the way, not on the way to anything else. Their marketing slogan is that it’s “the most remote place in the contiguous 48 states”. I’m not so sure about that, but it is pretty remote. We like remote. And we were at a campground that was a few miles out of town, in a beautiful setting, with a couple of lakes, mountains all around, and we had a great spot deep in the woods. Perfect. The campground was accessed by a dirt/gravel road. We didn’t know this before hand – and we happened to arrive on a day when they were repairing the road from washout from recent rains – they were spreading fresh dirt/gravel/oil mixture and we had to drive through it on our way in. Left a mess on the truck and RV that Steve is still working on rubbing out. Let’s just say that Steve was a little unhappy with the road on the day of arrival – he was wondering if I had lost my mind when booking us at such a place. But we soon realized it was a great location and we settled in.
Our home in the woods at Castle Lakes Campground, Lake City, ColoradoEarly morning at our campground
So you guys know we like to hike. It’s our favorite thing to do. And these past few years, I have been learning more about hiking in the San Juan mountains since we spend so much time there, and, someday when we get our house built, we’ll be living in the San Juans. I found these 2 books a couple of years ago, featuring day hikes around Telluride, Ouray, Silverton and Lake City. I’ve been reading these books, marking hikes I think we want to do, and spending the winter time in Ohio dreaming of these hikes. Both books provide a lot of detail about each hike, it’s length, difficulty, terrain, etc. They also provide driving directions to the trailhead, and describe what type of vehicle is needed to reach the trailhead: car, SUV or 4×4.
Of course I have a story to tell you about this! I have a hike picked out – Handies Peak, via American Basin. Handies Peak is a 14’r. 14,028 feet to be exact. We’ve never done a 14’r before. I’ve decided this one will be the first! All descriptions said it was one of the easiest 14’rs in Colorado. Only 6 miles round trip, from parking lot. Only 2,800 feet of elevation gain (hike starts at about 11, 300). The people who wrote the book I was using as my guide were a couple in their late 60s. They rated it as moderately strenuous. Said needed a SUV to reach the trailhead, not a 4×4. The trailhead was about 12 miles from our campground, on the same road. How easy is that?? Of course we can do it!
Well. First, we couldn’t reach the trailhead in our truck. We set out one morning to go do the big hike. I’m so excited, I’ve been waiting for this day! About 5 miles from our campground the road goes from the gravel/dirt road into a “jeep road”. It’s part of the Alpine Loop, which is a jeep road that goes over a couple of mountain passes and you can get to Silverton over the mountains on this jeep road. BUT, I had carefully researched, and the trailhead to Handies Peak was BEFORE the road got really gnarly and was accessible only to 4×4 vehicles. Or so I thought. At about 5.1 miles in, about 7 miles to go, the road became impossible for us. Totally a “off road jeep” road – boulders, holes, narrow, steep drop offs. We have to turn around. Our truck is absolutely the wrong type of vehicle for these kinds of roads. We are extra wide (a dually), and extra long (long bed truck). Our truck is perfect for pulling our big, heavy 5th wheel. It is absolutely the wrong vehicle for these types of roads. You need a short wheel bed, high clearance jeep or, most people were using Polaris RZR 4×4 off road vehicles.
So we turn around, no hike up Handies Peak for us that day. I’d like to say I was understanding and that I took the no-go into stride and rolled with the change. But, I would be lying. I pouted, I was in tears, I was mad at the book authors for describing the road as passable by a SUV and not needing a 4×4. Maybe that was true in the past, I don’t know, but for sure, the road was not safe for us in our truck. Steve was really unhappy to find himself suddenly on a narrow, rocky road and having to figure out how to turn around without falling off the cliff. He managed, and back home we went.
The good news is that our campground had a Jeep Wrangler 4×4 available for rent! So we rented it a couple days later, and off we went for our Handies Peak adventure. Wow. It would be safe to say we’re not big fans of Jeeping. Some people love it, and Lake City is a destination for lots of folks with Jeeps or the RZR 4x4s or other OHVs. There’s tons of jeep roads through the mountains and folks drive them all day in those vehicles. It took us 1.5 hours to drive the 12 miles from our campground to the trailhead. It was a beautiful drive. It was a scary drive. It was exhausting. And, we did not think it would take that long to get there, so we didn’t start out as early as we should have, to allow time to do the hike and get back down the mountain before the almost daily rain storms.
But we were there! So exciting! A couple, I would guess in their 60s, were returning to their van, having just finished the hike as we arrived (it was 10:00 am). They had slept at the trailhead so they could get an early start. They said they completed the hike in 4 hours. We’re thinking we’ll be able to do it in 5 hours, plenty of time to get the jeep back by 5:00 when it’s due.
I know this is a long story, sorry! You know how I am. I should have told you to go get a cup of tea at the beginning of this tale. Here’s the shortcut to the ending. We didn’t make it to the top. I couldn’t do it. Steve and Gerry were doing great, no problem. I couldn’t breathe. I had to stop frequently to catch my breath. At 13,000 feet I had to turn around. 1 mile and 1,028 feet of elevation to go, but I couldn’t do it. I tried to get Steve to go without me. There was a pretty lake I could sit by and wait. But he didn’t want to go on without me, and we were getting worried about time. It took us 3 hours to get to the 13,000 point. It would take at least another hour for him to get to the summit and back to me, likely longer. As it was, it took us another 2 hours to get back down. So 5 hours, only made it to 13,000 feet. How did those people do the whole thing in 4 hours? And they were old like us! And they didn’t even seem tired when we saw them. We passed young children with their grandparents on the trail, they all had made it to the top. One little boy said to us: “I’m 11. I just did it. I think you can too.” But not me. At least not on that day. I hope to get to try again someday.
But the hike was simply amazing – beautiful in every direction. All above the tree line, views forever. I have lots of pictures below for you!
We enjoyed our stay in Lake City. We’ll go back again some day for sure. We saw a mama moose and her baby one evening (picture included below). We got in a few really nice hikes. I learned a lot about the access roads to some of these “must do” hikes I have been reading about. It’s all good, and life is indeed good!
Hello again! We had a great couple of weeks in Idaho recently. You might remember, in my last post, I was heading out to St. Paul, Minnesota to help furnish our new sober living home, and we were moving from northeast Oregon to Clarkston, Washington. Clarkston is on the Snake River, and across the river is Lewiston, Idaho. I flew in and out of the airport in Lewiston. So Steve and Gerry hung out a week while I was in Minnesota. As it turns out, it wasn’t a great place to be. If I hadn’t been traveling, it’s one of those places we would leave and find somewhere else to go. While it is on the Snake River, it was not a very pretty section of the river. In fact it was pretty ugly. And it was 100+ degrees every day. No hiking, and even if there were trails near by, it was way too hot to even think about hiking. So poor Steve and Gerry were pretty much stuck in the RV air conditioning all day while I was gone…. on the other hand, I had perfect weather in St. Paul, a very successful trip and a great visit with Guy and Katelyn. I tried to not sound too happy each day when I called Steve, but I think my enthusiasm was evident anyhow!
Aspire Sober Living house number 4!
We left Clarkston the day after I returned and moved to Riggins, Idaho. We had not been there before. It’s on the Salmon River, and tons of whitewater rafting there. Some are day trips, some are multi-day trips. We’re not into rafting, but it was interesting to see all the rafts on the water. We found a very nice campground a few miles out of town and it was a welcome relief to be in the trees, along a nice little stream, much cooler temps. We did a couple of hikes, explored the Salmon River canyon (very beautiful) and guess what? We found a great local orchard! We never tire of these great fresh food finds. And what a find it was – berries, peaches, plumbs, plus lots of veggies they grew too. We stocked up (again!).
Salmon River Canyon, near Riggins, Idaho
Then it was on to McCall, Idaho. This was a new destination for us also. We liked it. It’s a nice little town on a big, beautiful lake. In some ways it reminded us of a small Lake Tahoe. We tried to rent a boat during our stay, but there was no availability. We found a couple of nice hikes in the area, and we really enjoyed the campground. It was a “luxury” campground with lots of nice amenities and we enjoyed just being there. McCall and Riggins are both on the “go back to someday” list.
McCall, Idaho
We left McCall for a 3 day drive to our new location, Lake City, Colorado. It’s deep in the San Juan mountains in southwest Colorado. We’ve been here in Lake City for a couple of days now. I’ll give you a full report on it soon!
Also, I wanted to share some pictures, plus a video from a really cool thing – back when we were in Wallowa, Oregon, we went to their annual Nez Perce celebration. It was literally next to our RV park, we walked to it. They have this even each year, it is a celebration of the various Nez Perce tribes in Washington and Oregon – it focuses on traditional dances, and is a 3 day dance competition. They dress in their ceremonial dance regalia and it is really something to experience. We are so glad we happened upon this event. We went on the opening evening, for the opening ceremony. It was very moving to experience – the drums, the singing, the costumes, the dancing. The pictures do not begin to show (as usual!) but, hopefully you’ll get a little taste of what it was like.
Hello again everyone! So happy to be sitting at my dining table in the RV sharing our latest adventures with you! Do you believe it is mid-summer already? The weather here in northeast Oregon has been absolutely perfect – days of sunny warmth, cool evenings and mornings. Blue skies all around.
We’ve really enjoyed exploring this northeastern corner of Oregon. The Wallowa Mountains, the Hell’s Canyon National Recreation Area, nice little towns of Wallowa, Enterprise and Joseph. It’s been a good home base for us the last 8 or 9 days. Lots of hiking, farmer’s market, farm stands – you know us – we are eating ourselves silly on the abundant fruit and produce available here. Combine that with beautiful hikes and we’re happy campers!
This area is full of water – rivers, streams, creeks, lakes – everywhere we look there is water. All of our hikes have had lots of stream crossings, which we love. Gerry loves splashing in the streams. We’ve hiked through several river canyons – the sound of the water flowing through the canyon is always beautiful. And, on our hike yesterday – we met up with a big black bear! It was early on our hike, only about .25 miles from the trailhead, and this bear came out of the woods right onto the trail, about 20 feet ahead of us. Gerry was in front of us and started to run after the bear. The bear turned around and looked at us and ran up the trail and off into the woods on the other side. Meanwhile, I’m yelling (well, more like screaming!) at Gerry to stop. My wild screaming got Gerry’s attention and he stopped to turn around and look at me, which was a good thing. It was great seeing the bear, especially since he ran away from us and not towards us! It’s about the closest we’ve been to a bear. We’ve seen several throughout the last few years, but not usually this close up.
Our current RV park – the Wallowa River runs right through it.
More good news to share – there has been a lot of “house and home” activity recently – Samantha and Sam just bought their first home in Denver! They moved in a few days ago and are loving having a home of their own. And today, we are closing on the 4th house for Aspire Sober Living in St. Paul with Guy. This will add another 9 beds to the Aspire Sober Living offering. It is truly amazing to watch the success Guy is having with providing quality sober living for the St. Paul recovery community. And, we have finalized our house plans with our architect for a home in southwest Colorado! We purchased 3 acres last fall and plan to build next year. I’m sure I’ll have a lot to share about that when the time comes. In the meantime, we’re thrilled to watch our flock feather their nests.
We’re moving tomorrow to Clarkston, Washington. It’s about 3 hours to the north, along the Snake River. I’ll be flying out to St. Paul to help get the new sober house ready for occupancy, and Steve and Gerry will be hanging out in the RV.
Our house on wheels, or the “house truck” as the grandkids like to call it – continues to bring us so much happiness. We feel connected to nature when we’re in the RV. I think partly because we literally have such beautiful views out our windows that are always changing and interesting, and, partly because it takes us to so many beautiful places where we get to go hiking and really immerse ourselves in the beauty of nature. We meet so many friendly people on the trails and in the campgrounds. People just seem happy when they’re out doing this. Combine that with our roaming around looking for the best local produce and food we can find and you have a winning combo!
Hello, hello, hello! It’s been awhile! I’m a little slow getting a post up this year – sorry! I’ll bring you all up to date with the happenings in our RV world – grab a cup of tea and let’s chat!
We left Ohio the end of May. The RV was in Elkhart, Indiana – we had taken it in to the dealer about a month before we left for a variety of service needs. We had taken it to Port St. Joe, Florida in February and again had some things not work right – so it was back in for repairs. I think you just have to expect this in the RV world – at least from all the folks we talk to it seems to be pretty normal to have it in for service regularly.
Anyhow, and I’m going to keep this part short – we made it about 200 miles down the road and then discovered a brake shoe had fallen out, the brake caliper was hanging and flopping, and all 3 of the other brake calipers were loose and wobbly. Not a good thing. Especially since we had the exact same brake fail last summer and had to have a mobile repair fix it. And, especially, especially since the manufacturer had just recalled the brakes on our model and they had just replaced all 4 brakes and calipers as part of the recall. Hmmm – how does that happen one may wonder??? Well it happened, took about a week of phone calls, part shipment tracking, finding a very nice young man who had a mobile repair service and some luck on the shipment timing and it’s done. 4 new brakes. Hopefully last time we deal with that!
We had a great visit in St. Paul with Guy and Katelyn, and Katelyn’s parents came to visit and we had a nice picnic together at the RV. Then it was on to Denver and a great visit with Samantha and Sam. One of the things we like most about our RV life is that we get to go around visiting family and friends.
Then we moved to Boise for about a week. We haven’t spent time in Boise before. We’ve driven through it a couple of times, but this time we were able to do some exploring. A nice city, great farmers market, and a really nice green space that goes all along the Snake river, about 25 miles long of walking paths.
By the time we left Boise we were pretty much done with being in big cities. After St. Paul, Denver, then Boise, we had pretty much been in “big cities” for longer than we enjoy. So we were really happy to arrive in northeast Oregon, where we are now.
We’re spending several weeks in northeast Oregon, staying at a few different RV parks, all around the Wallowa mountains. We’re getting lots of hiking in and we’re really enjoying being in a “growing region” – tons of fruit and produce here. We are eating ourselves silly on strawberries, raspberries, cherries, blackberries, spring lettuce, spinach, and all the other early summer veggies. We went to a “u pick” farm the other day and picked a bunch of strawberries. Our freezer is overflowing with our bounty!
We just celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary this week! We were talking about how we celebrated our 30th anniversary in Fairbanks, Alaska, during our very first RV season. Seems impossible that 5 years have gone by. Without a doubt, adopting this RV life has been the absolutely best thing we could have done for ourselves. We are so glad we “took the leap”! It still feels like a wonderful adventure and we love it.
In the meantime, we are absolutely loving being back in the RV and settling in to our “RV life” routine. I will keep you updated as the journey continues to unfold this season! Exploring, discovering together, hiking in beautiful places, farmers markets, good food. Life is good!
